Random Question Thread (FFXI Related)

I've been doing my Chocobo digging everyday with a bird that can dig aprox 150 items per day. I've been stuck at Wing lvl55 for 6 days. ~900 digs without a wing upgrade.

Do I need to change zones? I've been digging in West Ron.

Is this normal? I've had some 2 day streaks between wing lvls but day 6 has we wondering if I'm doing something wrong.

I think I'd lose more DPS from using Deploy and broken skillchains than the auto is worth.

Right now I'm doing Stringing -> Howling (Fusion) -> VS (Light) -> VS (Light) on Locus Colibri and they're outliving it (even with 40k MBs from my GEO mule) because my attack on PUP is trash (2k with some crappy Qultada Chaos Roll). If m'lady Cornelia was still around, I could cap haste with her + Arciela II, ditch Sylvie's crappy Indi-Fury for an Idris potency one, and use Lilisette II for another 10% crit rate.

Goddamn I miss Cornelia

I wondered if it was non-elemental def down, is there a source for that?

I assume it's Wind Elemental. But it's 4-hits supposedly, so any monster that it hits has to resist 4 proc chances. I've never seen a Locus mob resist it.

Ok I'm trying to wrap my mind around nuking in FFXI. Specifically, I'm a bit confused about the difference between reducing a monster's specific elemental resistance vs increasing damage of a certain element. Trying to see if I've got most of this correct

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Gambit: up to 30% damage increase of a certain element based on harbored runes. Ok, seems clear

Rayke: reduces a monster's likelihood to resist a spell of a certain element by up to 3 tiers based on harbored runes. I thought this made sense but on the wiki it says "This means Rayke may be used not only to increase skillchain damage of the corresponding element(s) and potentially boost magic burst damage, but to remove guaranteed 1/2 resists from any enemy if it can lower their resistance rank to below 50%." - why does Rayke increase skillchain damage of a corresponding element? I thought it was just to reduce likelihood of having a resist?

Threnody: By my understanding, this is reducing resistance rate of a particular element like Rayke, increasing likelihood of hitting for max damage but not increasing max damage, correct?

Frazzle / Languor / Stutter Step: Same as threnody, but for all elements I believe? Basically improving your Delta: Magic Accuracy

Malaise / Weaponskills Like Vidohunir: Lowered magic defense... is this essentially equivalent to Gambit's increased damage but for all elements?

BLM -aja spells: more similar to Gambit, with successive uses increasing base spell damage of a particular element, but not necessarily improving resist rates. I think its 5% per cast up to 25%? But having trouble finding confirmation at the moment

SCH Storm spells: +damage like gambit and -aja, no impact on resistance

NIN nukes: I think with merits these both increase damage and reduce resistance rates? Trying to find info on whether this is a resistance tier reduction like Rayke or more of a magic accuracy improvement like Threnody / Frazzle? And what is its potency, doesn't seem to be present in the wiki or stickied job thread

BLM Ancient Magic II / RDM Enspell II: similar to NIN nukes? Are they the same resistance potency?

Sengikori: I guess this is a +25% boost similar to Gambit / -aja spells, but for all elements? I know that +[Specific Element] Affinity Damage is generally more potent than +Magic Burst Bonus, so should I be thinking about Threnody (affinity) vs Frazzle (generic) in a similar way?

Killer Instinct / Hamanoha / Dragon Breaker / Sepulcher / Arcane Crest: Not even sure at this point. Are these both a lowered resistance and an increase to damage ceiling?

Tomahawk: effects physical damage resistance rates only, correct? Or does it also lower monster-family-specific elemental resistance rates?

Magic Burst / Nuke Wall: effects magic damage only, not resistance rate? Also, if the Nuke wall caps at -50% damage, does that mean if a spell would otherwise have done 200k damage after all of the above potential interactions, then you'd still hit for capped damage against a full potency nuke wall?

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Sorry that this is a bit long and disorganized, I've been reading through the magic damage calculation page and hopping around the different jobs trying to understand how these various job abilities work alongside INT / MAcc / Spell Damage / MAB / MDef / MDT calculations. Did I miss any other random niche job ability or spell related to magic damage? Quick Draw is just a debuff potency enhancement I believe...

