Random Question Thread

[Obsidian]

What else would you use for Fell Cleave? Phorcys mitts give you +11 str (set bonus) +15atk +2DA, Ares' Flanchard +1 give you +8STR +2TA. You could argue for Heafoc Mitts for hands, but I'll take the +1 inventory, 15 atk 4 acc(~6 if you count the dex) +2 DA over 2 STR. As far as legs go, you could make an argument for Avant +1, Ares' +1 and War. Cuisses +2 being as shit is situational and they all give 8 STR. Personally, I like the chance of that TA procing.

I'm more curious where DA/TA doesn't apply to Fell Cleave is coming from? Anyone who has used the WS has experienced where target mob takes lower dmg than the rest of the mobs and normal TP is returned, meaning that 2nd hit was missed on the target mob but not the mobs that were being AoE'd (since only get TP return based on target mob). If there is evidence of this not being the case, would be very interested in source as Fell Cleave damage just varies wildly and disregards math entirely.

Would that not mean the first hit was missed on the target mob? And would something like Ogier's breeches work better than Ares+1?

[Cairthenn]

ARII has the easiest boss and the climb is quite simple. BRII is the simplest climb and the second easiest boss. ZRII is the most annoying in both aspects, imo. SSRII is just average.

Unsure about farming comparisons. I haven't really moved around between zones.

[Hitou]

How high will besieged mobs/npc skill me?

I'd say probably around 300ish skill. might be lower but I'm pretty sure it was possible to cap A+ weapons at 75, and the mobs are still the same level but it's possible to cap off "DC" instead of "EM" mobs now.

[Obsidian]

Skill ranks don't really have anything to do with where you can skill up as far as I know. All that matters is what player level your combat skill's current value is. You can skill up to whatever your cap was at 75 in Besieged (probably higher, since they'd be DC for a bit past 75), but it doesn't matter if you have an A+ or an E in that skill.

[Isindil]

Would that not mean the first hit was missed on the target mob? And would something like Ogier's breeches work better than Ares+1?

TP return for Fell Cleave is based on the target mob. So say your normal tp/hit in Fell Cleave WS gear is 15. If you had a 15TP return on WS but significant increase in damage on surrounding mobs that are hit with the AoE one would suspect that a double attack proc'd, but did not land the double attack on target mob, resulting in 15TP returned instead of 16TP expected of a double attack. If you had missed the first hit and double attack procs you would expect a 1TP return.

I guess Ogier's Breeches would be an option, as Fell Cleave isn't on Mote's WAR spreadsheet I'm not really going to say what is best per situation as I'm sure it varies like anything else. Overall, in MY opinion stick with Ares' +1 because who has room or really cares to make situational sets for a WS that is situational in itself.

[NynJa]

On the topic of salvage: what's the face rollingest easy Salv2 zone? And which is the 'best' for Alexandrite farming? I know SSR1 used to be king of the castle, but now with random nothin but gear floors and 100% linens in II idk how to math

My numbers, all 3boxed.

Bhaf: takes about 75-80 min, can full clear all of 3f's gears. Gets 25-34 singles, average 1 cotton per run (19 cottons in 17 runs, a couple failed to spawn 4f gear NM while it was still unknown, hardly skews the average though).

Arra: takes about 90 min, as long as my unlocks dont go horribly wrong, counterstance doesnt shit the bed and the lamias behave, you can clear the 5f rampart room, and maybe a couple singles, as well as clear out 6f. Nets you 42-53 singles, average 1 cotton per run again.

SS: Its not as friendly to 3box, I've cleared out at the 85 minute mark, but I like to have the buffer incase dvergr fucks you over with necropurge > hit > thunder5 before you can even finish casting cursna so theres time to recover and kill it (A linen >>>>>>> an extra 10 alexandrite). My singles have ranged from 3 to 23, which is based on what I got to clear on 4f, but realistically, as long as you can get to 4f with ample time, you should wind up with atleast 15-20. I've gotten 8 cottons in 11 runs, and 6 of those runs were 0's.

Zhayolm: fuck this area, hydra's a cunt, and you dont get any visible gear until 5f. Get an opinion of this area from someone else, it is 100% unfriendly to my setup. First floor usually takes me 20-25 minutes, between Frog being a prick and spamming charm, a DD who didnt get HP got 1shot by firespit once...I've just had too many nightmares from that area.

[Darkmagi]

Yeah, pretty much BR or AR would be my choice. BR is more 2box friendly, fulm can fuck your world if you get unlucky.

[sydok]

My dualboxed BRD keeps stealing all the gear unlocks on the first floor of BR2. It's a waste since she usually can't sing until the 2nd floor anyway. Would logging her out at the start prevent her from stealing all the gear unlocks, and would she still be able to unlock at the 2nd floor lamp?

[Radec]

You get unlocks even when logged out, nothing you can do about it.

[noodles355]

Formula on wiki for >300 skill is

Resistance = 25 + floor( Enhancing Magic Skill ÷ 4 )

So 4 skill = +1 resistance with a max +150 at 500 skill. With merits and AF2+2 pants you can boost that up to +185.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Category:Barspell

A good barspell set is ridiculously powerful. Casting with Beneficus, 5 barspell merits, AF2+2 pants, and 4/5 Orison+2 gives you 182~183 (can't quite hit 500 enhancing skill with 4/5 Orison+2) resistance, 25 MDB, and at least a 5% annul rate for that element (idk if anyone ever tested the annul rate breakdown for the different amounts of pieces).

