Blm AM2

Not everyone has all obis. Either way unless your MBing putting more into any 1 is useless. So why not get 1 of each if you got the points to spend. It can come in handy with mobs that resist all but one element. And doing the full wheel of them getting the lower resistance is kinda fun

Matching the day of the week/weather with an element you 0/5 potency merits but have the Obi will beat using an element you 5/5 potency. (assuming no resist)

10% > 10 MAB.

But that assumes that you have the HQ staff for the right element(I know I don't always carry all 8) and the right obi (see comment about carrying all 8 staves).

If you have the right obi and HQ staff, always nuke the day/weather (unless the day is the mobs strength)

Otherwise, stick to your potency merits.

Obviously ^ is all for T4, but the maths follows over for AMII.

@OP
As people have said, AMII is for bursting and 1 shotting only. And personally I only have Freeze II and Burst II (which eventually be) 5/5. Some of the others have situational uses, but you can always use ice or thunder...

You're forgetting something in your equation. Using obi means you lose -6INT from belt. Too lazy to make calculation now, but delta between 10%-6INT and 10MaB shouldn't be wide, if non existent.

I'll do tests when I can.

Let's call it -5INT for the majority of blm's that don't have relic belt :p

Valid point.

And it complicates the issue as INT's effect on damage is related to the target's INT (which obviously changes mob to mob). But to take an incredibly simplistic point of view:

6 INT ~ 3 MAB (incredibly simplistic estimation)
So merits + belt is:
10 + 3 = 13 MAB
15% > 25 MAB unless MAB is infeasibly low (Dorje vs HQ staves)
therefore, very roughly:
10% > 16.66 MAB [(25/15) *10]

So I would estimate that Obi would beat Potency merits + Sorc Belt. I would do a more detailed analysis, but I don't have time atm

But certainly if you have Obi and relic legs then you should always stick to day/weather.

Won't bother to maths with things like this. Just gonna run tests.



I'm sorry if you're a career blm you have s.belt. Or let's say that blm shouldn't have novio, gaiters, morrigan's since they're just as hard to get.

Pre-2008 that belt was rare, took 1 year to get 1 drop on my shell, now since update it's not rare anymore and Dynamis Bubu Crabs are probably the easiest thing that can be farmed in dreamland.

---

On Aht Urghan Attercop :

Flood II w/ Obi and 0 potency : 1826
Burst II w/o Obi and 5 potency : 1815

So yeah 11 damage difference on a ***tier mob, providing you deal 1800's. And that's with Burst II, using Freeze II instead would nullify the gap.

Full Morrigan was used in both case. MPAftercast>50%. No AFv2 legs used. Using legs would make the gap higher for sure since I would break full morrigan and use AMKE Head instead of Morri head.

Edit :

Freeze II w/o Obi and 5 potency : 1834
Flood II w/ Obi + AFv2 Legs + AMKE Head + Yigit Feets (breaking full morrigan set for maximum damage) : 1900

Ahh well I learn everything I know about blm from one of the best blm on Asura, and he doesn't have any of that stuff, so... <_<

But seriously, I think relic belt is still quite rare in comparison to novio, although perhaps not gaiters and morrigan's. Mainly since so many shells don't touch CoP dynamis (beats me why though, less currency drops and too obsessed with relics I guess?), although you do make a good point, I was just being silly (hence the :P)

Edit: Yay for Antipika and fast testing, good job :o

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't obi just guarantee the day bonus, so if you're nuking with s.belt using thunder on thunder day (or whatever spell/day), that small difference has a chance of being a much more decent difference in the other direction. And of course Relic pants will help out even more, but kinda besides the point on the belt debate. So unless I'm totally off base, wouldn't it be better to use s.belt over obi unless you have day AND weather bonus?

The irony behind that is you can easily get 3 hours 30 minutes worth of City drops in half an hour of farming them in Dreamlands.

Yeah I was totally guessing, sticking with the whole "most shells don't touch CoP dynamis" thing, I've done a grand total of 2 CoP dynamis runs, I have no *** clue why people don't do it :p

well, getting back to the question... I do use Burst II and Freeze II the most and only had those two for a while. But, after doing SKY for a while and fighting other HNMs, I found it useful to have all of the AMII's unlocked. There are some mobs that are only weak to one element and highly resistant to magic in the first place so you need to cast that element to even hurt it.