So if the geo is already nuking then you can set the auto up attachment wise to burst also and deploy it at the end of your SC, if timed right it should tag within the burst window due to the excessive FC on the amplifiers. With even 1 Ice it should be pretty potent, at least enough to warrent using at all.


That's a mis-translation(or just wrong in general? Never understood why its worded like that) its a single hit WS.

Taken from the JP SE post with the auto WS' ftp/wsc etc on them
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/307?p=558883#post558883

アーマーシャッタラー
基本性能：ダメージ修正＋500％、命中＋50、追加効果：物理防御力－15%（90秒）、攻撃力補正＋125％
補正ステータス：DEX50%
TP1000：追加効果の継続時間修正±0％
TP2000：追加効果の継続時間修正＋33％
TP3000：追加効果の継続時間修正＋66％

Base Stats: Damage Bonus +500%, Accuracy +50; Additional Effect: Physical Defense -15% (90 seconds), Attack Bonus +125%
Stat Bonus: DEX 50%

I actually don't see anywhere it's stated to be multi-hit, so it should probably be changed

It should be really easy to see if tp return is the same or higher than a single shot

The whole "4x fold or 4x attack" thing is always a nuisance. Many a confusion has been had.

This post is very long, but I will say much of your questions can be answered by looking at the wiki pages and checking out videos on Youtube. You might get a more concise explanation by reviewing that information, vs having a back and forth on all these topics at once.

For example, Jakey (FFXI Math) has posted a video on the nuke wall, in complete detail, that covers much of the questions you are asking (he might have other videos relevant videos too like Skillchains etc, I just recall the Nuke one the most). Lute (Japanese) has a very detailed video that covers RDM Enfeebling Magic (covers Frazzle), you will have to turn on subtitles for it though.

If the English wiki isn't helping you understand it much better, try visiting JP wiki and translate to english. They sometimes cover things in a very straightforward approach, if you can endure the auto-translation and understand the context. Not dismissing you, just giving you some other tools to check out.

Thank you for these! I hadn't come across them before, much appreciated. I knew this info must exist out there somewhere but I wasn't able to get as granular an understanding as I'd hoped from just my usual BG-wiki + ffxiah sources. Commencing research!

What attachment setup / maneuvers should I use for this? My Auto is parsing a formidable 0.1% with:
Maneuvers: ice/dark/light
Head: Spiritreaver
Frame: Stormwaker

Attachments:
Auto Repair IV / Loudspeaker V / Tranquilizer IV / Amplifier
Mana Channeler II / Turbo Charger II / Heatsink / Optic Fiber II
Mana conserver / Mana Tank III / Mana Tank IV / Turbo Charger

For what it's worth, for my setups that do this I use this:
<frame>stormwaker frame</frame
<head>spiritreaver head</head>
<slot01>loudspeaker iv</slot01>
<slot02>ice maker</slot02>
<slot03>amplifier</slot03>
<slot04>amplifier ii</slot04>
<slot05>arcanoclutch</slot05>
<slot06>optic fiber</slot06>
<slot07>optic fiber ii</slot07>
<slot08>economizer</slot08>
<slot09>heatsink</slot09>
<slot10>mana tank iii</slot10>
<slot11>mana tank iv</slot11>
<slot12>mana conserver</slot12>

Loudspeaker can be swapped with a tranquilizer iv if MAcc is an issue.

Maneuvers are ideally all ICE (assuming youre gaining mana from the DAD technique), but this can put a really heavy burden. As long as one ice is present, your MB's should be hitting hard.

Bitching worked. Got 56 on my second dig today!

Can't count how many times this has produced a result. Just like Full Moons while facing North during the kill.

I'll give this a try tomorrow. I don't think I can use DAD on Colibri because they nuke the auto, which will stop me from unsummoning. Perhaps I'll end up doing bones or something.

Rayke modifies a monsters Elemental Resistance Ranks by up to three ranks.

