Enhancing Magic

[Sol_Aureus]

Do you mind posting the gear used to hit cap? just wondering if you needed DL drops or just lots of melding? I would gladly forgo some of the healing potency in favor of a much higher stronger protect/regen/SS.

I have Darklight Gloves and Breeches which is how I was able to get such high enhancing magic potency numbers. My gear I used was:

Wand of Tremors (Double-slotted VIT, total of +27)
Paragon's Crown (+10 VIT)
Felt Robe (Single-slotted, VIT+16) or Mage's Robe (VIT-10)
Darklight Gloves (+15 Enhancing)
Darklight Breeches (+5 Enhancing) or Felt Gaskins (VIT+4)
Mage's Pattens (VIT+3, +5 Enhancing) or Healer's Boots (Enhances Regen) for "with boots" regen testing

And for accessories:

Dated Sphene Choker
Amber Bracelets
Amber Ring x2
Dated Sphene Ring x2
Dated Heliodor Ring

Changed them around to get whatever Enhancement Magic Level I was trying to test.

Now of course I don't use all this gear when playing WHM normally, my normal gearset is

Chiran Zabran's Tempest
Healer's Circlet
Healer's Robe
Raptorskin Satchel Belt (Double slotted Enmity-, total of -12)
Darklight Gloves
Darklight Breeches
Healer's Boots
Blessed Earrings
Black Pearl Choker +1
Amber Bracelets +1
Blessed Ring
Turquoise Ring +1

With this gear set I have 304 MND, 213 VIT, 538 healing and 422 Enhancment.

Stacking VIT is only semi-viable. There are quite a few things out there now that give lots of Healing Potency + (like Blessed Ring, Chiran Zabran's Tempest) and with that much healing magic potency, they'll far outperform any VIT pieces you can put there. Arguably you could replace the Turquoise Ring with an Amber Ring depending on how much you want to put into Enhancing, but personally I prefer the 18 MND because it not only gives the healing magic potency, MND directly affects how much your cures hit for.

I settle on 422 enhancement because it's a nice level, your Regen is just over the poison damage in Vale so it completely counteracts it and you have recent turnovers for Protect's DEF and MDEF values.

The Darklight Gloves are definitely something that every WHM should want. That 15 enhancing magic potency is really nice for Regen. The breeches are arguable, you lose the 30 second recast reduction on Presence of Mind and 3 Healing magic potency, but I think the 100 MP and enhancement bonuses are worth it.

No WHM should ever use the Mage's pattens full time. Maybe for a protect macro, but the bonus that the AF boots give to regen is ridiculous, it's gonna take a LOT to make me want to unequip those.

[Sol_Aureus]

so i messed around looking at gear choices and its not very hard to hit an extra 111VIT from gear alone with a double meld body and double meld legs.

What is base VIT/enhancing magic on whm?

Base VIT is 178, not including allotted points. Personally, I have +23 in MND and +22 in VIT making my base VIT 200. This would make my base Enhancing 391, plus the +8 bonus that CNJ's "Greater Enhancing Magic" trait gives me makes it 399.

Again, while stacking VIT seems good for returns, Healing Magic Potency is almost always going to be a better option than stacking VIT. With pieces that give direct bonuses to Enhancing Magic Potency though, it's debatable which to use. You just have to weigh your options and pick whatever suits your playstyle.

[Sol_Aureus]

You know what effects Enhancing Magic Potency? Vitality. Wait. I don't see any WHM's in VIT gear when they buff. Why u no have 2 sets of gear? :O

Well the problem is how finicky macros can be.

Personally, I have only a couple gear changes in my macros for stuff, and I'm still considering taking them out just because they don't always work.

As an example, my protect macro is:
/equip feet "Mage's Pattens"
/wait 1
/ac "Protect" <t>
/wait 5
/equip feet "Healer's Boots"

Pretty simple, just gives me an extra boost to enhancing when I'm casting protect. Since it's a 5 minute spell I can afford to swap gear for it, even mid-battle. The problem is, sometimes it doesn't reequip the healer's boots. No, I'm not interrupting the macro with another one or anything. It just sometimes doesn't happen. And in the midst of battle I don't always notice that it didn't reequip my boots, so my Regen becomes gimped until I notice.

