Offensive Magic and Pet adjustments?

[Sargent]

With the addition of DMG:270 weapons, I feel adjustments need to be made to Elemental magic and Pet jobs. The damage increase from such weapons I'm told will over time increase DPS by around 50%.
Elemental damage and Pet damage were already behind on DPS compared to decently geared, AH weapon DDs. The damage from these sources should be updated alongside these weapons, if not natively, through some sort of quest if necessary.

Examples (and apologies, I'm unfamiliar with BST/PUP, but I feel these jobs are in the same position);
- Increase elemental damage (adjustments have already been planned). The new weapons are probably on par or not far above Magian 99 staves, so Elemental damage is already behind even if you have the best weapon.
- Increase Summoner DPS (I know, you've heard this a thousand times from me but it really needs it now, the Avatar MAB+61 weapon is not going to put Summoner on par with anything)

[Xerius]

^ this, this, a million times, this!

[Lawliett]

I agree very much, Elemental magic is falling behind more and more these days. Right now with DDs being able to put out such ridiculous numbers, Blackmages and Scholars can't even come close to competing on anything outside of voidwatch. I wouldn't exactly blame the entire issue on damage however, one of the main issues I have is more of an MP problem. In a balanced party, all DDs need is a healer and they can just swing away generating TP with little to no downtime at all allowing them to put out consistent weapon skills at an acceptable rate. BLM however, not only puts out lower numbers then most of these bandwagon Relic DDs that are a dime a dozen but we're severely limited by the fact that once our MP pool is depleted (after 5-6 V nukes) we're pretty much down on a knee resting for another 5-6 minutes while the DDs are continuously putting out more DPS.

I know that we have things like refresh and bards for Ballad at our disposal but those are just minor minimal boosts that really don't change the pace for BLM at all. Another point I'd like to get across is the fact that now that we're seeing all of these 200+ DMG weapons, think about this for a second, if a BLM holding a 150+ DMG Staff changes their gearsets around, switches to a sub like /SAM and goes to town on a mob with a capped staff skill, what's going to put out more damage; his Staff or his Magic? The answer should be his magic, but I'm afraid that's going to be far from the truth.

I'm not asking for spells to cost 0 MP but in order to at the very least bring nuking jobs back into the loop, we need: Lowered MP costs, Increases in Magic Potency, and MUCH more MP Recovered while healing (My first tick should be 150MP and increase from there). That being said I doubt any of that is coming, so gear your shattersoul builds and get ready for the 200+ DMG staffs to come.

[Hayward]

THIS is where my concerns lie with these new Delve weapons. I am hoping S-E plans some corresponding rises in magic and overall pet damage to prevent both from falling unreasonably behind. As things stand right now, lazy-minded "hardcore" players are getting away with shunning most mage and pet jobs for events (as well as deriding those who don't have R/M/E weapons, but that's different topic). That should not be acceptable to the developers or the community itself as it defeats the purpose of playing mage/pet jobs to their maximum potential.

[Alhanelem]

SE has mentioned in several responses you apparently haven't read that they have balance changes in the works for pets, though they haven't been specific about what that entails.

[Hayward]

Exactly, Tahn. There needs to be some specifics and a timetable for getting to a point where Magic and pet damage closes the already wide chasm with melee damage. What point is there in creating the Geomancer job when it can hardly make suitable contributions OR be properly rewarded for the job they've been created to do?

This much S-E can do. Unfortunately, changing the mindset of a playerbase mentally poisoned by min/maxers is a much harder job.

[Manux]

I'm looking forward to this and this also ^^ http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...ith-the-idea-A

[Olor]

I'd like to add my support to this. It's completely unbalanced, MP is way too much of a hold back right now and pet jobs are just screwed. We've been screwed for a long time but this will leave them even more broken. Even if weapons are added that increase magic damage, only being able to cast a few nukes before running out of MP is a huge handicap. I understand adjusting things for the fact that people can do this damage from a distance, but the current situation is unacceptable and unbalanced.

[Sargent]

Firstly, I'd like to point out that I posted this before the latest dev post regarding Summoner stating that they are adjusting things. The only previous announcements on the matter are regarding Cait Sith and Atomos. Do you really think that's going to make Summoner all of a sudden a half decent job at Endgame? Of course it's not, and this is coming from a career Summoner.

That said, there is a handful of jobs left in the dust while SE adjust DDs. These being Pet Jobs and Offensive Magic Jobs. The point is now they've created the means to raise melee damage by 40~50% via these new weapons, and that's not considering the new armour as well. In terms of damage over time, Offensive Mages and Pet Jobs were behind before the Delve update, and now even more so, and this is in comparison to a DD (even a light armour DD) that has geared off the Auction House. Prior to the update, people felt reluctant to use BST and PUP in an endgame event. SMN is only used for PD. Even BLM and RDM are kinda left out, remember how important they were at 75? These jobs need adjusting because right now, Endgame content is throw DDs at the mob as opposed to using a variety of jobs. Of course there will be mobs that DDs excel at, and likewise Offensive Mage/Pet Jobs excel at, but that's not the case anymore.

Now, it's true SE have announced an update into Elemental Magic. That's not gonna help. MP is still an issue since BLM natively has no real way of regaining lost MP (barring Aspir, but there are mobs without MP pools, or undead which block this). The new weapons will not boost Elemental Magic damage anywhere near as much as they boost melee damage. There are already Elemental Magian Staves that boost damage by nearly that much, and damage over time is still behind as opposed to a decently geared DD pre-update.
As for Summoner. 45 second Universal timer. Why is the job still tied down by this? We're not asking that SE allow us to spam Blood Pacts every 5 seconds, we're simply asking not to be held down by a timer this large when SE admitted that battle speed has drastically increased.
And once again, apologies for not listing BST/PUP. I'm unfamiliar with the pair of them, but they are in the same boat.

[Chimerawizard]

I remember when SE mentioned adjusting elemental magic blizzard and thunder 5 were getting their DMG reduced while weaker spells were getting buffed.

If they go with that adjustment, mages will be in the same boat with better stone and water spells.
They really should change the new Locus ring to give Spell Damage: +75~100% damage. Not affinity, not MAB.

SMN needs to get some serious love from the dev team if it's going to get fixed. The issues are too ingrained in the job to fix quickly. It needs to be fully rewritten.