Magic defense bonus (or damage reduction) for high-level NM

[CDF]

Does anyone have any knowledge of possible MDB (or reduction in magic damage taken) for things such as HNM, T4 ZNM, Kaiser Behemoth in Apollyon (I mention this since it would seem fairly easy to determine MDB or -MDT in this case), etc.? The correct answers may have implications for "optimizing" magic accuracy on these things (mainly because one could then calculate exact INT for these NMs).

[Suiram]

I don't know about the specifics of the ones you mentioned, but there are three useful tools that I have used in the past to find mob MDB and TMDA faster than varying INT to find damage cutoffs that account for flooring. They are Nether Blast, Quick Draw, and 1000 Needles.

Nether Blast is affected by both MDB and TMDA and cannot resist. This will tell you right away what total magic reduction the mob has. The drawback is that if you find a mob takes reduced damage, it is not always immediately clear whether it is MDB, TMDA, or a combination of both that causes the reduction.

1000 Needles can resist, but when it does it is a full resist (no 1/2, 1/4 or 1/8 resists like regular magic), and it is unaffected by MDB. Therefore, if you do a 750 1k needles, you know immediately that the mob has a -64/256 reduction in magic damage or at least light-element magic damage.

Quick Draw can resist and is affected by MDB, but ignores TMDA. Also, even if you resist you may be able to infer what the MDB is anyway, by factoring that into your calculation, unless the resist was severe enough to obscure the variation between two different possible MDB values.

The nice thing about the above three is that the base damage for each of them is easily calculable and independent of the mob's INT/MND/etc. Also, you could combine one of these with elemental magic, but that requires a bit more involved calculations.

Edit: When using the above, you have to keep two things in mind. One is that (for instance Nether Blast with Kaiser Behemoth), you may have day/weather conditions increasing or reducing the final damage, so you will want to use tools that avoid this, depending on what you are testing. Also, I believe it is possible (but uncommon) that some mobs may have element-specific magic reductions, so if you noticed reduced damage from one element but not another, take that into consideration.

[hagun]

Magic damage reduction and magic defense bonus are equal until the 50% mark where magic damage reduction caps, but magic defense does not cap.

Don't believe me though.

[Suiram]

Don't believe me though.

Truest part of the entire post.

[Thorny]

Also, I believe it is possible (but uncommon) that some mobs may have element-specific magic reductions, so if you noticed reduced damage from one element but not another, take that into consideration.

I'm pretty sure all bomb types have -50% to non-fire spells, don't have a character to go test, but a few t3 nukes from a 75 blm "resisting" on horutoto bombs would prove it pretty easily.

[Suiram]

Yeah, the reason I hedged in my post is because I believe that bombs, elementals, yovra for instance take a damage cut to specific elements, but it's possible that it's just a high enough elemental resistance to force a 1/2 minimum resist. I actually attempted to test this recently on elementals, and it appeared that they had both a forced resist and an element-specific damage cut, but I didn't get enough info to see what component of which. So I'm still not comfortable saying it with complete certainty.

[Bakthi]

Quick Draw can resist and is affected by MDB, but ignores TMDA. Also, even if you resist you may be able to infer what the MDB is anyway, by factoring that into your calculation, unless the resist was severe enough to obscure the variation between two different possible MDB values.

I may be misunderstanding what you mean by MDB versus TMDA, but I've never seen Proto-Ultima take what should be full damage from a Quick Draw. I have almost as much AGI as it is possible to equip in slots where I can't get MAB/M.acc, full QD acc merits, and have tried with Aquilo's, Vulcan's, and Auster's (my new favorite) with the appropriate cards. I'll do consistent damage, but it'll be about half of what a regular QD would. I have seen the occasional resist for like 84, too.

Interestingly, I noticed the same thing on Proto-Omega, but the damage is the same regardless of his mode. (COR is especially handy for the pod farming phase, as I just nail him with Quick Draw whenever its up, and can keep his HP low without giving him TP).

[Suiram]

MDB and TMDA are two different ways of mitigating magic damage. MDB reduction is basically 1/(1+(MDB/100)), so if you have 10 MDB, you take roughly 1/1.1 damage you would otherwise. TMDA is from shell or "magic damage taken -%" armor; some mob families have this innately, and some HNMs are given a value for this as well (Temperance is an obvious example). When you deal reduced magic damage to a mob, it's due to one of these two factors (or if they have exceptionally high INT, in the case of elemental magic).

In what I posted above, I was illustrating how you could narrow down what type of reduction a given mob has, due to certain abilities/spells ignoring some factors. Quick Draw has been shown to ignore TMDA, but not MDB, so if Proto-Ultima takes reduced QD damage, that suggests that it has a high MDB value (probably around +100 if the 1/2 unresisted damage thing is correct).

[Syntex]

- FFXIAH.com Is what I plan to use for RDM tank. It's not perfect but I think its one of the best setups your can get.

[Suiram]

This topic is about finding mobs' MDB and TMDA, not how to best gear for those bonuses as a player, but since you've posted and I'm bored, I'll make one quick observation. If you're in a signet area and you are only receiving shell 4, you may want to consider swapping out the lamia mantle +1 for a resentment cape. It'll be slightly (1%) over the cap, but even considering that it will still be more beneficial. Otherwise the gear you posted is capped for Shell 5 3/5+.

