Scholar Discussion #3 (post March patch)

[terranova]

Isn't regen III 18 hp per tick?

20.

As for skill caps with Dark Arts, mine has been capped on RDM for a long time now(230) and it's stayed blue forever on SCH now at 270 lol.

Then again the body is +15.



It was 4AM when I typed that -.-.

I suppose Dark Arts ups my elemental skill on RDM to 256, I haven't checked. However not once have I had to skill up elemental on SCH because it's stayed capped. Not wearing the body or the torque - still capped. Not that I'm complaining because that just leaves me with dark magic to worry about skilling up.

[Eldelphia]

I'm finally starting to see the end in sight. I used my 71 SCH with a BLM friend to go /poke Ix'MNK. Sandstorm + boots = even safer kiting, although to be honest once we got the hang of it, kiting him without was fine.

What kind of numbers have you guys achieved with helices against this guy (if you've done it)? At 71 I seem to have access to more -EMN gear than nuking gear but I piled on everything I could find.

I was quite impressed that my nukes weren't negligible - was a lot of fun. We got our first cape, which I won and we're going back for more.

[Kaelen]

Nice! I wish my mage friends had the balls to try soloing/low-maning Ix stuff. I made it to 73 recently; dinging into 3/5 Yigit was pretty cool. Got lucky with a couple of healing gigs, which was pretty boring (lolibri). I'm pretty tempted to ask my mage friends if they want to go out and work on obis when I hit 75 or when I get the last "good" piece of Yigit. Else, soloing them doesn't seem too hard

[Eldelphia]

You can work on obis now, I had some from BLM which I can already use We popped Ix'MNK again last night with one organ and got a deed with me on SCH. What I was surprised about was how well I can sleep/enfeeble all the mobs I've found so far inside the Palace. I do have some merits which no doubt are helping but when we went to kill a few Aerns I was surprised at how well I could contribute. Can't wait to ding into Yigit/Errant/Earrings/Capes etc.

[Eldelphia]

Sorry for two posts in a row - I need some gear help - I'm a bit overwhelmed and confused. I have a heap of gear for I can use for SCH because I'm obsessed with mage jobs and I need some help to focus.

I think I'm ok on Light Arts/Healing side of things. I'm building up towards a nice -EMN set, having found a decent use for the -6 EMN on my Hydra Brais (cures, not buffs). Once I get there I'll have access to a Novia, Errant Cape, HH bomb etc

I'm trying work out what I should be using for helices and to a letter extent nukes... Nukes, well I kinda get because if I'm getting resists then pile on more skill until the resists drop but the choices if I'm not resisting hurt my head a bit.

Stuff I have (currently 72, heading to 75 fast):

6/6 Enfeebling Merits, 4/6 Elemental Merits, 4/4 Enhancing Merits 8/8 MP

Full Yigit
Full AF

Prism Cape / Merciful Cape / Lieut's/ Errant
Tamas / Snow / Balrahn's / Aqua / Trooper's Rings
Moldy / Magnetic / Loquacious / Novia Earrings (no Novio)
Elemental / Enfeebling / Dark / Enhancing / Uggly Pendant
Numerist Pumps / Cobra Pigaches / Desert Boots [Edit: Goliard Clogs]
Errant Body / Glamor Jupon
Mahatma Slops / Hydra Brais
P rope / Swift Belt / Hierach's Belt / Ice+Thunder+Dark+Light Obis
HH Bomb / Phantom Tathlum
Full set of HQ staves / 4th mace / Capricorn Staff

1) Do I need Viscious mufflers (I have Z mitts for BLM) or am I ok/better off in Yigit Gages?

2) When it comes to helices - what should I prioritise? These confuse the hell out of me. I get that I need weather + klimaform, but do I need MAtt or Int or Skill or some combination of the three?

3) What do I do about footwear? The fast cast of AF is nice but I have lots of nice shoes

4) Sort of related to 2), do I want to go Merciful or Prism for a nuking/helix backpiece?

