Gravity Nerf...

[Creelo]

Was that REALLY necessary Dev Team?

Like really, was that REALLY necessary?

No. It wasn't. Heaven forbid Rdm be able to reduce an enemy's evasion further with both Distract II and Gravity II. Goodness, imagine if Rdm was actually really good at something for party play.

That was a pointless nerf and you should feel bad.

Also, I still feel like this update was more of a buff to Rdm as a subjob than as a main job, but I shall reserve full judgement until experiencing the update for myself.

[Demonjustin]

Why does Gravity II even exist again? Last I knew the only difference here was EVA Down, original being 20 and II being 40. If all Distract II is at the end of the day is -40 EVA then I've no words to even express my anger at this change. Gravity and II both seem to me like they'll be the exact same now, if the effects were simply detached then Distract as a spell is nothing new then Gravity II might as well be removed as it's nothing more than another spell in my list that does nothing for me.

[Creelo]

Gravity gave -10 Evasion down; WS's like Mordant Rime and Rudra's gave this kind of Gravity. Gravity II gave -25 Evasion down. Indi/Geo Gravity didn't give any Evasion down last time I did testing, this was before Geomancy+ from Dunna/Idris though. Saboteur did not increase the Evasion down effect. Gravity II does give a noticeably stronger "weight" effect than Gravity but this only really shines in the Kam BCNM fight or in WKR due to wonky hate (Kumhau especially is often just a completely sloppy mess, people running all over the place). Otherwise, Gravity's "weight" effect was pretty much useless because if you ever needed it, the fight was probably going to crap anyways.

It wasn't much, but for Gravity II, the evasion down was nice. And now it's gone... x_x

Honestly, one of the biggest problems I have right now with Rdm is that debuffs just don't compare at all to buffs in this game.

[Demonjustin]

Ok, so my numbers were off all this time. I thought it was 20 and 40 rather than 10 and 25. In either case I most definatly agree debuffs are far weaker than buffs and it's very problematic, especially when SE acts like any debuff has to be carefully watched as it might make everything too easy, but implementing something like Embrava was done without a second though even though they unleashed hell on balance with that single spell.

[Creelo]

In either case I most definatly agree debuffs are far weaker than buffs and it's very problematic, especially when SE acts like any debuff has to be carefully watched as it might make everything too easy, but implementing something like Embrava was done without a second though even though they unleashed hell on balance with that single spell.

QFT.

Especially the part about how SE has to carefully watch debuffs for balance, because in regards to this update, you just know they were thinking to themselves "Oh, if we implement an Evasion down spell, we should totally get rid of Gravity's evasion down effect as well!" Like it blows my mind, that it's stuff like this that concerns them when creating new content. One step forward, two steps back.

[Creelo]

Numbers/Info on Distract.

Distract is ice based (makes sense), Frazzle is dark based.

Distract I = -35 Eva at base. Does not appear to have a dStat term but was just casting on a naked player, so who knows.

Distract II = -50 Eva at base.

There was no base potency difference between /rdm Distract and Rdm main Distract.

Distract I with Uk'uxkaj Boots = -36 Eva.

Distract II with Rdm Emp Body+2 and Uk'uxkaj Boots = -57 Eva.

Distract II with Rdm Emp. Body+2, Uk'uxkaj Boots, and Saboteur (along with Rdm Emp Hands+2 Sab bonus) = -108 Eva.

Both appear to have a 2min base duration. The Sab Distract II lasted around 4min30sec~

I still don't think getting rid of Gravity II's Eva down was necessary at all, especially considering that Distract I isn't that much weaker than Distract II...

[Creelo]

Also, you can't have both Haste and Flurry on at the same time. Haste II/Flurry II overwrite each other and Haste/Flurry. Haste/Flurry can't overwrite Haste II/Flurry II

[Demonjustin]

The difference in potency is more than disheartening, it's another failure on SE's part to make RDM stand out. Oh well, at least it's something, maybe the Empyrean upgrade will make us stand out more with a higher potency buff on body and possibly hands making a larger difference? Perhaps we expected too much of SE, this is RDM after all, they failed us so many times before that this is still miles better than what should've been expected, just the better updates over the last year and their seemingly greater knowledge of how to go about things fooled us into a false sense of hope.

[Camate]

Greetings,

The physical evasion reduction effect from Distract has been set to a higher value than the original effect of Gravity.

The main effect of Gravity is reduced movement speed, but there were a lot of monsters that were resistant to it, which created situations where it was hard to use this spell in order to reduce evasion.

As we created a new, specialized magic spell with an effect of reduced evasion, instead of making adjustments to these spells based on situations where they are stacked, we decided to remove the evasion reduction effect from Gravity and boost this effect for Distract to make these spells easier to use.

[Demonjustin]

Will the effects of Distract II be changed in the next update to be higher than currently? As of right now Distract II is only a small bit better than that of Distract itself, this along with the fact they don't seem to be based off of INT in the same way spells like Paralyze or Slow are with MND will result in this spell being only slightly strong when used with RDM mains. This as a result means jobs like SCH or WHM who can sub RDM without much of a problem will now be even more powerful and RDM's new spells won't be unique enough to merit an invite over them in the eyes of many players.