Elemental Skill, Magic Attack, and INT

[riceburner4540]

so far, all thats been proven is that lowering monster's int helps your resist rates...raising your own does not. it seems to help on the lower mobs, sure, but higher up, no +int in the world can help you.

with your incredibly high Elemental skill at this point, you will see less resists. That's why some of the high level blm's floating around will say that INT does nothing for resists.

assuming you shell out the $$$ for equipment, yeah, then your elemental skill will be incredibly high. but high level blms don't say that int does nothing for resists because high elemental skill keeps it to a minimum, it simply does nothing for resists.

easy test
nuke the crap out of a crab with no +int gear on
equip +int gear, repeat...no changes in resist rate

thats the conclusion i came to, and yes i've tried it. at the time, i had +29 int...thats over a 50% increase to my int. my resist rates were relatively the same. and i made absolutely sure not to cast when it had shell effect on also.

[Altruist]

For exp PT it is most evident that for non MB nuking:

Elem skill > Magic Attack > INT

For MB nuking if your elem skill is high enough

Magic Attack > Elem skill > INT

So if you have enough MP, have all your +elem skill items, and magic attack items, then buy int. INT is the least important attribute out of the big three, so buy that ice staff before +int gear, that dark or demonic cloak before you think about buying more +int gear. At the end if you still have capped your +elem and +magic attack gear at your level buy int.

MP isn't a huge issue, just get enough to do your job.

[Asmandeus]

<- Shells out the $$$

I spent an enormous time farming and gather cash for when I drop out of the boring melee and play blm at full strength (for an Elvaan anyway).

I'm currently wearing ~900k gil in equipment in the lower 30's and I'm still missing +2 INT (Hehe, morion earrings +1).

As for the magic attack/elemental skill ups, I don't have the equipment (read: levels) to play with those to see what the best combination for my role is. But as it stands, I don't see MP as an issue for me until later.

[almighty_boof]

Let me just say good luck to the poor sap who is going into an HNM with a BLM/WHM. Well, let me laugh at him first. HA HA HA! See how well your Blink and your Stoneskin will do you! Oh and your cute little amount of MP, awww. You don't even have auto-refresh. If you want to be an effective BLM, then you need to be a BLM/SUM in HNM battles. Otherwise you spout off 4 or 5 Thunder IVs and then you are outta MP, you are swited out with someone else while all the BLM/SUM are stil nukeing away with Auto-Refresh and their nice chunk of MP not to mention the nifty little amount of INT you get as well. And when you are sitting back, refilling your MP they'll be nuking and then when they run out of MP, they'll rest and you'll be ahlfway done. Then when you get up to fight, they will going right back with you. SO, let me hear it again. BLM/SUM suck. Right? >=P

[AtraposBLM]

Actually, I was the member of an HNM guild myself. Blink and stoneskin were mandatory, as without them, I'd die in 1 AoE from King Behemoth. BLM/SMN is good for HNM fights...but with a dark staff...I really don't see how it would take you that long to regen mp. With ballad and refresh...I'm ready and raring to go within a minute or so (950 mp). Do you really think Ballad I makes that much of a difference? Because...it doesn't. Oh, and as a blm/smn, good luck living through more than one attack. I have a hard enough time with blm/whm with blink and stoneskin up that having 60 less hp would suck.

[irecinius]

TO:almighty_boof

What is SUM??? some sort of new job? :confused: or are you trying to say SMN = SUMMONER..

Well i'm not going to quote that, because that would be bad for my image just to have it on some of my posts..

Blink and Stoneskin are essentials!!! you may have blink from garuda but.. at 150mp cost.. www far too expensive! and no stoneskin..

you spout off 4 or 5 Thunder IVs and then you are outta MP, you are swited out with someone else while all the BLM/SUM are stil nukeing away with Auto-Refresh and their nice chunk of MP not to mention the nifty little amount of INT you get as well

Tarutaru 75BLM/37WHM
HP:779 MP:922 INT:90

Tarutaru 75BLM/37SMN
HP:741 MP:970 INT:94

Did you see something here.. there's not even 50mp difference!!
what can you cast with 50mp? not even Blizzard2 that is 77mp

so did it really worth the change? thats the question you should be askin, giving all thoses spells for little 50mp and 4int, my Vivian Ring give me almost all that.. its int+1 mnd+1 convert 50hp to MP.. there.. now i just need other 3int...

