Stun Locking!!!

Er, He's probably got it mistaken lol. I mean just by hearing that kind of logic, you would think that Brazza has it completely right, but...

If you have a long Duration of Head Butt (Using Magic Accuracy), plus Accuracy (So it can land) and Haste (For the Recast), If the mob is still stunned by the time your next Head Butt is available...Well...Get ready to cast it again when it's not stunned still? Only a dumb BLU would mindlessly cast Head Butt while the mob is still stunned. Every BLU can clearly see "The Mob is no longer stunned." If your next Head Butt spell is clearly ready to be cast again ty the time the mob is no longer stunned, I'd say that's a win.

I mean think about this; If you were to just stack Accuracy, then great. You'll know for absolute certainty that Head Butt will land. But it'll last what...a second or 2? Even with Haste Gear + Refueling (Or even Haste itself for that matter) You got another 3-4 seconds for the mob to use a TP move, Attack, or w/e it wants to do. You increase your Mag Acc, it'll increase your Stun Duration of Head Butt (Even if it IS just a second or 2 longer...but that a second or 2 shorter for the mob to do anything before that next recast). Every second matters when it comes to Head Butt.

All three are important, nobody's denying that. Step 1 is to get the spell to land, though, then the stun. Accuracy sort of wins priority for that reason alone.

Granted you have a point, Accuracy DOES play a big role, but don't forget the whole purpose of this thread is "Stun Locking". You can't stun lock a mob really just on relying on Accuracy alone. I'm not gonna say Accuracy is the top priority, cuz it makes stun locking quite useless. I mean depending on your gear setup + food, you really don't even need to stack that much Accuracy. But i mean every mob is different. If you were to say...stun high lvl NMs or Gods, then yeah I'd stack Accuracy hardcore since Gods have a high Evasion when it comes to even trying to get Head Butt to land.

But for other mobs, like say A Tier 2 VNM Erebus, You don't need that much Accuracy to land a Head Butt on it (I mean definitely use the best Acc food and equip some Acc gear of course), but Magical Accuracy + Haste just RAPES Erebus. That stun lasts and gives Erebus less time to do anything and helps your tank have more time to cast shadows. (A BLU, MNK and WHM or RDM can trio that *** easily).

So bottom line is this; If you want to make sure Head Butt will land for sure, put Accuracy as your top priority. If you are very confident that (With food) you'll be able to land Head Butt without any problems, make sure Mag Acc has a high priority for that as well to make that Stun Duration last. Haste is ALWAYS a priority for both situations. I believe we have that settled now~

March

Ok I did my own lil test on this INT theory, I went out blu/nin too the mire too solo imps set a gear swap adding strictly int gear but keeping occasional acc gear for head butt, I used no food except cookies too replenish mp too keep chain up while resting.
The imps resisted headbutt far more when I was using int gear swap than when I was using a tp build gear.
I think i'll drop that int macro.

lol nice job dood. Yeah i can't imagine INT being nearly as good as Magical Accuracy would haha. Thanks for the confirmation.

Most (maybe all?) of BLU enfeebles aren't modified by any particular stat. I can't think of any offhand. Maybe Regurgitation's Bind? If that.

yea I think you need 2 things for head butt as xeph says, firstly u gotta make that physical head butt hit soo accuracy gear is a must, then you want the additional effect too kick in thats wher MACC helps.
Also getting that blu magic skill up will help both of those instances, casting in relic imo is silly.
Using AF/AF+1 should out trump +10 acc on relic body.

I could be way off, but I don't think Skill affects physical spell accuracy at all...

*Copy/Pasted from Wiki on Blue Magic Skill*

-Blue Magic Skill is the skill base from which Blue Magic derives.
-Blue Magic Skill determines resistance for magical Blue Magic in a similar fashion that Elemental Skill determines that school of magic's resistance rate.
-Blue Magic Skill determines the damage rating (D-rating) of physical Blue Magic. This damage rating caps approximately 15 levels above the level of the spell. No cap has been determined for spells learned at level 60 or later.
-Blue Magic Skill also affects the potency of certain spells, such as Diamondhide and Blood Saber, boosting their effectiveness.
-Healing Blue Magic spells (Pollen, Healing Breeze, Wild Carrot, and Magic Fruit) are augmented by Healing Magic skill rather than Blue Magic Skill.

