RDM Reforged Artifact Gear and Stymie.

[Demon6324236]

Please understand, I am a diehard RDM, it is my favorite job, my main since the day I began, and that will never change. I stuck with RDM through Abyssea, VW, and everything that came with them, through the hardest times for RDMs, and I was not even playing during its best years, nor was I EG active during any of its good years. I only came to finally experienced RDM in EG once Abyssea came along, which was my worst point in time from what I know.

Through all of this, I have learnt to play RDM well, I have developed skill enough to be called one of the best RDMs on Phoenix by many people I know, and I have even had some others tell me they look up to me as a RDM. My experience with this job is not to be underestimated, nor is it lackluster enough to say I do not know what I am talking about when it comes to the job. So please, understand that everything I say here comes from a RDM with a great deal of experience over the last few years, and enough knowledge to be worth listening to, not just other players, but to you as well developers and community representatives.

If at any time I seem aggressive or angry, I hope that you do not ban me as you did before, I am trying my best to be calm and collected for this post, because I want you to listen to what I have to say, but I can admit I can get a bit passionate about RDM at times, and if I stat to sound aggressive, it may be because of how I feel about some things I will be talking about here. However, I feel Matsui as well as the others in charge of what happens to this game are reasonable people who I can speak to in a way that will communicate how I feel exactly, so I hope this can be done right.

If you do find any of what I ask to be unreasonable however, I would very much like a detailed explanation as to why. I understand we do not always see eye to eye on choices you make, but I think part of what hurts the relationship between the development team and the players is that we feel many of your explanations make little sense, or contradict what we know about the game. Some of that will be talked about later in this thread, and it is for that reason I want so very much for you to explain why these things can not be done in a detailed manner, I am not opposed to reasonable counter-arguments to that which I request, but I do want to understand why it can not be done, otherwise it becomes difficult to accept.





Reforged Armor(RF).



First, I want to talk about the new Reforged Set. I honestly had high hopes, but I was a bit disappointed, you made some choices I feel were rather bad with certain stats, which I hope are mistakes, but I rather doubt they are.

I will break each piece down into why I think they should be changed a bit, and I hope you will listen to the feedback, see it as reasonable, and perhaps even make the changes I ask for, I feel none of them are unreasonable changes to ask, and would be best for the job.



Atrophy Chapeau.



This piece is nice, but sadly it has no enhancement we can get that is not able to be found in the gear we have access to since Skirmish and Delve.

Most jobs have Job Abilities which can be enhanced through their gear, we do not, RDMs have only spells, and a few select Job Abilities which are sadly almost never enhanced by our gear. I wish this piece did enhance something unique, but sadly, it does not.

The base stats we get from it being an Item Level piece, meaning HP/MP/STR/DEX/ect. Those stats are all beaten by Skirmish gear, and more importantly, by Nahtirah. The Haste and Fast Cast are the same as the Nahtirah too. I like that this seems to be a piece to sort of bridge that gap, but for a RDM like myself with that piece already, this offers next to nothing.

On top of that however, I feel like the very reason most Red Mages used our original Chapeau, was lost in its level jump.

Originally, this piece had a nice bit of INT and a lot of skill, stats for Elemental Magic at the time which were very good, especially when you consider the extra MP, and the Fast Cast.



However I feel like the reincarnation of today does not live up to this. our new one is good for elemental magic, but it is no longer a true focus for the piece. I wish it had Magic Attack Bonus, Magic Damage, or slightly more INT, something to make it stand out a bit more. For now, it only serves to give us a little more Magic Accuracy, which is not much when you think about the fact that we have so much right now, our Elemental Magic is hardly resisted in the first place.

I think you should add stats to the Atrophy Chapeau that would make it stand out for Elemental Magic as it once did. This would give it a place potentially, however it would need to be fairly powerful stats, the ideal stats to give this would be a nice amount of Magic Damage and Magic Attack Bonus, enough so that it is weaker than the current best Elemental Magic head piece, Hagondes Hat, while also being in a position to become more powerful than that very head piece upon its upgrade to level 119. This would allow RDMs to have this as a dominant piece of gear, useful to the job, while also allowing the item levels to be accurate.

I also think in doing this, Magic Damage should be added to the BLM and SCH head pieces as well, to balance them, and put them in a similar situation, so that they can still be better than RDM, however this piece would keep its legacy as a RDM Elemental Magic piece.



Atrophy Tabard.




This piece I believe should be changed a bit, it lost a stat, and gained one a different piece should have gotten.



Looking at the original, it was an Enfeebling Magic body piece with Spell Interruption Rate which helped with other spells, however the overall main use was for that Enfeebling Magic Skill. While you did increase the skill, you removed the Spell Interruption Rate completely, on top of that, you gave this body Magic Attack Bonus, which I believe should have been on the Chapeau rather than this piece.

This piece does have the normal stats that come with being an item level piece too, and in nice amounts, which does it justice for being an Enfeebling Magic piece especially when you think about the MND and INT on the piece, which make it the best piece for Enfeebling Magic Accuracy unless you count Skirmish gear, which I hope it will surpass upon reaching level 119. While it does not win for potency, where our Empyrean body wins due to its direct enhancement to potency, it definitely has the primary use which follows its predecessor.

My only complaint are that I wish the Spell Interruption Rate was not lost in the upgrade, that the skill had been raised by more than simply two points, and that the Magic Attack Bonus was relocated to the Chapeau. Besides that, I think this is perfect, and it is already our best piece from this set.



