Randomer Question Thread

[Gergall]

Worms in the deserts at night. I did this on COR with a WHM silencing them, though with bloody bolts, their stonega/stoneII/rasp is hardly a problem, cause I've found running out of range is a waste of time.

Can anyone please explain why it needs to be night?

[Gergall]

Is there any real reason to merit anything but STR/INT? I was thinking MND since I love RDM and I'm a MND whore but meh.. I just really haven't touched this Merit Category.

You can merit whatever you want, but keep your other jobs (and possible future jobs) in mind before you make a choice. The last thing you want to do is spend 36 merits (360,000 XP) on MND x5 and then realize that you want STR for your melee job that you level up a year later.

That said, if you are truly a career RDM or WHM with no concern for other jobs, MND can be a sensible option. BRD (and perhaps BST) could go for CHR.

[Valyana]

Worms in the deserts only spawn at night.

[shaddix]

There is two different answers. One is "how many cure speed merits + clogs until I break an animation tier" and the other is "does cure speed actually cap"

I think the animation is 3+clogs, not 100%.

But, I believe that cure speed isn't capped on the server-end (there is a poster on BG who crusades this, they'll chime in I'm sure). I'm capped cure merits and use clogs+loq. Plus, those last merits still help on Curaga, iirc.

/crusade

/chime


I've done a shitload of tests on cure cast-% and I assure you that every bit of cure cast-%/fastcast that you equip work on cures 3-5 up to ~49% on the server end.(that's as far as I can test reliably). For some reason the animation will become capped at ~35% fastcast/curecast-.(ps2 limitations lol?)

On the server end the time between start of cast and target hp healed will continue to decrease up to, I know for sure, ~49%.

I have tested this by taking two whms and playing around with gear/lightarts to compare. I run both copies of FF on the same machine and use a G15 keybind to perfectly sync the cure commands between the two characters on a 3rd target. With both mages capped cure speed merits, cure clogs, and light arts active, the mages will outcure each other about the same amount of time. As in it varies between who cures for hp and who cures for zero about half and half.

As soon as I equip marduk body on one of them, that mage always lands the cure first. And so we know that going from 45%(no FC body) to 50% does increase cure speed on the server, even though the animation between the two are identical. I tried testing with loq as well but I think the internets latency prevents me from getting anything solid on a FC difference that small.

Also fastcast and light arts aren't added together before being applied to the cast time/recast, they are applied separately, I'm not sure how exactly it all stacks with cure cast- gear specifically. So it isn't like, you have 20% fastcast, then light arts gives you 30%. A 100 second recast spell will end up 100*.8*.9=72 instead of 100*.7=70.

[Moridam]

Awesome, thanks for the info! Didn't know that about light arts being applied separately, that kinda sucks but useful to know in the future, I guess.

[Seraph]

Quick question about B2 access.

We have a few members that still need B1. Is it possible for us to do B1, followed by B2 immediately after? Wiki claims that you need to get the finishing cutscenes in Ru'Lude first, but I seem to remember people people claiming they did them back to back.

Thanks

It may have been different in the past, but currently you definitely need to get the cutscene between the B1 and B2 fights. Last time I did this, one of our WHMs got locked out of B2 because they insisted they had gotten the cutscene since last time, and did not.

[Gergall]

shaddix: great info. Did you try subbing RDM for more fast cast?

[Silenka]

Picked up an omega ring recently. I have tamas/omega on BLM right now, but my old snow ring is collecting dust because I can't think of a single place I would want to use it instead of omega. Are there any viable situations where extra 5 int would be better than +3 int/3macc? I can't think of any, except perhaps puddings, and I could just get a sorc ring if I want higher damage on them.

And no, I don't like the what's better thread

[Ultimagi]

Use Snow Ring instead of Tamas Ring and get a Rajas Ring instead.

[drwaffles]

Picked up an omega ring recently. I have tamas/omega on BLM right now, but my old snow ring is collecting dust because I can't think of a single place I would want to use it instead of omega. Are there any viable situations where extra 5 int would be better than +3 int/3macc? I can't think of any, except perhaps puddings, and I could just get a sorc ring if I want higher damage on them.

And no, I don't like the what's better thread

You should have a Sorcerer's Ring anyway. I always kept Snow Ring around for situations where I'm virtually capped on magic accuracy (there's more of them than you appear to realise) and Sorcerer's wasn't viable for whatever reason.