If protect lasted a half hour or something more substantial like that then sure, I'd have a full gear swap macro just for the enhancing magic for it, but since it's a short time there's really no use in full gear swapping for it. It ends up being less efficient because you're wasting time swapping gear (since the game does it 1 piece at a time). Swapping 1 piece of gear per macro is fine since it's a negligible amount of time taken, but anything more than that isn't worth it.

[Asiaine]

Hello,

I love the information you are supplying here, it is very helpful and kind of you to do so.

But to touch on the topic of gear swap: I used to be an RDM in Vana'diel, so I was doing a LOT of blinking. However, here, it seems this is not a realistic option, for a few reasons:

1) Changing gear here is MUCH slower
2) Changing gear does not always work (I use macro... sometimes it equips boots.. sometimes it does not..) So it can not be trusted
3) Parties run around all the time (they may not wait 2-3 seconds for you to change gear before casting protect).

I understand #3 can be worked on with a party that knows how to work together and co-operates well (but is still troublesome in pick up groups).

But for me, #1 and #2 is so bad that I am hesitant to do any swapping.

Given this (and to tie into the point of this thread) what are your feelings on being a non-blinking-WHM yet still being able to perform well with Enhancing Magic?

Typically I see two WHMs in a party.. maybe one option is one is focused on Enhancing (buffs) and the other is focused on Healing ?

[Sol_Aureus]

Hello,

I love the information you are supplying here, it is very helpful and kind of you to do so.

But to touch on the topic of gear swap: I used to be an RDM in Vana'diel, so I was doing a LOT of blinking. However, here, it seems this is not a realistic option, for a few reasons:

1) Changing gear here is MUCH slower
2) Changing gear does not always work (I use macro... sometimes it equips boots.. sometimes it does not..) So it can not be trusted
3) Parties run around all the time (they may not wait 2-3 seconds for you to change gear before casting protect).

I understand #3 can be worked on with a party that knows how to work together and co-operates well (but is still troublesome in pick up groups).

But for me, #1 and #2 is so bad that I am hesitant to do any swapping.

Given this (and to tie into the point of this thread) what are your feelings on being a non-blinking-WHM yet still being able to perform well with Enhancing Magic?

Typically I see two WHMs in a party.. maybe one option is one is focused on Enhancing (buffs) and the other is focused on Healing ?

I agree that gear swapping in FFXIV isn't really that viable. Like I said in my above post, I have the same problem as your #2 listed problem, which is irritating when it doesn't change back. Still, the bonuses some pieces give are good enough for me to try and make it work.

As for my feelings on being a non-blinking WHM and being able to perform well with Enhancing Magic, it's perfectly viable, and kind of what I recommend and go for myself. It's difficult to really start a set for this without Darklight Gloves at the least though, so start pressuring your Linkshells into running Aurum Vale a lot! Like I said I have 422 Enhancement with my set. I can get 427 with an Amber Ring +1 instead of my Turquoise Ring +1, but I do like my MND bonus I get from the ring. You certainly don't have to be a blinking White Mage to be efficient with enhancing, I just figure since protect is a 5 minute buff, if there's anything that's semi-viable to blink on, it's that.

I would not recommend splitting the 2 WHMs into an Enhancing WHM and a Healing WHM. All WHMs should have a decent Enhancing Magic level because Regen is so important. Communicate with your other WHM and find out if someone has substantially more Enhancing than the other, like for example since I have Darklight gloves and breeches, I have the 2 pieces that boost my enhancing the most, so my buffs are much more potent than another WHMs who does not have this gear. As such I usually let the other WHM know that I'll take Protect and Stoneskin when we stop for buffs, they take Regen and I throw a single target Regen on the tank since mine is more potent.

That being said, in the midst of battle I still let the other WHM do their thing, they can recast protect and Stoneskin and AoE Regen and all that all they want, their stuff is still plenty potent. I tend to stick with healing the tank, since my bonuses to Regen, Protect, and Stoneskin benefit the tank the most, so if you do want to go with an Enhancing Magic build, try and put yourself in the Tank healer's role.

[Fiosha_Maureiba]

When you're taking damage with the stacked VIT, does it seem like it's about the same amount as without the stacking?

