.DAT Mining: 4/7/2014 Update - Findings and Discussion

[Alvinho]

I wonder why the boulders/beitetsu I had in bazaar were bought right before the update. /rollseyes

[Martel]

Or just have a pocket brd to make sure reprisal is up full time lol. Was thinking of doing something like that to try and test out except I'm still an old fart with windower 3.4 so sorting block and unblocked without spikes is hard. Even with I have no log parsers so still not fun. As far as the adamans testing went iirc it was more of an eyeballing of without reprisal it blocked like normal shields did back in the day and with it it was like ochain. Obviously there is no way in hell you could quantify that but by the same token the next best block rate shield at the time didn't get those kinds of rates with just reprisal... though since it was eyeballing I'd imagine it probably could easily have been near aegis blockrate

Originally, my test method for reprisal was using my pocket SCH, embrava, and bufflocking to keep tabula up. Then fulltiming reprisal. Thing is, when testing any shield but Ochain you WILL get interrupted. Not every cast of course, but it happened annoyingly often. To the point that I started making my SCH AoE aquaveil.

Now, if you use less mobs, it's easier to cast. But you get data slower, and get less data before your mob dies from spikes. If you get lots of mobs, you have interrupt issues, and more hits stack up in those reprisal down intervals.

Another issue was the dmg cap on reprisal. You get enough mobs, and reprisal starts wearing early. It's hard to say when it would wear too, so you're gonna get surprised by it going down, and take hits before you can recast. Or it goes down so fast you're recast isn't even ready. When I was trying to test on Mourning crawlers back when, just 3 mobs could make reprisal wear early. Depending on DA's and crits

The test were just very frustrating, and the resulting data wasn't reliable. Maybe I could have used it anyway, but I really hated doubting my own numbers so much.

Testing now should be no different than my normal tests. While full timing reprisal would be useful, it's not strictly speaking necessary. And with a few adjustments to the log parser, I may be able to gather both reprisal up, and down samples from the same test.

[Fwahm]

You sure interruption is still a problem on the mobs you'd test Reprisal on? With a 119 weapon, I don't think I've ever gotten an interruption via just melee attacks against enemies below level 105 or so, and it's pretty rare against mobs below 110. Even if you don't shield block, your spells should always go through anyway on reasonably leveled mobs.

[Martel]

You sure interruption is still a problem on the mobs you'd test Reprisal on? With a 119 weapon, I don't think I've ever gotten an interruption via just melee attacks against enemies below level 105 or so, and it's pretty rare against mobs below 110. Even if you don't shield block, your spells should always go through anyway on reasonably leveled mobs.

That's a good point. My reprisal testing attempt predated ilvl weps.

But then, I'd want to test reprisal on high level mobs as well. There's a lot of questions about how it works.

-What kind of increase? Straight +x block rate? Or maybe a % increase based on current block rate? Could function like +x skill?
-Does shield size have any affect on the value?
-Does anything affect it's potency? Enhancing skill? Player level? shield skill?

I'll parse various shields on various level mobs. If I get the same block rate gain across the board, then it's simple. If not, I need to start looking into why it varies.

But like I said, with a log parser to separate reprisal up hits, testing shouldn't be so much and issue. If I get interrupted, I'll just cast again. It won't corrupt the data gathered. ^^

[Miroku_Asura]

Don't want to make a new thread, but is the Deathlocke worth doing over a delve gun? 1 less damage than the Death Penalty and +90 magic damage, plus the card thing.

[Lambtor]

Do you have access to a cor who has Umbani cap (delve bird)? They might be able to tell you what magic damage+ translates into for QD. I think that deathlocke/119 death penalty are the best QD guns in the game, with deathlocke being better for wildfire. I'd really like to see what deathlocke and vanir knife can do for QD/WF.

