A Scholar's Education (Guide)

Voay is for like higher teir nukes like 4/5. Atinian for kaustra/helix/T1-3

Helixes: Atinian > Soothsayer > Voay > everything else. The gaps here are pretty large -- over 100 initial damage per jump.


And speaking on helixes, my spreadsheet is showing a somewhat more MAB-focused gear set is probably better than what you have listed. Eddy > Stoicheion > Moepapa; Erlene > Witchstone > Ombre; Strendu > Icesoul; Othila > Wanion.

Of course this is with high end gear. The massive increase in base damage from Atinian and other Magic Damage+ gear makes the MAB multiplier more valuable than more Int. Plus, the added damage from more Int falls off rather quickly at dInt of 75 or higher, which can cover mobs up to ~150 Int (the gear set is sitting around 225 total Int, for Tarutaru).

The best gear set I was able to put together was comfortably over 1000 initial damage for helixes on mobs with 150 Int, using the Atinian. (As a comparison, for those wondering how much a difference there is, a Magian staff with the same gear set is under 600 initial damage.)

MAB is probably working out better since the magic damage+ stat basically makes V like a higher tier nuke w/o increasing its M stat proportionately. And M0/1/2 = 1.1/.75/.5 is pretty low for any nuke.

edit: Motenten, could you add kaustra to the list of nukes? I am curious what's best to gear for that. I currently use the same set I use for helixes.
You probably already know, but Magian DMG staves don't affect anything when put in the precast set, haste & fast cast do nothing when added to the spell set.
With all the haste they have started putting on the same gear that gets INT & MAB I am becoming curious how that effects a mage's DPS, and also how giving a mage marches would effect dps. With marches & ballads, a mage might be able to spam T3's w/o rest for a long time.

All these staves are going to clutter up my sch. I always thought helix and kaustra were INT, what also helped for shattersoul. Soothslayer was nice for int and base dmg. Most the other staves mentioned don't have that high INT plus base dmg. But I do believe your all right.

So I will have to craft both those staves Voay, and Atinian. Or perhaps wait sixty days and see what SE adds for October to December as they outdate everything as fast as they make it.

Thanks for the help all. MAB I always figure for T4-5 and cactalism.

It's been requested a few times, along with Impact/Comet/Meteor. I'm working on adding them in. Main problem is getting the exact formulas working in the spreadsheet since they're different than standard nukes.

I was going to re-edit my post, haste works fine. I think did nothing before since I typed 20% in the last column & it did 70.2 lol.

I thought impact/comet we knew the formulas? Meteor is a pot shot in the dark since the values vary by # of castors.

I know kaustra had issues at certain levels but for the most part, I thought the values were known.

I know this is the sch thread but what about for Geo's Ara II nukes? Which staff would be better for those?

In general, the -ra spells can be split the same way as low-tier vs high-tier general nukes. -ra tier 1 do better with Soothsayer/Atinian, while -ra tier 2 do better with MAB. All new classes of staves will tend to outdo Magians.


Comet, we have values for. I probably don't have to change anything in the spreadsheet for that.

Impact, I haven't found any data on whatsoever. Will have to work on that from scratch.

Meteor is horrible. Not even dealing with multiple casters or multiple targets, the damage is completely outside standard predictability. The rough formula on the wiki only works for a narrow range of configurations, not to mention not taking Magic Damage+ into account at all.

Kaustra we have a formula for, but I'll have to readjust things a bit on the spreadsheet.

I've updated the spreadsheet for white magic nukes, but still have to work more on the dark nukes.

Hmm. Does Magic Damage+ work with Kaustra?

I'll test it right now, one sec.

It does appear to affect it, but not the entire value. i'm getting 88 dmg out of my atinian right now which would mean about 70.4 base dmg before mab (only atinian staff mab, /whm right now). I wasn't expecting it to be a partial value so I only got the 1 piece to test with. I'll set up more to get some data points later tonight.

interestingly i'm getting no dmg increase from the magic dmg on bookworm or buremte hat. Will need to revisit my numbers on atinian and figure out why I was getting a dmg increase w/ it.

Using this for cure set atm on mule

ItemSet 311390

Overcaps Cure Potency but idk where to swap it around. Aside from obvious HQs, anything I'm missing? Over 1.1k cure IVs are pretty dope tho

Correct me if wrong, but isn't weather/iridiance a different term from cure potency & they stack multiplicative. In which case +4% neck, 5% earring, & 7% pants should all improve your cures nicely. Well til you hit the potency cap, pants should do that themselves but if you don't have those yet... other two one.

edit: good call. haven't owned one of those for quite a long time now.

except sch can't wear a 5% earring :/. wearing nares legs to hit 50 is probably a good route to go.

Depends on how much you can augment on the hat. Need 7% potency to cap that set, and I've seen reports of a 6% cure potency augment for the hat (actually, was Proth's post, so he's got at least that much), so it may be possible to cap with just a good augment there (or, at worst, Nefer +1 body).

With that capped, I can't see any other notable improvements in cure power. Only changes would be if you wanted to swap in -enmity or something.

I's been corrected. DAMN that's a nice hat.

Man, you don't read anything but monstrosity threads for 1 day and all these sexy new pieces pop up, thanks for the clarification!

Edit: Along those lines, I'll catch up and update some sets in a day or 2.

Also: I'm thinking item lvl on main weapons affect's kaustra dmg which i'll have confirmation on before I move to my next camp on lynx.

got 7% with a +2, so definitely possible

Body was augmented with a +2. Prior to getting this augment I also received 23 Macc.

Legs were augmented with a +1 stone. I heard there was a better augment out there but I didn't see it posted.

Magic dmg and item lvl don't affect kaustra, no idea what happened w/ first test to cause the difference.

I got MAB +18% on the blm/sch skirmish 2 hands with an NQ stone, which already had 20 M.Acc. They appear to be a better nuking piece than Yaoyotl Gloves. *note for first page*

And Fast Cast +5 on the body, which is my holdover for my stun set.

Are these new legs and body part of skirmish 2?

yes

Hey Obama, shuddap.

1: damn that sucks magic dmg doesn't effect kaustra.
2: new best in slot fast cast hands = Gendewitha Gages

I just wanna say Thank You for posting this excellent guide to Scholar. It is one of the most confusing job to fully utilize and I am still trying to optimize my Scholar (even though it's Lv99 but still a far cry from the one you had). I have always use this as my guidelines and maybe you should consider posting in Wiki or BG to help others as well. Thanx again!!!

Hagondes Pants can get 5% Fastcast on them via Verd. Stone +2, which should place them as the optimal pants for sch stunning.

My guess is that now it won't affect anything that isn't under the category of "elemental magic", with Kaustra being Dark Magic and all.

On the other hand, I really do enjoy soloing with helix spells at the cost of low mp then watching it die :3

Speaking of kaustra - does Hagondes Coat beat out Scholar's Gown? Hoping to save dat extra inventory.

Well, if you look at the sets, Scholar's gown isn't the body piece on Kaustra. :p