Atrophy Gloves.



I never thought the sight of Enhancing Magic duration would actually disappoint me, sadly, this piece of gear did just that. I know you meant well with this stat, but truly, it should have been relocated to our legs.

Besides that, I think these hands are a great bridge piece between something like Bregos, which we used before Adoulin to melee, and Buremte, which are difficult to obtain, the Attack/Accuracy is a nice touch which does make me happy, it shows some amount of care for RDMs who do carry swords, and attempt to perform on the front lines. The piece also holds very true to its original design in that very aspect!



These hands are a perfect upgrade for the old piece. The old piece helped RDMs land their attacks with the extra DEX boost, while also providing some Parry skill to help defend themselves, an all around great piece at the time for the RDMs who carried their blades.

The piece has been reborn with the Atrophy Gloves in the perfect way with DEX remaining their strongest stat even. This piece makes me very happy as a melee RDM, especially knowing that we are going to get a level 119 version, which makes me giddy inside as I see some attention to one of the most ignored aspects to RDM, being brought to me in this piece.

The only issue with it all so far as melee goes is one simple flaw which I find destructive. Thus far, Adoulin has only provided us one piece of melee focused gear when it comes to the five primary slots, Head, Body, Hands, Legs, and Feet, and that single piece is the Buremte Gloves. Do not get me wrong I love these hands, I do not want you to take away their melee stats, they are just as they should be, and are by far the best upgrade of them all when it comes to a comparison between their old version and its new reborn self.

However, my issue is I wish our melee pieces were a bit more varied. If we only have melee hands, the rest of our melee armor will fall short, and result in a weaker job as a whole because of it. Both the Buremte Gloves and the Atrophy Gloves are wonderful for RDMs like me who have the courage to stand up to a foe and fight them off with our blades, but giving us nothing but Gloves to wear in these occasions will not serve us well, we require other gear.

The only true change I want to this piece of gear, is for you to move the Enhancing Magic Duration enhancement to the legs. I do not understand why it was put on this piece of gear. In order to use this, a RDM has to sacrifice many things, because a RDM will want to maintain 500 Enhancing Magic Skill for their spells.

By using these gloves a RDM must not use their Duelist's Gloves +2, which give a massive +18 Skill. Without those gloves, we have a very difficult time hitting 500 Enhancing Magic Skill. We naturally cap at 404, with a B rank in Enhancing Magic, through merits, we can attain 420 before gear, common gear would be Colossus's Torque, Duelist's Tabard +2, Estoqueur's Cape, a pair of legs with +15 such as Shedir Seraweels, and Estoqueur's Houseaux +2. This totals at 478, now, with Duelist's Gloves we can attain 496, which means to hit 500 we need only use something like Zenith Tiara, or Olympus Sash. The issue is that without this extra 18 from the Gloves, we need to not only get both of those, but also the Augmenting Earring, and the new Dagger which has 10 Enhancing Magic on it.

Now, here is where everything goes bad. In order to get full use of these hands for the duration effect, we are left with no choice but to use this dagger, this dagger is by itself very weak when compared to other options for melee, we would be offering a ton of amazing stats to use it, however, we are forced to do so in order to hit a skill of 500 and gain the most from our spells. The only other way around it would be to swap it out, resetting the player's TP.

To me, this should be changed. These hands are amazing for a Red Mage, but at the same time, they force us to do something so detrimental to our melee capabilities in order to get their full effects. I would love to see the duration enhancement moved to our legs because they have the skill to accommodate this effect. If that is done, this piece would be perfect in my opinion, and my favorite piece of Adoulin gear due to the fact it is an example of melee RDMs everywhere getting attention from this expansion!



Atrophy Tights.



These are currently our second best piece in this set. These legs are amazing for curing, they beat out Nares, give us a great deal of Healing Skill, and have Haste which make our Cures recast faster, all in all, wonderful piece. However... While it does follow in the footsteps of its predecessor, it feels like the Skill is a disappointment when compared to how much I wish it had grown.



The original legs had 10 Healing Magic Skill, being brought up to only 13, rather than something like 17, which the Enhancing was brought up to, while I can not complain about this all to much, it feels like an underwhelming amount, and that brings me to my second issue with these.

The Enhancing Magic. When WHM Relic legs were taken from their level of 73/75 to 90 they not only got 3 Healing Skill in those 15~17 levels, but they also got an entire 18 Enhancing Magic, a brand new stat which were not on the legs originally, and in the largest amount of any legs to this day. Knowing that the RDM AF legs were at 15 skill already, and 10 Healing Magic Skill, I assumed that in their 34~53 level jump they would have grown to at very least 20 Enhancing Magic, and perhaps 15 or 20 Healing Magic skill. Rather than that however, the increase was only 3 Healing and 2 Enhancing. To me, this is very, very disappointing amounts.

When you pile on top of this small amount of Enhancing Magic the fact that we must give up our Duelist's Gloves +2 as mentioned above so that we may use our new Atrophy Gloves, it only makes the extra skill all the more needed. RDM is one of the jobs which carries the most gear in the game, and right now, we need to carry even more just for those gloves. Had these been higher, they could have removed the need for the new Dagger being forced to hit 500 skill with those hands, it would have made it more flexible for players like myself, but the increase was just to small.

Even with the idea of these hitting 119 in the next update, I expect them to hit 15 and 20 respectively then, and that alone will not aid this issue all to much. If you could put the Duration on these legs, it would make me very happy, and massively improve the set as a whole. The largest issue I have with this set is the Enhancing Magic Duration being put on the Gloves instead of these while these got such a short boost in Enhancing Magic itself. Please, please make this change, you would make a RDM very happy.