[Miroku_Asura]

Do you have access to a cor who has Umbani cap (delve bird)? They might be able to tell you what magic damage+ translates into for QD. I think that deathlocke/119 death penalty are the best QD guns in the game, with deathlocke being better for wildfire. I'd really like to see what deathlocke and vanir knife can do for QD/WF.

Unfortunately I don't. From what I understand from various people's rumblings though, it's a fairly significant boost. Not sure if it's 1 for 1 with gun base damage or better.

[Rooney]

Magic dmg + comes after gun/bullet dmg is doubled. Still gets multiplied by MAB and such, but half as effective as gun/bullet dmg for QD.

(((gun + bullet)x2) + magic dmg)x(MAB, staff, weather, etc)

Edit: quick math shows death penalty > vanir gun > C path pulfanxa > A/B path pulfanxa > deathlocke for QD dmg
Wildfire is probably deathlocke > C path pulfanxa > vanir, though not sure on that one (someone better w/ magic WS dmg calcs could chime in)

[KetSC]

Late but I want to reply to the SMN discussion in the first couple of pages.

Here's a short summary:

1. With the abundance of bayld, coalition ethers make MP issues almost a non-issue for serious stuff (high tier BCs, delve, etc).

2. For less serious stuff (Abyssea, WoE, VW, Reives, soloing exp mobs, etc), a lot of those situations are melee friendly and Spirit Taker + Myrkr can keep MP up all the time. Even if they are not melee friendly (soloing VW city bosses, some WoE bosses, etc) keeping MP up is no problem thanks to temp items (for VW, even with only the first two temp items KI you can get, they're usually enough to keep MP up for the whole battle).

3. Thanks to the recent avatar physical damage buff, avatars hit as hard as BST pets. Usually 300+ on most regular mobs and 500-600+ damage on earlier content.

In abyssea (with atmas) critical melee hits average around 800 damage.

Longer version of my post:

Spoiler: show

1. Avatar Blood Pact delay can be equipped at time of usage then swapped to anything else before the BP actually goes off. Of course I know this was already factored in (hence the post regarding mostly perputation cost).

2. For the discussion regarding perp cost and MP issues, I use Summoner for almost everything and I find I have no MP issues even with just -5 perp cost skirmish staff (and sometimes just full timing a nuking staff and nuking while my avatar is out at the same time).

For situations that are melee friendly (nearly anything that isn't high tier BCs or delve), Spirit Taker and/or Myrkr is usually enough to keep MP up.

1. For serious stuff where MP may have an issue, I usually just purchase 10-20 coalition ethers for potential MP issues. If you have lots of bayld, coalitions ethers basically solve all MP issues. If you don't have much bayld, doing frontline support (you can now just warp directly to the waypoint NPC then warp back) daily can get you at over 10k bayld per day (enough for 4 coalition ethers). (This is based on Kamihr Drifts frontline support and going to waypoint #3 or #4.)

2. For not as serious stuff, I have almost no MP issues thanks to spirit taker and/or myrkr usage.

For soloing stuff or doing reives, I could be just meleeing in a nuking staff (and nuking too while letting the occasional swing in) and still have MP fine with my avatar out full time.

For Walk of Echoes, keeping MP up is also barely any issue thanks to the abundance of temp items. For things that are safe to melee, I melee alongside my avatar. For monsters that are more dangerous (or in situations where I might end up taking hate from my avatar) I could either nuke or (if MP does later become an issue) I switch back to my avatar -5 perp cost staff and let my avatar tank.

For city Voidwatch, I also had no MP issues too when soloing them as SMN.

I used RDM to get the KIs for the temp items and then I switched to SMN on the bosses which were safer with pets (the bosses with encumberance, death, doom, or charm for example) and I had no MP issues as SMN/RDM. This was also before reforged artifact armor (but I did manage to get skirmish -5 perp cost staff).

For bosses, I didn't melee and just let my avatar melee and tank (I used both BPs whenever I could to deal damage and also to keep their health up). If they died, I would resummon and let my avatar take hate again (usually I would heal myself only using either meds or Whispering Wind / Spring Water to keep enmity on myself as low as possible).

