Top 3 Nuking Atmas?

Assuming Blm/rdm

Taking a shot here, please advise:

Smoldering Sky (magic crit major)
Ultimate (mab/macc superior)
Hell's Guardian (mab superior)

Thoughts?

Beyond is normally used since as it stands bliz 5 is your strongest nuke... MM in there as well but if your going strictly for max damage idk how the 50int balances out vs MAB.

I'd say..

Ultimate / Hell's Guardian / Minikin (for consistency)
Ultimate / Hell's Guardian / Beyond (Ice onry)
Ultimate / Hell's Guardian / Smouldering Sky (for random epeen'ing)

Forgot to add, would you sub Minikin Monstrosity for HG for balance with INT?

So would you use the top or bottom for Thunder 5?

Top.

top 3 for real things, bottom 3 if you want to show off... thought thunder 5 might be worth blinding horn or lion for the affinity boost over MAB but again not to sure about how that balances out

For Thunder 5, I'd probably go with something like Ultimate / Hell's Guardian / Lion.

Though if I was planning on using more than Thunder spells, it'd either be my first choice or Ultimate / Beyond / Lion (assuming I had some decent refresh)


Question on a semi-related thing, I've heard the [Element]Attack+ Atmas are a direct damage bonus, is that true? (If so, is that how Affinity works? Straight damage/accuracy+?) Or are they just additional MAB+?

I can't remember excactly how it is but the effect from affinity is greater then MAB... something to do with how its calculated. I only know because alot of mages were disapointed in the mythic weapons because ele staves were better (HQ ele staves are 15% damage bonus if i remember right) for nukeing and they all had 20(?) MAB.

if you take minikin off then you're sorely lacking the knowledge to be a decent blm...10+ refresh keeps u nuking for longer=more dmg over time
especially if u dont have PW atma and are using ultimate, your missing a lot of mp there bud, the refresh helps keep you from being worthless

my current fresh with MM and a well geared rdm is 19 per tic(20 if i use owleyes which i dont like to for most mobs that are worth a damn) still missing fresh hairpin/pants(22mp/tic max vs. 12mp/tic max without MM...particularly for non-taru blm this is a must, and even for tarus, if you not nuking as much, but a little more powerful (say 5k bliz5 vs 4300 or w/e, not a huge diff when i get 2x as many nukes in the same amount of time as someone not using MM)

Yeah, you've gotten some great responses so far, but you just gotta remember, inside abyssea it's not about the biggest numbers. It's about the consistency to maintain good numbers.

Your general atma setup atm is Ultimate/Beyond/MM.
This provides like 70 or 80 MAB, direct potency to ice and refresh.

For soloing or low manning troublesome ***, Apoc is amazing! Seriously. You can stay /rdm from the auto rr3, insta magic, well it will save you but it can also kill you if you do it wrong..
(Edit: Don't EVER use apoc while manaburning large amounts of mobs, the firaja firing off instantly can really catch you by surprise and you may not be able to recover.)

For low man combinations or NM's i go with Beyond/Apoc/MM (because that way i don't take a hit to MP and i doubt i'll be nuking constantly anyway).

However, THE best setup is likely Hell's Guardian/Ultimate/(Then a potency increase atma of your choice depending on your spell, Beyond, Lion, etc.) That is how you will push your best possible numbers however, it's not really worth the tradeoffs.

I typically use beyond/ultimate/mm, purpose of this thread was to see what others use for typical setups. I know its currently skewed with Bliz5 being a popular spell.

Just a suggestion I for some reason love Fireja and Fire V since Fireja ups the damage of Fire V up to 5% for 60 or 90 if you have goetia +2 it comes in handy. . . .

Not that we need to dispute what is greater or better he is just looking for different combos so I am offerring just that something different.

Atma of the Smoldering Sky
Atma of the Hell's Guardian
Atma of the Minikin Monstrosity

I also go /sch as well I usually have someone that give me refresh. but if not I have sublimination. I usually use Parsimony with Fireja and Parsimony and then I follow up with Alacrity and Fire V x 2 then I will just Aspir 1 and 2 or Stun / Drain combo and rinse and repeat. Even with this sub I never run out of mp and when we are farming I love killing multiple targets.

I can literally wipe a FC size group with two and sometimes 3 jas and if my brother the blue mage is with me we can kill without sleeping them so it works out pretty good.

As far as damage affinity goes, 1 affinity is equivalent to a 10% damage increase. 2 makes for a 15% increase, 3 makes for a 20% increase, and so on. Thus, the fully upgraded (damage) trial staves give a 30% pure damage increase.
Accuracy instead gives +20 magic accuracy for an affinity value of 1, +30 for a value of 2, +40 for 3, etc.

The damage modifier functions separately from all other modifiers, to my knowledge. So, the percent increase is added in after MAB, weather, and all else has already been calculated.

As far as atma goes, I'm fairly certain that they're calculated as affinity rather than simply an element-specific magic attack bonus.

People were using Beyond long before Bliz V existed simply because it's the only elemental potency atma that also gives MAB. The only reason to not use it is if whatever you're fighting is inherently resistant to ice, in which case you should either swap in an elemental potency atma (if you know you'll be sticking to a specific element) or another MAB atma.

This is correct. Magian staves potency and atma potency are actually the same stat; the old level 51 staves are a completely different term though.

Hm... How exactly are they different?
I was under the impression that they were simply either one or two general affinity, depending on whether you were using NQ or HQ.

What about if you DON'T have Ultimate and Hell's Guardian?

Since I don't have Ultimate, I generally use:
MM/Beyond/Full Moon

And if I'm duoing with a THF on seals NM I use:
MM/Full Moon/Ambition
(So I don't pull as much hate)

They're a different term. Nothing complicated about it, they just go somewhere else in the equation.

Beyond/MM/Ultimate

/fin

Best atma setup for almost every situation on BLM:


Why is this even a discussion?