Additionally, I found that meriting the AMII's to higher levels to be a waste of merits anyway because there are very few occassions when I get to MB them (and more MB damage is the only benifit to raising them to higher lvls). I suppose if your LS acctually used SC>MB as a tactic then it would be usful, but SC>MB seems to be a thing of the past. I remember lvling BLM and always seting up a SC>MB but now all you ever see is DD's TP buring and zerging without any skill or strategy at all while relying on the WHM's to keep them alive.

There's been plenty of times when casting the appropriate AMII on NMs that are weak to that element have done more damage than Freeze II and Burst II.

I don't understand either. Dreamlands are more challenging, the quality of drops is better and it's much shorter. The drop rate on 'NQ' AF seems to be around ~25% in dreamlands as well. Currency also drops in a similar amount to cities if your run is a successful one... Then there's the bonus of 3-4 100s on the bosses now and then.

There really is no reason to do cities anymore except for access, yet everyone still does.

Not more damage, higher accuracy. Makes a difference, even if higher accuracy usually means more overall damage on HNMs.

Weak to [element] almost never mean extra damage, unless on specific case like bomb, weak to fire BUT 50% resistant to all others elements. Still base damage of Fire spells wont be higher. If you do 1000 with Flare II, you should do 500 with Burst II. But on resistant NMs like Wyrm, nobody is gonna use Fire or Ice, therefore base damage delta is irrelevant, you would just use Lightning or Water. No point in using something neutral like Wind or Earth since it doesn't provide any extra benefit.

Now take Ghosts monster family, using Burst II or Flare II will exactly yield the same damage. Even if ghosts are supposed to be weak to fire. But when you're fighting trash monsters or small NM, then you won't notice a difference accuracy wise between lightning (which is neutral) and fire. And since 90%+ BLMs have Lightning/Ice merits maxed out, everyone will just stick to lightning when fighting a monster that resist ice. And stick to ice when a monster resist lightning.

And if a monster resist both, then that's too bad, and you'll use an unmerited Tier IV nuke, these situations are rares tho.

So yes close. Freeze II is a little bit of a cheat due to the staff.

0/5 potency merits + obi > 5/5 potency alone (with the exception of Ice nukes)

The only times I really find myself using obis are in dynamis and limbus, when there is a constant weather effect. It must be escaping my mind where else you can catch weather besides when you have a SCH in your pt.

I would also like to add that CoP dynamis was never updated and the update only covered northlands. So even though I am a career blm, I have never seen a sorcerer's belt all the while I have been doing dynamis, and we have done 3 bubu this month.

The only times I really find myself using obis are in dynamis and limbus, when there is a constant weather effect. It must be escaping my mind where else you can catch weather besides when you have a SCH in your pt.

I would also like to add that CoP dynamis was never updated and the update only covered northlands. So even though I am a career blm, I have never seen a sorcerer's belt all the while I have been doing dynamis, and we have done 3 bubu this month.

Wrong.

Well show where it was lol. Saying WRONG really doesn't help anything.

I can't be bothered. Doesn't stop you being wrong though.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/2008_-_(08/04/2008)_Dynamis_and_Limbus_Get_a_Makeover!

I was under the impression that this update was only for northlands.

go away.

That's a broken link.

I'll look through the Play Online site now. When they released the "on the day" update details, they specifically included the dreamland worlds in their list of modified zones.

Also, it really isn't hard to see. If your shell has done three Buburimu and hasn't noticed drop rates are significantly higher than that pre-update, your shell's compotence would come under fire.

Because you're wrong and post broken links to prove your point?

I can't be bothered. Doesn't stop you being wrong though.
^
Not to mention the link wasn't broken when I clicked on it in Rowland's post.

Well thank you for clearing that up Rowland.

The topic is
Not of updates on dynamis.

I believe the other AM II's are situational. So it really depends on events and such you do most to me.

I only have Burst II and Freeze II with potency on both.

Incredible! How can I possibly combat your witty recycled posts?

But in all seriousness, I couldn't find it on the official site. They don't have any archiving, or I'm going blind and can't find it anywhere. When they released COR, BLU and PUP items, they also tweaked the drop rates of the dreamlands and northlands zones.

In the update notes it said "The following zones are effected" and listed the four dreamlands. As I said before, as well, you don't need to be told they've changed it to notice it. The increase in drops is absolutely blatant.

That's because you're not using Quake 2!