Resistance ranks, as covered in the linked page are a magic evasion multiplier(can increase or reduce mob meva) linked to a specific element. So changing a monsters resistance rank will affect their resist rate for the given element. But Elemental Resistance Ranks also have a myriad of other effects.

Resistance ranks directly modify skillchain damage. The number we most often see used to represent the rank is actually the SC damage modifier, since that's the most common way to test and determine a monster's elemental resistance rank.

Resistance ranks also modify magic burst damage. And that's a direct damage change, not just a change in chance to resist.

The guaranteed 1/2 resist is also resistance rank related. Specifically it's a property of the mob having a resistance rank of 50% or below(lower values are more resistant. It's confusing.) If rayke moves the monster's resist rank above 50%, then it won't have a forced 1/2 resist anymore.

And there's still other stuff they do I've not covered. Read the wiki page.
Threnodies are very different from Rayke. While rayke changes the monster elemental resistance rank, threnodies simply reduce elemental resistance. In this case, is the same thing as say, bar spells, just in reverse. The elemental resistances found in your equipment menu. When a monster casts a threnody on you, you can actually see the reductions in the equipment menu. Reducing elemental resistance for a monster is essentially equivalent to reducing the monsters magic evasion for a specific element. It has no special effects for monsters the way resistance rank changes can. It purely affects magic hit rate vs the mob for the specified element.
I can't actually say you're wrong, here. But... I would not be willing to say it's the same as Threnody. Frazzle directly reduces magic evasion, It does not reduce all elemental resistances. This can be observed most easily in PVP by casting frazzle on other players. There will be no change to the elemental resistance values in the equipment menu of the targeted player. That nitpick aside, it does do essentially the same thing in reducing the monsters effective magic evasion and raising caster magic hit rate. Frazzle would also affect any non-elemental actions(not that there are many), whereas a threnody could not. There's also the matter of status resist ranks(it's an enfeebling thing, not a damage thing), and how Frazzle helps there, but threnody doesn't. But I'm not getting into that can of worms in detail right now.These affect the MAB/MDB factor, whereas Gambit is a separate and I believe, unique, multiplier. They both increase damage, but do so differently.You have two different types of JA listed here. Killer instinct is along the lines of a "Circle" JA, like Ancient Circle or Arcane circle which include a direct damage multiplier vs valid monster types.

But the other JAs here, (Hamanoha / Dragon Breaker / Sepulcher / Arcane Crest), which don't really have a series name like the circles do, are a debuff vs the mob that reduces various stats. To quote the wiki, "Provides a flat -20 to an enemy's accuracy, evasion, magic accuracy, magic evasion, and Store TP."While it does apply a damage increase when proc'd or forced to proc with Obi, day and weather bonuses are in their own term.

Also, there is a macc factor to day/weather procs, but it's very, very, small. So... it can technically affect resist rates, by a tiny amount.These all work like Threnodies in that they reduce monster elemental resistance values. However, unlike threnodies, they are absolutely pathetic in potency. Enspell II is like -10 elemental resistance or so? Ancient magic 1 is -30. Ancient magic II... Unknown, but probably still lame.

A threnody II is like -200 elemental resistance with max song+?(I'm not a brd, approximate.) And a Sabotuer Frazzle III with maxed gear, vs an NM, is -278 meva.Tomahawk can affect monster MDT BDT or DT. As an example it's often used in Odyssey Gaol RP farming to allow Helix to do damage at all to V25 T3 Gaol NMs(Usually completely immune to all but their weak point.) So, it's not limited to the purely physical, However... it does not effect elemental resistance, meva, or resistance ranks.
You can still hit 99K when nukewalled, yes. If your precap damage was high enough.

And no the nuke wall does not cause or affect resists. It's a direct damage reduction.

Having a discussion with an LSmate of mine...Does anyone know if it's possible to find race/job stat combinations from the 75 era? Wanted to see the differences.

