Drain & Aspir

I'm going to start this off simple. I am making 2 lists which present the same questions:

*What effects the accuracy of these spells?
* * Supposedly: Dark magic skill, magic accuracy.
* * Does INT play a role in the accuracy of these spells (as it should)?
*What effects the attack of these spells?
* * Dark magic skill, magic accuracy (Magic accuracy from INT?)
* * Not INT or MAB?

1. Are Dark magic skill and magic accuracy the only factors in both the accuracy and attack of these spells?
2. Is INT a factor in magic accuracy, indirectly raising the "attack"? (+1 INT is equivalent to +1 MACC when the difference between the caster's and target's INT is at or below +10. +1 INT is equivalent to +0.5 MACC when the difference is above +10.)
3. Does Magic Attack Bonus (and likely magic critical) have no effect on these spells whatsoever?

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Basically what I am asking for here is if anyone has a source of conclusive testing. I have seen many posts and discussions on this topic, but none of which can I remember any pure evidence with numbers. I quite frankly do not want to cover the large sample sizes needed, and to focus on all those numbers ~~. I want to maximize damage, accurately. I wish the same for everyone else too.

Not conclusive testing, but from what I've seen, neither MAB nor INT affect damage. Only Dark Magic skill and weather.

On the other hand, Ebullience definitely DOES increase potency by 20% but that's not MAB, that's direct damage bonus.

afaik, and from my personal experience, only dark magic skill and mag acc factor into the spell accuracy, int having no bearing on acc/"attack", nor mab. the potency is directly related to the accuracy like many enfeebling spells are, ie a non resist would be your max dmg, a 1/8th resist would be 1/8 dmg less than your max, etc. like sleep unresisted would be 60 seconds, a 1/4 resisted sleep would be 45 secs, bind, gravity, silence, etc.
weather and certain gears can affect potency though~
i dont have sources to cite, just from what ive always understood.

I know what you're saying, Blurr, but

I believe (with a good deal of certainty) that the partial resist rate thing is completely random. It's possible that skill factors into it, as well as the level of the target/caster, but on more than one occasion (Sometimes 3-4 times in a row) I've gotten resists on the LV26 crabs in Qufim while PLing a party on my 75 SCH with capped Dark Magic skill and best possible gear.

Likewise, while soloing Kaiser Behemoth on floor 5 of NW Apollyon, I've gone 10-12 casts without a resist.

I'm willing to bet it may be completely, or at least partially, random, as is the unpredictable nature of Dark Magic.

might be right, ive had similar experiences. always just chalked it up to a minimum/maximum resist rate like eva/acc would have. even with capped ++ acc or eva youll still miss a swing or take a hit that tiny percent, and even sometimes in a row. but idk, drain/aspir could have rules all their own. general rule of thumb in anycase is dark magic skill > acc > haste/fast cast imo (i sac a couple pieces of accuracy for recast reductions). int/mab as far as i know play no part in acc/potency, but there are a few pieces of gear that do, and of course weather/day.

Very nice to get some input :)

MAB affecting or not affecting these spells are easy to test. My current belief is that they don't, just from seeing many many castings comparatively.

I'm still looking for concise testing. INT playing a factor... possibly testing with a very substantial amount of INT, and -INT to compare. It's just curious. Att numbers would take half or less of the sample size as acc. I'd assume if att was affected, it does indeed acc.

On my understanding of enfeebling magic particularly, skill and accuracy have no effect whatsoever on potency, that is left to INT/MND. Of course I could be forgetting something with magic acc, but I do not believe so. Dark and Enf are completely different skills so I think that's irrelevant~~

I'm thinking an easy way to test it is to get on, say, MNK/SCH (For lowest possible INT), Hit Dark Arts, then cast away. Then, switch to SMN/SCH (second highest INT, without MAB being a factor), and do the same.

In fact, give me a few minutes. I'll try 3 casts of each and see if it gives any sort of conclusive evidence.

=o I'll let you, since as you can tell by my profile page, I can't do any extensive testing... easily as yet. Really need to get some more leveling done...

i only meant a couple enfeeb spells. mnd/int would affect debuff potencies like para/slow, but the "potency" of spells like bind, gravity, etc, are basically the duration in which they last, up to a maximum limit. and as far as i know its just skill/acc/caster>mob level based, not at all having to do with mind/int.