So just going according to this, Blue Magic Skill will determine the amount of damage a Physical Spell will do. HOWEVER I would not doubt the fact that it wouldn't affect the accuracy of a Physical Blue Magic spell, either...But sadly i have my doubts that it doesn't or else they would have mentioned the second bullet...

On the other hand, Notice how the second bullet states that it determines the magical Blue Magic resistance? Would that also effect the *Additional Effect: Stun* resistance/duration since the Additional Effect it is affected by Magic Accuracy (Considering the effect is *Magical* lol)...This ***is too confusing :<

The only spell I cast with relic on is MPDrainkiss, I don't understand why but I seem too drain far more mp from mobs using relic than I do in AF especially from dyna/campaign mobs.
Try it on imps with 1 then switch too the other for me the result's are noticeable I do however only stand at 1/5 Blu mac merits so that may be a reason as too why I have better results.

I honestly don't know, going by the research from a page or two ago, INT plays a part in the proc rate, but says nothing about skill (I think). I can't say one way or another because I've never tested macc for head butt. One way to test though would be to get two people, one blu/??? and the other ???/blu. Get them both to the same amount of weapon skill, DEX, INT and acc (not going to be easy, should be able to get pretty close with pld/blu though I think). This way the only major difference between the two is going to be 150-200 blue magic skill. Then, both cast 100 head butts each on kuftal crabs and see what the difference in proc rate is.

Although, having said this, I'd be pretty damn surprised for a head butt to do damage on a kuftal crab and not have the stun proc, so if those test results are accurate, with some combinations getting 55-80% proc rate, that speaks volumes about skill already.

Please tell me you mean relic hat?

Nah body, and I know it don't make much sense hence why I say "I don't understand why", I purely use it on the grounds that I have better results.

ps. sorry for goin off topic

Well, MP Drainkiss, just like Drain and Aspir, gives some pretty random results, it doesn't matter how pimped out you are, casting aspir on a level 1 worm will still give you a different result almost every time. There is an upper limit dependent on skill, and skill alone, and you can get any random return up to that limit. So my guess is you've had lucky casts while wearing relic and unlucky casts wearing AF. I assure you though, you want to be casting in as much skill gear as you can (AF body, relic hat). Aside from that it's a mix of macc and haste, nothing else should make any difference at all. (but hey, apparently INT affects head butt, so who knows!)

Yea when you put it that way in comparison that's very true,
Ill test a comparison the next time i'm on blu in campaign and see if there is any higher consistency with 1 or the other.
And yeah i'm with you for casting in skill gear my only exception has ever been mpdrainkiss.
But getting back on topic I don't say int has no benefit in affecting stun, my opinion is that INT will help increase time inwhich the mob is stunned especially on mobs that have lower int, however you firstly need the physical acc too land then the MAC too encourage the ADD effect, I don't see much room for Int plus equiptment too any high degree that would be hugely beneficial.
Imo Acc -> haste-> Mac is all a blu needs for head butt.

have we now resorted to theory crafting? (bad luck with drainkiss, I know, lol)

as far as I'm concerned with gear for headbutt, I'd prioritize it acc+haste > 95% acc > skill > haste, based on my own findings (the recast on the spell is already quick enough to justify using gear that will effect proc. rate over straight haste gear).

as far as the test link on the other page, the sample size was NOT big enough to be conclusive (he even states so). however, my own testing in dynamis showed slightly similar deviations at a much smaller (2~4% difference from reference) scale which I originally attributed to margin of error, for some tests (tests using int and macc separately showed slightly higher land rates). the largest gains I saw were from straight skill gear when acc was capped (as I said in an earlier post), which showed 7~8% increase in land rate over the reference test.

after finding the pages, I found out each of these tests were using sample sizes ranging from 600~700+ headbutt damage lands (logging at least 0 damage to make sure the spell didn't miss). all testing was done with capped acc (95%) and any data that wasn't able to show if the stun effect proc.ed was thrown out (mob died too early after spell used). this still leaves a decent range for margin of error, but it's much more accurate than earlier tests posted (though it was done on higher level mobs, so there may be some type of level correction).

it'll take me some time to post my data if anyone wants it because there aren't many numbers aside from averaged percentages, it's mostly several pages of tallies and Os (along with tons of other random irrelevant data, I like to recycle, lol).

