Reducing Magic Damage

[Suiram]

I don't see where the confusion or dispute is. Anyone who has done a controlled test outside of ballista backs up the assertion that Shell is the same type of reduction as magic damage -% gear. People like Terrance who eyeball damage and generalize from it, and then post a broad-reaching statement without doing any controlled testing to back it up are why threads like this are retarded.

Also, at this point we can say with reasonable certainty that your numbers are incorrect for Shell V. Why is this? Because you eyeballed damage from wing and Mijin and used anecdotal accounts from forums to arrive at your numbers, instead of, you know, going out and actually casting shell V in a controlled situation as Tyche did.

[Lyramion]

the merits on Shell 5 say it adds 1 more MDB per merit

[Dammerung]

the merits on Shell 5 say it adds 1 more MDB per merit

no it says "Increase bonus magic defense by 1"

this is different wording than barspell "magic defense bonus of 2 points"

SE has worded stuff wrong before

[Narse]

When I've tested on Tiamat, Aegis + Shell V (I'm not positive on the level of Shell V) + -2% magic damage capped me.

Did you test Aegis + Shell V + -1% magic damage (-2/256)? If my numbers are correct, that should be enough for level 1 or 2 Shellra V, and just Aegis + Shell V for level 3.

If the -58-60/256 numbers are correct, Aegis + Shell V + -2% (-5/256) should be enough for level 2 or 3 Shellra V, but not quite capped for level 1.

Lowest piece I had was -2%. I just checked and saw that Aegis + Shell V reduced to X amount, Aegis + Shell V + -2% reduced to Y, and Aegis + Shell V + -10% still reduced to Y.

[Tyche]

Sooo, anyone got some tests on what the full shellra V reduction is? I don't have enough merits banked to cap shellra V, just threw 9 into STR >.>

[Suiram]

My apologies Valyana, it appears Tyche did something wrong. Images in a minute.

Edit:
Suiram 75BLM/37NIN 75 base INT +5 from Prudence Torque 1.0 MDB
Nivlakian 75BLM/37NIN 77 base INT +3 from Yigit Crackows 1.0 MDB
Kaelon WHM 1/3 Shellra V (INT and other stuff unimportant just look at the damage on myself and Nivlakian)

The term with shell has been tested to be the final step in the damage calculation, so there should be no problems due to intermediate flooring. Basically the damage I take is the damage Nivlakian would take if he didn't have shell V on.

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/9...5image1gv5.jpg
floor(662 * (194/256)) = 501

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/2...5image2bl3.jpg
floor(857 * (194/256)) = 649

So the reduction from Shell 5 1/3 alone is 194/256 or -62/256, and you were right at the start. Sorry again for speaking rudely, this should teach me to check for myself before being so adamant about something haha

[nivlakian]

Considering these tests which support the initial statement of the OP, I don't really understand why Tyche's results are different.

What job were you on? Were you naked both times or what did you wear? Was it the same elemental?

[Tyche]

WHM/BLM with a Dark Staff and herald's gaiters. Same elemental. Eat the first firaga, slept it, casted shell V, then ate the next firaga. I never even untargetted it. It wasn't firesday, but it was 2am, possible could have had Burn on me and not noticed it. At least that would be my only guess as it can be the only plausible explanation.

[nivlakian]

Well, not to say this is necessarily the case, but Firaga III (no shell) > Burn > Firaga III (shell V) would cause one to calculate a smaller reduction resulting from shell V

[Suiram]

Kaelon was only like 1.2k to 4 merits, so we got him some exp and tried again with Lv. 2 Shellra 5. Same stats, etc.

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6...ll52of3ky0.jpg

floor(728 * (192/256)) = 546 so it's 192/256 or a -64/256 adjustment.

[Valyana]

OK, I have a friend with capped Shellra V, so we wandered over to Aydeewa to do some testing with a Mold Eater.

Stone IV did 504 with no Shell, 374 with Shellra V.3.
Quake did 728 vs. 540.
Stonega III did 437 vs. 324.

So Shellra V.3 is -66/256, or about -26% magic damage.

[Royal]

Shouldn't mind be considered also?

# MND increases resistance to White Magic spells as well as reducing their base damage.

* Some people believe that MND increases resistance to all spells, not just White Magic (numerous tests back this claim up, but few actually post the results of their testing)

From ffxiclopedia.
It may not be true, but might be worth testing?

[BRP]

Shouldn't mind be considered also?

