Citadel Buster

[Eldelphia]

Excuse me adding on some Ultima questions here but we're about to go back and try our second with a different tanking team. We have one guy from the first run and a second victim who is trying to gear accordingly. Both will be PLD/NIN have some MDD and MDB gear but one is Elvaan with full HP merits and one is Mithra with partial HP merits. Obviously gonna stuff them full of Carbonara etc

Is BLU as useful as it looks here? I'm looking at ways in which we can improve the chances of tanks surviving CB.

Diamondhide for when Sentinel/Rampart is down
Saline Coat Adds Magic Defense Bonus+50 which can be AoE'd at least once in the fight - does this last long enough to be worthwhile?

Amplificaton MDB +10 is another useful looking spell - if you had two BLUs would this stack with Saline Coat or does one replace the other?

How accurate is headbutt against Ultima? How does it compare with Stun? (Really only worried about dissipation here).

And finally when looking at trying to cut down the damage, how should we be calculating it? Where we can only put in a -1% Magical damage down piece, would we be better stuffing in HP gear if it's 20+? (Edit: it's much easier to hit cap now with lance so I'm assuming we just shift gear around for this)

We beat our first Ultima but it was messy and I want to improve it.


Dream Shroud from a SMN looks too random but could be a nice bonus - do peeps bother with this?

[VZX]

Saline Coat Adds Magic Defense Bonus+50 which can be AoE'd at least once in the fight - does this last long enough to be worthwhile?

It drops relatively fast. So you can just use it once.

Amplificaton MDB +10 is another useful looking spell - if you had two BLUs would this stack with Saline Coat or does one replace the other?

Same deal if you wanted to Diffusion -> Saline Coat the tank. The problem is the diffusion recast, 20 minutes is too long to make it an effective spell for AoE. Not the spell itself.

How accurate is headbutt against Ultima? How does it compare with Stun? (Really only worried about dissipation here).

I use Temporal Shift for stun. It's not 100%, but far better than head butt (which.. you still have to deal with accuracy problem)

[Arouz]

I'll try to verify whether it works or not. What's the easiest normal mob you can test this on (something that does a magic damage move a lot in the presence of zone weather)?

elementals?

[jerkbox]

ice elementals in uleguerand would be convenient

[Vxsote]

I'll back Suiram on the weather stuff. Alistaire's explanation is completely wrong. I've done the testing myself; you should be able to find the info on (lol)alla and/or the talk pages of ffxiclopedia if you want to search for it (I don't feel like it).

Day and single weather each have a chance to proc a 10% bonus. Double weather has a chance to proc a 25% bonus, and ONLY a 25% bonus (this is noteworthy... there is no 'partial' or 'single' weather proc for 10% when double weather is in effect. Contrary to what Alistaire claims, I've tested it enough to exclude the possibility).

There is approximately a 33% chance for day to proc, and approximately a 33% chance for weather to proc (be it single or double). I don't remember the 95% confidence interval for that off hand (I did, infact, determine one), but I do remember that a 10% chance to proc would have been well outside of it. If anyone would like to replicate my proc rate testing for this, the easy way to do it is to use RDM enspells on a low-delay weapon, along with the log parser of your choice. Obviously you need to choose mobs where you can clearly determine what is and is not a proc.

As far as SCH effects on weather, I have not tested anything, so I won't pretend to know anything. I would like to know more about the exact SCH weather mechanics, caster vs. target, etc. What might be really interesting is a caster with one effect and a charmed PC target with another.

[Spekkio]

blu tanking citadel is actually remarkably common. the hate reset after a citadel only makes the job easier b/c the blu can shed hate with little difficulty.

get ultima's attention w/ high hate moves, such as exuviation, temporal shift, jettatura and actinic burst. 3s on exuviation, .5 on actinic/temporal/jettatura for 1180CE and 3700VE, which is about 25% of the hate cap in 4.5 seconds should stand a pretty good chance of getting hate, not to mention the damage the blu can do before CB hits. if enmity is a real problem, diffusion w/ 5 others around is almost 3,900CE/VE in 3 s, which should have no trouble ripping hate off of almost anything. by comparison, a pld w/ invincible only generates 7200VE, so a full target exuviation vs an invincible, frighteningly, the invincible will lose, albeit not by a lot. ^^

fire off diamondhide, and punch saline coat at the last second. with MDB JT from spell combo and a fairly fresh saline coat, that's 60 MDB before gear. 100/160=62.5% damage or a 37.5% reduction before you add magic damage down gear, MDB gear, stoneskin reduction, etc. it should be nearly trivial to survive an unresisted citadel, and a quick flash and cure4 from a pld should let the blu recover from it easily enough. just have your blu punk his CB and get back to maiming him.

