Random Question Thread

[ringthree]

In a completely different question, has anyone noticed that many Aht Urhgan mobs have different "modes"? Puddings have spikey head mode, but also Colibri have an open mouth and closed mouth modes... anyone know the difference between these, and what effect they may have?

[Credos]

In a completely different question, has anyone noticed that many Aht Urhgan mobs have different "modes"? Puddings have spikey head mode, but also Colibri have an open mouth and closed mouth modes... anyone know the difference between these, and what effect they may have?

I've noticed this as well, but I doubt that it is comparable to Aerns in Sea.

[Tajin]

Like 1 or 2 times i have noticed (lately, and with regular nukes, not enfeebling/dark spells)

Resist! Tajin casts Quake on the Rat Enterpriser. (yellow normal text)
Rat takes so and so dmg (normal white dmg text)

now, with the same mob i cast later say, Aero3 and results in this:
Tajin casts Aero III
The Rat takes 300 points of damage. <-- Is this a resist too?

Tajin casts Aero III
The Rat takes 600 points of damage. <-- Nukes do this damage most (90% of time)

Obviously (or not? >.> ) doing 300 dmg is a resist, bue why it does not show as that? stupid SE coding?

[Septimus]

Can someone explain to a life-time melee player why merit level 3 Paralyze 2 and Slow 2 are so much better than merit level 1, how do they affect the ability to stick and proc rate? I want to explain this to some of my RDM friends but I don't think they understand.

Testing seems to show that each Slow 2 merit adds an extra 2% slow, one would imagine a similar effect for Paralyze 2. Since things in this game seems to come in two flavors for Red Mages (joke to enfeeble, hell-on-a-plate to enfeeble) it is hard to tell just how useful the accuracy boosts are.

Is it readily apparent that Slow 2 with 3 merit levels and Para 2 with 3 merit levels are better than Slow and Para?

It would be something that only a parser would pick up. 30% is not very different from 32% to the naked eye.

[Sagacious Sundi]

In a completely different question, has anyone noticed that many Aht Urhgan mobs have different "modes"? Puddings have spikey head mode, but also Colibri have an open mouth and closed mouth modes... anyone know the difference between these, and what effect they may have?

Here is what I am able to gather:
Angry/spikey flan: Take more magical damage, take less physical damage
Tired/scrunched flan: Take less magical damage, take more phyiscal damage
Open beaked colibri: No clue
Wamouracampa: Different abilties? Different attributes?
Khimaira wings: No clue
Qutrub: Different abilities based on whether they wield their original blade, their "essence blade," or no weapon

Flan/qutrub "modes" are tiggerred (and scrunched flan are exclusive to "magical" flan?; H2H/essence blade might be time-based), wamouracampa modes are time-based, not sure about others.

[Tirrock]

Didn't think this meritted (lolpun) starting a new thread, so:

Now that most of my experience pointing is done, it's time to move onto merits. This is what I'm thinking of doing, and my jobs are (or soon will be) RDM(dead), MNK, NIN, SAM. NIN being just for NMs/missions/farming/random help, MNK for meripo/burns, and SAM for endgame (hopefully that helps with priority).

Monk (I really have no idea about Group 2)
Counter: 5
Kick: 5
Penance: 3
Formless: 3

Formless strikes might be worth 1 upgrade if you do limbus/assault/dynamis on monk. The most I ever use it is to melee slimes in nyzul isle. (They always seem to put a bunch of slimes on any floor with "kill all".) I'd consider more upgrades in it, but I usually only end up using it for one or two fights in a row.

Invigorate is pretty good for soloing or when exping with mages that don't cast regen all the time. 80 more HP returned on chakra is pretty nice. Although it feels like when I use chakra, some RDM casts regen I on me 2 seconds later and it overwrites invigorate. I think invigorate overwrites regen III, also. I haven't had a chance to test that out in a long time though.

Mantra is for buffing kraken DRKs.

