Diabolos's Pole for Aspir?

[Darwinion]

I'm WHM main for my linkshell and I recently just beat Diabolos prime to get a choice of his gear (Pole or ring). I'm wondering which, if any, would be most useful for Aspir on WHM/SCH. I don't have BLM levelled (only 55) so this is purely for /SCH purposes. I'm finding I'm using aspir more and more now that I have a decent Dark Magic build for it, specially on low man events.

I tried searching the forum and the best i could find was a post from Elmer the Pointy where he states that nobody really knows the bonus that Diabolo's Pole gives during dark weather. But that we do know the HQ staffs give +30% accuracy to magic. But in practice what have people found?, particulary on /SCH?

Pole would be my first choice really as it would work in both Dynamis and Einherjar. But if the boost over Pluto's Staff is negligible then I might choose the ring instead. I can incorporate it into my Spellcast script and +15 Dark Magic is a great boost even though it only works on Darksday.

[lilfoo]

Diabolos breaks the cap in triple dark conditions (current cap w/ dark staff). and dose noticeably less then Pluto's out of triple dark.

Also you loose the 15% M. Acc. from Pluto's

[jimbobsonofgod]

Its good when you are in dynamis and manage to snag an aspir/drain MB off of a darkess SC off a mob with MP/HP. Its okay for Apollyon under the same MB conditions.

If you aren't getting those said conditions probably better in the long run to just save yourself the 1 inventory space and carry around dark/pluto.

[Tsuki]

Diabolos breaks the cap in triple dark conditions (current cap w/ dark staff). and dose noticeably less then Pluto's out of triple dark.

link? as far as i recall it breaks the cap under any condition requiring it to work.

[Fogo]

I played around with this thing for a while, a long time ago. I don't think I ever aspired or drained as much, even in dynamis and limbus, with this staff, as I did with pluto's staff, and eventually I ended up just tossing it. I'd stick with the pluto's.

[Natara]

I actually find Diabolos pole useful in Dynamis. I drained for 400+ hp for most of the time...well I have never really go back and use Pluto's Staff after I got Diabolos a few years ago... ;c

[Celebrindor]

400+ drains and 120+ aspirs are honestly not that far out of the spectrum for blms with a decent dark magic setup without Diabolos' Pole (in dynamis or other dark weather/day situations). I contemplated getting one for a long time, but honestly, never did once I saw the numbers that another blm was putting up with it. Just not that impressive.

here is my setup for drain/aspir:

Pluto's Staff
Dark Torque
Wizard's Tonban
Sorcerer's Gloves
Anrin Obi

Nothing except Sorc. Gloves requires any real luck/time, and I'm lacking Nashira Body and Dark Magic Cape, just to name a few.

Oh and remember, try and drain at full HP- still will deal the same damage as if you were @50% HP, but without the emnity. I'm always surprised how unknown this fact is.

[Natara]

Well I have never done any solid tests, just eyeballing other blms' drain and aspir. Well, some of them don't even use dark skill gears I guess. I wish I could do some solid test for you, but I don't do dynamis anymore. ;p

[Amiricle]

Whether of not the pole will outperform plutos depends completely on your gear set. The pole will grant a bit higher damage boost on double dark ( & much higher on triple where you can break the hard cap), but it lacks completely the accuracy bonus of plutos. To have diabolos consistently outperform plutos, you will have to have a very good dark skill/M.acc set. If you dont, or dont see yourself getting one, stick with plutos.

[Suiram]

I feel like whenever this topic comes up, people are working against a bias in favor of elemental staves. People used to say that Pluto's gave more damage, until it was demonstrated that someone was able to get an aspir value that was mathematically impossible for Pluto's, at which point the narrative changed to "Pluto's gives more consistent drains/aspirs" without any sort of data to back that up.

Now it is that Pluto's has the Macc boost, while Diabolos's doesn't, but I seriously doubt that anyone has tested (or how one would even go about testing with the randomness of drain/aspir and how uncommon dark weather is) that Diabolos's doesn't at least give the same Macc boost as NQ dark staff under the appropriate conditions. Maybe it's in that JP compendium of hidden effects, although that's not completely reliable either.

I never got the pole myself because I simply wouldn't have much use for it. I do dynamis once a week at most, and for over a year I didn't do it at all, and I'm usually BLU in Einherjar. But maybe someone who has it, an Anrin Obi, and 75BLU could test something. BLU drain spells are fixed damage, [Blue Skill x 0.11] * M, where M = 3 for Blood Drain, 5 for Digest, and 3.5 for Blood Saber. It might not even boost those spells at all, but if it does it would be immediately clear, and also make it easier to see what kind of damage bonus it gives (% like staff? fixed increase like stone gorget? etc.), and maybe even give a bored person later a means to test if there is any Macc on it or not.

[Virtuous Saint]

I feel like whenever this topic comes up, people are working against a bias in favor of elemental staves. People used to say that Pluto's gave more damage, until it was demonstrated that someone was able to get an aspir value that was mathematically impossible for Pluto's, at which point the narrative changed to "Pluto's gives more consistent drains/aspirs" without any sort of data to back that up.

