Perp Staves Worth It?

I have to agree with Gundulagause on this point.

If the affinity was not there, then there would only be one -perp staff.

And well, we just can't have that.

Affinity just means "This effect only takes place under this element". In regard to the avatar bonuses, it means avatars of that element. So a "fire affinity perp/BP" staff would only affect Fire Spirit and Ifrit.

Thx Leneth and Nezea... i dont play SMN and i never want to, a few weeks ago i was asked to come SMN to event cause all those who were assigned on SMN didnt show up. And thats was one time in the last 3+ years (when Astral burn PT's stoped beeing something good for exp leeching w) where i was asked to come smn. I would never bother to make a staff that isnt usefull for what i do on a Job once in 3 years, aslong as that Favor doesnt lower my Acc/macc its fine for me to get my perputation cost down with it.

Or you could do what I said so that there wouldn't be resists.

Do you guys do the kill shot trials in Abyssea?

Which atmas?

Those both phy and Magic staffs are the pet bonus dmg. Hardy any change in dmg in those and the -perts I have. That is why I quit macro them in for more dmg. Not worth it.

In my humblest of opinions -perp staves aren't necessary. With my present build I get a minimum of +3 refresh with any avatar out, will be +4 if I can upgrade my Nashira Gages to Adhara Gages, and -BP cap can be easily attained with other gear that you'll likely already have with you anyway.

MP is rarely an issue, and I'm almost always /WHM, but if you want to take it one step further a /RDM is even better for MP conservation- I just don't feel like using consumables for reraise as my SMN tends to die during events (Legion and ADL usually) with a regularity higher than I'd care to admit lol... The only time MP is even remotely a concern for me is after Alexander, and even then an Elemental Siphon should get you right back into business.

That being said, if you're hardcore SMN and want to make a set of staves, or even one or two for the Avatars you use most, then by all means go ahead and do so, because it will free up some other options to cram more refresh gear in there... I just haven't found a need that justifies the time involved to make them.

There is no damage bonus at all on perpetuation staves. At all. "Affinity" states the specific element the effect is unique to. There may still not be much of a damage bonus overall, but don't eyeball it and expect something lol. :)

My opinion on staves though? I'm a SMN for... pretty much just Arch Omega, so I use the Chatoyant Staff for inventory space. If you're on it a lot, go for the gold.

Razed Ruin, Sanguine Scythe, Gnarled Horn. I know it seems weird not to use apoc but this was what worked best for me. Focusing on the crits made more impact than the number of attacks. Avatar melee dmg is poor as it is.

Edit: Additionally, for abyssea trials I use physical atma because in most cases your BP won't 1 shot anything without an AF3 set proc. That last 10% or so melee with no melee atma take so much time its maddening. I don't know what your staff skill is but you can also melee and speed things up. I tried not to use more than 1 BP Rage per mob.

These don't seem odd to me at all. I'm a bst who's recently leveled smn as well. I'm really enjoying playing on smn alot lately.

When choosing physical dd atmas' I was debating on Apocalypse vs other atma to help BP's. Apocalypse really wasn't helping as much.

The melee portion of avatar damage is just too small. its all in the blood pacts. Set yourself as close to a 1-shot kill as much as possible.

If you can get help with pulling, you can Astral Flow burn mobs by locking 2hr in boxes and using temps to restore MP. I finished my Vourukasha III for Shiva this way since the last few trials were annoying. Just had a WAR pull all the mobs and Fell Cleave one time for hate, then used Astral Flow to take out what was left.

I was looking at sets today and came up with these:

Celestial Avatar (no weather):
Chatoyant (-3)
AF3+2 head (+2)
AF3+2 body (-4)
Adhara gages (-2)
Evoker's Ring (-1)
Nares legs (+1)
AF3+2 feet (-3)
+3 MP/tick, -13 Perp/tick. Net +3 MP/tick with Auto-refresh II.

Celestial Avatar (Weather or Day):
Chatoyant (-3)
AF3+2 head (+2)
Rubeus Jacket (+1)
AF3+2 hands (-50%)
Evoker's Ring (-1)
Nares legs (+1)
AF3+2 feet (-3)
+5 MP/tick, -7 Perp, Perp-50%. Net +6 MP/tick with Auto-refresh II.

Spirit (doesn't matter):
AF3+2 feet (-3)
Evoker's Ring (-1)
Full skill (and summoner's spats +2) for the rest. I still mostly use these for Siphon and spell-casting so the last -1 perp is less important for me than the extra skill I could get in that slot.

With these sets in mind, I see that making Magian Staves would let me pick up 1MP/tick or movement speed in the Celestial sets and would gain me nothing in the Spirit set. Considering how much effort those staves take, I don't think they're worth it for me.

I thought the common consensus was that Pet: Attack was essentially worthless.



a -3 perp staff is fine and dandy. If I could substitute a -7 per in that set I could use my Caller's Horn +2 and in place of the relic +2 and gain an additional 2mp/tick increasing my refresh from 5/tick to 7/tick (when the ring and grip activate). Considering how much extra inventory and extra effort that requires, Bahamut's (-3) works just fine for me. In the end on an odinV2 or other manaburn event, the extra two mp is probably only realistically <600 mp over the course of an entire event (~3 BPs).

