Blue Mage: Best thread ever

[kenshyn]

This question may have been asked, if it has I apologize and feel free to point me in the right direction...



AFAIK, BLU spells accuracy is dependant upon weapon in hand and/or TP. Does having a sword in hand as opposed to staff affect the accuracy of spells, in particular cannonball? I did some testing with Earth staff and it did less dmg than with sword alone (no sheild equipped). I'm wondering if it was because of the A+ skill in swords vs no native staff skill and increased accuracy from the sword that caused the DMG to be higher vs staff?

Accuracy of Physical spells is based on main hand weapon accuracy I also believe blu skill plays a role imho. TP only effects the spells when CA is used. Cannonball's damage is directly tied to your defense and cocoon and bard songs boost damage as well as strength and blue skill of course.

If you equip staff your accuracy drops like a rock unless used in conjunction with SA which guarantees a critical hit.

For blu spell damage and modifiers check the wiki it's pretty detailed.

[Yugl]

This question may have been asked, if it has I apologize and feel free to point me in the right direction...



AFAIK, BLU spells accuracy is dependant upon weapon in hand and/or TP. Does having a sword in hand as opposed to staff affect the accuracy of spells, in particular cannonball? I did some testing with Earth staff and it did less dmg than with sword alone (no sheild equipped). I'm wondering if it was because of the A+ skill in swords vs no native staff skill and increased accuracy from the sword that caused the DMG to be higher vs staff?

Yes the weapon affects the accuracy of the spell, but if you're talking about SATACA Cannonball it won't matter. However, your weapon does not affect the DMG of the spell aside from the stats placed on the weapon.

With regards to Cannonball DMG, Sword and Shield does more DMG than staff generally because of the extra DEF from the Shield.

[rath]

Okay so I do not know how much help this will be for people choosing which head piece to use, but this is my results of comparing Relic head and wivre+1. I used very little gear to keep stats lower then normal, no traits were set, and all spels were tested on bees outside bastok mines.

Wivre mask+1 Total str 68+17, 64+14 dex, 67+5 vit, 258 def, 307 skill. 30 casts with each spell
Frenetic rip Disseverment Cannonbal (SA on cannonball)
361 high 478 high 839 high
276 low 320 low 714 low

Mirage Keffiyeh Total str 68+14, 64+14 dex, 67+5 vit, 261 def, 312 skill. 30 casts with each

Frenetic rip Disseverment Cannonball(SA)
358 high 478 high 837 high
258 low 261 low (only saw this once) 756 low
318 (next lowest)

I am probably going to keep wivre+1, use relic for non-physical spells and breaths.

Edit: typo 312 skill

[Repairs]

Testing which is better on TW mobs doesn't really show much, since your already capped in alot of categories - unless im mistaken. The 3str should always show better results vs an item that doesn't have stats.

[Reapz]

Okay so I do not know how much help this will be for people choosing which head piece to use, but this is my results of comparing Relic head and wivre+1. I used very little gear to keep stats lower then normal, no traits were set, and all spels were tested on bees outside bastok mines.

Wivre mask+1 Total str 68+17, 64+14 dex, 67+5 vit, 258 def, 307 skill. 30 casts with each spell
Frenetic rip Disseverment Cannonbal (SA on cannonball)
361 high 478 high 839 high
276 low 320 low 714 low

Mirage Keffiyeh Total str 68+14, 64+14 dex, 67+5 vit, 261 def, 212 skill. 30 casts with each

Frenetic rip Disseverment Cannonball(SA)
358 high 478 high 837 high
258 low 261 low (only saw this once) 756 low
318 (next lowest)

I am probably going to keep wivre+1, use relic for non-physical spells and breaths.

You mean 312 right?

[Raytheon]

Perhaps it's a placebo effect, but I'll be damned if having higher TP didn't make my spells do more dmg or have higher accuracy sitting at 300tp as opposed to 0tp. I don't know though...

Yes, I had assumed that sword/sheild would be better for the added defense, since +4/5 VIT is kinda meh compared to 20-30 DEF. And to be honest, Cannonball kinda sucks without CASATA anyway, so I wouldn't use it unless I was going to blast it out with my TP.


Also, I've got 6 sword merit levels (8 on archery and 6 others on axe for my WAR), the way I've always understood it, is skill directly affects your accuracy. Am I correct on this? If I am, I'm also assuming that the higher your sword skill, the higher your DMG/ACC would be on spells?


