Relic Adjustments - The balancing act

**Denabond** · 04-16-2011 11:50 AM

Originally Posted by Byrth

Spharai - This weapon is the best defensive option for Monk. In order to facilitate it in that role, adjustments mostly must be made to Final Heaven and its Aftermath.
* Make the Subtle Blow granted by Final Heaven aftermath stack with current Subtle Blow, but surpass the cap. (Subtle Blow caps at 50%).
* Change Final Heaven's fTP to 5.
* Make Final Heaven ignore some Defense like Howling Fist.

Saying these are the best defensive mnk weapon is highly debateable since there is those -10% PDT elemental knucks from TotM. Also the +counter on it doesn't do enough to really make it that much better as a defensive weapon. Id rather have Spharai focus on better DoT. Make it so the 2nd hit per attack round have a chance to do that 3X damage effect (it only has the chance to proc on the first hit each attack round). Also, increase the proc rate of the 2-3X damage of all relic weapons up to 10% rather then 5%. If we are to make Spharai into a more counter heavy weapon, have it have the chance to "fail" your counters like Perfect Counter (as in if you fail the acc cheak on your counter, it will still negate the attack rather then not contering at all). Or as MarkovChain mentioned, have it reduce the defense reduction of Counterstance and/or increase the counter damage. Also, I read somewhere that cap counter rate is 80%, so with Counterstance (with Melee Gaiters)+Merits+base counter rate=70%. So having Spharai break the counter cap would also work (although correct me if i'm wrong about there being a counter cap).

**Tamarsamar** · 04-17-2011 05:24 AM

Originally Posted by Byrth

Excalibur - This weapon is currently very very situational. If you want to do better damage while keeping your shield, you use Almace. If you want to be more defensive, you use Burtgang. Excalibur is useful in situations where Almace does bad damage due to level correction and defense. Also, Knights of the Round is worthless as it currently stands. To increase its niche while not overpowering it, I recommend the following changes:
* Increase the Additional Effect: Damage proportional to HP proc rate to 20% and let it generate Enmity for the Paladin
* Give "Knights of Round" an Attack boost (like Steel Cyclone) and have it ignore some level correction so that it does regular physical damage.
* Make "Knights of Round" give a 20HP/5MP Regen/Refresh aftermath (200HP/50 MP per 100TP and 400HP/100MP max per minute).

I'm a Red Mage pursuing Excalibur, and what is this?

While I can't say that I would agree *exactly* with your proposed changes, I have to say that I appreciate the effort of putting some concrete ideas on the table. So, kudos to you, sir.

**Byrth** · 04-17-2011 10:47 PM

Making it an enmity tool wouldn't be horrible for Red Mage either. Red mage tanking has been dead since the Dispel and Sleep enmity nerfs. I'm not sure this would fix it, but it may help.

Thanks!

**KoKoMonsta** · 04-19-2011 12:57 AM

Instead of relic overhaul.. how about this maybe? A

Fake emp weapons: (WoE obtained)
after reaching +2 and getting the ws.. how about SE implementing a quest like "Unlocking a myth" to where in the end, the fake emp weapon is traded in to unlock the WS of that category to be used w/ all pertaining weapons. Imagine a Burtang /w use of Chant.. or Amano with use of fudo.. People may disagree seeing how much work will be needed farming nms and woe etc... but its not really too different from getting a runic key from Nyzul Isle just to have an easier chance to unlock... Waiting daily for an assault tag sucked :x. In regards to the real emp weapons.. SE can just buff them up and keep them separate from other mythics and relics.

The only cons to the quest would be the amount of congestion in WoE as well as VNM hunting. SE may have to adjust pop rates of VNM(chesma etc) which they should of done a while back. Other than that, would be a great way to help older relics.

**Fetus** · 04-19-2011 03:23 AM

OP and other posters have some great ideas. I agree with most, if not all, of them.

All Relic WS need some serious adjustments to their fTP and status modifiers.
Multi-hit animations need to be Multi-hit WS. (Blade: Metsu should be 4 hits, Randgrith should be 2 hits, etc.)
Relic weapons could just add +skill instead of +accuracy or +attack.
All Relic weapons should have the "hidden" 3x damage effect instead of some doing 1.5 and others doing 2.5 or whatnot.

I think in order to streamline Relic weapons and Relic WS, the fTP should be the same on all Relic WS and the status modifiers should be a single 80% or a dual 40%/40% effect. Aftermath effects should have extended durations and revised... most of them are horribly outdated and completely useless. The "hidden" enhanced damage proc rate should be increased a bit.