Auto-Refresh... if you hunting any HNM you ALREADY have auto-refresh... how? any 68BLM know how. AND auto-refresh from SMN = 1mp each 3 seconds.. meaning you would have to wait 6.5 MINUTES to refresh enough mana for another Thunder4 (that FYI its NOT the most damaging spell in the game.. Thundaga3 is
)

If you going to go on HNM hunting /smn sub WILL NEVER EVER HELP!!! this is not Everquest or other game.. that blm just sit back and nuke nuke, rest, nuke... we go there.. we most of time are the healers... since whms are focusing on the tanks, they can't take care of 8melees being hit by aes.. so they keep the tank alive.. and we blms keep the support melees alive... and THEY are the ones doing REAL damage on the HNM...
im 70 now i haven't been on 1823512906 HNM yet.. but i backup all i said.. if you don't want to belive me, ask ANY blm 75job and some mad equip...

SO, let me hear it again. BLM/SUM suck. Right? >=P

No they don't.. but they aren't any better then a BLM/NIN

[Altruist]

Who would invite a blm/smn, your a dead man. You need stoneskin and blink, and I don't think the recast time and mp expense of group stoneskin would make you live any longer.

Autoregen lol, it's an mp a tick, how is that going to make you cast one more Bliz IV or flood? And what on earth do you cast thund IV on?

Blm/whm, blm/rdm, blm/smn are all going to run out of mp, and yes your going to get replaced, and you are going to log out and log in. Then your going to med back up and fight again. The only major problem with blm/smn is your not going to live long enough to cast all your nukes.

[Ulek]

Magic Attack > Elem skill > INT

I have been more or less choosing my equipment based on this, MB or not. I'm just wondering if there's a point where getting as much Elemental Skill as possible becomes unnecessary/useless (i.e. diminishing returns at higher lvls).

[LoneWolfy]

lol i really just laugh reading these funny stuff.
as a blm 75 smn sub is useless all mages in HNM fights have to always have stone blink on especially blm.
irecinius as a blm 75 your stats are wrong
rdm and thf sub give higher int and it only adds 3 than whm as blm 75 from someone else i know that can sub smn it is equal in int to whm on sub
also as someone who has fought hnms blm are not support healers. every job has its own specialities some fights blm do most damage sometimes they do crap
im a 75 blm who has very good equip and i agree that blm/smn sucks always.

[AtraposBLM]

Originally posted by irecinius
If you going to go on HNM hunting /smn sub WILL NEVER EVER HELP!!! this is not Everquest or other game.. that blm just sit back and nuke nuke, rest, nuke... we go there.. we most of time are the healers... since whms are focusing on the tanks, they can't take care of 8melees being hit by aes.. so they keep the tank alive.. and we blms keep the support melees alive... and THEY are the ones doing REAL damage on the HNM...
im 70 now i haven't been on 1823512906 HNM yet.. but i backup all i said.. if you don't want to belive me, ask ANY blm 75job and some mad equip...
[/B]

I read this part, and ya know, I think we should foward it to all the melee's that are bitching about not doing any damage to HNMs

Seriously - blm's are there for damage. That's it. If you're healing melee on the side, it's simple, you have too many melee that are fighting the HNM. The only ones that should be engaged are ones tanking it, and the ones with TP. Everyone else should be clearing adds (and thereby gaining tp).

