Adjustments to Embrava and Perfect Defense

[saevel]

While essentially true, the fact that one needs what are supposed to be luxury items just to play the job with anything resembling functionality is a telling sign that something is very wrong in Pallytown.



I suppose not having a pair of legendary-class shields that, by design, not everyone is intended to have could be considered half-assing, but I would say the real half-assers are SE for creating a job that needs such things just to function. I dunno, maybe people like that it's that way. It's not something I consider good, but maybe I'm the exception.

Why would a tank, or support crew for that matter, have a lower expectation of gear then a melee?

DD's are not pretty much expected to have a legendary weapon (Relic / Emp) to participate in any high end content. And while this would be messed up, getting a Emp to 85~90 is easy just like getting a Relic to 95 is easy. Both take time, but they are definitely attainable by everyone in the game.

[Herby]

Reducing a Bosses HP, that helps alot, oh wait the boss can still one shot an alliance with ease. Reducing Embrava and PD duration isnt the answer especially since LEGION bosses are Super god like creatures. Just Squares useless power move. Then they wonder why people find ways to cheat the system because some things are just ridiculous to fight.

Here's a serious question, since i never had any experience with content like ADL or Legion, but um... would all those TP moves of those NMs still oneshot people if they had both earthen Armor and Sentinel's scherzo on them? Because that should give around ~80% damage reduction to any 1.5k and above TP move (assuming 2k hp for a melee as an example) and/or Spell and I'm not sure, but this should be curable by a good Healer.

Since I never had any experience I'm not sure if those NMs just bypass this defensive buff with like 500+ melee hits so please bear with me, if that is the case.
I'm really curious about this, because I always see people talk about Perfect defense and Embrava but never hear about the abilities we always have at our disposal instead of every 2 hours (soon to be every 1 hour).

And sorry if my english isn't the best. It's not my native language.

[Mirage]

I think it's more because some of these heavy AoEs also come with additional effect: death on them, or various other status effects. Some of their ranges are so incredibly huge that they catch healers and stuff too, and they are a lot more squishy.

[Herby]

Well I certainly agree on ridiculous ranges of AoEs which destroys any purpose of intelligent positioning for mages especially if those give a potent paralyze effect or something to that effect which destroys any chance of an efficient healing. Add effect death shouldn't be on AoE moves either, except for special TP moves like odins Zantetsuken which can be countered in a special way.

But if this is really the case the issue isn't really the damage of the moves themselves but rather their additional characteristics such as range, add effects and so on. So capping AoE ranges @ around 18-20yalm max should be a major help on getting those fights doable without PD/Embrava, right?

[Silvers]

The Developers need to re-ask the question of what a 2hr JAs was for. If I recall correctly it was to give players an ability that could help turn around a battle in favor of the player was their explanation. Players generally do not use 2hr abilities if they can get by without them. You need to reassess why players are so heavily dependent on them. The arrows point to the content of the events not the abilities being used in them. Taking away the abilities or adjusting them do not break the dependency of the abilities or want ones like them. If you do what was stated, you are only treating the symptom not curing the disease in a similar way to when you adjusted Modus Veritas. Player mentality towards 2hr abilities is generally was (and for the most part still is) save them for a moment I may really need it really need it. For years this has been major fights, BC's, HNMs, that rare moment that it could save your EXP party, ECT. . Legion and NNI is no different in that aspect, except without the abilities in question probability of success is less very low.

Though you stated you do not want to go this route, instead of just adjusting the 2hrs why not put up counter measures for using the strategy that requires them in a similar way that Soul Eater and Elemental magic was dealt with. 1st undo the resistance to Soul Eater on NMs. 2nd make it that once NMs (lv 95 and higher) receive a certain amount of dmg with in a set time they start to resist, hit players with an non-erasable attack down, or resist or absorb dmg type of what caused the most dmg within that time frame (excluding VW and NNI).

