Scholar Discussion #3 (post March patch)

[TeancumMemsochet]

I've got 4 macro sets setup. And they look something like this.

10: Weather/Bar spells
1:Light Arts JAs and Enfeebling Magic, 1 macro for Dark Arts/Add:Black that switches to Dark Arts set
2:Cures & Buffs
3:Dark Arts JAs and Enfeebling Magic, 1 macro for Dark Arts/Add:White that switches to Light Arts set
4:Nukes
5:Helixes

[Muffins]

This is something I designed purely out of habit of playing both BLM and WHM. Knowing I already had macros set up for those two job, I tried to design my SCH macros around it. The problem I ran into early was that I couldn't possibly be efficient, flexible, or fast by keeping it only to one page. So, breaking away from how I have my BLM an WHM macros set up, I had to start getting used to using multiple pages.

First thing I did, again, purely out of habit, was put my Stratagems, Modus Veritas, Sublimation, Arts, and rest macro on every alt row of every page I would use. My reasoning for this is that no matter if I'm in Light or Dark Arts, I'll be needing and using every ability, so I'll have to have fast access to them. Once that was out of the way, I set up my Ctrl rows in accordance to spell types: Storms, Debuffs/Buffs, Nukes/Helices, Heals, and a free row mostly for soloing.

It's still being refined, and it took me a couple of days to get accustomed to it. However, the setup I have no makes no sacrifices in speed or accessibility. Also, having to use Windower scripts for the ridiculous amount of equip swapping the job does was necessary for me. There was just no way I could do it easily in FFXI's macros.

[LD]

yea, it was found out things like that don't affect percentage based buffs when sanction refresh would stop very early.

Yes, but using MP gear also doesn't make Sanction Refresh (or Sigil Refresh) cap at a higher tier either (I'm assuming the same happens with Regen).

I'm absolutely sure that's wrong, unless you're talking about HP > MP gear.

[whoami]

Tidane Youts similiar to mine one thing you could try to do is pair up Ja/s to save room. I paired up by effecst (1/2 cost, 1/2 mp, Aoe, Potency) that way i just had to hit the effect i wanted and it always worked. I Don't supose you know of any (relativly, because this is the internet) safe infanit marco programs i could use? I'm relly feeling the limitations of only 6 lines per nuke. I should probly just break my SCH set down and just make a solo/campain set but doesnt help with nuking in the end.

[Aemora]

Set1 (Light Arts):

• Ctrl1=LightArts
  Ctrl2=Addendum:White
  Ctrl3=Cure3
  Ctrl4=Cure4
  Ctrl5=Protect4
  Crtl6=Shell4
  Ctrl7=RegenII
  Ctrl8=Erase
  Ctrl9=Blink
  Ctrl0=Stoneskin
  Alt1=DarkArts (switching to DA macro set)
  Alt2=Penury
  Alt3=Celerity
  Alt4=Accession
  Alt5=Rapture
  Alt6=Weather1
  Alt7=Weather2
  Alt8=Weather3
  Alt9=Weather4
  Alt0=Weather5

Set2 (Dark Arts):

• Ctrl1=LightArts (switches to LA macro set)
  Ctrl2=Addedum:Black
  Ctrl3=Klimaform
  Ctrl4=Sleep2
  Ctrl5=Stone4
  Ctrl6=Water4
  Ctrl7=Aero4
  Ctrl8=Fire4
  Ctrl9=Blizzard4
  Ctrl0=Thunder4
  Alt1=DarkArts
  Alt2=Parsimony
  Alt3=Alacrity
  Alt4=Manifestation
  Alt5=Ebullience
  Alt6=Helix1
  Alt7=Helix2
  Alt8=Helix3
  Alt9=Helix4
  Alt0=Helix5

Please note that the Helix corresponds to whatever I set the Weather spells in that slot too. Works very efficiently as a macro set, I hate having overcomplicated sets.

[lilfoo]

i do not use windower marcos yet.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b6/lilfoo1/spell.jpg

Light & dark are set up like this: /ja "Addendum: White" <me>; /ja "Light Arts" <me>; so it only takes a double press to addendum.

Nukes are set up like: /ma "Thunder IV" <t>; /ma "Thunder III" <t>; so tier 4 will trigger with addendum it will error then cast tier 3 when not.

Stratagems are set up like: /ja "Penury" <me>; /ja "Parsimony" <me>; so w/e arts i am in one will error and the other will fire.

i manual cast most other spells as they don't need to be casted often and i have them sorted close together.

[Tidane]

Is there any way we can find out how much Klimaform increases Magical Accuracy? I took Scholar to Dynamis-Xarcabard and it felt like it was helping the Black Mages, but I'm normally on a DD job and ignore everything with MP. Whenever we killed the Shadowlord, I got one Thunder IV off with Klimaform/Thunderstorm up. Klimaform wore off while I was casting Blizzard IV. Blizzard IV did 24 damage and Thunder IV did 860. I don't know what normal resists or damage on the Shadowlord is like (again, I don't pay attention to MP users). The fact that I don't have capped elemental magic or merits makes me feel like the boost is pretty big (I assume all of these BLMs have capped elemental magic, but I'm not sure about merits). Anyone have any ideas about Klimaform (normal resist rates on DL, etc).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../Klimaform.png

[Gilthas]

yea, it was found out things like that don't affect percentage based buffs when sanction refresh would stop very early.

