Job Adjustments in March 2015 Update

[Protey]

I'm liking the adjustments (yea new enhancing spell for RDM!), like the set enfeebling duration of enfeebles, what I don't get is why is the potency of Blind based on MND? That is an INT enfeeble. Or is SE making it so magic accuracy is based on INT and potency on MND?

[Zeargi]

I'm liking the adjustments (yea new enhancing spell for RDM!), like the set enfeebling duration of enfeebles, what I don't get is why is the potency of Blind based on MND? That is an INT enfeeble. Or is SE making it so magic accuracy is based on INT and potency on MND?

I think they mean the Target's MND stat as for a resist.

But I'm kind of excited for the SMN stuff. Woot, No more wearing the Twilight Cloak for Impact~!!

[Alhanelem]

Do the changes to Poison / Poison II affect anyone casting these spells or only red mages? Does it also affect poisonga? Do the changes also apply to monsters casting the spells?

[Protey]

Do the changes to Poison / Poison II affect anyone casting these spells or only red mages? Does it also affect poisonga? Do the changes also apply to monsters casting the spells?

was wondering that myself. they put it as a sub bullet under RDM, so one might think it only applies to RDM.

[Akihiko_Matsui]

Hail, adventurers! Matsui here with an update for you.

I would like to inform you that, based on your feedback, we have begun to consider balance adjustments for melee jobs, specifically the thief and samurai, in the March version update.

We are currently looking at adjusting balance in the following two ways:

• The addition of a new spell known as “Ardor”
• The adjustment of certain dagger weapon skills

I would like to share with you the thought process behind these adjustments.

• The addition of Ardor
  In our preview of job adjustments several days prior, we made mention of a new magic spell known as “Ardor.” We elected to add this spell in order to decrease the gaps in damage dealt between the various melee jobs.
  
  As noted in that topic, Ardor increases skillchain damage based on the number of successful melee hits up until the time the weapon skill is activated.
  
  Jobs that often go for long periods of time without using weapon skills will receive stronger bonuses, thereby decreasing the damage gap that currently exists.

• The adjustment of certain dagger weapon skills
  One topic keeps popping up where we hear players discussing the thief: skillchain damage when using weapon skills with Sneak Attack and Trick Attack.
  
  These skills are particularly effective in content such as Wanted battles, where it‘s possible for thieves to accumulate TP in advance and when combat ends in a short period of time, but we believe that this is one of the job’s strengths.
  
  Not all content enables players to accumulate TP in advance the way Wanted battles do, and other melee classes are competitive with thieves in extended combat scenarios.
  
  As such, we wish to avoid adjusting Sneak Attack and Trick Attack, as doing so would be tantamount to destroying part of the thief job’s identity.
  
  However, in its current state thief damage output is on par with or even surpasses that of other melee jobs even in long duration combat, and upon looking at melee jobs as a whole, we cannot deny that thieves are located at the top of the charts in a wide variety of content.
  
  Ardor has an incredibly strong synergy with thieves, who autoattack quite frequently, and thus we expect that their skillchain damage would increase to numbers even higher than they currently are. As such, we believe it necessary to somewhat reduce the potency or certain dagger weaponskills in order to maintain balance with other jobs.
  
  We are currently considering adjusting the following four weaponskills.
  
  

  • Shark Bite
  • Mercy Stroke
  • Mandalic Stab
  • Rudra’s Storm
  These adjustments are meant to normalize damage between melee jobs, and there are some adjustments that can be viewed as nerfs when taken on the individual job level, so we wished to communicate these details to you in advance as we continue to thoroughly discuss this matter.

[MilkMansKid]

Hail, adventurers! Matsui here with an update for you.

I would like to inform you that, based on your feedback, we have begun to consider balance adjustments for melee jobs, specifically the thief and samurai, in the March version update.

We are currently looking at adjusting balance in the following two ways:



I would like to share with you the thought process behind these adjustments.

• The addition of Ardor
  In our preview of job adjustments several days prior, we made mention of a new magic spell known as “Ardor.” We elected to add this spell in order to decrease the gaps in damage dealt between the various melee jobs.
  
  As noted in that topic, Ardor increases skillchain damage based on the number of successful melee hits up until the time the weapon skill is activated.
  
  Jobs that often go for long periods of time without using weapon skills will receive stronger bonuses, thereby decreasing the damage gap that currently exists.

• The adjustment of certain dagger weapon skills
  One topic keeps popping up where we hear players discussing the thief: skillchain damage when using the weapon skills Sneak Attack and Trick Attack
  
  These skills are particularly effective in content such as Wanted battles, where it‘s possible for thieves to accumulate TP in advance and when combat ends in a short period of time, but we believe that this is one of the job’s strengths.
  
  Not all content enables players to accumulate TP in advance the way Wanted battles do, and other melee classes are competitive with thieves in extended combat scenarios.
  
  As such, we wish to avoid adjusting Sneak Attack and Trick Attack, as doing so would be tantamount to destroying part of the thief job’s identity.
  
  However, in its current state thief damage output is on par with or even surpasses that of other melee jobs even in long duration combat, and upon looking at melee jobs as a whole, we cannot deny that thieves are located at the top of the charts in a wide variety of content.
  
  Ardor has an incredibly strong synergy with thieves, who autoattack quite frequently, and thus we expect that their skillchain damage would increase to numbers even higher than they currently are. As such, we believe it necessary to somewhat reduce the potency or certain dagger weaponskills in order to maintain balance with other jobs.
  
  We are currently considering adjusting the following four weaponskills.
  