Atrophy Boots.



This piece is another piece which is great for melee RDMs, and to a point does call back to its predecessor.



Original boots were a piece meant to help a RDM survive on the front lines, which obviously implies a RDM to be meleeing, or at least wielding a blade. It is for this reason I think this is another great upgrade, providing Haste, Accuracy, and a nice amount of AGI/EVA. The only issue I have with these boots, is the fact that we did not get a very large boost in skill, again, and the fact we got no Physical Damage Taken on them.

I understand RDM is not a job which normally gets much Physical Damage Taken, however, the fact the stat is so readily abundant in the Skirmish sets made it vital that this piece get some as well. Without any Physical Damage Taken, its hard for a RDM to put this to use, their best use is clearly defense, however, we just can not use it for that, even Skirmish feet with a 1% or 2% augment would beat this for utility when being hit. Its for this reason I must say that you should add at least some amount of Physical Damage Taken to these.

Adding 3% Physical Damage Taken and increasing it to 4% with the 119 version would be wonderful, and make these very good feet for a RDM trying to tank with the new Shield you gave us in Skirmish. Wildkeeper Reives require a tank, RDM is able to fill this role just like a PLD if geared correctly, and I would love to see these feet as a staple piece for such a task, however, they will need this stat to stay competitive.

A side note to this, please, raise RDM's skill with Shields, if you truly want us to use them in any capacity or want Shield Skill to matter, we need it. We can only get 265 by skilling up, with merits we go to 273 before gear, but even with these feet as they are now and the new shield, our skill is only at level 358, which is far below that of a PLD still, its lower than the natural cap of not only PLD, but WAR too, which makes our block rate so low that even with the skill found on these feet, our block rate will not change at all unless we are fighting something that is a far lower level than we are ourselves.

I do not think it is fair to make the skill of a RDM with shields so low, I ask that you at least boost us up to the same level a WAR is now, a C+ rating, or possibly higher, such as a B-, and give WAR a B rating or so if you wish to balance it out, so that WAR is still ahead. I personally think RDM should be much better with a shield than they are now because otherwise, you are giving us shields we can hardly make any use of, and these boots are simply more of the same.





Stymie.



I know you wanted us to test this, give it time, and so on, you have defended this ability many times, and I can understand that you do not want us to give up on an idea you think has such potential. But I must ask once again, please, do not leave us with this ability. Even if you make changes to this ability, it has little promise to us players.

I believe you fear RDM becoming to powerful, we once had so much power we were demi-gods of this world, able to take on almost anything alone even while others had to throw armies at it to even stand a chance. If this is correct, your fear of this is not justified anymore though, you have placed restrictions, such as timers, you have created powerful moves we can not counter, such as Incinerating Lahar, and have in a way held back the job for many years. I could be wrong, you may not fear this outcome, you may be trying to improve RDM, and yet the players are not making use of it in the way you want, I am not sure. But what I want to say is, we are not a strong job.

For years now RDM has been excluded, exiled from events because we have been of nearly no use. Almost all NMs of importance in the game were made immune to our abilities such as sleep or gravity, bind or break, all because you did not want us to pin down the enemy, and make us overpowered, all in the name of balance. I admit, if we were so powerful, your right, we would be overpowered, but we are not. You see a threat where there is none, a shadow of a demi-god who has fallen from their position of glory to the slums of obscurity, all because of a number of restrictions put in place that seemingly target the very things that made us so very powerful to begin with.

Can I blame you for restricting some of these things? No, they would prove to be to powerful were they as strong as they could be, but they are not as good as you seem to treat them. Paralyze is a fine enfeeble, it prevents an enemy's actions occasionally, no matter if they are physical or magical, but the problem is that the activation is not reliable, and today, most people choose to attack things all out, causing it to use many special attack back to back in quick succession, the only time Paralyze has seemed to matter in Seekers for me is when I fear a monster getting a spell cast when Silence has worn.

Paralyze is but a single spell, one of our best, and yet it has such low use. I could speak of Blind, and how all NMs have such high Accuracy that even with Blind and Flash together, we can not manage to dodge their attacks, or how poison is so weak that its effects can not even come close to denting a NMs health. Slow does not even work yet on half of the monsters we fight now days because in an attempt to make monsters more powerful and more interesting you incorporated various races of monsters who of which use special attacks for their normal attacks, which can not be slowed, and Slow itself, like Paralyze, does not work against special attacks, though Paralyze has been made to effect these since their creation, while Slow has not.

The point I am trying to make is, Enfeebling Magic as a whole, while able to be applied, is not strong. You give us the ability to land a single Enfeebling Magic spell 100% of the time, but that does so very little for us when our spells are to weak to do much anyways. We know we can use MND to enhance Paralyze and Slow, or INT to enhance Blind, Skill to enhance Poison, but these do nothing for us special, most Red Mages cast these spells in high MND and INT sets anyways because without the high potency we know they are so weak they may as well not even be cast. But even in full potency gear, we can not make them strong enough to be in any way game breaking.

You explained that you do not want us to lock down monsters with spells like Sleep or Silence, but please tell me, what difference does it make if it comes from a RDM or a BRD? Bards have had Troubadour for a long time, and under its effects a BRD can land Sleep with near 100% accuracy, when paired with Nightingale their effect is similar to that of a Red Mage using Chainspell and Stymie together, but allowing Stymie to effect multiple spells. On top of that, BRDs have not only two Sleep type spells, but two Sleepga type spells native to the job as well.

