SCH Obi/day Nuking

Ok so, I pose a question to all my fellow SCHs as well as their blm competition. I understand that it can be quite time consuming to properly gear a top notch nuking set, but why don't more SCHs (and blm) nuke the spell of the day and match it up with weather and the appropriate gear like sea obis and the new zodiac ring?

From personal testing this is by far the most efficient way to nuke and quite honestly the numbers are just ridiculous. You get a MUCH higher dmg to mp ratio, and with an added Ebulience it's not uncommon for a SCH's Aero IV on windsday (w/obi & windstorm) to produce bigger numbers than a BLM's Blizzard IV w/sorcerer's ring at the same time.

Just curious as to what people's thoughts are, I know getting all HQs and OBIs are a pain but with TOTM staffs being free and MORE POWERFUL than any HQs, it really is the best way to nuke.

~Zan

not this similar thread again, your subject have been talked already here http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/4793/sch-vs-blm/11/

with a lot of e-peens screenshot from both jobs , sch and blm

yea, not really sure what your thinking but that thread was blm vs. sch. Really a "i can do anything you can do but better thread" zandra is asking a quite different question.

/troll fail

The answer has multiple answers.

1. If people don’t have all the obis then they can’t always nuke to the right day of the week/weather.

2. Some mobs have specific weakness (or strength) that means you must use a certain element(s) regardless of the day/weather.

3. BLM normally merit Ice and Lightning potency, therefore these elements can be more powerful than a lower level spell (i.e. Stone) with obi active (or at least people believe they are)

4. SCH often give themselves Ice or Lightning weather and ignore the real weather and day so they can use their higher level spells.

5. Both BLM and SCH tend to compare against their fellow nukers on a ‘per nuke’ basis so are often reluctant to use anything other than Ice or Lightning based spells for fear of looking bad (despite the fact they will do more damage per MP by following day/weather).

Forgot to mention a few other facts.

- new staff are better and large investment in time which piled onto time taken to get obi is kind of an /wrist
- attain all obi + all staff is a major inventory issue for a lot of ppl
- mp efficiency is not always better then flat out wiping the target asap (such as an NM or such things)
- with convert and the end game of abyssea in play mp is an inexpensive pool to replenish (martellos and temp items and to a lesser extent, hp/mp boxes) which can extend into some other events such as dynamis with mp statues etc etc

As I have both BLM and SCH, can put this into context:

BLM merits with 5/5 Ice and Lightning Potency - the +10 MAB from those merits usually does within same general area of damage that a Stone IV on Earth day/Earth weather with Obi would. Point would be that on Puddings (I use puddings because I see more nukes against them than against an HNM or god.) my Thunder IV hits for about 1600, no lightning weather, no lightningsday. On Firesday, my Fire IV can see 1500 with obi, going close to 1600 with weather included. This would be that my Fire IV with weather/day is equal to fully merited Ice/Thunder. Without effort, my Thunder and Ice spells do far more than my Fire would.

SCH with day and weather - While their nukes can reach numbers higher than BLM can, this can be MP consuming. Natural course of action would be to switch weather spells each time you go to cast a different element, which can exhaust a players MP pool quickly. Odds are, you won't be switching Arts back and forth to accommodate the casting of light and dark spells, so you can rule that out. As for the builds itself and whether you should have them, I know from my end, I went with only 5 of the 8 obis, leaving off the "lower" obis of Earth, Water and Wind, going for Fire, Ice and Thunder for nukes, Dark for Aspir and Drain (which work wonders considering) and light (which improve cures by 10%). Since we cannot store the obis, it is an inventory issue to have all 8, as well as 8 staves, and 8 grips (I have 8/8 HQ staves and 8/8 elemental grip)
the answer to this is that some dont know, some dont care, some dont have time, some dont have inventory, or some are fighting mobs that are strong to, or weak from, other spells (a greater percentage of mobs seem to be less likely to be strong to lightning than stone, for example)

edit: tl;dr - read last bit

As a SCH80, I tend to nuke with the day/weather, providing the monster isn't resistant to it. Since SCH isn't really tied down to potency merit, the only reason I'll see not to match day/weather is not having HQ/ToTM staff and/or Obi associated with the element.

I have:

8/8 HQ Staff
8/8 Obi
2/6 ToTM (aff: +4 M.dam) Ice/Thunder. Earth in progress. (Yes I plan to do all the aff: +4 M.dam, except dark light... those are iffy)
3/8 Ele. Grip (not used until rid of some equipment)
17% Cure done.

These staff trials are starting to really wear me down...

/sulk

If you are worried about mp efficiency you should be using parsimony instead of ebullience anyways.

Also all the Totm staffs are about as free as a relic

TotM staves cost your sanity rather than gil and most people will only get 1 maybe 2 at most which will further remove nuking on day/weather.

As for me when I'm on SCH, I tend to almost always give myself Hailstorm and nuke primarily with ice, regardless of the natural weather or current day. This is for several reasons.

1) INT bonus from Stormsurge is a nice increase in both damage and accuracy to -all- of your nukes, not just one.

