bother with HP using /SCH?Follow

Well I could

a) think about it
b) think about it again when i'm sober tomorrow
c) ask anyways

y'all bother with max HP gear? it seems like a little bit of a wasted effort, even with spellcast doing it for me.. I mean it's no Light Staff in terms of night-and-day usefulness, maybe just keep it in the back of my mind when deciding on Idle build? I'm siding with Intensifying over Blue (since I have it from RDM Convert anyways, inventory +1)... maybe more importantly avoiding HP-MP+ gear (Ether Ring comes to mind).

i've had a few so i'll leave it at that, go ahead and tell me the various conclusions you've drawn in terms of maximizing subl{Tab Key} so that I/TheRoyalWe may gain from your love.

PS fishing skillup +0.1 ^^ /rock on

PPS it's almost swimsuit season, drop and give me 20

good night new hampshire

Moderately incoherent with no misspellings. 6/10.

To answer the question: increases in HP are less important than almost everything. If you have two pieces to choose from, one of which is "Converts X HP to MP" and one is "MP+X" (same X in both), with the same or substantially similar stats otherwise, go with the latter. Otherwise, go with whichever piece is more useful in the situation you're currently in (if you're resting, don't prioritize HP+ over hMP+, for example).

No, I don't use a HP setup, but I also don't pile on loads of -HP/+MP gear like I see many other mages do. In fact, the only HP reducing gear I can think of that I still wear on my RDM and WHM are my rings; namely Serket and Ether. That's mainly because my Convert ratio on RDM was still more heavily weighted towards HP (I'm a Hume) and the rings helped balance it out, but it's also because I did not pick a Tamas, and other MP rings that do not reduce HP are generally unremarkable. I'm still sitting at 4-digit HP on both jobs anyways so I'm satisfied.

I am always amused when I see a Taru strutting around in loads of Zenith, it's a wonder that sudden gusts of wind don't manage to kill them.



Most mages I see don't even bother to bring an earth staff around. This makes me sad.

Edited, May 25th 2009 8:01am by Fynlar

The only pieces with any amount of -HP that I carry are my Faerie Hairpin, and an Ether ring. Both are swapped out after the MP is gone, so I never have them on me for long. My Max MP setup is at 1040HP 1211MP.

As for actually gearing for +HP, I sometimes do it. I usually just swap pieces I carry anyways (Like Goliard Saio, Yigit Body, C.Mitts +1). Mostly I do it while charging sublimation before a big event, or when I want my devo to be big enough. It puts me over 300MP in both devo and subli, so it's something to consider.

Yeah, I never find these on AH, and whenever they have sold it's been for ridiculous prices >_>

To me the drawing factor of these rings is the +1 hMP, though.




but it's also because I did not pick a Tamas, and other MP rings that do not reduce HP are generally unremarkable.

Hp is not Just for Subbing Sch, its also useful for Devo/matyr. No, you won't full time HP gear for these, but its useful to have for these.

I think i have 3 pieces of gear that are Hp to Mp Gear, they are Blue Cape, Peace ring and Serene Ring. Which total 40 HP to Mp.

I didn't get Zenith, i don't want Zenith. For the exact reason Fy said, i don't need slight breezes to kill me also XD.

My brother is a Perfect Example of the HP to Mp fool tho :/ As a Smn he has about 530 Hp -_- and when he is weakened he has 1 HP XD

Basically if you are rarely at full Mp, some Hp gear to boost Sublimation is not a bad idea. If you are full a lot of the time, maybe not so much then.

While I suppose I could have given a more explicit indication that the adverse condition is rare, I don't think what I said was particularly "misleading". In any case, I do agree that the sweet spot is relatively small.

On the other hand, I don't believe that your characterization is completely accurate, either. Most of the time, a WHM shouldn't be pulling hate, and the discussion is irrelevant. But we're talking about the times where the tank got clobbered or the WHM got cure-happy, or whatever, and the majority of the enmity difference has already been burned. If you look at the enmity sweet spot with respect to the enmity gap alone, 10% chance would be a more fair characterization. Of course, that will vary by the relative +HP % that is applied.

Btw, even considering the total enmity involved, you've misplaced the decimal in your estimate by a couple orders of magnitude.

