Ancient Magic II question...

[Charitwo]

Unlock them all imo. I'd even consider using Quake II just to lower something's Thunder resist.

Quake lowers wind Resist

About how much does it lower the resist? Same as AM 1?

Tried it out in Ballista, Burst 2 gave a -30 resist just like Burst 1.

Did you take into account the Ballista BLM nerf...not the NM one recently, the one before that only for PvP.

[Kaylia]

Just find a collibri and cast ancient 2 on it.

[nivlakian]

Unlock them all imo. I'd even consider using Quake II just to lower something's Thunder resist.

Quake lowers wind Resist

About how much does it lower the resist? Same as AM 1?

Tried it out in Ballista, Burst 2 gave a -30 resist just like Burst 1.

Did you take into account the Ballista BLM nerf...not the NM one recently, the one before that only for PvP.

Well here's my experience:

Mob Ninjutsu Tier 1 => -30 resist (i can't recall if i've tried tier 2)
Mob AM => -30 resist
Player AM in Ballista => -30 resist
Player AM2 in Ballista => -30 resist
Player threnody in Ballista => -50 resist

I haven't had someone take a mob AM2 and live AND check what the resist changes to, but I'm willing to bet everything follows the same way. Also, I don't know of any mobs that cast threnodies.

[Lordwafik]

[quote=nivlakian]

Unlock them all imo. I'd even consider using Quake II just to lower something's Thunder resist.

Quake lowers wind Resist

About how much does it lower the resist? Same as AM 1?

Tried it out in Ballista, Burst 2 gave a -30 resist just like Burst 1.

Did you take into account the Ballista BLM nerf...not the NM one recently, the one before that only for PvP.

Well here's my experience:

Mob Ninjutsu Tier 1 => -30 resist (i can't recall if i've tried tier 2)
Mob AM => -30 resist
Player AM in Ballista => -30 resist
Player AM2 in Ballista => -30 resist
Player threnody in Ballista => -50 resist

I haven't had someone take a mob AM2 and live AND check what the resist changes to, but I'm willing to bet everything follows the same way. Also, I don't know of any mobs that cast threnodies.[/quote:c48b2]

colibri reflect all!

all but blu magic

[nivlakian]

Yeah, I forgot about the reflecting birds. I'll try that later, unless someone would prefer to do it for me!

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

it is innefficient for a BLM to take off his merits just to boost one spell.

Its inefficient for a LS to have a bunch of BLMs all casting burst II and freeze II when they could be cycling the nukes to lower resist rates.

[Lordwafik]

it is innefficient for a BLM to take off his merits just to boost one spell.

Its inefficient for a LS to have a bunch of BLMs all casting burst II and freeze II when they could be cycling the nukes to lower resist rates.

Lower resist rate for what, more spells? That are going to be MDB'd if they are spammed?

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

it is innefficient for a BLM to take off his merits just to boost one spell.

Its inefficient for a LS to have a bunch of BLMs all casting burst II and freeze II when they could be cycling the nukes to lower resist rates.

Lower resist rate for what, more spells? That are going to be MDB'd if they are spammed?

My guess is they have a higher duration on the resist down than 15 seconds. Having a rotation of 3 BLMs with maxxed merits on two spells with a 15 second downtime between spells (thus 45 seconds between BLM nukes) and you probably will have few MDB increase problems.

[cassiraa]

Or you could have one ninja in your alliance use the :Ni spell of the choice before the magic burst / nuke, get the same -30 Resistance. I dunno, Maybe even a BRD...

Using Ancient Magic for the -Resist is like using a 747 to get from your house to the office. If you're not setting up a SC, then :Ni or Threndony the mob's elemental weakness instead of using 2 nukes the mob is strong to, 3 that it's neutral to, and one that it's weak to, even if you are spamming them for the resists.

[Lordwafik]

From what i've seen, it's not magic resistance that the monsters gain, it's magic defence bonus. Think of it as a mob casting shell5 on itself that's not dispellable. I dont think it's a monster's resist levels increasing, otherwise swapping spells would cause you to be able to do full nukes.