5) Should I pick up some Errant Hands?

6) How should I make the best use of my Yigit?

Yours, in confusion

Me

[astura]

1) Do I need Viscious mufflers (I have Z mitts for BLM) or am I ok/better off in Yigit Gages? there nice to get on exp level mobs but yigit works almost well but anything beyond exp level mobs youll want a skill set for resists.

2) When it comes to helices - what should I prioritise? These confuse the hell out of me. I get that I need weather + klimaform, but do I need MAtt or Int or Skill or some combination of the three? int everytime but there are times when you want mab and times you dont. for instance sky and love dont use mab earrings use int. everything else int. on limbus and all znms so far i can breka 100-200 dmg helix's just need very good int build on them.

3) What do I do about footwear? The fast cast of AF is nice but I have lots of nice shoes
use af on drain/aspir anything you want ot push timers down on, yigit on nukes, skill gear for resist (numirest pumps)

4) Sort of related to 2), do I want to go Merciful or Prism for a nuking/helix backpiece?
id go prism on helix either its a mob that its worthwhile for helix to land on or its a above exp level mob and you should be nuking instead with a skill set.
5) Should I pick up some Errant Hands? between yigit/Viscious mufflers and + elemtental hands your fine no need for errant (yigit is 5 int/mnd and 2 mab)

6) How should I make the best use of my Yigit? head for - enm/ss set, body on t4 if resists arent a issue, hands full time on helix and exp level mob nukes, legs for hmp, feet on SS/exp level nukes. and of course full set hmp

if you want reference for what i consider ideal nuke/helix/resist sets ill pm it to you sence it would make this post massively long.

[Lasareth]

I've always been fond of goliard gloves and feet, their blend of damage and accuracy seems to work well on helices and nukes. If you have/can get a nyzul group they are definitely worth it.

[Eldelphia]

Oh! I have goliard feet too >.> and am working on the rest. On floor 41 at the moment.

[astura]

yigit does best for helix with 5 int and 2 mab. with obi's your getting a nice boost to macc and with klimaform should get full duration as well 90% the time. helix go big or go nuke. If its a issue to land for dmg or resistgo use T3/T4 nukes cause the mobs got to high a int/mdb to overcome for a reasonable amount of dmg (kirin/love/wyrms).

[astura]

reposted from a pm to you but this is probably the gear you should aim for to use. (nuke/helix/resist set)
nuke exp level:

weapon: hq staff
sub: buggard grip+1 (+1int)
ammo: (+2int)
neck: prudence torque(+5 int)/uggly pendant (+8 mab) elemental (+7 skill)
ear1: moldavite earring (+5 mab)
ear2: novio earring (+7 mab)
body: ixion's cloak (13 int auto regen/refresh 5 macc)
hands: vicsus mufflers (+5mab)
ring1: tama's (int+5 -3emn)
ring2: snow (+5 int)
back: gleeman's cape (+5 int)
waist: obi
legs: jet sereweels (int+7 -4emn)
feet: yigit (int+3 mab+2)

int=+41/46
mab=+19/27

helix: (use +2 int earrings if you try on high int/mdb mobs like love/kirin/sky/wyrms)

weapon: hq staff
sub: buggard grip+1 (+1 int)
ammo: (+2 int)
neck: prudence torque (+5int)/uggly pendant (+8 mab)
ear1: moldavite (+5 mab)
ear2: novio (+7 mab)
body: ixions cape (13 int auto refresh/regen macc+5)
hands: yigit (+5 int +2 mab)
ring1: tama's (int+5 -3 emn)
ring2: snow ring (int+5)
back: gleeman cape (int+5)
waist: obi's
legs: jet seraweels (int+7 -4 emn)
feet: yigit (int+3 mab +2)

int=+46/51
mab=+14/22

and a resist set:

base skill= 256 skill
merits=+16 skill

weapon: hq staff
sub: buggard strap+1(+1 int)
ammo: (+2int)
head: elite baret+1 (+5 skill)
neck: elemental torque (+7 skill)
ear1: novio (7 mab)
ear2: moldavite (5 mab)
body: af (+15 skill +1 int)
hands: genie gage's (+8 skill)
ring1: tama's ring (+5 int)
ring2: snow ring (+5 int)
back: merciful cape (+5 skill)
waist: obi
legs: druids slops (+5 skill) (jet on ice nukes)
feet: numirest pumps (+4 skill) (yigit on ice nukes)

