Queling Strike and Spells!

[Razen_Arghast]

Hm, lets see. Cross-class skills so far:

1.Raise
2.Cure
3.Chameleon
4.Sentinel
5.Second Wind
6.Invigorate
7.Sacred Prism
8.Stoneskin
9.Stone
10.Aero

Only possible ones would be Invigorate (but it's MUCH more reliable for TP generation) and Stone/Aero (if your Conjurers can keep up their debuffs). Still, I wouldn't replace any of these with Quelling Strike in a boss environment. So for me, Quelling Strike continues to be lackluster and not needed.

[REDace0]

Replace Stone. It reduces earth magic evasion according to the translations of the ability in other languages and the original class skills list posted way back in 1.18 days. Now you can spend more emnity on Thunder and Thundara.

Note: I looked for a few minutes but I couldn't find the link to the original class and job abilities list. Maybe someone else can track it down?

Edit: Nevermind. Apparently that was bad information. Still a fan of Quelling Strike though. I'd take out Invigorate. You can either melee Ifrit to 2k or 3k TP at the start and never need TP, or spam Quelling Strike and probably never need TP, or something in between. Quelling Strike has the added benefit of reducing emnity though.

[Kaeko]

Stone and Aero potency are severely diminished when cross-classing on THM because the spells do not have an INT modifier when cross-classed. Even on CNJ stone only does maybe 200, and that's with the INT modifier. Aero does even less. You are better off spamming Thunder over and over than using either of these spells for DPS. Stone does provide a secondary benefit in MEVA down so I can at least see that argument popping up to keep it on your bar but I have a hard time making a case for Aero. The DoT effect is roughly -13/tick when tested on soil smear, so it just barely (if not even) adds up to a single Thunder.

Personally I wouldn't put either of the CNJ nukes on my THM bar for Ifrit. It is true that the enmity reduction is "lackluster", but there doesn't seem to be any situation where the most optimal next action in the Ifrit fight is to use Stone, and most certainly not Aero. If this still doesn't convince you, then I could also make the case that if you use Quelling Strike every 60 seconds (300TP each), you negate the need for Invigorate because you only need about 250 a minute for Second Wind. Or even use Invigorate then switch your bar at the start of the fight. Again, Quelling Strike is a small benefit, but if you're min/maxing efficiency, it is still required to be "most efficient".

[Kaeko]

Again using Lemurs in Treespeak and the Soil Smear ability, Stone gives -29 MEVA where the amount of MEVA down was not dependent on the level of the mob nor the PIE/enfeebling skill of the player (rank of the caster may contribute though). There is no "earth specific" evasion down related to this spell in its actual use, despite whatever translation people have previously referred to.

[Kaeko]

My input was in response to you listing out your 10 cross-class abilities and questioning the need for Aero to be on there. There is an argument for Stone being there due to the MEVA down effect. I cannot find a proper reason for Aero being there though. At -13 / tick for a maximum of 10 ticks you're looking at 130 damage in addition to Aero's initial damage. This may not even add up to 200, or the average damage of a single basic Thunder. There is no known special benefit to having a DoT present in this case (for instance, it does not surpress Ifrit's high Regen rate).

Regarding Invigorate, I agree that it's just easy to use and I use it as well. I feel like for optimization you should drop Aero and replace it with Quelling Strike. The argument that "we do fine without it" may be true, but is kind of not relevant in a min/max discussion right? It's true you're fine either way, but it's also true that you would be more efficient (albeit not by much) with Quelling.

Regarding Stone. The argument that it's useful for the -29 MEVA is a bit more dicey. I still feel it's not useful simply because if you look at the average duration of the MEVA down, it is definitely not the full 30+ seconds you see on many other debuffs. It may only last 10-15 seconds maximum and it's pretty consistent. This means it'll probably only be active (if it even lands) on your next 2 nukes. Ifrit is essentially an exercise in dodge > Thunder > Thundara > dodge > etc.. I question how much time you actually have to throw in another nuke (stone) w/o compromising safety, though it's hard to back this up with something as simple as a paper formula.

Finally, regarding the overall concept and use for a move like Quelling Strike. We must remember that a THM's damage is limited by 3 factors - resist rates, MP pool and regen rate, and enmity. One of these 3 things is going to limit your output. For Ifrit with a half-way decent MACC set, the limiting factor is by far going to be enmity. This means that to become more "efficient" from a DPS perspective, increasing damage or MACC really doesn't improve overall DPS that much because you'll be capped by enmity anyways (you just may need more nukes to get there). The only way to reliably increase the DPS would be to increase the enmity generation of the tank or decrease the enmity generation of the THM. Quelling Strike does this, and although we all agree it's "lackluster", but will certainly provide you more benefit than -29 MEVA for 10-15 seconds after a Stone cast.