Quick sidenote: I say that TP, even when not used in conjunction with CA, seems to do more damage because my headbutts are around 80dmg, but once my TP gets to 150-200, headbutts start doing 110-120. And no, there was no dia or any other debuffs cast. Is there an explanation for this or? The only thing I can think of is having higher TP affects the damage. I've also noticed this when casting Disseverment while soloing imps. I believe the higher TP you have, the better chance the spell hits completely unresisted with higher accuracy, similar to 2hour-ing. When you Azure Lore, You're more than likely to get completely unresisted but with a higher pDIF and/or BLU skill IIRC... Can't remember atm..

[fantasticdan]

Also, I've got 6 sword merit levels (8 on archery and 6 others on axe for my WAR), the way I've always understood it, is skill directly affects your accuracy. Am I correct on this? If I am, I'm also assuming that the higher your sword skill, the higher your DMG/ACC would be on spells?

Just accuracy.

[Sabishii]

Perhaps it's a placebo effect, but I'll be damned if having higher TP didn't make my spells do more dmg or have higher accuracy sitting at 300tp as opposed to 0tp. I don't know though...

TP only affects physical spell damage/accuracy when you use CA. Otherwise it does jack. Anyone who tells you otherwise should die in a fire. SE said it themselves in the original BLU patch notes.

Blue Magic skill affects the damage of blue spells, but not weapon damage. But your main weapon hand weapon affect the accuracy of it though, having a high weapon skill will give any physical spell more accuracy. If you try to land a physical spell while unarmed or wearing a staff, with no SA involved, you're very likely to miss (especially a mob near your level).

[Raytheon]

/em dies in a fire. ; ;


Thanks for clearing that up for me. I'll need to figure out some other reason why it SEEMS I do more dmg with higher TP, since it's not. I realize multihits like the Big 3 are highly dependant on accuracy, which makes sense when you see different numbers every cast, but I see no reason I should see such a variance in a single hit spell, like Head Butt..


Back to the drawing boards...


Thanks again guys, appreciate the responses.

[Yugl]

Maybe if you tell us mob/gear we can figure it out.

[VZX]

OK For those who don't have maxed physical potency but maxed blue magic skill,
could you try disseverment T/VT Marid on Wajaom with 307 skill and time it how long the poison last?

[Sho]

OK For those who don't have maxed physical potency but maxed blue magic skill,
could you try disseverment T/VT Marid on Wajaom with 307 skill and time it how long the poison last?

We could also always just ask the Devs at Fan Fest >_> Stupid Potency Merits and no one knows what they do lol.

[Kaslo]

We could also always just ask the Devs at Fan Fest >_> Stupid Potency Merits and no one knows what they do lol.

You know all that would do is get a cheese sandwich

[VZX]

We could also always just ask the Devs at Fan Fest >_>

And got "I don't know" from Sundi
When was the last time we got a concise, on-the-nail answer from Devs regarding game mechanics?

[Kairos]

When was the last time we got a concise, on-the-nail answer from Devs regarding game mechanics?

Its been a really long time. Like back in the days when they first answered the questions of how is jump calculated and what does smn skill do.

[Sho]

Well, I dunno... they might give up that answer a bit easy, rather than the stupid ass questions that were proposed in the past.

[Yugl]

It's kind of sad that research and testing is necessary in order to figure out what your merits do. It's like testing a weapon to see if it has a +.5 STR (Yes I know not possible) hidden stat. If the upgrades aren't noticeable, then why the hell did I spend 19 merits?

[VZX]

I still believe it's something that SE played with it before/during/after some patch and forgot to reverse the change back; Similar to what they did to Heavy Shot/Arching Arrow, it never score a crit for long time, then they noticed it and change it back.

Probably it's better to notify them about this on fanfest

[Darkdreamer]

I've been reading through several Blu threads and I've been trying to find more thoughts/tests on using Mirage Head for spells besides just CB and Breaths. Particularly the use of Mirage Head for Big 3 and other physical spells.

[Belgaer]

Has anyone ever done any testing to see if magic accuracy affects the proxy/resist/resisted duration of Additional Effects of physical spells (Head Butt's Stun, Disseverment's Poison, Spiral Spin's Acc Down; as you've likely noticed, they fluctuate greatly on occasion)? My first instinct is that, no, it wouldn't... But it would seem to make sense after giving it consideration.

I don't currently have Blue Magic Magic Accuracy merits, but this would definitely make it seem much more worthwhile (even though it already would be to me).