Category:Helix

Helix spells are Scholar-exclusive, elemental Damage Over Time spells that work as follows:

• The Helix deals initial Magic Damage as a regular Elemental Magic spell (with one notable exception).
• This initial damage is repeated every Tock, which first occurs 1-10 seconds after the cast then every 10 seconds thereafter.
  • Although the initial damage is uncapped, the DoT effect is capped at 9,999 damage per tock.
  • Modus Veritas compresses the effect of an active Helix effect into half the time.
• Helix spells used with Immanence confer exceptionally long Skillchain and Magic Burst windows (two seconds longer).
• Tier 1 Helix spells will overwrite any active Tier 1 Helix effect on the enemy, but not Tier 2.
• Tier 2 Helix spells will overwrite any active Helix effect on the enemy.
• For all the reasons above, it's recommended to use Tier 1 Helix spells for creating Skillchains and Tier 2 for performing Magic Bursts.

Helix Element Pyrohelix/II Cryohelix/II Anemohelix/II Geohelix/II Ionohelix/II Hydrohelix/II Luminohelix/II Noctohelix/II

Helix Damage and Duration

All Helices of each tier deal the same amount of damage (same M and V). However, enemies are more susceptible to the full power of a Helix if the Helix is of the element they are weak against, and Helices can be enhanced by currently active weather/day, so pick your element wisely. Helices have been given a tiered duration structure that is based on current Scholar level, so a /SCH is limited to 60 second helices at most.

Day/Weather Bonus and Helices

If a related day or/and weather is active, Helices will receive the day/weather damage bonus or penalty 100% of the time even without an Elemental Obi.

Merit Points

Despite Scholar's tier one merit description saying "Increases . . . Magic Attack Bonus", this effect is actually a percentile increase. Thus, each merit increases helix damage by 2% for a total of 10% damage increase for both tiers of Helix.

Modus Veritas

Modus Veritas doubles the helix' damage per tic but halves its remaining duration. Any Scholar can use this on an active helix, but it can only be used once per helix and is notoriously inaccurate on high level monsters. It used to not be this way, but the exploitation potential (doubling a 50 damage helix ten times would do over 50000 damage in a single tick) caused it to be patched. Modus Veritas does not allow the DoT effect to surpass the 9,999 damage cap.

Dark Arts

Using Dark Arts with Scholar main job increases the duration and base damage of Helices. This appears to be purely a level-dependent effect, and is under testing (See the Talk page).

• It is known that level 99 Scholar receives a 24 base damage bonus and has their Helix duration extended to 168 seconds (18 ticks) when they cast with Dark Arts active.

Tabula Rasa

Using Tabula Rasa also gives a bonus to Helix potency (and potentially duration) that appears to be 50% more than the Dark Arts bonus.

References

• Helix testing on the Test Server (Foldypaws, BG)
• Dark Arts test server announcement (Camate, OF)
• Helix merit damage increase (CDF, BG)
• Testing indicating the helix DoT cap (Bismarck.Squah, FFXIAH)
  • Further confirmation of the helix cap (vanafratello)
• Helix II testing (CDF, BG)