Banish/Fenian Ring Testing

[Rainesong]

This is a continuation of the Excalibur Add Effect is Slashing Damage thread.

If you don't care about the testing itself you can skip down to the summary at the bottom.

Given that the add effect on Excalibur is slashing damage and easily predictable, I thought I would use it to test out Fenian Ring vs undead to see the exact effect it has on Banish. The first thing I did was run out to Toraimarai Canal with 971 HP, for a base Excal add effect of 242 damage and tested against skellies, which have a 12.5% resist ( 1/8 ) vs slashing. Just really quickly the results were:
Add effect without Fenian Ring
No Banish: 211 (matches 1/8th damage reduction predicted)
Banishga: 226
Banish: 226
Banish II: 233

Add effect with Fenian Ring
Banish 1: 228
Banish II: 234

Then I realized I was an idiot and the testing would be cleaner with fewer rounding errors if I did two things differently. 1) Use either 1000HP or 1024HP. 2) Test against ghosts instead, which have a 25% resist vs slashing.

I decided to fight Haunts in Eldieme w/ 1024 HP so that the base add effect would be 256 damage. Of course I started with a control test: 256 * 3/4 = 192.

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...ishFullPic.jpg
so that worked out as expected.

I proceeded to test the add effect following Banish and Banish II with and without Fenian Ring and repeated the tests many times to ensure that there was no variation. These were the results

Banish without Fenian Ring
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...ng2/Banish.jpg

Banish with Fenian Ring
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...FenianRing.jpg

Banish II without Fenian Ring
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...2/BanishII.jpg

Banish II with Fenian Ring
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...FenianRing.jpg

After checking many many times over the course of several hours the results were always the same on the add effect w/ the corresponding Banish.

I'll spare you the math, but this is the portion of damage resisted by the haunts in the various scenarios:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...esistedbyH.jpg

I wanted to leave everything as fractions to be as exact as possible, and /64 is just easier to contemplate than /256. However those numbers aren't really the relevant numbers. The real question is, what is Banish doing in each of these cases, or what is the mob's resist fraction being multiplied by. Keep in mind that the lower the multiplier the better. A multiplier of 1 means that the resistance is not being lowered at all, while a multiplier of 0 means it's being eliminated altogether.

These are the numbers:
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...hMuliplier.jpg

Fenian Ring does lower undead resistance with banish as you can see. Whether or not it's worth it or not I'll leave up to you. Let's check if these numbers confirm what I saw against the skellies in Toraimarai Canal. I'm not going to go through the math on each case but let's go through it for one example. Let's take Banish II without Fenian ring since that's kind of the oddball number.
Multiplier: 19/64
Skellie resistance to slashing: 1/8th
Base add effect with 971 HP: 242
19/64 * 1/8 = 0.037109375
floor((1 - 0.037109375) * 242) = 233 which is what we saw above for Banish II without Fenian Ring on. The numbers work out for the other examples as well. Do the math if you like.

A couple other notes: I tried to pinpoint the duration of Banish and Banish II as best as I could but this was a lot more difficult because it all hinged upon getting a proc at the exact moment to narrow the potential range of possible durations. Banish had an extremely short duration, somewhere between 8-13 seconds. I didn't pursue that any further because with such a short duration it just didn't seem worth casting over Banish II anyway. Banish II I pinpointed at having a 25 second duration. It could vary w/ resists but I never saw it last longer or shorter than 25 seconds. I did however see a fully resisted proc (192) and a "reduced-resistance" proc (237) at exactly 25 seconds, so I assume this is the cutoff. Fenian Ring did not seem to increase the duration of the Banish effect, but I didn't test this in depth.

I also wanted to know if Banish would overwrite itself. I simply did this by timing casts and observing my add effect damage with TimeStamp. Long story short: 1) Banish does not overwrite Banish II, regardless of whether or not Fenian Ring is on. 2) Banish II will overwrite Banish II, regardless of whether or not Fenian Ring is on. (I didn't test Banish 1 overwriting Banish 1).

1) Banish Does Not Overwrite Banish II
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...teBanishII.jpg
I don't think I really need to explain it but just for clarity at 10:40 I cast Banish II, 6 seconds later I casted Banish, and 14 seconds after the original Banish II an add effect proc landed for the amount we'd expect for Banish II without Fenian Ring, so the Banish did not overwrite the Banish II.

2)Banish II Does Overwrite Banish II
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...itesItself.jpg
What you see in that chatlog is my casting Banish II at 25:43 with Fenian Ring, followed by an add effect proc of the expected amount, followed by Banish II without Fenian Ring at 26:04 (21 seconds after the first Banish II, well within the 25 second duration) followed by a proc of 237 for Banish II without Fenian Ring. Thus, Banish II without Fenian Ring overwrote Banish II with Fenian Ring.

Oh, Fenian Ring did NOT effect the damage of Banish itself, only the effect on the mobs resistance (unless there's some hidden 1% mcrit rate or something like that that I never observed, but I did look out for that).