320 skill = resist cap
256 base:256
16 merits: 272
15 af: 287
7 neck: 294
8 hands: 302
5 back: 307
5 legs: 312
4 feet: 316
5 head: 321 (if nq=320)

ice set up

256 base:256
16 merits: 272
15 af: 287
10 weapon: 297
7 neck: 304
8 hands: 312
5 back: 317
5 head: 321 (if nq=320)

[Lasareth]

New merits for anyone curious:

Grimoire recast is light/dark arts -2sec recast per upgrade
MV duration is 10% increase per upgrade
Helix macc is +3 and matk bonus +2 per upgrade
Max sublimation is +10mp per upgrade

[astura]

ok the MV duratation is intresting assuming you went 5/5 and got a full duration helix to start with (82 seconds) and did right after helix landed (assuming 100 dmg). your looking 82/2= 41 duration at 100*2= 200*4=800 dmg same dmg as before just bumped up the speed on it. but at 50% duration on this you get 1.5*41=61.5 duration and get 2 more tics so 200*2 (10 sec a duration past first)+800 before to get 1200 total dmg.
comparing that dmg to before you get 1200/800 or a 33% increase in dmg every 10 minutes.
if you used this with 2 sch you get 2x dmg at 75% duration loss then so using the same math above
100 a tic 82 duration used rigth after it lands you get 4x dmg at .75*.75*82=46 seconds so 5 tics at 400 dmg is 2k dmg now
add another on top of this you get 8* the dmg at .75*46=34.5 seconds so 4 tics at 800 dmg is 3.2k dmg now
the max you can get here is going to be 12 seconds within reason to get 2 tics so you would need 6 people which is 2^6 or 64 times the dmg. with 1 tic its 6.4k dmg with 2 its 12.8k dmg.


Sublimation if you have 1k hp you get 300 mp with 5/5 vrs 250 or a 20% increase in mp overtime. considering 30 seconds between using it at 3mp a tic(3 sec).
refresh=(1mp/1sec) or 280 mp every 280 seconds (600 mp every 10 minutes)
sublimation (1k hp with 5/5 merits) you get 300 mp every (250 sec+30 or 280 seconds) whic works out to 1.07 mp/sec with sublimation now with af hat to get 3 mp/tic. (and you hit it exactly every time)
in short it favors low hp set ups to get a max charge in a shorter time to get more mp over time. A taru with no hp merits and - hp gear is the ideal set up with this. combined with a ixion cloack and another auto regen item you gain mp over time better then refresh solo at no hp cost to you (in fact you gain 20 hp back during the 30 second timer on sublimation before starting again and 20 more mp then as well)

[Elswood]

Wouldn't AF1 head + Errant / AF1 body(more of the time since resistance can be a prob) be better than Ixion Cloak? And Jet Seraweels are dumb to recommend; Mahatma only.

[Kaeko]

The SCH relic is pretty bad...

Including Job Trait MAB...

Over 35 MAB = HQ staves will net more damage than relic

Under 35 MAB = Relic will net more damage than HQ Staves

Considering a well gear SCH gets around +39 before Uggy Pendant, it means HQ staves will win out damage wise. The -20 enmity isn't that big a deal on DD, so it's a pretty underwhelming weapon in my opinion. I guess if you like to melee that aftermath bonus may be good?

BLM one blows too unless the Elemental Seal bonus is amazing.

