An endgame use for sch?!Follow

WTF I remember that topic thats awesome though. ib4 emergency update. and ohh god what did they do to the musics in that video ;_;

This was theorized long, long time ago. The deterring factor was always getting anything above 4 SCH's with MV merits to try it. The best test I saw when SCH merits came out where with only 3.

Good it was finally proved to work tho :3

I don't think they'll nerf it. As mentioned, it takes a lot of organisation to actually pull it off and you can't spam it due to the recast timer on Modus Veritas. You need to coordinate your attacks well also, or the trick is wasted.

That said, I called this one a long time ago and it's great to see it's actually being taken serious now. I'm almost at full helix merits (4/5 dmg/acc, 5/5 MV duration) so maybe I'll try this out sometime :)

Why are MV merits required in order for this to work? All the merits do is increase duration and if all the SCHs used MV at the same time duration would surely be irrelevent since the mob would likely be dead in one tic. What am I missing?

Has anyone yet tested to see if a helix wears off in between ticks or not? I've personally never seen it happen, but I've also never actively tested it.

If it couldn't wear off between tics, then all the av drops would be worth less than 10m, because everyone would have them. With 11 schs you'd need all of a 33 damage helix to 1shot av, and and it would work every single time, without having to worry about timing. There'd be hundreds of kills in just the few days before se fixed that <.<

This is very, very old news, there were threads speculating about this back when SCH was brand new. It was written off then for the same reason it will be now; the logistics are a nightmare. You need 9 SCH with full MV merits, one SCH with perfect gear/merits to land the Helix, a ton of support for that SCH to up the initial damage, and perfect coordination between 9 players to hit a /JA within a <1 second window; and even then, the success rate is nowhere near 100% due to variable server/client lag, not to mention the fact that as soon as someone kills AV with it, it will most certainly be patched.

Bottom line? It's a neat trick that makes good shock videos for the playerbase at large that doesn't play SCH. That being said, I do hope somebody manages to gank AV with it before it's patched, if only to send a message to SE about how ridiculous the AV saga has become.

This is not how it works; you can go test it yourself easily. Helices have a random duration between 45~90s; it's not clear exactly how it works, since the random durations between the high/low values do not conform to the standard resist reductions of other status effects.

MV does exactly what the description says; it doubles the damage dealt by the Helix on each subsequent tick while reducing the time remaining by half. It does not affect the number or frequency of damage ticks; if your Helix ticks with 15s left til it wears and you use MV, the effect will wear off before it deals further damage. This is why stacking 9 MV appears to be the target number; it multiplies the initial damage by 512, enough to kill AV, while still allowing a long enough window to land all 9 /JAs. Any more and the window in which to land MV becomes too small, resulting in a wasted attempt of 0 damage. As such, this is why MV merits are so important; with these, each MV usage will reduce the time remaining by 25% instead of 50%. Without these, the duration will become too small and the Helix will wear off without dealing any damage.

According to others that have researched this strategy, Helices appear to tick on 10 second intervals from the instant the target appears on the server; If you land a Helix on a target 5 seconds after it pops, the first tick will occur after 5 seconds, then every 10 seconds after. Knowing when this tick occurs is extremely important, as 9 MV will reduce the duration to the point where you have to coordinate all 9 to land just before the next tick deals damage. This is why the coordination needed for a triggered mob like AV is so difficult; the exact time that the helix will tick is different every time it pops.

I suggest reading up on the BG thread concerning this if you're interested, it goes into further detail on some points that Kaeko didn't have the time to expound upon.

It's not a straight division problem, it's exponential. You're thinking 90/11 when it's actually 90/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2, which leaves you with a .04 second window. If all of the SCH have full MV merits, it instead becomes 90*0.75*0.75~ giving you a 2.8s window, which is why those merits are an integral part of the strategy; it's simply impossible to land all 9 MV within 4 miliseconds of each other.



It doesn't matter what you believe, any idiot can go disprove this with minimal effort.

Let me get this straight; you want me to define basic game mechanics for you? The kind that you can easily find by doing a paltry amount of research?











http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html?fjob=20&mid=1253083143240797820&num=20&page=1

It's so easy, I almost feel bad. Almost.

Nah, I'm pretty sure Rog beat me to it awhile ago.

Anyway, the basic functions of Helix spells are definitely basic game mechanics, just like Bio ticks. This isn't the kind of thing that requires all sorts of testing and proofs and such; it really is quite easy to see for yourself with about 5 minutes worth of effort. Asking someone to show you proof is like asking someone to prove to you that Cure spells restore HP.