[Suiram]

Since this thread got revived, I have a favor to ask of anyone who tanks Ultima in the near future. There was the question earlier in the thread about whether the PLD from the OP took 1232 or 1236, where 1236 was the predicted damage from the formulas VZX provided. A week or so ago a friend who had never tanked Ultima ran their CB gear past me to make sure they would be able to survive, and I gave them the predicted damage for standard damage + weather proc damage, and asked them to get back to me after if I'd nailed it or if it was off by a couple points, and the predictions were off by 1-5 damage.

All this means is there's some discrepancy in either the order of calculations or in the specific base damage calculations. Just to be clear, if all you want to know is "Will I survive CB in this gear?" then the formula from earlier in this thread is adequate enough. But for those people who care to nitpick it would be nice to see if we can figure out why the damage isn't matching up exactly. So I'm soliciting data on Citidel damage to see if I can find the pattern. If you're interested in helping, please post:

• Damage you took (don't worry about trying to figure out if weather procced, it'll be obvious)[/*:m:2ucx20wu]
• Your job + your subjob[/*:m:2ucx20wu]
• List any "damage taken", "magic damage taken" or "Magic Defense Bonus" armor you wore (don't just add up the values on the pieces)[/*:m:2ucx20wu]
• What day of the week you were fighting (particularly Lightsday or Darksday)[/*:m:2ucx20wu]
• What level of Shell you got (and if it's shell V, ask the WHM how many upgrades they had)[/*:m:2ucx20wu]
• If you got Voidstorm from a SCH[/*:m:2ucx20wu]
• Better if you didn't get Magus Roll, but if you did please list the specific roll # for each CB use, and whether or not there was a BLU in the party[/*:m:2ucx20wu]
• Don't post values if you got stoneskin or a stoneskin effect like Rampart, or if you got Saline Coat or Dream Shroud.[/*:m:2ucx20wu]
• Anything else I'm not thinking of at the moment that would reduce or amplify the amount of damage you took [/*:m:2ucx20wu]

Thanks in advance.

[Rena]

Since nobody tested how weather spells affects spells cast on you (or if they did, I didn't see it), I went out and did some testing of my own, and it would seem storm spells do nothing whatsoever for spells cast on you.

Tested against an air elemental on darksday, aeroga damage was 11 after wind weather wore. During wind weather, with no buffs, it did 11 damage, rarely doing 12 (obviously due to wind weather). Tried with hailstorm both with and without hyorin obi on, and saw the exact same numbers (11, rarely 12), and not once the 10 damage that would have been expected had the ice weather proced.

[Eldelphia]

Suiram I'll see if the two guys who are tanking our Ultima on Sunday can help out with this.

[Tordall]

I tanked Ultima on Tuesday.

I was consistently getting hit for 977 damage by CB without any really expensive/exceptional gear as Pld/nin

Shell V
-2% damage sheild
Lamia kaman
IR hat and hands
merman's earrings x2
merman's ring
BQ ring (yeah I know)
NQ coral scale
HQ coral legs
Resentment cape
lieutenant's sash

I was pretty surprised by the lack of variation in damage I was taking.

Before the mazurka patch, we used to use a 'suicide bard' strategy, where one bard would go into the corner of the room and pop-off mazurkas when the counter started. Doing that we'd see damages that were clearly fluctuating based on the day/weather.

The first time I tried CB as ninja, I calculated it out to live with something like 10 hp. Lived through the first 2, then died on the third b/c he got the weather boost.

[VZX]

You didn't mention how many merit of Shellra V did your WHM had, according to my calc, it's Shellra Lv2

Anyway,
Shellra V
MDT -62/256
MDT -64/256 <- this one
MDT -66/256

EDIT:
forgot shield lol

Shield
MDT -2% (what shield is this?)

Lamian Kaman
MDB+1

IR hat and hands
Helm: MDB + 3
Hands: MDB +2

merman's earrings x2
MDT -2*2

merman's ring
MDT -4

BQ ring (yeah I know)

NQ coral scale
MDT-3

HQ coral legs
MDT-2

Resentment cape
MDT-5

lieutenant's sash
MDT-2

Total:
MDB +6
MDT -22% -64/256 = MDT -47%

Calculation:
((85+2)*6)*(4.00/1.06)*.53 = 1043 base

EDIT:
Getting 1/16 resist:
1043 * 15/16 = 977 :D

To get a more accurate answer, I guess getting the exact fraction MDT value of those equipment (like Kirschy did on Haste equip) is the first step. Seeing Suiram only got 1-4 damage miss, that must be it.

[Suiram]

15/16 resist? lol That's not how it works...

Edit: There's no way you're coming close to 977 with the Studio Gobli calculation unless either A. It was darksday and you got day proc on every CB and no weather proc on any, or B. you got voidstorm and it procced on every CB.