Yes, but using MP gear also doesn't make Sanction Refresh (or Sigil Refresh) cap at a higher tier either (I'm assuming the same happens with Regen).

I'm absolutely sure that's wrong, unless you're talking about HP > MP gear.

You're right, I forgot that I made this observation from using an Ether ring on my WAR. I remember being annoyed at the time that using the ring didn't allow my WAR to get 150 MP for Reraise (or Raise, my memory is foggy about it).

[Toth]

Is there any way we can find out how much Klimaform increases Magical Accuracy? I took Scholar to Dynamis-Xarcabard and it felt like it was helping the Black Mages, but I'm normally on a DD job and ignore everything with MP. Whenever we killed the Shadowlord, I got one Thunder IV off with Klimaform/Thunderstorm up. Klimaform wore off while I was casting Blizzard IV. Blizzard IV did 24 damage and Thunder IV did 860. I don't know what normal resists or damage on the Shadowlord is like (again, I don't pay attention to MP users). The fact that I don't have capped elemental magic or merits makes me feel like the boost is pretty big (I assume all of these BLMs have capped elemental magic, but I'm not sure about merits). Anyone have any ideas about Klimaform (normal resist rates on DL, etc).

It's just the elemental magic resistance all NM gets. It makes it really hard to see true unresisted damage unless there are less than 3 BLMs. Kudos to your nuke getting unresisted though!

Here is some of my latest power numbers (all done with Melon Pie+1, Scholar Gown (add 5% more damage if you use errant/yigit gomlek), and Ebullience:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...eschdamage.png

Scholar for the win :D

[Tidane]

It's just the elemental magic resistance all NM gets. It makes it really hard to see true unresisted damage unless there are less than 3 BLMs. Kudos to your nuke getting unresisted though!

The Black Mages all casted Burst II unresisted before that screenshot, actually (no, I was wrong. 3/4 BLMs casted Burst II unresisted before that screenshot). What I was wondering if there's any way to get an approximate number on Klimaform's effect. I've not casted elemental magic (on anything worth saying) before Scholar, so I don't know what normal resist rates on the monsters are like. For example, is there any monster that someone could accurately predict the average resists at X skill level?

[Toth]

Magic accuracy is notoriously difficult to measure. The only thing I could suggest to see some kind of effect is to see how well nukes on wyrms (inc Ouryu) and JoL land after Klimaform is cast. Too many BLMs nuking at once will kill the results though.

[tymora]

Ctrl-Shift <Number> will change your set without the need to waste a macro slot.

[Lordwafik]

Hit 75, yay. It was pretty funny,before 75 my BLM friend I was duoing with was outdamaging me , so I put up same ol' thunder buffs, but went with ebuillence instead of going for half MP nukes anddddd

[attachment=0:38726wo8]HuegNukey.jpg[/attachment:38726wo8]

Zoinks. I don't even have things like Yigit Crackows or Novio Earring ( I lost lot on last drop! ), but was pretty funny for me to outnuke a BLM. If only SCH could use morrigan robe, sigh.

[Sevilla]

Hit 75, yay. It was pretty funny,before 75 my BLM friend I was duoing with was outdamaging me , so I put up same ol' thunder buffs, but went with ebuillence instead of going for half MP nukes anddddd

[attachment=0:2xrpbz50]HuegNukey.jpg[/attachment:2xrpbz50]

Zoinks. I don't even have things like Yigit Crackows or Novio Earring ( I lost lot on last drop! ), but was pretty funny for me to outnuke a BLM. If only SCH could use morrigan robe, sigh.

Can I ask what race your BLM friend was? And also what type of merits. Because if it looks like this (I'm currently rushing to 75 on sch (i don't feel bad because I already have a BLM at 75 when Skillchaining was still the in thing to do)) then I might just dump my BLM in favor for SCH.

edit: forgot to add friend

[Azurea_Carby]

I just hit 66 as SCH, and as i was looking ahead for gears, i found the new Cobra gear added in the last update:

http://wiki.bluegartr.com/Cobra_Cloche and http://wiki.bluegartr.com/Cobra_Gloves

Combined they have +3 MAB and +5 Conserve MP plus an unknown amount of +macc.

Think they are worth the 80k AN cost (which i have around 100k) and the +2 item storage??

[Kaeko]

http://kanican.livejournal.com/26917.html

I made a retardedly long LJ post over the new SCH yesterday (yes, shameless plug), but here are the general conclusions I found...

I went to go solo puddings on my SCH and compared the damages to some old school shots from my BLM (it was missing Novio at the time of the shots). I compared their damages and ran some math on them to determine MP efficiency, MP per spell, etc. and came up with this...

**************************************

Using Blizzard IV on Iceday to Compare...

