[Esther]

Here, I will detail all the monster spells I find that have ambiguous and unclear descriptions, and make requests about transparency of mechanics.

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First offender: Styx Shout


^May also suffer Fear for 2 rounds... at what rate? Does it follow Status Infliction vs. Status Resist?


^Apparently not, as there is no Status Infliction text in the combat log.

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Next up: Red Sea, Star Stream, and Ignis


^Again, at what rate? Furthermore, these spells do not trigger basic attacks like Styx Shout does, so what is their scaling?


^Thankfully, the combat log gives us an answer on the infliction chance -- it does indeed function off of Status Inflict vs. Status Resist. However, that still leaves us in the dark about what these spells use to scale their damage output. How do they interact with Scaled Weapon ATK, and their respective Elemental ATKs?

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I will continue to look for vague descriptions on monster spells as I see them. I don't know of very many monster spells that aren't just player spells monsters spawn with, but I still have barghests to check, at the very least.

[Ranylyn]

To answer your second question:

Elemental attacks have their own stats now. For example, Light magic will always scale with Light Attack, which is modified by faith.

[Esther]

I'm aware of that. What I want to know is, what ~percentage~ of Light ATK is used for Star Stream. And what percentage of Scaled Weapon ATK.

If it was simple enough for you to answer, I would not have asked.

[Ranylyn]

Every spell uses 100% Tome/Spelledge Scaling. From there you can just figure out the rest by testing your damage on a jammer cave jammer.

[Esther]

That's not an excuse for there not to be accurate descriptions.

[Esther]

This problem isn't just something Spellthieves deal with, either. The description text for Youkai skills is also woefully inadequate, making it a problem for Summoners, too. And Spellthieves who steal spells from Youkai.

[Ranylyn]

To be fair, I completely understand not listing all the spell formulas in the description itself, as:

- Spells have multiple ranks and do not need to be linear in scaling, and listing the exact formula for every rank can become incredibly cluttered and cumbersome.
- Any changes could result in mass description edits being needed. (For example, if Youkai skills were globally adjusted again, the description of every single elemental attacking Youkai skill would need updating, simply creating extra work for Dev.)
- Fewer Balance Fu threads due to people actually needing to test stuff out instead of kneejerking from simply seeing big numbers. Not even joking. I've seen it and I've even done it (though I admitted it was a kneejerk in the topic title.)


That said, on the topic of Youkai, here's an excerpt from the Patch Notes for 1.58:

For Evoke Skills, where appropriate; (FP scaling costs down, damage formula is now caster's 100% + (Youkai Level/25, *100)% Elemental ATK. At level 60 this is 340% of Elemental ATK.

Admittedly, this could be listed somewhere more obvious than in the patch notes, at least.

[Esther]

It could be, yes. And monster spells don't have ranks, so they don't have varying levels of scaling. There is no reason not to have transparency in game mechanics. Why is this even something you're pushing against? Do you have something against me, or something?

Another thing I would like clarification on, is how Evoke Skills consider a caster who is not a summoner, and thus has no 'youkai level' to consider? Is it just flat 100% Elemental ATK, because Youkai Level = 0? That's pretty crap, if so. Will it take into account youkai in your list while Summoner is not equipped, just like player spells take into account your ranks in that spell, even while its class is not equipped?

[Ranylyn]

No. I do not have anything against you. What happened was:

1) In my first post of the thread, I was distracted and misunderstood your question. I skipped over where you asked what percentage of elemental scaling. And for that, I do apologize. The rest was just attempting to be helpful (though admittedly my jammer cave suggestion was due to being too lazy to test it myself to get actual numbers; been busy, sorry.)
2) It's not that I'm strictly opposed to this, I just worry about any the extra work for Dev with future change.

Anyways, I've never tested stealing Youkai spells, but that is a good question, and one I'm curious about, too.