For Legion, players don't live long enough to try to develop strategies and tactics for some of the monsters in there. The range of monsters spells and abilities vs. players have been talked about for years. Enmity has been an issue for while. How can we direct harmful abilities when the cap can be so reached easily by multiply players? When a NM has several crippling abilities, high stun resistance, or/and hits hard, you are going to look down at players for using JAs that allows them to engage them safely? 10 years and I’m still shock bar spells for light and dark never been added. Enmity is still set at level 75 gameplay, and we are still waiting for it to be restructured. There have been a few items that were mention that have yet to be seen and barely spoken about. There was talk about having the ability to undo charm that was never employed, not saying that charm is that big of a problem. 10% HP cut isn't going to level the playing field in Legion for not having regain from Embrava. What's wrong with Regain that players cannot have it, but the monsters in Legion can have it? Is this a regain a COR vs. SCH issue? Refresh... I ask you SE, what is a max net gain of 690mp refresh (with Af+3 and Perpetuance) good for in place of regain. The monsters in Legion are too dangerous, and that's why stun locking and zerging using are heavily used. If you think you would be really changing how players do things in Legion by adjusting Embrava the way you intent. DRK's new 2hr may take center stage along with brd if you change PD and Embrava and groups may try using more SMNs. Players will be doing the same thing they are now with different jobs and JAs. I think stopping the ability to lock Tabula Rasa and effects like it by clicking on [insert target here] would prove more effective to what SE wants to really achieve by their proposed changes to Embrava. Food for thought SE, a BRD and COR can replace Embrava and groups will still use SMNs. You will not be doing anything but change some of jobs people with bring, while they STILL USE the same tactic.

As for NNI, this has been talked about to death about how brutal this event can be. With adjustments to Embrava, first I think the reward paradigm for getting HQ gear should change floor 100= 1win, floor 80= 5wins, Floor 60= 20wins floor 40= 50wins. In addition to that, after defeating a boss should change the range of jumping to ???. Instead of 3-11 could go from 6-12 if you defeat a boss for at least one jump. Have bosses drop a key (like "??? Nyzul Key") to trade to the rune to jump higher or trade to the NPC for a chance at other effects like erasing pathos, and able to see the floor layout for a short time like 5min (item becomes ex/rare when appraised).

Perfect Defense should be more skill dependant, though I think it should be in a different way. The time could be the same and remain based on MP%, or lower the max from 90sec to 75, while the dmg reduction and the resist levels should be based on summoning magic skill. Overall I think how Alex and Odin should be changed. Let SMN be able to use them without astral flow. When they are summoned let them use something random healing/enhancing/enfeebling/damaging effect that their Prime counterparts use and then despawn at the cost of 10-12% mp. Summoning them under AF they will do their current abilities.

If changes to Embrava are needs after adjusting the content, refresh would be ok if you just add it but not replacing regain. Embrava's duration should be reflected by enhancing magic skill up to 3-4min (7min 30sec-10min with AF3+2) for a cap for the base (though I wouldn't mind letting the cap being the base it is now) and let the effects given by the spell degrade slowly. Have a base value set for the effects of Regen, Regain, Refresh and Haste set at something reasonable so the effect is still has worth when it degrades to its lowest value. Rescale the increase of the effect bonuses in relation to enhancing magic skill. Let us say @500 enhancing magic skill haste value is 36% and degrades to 14%. Depending on the rate of decay for the effects and their value, this could be a better alternative to what SE wants to do. Another option is to just configure the tic value and timing. 350HP/10TP(14MP if you want to add it) every 10sec with 25% haste @500 skill and lower the duration, I think 7mins and 30sec with AF3+2 would be within reason. If those 2 suggestions are too complex for them to code then let rapture expand accession to other parties in the alliance and have casting Embrava kills the 2hr effect and leave Embrava effects as is.

I do understand SE has a vision of how they like this game to be. The development's team image will not be the same as ours, even if they do play this game and have a passion in making it the best it can be. Do you truly think your choice of action is the best one, let alone a correct one? Being part of a team myself I can understand that artist vision as a whole of what you want people to see and experience. I think we all here can agree that there are some things that can be done better. I don't mean in just game play, but in consumer relations, communications, as well as handling small tasks and fixes among other things. People are going to judge you by what you said, what you promise, what you do, why you do, and how fast and how well it is done. With the 2hrs being reduced to a 1hr timer, to reflect the being able to access the spell more frequently, the duration of Embrava should be adjusted not the effects they give. People don't want this to be like another Miser's Roll or worst Modus Veritas where the adjustment renders what's being changed nearly useless, especially in the case of Embrava. Granted Embrava and PD can use some fine tuning, but it's not the spell and ability that is broken. It is your event content that needs the heavy adjustments. SE I can only hope you take this to heart.

[Hashmalum]

Here's a serious question, since i never had any experience with content like ADL or Legion, but um... would all those TP moves of those NMs still oneshot people if they had both earthen Armor and Sentinel's scherzo on them? Because that should give around ~80% damage reduction to any 1.5k and above TP move (assuming 2k hp for a melee as an example) and/or Spell and I'm not sure, but this should be curable by a good Healer.

Since I never had any experience I'm not sure if those NMs just bypass this defensive buff with like 500+ melee hits so please bear with me, if that is the case.

