Elemental Affinity of Thaumaturge SpellsFollow

The first thing I'd like to say is - if this is widely available information please forgive me for overlooking it and posting this.

This is something I've been researching while I'm not able to log in to the game to confirm.

This is based on information found between two different databases, however the one I will refrence is ZAM.

What we know:

1.) Spells, abilities and even normal attacks are/can be broken into elemental properties. Obviously Conjurer spells are aligned with their element, Red Lotus Blade would seem to have an affinity for Fire and some weapons have an elemental damage breakdown (Earth40%, Fire30%, Lightning30%) on their hits.

2.) According to the guide accessed at Aethercyte Crystals, it's confirmed increasing your Elemental Points found under Point Allotment will benefeit above mentioned skills and spells.

3.) Conjurer nukes are directly tied to an element, while Thaumaturge's Scourge and Banish are tied to Umbral and Astral, respectively.

What I found:

Picking through a few things, I noticed that some listed spells had an elemental breakdown associated with them.

Allow me to offer a few examples:


Scourge

Deals umbral damage to and reduces umbral magic defense of enemies within area of effect.
Attribute:

Ice: 34%
Earth: 33%
Water: 33%



Banish

Deals astral damage to and reduces astral magic defense of enemies within area of effect.

Attribute:
Fire: 34%
Wind: 33%
Lightning: 33%


Damnation

Haunt an enemy with visions of the hells, dealing umbral damage. Grants the caster MP in proportion to the damage dealt.

Attribute:
Ice: 34%
Earth: 33%
Water: 33%



The first thing we have to ask is - is this correct and valid information? My entire thought bubble is leveled against this data, so it's my hope that what we see here is accurate.

The second thing we move on to now that we've seen two different types of elemental distribution between a known Umbral spell and a known Astral spell. Just to be completely clear - each spell states it does that type of damage to the enemy.

Now we know when a weapon, attack or spell divides it's damage between a number of elements - then the Elemental points we assign will have an effect on them. As it stands - there is NO known direct stat correlating to Umbral and Astral. However we may be able to summarize that based on these breakdowns - Umbral and Astral are composed of a breakdown of three of the general elements.

My suggestion and theory:

Umbral is Ice, Earth and Water.

Astral is Fire, Wind and Lightning.

Assigning elemental points into the corresponding element should directly increase the effectiveness of our Umbral and/or Astral abilities.


Also, look at this:

Drain

Transfers a portion of HP from enemies within area of effect to you.

Attribute:
Ice: 34%
Earth: 33%
Water: 33%

Following my theory - this would mean Drain would be an "Umbral" spell and should benefeit from the Scourge debuff, causing it to be more effective. I tend to believe this because I'd feel Scourge would be slightly pointless to lower Umbral defense only to help successive Scourge casts. It seems to make sense that successfully opening with a Scourge would let your "Umbral" aligned spells land to greater effectiveness and/or ease.

Now do this mean more damage directly or does it perhaps lead us to believe that reducing Umbral Defense would be the equivilant of a mob reducing our "Lightning Defense" making their lightning attacks LESS LIKELY to be resisted? Does it do both - increase damage as well as lower the rate of partial resists? This is difficult to answer - we know that it will increase damage if it is in fact lowering a statistic of elemental affinity (or does it drop Ice, Earth and Water resistances collectively?) but I'd think it to be difficult to prove it would cause less resists from Umbral magic without some sort of testing (i.e. finding a mob who can debuff us in this way) to come to conclusion.


Side observations:

The debuffs are each linked to a single element, slightly familiar to FFXI for anyone who remembers.


Silence

Silences enemies within area of effect.

Attribute:
Wind: 100%


Bind

Renders moving enemies within area of effect immobile. Does not affect non-moving targets.

Attribute:
Ice: 100%


Like I said earlier - it's all based on the accuracy of the information about the elemental properties of each attack.

Testing:

I literally have almost 170 Elemental Points NOT ASSIGNED TO ANYTHING right now. I have saved them for this particular purpose. I have wanted to test this but it took me awhile to spot the information I needed to begin my speculation.

My request for the Thaumaturge community is this:

Does anyone have any suggestions for in-depth testing? Should I only kil Star Marmots for instance and first obtain a range for my FIRST CAST Scourge over 100 casts or something - then increase the three assumed Elemental stats associated with Umbral and do 100 more? I realize these sample sizes are not large but I'd also like to be reasonable with my time.

In addition - My THM is already Rank13 and I am Physical Rank 24. I have a lot of points assigned into INT already, so this may have a negative effect on my conclusions.

Are there any HIGHER RANKED THM out there WITH ELEMENTAL POINTS assigned who can please tell me how much your Scourge and Damnation are hitting for? Maybe even Phantom Dart as well?

On weak mobs - My Scourge hits for around 200 range on Star Marmots unresisted. I can literally one shot Rank10 Leve mobs with one Scourge as well assuming I don't get resisted. I have NOT begun testing - this ONLY my eyeball estimate so I can begin to get feedback. My Damnation has a larger range for damage - on Rank20 Leve mobs it can hit between like 40-mid 100's and on weaker mobs it's almost always 170-250ish.

Are THM with elemental points assigned doing greater damage then this?

Please let me know what you think and offer additional feedback/data so I can figure out the best course of action.

Thank you,

This will be an amazing idea to test. I've been really curious to know if I could push my damage up through affinity, or if that was basically for CON's and other affinity related abilities. Hope to hear good news from it.

and to throw some mud in the water, our primary weapon the scepter has damage cut of Fire, Lightning and Earth...

Two of the elements are Astral aligned...

it would be nice to see more light shed on element affinities and weather they are just for resisting the spells or helping you damage with them.
as far as i have seen only weapon spell affinities help you in damage and the elements you increase with levels are only for resistance, but that its just my guess since i took an element from like 15 that it had,up to 40 and it did the same damage anyways.

I have yet to notice any differience when i increase my elements, some ppl say increasing a sertain element high above the rest will net you that elements shards/crystals while working with MIN/BTN jobs, if anybody knows about that add feedback.

So far i dont increase them, it makes it easier for me to respec stats since the elements dont seem to do anything noteworthy.Good Luck.

Interesting, Wind is a very sought after shard, and i have also notice many players to have full on wind element when i chek theyr profiles in lodestone, which i do often when i meet ppl.

Nice lol, its funny how it was a player who had just started playing and was lvling mining first thing who spoke to me about this lol.

Thanks for your feedback.

Edited, Oct 28th 2010 3:52pm by AggroDoctor