Obsidian Fire
Ahk Morn!
- AKA
- The Engineer
So on my current FFVII play-through, I got curious as to what the actual spell power of all the spells are as well as how the All materia and Quadra materia effected that. After doing some research, I found that there wasn't any easy way to compare the spell powers of different spells, so I went and made myself a spreadsheet of them organized by element.
Here's the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19yYD8v0Zc4PLyStXzkakP79FwCFW2xfxDBa6Bkz6QLY/edit?usp=sharing
I'll probably be doing a few different formats so that it's easier to sort based on MP, Spell Power, etc. as well as some more in-game testing (Life2 + Quadra?!?!). If any of you happen to notice any errors, let me know so I can fix them. I'll probably post the spreadsheets up on Steam once I'm done with them.
Stuff I noticed:
The maximum Base Magic Damage (BMD) is 6 x (99 + 255) = 2124. In order to get the max damage with a single spell at max stats, the spell needs to have a multiplier of at least 4.7076. If an enemy is weak to a given element, then the spell needs to have a multiplier of 2.3538. Given that most spells have a multiplier greater then this, you usually don't need a max magic stat to reach the damage cap on spells if you're exploiting elemental weaknesses.
Non-Elemental magic has the most spells, followed by Fire and Lightning. Lighting however has the most high-damage spells that share elements, so it's less useful then it could be. Fittingly, Non-Elemental spells have the highest multipliers, but nothing is weak/strong against them.
Ice magic is the worst off of the traditional elements (Fire, Ice, Lightning) as it has no Enemy Skill with it's element and both of it's high-damage spells share elements. The most damage you can put out with only Ice magic is Freeze=Quadra (11.875 x BMD) on a single target or Shiva=Quadra (3 x BMD) on multiple targets.
Lightning is slightly better and worse then Ice as it only has Bolt3=Quadra ( 8 x BMD) on singles, with Ramuh=Quadra doing (3.75 x BMD) on multiples. It's more flexible then Ice though as Lighting has the Enemy Skill Trine which costs less then Bolt 2 and nearly matches Bolt3=All in power.
Fire is the favored element and can get up to Flare=Quadra (14.375 x BMD) on a single target and Phoenix=Quadra (7.5 x BMD) on multiples. It's got two Enemy Skills, one single, one multiple, and while Flamethrower isn't anything special as far as MP to Spell power cost goes, Beta manages to be both more powerful then Fire3=All and costs less. It even competes with Phoenix as it's much more efficient in it's MP usage (you can cast Beta 5 times for every 1 cast of Phoenix).
The main advantage of Summons is that they can effect multiple enemies for no damage reduction. This is very obvious with the Quadra materia as they can essentially double their damage output for no MP cost. With normal magic materia you either have to chose multiple enemies (All materia) or power (Quadra materia). With Summon=Quadra you can have both.
Restoration magic is the odd element out in regards to "damage" calculation. Instead of multiplying the BMD by a constant, it adds the BMD to a fixed number. The most healing that can be done with Cure3 is 4984 HP. After this, FullCure becomes an option, but even that is outstripped by White Wind which costs a third of FullCure (half of Cure3) and can heal everyone in the part at once (nevermind remove most status effects).
Except in a very few cases, the Enemy Skill materia gives the most efficient use of MP as well as the most efficient use of Materia Slots. Notable exceptions to this would be Flamethrower, which costs more then double what Fire1 does, for less then double it's damage, and Pandora's Box, which does less piercing damage then Bahamut does for more MP. Really, the only negative thing about the Enemy Skill materia is that you can't link it to All or Quadra...
Gravity is one of the stranger elements with how it plays with All and Quadra. Mostly because it's based on the targets current HP at the time of casting. The first weird thing is that the Enemy Skill Laser is functionally identical to Demi2, but costs half the MP of it. So there's no reason to use Demi2 against single targets. Linking All to Graviy brings fairly straightforward results, at least as far as the math goes. Demi3 is now as powerful as single target Demi2, and Demi2 is a little stronger then single target Demi. Quadra is where it gets messy. With Quadra, the spell is cast four times and each time it's based on the HP of the target at casting time. Worse, the power of each Demi Spell is divided by 2. Functionally speaking, this means that Demi is now at (HP / 8), Demi2 is at (HP / 4) and Demi3 is at (HP * 3 / 8). Put this together and the output of Gravity with Quadra is actually a power decrease not an increase.