Penance gives MNK a point to randomly use chiblast in fights, but anything melee burned is going to be getting TP so fast it won't really make a difference. It's a 25% reduction in TP gained. For solo/duoing/trioing things, it can be really nice. For fighting UFOs with other jobs that don't feed the UFO TP, it's just awesome.

I use monk for merits, small group fights (often with me tanking), assault, and sometimes dynamis. I'm going with:
5 kick/counter
1 Mantra - just because I like AoE buff JAs
1 or 2 Invigorate
1 Formless strikes
2 or 3 Penance

Colibri have an open mouth and closed mouth modes... anyone know the difference between these, and what effect they may have?

...I never noticed. Now I'm curious about this. I solo them pretty often on SMN/THF when I'm close to a merit point or when I want even more kindred/beastmen seals. They die so fast that I've never noticed a change in how they fight though.

[Khamsin]

Only time I've seen colibri with open beaks is when they're reflecting. I'm not sure that it does anything special.

[aurik]

Yea open-beak means "i've got a spell stored", I think.

Wamouracampa, if they are open, close up after taking 10% damage while open. They seem to open up randomly.

Not sure about Qutrub mode-changes.

When I originally tested it, Invigorate always overwrote any existing regen effect, and was similarly always overwritten by any later-applied regen effect.

[solsovly]

Yea open-beak means "i've got a spell stored", I think.

Wamouracampa, if they are open, close up after taking 10% damage while open. They seem to open up randomly.

Not sure about Qutrub mode-changes.

When I originally tested it, Invigorate always overwrote any existing regen effect, and was similarly always overwritten by any later-applied regen effect.

Yeah open mouth means they have a spell stored. Wafik and I noticed it back when we did the Viralei + charm = lulz testing.

[ringthree]

Yea open-beak means "i've got a spell stored", I think.

Wamouracampa, if they are open, close up after taking 10% damage while open. They seem to open up randomly.

Not sure about Qutrub mode-changes.

When I originally tested it, Invigorate always overwrote any existing regen effect, and was similarly always overwritten by any later-applied regen effect.

No, there are definitively two different forms, I confirmed this on Greater Colibri while xping, they will sometimes switch while you are fighting and the switch is observable. This is separate from when they have a spell stored.

[catzie]

i know the qutrubs have different moves depending on if u broke no, 1 or 2 weapons and possibly different attack speeds.

a lot of toau mobs change wses after u broke their weapons too

as far as wamouracampas go when they in ball form they take way lower physical dmg and only use cannonball + blaze spikes move

[Alathar]

Yea open-beak means "i've got a spell stored", I think.

Wamouracampa, if they are open, close up after taking 10% damage while open. They seem to open up randomly.

Not sure about Qutrub mode-changes.

When I originally tested it, Invigorate always overwrote any existing regen effect, and was similarly always overwritten by any later-applied regen effect.

No, there are definitively two different forms, I confirmed this on Greater Colibri while xping, they will sometimes switch while you are fighting and the switch is observable. This is separate from when they have a spell stored.

I haven't really thought about it, since people do not normally cast on them mid-fight, but maybe they change form if they eat someone's food? (in addition to having been casted on)

[Xerlic]

Can the Fei'yin shadows pop past the 24th hour?

[Thistle]

2) Would it be possible, theoretically, to set up Way points in FFXI? just hit an elaborate windower script to move your character [at normal speed] from Mea -> Windurst?

Years ago, there was a fishing bot who was scripted to make herself zone once an hour, so I'd guess so.

And while I've never used a scrip for anything, I'd love to have something like that! Mea yourself, go AFK, come back and you're in Windy!

[Raineer]

Like 1 or 2 times i have noticed (lately, and with regular nukes, not enfeebling/dark spells)

Resist! Tajin casts Quake on the Rat Enterpriser. (yellow normal text)
Rat takes so and so dmg (normal white dmg text)

now, with the same mob i cast later say, Aero3 and results in this:
Tajin casts Aero III
The Rat takes 300 points of damage. <-- Is this a resist too?

