Effectiveness of Shell(ra)

[VB-Shiva]

Do you find the Shell(ra) spell to have any significant effect on your party? Right now, it's in my useless spells section, along with the Bar(status) lines.

What is Shell supposed to do? "It Increases Magic Defense." What exactly is Magic Defense?! From the description, it appears to be only useful when fighting Beastmen Casters, if they cast Slow, Paralyze, etc. How often do I fight those? Pretty rare. How often do they cast these spells? Rarer Still. Even then, it still has minimal effect(if any) on Beastmen's spells.

Which leads to my conclusion:
Shell(ra) = Useless.

[Lily]

I have a hunch that because it's kinda of a sister version of Protectra, it behaves in the same way. Protect raises your (physical) defense by so much, then perhaps Shell raises a sort of magical defense value. So if you get hit by an elemental attack or special, you'll get a small reduction in dmg done to you. Stuff I'm talking about is direct dmg things like Fire, Aero, and possibly the specials like Bomb Toss or the thunder breath that Skinks do.

(I realise that Barfira will help massively against Bomb Toss, but Shell might also increase this protection more, even though it doesn't show it anywhere.)

I might be wrong, but it was just a thought. :)

[Calianeri]

For leveling thus far, I've used Shellra (and Shellra II) when fighting casters. Which is really not that frequent. My assumption has always been that Shellra adds protection against both direct damage spells and enfeebling spells (i.e., as if you had more MND and INT), so it reduces damage and lowers duration/increases resist chance of statuses. But I've never actually questioned or tested that. I'd love to hear a definitive answer too.

It shouldn't help against special elemental attacks, since they are not magic. For that you need Protectra and Bar-element (which help a great deal).

[murmur]

But the specials don't really seem like physical damage either... so I've been slapping shellra on just in case. But does shellra not help for the specials?

My other question is, which barspell corresponds to some of these specials? For example, I know barfira greatly helps decrease the damage from bombtoss, while barstonra helps against bunny and worm specials, so I'd love to know if there's anything else i can do. ><

Also when flies and soldier crawlers sprays the frontal attack that also poisons, I know barpoisona would decrease poison duration, but would it also lessen the amount of damage the actual attack does? Or is it an element too? And pleaseplease, if there's any way to decrease the exoray attacks... I beg you, please let me know. ^^

Goblins: Bombtoss -> fire
Pugils: Screwdriver -> water?
Bats: Jetstream -> ??? (air?)
Flies: Cursed Sphere -> ??? (air?)
Flies/Crawlers: the poison spray damage (disregarding poison status effect) -> nothing? or barpoisonra?
Fungars: their horrible spore attacks. and i wish there was a list of which one does what. ^^
Lizards?
Undead?
Any others?

Can't think of any more AOE or specials at the moment. Haven't fought enough ><.

[Lily]

Maybe Barthundra for the electrical attacks that Giants sometimes do.

[Calianeri]

That is an interesting question you raised: how much do Protectra and physical defense in general help against specials? Again, I don't think Shellra is a factor because they are simply not magic attacks. For magic attacks, a combination of Shellra and Bar-element seems best, at least when you can predict what sort of elemental spell the mob will cast.

When in doubt, personally I use the bar- that corresponds to the element of the special attack's status effect, so while I can't say that flies' Venom is a water attack, or crawlers' Poison Breath, I use Barwater for both. I think I get good results, but I've never stopped to check damage with/without. I do see fewer party members get poisoned though. (I don't use Barpoisonra... but that's a discussion for another thread.) For Jetstream I'd use Baraera, but I've stayed away from triple bats so far. I haven't fought Exorays yet, and I'm not looking forward to it. :(

[murmur]

Thanks so much for the reply! WoohoO! Barwatera! I will definately start using that from now. ><

As for specials being based on physical, I'm not entirely convinced. I thought it was a mix, based upon monsters. Take mandragoras for example, they have headbutt, which is physical, i'm sure, but the have their sleep special and scream (MND down) and self regeneration. These aren't casted magic of course, so you can't silence them, but they're definately not physical. Even so, for fighting these, shellra isn't needed. But what about stuff like bombtoss in Kazham? Or... exorays >.>. XD These specials can make people's HP go from full to holyshit! It'd make anyone want to be on the "better safe than sorry" side. :p (I'm sure it just keeps getting worse and scarier. *dread*)

And sorry to ask again, but shellra adds protection against enfeebles? Is it like MND up? Sort of like how defense is related to vit? (And does MND decrease magical attacks? I know it protects against enfeebles...) Heh, yah, more questions. :sweat:

[PetriW]

Bomb Toss is fire, you'll notice quite an improvement using that too. ;) And sorry to ask again, but shellra adds protection against enfeebles? Will probably be hard to prove before PvP...

