Jack Of All Trades: A Guide To Red Mage

@Saevel That particular post had an error(as in it differed from the japanese post) in the case of Blind.

Blind's the only INT based spell AFAIK. Geriond has the right of it for Blind in particular.

Frazzle / Distract / Addle are all MND all day though.

Better question though, with today's gear and enfeebs sets. Are your set really THAT different for INT based Blind vs MND based Paralyze for example?

They can be.

For example, one could swap Daybreak/Rumination Sash/Kaykaus Cuffs +1/MND Sucellos/Snotra Earring/Gain-MND for Maxentius/Acuity Belt/Regal Cuffs/INT Sucellos/Malignance Earring/Gain-INT, which reduces your MND by 111 and increases your INT by 152.

*Cough*

From the FFXI Developers (2015)

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/48354


From JP testing (2008)

https://www.bluegartr.com/threads/57019-Simple-INT-on-Blind-test?p=1984243&viewfull=1#post1984243

Original source, it's in Japanese.

http://wiki.ffo.jp/html/834.html

Now we could think the developers are wrong, except that JP's had similar information since 2008, seven years prior to Camate posting for the Dev's. It's more likely that Camate mistranslated the original formula and it was changed later. Whichever dev provided Camate with the note probably provided the original formula instead.

Out of every spell in the game there is none that has potency and accuracy from different primary stats. It would be extraordinary for us to assume that Distract / Frazzle use INT for mAcc due to a black icon when we already know their potency is from MND. SE went out of their way to make the potency dMND therefor it stands to reason that they would also make the accuracy dMND as well.

Out of every black magic spell in the game that has been tested, dINT gives magic accuracy (and the same for dMND for white magic), and they all seem to use the exact same step formula as each other, implying it's directly embedded into the magic accuracy formula for black magic.

In comparison, potency is programmed individually for every spell, as demonstrated as each spell having different formulas and different mods (some use INT, some use MND, some use enfeebling skill, some use dark magic skill), which means that it's coded at the individual spell level.

As such, you have it backwards; it would be more extraordinary for us to assume that they differ in their dstat MACC just because the potency isn't INT, because the dstat MACC function seems to be the same across the board for all black magic. Just because it breaks tradition with MND for potency doesn't make it more likely that it ALSO breaks tradition for MND for magic accuracy.

Other way around, there is no such thing as Black / White magic programatically. There are just spell ID's and event scripts that are run server side. We actually have the spell ID list and it's a single big list with spells jumbled up. Aero III is ID 156, Erase is 143, Distract is 841, Distract II is 842, Distract III is 882 with Addle II being 884 and Dark Threnody II as 878. Even Blue Magic is mixed in there. Each spell is individually executed and that execution has it's own code script that run. The concepts of Black / White / Blue / Bard and Summon are human concepts for organization only. There is nothing preventing a programmer from opening up the Fire IV code script and altering it's damage or accuracy stat from INT to CHA, STR or even DEX. It would be a single modification on a single line.

Humans like to organize things into nice buckets because it helps us keep track of stuff. In order for Distract / Frazzle to have INT for magic accuracy, a developer would of had to deliberately code it's execution script to use INT for magic accuracy. Magic accuracy seems so consistent across all magic precisely because there is a central function that gets passed the required parameters, the code writer gets to choose those parameters. It's far more likely that the developers used MND for both potency and accuracy when they wrote Distract / Frazzle, and there is absolutely zero evidence to dispute this.

Painting your car red doesn't change it from gasoline to diesel.

The ID numbers have nothing to do with whether SE has them set up so that the coding associates a spell being black magic or white magic with a particular dSTAT MACC mod, nor does anything else you said. It's completely speculation on your part that the coders can (without digging DEEP into the code and making big rehauls) detach them from their categories, categories that are mechanically treated differently in-game by things like Scholar strategems. It's also speculation on my side, but it's speculation with (non-decisive) evidence based on how they've done dstat MACC on every single black and white magic we've tested over the years.

Regardless of who of us is right on the level at which dSTAT MACC is implemented, there is absolutely zero evidence that the programmer wanted Distract/Frazzle MACC to be based on the same stat as the potency. Even if they could, MND being potency doesn't mean they wanted MND to also be magic accuracy.

Your analogy can be applied to my side just as well, with the color being the potency mod instead of the category.

MMO server side coding works similarly across all MMO's, or rather all large scale multi-player games. They are all event driven, meaning when the player executes an action it sends the server a message listing which action it's executing. The server then loads a code script for that action, executes that script and returns the result to the player. Player_Cast_Spell would just call the script of the ID of the spell being cast, that script would be unique for every different spell, it would also be a whole lot of copy paste as there isn't much difference between Fire II and Water V.

