Bubble Trouble: A Geomancer Guide

My previous post where I was discussing this and asking for input somehow got deleted >.>'
I seemed to recall Rubi having lower mab but higher macc and INT, but I was wrong. As it stands now Rubi is just a slightly weaker version of Solstice path B

Single Clubs (leaving out Nibiru since they're inferior)

Dualwielded clubsGiven my inventory strains if I were to pick a compromise I'd go for A+B personally. Or A + perfect Rubicundity I guess.
Nehushtan is a nice option for the MB dmg but imho it's not worth it plus *** wasting more billions of gil into augments.

More on this, I went and compared the stats directly:

Marin Staff +1
Macc: 243 (not including INT)
Mab: 28 (39 for Wind spells)
Mdmg: 217
INT: 27

Solstice A + Culminus
Macc: 230
Mab: 66
Mdmg: 199
INT: 21

Solstice B + Culminus
Macc: 245 (not including INT)
Mab: 51
Mdmg: 199
INT: 21


Basically it offers a big increase in Mab (more than double the amount than Marin) at the cost of over 15 Macc, some int and 18 Magic damage.
Is it worth? For high tier nukes I bet it is, for low tier probably not. Can someone math this out?
If I were to pick a Solstice Path to replace Marin+1 I'd go with Path B though.
That way you'd still have much more Mab, but without the Macc cost.


Edit:
Forgot to take into account Grips!
Can provide a small chunk of mab, or macc, or INT, or a bit of everything. No huge differences here, but every bit counts I guess.

So ignoring Macc and holding other parts of the magic damage equation constant (day/weather, monster family, multi-target) etc. You can calculate whether solstice A out performs a marin+1 and willpower grip (assume most people are using that since it's not too hard to get) like this:

V_dint + Your_Gear_Magic_Dmg > ((8*M+18)/.33)*(1 + Your_Gear_Mab/100)

Go to this page: https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Magic_Damage
Go to the Elemental Magic table.
M is a modifier based on your assumed dINT
V_dint is spell base damage in the same dINT category

If you want a summary:
The shield + club should be better than Marin for most spells unless you have really low dINT (does anyone know typical dINT for harder content these days?) or stupid high MAB on your gear (like upwards of 300 for low tier spells and 1000 for high tier spells) because .33 * 1000 is a lot bigger than 3*42. Path B should be pretty reliably better as well. Idris w/o aftermath is a much higher INT loss, but a quick math says it should still be better on (edit:) most stuff, because the combo has +13 mdmg on the staff.

Someone should probably check this though cause I did it before I had any coffee the chances I completely messed it up are high. Also remember I'm ignoring macc.

I think this is a wrong premise.
Can we really ignore macc? I don't think we can. At best it would require some swaps in other slots.
If we really want to ignore macc I think there's not much to calculate.
I might be wrong but I think it's pretty obvious Solstice (A) + shield is going to outperform Marin on high tier nukes.
I'm slightly doubting for the low tier maybe, but that's it.


Despite all this, like I said in my previous post, I'd still go for Solstice (B).
It's basically the same but you exchange 15 MAB for 15 Macc.
That way the overall macc is mostly the same as Marin+1 (slightly under) and the MAB is still way above.
Sounds more balanced to me.
Of course if we exclude inventory constraints, you could get both an (A) and (B) and use them in your different macc/mab sets.

1. Club Shield combo is better for T1. This is apparent from just looking at the weapon differences.

2. After you hit about 65% magic hit rate +15 MAB out does +15 Macc in expected damage value (based on the BG resist formulas). So mathematically A is still looking better for most situations, especially if you're anywhere near magic hit rate cap.

Change of topic.
Me and some LSmates noticed a strange behaviour with Blaze of Glory.
Sometimes it happens that the Luopan used after Blaze of Glory starts at 100% hp instead of 65%.
Anybody knows what causes that?
It seems to be random. Doesn't happen all of the times, but at the same time it's not an extremely rare occurence, seen it happen many times inside Escha - Ru'aun.
Not sure if I've ever seen it happen in other zones.

I'm not talking about the HP Vorseal (that causes the Luopan to pop at 50ish something instead of 65% because additional HP gets added right after pop, increasing the max HP and hence reducing the relative % of initial HP)

Don't really know the true mechanics, but if blaze of glory actualy deals damage to the luopan when it pops, the "occasionaly ignore damage" vorseal may sometimes proc on it.

Oh... So that's a result of Blaze of Glory dealing "damage" to the Luopan.
But still, the "occasionally ignore damage" should proc 2% of the times, and I've seen that happen waaaaay more often than just 2% of the times.
Maybe something is broken and that % is higher on pets, or something.

Your hypothesis does make A LOT of sense though, except for the wrong % of occurrence time.
I think you might have nailed the real reason.

This is so common these days, i see people craving for more mab and nuke for crap, is resist city on anything worthwhile yet most mages load on mab instead of macc.

Well it kinda depends what you're fighting and which buffs you're getting.
Focus, Languor, Frazzle2, Frazzle3 etc.
With the newly reworked macc food we recently got a large amount of targets don't really need us to focus on macc to nuke for good damage.
Last but not least, SC grants quite a considerable macc bonus. If you go for strategies that have you nuke only during a SC, macc becomes even less important.
Highend targets will still require some macc even with an assorted combination of the previously mentioned buffs though.

If someone never fights such targets though he probably doesn't have to worry about that.


With that being said, *personally* I'd still pic 15 macc over 15 mab on my weapon, but that's just me I suppose.

^ This.

It's basicly a DD saying "I'm ignoring Accuracy".


Fire VI is only doing 150 dmg on this mob... let's add some MAB. Ok, that's better, i'm doing 160 now.