I have also done Ochain to 90 using just SMN and with no MP issue. (Though this was only recently and after the buff to avatar damage and after they added astral conduit.)

I use atma of the razed ruins, atma of the gnarled horn, and atma of the apocalypse, so I didn't even bother with any refresh or regen atmas.

Of course it's abyssea.

Now as for the SMN staff this update.

The +3% avatar haste is good (especially in abyssea).

I use SMN for almost everything in abyssea now thanks to the recent avatar melee damage buff.

For colorless soul stage, t2 bosses go down quick with me meleeing alongside Garuda.

For T3 bosses (and also for Azdaja), I just use astral conduit and finishing off the boss within the astral conduit duration. For maere, I buy a clear salve and/or healing salve from the cruor NPC (when nightmare is used, I just use those to wake up my avatar immediately).

(Of course astral conduit isn't needed at all but it makes things a lot faster.)

(For colorless soul, it takes around an hour to get a T3 pop, and this switching the easier zones to farm T1 pops. Usually I have a revitalizer ready, which the bosses do drop a decent amount of times, if I get another pop in time.)

Also I farmed colorless souls on SMN/THF too and had zero mp issues.

For Azdaja, I used SMN/RDM and built azure to 128 and amber to cap. Azure I nuke stuff, for amber I switched to a dagger and just use aeolian edge.

I averaged 6 horns per hour with my meleeing SMN on Azdaja (between the chests with soothing light that resets your recast times and between some golden chests with revitalizers, I usually have astral conduit up for Azdaja).

tl;dr - Avatar haste +3% is nice (especially in abyssea and especially in cases where meleeing does more damage than using a full nuking set as SMN/SCH). SMN is one of the fastest job to get things done in abyssea now thanks to astral conduit (and the ease of resetting recast times with chests and revitalizers) and the avatar physical damage buff.

Also the avatar still hits decently on random mobs in adoulin (even in the latest outdoor areas, though I haven't tried the recently buffed cave areas yet).

(Though for adoulin, switching to a full nuking setup will probably do more damage than a meleeing and pet haste set.) For areas where meleeing is better than nuking (abyssea), a meleeing (DA earrings for example) and pet haste set works really well.

For serious stuff where MP may be an issue, you can just load up on coalition ethers (especially if you have a ton of bayld to spend). At only 2500 bayld, coalition ethers are a good deal.

So IMO, I think SMN got a good job specific weapon out of this update.

Another thing to note is that it is also a nice new alternative (this is the first SMN weapon to have pet haste on it) to the many other SMN weapons out there you can use now.

[geno3302]

tl;dr
SMN is good, and the stuff they make for SMN is good because you can use it to solo content that doesn't really matter anymore (Abyssea, Legion, VW...)

I fixed your post and summarized what you were saying so I could respond.

I hate when everyone makes the argument that SMN is good or (too) powerful because we can solo stuff that is now out of date and generally designed for people 5-20 levels lower.
Honestly who cares if you can solo Legion, Abyssea, VW, and whatever else.
Is it useful? Maybe.
Cool and awesome? Sure.
Does it make the job good/powerful? No, not really.


That said, I agree the staff is actually a nice addition to the job. We still need way more ACC to actually hit things though. We also need our pets to not die in a few AoEs.

[Indalecia]

Physical accuracy (with a few notable exceptions) is not really a major problem. I'm finding macc, however, to be an ever-loving fucking crap-shoot. It's getting to the point that I'm getting a second set of Hagondes, just to hit up every piece with Pet: Macc.

Also, need more BPII added. And not 2-3; more like a total of 15, at the very least, needs to be available.

Pipe dream is for buffable avatars too, but yeah, thats gonna fucking happen. >.>

[Draylo]

How are you having more macc problem than acc? Most high level mobs my avatars just whiff their ws easily. Merited BP still do a lot more dmg.