It's done this way because that's the only way to make a system that scales into the thousands of arbitrary actions per second per zone.

Important part is there is no such thing as "Black Magic" or "White Magic" server side, it's all the same thing. If anything spells would be sorted by effect, action_message 2 is damage, action_message 7 is healing and so forth.

As for your statement, I can dispel it with one line.

Banish used to use INT for damage and accuracy.

That's right, a "White Magic" spell used to use INT as it was a copy paste from the Aero line. Later SE changed Banish to use MND eventually adding that "remove SDT" effect.

None of what you're describing precludes said scripts from referencing specific coding objects corresponding to specific types of magic that could carry properties such as dSTAT MACC, magic aggro or no, and strategem interactions, instead of explicitly listing such things out in every single script like you're claiming.

As for Banish, do you have a link to tests or an announcement by SE that conclusively showed it having INT-based magic accuracy before that update? I'm guessing no, since dstat magic accuracy testing was much harder back then (given much less flexibility for adjusting attributes), and SE was even more notoriously resistant to describing how their game worked back then. The update to Banish (October 2003) that differentiated its damage and MP cost from Aero does not describe anything to that level of detail.

Regardless, even if the dSTAT can easily be individually determined for each spell, that does not mean the programmer actually wanted MACC to be based on MND for Distract and Frazzle.

It was from the JP's, back then SE didn't communicate much with English speakers and we didn't have much for info either. The change was around 2004 I believe but that was a very long time ago. Similar to how Dia was original Divine Magic, but was later changed to Enfeebling.

I haven't used RDM for years, been using it for the last week or so in Ambuscade. Is it normal that I still get 1-2 resists with elemental seal, sab and sleepga in there? Even on Easy and normal?

Surely with elemental seal and sab it should land on them all the vast majority of the time?

The funny part is I can usually sleep them just fine with single target sleep spells right after.

This months ambu mobs have resist sleep I believe so will resist at random despite ES+Sabo.

I do not remember who wanted the RDM lua I use and I am far too lazy to read back and find out who it was so here it is whoever you were.

Gearswap lua files

Stupid question, but not answered in the first post: what is it that makes the tier 1 Enspells superior to the tier 2, and is it exclusive to having Crocea Mors? And is there a general "best use" element when you're not hitting a specific weakness, or does it not matter at all? (my gut says doesn't matter, because only PLD gets Enlight and Daybreak is the only elemental-specific buff I know of that could ever matter, if it even would)

Taken from BG-Wiki:

Calculating En-spell damage (RDM)
En-spell damage is based solely off of the caster's Enhancing Magic Skill.

Enhancing Skill Formula
< 150 Floor(√Enhancing) - 1
> 150 Floor(Enhancing Skill / 20) + 5
400-500 [(Skill)+20]/8
500-?? Floor[(400/3098)(Skill+3.65)]
As with other magical damage, bonuses for matching weather effect and elemental day can randomly be added per strike. A damage penalty may also affect spell damage for each instance of weather/elemental day strong against the en-spell element. Resistance calculation also occurs on each effect proc, so each effect proc has a chance to do full damage, half damage, etc.

Damage from en-spells is hate-free and does not give additional TP to its target. A commonly used strategy for Red Mages when soloing monsters with dangerous TP moves is to use en-spells with a low-damage and low-delay weapon such as Ceremonial Dagger to try to reduce the amount of TP given to the mob to help lower the possibility of fatal incidents.

Tier I En-spells
Tier I en-spells follow the formula above to calculate damage. The damage of the enspell is calculated at the point of casting, so they should be casted in full enhancing gear for maximum damage, which can then be replaced with other gear after the spell has been cast. The additional effect damage of enspells works on every melee strike, including extra attacks in a multi-attack attack round.

Tier II En-spells
Tier II en-spells follow the same formula as the Tier I to calculate their initial base damage. Every subsequent attack round past the first after casting the spell raises the additional effect damage by 1 point until reaching the cap, which is double the base initial damage.

For example, with 280 Enhancing Magic Skill, the initial en-spell damage will be 19, and damage will rise by 1 point per successful attack round until a cap of 38 is reached.
Damage will remain capped until the spell effect either wears off or is recast.
While tier I enspells apply to every hit, tier II enspells apply only to the first attack of an attack round and do not apply to multi-attacks or offhand weapons. So tier I enspells may situationally be more powerful.

Unlike Tier I enspells, the damage effect of Tier II enspells is re-calculated in each attack round. That is, if you are wearing 300 skill your base initial damage will be 20 with a cap of 40, but if you swap down to 260-279 skill, the next additional effect damage will be calculated with your initial base damage as 18, with a cap of 36. The current damage will still be based on the number of hits since the spell was cast.

tier 1 adds damage to every hit tier 2 only the first hit, rdm has a ton of triple attack with temper II.

