Magic damage calculations

As someone who's wasted time caring about magic damage on Ebony Puddings in a vain attempt to approach 9,000 exp/hr any day of the Vana'diel week, I've found the so-called magic damage formula to be quite useful in getting my hopes up. I've also wondered why no one ever bothered listing the "base damage" values ("V values" in the FFXIclopedia article) of offensive spells other than black magic for the sake of reference.

After further investigation, I managed to dig up a reference of "magic D values" not only for black magic but also for white magic and ninjutsu, along with some other sundry details. Earlier, I endeavored to calculate the D-value for the ni line of elemental ninjutsu, and I was happy to find out that I managed to get the right value (78). Interestingly, the san line has a D-value of 105 and a multiplier of 1.5, so you can pretty much dismiss claims of 400-500 damage from san spells as the result of targeting tiny mandies. (You certainly can't do that well on Ebony Puddings.)

As an example, suppose you had +40 MAB (24 from /BLM, 5 from Moldavite, 8 from Uggalepih Pendant, 3 from Denali Kecks), 40 INT from equipment and an elemental staff to boost damage further. If you're a taru with no INT merits (74 INT), your dINT will be 25 going up against an Ebony Pudding (INT 89). Based on this, I computed the damage to a pudding from a san spell to be 285. 400+ damage, where?

Going back to my previous rigmarole about great axe break weapon skills, I confirmed for myself that the unresisted duration of their debuffs should be 180/270/360 seconds corresponding to 100/200/300 TP; in a partially resisted case, the duration is lowered to 90/180/270 seconds, or by exactly 90 seconds. (Finally, I got a Full Break where the accuracy down was partially resisted and the other effects weren't. The time difference between accuracy down wearing off and the rest wearing off was exactly 90 seconds.)

It's kind of funny that these durations are easy to confirm compared to the degree of the debuff effects, yet the reported debuff effects are treated as gospel while the reported durations are obviously wrong now (allowing for the possibility that they used to be 3/4/5 minutes unresisted).

Based on what we know about the effects of the break weapon skills, I have to wonder whether the accuracy down effect of Blade: Kamu can be resisted (lowered duration). That would depend I suppose on whether Blade: Kamu has an associated element (probably earth, but who knows yet...). Break WSes are never used in practice, anyway, and I wouldn't count on Blade: Kamu either, especially if its effect is really accuracy -10 as listed on Studio Gobli currently. There are probably better things to do with your TP, especially subbing dancer in a soloing context.

Ninjutsu damage and break WS duration, two things that I've always wondered about and that I finally know more about. Hooray for utterly useless knowledge, yet arguably better than talking about income from chocobo racing or heaven forbid, gear I want to primp and preen in.