Spell Damage

[Blink]

I'm a bit confused on a certian issue that is beginning to annoy me beyond belief.

I'm currenly a Hume Lvl.19 BLM (as of the time being i'm leveling up my sub job: WHM) and i've noticed that when I cast spells at during a battle the damage it does is very odd.

For instance, today I casted Stonega on a Leecher in the dunes with my party and it did 89 damage to it. Great I thought. Checked to make sure no other monsters were nearby and casted another Stonega ...low and behold it clocks in at a massive 13 damage.

There was no speical skill used by it or anything. No other mages in the party other then the WHM who was healing. So nothing was done to it other then physical attacks.

Can someone please explain to me the variety in spell damage?

[DJplaeskool]

It's a simple matter of chance in a given range...
It'll happen all the time...

even for melee...
My 70MNK may hit something for 140 dmg with one punch, then hit it for 80 with the other...
just gotta roll with and anticipate not doing as much damage as you calculate (you'll surprise yourself more often that way XD...

[mIze]

In terms of physical damage, that's more roll-based. Mobs don't have more resistance to say, 1h sword than to hand-to-hand. It's more based on stats.

As for magic, it's based on the mob's lvl, int, and resistances. All mobs are resistant to element(s) and weak to element(s). Also all mobs have elements to where they are somewhat mid-aligned to. Like they aren't weak to it, but not necessarily resistant to it.

In the case where you see your spells doing high damage, then low damage, then maybe somewhere in the middle, that's what's happening. Let's say a crab for instance. It is weak to Thunder, and strong against Fire. If you cast Aero on that crab, the damage is going to be somewhat unpredictable. It may or may not resist a good portion of that damage.

For the most part, the higher the lvl you get, the more you will see weakness/resistance matter. At whatever level you are, the bigger the difference in the mob's level (say a lvl 20 going against a lvl 26-30 mob), the more it matters. At 19, you can pretty much just use your strongest spells considering the mob is not resistant to that element. For MB purposes, try to focus on that mob's weakness. Once you get higher, you have to target the weakness much more often.

Keep playing around with it, you'll get a feel and a memory for what spell to use against which mobs. Also there's lot of charts out there that can help. Good luck,

-Miz

(Btw, gobs are weak to Light, i.e. Banish etc.)

[Icemage]

Mobs don't have more resistance to say, 1h sword than to hand-to-hand. It's more based on stats.

Not always true. Some monster types are more vulnerable to certain types of attacks than others (for instance, Skeleton enemies are weak to Hand-to-Hand damage).

Lots of stuff affects spell damage. Time of day, weather conditions, day of week, enemy resistances, as well as your skills/stats all play a role. There is also a big huge random factor thrown in there. Suffice to say that positive influences (i.e. casting Stone on Earthday during a dust storm) will tend to increase your maximum possible damage, while negative influences (casting Banish on Darksday at night) will tend to lower your damage potential.


Icemage