In the end, it seems more than a little unfair that you would say RDM can not do this, when many others can, not only BRD, which I just gave you examples for, but a BLU can use Elemental Seal to Terror monsters or NMs, a BLM can do something similar to BRD as well using Elemental Seal, and if I am not mistaken, the new SP was supposed to give them a large Magic Accuracy bonus as well, similar to Elemental Seal, though I could be remembering incorrectly.





If you look back on your original ideas to make these new SPs, your original idea was well received, the idea to create a SP which would enhance our Enhancing Magic. This idea was wonderful, I said multiple times, your heart was in the right place, but you needed to make it stronger. I understand in light of what Embrava did you may have feared what it could become. Again, I must say, if this is what it is, it is not deserving of such a thing.

If you went back to this ability, gave us 3 minutes of double potency Enhancing Magic, it would be fair and balanced. Like Composure, limit the effects of the ability on Protect and Shell, do not boost these, if they are boosted make them last 5 minutes or something. I know 350 DEF and a near capped Magic Damage Taken effect would be overpowered, I agree with that, but what about everything else?

BRD can provide a ton of Haste without a SP or much time between casts, RDM would provide only 30% Haste, and only for around 6 minutes, less than double Marches and also less duration if you count in Nightingale and Troubadour. En-spells would be better, but require the sub-job of SCH, otherwise its a self buff only, the same thing goes with Phalanx, unless the player merits Phalanx II, even then, the duration is again very short, and against stronger enemies such as Delve NMs the effect only lowers the damage, it is not enough to null the damage, so this should not be much to fear in my opinion. Besides those, everything else is basically a RDM only effect, RDM would get a very potent Temper, Gain-STR, Spikes, and such, but they are not enough to be overpowered, they would at best bring RDM on par with other DDs at the same level for a few minutes.

This ability would basically be a RDM version of Soul Voice, but with more spells with a varied pool of effects, most of which weaker than that of BRD. None of this comes close to what Embrava used to be, and the most powerful effect for others would probably be Haste and Refresh. RDM was once the master of Refresh, would it be so bad for it to have the best Refresh spell at 14 Refresh for a few minutes that it could give to others? I honestly do not think it would be unbalanced.





I see a lot of potential in this ability, much more than that of Stymie, and while I know you want us to like Stymie, I just can not, I have looked at it from every angle, used it a few times, and I can not find it useful. Everything I want to land on a monster I can already land, there are no important spells that I can not already land, and while the argument may be made that while top tier RDMs do not need it others do, I have to ask, why is it we can not have an ability which would help all RDMs, rather than just the RDMs who are not on top?

I ask you, please, give this consideration, fair and proper, even ask the players as a whole, give us a vote, a say in the matter, asking in the RDM forums which one players want. If you give us this choice and we truly choose Stymie, I will accept it, even if I personally can not put it to use, but if we ask for the other ability, to enhance out Enhancing Magic, I beg of you, please, do it. I do not think it is asking much to give it a fair chance, and think it over, it would mean a lot to a loyal player if you would do this. I hope through this post you have seen my passion for RDM, and as such, can understand my connection to the job, and how much I really do hope you do this. If nothing else, I would love a personal response from you Matsui, explaining your thoughts on it all, or whoever is in charge of RDM.









Camate, Okipuit, I am putting my trust and faith in you two, as well as anyone else who may be in charge of getting our posts and feedback to the Developers. You are our link, and as such, I ask that you please try to translate this in a way that keeps as much of the emotion I put into this post as you can. I spent hours writing this, thinking over every word, trying my best to be respectful, calm, and clear in everything that I said, and explain my ideas on it all. I will not claim to be any sort of representative of Red Mages or think that I know what everyone wants, but I think can say for sure, these changes would make me very happy, and I think Red Mages as a whole in the community would appreciate it greatly, and respect you for listening, if you made some or all of them. Even if the changes were not made, if a full, well thought out reply were presented to us from Matsui, explaining why these things can not be done, I would be more than glad to read it all.

I wish there was a way I could truly speak to him myself, communicate my exact feeling to him directly, but sadly, I can not, so as I said, I place my trust in you, please, do what you can to get this to him in the most pure form you can, and I thank you for doing it for me if you will, and I am sorry if I have ever offended any of you with my harsh words in the past, I hope you can forgive me.

[FaeQueenCory]

RDM is one of my least favorite designs... and I think the only reason why they did RDM's 109AF1 this way is because of the stats the base had.
At least it's not THF... >_>
(probably the only reason it lacks TH is because the base did too)

Though there's a bit of hope for your 119 version...
(and I think they only added refresh to the body to make this an "upgrade"/sidegrade to the empy+2 body... At least that's what I've gotten from the Mage 109AF1s... They all got 2mp refresh on the "refresh" slot for that job... usually body... though I think BLM got a dmg version of whm's empy+1 pants' MP effect instead.... Let's hope for something crazy like a 4mp refresh on them in the 119 versions!)

As to Stymie....
I don't think they're gonna change it....
The most you can hope for... is some effect from a 119AF2 piece somewhere... The AF2+2A pieces would augment 2hrs (usually by extending duration)... so it stands to reason that the 119AF2 might just add charges to Stymie...
But even then it'll still be crap...
But I see something bad on the horizon about Stymie...
Not that it's dumb and will never be used...
But what if new NMs require it's +9999999Macc boost? (I don't think anyone knows the numbers... but the way the Devs have talked about it... makes it seem like it's Macc is greater than ES... almost like it's got +BrewMacc...)
And I don't think we need more PD and FS situations.

