Auto Refresh vs Conserve MP

[Lylie]

I don't see the point to /BLM for EXP PTs...

I'm on a roll today, let's see if I can't avoid hitting the ground at Mach 2 afterwards.

Very simply- I'm an RDM in an exp party. I do not stop casting spells for enough time to get a tic of resting MP in in most cases. I can:

1) Get 20 MP/minute from Summoner Autorefresh with /SUM. I sacrifice Aspir, Drain, and Elemental Seal. (Just in the MP or getting it back category, never mind the other stuff)

2) Get Conserve MP, Drain and Aspir from /BLM. Aspir goes off once a minute. Any time it returns more than 35 MP, I just beat autorefresh. Every time I Seal/Drain post Convert, I save MP vs. a self Cure III or more- effectively, I cast Cure III+ for 15MP. Every time Conserve triggers, I save MP- if those savings are greater than 20 MP/minute, I beat /SUM even if the monster is un-Aspirable. Basically, that's any time I get a Conserve on a Cure III- which I end up casting a few of every minute or so during a fight. Or a Haste. Refresh. Dia II. Whatever II or III DD spell I MB'ed with.

Didn't talk about RDM/SMN.

But about why RDM/BLM? You offer nothing to the PT. Tractor, Escape, Warp? Useless if you are EXPing. Drain, Aspir, Conserve MP? If you need MP as RDM, then either you or your PT are doing something wrong.

[kearnsy]

As whm I sub smn for anything serious because I'll have more mp over time than with blm sub. And by serious I mean Fafnir/Nidhogg, Jorm, Vrtra and like Kirin. I used to sub smn for Tiamat but I sub drg exclusively now for that fight. For everything else as whm I will sub blm strictly because it makes my life so much easier - Warp, Sleep, ES, Escape, Tractor, etc. From the long time I've been playing whm I've noticed auto-refresh to be more worthwhile than conserve mp by a long shot. I'll always be ticking 2mp naturally which I greatly notice more than being /blm. Hell I'll go as far to say I end up blowing my MP and resting a lot more as /blm than /smn.

As for rdm and blm I have yet to sub smn for it because I just don't see a practical use for it as those 2 jobs. Rdm I'll sub blm for everything except merit party. In a merit party (the ones I join/make) I'm the only person with mp so I sub whm for -nas and for divine seal cure4 with convert if I'm not converting every 8:20. I don't sub blm in merit parties because we don't need the extra sleepga with a good bard, and yes I only party with good bards.

Blm I 95% of the time sub rdm to everything. The only thing I would really sub whm for (I'd never sub anything other than rdm or whm for blm) would be Tiamat/Jorm for status effects.

So from my personal experiences I'll say Auto-refresh is better than conserve mp as a whm.

[FFXIFlux]

But about why RDM/BLM? You offer nothing to the PT. Tractor, Escape, Warp? Useless if you are EXPing. Drain, Aspir, Conserve MP? If you need MP as RDM, then either you or your PT are doing something wrong.

Or you actually know how to play RDM and know they have things people call nukes that will let you turn spare MP into faster XP.

XPing as RDM/WHM you're either clueless with no idea what Conserve MP is and can't be bothered to macro in pluto's for Aspir, or you're in a 4 melee party that needs afflictions removed and the other mage is the bard who is pulling.

[Lylie]

Or you actually know how to play RDM and know they have things people call nukes that will let you turn spare MP into faster XP.

XPing as RDM/WHM you're either clueless with no idea what Conserve MP is and can't be bothered to macro in pluto's for Aspir, or you're in a 4 melee party that needs afflictions removed and the other mage is the bard who is pulling.

Can't remember the last PT I made that wasn't 4 Melees, random mage (BRDs are hard to find :/) and RDM.

[Septimus]

I think /Pld is the answer. Auto-Refresh & Cover, what's not to love?

In all seriousness, if Auto Refresh was everything it was cracked up to be /PLD would be all the rage. You get auto refresh AND Flash AND Holy! Not to mention that every 15 minutes you can use shield bash to stun.

Black Mage offers more than just Conserve MP, Conserve MP is just an awesome bonus.

[Jeryhn]

Holy shit at this topic hitting BG.

Anyway, this is a big retarded argument on the WHM Forums almost anywhere so I'll copy/paste what I said on KI:

To me, SMN seems like a good sub if you want solidarity when it comes to MP recovery.

A BLM sub is good if you're the type that's willing to gamble a bit, and have things like Magnetic Earring to back up your MP recovery rate. Conserve MP has the potential to save much more MP than Auto-Refresh will, whether or not it actually does depends on the base MP costs of the spells you cast and how often you cast and how often you will cast them.

On a reality check note however, why is this RDM even asking this question? He should be subbing WHM anyway.

