Burst II

[Firestreak]

That cape was a joke btw >_> we never popped thingy. (wasn't my idea =O) Also it isn't just kirin, I want to have second spells to be able to use. I'd rather have a little bit of diversity than to be stuck with two spells to MB. Especially with the recast timer on these spells, having 4 can be a plus, with /whm sub, the recast is well over a minnute, and there may be occasions where you wanna just spam the hell out of a mob to kill it fast (solo, desprate manafont, etc.) The number on your nuke isn't the biggest issue, I'm happy having a strong as hell thunder, and 3 others.

1: Spamming all 4 = 1148 MP.(More than I have as BLM)
2: You can only MB one of these with their spell cast, so between nukes you might as well cast the other(or better yet, thunder 4)
3: By the time another skillchain comes around, you can cast the original again(unless they are skillchaining faster than once a minute which even for samurai is unlikely considering there's coordination needed).

 

[Daveman]

1: Spamming all 4 = 1148 MP.(More than I have as BLM)
2: You can only MB one of these with their spell cast, so between nukes you might as well cast the other(or better yet, thunder 4)
3: By the time another skillchain comes around, you can cast the original again(unless they are skillchaining faster than once a minute which even for samurai is unlikely considering there's coordination needed).

I did mention a manafont pssibility, and it's entirely possible that conserve mp can save the 100mp needed to get a 4th off, and even if not, I wanted to have 2dark, and 2light nukes. What if to w/e reason the only possible sc was light, and you're fighting a thunder elemental or something?

The bonus from capping the spell isn't the biggest in the world, and only apply to the actual MB, having some options is something I want to have, instead of only being able to do ice/thunder.

 

[Firestreak]

Freeze 2 is so awesome though... I was thinking of 4 upgrade into freeze...

 

[Firestreak]

Need a little more experience I guess to say for sure. I'd wanna figure how much damage in that minute of doing 4 AM2 you could have done with spamming level 4s. Cause we both know that's what 4 AM2s are for, just spamming em, which isn't a bad idea on principle if it'll do the most dmg and for the least MP. But I am not so sure about that.

 

[pakomen]

In theory, I'd think AM2's would be great openers for blm/rdm's soloing puddings, wamouras, etc (and saw it in practice the other day). Spamming 4 tier II AM's back to back even with Manafont would be wicked damage in a short period of time, but I wouldn't do it in a desperate scenario. I do agree with dave that it'd be wise to not just focus on two spells, but have a larger arsenal. I still haven't decided which route I'll take though.

Pretty positive I'd go with burst2, freeze2, and flare2 though. I'm not all that interested in lowering resistance to ___. I'm more interested in getting off a big shot at the start of a fight.

I'd wanna figure how much damage in that minute of doing 4 AM2 you could have done with spamming level 4s.

This is what I want to know as well. I think there's a lot to be seen still though.

 

[Daveman]

Freeze 2 is so awesome though... I was thinking of 4 upgrade into freeze...

not 100% sure, but I think 3 is the cap. Dunno where I read this though, take with grain of salt =O

 

[Pompidou]

I'm getting all 6 ancient magics. I didn't level to 75 buying only blizzard and thunder spells, though I often joked I could. In the big scheme of blm spell damage, it doesn't really matter. Add a hundred, subtract a hundred - it's still in the thousands and my gear is fine and I'll have other merits eventually as well. I levelled blm to be able to cast all the blm spells, and that's what I plan to do. What is blm if not a portable fireworks machine? Some people level to put up numbers. I levelled to be well rounded and look cool. As long as I can solo and put up respectable numbers in manaburns (only time blm damage discrepencies really show - any blm looks impressive as the sole blm magic bursting in a normie), I'm happy. All the other blms will only be able to cast burst II and freeze II on tiny mandies in saruta, but I'll be able to impress the newbs with all six, and then my life will be complete.

 

[Tavjon]

wanna figure how much damage in that minute of doing 4 AM2 you could have done with spamming level 4s.

Since AMII isn't tiered like AMI they all do the same dmg of 1500~ give or take mobs natural resist to element so 1500x4 = 6k dmg

Cause we both know that's what 4 AM2s are for, just spamming em

I think they are meant for MB, I mean single target, less mp and more dmg than any -aga plus you can upgrade to max for 9dmg and 15magic acc(if it works) for MB

not 100% sure, but I think 3 is the cap. Dunno where I read this though, take with grain of salt =O

Indeed it does cap at 3, progression is 3 - 4 - 5

 

[Zeoaesir]

Need a little more experience I guess to say for sure. I'd wanna figure how much damage in that minute of doing 4 AM2 you could have done with spamming level 4s. Cause we both know that's what 4 AM2s are for, just spamming em, which isn't a bad idea on principle if it'll do the most dmg and for the least MP. But I am not so sure about that.

