Need a second opinion from the NINs. (Magic defense related)

[Bananas]

The only equipment macros I've been using on my NIN is enmity and defense sets. Should I start bringing a full set of magic defense gear and macroing it in for spells on HNMs/Wyrms? Does it make a big difference?

Edit: Other than fire based ones

[Judah]

full fire resist suit on tiamat GO break 250 fire and win the prize!!!!

[Robert]

I've found that having over 300 fire resist gives enough to resist around 90% of Tiamats air attacks (amazing discovery by kisada/rukenshin); but I don't think its worth it on other wyrms--since I dont think it is as easy to push +300 resist on ice/earth (Suzaku's Sune-ate gives a large boost in the fire aspect)

Outside of wyrms I don't see it being that beneficial to stack elemental resist, aside from rare occasions, for Bahamut I use magic damage taken -% as opposed to +fire resist since Horrible Roar is very gay and can fuck you out of your Barfira/Carol before Mega/Gigaflare.

[Ichthyos]

http://rukenshin.livejournal.com/14854.html

[Bananas]

I'm more interested in the non-fire mobs (forgot to mention in original post, gonna edit). Would it be beneficial to swap in MND/Ice resist for Jorm or just go with Merman and eat it?

[Raineer]

I'm more interested in the non-fire mobs (forgot to mention in original post, gonna edit). Would it be beneficial to swap in MND/Ice resist for Jorm or just go with Merman and eat it?

How much ice do you have? The issue is with the quantity. If you can't hit at least 200+ with Carols I wouldn't think it's worth it.

[Eromenos-Ifrit]

I'm more interested in the non-fire mobs (forgot to mention in original post, gonna edit). Would it be beneficial to swap in MND/Ice resist for Jorm or just go with Merman and eat it?

Now i know i don't know everything in this game, but i can assure you that MND is not going to save you from elemental base magic attacks. Anyone who is a 75BLM or RDM can tell you that when trying to land a type of spell that requires int as it's modifier, that to raise damage you would have to lower the enemy's INT (use Burn). So with that in mind, if you where looking to save yourself from a magic attack such as that, then you'd want to raise your INT. (which luckily enough, nin does have a good ammount of it), BUT you won't beable to really raise elemental defense that greatly, other than fire really. So i'd just worry about using standard HNM gear, and using some merman stuff to help eat some of the differance, remember Tanking is 20% Gear, 30% Skill, 50% skill of your support classes.

[Lyramion]

Hmmm... maybe MND is for halfresists whereas INT boots the direct number?

Just some wired theory no solid claims or tests

[MrW]

I just stack - magic dmg % (merman's) and some magic defense bonus gear in other slots. Then macro it back out after you eat it. That and carol/barspell are usually enough to be ok.

[Jeryhn]

Hmmm... maybe MND is for halfresists whereas INT boots the direct number?

Just some wired theory no solid claims or tests

This is what I've always gone by. INT has been verified to reduce damage you take on a direct level. If MND has a function in the calculation, it probably effects resistance, not defense.

[RKenshin]

/novel post on

It's definitely worth it to build up a magic defense set outside of a Barfira one, and IMO it's even more important than Barfira since it can be applied to a lot more situations (including ones where you'd use Barfira). On the bad side, it's also a little more difficult and expensive to make in comparison to a Barfira set.

The difference between having gear and not having gear on fights with Ouryu/Jorgy can make as much of a difference as 100 or more damage per breath attack in the air, and over an 45 minute or longer fight that's a lot of extra damage you took and MP that had to be spent on you. It could sometimes even make a difference between a win and a failed attempt, especially in the Ouryu BC where MP, support, and time is very limited.

It's also very helpful and lifesaving in the Bahamut V2 BC. I know that there are many different strategies people use for this, but if you use the same strategy we do then I'd say that this is imperative. For our strat we have one tank solo tank Bahamut V2 for the fight, and being able to reduce the magic damage from flares by over 1/3rd increases survivability and decreases MP needed to be spent on you by a lot.

Megaflare base damage with just Shell IV (haven't fought since introduction of shell V) is about 900-1000, and Gigaflare base damage is about 1200-1300. This is what magic defense gear cuts it to:
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/3438/mgiga18us.jpg

Then there are a lot of other places this is useful as well..

Using the gear listed on my LJ combined with merited WHM buffs AV hit Aeroga IV for 798 damage on me every time, as well as Aero V/Tornado II for 800-1k, and Meteor for 1.2k. Those spells normally hit unbuffed people for 2k or more damage.

Similiar results on Kirin too, where Stonega hitting just a tank will normally do 1500+ and onehit them, it does 800 to me.

Ultima's Citadel Buster that does 2k-3k to most people, did 1.1k to me.

So yeah, it's one of those improvements where the difference it makes is clearly visible and really does help. If you can afford it, it's 100% worth it.



As for the MND and INT thing, I'm still uncertain as to whether MND or INT help more for magic defense. I've tried both and noticed more of an improvement with MND, which is why I use a little more MND gear in my defense build than INT. I haven't really tested it extensively though, and as far as I've seen no one else really has... So it's hard to say for sure what really does what.