# MND increases resistance to White Magic spells as well as reducing their base damage.

* Some people believe that MND increases resistance to all spells, not just White Magic (numerous tests back this claim up, but few actually post the results of their testing)

From ffxiclopedia.
It may not be true, but might be worth testing?

I did my own type of testing while leveling to 75. DRK and BLMs resisted spells often, while WHMs were no problem(without Shell).

[Genosync]

Shouldn't mind be considered also?

# MND increases resistance to White Magic spells as well as reducing their base damage.

* Some people believe that MND increases resistance to all spells, not just White Magic (numerous tests back this claim up, but few actually post the results of their testing)

From ffxiclopedia.
It may not be true, but might be worth testing?

Let's go ignore Geno's posts some more.

K, so there's like, Tier bonuses on spells. And there's a way to make it so you don't get the Tier bonus at all, and that's by having an INT that's a certain value higher than the thing that's casting on you's INT. Look it up on calculating magic damage. This is why BLMs and DRKs just so happened to resist spells more, BRP. They've got higher INT, and sometimes your spell isn't just getting resisted--you're losing the tier bonus on your nuke sometimes too. Plus, their higher INT is cutting part of the damage calculation of the spell too.

INT affects Black Magic in this way. MND affects White Magic in this way.

MND does not affect Black Magic or Black Magic resists or even Dark Magic resists in any way, shape, or form. If you can show me results of many many trials of MND affecting Black Magic resist rates, or cancelling the tier bonus, I'll be pretty fucking amazed.

This is also why it's important for things like Kirin, Wyrms, and even stupid Fafnir, to not completely gimp your INT in favor of Elemental Skill. But I digress and am going off-topic kinda.

If you don't get what I'm saying, really, just look at the Calculating Magic Damage topic on the wiki. It's pretty much correct, there's only one or two bits that need tweaking.

[aurik]

the graph of spell dmg vs delta-int in continuous...

[BRP]

This is why BLMs and DRKs just so happened to resist spells more, BRP.

I didn't ask why...

[Suiram]

Eh, I went to edit my post deleted it and rewrote. To summarize what I had, basically Genosync you're somewhat incorrect. There are no tiers, only 'rate change' in your base damage where below equal INT to your target, it rises at a 1:1 ratio, then depending on the spell it rises at a 2:1 or 3:2 rate, then at another point rises at half the previous rate, then eventually caps. Adding to what aurik said, it's monotonic, continuous, and piece-wise linear, there are no tiers and it doesn't jump. The thing is, what's more, on anything practical you'll never hit the point where the rate lowers to half, let alone caps.

To say that it has any practical purpose on anything end-game related justified by what's written on the wiki is silly, since the wiki only concerns the damage of your spell figured after resists, not the chance of resisting itself. The argument people make for using INT instead of Elemental skill on things like Kirin is because they believe (rightly or wrongly) that it has an additional effect on resist rates. If you normally do say 700 damage on Kirin but you sacrifice 10% accuracy to do 800 unresisted damage, that's 10% of the time you're going to be doing 400 instead of 700 and it's up to you to determine what works out better of the course of the fight. It has nothing at all to do with people who say "I think target's INT affects resists" or "I think target's MND affects resists" which are silly discussions anyway because everyone has their stories about how they cast shock on stuff and eyeballed their resist rates or cast on DRK mobs as BRP is saying.

[Darkslitter]

This doesnt work out right though...

[img]http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/7010/firehe9.jpg[/img

Same elemental? Since the lvl of mobs very a tiny bit and all. Only thing I could think of that could change the results unless OP is just incorrect.

[Lyramion]

the merits on Shell 5 say it adds 1 more MDB per merit

no it says "Increase bonus magic defense by 1"

this is different wording than barspell "magic defense bonus of 2 points"

SE has worded stuff wrong before

I am playing on JP version - it clearly stats "Magic Defense Bonus +1" - same wording as with Barspells Magic Defense Bonus

[Tyche]

This doesnt work out right though...

[img]http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/7010/firehe9.jpg[/img

Same elemental? Since the lvl of mobs very a tiny bit and all. Only thing I could think of that could change the results unless OP is just incorrect.

WHM/BLM with a Dark Staff and herald's gaiters. Same elemental. Eat the first firaga, slept it, casted shell V, then ate the next firaga. I never even untargetted it. It wasn't firesday, but it was 2am, possible could have had Burn on me and not noticed it. At least that would be my only guess as it can be the only plausible explanation.

The answer was like 10 posts above yours...