[astura]

Wouldn't AF1 head + Errant / AF1 body(more of the time since resistance can be a prob) be better than Ixion Cloak? And Jet Seraweels are dumb to recommend; Mahatma only.

well from my experience using sch helix on mobs from exp range to znm to sea jailors (inside and outside) to limbus to kirin/jol. The resist aren't the issue until you get to sky/mobs/jol. As far as i'm concerned go big or go home on helix. between hq staff/obi and built in weather/day bonus helix with klimaform landing isn't a problem. The problem with those mobs is you cant tell if its a high int or resist rate your facing. If its resist your int will be severly lacking unless you get a brd to put int etudes on you to break into a respectable tier of dmg with a helix (imo a helix initial dmg should be at least 10% of a tier 4 nuke without a 20% potency boost on the tier 4 to be worthwhile).

anyways time to examine the next 2 merits i didn't discuss last time have merit as well if your able to think outside the box.
if it effects spell recast with it while in the proper arts.

sch/rdm without af feet has 17.5% recast reduction with af feet 22.5% recast.
with these merits you can get 27.5% recast reduction or 32.5% recast reduction.
now with these merits you can potentially mini zerg a lot fast and get spell spamming off a lot faster as well without using a charge or 2 hour use. with golliard body, walmart turban and swift belt you can get another 14% off recast in right arts. this is 41.5% or 46.5% recast reduction. for drains, aspirs, cures, or other spells where stats or skills arent important you can almost cap out recast in a reasonable manner. For soling using bio II with drain and aspir and a occiasional helix (talked about below) could mean a long term way to heavily dot a mob to death (and with heralds gaitors safely keep a distance more so) 2 drains and aspirs per minute pracitally is a huge bonus to doing effecient dot to kill mobs with helix. as for curing aspect you can fire off na's/cures now getting the fastest cure tier possible(35%) with no haste gear as /rdm. Overall a party and solo friendly investment to merit imo.

now onto the helix merits at 5 you get 15 macc and 10 mab. a 10% increase to dmg from merits allows you swap out a novio/moldy combo for 2 +2 int earrings on high int based mobs to only lose a 2% bonus from before and on the squishier mobs that you could use them on you can now get more dmg then prior. Seeing as how acc on helix and dmg on them has been a problem for end game mobs (wyrms/sky/jol) this potentially allows the use of more int gear and 1 or 2 less skill gears to get more int to break into the 10int=15% dmg boost from weapons. i figured this tier to be 47ish int over the mobs int (or about 147 dmg or higher a hq staff is better dmg sence its a multipler). as far as i figure there's 2 ways to place macc. its either part of a equation as a "base acc" like acc is for melees in which other modifiers for base macc are figured as well and can have multpiers off this base with "sushi" (nq staff or hq staff) or it is in fact the final acc and is added at the end. based on the wording for acc and how we know it works it probly adds to the base acc of this. If you can assume that 15 macc~15 ele skill (hard reach in practice but bear with me) you have just got as much "base acc" as the af body provides and with a ixion cloak 5 macc as well just got a hq elite baret with 5 macc~5 ele skill. seeing as how obi's seem to provide a multiplier effect to dmg and macc when used on proper trigger of day/weather combo and a hq staff as another multiplier you should be able to get a respactable resist rate and duration before you can consider klimaform.

id think that a combination of 5/5 grimoire and helix might be the best route to go for solo and party play. reduced recast timers and more dmg on helix allow for more dmg over time. a 5/5 grimoire and sublimation would be best for endurance fights as you get more mp over time for more nuking.

