Magic

White Magic

• Divine magic spells now have a base damage scaling multiplier based on Chronicles and Heroics rank. This affects the fixed base damage value of the magic calculations.

Curative Magic Enmity

The overall enmity of curative white magic has been adjusted to better align with the higher numbers. Following the vein of Cure V and higher, all spells now have a fixed cumulative and volatile enmity rate.

The Cure line of spells has the following updated formulas.

• Power = floor(MND + floor(VIT/2) + Healing Skill)
  • This formula is custom and increases the potency provided by players having higher MND and VIT by reducing the divisors.
• Base = floor((power - power floor) / rate) + hp floor)
  • This formula matches modern retail.

The power floors, rates, and HP floors are aligned with retail with a few exceptions:

• Cure I has an additional floor at 600 with a rate of 25.0 and an increased HP floor of 95 (up from 65).
• Cure II has an additional floor at 700 with a rate of 25.0 and an increased HP floor of 165 (up from 145).
• Cure III has an additional floor at 700 with a rate of 7.5 and an increased HP floor of 380 (up from 340).
• Cure IV has an additional floor at 700 with a rate of 3.0 and an increased HP floor of 660 (up from 640).
• Cure V has an additional floor at 700 with a rate of 3.55 and an increased HP floor of 880 (up from 780).
• Cure VI has an additional floor at 700 with a rate of 1.5 and an increased HP floor of 1050 (up from 1010).

The Cura line of spells have had the following changes. Cura’s exact formulas are not documented, but reports have them aligning closely with Cure II, III, and IV with the potency being further capped higher than Curaga based on player’s Afflatus Misery bonuses.

We’ll be reviewing Cura’s potential as it has an exceedingly long recast time, but has the potential to be much more powerful (and faster casting) than Curaga for those who favor the Afflatus Misery stance.

• Cura is aligned, in potency, with Cure II rather than Cure I.
• Cura II is aligned, in potency, with Cure III rather than an old formula between Cure I and Cure II.
• Cura III is aligned, in potency, with Cure IV rather than an old formula between Cure I and Cure II.
• Cura line spells will now wake players up when slept.
• Cura line spells will now properly return MP to players with the “Cure To MP %” item modifier.

The Curaga line of spells have a unique power formula and far fewer skill floors than Cure and Cura spells. This means players need to use higher tiers of the spells to receive higher cure values–the effect of MND and Healing Magic skill has a much smaller effect.

• Power = floor((3 * MND) + VIT + (3 * floor(Healing Skill/5)))
  • This formula matches modern retail.
• Base = floor((power / 2) / rate) + hp floor)
  • This formula matches modern retail.

The power floors, rates, and HP floors are aligned with retail with a few exceptions:

• Curaga is aligned in potency with Cure II with power floors at 70 and 125.
• Curaga II is aligned in potency with Cure III with power floors at 160 and 190.
• Curaga III is aligned in potency with Cure IV with power floors at 240 and 270.
• Curaga IV is aligned in potency with Cure V with power floors at 360 and 390.
• Curaga V is aligned in potency with Cure VI with power floors at 480 and 500.

Banish / Holy

The Banish spells have been updated to be more in line with elemental magic as far as casting and recast.

Casting Times

• Banish -> 2.0s to 0.5s
• Banish II -> 2.5s to 1.5s
• Banishga -> 2.75s to 2.0s
• Banishga II -> 4.5s to 4.0s

Recast Times

• Banish -> 15s to 2s
• Banish II -> 30s to 6s
• Banish III -> 45s to 15s
• Banishga -> 15s to 5s
• Banishga II -> 30s to 10s
• Holy -> 60s to 30s
• Holy II -> 60s to 30s

Stoneskin and Stoneskin-like Spells

After we updated Metallic Body and Diamondhide a few weeks ago, there was still the issue that those two spells perform very poorly compared to the Stoneskin white magic spell.

