About the Artemis' Medal

Introduction

One of the new items brought about by the version update that introduced Abyssea and raised the level cap to 80 was an Artemis' Medal,

The Artemis' Medal drops from Cannered Noz, a force-pop NM in Abyssea-Tahrongi.

The Bluegartr forums had a quick post that documented some of the testing behind the medal- namely how much MAB it gives based on the moon phase. They were pretty spot on, but the testing seemed to be left incomplete. There was also a lot of conflicting information regarding how the medal worked on other websites, like FFXIclopedia and FFXIah, so this was an open invitation to complete the test and set some numbers straight.

Results

I won't bore you with the details of the testing, but the results can be summarized with the following diagram:

Some points to take note:

• The MAB gains is not tied to the actual moon percentage, but is instead linked to the moon phase.
• Both Gibbous and Crescent stages are split into two moon phases, but the in-game command, /clock does not differentiate between the two.

Analysis

As of now, this is the best neckpiece for damage in the game, of course, depending on the moon phase. After all, +10 MAB is nothing to scoff at, even if it doesn't happen all that often.

But we don't want to carry around situational pieces of equipment like this, so how does it interact with the other neckpieces in the game, namely the Uggalepih Pendant and Goetia Chain? (Or if you're RDM or SCH, Lemegeton Medallion +1).

Based on my previous post comparing INT and MAB, I know that (at least for me) 1MAB is roughly equal to 1INT. Using this as a rough guide, we can say that Goetia Chain adds roughly 3.8MAB, while Lemegeton Medallion +1 adds roughly 2.7MAB.

From here, the analysis is easy- Artemis Medal is king until the MAB bonus reaches +6, where you will want to start swapping in Uggalepih Pendants. After that, you will continue using Artemis' Medal until the MAB bonus reaches +3 before swapping in Goetia Chain, or +1 before swapping in Lemegeton Medallion +1. Still, notice that even against a Goetia Chain, an Artemis' Medal will still be better more than half (7/12ths) the time!

That's all fine and dandy, but the next question comes from all Spellcast users- how do I script all this?

Unfortunately, the designers up in Square-Enix and their infinite wisdom (/sarcasm) made it such that the moon cycle is not actually symmetric. That is to say, if you wanted to use the moon percentage to determine which neckpiece to use, there isn't actually a set number. The last day on the Early Waxing Gibbous has a moon phase of 71% and the first day of the Late Waxing Gibbous has a moon phase of 74%. The problem is, the last day of Early Waning Gibbous is at 79%, while the first day of Late Waning Gibbous is 76%, so no matter what number you pick, you will miss out on some optimization somewhere.

In pseudocode, the process might look something like this:

equip "Artemis' Medal"

if(moonphase < 73)

{

   if(moon phase < 30)

   {

      equip "Goetia Chain"

   } 

   if(MP after cast < 50%)

   {

      equip "Uggalepih Pendant"

   }

}

As for the actual code, well, I'll figure this xml jazz out eventually. :)

Of course, adjust the numbers if you're not using a Goetia Chain. In addition, I haven't quite pinned down the transition times between Waning Crescent or Waxing Crescent subphases, so that's something to look out for.