You are the best, thank you so much! Am going to study this closely, I just knew there were layers of complexity going on that I didn't have a solid grasp of. Especially the distinction between Elemental Resistance Rank vs regular elemental resistance, which I'm now thinking of Elemental Resistance Rank as the starting point for the likelihood of a monster to tigger a resistance proc to a particular element vs regular elemental resistance which is the amount that likelihood has been increased or decreased from its starting point.

To make sure I understand: if a monster has a high elemental resist rate of 25%, the maximum damage of a spell of that element will always be cut in half and also have a pretty good chance of being resisted even further. However, if a skillchain is used (and any other elements associated with that skillchain are even higher resist ranks so it becomes the element which is hitting the 25% resist rank), then that element drops one resistance rank from 25% to 30%. And then if a RUN uses Rayke while harboring 3 runes of that same element, it drops further from 30% to 40% > 50% > 60%, and now you will have unlocked the ability (but not the guarantee) to hit for unresisted damage since you crossed the 50% threshold. And you also picked up a 15% magic damage bonus for that element along the way.

And if I'm understanding the chart right, at exactly 50% resistance rank you are guaranteed a 1/2 resist but you are also given a 5% damage bonus? I love FFXI lol

I've got a few more granular questions about Subtle Sorcery. It says it "allows the user to ignore the extra resist state from the target having a 50% or higher resistance rank" I assume ignoring the 'extra resist state' means it allows for the possibility of unresisted damage even if resist rate is above 50%, not that it's removing the possibility of the 1/16 resist? And even then, it would still be increasingly less likely to hit for that unresisted damage as the enemey's resistance rank climbs higher, until you reach the 5% resist rank and you're going to be guaranteed a 1/16th resist regardless of Subtle Sorcery / Skillchain / Rayke?

I'm also a little confused by the terminology of calling it an 'extra' resist state, because I'm pretty sure the possibility of a 1/2 resist is still present at resistance ranks of below 50%, its just that its just going to be guaranteed at 50% and above, right? Or does Subtle Sorcery remove the possibility of a 1/2 resist altogether but keep the possibility of 1/4, 1/8, and 1/16? That doesn't seem to make sense, so I'm guessing I can think of it as "allows the user to potentially ignore the extra resist state from the target having a 50% or higher resistance rank, based on how likely it would have otherwise hit for unresisted damage if the 1/2 resist rate wasn't forced when above the 50% resistance rank threshold."

It also says "Subtle Sorcery does not change the damage reduction of magical resistant foes. E.g. A foe with a 50% resistance tier will still take a reduction in damage, but it won't be further hindered by a resist." When it says 'damage reduction,' is it referring to the differences in Magic Burst Damage Bonus across resistance ranks, which bottoms out at 0 when resistance rank is 40% and above? So I might think of it as "a foe with a 50% resistance tier will still take a reduction in damage when compared to a foe with a 60% or below resistance tier, but it wont is less likely be further hindered by a resist and this relative reduction in damage only applies to magic bursts, not free nukes or elemental weaponskills" ?

Regarding Tomahawk, you mentioned it can affect monster MDT but it does not effect elemental resistance, meva, or resistance ranks. Looking at the Tomahawk page, it says "If enemy has a physical resistance to a certain type of damage this ability will reduce it by 25% (from 50% to 37%, 25% to 18%, etc.) This also includes resistances to magic damage, so Jailer of Temperance can be nuked while Tomahawk is active." So I am understanding this to mean that even if Jailer of Temperance is starting at MDT -100%, this doesn't necessarily imply a maxed out elemental resistance rate. So after using Tomahawk, a magical attack may have a chance (based on macc / meva and dINT comparison, aka Magic Hit Rate) of hitting for unresisted magic damage (as long as the resistance rank is 50% or below), but the remaining MDT will still block 75% of the resulting damage. Am I getting this correct?