[Demon6324236]

RDM is one of my least favorite designs... and I think the only reason why they did RDM's 109AF1 this way is because of the stats the base had.

That is one of my main points, some of the pieces have stats which do not fit their design. Hands with 0 Enhancing, but extra duration, while legs have no duration, and have the skill, or a hat which used to be used for nuking, that now will become an Enfeebling piece upon the next update. Almost everything RF related I ask for are changes which would put them more in line with their current stats and the stats of the originals.

At least it's not THF... >_>
(probably the only reason it lacks TH is because the base did too)

THF gear all had Crit DMG+, which can be used for WSs, not just any WSs, all WSs, since THF forces crits so often, making it really not that bad of gear, if you sneak or trick attack, you are probably going to use that gear while doing it.

Though there's a bit of hope for your 119 version...
(and I think they only added refresh to the body to make this an "upgrade"/sidegrade to the empy+2 body... At least that's what I've gotten from the Mage 109AF1s... They all got 2mp refresh on the "refresh" slot for that job... usually body... though I think BLM got a dmg version of whm's empy+1 pants' MP effect instead.... Let's hope for something crazy like a 4mp refresh on them in the 119 versions!)

The BLM body is an upgrade of Seidr, the body from Meeble Burrows which had the same DMG-->MP effect as the new BLM body, whats crazy is the BLM body will get upgraded, and if its, say, 5%, BLM will have infinite MP basically, at the cost of losing hardly any real DMG. So far as the Refresh goes, its ok, but I am sure its 2 still, which is so common now its meaningless to care about anymore at this point. So far as having hope for 119, that's why I made this post, I hope they take to heart my points about the gear, if they 119 it as it is, the stats will raise, but not enough to make the set truly great, we need changes to certain things which will improve the set as a whole so that when it becomes 119, its as strong as it can be, and the perfect RF set for RDM.

As to Stymie....
I don't think they're gonna change it....

Hope is about all I can do right now, I made the best cases I can on the subject, I hope they understand and will at least think about it, or reply with a reasonable argument as to why it can not be done.

The most you can hope for... is some effect from a 119AF2 piece somewhere... The AF2+2A pieces would augment 2hrs (usually by extending duration)... so it stands to reason that the 119AF2 might just add charges to Stymie...
But even then it'll still be crap...
But I see something bad on the horizon about Stymie...
Not that it's dumb and will never be used...
But what if new NMs require it's +9999999Macc boost? (I don't think anyone knows the numbers... but the way the Devs have talked about it... makes it seem like it's Macc is greater than ES... almost like it's got +BrewMacc...)
And I don't think we need more PD and FS situations.

Brew MAcc is just the MND/INT from your brew. If you have +999 INT that's at very least 499 Magic Accuracy to all Black Magic spells, needless to say, that's going to land. The issue is that no enfeeble deserves this kind of resistance or needs this kind of ability to land. If it took this ability to land, we would not count on this for a battle, we would not even care, it might be a bit of icing on the cake if we brought a RDM already, but there is nothing about RDM that puts it above other jobs to the point to bring it instead of something like SCH. Its for that reason that this ability seems to have no use, there is nothing we can do so crippling that we should need to wait 1 hour to get 1~3 minute(s) of its effects.

The issues with the ability are two grand thing, the fact Enfeebling Magic can already be landed on all targets it needs to be. And the fact that Enfeebling Magic effects are not very strong in the end, which cases a lack of need for them in the first place.

You can raise resistance to the roof, but we will do what we did before, which was not use them, this time because we can not land them, and before it was because they were all immune to it, but its the same end result really, except that with our new SP we could land it one time, that's not enough to build a strategy around, especially when SE said they did not want RDM to become critical to strategies with this ability, which is about the only time it would become an asset.

[FaeQueenCory]

That is one of my main points, some of the pieces have stats which do not fit their design. Hands with 0 Enhancing, but extra duration, while legs have no duration, and have the skill, or a hat which used to be used for nuking, that now will become an Enfeebling piece upon the next update. Almost everything RF related I ask for are changes which would put them more in line with their current stats and the stats of the originals.

THF gear all had Crit DMG+, which can be used for WSs, not just any WSs, all WSs, since THF forces crits so often, making it really not that bad of gear, if you sneak or trick attack, you are probably going to use that gear while doing it.

The BLM body is an upgrade of Seidr, the body from Meeble Burrows which had the same DMG-->MP effect as the new BLM body, whats crazy is the BLM body will get upgraded, and if its, say, 5%, BLM will have infinite MP basically, at the cost of losing hardly any real DMG. So far as the Refresh goes, its ok, but I am sure its 2 still, which is so common now its meaningless to care about anymore at this point. So far as having hope for 119, that's why I made this post, I hope they take to heart my points about the gear, if they 119 it as it is, the stats will raise, but not enough to make the set truly great, we need changes to certain things which will improve the set as a whole so that when it becomes 119, its as strong as it can be, and the perfect RF set for RDM.

Hope is about all I can do right now, I made the best cases I can on the subject, I hope they understand and will at least think about it, or reply with a reasonable argument as to why it can not be done.