One option that using AM2 in a burn is..

That because it would need perhaps 3 casts v puddings at most, the other 2 blm can heal mp for that fight. Which they may not have done if conventional spells used. A rest rotation would have to be set up, but using that method may be more mp efficient than all blm standing each fight.

Just a thought..

also..

They look wicked!

 

[Ceasar33]

Well, I've already picked up Burst II and Freeze II. I think putting extra merits into them for extra MB accuracy and attack is not worth the 90k xp that would be required to cap them. I feel getting flare2, flood2, and tornado2 are better options considering I really feel the differnce when using spells other than ice or thunder. Water 4 and Waterga 3 suck, being able to mix Flood 2 into that mix will help. Same goes for Aero spells. Kirin and Oruyu will be good for this, especially since I can nuke with Tornado then nuke with Freeze for less resistance on Oruyu. I think this discussion come back to just play style rather than one be much better than the other. My preference is getting a much stronger spell in each line of Elemental spells than super specializing for MBs in Ice/Thunder.

 

[Firestreak]

Give me a little time to think it over I'll do a write up of the different pros and cons - I think when careful enough analysis is done based on just raw number crunching there will be a clear answer on the best way to merit but I have to do it before I say for sure.

 

[Tec]

Gee i wonder if this will update will now make Blm the bandwagen job of the year...

Bandwagon job?
If you're trying to be some sort of elitist and say you're original with your job then you're going to be so so wrong.
There are just as many WHMs, if not more than BLMs.
Why don't you hop off your bandwagon?

 

[Lavi]

Bandwagon job?
If you're trying to be some sort of elitist and say you're original with your job then you're going to be so so wrong.
There are just as many WHMs, if not more than BLMs.
Why don't you hop off your bandwagon?

In WHM's case, there really isn't a job that was meant to do what a WHM can do in game. SMN and RDM can main heal, but they weren't meant to do so. In most instances, people prefer WHM over those two jobs, but not always. In the case of a BLM, any DD can take the place of a BLM. So a WHM could take 1/6 of all job spaces while a BLM, which isn't needed for a party to function, would obviously take less. Also don't forget, WHM is a perfect subjob for several jobs whereas only a couple main jobs would find BLM a suitable sub.

I don't know what Myrrh was getting at (not sure if it was sarcasm), but BLMs weren't nerfed as badly as they had expected to be and they now have a spell which can potentially do a lot more damage with less chance of resists on end game mobs (If you fully merit). We could see a great influx to the job, but I highly doubt it.

 

[Pompidou]

Mages will naturally have higher individual populations. There are less backline jobs than frontline jobs. If you want to be a melee, aside from the two that serve as tanks, your decision really only comes down to aesthetics - which of the jobs looks the coolest to you. Drk, Drg, War, Mnk, etc- they all do the same thing in a party, so the group of players interested in this sort of gameplay is divided amongst all the melee DD jobs. If you look at backline jobs, there are less clones. White mage is a healer, black mage is a nuker, summoner is a support/damage job with enough MP to be used as a healer instead, Rdm is an enfeebler/refresher and bard is a dedicated support job. There's much less overlap. All the people interested in a particular backline job role aren't distributed amongst a half dozen jobs. We look like bandwagon jobs from /sea all job but in the big scheme of things, our job role is still less popular than others. Warrior alone nearly matches whm or blm in /sea's and then you add monk and all the other melee DDs and us mages aren't so popular looking.

 

[Lavi]

Mages will naturally have higher individual populations. There are less backline jobs than frontline jobs. If you want to be a melee, aside from the two that serve as tanks, your decision really only comes down to aesthetics - which of the jobs looks the coolest to you. Drk, Drg, War, Mnk, etc- they all do the same thing in a party, so the group of players interested in this sort of gameplay is divided amongst all the melee DD jobs. If you look at backline jobs, there are less clones. White mage is a healer, black mage is a nuker, summoner is a support/damage job with enough MP to be used as a healer instead, Rdm is an enfeebler/refresher and bard is a dedicated support job. There's much less overlap. All the people interested in a particular backline job role aren't distributed amongst a half dozen jobs. We look like bandwagon jobs from /sea all job but in the big scheme of things, our job role is still less popular than others. Warrior alone nearly matches whm or blm in /sea's and then you add monk and all the other melee DDs and us mages aren't so popular looking.

