Simple Phalanx Question

Our Sortie static is having a conversation that some seem to be answering definitively, but others still question it.

Does Phalanx only defend against physical damage, or both physical and magical? The description reads "Gives you a certain amount of damage resistance." And in terms of the answer, how has this been definitively determined?

https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Phalanx

Reduces damage by a set amount (F), which depends on Enhancing Magic skill, and caps at 500, which gives -35 damage:
Example: With a phalanx potency of 20. A hit for 100 damage from an attack would become 80 damage.
Phalanx enhancing gear is added directly to this damage.


There should literally be ZERO confusion about how phalanx works.


Sorry, thats a lie, but it wasnt part of your question. Is Phalanx's damage reduction calculated before or after DT damage reduction.
Theres no mention of it on the Phalanx page, Phalanx status page nor the Damage Taken page.

Why only physical and magical?

Forgetting Phalanx while tanking Aminon makes it clear... It definitely works against magic damage

Weirdly, Mana Wall provides the answer to this.


That places Phalanx as applying after Damage Taken, but before Mana Wall (which is a shame, because imagine if Mana Wall applied first. Phalanx would make you invincible.)

It's all damage sources. I'm not sure how it was tested, but 1000 Needles should provide a simple test from a Magical Damage perspective.

Smacking something with some form of spikes was probably the quickest test subject back in the day.

I’ve always treated Phalanx as a “Damage minus X” sort of thing. It’s basically just whatever damage you’re about to take - Phalanx Strength. So if you’re about to take 100 damage and you have a Total Phalanx Strength of 80, 100 - 80 = 20. That’s all it’s ever done. And it has never cared what type of damage you’re taking as long as its direct impact. (Damage - TotalPhalanx = Damage Taken)

Physical, Magical, Breath, Spirits Within, Phalanx dampens everything except DOT. We RDM solo-*** from 75 era used Phalanx + Stoneskin religiously.

As for the BLM Manawall thing I thought Phalanx still applied at the end? Otherwise the formula just creates weird numbers? I’ll look again, I’m probably wrong.

Well, hypothetically this is easy to test. 1000 Needles is 1000 damage, so with DT-50 that's 500, Mana Wall reduces that by 95% to 25 MP lost. If you have 50 potency Phalanx, Phalanx applies after DT, then that's 450 damage, 23 MP lost. Phalanx applies after Mana Wall, 0 MP lost. I'm working on testing it now and I'll edit this comment with my results when I get them, but you know how it can be getting a mob to use a blue magic TP move.

DT 50 + Phalanx 50 + Mana Wall 95 against 1000 Needles saw MP drop from 1611 to 1589, 22 damage total. Phalanx applies last before Mana Wall, and I guess damage gets rounded down on half points, which is nice.

Definitely glad my question was answered; but to this point, my Phalanx against Aminon doesn't seem to be as important as my Stoneskin. If Phalanx drops, but stoneskin is up, I take 0 damage. If Stoneskin drops but phalanx is up, I take like 15-30 damage. If they both drop, I was distracted by a YouTube video. Though, I'm pretty good at keeping up all my relevant buffs (i.e., stoneskin, blink, phalanx, rampart, sentinel, crusade) and taking 0 damage most of the fight.

Quick, please tell us the damage you take when both stoneskin and phalanx drop because you were distracted by youtube.

I think I took 1 hit where the damage was like 336, but I might have also been in a cure midcast set at the time.

1000/2 - 50 = 450
450*0.5 = 22.5

Just to clarify, your results show that Phalanx is applied before Mana Wall and not last, which would have resulted in no MP loss. I remember doing the same test (and probably writing the formula on the bgwiki page) when Manawall was released or buffed and I wanted to be essentially invincible half of the time.

Phalanx is as equally important as SS, if you let Phalanx drop SS wears off faster and Phalanx will mitigate more damage than SS per cast.

... yes, uh. Thank you for catching that, how could I write literally the exact opposite conclusion to what the test was demonstrating? Good thing I showed my work and didn't just skip to the conclusion.

I half want to leave it as is as a monument to stupidity, but I'll go back and correct it in case someone asks again in a few years and finds this thread.

With enough int you can take 0 without stoneskin with just phalanx. Maybe not every hit but I've taken 0 Many times with just phalanx.

It's the first damage reduction factor calculated, meaning it applies to all forms of damage applied to the target. I'm guessing some confusion comes from siren's magic shield ability which is treated like a magic damage only phalanx effect.