Random Question Thread XIX: Welcome to Flavor Country

[Nightfyre]

Even with the shit droprate it's honestly faster to farm the NM unless there's competition or you have enough people to both AoEburn and farm the NM.

[Nitrous24]

Fudo: Light, Snow, and Aqua.
Ukko: Light, Wind, and Thunder.

If light works by virtue of it being a level 3 skillchain ability. Then Light, wind thunder and flame all would work. The "Light SC" is not light element. It is a combination of all 4 elements that is why you can MB with any of them. Just something i thought should be pointed out.

[Lyall]

Thanks for the tips and advice guys. Guess it just means it's time for my nose to become very familiar with the grindstone.

Well, in a week. Or more. Eventually!

[Buffy]

Lame, was it emergency maint? Game was running fine i walk away for 5mins and I get kicked off lol

You could say that.

Random cluelessness go!

[Buffy]

I need a something to do with my free time for the next week. Gaming suggestions?

[Clerix]

I need a something to do with my free time for the next week. Gaming suggestions?

Life.

Spoiler: show

http://www.fastballonly.com/wp-conte...me-of-life.gif

[Clash Perez]

I'm going to be playing all of those games I bought on Steam for 75% off, then never bothered to open afterward. Assassin's Creed, Half-Life 2/EP1, Mass Effect 1/2, go!

[TheDirtyHobo]

I need a something to do with my free time for the next week. Gaming suggestions?

Vindictus, Minecraft, and Pokemon White are what's going to fill my week off of XI. Although I suppose I should give some attention to midterms this week.

On a more thread-related note, how much -resist do the Ninjutsu Ni and San spells give? Either otherwiki doesn't know, or I'm not looking in the right place to find it.

[Neisan]

It's on the Ninja main page for some odd reason, states -30 resistance regardless of Tier. Not too sure if it's still the same on San spells however, does sound a little odd, but probably expected from SE's patterns when it comes to Cat2 merits.

[Kyte]

Can Zanshin proc with Dual Wield? I remember it not being able to, but wiki only lists H2H as not working so I thought I would double-check.

[Byrthnoth]

Can Zanshin proc with Dual Wield? I remember it not being able to, but wiki only lists H2H as not working so I thought I would double-check.

Iirc it can, but there may be some sillyness with it. Most of what we know about Zanshin is from the end of the "Impact of Dexterity on Critical hit rate" thread when people were getting ridiculous sample sizes. That's how they determined that it gives Acc+35 to the Zanshin attack, and I'm pretty sure they checked if it would work with 1H weapons at the same time.

[Mojo]

Does anybody know (with some kind of testing to back it up) how fast cast and cure cast time gear/merits add up? For example, are they calculated separately but both work towards the same 50% cap (20% cure cast time + 10% fast cast => (1-0.20) * (1-0.20) = 0.64 of original casting time), or are they stacked (20% cure cast time + 10% fast cast => (1-(0.20+0.20)) = 0.60 of original casting time.)

Hoping someone knows for sure @_@

[Innuendo]

Does thief get dual wield 2 between 84 and 90?

[Radec]

You're talking dINT caps here? For BLM spells, there's a fairly predictable pattern; soft cap is at whatever V value the next spell has, and hard cap is at 3x the same value. After hitting the soft cap, INT will have half the effect.

For example... stone 1 has a base damage of 10, the next spell is water 1 which has a base damage of 16. Stone's soft cap is at 16 dINT, where you'd get 16 damage from dINT (1x multiplier on dINT), and the hard cap is at 48 dINT, where you'd get 32 damage from dINT, after which point adding more INT will do nothing for damage. Pattern holds true up to tier 2 spells, but I can't really say anything about higher ones since it gets harder and harder to reach the INT values needed. As such, I can't tell you how spells with higher dINT multipliers act past the soft cap, but it might be possible to test this in Abyssea with cruor buffs and appropriate atmas.

Also, when it comes to WHM/NIN/BLU spells, the dINT (or dMND, dCHR as appropriate) caps aren't as easily predicted, as the caps are identical to certain BLM ones, rather than being based on higher tier spells of the same magic type. While you need to actually test those spells to find out, they're usually around what you'd expect for spells with similar base damage. Banish 1 has a base damage of 14, for example, and the soft cap is at 25 dMND (same as water 1, which has a base damage of 16), banish 2 has a base damage of 85, and soft cap at 113 dMND (compare to water 2, 95 base, same soft cap), sandspin has the same soft cap as stone 1, cursed sphere is same as fire 1... helices however have a base damage of 25, but soft cap is at 78, which is relatively high, same base damage as aero 1, but the same dINT cap as thunder 1.

Meant to test this but never got around to it, anyone else tried?

Edit: Specifically the dINT caps, not worried about WHM/NIN/BLU just yet - and if possible, does it work

stone water aero fire stonega blizzard waterga thunder

or

stone water aero fire blizzard thunder | stonega waterga aeroga....

