So I found something that blew my mind a bit on a JP blog awhile ago. Got distracted and hadn't posted til now.
There's a post on the
leaguemili blog about PLD gear that off-handedly references a mechanic I'd never heard of. Pardon the google translatese, but I think it mostly gets the point across.
Quote:
For content that can be used for support jobs, select the support magic swordfighter to take advantage of Shakpana's magic avoidance.
This is because there is a resist wall that cannot be broken through by magic avoidance alone, and in order to break through that wall, it is necessary to raise the corresponding attribute resistance as much as possible. If you become a support magic swordfighter, it will be easier to aim for resist against three attributes at the same time due to the Enchant Rune and Ba system.
The italicized portions were also a link to some tests done in another blog.
http://sazitouhuu.blogspot.com/2019/11/21.html.
I'm not sure I've fully parsed everything here, but I'll summarize the two main points I came away with.
1: Without at least some elemental resistance you cannot get a full(1/8) resist against an elemental attack. No matter how much magic evasion you have. It's not clear to me how much resistance is needed or if this varies by mob/attack. I believe it was referring to this as the "Quarter guarantee". I guess cause there's a minimum of a 1/4 resist without elemental resistance.
2: If your elemental resistance vs an attack is negative, then the attack is guaranteed to do at least 1/2 dmg. In other words, you cannot get a 1/8 or 1/4 resist anymore, regardless of how overwhelming your meva is. This would be the "Half guarantee".
This did seem a bit outlandish, but the post looked pretty convincing, and had a lot of data. So I went and tested myself.
Since I didn't want to stand around waiting for uncooperative mobs to nuke me, I went and did some Ballista. Ballista is sometimes weird, so this test is not perfect, but I figure it's good enough to confirm the existence of the mechanic in question.
First I spammed some nukes and observed the dmg spread. Wanted to make sure Ard didn't have too much macc, so I mostly stripped him of ilvl gear.
Ard's revenge.
So at first we have 144, 75, and 36. And one weirdo 37. Not sure what that was about. Then if you look at where the cursor is in the log, I used a single sulpor, then had Ard nuke more, and finally saw that 1/8 resist for 17 dmg.
Even wearing full Sakpata's and meva+ accessories, I never got a 1/8th resist till I added some water resist. While this may behave differently or require more resistance outside of PVP, this is enough for me to at least confirm that this is a thing.
Next up, negative ele resist and the half guarantee as they called it. I accidentally locked myself out of My ballista reservation thinking it had ended that tossing the book. So it was off to Brenner.
Ard's revenge part 2.
So, using stone now since it was watersday and I didn't want day procs mucking with the numbers. Starting off we have 36, 73, and 144. Mostly 36's showing that the resist rate is high.
Part way down the log in the screen shot I'm penalized for making an equipment change. This is where I equipped a
weathering shield, making use of its all elemental resist-.
Notice that every nuke after that was at least a 73. half resist minimum. So pretty much confirmed.
I might at some point want to retest this vs mobs outside of PVP. And possibly check to see if there's a required amount of elemental resistance.
I think this doesn't affect RUN much, they have very plentiful options for various elemental resistances. but for PLDs trying to make full use of Sakpata's meva+, this is potentially relevant.
I'm now trying to work either Warder's charm or Carrier's sash into my resist focused sets to make sure I always have at least a little resist+ towards most or all elements.
Probably the biggest remaining question I have about this is.. can this affect resisting enfeebles? I think it's fairly clear that it doesn't affect most of them... but what about things with multiple resist states like stun or sleep? Is it possible that they have an equivalent of the 1/8th resist that might require elemental resistance to get a full resist? Well, maybe not sleep, it should only have two or thee states. full duration, half, and fully resisted. Not sure if you count a full resist as a state since there's not even a debuff to have a state in that case... Semantics. But it might be interesting to see if having negative dark resist locks you into having a half duration sleep at best...
This is something I might have to look into but I'd welcome input if anyone is aware of a case that would be relevant to this.
