Job Adjustments for the Next Version Update

[Jerbob]

While I greatly appreciate any efforts made into improving the gear selection available for pet jobs, seeing as we are so woefully under-represented in the currently used equipment, the implication that these changes are going to somehow "fix" us really, really worries me. As has already been said here, pets need to be enhanced intrinsically before they will be even remotely effective. Equipment is not the way forward in this regard; proper pet-related gear should merely be part of the standard progression that pet jobs should enjoy as any other job does.

Unless the grips for summoners are obscenely powerful, they will do nothing to balance out the hilarious ineffectiveness of avatars, and quite frankly I don't have the inventory space to sacrifice for something that should just be built into the avatar in the first place. Please take on board the overwhelming sentiment among the playerbase that pets need to be fixed first before the (admittedly welcome) idea of adding more pet gear is even considered. Yes, it will probably take a bit more work, but an overhaul is needed. I can't emphasise this enough. Things are more broken than a grip can fix.

I am, however, very much looking forward to the Elemental Magic adjustment. I hope that it helps to make magical damage more competitive and effective.

[Sargent]

Summoner
Addition of grips that have stats to increase the parameters of avatars.

Will it compare to this? If not, go back to the drawing board.

Seriously, Equipment is not the thing holding Summoner back. They are, in a nutshell;

• Global Blood Pact timer that caps at 45 seconds
• Pathetic melee damage, which we can hardly enhance (only though Pet:Haste and Pet:Critical hit gear)

I hardly see the grips they mention having Blood Pact delay that bypasses the cap.

[sweetidealism]

Beastmaster
Addition of new familiar pets

This is exciting, but it needs to be implemented in such a way that requires effort to get. I don't want to see newly-99 BSTs buy these new jug pets off the auction house and suddenly be on par with other players who have put far more effort toward improving their jobs. Please consider making these new jugs rare/ex drops from new content bosses with rechargeable uses.

Dragoon
Addition of polearms that have stats to increase the parameters of wyverns.

I feel like there must be a better way to improve wyverns. Dragoon is far more focused on the player's damage than it is on the wyvern's, so very few Dragoons will opt to use new polearms just for the sake of improving their wyvern unless the new weapon is also an improvement over their current weapon's damage.

I think the "Hurch'lan Sash" is a good example of a better adjustment-- for PUP and BST, it is comparable to the best other options for the player, but better because it just happens to also improve their pets.

I'd instead like to see something like Ganesha's Mala (a powerful item, yet not R/M/E/C/Delve, used for both getting TP and using weaponskills, so it's seldom if ever unequipped) that ALSO has "Increases wyverns parameters" written on it. Make it a drop from new content and then problem solved, you made the effort to get a stronger wyvern and you yourself got a little stronger too!

Summoner
Addition of grips that have stats to increase the parameters of avatars.

Although this is less of a problem than forcing you to equip a main weapon (such as the suggested dragoon adjustment) I again feel that it needs to have stats that augment the player as well. Given that grips are typically minor bonuses, I think this could be easily achieved by also adding something relevant to the player, maybe such as enmity down, and/or perpetuation cost down?

Puppetmaster
Addition of animators that have stats to increase the parameters of automatons.

Hasn't this already happened with the addition of the Alternator? As an avid Puppetmaster fan, I'm both terrified and thrilled by the notion of getting more animators of similar or even greater caliber. Since animators are essential to playing Puppetmaster anyway, this is the adjustment I can actually agree upon. Still, I think more can be done.

Keeping in line with my theme of "make it drop from new content," I would like to see new rare/ex items that can be redeemed for new and improved puppet frames and heads. Similar to the old addition of the Spiritreaver and Soulsoother heads, these new options could simply be reskins of existing models. I think it would be awesome to delve into fractures alongside my VISUALLY NOTABLY improved, bestest robot buddy Nadeshiko! Camouflage themed Sharpshot, an even shinier Valoredge, and more ornate Stormwakers! Please make it happen!

In short, if you're going to make these improvements come through gear, then please ensure that they are good for the PLAYER too, not just their pet!

I can also imagine another alternative though... and that is, don't make the improvements require gear at all! Perhaps there could be key items that permanently improve pets so long as you're on the respective main job?

[HimuraKenshyn]

Are there any plans to address the fact that blue magic is so anemic that it now has the same or less base damage than a Dagger while simultaneously not being able to go above 1.0 ratio on most targets?

Not even going to mention magical ones, those are just a joke from the Dev Team I feel.

If they keep adding these sick 1 hnd weapons any spell casting is just a huge dps loss at this rate. Welcome to the drks world....

[Quetzacoatl]

It is....it is so beautiful...

I'm preparing to be disappointed, I'm still skeptical of SE's ability to make GEO and RUN relevant for endgame of course.

With all of my love for GEO, if we can't expand our enhancing Geomancy beyond two spells as well as a single party, i'm not sure where else it would even be useful other than a mage party buffer and as an occasional debuffer. We're not really seeing a trend in All-Mage Parties anytime soon, and all the complaining about the Sphere animations already giving GEO enough scorn.

RUN is kind of a lost cause for stuff like Delve, since just about all the NMs deal mostly physical damage with tons of TP moves to go on. Maybe defense against debuffs, but that's kind of a stretch to allow them a spot at all. They would need a stance like Issekigan that parries like crazy, or an Empyrean Great Sword on par with Ochain's block rate to make RUN sufficient. Which is why I fear the only way RUN would be useful at all is if they have to build their Mythic Weapon to even qualify for endgame. I thought those days were over :\

For Geomancer I'd like to post a thread on suggestions to improve GEO for endgame use, but I also want to be able to translate it into Japanese for the JP forums so that it reaches out further.

