A Concise List of Current Well-known Balance Issues

[Edyth]

• The time investment ratio between mythic weapons and empyrean/relic weapons is unbalanced. For example, mythics require nearly 1 solid year of Einherjar to acquire, due to time restrictions and stringent reward restrictions.
  
• There is stat imbalance between mythic weapons and relic/empyrean weapons. The general concensus is that mythic weapons are "not worth it" compared to their far superior, far easier and faster to obtain relic and empyrean counterparts, with only a few exceptions.
  
• Reward to difficulty ratio is unbalanced for the Eco-Warrior quests.
  
• The amount of EXP granted by the items Miratete's Memoirs and Dragon Chronicles is no longer relevant in light of Fields/Grounds of Valor updates.
  
• Items upgraded through Sagheera require a wait time, while far superior items upgraded by Magian Moogles are available instantly.
  
• Currently, Blue Mages are uniquely disabled in Voidwatch for several minutes due to frequently needing to reset spells. One or more of the following solutions needs to take place: amount of blue magic points available needs to be increased to accomodate for Voidwatch weaknesses, the multitude of blue magic spells used for staggering needs to be reduced to 1-2 per element; and/or the timer that blocks blue magic after resetting spells needs to be reduced or eliminated.
  
• Steal and Despoil's recast is too high, especially considering their accuracy and the necessity of Stealing in THF AF quests and testimony acquisition. The recast should be shortened after an unsuccessful steal. This is unbalanced because in farming other testimonies, you get more than one chance per 5 minutes.
  
• The difficulty of staggering certain Abyssean NMs (Shinryu, Iron Giants) is unbalanced, especially in light of staggering in Voidwatch. These NMs should at least be vulnerable to staggering during their normal melee attacks.
  
• Modus Veritas does nothing (rounded to the most accurate generalization). This is unbalanced because if players can merit something, the merited ability should be able to do something. Modus Veritas's accuracy needs to be improved, or the Modus Veritas merit category should be eliminated, or the Modus Veritas merit category should be renamed "Black Hole, Don't Put Merits Here."
  
• Garlaige Citadel's and the Eldieme Necropolis's blockages are still in place, but Quicksand Caves now has a key item available to circumvent the doors there. Although Wings of the Goddess can be used to reach the other sides of Banishing Gates, free travel around Garlaige Citadel is still not possible, and neither is free solo travel around Eldieme. This is unbalanced because jobs with AF quests in these areas have a unique disadvantage, especially for the quest "Hitting the Marquisate," which requires the banishing gates to be opened; there is no way to avoid the gates due to the nature of this quest.
  
• Rangers and Corsairs are uniquely punished for simply attacking, but there is no enhanced skill up rate for archery and marksmanship. Because players are punished for every bullet/arrow/bolt fired, the skill up rate should be enhanced for archery and marksmanship to maintain balance.
  
• The difficult methods for obtaining scrolls of Raise III and the resulting high auction prices are unbalanced with the spell's outdated effect. Methods for obtaining Raise III should be increased; in particular, an NPC selling the scroll at a lower price is a good option. Currently, the scroll is approximately 1 million gil across every server.
  
• Spawn conditions for the three Aht Urhgan Beastkings are now unbalanced because players are strong enough to consistently defeat Gurfurlur the Menacing, Medusa, and Gulool Ja Ja in Besieged, preventing the HNMs from spawning.

[Mifaco]

Any BC can be defeated if you throw enough pets at it. I'd like to see pet HP reduced, or enmity shared with the master, so that SMNs would think twice before doing that 2k predator claws and encouraging more strategy.

[Kitkat]

[LIST][*]The time investment ratio between mythic weapons and empyrean/relic weapons is unbalanced. For example, mythics require nearly 1 solid year of Einherjar to acquire, due to time restrictions and stringent reward restrictions.

Currently it is hard to truely judge this since people do not participate in the events that required drops/currency is needed from. Einherjar does take time to meet the prescribed amount, but if done properly will take roughly 59 runs to complete and takes less than half a year being that you can do 121 runs within a standard 365 day calendar. The ease of salvage can make farming easier on top of the availability to gain pouches in neo-nyzul. I could see the entire process of a mythic taking upwards of a year start to finish based on the fact you need tags for assaults, which you complete twice for clear+credit, kill all 3 kings, gain 100k Ichor, gain 30k Alex, etc. Saying Einherjar takes a year is inaccurate unless you are spending the ichor on other items.

[*]There is stat imbalance between mythic weapons and relic/empyrean weapons. The general concensus is that mythic weapons are "not worth it" compared to their far superior, far easier and faster to obtain relic and empyrean counterparts, with only a few exceptions.

The utility of the weapon is the point of the weapon, not the stats. Also, it has been shown that in instances where the weapon has AM3 active they can provide superior DoT. The fact they augment job abilities is the primary function of the weapon, changes to the aftermath and tiering most of the JA enhancing aspects has always been the key point of the weapon. If all you are comparing it to is Relics hidden effect or the +stat/+acc/+att bonus or WS damage then you've missed the point of the weapon entirely.