Exactly; however, every party needs some form of healer whereas not all need a nuker.

Need a little more experience I guess to say for sure. I'd wanna figure how much damage in that minute of doing 4 AM2 you could have done with spamming level 4s. Cause we both know that's what 4 AM2s are for, just spamming em, which isn't a bad idea on principle if it'll do the most dmg and for the least MP. But I am not so sure about that.

What exactly does this show; which spells would be better to use when BLM use the 2 hour, Manafont? If that's the case, wouldn't you use a mix of tier IVs and tier III aga's? And doesn't this vary case by case dependant on the mob and your particular merits?

 

[Firestreak]

Ok now we're going to try and take a purely mathematical inspection at the best way to merit the Ancient Magic 2. I

First let's dispel some faulty thinking. The first being that you are a "bad" BLM for focusing on Blizzard 4 and Thunder 4 so forth, the idea that since you have weaker spells that you aren't using you're in some way an unthinking BLM only going for big numbers.

Well that's just dumb, not to say it's impossible that using the biggest nukes could be less efficient but to say simply that in this case that's not true. We don't criticize thieves for never using viper bite when they get dancing edge, yet they criticize us for what is mathematically a similar strategy - using your strongest attacks only.

Now let's not enter into the question of AM2 with the same close minded stance so many have.

So let's deal with some of the numbers.

AM2:
the retimer is 1:23
spell cost, 287
base damage...

For our purposes, I'm going to say:

AM2 1500
MP Costs:287
Blizzard/Thunder4 1050
MP costs: 167
Lvl 4 retimer: none

In the hands of a strong BLM both will be higher, but these are fine numbers for comparison, if the outcomes are really neck and neck I'll do some testing to try and guage them more accurately.

I'm ignoring lvl 4 timers as you can alternatve between them. Being as you have them all without meriting I'll assumg we all have them.


Alright so next up let's say we have 1050 MP.

861 MP is 3 AM2s
1148 is 4 AM2s.

So let's say the max we can do before our first AM2 is in fact, 4. This is giving a great benefit of the doubt that we're going to be getting Ballad X 2, Refresh ext during the course of this and that conserve MP is kicking in.

Well that's 1148 MP, 6000 dmg.

Conversely we have to examine how much dmg you could deal with purely lvl 4s if you could burn off that much MP in the same casting time with those spells.

Well... 7 nukes is going to be 1169.
Or 6 nukes is going to be 1002.

Respectively > 7350 and 6300 dmg

Now we've got 1 large issue staring us in the face, can I nuke 6 or 7 lvls 4s in the course of 1 minute 23 seconds?

Tested. I can.

Next issue is manafont, well so how long does Manafont actually last? How many AM2 could I actually get off?

Versus how many lvl 4s could I get off.

I can get 3 AM2s off(I only had 2, but I got 2 lvl 4s off after the AM2 then quickly it wore).

I can get for Lvl 4s.. about 5, 6 with luck(fast cast going very well). But I will hold to 5 in conservation.

AM2 dmg> 4500.
Lvl 4 nukes > 5150


Now before you say - Firestreak there are so many factors out there! And I'm not just saying, spam AM2! You didn't even compare to using 1, 2 or 3 AM2! - I am just using if-then logic.

If using 4 AM2s in a row is illogical, then meriting 4 AM2s is illogical.

Using AM2 at all? Well obviously for MB. Now we come across the final question.

Well, how about having all the elements for fighting different NMs we might need them for versus....

.... what about MB bonus?

Not going to even go into the magic accuracy bonus, which isn't dependant on MB, so let's just play with the base damage.

First off Magic burst damage, what is it?

Well a little known fact, as many of you know BLM AF2 hands give you a damage bonus dependant on if it's a MB, which if a 5% bonus over what may have been. Well magic burst is dependant on base damage, so then standard Magic attack bonus and Magic burst damage bonus is calculated differently.

This is why some people say AF2 hands is better than zenith mitts for bursting even though they seem at a glance the be the exact same thing, being that they give a 5% bonus. However one's bonus is amplified slightly because since it's attached to the burst damage you multiply it by the previous damage instead of adding it up with the other bonuses.

To explain a little better, in case some of you had a little trouble understanding, it's like when you go to the bank. If you compound your interested every 6 months versus every year then at the end of the year you have more money, because you get interest on the interest already. When you add the damage to the burst, then you're increasing the damage base and burst but also increasing all the previous magic attack bonuses already in place.