In addition tier 1 damage is based off of the enhancing magic skill at time of casting, tier 2 is based off of the enhancing magic skill while hitting so if you have a good enhancing magic set tier 1 can benefit far more without nerfing your melee set.

best element is usually whatever the mob is weak to or go with day/weather element.

for fights where you are focused entirely on enspell damage (like half the tenzen fight) you can offhand levante dagger and use enaero but if you are using ws's you will be much better off with other options.

...why does Tier 2 not only work completely differently, but differently in MULTIPLE ways, every one of which is worse?

That's stupid. I love it. Typical SE.

And thanks, didn't think to check the BG wiki.

They’re both good for their own situations. If you need more M.acc and potency doesn’t matter then Ullr would be better.

Anyone know where augmented metamorph ring +1 and the new Unity M.acc cape (augmented) play into effect for Rdm??

Has anyone messed around with Sequence/Kraken Club for Savage Blade builds? You TP extremely fast, only need 1250 TP to hit the 2k breakpoint (and you're going to over TP most of the time anyway), and Distract III is strong enough to mitigate a lot of the accuracy problems.

I think it's got a lot of potential, with my only worry being if RDM has enough STR to make Kraken Club do more than 0 damage on higher VIT enemies.

Similar to war and DA, temper II

Unlike war you can turn your 33~ ta off. Dont know if its worth the trade off though

Temper II does not interfere with K club nearly as much as WAR DA does. It's both a lower proc rate and much less of a penalty when it does proc. With a 640 skill Temper II, assuming no DA in gear, offhand hits goes from ~1.68 per round to ~3.09 per round switching from a normal offhand to a Kraken Club.

First of all I dont think Sequence is better than Naegling. That attack boost is really strong for such att starved job like RDM. Second off all I dont think that KC will boost your TP generation enough to beat 500TP bonus from Thibron (assuming you would go Naegling/Thibron vs Sequence/KC). Especially that simply matching same TP threshold is not enough, because obviously at same TP threshold Naegling is much stronger.

When attack starved I generally get better results with Naegling/Kraken Chant du Cygne spam (because of crits' significantly higher benefit when attack is low), so I'm mostly looking at when attack is capped or nearly so, either due to Bolster Frailty or just stacking defense downs in general.

According to some quick math, Sequence/KC gains tp about 40-45% faster than Naegling/Thibron (assuming capped accuracy and you're not hitting for 0 with K club), which should outpace going from +750 TP Bonus to +1250 when Savage Blade's fTP levels out so heavily after 2000 TP. At capped attack, Naegling will hit a bit harder at equal effective TP (10 DMG vs 15 STR, 10% damage), but Sequence should be able to fire off 2000+ effective TP Savage Blades significantly faster.

This is assuming you're not fighting enemies with the same-WS damage penalty or additional TP feed is dangerous, which greatly penalize K club setups.

Its a niche situation, and definitely not worth buying a K club for, but if you already have one I think it's worth looking into.

I honestly doubt that. What you did to get that? You did (3.09+1.68)/(1.68x2)?

How you calculated 3.09 for KC with ~33%TA?
Does That calculation take into account that offhand is capped at 95%? Does that calculation take into account that getting TA on main hand, limits offhand hits to 5?

For a Sequence/KC combo, you probably wouldn't want to use Temper II for the offhand cap reason. As such, a general case would be:

Naegling/Thibron (Temper II): 1.66*0.99 + 1.66*0.95 = ~3.32 attacks/round
Sequence/KClub (no Temper II): 1*0.99 + 3.8*0.95 = ~4.6 attacks/round

That's a ~38.5% difference, but Sequence also has 10 STP included, bringing it up to a ~45% difference assuming around 80-90 STP without Sequence (~44% if Samurai Roll is up). However, you can swap in Sherida/ for the Naegling set, which should bring the difference down a little bit, though I haven't mathed the gear swap effects out.

You lose the temper2s added damage to your physical weaponskills as well. Two checks for 33-34% triple attack procs just from that spell is to good to pass up, will just get better hopefully with new gear with more enhancing skill down the line.

When using Savage with WSDMG, Temper II is a pretty minor bonus, especially when using an offhand with MUCH lower damage, attack, and accuracy than your mainhand. It's something to keep in mind, but it's not going to be a very big difference.

Just estimating it based on the fTP, WSDMG, and DMG ratings, I'd ballpark that Temper II would make Savage Blade do about 5% more damage on average when using a weak offhand, and that's assuming the offhand has enough accuracy to hit.