High End Sets Advice/Suggestions/Ideas/LUA

Glad someone brought up Absorbs!

I’m some ichor/tokens away from Liberator and was wondering what the general flow/use of absorbs are for the Lib users out there. Is it something you do religiously on almost every fight? I’m assuming absorb STR and VIT are the only ones that are used normally. How much use are you guys getting out of the absorb augment on there?

NV is strictly for drain 3 use which kinda sucks huh :/

Well like I said wave 3 is pretty ***for absorbs but the idea is still str and vit thats pretty much it. Absorb spells need reworking bad before next major ilvl content drop. The fact lib still aint enough for absorb is sad the +50 is nice but that means you gotta land it on higher content and wasting time casting it over and over til it lands is wasted dps.

The issue is absorb spells base potency is purely on dark knight level. ilevel doesn't enter the picture at all and there is very few ilevel gear that enhances potency. Just using iLevel would be a nice boost, releasing ilevel versions of potency gear would be even better.

Absorbs are in a weird spot.
They are better than they used to be, they last longer and don't tick down anymore.

But it isn't enough.

As has been mentioned earlier, the equation for Absorb spells does not take ilvl into account.
From BG:
Base Absorbed = Floor(3 + (Job Level÷5))
Total Absorbed = floor( floor( Base Absorbed×Σ(Equipment Bonuses) )×Nether Void )

That is a base of 22 points of absorbed stat at level 99, or 119, which is not a lot when compared to what we get from ilvl gear.

"But wait, can't we increase that number a lot with gear? And isn't Nether Void a huge bonus as well?"

On paper, yes!
In practice, not really, no.

Absorbs are a neat idea that, in their current state, falls apart when you actually try to use them.
One of the core conceptual problems with Absorbs, is that the more you need them, the less you can land them.
Yes, we have gear that raises absorb potency, but right now the only pieces that I consider relevant are Erra Pendant and Liberator. The reason is these pieces have heaps of magic accuracy on them, and the others don't.
If you are fighting something with low enough magic accuracy that you can afford low macc potency gear, it's something weak enough that you shouldn't be wasting time casting absorbs in the first place. This is the realm of epeen Big Numbers Syndrome, a classic noob trap.

"But what about Nether Void? Doesn't it boost absorbs too?"
Thats odd, for some reason whenever I try to use Nether Void with an Absorb I get a cooldown timer message! Nether Void must be broken!
Oh right, its down because I, like any sane person, used it on drain 3.

Right, back to magic accuracy. Dynamis Divergence is a reasonable example, so I'll go with that.
The only time you might actually need an absorb spell is to get extra accuracy. This could happen when you run into a Thief NM, for instance. Dynamis mobs that you need an absorb to cap out accuracy against, are also mobs with reasonably high magic evasion, potency gear is out. Even with high-end, if not maxed out gear, landing an absorb is not a guaranteed thing.
A good comparison is Red Mage. Targets that are worth enfeebling are also targets that are hard to enfeeble.
Red mages stack macc, food, use JAs, and swap main and sub slots to go all in on magic accuracy against targets where it matters.
We, in general, are not so free. Stacking macc in most slots is easy. Macc food is harder, its not often that I'm using something like a marine stewpot in Dynamis. I do have an option to swap in Ullr and Khonsu along with Liberator to push even more macc in, but that resets TP and cuts critical damage slots.
And then there is the argument that if you are having these accuracy issues in the first place, that should be fixed on the side of your buffing jobs.

And there are even more problems.
Lets look at Liberator. Yes, it has a 50% potency bonus and a ton of magic accuracy. Toss on an Erra Pendant and you are draining 34 points of stat per absorb, assuming they all land.
The best WS to use with Liberator is Insurgency, whose mods are pretty bad. 20% STR, 20% INT, and 10% DEX, assuming Utu grip.
That means to fully stack damage on Insurgency, you need to land 3 absorb spells. Lets say that you do, each giving +34 to their respective stat.
That is adding a whopping 17 base damage to the Insurgency damage calculation!
On a 364 base damage weapon.
Thats 3 spells, for less than a 5% gain in damage while completely ignoring base stat values and gear stat values. With them, the gain is barely over 3%. That is a 1% gain in insurgency damage per spell, assuming they land.