[Indalecia]

Er, I should have worded that better.

Yes, merited BP's are pretty damned accurate. I was talking the debuff BP's: slowga, diamond storm, etc. I can get them to land with enough macc, but it can be iffy on certain mobs.

Phys acc, my brain defaults to 2005: Oh you can't hit it? Spinning Dive the shit out of it.

[Sechs]

Slightly OT but you seem more than experienced enough to reply.
Have you ever tested SMNskill+ vs Macc?
SMNskill should convert into physical and magical accuracy, but nobody knows the conversion rate afaik, not even estimate.

[Indalecia]

Skill over cap gives acc/macc. However, just as with enfeebling<=>macc, the convention is that straight up macc trumps skill. This is especially true with the current available gear. Hagondes gives up to pet: 25macc per piece. For pure macc purposes, that in every slot is best (the only wild card is of course, callers feet +2, but no one really believes it tops 25). All other slots you can fairly easily put in smn skill+ and be perfectly fine.

The only real gray area is the cape: Samanisi cape(7macc) vs Conveyance(8skill).

Physical accuracy can be done in the same way, however for this, you need to find the balance of accuracy vs damage. The whole reason I'm hard up on macc was for the debuff moves. For actual magic damage, I mix and match for the event. Legion? Full monty, fuck acc. Delve? meritables are verrrrry accurate. AA? swap in 1 or two heavy macc pieces and your good.

It makes for a very dynamic macro set, I'll say that.

[Psion]

I was about to say, how can you have little issues with physical accuracy when my automaton with eminent animator and merited melee skill has like 750 melee acc, lol. No amount of gear can salvage that kind of base to something respectable, and dual tension springs only add like 30 accuracy with three thunder maneuvers. :/

Wonder if it's just as bad with avatars and bst pets.

[dasva]

Can't speak for avatars but jugs are pretty horribad. And no tension spring or skill merits or acc merits or innate accuracy bonus like autos. Looking back at my notes the 119 jugs were 775-788 acc depending on which one. 115s like your eminent auto were 711-732. Oddly the rate of gain wasn't the same. Like the 2nd highest out of the 5 119s I tested at 115 was the 2nd lowest at 119. But yeah basically need to run wild just to hit things

[Psion]

at least you get an option to let them hit things :/ SE apparantly thought +5 and +10 accuracy base for tension springs was good, with another +5 per thunder maneuver. On top of that, they KNOW target marker and attuner are broken and have known for months, yet still haven't done a thing about it. Those alone might at least let our auto hit for more than floored acc. ._. Still doesn't address the issues of our teir V nukes only doing 1.2k or so at full blast to tougher mobs, on the few times it doesn't resist. And people wonder why i just use whm automaton on everything, when pretty much everything else is just useless for the 20 seconds it stays alive.

[Alistrianna]

The reason magic accuracy is bad for Ward is because skill over cap only adds to duration. The acc/magic acc for skill over cap were for Rage pacts only.

[dasva]

at least you get an option to let them hit things :/ SE apparantly thought +5 and +10 accuracy base for tension springs was good, with another +5 per thunder maneuver. On top of that, they KNOW target marker and attuner are broken and have known for months, yet still haven't done a thing about it. Those alone might at least let our auto hit for more than floored acc. ._. Still doesn't address the issues of our teir V nukes only doing 1.2k or so at full blast to tougher mobs, on the few times it doesn't resist. And people wonder why i just use whm automaton on everything, when pretty much everything else is just useless for the 20 seconds it stays alive.

Well it's not much of an option with pet dieing so easy and even if it didn't you can only have it up 5/15 min and then dead pet and loss of your only non gear pet haste . Still I think pup might have potential on lower stuff. Was talking to someone that did a 4 pup 1 smn 1 cor pt in delve and managed to kill 1-5 with 15 min left on the first 3 delves but takes to long to kill MB