From what i've seen in dynamis, all mobs impossible to gauge, @ about 70-50% they gain 33% magic defence bonus, this is all spells, not just thunder, that means casting a ninjitsu or AM2 will hardly be any help.

But i'd prefer input from someone else, who's in a LS that takes down HNM , if it's resist rate up, or magic defence bonus kicking in. I'm pretty sure it's the latter.

Reguardless, like i said, it's inefficient to be blowing all that MP for resist rates, when ninjitsu can do it, even BRD can do it. I'd rather save the MP for the MB, and let the brd threnody first, instead of giving the mob more reason to go into MDB mode.

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

From my research the accumulated MDB also comes with a raised resist rate. I dont know if its true, I'm no BLM, but I was very interested in what this patch did (and IMO it was done pretty much perfectly.)
I do know however that Ninja nukes are more inefficient since they add up to the accumulated resistance/MDB WITHOUT doing significant damage. And I also know threnodies really have a hard time landing a lot of the time, plus this probably stacks with threnody. Also, with equal tiering, the spells are no better than each other and thus, aside from MBs which not all shells do, its more efficient to have the BLMs do this than all do thunder x or blizzard x.

oh and cassi, why werent you on aim today at all

[Judai]

nah, it seems more like a MDB kicking in. The more nukes that hit around the same time, the higher it gets. Like 5 BLMs hitting Burst 2 on Fafnir in a few moments you will see.

BLM1- 1880
BLM2- 1880
BLM3- 1545
BLM4- 1150
BLM5- 834

not official numbers!

It looks alot different then a resist, if any spells land after that they get heavily nerfed. After a few moments tho, it goes away and nukes are back to normal. Really, if you are always the first BLM to land you should hit for full dmg, unless you actually get resisted. Call it resit, call it MDB, idk. Just seems a bit different to me. If it was resist rate increase I would think if you still had full elemental+ gear on, you could still land a big nuke after a couple others. I've tried to just go elemental magic+ once and I still got lower nukes after landing after other BLMs. (think that made sense)

It only takes a few moments to get rid of that MDB or w/e anyways. So if you just stagger your nukes, you will never notice it.

I went with Tornado2, Lv2Burst2 and Freeze2 so far. Waiting on upgrades atm and working on my other 2 jobs merits, well and hitting 75PLD. Really don't see a point in getting Quake2, Flood2 or Flare2 tho, as I NEVER use those sets of magic. Everything I do I use Blizzard or Thunder. Just got Tornado2 for Kirin fun.

[Not Kuno]

I had a Lamia cast water therenody on me. I think it was -50, but Im not 100% sure. Fucking lamia.

[cassiraa]

From my research the accumulated MDB also comes with a raised resist rate. I dont know if its true, I'm no BLM, but I was very interested in what this patch did (and IMO it was done pretty much perfectly.)
I do know however that Ninja nukes are more inefficient since they add up to the accumulated resistance/MDB WITHOUT doing significant damage. And I also know threnodies really have a hard time landing a lot of the time, plus this probably stacks with threnody. Also, with equal tiering, the spells are no better than each other and thus, aside from MBs which not all shells do, its more efficient to have the BLMs do this than all do thunder x or blizzard x.

oh and cassi, why werent you on aim today at all

I was under the impression that the MDB builds by the amount of magical damage that was done to it, not the number of nukes [i.e. 2 500 damage nukes would be the same amount of resist build as 1 1k nuke] Especially considering what SE said themselves ["The monster's resistance will increase in accordance with the amount of damage incurred, but each monster has a maximum resistance level."]



Even with equal tiering, If you're suggesting that Ouryu get hit with Quake II just to weaken it's Wind resist, I will laugh.

and AIM-Express is the only way I can get on at work, and it was down all day. OMW home now.

[Kwechi]

But i'd prefer input from someone else, who's in a LS that takes down HNM , if it's resist rate up, or magic defence bonus kicking in. I'm pretty sure it's the latter.