(BLM) 1670 || (SCH) 1317 || (SCH Ebullience) 1581

Black Mage:

(1670 damage) / (164 MP) = 10.18 damage to MP

Scholar:

(1317 damage) / (148 MP) = 8.90 damage to MP (Dark Arts)

(1317 damage) / (82 MP) = 16.06 damage to MP (Parsimony - 50%MP)

(1581 damage) / (148 MP) = 10.68 damage to MP (Ebullience - Damage +20%)

In this comparison, Black Mage will do roughly 1.30 more damage per MP spent on nukes, but this is assuming the Scholar is not using Stratagems. If Scholar uses Stratagems Parsimony or Ebullience in conjunction with their nuke, their MP efficiency goes up drastically and becomes higher than the Black Mage's in either case. In the case of Parsimony, you get a 16.06 damage to MP ratio, which is 58% more efficient than a Black Mage's nuke.

**************************************

The Resist Rates for Scholar on HNMs without the use of external buffs or Klimaform is determined by the amount of Elemental Skill and INT you can stack. Currently the most of both you can get is 320 Elemental Skill and 107 INT if you're a Taru, which is below the generally accepted 320 Elemental Skill / 120 INT or 330 Elemental Skill. It's pretty close though, so any sort of gear enhancement should put it over the top.

Once Scholar is able to reach these tiers for resists on HNMs, they would be pretty much equal to Black Mage in terms of effectiveness in magic damage on HNMs. This is because your MAB or extra damage doesn't really help you too much on these fights as the limiting factor will typically be hate or running out of MP - in the case of running out of MP, the BLM would run out before the SCH for the reasoning above.

**************************************

Scholar completely wrecks Salvage if you go really low numbers and focus on non-boss farming. We were able to do a 1F - 2F Rampart run with only 4 players in Bhaflau Rem. as 3 melees and a SCH. I essentially maintained Protect IV, Shell IV, Stoneskin, Phalanx, and Enblizzard while the melees just teared through everything. MP is easy to keep up with despite the fact Sublimation is not so hot w/o HP cell. This is because all the moves I mentioned are really inexpensive with the exception of Protect/Shell (which last 30 minutes anyways). Easy run and very player efficient.

[Lordwafik]

Hit 75, yay. It was pretty funny,before 75 my BLM friend I was duoing with was outdamaging me , so I put up same ol' thunder buffs, but went with ebuillence instead of going for half MP nukes anddddd

[attachment=0:19sgw8dq]HuegNukey.jpg[/attachment:19sgw8dq]

Zoinks. I don't even have things like Yigit Crackows or Novio Earring ( I lost lot on last drop! ), but was pretty funny for me to outnuke a BLM. If only SCH could use morrigan robe, sigh.

Can I ask what race your BLM friend was? And also what type of merits. Because if it looks like this (I'm currently rushing to 75 on sch (i don't feel bad because I already have a BLM at 75 when Skillchaining was still the in thing to do)) then I might just dump my BLM in favor for SCH.

edit: forgot to add friend

He was Taru with obi/af2 legs/weskit etc (no novio) and with capped thunder potency. Remember BLM isn't a job you'd wanna just dump they're very good too, we get no -ga spells, our sleepgas cost us charges, etc. BLM still isn't obselete like they are panicing and making it out to be. The line between blm and sch however is very fine, hopefully instead of nerfing SCH , they boost blm.

[Sevilla]

Oh no I'm not planning on dumping it the way you mean, I think I just didnt choose the right word. I plan on coming to more events as a SCH mainly because of helixes and keeping Regen under control. I invested too much time and gil on my blm to totally dump like that lol. But thanks for the response, just made me more happy in leveling a job that could be used end game (even though I have not touched most of end game).

[Reapz]

I think it was stupid to give SCH tier IV, I would of rather they got Stoneskin/Blink and maybe Haste because now they are very close to what a BLM is but with the added bonuses of Stoneskinga/Phalanxga/Enspellga/Sublimation etc. Hopefully they will give BLMs tier V eventually to seperate the jobs more because I can see my BLM going into retirement once my SCH is 75, other than the few HNM that require high ele skill and what not.

[lost071]

I think it was stupid to give SCH tier IV, I would of rather they got Stoneskin/Blink and maybe Haste because now they are very close to what a BLM is but with the added bonuses of Stoneskinga/Phalanxga/Enspellga/Sublimation etc. Hopefully they will give BLMs tier V eventually to seperate the jobs more because I can see my BLM going into retirement once my SCH is 75, other than the few HNM that require high ele skill and what not.

You're an idiot. We can get stoneskin and blink from /WHM or our best sub /RDM. Only sub we dont get it in is /BLM. If we get haste, first of all we'd be overpowered because we could hastaga not only our party but other parties as well. Secondly why would I want to be a RDM version 2? BLM going obsolete? Do we have access to AM2 or potency merits? We also don't have A+ elemental magic skill like BLMs which means we need a lot more gear to reach a good resistance rate. We also do not have the gear selection that BLM gets. SE already stated that they want us to be a magical DD. For the future I see for this job it can fit into a couple slots. We can do normal style merit parties or manaburns. For HNMs and stuff I see us playing a magic DD/support role.