Hmmm, for Enfeebling, I believed potency to be solely INT/MND. Thus the "allure" of the Alkalurops for pumping up bind, as according to Jap wiki an HQ staff has 20~30 (which is better than Alk's 20). However sticking up for "Alk", with the stat mods its +30 accuracy at best and +25 at worst... wait a second, why are people putting that down for enfeebling?? xD

Well, I'm done off topic
However on a Dark magic note, Diabolos Pole increases Drain/Aspir DMG, this is not magic attack? I don't completely understand the weather or the fact that Dark/Pluto staff raises damage, are they special cases skipping over the magic attack rule? staves and weather... you tricky ***.

like i said....
int/mnd DO affect the potency of blind (int), slow (mnd), para (mnd), which are highly testable, but spells like gravity bind sleep silence, wiki lists mnd/int having an effect on accuracy, but i dont believe it personally. i believe the accuracy in which they land on the targets skill/acc/caster>mob level based, and i believe the duration in which they stay on target, or "potency" is the same. and possibly having a random variable like enternius was mentioning, which i more or less agree with.
dark staff would be 10% potency+, pluto would be 15%. use aspir with out either, with one, and with the other to test. diabolos's pole is 25%+ potency but zero magic accuracy (which is almost necessary in places with constant dark (ein/dyn). alka's are sought after for the huge int/mnd mod with the comparable magacc from hq ele staves to be used with those debuffs actually notably effected by mods.

Oh I see. I don't have as much INT/MND for those duration based spells, but that is just to replace it with more accuracy. I personally believe it does effect duration, those are just extremely important spells to land on the first cast, so I take a hit to land it reliably. I can very well be wrong, but I won't look further into that because I don't find numbers, so if anyone has some testing please link!

I know what the ratios caused by day/weather and elemental staves are.
I always just left it as they were a straight elemental DMG bonus for day/weather and gave it no more thought until now. I always thought it might but I've never seen it posted as "IT AFFECTS IT BY THIS MUCH". May as well ask: Does day/weather have an affect on accuracy? Simple answer will suffice; but if anyone has a link to some testing, that would be great.

(I feel like this upper portion should be in the RDM forum ~~)

What's important now is drain & aspir and I'm extremely curious to see what kind of results Enternius got for INT testing!

http://robonosto.blogspot.com/search/label/magic

Aspir test data here. Not enough trials, but the approach/protocol was ok. Too bad that the sets he used were a bit gimp :x 291 total dark magic is just way too low :x

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MaB doesn't affect Aspir/Drain, that's certain. Dark magic affects potency/accuracy. I also think that INT affects accuracy to some extent. As for MaCC, well accuracy for sure, no idea about potency :s

All I can say is that my dark magic set gets me 320 skill, 120INT and 20MaCC. With that, I still suffer from Aspir randomness. Even when using ESeal, which also prove that accuracy is completely useless at some point. Same goes for skill, I've seen my blm evolving through years, I didn't have all that stuff before, yet my Aspir record isn't that -high-. Best was something like 183~187. Before with my average stuff I used to do ~170.

I'm talking about highest values here, cause these are the best way to see if a factor have an influence on potency or just on accuracy. 180+ is still very rare even with my set.



You killed it solo ? SCH, no gaiters, no novio (well according to equip history) desert boots not even in there and with the poor performance you showed us last time we were talking about NW ? Hard to believe man. And if you didn't, then why would you even try to cast 10-12 Aspir on him ? Not like his magic resistance is high, definitely not a good monster to run tests on.

If you wanna test your aspir, rather that pretending solo'ing something you obviously cannot take down solo, do Rahu in MMM. Very high resistance to magic, good aspir data can be collected there, especially since it's a manaburn fight, so you get 5 BLM/SCH who would aspir at least 4 to 7 time per fight. 35 trials/fight, usually doing several runs back2back = lot of data collected quickly.