This is due to two factors:

• The White Magic spell has a scaling multiplier based on skill level.
• When we started Nocturnal Souls, we added two new tiers (a 300-500 and a 500+ skill tier) for the 99 focus; however, we didn’t add in the reducers that the prior tiers had.

So, after much review the following updates have been made for Stoneskin, Metallic Body, and Diamondhide.

1. Stoneskin’s tiers have been updated to include slight skill reducers similar to the other skill tiers. Overall, players will see a 200-300 damage reduction difference (based on how far over 500+ their enhancing skill is).
2. Metallic Body’s gained a similar scaling tier and is poised as the “quick and inexpensive” Stoneskin.
3. Diamondhide’s gained a similar scaling tier and is poised as the “party-based” Stoneskin. It has the same casting time with a shorter recast than normal Stoneskin as well as providing it to the whole party.
4. All three spells still benefit from Stoneskin + gear (a custom benefit of the server).
5. Stoneskin benefits from stacking Enhancing Magic Skill+ and Enhancing Magic Potency gear whereas Metallic Body and Diamondhide benefit from stacking Blue Magic Skill+ gear. All forms of stoneskin benefit from stacking MND.
6. All types of stoneskin effects are capped at 3500.

Overall, Stoneskin will remain the leader in providing the Stoneskin effect (and being provided AOE by Scholars); however, the bonuses provided to Metallic Body and Diamondhide make them much more worthwhile.

Phalanx

Adds an additional 5% shield block rate while the spell is active.

• This does not apply to Phalanx II.

Haste/Haste II/Hastega

Haste spells now have an increased duration depending on tier.

• All Haste spells now have a base duration of 5 minutes.

Distract and Distract II

The damage formula for Distract has been updated to accommodate the larger a evasion ranges of enemies.

• Distract: Old value was 35, new min/max is 35/75.
• Distract II: Old min/max was 40/50, new min/max is 50/150.
  • Formula updated to (enfeebling magic * 4) / 15

Frazzle and Frazzle II

The damage formula for Frazzle has been updated to accommodate the larger a magic evasion ranges of enemies.

• Frazzle: Old value was 35, new min/max is 35/75.
• Frazzle II: Old min/max was 40/50, new min/max is 50/150.
  • Formula updated to (enfeebling magic * 4) / 15

Diaga III

Inflicts a Dia III to all enemies in a small range; spell not normally available to players.

• Available to level 99 to red mages upon completion of the 4th master job quest.

Crusade

Crusade is available to Paladins and now grants +300% enmity bonus to the player.

Enlight

Enlight now has an extended duration based on the caster’s Composure effect (if active).

• Enlight’s formula has been updated to initial damage = (floor (divine magic skill / 20 ) * 3) / (12 - floor(divine magic skill / 40)). This enhancement bases the damage off of divine magic rather than enhancing magic–a skill PLDs are weak in–to provide higher gains.
• Enlight provides a static accuracy bonus while in effect.

Reprisal

Reprisal now has an extended duration based on the caster’s Composure effect (if active).

Banish IV

Inflicts Banish (holy/light) damage on a single target.

• Available to White Mages at level 85.

Banishga III

Inflicts Banish (holy/light) damage in an area of effect.

• Available to White Mages at level 99.

Inundation

Adjusted to be a custom spell that is calcualted by floor(dMND / 4) + 15 with a minimum value of 1 and max value of 20. Main job red mages have a higher min/max value at 5 and 25.

• This debuff lasts 5 minutes and does not require “unique weapon types” to activate the bonus.
• This debuff (based on the potency formula) increases the target’s incoming skillchain damage and magic burst damage taken.

Black Magic

• Elemental magic now has a base damage scaling multiplier and accuracy check based on Chronicles and Heroics rank. This affects the V component of the magic calculation and a bonus calculation of magic accuracy.

Impact

Once only available with a certain item equipped for Shinyru, Impact is now available in the open world and is extremely helpful in almost all high-level, endgame content.