[aurik]

Or you actually know how to play RDM and know they have things people call nukes that will let you turn spare MP into faster XP.

XPing as RDM/WHM you're either clueless with no idea what Conserve MP is and can't be bothered to macro in pluto's for Aspir, or you're in a 4 melee party that needs afflictions removed and the other mage is the bard who is pulling.

Can't remember the last PT I made that wasn't 4 Melees, random mage (BRDs are hard to find :/) and RDM.

You're not subbing SMN in that situation anyway, you're subbing WHM. So in essence, you're giving up conserve mp or autorefresh for spells useful to the task at hand.

And there are a lot of things that /blm gives you that are very useful pre-TPburn where you need to be subbing whm. Add to that a good red mage will go through a max amount of their MP (900ish) plus the extra 600 / 10 min from refresh, plus any from 50 second aspirs if there is a target with MP, plus any extra from ballads (600 / 10 min) plus any extra from sanction / dalm / chapeau (up to another 600 / 10 min) every 10 minutes. So in reality, conserve MP has plenty of chance to trigger. Autorefresh returns 200 mp every 10 minutes. Conserve MP can easily return 150mp or more. Is that 5 mp per minute so important that you'd give up potentially lifesaving spells to have it?

[Kyreth]

/SUM.

!!!

Fixed. I had six people distracting me at once typing that post out, took me frickin 20 minutes for a few paragraphs.

[Kyreth]

Didn't talk about RDM/SMN.

But about why RDM/BLM? You offer nothing to the PT. Tractor, Escape, Warp? Useless if you are EXPing. Drain, Aspir, Conserve MP? If you need MP as RDM, then either you or your PT are doing something wrong.

If I'm not Converting into the red every ten minutes like clockwork, I'm doing something wrong as an RDM in an exp PT. Wasted MP = slower PT. I have a WHM in my LS group, status removal is un-needed. I backup heal with Cure III and in a pinch, IV. Refresh a WHM, the BLM, the Paladin, the DRK, and me. Debuff the monsters. MB as I can get a chance to. Toss Regens for band-aids on minor ouchies to save the WHM some MP. Occasional Hastes as needed.

I end up throwing spells as fast as I can get the spells out. My output means the PT has the mob locked down like glue, the WHM can actually Cure V me and I Drain/Seal back the remainder off the mob and he doesn't even look our way.

So yeah, I always have an MP problem- because there's always something I can do with more MP, but I get more out of my MP as /BLM.

As far as /SMNgoes...1 mp/tic doesn't do the job without Conserve MP working. If was a less hyper RDM when throwing spells, I'd understand- but Conserve gives more back the more spells you cast- and I end up casting a LOT of spells, more than either the BLM or WHM in my PT.

[Stellar]

Haste +2% ? Gtfo you're wasting my slot. Haste +2% here, +4% there, +5% here? Welcome into my equipment screen, enjoy wrapping yourself around me.

About this.. I've seen alot of people with this mentality and am not quite sure I understand it. Regardless of whether you have 0% haste or 20% haste on your other gear, 2% haste in a slot would provide the exact same benefit, regardless of you other gear, would it not? Which is why i often questioned why Ninja's would do a "haste build", where if a piece of gear had haste on it, it trumped any other gear available because it fit their "build". I realize haste is fantastic, but I question the mentality that haste gear is somehow made better by using other haste gear with it...

[Sendra]

About this.. I've seen alot of people with this mentality and am not quite sure I understand it. Regardless of whether you have 0% haste or 20% haste on your other gear, 2% haste in a slot would provide the exact same benefit, regardless of you other gear, would it not? Which is why i often questioned why Ninja's would do a "haste build", where if a piece of gear had haste on it, it trumped any other gear available because it fit their "build". I realize haste is fantastic, but I question the mentality that haste gear is somehow made better by using other haste gear with it...

2% haste alone won't make a much of a difference, but 20% will. Your missing a piece of your logic.

[Stellar]

On another note, the most annoying thing about this forum is 8 page topics with 50% of the replies coming from some kid trying to raise his post count by typing "ibtl", "zam", "qft" or some other played out remark, talking shit to the OP, when he infact is the one who should "gtfo"...

[aurik]

Haste +2% ? Gtfo you're wasting my slot. Haste +2% here, +4% there, +5% here? Welcome into my equipment screen, enjoy wrapping yourself around me.

About this.. I've seen alot of people with this mentality and am not quite sure I understand it. Regardless of whether you have 0% haste or 20% haste on your other gear, 2% haste in a slot would provide the exact same benefit, regardless of you other gear, would it not? Which is why i often questioned why Ninja's would do a "haste build", where if a piece of gear had haste on it, it trumped any other gear available because it fit their "build". I realize haste is fantastic, but I question the mentality that haste gear is somehow made better by using other haste gear with it...

