HQ or Magian?Follow

Lvl 72 BLM here and wonder if any 75 or 80 BLMs could tell me which is actually better. HQ staves or Magian staves int +4 mattb +7 (75) and int+6 MATB +10 (80)

It doesn't seem worth it to me.

Edited, Jun 30th 2010 7:25pm by Shastal

That really doesn't tell me what I need to know.

The lvl 80 staves have MACC+4 and MAD +1, the lvl 51 HQ have MACC+30 and MATTB+15%. HOw can MACC+4/MAD+1 beat that?

The part that is confusing you is the wording on the magian weapons. The magian weapons in question have "[Element] Affinity: Magic Damage/Magic Accuracy". This is the first time we've seen "Magic Damage" as a stat on anything and the affinity part of it makes the MAcc a new beast entirely from the average MAcc you're used to seeing. In fact, maybe it would be easier to understand if you look at our classic elemental staffs with [Element] Affinity as the hidden stat which has made them so uber over the years. Like so:

Aquilo's Staff 
Dmg:35 Delay:356 INT+5 Wind+20 
Elemental magic skill +10 
Additional effect:  Ice damage 
Ice Affinity:  Magic Damage +2 
Ice Affinity:  Magic Accuracy +2 
Lv.51 All Jobs

It's the hidden "Ice Affinity: Magic Damage +2" that gives us the extra 15% bonus (1.15 multiplier) to our damage. Same with the "Ice Affinity: Magic Accuracy".

Edited, Jul 1st 2010 1:31pm by Prim

Lets try to make this as simple as possible for you to understand.

There is 4 paths you can take with each element...

2 we are concerned with in relative to the standard Lv51 staves we have been using for years


Magic Accuracy staff (each element)

Affinity: Magic Acc +4
Affinity: Magic Dmg.+1

This Staff is More Magic Accurate then Current HQ staves

But

Does less Magic Dmg. then the Current NQ staves.


Magic Damage Staff ( Each Element)

Affinity: Magic Acc+1
Affinity: Magic Dmg.+4

This Staff is less Magic Accurate then the Current NQ Staves

But

Does More Magic Dmg. then the current HQ staves. (13% more)


For me personally im only doing the Higher Dmg. Staves (Thunder and Ice) and keeping my Current HQ set.

Dmg staves for when my resist rates are floored. and HQ set when they arent.

This also solves macro issues with Names. since magian staves still have same name from more acc to more dmg.

Yup, they're equivalent to NQ, not weaker, contrary to what the last poster said.

Also; The new set of Magian Staves have different names for each element, so the Macro issue has been recitified now.

Thank you Pangtong.

The dmg is a big difference, and totally worth the pain of doing these. Most blms remember the difference of going from NQ - HQ in dmg and this is double that. If there is a concern about acc just switch off zenith hands and throw on the af and you have more acc and still have significantly more dmg.

The spiders aren't that bad, the slimes w/weather for the ice path are the devil.

I wouldn't sell those HQs just yet, because BLMs may still use level sync 51+ instead of Abyssea exp you'll want them around.

Aquilo's staff
DMG: 35 Delay: 356 INT +5 Resist Vs. Wind +20
Elemental magic skill +10
Ice Magic Affinity +2

vs

Varuna's staff
Ice Magic Affinity: Damage +4
Ice Magic Affinity: Accuracy +1

So to gain +2 Ice Magic Affinity: Damage you give take -5 Int, -10 Elemental skill and -1 Ice Magic Affinity: Accuracy. At the present levels Varuna's staff is at best a side grade that takes how many hours to get? After the next tier of it may become worth a fraction of the time and effort but at the present levels it's not.

The alpha blackmage in my linkshell had a FoV augmented +3 MAB Aquilo's staff. When the trials first came out he got the +1 accuracy/+3 damage staff. The magian staff won, but it was close. Since he upgraded the magian staff to the +4 damage it's not even close anymore. True story.

On top of that the magain weapons are going to keep getting better with every new set of trials, while the HQ elemental staff will keep falling further and further behind. If you're serious about playing a mage job you need to put the time and effort into doing the trials, or you're going to be 99 and staring at a series of trials that seems endless.