2) Ice nukes have the highest accuracy out of all elements, due to the INT and Elemental Magic bonuses on Aquilo's Staff. This bonus is particularly important for SCH, having less natural magic accuracy than BLM.

While this is not true if you are nuking with TotM staffs, in my case I only have Surya's Staff and Varuna's Staff anyway; thus, if I'm nuking with that instead of Aquilo's Staff, the damage on my ice nuke is still going to exceed any other element, even if I'm matching the current day. At the moment, I only intend to add Indra's Staff to my collection so this will remain true for all elements except thunder.

3) Many, many, many mobs have ice weakness.

4) Ice is one of the two strongest elements.

5) Most of the time I'm nuking a target, I'm going to be using more than one element anyway; the recast on T4 is fairly long. There's nothing stopping you from nuking the same element as the day or natural weather after you've already expended your ice nuke. You'll still get the obi bonus on this second nuke and you'll have the INT+7 to go along with it.

I'd much rather have two or three elements with which to use obis (one from day, one from natural weather, one from forced weather if it's different from natural) AND the INT+7 to go with all nukes than to only have one element with double and one with single effect obi, or one with triple effect obi but without the INT+7. Just my two cents.

Edit: Of course this all depends on the specific situation, as there are obviously some targets which are strong to ice as well, but for most targets in general this works very well for me.

Here are my counterpoints to those points Nezea. I'm glad you have found something that works for you, but I am certain my way will work better.

1) Yes storm surge is nice but +7int is Less than the 10% extra dmg you get nuking with the day.

2) Ice nukes themselves aren't accurate, it's aquilos staff that is and with the new TOTM staffs all HQs will soon be the non-preferred way to go.

3) Many many mobs have many other weaknesses as well.

4) Ice is no longer the strongest element, Stone and Thunder now reign in terms of their DMG potential. At least for SCHs they do.

5) In 90% of all nuking situations, there is no reason to fire off 2 T4s back to back, in fact, it is often a very bad idea. A T4 and a T3 of the same element will work just fine, 2 T4 s back to back, will almost always pull hate from whatever it is you're fighting. If you ever do need to fire off 2 T4s, alacrity works wonders.

In general, accuracy shouldn't be a big problem for you anymore as a LVL 80 you have 25 more skill in which to land your nukes.Are you really making the argument that the Grips are a better use for the inventory space than the obi? I used to have them all but they're useless. Bugard Strap +1 does 1/2 the job and if you really need to land something, you can swap in strum's. There, I just saved you 7 inventory spots. Go get the rest of your obis :P

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I can think of the number of times I have casted a T4 and waited on it's recast on 1 hand.

Hell half the time I wont wait on the recast on say thunder IV even with casting Blizz 4 inbetween

1) +7 INT is indeed not as much as a 10% increase, but you miss the point that you still get +10% on whatever element you're using (in my case, ice). Doesn't have to match the day, you still get the +10% increase somewhere.

2) I did point out that it's Aquilo's Staff that makes them accurate. For people using TotM staffs as an alternative they're very unlikely to actually get anything but Indra's and Varuna's staves, making thunder nukes the only ones that have a chance of beating ice nukes, even with weather. I don't actually know a single person who plans to get any nuking staffs other than these two at the moment.

3) Yes, as I mentioned for any mobs where the weakness actually matters I would not use ice if they weren't weak to it. In general, ice is almost always a weakness or a neutral element. But that's why I said this is my preferred way of nuking in -almost- all situations.

4) Stone V and Thunder IV are indeed stronger than Blizzard IV in their damage potential (for the moment) but Blizzard and Thunder will undoubtedly be the best again in future updates. In any case, while Stone V is nice for epeen nukes I find it rather impractical in most situations due to the comparatively high MP cost and casting time. For this reason I tend to (again, -almost- always) stick to ice nukes.

5) I think 90% is quite a bit of a stretch. Actually, I think normally if you're in a situation where you are not firing off two T4s within recast time, you're probably fighting an HNM which has a specific elemental weakness which you should be exploiting, without any regard to the current day or weather.

Still, Zerg casting doesn't happen very often. I'll admit that in 2hr situations all bets are off. But:

If you're in a nuking party farming drops, the second T4 is often completely unnecessary, a T3 will finish it off in the second round.
If you're nuking a HNM, you never want to pull that much hate from the tank.
If you're soloing and sleeping, you can afford to wait.

Who said anything about zerging. Or are you imply all but less than 5 times I've been on blm have been zergs? I in fact never have done such a thing on blm. If I'm in a zerg I so am on rdm lol.

Never done a nuking farming pt... seems interesting.

I have in fact done all 6 AM2s close enough together to take advantage of lowered resistance in a row and not pulled hate before. Yes 2 of them were half resisted. You just don't ya know do it from the very begining of the fight and you get tanks that cap emnity.

Sure if I was sleeping instead just binding or gravity which is just a tad bit more efficient both in time and mp then sure I could wait. But all that time I'm waiting is taking away from potential resting time mitigating the entire point of waiting in the first place