Status Effects are usually percentages of success. It appears that All does not affect these, but Quadra does; it halves them. The exception are percentages that are already at 100. These aren't effected by Quadra.
Here's the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19yYD8v0Zc4PLyStXzkakP79FwCFW2xfxDBa6Bkz6QLY/edit?usp=sharing
I'll probably be doing a few different formats so that it's easier to sort based on MP, Spell Power, etc. as well as some more in-game testing (Life2 + Quadra?!?!). If any of you happen to notice any errors, let me know so I can fix them. I'll probably post the spreadsheets up on Steam once I'm done with them.
Stuff I noticed:
The maximum Base Magic Damage (BMD) is 6 x (99 + 255) = 2124. In order to get the max damage with a single spell at max stats, the spell needs to have a multiplier of at least 4.7076. If an enemy is weak to a given element, then the spell needs to have a multiplier of 2.3538. Given that most spells have a multiplier greater then this, you usually don't need a max magic stat to reach the damage cap on spells if you're exploiting elemental weaknesses.
Non-Elemental magic has the most spells, followed by Fire and Lightning. Lighting however has the most high-damage spells that share elements, so it's less useful then it could be. Fittingly, Non-Elemental spells have the highest multipliers, but nothing is weak/strong against them.
Ice magic is the worst off of the traditional elements (Fire, Ice, Lightning) as it has no Enemy Skill with it's element and both of it's high-damage spells share elements. The most damage you can put out with only Ice magic is Freeze=Quadra (11.875 x BMD) on a single target or Shiva=Quadra (3 x BMD) on multiple targets.
Lightning is slightly better and worse then Ice as it only has Bolt3=Quadra ( 8 x BMD) on singles, with Ramuh=Quadra doing (3.75 x BMD) on multiples. It's more flexible then Ice though as Lighting has the Enemy Skill Trine which costs less then Bolt 2 and nearly matches Bolt3=All in power.
Fire is the favored element and can get up to Flare=Quadra (14.375 x BMD) on a single target and Phoenix=Quadra (7.5 x BMD) on multiples. It's got two Enemy Skills, one single, one multiple, and while Flamethrower isn't anything special as far as MP to Spell power cost goes, Beta manages to be both more powerful then Fire3=All and costs less. It even competes with Phoenix as it's much more efficient in it's MP usage (you can cast Beta 5 times for every 1 cast of Phoenix).
The main advantage of Summons is that they can effect multiple enemies for no damage reduction. This is very obvious with the Quadra materia as they can essentially double their damage output for no MP cost. With normal magic materia you either have to chose multiple enemies (All materia) or power (Quadra materia). With Summon=Quadra you can have both.
Restoration magic is the odd element out in regards to "damage" calculation. Instead of multiplying the BMD by a constant, it adds the BMD to a fixed number. The most healing that can be done with Cure3 is 4984 HP. After this, FullCure becomes an option, but even that is outstripped by White Wind which costs a third of FullCure (half of Cure3) and can heal everyone in the part at once (nevermind remove most status effects).
Except in a very few cases, the Enemy Skill materia gives the most efficient use of MP as well as the most efficient use of Materia Slots. Notable exceptions to this would be Flamethrower, which costs more then double what Fire1 does, for less then double it's damage, and Pandora's Box, which does less piercing damage then Bahamut does for more MP. Really, the only negative thing about the Enemy Skill materia is that you can't link it to All or Quadra...
Gravity is one of the stranger elements with how it plays with All and Quadra. Mostly because it's based on the targets current HP at the time of casting. The first weird thing is that the Enemy Skill Laser is functionally identical to Demi2, but costs half the MP of it. So there's no reason to use Demi2 against single targets. Linking All to Graviy brings fairly straightforward results, at least as far as the math goes. Demi3 is now as powerful as single target Demi2, and Demi2 is a little stronger then single target Demi. Quadra is where it gets messy. With Quadra, the spell is cast four times and each time it's based on the HP of the target at casting time. Worse, the power of each Demi Spell is divided by 2. Functionally speaking, this means that Demi is now at (HP / 8), Demi2 is at (HP / 4) and Demi3 is at (HP * 3 / 8). Put this together and the output of Gravity with Quadra is actually a power decrease not an increase.
Status Effects are usually percentages of success. It appears that All does not affect these, but Quadra does; it halves them. The exception are percentages that are already at 100. These aren't effected by Quadra.