[Falconi]

I can certainly see the difference if I or the tanks have Protect up or not.
With Shell...well it only seems to lower the dmg you take from direct damage spells. Ressist rate seems to be the same.

As for the Bar...series, it NEVER worked for me :p

[PetriW]

BARstatus ailment basically only lowers the duration of status effects, BARelement works like a dream... granted you have good enhance skill of course.

[Issaac]

The Bar<element> is working quit well, not everytime but if it works you see it. At one of the "raids" we did for mission 6 (tower qufim) we had 2 groups. Whenever we fought goblins on our way up i throw a BarFirera on my group and due to the fact they all where nearly same lvl you saw the difference quit well in the lost of hitpoints from group 1 to group 2 whenever the gob throw a bomb.

Im using shell as a starting buff, if needed or not, its a feelgood thing, when we fight casters im normaly silent them anyway. But i would never fight Notorious Caster Monster withouot Shellra 2. They mostly cant be silented (Darkknight AF1 is a caster for example)

[Tobold]

Whenever I cast Protectra on my group, I also cast Shellra. It doesn't cost much MP, and it keeps as long as Protectra, which is quite some time. I have no problem keeping my group under Shell protection all day long. Even if it just helps a little bit, every little bit is good.

Bar-something might be more effective, but I am NOT keeping my group under Bar- protection all day long. Because the duration of a Bar- spell is only one or two fights, and the drain on MP to keep it always up is just too much.

[PetriW]

Bar-something might be more effective, but I am NOT keeping my group under Bar- protection all day long. Because the duration of a Bar- spell is only one or two fights, and the drain on MP to keep it always up is just too much. You only cast bar spells when needed of course and unless you have different mp prices than I do the cost in mp is marginal. You can't even cast cure twice for that mp and if you're having mp problems as a taru you're doing something wrong. ;)
Oh and yeah, since you're 22 barwatera can be the difference between a tank being oneshotted by a screwdriver and just taking a slightly larger amount of damage. Consider it, maybe even try it a little.

[cavill]

When those Orc Mesmerizers cast elemental spells on u i think that shell would decrease the damage that they deal, i guess.. lol

[VB-Shiva]

At this point, everything is just speculations. There's no concrete evidence that Shell gives any benefits at all. The " cheap to maintain anyway" is not a compelling reason to keep Shellra up all the time. Unfortunately, its effect seem so minimal that I cant perform any tests on it. It'd would be easier if I had access to Shell IV or something, then maybe I can see some direct results of the Shell line of spell.


The other discussion is the Barxxx line:

We know Bar<element> works... somewhat, we can see its effectiveness right away.

Bar<status> falls into same category as Shell. It's "suppose" to work, but we dont see any direct results because of it. No, it does NOT lower duration of status effect, not from my personal observations anyway.

[locus]

You guys and your "concrete evidence"... here you go.

I don't have webspace right now, so I apologize in advance for multiple posting.

Target: Battalia Orcish Cursemaker.

[locus]

This is before Shell. Typical damage from Aeroga = 110-120 damage, Stone II = 100-120 damage.

[locus]

This is after Shellra 3.

(unsubstantiated opinion)
Taken from my experience, with special attacks, Shell oes not seem to work. However, against spells, Shell>Bar spells (Judging from a fight against Waraxe Beak where he used Dispelga and Stonega IV)

Frankly, if you consider them a waste of money, go ahead. Just please don't complain when the goblin alchemist hits your party with Aeroga III and suddenly everyone has orange HP. And PLEASE avoid ever fighting Anticans in the Quicksand caves. Ancient magic (Burst, Tornado) is bad enough already with Shell on.