Personal gripe about Mjollnir:

If Mjollnir crushes and grinds crap into dust... why does it give the user an accuracy bonus and cut the evasion of the target? It's redudant... it's like giving the WHM a double accuracy bonus, which is overkill. The rest of the party or alliance might benefit slightly from the target suffering from reduced evasion, but it's out of character for the hammer. Randgrith should have some sort of defense ignoring or defense reducing effect. The "Recover MP" effect is also completely worthless. It needs to proc more often, for a greater amount and in tandem with other effects... not being overwritten or overwriting other effects.

**Alukat** · 04-20-2011 08:45 PM

mandau needs longer aftermath and higher triple dmg proc rate.
crit dmg+x% might be good also or str+ on the weapon.
rudra's is dex based and there is plenty of dex+agi gear and some str+dex gear and almost no agi+str gear, what makes mercy stroke pretty weak during trick attack

**Atomic_Skull** · 04-25-2011 11:20 AM

Originally Posted by Fetus

I think in order to streamline Relic weapons and Relic WS, the fTP should be the same on all Relic WS

1H Relics will be screwed by that because they typically have a higher fTP to make up for their lower DMG.

**Forevergogo** · 04-28-2011 09:09 AM

"Gjallarhorn - Doesn't really need an update."

WHAT?!
We've entered the stage of +3 and +4 instruments.
I'd like a relic to surpass that a bit. Oh sure, it saves inventory space...
But I'd rather have more bang than more bag space.

When it is fully upgraded through magian is it then worth using for more than lullaby.
I'd rather use elegy+3 until the final magian upgrade (at the moment).

Seriously, when it finishes upgrading in dynamis- I'd like to see it do +3 to all songs.
Upgrades could keep adding more +singing and +wind and +Chr, and perhaps the final upgrade up to +4 to all songs.
Or instead of +4, -% song casting time.

But really, by the time we're lvl99, I'm forseeing instruments that cover 2 songs at +3 each.
All my old instruments are gonna go bye-bye in favor of these, and I still got my pwnsome requiem flute for +4 requiem!

Considering the time and work put into getting a dynamis item finished... then through all the magian upgrades,
It HAS to be more than +3. Cause in the end, all you're working so hard for is some +skill. We have AF3 and merits for that.

**Meldity** · 05-07-2011 11:23 AM

Gungnir - Dragoon is a hard one. They really only have two roles, DD and soloer. Drakesbane and Ryunohige are so good that it's not possible to modify Gungnir to be the best DD polearm while maintaining game balance. Because of that, we have to turn to solo. Fortunately, the weaponskill (as it stands) is horrendous in every way and I feel no regret totally remaking it to my specifications:
* Change the mods from 60% AGI to 40% DEX / 40% STR, in keeping with other DRG WSs.
* Instead of Shock Spikes, make the aftermath +20% Parrying rate and make the weapon restore HP to your Wyvern as Catastrophe restores it to the player.
* Make the "Additional Effect: Weakens Defense" on the relic its own category of debuff, so it stacks with Angon.

I appreciate the angon/weakens defense stack up suggestion but i'm pretty sure that's impossible for SE to do. Only way that would work is if it was an actual hidden effect for Geirskogul. And your suggestion to make it 40STR/40DEX% without an fSTR boost wouldn't improve it enough to keep on par with any other empyrean whatsoever and the notion itself is almost offensive. It's like your telling me to go build Ryunohige because Gugnir is hopeless to fix(Even though I got it before Ryunohige was even released, thanks for making my weapon incomparable to ryunohige SE). I think your missing the point that the only reason why empy's are so powerful to begin with is just because of the fact they have 'occassionally deals double damage' as an aftermath AND 'deals double damage' when they actually weaponskill.

The best part about this is the fact your suggesting 20% parry(wtf?) and were still considered a solo job when all of our job abilities are supposed to shed hate. Not only that but we have like NO DEFENSE except blood tanking from our wyvern, except the only problem is that when the wyvern dies so do we. Also 20 minutes just to summon the wyvern. Why does our wyvern have a 20 minute weakness time while our own bodies have 5 minutes is beyond me(Not like they don't get one-two shotted anyway from an AoE). Now tell me why I shouldn't just solo nearly every NM in the game on NIN instead of DRG? Oh wait, we can't.

Also if anyones wondering; no shock spikes does not stun at all, and even if it does it is more like less than 1% chance. I've done my trials in Bostinaeux leeches fighting up to 7-10 at a time and it was probably once every 10 minutes that I would actually see a leech get stunned from shock spikes.

**Byrth** · 05-07-2011 12:19 PM