Tajin casts Aero III
The Rat takes 600 points of damage. <-- Nukes do this damage most (90% of time)

Obviously (or not? >.> ) doing 300 dmg is a resist, bue why it does not show as that? stupid SE coding?

Resist! is the message you get when a job trait kicks in, like paladin's resist sleep or bard's silence.

However, "Resist!" is also highly bugged and shows up at the craziest times. I resisted my own refresh once or twice before as well. The spell still goes off but it just causes a stupid message.

In the case of quake, it could (possibly) be the mob trait resisting the elemental weakness portion of the spell..but i'd say that's not likely, most likely a bug.

On a nuke that normally does 600 dmg, 300 is a resist, as would be any multiple like 450,150, whatever. 550 and up would not be a resist, just a stat or mob level variation.

[Alathar]

Can the Fei'yin shadows pop past the 24th hour?

Yes

[Suiram]

If you cast a debuff and it resists due to the normal skill/resistance accuracy stuff, it'll just say:

Suiram starts casting paralyze on the Enemy.
...
Suiram casts paralyze.
The Enemy resists the spell.

If the enemy resists it due to resist trait, it will say:

Suiram starts casting paralyze on the Enemy.
...
Suiram casts paralyze.
Resist! The Enemy resists the spell.

If a direct damage spell is resisted it won't have either of the above lines, it will just look normal but you'll just do 1/2 or 1/4 or 1/8 of what you otherwise would UNLESS it's something like magic shield by ahriman, ultima, etc, in which case it will look like the first quoted section, no "Resist!" message.

If you ever see the "Resist!" exclamation at the outset of the cast (normal yellow text as you called it), such as:

Resist! Suiram starts casting something on whatever.

then that's always due to the bug Raineer referred to and has no bearing on whether or not the spell will actually resist.

[StaplerGuy]

Well, this IS a thread for random questions, so here goes.

NQ euvhi organs. Where's the best place to farm them? I currently camp in a little room, second floor of SE tower, with 1 zdei and 3 euvhis. I can kill one, full med, and in that time another repops.

Is there somewhere with more euvhis nearby or no zdei/ghrah or a higher drop rate on the NQs I should know about?

[Scythiroth]

Well, this IS a thread for random questions, so here goes.

NQ euvhi organs. Where's the best place to farm them? I currently camp in a little room, second floor of SE tower, with 1 zdei and 3 euvhis. I can kill one, full med, and in that time another repops.

Is there somewhere with more euvhis nearby or no zdei/ghrah or a higher drop rate on the NQs I should know about?

I got all of mine in the garden, kinda near the entrance off to the left and right. There were corner rooms with 3 of them and I would just run back and forth between the left and right sides (I don't remember if this was west and east, haven't been in there in a while ;/) killing them all.

[Bleu]

Can someone explain to a life-time melee player why merit level 3 Paralyze 2 and Slow 2 are so much better than merit level 1, how do they affect the ability to stick and proc rate? I want to explain this to some of my RDM friends but I don't think they understand.

Testing seems to show that each Slow 2 merit adds an extra 2% slow, one would imagine a similar effect for Paralyze 2. Since things in this game seems to come in two flavors for Red Mages (joke to enfeeble, hell-on-a-plate to enfeeble) it is hard to tell just how useful the accuracy boosts are.

Is it readily apparent that Slow 2 with 3 merit levels and Para 2 with 3 merit levels are better than Slow and Para?

You mean better than Slow 1 and Para 1?

The thing is, the formula is totally different. Slow 1 and Para 1 can match (if not outperform) their level 2 counterparts on low level mobs, but Slow 2 and Para 2 shine on HNMs. The reason is that you need 30 MND under that of the target instead of approximately 30 MND over the target to get a worthwhile effect.