[VB-Shiva]

Thank you locus for your input, this is exactly the kind of data that I wanted to see. However, the data is not conclusive. On one set of data, you are hit mostly with stonega, one the other, mostly with stone2, two spells of different magnitudes. The only useful data I got was Aeroga for 42 vs Aeroga for 8, which is normal for range of damage based on basic resistance.

Thanks for the data, it is much appreciated.

[Icemage]

Umm... Locus is right. Magic damage is not as simple as a 1:1 ratio of Magic Defense vs. Magic Damage.

I can tell you that Shellra spells DO tend to reduce damage from magical enemy attacks. Not just spells, but also special attacks. Like player Weapon Skills, monsters also have either Physical or Elemental attacks.

Magic Defense isn't like Evasion or Physical Defense. Magical attacks deal random damage within a certain range, and are then adjusted for "accuracy" based on the target's elemental and magical resistance.

Examples of physical attacks:

Triple Bats - Jet Stream
Worm - Full Force Blow
Crab - Big Scissors
Quadav - Head Butt

Examples of magical attacks:

Spells
Fly - Cursed Sphere (Dark element)
Skeleton - Black Cloud (Dark element)
Crawler - Poison Breath (Poison attack/maybe water?)
Octopus - Maelstrom (Water element)
Fungaur - Silence Gas (Wind element)

While you have Shell effects active, attacks of Magical types will "tend" to deal less damage, and will be resisted more often. It is not guaranteed, but it definitely helps.

Against Robber Crabs in Kuftal Tunnel (~level 60 enemies), I notice a huge difference when I have Barwater + Shellra II active on the party vs. having neither active. If both are not active, damage can be as high as 300. If Shellra II is active, it drops to about 180 max. If I have Barwatera and Shellra II active, max damage drops to around 120.


Icemage

[locus]

As I said, I can't tell you what to think.

You can be a skeptic ifl you want, in which case you might even start to doubt that Protectra III has any effect on damage taken whatsoever - it's "ONLY" 40 def? how much of a difference is that when I already have 232 def?

I can however tell you that I've never let shell drop for very long in a party and my party members have never ever complained "You're wasting mp!". Imagine this situation - I decide to go fight sapphire quadrav for the Beadeaux coffer key (White mage AF gloves).

Fighter: "Shellra III please"
Me: "I don't have Shellra III"
Fighter: "... Shellra 2 then"
Me: "I don't have any Shellra spells - I don't think they're worth the money"
Fighter: "... are you really a white mage?"
Sapphire Quadrav casts Aeroga III (PAIN) (Up to 300 damage WITH shell on, FYI)

At this point, you can curaga III and die, or you can benediction and die - your choice.

Then again, I've seen an Elvaan white mage play all the way up to level 59 without bothering to buy Cure IV (no money) - so hey, anything goes (and even HE bothered to get Shellra III).

Icemage brings up a fantastic point: Crabs. If you want to see how much of a difference Shell makes, ask the red mage NOT to dispel Bubble shield (Shell effect) and the black mage to continue casting attack spells. Aspir from crab with Shell on = 9 mp. Aspir from crab without shell on = anywhere up to 80 mp.

[Calianeri]

Unlike VB-Shiva, I'm no skeptic about Shell. It's always up when fighting magic casters. But hearing the belief that Shell affects elemental special attacks too is mighty interesting. The description specifically says "magical defense" -- but those attacks do not come from magic-caster types and don't appear to be "magical" because they are not casted like spells. So perhaps it's better to say that Shell is really generic "elemental" defense, and anything elemental is therefore affected by Shell?

Which, if true, means that "magical" is equivalent to "elemental". That would give us casted magic (all spells have an element) and special attack magic (elemental attacks). I was thinking of casted magic and elemental attacks as different things, but perhaps that's not true.

And, last followup if all of the above is correct: Based on what Locus and Icemage have said, it sounds like a monster with a Shell effect up would be more resistant to players' elemental weapon skills and skillchain effects. Is that the case? Fighting crabs so far I've never noticed any difference before or after a Bubble Curtain.

