Been playing this game wrong.

[Unseen]

Max magic with vanille people, it shreds like nothing I've ever seen before.

[Odinsknight101]

What weapon? what Accessories? Faith starter?

[tiornys]

Pearlwing Staff, max Magic: 140
Brightwing Staff, max Magic: 381
Nirvana (Pearlwing), max Magic: 912

Belladonna Wand, max Magic: 131
Malboro Wand, max Magic: 335
Nirvana (Belladonna), max Magic: 807

If +9 Magic in early game, +46 Magic in late game, and +105 Magic in late postgame is making you happy, then cool. I wouldn't exactly call it a world-shattering difference though.

[Unseen]

It really is a big difference, try it, with magistrate accessories it completely shreds.

[Unseen]

If everyones got deshell and deprotect I hardly see the need in other debuffs.

[tiornys]

Magistral Crest maxes at +300 Magic. Vanille has 1700 base Magic at max Crystarium. Assuming 3x Magistral Crest (leaving room for Genji Glove to break the damage cap), Nirvana (Belladonna) gives her 3407 Magic while Nirvana (Pearlwing) gives her 3512 Magic, an increase of 3.1%. 3.1% more damage isn't nothing, but as I already noted, it's not exactly world-shattering.

For many relevant enemies, Imperil creates an elemental weakness where none previously existed. Combine with the appropriate En-spell to double damage, a better damage multiplier than Deprotect or Deshell. For other relevant enemies, Imperil doubles your chain-building speed with elemental Ravager attacks by eliminating Half-Element resistances. This can have a huge impact on your chain-building speeds.

Against high HP enemies, if Poison is available (notable targets include Orphan, Long Gui, and Vercingetorix), it's probably the single biggest factor in your DPS.

As someone said recently in a Twitch stream of this game, there's basically never a "need" for something, but the difference between typical and optimal can be huge. Imperil and Poison are often major pieces of optimal strategies.

[Odinsknight101]

Originally posted by tiornys:

For other relevant enemies, Imperil doubles your chain-building speed with elemental Ravager attacks by eliminating Half-Element resistances. This can have a huge impact on your chain-building speeds.

Hmm, does that include a foe with a weakness elementt already? For the longest time, I thaught it only increased on HP damage but I never thaught about a possible increase on chaining... Hmm

[Unseen]

I've never killed turtles this fast in the 3 years of playing this game.
You have 14 achievements tiornys, I have all, why is it imperitive I go back to what never worked that good?

[Unseen]

Dont get why how someone else plays a game matters. Play it your way I'll play it mine.

[tiornys]

Originally posted by Odinsknight101:

Hmm, does that include a foe with a weakness elementt already? For the longest time, I thaught it only increased on HP damage but I never thaught about a possible increase on chaining... Hmm

Not if everyone in your party can hit the neutral/weak elements already. Imperil's usefulness varies a lot depending on the elemental characteristics of the enemy.

Originally posted by Nibbles:

I've never killed turtles this fast in the 3 years of playing this game.
You have 14 achievements tiornys, I have all, why is it imperitive I go back to what never worked that good?

Most of my playtime has been on the PS3 because my PC doesn't run the game very well. Every now and then I deal with my ridiculous combat lag to get a little farther on the Steam copy, thus 14 achievements on Steam instead of 0. Meanwhile, on PS3 I've done platinum trophy at least 5 times, not to mention a ton of other playtime related to various challenge play and speedrun goals.

It's not at all imperative for you to change what you're doing if you're having fun. I'm just pointing out that the math doesn't match the hyperbole of your assertions.

[Unseen]

Hyperbole lol.

Ok well see yesterday I was doing the titan trial runs, and I ran into neo ochu, shreded him down to 20% like i've never done before then comes the spam headbutts.
Got beat so I went and bought a belladonna wand, and didn't upgrade it at all. Killed neo by spamming death *yawn* mainly cuz it was late and I was tired.

He died eventually, but what I wanna ask, why would I need to upgrade this thing if its going to make death take longer? Also over 100 magic points is trivial? I dunno how you figure that, stat points in RPG's mean everything. Even in Diablo2 LOD, an annilus charm, which was only 1 skill increase, was worth 10-20 high runes. I dunno how you've came to the conclusion that more damage, isn't as good as spamming debuffs. Especially since the only reason you even need a belladona is to do death, which is hampered at 3rd tier and takes longer.

In most rpgs, even the smallest stat incriment is a big deal.. Unless of course you dont want vanille to own, and you'd rather her play a background support role...

[tiornys]

First point: Belladonna Wand doesn't help you land the instant kill on Death. Death is not a debuff.

Second point: if your primary purpose is to land debuffs faster, you should at least upgrade to minimum level Malboro Wand. Improved Debuffing II is twice as effective as Improved Debuffing.

Third point: Unlike many RPGs, attack stats in FFXIII work linearly. A 100 point increase is a huge deal when your baseline is also 100. In that case you are doubling your damage output. On the other hand, a 100 point increase when your baseline is 3000 has significantly less impact.

This is why I compared the Pearlwing to the Belladonna at all three tiers. Early in the game, when you are unlikely to have tier 2 weapons, your baseline stats are low but the difference between the weapons is also small, so you don't see much relative impact. Later in the game, when you are likely to have tier 2 weapons but not tier 3 weapons, your baseline stats are moderate and so is the difference between the weapons. Again, you aren't likely to see much relative impact. And the same is true of late postgame when you are likely to have maxed tier 3 weapons.

Now, if we're talking NCU play where weapons are basically the only source of stat increase, then the difference is much more noticeable. In those circumstance, it's about a 12% increase in damage. Still small compared with Faith (40%), Deshell (89%), Commando role bonus (100% at level 1--not that you have this NCU), or even skills like Adrenaline (20%--although again, not something you have NCU), but a lot more noticeable than a 3% damage boost.

Besides, if you really want to max Vanille's damage potential, you shouldn't be using either of these weapons.

https://youtu.be/ha_uOWlVk6k

[Unseen]

Well I asked I dont pretend to be a master at 13, why I asked in the first place and everyone said these two but thanks, little late now...

[Unseen]

Game never dies by the way, always something new to do even at max achievements, never understood the hate for this game and I've beaten every numerical FF besides 12. Thanks for your advice I wasn't trying to correct you, just was wondering why status effects are so important, cuz I want vanille to be a powerhouse.