While blocking lotting rights just because they haven't been working on TotM staffs seems a bit severe, I will agree any BLM who doesn't have at least 1 unlocked magian staff isn't even remotely a serious BLM in my book. Magian staffs have been shown in several threads and many posts to be far superior to HQ staffs, and people claim that spending a week to unlock one is not "worth their time"?

At this stage in the game, months after they were released an 80 BLM using only HQ staffs for nuking is like a DRG who still uses a Mezraq. Other jobs might not pay attention but everyone who has said job as their main is laughing at you.

For the non-ice staves, you give up 10 magic accuracy for about an 8.7% increase in unresisted damage. If your land rate (with HQ staff) is above the cap, this is win. If your land rate is at the cap, it still wins, by a little. As your land rate decreases, the margin becomes smaller. The crossover point is near 75% land rate, where an HQ staff will do about 0.857 of its "rated" damage, on average. A magian staff will do about 0.789 of its rated damage at 65% land rate, which (for a damage affinity +4 staff) is about 0.858 of the rated damage of an HQ staff.

For the Aquilo's/Varuna's comparison, though, you give up substantially more accuracy, and a little damage. You lose 22 to 25 magic accuracy, depending on conditions. The damage from the 5 INT should be around 1.5% of your total, give or take. Clearly, if your m.acc is well above the cap, Varuna's wins. If your land rate with HQ staff is just at the cap, however, you already lose. A capped accuracy staff will yield 0.974 of rated damage. Varuna's at 83% land rate will yield 0.986 of rated HQ staff damage, which will be very close to a capped Aquilo's with the +INT. That isn't nearly enough to cover the accuracy spread between the two staves unless you had surplus accuracy before the swap.

But you cannot consider these issues alone without looking at the bigger picture. First, we BLMs have easily capped accuracy on many mobs at level 80. For all of these, the magian staves win. Second, in the cases where we don't have capped accuracy in our max damage sets, there are other items that make sense to swap first. Swap your Zenith or Morrigan's hands for AF/AF+1, for example. Going from Morrigan's to AF costs you ~3% damage and gives you 10 m.acc. Combined with the transition from HQ to magian staff (non-ice), you break even on the accuracy and come out more than 5% ahead on damage.

Sure, you have to be a little more careful when you swap out your Aquilo's, but you still have a lot of other gear to swap before you can't come out with a net gain in damage by using Varuna's. There can still be some extreme cases where we might revert to HQ staves, but these will be the exception. I haven't fought Khimaira since the cap increase, but that is the type of scenario I'm picturing.

TL;DR:
+Dmg affinity magian staves have too much damage bonus to ignore. Swap other pieces of gear to make up the accuracy penalty if needed, and you'll still come out ahead most of the time.

Uhhhhhh... Does the normal dark staff/hq increase duration? The magian staves work the same, all that's different is the amounts, and the skewed ratio depending on path. As far as I know, the only thing a dark damage staff would be good for is better drain/aspir, and, like, more initial damage for bio. And I guess noctohelix, if you're a scholarey-sort of person.

idk if im responding late or anything, but about the dark staff, what spell CAN you use that can do the killshots? ._. im not realizing if theres any others after drain

I'm going ot go for ACC on the dark staff then.

It actually just increases the total amoutn drained/aspired by x%, with resists being calculated after the staff. Ie if a drain was going to do a base 100 damage, then with pluto's it'd do 115. If it was then 1/2 resisted it'd do 115/2=57, compared to the 50 it would do without the staff (100/2).

Unless a way to macro in MAcc for sleeps and MDMG for Drains and Aspirs comes up, I'll stick with MAcc. Drains and Aspirs almost always need MAcc anyways, what with lack of INT mod and not much Dark Magic skill gear around and stacking haste/fc being more productive than the MAcc gear available..

Edited, Sep 22nd 2010 3:24pm by tertoonetwothreefour

I can live with 15 less MP on a drain/aspir. I can't live if a mob surprises me and resists sleep, then comes and eats me.

I suppose I find solace in knowing I did everything I could as a mob's half-resist sleep crushes my dreams of... whatever I'm up to.

I haven't been listening to enough sports talk radio to recall this figure for sure, but rumor has it that games are 90% mental.

800th post, I can't think of a more tender lover than you, Rog, to share it with.

Edited, Sep 22nd 2010 3:47pm by tertoonetwothreefour