First off, I'd like the development team to know I personally find it insulting that at Lv.75, looking forward to the level cap being raised, they said Scholars role would be that of enmity control, and that one ability and two spells later, they absolutely gave up on such an idea. Yes what they produced was an steaming pile of sh*t, but that doesn't mean they can just dust it under the carpet and pretend it was never there, it still smells of sh*t. They've wasted 20 levels on Scholar by giving it no defined role, Regen and DoT mastery are nice and all, but I honestly wonder how long it will be until they change their mind again and stick us with more of a Geomancer role. Which is actually something I'd very much like, but it doesn't make up for wasting so much time dicking about with inane ideas. Libra being the biggest of their worthless ideas, lets make that worthwhile.
Secondly, long post. TL;DR? Make Libra not suck.
So, suggestions. Basic ones first:
- Increase the range on Libra. Next time I see an adjustment notice were you plan to increase the range of, lets say, Jumps, you damn sure better include Libra too. It's annoying enough that you've ignored this twice already.
- Adjust Animus spells to actually be useful. Static +/-Enmity spells are not useful (nor do they stack with out merit Stratagems) and certainly don't lend anything to Libra since even if they weren't a waste of MP, you'd just keep them up full time regardless. +VE/tic -CE/tic is a popular suggestion and I'm sticking with that. Reasons for not going with a static +/-hate level will reveal themselves.
Now for something a bit more interesting:
- Give Scholar a new ability to go alongside Libra, lets call it Modus Odium (Measure of Hate, though my Latin is bad so feel free to correct this). Something like Accomplice that steals a percentage of a targets hate. Instead of the Scholar just taking that hate however, we receive a new status effect that effectively stores that hate (similar to Sublimation storing MP).
- Rather than go through with butchering Stratagems flavor text any further, don't bother adjusting Rapture to work with enhancing magic (why people like this for Adloquium I will not know, +60% of 1TP/tic is 1.6TP/tic, not 2TP/tic), make this new status effect enchant enhancing magic. This can be limited with the recast on the new ability, but it's already limited through other peoples enmity gain, so bare that in mind when you try to push a 10 minute recast on me, if anything it should mirror Modus Veritas with a 3 minute recast or link their recast like Jump/Spirit Jump.
- When Animus spells are used with this new ability and status effect, they also work differently. Rather than what we currently have (+/-10 enmity?) or what I've suggested, they directly adjust hate levels based on how much hate the Scholar is holding.
An example is probably in order.
Lets say Modus Odium takes the same amount as Accomplice (50% of a targets hate).
I use Libra and see that a damage dealer has 80% hate.
Using Modus Odium I obtain 40% hate from this damage dealer locked in the form of a status effect.
I can now do several things with this hate:
- Cast Animus Minuo on a new target, reducing their hate by 40%.
- Cast Animus Augeo on a new target, increasing their hate by 40%.
- Cast a buff such as Stoneskin and have it enhanced based on the hate stored.
Useful? I think so. It's effectively one job ability with several uses. You can completely wipe someones hate by taking half of theirs and casting Minuo on them to reduce the other half; you can reduce two peoples hate by taking one persons hate and reducing another persons; you can reduce one persons hate and increase another persons; or you can enchant a whole series of buffs. You'd actually be controlling enmity in every sense and getting something worthwhile out of it. This would instantly change Libra and Animus from some of the most worthless additions to the game and make them pretty much the most useful thing Scholar has at its disposal.
A few other issues:
- Accession should reduce the effect or wipe the new status effect altogether. Accession + Animus Minuo reducing everyones hate by 40% is very clearly overpowered, either limit that (simply halves the effect or reduces the effect based on the number of people it hits or don't allow it at all. That should only apply to Animus spells of course, since enhancing Stoneskin without being able to Accession is is basically worthless.
- Usual buffs such as Stoneskin should not be improved just by the amount of hate stored, there should be some sort of multiplier involved or just ignore the hate obtained completely and just have it double/whatever the buff, though I personally think it would be better to have the hate obtained play some role since it gives a reason to use Libra to obtain optimal numbers, the effect with Animus is more than enough for that though I suppose.
- Obviously there are some buffs this shouldn't cover. Haste springs to mind and I'm sure Phalanx would polarize people (though Scholar is already better with it than Red Mage, I figure you should stick Phalanx in Addendum: White, it'll be like the Light Arts version of Dispel). In fact, despite people being adamant that Scholar should be an Enhancer, we don't really have very many enchantments to boast, we pretty much only just got the basic ones natively.
- Manifestation Spikes would be another area to think about, enhances Spikes would be nice, though I do see this as a Light Arts thing, which is stupid to begin with since all Modus Veritas does is
fail toenhance eight spells, this would enhance far more (t2 Fusion Helices should balance that out though and hopefully you listened to me and that -TP/tic spell will stack with Modus).- Storm spells would be... interesting. I've already suggested sticking +15% on Stormsurge (+3% per merit) and I'd still want that, adding more with this could be seen as overpowered. I don't think so, it's an option for a status effect that is not Scholar unique, its an added buff for everyone in the party. If this is on a three minute timer it's not even something you can keep up full time.
- I'd expect this to work with Regen. Previously I wanted Modus Veritas to have some duality and do exactly the same on Regen as it does with Helices, but this is equally as good in my opinion.
- Added Dispel resistance might be going too far, but I'll put that out there too. Perpetuance is fairly worthless without some form of Dispel resistance, hate enhanced spells could get a Blink-like effect for Dispel maybe? Resists three times then will get Dispelled. Or better yet just stick that on Perpetuance.
This is basically just a rethink on my "Corsair style buffs based on enmity" but I just removed the need for new spells because space is apparently limited. I can't remember if people actually liked that idea though. Stupid idea or another gem I can put in my box of "Ideas the development team out right ignores"? Trick question, it'll be going there regardless.
Alternative solution if this idea sucks; cut Libra and the Animus spells from the game, they're wasting space. Seriously, if nothing is going to be done to these three things, just delete them. My very first suggestion in this topic has been going around since Libra was first introduced, it's right up there with "Modus Veritas doesn't work". So community reps, just hurry up and drop by with a "Libra is working as expected" so we can all quit trying to pretend the development team gives a rats-ass.
Edit:
Libra could also do with having a more streamlined layout and giving us alliance wide data. Alliance wide data would even be possible now if it wasn't spread across six lines, just give us;
Player1 = #%, Player2 = #% ......., Player18 = #%
Depending on peoples character names that wont even take up six lines like it currently does and it gives us more information. I'm sure some people would also want exact information too, like VE and CE values. If possible I'd rather have this out of the chat log too so it can stay visible for more than two seconds, but it may as well stay there so everyone can see it if that's important. Currently though, basically clearing everyones chat log is fairly annoying. Having a long list of peoples hate isn't much better but it's an improvement.