Magic Damage

This stat has somewhat little information surrounding its calculations. When looking at bg or wiki, it states its part of the overall equation, but what does it do exactly compared to magic attack bonus? Most people stack on MAB, but the newer items seem to have Magic Damage attached.

Its not on many pieces of equipment, but lets talk about Ghastly Tathlum, it can be Auged with Magic Damage +10.

Is this preferable over regular INT or Magic attack?

Magic Damage get added to the spell base damage before that is multiplied by Magic Attack Bonus.

With spell like Thundaja the spell base damage already start at 1762 so adding 10 Magic damage is less than 1% damage, while you start with 100 MAB so +1 MAB is +1% damage.

For spell that start with low base damage, magic damage might be good.

For Int, int also add to the spell base damage but it get multiplied, like in the case of Thundaja the multiplier is 3, so 1 int is the same as 3 magic damage.

that is an extremely hard to answer question because of how complicated nuke math is, but generally speaking magic dmg is most effective on lower tier (1 and 2 as well as helixes) magic. Those types of magic you tend to easily cap int

I think ghastly tathlum +1 is still the strongest nuking ammo regardless of situation though because at full unity ranking you get both 21 magic damage and 11 Int. The magic damage is very effective on low tier nukes, but the Int is very effective on high tier nukes. Since the ammo slot doesn't have many good alternatives for nuking (I believe Pemph tathlum is still the best at this point in time, and that's just 4 MaB) the ghastly +1 tends to be best regardless.

Looking at the mallquis +2 set, it looks to have the highest magic damage + INT set bonus available. It also has spellcasting - % to boot.

Do you think this outweighs the fast cast and magic damage on agwu's? At what tier do you switch from magic damage to pure INT? T1-3 or only T1-2?

It wont, I had the same thoughts about magic damage when i came back based on the way people talk about it, but you still need to consider/compare that equipment with the MAB stat as well. To start, Try testing out some nukes on rabbits in E.Ron using one of the Ambu rings (Jhakri / Mallquis). See what your damage is with the ring2 slot empty, then test with jhakri in ring2, then test with mallquis in ring2. try that with T1,T2,T5 nukes. The magic damage stat *looks* big on that ring compared to MAB, but there isnt a large gap between the two, even on lower tier nukes.

well, compare the two set

Agwu: MAB +175, MDmg + 100, Int +192
Mallquis: MAB +75. Mdmg + 260, Int +228

The two part of the Magic Damage Formula that they'd be different without magic burst is the Base Damage and MAB/MDB

Base Damage = Spell Damage + MDmg Bonus + DInt x Int Multiplier

For Thunder V, Spell Damage = 1662, Int Multiplier = 3

lets pretend mob has 0 int and no int cap

with Mallquis:
Base Damage = 1662 + 260 + 228 x 3 = 2606
After MAB Modifier = 2606 x (100+75)/100 = 2606 x 1.75 = 4560

With Agwu
Base Damage = 1662 + 100 + 192 x 3 = 2338
After MAB Modifier = 2338 x (100 + 175)/100 = 2338 x 2.75 = 6429.5

For Stone I, Spell Damage = 160, Int M = 0

With Mall
BD x MAB = 160 + 260 = 420 x 1.75 = 735

With Agwu
BD x MAB = 160 + 100 = 260 x 2.75 = 715

so even with the weakest spell of T1, Agwu barely lose to Mall. This is also before any augment which would add another +100 MAB to the Agwu set, and before the Magic Burst Bonus + 40% on Agwu

other gear will also effect this though, like Lathi have MAB +48 while MDmg + 238 which I think will skew the scales toward Agwu even more on the lower end of the spells while doesn't make up enough on the higher end

It's a very bad approximation to assume that a mob has 0 INT and there's no INT cap, which will throw the comparison between MAB and MDMG off completely. T1 spells in particular have a pretty low INT cap.

That comparison is also calculated like the player has 0 base INT, and 0 INT, MAB, and MDMG in their other slots, from job traits, from job points, from gifts, or from buffs.

I might do a better comparison later in a bit.

