Elemental Magic Skill Vs Magic Damage

Something that I have always had trouble deciding on is what to prioritize on 'free nukes'.

BLM Relic +3 has elemental magic skill on 4/5 pieces. This adds up to a sizable amount since it affects the resistance rate of the spell. Not the damage.

Magic Damage is straight damage added onto the spell.

Is it worth running the risk of having something resisted vs straight damage increase? Perfect example is the relic vs agwu's set. Agwu only competes with the relic once its rp'd to r15, but it has the advantage of having fast cast and MDmg on the end. Does Ongo or Dynamis w3 mobs have such high magic evasion that would make agwu's not worth full timing other than a precast item?

Curious to hear others thoughts

Yea stuff in namis still has high magic evasion ongo even more so than anything else. Magic damage isn't something I would aim for at all on blm as the gain to straight damage is so damn small working it into sets would mean you losing other stats. Agwu lacks int and mab til r15 and even then the the relic should still beat it til you get closer to r20. Also fast cast for blm isn't hard to really get or isn't super needed for free nuking.

This is a misleading statement because magic damage is absolutely a stat you should try to work into your gear sets when you can. The answer to the OP's question will change from mob to mob but the principals are quite simple. Are you getting resisted? If yes, add more magic accuracy, otherwise add more damage. You still want to prioritize MaB >> Int >> magic damage for similar stat amounts, but there are exceptions where you do go with magic damage because the stat gains are large enough to be worth it over the alternatives. Skymir cord comes to mind as a notable piece that has enough magic damage to be worth nuking in.


It's also worth mentioning that agwu's is actually the best nuking set we have available to us when you reach or surpass rank 20. Relic +3 only beats agwu's until rank 20 or so, but if you've fought ongo often enough to reach rank 20 or higher then agwu's flat out surpasses relic +3. At that point the 20 magic damage on each agwu's piece becomes quite relevant. At rank 25 there is no better nuking set than 5/5 agwu's, and the R25 hands and feet are also BiS for magic bursting to boot.

So yes and no he asked for 2 places so I'd assume it's endgame stuff he wants which would mean he is gonna get resistance on free nukes for sure. Also yes at r20 like I kinda noted it's better than the relic but again you doing ongo for all r20 for a free nuke set which let's face it currently free nukes are rarely used so the relic if you already have it all +3 is fine. Agwu is the best nuking set for free nuke not burst just free nuke. I disagree on the mab int then mdmg for stats but each blm builds different tbh. Even with all that magic damage bonus your free nukes aren't gonna a see mega gains like people thing. The cord is good because of all the other stats on it as well with the lack of belts that's not hard to see.
Edit: I also say this because I'm pretty sure emp set for blm will more than likely turn out to be the new free nuke set or some pieces so I wouldn't super worry about sets.

If he's currently using 5/5 relic +3 there's not much that's gonna resist him because of all the elemental magic skill on it. Perhaps you should have asked to see what he's currently nuking in? The magic accuracy threshold is still there but it's manageable if you have your gear sets right. I also think the gap between ea +1 and R25 agwu's isn't as big as people think. Ea +1 has magic burst damage II, but agwu's has higher magic attack and the magic damage is also relevant there. Agwu's cap at R25 may very well be stronger to magic burst in than ea's hat +1 now.

I mean he said it in his post again I'm gonna assume he fighting endgame stuff if he is doing agwu r20. On the case with the head I think giving up mbd2 for 20 mdmg isn't gonna be that amazing. Mbd2 is still to important. Also I edited this because I saw you said cap and not full set sorry.

It's more than just the 20 magic damage on the base piece. Ea Hat +1 only has 38 MaB but a fully auged agwu's cap has 58 MaB. And the augment on Agwu's cap gives it 13 more magic damage so the head piece actually has 33 magic damage rather than just 20. Magic accuracy is identical between the two head options so the differences boil down to 33 magic damage + 20 MaB versus 10 INT + 7 MDB II.

I did this against Vengence 20 Ongo using 5/5 agwu's once I finished the whole set to rank 25.