• Available at level 90 to black mages, red mages, white mages, summoners, and scholars.
• Deals dark damage and reduces all main attributes by 20-50% of the target for a short duration. Players who have gear that enhances Impact can further increase the attribute reductions.
• NOTE: If you’re using Ashita and Shorthand, you’ll need a Twilight Cape somewhere in your inventory or storage as this plugin explicitly checks for the retail-required item.

Curse

Inflicts curse on a single-target enemy; spell not normally available to players.

• Available to level 99 black mages upon completion of the 4th master job quest.

Virus

Inflicts plague (virus) on a single-target enemy; spell not normally available to players.

• Available to level 99 black mages upon completion of the 3rd master job quest.

Meteor II

An area of effect Meteor spell that, similar to Meteor, requires Elemental Seal to be active to cast.

• Available to level 99 black mages upon completion of the 5th master job quest.

Breakga

An area of effect Break spell castable by Black Mages.

• Available to level 99 black mages.

Endark

Endark now has an extended duration based on the caster’s Composure effect (if active).

• Endark’s formula has been updated to initial damage = 12 + floor(dark magic skill / 20) * 3 - floor(dark magic skill / 40). This enhancement bases the damage off of dark magic and provides a significant gain to allow the effect to last longer.
• Endark provides an attack bonus to the caster based on the current damage of the additional effect.

Dread Spikes

Dread Spikes has an extended duration based on the caster’s Composure effect (if active).

Ninjutsu

Utsusemi

• Utsusemi shadows now provide a single AOE magic nullification effect while they are active. This effect still removes all active shadows; however, can block the single spell before the shadows drop.
• Utsusemi: San is unavailable at this time as it’s locked behind job points.

Jubaku:Ni

• Gained by ninjas at level 50 with a paralyze potency of 50.

Dokumori:Ni

• Gained by ninjas at level 56 with a poison potency of 25.

Hojo:San

• Gained by ninjas at level 99 with a slow potency of 30% reduction.

Kurayami:San

• Gained by ninjas at level 99 with a blind potency of 50.

Blue Magic

Magic Barrier

Rather than a straight “magic stoneskin” equal to the blue magic skill of the player, Magic Barrier works similar to Shell magic, providing a magic damage taken reduction and a large increase magic evasion.

• Magic Barrier provides a -20% Magic Damage Taken and stacks with other sources of -MDT, such as Shell V and equipped gear. This is subject to the -MDT cap.
• Magic Barrier provides an additional flat +150 magic evasion.

Sudden Lunge

Sudden Lunge has been redesigned to be more inline with the retail version rather than a “100%” 20 second stun found on most private servers.

• Sudden Lunge now, as most status apply skills do, requires the skill to do damage (more than 0) rather than checking for magic accuracy or comparing INT vs. INT. This means that Sudden Lunge can be used against higher level targets, but cannot be used against monsters who are not taking damage or that the player cannot inflict damage on (lack of attack, etc.)
• If the player does damage with the skill, the skill will check if the target has any form of explicit stun resistance–provided either explicitly or implicitly by their family type–and rolls a ‘random’ to see if the stun can overcome that resistance. For example, if an enemy has a 44% stun resistance and the random rolled a 45, the monster would become stunned.
• If successful, the duration of the stun is now a random between 5 and 10 seconds; resistance plays no part in the formula.

Breaths

Breaths are based on player HP. All breaths have a base damage that is player HP / {8-12} (a range of 8-12 depending on the spell). Increasing your HP will increase the base damage. From there, resistances, player bonuses, and damage down (like breath resistances) are taken into account.

Many breaths also inflict status effects on the target. These will refresh the effect on the target if unresisted.

General

Magic Critical Hit Damage

The effects of magic critical hit is less appealing than originally hoped. The current formula works out as the following when a critical hit lands.

