Question Concerning Magic Device [main]

Prinny Rule #1 You shall always include the word "dood" in every line you say.

As most of you know, Magic Devices have exceptional growth in both physical and magic attack, simultaneously with Int, dood. But one of their major weaknesses is the lack of skills that would support magic devices (the other weakness being a lack of a sub weapon), dood. Magic skills are consistently stronger with staffs rather than magic devices (with the rare exception of impact and arrows), and there are no notable physical skills (that I can tell) that give their bonus no-limit-ed... dood.

Before you tell me that certain spells maintain more ticks than staffs, each tick for magic devices are weak enough for the overall damage to be less. (Except for arrow)
Lances:

Staff does 3 ticks at 150% damage: 3*1.5=4.5
Magic Device does 4 ticks at 100% damage: 4*1=4
​

The thought of being able to easily use both physical and magic at a high degree is tantalizing, but honestly, what no limit / no bonus skills are effective enough to consider using for magic device main?

I suppose that since 2h can use martial skills well due to sheer physical attack (and that magic devices have the same physical growth), a martial magic device is something to consider... except that Int provides no critical damage boost in the slightest.

Consider the clause that you would have to use magic devices in a boss battle. What would you do with it? I suppose that splitting between physical and magic is asking for an overall weaker character, but suppose that you use a combo only maintaining consecutive, and alternating the strongest no limit magic and physical...

...dood.

Okay I rambled a lot there, sorry. The basic question is, "What is the redeeming value of magic devices [main weapon] (not farming mobs)?"

 

You can impact things to death reliably. A 60k impaact over 20k is cool.

 

You can fly

 

I once tried building around additional magic.... And well magic device does decent with main stats from agi and int, i cant say its good tho... add.magic with only a proc rate of 20% is really bad... And the highest ive done is only around 60k tops...

 

The bigger wall is pretty useful to keep unwanted boss minions away, I used it a few times while tanking because of that (theres also many md's with resistance stats good for tanks) but damage wise,
Theres nothing we can do right now except wait and see if at lvl150 we get a skill that makes md more superior than staff... doodette

 

the bigger AoE of MD magic is more effective than most people think, especially against bosses.

the big wall is a much better shield and in some bosses like Nurethoth it makes you almost invincible to normal attacks.
blast has the largest area and with the extra size of the MD it can even hit off-screen.
the suck effect of storm depends on the monster size and most bosses are very resistant or immune to it.
with the extra range you have a much higher chance to hit and trigger the suck effect, since the boss is exposed to it for a longer time.

the extra hit from lances is 1 more chance to inflict stop, and javelin has a 70% chance to inflict status ailments.
power wave is also much better, it deals 120% damage while staffs get only 90%.

and the extra magic pierce on holy light is more useful than the small power boost of the staff.

=(^.^)=

 

Skill trees outside of magic that work well with md are everything in support tree, kick and traps from hunter tree, anything except healing in priest tree, martial without knuckles won't be much useful, and being a pokemon trainer not sound bad.
If only it can be subbed with others especially knuckles , agi md with martial build might be better than agi knuckles if considering skill bonuses and weapon penalties.

 

fellow disgaea nerd spotted.... dood.

 

I tried =)

level 73 toon now. using this combo, stat is full investment on int. crappy gear thus, only having around 1100 matk, 500 atk

Smash/sonic wave > Shell break (save) > Impact (smite) > javelin (swift)

holy fist > Impact (smite) > smash (con) > Shell break (con)
or
impact > Heavy smash (smite) > smash (con) > Shell break (con)

Heavy smash at level 1 dealt 7k, I'm guessing it will be abt 10k at level 10.

you play like a brawler on steroids. my max damage for impact for the first combo is roughly 13k at volg hard, which is decent but nothing compared to dedicated dps builds. the 150% smite yielded almost double that amount, 22k. for comparison, my level 71 brawler's (arnd 450-500 atk) tkick yielded 11-12k damage at 90%--crap gears and no impact save.

Now I claimed many attacker rank by spamming, which incurred the wraths of many many fu builds. But the main purpose of the build is in interrupting and locking the boss in place. Storm mages absolutely love you with all the magical proration and stunlocking.

What many players fail to see is the sheer spammability of the skill impact--I'd execute the first combo thrice before a damage build finishes his long save smite combos. I'll recover the mp with shell break and either go for the burst damage combo or continue spamming.

Once int is maxed, you can either go vit or agi. Vit to support the team better as a dedicated semi tank or agi to increase your physical damage even further. I'm choosing vit, and intending to switch to drills main, md sub to get a boost in proc chance of shell break and 100% accuracy while forgoing any form of physical damage in the process.

I'm hoping level 150 skills have a couple that get bonus damage with md used, so it doesn't become obsolete in a boss fight.