[Vegetatheprince]

ok the MV duratation is intresting assuming you went 5/5 and got a full duration helix to start with (82 seconds) and did right after helix landed (assuming 100 dmg). your looking 82/2= 41 duration at 100*2= 200*4=800 dmg same dmg as before just bumped up the speed on it. but at 50% duration on this you get 1.5*41=61.5 duration and get 2 more tics so 200*2 (10 sec a duration past first)+800 before to get 1200 total dmg.
comparing that dmg to before you get 1200/800 or a 33% increase in dmg every 10 minutes.
if you used this with 2 sch you get 2x dmg at 75% duration loss then so using the same math above
100 a tic 82 duration used rigth after it lands you get 4x dmg at .75*.75*82=46 seconds so 5 tics at 400 dmg is 2k dmg now
add another on top of this you get 8* the dmg at .75*46=34.5 seconds so 4 tics at 800 dmg is 3.2k dmg now
the max you can get here is going to be 12 seconds within reason to get 2 tics so you would need 6 people which is 2^6 or 64 times the dmg. with 1 tic its 6.4k dmg with 2 its 12.8k dmg.


Sublimation if you have 1k hp you get 300 mp with 5/5 vrs 250 or a 20% increase in mp overtime. considering 30 seconds between using it at 3mp a tic(3 sec).
refresh=(1mp/1sec) or 280 mp every 280 seconds (600 mp every 10 minutes)
sublimation (1k hp with 5/5 merits) you get 300 mp every (250 sec+30 or 280 seconds) whic works out to 1.07 mp/sec with sublimation now with af hat to get 3 mp/tic. (and you hit it exactly every time)
in short it favors low hp set ups to get a max charge in a shorter time to get more mp over time. A taru with no hp merits and - hp gear is the ideal set up with this. combined with a ixion cloack and another auto regen item you gain mp over time better then refresh solo at no hp cost to you (in fact you gain 20 hp back during the 30 second timer on sublimation before starting again and 20 more mp then as well)

MV = 50% duration of helix
MV + 50% MV (capped merits) = 75% duration of helix
if it were to double (100%) MV then it would be = duration of helix

sch merits blow imo, did lvl 4 sublimation for no real reason other than I find arts + MV merits useless.

the 1 thing that will be nice (i suppose) is +15 base macc on all helices so u can focus on int entirely.

[Gilthas]

Sublimation if you have 1k hp you get 300 mp with 5/5 vrs 250 or a 20% increase in mp overtime. considering 30 seconds between using it at 3mp a tic(3 sec).
refresh=(1mp/1sec) or 280 mp every 280 seconds (600 mp every 10 minutes)
sublimation (1k hp with 5/5 merits) you get 300 mp every (250 sec+30 or 280 seconds) whic works out to 1.07 mp/sec with sublimation now with af hat to get 3 mp/tic. (and you hit it exactly every time)
in short it favors low hp set ups to get a max charge in a shorter time to get more mp over time. A taru with no hp merits and - hp gear is the ideal set up with this. combined with a ixion cloack and another auto regen item you gain mp over time better then refresh solo at no hp cost to you (in fact you gain 20 hp back during the 30 second timer on sublimation before starting again and 20 more mp then as well)

I don't understand the logic to this. Why does it matter that you reach the max MP from Sublimation faster with lower HP? I haven't read this topic from the beginning but I'm not aware of there being any kind of bonus for getting Sublimation to full, unless this merit category has changed that. I haven't merited Sublimation because my interpretation of the text associated to it is that the only thing it does is let you burn extra HP to gain the extra MP. Is that not the case? Because if my interpretation is correct having low HP or high HP is meaningless (or at least low HP is bad though I rarely let Sublimation run its full course anyway).

sch/rdm without af feet has 17.5% recast reduction with af feet 22.5% recast.
with these merits you can get 27.5% recast reduction or 32.5% recast reduction.
now with these merits you can potentially mini zerg a lot fast and get spell spamming off a lot faster as well without using a charge or 2 hour use. with golliard body, walmart turban and swift belt you can get another 14% off recast in right arts. this is 41.5% or 46.5% recast reduction. for drains, aspirs, cures, or other spells where stats or skills arent important you can almost cap out recast in a reasonable manner. For soling using bio II with drain and aspir and a occiasional helix (talked about below) could mean a long term way to heavily dot a mob to death (and with heralds gaitors safely keep a distance more so) 2 drains and aspirs per minute pracitally is a huge bonus to doing effecient dot to kill mobs with helix. as for curing aspect you can fire off na's/cures now getting the fastest cure tier possible(35%) with no haste gear as /rdm. Overall a party and solo friendly investment to merit imo.