[*]Items upgraded through Sagheera require a wait time, while far superior items upgraded by Magian Moogles are available instantly.

They are already working on addressing this and several other artificial wait blockers.

[*]The amount of blue magic points available needs to be increased to accomodate for Voidwatch weaknesses. Currentlty, Blue Mages are uniquely disabled in Voidwatch for several minutes due to frequently needing to reset spells.

Being a blu myself, I would much rather they alter the amount of spells required instead of the total points allowed. Most times I keep bare min spells set to accommodate the total amount of spells I have to equip in order to proc in VWNM, but even if your only purpose there was to proc you'd still not have enough room for all the spells. While I wouldn't want to see them go as far as they did with Abyssea (1 spell per element) I wouldn't mind it being limited to 2 per element. Adding more set points to blu would actually unbalance the job since it would allow for individuals to set more job traits without sacrificing high damage/point costing spells to make room. There has always been this trade off on blu and should be maintained.

[*]Steal and Despoil's recast is too high, especially considering their accuracy and the necessity of Stealing in THF AF quests and testimony acquisition. The recast should be shortened after an unsuccessful steal. This is unbalanced because in farming other testimonies, you get more than one chance per 5 minutes.

I would much rather this be changed in a way that despoil is independent of steal being that the item pools are separate from one another. Despoil generally gets only junk items when successful and gives a random down effect, steal can be coupled with aura steal merits and gets a better pool of items while possibly absorbing/stealing an effect. There is little to no reason why these should share timers when they perform such uniquely different functions.

[*]The difficulty of staggering certain Abyssean NMs (Shinryu, Iron Giants) is unbalanced, especially in light of staggering in Voidwatch. These NMs should at least be vulnerable to staggering during their normal melee attacks.

Same could be said for those NM's that spam spells/tp moves making it difficult to proc on. Since you limited it only to these two types I have to disagree with the change as you clearly imbalanced the staggering if you allow this on those mobs for only that reason. Additionally, the ability to spawn these often or fight them numerous times a day with great ease offsets the difficulty in procing them.

[Dazusu]

Not to be an ass, but most of what you listed is opinion, and everything else SE have already responded to.

For example, Mythics aren't as powerful in the traditional sense, but they generally have lower delays, and other bonuses, such as the Swords Convert bonus and the Yagrush's Divine Veil bonus. As for the length of time taken to upgrade - it's already been announced that Einherjar will be revamped - as will Salvage and Alexandrite drop rates will be upped.

Why should Iron Giants be staggerable during regular attacks? How is it "unbalanced", why can't that just be "different"? Or as I like to call it - the smouldering remnants of a skill requirement (let me guess: "that's not skill, it's just an inconvenience" - same could be said about everything in the game.)

About the only thing I agree with is Corsairs and Rangers. They pay for the ability to do damage (it's not cheap either) and have no distinct advantage.

As for the rest of your post.. I sum it all up as 'opinion' not necessarily globally accepted unbalance.

[Camiie]

Any BC can be defeated if you throw enough pets at it.

Any BC can be defeated if you find a way to reduce the mob's HP to zero or otherwise meet the requirements of victory. Why is "throw enough pets at it" any less valid a strategy than using Spells and Weapon Skills till the mob dies?

I'd like to see pet HP reduced, or enmity shared with the master, so that SMNs would think twice before doing that 2k predator claws and encouraging more strategy.

As opposed to the ingenious strategy of Jump, Auto-attack, Weapon Skill?

[Jerbob]

Any BC can be defeated if you throw enough pets at it. I'd like to see pet HP reduced, or enmity shared with the master, so that SMNs would think twice before doing that 2k predator claws and encouraging more strategy.

Can you explain this in more depth? It's possible to defeat any BC if you throw enough people at it. Does it really matter if pet jobs can team up and do them together? On the one hand you've got some support, healers and damage dealers, and on the other you've got a combination of puppetmasters, summoners and beastmasters - and often you need more people for a pet job strategy than a non-pet strategy.

Pet job players need to co-ordinate with each other just as other jobs do - Call Beast and Reward timers, MP and blood pact timers, pet HP, Automaton role and attachments in use, variations in effectiveness of different pets in different situations, and so on, and just like more traditiona strategies, this becomes more difficult and skill dependent as the task increases in difficulty. Pet jobs are just as penalised when something goes wrong, if not more so - a pet dying at the wrong time can shift the enmity balance across the whole party, or for solo play can botch a whole fight.

Pets already take a lot of damage. Beastmasters can soak up damage better than most, but are reliant on timers and consumables. Avatars in particular can be very squishy and despite dealing high damage (for a given value of "high" considering their appalling melee damage, reliance timers and when compared to true damage dealing jobs), they simply don't hold hate on anything that matters, even against tiny enmity actions like using bloodpacts or casting Stoneskin when too close.