Brew MAcc is just the MND/INT from your brew. If you have +999 INT that's at very least 499 Magic Accuracy to all Black Magic spells, needless to say, that's going to land. The issue is that no enfeeble deserves this kind of resistance or needs this kind of ability to land. If it took this ability to land, we would not count on this for a battle, we would not even care, it might be a bit of icing on the cake if we brought a RDM already, but there is nothing about RDM that puts it above other jobs to the point to bring it instead of something like SCH. Its for that reason that this ability seems to have no use, there is nothing we can do so crippling that we should need to wait 1 hour to get 1~3 minute(s) of its effects.

The issues with the ability are two grand thing, the fact Enfeebling Magic can already be landed on all targets it needs to be. And the fact that Enfeebling Magic effects are not very strong in the end, which cases a lack of need for them in the first place.

You can raise resistance to the roof, but we will do what we did before, which was not use them, this time because we can not land them, and before it was because they were all immune to it, but its the same end result really, except that with our new SP we could land it one time, that's not enough to build a strategy around, especially when SE said they did not want RDM to become critical to strategies with this ability, which is about the only time it would become an asset.

I agree with you about it all (except for the THF stuff. While the +critdmg is good and all... Extenerator can't crit. But seeing as how the REMs are back, that may be moot. My dagger experience is DNC... my THF is just for TH.).

And I also think you're right about what will happen with the implied "we're making mobs that will need stymie".
It won't make people use Stymie, it'll just make people not use enfeebles.
As I already said: best hope is 119Relic "augments" that will augment the new 2hr. (And it doesn't seem like we have long to wait about that either... cause I think the relic and empy sets might be 119ified along with the 119 update to the AF1 sets... in December.)

And as to BLM 119AF body... yeah... 5%... especially with the way how +Mdmg has made "chainspelling" T1s better than a single T5... That's infinite mana. (though they might do it where it won't exceed the MP cost... I think the WHM empy pants have that cap in the effect.)
BUT there's the 119 relic and empy bodies to compare it to...

Which you also have to remember about this 109ification...
Sure, some of these might have lost certain stats... But it's likely that those stats got moved to the iLv AF2 or AF3. (like how the RDM empy set bonus is +enhance duration... I'm expecting the 119empy to not have set bonuses and have those procs be statics... +%dmg under samba... +%dmg for blood bood/conserve MP... straight occ quick spellcasting...)
And having full 119 sets may make it so Delve wins are less... demanding of pt job structure.
I mean, currently everyone's in 110-113 gear with the occasional 115 or 119 piece... and even some AF or NNI pieces! (though mages are more without iLv gear... hell, "the best" body for whm is STILL Heka's... Sure Gwenditha is a good substitute... but Heka's is just too good for whm.)
Just think about how everything will change (hopefully for the better, and by better I mean more inclusive) when everyone is sporting full/a lot 119 gear.
And just think about 4mp refreshes... on one piece!!

[Demon6324236]

I agree with you about it all (except for the THF stuff. While the +critdmg is good and all... Extenerator can't crit. But seeing as how the REMs are back, that may be moot. My dagger experience is DNC... my THF is just for TH.).

That's not quite true, Exenterator does not crit normally, no, however Sneak and Trick Attack force crits, if you use Sneak or Trick attack with Exenterator it forces it to crit, which means that the Crit DMG effect will basically act as WS DMG+ since the WS will crit anyways. It is for this reason most THFs use Evisceration unless SA/TA are up, then they use Exenterator stacked with SA/TA.

And I also think you're right about what will happen with the implied "we're making mobs that will need stymie".
It won't make people use Stymie, it'll just make people not use enfeebles.
As I already said: best hope is 119Relic "augments" that will augment the new 2hr. (And it doesn't seem like we have long to wait about that either... cause I think the relic and empy sets might be 119ified along with the 119 update to the AF1 sets... in December.)

Only time will tell, but no matter how they augment this ability it will not make it any better really. Even if I could use infinite Enfeebles for 1 minute and they would all stick and had double potency, the potency effects of Saboteur already prove that things like Dia or Gravity are enhanced duration, not the -DEF and -EVA effects, the most vital part of it all, which is why no one stacks them, sure I could get super Paralyze, but TP moves are the threat, and they are not effected, same with slow, blind, poison, all of it.

The sad fact is, Enfeebling Magic as a whole would need revamped and overall fixed before this ability would be good enough to be helpful, without being forced to be helpful to the point we just don't bring RDM at all. The whole idea of them making things have way to much MEVA is one of my greatest fears about this, we do not want immunities or high resists we can not land through but once an hour, neither are good, landing everything easy isn't good either but if I am a good RDM or I get a few Immunobreaks I should be able to pull it off, if they made this SP necessary, well, Immunobreaks become pointless, we cant land it without the SP, and things start to suck for RDM even worse.

And as to BLM 119AF body... yeah... 5%... especially with the way how +Mdmg has made "chainspelling" T1s better than a single T5... That's infinite mana. (though they might do it where it won't exceed the MP cost... I think the WHM empy pants have that cap in the effect.)
BUT there's the 119 relic and empy bodies to compare it to...

Yeah, I own Seidr, I can say for sure the cap does exist, it can only null the cost, not recover your MP past said cost. The thing is, T1 spells of all elements in RDMs best gear are all free, a BLM I assume can get probably Stone & Water II as well as all T1 -ga spells even on a single target, to be free. The +1 of this body could literally end up with a BLM getting T1s and T2s at 0 cost, and its scary to think of how little MP they would spend on higher spells. Stone V costs 156 MP I think, if you could do 4k with that spell in Seidr, you are cutting the cost by 80, if it is risen to 5%, BLM should have basically free Earth nukes. 3% would be amazing too, and not exactly all spells free either, so maybe that's the idea for it, who knows.