No, no I do not conisder that worth it.
Do I cast absorb spells?
Yes, when pulling a mob, or against a target that is using Perfect Dodge or invincible.
Are they worth interrupting melee swings to cast?
Not remotely.

Spot on Mims couldn't be said any better tbh. Also i wasn't saying ilvl from gear was more so talking about the mobs lvl and the stats they have are so damn high and absorb spells haven't been touched in ages at this point. I just stopped trying altogether on hoping absorb spells get better. I also dont get why people would wanna use nether on absorb over drain 3.

There are things that can be done to improve Absorb spells.

Increase base magic accuracy.
Not to stun or flash levels, but a flat +100 magic accuracy would help.
Alternately giving Dark Knight generalized a Magic Accuracy Job Trait would be fine too, to help cover the gap between jobs that can afford to use macc food and/or swap TP resetting gear slots to cast.

Adjust potency in the Absorb equations
The current equations are weak, and do not scale with ilvl.
More stats absorbed, more duration.
If this is not possible, try and do it with ilvl gear.

Add better ilvl Absorb Gear
Any absorb-specific gear needs large amounts of magic accuracy. As in, best in slot or I am going to stick with a pure magic accuracy piece.
As far as potency goes, if adjusting the absorb equation is not workable, I would suggest adding a piece or pieces that add a flat stat amount to the base absorb value, such as base absorb +10. This value would need to apply before, and stack with, potency percentage gear.
Obviously, inventory slots are a limiting factor which is why I think adding more absorb gear is not an ideal solution.

Add new Absorb Spells, or condense existing ones
A big limiting factor of absorbs is needing to cast many different spells in order to get full effect. Being able to, for instance, package absorb-STR and absorb-DEX into a single spell and land both effects with one spell cast would go a long way.

Any one of these items on its own is probably not enough to make Absorbs worth it. There are probably other changes that could help too, but these come to mind for me at least.

The problem with adding more potency to make it worth it is that it will still scale with what we have now. It means that if you get to that lets easily achievable +60 stat for example, it will be like +150 using nether NV and bis gear and that will be probably too much then.

A fair question, then, is "What is a reasonable amount of stats to absorb?"

Personally, I think that value should be, with BIS gear, no NV, and no Liberator, in the 40-50 stat range. If Lib is swapped in and out, I consider that it's own form of balance.

That said, I think any of the adjustments I mentioned earlier would be good in addition to that stat value.

You need to remember that its also a debuff. Absorbing 150 vit from mob would be pretty huge buff to whole ally.

I think if lib allowed you to -100 VIT for a mob that wouldn't be that broken for a maxed out REMA weapon, and you'd have to sacrifice higher max HP to do it. Marcato HM is just as powerful although you can't also use it to deal damage I suppose.

The thing is, we can already do Abs-Vit for 70+ easily with Nether Void.
With Erra Pendant and Liberator, thats a drain of 76.
I sold my Chuparrossa mantle and Pavor Gauntlets long ago as they were gathering dust, and with those (assuming they stack with Lib, I think they do) the number should come out to a DS/NV abs-vit landing for 85.

We can do that right now, and nobody does it. Nobody.

Same formula used at 119 would be 26 base, kinda low but still better then 22. With the three generic +potency items we get 32 stat absorbed.


Pavor Gauntlets +10%
Chuparrosa Mantle +10%
Erra Pendant +5%

Pavor and Chuparrosa really need an upgraded 99/il119 version to be released.

They could tweak the formula to job level /3 instead of 5, would actually put the base right where we want it at, 33-39 before gear potency.

Ain't nobody got time for that. Like you said before as scythe dork knights we can either

1.) die caught in 4/5 Ratri+1 with a slick vit down on the mob
or
2.) live with a drain 3 buffer




(mantle and gauntlets do stack with Lib)

I mean ***we get to watch ambu sword be broken for alot of jobs why would -vit for a mob be bad? Alot of worse ***happening than a mob getting -stats. Also I dont have too many problems doing absorbs on ***outside of namis. End of day mobs are getting higher and higher resist to magic spells but aint enough gear/food in game to even close the game for some jobs.