[Sol_Aureus]

When you're taking damage with the stacked VIT, does it seem like it's about the same amount as without the stacking?

I'm fairly certain there's a damage reduction when stacking VIT.

Unfortunately I don't have proper data to tell you if it's substantial enough to warrant full stacking VIT, most all of my testing was done in Aurum Vale using the poison, which is constant damage. I also did some testing by letting the Boars outside of Aurum Vale hit me, but my method for testing my Enhancing Magic was to equip/unequip gear until I got the proper enhancing magic level. As such, I had substantial differences in my DEF rating as well, so I really don't know how much of a reduction there is. In addition, those Boars are level 40-43, so dLVL played a big part in how much damage reduction I was getting.

If I had to make a guess, the damage reduction from VIT is not substantial enough to consider that a reason to stack it. Only concentrate on turnovers of Enhancing Magic.

Oh, and I updated the original post with another picture with base stat turnovers. This applies to all magic potency types (and magic accuracy). Keep in mind that WHM gets +18 Healing Magic Potency, +8 Enhancing Magic Potency, and +8 Magic Accuracy from our traits.

[Kaeko]

Amazing thread Sol. But to answer the question on VIT and damage reduction, we worked it out to 3 VIT = 2 DEF (same as the STR:ATK ratio).

http://kanican.livejournal.com/55915.html

[Deli]

You know what effects Enhancing Magic Potency? Vitality. Wait. I don't see any WHM's in VIT gear when they buff. Why u no have 2 sets of gear? :O

so i messed around looking at gear choices and its not very hard to hit an extra 111VIT from gear alone with a double meld body and double meld legs.

What is base VIT/enhancing magic on whm?

My whm goal is whm don't die and whm don't draw trouble.
However, during the poison area, you don't really need to worried about the enmity, so you can have extra gears if you have extra inventory spots.
It's not hard to achieve the regen that cancel out the AV poison

my gears are this:
Vit base (with +23 to vit): 205
Main hand: Wand of Tremors (Vit +3 double melded enmity -10)
Head: Paragon's Crown (Vit +10)
Body: Vintage Robe (melded Vit +16)
Waist: Serpent Sergeant's Belt (Vit +3)
Legs: Felt Gaskins (double melded Vit +16)
Hand: Healer's gloves
Feet: healer's boots
Rings: 2X Amber Ring +1 (+Vit 36)
Wrists: Amber Bracelets (Vit +3)

Up to here Vit 292, enhancement magic 422.

Discussion:

• you don't need to go to 324 vit to get enhance magic 422 since whm has enhance +8. so you don't need to be add like 1xx vit.

• for main hand you can meld +16 vit easily, so it give you lots room to play with. such as single melded leg, Serpent Sergeant's kicks (vit+8 Eva+20), NQ vit rings.

• There are some easy vit food like Arcon cookies (+6 vit), gobs drop them while you farm your Black Pearl +1

So ya. it's very easy to go to 190hp/tick... and the only extra item I bring is my Vit pants... the rest I can use as craft job (Vintage robe) or other classes.

[PiedPiper]

Thanks for the info!! So, if i'm reading this correctly, 388 enhancement potency + af boots = capped regen and no further stat increase will offer continued returns? Which, if I'm not mistaken, is a lower number than one has in full AF with a MND/VIT allocation? (I can't check atm due to emergency maintenance). I ask because my current build offers 550 healing potency and I'm pretty happy over all, I just want to be sure I'm getting the full regen potential.

If interested, I'm using: Full AF, Tempest, Blessed Earring, Black Pearl Choker +1, Blessed Ring, MND bracelts +1, MND ring +1. I'm first in line for the dl gloves, but we're yet to see a drop :<


Oh, and about vitality reducing damage taken... 3 vit = 2 def and as complex testing best foudn in the tanking threads has shown... it amounts to almost nothing even in large numbers against high level mobs. This is why naked boss runs are possible. In short, to get to the defense floor on a mob like ifrit you'd need about 2k combined vit def, and really even the best tanks only have about 1.1-1.2k right now... so a whm is never gonna get there, and even if they could their healing potency would be like negative twelve :P If you're thinking about wearing vit to sruvive more hits, don't, it wont work. If you realllllly wanna go that route, get a hp materia. It'll at least improve your blissful mind effect as well.