Incoming stuff for BLMFollow

I'm more excited for Blizzaja than Thunder V. Beyond is going to keep ice king, I believe.

Hope Comet's damage is nice. It would be great to have a dark damage spell that actually brings the pain.

Breakga seems useful. Manawell seems useful. Really it's an overall good lot. I think we came out of this pretty well ahead of most jobs.

Anyone else hoping they introduce an atma so that Beyond isn't nigh mandatory?

Like Pandy Warden's atma, but obtainable.

Beyond is better than PW atma for ice spells.

Once we get thunder V soon...

Lion, Blinding Horn, Minikin


Sure we still get blizzaja but at least this is another option to mess around with.

Oh, and Ironclads will be 10x faster to solo with tier V than they already are.

Edited, Aug 21st 2011 1:02pm by JarrinGoV

Wait wait. You call it a 3/5 power atma, but you're talking about going with an atma that gives 0 MAB or elemental damage instead? Don't get me wrong - Ambition is a useful tool, but either there's an argument that Beyond isn't powerful enough or there isn't.

Starting to question my gaiters anyway. It's difficult to macro and lots of mobs have enhanced move speed...

I'm thinking it would be best to stay with Minikin, Ultimate, Beyond. Swapping Beyond for either Lion or Blinding horn would give an extra 10 MAB for thunder spells, but at a cost of 60 MAB for ice spells. And with Blizzaja, I'll still be using ice spells more often than thunder.

It sounds like you want another Atma that's somewhere in between Beyond and Ultimate. It would give a bigger boost to all elements (perhaps something like 35 to 40 MAB), but no boost to any specific element. Your ice nukes would be weaker, but your other nukes would be stronger.

That sound about right?

This. I was looking forward to be able to cast breakga, sleepga, Sleepga II and have be able to have something that will overlap sleepga II if something goes wrong.

Edited, Aug 22nd 2011 7:39pm by Fumikuu

Edited, Aug 22nd 2011 7:40pm by Fumikuu

Yeah I knew what you meant, but I'd still take the Mana Wall bonus over the movement speed. Pulling with increased movement speed occasionally leads to pathing issues (at least in my experience), resulting in sleepga not hitting the entire group.

Then again, maybe I'm doinitwrong. Both options are viable, but the increased -pdt works better for me.

I think Fumiku identified something for me - I'm just sick of blizzard.

Which is why I offered a specific example in my original post. I wasn't arguing against using beyond, I was just offering another set of atma's to play around with, especially when soloing. Like killing IC Severer solo in under 20 minutes on blm; a nice challenge for inexperienced blm's to try.

Thanks Rog Jr., but I’m fully aware of the difference between elemental affinity and MAB. Elemental affinity adds much more than MAB does. However, this is beside the point and has nothing to do with what I was saying in my original post. If I was comparing the effects of one set of atmas vs. another set of atmas on Thunder IV, then those differences would be germane to the discussion. That’s not what I was doing.

Let me spell out my original point for you again. Read it slowly so you understand it this time, and stop reading more into it than I’m saying:

If you stop using Beyond and replace it with a thunder affinity atma, THE DAMAGE ON YOUR NON-THUNDER SPELLS WILL BE REDUCED. The difference between MAB and elemental affinity is not germane to the point I’m making here. Your blizzards, stones, aeros, fires, and waters will do less damage because you replaced a general MAB atma with a one that only affects thunder. It was not my intent to quantify or comment on the amount of increase it will do to your thunder spell.

Here’s my original quote:

Granted, I threw MAB and elemental-specific modifiers together for the sake of brevity. I’m sorry if this got you wrapped around the axle to the extent that you missed my point. Yes, the “10 MAB” should have read “+10 thunder attack” and “60 MAB” should have read “30 MAB + 30 ice attack”.

Your argument seems to be that I’m not giving due consideration to the difference between +40 thunder attack and +30 MAB. Well I’m not, because my comparison was not a before and after look at the difference to any one specific spell. It’s about which set is more useful in general. If you want to just maximize Thunder, then of course thunder affinity is going to carry more importance, and your gear/merits/etc. will be a big part of the discussion. That’s not the discussion I was having.

Here’s a rewrite of my original post.

My intent with that post is best highlighted by the last sentence in it. Unless you just want to play with an Ironclad or cast only thunder spells, Ultimate/Beyond will still be a better choice for general damage output across the whole spectrum of spells.

No, but I generally use more than one. Ice and Fire primarily, and with the addition of Thunder V I'm sure it will become Thunder and Ice primarily.

Most of what I do on BLM (when I'm not the designated yellow triggerer) is either TE/KI farming or pop item farming. Being tied to one element would mean waiting for spell recast times.

I tend to use at least two elements as well. Given how Beyond benefits Thunder nukes more than Lion benefits Ice nukes, I will probably stick to Beyond over Lion even after getting Thunder V.

Aww man, I just came back with my ... For a second I thought this was turning into the Red Mage forums!

Me too, me too!

Except that it is IS germane, because one of the two major points of your statement (that thunder will do more with Lion than it will with Beyond) is invalid unless you take that difference into account.

