Are Elemental Grips Worth It?

The problem is, that such a build doesn't really exist. You'll always be looking for that balance between landing and potency/duration. Sure, you could load up your *** on enf skill and land everytime (which sometimes is important), but your spells won't be as effective as the next rdm who has an 80% land rate but higher potency. Its good to have as many options in MACC / ENF skill / INT-MND as possible.

We both know that I meant a balanced build with maximum landing potency, why spin words pointlessly?

I guess its not entierely correct, but did someone try ? was a question, not an advice, i guess its hard to read my post sometimes so forgive my weak grammar.

The thing is +2MaCC won't change anything on the situation especially when your skill are already high. It is believed (nobody can test that) than the higher's your skill, the lower the impact of MaCC. Some says 1MaCC = 1Skill when skill < 200. Then it's 0.9. Which makes me think what's up when you have 340+ skill ? 1 MaCC = 0.8 ? 0.7 ? less ?

Now if you get resisted often situation wont change. Let's say my resist rate is 50% w/o grip, 49.5% with grip, I'd rather have a 0.5% higher resist rate but higher potency/duration. The gap between +2MND grip and +2MaCC on an accuracy point of view is almost non existent. Whereas the gap on potency between 0MND and +2MND exists.



None out there, nobody managed (yet ?) to obtain these data through reverse engineering :d

Really, what it boils down to, Wooooodum... Is that you need to test it for yourself. No one can tell you how well you'll land a spell on a particular mob without actually doing it. The general rule of thumb, and I'm sure you know this already is:
HNM or mobs much higher than your level, use skill and m. acc.
Mobs equal to or lower than your level, use int/mnd to increase the duration of the enfeeble.

(Unless there's some magic calculator or chart out there that I don't know about which states exactly how much skill/acc/int-mnd you'll need to land a spell unresisted on a particular mob.)

Edit: No, Antipika... They theorize that 1 skill = 1 m. acc when skill is < 200. And when skill is > 200 it is = ~.9 m. acc.

1 Magic Accuracy will always be 1 Magic Accuracy. And when it's over 200, 10 magic accuracy is going to be equal to approximately 11.11 skill. This is very similar to how melee skill and accuracy are related post 200. Granted... These are just theories and no one has a definitive way to prove it one way or the other.

The way I play blu, and I like to think I'm pretty damn good, there's extremely minimal use for these. I'm still working on my macc build for debuffing the crap out of everything, but it's rare that I can't land any debuffs. I've been fighting a pretty souped up Taniwah a lot lately, and that has proven to have the highest resist rate of anything I've ever fought, however, I can still land Enervation every time, which lasts just long enough for me to fire another debuff at it. However, even with enervation on, I couldn't land sleep without elemental seal (and my blm is only 25 <_<) and I've only landed sound blast once. Having said that, the two runs that I tried blm burn, not a single person could land sleep/bind/grav without elemental seal, so I'm not too concerned.

In more normal situations, it's quite rare for me to kill my tp to equip a staff. Maybe these grips will help me land heat breath, but then I'm losing quite a lot of HP from staff grip to these, just as I would be if I took off blood bead ring or bomb queen ring in place of balrahn's ring for twice the amount of macc. MP Drainkiss and Digest are both entirely dependant on blue magic skill (capped at 160 with capped merits, and 170 with AF body and relic hat) but I think dark staff pushes them up to 180. INT/MND/CHR does absolutely nothing for these spells, so obviously if you have the opportunity to use them with staff, then the elemental grips would be the best. But again, can you afford the space? I certainly can't.

Magic Hammer and Mind Blast I believe both follow the same damage/accuracy formulas as standard blm nukes, except they're MND based rather than INT based, so these are probably better used with bugard +1. Same applies for the INT based spells such as firespit, corrosive ooze and regurgitation.

So really the only use these would have for blu would be for landing straight debuffs. I don't really know how to test what effects the potency of things like sound blast, enervation, awful eye, frightful roar, stinking gas and lowing, and I've never found any info on it either. As far as I'm aware, these are all hit or miss spells with set values, with the accuracy being based soley on blue magic skill and magic accuracy +, meaning that yes, elemental grips would be the best way to land them. However I've just mentioned 5 different elements there, and there's also infrasonics, sandspin, 3 sleep spells with light and dark element...

On top of all this, blu also has to consider the family of the mob they're fighting and the spell they're using. For instance, Digest and MP Drainkiss get a 25% penalty on the crabs in kuftal tunnel (aquan beats amorph), but then you go to level up and go to lesser colibri and all of a sudden they get a 25% boost (amorph beats bird). This also effects resist rates...