Pets are also slow to deal damage, costly for some jobs, difficult to replace for others, and are so ridden with little bugs and issues that SE refuses to fix that it's remarkable that people can use them at all in high pressure situations. Watching ten summoners and beastmasters slowly wading through Walk of Echoes does not mean that the jobs are overpowered or broken - an organised group of 10 players on other jobs can most likely achieve the same effect. When disposible pets [i]are[i/] incredibly important - the few situations that pet jobs can handle that other jobs struggle at - consider how much damage those other jobs can deal, how much more effectively they can support and heal injuries, and how much more extensive their options for equipment, food and the like are, and how those many advantages work in their favour in innumerable other situations.

A lot of things are possible for pet jobs, but very rarely are pet jobs the best solution, and even rarer are they the only solution. I will grant you that some (and certainly not all) situations do not require massive amounts of co-ordination, but please consider how many situations require a perfect synergy between other jobs in order for success, then compare like for like.

[cidbahamut]

Not to be an ass, but most of what you listed is opinion, and everything else SE have already responded to.

For example, Mythics aren't as powerful in the traditional sense, but they generally have lower delays, and other bonuses, such as the Swords Convert bonus and the Yagrush's Divine Veil bonus. As for the length of time taken to upgrade - it's already been announced that Einherjar will be revamped - as will Salvage and Alexandrite drop rates will be upped.

[Insaniac]

Most mythics are actually pretty beastly now. 3 minute OA3 equal the ability to spam really strong merit WSs and thats before considering utility enhancments. BLM is the best meteor staff in the game. SCH and RDM are terrible and maybe RNG? The rest are solid unless I am forgetting a stinker.

[Elexia]

Not to be an ass, but most of what you listed is opinion, and everything else SE have already responded to.

Lol opinion. Mythic acquisition is unbalanced as hell. Period.

For example, Mythics aren't as powerful in the traditional sense, but they generally have lower delays, and other bonuses, such as the Swords Convert bonus and the Yagrush's Divine Veil bonus. As for the length of time taken to upgrade - it's already been announced that Einherjar will be revamped - as will Salvage and Alexandrite drop rates will be upped.

Upping Alexandrites isn't a solution at all. Do you know what else is required to take on a Mythic? They'd need to throw the 'King' requirement out the window or throw them in a (NOT INFLATED FOR THE SAKE OF IT) BCNM that also counts as the kill, or make the deaths of them in Besieged count. They're not hard, but they aren't always up or slaughtered in Besieged and people have to wait days for them to respawn.

Why should Iron Giants be staggerable during regular attacks? How is it "unbalanced", why can't that just be "different"? Or as I like to call it - the smouldering remnants of a skill requirement (let me guess: "that's not skill, it's just an inconvenience" - same could be said about everything in the game.)

Attacks that count as TP moves makes staggering unnecessarily hard. Period. I get that the system used behind the monsters in this game is a bit weird (and sometimes creative) but it takes no skill to stagger an iron giant, just hope and pray it doesn't attack when your spell or WS goes off.

As for the rest of your post.. I sum it all up as 'opinion' not necessarily globally accepted unbalance.

She has a lot of facts, not opinion, but based on some of your posts, I can see why you'd consider it opinions.

[Urteil]

Lol opinion. Mythic acquisition is unbalanced as hell. Period.



Upping Alexandrites isn't a solution at all. Do you know what else is required to take on a Mythic? They'd need to throw the 'King' requirement out the window or throw them in a (NOT INFLATED FOR THE SAKE OF IT) BCNM that also counts as the kill, or make the deaths of them in Besieged count. They're not hard, but they aren't always up or slaughtered in Besieged and people have to wait days for them to respawn.



Attacks that count as TP moves makes staggering unnecessarily hard. Period. I get that the system used behind the monsters in this game is a bit weird (and sometimes creative) but it takes no skill to stagger an iron giant, just hope and pray it doesn't attack when your spell or WS goes off.



She has a lot of facts, not opinion, but based on some of your posts, I can see why you'd consider it opinions.

Camping the kings wasn't hard casually check it once a day and you'll get it eventually. You simply don't deserve one. The king kills/chariot kills/odin kill is by far the easiest of the requirements and if someone is hung up about this I'm sorry to break it to you, but you getting a mythic isn't going to happen.

Also a neat trick is that a very large percent of the time when a particular beast-man army is preparing to attack, the leader is forced to spawn. He disappears when they are advancing and returns later even if he was killed in the besieged 1-2 hours later. I killed a couple of mine with my LS during the advancing period.

Staggering giants is quite easy if you have a player kite them towards a player ready to WS enroute, simply attack after the animation of the swing ends. If the giant doesn't TP or double attack you will proc. However the business of the monster immediately casting a spell or TPing after an attack ruining a proc isn't specific to iron giants, all monsters do this. This sounds like you are just terrible at procing.