First, Tarutaru Times Online no longer indexes new blog entries. Second, I have decided to stop writing about FFXI in general, so this blog will not be updated further.
However, I would like to share one last thing that I am looking into at the moment. I am calculating the INT of various "Zeni Notorious Monsters" based on data I've collected over the past few weeks.
Frankly, calculating INT should be a trivial exercise since potential (maximum) magic damage is not a function of a random variable, but I wasted a lot of time looking into the effects of magic defense bonus. Before considering possible MDB, you should first consider reductions in magic damage taken. Most of the time any overall reduction in magic damage is the result of a reduction in magic damage taken, not magic defense bonus. I am not sure to what decimal place the game rounds the ratio of MAB/MDB, either, so I would mess with that only as a last resort. (To the hundredths place? Thousandths?)
To give an example, Apkallus in general appear to take a 25% reduction in magic damage (64/256). Lil' Apkallu, then, also takes a 25% reduction in magic damage. Knowing this, it is easy to confirm what Lil' Apkallu's INT is. Other ZNMs also appear to take a similar magic damage reduction.
As another example, Verdelet does not have any magic damage reduction, so it's even easier to calculate its INT.
However, I will not give out these values as I do not feel particularly compelled anymore to share basic things to a collectively ignorant "playerbase." Fine, not everyone understands basic statistics and probability, but anyone can gather data; it's even easier to gather data automatically with a parser.
Regrettably, the magic damage formula on FFXIclopedia is incorrect in various ways, most critically the application of rounding and the order of factors that contribute to the calculation. Refer to wiki.ffo.jp for the correct expression.