Ok, fine, then you shouldn't have thrown the numbers out there. I hope we can at least agree on that much. It's too bad, though, because if you had done so correctly, you would have been supporting your main argument.

I missed nothing. I rarely do. I also didn't take a position one way or another on your argument of which atma combination is more practical. I DID take exception to your inclusion of specific numbers and terminology which are substantially incorrect, as well as your apparent disregard for other factors which I consider to be important.

Actually, my argument was more along the lines of "where the !@#$ did you come up with 10 vs. 60", but because I am not Rog, I attempted to give you a chance to explain yourself. And now, because I am still not Rog, I won't insult you for thinking that Lion gives +40 thunder attack when it actually only gives +30.

So, for thunder, you're giving up 30 of one for 30 of the another. If you don't take the context into account, how can you explain the difference? In fact, under the right circumstances, it is actually possible for the trade from Beyond to Lion to cause your thunder damage to decrease. That is a pretty narrow set of circumstances, which practically speaking is not likely to be encountered. However, because it is possible, you need to properly qualify your statements.

And if you wanted to be especially helpful to people coming here looking for good information, you could explain that in a typical nuking scenario for a BLM using Indra's +2 (dmg), the damage increase to thunder for Lion v. Beyond is not huge. And for RDM or SCH (because not just BLMs come to the BLM forum for tips on nuking), the increase is even smaller. And then you could back it up with sample calculations or actual data.

Or you could just get pissed off that someone else on these forums actually cares about the accuracy of your posts.



Edited, Aug 25th 2011 5:25pm by VxSote

To be fair, ffxiclopedia is often wrong. One should never take any of the wikis as gospel, but especially that one because it was updated often earlier, but has the tendency these days to not get updated with new data and information after subsequent testing. The other two wikis (BG and GE) both report it as 30%, so I'd say go with the majority on this one. BG is usually your safest bet for reliable, accurate information.

That having been said, I think all the arguing and insults in this thread are dumb. There was a miscommunication, it has since been cleared up, let's leave it at that and keep things friendly please.

Basic strategy is going blm/nin with liberal use of utsusemi, since one atk can wipe all 3 shadows.

Use blinding horn, Lion, and MM using only thunder based spells. Macro thunder 2,3,4 if you have to. If you have magian +2 staff and AF3+2 hat, its even easier. You can kite him in a big circle, stopping to cast thunder 2 until you get used to the pathing. Thunder 2 will do over 1k damage unresisted with this set up. I'm at work right now so I'm not sure of the directions, but there is a way to kite him in a big circle where he will path poorly, increasing the gap to nearly 30 yalms, this is the best time to get your thunder 4 ready.

Use stun as needed. The 20 minute thing was kind of a personal challenge, you need some good af procs and good pathing to get it under 20 minutes (lightningsday doesnt hurt either). Normally it can take ~ 30 minutes once you get used to it.

Keep in mind to use thunder 2 until you get used to it. He only has around 50k hp so each spell should take off roughly 2%. Increas the tiers as you get more comfortable.

It will catch up to you anywhere you end up going, even @ max casting distance, thats why you need /nin for the 3 shadows. I'm sure you are aware that ironclads have a tendency to swing @ nothing when they get around 14 yalms away, this is why thunder 2 is so important. It allows you time to cast and run away quickly while only getting hit once which shadows will absorb.

I'm not sure of the directions, so I'll use "north" as the gate location and "south" obviously down near the cliff. If memory serves me correctly, there is a small tree near the SE section of the cliff, this is where you can increase your distance to get nukes off. As you run down towards that SE section near the tree, if kited correctly, the IC will actually turn and take a few steps north towards the gate before making his way down towards that tree where you are standing, this is where you can get off a T4 nuke or actually any tier you are comfortable with.

Always keep 3 shadows up and expect to lose them each time you cast a nuke, keep all your temp items on hand (potions, powders, elixers are most important incase you get hit), use a cream puff and your tonics obviously (gambir if you have it also helps).

Be prepared to cast a nuke in the same location each time if you can, that SE section near the tree is the optimal spot. If you need to take an extra lap because timers are down then so be it.

If you have AF3+2 boots, put all your other boots in sac because you dont want to lose the manawall bonus by accident. Be smart when using manawall, no need to use it right away at the start of the fight. Save it until 20-30% of its hp is gone because that is normally when a tp move is used if you dont get hit. With a good -pdt/kite set and af3+2 boots, ballistic kick will do around 150 damage to your mp, kinda funny to watch honestly.

I dont use movement+ atma but i do kite it in -pdt set (-43% during daytime and -49% at night) and also the ASA legs with +8% movement speed.

If you're on fenrir, shoot me a tell in game.

Edited, Aug 26th 2011 5:06am by JarrinGoV

Beyond gives regular MAB in addition to the ICE damage. So it will be more damage than Lion.

Either way, Thunder V is pretty decent, using the same atma (including beyond), Bliz V and Thunder V did roughly the same damage.

Nice. What's the cool down on Manawell?

Will never happen. We believe our job has 1-3 defined roles (nuker, crowd control...something else?). They have as many different opinions of what their job's role is as there are players who have RDM leveled. The cause for their arguments is that that number is approaching infinity.

Twas a joke!