[Alhanelem]

Seriously, Equipment is not the thing holding Summoner back. They are, in a nutshell;

• Global Blood Pact timer that caps at 45 seconds

The game is much faster paced than when SMN was created with the 60 second timer. My proposal would be to set the BP timer to 30 seconds, reduce-able to 15~20 seconds, and decrease the amount of BP delay - on each item that has more than 1 second for balance.

The perfect solution would be to change the new SMN SP ability and remove the BP timers entirely allowing SMN to use their MP as fast or as slow as they want.

I'm preparing to be disappointed, I'm still skeptical of SE's ability to make GEO and RUN relevant for endgame of course.

I can't speak too much for RUN but GEO is already relevant for endgame. Continuously reapplied and unresistable debuffs are very powerful for endgame- especially when some of the NMs are immune or highly resistant to almost every normal debuff.

[Quetzacoatl]

I can't speak too much for RUN but GEO is already relevant for endgame. Continuously reapplied and unresistable debuffs are very powerful for endgame- especially when some of the NMs are immune or highly resistant to almost every normal debuff.

Debuffs will take you so far as up to a spot in the mage party for alliances though. Not once have I currently seen a GEO for anything like Delve, and Reives I don't get invites on for them. I would go GEO if there was anything to use them against, once i've set up the proper gear sets for it. But, DRK is usually my strongest job to take to high-content events (not that I mind DRK either, I love both jobs).

So in the issue of being able to provide for the party, what if you need a COR, for example, but can't find one? Why shouldn't a GEO be the perfect candidate as an alternate solution, if not just as good as COR, considering their mechanics are just as similar? The only thing GEO can't do is swap parties and keep Geomancy buffs on each party. Even if GEO's only specialty is unresisted debuffs...well, look at where RDM is.

[SpankWustler]

Addition of new familiar pets

I wonder if this is referring specifically to something that will be summoned up with the "Familiar" SP somehow, or just using that as a general term for Beastmaster pets. I'm guessing the latter.

...

Also, I hope one is named Pokey Pete.

[Quetzacoatl]

I wonder if this is referring specifically to something that will be summoned up with the "Familiar" SP somehow, or just using that as a general term for Beastmaster pets. I'm guessing the latter.

...

Also, I hope one is named Pokey Pete.

And a Chapuli pet named Jumping Jackson, kthx

Seriously though, Chapuli look like something out of Guyver

[Theytak]

Elemental magic adjustments
We will be making the adjustments outlined here.

From what I recall, and after skimming that over, that won't change anything at all in regards to magical damage not keeping up with new weapons, it just lets the earlier elemental nukes compete better with the later level ones.

One-handed weapon status modifier adjustments
During the version update on March 27th, we performed adjustments so that "The maximum amount of damage dealt based upon the attack-to-defense ratio is now the same for both one-handed and two-handed weapons." As a next step to this, we will be adjusting the way in which status modifiers are applied.

I'm assuming you mean adjusting the str:atk and dex:acc ratios for 1h weapons (presently 2:1 for both) to either match 2h weapons' 4:3 ratios, or to be a bit closer? That's definitely a start, though whether or not it ends up not being enough (due to the huge difference in base damage, and the lack of reasonable offhand choices to match up with the new weapons), or ends up being too much (once said reasonable offhand choices become available) and throws us back to the era where 2h weapons simply could not keep up with 1h weapons at all... We'll have to wait and see.

Pet job adjustments
As long as characters are not increasing in level (fundamentally), pet job levels as well will not increase, so we are making it possible to further enhance pets through the equipment players wear. Below are the different plans we have for each of the pet jobs:

That is absolutely the worst possible way you could go about this. It's one thing for smns, whose gear has always focused on the pet, but for the other pet jobs, forcing them to wear gear that lets their pet be at all useful will also mean the player doesn't get to use that slot for their own benefit.

Whenever you guys suggested fixing the automaton's AI by giving us a new attachment, I yelled at you. This is the exact same issue. We should not have to find a piece of gear, or make some sort of sacrifice on our part, in order to fix something that is fundamentally wrong with our job, whether it be poorly designed or poorly thought out. Forcing the players to fix the fact that pets in FFXI simply are not well designed and are held back by poor foresight on the hands of the dev team is incredibly lazy on your parts. You're offering us a used band-aid as the solution to a problem that clearly needs surgery.

Beastmaster
Addition of new familiar pets

As a chef who will be able to profit off of these new jugs, I'm happy, but as a player who understand that this doesn't solve the problem, I'm disappointed. Also, for the love of all things holy, do not give any of them ingredients like ^$@#ing ziz meat.

Dragoon
Addition of polearms that have stats to increase the parameters of wyverns.

Are said polearms going to be at all competitive with standard DD weapons? No? I thought not.

Summoner
Addition of grips that have stats to increase the parameters of avatars.

Because smn needs MORE gear to make their avatars do what they should be able to do innately?

Puppetmaster
Addition of animators that have stats to increase the parameters of automatons.

While it is nice to see animators that will actually have a damn use other than allowing us to use maneuvers at the cost of our ammo slot, I'd like to point out that you're essentially owning up to the fact that presently, animators (save alternator) do a fat lot of nothing.

Geomancer and rune fencer adjustments
Addition of artifact equipment, merit points, and limit break quests.

This, however, is pleasant news. Will you also be buffing the jobs a bit more and fixing their other major issues, such as run's glass jaw, or geo's low power buffs?