In the event you did get a 10% reduction from day/weather then 141/256 from TMDA gives 974 which like I was saying before is close but not exact. It seems though that you left something else out that got the 90% damage, is there any chance you can remember anything else from the list that you might have omitted from your post?

[VZX]

Err... the stuff on wiki is Ambiguous.
So 1/16 resist means you only take 1/16 of the damage, not 15/16 of it?

[Suiram]

Err... the stuff on wiki is Ambiguous.
So 1/16 resist means you only take 1/16 of the damage, not 15/16 of it?

Yeah exactly, sorry. Just to be clear on another thing from what you wrote earlier, too.

To get a more accurate answer, I guess getting the exact fraction MDT value of those equipment (like Kirschy did on Haste equip) is the first step. Seeing Suiram only got 1-4 damage miss, that must be it.

That TMDA is calculated as fractional values is already assumed. It also assumes that after base damage the order of calculating bonuses proceeds the same as with Player vs. Monster and Monster vs. Player elemental magic damage. However, as an example from above, Aegis is (presumably, I don't own one ) 64/256 reduction, while Shell 4 is known 56/256 reduction, so:

floor(floor(floor(522 * 1.25) * (4/1.12)) * (136/256)) = 1236 rather than the 1232 observed earlier. Similar variations happened in the other case as I mentioned before. This can mean one of several things, including and not limited to:

• The order of calculations is different than is supposed[/*:m:1zjx55vd]
• The method in which the terms used in the calculations are derived is different than is supposed[/*:m:1zjx55vd]
• TMDA is calculated as fractions of a higher power of 2 than 256, or other terms which are thought to be integral or fixed-point decimal are actually fractions of a power of 2.[/*:m:1zjx55vd]
• The base damage multiplier for CB and the MAB for Ultima are different than reported, but the product of the two is still 24[/*:m:1zjx55vd]

These are just the possibilities I figure are most likely to be the cause of the discrepancies. The entire reason I'm soliciting data from CB damage is to figure out which of the above is happening, or if none, what exactly is.

[Suiram]

Just finished Ultima, and got a little bit of data, which I figured I'd share here in case anyone else was interested:

BLM/WHM, no damage reduction gear, no Shell, no weather proc: 1864
BLM/WHM, no damage reduction gear, Shell 2, no weather proc: 1601
BLM/WHM, no damage reduction gear, Shell 4, 2x weather proc: 1818
PLD/NIN, MDB+8, gear damage reduction -32/256, Shell 5 3/3, no weather proc: 1192

For reference the gear PLD used: NQ lamian kaman, I.R. hat, 1x merm earring, I.R. hands, 1x merm ring, resent. cape, resolute belt, and askar feet. He also took damage from other CBs but didn't fully swap gear or it was unclear at the time which level of shell he had so I've omitted those.

The predicted damage matched the observed damage that 3 CBs I took (well 5, but I got some repeats), but varied by 1 damage for the PLD:
floor(522 * 4/1.12) = 1864
floor(floor(522 * 4/1.12) * 220/256) = 1601
floor(floor(floor(522 * 1.25) * 4/1.12) * 200/256) = 1818
floor(floor(522 * 4/1.08) * 158/256) = 1193

[Valyana]

Shield
MDT -2% (what shield is this?)

Palmerin's.

[Tsakiki]

Here's some more grist for the mill.

I took 1123 damage from Citadel Buster as PLD/NIN, on Watersday last night. I had Shell IV and was wearing the following:

Iron Ram Lance
Lamian Kaman +1
Iron Ram Sallet
Coral Scale Mail
Iron Ram Dastanas
Shadow Ring
Merman's Ring
Lamia Mantle +1
Coral Cuisses
Askar Gambieras

-21% (magic) damage taken
+11 magic defense bonus

[Suiram]

Thanks for the data, however I have a few quick questions. Are you certain you had shell 4 and not 3? Also, are you certain you did not have any other buffs that might have mitigated the damage taken such as additional MDB from Dream Shroud, Magus Roll, Amplification or Saline Coat, Stoneskin from a SMN, BLU, or SCH, or Phalanx from Noctoshield, a RDM, or a SCH? Are you certain that all your magic reduction gear was swapped in prior to CB going off?

I ask because rather than being within a few points of the damage predicted by the formula, the number you list is considerably different, suggesting either you either had slightly less damage reduction than you stated, or more reduction but was hit with a weather bonus proc.

[Tsakiki]

Darn, I was hoping to be helpful, and now I can't remember the last moments. I could well have had Shell III instead of IV since we got hit with dissipation and I probably automatically shelled myself quickly. The gear should have been there unless a macro failed - all the visible bits were right, so I assume the non-visible ones were as well. However, I did not do a check on the equipment screen. I talked to the RDM in the tank party, and I did not have Phalanx II. It was more damage than I took on the previous fight, which surprised me a bit.

[Suiram]

Were the coral mail and legs HQ or NQ?