Or is that taking the elemental = magical thing too far? :o

Also, Icemage, how did you come to your conclusions about the elemental types for the special attacks? Or determine that, for instance, Jet Stream is physical and not air elemental?

[Icemage]

If an enemy is using a Shell-type effect (Bubble Shield for instance), even elemental WS are affected. I won't swear to it, but I also believe enfeebling magic is somewhat harder to land when such effects are up.

My conclusions about damage types of various special attacks is all based on experience. You can usually tell which attacks are physical and which are Elemental by looking at how much damage different characters take from them:

If the tanks take less damage overall, it's physical. Another sign of a physical attack is if you can block, guard or parry the attack (if you see a block, guard or parry gain when a special attack hits you I guarantee it is a physical attack). Good example of this would be a Weapon's Whirl of Rage attack.

If the mages take less damage overall, or the damage is even for all players with an occasional lower damage resistance value, it's magical. A Hecteyes special attack Fluid Toss comes to mind here. All players take roughly the same amount of damage, based on their resistance vs. Water in this case.


Icemage

[VB-Shiva]

locus, I can see Protect working, because it's obvious, you can see a number(Defense) go up. With shell, it isn't so obvious. I dont have access to shell 3, so my data is limited. I am here to find out when it is useful, and when it is not. If I'm fighting in Crawlers and Beetles, I will not throw up Shell just because it's part of a buffing routine. If I'm fighting casters, I'll throw Shell up because the group will be more susceptible to magical attacks. How often do I fight casters? Not often at all. If I do fight the occasional caster, I find Silence to be a more useful tool. I will change tactics and adopt as I move to different areas, but as of now, shellra = useless.

Unlike Calianeri, I dont take what others say as gospel. I like to apply the knowledge to the field and see for myself.

[Archh]

Barfira never reduced damage from Bomb tosses for me.. it could have been a very small reduction that i didn't notice though.

[Icemage]

At lower levels, Barfira has a relatively weak effect against Goblin Bombs. Where you see the huge difference is when you get to 25+. Barfira is a life-saver against Tier 5 Goblins (Reaper, etc.) because they can deal 400 or more damage to an unprotected player with their Bomb Toss. It's also useful against Bomb type enemies like Explosure and Forger when they use Self-Destruct.


Icemage

[SonikU4ia]

Anyone know if there was a Mania book published out over in Japan for Final Fantasy 11?

In the past, Square has released this line of Mania books for games that Square has made, detailing alot of easter eggs, hidden features, and mathematical equations for stats, damange, and any kind of number you can think of.

If anyone were to have access to the Mania book for FF11 or had been to a JP site... we could end this little discussion right here and now.

However, I am a "firm" believe in the Bar-line of spells. I have seen them at work, from experience. The first time was in Kazham, when we fought the Mandragora. I knew that they used the area sleep, so just out of curiousity, I would throw up Barsleepra. I noticed a signifcant reduction in the amount of sleep time that my party members got when they were put to sleep. They would wake up in less that 10 seconds.

The next time I noticed the Bar spells wonderfulability was when I first started fighting crawler's at the Crawler's Nest, I noticed, after a time, my party's tank, which was a lv 34 Paladin, was taking a HUGE amount of damage from the poison breath that crawler's have. It even insta-killed him once when he was down to around 232 HP and he had pulled a monster before I really had time to regen. (He was taking a ton of damage from the crawler's physical attacks anyway, and I wasn't going to berate him on that or anything; not the type.) I didn't throw up Barpoisonra simply because I just didn't think about it at the time. He was taking damage on a range of like 190-230 from the poison. Well, after he got insta-killed, I figured throwing up barpoisonra couldn't hurt. So I rezzed, waited for rezz effects to wear off, then buffed him again, putting up barpoisonra. (Protect II and Shell were on also.) I noticed a whopping 100-125 damage drop from the buff and I was quite shocked. From that moment on, I was a devout believer.

