Hidden bonus of the elemental staves?

[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? :P), 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 :P

[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!

[Rones]

How often are you getting resists? With very little INT gear I would think you'd be getting some reisists.
Was a very lengthy thread a while back discussing that. I think the conclussion came to that resists were only dependent on your elemental skill and int only affected dmg. I didn't follow too close though since I'm not a blm usually.

[Oompa]

Originally posted by Rones

Was a very lengthy thread a while back discussing that. I think the conclussion came to that resists were only dependent on your elemental skill and int only affected dmg. I didn't follow too close though since I'm not a blm usually.

I remember the thread, but that just doesn't sound right. If INT determined how much damage you did, wouldn't there still be a cap on that damage for your level? This would make any INT over a certain point uselss, correct? Also, I'm not noticing any dramatic amount of damage less or more from AltropsBLM's listings. He does roughly what I do, minus except what would be assumed for his higher elemental skill due to a higher level. Perhaps I'm thinking too hard into this, but I'm just guessing that INT has to do with resists as much as his has to do with damage. But I just don't know. There's really no concrete evidence one way or another that I've seen. From what he's said though, I'm fairly convinced that (with his low amount of resists) that elemental skill deals with resists and excessive INT has little to no effect on your effectiveness as a BLM. Personally, I'm set on picking up some Electrum Rings once I get home to boost my MP up a bit and maybe getting my buddies together for a run at the Gobbie for my Moldivite Earring. That would leave me at -7 INT from what I am right now. That's not very much considering the amount of elemental skill I have and the huge MP pool I'll be pulling from.

I'm still not 100% convinced, so I'll most likely keep a hold of my Zircon rings for a little while. The extra Morion Earring is gone though. I don't see a need for it when I have Magic Attack +5%...

[Rones]

I've heard blms spells have dmg caps, but they are extremelly high and even with loads of int you probably won't reach them, but that's just what I've read. Might check out that old thread if you can find it, I seem to remember people actually doing some extensive testing on it comparing with and with out loads of int.

[AtraposBLM]

I'm not saying int is useless - just that buying things like zircon/morion's is a waste of money. Don't do it unless you already have your staff collection complete.

I still keep 2 eremite rings in my inventory, and I switch them in after I use the intial 40 mp the electrums give me. I bought an enhancing earring instead of using a morion earring. The difference between +20 and +30 int is MUCH less than the difference between +0 and +20. Dimishing returns means that you wear int wear you can get free points, and mp wear you get big points. At lv64, without pushing anything, I have 942 mp. A different race would have something in the 700's (tops), and my base int would be just as much as theirs would be with boost.

[tracert]

sorry this is a little off topic but i didn't want to make a new thread for it...

i was looking at AtraposBLM's sig... are the staves on other servers really that much... on bismark the normal one's are all 400~450k ... the HQ are more the 600k range...

[Arturo-B]

Prices have been crashing on Bismark recently (yay!). I bought my Dark staff for 630 barely 3 weeks ago. In March it hovered around 1 mil.

Now it's 400ish. However, I'm eyeing a light staff, and it's price drop is making my very happy! More people are I believe figuring out how to get elemental ores, which bodes well for all of us casters. :)

[shwiggy]

Midgard economy is kind of whack but it's a double edged sword. Stuff you sell sells for more, but same with things that you need to buy...

[xNecrosanx]

I'm hoping that the prices of the dark/ice staves in midgard would fall like some other server :(

250k/500k as opposed to 500k/700k >_<;

[tracert]

heh... looking at it right now... if another erase sells i'll buy at dark and an ice staff...

[evilution]

thw HQ are more like 1.2-3m range :P not 600k

[Oompa]

On Lakshmi I bought my Ice Staff for 750K, now they sell for 700K and usually hover right around 700-800K and stick at 1.5-2.0mil for he HQ versions. The Dark Staffs are dropping now though. I think when I checked last night it was selling for 600K. That means only another 100K and all my old crap to finally sell off!

I did a couple (inconclusive, and most likely errored) tests last night with my new Electrum rings. These were against the Shadow NMs in the Temple of Uggapleigh you have to fight for DRG AF3, and Death From Above, the Bee NM you fight for the RDM loved knife. Each time I only hit for less than 50% damage on EVERY spell. I was thinking it may be because of huge magic resistence, and that's what I'm hoping for at least. Any thoughts?

Also, I went to get my Moldivite Earring and the NM never spawned. Was I in the right place? When you walk in you follow the path down and around until you hit a fork. At the fork you turn right and walk into the main room with a load of Goblins (Miners, Enchanters, Bouncers), Scorpions and Sea Monk types. We waited for about an hour with not a single person there besides me and my two buddies. It never spawned. I know it's a two hour spawn time, but unless someone had JUST killed it(no one else there the whole time) then we were in the wrong place...I dunno.

Thanks!

[conaim]

I believe the Elemental Staff does raise the chance for full damage with the corresponding element as well. I had tested when I was at level 66.

Supportively Steelshells (Crab) is weakness in both Thunder and Ice, but then when equip. Ice Staff on, the chance that the mob will resist me with Blizzard III is 1 out of 15, but the chance that the mob resist my Thunder III is 1 out of 4..... Very noticeable number..... (I assume that the mob resist your spell is when your damage cut in half.)

True, Elemental Staff does increase the damage of same elemental by 10%, and does decrease opposite element by 10%. I belieave it also decrease the chance to do a full damage as well but I haven't test this yet. I locked the Aero III in my suiltcase since the day I fired that into a Goblin that 10 level below and does 150 damage).

Try it out yourself.....

[evilution]

the staves are like pokemon

gotta get em all

[tracert]

Originally posted by evilution
thw HQ are more like 1.2-3m range :P not 600k

not day before yesterday x_x ...

[riceburner4540]

it wouldn't be surprising to me that the staff prices are dropping...before, the only way you could get the ores for the staves was from either digging with choco or bcnm60 (i heard this from one of the more well known staff makers on my server, haven't confirmed). however, ever since the most recent update, you can get tree saplings, which allow you to grow ores through gardening...but its a very long process. so...since most people probably started gardening these tree saplings a couple weeks after the update, they've only been harvesting them for a few weeks, and of course would flood the AH with them, driving down the price.

as far as elemental staff increasing resistance chance of the weakness element (i.e. ice staff increasing resistance rates of aero), i'm pretty sure its not because of the staff. sometimes, mobs just resist spells, even if they're very very weak. i was helping a newbie friend with one of the windurst missions that require you to killi n tahrongi, so i mob trained about 30 monsters and did a firaga II to wipe them out...when i looked over the damage, one of the pygmaiois took only like 100 something...

so far, i haven't noticed any increased resistances vs my aero spells while using ice staff, but that -10% damage is kind of annoying...

[Asharu]

Ice staffs on Asura have recently dropped to 200-250k range. Dark staves are about 300k.

[riceburner4540]

my point exactly....god that's cheap. i thought our server's were cheap and dark staves are still 550k or so...ice staff is 450-500 while the rest are 350 or less. kinda pissed that i paid 720 for my dark...

[wicked-jawsh]

I got Ice staff on Tuesday on Valefor for 299k.

The cool thing is: I also got my AF gloves then too, so in one day my elemental skill went up +25!!! Not bad IMO. ^^

[AtraposBLM]

look at my sig for the price I got my ice staff. Last time I checked, the market went back up to 600,000. Who knows though...tomorrow it'll probably plummet (knowing my luck).