Ability elemental alignmentsFollow

The relationship is purely a logical one based on the mythology of the FFXI universe. It has nothing to do with any stats on your character. The abilities are not "better" on certain days. They are not affected by +ICE on your armor (that's just Ice resistance). They are not directly affected by the related attribute (ie: Being more Agile doesn't make Third Eye any better) but are sometimes indirectly related (ie: Boosting your STR increases your Attack. Berserk raises your attack by a certain percentage. So you gain more raw +Attack from Berserk if you are stronger, since the percentage, which remains constant, will work out to more points the higher your base Attack is).

Think of it this way, everything in the world is made up of, or derives its power from, the 8 basic elements. Naturally, all abilities, traits, and other aspects of your character will also be derived from those elements. But the elements themselves are more like spirits, or gods. They aren't something that you can directly control or affect. You see the end result, being your STR, your Berserk ability, etc, but not the cause (the Fire element itself).

Strength, Fire Resistance, Berserk, Attack Up. These are all things that draw their power from fire, and are naturally grouped together by their relationship to fire. But increasing one doesn't necessarily affect the other. Increasing Fire Resistance doesn't increase your strength. Increasing your Strength has no effect on your Fire Resistance. There is no direct correlation between the two. There are only circumstantial relationships. For example, a lot of gear that gives some +STR also happens to give some Fire Resistance. But that isn't always the case, and raising STR alone doesn't affect your fire resistance.

A lot of the categories make sense if you think about ways to describe what the ability is doing. Berserk causes you to burn with rage. Hundred Fists causes to to attack as fast as lightning. Defender makes you tough as a rock. Flee lets you run like the wind. And so on...

But don't try to take it beyond that. There is no direct relationship between any stats and abilities simply because they are related to the same element. Sometimes it happens to work out that way (AGI affecting your Trick Attack damage), but sometimes, it does not (DEX plays a larger role in Sneak Attack damage).

Thats a big list of abilities.

Nice to see that bards don't count.

Soul Voice, Resist Silence... our party BUFF songs have elemental alignments as well (Minuet is Fire-based, etc).

/em cries over being forgotten again.

I was just listing abilities I had from classes, I didn't try to forget anyone ^^ I don't have DRK or DRG abilities either, neither did I list spells, even though they also have elemental alignments.



Personally, I doubt they're direct stat relations. I have THF to 46 and I'm pretty sure that SA isn't effected by AGI. Also, as the interview said, Mug and Steal aren't effected by stats, but they are under the wind(agility) element. So I don't think it's that. Besides, weaponskills all have elemental alignments too, however for instance, i know Tachi:Yukikaze is mainly effected by strength.


But all these elemental affinities are there for a reason! They took great lengths to add them all! And that's a lot of them! And they made all the colors show in a special box fore each ability.

Having colored boxes is far from "great lengths". However, the main reason they put them in is some abilities can be resisted. Elemental affinity almost always deals with resists. Like beast masters charm, which is improved by light staff and day. They simply colored the rest of the boxes, because it would be ODD to have a few colored boxes on certain abilities.




Sure we know. Go try and boost your Aero spells with +agi and see how well it works. Maybe fight dark based enemies with lots of +CHR to up your elemental resistance against them. I do not need Square to tell me this does not work.

People should not have to reinvent the wheel every time they make a point. If you don't know ASK, or go look it up. Don't tell someone they are wrong because you do not know.

I think what the OP was getting at is that Job Abilities (like spells) seem to have elemental statuses attached to them, and as such can be influenced by equip (staves) and day of the week.

A perfect example of this is the use of Light Staff for Charm, a near universal practice among BSTs. Charm is a JA, so it's natural to assume other JA's would be similarly affected.

I'm going to go ahead and say that staves cannot affect Job Traits, but they can affect Job Abilities.

Would someone be willing to test HP recovered with Chakra with a Light staff vs. without one? Factor in the +1 vit from the staff and compensate if possible. Steal success rates with a Wind staff vs. without would be interesting as well.

Edited, Thu Jan 20 11:20:49 2005 by AtreidesF

It is not pure assumption. This has been brought up before and exhaustively tested. (Last time I believe it was the Gateway who brought this up, and cross-posted it in like every forum o.o) You don't get Sage status with 1600+ posts by making silly assuptions...

For example, according to its elemental icon, Provoke should is based on the same element as INT. 2 Warriors testing this out with +INT and -INT equip concluded that INT in fact has no effect on provoke. Several other abilities were tried out as well.