Since then, I throw up the BAR spells anytime I fight a monster with an element that seems obvious. I figure, it couldn't hurt and the mp cost is quite minimal. I seriuosly don't mind having to rebuff with the elemental Bar-spells either. It gives me a chance to move around and not have to just stand in one place constantly. Besides its a White Mage's job to protect. I wouldn't be doing my job if someone was taking damage where I could obviously limit said damage. In addition, if I am in doubt about anything pertaining to defense of my party members, I might as well use all the buffs I have at my disposal, or risk the simple idea of me not doing my job.

This is why I don't agree with Shiva's statement about "Shell." I think its ridiculous to label shell as a "useless" spell without providing any cold, hard facts and data to substantiate and prove otherwise. As far as I am concerned about such an opinion, its really at this point neither here nor there. If a person thinks that Shell provides no "significant" defense either, that arguement is destoryed as well, because any reduction in damage, no matter how small, "is still a reduction." If a fox steals apples from your apple tree daily, eventually you are going to wind up with no apples. The same thing with damage over time. Its just going to cause you to heal more and healing more requires a loss of mp which always equates to more down time to rest and get it.

[Issaac]

The Bar<element> spells like Barpoisona are castable on others but the effect radius is always based on you. So you have to run to the group and buff.

Thats something i realy dislike. I wished the target of the spell would be the center. I cant count how often i runnned right into a bomb, poison breath, sleep or whatever :)

[Calianeri]

Unlike Calianeri, I dont take what others say as gospel. I like to apply the knowledge to the field and see for myself.

Heh, go back and actually read my previous post. See all those question marks? Phrases like "if all of the above is correct"? That's called discussing an interesting possibility and asking for clarification. Very different from accepting as gospel. I'm here to learn more, not jump to conclusions.

I don't know how you can just write off Shellra. If it reduces any damage from casted magic, it's useful, and I'll cast it when fighting mage types. If it reduces damage from any elemental attack (casted magic or not) as Icemage suggests, then it's even more useful, and I'll cast it all the time. But which is it? I'd like more observations, especially from the really experienced importers who also post on these forums. I've started looking at my logs while playing to see for myself, but of course that's inherently imprecise.

Change of topic: Issaac, for the bar-elements try timing your cast so you run up to the front line right before as puller arrives with the monster. Stand still for 1 second, cast, and run back to the other mages. I've never been hit with AOE doing that, and if there's a bard I can usually time it so I don't get the front-line songs either. Obviously this won't always work (if you need to rest longer for MP, or something is blocking your path), but it's a good start. For the bar-status, you only need to recast every 2-3 fights, so that should be a bit easier to gather everyone together.

[Meriadoc]

shell... I just cast it along with protect.. it's a standard buff.. *shrug*
One thing I've learned about this game, is that every little bit, no matter HOW little, helps.

Bar-status spells. personaly I find them useless. >.>
Bar-element.. <3 barfira vs gobbie bombs. :>

[Cloud Tiamat]

I think the poison attacks from Crawlers & Flies are water based. At least BLM's Poison spells are Water elemental.......

[Russta]

I had a theory proven to me once in Kuftal once that I wasn't a firm believer of. We were fighting Ovinnik's (tigers) and my friend and leader in the party told me to do Barparana and Barblizzra so I kept it on and we were resisting the Paralysis more than it was sticking. The theory would be the same for any other Bar~ resist stacked with the Bar~ elemental resist so try it out and see for yourself.

[Kopitiam]

I'm always not a believer of shellra, thus i only keep shellra with me even up to lvl 50 till recently I was hunting Liches and man.. those AE always casue me to spam a bit of curaga... and you can't actually know which ae spell he's casting or can't cast bar -elemtnal in advance.... so i got fed up and purchase my self shellra2 Well i kinda have spare cash at that time...

So i went on to continue my hunt and i foud that it seem to reduce the damage a bit... yes.. not significiant but much better...i used to remeber having the need to use curaga 2 quite often evertyhing he casts ae ... but curaga alone seem to be able to bring everyone back to normal HP colour ( not yellow anymore).

IMO, it's not a must but good to have if you have gils to spare. Anyway it last half an hour with Protectra series unlike bar-series soooo why not even if effect is little. every little helps.. even if it's reduction of 20hp damage per person... 20 X 3 or 4 then multiply by half an hour duratio.... geee tell me it isn't worth it??