Maybe I should just get light grip and spam 1000 needles on everything, but when my heat breath does ~1100 with convergence on anything, with another 25% bonus on lizards, and for half the mp, I think I'll give elemental grips a miss.

As a BLM I owned 3 grips for sometime thats dark, wind and ice. Ill always stick to bugard strap+1 for nukes where resistance is low and to keep inv space free : limbus, sea, some hnms, Ouryu, dynamis. But i try to take them whenever im taking merciful cape, af hands and af2 petasos anywhere where resistances are higher. Basically my elemental grip use for nukes is minimal.

For enfeebling though, i still only tend to bring the grips depending on which event im going to, large crowd control dynamis ill take dark grip, or binding seiryu's 2 hour ill bring ice grip or a lolkited kirin fight ill take my wind grip.

Ive owned those 3 since around september 08 ZNM release and id like to believe they help somewhat. As you can see from my enfeebling skill build as a blm there is quite a large ammount of magic acc from the grip, goliard clogs, omega ring and balrahns which i undoubtedly believe add up to make my build stronger than if it contained less M.acc.

I think those three grips have their uses along with light and earth if your a bard as mentioned and the other grips to some extent. I think SE's intention was to give us an alternative, on one hand you can nuke with bugard+1 for more dmg or you can give yourself less chance of resist but for slightly less dmg and use an elemental grip.

That's what I said ?



I'm just assuming that the higher's your skill, the lower the M.aCC impact. That's *my* assumption.

The main thing I'm seeing here is that people doubt a whole +2 to Magic Accuracy will overshadow the Int/Mnd offered on other grips.

It's really up to how comfortable you feel with the success of your spells.

If these grips had been +5 or more to Magic Accuracy of that element's spell, I doubt we'd be having this discussion.
Edit: Ooh... 333rd post. =D

My sleep build as a blm, id like to believe is balanced with maximum landing potency with perhaps the addition of an alt cape. Tough to VT marid for ZNM photos its always 90second duration sleep2 can always time to land sleep again just as it wakes. And for higher up the scale of mobs the same build would go for 15+ hours on inc tough lamia or wivre before seeing a bind gravity or sleep resist. Seiryu bind its around 80% sucess rate with varying/decent durations, kirin gravity 75% sucess rate but generally a low duration. I know its not parse results :/ and soild facts and figures but best i can provide to answer what your looking for.

would have been nice if they'd just made one grip with +2 macc, instead of 8 different ones for each frigging element

I think duration of sleep is hardly affected by your enfeebling/macc build, but more affected by the nature of the mob.

I made testing already, some mob will never be slept 90 seconds, even if you use ESeal, while some will always be slept 90 seconds, whatever their level. I can sleep Aern inside palace 90 seconds just fine, duration will always be 90 seconds, even when I sleep with "crappy" stuff (what I did to test is Sleep 1 with my "normal setup", then remove my enfeebling items, spam sleep 2/sleepga 2 until it sticks, then compare duration of that sleep 2).

Same goes for fomor in Appolyon SW, always 90 seconds. Elementals in Temenos : Always 90seconds. Pluto, Ghost, Sheep, Marids in Appolyon NW, 90 seconds. Whereas bees on tavnazia, usually 82~84 seconds (even when ESeal'd and with dark obi/double dark weather and initial sleep (meaning no sleep resistance built)). Puddings, a bit resistant to sleep, still stick 90 seconds without any issue. Same goes for trolls around.



Or a single Staff with +15 potency / +15 MaCC on all element :d

:( You dont have an item set for you enfeebling build im curious as to how it differs from mine at all, Im still after genie lappas.

I solo'd Sandy rank 8 bc yesterday. I left the pld til last as I was using him to mp drainkiss spam. I found it interesting to note that he didn't resist sleep a single time, and stayed asleep for the full 90 seconds duration every time. I thought the resist sleep trait meant that not only are you more resistant to it sticking in the first place, but that it also NEVER lasts as long?

I'm still after genie lappa too lol, my setup's is far from being perfect but pretty decent and works in all my end-game situation. (not doing HNMs, and as a BLM anyway wouldn't be my job to para/slow etc... on these). 294 Enfeebling / 4 MaCC / 84+26 INT (w/o food). Will evolve soon with morrigan hands (will add 5 MaCC), maybe oracle hands / avocat pigaches later. No time for ZNM now. Could replace Tamas with Einherjar ring also for a bit more MaCC.

