Ability: Max SublimationFollow

Basicly from my understanding, is you'll gain 10 more MP, for 10 more HP, over the cap.

So say you normally get 250 MP, for 250 HP. With 5/5, you'd get 300 MP, for 300 HP. This will go over the normal cap you'll have.

I would like to point out that a SCH should never ever depend on Refresh after level 60.
Sublimation is virtually free. Refresh costs the RDM 40 mp. Having your RDM lose 40MP every cycle isn't worth you gaining 10~ MP.

Don't ask for refresh; specially at larger events where that MP could be better spent elsewhere.

I'm sorry.. But I need to completely disagree with your logic here.

Before af head, I can understand taking a refresh for the sake of a higher mp tick. But like it was said, post 60, their are very few times you should ever need to receive it. Their is NO such thing as perfect scenario, so with that said, its highly unlikely that a rdm would be able to keep a perfect refresh cycle with out a gap in between refreshing you. So that 30sec wait is really somewhat irrelevant.

The only times to justifiably take a refresh is because your hp is too low to use sublimation, or you dont have enough mp to SS + sublimation(start) than rest. Otherwise your just wasting a rdm's time and mp when it could be better used elsewhere.

My sublimation max 5/5 gives me a 300~ mp storing ability. So that means rdm would have to cast refresh twice on me just to match that. 80mp... or an ability I can do on my own. Again I'll say it, waste of time and mp. If your rdm's are doing this in your ls it's likely because your sch's suck horrendously.

I will agree though that having both af head and afv2 body help quite a bit. Before you say it though, or someone else does, you would realistically need to keep 1 or both pieces on full time to have it match or beat refresh. Like it was mentioned though, the idea is that Sch is self-sufficient and should be making things easier, not the same old same old that comes with other jobs.

sublimation merits can be simulated by adding HP gear. They do increase sublimation's efficiency by a decent amount. I view them as wasted merit points, however, because when compared to the potency increase that both helix and MV merits add to our already most efficient spells for many situations, sublimation merits seem to be very overshadowed.

On the note of taking refresh post-60. I only ask for refresh under 1 of 3 circumstances:

1: I am weakened and have the duty of raising a large group of people with or without help.

2: My MP is too low to cast stoneskin.

3: I'm in a time-restricted situation where my MP is far more important than the RDM's MP.

Even when PT'd w/ a BRD and/or COR on end-game situations, I have personally found that making the most of the MP I have is more beneficial most of the time than having a plethora of MP. 4MP/tick sublimation is usually more than enough for whatever I'm doing. I would much rather have macc/mab from a COR and INT from a BRD than another 5-6 MP/tick. Doing so really boosts my damage output by a large amount which in turn reduces my need for repeated casts. All in all, it ends up being about the same MP-wise, but generally, fights go quicker and I have more fun.

Personally, I think the Sublimation merits are just so players can see big numbers when they use Sublimation. It's useful on your intial charge, but the appeal of having another 50 mp returned is devalued when you consider you still had to charge it up like normal. For this reason, while I can understand players finding it useful, I've avoided meriting it myself. I prefer to place my merits somewhere they'll be more of a benefit to my playing style.

The no-brainer choice for me was 5/5 Helix merits and 5/5 Modus Veritas. This is mostly because I love maximising the damage my helix spells can do. I have to admit I've not actually bothered with tier 2 merits beyond Stormsurge (which I think is a must for any Scholar). The thought of using up 2 charges for a minimal bonus seem wasteful and would have limited applications.

The same basic rules apply, however. Sublimation will still stop charging if you drop below 50% hitpoints. If you have particularly low hitpoints, such as when weakened, you need to bear that in mind before weighing up the benefits.

This.

Also, I think something many people overlook is that you don't HAVE to wait for Sublimation to fully charge before using it. Sure, you'll do that prior to a big fight/event, but when you're constantly using it over the course of an EXP party or something, there is no need to wait for a full charge every time.

I dunno if SCH is different or what, but when I try to use Sublimation in Salvage as WHM/SCH when my HP is still reduced, it doesn't work at all, even if I'm at 100% HP with Stoneskin up. The charge immediately stops, and when I use Sublimation again I only get 2 MP back.

I can get sublimation ticking as a WHM/SCH with no HP merits with just SS + full HP.

I do know that some items may screw this up (I haven't really tested which). There is a certain combination of items that will somehow make my subli not tick even at capped HP. I think it was intensifying + walhara or something. I really don't know why it works at certain HP's and it wont at others, I'm guessing it just has to do with rounding values.

I personally consider any ability that can turn a ~2000 damage attack into ~3000 damage to be pretty "wtfomg useful" even if it can be used only once every 10 minutes.

I can honestly say that for the mobs I regularly helix, I see consistant numbers of 175-225 with full durations. That equates to 1750-2250. Fair average would be 200/2000. Just because not everyone can put out numbers like that means that I shouldn't use myself as an example of myself?