We got Fafnir last week at about 50% after it spike flailed two lses and a cfh. There was a bunch of blms in the ally and we spammed from 50% to 0. At first my Thunder4s were doing the usual, but after 10% or so they started to go down. Eventually capping at 1050 or so.

I agree that its MDB, that Faf was pretty conclusive.

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

Different mobs are weak to different nukes. I don't know what's so hard to understand about this, since its all the same damage now in certain cases all of them except quake (wtf is weak to stone) will have good uses. Actually, wouldn't it make sense to get more powerful ones of the elements that DON'T have great tier IV/IIIga nukes so you can get less resists and still maintain powerful spells on all mobs (since thunder and blizzard are already powerful and burst II/freeze II are less of a step up for them)? Is there something I'm missing here?

Even with equal tiering, If you're suggesting that Ouryu get hit with Quake II just to weaken it's Wind resist, I will laugh.

Well quake II to get wind resist down on ouryu is silly, but there are other mobs where you can cycle through, say, 5 elements (like Behemoths). Also having tornado II would be better than Freeze II (not to mention Burst II) on ouryu.

[Lordwafik]

Different mobs are weak to different nukes.

Once you play BLM, you realize everything is weak to thunder, and if it's not weak to thunder, it's weak to ice.

Seriously i'm not just joking here, it's stupidly implemented that a fire based monster (fafnir) will take a significantly higher amount of dmg from a lightning based nuke than a water based nuke, simply because I learned it later.


Btw your statement is incorrect. No mob is strong or weak to any nuke, I wont do more dmg with water on faf since he's fire based, the only thing that the mobs element dictates is the resist rate, which meritted blm these days (i'd say all the blms on this board) shouldnt have problems with.

Also having tornado II would be better than Freeze II (not to mention Burst II) on ouryu.

No, they all do the same dmg. Magic doesnt get bonuses depending on mobs. Burst 2 will resist, Tornado and freeze2 will tie. Wind does not do more dmg on a stone mob, than ice or fire.

Untill SE changes something with the way mobs take magic dmg (not nerf, but bonus/weakness), expect the same nukes from now untill eternity.

You might not like it, I sure as hell dont, but that's the way it is. I'd love for my water/stone spells to do the same dmg as my thunder/ice, so I get an excuse to use it.

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

I do agree the weakness/strength system (hell toss the killer trait system in too) needs revamping. But I also dont seem to recall every BLM always landing every spell. Lowering resists seems to always be helpful.

[nivlakian]

Ok, I just tried Colibri reflecting my Burst II and it was -30 resist.

To Joee:

I think what you're missing is that other spells just don't matter much even if they are weak to a particular one because Blizzard and Thunder work on most things and do more damage. Aquillo's staff has the additional advantage of +Skill on it.

SE has not made a wide variety of monsters where a particular element is necessary to ensure full damage. The most common exceptions would be the Gods in sky of course. Blizzard spells work fine on Ouryu. You can use Thunder spells on Jorm and Tiamat if you want to as well. If a BRD can land the threnody on it and the mob doesn't have an auto-resist to the element, then you can stick with the higher damaging spells.

Also, AM2 isn't something you're going to spam as they have long recasts and use up nearly 1/3 of your MP pool at a time (depending on race and Conserve MP activation). Tier IVs are still more efficient. The attractive thing to me about AM2 is they offer more accuracy with more merits, extra MB damage, and are single target eliminating the need to use Ga3s for big damage which might hit other mobs. To me, the other AM2s don't serve a practical purpose and I'm not going to worry about not having a particular one for that one enemy that only takes earth damage.

And blah to Lordwafik, I took too long typing this haha

[Dezzimal]

I do agree the weakness/strength system (hell toss the killer trait system in too) needs revamping. But I also dont seem to recall every BLM always landing every spell. Lowering resists seems to always be helpful.

So then we make someone cast flood I or II (they're the same -30 to ele resistance no matter what tier) to lower thunder resist. GG.