Job balancing?

[Shyles]

Another thing about melees in Ambuscade is the spike damage which is another frustration I have with "Melee vs Magic" balancing... In the Dragon Ambuscade, the perpetual spike damage made it difficult for healers to keep up with healing if there was more than one melee DD, especially if they were dual wielders like dancer or thief.

The spike damage for the Demon is worse though... The Demon/Taurus fight was relatively easy, and I was excited because it was something I could use my Dancer for!... Until...the dread spikes... I have a lot of multi-hit with my Dancer, and those dread spikes were very potent (250+ damage per hit). Every few runs, there would be the moment where I happen to proc 5 or 6 hits in an auto-attack round immediately after the Demon cast Dread spikes, and end up killing myself instantly without even getting a chance to turn around.

So we can add damage spikes to the growing list of imbalances between Melee and Magic DD... Why are there so many end-game NMs that have potent Damage Spike effects when there are virtually no similarly potent Spell Reflect effects to pose a similar threat to mages?

And thank you for mentioning Status Effects!... I could probably make an entire thread about how NM status effects disproportionately impact Melees, but I just want to mention the glaring one...

Amnesia: Why is there still no medicine or spell that can remove Amnesia, while Silence can be removed with Silena and Echo Drops? In the FF series, Mallets and Esunas could cure Amnesia. So please give us Mallets so I can bop my Dancer with them when she needs it!! It's only fair. The mages can keep their cough syrup.

[Helldemon]

You hit the nail right on the head with this comment. For new comers that need gear this would be a great starter set to get into end game content. My gear far exceeds the gear that ambuscade has to offer which baffles me because I feel I need to be as geared as I am to even beat it to get that gear. What if someone lvled MNK as their first job? There is no way they could beat this with just their sparks gear I feel as if even the Zitah stuff is better so why would you try to get worse gear to fight in? And why do you have to be better geared than the gear offered as a reward?

Except you're fighting on VD, N and D have far less acc req. Pretty sure almost nothing from zi'tah comes close to ambu gear but I could be wrong.

[OmnysValefor]

Speaking as someone trying to gear up a melee, I wouldn't really call it a "gift to melee". The m.eva may go up when one dies, but the common strategy was to leave one at ~5% and kill the other anyhow so there's not much hp to take care of... and the taurus had some pretty high eva to begin with. Even with 1100+ acc it was a royal pain to hit the bastard, so the only real effective way to do so was already be better geared than the gear it's giving out.

I don't have the personal perspective of having an undergeared melee in there but I've helped undergeared melee with April's and May's, so I do have some experience. Still, that is VD and D. If you don't yet have the acc for them, stick to N.

For once though, I feel like the content favors melee, or is at least on equal footing.

Another thing about melees in Ambuscade is the spike damage which is another frustration I have with "Melee vs Magic" balancing... In the Dragon Ambuscade, the perpetual spike damage made it difficult for healers to keep up with healing if there was more than one melee DD, especially if they were dual wielders like dancer or thief.

Shyles, I think you have a very good grasp on the game from reading several of your posts. I'm a fan.

A common suggestion I have regarding this is that subtle blow should affect the amount of damage taken from spikes.

...

And thank you for mentioning Status Effects!... I could probably make an entire thread about how NM status effects disproportionately impact Melees, but I just want to mention the glaring one...

Amnesia: Why is there still no medicine or spell that can remove Amnesia, while Silence can be removed with Silena and Echo Drops? In the FF series, Mallets and Esunas could cure Amnesia. So please give us Mallets so I can bop my Dancer with them when she needs it!! It's only fair. The mages can keep their cough syrup.

I have, and others have--several posts, several threads. I've not seen any get developer feedback in a few years.

There are amnesia screens and a humorous ring to deal with amnesia and that has been SE's answer in the past, but it is not enough. Melee can be shut down by amnesia, potent paralyzes, terrors. These things rarely affect mages. Almost never. Mage can be shut down by mutes but how many bosses mute?

I don't want mages able to be shutdown either, it's silly. I think amnesia needs a spell-solution like silena. Too to the importance of making a skillchain, I think that the amnes-na should grant immunity for 15 or 30 seconds.

[dmuller30]

Except you're fighting on VD, N and D have far less acc req. Pretty sure almost nothing from zi'tah comes close to ambu gear but I could be wrong.

Escha Zitah mobs are a ton easier and they can be soloed with trusts which I guess technically isn't soloing but still. These mobs can be soloed in the gear that they drop which also can be augmented to better suit your needs. Ambuscade gear would only be better if it could be augmented. It may have great accuracy but that only allows you to hit the mobs the rest of the stats are not so great. If there was plans for this gear to be augment-able this might be some of the best gear in game but it's currently not there is better gear for less effort, and if they are party focused then you can just ask a friend or an LS member with decent gear to solo Zitah mobs for you for that gear. The only thing worth it I believe is the cape, this month body piece is also nice as a swap out piece for fast cast. But the set in it's entirety is less then gear you can get else where.

[OmnysValefor]

Rawhide pieces with base-acc on them also have good acc augments available and are available to nearly all of the soft-armor melee. The same path also gives +50 hp.

Usuwhatsitsname is a better offensive-minded set for sure, but rawhide is not a bad gearing up set.

However, many of those NMs are rough on trusts outside of hp campaign. The Golem, Harpeia, and Cunnast are the meanest while vidala only requires a modestly geared human elemental magic user to (BLM, RDM, SCH, GEO, maybe DRK lol) to spam wind magic on it when it levels up.

[Helldemon]

Every piece has more acc and atk and base stats(for the most part) then Rawhide, and most of the Rawhide gear doesn't really have any special augments or anything that makes it stand out anymore then Hiza gear other then the TA +2 on the body(and another +2 from augment)

The only way Rawhide gear would beat Hiza is if you could get two paths on them for 6 augments total. Actually Hiza legs still beat Rawhide even if they have the first three paths for 9 augments.

[OmnysValefor]

I wasn't saying Rawhide was better, I was saying Rawhide is an okay set gearing towards that if a person wanted to.

Absolutely, the Ambuscade stuff is clearly better.

[Helldemon]

I wasn't saying Rawhide was better, I was saying Rawhide is an okay set gearing towards that if a person wanted to.

Absolutely, the Ambuscade stuff is clearly better.

Sorry, was talking to muller, should have quoted.

[Spectreman]

It's been like that since i started. In 2003. WHMs sucked for healing compared to RDM, now RDMs are basically useless. DRGs were strong then they were sitting forever in Jeuno shouting for parties, PUP was almost always a ridiculed job. SAM was mediocre then uber then useless. DRK was almost always sitting alongside PUP and DRG. THF and BST always had huge problems to join parties, SMN were almost always shunned.

The only jobs i can remember that never suffered from being useless in the game were GEO and SCH.

[detlef]

Pretty sure GEO and SCH were both incredibly weak when they debuted. They just got buffed within a year of their introduction so we never remember that they sucked initially.