Fully unresisted helix is initial damage + 9 ticks. That's info that was discovered almost immediately after they patched the original that was random anywhere from 2-13 ticks.

Ticks are 9 seconds apart. They can be partially or fully resisted in terms of both damage and duration. *I've actually had a helix deal it's initial damage and immediately wear off.*

Pre-update, they were allotted a maximum time *somewhere around 2 minutes* and resistance would just shorten that amount of time. They were also fairly inaccurate as well.

Post-update, they were allotted a maximum of 9 ticks. This equates to just under 1 minute 30 seconds. The accuracy was boosted considerably. I rarely have any land for less than 4 ticks. Most often, I see 7-8. Wiki states an average of about a minute, which I see as pretty accurate for most.

A full duration helix will total out to exactly 10x the initial damage. *Initial damage is included* I've parsed this on Boreal hound with someone simply holding him for me. I killed him with nothing but helices *took forever* but I got very accurate results. Never once landed more than 9 ticks. Never once landed less than 7. *he's a joke like everyone already knows*

@ Banggugyangu

I never once claimed that Max Sublimation was a better choice than Modis Veritas. So for you to argue it being "Better" is truly irrelevant. I did how ever state that for my specific needs that Max Sublimation was more beneficial.

Again, my reasoning...

I am NOT a full time "Dark Arts" Sch, so i dont always have the option of helices. So again i will say, when looking at both sides of sch, Max sublimation benefited both sides of arts, instead of specifically one side that I likely wouldnt use often. Most of the time I do use dark arts the last thing i would want to do is DoT the mob, except a few NM's that are unsleepable.

Now for when i AM under Dark Arts specifically and my main focus is nuking. The majority of the mobs i fight dont last long enough for a Helix duration to completely finish. To me, that is a waste of mp to cast it if the mob is only going to be alive for half or less of the duration of the helix. I will agree however that it is more desirable on higher tier mobs where the fights are longer.

Again I will SAY!.. this is not to discourage the usefulness of Modus Veritas as a merit, it has its benefits, but for what I am called upon on a normal basis, it is truly lackluster. I find it funny that you would encourage others to choose specific merits, or SAY! whats better before really understanding what role they may be expected to hold or what they prefer to do.

I dont much feel like getting into a pi**ing match with you about which merits are better, because again.. its irrelevant. In the end its dependant on what you expect from the job. I know sch's that dont even touch dark arts spells/abilities, you gonna tell them they need modus veritas when they never plan to use it? I never once made claims to what was "better", simply my experiences on what i do as sch(which includes alot of soloing that doesnt include DoT). So to argue my decision doesnt really get us
anywhere, except for arguing our "personal preference" on play styles. But considering we all choose to play the job for varying reasons, again i will say this argument is irrelevant.


EDIT~~ Just as a side note, im curious as to what your max helix dmg gear is. Im personally missing 4pieces(not including mythic weapon) to optimize my dmg.

Edited, May 30th 2009 2:59am by ElVendi

Scholar -is- different. The key is the merits themselves. This is why ???/SCH wouldn't work.

If a SCH has a pathos effect on his HP, but has 100% HP, Stoneskin, and 5/5 Sublimation merits, that SCH will sublimate for 50MP before capping.*

It's a glitch in the code or something, but it leads me to believe that the Sublimation merits are calculated -first-, not last.

Now, if that same SCH is in the middle of Sublimating his 50MP and takes any damage to drop his pathos'd HP down by any amount, the Sublimation will end.

The SCH needs to maintain 100% HP (while under pathos) the entire time the Sublimation is ticking away. We had multiple instances where our SCH had 90% HP or something from a random AoE, tossed up Stoneskin, and Sublimated for 2MP. The "trick" only works if the SCH has 100% HP and Stoneskin, and even then it only works for the amount of MP meritted.

If the SCH has his HP unlocked, Sublimation works as normal.


*edit*
*As an aside, I think it has to do with the fact that Sublmation is calculated as long as HP is greater than or equal to 50%. As soon as HP dips below 50%, Sublimation counts one last tic and then stops. Now, this differs from the ickywiki explanation, so if I'm correct, that's a significant note to be made.

However, I've only experienced it with one SCH, and it may be worth noting individual pathos effects on SCHs in Salvage, since it is truly my assumption that the Salvage pathos is a HP-50% effect, which may not be accurate.

Edited, Jun 3rd 2009 11:32am by Acturus

That's one of the beauties of helices. There's little reason to not switch to dark arts and cast the appropriate helix then back to light arts. If helices required addendum black it'd be a different story.

As for my gear: I'm sitting on 13 INT away from having 170 INT which is taru max pre-food.