Again, my interpretation of this merit category is that it only affects the recast of the Light Arts and Dark Arts Job abilities. Does it also affect recast timers of the spells when grimoires are active?

All in all, these two merit categories are the ones I initially ignored since I thought they were pretty pointless. But if they actually do what you say they do I might merit Grimoire recast instead.

[Grandphoenix]

The SCH relic is pretty bad...

Including Job Trait MAB...

Over 35 MAB = HQ staves will net more damage than relic

Under 35 MAB = Relic will net more damage than HQ Staves

Considering a well gear SCH gets around +39 before Uggy Pendant, it means HQ staves will win out damage wise. The -20 enmity isn't that big a deal on DD, so it's a pretty underwhelming weapon in my opinion. I guess if you like to melee that aftermath bonus may be good?

BLM one blows too unless the Elemental Seal bonus is amazing.

Well if anything on higher level mobs where say you'd need skill>MAB then this weapon would become more viable perhaps? Also maybe lose the moldy earring and toss an INT earring?

[LD]

When it comes to SCH & BLM's Mythics, I'm reserving judgment until we're absolutely sure how Aftermaths work and how potent they are. If they end up being 2H buffs that are more potent than HQ staves (or NQ, that way they'd at least be a space-saver), then the other effects are icing on the cake rather than the defining attribute.

At this point, I'm more concerned about the Helix merits. Will they make the spells usable on HNM? If they do, what about the OTHER major problem with Helixes? The fact that they can't be stacked.

[FailureMidgard]

For Sublimation, increasing your max MP stored does increase the mp gained over time. It is not a large amount, but it is an increase.

Examples:

1000 HP, 250 max Sublimation.
You gain 3mp/3sec with AF hat.
After 250 seconds, your sublimation pool is full. You use sublimation.
After 30 seconds, you start it ticking again.
Thus, you gain 250mp/280 seconds, or .893mp/sec

1000 HP, 300 max Sublimation.
300mp/330sec = .909mp/sec


700 HP, 175 max Sublimation.
175mp/205sec = .854mp/sec

700HP, 225 max Sublimation.
225mp/255sec = .882mp/sec

(.909-.893)/.893 = 1.8% increase in mp gained. (roughly 1 extra mp per minute)
(.882-.854)/.854 = 3.3% increase in mp gained. (roughly 1.7 extra mp per minute)


Conclusions: All the calculations were assuming 5/5 in Sublimation merits. If you are using it to cut back on your "downtime" between sublimations, it's basically not worth it. It -is- more worth it for someone with lower HP than someone with higher HP, but not by a lot. If you get this merit, take it because you want to be able to prestore a larger MP pool (or while curing, you sit on a full mp pool decently often and only use it in "oh shit" situations).

For damage situations, it is 50mp that you start with, +1-2 extra mp per minute. If you assume that a Helix is worth casting (78mp), Full MV merits give you either 1 full helix worth of damage, or 50% of a helix worth of damage, depending on how you believe the wording works (until someone tests this). If the worst case scenario is true, then that is roughly 39mp worth of damage (meaning a full MV merited helix has 75% of the original helix's duration). Continuing with this interpretation, after 19minutes you have used MV twice for a total of 78mp gain. Sublimation merits would have given you 69mp with 1000base HP, or 82mp with 700base HP. Even in this situation, the MV merits are likely to win out over time. Also, 19min is an ideal timeframe for the Sublimation merits (if you went only 15minutes, MV got the same # of uses, but Sublimation merits have done even less).

Summary: Only take Sublimation merits if you sit on a full sublimation charge a lot. It is not worth taking to cut back on downtime.