Lastly, its disappointing but unsurprising to hear how lame the elemental resistance down is from Enspells II and Ancient Magic compared to Threnodies and Frazzle. I'm assuming the elemental resistance down from NIN nukes is closer to the lame side of the spectrum, but do we know approximately what those values are? I was trying to look them up out of curiosity but I've been having trouble tracking down the info

Want to try coming back to game to play casually, but the throught of re-doing all my lua's is putting me off a bit. Anyone have some good starting lua's for rdm,blu, rng and cor?

bgwiki says resistance -30 at the top of the ninjutsu category page, but I don't see a citation for it and I would find it odd if all three tiers had the same resistance reduction.

Prothescar (RIP) added it on the 19th of July in 2023, if you want to try to find some source for it on the fora around then:
https://www.bg-wiki.com/index.php?title=Category%3ANinjutsu&diff=686263&oldid=662943

He was bad about citing stuff, but pretty diligent, so my guess is that it was tested and is actually correct but I don't have any way to tell you how.

You can verify ichi and ni in under a minute, any ninja mob can cast them, it can't be resisted. They both do -30

A few extra seconds to find a high level nin in dyna or maybe sortie for a san

The short answer is possibly here: https://www.bluegartr.com/threads/80958-Base-Stat-Calculation

(thread is obviously old, but my company is blocking the links so I can't tell if they work or not).

Long answer is here: https://code.google.com/archive/p/ffxidmgformula/downloads

You'll need excel but I think the race/stat combos were correct at the time.

They tweaked them at least once, possibly twice in the game's history (maybe even a 3rd, I don't know) so I'm not sure what vintage is in the sheet but those sheets were accurate to the 2009-2011 era (abyssea) you can just set level to 75, pick race and subjob set merits to 0. (at one time merits were more limited too).

Also i vaguely recall a password required to access the back tabs in some of those sheets (don't recall if it was for read or just write).

I'm going to use my Alchemy crafting shield for something, specifically Envy Circlets.

It's Alchemy main with a goldsmithing sub and takes Azure Cermet. Interestingly, Azure Cermet can also be HQed.

Questions:
1. For the circlet synths, I assume Alchemy Stall, Ionis, Rusk, HQ ring, Rusk Ring, Alchemy weapon / smock / torque, Goldsmithing glasses, Shield, Shield enchantment, and HQ Crystals. Maybe I should swap Smock or Torque to Goldsmithing? I have no idea what the main or sub levels are.
2. For Azure Cermet, if the Azure Leaf is not a critical ingredient and has a 50% loss rate, I think it might make sense to do Fire Moghancement and shield enchantment (-30% material loss rate) with normal alchemy HQ gear. You'd lose <20% of the leaves and would ~double your yield. Is that crazy?

It's been identified, at least for subcrafts. You need to have 71 of subcraft. The glasses are enough, don't need torque (of subcraft). This is assuming you have 70 of the subcraft (i don't believe subcraft levels granted by the shield enchantment stack properly with other items)


HQ rate for the cermet is probably about 8-10%? So you'd likely make less overall, IMO. You could try it and let us know what happens, but being subject to a lot of RNG it will be tough to know definitively which is better without a fair bit of data. I wouldn't risk it, ***'s cheap enough as-is.

Yeah, Azure Cermet probably isn't worth it. 10% HQ, 20% loss means you'd need a yield of ~3 per HQ to break even.

Can mobs like peach power flans or the caturae steal Hoxne Ampulla enchantment? They shouldn't be able to since the enchantment drops as soon as the Ampulla gets removed. They don't have much gil to steal either afaik.

If a mob can steal it, is it possible to steal it back with aura steal, atomos deconstruction or one of the BLU buff stealing moves? Does that stolen version still consume gil?

The obvious answer is it shouldn't, but the spaghetti code may disagree.

watch it be so spaghetti coded that it also consumes your own gil as they hit you

Better double check when the SMN uses deconstruct and the mages suddenly want to melee.

Someone go test this out and please tell me if you get 1000 gil every time they hit you. :)

I want a Lotus Katana from this Feast of Swords event. Never done it before. Anyone know the rough number of attacks to absorb to get the other weapons? BG makes it sound like 5-9ish.

edit: also this event is AWFUL the trade ??? despawns so fast and you have to take your weapon off in time and I missed it etc ;_;