I can't list it off the top of my head. I'm at work atm. I've spent a long time working on my SCH gear and am almost to the peak for dark arts. INT by far is the best stat to stack for helices because of the horribly botched formula. For Sky Gods and ToAU kings, helices are nearly worthless *except byakko* for everything else, if it lasts 1 minute, 30 seconds or more it's definitely worth it. ~2000 damage for ~70ish MP *can't think of exact MP cost* is fairly broken.

So I was building a int gear set on FFXIgear.com trying to figure out what gear you could possibly have to get your int that high. I was able to build a +75 and +82 with food. Was wondering, do you use kirins pole instead of Ele. staves?

Perhaps another (somewhat silly?) take on the Modus Veritas versus Max Sublimation argument:

Bear in mind Modus Veritas is on a 10 minute timer. Now, if you had full Max Sublimation merits, would the extra MP you gain over a 10 minute space of time be enough to equal or exceed the damage from an enhanced helix using another helix or nuke?

(Of course, I'm assuming the current take on the argument is regarding damage rather than possible concerns over enmity.)

Assuming you have both the Scholar's Mortarboard and the Argute Gown with 5/5 Max Sublimation Merits, with 1000 HP, you will Sublimate 300 MP in 3 minutes 45 seconds. (Perfect scenario of having both pieces of gear on at each tick.)

In 10 minutes, that's roughly 2.66~ full charges of Sublimation. When you account for a couple of 30 second cooldowns on the timer, that's still about 2.4 full charges... which, I believe, is an extra 120 MP.***

Now then, does this imaginary character have enough to cover/exceed the extra damage from Modus Veritas with this extra MP with careful use of one or two strategems?

If you don't have an Argute Gown, it would take this person 5 minutes to Sublimate that 300 MP. Over the course of 10 minutes (minus a minute to cover cooldowns), that's 1.8 full charges of Sublimation, i.e. 90 MP.*** Is that enough?

Might be worth thinking about. Maybe.

Also, this speculation is purely coming from the Dark Arts side. Personally, I see the Sublimation merits as more useful in the long run because it benefits both sides of SCH, whilst Modus Veritas only boosts Dark Arts. However, neither boost is particularly awe-inspiring.


(Edit: Hmm. Not sure if I've worked this out correctly. I wonder if someone more mathematically-inclined could check/correct this? XD)

(*** Edit 2: Actually, not sure the Scholar's Mortarboard scenario is correct. You're only getting 50 extra MP because you're not using a full charge. And I suppose the same thing applies to the Gown/MB scenario too, with 100 MP. But anyway, I'd say Sublimation merits are even more worthwhile if you have the Argute Gown. I think...)

Edited, Jun 5th 2009 1:55pm by Secretkeeper

Edited, Jun 5th 2009 7:36pm by Secretkeeper

In my very real situation that I stated above, the difference in MP gained over the course of 10 minutes with full sublimation merits vs without is 17.83 MP. We'll go ahead and round this up to 18 MP to be generous. Your math is flawed somewhere, though I'm not sure where as I didn't read your post thoroughly.

Full modus veritas merits equates to an extra half of a helix every 10 minutes. A helix costs 87 MP. Dividing that by half, you get 43.5. Essentially, full modus veritas merits is saving you 43.5 MP by adding that extra damage. More in depth, it's also saving you half of the enmity of another helix *which is somewhat of a moot point as helices are low enmity due to only the initial damage creating enmity*.

The real comparison here is 17.83 vs 43.5. In this comparison Modus Veritas wins in MP conservation.

For the argument of "MV only enhances Dark Arts." Once again... I say... Helices are NOT spells reliant on the arts you are going to be using for the mobs you're fighting. They're reliant on the mobs themselves. Because no addendum is required to use a helix and the low cast time involved, there's little-to-no reason to not switch to dark arts for the helix cast IF THE MOB IS A VALID TARGET FOR HELICES. Not all mobs are, and I won't try to say they are. Many, however, are. For those, if at least 1 SCH isn't using helix on them, there's a lot of damage not happening that should.

*edit* Why are people still factoring in Stoneskin costs for sublimation? If you don't have stoneskin up anyway, you're near retarded.

Edited, Jun 5th 2009 12:36pm by Banggugyangu

If you read my post, it was always assuming that I will be "zombie" fighting. More often than not, I am filling a healing/support role as Sch. Also, we don't generally have more healers than neccessary, so if one of us goes down for some reason, we don't have the luxury to just "sit it out" most of the time.

Everyone plays the game differently, but for those of us that make an effort to contribute as much as possible (even while weakened), the Max Sublimation merits help a ton.

Allow me to demonstrate what should happen in the mind of a SCH when deciding whether to use a helix or not:



Following that little guide should tell you that more often than not, helices are 100% effective. I use them while soloing, in dienamis, in limbus, against byakko, against ground kings, in nyzul isle, etc... You can't get away w/ saying that more often than not it's not applicable... because it is.

And there's the crux of the discussion. The two of you have different playstyles.

Car dealers are snakes. I would bet there's more to the banana than meets the eye.