I had a debate with a ls friend:
A blm who casts Drain on a monster even with full HP will still do damage. If for example a THF use bloody bolts even being full hp, and if the bloody effect proc, even if it's written for 0, do the mob get its hp down?
In fact, do i have to be missing some hp to fully profit from the bloody effect, i mean dmg+ drain hp down
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Tested: Drain effect still drains HP even when you're at full. --Kamatari 22:29, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Does Magic Attack Bonus affect Bloody Bolts?
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Does INT really affect this? There was a huge discussion on the Scholar Forums about Aspir/Drain and it's been concluded through many tests that INT and MAB does NOT affect Drain or Aspir - Dark Magic Skill seems to be the only thing that affects Drain / Aspir (MAB does not appear to affect the spells Drain or Aspir either). So I'm willing to wager that the amount of HP drained (or dmg dealt) is based upon (purely) your Marksmanship Skill, secondary enhancements to this would be things like if an enemy was weak to piercing (which I have noticed 95HP drained from birds).
Just to clarify questions asked: Yes, these will still do damage if your HP is full if they proc (ie: Will say HP returned 0, but it does the damage.) Also, if you (like me) tend to land a bolt returning in 76 dmg, but only have 31 hp less than max, it will say "31 HP returned" but still do the damage of the 76 (unless resisted). I don't believe MAB affects it, nor can I image why it would.
Not sure if this stays true later on or changes to a higher amount, but when fighting a normal mob (ie: not weak or strong against piercing or dark magic), I tend to get a few different numbers 95% of the time. I usually get 76HP returned, then a small resistance results in 55% hp returned, the next stage seems to be 32% then 16% then nothing. I use these often as even if I'm at full health, they still do 76 DMG which is more than most my single attacks. (Note: At time of writing, my Marksmanship is ~100 (give or take 5 points)).--Setherio 20:48, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
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Tested with INT gear and /blm sub to lower enemy's INT vs spiders. Incresing your INT, or lowering the target's INT, by 1 will increase drain damage by 1 until about 75 HP. After that, it takes a change of 2 int to increase the drain damage. Midgarkc 06:45, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
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Just verified with INT potion giving me +7 INT. I went from 83 to 95 drain on same mob. Setherio 21:14, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
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Was level synched with a THF/WAR in the Dunes as RNG/NIN at lvl 25 working on page 4. Forgot to change out of Bloody Bolt to Acid Bolt for Split Shot and noticed my hp went up ~ 90 points and the mob took far more damage than the 42 the WS did. Continued to use Bloody Bolts when using Marksmanship WS and was getting consistent 85-90 hp, unless missed or the damage of the WS killed the mob.
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Tested 15/15 bloody bolts on mimics, which are suppose to have low darkness resistance.
Test subject: Treasure chest(Pso'Xia)
Drain effect hit for 37 most of the time, the lowest being 18, with a 74 Hume thf/nin 64 int.