EDIT:
Thinking more about this and Aero. There may be an additional benefit in that that +130 damage you get from the Aero DoT effect is not counted towards your enmity. So it's essentially 130 "free damage" (which is basically the same as Quelling). So from this point of view I can actually concede that Aero does have a benefit on DPS (it just won't be seen on a parser). So I guess the question to have Quelling on your bar comes down to Stone or even Invig versus Quelling. I'd still argue not to use Stone but at least I can give a valid reason to use Aero for increasing DPS.

[Tsubaki187]

My input was in response to you listing out your 10 cross-class abilities and questioning the need for Aero to be on there. There is an argument for Stone being there due to the MEVA down effect. I cannot find a proper reason for Aero being there though. At -13 / tick for a maximum of 10 ticks you're looking at 130 damage in addition to Aero's initial damage. This may not even add up to 200, or the average damage of a single basic Thunder. There is no known special benefit to having a DoT present in this case (for instance, it does not surpress Ifrit's high Regen rate).

Regarding Invigorate, I agree that it's just easy to use and I use it as well. I feel like for optimization you should drop Aero and replace it with Quelling Strike. The argument that "we do fine without it" may be true, but is kind of not relevant in a min/max discussion right? It's true you're fine either way, but it's also true that you would be more efficient (albeit not by much) with Quelling.

Regarding Stone. The argument that it's useful for the -29 MEVA is a bit more dicey. I still feel it's not useful simply because if you look at the average duration of the MEVA down, it is definitely not the full 30+ seconds you see on many other debuffs. It may only last 10-15 seconds maximum and it's pretty consistent. This means it'll probably only be active (if it even lands) on your next 2 nukes. Ifrit is essentially an exercise in dodge > Thunder > Thundara > dodge > etc.. I question how much time you actually have to throw in another nuke (stone) w/o compromising safety, though it's hard to back this up with something as simple as a paper formula.

Finally, regarding the overall concept and use for a move like Quelling Strike. We must remember that a THM's damage is limited by 3 factors - resist rates, MP pool and regen rate, and enmity. One of these 3 things is going to limit your output. For Ifrit with a half-way decent MACC set, the limiting factor is by far going to be enmity. This means that to become more "efficient" from a DPS perspective, increasing damage or MACC really doesn't improve overall DPS that much because you'll be capped by enmity anyways (you just may need more nukes to get there). The only way to reliably increase the DPS would be to increase the enmity generation of the tank or decrease the enmity generation of the THM. Quelling Strike does this, and although we all agree it's "lackluster", but will certainly provide you more benefit than -29 MEVA for 10-15 seconds after a Stone cast.

EDIT:
Thinking more about this and Aero. There may be an additional benefit in that that +130 damage you get from the Aero DoT effect is not counted towards your enmity. So it's essentially 130 "free damage" (which is basically the same as Quelling). So from this point of view I can actually concede that Aero does have a benefit on DPS (it just won't be seen on a parser). So I guess the question to have Quelling on your bar comes down to Stone or even Invig versus Quelling. I'd still argue not to use Stone but at least I can give a valid reason to use Aero for increasing DPS.

Kaeko is legit. I am a fan.

I use Quelling Strike myself, for both of its benefits. As Kaeko mentioned, it's just more efficient. For TP gains, Invigorate is excessive and has only one use vs. Quelling Strike. And whacking things for 3k TP is just ridiculous to me. If you need more than 300TP every minute in any of the end game content as THM, then you're doing something wrong.

[Actus]

^ only offensive spells you should be casting are the Thunder Combo

[Actus]

That claim made no sense and had no logical basis to begin with anyway.

[Conradus]

That claim made no sense and had no logical basis to begin with anyway.

I never understood why everybody immediately jumped to the conclusion that the French translation was correct and the English translation was wrong. My immediate take was that the French translation of "earth magic potency" almost had to be wrong, because it didn't make any damn sense for it to be that way.

[Umo]

I never understood why everybody immediately jumped to the conclusion that the French translation was correct and the English translation was wrong. My immediate take was that the French translation of "earth magic potency" almost had to be wrong, because it didn't make any damn sense for it to be that way.

Maybe due to the fact that they described the spell's effect the same way on Class Reforms & Action Lists post:

CNJ Mag. 10 Deals earth damage to the target. Chance to reduce evasion against earth magic.

It could be wrong on both French client and that official post, that's for sure. Furthermore, on English client the text doesn't show "Chance to inflict Magic Evasion Down" but "Chance to inflict Evasion Down" instead.
Anyway, I've posted HERE in hope of an official response; that's not going to hurt in any way, right?