There certainly is an advantage but its quite alot of work. You're much better off spending that time obtaining a Pet MAB magian staff which will make much more of a difference and will take a fraction of the time.

anything with PET: MAB/ATT etc contributes big gains, more noticeable if your not in aby relying on atmas.

-50%Perp cost from AF3+2 comes after the -perp gear.
This would actually be:
15perp -7 from your set = 8
=> 50% Perp = 4
=> +6 Refresh = +2MP/tick

With matching weather and with active grip this would be: +4, without Assault ring. Also this set requires an earring most people have not augmented on Refresh but on TP Bonus.

As for the Pet Att gear being useless, it depends on the specific gear (example: BP only restriction) and the value of it (Spurrina Gages/Mujin Obi offer an amount which you can eyeball).

A Magian Trials Staff offers (if you just want to go for Refresh+) a +4Refresh without any day/weather restriction or an augmented Earring which is prolly used for TP Bonus.
Under ideal circumstances (weather, Refresh grip active, augmented Earring) it can give +7Refresh/tick with:
TM Staff: -7
AF3+2 Feet: -3
Adhara Gages: -2
Evoker's Ring: -1
(Caller's Pendant: -1 [if weather, even without weather it should be there for TP Regain])

AF3+2 Head: +2
Pluviale: +1
Nares Threws: +1
(Oneiros Grip: +1 active when less than 76% MP [Base MP = without gear])
(Moonshade Earring: +1 [if not used for TP Bonus])

Wow, that's terrible. I just assumed it came first (like Carby Mitts?). Are the hands even worth using during day/weather then? I already have Adhara Gages.

It is a shame they do not work like Carby mitts, and outside of "Mana-Cede"-Macro they seem to be useless.
The only hope these hands have is that their Acc value might be higher than those of AF2 Bracers if one uses the set I posted on the first page. Don't think anyone will test that though...

Adhara Gages will be better if you put more -perp gear into your body slot (assuming the set you posted earlier). Also they are essential for a SMN-melee set.

I kind of doubt it will be, considering the bracers also have 15 skill and an "Enhances avatar accuracy" of their own. They're pretty much a Mana Cede macro piece for me now.

Speaking of which, now that I'm back to 5/5 Heavenly Strike and Thunderstorm, is there any real use for enhanced Mana Cede?
160 base (5/5) + 50 (AF3+2 legs) = 210, so even 90 maxes them out. Should I be 4/5, you think?

The skill will do nothing for the normal hits though, just for BPs.
With Auspex/Spurrina/Nares hands these do not have a place for BPs anymore.

You should stay with 5/5, especially with the new 2hr coming.
The only *real* use I can think of an enhanced Mana Cede would be if you have Ngen Seraweels which would replace AF3+2 Legs every 5minuts for a magical BP.

A more unreal use would be for healing wards, but the improvement of them is not worth the 100MP you spend with Mana Cede <.< The higher healing BPs have an extremly low TP=>HP healed ratio, it is laughable. Garuda's Whispering Wind would profit the most by it. Then again, if she takes damage and is in a situation where resummoning is not an option she will most likely have gathered enough TP on her own to make an enhanced mana cede useless again.

Caller's hands have an accuracy boost on them which I would argue makes a bigger difference in DOT than an additional unit of perp cost. The body is also a great piece to have your avatar TP in and will likely produce more DOT than one would get using a refresh body to the point of popping another Blood pact.

Refresh IS always nice but it doesn't always lead to more DOT. If you're not racking up the DMG then dare I say..... ur doing it wrong.

EDIT: Hmmm acc boost on BPs only you say? Where is the testing to support this?

I did the Refresh-set just as an example for the poeple who do not care about the Avatar damage between blood pacts.

The set+epxlanation I posted for an Avatar melee phase showing the improvement possible with a magian trial staff can be found quoted by you in your earlier post. So please refere to that if you want to talk about damage.

Edit:To answer your edited question, it was not tested but stated what Skill over cap will do. here is the link, the text is in the Battle-related section.

Going to bump this thread as the stickies guide does not cover staves in depth.

If you could only do one or two magian staves which would it be?

Thunder -perp and pet Macc?

How long would you think it would take to do, if you assume I do it with another smn?

Edit: I should also note I have a Fay staff with -3 perp -3 BP and 4 magic attack

the Thunder Avatar Perp Staff wasn't that hard to do, I did it in about 2 weeks, not doing it everyday. Most of the later trials are just a bit more time consuming, but very easily soloable. Duo of course makes it much faster

I solo'd both my Light perp and Wind perp staff in about a week each, working on a Dark and Water during boredom hours. Which staff you do really depends on which avatar you use the most. With a Fay staff or Chatoyant staff (-3 perp on each) you can easily have all avatars free, the Perp staff just allows you to cap BP- delay and use "Pet: Atk/Acc/M.Acc/M.Atk" stuff easier, and summoning skill. As far as a 2nd Alternate staff for pets, I would personally go with M.Atk over M.Acc, but again it really depends on which avatar you're favoring to use.

The -perp staves open your gear options up for more + refresh/avatar stats gear.
-4 body
-3 boots
-1 ring
-6-7 staff

Easily caps you at -14 perp and gain +3/tick from just emp head and auto refresh. They are fairly easy/fast to make even solo. Thunder and whatever avatar you use most should be plenty. You can just adjust gear slightly (relic +2 head over emp for example) and use Chat for the avatars you don't use as often.
You only need -BP timer gear in your pact activation set.