Random Question Thread VI: I'm No Mathologist, But...

[FailureMidgard]

On the topic of Salvage but nothing to do with SAM,

Would you use a SCH or WHM as your 2nd healer?

Whichever is the better player.

Depends on zone.

WHM for Arrapago since SJ/JA/magic cells are limited and SCH needs them to be useful.

SCH for Bhaflau definitely, makes ramparts a utter joke. SCH can nuke gears to weaken boss as well.

SSR and Zhayolm depends on your setup and on the path you intend to take, but either choice seems fine to me. Zhay's boss is easily countered by WHM or SCH regardless(Cura/Auspice vs Stoneskinga/Regenga).

Whm+Rdm, Rdm can nuke gears. Cura+Esuna are stupidly overpowered on gears. Then again, most white mages I've seen/talked to don't do it.

If you're with a cookie cutter 6 man group (2 DD, RDM, WHM, BRD, THF) and you have half decent players you can fulltime hasso on everything short of boss chariots and turtle. You can fulltime hasso on ZR boss quite safely also but thats beside the point.

Whm's new JAs combined with the extra refresh you can get from sanction/ring means mp should never be an issue. Ofcourse if you are doing a run with less or different setup then this doesn't apply but suggesting your whm and rdm shouldn't be making the most of their mp is retarded.

I use Seigan on Chariots, CC, GG3, Psycheflayer, Bhoot, Powder's room, Hammer's room. Hasso for everything else.

[Callisto]

I don't know if I've ever even seen Cura used, I thought it had a crappy cap?

[requim]

Cura is less mp to wake people but requires you to be in range (and awake yourself)

also funguars CAN be used at all pink birds with BA merits :D

Rajas ring needs its own thread already. It's useless to rehash it every other page when I feel it's been show. To break even or beat any other ring in most situations.

[Khajit]

I don't know if I've ever even seen Cura used, I thought it had a crappy cap?

It gets stronger as you get hit more and is dirt cheap mpwise making it highly efficient. almost 200hp per person aoe healing for 30 mp helps to conserve mp. It has a 30 second recast and from what I see on wiki you can basicaly bust it out at full power everytime you get hit for enough damage.(right after an aoe perhaps?)
Oh yeah and what is the cap for misery? it would be nice to be able to reference that.

[FailureMidgard]

With misery up, you can esuna every gravity when you get hit. If you stand in the right place, your bard should easily be able to hit you + rdm with ballads, while hitting all the melees with marches and have no overlap. Cura is a 30sec recast base, keep haste on yourself and add in blessed gear, and you should easily be under a 20sec recast on it. Mine generally heals for about ~220ish after a gear aoe (don't have exact amount, and since getting Amano I haven't gone whm much), and it costs 27 mp (30 pre Light Arts). Add a few regens on people that took more damage and or a few hits, and it's pretty easy for a white mage to very efficiently cure on gears. I've also played red mage plenty, and it's miserable compared to how efficient a good white mage is, in my opinion. It's been a very long time since I went sch to salvage, because all other things equal, I think white mage is better.

I very rarely, if ever, use Cura to wake people, and generally you need to use a poison potion or sublimation to wake yourself if your pan is to use cura, since cura is centered on the white mage only, you'd have to run into rage after a sleepga went off in order to use it, which seems decidedly worse than just using a curaga from far away, if you are far away to begin with. And if you are in cura range to begin with, you probably got slept too.

Anyway ya, you have to get hit by gear AoEs for cura to be good, but outside of GG3, none of them hit hard at all, I don't use stoneskin, rely on cura + whatever regen my idle set has, and generally don't have to cure myself outside of that.

[Cairthenn]

YA CAIR, DO YOU!?

I have no friends and hate everyone. I'm sure there are a ton of people here that can attest to this.

[Fottiti]

I use Seigan on Chariots, CC, GG3, Psycheflayer, Bhoot, Powder's room, Hammer's room. Hasso for everything else.

Completely forgot about bhoot and flayer, bhoot especially is definitely one to use seigan on. However never needed to use Hasso on powder room or GG3. For CC you may not need seigan at all depending on how you fight it, I did it due to gears always making their way through mid fight and mages always forgetting to erase after stomp.

I am keen to try dnc in place of rdm or whm, maybe not AR but other zones it would certainly increase kill speed considerably (not that its needed) whilst maintaining the necessary healing for hasso melees. Shame there are like 5 meritted dncs across all servers.

[Kirschy]

If you're with a cookie cutter 6 man group (2 DD, RDM, WHM, BRD, THF) and you have half decent players you can fulltime hasso on everything short of boss chariots and turtle. You can fulltime hasso on ZR boss quite safely also but thats beside the point.

Whm's new JAs combined with the extra refresh you can get from sanction/ring means mp should never be an issue. Ofcourse if you are doing a run with less or different setup then this doesn't apply but suggesting your whm and rdm shouldn't be making the most of their mp is retarded.

This~ My group is DD, COR, THF, RDM, WHM(Dualbox), BRD(Dualbox).

We're at the point where Seigan is almost never used, even on boss chariots, and we're always looking for ways to increase our damage/efficiency.

Like Failure was saying, we've gotten a lot of use out of our WHM using Misery Cura/Esuna on gears, or other random stuff. And since the WHM and BRD are both dualboxed, the WHM ends up /w marches =p. I haven't actualli seen RDM + SCH in action so it could be better in certian respects, but the RDM + WHM combo works great for us.