Here's what I did not aggressively test:
1) Whether or not a Banish resist affects the duration of the Banish effect. I do know that a Banish resist does not affect the Banish multiplier because I did observe a few resists and the expected add effect damage did not change. 2) If Fenian Ring affects the duration of Banish. From the tests I did do, it appears that Fenian Ring does not extend the duration, but I do not have conclusive data. 3) The exact duration of Banish 1. 4) If Fenian Ring affects the accuracy of the Banish damage itself. 5) If Banish/Fenian have the same results with respect to piercing and blunt damage vs undead. I would be shocked though, if the multiplier didn't work the same way. 6) Anything to do with Banish III since I do not have WHM leveled. If there's any WHM on Asura with Fenian and you wouldn't mind testing it out, please PM me or send me a tell in game. It won't take long at all.

If you would like to test 1-5 please be my guest and let us know the results but I'm not going to bother. I would like to test 6 if any WHM on Asura with Fenian Ring is willing.

I know Banish spells have been tested before but I couldn't find the info. If anyone has that info please post it here so we can see if it agrees with the results I got. I haven't found any Banish testing with Fenian Ring out there, but if it has already been done and I'm just a day late and a dollar short then.. well /blush...

SUMMARY:
A) Fenian Ring does NOT affect the damage of Banish.

B) Fenian Ring DOES lower undead's resistance when Banish is cast.

To determine the mob's new resist rate, multiply the mob's base resist rate (1/8th for skellies, 1/4th for ghosts) by the value in this table:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...hMuliplier.jpg

The resulting value is the portion of damage that the mob will resist. If you subtract that number from 1 you get the fraction of damage that goes unresisted.

C) Banish II lasts about 25 seconds.

D) Banish will not overwrite Banish II, but Banish II will overwrite Banish II regardless of whether or not Fenian Ring is equipped at any point.

[Ophannus]

Needs more Banish III and Cleric Mitts testing :D

Great read though!

[Rainesong]

Yeah, I'll say again just in case any relevant person skipped over the "Help me out!" part. If there's any WHM on Asura with Fenian Ring PM me or /tell me in game and let's test out banish III asap! It'll only take about 10 min (20 min if you include the time it takes to get there).

[SubzeroDiabolos]

I'm a shield bash whore so I will get that ring at some point, but I will admit i'm a little dissapointed. Thanks for your time doing all this for us Raine.

[Valyana]

I would guess that the durations of Banish 1 and Banish 2 are 15 and 30 secs, and the 25 second duration you are measuring for Banish 2 is due to chat log lag for the spell effect. I notice that BRD debuffs tend to show up in the log about 3 sec after they actually land, and I think nukes are a bit slower than that.

Thanks a lot for doing this testing!

[matt4684]

To test duration of the banish effects, could you simply melee with a club or staff, hit them with banish, see how long it takes for your damage to fall back to crap, and then simply average your results? Or do you need something more mathy?

[Lexa]

I'm a shield bash whore so I will get that ring at some point, but I will admit i'm a little dissapointed. Thanks for your time doing all this for us Raine.

The ring is still fun for Shield Bash. I posted these examples in this thread:
http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/ffxi-...nian-ring.html

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/k...0_1sbouryu.png

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/k...10_1sbodin.png

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/k..._1sbmedusa.png

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/k...10_1sbjorm.png

It's a lot of fun. :D

[Kaeko]

I think Banish duration is based on the recast timer of the spell, so you can increase the duration of banish effect by using banish in slow gear I think.

[Suiram]

One note about your presentation. Everything points to the "slashing damage cut" being identical to generic physical/magic damage reduction term (calculated last and as a fraction of 256), so really since your base damage is 256, and if you hit for, for example, 240, you can simply state that under those conditions the new term is 240/256, and that will likely be the closest to how it's actually calculated.

Since Excalibur add effect seems ideal for testing this sort of thing, can you see how Banish stacks with Tomahawk?

Edit: Ignore the skeleton damage thing, I didn't notice the HP wasn't 1024 for that lol

[Rainesong]

some good ideas here. doing some more duration testing atm but it's taking some time and it's not fun. also i have a whm w/ cleric's w/ me atm (but no fenian) so i'll test that as well. there is a whm on asura w/ cleric's + fenian but i'm not sure that i'll get around to testing that tonight as we'll both have to be free at the same time.

from my results so far it is not looking like the recast has any effect on the duration of banish. w/ rdm casting banish II in the haste/fastcast gear i have on me + the haste spell i get a recast timer of 16 sec, and w/ rdm but no haste spell or gear it's a recast timer of approximately 27 seconds. in both cases however the duration i'm recording seems to be pretty consistently around 30 seconds (using my laptops clock), so it appears that valyana was correct. i'll edit the OP later tonight after i'm done testing.

[Karbuncle]

While this is here, Does Fenian Ring stack with Aegis' Enhancement ?