Which you also have to remember about this 109ification...
Sure, some of these might have lost certain stats... But it's likely that those stats got moved to the iLv AF2 or AF3. (like how the RDM empy set bonus is +enhance duration... I'm expecting the 119empy to not have set bonuses and have those procs be statics... +%dmg under samba... +%dmg for blood bood/conserve MP... straight occ quick spellcasting...)

I wouldn't be sure about that, they change things about the set to make room for abilities they feel the piece should have in place of stats they feel are not as needed I think. Like how DRK Relic lost Enfeebling Magic I think or something like that because in reality they do not use it, instead they put other stats there. Before, I would have been ok with that, but the fact they have been putting so many stats on pieces and I feel some of it is misplaced, I think they should have been a bit more true to how its original was. In the case of the body for RDM, we have Magic Attack and Accuracy, we could give up the Accuracy in place of more skill, bump skill to 25 and put in the Spell Interruption Rate, put the Magic Attack on the Chapeau, you fix both pieces instantly, and should not take up to much room.

And having full 119 sets may make it so Delve wins are less... demanding of pt job structure.
I mean, currently everyone's in 110-113 gear with the occasional 115 or 119 piece... and even some AF or NNI pieces! (though mages are more without iLv gear... hell, "the best" body for whm is STILL Heka's... Sure Gwenditha is a good substitute... but Heka's is just too good for whm.)
Just think about how everything will change (hopefully for the better, and by better I mean more inclusive) when everyone is sporting full/a lot 119 gear.
And just think about 4mp refreshes... on one piece!!

I doubt we will see 4 Refresh pieces, though, have we seen a 3 Refresh piece from these bodies yet? If so... that's possible, if not then I highly doubt it. Also Heka's is only a pre-cast body for WHM, all WHMs should finish their cures in their Empyrean +2 Body, the boost to Stoneskin from Solace is very powerful and makes it better than any other body, just like how the legs are the best because of their MP effects, which like BLM, its interesting to think of how healing will be once these are upgraded. The real question to the idea of events becoming more inclusive however, is the question of how inclusive the events will be to get this gear. If I need to do something harder than Delve to get it, I wont get it without doing Delve most likely, which is a chicken and the egg sort of plan.

[Doombringer]

personally, i always thought of the hat as a fast cast piece, and i just happened to nuke in it once upon a time.

way back when, fast cast was unique to RDM, and that hat was one of the few pieces of gear in the game that enhanced it.

so when i saw the new hat i didn't at all think "won't nuke in it" i thought "it better have more than 10% fast cast..."


the rest i agree with to varying degrees, but particularly the enhancing duration competing with relic+2. i saw the new hands and immediately went "welp... close!"

[Demon6324236]

I admit the original was for Fast Cast too, and it was probably more for that than nuking even, but nuking was a primary use too, its stats fit it very well with nuking. I feel like it already wins for Fast Cast right now, even at 10% FC with 5% Haste it completely ties Nahtirah, since its a full 10 levels under Nahtirah as it is, I feel like once it is brought up to 119 levels we are sure to see 6% Haste, perhaps more, which is exciting for our melee as much as it is for recast reduction, and I can see the Fast Cast potentially hitting 12% like our Duelist's Tabard +2 did, the only 12% Fast Cast body in the game so far as I know.

The reason I overlook the Fast Cast right now is only because of Nahtirah however, the fact its 10 levels above Atrophy and yet they have the same stats for Fast Cast/Recast Reduction to me shows that Atrophy should end up as the best there is for it once its upgraded, so I didn't really feel the need to make the point. Instead, I thought it would be more important to focus on the idea of using it for nuking, especially since they already had the Fast Cast part of it down it seemed.

However, I do agree with you, I hope the 119 version beats out the 10% standard we have grown so accustomed to these days.

[FaeQueenCory]

I wouldn't be sure about that, they change things about the set to make room for abilities they feel the piece should have in place of stats they feel are not as needed I think. Like how DRK Relic lost Enfeebling Magic I think or something like that because in reality they do not use it, instead they put other stats there. Before, I would have been ok with that, but the fact they have been putting so many stats on pieces and I feel some of it is misplaced, I think they should have been a bit more true to how its original was. In the case of the body for RDM, we have Magic Attack and Accuracy, we could give up the Accuracy in place of more skill, bump skill to 25 and put in the Spell Interruption Rate, put the Magic Attack on the Chapeau, you fix both pieces instantly, and should not take up to much room.

I doubt we will see 4 Refresh pieces, though, have we seen a 3 Refresh piece from these bodies yet? If so... that's possible, if not then I highly doubt it. Also Heka's is only a pre-cast body for WHM, all WHMs should finish their cures in their Empyrean +2 Body, the boost to Stoneskin from Solace is very powerful and makes it better than any other body, just like how the legs are the best because of their MP effects, which like BLM, its interesting to think of how healing will be once these are upgraded.