Okay, haven't posted in a while.

Are you talking about outright failing the spell, or failing to proc the stun? If you're missing the spell itself, that should be a no ***to INT not helping.

The order of operations for headbutt would be: Did Headbutt Land/Physical Accuracy check > Did stun proc/Magical Accuracy check. If the spell doesn't land then all the elemental magic in the world doesn't mean ***.

Now, if you were talking about imps resisting the stun effect after headbutt landed, a few measly imps wouldn't be enough of a sample size to prove anything.You'd need to test at least 2,000 headbutts to get a real reading.

Blue Magic isn't really special. Actually all Blue magic spell formulas are just imitations of WSs, Elemental Nukes, Cure I-V, and Drain/Aspir.

For example, the formula to determine Magic Fruit's Cure Potency is the exact same formula for Cure V, with -200hp tacked on. This is why Healing Magic Skill and Cure potency affect Blue Magic cures, despite Healing Magic skill being in an entirely different family.

We know that the bind effects for Blue Magic follows the same exact effect as the enfeebling magic spell bind, it just substitutes Blue Magic Skill for Enfeebling magic skill. This is why even though Blastbomb is fire based, the bind will never land on an Ice elemental, and why the ice staff boosts the accuracy of a fire spell's added effect. It also show's us that INT/MND affects Blue Magic's MACC for their related spells.

Magical Accuracy is influenced by MACC, Skill, and INT/MND (depending on which is the spell's primary modifier).

1MACC = 1 Magical Accuracy

1Skill = 1 Magical Accuracy
2INT/MND = 1 Magical Accuracy*

*1INT/MND = 1 Magical Accuracy if, and only if, dINT/MND<10 (dINT/MND = Your INT/MND - Target's INT/MND). For non-nms or higher level mages, you should be over 10 dINT without really trying.


Now, as for MP Drainkiss, it's pretty much an imitation of aspir, with the 120 soft cap removed(?). Drain and Aspir are special spells. They function different from all other damage spells in the game.

1) They're not influenced by MAB or MDB.

This is most likely so DRK can use hem just as effectively as BLM, since it gets no MAB traits, and Drain/Aspir are DRK's signature spells. Whereas a WHM would take less damage from a nuke than a WAR with the exact same INT/MND, due to MBD traits, the WHM can take the same damage as any job from drain.

2) They're not influenced by INT/MND(?).

This is actually incredibly hard to test so I didn't really test this too much personally. Makes since though if they wanted to make DRK and BLM on even footing.

3) Skill increases the damage dealt.

As your skill with Dark Magic increases, so does your Drain/Aspir damage. This is very, very obvious as you can see a 500+ Drain from a 75 DRK, and never see more than about30 from a fresh level 10 DRK.

4) The target's Dark Resistance affects damage dealt.

I tested this in ballista after observing it from dark based mobs. In normal spells, even if you have +500 fire resist, if you're hit with an unresisted fire spell, it will do the same as an unresisted fire spell with 0 fire resistance. For drain, it seems this isn't true. Getting a Carol can reduce the maximum possible damage taken from drain/aspir. On the flipside, putting a Dark Threnody on a target can increase the damage taken by Drain/Aspir.

5) They do variable amounts of damage.

This means that the spells don't do the same amount every cast, like nukes do. This, when paired with the above, lead me to believe that Drain/Aspir had a random pDIF value determined by Caster_Dark_Magic_Skill/Target_Dark_Resistance. Seeing the Blue Magic formulas seemingly supports this as well.

Since Blue Magic formulas are generally just ripped from existing formulas and modified a little to make them a little differente, I wouldn't be surprised if MP Drainkiss followed the same exact rules.