Besides, you're postulating your 'beliefs' that one can easily disprove, even with little to no knowledge of the job. If MV reduced the number of ticks instead of the duration, and did not wear off without dealing at least one final tick, this strategy would be idiotproof and could be used to kill anything in the game with minimal effort. Do you really think that's the case?

This is rather amusing for me though, I admit. I simply assume that someone who would make a statement like this:



http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html?fjob=20&mid=124894499764074578&page=2

..would understand the rather simple mechanics behind one of the job's signature spells. My mistake, I guess.

"I don't think they'll nerf it. As mentioned, it takes a lot of organisation to actually pull it off and you can't spam it due to the recast timer on Modus Veritas. You need to coordinate your attacks well also, or the trick is wasted"

they nerfed the magic mortar 7k skillchains fast. YOu and puppet had to get tp, you had to get your puppet down to 1% hp, then you had to engage teh mob hoping it didnt do any type of aoe so puppet didnt die, then you could get it off, pupppet would die, resulting in possible 20 mins time to do it again.

so ya, if they nerf that, they will nerf this.

If you had taken the time to think this over a little before posting, given the information available in the resources you claim to have read, you would already realize why your theory is wrong. Since you didn't, and I'm sure you won't shut up until someone shows you exactly why it's wrong, here you go.

Let's start with some of the facts we'll be working from:

-Helices can wear off in between damage ticks; this is acknowledged several times throughout all the resources you claim to have read, as it is the main obstacle to pulling it off successfully; if you don't want to take their word for it, you can go test it yourself quite easily.

-Maximum Helix duration is 90 seconds / 9 damage ticks.

And here's the two possibilities we'll be testing:

-Modus Veritas reduces the remaining duration of a Helix by 50%, 25% with full merits.

-Modus Veritas reduces the remaining number of damage ticks by 50%, 25% with full merits.

First of all, since Helices can wear off between damage ticks, we can be certain that the formula does not round up when calculating time/ticks remaining. It quite possibly rounds down, as in most FFXI formulas, but as we cannot prove this we'll try it both ways.

So, on to the math. We'll use maximum duration Helices and 11 Modus Veritas uses as our control, since you yourself used that number.

90s Helix, Modus Veritas x11, no merits, not floored between steps:
90/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2 = .04s Helix duration

90s Helix, Modus Veritas x11, no merits, floored between steps:
90/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2 = 0s Helix duration

90s Helix, Modus Veritas x11, full merits, not floored between steps:
90*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75 = 3.8s Helix duration

90s Helix, Modus Veritas x11, full merits, floored between steps:
90*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75 = 3s Helix duration

Now, we'll do it your way by number of ticks:

9 tick Helix, Modus Veritas x11, no merits, not floored between steps:
9/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2 = .004 tick Helix

9 tick Helix, Modus Veritas x11, no merits, floored between steps:
9/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2 = 0 tick Helix

9 tick Helix, Modus Veritas x11, full merits, not floored between steps:
9*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75 = .31 tick Helix

9 tick Helix, Modus Veritas x11, full merits, floored between steps:
9*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75*0.75 = 0 tick Helix

As you can clearly see, if Modus Veritas halved the number of ticks remaining, the video you saw would simply not be possible, so we are forced to conclude that Modus Veritas reduces the duration of the Helix, not the number of damage ticks.



I wasn't pissy before, I was even quite civil with you for the first few posts; but if you're too lazy/stupid to work out this basic math on your own before asserting that I don't know what I'm talking about, you deserve all the flak you get.

Not to burst your bubble but...
I told you so...

As stated several times before, your assumption is reasonable... But once tried, incorrect. If there was always a final remaining tick due to rounding up, then super-stacking MV would be pitifully easy,and AV (along with many other endgame mobs) would have died several times several months ago to it. And MV would have been nerfed to prevent that.

The fact that, despite the idea being simple, NO ONE has been able to put it to good use against a worthwile enemy says a lot.

if helix has to do 1 tick of damage before it ends its duration, then killing AV would be really easy.
they would just land helix, everyone do MV, then wait for the next tick.
But thats not the case, theres been multiple attempts at killing AV with this method, and they all failed due to timing issue.

Not only that, but the tick also depends on the mob.
ive landed a helix on a bee outside rolanbery, do intial damage, then a sec later it does the tick damage, then 10 sec or so for next one.

It's all in BG.

The fact that people cant get pass the 1st tick after doing mass MV, you should come to the conclusion that the duration ends before the tick and will not wait for the tick to happen.

Please note that I clearly have never fought Kirin on SCH, but my understanding is that his INT is waaaaaay too high to land a good enough helix for this trick to work, regardless of what support you have.