The other point of contention I have is the implicit assertion that if having more HP won't hurt you, it will help you. In reality, most of the time it won't matter one way or the other. It might buy you more time and save you that way. It might prevent you from getting killed by any number of hits that would satisfy an enmity gap worth less than 100% of your life. But those situations are also involve a sweet spot, and are not going to make up the majority of encounters, and certainly not 99.9%

The scenarios are moderately complicated, and to calculate truly meaningful odds of being in one sweet spot versus another would take a lot more work than I suspect either one of us is willing to get into. But like I said, I'm not saying don't use +HP gear... only that it *could*, in the uncommon case, hurt you.

Edited, May 26th 2009 6:29pm by VxSote

People are surprised with my WHMs HP and MP. 1061 HP, 1092 MP (as /SCH). So many WHM I know focus so much on having as much convert hp to mp gear as they can get. Personally I don't see why. I've seen many hume WHMs running around with 700/800 hp (my SMN has more HP than that..), and 1100+ mp.

I try to keep my WHM as balanced as possible. I do use Intensifying Cape unless I'm enfeebling something or I'm using Cure V. Use Walahra Turban instead of Zenith Crown. And I have Dryad Staff. Those 3 things are what give me such a big boost in both HP and MP.

Just wanted to also point out that HP gives diminishing returns on Sublimation. Very very quickly diminishing.

The thing is, while larger max HP gives you a larger number on Sublimation, it also takes longer to charge it. What it really comes down to is 2 MP per tick no matter what your HP is. The difference is that with twice as much HP, you only need to use Sublimation half as often. Each time you use Sublimation, it's a 30-second cooldown before you can start charging your next one. So if you have double the HP, you will have half as much time WITHOUT Sublimation charging.

Here are some numbers to illustrate what I'm getting at:

600 HP = 150 MP Sublimation = 250 sec charge time = 32.143 MP per minute
800 HP = 200 MP Sublimation = 333 sec charge time = 33.028 MP per minute
1000 HP = 250 MP Sublimation = 417 sec charge time = 33.582 MP per minute
1200 HP = 300 MP Sublimation = 500 sec charge time = 33.962 MP per minute
1400 HP = 350 MP Sublimation = 583 sec charge time = 34.239 MP per minute

Those MP per minute numbers account for the 30 second cooldown after using it where you aren't gaining 2 mp per tick, thus the slight difference in efficiency. Starting to see how small of a difference HP actually makes on Sublimation? The largest benefit to a large HP pool is when you are buffing up a Sublimation before an event even starts, for example in Einherjar or Dynamis or other events where buffs don't wear upon entry. In situations like these, it's extremely valuable to have a specific HP build (this can also be useful for Devotion as well). Your normal standing set doesn't need to have particularly high HP, although for survivability's sake it's never a bad idea to have a good bit on hand.

Edited, Jun 1st 2009 10:47pm by Pergatory

Yeah, that's a reason why I don't see much of a point in Max Sublimation merits for SCH. The only real point of it (and +HP for Sublimation purposes) would be to be able to store a bigger charge prior to a big fight. Which is occasionally useful, but for continuous Sublimation on/off usage, it's really not doing much for you. No matter how big your potential max pool is, you're still converting HP to MP at mostly the same rate.

I've actually stated in numerous threads that all WHM's should aspire to have at least over 900 HP. 950 is better, and over 1k is perfect.

For most races, this only implies not going overboard with -HP, but for Tarus it actually implies that they have to go off their way to get +HP, even as far as getting HP merits.

Taru WHM/SCH start with 815HP. Raptor Strap +1 adds 15, Intensifying or Walhara adds 30. That puts them at 900HP on the dot. Using both puts them at 930, and 8HP merits put them at 1010HP.

I just hoped more tarus would do this. I see too many of them try to improve their survivability by going overboard with -Enmity instead; to the point where it hurts more than it helps.

I'm not really impressed by the notion that no effect = positive effect. Zero was not a positive number the last time I checked. And for that reason, you're comparing two different things here. THAT is misleading. And I think you're still missing my point.

For the sake of further argument, I'm going to exclude all cases where the WHM hasn't taken hate. We can come back and revisit them later, if you'd like, because there is still the possibility of taking damage from AoE. But lets look at one thing at a time, and that one thing is that a WHM has taken hate. By whatever circumstance. Because it does happen.