And if you ask why I didn't do it yet, it's just because I went there couple of time to help friends, no logger on. I'll sure get data next time I'll do it, if I ever get to do it again (not doing MMM myself, just helping).

That test isn't too conclusive no, but a good find. Thank you.

all numbers in FFXI fall in the range of the given variables. There is surely an in depth expression to find it, I believe it is known, I do not know where. This topic is not about resists.

The whole topic here is just about drain/aspir and what affects it. Magic attack is out, elemental damage boosts are in (Ele staves, day/weather, certain special items). Need INT verification, large sample size or an extremely large variation on INT without changing skill or magic accuracy (lower sample size needed I'd imagine).

You do need to run test on very resistant monsters in order to get accurate data. Getting a bunch of 130~170MP Aspir on ***tier monsters is not a good way to proceed. I think that Rahu is probably one of the best target.

And you don't have to use a very resistant monster to prove if it actually increases potency... in fact lower resist would be better for that.

For potency yeah, but potency isn't a big deal really, it's fairly easy to determine. Easiest thing would be Dynamis. Double dark weather, weak monsters, very long event, lot of BLMs = easy to collect data, easy to aim for big Aspir score, thus getting "highest potency" data.

Skill : increase potency
INT : doesn't increase potency
MaCC : ?

Hardest part to test really, not like we can make MaCC vary as INT or Skill. From my experience (since we almost have -no- MaCC at all in the past), I think that MaCC doesn't help with potency or if it does, it's so small that's it cannot be noticed.

In fact I don't even see the point of studying potency. What's a mage want is the best average Aspir he can get, not the highest one. Because 130MP/Aspir average with a maximum at 173 will always be better than 120MP/Aspir average with a maximum at 183.

Especially since maximum Aspir are almost never attained, I get maybe 4 to 5 180+ Aspir per dynamis.

its not potency though per se. having 320 dark skill wont make your aspir steal more mp than a 290. both will have a "top damage", which youll either hit, or resist to some fraction. skill/magacc increaces accuracy which is "potency". the more skill the more likely you are to do your full dmg. caster/mob level as well. weather and certain gears are the only thing affecting the actual potency.

Yes you want the highest average but to get the highest average nuke do you just load up on as much macc/skill gear you can?

Off course raising the highest value would also increase the average. That's just stating the obvious.

The thing is, with nukes, we are in most of situations at max accuracy. That's something you simply will never reach with Aspir or Drain. While nuke are consistent, Aspir isn't, so accuracy plays a major role in there, while it can be neglected when going for maximum nuke damage.



It will. Well try reaching 187MP with 290- dark skill (and no special gear that enhance aspir effect). Have fun with that.



Big confusion here. Accuracy isn't potency.

Skill is doing both, that's a given, accuracy AND potency. MaCC ? Well it does the accuracy part for sure. The potency ? No data on it. Seeing how skill works on Bio tier and how MaCC do not affect bio tier, it's safe to think that MaCC doesn't help with potency.

having 320 skill wont steal more mp than someone with 100 skill even. however a 320 skill will steal that full amount on high level mobs 10 fold more than the 100 skill, who would never.

Keeping this thread on topic...

My understanding of everything I have seen and read online is that Drain/Aspir damage is special, taken directly from Dark Magic skill & Magic accuracy, so yes it is potency, based upon the accuracy. What we want to know now is how or if INT affects Accuracy/Attack of these 3 spells. Because if it affects Accuracy it quite possibly affects the Attack, going by those special rules (apart of which MAB = X).

*Spoiler: this is useless for the topic*
I wasn't going to write this but Antipika, I read the posts you made twice through, I couldn't find any good information. Opinions which are good and some good standard info but nothing really on the topic. Need INT verification for potency, for Dark Magic that is a big deal. Also, this is a DRK job forum, not "mage", though this subject deals with anyone using Dark Magic and anyone's input is welcome. p.s. I don't like flamers and trollers, I watched you edit your posts every 3~5 minutes multiple times just for that reason, you weren't being very nice to Enternius while he is the only one to put his foot forward as yet. Interesting, I wasted a paragraph.