1) Haste has increasing benefits as you stack it. IE, 25% (max gear haste) with no haste spells is just a 25% improvement. 25% with haste+march is closer to a 33% improvement. The same is true of damage reduction. A d.ring added to 40% damage reduction is actually a 16% reduction in damage.
2) For melee combat, haste is a "lossy" gain, because you often lose a lot of the advantage built up from haste when autotarget fails to kick in. The smaller the amount of total haste, the easier it is to lose it this way.

[Garret]

I think /Pld is the answer. Auto-Refresh & Cover, what's not to love?

In all seriousness, if Auto Refresh was everything it was cracked up to be /PLD would be all the rage. You get auto refresh AND Flash AND Holy! Not to mention that every 15 minutes you can use shield bash to stun.

Black Mage offers more than just Conserve MP, Conserve MP is just an awesome bonus.

Holy is level 55 though =P

[Stellar]

2% haste alone won't make a much of a difference, but 20% will. Your missing a piece of your logic.

Don't see where that plays into my logic. I'm talking about a piece of gear being used only in conjunction with other gear that offers the same benefits, although regardless of your other gear, said piece of gear still offers the exact same benefit.

[Septimus]

I think /Pld is the answer. Auto-Refresh & Cover, what's not to love?

In all seriousness, if Auto Refresh was everything it was cracked up to be /PLD would be all the rage. You get auto refresh AND Flash AND Holy! Not to mention that every 15 minutes you can use shield bash to stun.

Black Mage offers more than just Conserve MP, Conserve MP is just an awesome bonus.

Holy is level 55 though =P

Curses! I guess we will have to make due with Banish II...

[Stellar]

Aurik's reply is more of what I was looking for. So stacking haste does make a 2% haste item actually more than 2% haste?

And about the defending ring statement, I've been meaning to ask about that, because I was under the impression it all factored in simultaneously.. For instance target hits you for 100 damage. Are you saying they measure seperately? Earth staff would provide 20 damage off alone, but only 18.2 dmg in conjunction with Arhat's Gi?

Oops, i misread, you are saying it has increasing benefit's.. Please explain if you dont mind .-.

[aurik]

Aurik's reply is more of what I was looking for. So stacking haste does make a 2% haste item actually more than 2% haste?

And about the defending ring statement, I've been meaning to ask about that, because I was under the impression it all factored in simultaneously.. For instance target hits you for 100 damage. Are you saying they measure seperately? Earth staff would provide 20 damage off alone, but only 18.2 dmg in conjunction with Arhat's Gi?

No, they're cumulative, not multiplicative. So if you have 40% damage reduction, and you get hit by 1000 needles alone, you take 600 damage. If you were to put on a d.ring, you take 500 dmg. The net reduction from the d.ring is 100 / 600 = 16.6~%.

Similarly, (ignoring caps / feasibility for illustration purposes) if you somehow had 50% haste and someone used a spell that gave you "25% haste", you would attack twice as fast as before.

This is the nature of all the mechanics which are calculate as newValue = oldValue * (1 - sum(bonus)), of which the most important examples are haste and damage reduction.

[Stellar]

Ah cool, thanks. That was my original impression of how -dmg gear worked. Another question about that. Any idea where the percentage comes from? If it factor's in before defense and vit? I'm assuming it does, because otherwise lowering def. and vit. would make the %dmg reduced higher..

About the topic. Wow, /pld for rdm sounds pretty nice for some situations. In merit situations where no aspir is available, you typically refresh yourself, the bard and haste 4 melee which = 240mp per 3 minutes. So if you're not using 570mp to cure/nuke/enfeeble per 3 minutes, than the autorefresh would provide better mp. Plus flash and defense to boot!

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

Aurik's reply is more of what I was looking for. So stacking haste does make a 2% haste item actually more than 2% haste?

And about the defending ring statement, I've been meaning to ask about that, because I was under the impression it all factored in simultaneously.. For instance target hits you for 100 damage. Are you saying they measure seperately? Earth staff would provide 20 damage off alone, but only 18.2 dmg in conjunction with Arhat's Gi?

No, they're cumulative, not multiplicative. So if you have 40% damage reduction, and you get hit by 1000 needles alone, you take 600 damage. If you were to put on a d.ring, you take 500 dmg. The net reduction from the d.ring is 100 / 600 = 16.6~%.

Similarly, (ignoring caps / feasibility for illustration purposes) if you somehow had 50% haste and someone used a spell that gave you "25% haste", you would attack twice as fast as before.

No you wouldnt. You would attack 16.6% faster. You normally have 100% speed. With +50% haste you would have 150% speed. Add 25% haste to that and you would get a 25/150 = 16.6% bonus.