[Hanyoko]

Someone on wiki did this test, and reported that when a thf dies, or zones, all proc status goes back to normal.

Example, thf gets proc up to 9, then dies, then reraises, and gets another proc, their testing shows that it starts from the beginning again. so to retain 'enhanced levels of treasure hunter', the thf must not zone or die.

What this may mean for the BASE levels of treasure hunter, without the enhanced procs, is anyone's guess - we can't prove it one way or another.

Late chime, but to add my own experiences.

The THF applies the TH status via any hate generating action (weapon, ranged, ability, magic, etc) I do not believe that 'resting agro' counts or getting TA'd and performing no other action, testing could verify but those are extreme cases that shouldnt come up.. Anyway as others have said the highest TH automatically sticks to the mob, then after that THF melee hits can +1 it. The highest i've personally seen is TH11. I have seen TH persist on the mob and only get removed if the mob goes idle. Though I wonder if some of the special monsters that have a full dispel/purge ability of debuffs can clear it.

[Colenzo]

because its a piece of shit still? and no its not based on damage

[Byrthnoth]

I've been wondering about TH, because I was having a bitch of a time proccing TH on Jailer of Temperance. I suspect that TH acts as an en-effect with a set chance to proc (like En-TH). Jailer of Temperance seems to be immune to it, and I think I'm going to have to bring a WAR to Tomahawk the bitch if I want to TH him.

[Niiro]

Does anybody know (with some kind of testing to back it up) how fast cast and cure cast time gear/merits add up? For example, are they calculated separately but both work towards the same 50% cap (20% cure cast time + 10% fast cast => (1-0.20) * (1-0.20) = 0.64 of original casting time), or are they stacked (20% cure cast time + 10% fast cast => (1-(0.20+0.20)) = 0.60 of original casting time.)

Hoping someone knows for sure @_@

10 fast cast is -10 casting time, not sure why you have it represented as 20.

Simplest way to test is cast a cure naked, just merits, it should go off at 60%.

Sub RDM (15 FC), put on full teal (10 FC, total 25) and see if it goes off at 35, if it does the 2 effects are additive. If they're multiplicative it should go off at 40.

Use curaga IV (longer spell usually makes it easier to see) but even then it can still be difficult to pinpoint small deviations. I never leveled WHM past sub so it's not something I ever really considered.

[Buffy]

Is it possible they never turn the servers on again?

Been thinking about this a little bit today. If, as it currently looks, they lose 3 nuclear reactors entirely, that appears to be a massive amount of power generation. I googled some stats on nuclear power generation, but the range is just too wide to get a handle on (There appears to be multiple sizes of nuclear generator, and different efficiencies as well). One generator could run anything from a small town to a large city depending on varying factors. Part of the problem Japan is currently experiencing with power is that undersea power cables that connect them to the Asian mainland were also damaged. As a result, the island itself is currently unable to produce enough power for its needs. As such, the limiting time factor with regards to having enough power to supply the whole island is not how long it takes to build new reactors (either nuclear or coal or w/e) but how long it takes to repair/replace the underwater power cables that would allow them to draw from the mainland more power.

If that speculation is correct, then rolling blackouts would continue to occur until they have enough power. It seems unlikely that SE would put the servers up for 18 hours a day, taking them down every day as the blackouts occur - they could however have portable backups brought in to bridge the gaps. Would this expense be financially viable? We have no real way to know, as it is based on factors we don't have enough information about. How many active accounts actually pay for ffxi each month? How much of this monthly income goes to support ffxi? How much goes to future updates? How much goes to the company in the form of corporate support and profits? How much goes to support the development of ffxiv? We don't know, and SE has never shared this type of information, probably for competitive reasons.

Some companies would borrow money to bridge financial setbacks like this, or tap into their financial reserves. We know that SE reported a massive redcution last quarter in both profits and income. How much do they have in financial cash reserves? Could they get a loan? The economy in Japan is worse than in America (apparently with regards to corporate borrowing), especially anything connected to the stock market and borrowing money over there appears to be getting harder. Would it actually make more financial sense in the long run to CLOSE ffxi and ffxiv, and continue forward with new projects?

This is rampant speculation built on hypotheis, rumor, and conjecture, but it's fun (read terrifying and scary) to think about. They will probably turn the servers back on Friday and we'll get a laugh out of this (those of you that aren't already laughing at this), but in the absence of continuing information coming from SE (it's been a whole 36 hours since the servers went down, I should probably give them some more time before allowing panic to set in), speculation and over-reaction is the order of the day!

[Fottiti]

Is it possible they never turn the servers on again?

Been thinking about this a little bit today.!

You should have done yourself a favor and stopped here. None of us have any concept of japan's infrastructure, especially not on a national scale and to try and debate it would be like arguing the cause of the big bang.

SE haven't given us information because they don't need to. Pretty much all estimations the japanese government are giving on timescales are very open-ended as its still too soon for them to know, let alone a company that makes fucking video games.