320 Elemental skill

[Keletian]

Ok as im starting to work on my additional elemental gear Nash feet, Mercuiful cape ect a blm in our ls tells me and the entire shell that elemental skill beyond 320 is basically pointless. His arguemnt is that Ele skill, all skills for that matter have a basic cap that they bacially become ineffective. So post 320skill, int would make a larger differance then ele skill will on a resist rate.

Now I have no way of disproving this as i cant get far beyond 320 ele skill as it is, But with the extremely minor effect int has on resists makes it hard for me to believe this. So my question would be directed at anyone that has the gear for higher up Ele skill. Am i going to waste my time bothering with these pieces or is he just full of shit?

[Isiolia]

What tends to go for Enfeebling, and far as I know to a point with Elemental too, is that past a certain point, mobs are simply not designed to be reliably cast on. From my experience (which isn't as much on BLM as it is on RDM), 320 or so should be enough to be reliable on anything you can be reliable on. It might be a little higher for Elemental magic, I dunno. There's also the theory that skill/resists work in tiers.

Having more +skill gear is always good because you gain flexibility in how you reach that 320 (or whatever) amount of skill.

INT basically you want to at least have more than the mob you're casting on. Logically, things you need higher amounts of skill for will also have higher INT for you to overcome. As you only have so many slots to work with, if you put too much focus on +skill, you may wind up with too little INT to effectively nuke the target.

So, even if the number is a little high/low, I think the general principle there is correct. You'll only be able to effectively make use of so much Elemental skill before you start running into problems from lack of other stats.

[draxyl]

I'd rather hit around 325-330 as a top end guide line on HNM, and this topic has been covered before in the newbie section. Let me do a search for you since you didn't...

[Taj]

I'm going to disagree with the "cap." Nuking Tiamat in full elemental skill (yes, that even means druid's slops) is noticeably different than nuking in your average 320 set.

[vagus]

Ah. the endless debate. Lol. Personally for XP PT, i keep my Elemental Magic Skill at around 320ish, then any other slot I use INT. As for HNM, that's a whole different story. For Tiamat, Cerb, Khi, etc. I use as much Elemental Magic Skill as I can. It really helps with resists. Kings I do a mixture of Elemental MAgic Skill / INT.

-V

[draxyl]

I'm going to disagree with the "cap." Nuking Tiamat in full elemental skill (yes, that even means druid's slops) is noticeably different than nuking in your average 320 set.

I'd love for someone to actually do a "parse" on their resists on Tiamat in different skill sets. Say something like 320 vs. 335, and jot down the different resist rates and frequency over the fight. With equally geared blm (not hard to find, since we're all mostly walmarts), you could compare 2 taru's on the same Tiamat.

[nsx]

I did a few parses of Tiamat w/ 5-6 blms way back when after reading kanican LJ. He says 330 is the number to hit and I completely agree on that.

Overall dmg % fell in line exactly w/ ele skill. Though going over 330 didn't yield much of an increase compared to 330 vs 325 etc. All of us were taru mostly the same gear, some w/out af2 hat or w/e. Lowest ele skill was like 310, highest was 335.

[thestalkmore]

330 holy shit talk about overkill. You're sacrificing such a huge ammount of damage for a marginal return in resist rates.

[Zanz L. Barre The 3rd]

330 holy shit talk about overkill. You're sacrificing such a huge ammount of damage for a marginal return in resist rates.

rofl

[drwaffles]

Wopa actually posted parses from a few different HNM fights on KI quite a while back when this whole "INT helps resists more than you think" concept first surfaced. Ultimately it's something you really need to try out for yourself, though. I gave it a go on Tiamat, Khimaira, Nidhogg, etc. and I haven't worn Weskit for HNMs since. In my personal opinion based on my personal experiences hovering around 320 Elemental Magic Skill and stacking INT from there does noticably more for resist rates than simply stacking Elemental Magic Skill as much as possible.