Now it is that Pluto's has the Macc boost, while Diabolos's doesn't, but I seriously doubt that anyone has tested (or how one would even go about testing with the randomness of drain/aspir and how uncommon dark weather is) that Diabolos's doesn't at least give the same Macc boost as NQ dark staff under the appropriate conditions. Maybe it's in that JP compendium of hidden effects, although that's not completely reliable either.

I never got the pole myself because I simply wouldn't have much use for it. I do dynamis once a week at most, and for over a year I didn't do it at all, and I'm usually BLU in Einherjar. But maybe someone who has it, an Anrin Obi, and 75BLU could test something. BLU drain spells are fixed damage, [Blue Skill x 0.11] * M, where M = 3 for Blood Drain, 5 for Digest, and 3.5 for Blood Saber. It might not even boost those spells at all, but if it does it would be immediately clear, and also make it easier to see what kind of damage bonus it gives (% like staff? fixed increase like stone gorget? etc.), and maybe even give a bored person later a means to test if there is any Macc on it or not.

I can dig it, but I think it is just drain and aspir spells.

[Kerberoz]

inventory -1

[cdgreg]

A long time ago I used to try to macro this in before every dynamis run for aspir/drain and also remember to bring it. Eventually I'd forget one or the other and finally just threw it in storage and never touched it again.

[Darwinion]

I appreciate the replies so far. I was hoping to get a specific /SCH viewpoint though. I think it's possible that a mainBLM might hit some sort of cap whereas /SCH might see more benefit from the Pole >> Pluto's staff as they possibly don't hit any cap. I'm just theorising here.

For the record my Aspir gear is as follows:
(basically following rule of Dark Skill >> Magic Accuracy >> INT in available slots)

Pluto's staff; Dark Grip
Dark Earring; Dark Torque
Ixion cape; Penitent's rope
Nashira Turban; Nashira manteel
Omega ring; Tamas ring
Rostrum pumps
Goliard cuffs

[Liseth]

Tbh you'd be better using Blessed Mitts and Swift Belt over Goliard and cuffs and P.Rope, more + Haste = the sooner you'll be able to Aspir again.

[RyaWHM]

Unless you're doing the whole Dark Arts > Aspir > Light Arts thing, and hafta wait one minute for Arts each time anyway.

[Vxsote]

I use my Diabolos's Pole full-time as BLM in dynamis and apollyon. I don't remember the specific numbers anymore because it's been a while since I last looked, but at one point I DID specifically review my parses for my max aspirs with Pluto's v. Diabolos's. I can say, with certainty, that the max is higher with Diabolos's when used under double-dark weather for both darksday and non-darksday. And IIRC, it's around 10-12 more on an aspir.

Pretty much everything that Suiram said hit the nail on the head. Diabolos's Pole Enhances effect of "Drain" and "Aspir". I haven't heard of any testing to show if that enhancement includes accuracy or not, and to assume that it does not just because SE likes to make crappy, half-assed gear would be a mistake.

The problem with a /SCH-specific viewpoint is that it really does depend heavily on whether the pole has an accuracy bonus or not. If it doesn't, I think the clear answer is to use pluto's. If it does... then it really depends on how badly you want the relatively small increase. Personally, when I WHM/SCH, I don't have enough inventory space to justify carrying the extra pole. And FWIW, my dark skill as WHM/SCH under dark arts with gear is 268 (no merits).

[Amiricle]

Diabolos does not enhance accuracy. This has been tested by myself as blm, another 2 friends on blm, 2 rdms, & a drk. The drk routinely nailed higher drains & aspirs as well as a higher average at the beginning while the rdms blew compared to plutos. This was until we eventually gained very good dark magic/M.Acc. builds at which point diabolos began to always outperform/outparse plutos for all 5, and at which point my fellow blm (Goso)broke the aspir hard cap for the first time causing quite a discussion on these boards.

If you choose not to belive, so be it and test for yourself. You will come to the same conclusion. With low skill/mediocre dark skill & magic accuracy, your plutos will outperform diabolos, But with a full gearset devoted to M.Acc/Dark Skill/Haste, diabolos will outperform on double dark weather, and will blow plutos away on double dark on darksday.

Shits situational, this in particular and it requires a full dark build to utilize effectively, so I'll say again, if you are unwilling or unable to gear for that, you will be better off just sticking with plutos.

Also, note to Darwinian, Int has zero effect on drain/aspir, so you are better off putting haste anywhere you cant get dark/m.acc. and anrin obi is key.

[SephYuyX]

Sorry no hard evidence, but I used Diabolos' for along time in Dyna before I ended up getting a Pluto's (yeah im a cheap ass), and theres a noticable difference in its shortcomings.

[Eldelphia]

This was until we eventually gained very good dark magic/M.Acc. builds at which point diabolos began to always outperform/outparse plutos for all 5, and at which point my fellow blm (Goso)broke the aspir hard cap for the first time causing quite a discussion on these boards.

This interests me cos I have a pretty good dark skill build for my BLM, so I might go do Diabolos again...

Base 269 (no merits)
Nashira Manteel (5)
AF pants (15)
Merciful Cape (5)
Sorceror's Gloves (10)
Dark Torque (7)

Puts me at 311. Could get earring for another 3 = 314 but I hit the highest identified tier so far already I think? I realise you could hit 330 with full merits but that's not happening. Be interested to read that discussion.