ADL's attacks individually aren't strong enough to trigger "severe damage mitigation" effects like Earthen Armor, etc. The problem is that after a certain point ADL splits into multiple ADLs who are all using their abilities at once. And "severe damage mitigation" only considers the damage done for one attack at a time. Likewise, Legion has three powerful monsters spawn at the same time. Legion's Paramount Botulus and the final form of Pandemonium Warden all by themselves can do Astral Flow with 6-8 avatars simultaneously.

Also, a number of high end mobs do instant death effects. ADL's Tera Slash sometimes inflicts death. Legion's Mired Mantis is infamous for opening with Death Prophet as soon as it is attacked, and it can use it at any time.

Besides instant death, there are also all sorts of nasty status effects that have no prevention other than Perfect Defense and no removal other than death or waiting for them to time out: Encumbrance, Weakness, Terror, Mute, etc.

[Mirage]

To be entirely honest, AoE instant deaths shouldn't exist in a game where death means you can't participate in the fight for 5 minutes. It's just dumb. It could just as well have been an "instant disconnect" status effect.

If there is no way to counter instant death before it happens outside of one single ability that can only be used for (soon to be) 57 seconds every hour, there is simply something wrong with the game design.

If you're going to keep instant death (and even worse, AoE instant death) in the game, give us ways to efficiently counter it. Bardarkra, Bardeathra, maybe add methods of avoiding it that requires multiple jobs to reliably resist it. If a bard's dark carols + bardarkra + bardeath was enough to increase death resist rates to over 90%, then maybe it would be all right to keep AoE death moves.

Being able to negate Death like that wouldn't be "too easy" either, I think. Keep in mind that you are sacrificing a lot of buff slots to achieve it. Two song slots, one barspell slot, and some gear on top of that. It could be viable to let the tank have those buffs while using a bit fewer anti-death buffs on the other melees. That is, of course, assuming that the enmity system actually was in a workable state.

[Camiie]

Why would a tank, or support crew for that matter, have a lower expectation of gear then a melee?

There are DD that function just fine, if not better, with normal magian weapons. I'm not sure why the support crew would need a relic/emp at all. PLDs apparently keel over dead the moment they leave the mog house unless they have Aegis or Ochain.

DD's are not pretty much expected to have a legendary weapon (Relic / Emp) to participate in any high end content.

I assume you mean "now" expected. DD seem to be expected to have a relic/emp for anything, high-end or not. Not always, but I've certainly seen shouters ask for them in events that simply don't require them.

And while this would be messed up, getting a Emp to 85~90 is easy just like getting a Relic to 95 is easy. Both take time, but they are definitely attainable by everyone in the game.

It's funny, because I'm actually finding it much harder to get my second one done than my first and my first wasn't a cakewalk and my 2nd is supposed to be much easier. The support just isn't there. That's probably just me though. I'm sure everyone else is doing just fine with theirs.

[Mirage]

Are you saying you don't have 10 mules to hold KIs for you while you dualbox the NMs. Camiie? That's just terrible. You might as well quit right now!

But on a more serious note, has anyone mathed out the performance of various lv99 weapons compared to lv85 WoE weapons? To me, it seems like no matter what your gear and no matter which Empy it is, people think you're "good" if you have them, no matter how other weapons perform compared to them. Is a lv99 Trial-Hagun + shoha actually worse than a lv85 Masamune? Is an lv99 OA2 greatsword+resolution significantly worse than a 85 caladbolg?

No matter what the actual math says, the general feeling I get from the community is that "any Empy at any level > any other weapon that isn't relic/mythic", while almost none of them have actually read up on any math supporting that.

[Alerith]

While essentially true, the fact that one needs what are supposed to be luxury items just to play the job with anything resembling functionality is a telling sign that something is very wrong in Pallytown.

I'm not saying they are required, but if you're playing Paladin, it likely isn't because you're needed to be PLD, but rather because you WANT to play it, in which case being a PLD like that, you should probably be working on at least one of those shields.

I suppose not having a pair of legendary-class shields that, by design, not everyone is intended to have could be considered half-assing, but I would say the real half-assers are SE for creating a job that needs such things just to function. I dunno, maybe people like that it's that way. It's not something I consider good, but maybe I'm the exception.

Not exactly what I meant.

I'm a firm believer that gear does not make a better player, but rather it can make things more manageable for a player's poorer skill level. There's a group of poorly skilled Paladins that could benefit from the crutch of Ochain or Aegis, and there are many skilled Paladin's who could benefit from the support of the same shields.

The difference is that the group that are skilled at the job don't NEED the Relic/Empyrean to at least perform at an acceptable level, while the group of not very well skilled paladins can't function as well without.

I'm not even trying to be elitist. More realist than anything. There are some people who will use the shields as a crutch for their lack of skill, and there are others who will use them to augment their already high skill with the job.