Day, Weather, or mob vulnerability?

[Wiseman40]

Not considering any equipment which takes advantage of the day or the weather, which of these three conditions are most favorable?

Example:
Say you are fighting crabs, on earthsday, in windy weather.

Crabs are vulnerable to lightning so Ramuh would be nice. It's Earthsday so Titan is strong, and it's windy weather so Garuda would be happy.

Which do you choose?

[Icemage]

Re: Day, Weather, or mob vulnerability?

Unless you're level 75 with a Summoner's Horn (AF2 hat), or using magical Blood Pact: Rage, the correct answer is it doesn't matter.

For XP parties, if you're skillchaining, then you use whatever BP will complete the skillchain you're looking for (Shiva's Double Slap to close Distortion on crabs, for instance).

Physical Blood Pact: Rage are unaffected by day or weather regardless of the elemental alignment of the avatar chosen.


Icemage

[Mhurron]

Re: Day, Weather, or mob vulnerability?

FFXI elemental strengths and weaknesses for the majority of mobs (ie, not elementals , Avatars or Puks) is essentially broken.

In the same tier, Thunder and Blizzard are always your strongest, even against mobs that are supposedly strong to those elements. Fire is always midlevel compared to the others, Water, Aero and Stone (especially Stone) just plain suck. Really the only times to use anything other then Thunder or Blizzard are for a specific skillchain or for those few levels your Thunder and Blizzards are a tier behind.

[Jei]

Re: Day, Weather, or mob vulnerability?

Say you are fighting crabs, on earthsday, in windy weather.

Crab being weak to Thunder, means it has less chance to resist... I don't think it raises any damage.
But Thunder will be weakened, because it's earthday.
Wind isn't that strong.

So, ice is what I'd use. It's unaffected by anything. Pretty much...

[Nuriko]

Re: Day, Weather, or mob vulnerability?

I'd say air is good, given the problem of thunder on Earthsday ... if it's convenient. Things would be different for BLM, as stated above. Still, a skillchain on the wrong day beats a solo BP anytime.

[Wiseman40]

Re: Day, Weather, or mob vulnerability?

Some of this information is surprising. Although I had heard about this a couple of years ago, I kind of thought it had been resolved since I had such an easier time fighting the solo avatar battles on the days in which the avatar was weak.
Perhaps it's simply a stronger difference for the battles themselves, rather than for the rest of the world... which is unfortunate.

I thought that the day/weather/element system was one of the most interesting bits of MMORPG depth I've seen.

[Mhurron]

Re: Day, Weather, or mob vulnerability?

I'd say air is good, given the problem of thunder on Earthsday ... if it's convenient.

While to remove any stray variable Jei is right and just use Blizzard, I'd be willing to put money on the fact that even in this situation, thunder would do more damage then Aero.

I thought that the day/weather/element system was one of the most interesting bits of MMORPG depth I've seen.

It is, it's just that the implementation leaves a little (a lot) to be desired.

I'm almost tempted to actually nuke some things to get some numbers as to it's exact effect.

[Icemage]

Re: Day, Weather, or mob vulnerability?

I'm almost tempted to actually nuke some things to get some numbers as to it's exact effect.

It's actually pretty simple.

For magical damage of most types, each corresponding matching Day or Weather symbol on-screen gives a small random chance that the effect will be magnified by +10% from its base effect. Cure spells are similarly affected by +10% per Light element icon.

The reverse holds true for elemental symbols in opposition to the magic you are casting.

So casting Thunder II on Lightningsday in The Boyahda Tree while there's a lightning storm (2x lightning weather icon) gives a good chance of +10%, small chance of +20%, and a very, very small chance of +30% damage.

Casting Thunder II on Earthsday in Eastern Altepa Desert while there's a sandstorm (2x earth weather icon) produces the opposite effect: good chance of -10% damage, small chance of -20% damage, and a very, very small chance of -30% damage.

Anyone who has done Dynamis (permanent 2x Dark weather) will tell you of the woes of casting Cures under those conditions, particularly on Darksday. Visitors to the Limbus area of Temenos, on the other hand, enjoy double Light weather (aurora conditions).

You can take all of these random chances and force them to be 100% by acquiring the matching Obi from the quest In The Name of Science after getting access to the Al'Taieu zone. I have an Anrin Obi, for instance (Dark element), which means if I wear it in Dynamis (2x Dark weather), I always get -20% Cure potency and +20% damage to Dark magic (Aspir, Drain, Bio)... unless it happens to be Lightsday or Darksday, in which case the numbers shift by +10%/-10% respectively.

There's a few other pieces of gear in the game that play around with weather and day effects (SMN AF2 hat, BLM AF2 pants).


Icemage

[Nuriko]

Re: Day, Weather, or mob vulnerability?

While to remove any stray variable Jei is right and just use Blizzard, I'd be willing to put money on the fact that even in this situation, thunder would do more damage then Aero.

True, but the OP was speaking from the perspective of a SMN, not a BLM. For that matter, I sort of wonder about per-MP efficiency for the nukes ... if it's the same all around, there might be a case for going with the modifiers even with the loss of a bit of strength. Besides, BLM in a PT need at least some downtime or they're going to draw hate, though solo raw damage really stands out more.

[Karinya]

Re: Day, Weather, or mob vulnerability?

FFXI elemental strengths and weaknesses for the majority of mobs (ie, not elementals , Avatars or Puks) is essentially broken.
In the same tier, Thunder and Blizzard are always your strongest, even against mobs that are supposedly strong to those elements. Fire is always midlevel compared to the others, Water, Aero and Stone (especially Stone) just plain suck. Really the only times to use anything other then Thunder or Blizzard are for a specific skillchain or for those few levels your Thunder and Blizzards are a tier behind.

Judging from your sig, I'm going to guess that you based this on BLM experience.

BLM "tiers" aren't really tiers. (Except AM2, where the element really *is* the only difference, and consequently Burst2 and Freeze2 aren't necessarily better.) The thunder spell in each tier is much more MP expensive and powerful than the stone spell nominally in the same tier (and also higher level). There aren't enough mobs weak to stone (IMO), but in addition, BLM stone spells are just plain weaker than the "same tier" spells of other elements - which are actually higher level. For RDM, the same effect applies, except that RDM don't have A elemental magic skill so they actually get resisted a non-trivial amount of the time and have to look at that too.

SMN nukes don't work like that. All the nuke IIs are gained at the same level, for the same MP cost, and use the same base damage formula (and later, ditto for the nuke IVs, and IIRC, the merit bloodpacts). Thus, working for the most favorable resist, day or weather *is* better than just using Thunder all the time because it's your highest level spell.


However, Icemage's point that none of this affects the physical bloodpacts is also correct. Day and weather *can* affect perp cost with the right equipment, but otherwise, for physical attacks, just use the one that has the bloodpact you want, or if you're keeping someone out for regular hits (rare), use Fenrir (strongest physical attacks) or Carby (cheapest).

[Wiseman40]

Re: Day, Weather, or mob vulnerability?

This is good information and more refreshing than I had thought based on the first few responses. I do see some problems in implementation, but it would be nice to see how some of those extreme weather conditions react with the avatars.