[AtraposBLM]

I was just wondering if anyone who had all the staves (or a staff other than ice staff) could tell me if there are any hidden bonuses of using the staves.

So far, the 2 main things I've heard are as follows:
1) Elemental Staff of element X increases element X spell damage by 10%. i.e. Ice staff increases Blizzard line of spells damage by 10%.
--So far, I've noticed that my blizzard II damage is much higher than before. I'm hitting for 300-315 or so on an IT, up from 275ish. I'll pay more attention to it the next time I level.

2) Elemental Staff of element X decreases the upkeep cost of the corresponding avatar. i.e. Earth Staff decreases the amount of MP required to keep Titan out.
--I could try this by summoning shiva (only have ice staff), but I haven't yet.


Does anyone know if these are true or not? I wouldn't want to have to go around and collect all the elemental staves if only ice/dark would help me. Assume that I won't be playing summoner (but you can confirm/refute point #2 if you know the answer).

Also, is there any way to obtain the elemental ores required to make the staves in any other way than mining in Ifrit's Cauldron (unconfirmed) or having them drop in the Quicksand Caves BCNM60 (unconfirmed)?

[Chirasi]

If you know a little bit of Japanese, you can check this.

http://www.kp-t.net/~ffxi/etc/staff.html

[evilution]

Normal staff: +10% damage of the element, -10% damage for the element the staff is strong against

HQ Staff: +15% damage, -15% damage

/me hugs his staff collection

[poweryoga]

crazy bonuses... makes me want one...

*casts stone I*

I'll add some translations for avatar upkeep.... Seems to only affect ELEMENTALS ONLY from what the page said, someone confirm this on avatars.

Fire Staff:

Fire Avatar upkeep cost -2 (-3 for HQ)
Ice Avatar upkeep cost +2 (+3 for HQ)
Fire Spell Potency up: 10% (15% for HQ)
Ice Spell potency down: 10% (15% for HQ)

Ice Staff:

Ice Avatar upkeep cost -2 (-3 for HQ)
Wind Avatar upkeep cost +2 (+3 for HQ)
Ice Spell Potency up: 10% (15% for HQ)
Wind Spell potency down: 10% (15% for HQ)

Water Staff:

Water Avatar upkeep cost -2 (-3 for HQ)
Ice Avatar upkeep cost +2 (+3 for HQ)
Water Spell Potency up: 10% (15% for HQ)
Ice Spell potency down: 10% (15% for HQ)


Wind Staff:

Wind Avatar upkeep cost -2 (-3 for HQ)
Earth Avatar upkeep cost +2 (+3 for HQ)
Wind Spell Potency up: 10% (15% for HQ)
Earth Spell potency down: 10% (15% for HQ)


Earth Staff:

Earth Avatar upkeep cost -2 (-3 for HQ)
Earth Spell Potency up: 10% (15% for HQ)
Lightening Spell potency down: 10% (15% for HQ)


Lightening Staff:

Water Avatar upkeep cost +2 (+3 for HQ)
Lightening Spell Potency up: 10% (15% for HQ)
Water Spell potency down: 10% (15% for HQ)

Light Staff:

Light Avatar upkeep cost -2 (-3 for HQ)
Dark Avatar upkeep cost +2 (+3 for HQ)
Light Spell Potency up: 10% (15% for HQ)
Dark Spell potency down: 10% (15% for HQ)

Dark Staff:

Dark Avatar upkeep cost -2 (-3 for HQ)
Light Avatar upkeep cost +2 (+3 for HQ)
Dark Spell Potency up: 10% (15% for HQ)
Light Spell potency down: 10% (15% for HQ)

[AtraposBLM]

thanks

[Nodoka]

There's NO way I'm getting every staff so I can deal more damage. I'll just stick with the +15 elemental bonus. Ice is a very widely used element, so there is no real loss to wind. If anything I still carry my wand with me for enf. I can just switch to that for wind stuff.

I see the staves mostly useful for SMN with money to waste. The best bonus from this for BLM is the +Ele skill. Whatever damage bonus you get from the other staves are worthless if they get resisted. (and they will, cause this game is evil like that)

[AtraposBLM]

+10% damage is huge, no matter how you look at it. Be it burst or otherwise, 10% damage is a ton.

You could either equip a +8 int wand (assuming you're lv60+) or a +10% damage staff. At lv60, your normal spells are in the 300-500 range (blizzard II -> fire III), and your bursts should be in the ~600-650 range.

+8 int : ~+10 damage across the board
+10% damage: +30-50 damage on normal spells, +60-65 damage on bursts. That is a truly insane damage increase.

[Rones]

Dark Staff:
Dark Avatar upkeep cost -2 (-3 for HQ)
Light Avatar upkeep cost +2 (+3 for HQ)
Dark Spell Potency up: 10% (15% for HQ)
Light Spell potency down: 10% (15% for HQ)

I am currently saving up for a Dark Staff for the +10 mp regen rate. Does the 10% spell penalty affect cures or is it only spells such as banish and holy? Not a too big of deal since I can just switch the weapon out when not resting, but still nice to know.

