BLM Burn Party

[JohnReefermen]

I would like to start this thread in hopes we can pool some thoughts together. A 2-6 person Conjurer party like the FFXI pudding party's. Any Thoughts?

[Ragz]

Hehe... I remember when I was doing 5BLM and BRD(me) at KRT back in 04, I would pull 8-10 mobs at once and BLMs aga the crap outta them. Whoever dies just eat R1, go back to the little room and sip beer for 5 min. Was pulling 12-15k per hour at a time when 8kph was considered a great meripo.

I did have some success with burn parties, 3-4 35~ CON/THM at BW since they increased Dolbyn hp. SP isn't bad but isn't anything to write home about either.

[AngryNixon]

Those were some of the most enjoyable times I had in FFXI. As an exercise in theory crafting if you want to call it that I would put forward the following:

That being said I'm not sure how well this would work in this setting given that our nukes don't do the massive damage they used to. The success behind a BLM burn was in the fact that 6 BLMs or 5 in Ragz case, could each do at least 1/5th of the life of a mob in damage so that you collectively 1 shotted it before it had a chance to really do anything.

Can you collectively 1 shot a real mob in this game before it drops someone? I'm not so sure if you can 1 shot it at all unless you're dealing with about 10 people but... I take as examples of possible HPs a Sundrake which has 3500-3900 HP and Grass Raptor which has anywhere from 3300-4000 HP. So let's then take those HP values and come up with a reasonable ball park figure of sorts and say our theoretical monster has 3500 HP.

I think it is safe to say that with a 2 man set up 1 shotting is off the table. You then fall into the sleep juggling cycle since kiting isn't as workable as it was in FFXI in this game and you might not survive that kind of encounter anyhow because everything has some sort of ranged attack or other annoyance. Could you sleep juggle it? yes probably, the same way you might sleep juggle the elementals in Sky when you were cluster farming as BLM. Is it efficient? Not for SP/XP and even MP pool management purposes. So I'll leave that thought at that.

Next we take the "4-man" construct SE wants to use as the "normal party size" template for this game. 3500/4 is 875. Does anyone here think they can land 875 on something stronger than a squirrel while not part of any BR with your II series nukes? If you think so and 3 other people agree with you then great, you've got yourself a party. The sub-question I have is, can you do it without buffs (ie. Profundity II)? If the answer is yes, doubly great you still have yourself a party. If not, then you are now limited to 1 mob every 60 seconds at the very most, because your success (and indeed survival) depends on a set of conditions that can only exist at the soonest, once every 60 seconds. Taking this middle road scenario where the 4-man doing 875 a nuke under special circumstances exists, you can kill a maximum of 60 mobs and hour (not realistic that you'll hit that theoretical max. but for argument's sake it doesn't matter). 60 mobs an hour at roughly 250SP is 15,000SP~ give or take. For simplicity's sake I'm just pulling a number out of a hat for the SP value I remember getting between 2-300 when in actual grind parties in this game (somewhat recently). You can put your own numbers in there using the 60 mob an hour ideal and it might be substantially better. So given the middle of the road buffs required scenario at a max of 60 mobs an hour you get about 15k. Let's also say that you're in a slower party that can only get 30 an hour, now you only get 7,500SP an hour. In any event, that range from 7.5-15k is a good place to be for grinding w/o leves wherever you fall into it.

If you move up the scale to an "8-man" of casters you only need to do 438 damage a head to kill it. That to me seems more reasonable because, I think in that scenario you may not need to have all your buffs at the ready all the time, and you may even be able to get a rolling nuke spread going where you can get 2 nukes in for many of your party members so that each of your nukes need only do 220 damage or so. Assuming the SP you get remains at 250 and that the initial buff restriction of 1 mob every 60 seconds is removed, you should, in theory, be able to surpass the original 7.5-15k bracket. Although of course in an actual game setting that won't likely happen given mob distributions, respawns, pee breaks, unexplained afks, etc...

Given that in this game I haven't seen very good numbers from nuking things outside of ideal conditions on mobs of any substance I think the 8-man party offers greater safety in numbers for each individual caster and makes the target damage number substantially more attainable on average.

[Kidkaze]

Those were some of the most enjoyable times I had in FFXI. As an exercise in theory crafting if you want to call it that I would put forward the following:

That being said I'm not sure how well this would work in this setting given that our nukes don't do the massive damage they used to. The success behind a BLM burn was in the fact that 6 BLMs or 5 in Ragz case, could each do at least 1/5th of the life of a mob in damage so that you collectively 1 shotted it before it had a chance to really do anything.

Can you collectively 1 shot a real mob in this game before it drops someone? I'm not so sure if you can 1 shot it at all unless you're dealing with about 10 people but... I take as examples of possible HPs a Sundrake which has 3500-3900 HP and Grass Raptor which has anywhere from 3300-4000 HP. So let's then take those HP values and come up with a reasonable ball park figure of sorts and say our theoretical monster has 3500 HP.

