Banish Spells are great DD LV5-20

[Shinhiryu_Kage]

On a post frenzy today.

So, I just recently started playing WHM again on a new character, playing as a Galka, and I've discovered that Banish and Banishga do really good damage with capped Divine Magic lol.

Right now, at LV20, on a IT I can pull off 26 Dmg from Banish and 61 Dmg from Banishga, respectively. This is with zero INT buffs and +7 MND.

I can't remember if its MND or INT that increases Banish damage, but I'm really impressed by this. I remember a time way back in my newb days I couldn't dare to afford to cast Banish spells while in XP party, ever-ever-ever, until I was like post 60 something and even then I was very conservative about it. I mean I got off the occassional Banishga II/Holy and such, and was able to burst for around 500 damage total between both spells for like 200 or 300 something MP I think lol. My playstyle was also to ensure no one got killed just because I felt like nuking 2 out of 5 battles during a grind.

However, the other day, we had a pretty lame-o party w/2 whms 1 rdm, a sam a pld a mnk.... and we were lvl 15 fighting crabs. Well, since I got bored and we had way to much healing/not even DD, I got out my club and started spamming Banish/Banishga. Making sure, of course I was careful about adds, I was shocked to find Banishga hitting for 61 dmg. Now, on Toughs, it would hit for a little more and of course I had the occssional resist but my accuracy rate seemed like 85% or so, just eyeballing figures. I was really stoked.

I kept on with the DD aspect until 20 (mostly because the rest of my pts were PL'ed by others that ppl invited friends and etc.) and my hammer skill and divine magic capped out all the way til 20. I was hitting mobs that were IT for like 10dmg or so, hitting Banish for around 25 and Banishga for around 55 on ITs (pugils and goblins and such.)

I mean, this was really cool, I was sorta being a DD. hahaha

I don't play much on PC so I couldn't parse my results, but I feel I surely kept up with the rest of the DD melee, over time.

If I remember correctly, its a waste of MP to use the Banish line during normal XP much later on anyway, so why even bother with it? I don't like the idea of using Banish on normal mobs for like alot of MP and 500 dmg in the later part of the game.... (maybe except on undead which that proves useful and worth it in a way) ... so it was just funny and interesting to me that I could DD at such a low level and do a good job of it.

By the way, Seraph Strike hit for an average of 40 dmg per attack when I got enough TP. Now, accumulating TP was quite slow. To my 100, a SAM would get 200+... paladin and I usually kep on par with TP gain, though, he might have 20 or 30 more points than me. We were doing Liquefaction / Fusion by going Tachi: Enpi -> Red Lotus Blade -> Seraph Strike. At the end, me, the other whm, and the pld all burst for Banish, me using Banishga, and I would bust out 75 dmg on a magic burst LOL. The whole thing would put an IT crab at 25% life from start of chain. It was great stuff.

Isn't that just funny? I mean, the wussie WHM slash no one will let you skill up club slash worthless fighter actually can do well in the beginning, if just given the chance.

Anyway, I never thought about it or realized it until playing WHM thru a 2nd time. Isn't it interesting?

[Mog]

Take a look at this thread:

Whm 50+

I don't want you to make the same mistake that he did. Cool results, but as you level past 50, you're better off saving that stuff for the skill-up parties and helping friends out. heh

[Shinhiryu_Kage]

Hehehehehehehe...

yeah... I definitely agree with that thread in every way, shape, and form.

Its just, if you are a closet DD and are having to play WHM for a subjob... you can come out of the closet from 5-20 in Valkurm lol XD

It's ok to be different and not a part of the norm if its purely justified and effective. >.> Ayup, that LV50+ is a whole new ball game.

[Icemage]

Fortunately, you get Flash at level 45 which picks up the slack on Divine Magic.

After level 20 though, the damage to MP ratio falls off dramatically. About the only use I have for Banish spells in general at level 75 now is in the odd MNK fist-burn party, where I use it to knock down the Defense of ghosts to keep chains alive.


Icemage

[Karinya]

Banish III MB'd on undead is good enough to be worth casting, I think. Of course you need a party that actually does skillchains, but if you're lucky enough to have one you can get 600ish damage out of a pretty cheap spell.

In general they're not much good on non-undead, though. And Holy is just horrible regardless - I heard once that it used to be really strong (before NA release) and was massively (over)nerfed, but regardless, it's been a terribly useless spell for years now.

[Aksannyi]

Usually while leveling WHM I'll toss in a few Banishes - like one every eight fights or something - per xp session. That amounts to very little in terms of skillups, but I get at least some, and no one can bitch that I'm wasting MP.

[IfritnoItazura]

Right now, at LV20, on a IT I can pull off 26 Dmg from Banish and 61 Dmg from Banishga, respectively.

Banish is 15 MP, Banishga is 41 MP. That makes ratios of 1.74 HP/MP and 1.49 HP/MP, respectively.

Cure heals for 30 HP or so at those levels? That's a 3.75 HP/MP ratio.

Nukes are inefficient compared to cures to begin with, but Banish looks pretty bad even for nukes. To get an idea, around Lv.40, my DRK can cast Drain for over 50 HP (on average, with non dark resist mobs), using 21 MP. That's 50 in damage, and 50 healed, for a total of 100HP/21mp, or a ratio of 4.76 HP/MP.

Most nukes aren't as efficient as Drain, but I've seen guideline of "aim for 4:1 HP/MP" for BLM. The Banish line of spells tend to be very, very far from that.

Before someone cries that I shouldn't compare damage to mob to HP healed on players, I'll admit that's true. Exp monsters have more HP than players; 26 HP is a smaller percentage of their HP bar than player's HP bar--relative effect of your 15 mp is much, much larger for nearly two cures (~56 HP) on a player than one banish (26 HP) on the monster.

(Disclaimer: I encourage the WHM in my static party to cast Banish, Holy, or whatever else he fancies when I am on PLD, since he may get bored otherwise and dump too many Cures III's on me, making it hard to tank. Banishga was also quite nice for MB when we had a Fusion SC. So, it's good for at least entertainment value, and FFXI is supposed to be entertaining. )

[Shinhiryu_Kage]

Yeah, I've read before that Holy use to do some insane damage. But I wonder exactly how much? Was it on par with regular ancient magic in the 50's?

That' brings up another observation of mine. Why was/is WHM excluded from having a high level nuke? I mean, it doesn't appear to me whatsoever it would be out of balance. I know SE can be uber conservative about the playing-style. Did they ever find players abusing a certain aspect of Holy or something?

If we had just one high powered nuke, that would be awesome. I love to play WHM and back up heal. But, I'd like to "blow-up-stuff-with-pretty-giant-fireball" sometimes. :/ lol

[Feenicks]

Nah, WHM is a healer, it's not supposed to have any nuking capabilities. Might as well give BLM Cure IV or something.

[Icemage]

Assuming you have the MP for it, Banish III is a pretty reasonable nuke against undead. Of course, most of the time you have better uses for 96MP than a few hundred points of damage except when using it to knock away undead damage resistance traits.

Other than that, none of the white magic nukes are worth anything past level 30 even magic bursted.


Icemage