They could also adjust Nether Void the way they did Saboteur, and make it to where it lasts for X amount of time instead of only for a single spell, as well as giving an appreciable m.acc boost for the duration. That and updating all potency items to 119 with some modest potency upgrades would go a reeaaally long way.

I wouldn't be against any of this tbh. Sadly like blm and rdm Macc requirement gonna be higher and more based off luck.

Sounds like the tl;dr is forget absorbs exist for 95% of situations. Feels bad.

I don't see the answer as an adjustment to magic accuracy in general or increasing the amount absorbed as really workable for reasons mentioned above.

A general approach to magic accuracy could likely result in major changes to BLM, RDM, BRD, and GEO without intending to....we've all seen this week how the Olive Garden known as FFXI code can have unwanted effects when something is "fixed". But a change to how dark magic works in relation to macc might keep such improvements quarantined to just those spells. If only the macc of absorb spells is affected by Dark Magic Skill, then if I'm at capped skill wtf am I doing resisting on things that aren't dark resistant?

Regarding absorb spells, I'm actually ok with the potency of them at full landing- as SimonSes pointed out, its not just that +50 to your stat, its also -50 to the mob, a benefit to not just you. Let the potency of an unresisted absorb spell match Boost and Gain improvements. What I'd love to see work let me get a Boost spell from a WHM, and be able to absorb for either two stat boosts or doubling up on one.

Starting to work on the Lib AM3 set and just got off the Oseem carousel. Pretty happy with these for now. Curious to see what kind of augs you guys are working with.

legs={ name="Odyssean Cuisses", augments={'Accuracy+29','"Store TP"+6','DEX+10','Attack+12',}},
feet={ name="Valorous Greaves", augments={'Accuracy+29','"Store TP"+7',}},

I kinda cbf to go squeeze out the last few points of STP on those

Edit: didn't notice the set was updated on the first page! Never mind!

Edit again:

I am noticing that Entropy is putting out much better damage, at least on my current target, by stacking WSD instead of going for the multiattack approach that the set on the first page has.

My entropy set is basically the typical wsdmg set you would imagine (ratri head/hands/legs, af body, sulev feet) with karieyh/shiva ring, knobkierre in the ammo slot instead of floestone, and a STR/WSD ambu cape (this could be INT/WSD but haven't made it yet).

Target is Apex Poxhounds in inner rakaz. Buffs are 900 GEO fury/frail, joachim, ulmia songs. Highest I've eye-balled is ~33k with this setup. I was struggling to break ~18k using a multi attack approach. Again this is all eye balled over the span of a few hours out here burning the last of my JP.

Having better results with WSDMG may be simply because of the Lib AM3 handling the multiattacks?

Could be not the wsd that pushes it over, could be all the attack on the set or maybe even the int (idr if it has a good chunk more int than other options).

Good point I suppose, I’ll crunch some numbers and see what the total int/attack differences are between the sets.

AM3 from Liberator dilutes the MA from gear.

Ex. 20% of the time entropy is 6 hits just from AM3. The extra INT,att and to a small degree WSdmg are all better while AM3 is active.

Ratri INT is nothing special




4+2= 7? lol

Finally got drain3. What’s the best macro set up for self weaponbash skill chain into darkness setting up DS, NV and d3?

Is it most efficient to /ja DS and NV before bash or after skill chain etc? Just trying to find the most optimized order of Operations.

Personally I just dsnv before bash and usually follow with insurgency to drain3

Insurgency + compression will kill almost any fodder tho. Use Nightmare Scythe if target doesnt have enough hp to survive Insurgency :)

That’s what I do as well, since I typically drain3 on fodder. DSNV > Bash > Nightmare > D3

Since you are just getting drain 3, it's probably worth mentioning that weapon bash with AF1+2/3 give the mob... Chainbound(?) effect which allows you to close a level 1 skill chain with next weapons kill.

I'll try and edit this post later with better info.