Also, the exact amount of damage taken per hit isn't critical. It's easier to see with bigger numbers, but the principle still applies. If you increase max HP by X%, you're going to have roughly X% chance of taking an extra hit, minus whatever happens to close the gap before that next swing. And even if normal hits don't worry you too much, there is a chance that extra hit could be a crit or even a double attack. It's risky. Taking an extra hit while you're already low on HP is not generally a good idea.

Meanwhile, let's analyze the idea that increased HP gives increased chances of survival. We already know that the mob is going to remove a minimum percentage of your life. If he's intent on killing you, he's going to do that whether you have 600 max or 2000 max HP. So the times that the HP boost will help you are the times that the mob is NOT intent on killing you, but will likely do so anyhow because he's hitting you hard and the last hit required to meet his goal has a chance of exceeding whatever HP you might have left.

As an example, lets say the mob is hitting for 350 a shot, and wants to do 80% damage to a 1000 HP WHM. That whm is going to get hit 3 times for about 1050 damage. The 1100 HP WHM will get hit 3 times for 1050 as well, but will live to tell about it.

But how often will that really be the case? It's relative to hit size. That 100 HP bonus gives you less than 1/3 chance of surviving the last 350 damage hit. It looks like smaller hits would work in your favor, but that's actually offset by the fact that you'll almost certainly take more of them to begin with.

For example, with a mob hitting for 100 a shot that wants to do 80% damage, both the 1000 and 1100 HP WHMs should live. The 1k WHM will get hit 8 times for 800. The 1.1k WHM will get hit 9 times for 900 damage. Both WHMs end up with the same remaining HP, and are at the same risk of being killed by future damage. The +HP does basically nothing in that case.

The only time that +HP itself is likely to save your live is when the hits are big. But the bigger the hit, the less likely a given HP boost will be enough, and the bigger the risk that an extra hit (if you happen to cause one) will kill you. And the the bigger the +HP, the more likely you are to take that extra hit.

So really, it's not at all simple to determine what the real boost in survival is from +HP. It certainly doesn't hold that a 10% HP increase gives you a 10% better chance of survival, especially when it's clear that it carries a similar risk of getting killed when you would have otherwise lived.

Edited, May 28th 2009 3:26pm by VxSote

lies, damn lies, and the logic in this thread, /cry

I have to agree with Drak, HP helps survivability a lot. My standing HP is 1124 and I survive pretty much everything. Then again, we may both be biased in that respect.

I will say that it's great being able to do stuff like stand right in AOE range on chariots in Salvage, for example. Gears as well. I abuse the hell out of Cura & Esuna on some mob types. It's great, and anything Cura is effective against won't be strong enough that a nasty chain of events will kill me. Even if it's too strong for me to stand in AOE range and I'm forced to cast from afar, you never know when hate will be upset by someone and get an AOE dropped on top of you even if you're being a good little white mage and not pulling hate. Things can go haywire, that extra buffer is nice.

That's not to say I give a strong preference to HP gear; I'm Elvaan so I can't help it. However, I have over the years slowly tried to improve my HP whenever I saw the chance to do so without much impact on other stats. Back in the RoZ days I was sporting Zenith Crown, Zenith Slacks, Serket Ring, etc. My HP was around 900, I think. It was plenty to do my job, but I certainly do appreciate the survivability boost I've gotten through upgrades since those days. Going from Serket Ring to Star Ring, from Zenith Crown to Marduk's Tiara, etc. I lost very little for the gain in HP, without having to do something as drastic as equipping Gigant or BQR fulltime.

I've already swapped out all my -HP gear, and have my ideal gear and I an not at 900 HP.

The extra efficiency you gain from having a larger HP pool for sublimation is very minimal and based on the above posted numbers, the biggest gain is from 600 hp to 800 hp when you move from 32 to 33 mp per minute. It takes the addition of another 400 hp to move from 33 to 34 mp per minute.


As for the side arguments, I haven't followed up with them, nor do I want to get entangled, but suffice to say, my general philosophy is this as a Taru WHM.

no -HP to MP gear
The rest fill itself out.