[Rainesong]

Kaeko, were you thinking that the Banish duration is directly proportional to the recast timer, or something more like this:
Duration = X + f(R), where X is a constant and f(R) is some function of the recast timer?

[Kaeko]

Kaeko, were you thinking that the Banish duration is directly proportional to the recast timer, or something more like this:
Duration = X + f(R), where X is a constant and f(R) is some function of the recast timer?

I actually read somewhere that it was direct, but you seem to have disproven it. I'm trying to find where I read it right now >.<

[Tsuko_Asura]

I actually read somewhere that it was direct, but you seem to have disproven it. I'm trying to find where I read it right now >.<

Fairly certain I know what you're referring to, but it was just some random person saying that they used the spells' recasts as a means to give an approximation of when it was going to wear off, simply because the base recasts are so close to it. I highly doubt its anything more than coincidence.

[Atreides]

Not sure if this is correct but for reference, the previous thought on how banish/clerics mitts worked was as follows (from the JP version of wiki, sorry I don't the link on this PC):

Banish1: 50% reduction of melee dmg penalty (55% with af2)
Banish2: 70% reduction of melee dmg penalty (75% with af2)
Banish3: 90% reduction of melee dmg penalty (95% with af2)
(like I said this is from JP wiki, it may be incorrect, and it doesn't mention duration)

The wiki stated that cleric's mitts simply add 5% to the penalty reduction, so for something like banish 3 it'd bring the damage penalty down 95%. If fenian is equally potent and stacks I suppose it'd make banish 3 completely remove the penalty, but that's obviously just conjecture until someone tests it.

In a semi-related note I know banish removes slashing/piercing penalty on skeletons/ghosts, but does anyone know if it removes other kinds of penalties or penalties from other undead types? I know piercing takes a cut on corses and supposedly blunt gets a small penalty vs. doomed, was just wondering if anyone's had a chance to test it.

[Suiram]

Based on the above information, it looks like you could take that above information and make it slightly more precise. It looks like it's actually what you wrote, but rounded up where appropriate. Although to me I tend to think of calculations in this game as being floored instead, so for instance "Banish II: 30% of previous penalty"

64 * .3 = 19.2, so 19. 256-19 = 237, which is what the damage cut was in the OP with Banish II (237/256).

Edit: Another example from the OP. 32 * .3 = 9.6, so 9. 256-9 = 247. 242 * (247/256) = 233 damage.

[Rainesong]

Not sure if this is correct but for reference, the previous thought on how banish/clerics mitts worked was as follows (from the JP version of wiki, sorry I don't the link on this PC):

Banish1: 50% reduction of melee dmg penalty (55% with af2)
Banish2: 70% reduction of melee dmg penalty (75% with af2)
Banish3: 90% reduction of melee dmg penalty (95% with af2)
(like I said this is from JP wiki, it may be incorrect, and it doesn't mention duration)

The wiki stated that cleric's mitts simply add 5% to the penalty reduction, so for something like banish 3 it'd bring the damage penalty down 95%. If fenian is equally potent and stacks I suppose it'd make banish 3 completely remove the penalty, but that's obviously just conjecture until someone tests it.

In a semi-related note I know banish removes slashing/piercing penalty on skeletons/ghosts, but does anyone know if it removes other kinds of penalties or penalties from other undead types? I know piercing takes a cut on corses and supposedly blunt gets a small penalty vs. doomed, was just wondering if anyone's had a chance to test it.

thanks a ton for posting that info. i knew it was out there but couldn't find it.

these results for banish 1 and 2 are essentially the same as the results i got but in % form. pretty sure the game is using the /256 though, as using the % forms result in numbers slightly different from my results. ie using 70% for banish II (with no mitts or ring) would yield a 236 add effect after flooring, but i got 237.

after i test with cleric's mitts i'll see if the % or fraction seems more accurate.

[Lexa]

While this is here, Does Fenian Ring stack with Aegis' Enhancement ?

The shield bash rings adds damage. One of our Aegis PLDs has it and while we were farming the beastmen strongholds (beadeaux_S I believe), he bashed a slug for 209 with aegis, while our other aegis pld bashed for 169.

Again, from this thread: http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/ffxi-...nian-ring.html

[Rainesong]

after some more testing using a club (as per matt's suggestion) i am almost positive that the duration of banish is 15 seconds, banish II is 30 seconds, and banish III is 45 seconds, so valyana was spot on. given the new durations, i confirmed that banish overwrites banish (regardless of gear) and banish II overwrites banish II (regardless of gear) but banish will not overwrite banish II nor will banish II overwrite banish III.

i also have numbers for cleric's testing and banish III testing. cleric's works exactly the same as fenian ring. my banish III numbers do not match w/ the JP numbers posted above. i show banish III (without gear) having about a 97% reduction potency. i'll post the exact numbers later. I have not yet tested with fenian + cleric's at the same time

[Valyana]

Any chance you could test Tomahawk too?