So if you are doing 2200 damage with Freeze 2, then you just multiply for every bonus 1.03 directly, which is another 66 damage for no additional MP cost. Or 4 times(you're not going to compound on magic burst bonus, you just add those together sadly), 264 more damage for no MP cost on a burst.

Versus the versitility of being able to MB on every mob, or more specifically, on a few individual mobs that ice and thunder would be useless on.

The list would be as follows...

Suzaku(you would want Flood 2)
Kirin(you would want Tornado 2)
Jourgumand(you would want Flare 2)
Tiamat?(I forget, was it weak to water?)

Also note the followings NMs that would benefit off your larger bursts and extra magic accuracy of pumped up Freeze 2 and Burst 2)

Genbu
Seiryu
Fafnir
Nidhogg
King Behemoth
Aspido
Vrtra
Just about every single sea jailer


I forget about Ouryu, which he weak too?



So yeah, uh... that's what's going on in my head now.

 

[Lavi]

I would still get all 6 AMII merited. Why? Because I would still fight Kirin and other HNMs that are weak to spells besides Thunder/Blizzard. If I merit both of those fully without doing anything to Tornado II, I at best have Aero IV on Kirin which is still low damage in comparison to Blizzard IV or Freeze II. With the way the nerf is setup, the most beneficial strategy is to use your strongest and least likely to resist spell regardless of MP which is why AMII is a very good spell for long duration fights such as gods (probably not as good for BCs or HNMs, but then again, I don't know first hand). This is because if you constantly cast, your damage is reduced and the best way to avoid this is do huge damage spikes, rest while resistance is in effect and then cast again after resistance is reset or near to it.

Now, I could be convinced to merit Freeze II to max, but it would be very difficult. How you ask? You would need to prove to me that meritting Freeze II completely added with the use of Ice Staff would be more than sufficient to overcome the fact it's not Kirin's weakness (he's a good example because he is so high). Is that added accuracy from merits and ice staff enough to make the accuracy of blizzard spells equivalent to aero spells. If that's the case, then I'd certainly agree that it's the best option, but to me, even one case where I'd want the other 4-5 AMIIs unlocked is more than enough reason them all.

Edit: That'd be interesting if someone wanted to setup a test to see if that's possible. I don't know exactly how you would gauge accuracy for magic spells, but if someone would test the accuracy of wind vs. ice based spells on Kirin, it certainly would give more validity to meritting only Freeze II if they had similar acc.

 

[Firestreak]

Kirin is just 1 mob of a wide spectrum of mobs that is slanted heavily towards 2 elements. And he's one of the only 3 mobs or so you won't be able to overcome resistance alone on just from the ice staff and the magic accuracy bonus.

Don't forget Kirin doesn't drop shit for BLM and those you'd gimp yourself for are the same that cheer whenever you're nerfed. I just don't see any melees realistically nerfing themself to more easily kill Alastor Antlion.

 

[Lavi]

Kirin is just 1 mob of a wide spectrum of mobs that is slanted heavily towards 2 elements. And he's one of the only 3 mobs or so you won't be able to overcome resistance alone on just from the ice staff and the magic accuracy bonus.

Don't forget Kirin doesn't drop shit for BLM and those you'd gimp yourself for are the same that cheer whenever you're nerfed. I just don't see any melees realistically nerfing themself to more easily kill Alastor Antlion.

I use Kirin as an example because he is the highest mob around that is fairly easy to test on. His level is high enough so that if you could overcome the lack of spell weakness to Blizzard with Freeze II using merits and staff, pretty much any other major HNM would be the same. I'm not saying gimp myself for solely Kirin, but to use him as an example and not gimp myself on a few mobs so that I can get slightly higher damage/acc. on mobs when it doesn't effect all mobs. I'd rather be good all around for every situation than be perfect for half the situations and completely gimpy for the rest. Plus you also have to realize, not everyone can, will or wants to fight wyrms or the three kings and it's a lot more likely they will have chances to fight mobs like Kirin where the spells will be useful and they are not as constrained for time as with Nidhogg, Fafnir, Aspid, Behemoth, etc where speed and damage are more of an issue.

Your analogy is a little flawed too. A melee can vary their gear dependant on the situation. BLM don't have that choice and the merit choice becomes somewhat permanent. And Alastor is also weak to Wind. =P

 

[Skaw]

Ouryu is weak to wind, and I believe Tiamat is fire based, so weak to water.