[Gabz]

Wiki says Light Shot increase Dia defense down effect by 5% but is it a straight 5% on all dia? ie if I Light Shot after Dia3 would it mean the effect is now 20%?

[Thorny]

Picked up an omega ring recently. I have tamas/omega on BLM right now, but my old snow ring is collecting dust because I can't think of a single place I would want to use it instead of omega. Are there any viable situations where extra 5 int would be better than +3 int/3macc? I can't think of any, except perhaps puddings, and I could just get a sorc ring if I want higher damage on them.

And no, I don't like the what's better thread

When you're (insert price of snow ring) short of (insert price of sorcerer's ring), sell it. Until then, your m.acc is capped on most limbus, dynamis, einherjar, t1-t3 znm, sea mobs besides JoL and you shouldn't be nuking in omega.

[Arthars]

just sell it

simple is best

but if your a career BLM, then u prolly already have made 101 macros to accommodate the 1001 situations you can think of, and wont ask this question ^^

[Kirschy]

Picked up an omega ring recently. I have tamas/omega on BLM right now, but my old snow ring is collecting dust because I can't think of a single place I would want to use it instead of omega. Are there any viable situations where extra 5 int would be better than +3 int/3macc? I can't think of any, except perhaps puddings, and I could just get a sorc ring if I want higher damage on them.

And no, I don't like the what's better thread

Aside from keeping a 150 INT build for Elemental DoTs, using Omega/Sorc ring will serve you well for everything else.

[Silenka]

You should have a Sorcerer's Ring anyway. I always kept Snow Ring around for situations where I'm virtually capped on magic accuracy (there's more of them than you appear to realise) and Sorcerer's wasn't viable for whatever reason.

No, you're right, I don't realize when I'm capped on macc vs when I'm not. All I remember is every time I read something about balrahn's ring vs whatever else all the replies were 'stack as much macc as you can because it can never hurt'. >.> I can't do math well and I've never been able to understand the complex math involved in most of the complex calculations for percent of accuracy, etc (though I'm not sure this is one of those times), could you please explain the many ways one is capped on macc on blm? :3

As for rajas...I'm not much of a melee, I play mages way more. I doubt I'll ever get a rajas. It could happen eventually, but only if I'm playing melee way more than mage someday... ^^;

[BerenTebogo]

BG /r/ing the math on the diminishing returns of hMP

Or link me the thread - I couldn't find it D:

[Argettio]

Picked up an omega ring recently. I have tamas/omega on BLM right now, but my old snow ring is collecting dust because I can't think of a single place I would want to use it instead of omega. Are there any viable situations where extra 5 int would be better than +3 int/3macc? I can't think of any, except perhaps puddings, and I could just get a sorc ring if I want higher damage on them.

IMO:

Tamas/Sorc: Pure damage
Tamas/Snow: Best damage when going yellow (or near too) isn't suitable
Tamas/Omega: Resistant mobs
Balrahn/Omega: Max macc. Enfeebling and dark

When you change from snow -> omega depends on the rest of your set.

I have 4 sets; zero, light, mid, high resist. And I use 2x 5INT rings until high resist as I make compromises else where and want to keep my INT as high as possible.

[BerenTebogo]

Also, fuck yeah double posting, I need advice

WAR/SAM - doing ACP now - my char is new as we all know. Do I do ACC+10 STP+5 + ecphoria/sniper +1 and do 6hit on WAR/SAM until I level PLD and redo the body or is it not worth haub +1 / sniper +1?

Also, I use a Quick belt because still on promies, how gay.

[Thorny]

Also, fuck yeah double posting, I need advice

WAR/SAM - doing ACP now - my char is new as we all know. Do I do ACC+10 STP+5 + ecphoria/sniper +1 and do 6hit on WAR/SAM until I level PLD and redo the body or is it not worth haub +1 / sniper +1?

Also, I use a Quick belt because still on promies, how gay.

6hit (5 swings) vs 7hit(6 swings) is an extra WS for every 5, or 20% more WS damage. It depends on your WS/TP ratio, but in most cases ecphoria/acp will be better(note that it's 4 stp on body though, if you need 6 more then you're going to need something else which may or may not make it no longer better).

[BerenTebogo]

Would have to be Chiv over PCC then :\ I don't know how I feel about that.