[Taga]

my cures do the same with dark staff equipped

[Nodoka]

Hmm... I recently got the Ice Staff myself, but I'm not noticing any difference in Ice Damage. >.< I seem to do around 275 or so with both of them on.

[riceburner4540]

there's a difference with the dark staff's damage when using bio...its +10% rounded. i'm sure all other staves are the same, but i won't be able to test out with an ice staff til the bastards stop raising the prices -_-. try going into qufim or something, cast blizzard II on a monster, equip ice staff and use blizzard II again.

[AtraposBLM]

I do ~315 damage with icestaff equipped with Blizzard II. ~275 without it equipped. Torama's tended to take ~290 and ~255 or so from blizzard (finding max damage on them was hard...)

Anyways, at lv64, I partied with 2 lv66 black mages. The party was weird (whm/brd, rdm/blm, 3 blm/whm, 1 pld/war (taru no less). A) I had 1 more mp than one blm, 7 more mp than the other. B) Once I ding'd 64 and capped elemental skill (I joined the party @30,200/32,000 exp in 63), I had 2 more points in elemental magic than they did. C) Their unresisted Blizzard III on steel shells did ~500 damage. My unresisted B3 did ~560 damage (559). D) My unresisted Freeze did ~990 damage. Their unresisted freeze did ~780 damage.

One of said blackmages had *decent* gear. Mythic wand, eremites, etc. The other one had what could be called "ideal" gear, aside from not having an icestaff. He/she had mythic wand, 2 morion earrings, 2 zircon earrings, full AF, morion tathlum (where was the phantom? ), etc. He also had an arachne obi +1 in his inventory for when he got high enough, as well as a Black Cloak. So once again, this just further proves my point that adding additional +int is just a waste. My Fire III unresisted did 522 damage - their's did ~490. Every one of my spells outdamaged theirs, so I'm fairly confident that my lack of morion earring / zircon rings is really unimportant. Off to buy 2 astrals

[Oompa]

I'm kinda curious. How often are you getting resists? With very little INT gear I would think you'd be getting some reisists.

I have two morion earrings, morion tathlum, two zircon rings and a Justacorps is the only piece of gear I'm wearing that's not AF. I'm also subbing SMN, and my INT is 76+28 with pies. I also have an ice staff and VERY VERY VERY rarely EVER get resisted. In fact I usually get MAYBE 1 resist each time I level. That's over 4-5 hours of leveling on the weekends and only one resist per day. On top of that I'm hitting for a boat load of damage more than I was a week ago (before I had the ice staff).

I was just wondering.

[AtraposBLM]

so far, without a bard debuffing elements, I've had:

1 resist on an IT++ Torama (bursted Thundaga II for 300something damage instead of 787). Considering Torama are strong against lightning, and I had just dinged 62 (and as such, elemental magic wasn't capped)

3-4 resists by Steelshells as a lv63/64 (Fire III did ~58 damage a few times. Considering I was several levels lower than is suggested for steelshells, not that bad. Once I capped elemental magic for lv64, I ceased getting resists).



As far as I can tell, I see no difference between the differing values of +int. At times I've had as much as ~+30 (+24 from gear/food and +6 from etude), and I noticed no correlation between resists and varying levels of int. For example, once my pie wore off, and the etude fell, I could not tell the difference in terms of resists. I would much rather save my money for better food and more staves than waste it on gaining a few insignificant points of damage if/when my spells *actually* cap against a mob.

Also, it's not that I don't have a lot of +int gear. On call, I can push my +int to +24 (only 4 less int than you, and you spent how much more than me on gear?). I see no difference between wearing 2 electrum rings and 2 zircon rings (nor a difference between eremite rings and zircon rings). If I wanted, I *could* buy these items (i.e. 1 morion ring and 2 zircon rings), but to be honest, I just don't see the point. That ~300k gil could go towards something like an elemental torque, or my black cloak, or my arachne obi +1. Unless you have a few million gil to toss around, you need to be concerned first with quality, THEN with quantity. That applies to the *vast* majority of players. Also, imo, 40 mp makes a much bigger difference than 3-6 extra damage. Keep in mind that gaining these miniscule amounts of extra int mean less and less. Right now, Blizzard III does 559 damage. Adding 3-6 damage is adding .5% (that's 1/2 of 1 percent) to 1% extra damage. Yeehaw, I'm really getting my money's worth now~!

Get all the cheap +int items (morion tathlum, mercenary captain's belt, X cape +1 (black/red, whichever you want), the +1 wands, eremite rings, etc., and use the gil you save from buying morion/zircons to buy yourself gear that will actually make a difference. Unless, of course, you have so much gil that you're just trying to waste it all. In that case, toss some gil myway, because I have to earn every bit that I get. (The best I can do right now is 50k / 2 hours (25k/hour), but I can only do it once per day).

[Oompa]

Very interesting perspective. I think once I get home I may pick up a couple MP+20 rings and swap them out with my Zircon rings, and maybe go get my moldivite earring tonight. I hear he's pretty easy to beat...

With all the money I have in gear, I could probably end up picking up a dark staff with no problem to give me quicker MP regeneration. That with the ice staff during fights, I should be pretty effective. I'm sort of excited about having over 1000MP now! WOOT!