This is why you have multiple sets based on your target and buffs.
So you might as well get 2 for high/mid-low targets?

Yep, it's what I said in my original post.
I was just going under the assumption "if I had to choose one between these two", in such a scenario I'd pick the 15 macc over the 15 mab.
There's a lot of people wanting solstice, I don't feel like getting a second one before other people in my LS got their first.
Once I manage to get a 2nd one sure, I'll get both paths ;)

edit: I did a more detailed analysis and moved the break point for macc returns.
I think you guys are really over-valuing macc for the non-brain dead player. Because of how elemental magic hit rate works it's actually NOT like a DD considering accuracy. If you miss a nuke, you get another chance to deal half damage, if you miss again, you get a chance to do quarter damage, if you miss a 3rd time you do 1/8 damage and your extra mab figures into all of those. Because of this there are diminishing returns on the amounts of macc depending on where you are on the magic hit rate spectrum. The break point seems to be around 75%. macc is more valuable than the same amount of mab before you reach a 75% hit rate. After that point you want the mab. So if solstice B was going to push you from a 65% hit rate to an 80% hit rate it's actually better to just go with the solstice A.

The question you have to ask yourself is: which mobs will I be fighting with my current setup that will resist me once every 4 nukes? Personally I am finding that since the introduction of all this high macc/mab combo gear (amalric, barkarole etc.) and the food, I am not seeing a resist rate that high, and chances are, if I AM fighting a mob that's that resistant, it's a high level event and we either have 2 GEOs and are MBing or are using a melee/bst strat. I haven't fought any of the newer sky gods yet though.

Ignoring macc comes mostly in the context of a CP situation, where your macc is more likely to be capped or close to cap, so you can look purely at your damage a use that to figure whether or not you want to macro in marin for your -ra and low tier because of the damage, but since 119 weapons come with so much base magic damage on them now, mab is looking better than the same amount of damage.

I'm assuming if you're on this forum discussing A vs B you don't need me to tell you if you're getting fully resisted on every nuke you need to make some changes, and that you're more interested in finding optimums in the equipment available to you. The one variable it's hard to account for, for me, is dINT, because I don't really have an idea what the usual dINT is for content these days, and that really effects the value of INT vs MAB.

Also to add to the most recent discussion, I have seen my loupan not have it's HP depleted as early as Escha-Zitah before I had an vorseals. I don't have any of the ignores damage taken vorseals and I still see it. No idea what it is but I'll take it.

Hi. I'm recently new to geo and end game content so I've been coming here to get some pointers and one thing that caught my eye but doesn't seem to be working is the DD geo set. I have full telchin gear and I'm 24 acc points away from perfect Augsburg but when I just went out in a CP party to kill Apex Erucas I was not hitting all that well. With /checkparam I'm only at 800 primary acc. What am I doing wrong?

That Apex Mobs have like 1150+ evasion; thats number I'm pulling out the air based on my gear and the buffs I remember having. Geo doesn't have A+ skill, doesn't get as much dex/acc on there gear. Even normal melee jobs need acc Buffs to cap hit rate on them.

Quick question, I have a selenian cap with pet dt -10%, should I wear that or i109 Azimuth hood? When I +1 the hood, does it changes anything as far as idle luopan perp goes??

Since you're more than likely spending all your time near some lv 125+ mob (unless you entrust, which you could still be standing near something depending on setup) that AoEs, I'd suggest using Azimuth (also getting it to 119 ASAP). You can get the 10% DT elsewhere (isa belt, handlers NQ/HQ) without losing much idle refresh.

Guide updated for the most part. Spell potency is included for all spells now, added info for af3 and af3 +1 quests, and updated almost all sets (need to do melee mainly, everything else should be updated). Will add some stuff later but I am busy catching up since I haven't played in close to a year lol. If anyone has up to date melee and ws sets I will add them to the guide when I get a chance.

If you see anything that needs to be fixed let me know. A lot of the new stuff I am still learning the augments and such.

Incanter's Torque is going to be the best for Geomancy, with either of Deceiver's or Mellic Torques being beneath it, but still above Reti Pendant.

Coming back from a 2 month hiatus and MGSV-gasm. Is there any info at all on -Ra III spells? Google, reading back 6 pages in this thread, and checking various threads on BG turned up zilch.

I'm not sure how you missed this!

Was thinking that update hit late August so didn't go back another page, thanks much.

I disagree.
If you don't need the additional skill Incanter provides, Reti has some nice Conserve MP which never hurts.
Remember that any skill above 900 combined Geomancy/Handbell is wasted, so once you're at 900 adding more skill will produce nothing, whereas other stats like Conserve MP will still be beneficial.

tl;dr
It depends, Incanter's isn't necessarily better than Reti.

Uhhhhh...

Uhhhhh...
4% > 1%?

Granted that the 1% is a full MP retainment and not partial like Cmp, which is cool.

Man some first grade math right there.

Anyway if my 5AM math is correct I have 4% Conserve MP giving on average 1.125%

Is there no tier at lev 950 skill? cos you can get it now.

There could be, but SE said Geomancy stuff caps potency at 900.
Now they could've been lying, or it was a mistranslations, or they meant "for now the cap is 900 because there's no better gear", I have no clue.

Could be easily tested with stuff like Fury, Precision or Barrier since you can easily measure those values.
For now I'm leaning to think that it caps at 900, just like songs potency do cap at a certain value and after that no further benefit is gained from adding +skill.

if the hard cap is 900, in cases where Incanter is not necessary, you can swap pieces that either increase duration or have other benefits. I find it difficult to believe that if the combined 20 skill is not necessary that there are not other pieces that would be better swapped first. (either way, I am sitting at 888 with it, and unless you are deep into CP on the job, others are going to be in a similar boat)