Well if I had to based on that, prob smething like

Main = HQ staff - end all be all
Sub = ele grip (when potency isn't an issue) / Bugard +1 / Raptor +1 / Staff strap
Range = AV Macc disc / Failnaught for enm / Phantom tath
Head = AF2
Neck = Enfeebling Torque
Ear1 = Enfeebling Earring
Ear2 = Mamool's Earring / Celestial Earring / Phantom +1
Body = Morigan's Robe / Mahatma Hoppy
Hands = Morigans Cuffs
Ring1 = Omega
Ring2 = Snow/Aqua/Toau ring ??
Back = Ixion cape / Sea cape
Wasist = Witch Sash
Legs = Nashira / Mahatma
Feet = Avocat / Goliard

I've never seen a paladin have less duration than any other job. They can just "Resist!" a lot.

These grips have made a difference when I've used them... but if you really don't want to carry them all around, I would suggest only getting the ones for the enfeebling magic you use most. Like... my main mage job is BLM, so I got Dark Grip asap. Also, on Bard, I have noticed a nice improvement on my lullaby and elegy stick rate with earth and light grip. Really, I wouldn't bother getting them all though. I know on BLM I usually have like 10 spaces max left anyways once I gear up. Just get the ones for the enfeebs you use most. ^^

Second this :)

I do this, too.

While I'm not 100% sure mobs follow the same rule, I know "Resist X" traits are meant to shorten the duration of X on a player if they're afflicted with it.

An example taken from Wiki on "Resist Silence",

This trait gives a chance to avoid being affected by Silence effects, and reduces their duration when they do affect you.

I just agree with that, if your inventory allows it (which may be the case for RDM but certainly not for BLM), then use ele grip on spells where potency is kinda useless and on long cooldown spells. So Sleep but especially Gravity / Bind when the mob is immune to sleep. For Paralyze / Slow, I'd stick with MND.

I mean when you sleep something, all you want is your spell not to get resisted, same goes for gravity, otherwise you might be *** up since cooldown is long :s For Para/Slow you want your spell to be as efficient as possible, a Paralyze II with an awesome MND setup can be godlike on some mobs.

Honestly, at 75 with elemental merits you should get so few elemental resists that what is the point of +2 macc, that being said I own wise strap. It's nice to see big numbers once in a while even if it's not reliable, and i'm a taru therefore i dont need MP from a strap. I used thunder grip for a while.. realized it did next to nothing since resists are scarce for me... and now it sits in my mog.

For exp or casual nuking like that, DMG gears all the way, imo these grips are foolish to use... because of this, if you go against an hnm sure the grips may come handy but you should be boosting elemental skill as well (which will have much more impact), but you definitely aren't gimp to not have the grips lol

I have seen counter-arguments made that the MP from the ele grips can provide more dmg than the random crit chance, yeah it's probably true, but that also requires casting time to add up, no blm really spam nuke in a situation where the macc would really be an issue. It also requires you to actually rest full so you actually get that 20mp boost... and how often does a blm do that?

rarely, actually the dmg comes out after ugga pendant is active anyway lol.. so me i'll just stick to using one grip untill it can be proven that +2macc really amounts to anything worth the inventory headache lol

I can see maybe light and earth being useful as bard but I still don't own them. It's a lot of inventory space to tote around for very minimal boost to a stat.

Mmm, I have used these on my RDM and BLM for the longest time.
They definately do affect enfeebs, and to a noticeable extent. You can actually tell the difference when duoing stuff like seiryu, or soloing any of the sky NMs. It even gets me to the point where I can effectively bind suzaku with very little worry.

As for pure numbers, yes, there was a post on BG about them and exactly how they affect enfeebs. I'm not sure if I can find it, however, they are the equivalent of adding 1 extra merit into a magic accuracy merit category.

I personally use all of the grips, short of light and fire. With those, my RDM inventory is up to 67/70; but I find that they are worth the tradeoff.

PS: I love dark grips for BLM sleepgas in xarc.

PPS: Would you like me to show you my windower macros for RDM enfeebs? Would be a quick copy/paste

They are not equivalent, a merit upgrade for rdm macc is +3, the grip is +2

Unless you made serious tests, on at least 500 (1000+ would be the best) casts, then I'll just call this placebo effect. Even if we suppose that 2 MaCC = 1.8 Enfeebling Skill, how can you notice the difference ? And playing [Job] for X years ain't an answer (people loves to says : I've been playing this jobs for years, so what I'm saying is true) :<

I'm not saying it's wrong either because I cannot prove it, still if no valid proof => placebo effect.

Would be nice if you could find that post on BG :D

I think I'll go try myself on puddings, since these resist sleep a bit (when on blm), so could compare resist rate with and without grip. Would be nice if others BLM could try, so we could merge our results, and get more accurate data.

And, now that you mention it, "converts 20 HP > MP" will help ooglyboogly pendant activate sooner. Maybe it's still not worth it, but I'd say that alone makes it well worth while for minstrel's ring brds struggling to get to the right HP with gear swaps.