Magic Attack Bonus + 10 * (Magic Crit Hit Damage)

Essentially, +10 MAB per “crit hit damage”, with a cap of +40 MAB on retail (that cap does not apply on Nocturnal Souls).

To make Magic Critical Hits more appealing, we’ve opted to redesign the formula to work similar to critical hits for physical attacks.

The new formula incorporates the player’s INT as the multiplier for the crit hit damage increase. The more +Magic Crit Hit Damage and INT a player has, the more Magic Attack Bonus gained.

Magic Attack Bonus + ( (1 + Magic Crit Hit Damage) * (INT / 10) ) / 10

With a base MAB of 800, 500 INT, and a +20 Magic Crit Hit Damage Bonus, the formula would work out as:

= 800 + ( ( 1 + 20) * ( 500 / 10) ) / 10
= 800 + ( 21 * 50 ) / 10
= 800 + ( 1050 ) / 10
= 800 + 105
= 905

The critical hit would be a gain of +105 MAB which could be increased by further increasing INT (through spells such as Absorb-INT, Gain-INT, and Boost-INT) and augments and/or increasing the Magic Crit Hit Damage modifier.

Magic Hit Rate

So, everything here is up in the air to change as of 28 October 2023. We’re reviewing and taking an iterative approach to how we look at this.

• We’ve reset the base hit rate of all magic to 50%.
• Mathematically, the formula is now 0.50 + (-1 * abs((dMAcc / 2) / 100) / 10) for dMAcc < 0 and 0.50 + (dMacc/100)/10 for dMAcc >= 0.

Here’s a few examples:

Using a dMAcc < 0 approach, where the dMAcc = -138:

=0.50 + (-1 * abs((-138/2)/100)/10))
=0.50 + (-1 * abs((-69/100)/10)
=0.50 + (-1 * abs(-0.69/10)
=0.50 + (-1 * abs(-0.69/10)
=0.50 + (-1 * abs(-0.069)
=0.50 + (-1 * 0.069)
=0.50 - 0.069
=0.431
=43.1% hit rate

So a difference of -138 evasion to the caster’s accuracy would be a reduction of hit rate from the baseline by ~7%.

Using a dMAcc >= 0 approach, where the dMAcc = 292:

=0.50 + (292/100)/10
=0.50 + 2.92/10
=0.50 + 0.292
=0.792
=79.2% hit rate

Here, that +292 delta leads to a nearly 80% hit rate.

But, because, SE decides to be complicated, that’s not where it stops as next you figure out resistance based on that hit rate. Currently, we follow the “Current Theory” of how this works based on cutpoints. For damage attacks, resistances reduce the damage. For effects, it typically reduces the duration.

Assuming that your incoming threshold is p in the following formulas, the resist checks are then:

half = (1 - p)
quarter = ((1 - p) ^ 2)
eighth = ((1 - p) ^ 3)
sixteenth = ((1 - p) ^ 4)

The system then, because all things in FFXI are RNG-based, does a math.random() to see where you fall. For example, in that 43.1% hit rate example above, the cut points become:

half = (1 - 0.43) -- or 0.57
quarter = ((1 - 0.43) ^ 2) -- or 0.32
eighth = ((1 - 0.43) ^ 3) -- or 0.18
sixteenth = ((1 - 0.43) ^ 4) -- or 0.10

If I math.random() and land at, say, 0.29, then I am a quarter resisted, because 0.29 exceeds the sixteenth and eighth thresholds, but not the quarter, so whatever it is basing the resistance on (damage or duration), would be multiplied by 0.25.

Other Important Notes

• Status Resistance effects, like POISONRES add a flat percentage. 1 RES = 1% of forced hit rate reduction. These are your surefire ways to reduce hit rate. If a mob has a hit rate of 70% and you have +20 Poison Resistance, that hit rate becomes 50%.
• Elemental Resistance effects, like FIRERES add a flat value. 1 RES = +1 MAGIC EVASION to incoming spells aligned to that element. This is likely why you can stack an element and a status, but not both.