How About a Little Love for Mages, Please

[zzapp]

I often wonder if the game designers even play this game, and while there are many things that make me wonder this, here's one, in particular, that strongly contributes to my questioning.

When I look at a mage weapon, I see meele stats, specifically, damage, delay, type of damage. What I don't see are the stats that matter most to a mage - matk, macc, cure potency, etc. So, essentially, you can't look at a weapon in the market wards and know which mage weapons are > than others. Mages don't care, nor should they, about meele stats.

While this is most annoying, in itself, what's even more discerning is the fact that mage weapons, have very little to do with mage performance. I'm sure most mages in our esteemed forum already know this, I'm guessing some may not, and most certainly, the game designers clearly don't get it.

Here is a small sample of Thunder nuke damage by a 50 thm on a level 50 Zahar'ak Drubber. No crits are included, all other gear is constant, and while the sample is small, the point is obvious.

Weathered Scepter (1) 459 480 457 468 488 484 488 458 459 450 = avg damage 469

Electrum Scepter (43) 492 467 491 461 461 494 453 467 465 463 = avg damage 471

Verdant Scepter (50) 478 470 494 504 470 474 502 464 500 468 = avg damage 482

So let me save you the math - a level 50 U/U weapon does +2.8% more damage than a level 1. Now I ask, is there anything wrong with this picture? >< If a lancer/marauder/archer essentially experienced the same damage with a level 50 weapon as a level 1, this forum would be jammed with outrage.

So, how about it SE? Would it be that difficult to make mage weapon stats obvious and pertinent? I don't think it's asking too much to see relavent mage stats when we look at a weapon (tools, for example, have their own set of visible parameters), and expect performance increases not unlike meele weapons.

[CTSwiftheal]

Other than the lack of content this is my greatest concern for the future of the game. Stats mean nothing, it should be imposable to defeat ifrit when the tank is wearing a reindeer outfit and the mages as dps are using weathered scepters.

If i have 250 str and 500 att and my friend has 255 str and 505 att he should do more dmg than me.

[AmyNeudaiz]

Well, you're missing the resists and crit rates, which is a bigger thing in this. More crits + more accuracy = better damage. This is why you don't see people raging about it.

Just because it's not black and white damage doesn't mean there's no difference. If you and I (you with a rank 1 MH and myself with a moogle staff) were to try to kill the same type of enemy at the same time, I would kill it faster.

[CTSwiftheal]

You with a mogstaff, me with ifrits cudgel, can kill a mob fast, but if i equip a lvl 1 scepter i can kill it just as fast with little noticeable difference in dmg or acc or crit.

for example: when farming the warlock's satchel belt, 4 fully geared Thms (all of us double materia M.pot on feet, acc on brands and int on head) were doing little better than an alt in spiritbond gear useing a lvl 1 scepter. Crit rate was the same, accuracy was the same, and dps was too close to say that gear really matters...

[AmyNeudaiz]

You with a mogstaff, me with ifrits cudgel, can kill a mob fast, but if i equip a lvl 1 scepter i can kill it just as fast with little noticeable difference in dmg or acc or crit.

for example: when farming the warlock's satchel belt, 4 fully geared Thms (all of us double materia M.pot on feet, acc on brands and int on head) were doing little better than an alt in spiritbond gear useing a lvl 1 scepter. Crit rate was the same, accuracy was the same, and dps was too close to say that gear really matters...

I not only doubt that but I can tell you outright that is incorrect.
For one, your accuracy is not the same. Verdant/Mog/GC Thm weapons have more M.Acc so they have more M.Acc. (This means less resists. Obvious. That means more combos. Obvious. That means more damage. Obvious.)
For two, if you had a weapon that added critical rate, then your critical rate would, by default, be higher. Obvious.

Just because YOU can't spot the difference doesn't mean it's not there, end of.

[CTSwiftheal]

this is one of those moments i wish i would have saved the parser details.

yes we, that were geared, did more dmg. we, that were geared, had a crit rate so close to the ungeared alt, one thm was actually under.

yes the geared mages did better, the difference is laughable. Its a joke that the thms with all this great gear and gil invested and time invested in their mages can just marginally out preform an ungeared alt with a lvl 1 main hand.

[Saiph]

there arent any stats thar arent shown on the mage wepaons. if you have a lvl 1 weapon and a lvl 50 without extra stats, then they will do same dmg with spells. you should look at the additional stats when choosing a weapon. but lvl 41+ weapons will be probably best because you can add in tear III and IV materia.

[CTSwiftheal]

Weathered Scepter
lvl 1
nil
OPs average dmg 469

Electrum Scepter
lvl 43
Attack Magic Potency : +7, Magic Accuracy : +17
OPs average dmg 471

Verdant Scepter
lvl 50
Int : +3, Mnd : +2,
Attack Magic Potency : +12,
Magic Accuracy : +17, Magic Crit Rate : +2
OPs average dmg 482

[AmyNeudaiz]

yes we, that were geared, did more dmg. we, that were geared, had a crit rate so close to the ungeared alt, one thm was actually under.

Crit rate is random. Adding crit rate improves your odds. Things like this are gonna happen, but long term I notice small, but noticeable difference in crit rates Ifrit vs Mog (for example).

yes the geared mages did better, the difference is laughable. Its a joke that the thms with all this great gear and gil invested and time invested in their mages can just marginally out preform an ungeared alt with a lvl 1 main hand.

This is where I stop and tell you that you're incorrect. I, someone who has mediocre Thm gear (save the mogstaff) can no where near come to the amount of damage my LS mate puts out who has all double melded gear. They not only out parse me on thm but I can't even take hate from them even when I cheat and use sentinel before doing a full thunder combo.
Sometimes something you gather from one pt doesn't add up to how things actually are.

[AmyNeudaiz]

Weathered Scepter
lvl 1
nil
OPs average dmg 469 (minus resists and criticals)

Electrum Scepter
lvl 43
Attack Magic Potency : +7, Magic Accuracy : +17
OPs average dmg 471 (minus resists and criticals)

Verdant Scepter
lvl 50
Int : +3, Mnd : +2,
Attack Magic Potency : +12,
Magic Accuracy : +17, Magic Crit Rate : +2
OPs average dmg 482 (Minus resists and criticals)

Fixed that for you, point hopefully made.