If anyone's still interested, this is really delayed because my internet died on me for a few hours, and I just got back on. Doing a bit of INT testing (Obviously nothing extensive, just want to get proof of concept):

Aspir testing*
Time of day: Earthsday, daytime.
Target: Scarab Beetle, LV21-23, East Ronfaure [S].

75MNK/SCH: Control
Status: INT57, Dark Magic Skill 256, 0 MAB, no staff
1)90 MP
2)103 MP
3)78 MP
4)57 MP
5)79 MP

75SMN/SCH: High INT
Status: INT71+57(128), Dark Magic Skill 256, 0 MAB, no staff
1)88 MP
2)71 MP
3)83 MP
4)65 MP
5)63 MP

75SCH/WHM: High skill
Status: INT67+1 (68), Dark Magic Skill 278, 0 MAB, no staff
1)72 MP
2)91 MP
3)86 MP
4)88 MP
5)106 MP

75SCH/BLM: High MAB
Status: INT72, Dark Magic Skill 256, 45 MAB, no staff
1)99 MP
2)75 MP
3)62 MP
4)86 MP
5)92 MP

75SCH/WHM: Staff
Status: INT67+2 (69), Dark Magic Skill 256, 0 MAB, Pluto's Staff
1)101 MP
2)101 MP
3)77 MP
4)98 MP
5)83 MP

75SCH/WHM: Ebullience
Status: INT67, Dark Magic Skill 256, 0 MAB, no staff
1)103 MP
2)122 MP
3)111 MP
4)108 MP
5)97 MP

Results:

Control
Min:57
Max:103
Avg:81.4

High INT
Min:63
Max:88
Avg:74

High Skill
Min:72
Max:106
Avg:88.6

High MAB
Min:62
Max:99
Avg:82.8

Staff
Min:77
Max:101
Avg:92

Ebullience
Min:97
Max:122
Avg:108.2

As you can see by this, the only conclusive way to increase Aspir at ALL, is by either Skill, Staff, or Ebullience.

*Please note that this is only a small sampling, and more extensive testing would balance out the Control, MAB, and INT to near equal amounts over time. Likewise, I most likely just had lucky procs with Ebullience.

Edit: I'd like to draw special attention to the control and INT sets. Going from INT57 to INT128 is a MASSIVE jump, and if that didn't improve damage through INT, nothing will.

That's great!

The amount of accuracy that INT boost (57-128) would have given to drain/aspir on that target is +35.5. The thought pattern I have read is Dark Magic Skill = Magic accuracy, Magic accuracy = Magic accuracy; so Dark skill + Magic accuracy = DMG. That's not a huge test of course, but that's a large variance, if it gave a +35.5 increase in comparison I'd imagine seeing something.

Now I'm still under the opinion "Magic accuracy" increases the "attack" of these spells as well. I will try to do some testing as best I can, unfortunately I cannot make such a large gap so I will need a large sample size as such.

I am not yet ready to give up on INT, though I don't expect any change. A larger sample size or multiple people trying that way (MNK/SCH - SMN/SCH) would be great.

~Now I have to regress for a moment and say I'm basing "Magic accuracy" affecting DMG from either reading that on boards, or reading "I think" or "I'm pretty sure".

I have seen INT affect resist rates on my Aspir/Drain in einherjar as RDM/DRK, base 200 skill ftl

Well if M.ACC did affect damage, that would also be easy to test. Klimaform floors resist rates right off the bat, no questions asked. As in, you get a massive boost to M.ACC.

Brb testing.

Full nuking gear with Dark Skill mixed in.

INT72+40, Dark Skill 278 MAB+37, Pluto's Staff, Voidstorm, Klimaform

Aspir only did 88 c.c

I RDM/DRK, I've seen the same thing, but honestly I was just eye-balling as you probably were, and a substantial INT boost would be needed anyway. ~~

SCH cheats xD. Klimaform will probably work fine (whether changing the attack or not). but I just went through my stuff and I can get +21 M.acc or 0 base without changing anything else on my DRK, will take a bit of sample size, but I will go through with it!

p.s. lol musta been the toughest beetle out there.

Second and third attempts, 71 and 68 respectively.

I'm going to have to say Magic Accuracy doesn't add damage.