I think it is safe to say that with a 2 man set up 1 shotting is off the table. You then fall into the sleep juggling cycle since kiting isn't as workable as it was in FFXI in this game and you might not survive that kind of encounter anyhow because everything has some sort of ranged attack or other annoyance. Could you sleep juggle it? yes probably, the same way you might sleep juggle the elementals in Sky when you were cluster farming as BLM. Is it efficient? Not for SP/XP and even MP pool management purposes. So I'll leave that thought at that.

Next we take the "4-man" construct SE wants to use as the "normal party size" template for this game. 3500/4 is 875. Does anyone here think they can land 875 on something stronger than a squirrel while not part of any BR with your II series nukes? If you think so and 3 other people agree with you then great, you've got yourself a party. The sub-question I have is, can you do it without buffs (ie. Profundity II)? If the answer is yes, doubly great you still have yourself a party. If not, then you are now limited to 1 mob every 60 seconds at the very most, because your success (and indeed survival) depends on a set of conditions that can only exist at the soonest, once every 60 seconds. Taking this middle road scenario where the 4-man doing 875 a nuke under special circumstances exists, you can kill a maximum of 60 mobs and hour (not realistic that you'll hit that theoretical max. but for argument's sake it doesn't matter). 60 mobs an hour at roughly 250SP is 15,000SP~ give or take. For simplicity's sake I'm just pulling a number out of a hat for the SP value I remember getting between 2-300 when in actual grind parties in this game (somewhat recently). You can put your own numbers in there using the 60 mob an hour ideal and it might be substantially better. So given the middle of the road buffs required scenario at a max of 60 mobs an hour you get about 15k. Let's also say that you're in a slower party that can only get 30 an hour, now you only get 7,500SP an hour. In any event, that range from 7.5-15k is a good place to be for grinding w/o leves wherever you fall into it.

If you move up the scale to an "8-man" of casters you only need to do 438 damage a head to kill it. That to me seems more reasonable because, I think in that scenario you may not need to have all your buffs at the ready all the time, and you may even be able to get a rolling nuke spread going where you can get 2 nukes in for many of your party members so that each of your nukes need only do 220 damage or so. Assuming the SP you get remains at 250 and that the initial buff restriction of 1 mob every 60 seconds is removed, you should, in theory, be able to surpass the original 7.5-15k bracket. Although of course in an actual game setting that won't likely happen given mob distributions, respawns, pee breaks, unexplained afks, etc...

Given that in this game I haven't seen very good numbers from nuking things outside of ideal conditions on mobs of any substance I think the 8-man party offers greater safety in numbers for each individual caster and makes the target damage number substantially more attainable on average.

Holy wall of text! O_O

However, I read everything, twice, and totally agree with you on this however my view is that while theoretically it is possible to go on a blm burn (albeit with poor sp returns) the game, as it stands now, is just not designed for that. Im really hoping that as the combat system is addressed, there will be a rich diversity to sp grind (as there was in FFXI) and we as Conjurers will be able to mana burn to our hearts content. Till then, Im not willing to invest time nor effort for such poor sp returns.

[AngryNixon]

Holy wall of text! O_O

However, I read everything, twice, and totally agree with you on this however my view is that while theoretically it is possible to go on a blm burn (albeit with poor sp returns) the game, as it stands now, is just not designed for that. Im really hoping that as the combat system is addressed, there will be a rich diversity to sp grind (as there was in FFXI) and we as Conjurers will be able to mana burn to our hearts content. Till then, Im not willing to invest time nor effort for such poor sp returns.

Ya I agree Kayze, the reality of the situation makes it unlikely and impractical with the current set up

[JohnReefermen]

I like the in depth look into it. But not all mobs can be burned in FFXI efficiently anyway.

So should we look into specific mobs that have low magic defense?

I totally agree with the nuke damage in the toilet but I will put money on it that it will be fixed soon.

[AngryNixon]

I like the in depth look into it. But not all mobs can be burned in FFXI efficiently anyway.

So should we look into specific mobs that have low magic defense?

I totally agree with the nuke damage in the toilet but I will put money on it that it will be fixed soon.

Thanks, and yea I realise not all things in FFXI can be burned efficiently; Good old flans <3. I think once the nuke damage is adjusted some serious effort should be made to look into low magic defense mobs. It's a shame there aren't any high level flans because those are still perfect for a caster in this game if you follow their elemental alignment.

As mentioned you also have doblyns even with their higher HP but they're viability is a function of low HP not low mag.def I think.

[Wobble]

I like the in depth look into it. But not all mobs can be burned in FFXI efficiently anyway.

So should we look into specific mobs that have low magic defense?

I totally agree with the nuke damage in the toilet but I will put money on it that it will be fixed soon.

I have noticed that the yarzon family seem to have low magic def.

[JohnReefermen]

I have noticed that the yarzon family seem to have low magic def.

I looked them up on Zam. That might be worth a try. If we get back on soon. I gave up my FFXI account a while back. I'm gameless! /cry

[Haruru]

I don't think you can find similar success in XIV with the way battle mechanics are calculated, since damage dealt is so heavily rank based. The best i've done to simulate quick burns is setting up a DoM only BR that ends with a 1~2k burst that doesn't rely on TP. But with the way BRs work, you need to buy time for everyone to queue up which may be too long for a mage to tank.