I think the losing abilities is more based on the evolution of the 50-60AF1 to the 74AF1+1 sets.
SMN changed the most with the upgrade because SE listened to the players and totally dropped like 70% of what the base did to favor how the job is played... And the 109 looks like a further evolution in this train of thought, not just for SMN, but for all jobs.
A lot of pieces lose their odd stat buffs from the +1ification.... so I am not surprised to see that happen again with the "+2". (and dear GOD... look at what happens to the AF2 when it gets +2'd... you loose so many things!)
The body refresh is just because... that's the standard for any job with MP. (and on that, we could even expect the BLM body to follow suit with SCH's AF3+2 and only have 2mp refresh and the 2% recharge instead of a 4mp refresh as other jobs might get at 119.)
And I also highly suspect the loss of some of these key/highly valuable ability mods to have been dropped to differentiate the RF1 to the RF2 and RF3. (which, if we're really lucky, might even go gold in a couple weeks like the 119ification of the RF1)
Cause judging from Matsui's desire to make all three 119 sets... It looks like the "end result" is to have 3 full JSE sets at 119 to pick and choose per slot from. And you can't really do that when all the gloves do the exact same thing.

6MP refresh is hella easy to pull off right now.
And all smns have 4MP just from a 2MP hat and the job traight... And seeing as how you have to "work" Heka's to get the 3MP refresh... and how Adoulin armor is set up... (I mean, the 100 bayld armor has 2MP refresh for pete's sake!) I would not be not surprised to see 119 armors with refresh at +4...
We can't say for certain... because we only have shoes and hats at 119 right now... But we'll know in a couple weeks when it's December... cause that's apparently when the 119 AF1 goes gold... >_>
(would have been nice to have some time to let more people get them to 109... but doing it so soon makes me wonder if you can just skip the 109 like you can with Relics and the +1 stage... we'll see.)

Though I disagree that the WHM empy body is anything more than a novelty. Gendewitha will out perform it... and Gendewitha is like the poor-man's Heka's.
Well... That's not true. In Abyssea, then the empy body will outshine Heka's... but in Adoulin? Heka or Gendewitha.
Everywhere else you can pretty much wear nothing nowadays and be fine... lol
As for the pants... that depends on the rest of your gear. But it really comes down to Af3+2 pants or those cure potency refresh pants from NNI.. Nares Trews iirc. They're both the best currently for that slot, and it really depends on all the rest of your gear which one will pull ahead. (Though my personal choice is the AF3+2.)

The real question to the idea of events becoming more inclusive however, is the question of how inclusive the events will be to get this gear. If I need to do something harder than Delve to get it, I wont get it without doing Delve most likely, which is a chicken and the egg sort of plan.

I seriously doubt Delve will be required for the 119 papers.
109 content wasn't required for the 109 papers.
It's most likely gonna me MORE new 99BCNMs....
Maybe even a new seal/crest... cause... we need more of those... [/sarcasm]
But most likely it'll be a new tiered orb from SKCs... 30 or 40.

My statement about Delve was that with full 119 sets, (rather than the assortment of 109, 110, 113, 115 and the couple of 119 pieces we have now) we might see more variance with who is allowed to go on successful Delve runs. (and depending on if the 119 comes before BLU can learn those spells from the WKRs... then maybe BLU will get to be able to Delve by grinding out the 119 papers from the BCNMs.)
Hell, with full 119... we might even be able to have 1-5+B with a six man pt.

I admit the original was for Fast Cast too, and it was probably more for that than nuking even, but nuking was a primary use too, its stats fit it very well with nuking. I feel like it already wins for Fast Cast right now, even at 10% FC with 5% Haste it completely ties Nahtirah, since its a full 10 levels under Nahtirah as it is, I feel like once it is brought up to 119 levels we are sure to see 6% Haste, perhaps more, which is exciting for our melee as much as it is for recast reduction, and I can see the Fast Cast potentially hitting 12% like our Duelist's Tabard +2 did, the only 12% Fast Cast body in the game so far as I know.

The reason I overlook the Fast Cast right now is only because of Nahtirah however, the fact its 10 levels above Atrophy and yet they have the same stats for Fast Cast/Recast Reduction to me shows that Atrophy should end up as the best there is for it once its upgraded, so I didn't really feel the need to make the point. Instead, I thought it would be more important to focus on the idea of using it for nuking, especially since they already had the Fast Cast part of it down it seemed.

However, I do agree with you, I hope the 119 version beats out the 10% standard we have grown so accustomed to these days.

I don't think it exceeds the 10%FC the originals had. While it's basically a SCH Af2+2 hat with -10% cast and recast cause of the 5% haste... Even the 119 version will probably remain the same 10%FC.
I say this cause of how they "+1'd" the 100 bayld armor to be 109. Same FC and DW... but added haste to make it better.
But I think you're being too pessimistic. It'll probably have the hard 7% haste that seems to be "the head gear haste amount".

[dasva]

What little testing I've done seems to make it seem like stymie basically takes full resists and turns them into half resists. But only on mobs that don't give you the completely immune message. Kinda neet I guess if you want to sleep a skeleton for 45 seconds without waiting for an immunobreak but overall very lackluster. This is something I would've expected as a normal ja with a 5-10 minute timer gotten while we leveled up not a new "2hr"

[FaeQueenCory]

What little testing I've done seems to make it seem like stymie basically takes full resists and turns them into half resists. But only on mobs that don't give you the completely immune message. Kinda neet I guess if you want to sleep a skeleton for 45 seconds without waiting for an immunobreak but overall very lackluster. This is something I would've expected as a normal ja with a 5-10 minute timer gotten while we leveled up not a new "2hr"

LoL
That's just awful.... but hilarious in an ironic sort of way...

If it can't even be used to enfeeble "i'm immune" mobs... why was this ever needed in the first place? (especially because RDM is sooooo hurting for their spells' recast timers... immunobreaks used to take FOREVER![/sarcasm])