Edit: Does Afflatus Solace have a base MDB rate?

cheers for the correction. Tbh this is one reason I've tried to gear my whm mule properly. Skills still uncapped do my barspell is only 177, but its enough with my MDT set that magic attacks are mostly a joke when I 2/3box stuff

[Fereydoon]

I know you don't lose TP going Instrument > Instrument but do you lose tp going Instrument > Ammo and vice versa?

[Hitou]

Skill ranks don't really have anything to do with where you can skill up as far as I know. All that matters is what player level your combat skill's current value is. You can skill up to whatever your cap was at 75 in Besieged (probably higher, since they'd be DC for a bit past 75), but it doesn't matter if you have an A+ or an E in that skill.

That's not what I mean. I was saying I'm pretty sure at 75 you could cap an A+ weapon, which is the highest skill possible. So at least 276 probably higher since mobs are around 74-76ish I'd guess maybe a little higher for the NMs. All I know is you will wiff the crap out of them around lvl 60 even with sushi.

[Mairja]

I know you don't lose TP going Instrument > Instrument but do you lose tp going Instrument > Ammo and vice versa?

Equipping/unequipping anything in the ranged slot will cause you to lose tp.

[Maguile]

Can DNC solo ks99 behemoth and/or NQ behemoth?

[Byrthnoth]

Probably both, yeah. You're going to either need an MDT set + Book Shell or Reraise to do the KS99 Behemoth, probably.

[Rocl]

So I went crazy and decided to level PUP. I haven't touched it since Visions so I have like zero concept of what automaton shit has been added (specifically attachments worth using) and I have no motivation whatsoever to make Verethragna is Stringing Pummel fine or should I do Shijin Spiral? (oh shit I don't have Pummel how did this happen) Also curious about merits, since I did these ages ago I don't know how puppets work in this new and crazy 99-world:
I have 5 melee 5 magic skill for t1 then role reversal 1 ventriloquy 1 fine-tuning 4 optimization 4 HOW AWFUL WERE MY CHOICES

[Byrthnoth]

There is very little good PUP information out there, but this is what I have gathered:
Tier 1) You don't need magic merits anymore because they don't give you new spells. Melee and Ranged is the more standard option now.
Tier 2) I did Optimization 5, Fine Tuning 3 but otherwise the same. I can't see a reason to put more merits into Ventriloquy or Role Reversal.

Stringing Pummel is fine. PUP's gear access is still shit, but they have slightly more than they used to.


As far as ultimate weapons, which you didn't ask about:
1) Kenkonken is the clear winner in unbuffed situations and also almost totally suppresses overload.
2) Verethranga pulls about even with it once you cap Magic Haste because KKK's Martial Arts traits start to hurt you, OA2-3 is implemented stupidly with H2H mythics, and ODD is pretty solid. Also, it can be worn by Monk.

[Slycer]

On the topic of salvage: what's the face rollingest easy Salv2 zone? And which is the 'best' for Alexandrite farming? I know SSR1 used to be king of the castle, but now with random nothin but gear floors and 100% linens in II idk how to math

All of the II zones are fairly close in the potential Alexandrite yield. ZRII comes out a bit ahead because of the gears that drop guaranteed alex and possible coinpurses on F4, but assuming you're "soloing" (i.e. 3-boxing), ZRII full clear is also going to be the most difficult/most annoying to finish reliably since you have like 5000 mobs to kill including two Hydras. People have made this pretty clear above.

For new Salvage zones, you're generally looking at:
15-25 Gears/Chariots with 1-2 guaranteed Alex (25+ Alex depending on zone)
2-4 Acrolith and 6 NMs with chance at cotton (Usually 1, sometimes 0 or more than 1, drop rate about 10~15% each mob)
2 bosses, 1 guaranteed linen, 1 ~15% drop linen

Averaging it out, you're probably looking at 120~130 Alex on a full clear with a range of something like 70-ish with no cottons and a crappy linen to 230-ish with a both linens and a couple cottons. (I mean theoretically you could go over 300, but that would require insane luck for NM drops and purse values). ZRII is about 10-15 ahead of the rest because of the gears on F4 (9 single Archaic gear, each drop 1-2 Alex and low chance at cotton).

[Kyreth]

HOW AWFUL WERE MY CHOICES

I miss the Elmer Signal for times like these.

[Taim Meich]

So I went crazy and decided to level PUP. I haven't touched it since Visions so I have like zero concept of what automaton shit has been added (specifically attachments worth using) and I have no motivation whatsoever to make Verethragna is Stringing Pummel fine or should I do Shijin Spiral? (oh shit I don't have Pummel how did this happen) Also curious about merits, since I did these ages ago I don't know how puppets work in this new and crazy 99-world:
I have 5 melee 5 magic skill for t1 then role reversal 1 ventriloquy 1 fine-tuning 4 optimization 4 HOW AWFUL WERE MY CHOICES

Stringing Pummel is fine, but Spiral is clearly superior outside of Abyssea.

Regarding weapons, Brawny Adargas is a fine choice for casual play. Almost as good as the magian STR/att weapon with a fraction of the cost and no time spent.

As Byrth said, change the 5 magic merits to ranged merits, and I'd suggest 3 fine-tuning 5 optimization, since the attack/defense bonuses in optimization are percentage based, and thus more potent at high levels. It's not so important, though.