Thoughts on the FFXI Job Adjustment Manifesto

[Sasaraixx]

Same here and I'm at work so I can't look for it. I should have waited and looked that up before I responded so as not to talk out of my backside

I'll check when I get home.

[Muras]

Regen spells could use a casting time reduction in general,

This. I came to reply specifically to this, and I'm glad to see someone else feels the same way. I've talked about this before with friends of mine in game as well and we all agreed that it was too inefficient to use Regen spells because of their long cast time.

For example, I suppose the theory behind Regen spells is that they're used to complement the main cures. However, if your tank or whatever is taking damage, he usually needs a cure right now, so you use basic cure spells. You usually top off their HP and at that point, so there's no reason to use a Regen spell because his HP is full, and higher tier Regen spells last such a short time that if the HP is topped off, the extra HP from Regen may never have been any use since the target never took damage during the window Regen was up.

Basically, I think it should be looked at like this:
Regen: Slow HP recovery, so faster cast time.
Cures: Instant HP Recovery, slower cast time (In comparison to Regen).

This way, Regen spells can be something you can toss up in between cure spells, which would be awesome.

However...

Light Arts isn't going to make it MP efficient for White Mages unless White Mages are getting the full buffs Scholars are and it doubles the effect or duration.

If I'm not mistaken, I think they've said in a previous post that these changes to Light/Dark arts would only effect SCH main. And I don't think WHM benefiting from this is supposed to be the point, either. SE has said that instead of giving us Cure V, this is supposed to be SCH's "healing fix", or something. I'm not entirely sure though, so it would be great if Camate or another rep could give us details on this.

Adloquium could use a boost with Light Arts or skill.

This too. 1 TP a tick is waaaay too little and not worth my 40 MP (Light Arts) and 5 seconds of wasted cast time. Not only is it 1 TP a tick, it's only 60 TP for it's full duration (Or 150 with Perpetuance and +2 hands over 7.5 mins). 60 TP isn't even a single WS, and it's over the course of 3 minutes. That doesn't sound silly to the dev team? I pretty much use the spell as a joke:

Me: Here ya go, Regain!
NIN: Yay~!
Me: You'll have 150 TP in 7.5 mins. Enjoy.
NIN:

Another way to look at it is 5 TP a tick would be 1 extra WS per minute (100 TP per minute). Now THIS may be too much, maybe, but keep in mind that when I'm on DRK (Or any melee) I kinda get 100 TP every 25 seconds anyways so... I dunno.

Overall:
1/tick is 20 TP per minute, 60 per cast.
2/tick is 40 TP per minute, 120 per cast.
3/tick is 60 TP per minute, 180 per cast.
4/tick is 80 TP per minute, 240 per cast.
5/tick is 100 TP per minute, 300 per cast.

I'd say the perfect balance is 3/tick. I think a lot of us SCHs were hoping the Regain spell would make us desired in groups similar to how Refresh made RDM desired. 1 TP a tick doesn't do this, so please reconsider the workings of this spell.

[Zhronne]

To fix Adloquium there are several ways:

1. Release new gear with "enhances adloquium" stat
2. Make so Rapture doesn't just empower your next Curing spell, but your next buff as well (this would be beyond a fix for Adloquium though)
3. Make so Adloquium scales with your Enhancing magic skill, going up to 3 tp/tic past 400 enha (just like Embrava is 5tp/tic after 400)

My personal opinion about these options:
1) Oh god another inventory +1, please no!
2) This solution has a lot of potential, also because it could fix other spells as well, but if it starts working on everything it might become too powerful (Stoneskin, Phalanx, Shell...), and in all honesty I'm not really fond to have yet another stratagem to waste, I already don't have enough!
3) I think this is the easier solution and the one I like most


They should deploy some sort of fix to Animus spell as well. Those had so much potential, yet they're so useless atm...
I think someone suggested changing them into "%" instead of fixed values. That might be too complicated for them, but something they could easily do is using solution 3), i.e. making them scale with your enhancing skill AND making so those values go BEYOND the respective +enmity and -enmity caps. That way it would be a situational but welcome spell even for people who already dedicated time and effort into building +enm/-enm sets.
Or they could change it completely to work similarly to another effect which is already coded inside the game: Foe Sirvente.
Haven't read tests done on this spell and I have no clue if it's any good or not (don't have it on my BRD), but the mechanism behind it sounds more useful than Augeo's +20 enmity.
Basically it supposedly reduces the rate at which you lose Cumulative Enmity.
Think PLDs have a Job Ability which gives them a similar effect.
Also, since there is such an effect already coded in the game, giving it to Animus Augeo would be easy.
Just like it would be easy to create an opposite effect (cumulative enmity degrades faster) for Animus Minuo.
This solution sounds way more efficient (but also more complicated for them to realize, maybe?).
Were they to use the previous option (effect scales with enha skill, stacks beyond caps) I'd consider myself happy already.

[Ank]

The MP cost and learnable level of Helix spells will be adjusted.
*Planned future adjustments call for the effect duration of these spells to vary by job level, starting at a shorter duration and gradually increasing to its original duration at level 60.

Why?

Reserving judgement on most adjustments but some reasoning for this would be nice.

[Zhronne]

My guessing is that they watn to make all helixes at the same level and under 50 so that /SCH can use them, but their potency will be greatly inferior to that of SCH, which will actually be even more powerful than before if used at level 95+

On one hand it makes me mad (the uniqueness of bringing a SCH to voidwatch and similar places...), on the other hand we get more powerful Helixes so we can't really complain.

[LancerLeon]

Anyone know if they are gonna make "Regen IV" AoE-able now that it's gonna be a SCH mainpoint? Cause seem retarded if they didn't.

[Zhronne]

Accession doesn't work with Regen IV on WHM/SCH?
I didn't know and I agree at least SCH main should be able to accession it (and Haste as well, imho...)

[Sasaraixx]

To play devil's advocate, we don't know if helices will continue to strengthen after lv60. The wording only speaks to the strength of the spell at 60.

And I think it's a pretty poor move to make them subbale *just* so that groups do not need to bring a SCH to Voidwatch. But if we ultimately get stronger Helices *outside of the Dark Arts bonus* OR tier II helices, then I guess we can't complain. Otherwise they really did just make the change because of VW.

[Ank]

But if we ultimately get stronger Helices *outside of the Dark Arts bonus* OR tier II helices, then I guess we can't complain.

Well there is still some minor cause for discontent, as stronger helixes don't really matter if they're actively giving a reason to not bring a sch at all.

Also, they didn't say the dark/light arts changes were main only, so what exactly is a subbed helix going to be like?

[Kaisha]

All helix are subbable on the test server (with Anemohelix being lvl32 at the highest). Seems like its utility in Voidwatch just got thrown off the cliff.