[Syntex]

This topic is about finding mobs' MDB and TMDA, not how to best gear for those bonuses as a player, but since you've posted and I'm bored, I'll make one quick observation. If you're in a signet area and you are only receiving shell 4, you may want to consider swapping out the lamia mantle +1 for a resentment cape. It'll be slightly (1%) over the cap, but even considering that it will still be more beneficial. Otherwise the gear you posted is capped for Shell 5 3/5+.

I like the mantle better then the cape because as I have seen 1MDB is slightly less then 1% MDT so 4MDB > 3% MDT when using shell IV and it lets me keep the same build under a shell V setup as well. With all this gear your running around with sometimes you have to go with slightly less effective gear to conserve room so you can hold everything and RDM is one of the worst jobs for it, also it makes for a nice convert piece and the cap does not. IMO its not ideal to run around with a piece for "just in case I don't get shell V" when the mantle is REALLY close and more useful overall.

[Suiram]

Not quite close. At the cap, the 4% magic damage taken you'll get from resentment (I know it's 5% but you're going over cap by 1%) will reduce damage by 7.2%, whereas the MDB+4 when you've got 23 already (12 trait, 11 gear) will reduce damage by 3.1%, so really it's more than twice as good.

On the other hand, if you expect to always have shell 5 I can understand not wanting to carry it around.

[pchan]

I like the mantle better then the cape because as I have seen 1MDB is slightly less then 1% MDT so 4MDB > 3% MDT when using shell IV and it lets me keep the same build under a shell V setup as well. With all this gear your running around with sometimes you have to go with slightly less effective gear to conserve room so you can hold everything and RDM is one of the worst jobs for it, also it makes for a nice convert piece and the cap does not. IMO its not ideal to run around with a piece for "just in case I don't get shell V" when the mantle is REALLY close and more useful overall.

The staff is useless, a combo club+shield with INT on it will do better.
Use resentment cape and it saves you 3 slots. Sell the head/body/hands and you are capped on mdb, and can use better stuff like AF2 hands, morrigan's robe/AF2 body, AF1+1 head/duelist.
And .. mnd doesn't reduce damage beside holy/banish.. so change the grip.

[The Stig]

I believe resentment cape doesn't work on ToAU/WoTG? So it makes good sense to have the lamia mantle as well.

[Ahlah]

Kebbie + Raptor strap +1 seem decent. I use the strap too mainly for Hp bonus (Mp won't hurt even for a taru) and MND is just a small bonus for casting stoneskin, also help conserving inv space since I tank with Terra staff 99% of the time.

[CDF]

Thank you for that information, Suiram. If these MDB/TMDA values were found empirically already, I was hoping to know what they are so I don't have to repeat the process.

[Virtuous Saint]

The staff is useless, a combo club+shield with INT on it will do better.
Use resentment cape and it saves you 3 slots. Sell the head/body/hands and you are capped on mdb, and can use better stuff like AF2 hands, morrigan's robe/AF2 body, AF1+1 head/duelist.
And .. mnd doesn't reduce damage beside holy/banish.. so change the grip.

That depends on many things. If you are nuked for 2400dmg, there is no way kebbie + bugard+1 < +9INT.

[Suiram]

That depends on many things. If you are nuked for 2400dmg, there is no way kebbie + bugard+1 < +9INT.

HMMM I WONDER WHAT SPELL DOES 2400 DAMAGE BEFORE BUFFS. (I don't see why you don't just come out and say it in the other thread instead of dropping hints all over the place lol)

Anyway, to the OP, I remembered one thing. Studio Gobli lists Bahamut V2 has having 115 INT. I haven't verified it myself using any of the above techniques, but if you use their calculations for flare damage assuming his INT and MAB (1.12) they work out to exactly the observed damage.

Edit: Oh nvm, you did basically come out and say that in the other thread lol

[Suiram]

Sorry for the semi-necro, but I need to correct something I wrote in the original response. I typically have just used QD+1kN to test TMDA/MDB, and never really used Nether Blast, so I took it on faith of what I'd been told previously that it was affected by both. However, it also apparently ignores TMDA just as Quick Draw does, as Netherblast did 508 to both a wasp and a weapon, despite weapons having an innate 224/256 TMDA value. So would need to use 1k Needles and EITHER Nether Blast or Quick Draw to nail down TMDA/MDB, or one of the above 3 + nukes with varied base damages.

[Raithen]

I may be misunderstanding what you mean by MDB versus TMDA, but I've never seen Proto-Ultima take what should be full damage from a Quick Draw. I have almost as much AGI as it is possible to equip in slots where I can't get MAB/M.acc, full QD acc merits, and have tried with Aquilo's, Vulcan's, and Auster's (my new favorite) with the appropriate cards. I'll do consistent damage, but it'll be about half of what a regular QD would. I have seen the occasional resist for like 84, too.

Interestingly, I noticed the same thing on Proto-Omega, but the damage is the same regardless of his mode. (COR is especially handy for the pod farming phase, as I just nail him with Quick Draw whenever its up, and can keep his HP low without giving him TP).

Since QD ignores TMDA and is only affected by MDB, couldn't we figure out how much MDB Ultima and Omega have right now just by using regular QD damages with your known MAB value to determine how much MDB would be necessary to reduce it to the damage they actually take? Could you possibly post some specific numbers with your MAB gear and show what regular damage would be and then some exact damage numbers on Ultima?

As a BLM I know Ultima and Omega both take reduced damage and I would love to know how much MDB they have. TMDA in addition would be bonus, but if we can find MDB we could work from there.