That's was during the rayke + bolster window right after elemental svortzo went down. It might have been a bit higher with ea +1, but I wanted to get a feel for what agwu's was capable of. The point is that magic damage is a relevant stat, and this is true even moreso with earth nukes because they have the lowest base spell damage of all the elements. 5/5 agwu's has 113 magic damage which is a pretty big deal when you're nuking ongo with stone. Agwu's is a really powerful set once you've maxxed out the augs, but I do agree that you need to take it to rank 20 ish* first for it to be worth it.

MDMG and INT are comparable and the conversion depends on the nuke and tier.

Thunder VI has a base damage of 1250 and a dINT scale of 4.5/5.5/4.5/3.5

Stone VI has a base damage of 950 and a dINT scale of 7/6/5/4.

For Thunder VI at dINT of 100-199, 10 INT would be the exact same as 45 MDMG. For Stone VI in that same situation 10 INT would be 50 MDMG.

It's all in here, though that table can make your eyes bleed.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Magic_Damage#D:_INT-adjusted_Base_Damage

That table is why MDMG has such a large effect on Tier 1~3 nukes along with helixs.

MAB is a bit trickier to do since we can get really large amounts of it from multiple sources that small increases can get drowned out. MBII is almost universally best due to how much less of it that exists, but can be beat if there is a huge discrepancy in INT/MAB. Most of our sets are geared towards V15~20 Ongo, which has ridiculous INT and magic damage resistance.

I wouldn't think 5/5 Agwu's +1 is always best, but the hands and feet are stupidly powerful, rest is situational.

magic accuracy.
magic damage.
magic attack bonus.
magic skill.
intelligence.
magic burst bonus.

So many damn things go into our results, and yet we focus on so little...because its easier to get lost in the weeds with nuking math than almost anything in the game, all while missing the point that we just don't need to 99 times out of 100, sadly.

Elemental Magic Damage is one of the more convoluted damage equations in the game, but at the same time one of the more understood in terms of our certainty in the numbers. But the gear options for the vast majority of this game's history didn't really allow for creation of different sets for different situations...the best MAB pieces were often the best INT pieces, the best macc pieces.

Magic Damage was never really a stat available to us in large numbers to allow proper comparison or evaluation. The few times you'd see high mdmg on gear, it was often stuff like Mallquis from Ambuscade, and completely devoid of MAB so it couldn't be properly compared as legitimate nuking gear beyond Helices...and such "Magic Damage" as a stat became synonymous with Scholar.

Agwu's is really the first gear available to BLMs that still has the high-return stats of "MAB" and "Magic Burst Bonus" along with sizeable "Magic Damage", allowing for legitimate discussion for the first time in a long time- if ever. I sadly see a beautiful era of Elemental Magic sets possible to us, but so few situations where its used as the primary damage choice that we likely will get few times to really "specialize" sets.

DDs for years have balanced ACC needs based on the buffs around them and the fights they participate in. They use different WSs based on the target, and often have to gear VERY differently for multihit WS, FTP-transferring WSs, single hit WSs, elemental/hybrid WSs, etc. And while offensive mages often will gear different tiers of magic accuracy, and of course a burst/no-burst option...gearing for different elements has been extremely limited.

Now, we have the gear to really make sets for when we need high INT based on a target's base stats, for gearing with additional Magic Damage on the lower tier nukes or specific elements (Stone/Water mostly) that have lower base values and thus are more affected by Magic Damage, etc. But there's no in-game demand for it. That's what saddens me about how BLM is growing. We have the options- we just don't have the arenas to show off what's possible in variety.

It's the most convoluted equation in the game. There are so many factors that go into it and all of them are applied at different points in the formula. In the case of magic burst bonus II you're applying a percentage multiplier at the very end, whereas magic damage gets added in at the very beginning before all the multiplications happen. They occur at opposite ends of the spectrum, but both are relevant. MaB versus MDB is a separate multiplier that also amplifies damage. The element you're casting and the tier of spell also affect which stats take priority. It's all a big mess tbh. That said, we do know how to weigh stats on gear and we do know the calculations.


Each Agwu's piece has the same 50 Magic accuracy and 58 MaB at R25, which is very high on the spectrum. And the full set naturally caps MBD1 along with the 5 MBD II you get on the hands. At max ranks the hands and feet have been agreed upon as BiS for all forms of nuking, but I think there's a good argument to make for the head against ea +1 based off the magic damage and MaB tradeoff against the MdB II. I'll be curious to see how the set grows when vengence 25 comes out.