Keep in mind that even before the idea that Houppelande > Weskit for HNMs (to put it simply) came along we were already referring to Druid's Slops as "loDruid's Slops" and telling people to use Mahatma Slops in their HNM nuking setups, so this isn't really a new concept.

Sorcerer's Petasos and Wizard's Gloves (+1 are very nice since they add INT as well) will comfortably sit you at around 320 Skill, assuming you have full Elemental Magic merits. If you don't happen to be in possession of Sorcerer's Petasos then try it out anyway, substituting Elemental Torque for your Skill and wearing an INT+ hat such as Wizard's Petasos +1 or Mahatma Hat, you'll probably still notice the difference. That's my two cents anyway, but as I said before the best way to "prove" this theory to yourself is to try it out.

[Starr]

I assume the person meant there's no point in using skill past the max resist rate which is possibly 95% like melee accuracy, it would vary by mob how much skill it would take just as it varies with melee and accuracy.

[Ambir]

I assume the person meant there's no point in using skill past the max resist rate which is possibly 95% like melee accuracy, it would vary by mob how much skill it would take just as it varies with melee and accuracy.

This is the case with enfeebling. If you're at the accuracy cap, then there's no point in adding more skill. If you're at 20-80% accuracy though, you'll notice a difference by adding Skill/MagAcc gear. It's about knowing your rough resist rates on a mob, and choosing your gear to suit.

[Valkrish]

Are you getting resists from all the big Hyper Notorious Monsters mister?

Are you lacking in your general damage, using last year's "Newest Armor"?

Get a Corsair Tonic, Upgrade Today! Go to the nearest Gatherer's Garden and be as strong as my daddy!

(Warlock Roll)

[evilpaul]

I assume the person meant there's no point in using skill past the max resist rate which is possibly 95% like melee accuracy, it would vary by mob how much skill it would take just as it varies with melee and accuracy.

This is the case with enfeebling. If you're at the accuracy cap, then there's no point in adding more skill. If you're at 20-80% accuracy though, you'll notice a difference by adding Skill/MagAcc gear. It's about knowing your rough resist rates on a mob, and choosing your gear to suit.

You'll never get 95% magic accuracy on quite a few HNMs...

[Toth]

I've worn tons of elemental skill (340+) and still had many resist on HNMs, irritating me to no end. I am one to think that damn magical resistance buff ITG mobs get after every magical attack always throws things into a loop when it comes to getting an accurate gauge of resistance levels. Just one nuke or ninjitsu spell can throw every subsequent nuke out of whack. Still, based on personal observations (and from posts like Wopa) I very much subscribe to the 320ish skill/120ish INT recommendation for nuking high HNMs.

[Epidemic]

Woah are you serious?

[Fated]

I'd go with 330 as well, or 329, w/e

[Tonko]

Shining Force III is my favorite game ever. Still have my saturn with all 3 scenarios + Premium disk.

Um, oops, on topic, 320 skill will do for most, but things with notoriously high resist rates it's just better to nuke in full elemental and not get resisted nearly as much. You'll do more damage over time.

[donnie]

I for my self use 332 skill and rest are MAB , INT .

the thing i want to test is magic accuracy , there would be no magic accuracy if skill means the same , how the game reads that i dont know , but i think its worth testing for exmaple morrigan or nashira head , ToAU ring that has magic accr+4 , nashira legs+3 = +11 magic accuracy.

the reason i want to test this basically because a COR magic accuracy does effect noticably the resist , espically once we begin to use it in our Ouryu fights .

[Zarath]

Shining Force III is my favorite game ever. Still have my saturn with all 3 scenarios + Premium disk.

Um, oops, on topic, 320 skill will do for most, but things with notoriously high resist rates it's just better to nuke in full elemental and not get resisted nearly as much. You'll do more damage over time.

<offtopic> FUCK YEA SF3 </offtopic>

I keep hearing that when I deal my warlocks/wizards roll combo from BLMs compared to unbuffed. Definately would be nice to know how effective our rolls are if we can attempt to figure out how potent m. acc is.