[Thorny]

Neither option is wrong, and I should have phrased better. Seigan is your primary(and often only decent one) method of self-defense. 1/6 off meditate timer results in 1/5 more meditates over time. Now, while always engaged, a well equipped sam will be around 11-18 seconds for 100 tp with 6hit and haste gear(450 delay = 7.5 secs, 5 hits to 100 tp after ws, ~50-70% haste, whatever change from DA) or in best case scenario for meditate merits, 9 ws per 3 minutes. Meditate makes it 10.6(assuming you always get 160, i'm not a sam but iirc it fluctuates between 140 and 160 depending on timing), now adding meditate merits changes that to 10.92(1/5 increase in meditates over time). 10.92 / 10.6 = 3% increase in ws damage, multiple by tp:ws ratio.. it's not a very big change in overall damage. If you're higher on the haste scale(and i think 50% is about as low as it's gonna get, given you use hasso sometimes) then it's even less.

I'd put 1/6 off of my primary defense mechanism timer miles above ~1.5% damage, but it is a choice. If you're in a shell that frequently brings far more people than needed or like parsing competitively, you may get more mileage out of meditate merits.

~

[FailureMidgard]

~

Yes, and as I said back then, and am saying now, I'm not trying to bash third eye, I think either one is acceptable, depending what all you do. I just think meriting either 3rd eye or meditate before storetp, overwhelm, and combat skills is stupid, which was my original statement this time the conversation came up.

Past that, you mention hasso in your thing, and 3rd eye merits are pretty bleh if you're using Hasso...

[Shinryuu]

When I'm /NIN I usually use third eye to make sure ichi gets up, and -10 seconds might be purty hawt depending on slow/elegy/etc.

[Thorny]

Yes, and as I said back then, and am saying now, I'm not trying to bash third eye, I think either one is acceptable, depending what all you do. I just think meriting either 3rd eye or meditate before storetp, overwhelm, and combat skills is stupid, which was my original statement this time the conversation came up.

Past that, you mention hasso in your thing, and 3rd eye merits are pretty bleh if you're using Hasso...

I mention hasso because the merits have different applications. Meditate are clearly better for meritting/most salvage climbing/etc because you won't use seigan much or at all. Third Eye are clearly better for tanking khim/cerb/t3+4 znms/chariots/etc. As a result, the best way to compare them is to look at both in the situations they're useful for as opposed to demanding comparisons be done with only one end.

[FailureMidgard]

When I'm /NIN I usually use third eye to make sure ichi gets up, and -10 seconds might be purty hawt depending on slow/elegy/etc.

Sure, that is the best use for Third Eye when /nin, but if you're using it that often, then like you said, there's probably an issue with debuffs, or potentially an issue with play. It (3rd eye) definitely helps when you get back-to-back shadow wipe or multi-hits, but that shouldn't be happening with a frequency where merits matter.

I mention hasso because the merits have different applications. Meditate are clearly better for meritting/most salvage climbing/etc because you won't use seigan much or at all. Third Eye are clearly better for tanking khim/cerb/t3+4 znms/chariots/etc. As a result, the best way to compare them is to look at both in the situations they're useful for as opposed to demanding comparisons be done with only one end.

I'll agree with it being better for Bhaf and Arrapago Chariots. Meditate is better on SSR chariot IMO, Close to equal on Zhayolm. As far as tanking Khim/Cerb, I can't say I have a lot of experience with that, I'm usually not there on Sam to begin with, but I'd assume /nin is better, and I think I'd prefer meditate even in that situation. In the end, you and I agree it depends what you do, so ya. Still either should be after storetp/overwhelm/combat.

[Peucritond]

For rng which is better

+4 str or +8 agi +1racc/ratt

for sidewider?
for slugshot?
heck for tp?

[Spider-Dan]

wind erodes earth
earth grounds lightning
lightning electrifies water
water extinguishes fire
fire melts ice
ice ______ wind

[matix]

For rng which is better

+4 str or +8 agi +1racc/ratt

for sidewider?
for slugshot?
heck for tp?

in general, the STR option is better by the tiniest margin (for both slug and side), however the agi grants you 4 extra r.acc which will help you hit accurately!

it can be an option for tp if you want more accuracy, personally i use the agi set earrings on barrage and on one of my slightly r.acc biased side setups

[Karbuncle]

wind erodes earth
earth grounds lightning
lightning electrifies water
water extinguishes fire
fire melts ice
ice ______ wind

Ice ... Freezes wind >.>?

ive always wondered that co-relation =o

[FailureMidgard]

wind erodes earth
earth grounds lightning
lightning electrifies water
water extinguishes fire
fire melts ice
ice ______ wind

You're ok with lightning electrifies water though? And water not eroding earth? Fire not boiling water? Ice not splitting earth in 2?

Ice thins out air? I dunno, it's about as logical as anything else.

Someone random made that up, and tried to make a best fit way to remember it, it wasn't supposed to make sense IMO. ;p

[Deimos]

Third Eye merits are definitely most useful if you're in a group that low-mans a lot of things and likes to tank with SAMs. We do Dynamis-Tavnazia twice a week with 12 people, 4 of which are SAM. Two SAM/WARs and two SAM/NINs. I'm typically main-tanking as one of the SAM/WARs, and having 5 seconds off Third Eye recast is huge when you're being beat on by a Taurus or a MNK. Even in full PDT gear, a lot of the mobs hit extremely hard, and being able to get Third Eye back up 5 seconds earlier saves a ton of MP over the course of the run.

[ronin sparthos]

wind erodes earth
earth grounds lightning
lightning electrifies water
water extinguishes fire
fire melts ice
ice ______ wind

My logic was always to think of wind magic as being like a hurricane... the cold air reduces the power of the system :3

It's much like a being composed of water would conduct electricity and thus take more damage from lightning attacks.