[Aribeth]

Nice info on the windower macros, I try to stay "pure" to the game, but that is getting increasingly harder.

Since our awesome WHMs have merited Shell V and a few others tests I have done (on PLD @ Tiamat), I have come to the decision that Lamia Mantle +1 > Resentment Cape for my PLD with Coral +1 gear. In fact I don't even using Merman Earings anymore. But I think that is because I am hitting the cap, obviously not the same case with NIN.

Rukenshin, I was a bit confused do you use your "Barfira" build on Bahamut or your generic resist build?

Edit: NM my question, my reading skills raise 0.5 points!

I'm going to try elemental builds for my pld and nin but bah too many things to do

[Lyramion]

I think he said fire resist setup works great but its too risky when barspell and carol get dispelled - so he uses his magic def down setup

[Robert]

Lyra how is NIN/BRD? I saw Tyche mention that you were using it on Tiamat? Sorry if its the wrong person; but I think I remember him mentioning your name specifically.

[Jeryhn]

I remember in an LJ post Rukenshin made, he tried the fire resist build on Bahamut, and it worked (with 100 damage Megaflares and 30 damage Firaga IVs) right up until Bahamut's magic accuracy tore through on a Gigaflare that did 1000+ damage to him.

He commented that he'd be using the flat magic resist gear in the future. And yea, with that nasty Dispelga Bahamut has, a fire-resist setup would be incredibly hard to upkeep.

That being said, a NIN that faces Teraflare would die with the generic magic resist setup. I'd like to see what a fire resist build could (read: try to) do for its damage.

[Pacha]

I'm interested in the effectiveness of the -magic dmg gear as well as the resistance gear for pld against wyrms. I've tanked them with a pretty standard setup (nothing really beyond hrotti for tiamat and such). I'm interested in how effective full builds of resistance gear are in these situations. Could you elaborate a bit more on your experiences Aribeth??

[Sci]

Bahamut's Flares are a lot harder to resist than anything Tiamat does. And fire resist gear doesn't offer too much +HP or -mag dmg %. So it's just really risky to try and rely on it.

I think I looked once and there's plenty of +ice res gear so you could get enough for Jorm.... but why would anyone care that much about Jorm heh.

I've also noticed Ouryu being a bit easier to resist than other wyrms. With just barstonra and carol I was able to see the occasional 50% resist. There's not much good +earth res gear that I can think of, but I would think with just some you could get decent results.

All that being said, I just keep -mag dmg % items and +MDB items around. Yes, they do make a difference.

[Robert]

@Pacha

As PLD you have access to the coral armour set, which I forget the amount of magic damage taken -% on, the set is on my mule..on top of that you can get 2 Mermans Rings, 2 Mermans Earrings, Resentment Cape and if you felt so inclined I suppose you could even use a Palmerin's Shield (-2% damage taken) in the air.

Look up posts made by Meowulf on lolKI, he posted a screenshot of his full fire resist setup and had around +170 with no carol/barfira so that would be even better than using Coral/Merman gear, though Coral/Merman gear is easier accessible than some of the fire resist stuff(I believe Meowulf has the fabled Assault Breastplate >B|)

[RKenshin]

Actually.. There were two main reasons that I don't use the Barfira setup on Bahamut anymore.

First of all, is the AoE problem. I usually ask the WHMs to try to stay out of AoE range as much as possible, and even the BRDs since songs aren't really necessary IMO. Having them come into range even once every 2-3 minutes usually results in them getting hit by sequences of annoying AoE (petrify, or a high damage one, or bind, or horrid roar, etc). In the end, IMO having them get close causes more good than bad.

On top of that, being constantly dispelled/roared makes it even more difficult to keep up the buffs necessary for a Barfira build to work. And also requires them to run in very often.

Second, just like for Tiamat you can't resist any magic attack 100% of the time. So, no matter what occasionally the spells will break through and do almost full damage (since you're in nearly all Barfira and very little magic defense gear). Barfira gear gives me like 1.3k HP in comparison to the 1.5k with magic defense, and I don't like the risk of taking a full damage Gigaflare for 1.2k and having like no HP to spare.

However, it did work as well on Gigaflare as it did on Megaflare. Giga did ~100-120 when resisted. I have screen shots as that as well somewhere). The problem wasn't about not being able to resist Gigaflare, but just the damage it did when it rarely wasn't resisted.

As for Teraflare, I've only been hit by it once and I survived taking 1.3k damage in my older magic defense build. So it's not really a problem, both because 99% of the time you should be able to kill it before it uses Teraflare, and because with a magic defense build you can definitely live through it at full HP.

[cassiraa]

Hmmm... maybe MND is for halfresists whereas INT boots the direct number?

Just some wired theory no solid claims or tests

That's what I learned when I was a noob, and I never really bothered to question or test it. I used to be one of those BLMs that cast Shock to lower the mob's MND so I'd get less 1/2 resists.