  
  
  These adjustments are meant to normalize damage between melee jobs, and there are some adjustments that can be viewed as nerfs when taken on the individual job level, so we wished to communicate these details to you in advance as we continue to thoroughly discuss this matter.

All I see here is THF this THF that did you forget that this is a bigger nurf to DNC and BRDs (simple fix change their respective mythic wses to current RS lvls, yes I also now for mythic holders of those 2 jobs it would make them even stronger but not many people actually have them so ) which aren't at the crazy dmg lvls THFs are atm? Also I see you mention SAM then go into no detials so are they or are they not also getting hit with a nurf? Because if there not all you doing is turning it back into what was pre ws update and SAM only then.

[larrymc]

All I see here is THF this THF that did you forget that this is a bigger nurf to DNC and BRDs which aren't at the crazy dmg lvls THFs are atm? Also I see you mention SAM then go into no detials so are they or are they not also getting hit with a nurf? Because if there not all you doing is turning it back into what was pre ws update and SAM only then.

In a sense you are correct, they are going back to pre-ws update - which was "SAM only". And to address that gap between SAM vs everything else they introduce Ardor which boosts jobs that have more attack rounds between weaponskills (2 handed jobs - thf, dnc, nin, blu, etc). It just depends on how potent Ardor will be for those jobs.

[Selindrile]

I would like to inform you that, based on your feedback, we have begun to consider balance adjustments for melee jobs, specifically the thief and samurai, in the March version update.

I live in terror of the inevitable nerfbat.

[Smokenttp]

Without knowing the potency it will be pretty hard to guess but i am not sure if i agree with this, lets assume a scenario that with the new spell it gets as powerfull as it is today this will generate the following:

1- You will need an rdm in your party to deal heavy damage.

2- Depending on the job you will need someone to open the skill chain for you (nerfing the whole purpose of the update wich was to give those jobs more freedom in solo situations) and that is ignoring the main issue at hand (thf) , since thf only gets those real high damage under sneak and trick attack buffs and adjusting the wses will weaken other jobs dmg output (unless you walk with a rdm).

As mentioned earlier i am not sure if its the best aproach,if you need to weaken thf i would rather you power up sneak and/or trick attack and put then under higher cooldown (or you could divide then into sneak attack = the damage ja with higher damage potential + higher cooldown and trick attack the hate control ja with lower or no damage boost at all under a lower cooldown but transfer all the hate like snarl maybe? not sure about it) then lowering the damage on those ws, i mean if you take a look at the axes they are low because of the bst adjustments and all but the ws ended up all quite weak so unless you are a bst you have no reason to use an axe (dual wield axes run are sad), i am not sure if people will use lets say dnc for exemple at all if to funcion well they need a rdm to buff your damage, i mean if you where going with a rdm anyway its all well but what if the rdm is actually not part of your startegy? its a party slot right there and i know even tough this is a way to push back rdm into parties you could consider some other things as well like making possible for it to substitute in a certain extent an already existing job in case no one can find then to play with (see sugestions bellow).

3- Well the spell do absolutely NOTHING if you can not skill chain.

So having this in mind even if the potency for ardor is extremely high im not sure if this is the best way to deal with the current nerf issue (sneak/trick attack damage) but it might be indeed a good way for other jobs to try to catch up a bit.


Now for some off topic sugestions since matsui is watching this post, could you please consider adding some sort of occult amem (rebalancing this would be nice as well like giving it in lower levels , for more jobs naturally and adjusting poetncy) for healing magic as well? (giving it to both hybrid jobs and whm with the higher potency version on whm and a lower poetency on hybrids but let then have occult amem as well, also consider some form of tp switching ja between smn avatars and player).

The reason is that mages get some pretty interresting utility wses like shattersoul but barely use it because they have to stay safe.

As for rdm enfeenbling magics could you actually consider giving some more distract like debuffs for rdm with more things that geo has (not as potent as geo and i know its really hard to balance those but i would love to see things like a direct defense/acc/magic defence/attack/magic attack down line of debuffs on rdm as well (give it 2 tiers like with distract making tier 1 subjob level and tier 2 stronger on higher levels the same way you did with distract)).

I do realise some of those are covered with blind , bio , dia etc and that they can stack with those as well as with the geo equivalent but this would put rdm back in track as an enfeenbling user as well as giving some interresting tools as a subjob option.

And finally could you consider a buff on crusade( the nin version as well)? this was a step on the right direction with the tanking issue but i think that the potency is still a bit low.

Sorry for the long post and thanks for your attention.

[Conini]

Rudra’s Nerf.
Can’t really say I’m shocked… in fact, I’m surprised this didn’t come sooner.
(Inb4 they’re not going to nerf sam)
What strikes me as odd is to nerf the entire series of decent weaponskills for a job rather than simply nerf SaTa and Climactic Flourish, if it really needed that type of balance. Climactic doesn’t do as much damage as a SaTa’d weaponskill, on that note. So is this update really just to nerf non-mythic DNC? I suppose we’re going back to the Mesozoic era where the only way a DNC could keep up in content
(Without having a RDM casting on them? I’m just going to pretend I didn’t read about “Ardor”- you mean the skillchain damage we can’t do because no one cares about skillchains and would rather ruin it because they feel like parsing while losing is far better than winning the content while losing the parse is far greater?)
Is to have a mythic, due to the fact that Pyrrhic without mythic is NOWHERE on-par to Rudra’s spamming. Nice, I thought that was the entire thing about Adoulin- getting away from a huge gap between Mythic and Non-Mythic. Because let’s face it- Winning the DMG Chart > Skillchaining to Victory it won’t happen in this day and age- unless this new content revolves around skillchaining (which still kills content for non-mythic DNC).