That being said, every mage is going to run out and have to be subbed out. So far, however, I haven't fought any HNM where we had subs to sub me out on, so I can't really say how effective that is. IMO, fighting HNM is confusing enough as it is without having people running in and out of parties. IMO, BLM/SMN and BLM/WHM would be on par with each other, provided the /smn brought sneak/invis pots. The auto-refresh is nice, but isn't a big deal, but the cool thing is the new +30 mp earrings you can wear. Coupled with the Max MP up smn gets at lv30, you get +60 mp. That's a nice chunk (in addition to the regular +mp you'd get). As far as surviving hits...well, if you pull aggro on anything harder than Simurg/Roc/etc., you're going to die in 1-2 hits, no matter what. It doesn't matter if you're a galka, an elvaan, a /whm or a /smn, you're simply going to die. Fighting serket today, I randomly got a huge damage blizzard III in (it did 640 as opposed to the normal 550-580), which got me aggro. Serket drew me in, and by the time my body actually got there, I was already dead. Blink and stoneskin were on.

The main thing blink/stoneskin are used for is for being able to rest without getting interrupted. As I previously stated, getting aggro = death, so blink doesn't really help at all. Therefore, you only really need stoneskin. Even that, imo, didn't really help much at avoiding serket's aoe. I felt that I spent so much MP just trying to keep it up that I was better off just letting myself take the damage and draining it back. Therefore, /smn could be used instead.

Personally, I've toyed with the idea of subbing smn on numerous occasions. I haven't really seen how/when/where /whm really benefits me, so I don't see how having more mp and an extra ballad would be BAD. Yes, they aren't needed....but if you had the option to get ~+80 mp and always have ballad on you (ballad II if you have a black cloak)...would you say NO if it didn't cost you anything?

The main thing I would lose by switching to /smn would be sneak and invisible...which I can gain back with items.

Mainly, the only reason I haven't subbed smn yet is I don't really want to go threw the pain of smn 3->33 lol. Especially not since I also have to get /rdm leveled ; ;

[Asmandeus]

Damn...

....I'm not trying to stick up for Almighty Boof (He/She is a tad bit obnoxious/immature...) or really even Blm/Smn but irecinius... did you look at those numbers with mp?

Using your spell of choice for the example, did you realize that a blm/smn with 970 MP can cast Blizzard II (if 77 MP is the real casting cost even) twelve times... while a blm/whm with 922 MP an cast it eleven times..?

Also you cannot compare Blm/smn vs Blm/whm in stats. Blm/smn wins hands down, it's the abilties that the subjob brings that is in question. And BTW it's completely foolish to say that if you had such and such equipment you we be just as good... because what's to stop that the other (/sub)job from having the same items?

Anyway... Quick question:

Do we know if 2 INT = 1 Magic Attack? Sort of like 2 DEX = 1 Accuracy... etc.

[riceburner4540]

magic attack, the kind you get from equipment like the moldavite earring or sorcerer's ring boosts damage by a %, or so it seems. the more powerful the spell, the more damage you get. int raises spell damage by 1 or so points of damage per point of int regardless of what spell you use, until the spells hit a damage cap. for example, i can't seem to get stone to do more than 53 (55 with moldavite on) damage no matter how much +int i get.

so vs. a 58 taru blm/smn, i was a 56 hume blm/whm at the time, my thunder IIs and his thunder IIs were doing relatively similar damage, varying by maybe a few points. his equipment was on par with mine, morion earring, zircon rings, etc (though no moldavite) but overall he had about 13 points more int. on lower level spells like fire though, his spell would do about 10 points more damage. on higher leveled spells, i could match or beat his damage.

[Scatman]

Re: Damn...

Originally posted by Asmandeus

Do we know if 2 INT = 1 Magic Attack? Sort of like 2 DEX = 1 Accuracy... etc.

Actually square stated somewhere that the relationship is not linear, so 2 DEX = 1 ACC is just some inaccurate (heh, no pun intended) rumor which ended up spreading. They DID confirm that DEX helps with ACC, but to what extent is still unknown. Though I do believe the same general principle applies to INT as well...for low levels, stack up on INT, then switch to +Elem/+Magic Atk, much like the melees switch from DEX to +Accuracy. But that's all just speculation, so don't quote me.