Skill chains? Magic Bursts?

[Gryphon]

Can anyone fill me in on these? the whole subject is confusing...

[Inquisitor]

It's a matter of timing.

Certian skills "stack" to create extra damage of a certain type, and if the BLM times it right, after the skill chain completes, you can fire a certain type of spell and get a "magic burst" for even more damage.

So, the melees engage the mob, and build up TP to 100% plus.

Before the fight, they'll agree on an order and set macros to notify everyone when they are ready. You wnat to create a skill chain that does extra elemental damage that the mob you are fighting is weak to, and follow it up with the appropriate nuke.

It's timed, the first weapon skill starts it off, and basically when the animation from the first finishes, the second melee should start their weapon skill, it it's timed right, you'll get the chain.

BLM's start their spell casting about when the second animation finishes and you see the skil chain f/x.

As far as what does what, our resident samurai will have to answer it, they are the weapons skills expert. I usually just ask whet nuke they want me to put down and where they want me to put it, or just follow the BLM's lead.

[Stracius]

What quiz said, that's the nutshell. Here're a guide I found on the subject.

Renkei and Bursts

Here is a Renkei chart that shows the skillchains, along with a brief tutorial. Pretty nice if only to have lying around for reference.

As I said before though, you really won't have to worry about this for quite a while. Still, it's good to start somewhere.

[Eriyalle]

Here is a thread about this on my linkshell's forums as well in case you may find the info helpful. About the 2nd or 3rd post down Tang finally gets into the guts of the matter.

Alot of players get lazy and don't bother setting up skillchains across all levels of exp parties, but I highly encourage ya'll to practice doing them and then insist on making them in the parties you get into. The added damage, especially when you can hit a skillchain that targets the monster's elemental weakness, helps things die faster. And faster death = faster chains = more exp for everyone.

~e

[BlackDove]

Like I said Strac, only the three sites.

Renkei Guide

Addenak keeps the chart updated (the one above is 2.1, the current is 4.2+ - many MANY changes happened - but the SC chart doesn't concern you much - it is for the Samurai to memorise).

Adennak's Chart

Currently being updated with Aht Urghan skills so it changes quite frequently.

What's a Skill Chain? Basically, two Weapon Skills or more. Weapon Skills are what melee fighters get when they maul enough with their weapon (similar to your Black Magic status increasing with use of the magics). The Weapon Skills (henceforth WS') are all different for all types of weapons, and they do one or sometimes two elements of damage, depending on their position in the SC.

So, as you can see on that list - if a Samurai with his Great Katana uses Tachi: Enpi and that WS is followed by the Small Axe's Rampage, the resulting skillchain is Distortion, which carries the elements of Ice/Water.

There are 3 levels of skillchains.

Level 1 is a Skillchain that carries only one element.

Level 2 Skillchain carries two elements.

Level 3 Skillchain is special, and reserved only for high level weaponskills (which is near endgame).

Basically, no matter what anyone tells you, you want to go for the Level 2 skillchains at all times. Why? The Magic Burst.

Skillchains by themselves, unless the following WS after the first one does a lot of damage - are useless. The thing that it is important for is the Magic Burst that Black Mages and high level Red Mages can do.

Which is why it is best to do a Level 2 skillchain. A mage has the choice of doing a magic burst with TWO spells instead of only one. Plus, Level 2 Skillchains do 65% of the second WS damage rather than 50% which is a story not meant for you.

So.

A bunch of level 1 skillchains which you do when there's no SAM around.

When SAM is present you do the following:

Distortion you can MB with Ice and Water spells

Fusion you can MB with Fire and Light spells

Fragmentation you can MB with Wind and Lightning spells

Gravitation is with Dark and Earth spells

Usually, it's just Distortion, because mage has high Blizzard and Water spells earlier than other ones, and most monsters take a heavy beating from those elements.

So, how do you time it?

People usually do this in seconds. And for a Black Mage, I assume seconds for countdown are important. This is how everyone performs an SC:

One guy does the first Weapon Skill - Second guy waits for the first weaponskill's animation on the monster to finish, then he starts his weaponskill. If they did it withing 3 seconds of eachother, one after the other (after animation finishes from the first), the animation for the SC will start and 50-65% of the damage from the Second weaponskill will be transfered to the mob. Naturally if the mob cons to the element with a defensive resistance, the damage will be lower.

This is where the BLM comes in. After the SKILLCHAIN ANIMATION finishes, the mage has a 1-2 second window to get his spell in. If the spell is cast within 2 seconds after the SC animation ended, you will Magic Burst automatically.

How to time it? For the low end spells that you're using, know how much it takes you to cast them, and learn how much time it takes for the second WS and the SC animation to finish.

So example:

The Second WS Animation lasts for 5 seconds. The SC animation lasts for 3 seconds. Your spell needs 4 seconds to be cast.

You count the five seconds from the second animation, and as soon as that's finished, you start casting your spell. Cast time counts down, the SC animation finishes and your spell is cast performing a Magic Burst.

Fairly simple once you get the hang of it, but that is until Ancient spells come in like Freeze which take 14 seconds to cast - then the person who's starting the skillchain needs to time it to YOUR spell and not the other way around like it's normally done (but we'll get to that when you're level 40+)

I hope that clarifies it somewhat.

Oh and education - why is Samurai the Skillchian Master? Samurai's WS' are all over the board with different effects - we can close and open almost all of them with our weaponskills, as you can see in that chart there. Samurai also gains TP the fastest in the game (if he has freaking +acc gear and is able to hit which isn't my case because the shit's expensive -_-) then he can skillchain twice with two melee's in the group, therein giving the mage the opportunity to MB twice - more MB's, more damage, mob dies quicker.

Hope that explains it somewhat.

[Stracius]

Like I said Strac, only the three sites.

If the sites were as easy to navigate and quickly find the information as it is to look here, then he wouldn't be asking here would he?

*flutters eyelashes at BD innocently*

Nice explanation though. Stuff I'll need to start considering myself.

[Eriyalle]

To give some additional party options in case there aren't any SAM around, DRG can also hit almost all of the skillchain boxes for a wide variety of flexibility, and THF who have adequately leveled thier skills and carry thier weapon sets on them (sword, dagger, h2h) should be able to maneuvar into most of the boxes. Of course... working with us thieves can be tricky because we tend to demand you let us use weaponskills that stack with sneak attack. ~_^ And some thieves are just prissy and demanding for no reason at all.

The whole world gets pretty stuck on distortion (ice/water), but fusion (fire/light), and (my fave) fragmentation (thunder / wind) can also be very powerful.

The trickiest part of the chains is the timing, but with a little practice and having a macro set that you get yourself used to you can be a pro!

~e

PS - I LOVE this *smack* smily face. I think I'm going to start using it for everything! /blush

[Reeza]

just wanted to say on this

Timing wise i found the easiest and most successfull way for me was as soon as i seen the
"xxx readies xxx attack" start to count to 3, on 3 set of mine and bam well i macro'd my skill to wait 3 seconds then go off, it was 99% successfull me, lag usually the cause of a flop, same for magic bursts, just need to look at the chart pick the spell, count to 3 after the second part of the chain message appears and cast.

Impaction and thunder ...... mmm

[BlackDove]

Level 2 SC's FTL

Darkness and Light FTW!