Indeed, most player also do not only have MAB and MDmg from this 5 slots, its a simplification to demonstrate the differences between MAB and MDmg to people that might not know the differences really.

Overall the more of one thing you have the more influential the other stat is, but i dont really wanna delve into each differing scenario with different mobs and finding out what each mob family/job/etc has how much int/mdb

If you’d like to, you can help explain. You sounds like you know much more than myself.

I dont think anyone could make the case that Mallquis > Agwu though

Okay. Let's take a baseline of a Hume BLM/SCH 99 with capped job points. This gives 110 INT, +90 MAB, and +43 MDMG as base stats. We'll throw in Idris Acumen and INT for another 45 MAB and INT.

Regarding target monsters, level 123 Hippogryphs in Reisenjima have 251 INT, while level ~140 Dvergrs in Inner Ra'kaznar have somewhere around 400 INT. As a compromise, let's say the target has about 325 INT. The mob's MDB and elemental affinities don't matter since they're purely multiplicative. Weather and Day are ignored other than assuming they're active for the choice of waist.

For non-visible slots in gear, I'll take a generic high level BLM set, using R15 Marin Staff +1, Enki's Strap, R15 Ghastly Tathlum +1, R25 Sorcerer's Stole +2, Malignance Earring, Barkarole Earring, Freke Ring, Shiva Ring +1, a 10 MAB/30 INT/20 MDMG Ambu cape, and Hachirin-no-Obi. In total, including buffs, the player will have +239 MAB, 288 INT, and 309 MDMG without the Mallquis/Agwu. This results in:

5/5 Mallquis +2 (including set bonus): +314 MAB, 548 INT, 569 MDMG
5/5 Agwu (R0): +414 MAB, 480 INT, 409 MDMG
5/5 Agwu (R20): +514 MAB, 480 INT, 419 MDMG

Thunder VI sadly does not have documented information, so we'll be using Thunder and Thunder V as test spells.

Thunder, Mallquis +2: (85 (base Thunder factor) + 100 (dINT factor) + 569 (MDMG factor)) * 4.14 (MAB Factor) = 3121

Thunder, Agwu (R0): (85 + 100 + 409) * 5.14 = 3027

Thunder, Agwu (R20): (85 + 100 + 419) * 6.14 = 3708


Thunder V, Mallquis +2: (900 + (4*50 + 3.74*50 + 3.75*100 + 3*23) + 569) * 4.14 = 9522

Thunder V, Agwu (R0): (900 + (4*50 + 3.74*50 + 3.75*55) + 409) * 5.14 = 9777

Thunder V, Agwu (R20): (900 + (4*50 + 3.74*50 + 3.75*55) + 419) * 6.14 = 11741

Ty 4 the work

Would you please make that comparison with Relic+3 5/5 and Amalric+1 4/5(Path:A?) + Relic Head+3?

I feel like a generic targeted monster that's a compromise between cp mob in Reisenjima and cp mob in Ra'Kaznar Inner Court would be as irrelevant to a mastered BLM with Agwu set access as a tunnel worm with 0 int. I think maybe you should use Ongo/Kei/Vinipata/Disjoined Elvaan as the targeted mob here as that'd be more relevant?

Also with the buff situation, have you considered BoG/EA/Bolster/Wizard Roll with and without CC/Sage Etude etc? And what if GEO Malaise instead of Acumen?

A comparison for tier 1 spells, the main point of Mallquis for BLM, is unlikely to be relevant on anything such as those NMs and with those buffs. As such, I purposefully picked stats that would approximate an in-between mob that a BLM might be using both T1 and T5 (or T6) nukes for damage. It's a miles better comparison than on a 0 INT enemy, and wouldn't be TOO far off from targets such as those (Ongo has around 400 INT, for example, which is only 75 more than 325). 325 is the kind of INT you might see in Ambuscade, or some VD HTBFs. I don't know how much INT the likes of Disjoined Elvaan, Kei, or Vinipata have, but they're very likely to have noticeably less than the Dvergr I mentioned.

The geo buffs were simply because lots of people bring geo mules these days even on middle of the road content.

Tried /NIN or /DNC and double clubs? At least when free-helix testing on scholar it was like a 30%+ improvement.