Re-balancing jobs in FFXI

[Afania]

It's got nothing to do with DPS.

It's that the system is currently broken. BLM, like BLU is ALL up sides, and no downsides.

Balance is not based upon DPS. Balance is based on risk:reward. positive:negative. BLM has no negatives. GEO has no negatives. BLU has no negatives. "all" melee have negatives.

BLM strats require literally zero effort. While melee zergs require *almost* zero effort, burst strats are broken easy.

There are 2 downside of BLM strat compare with melee strat though:

1) It's completely useless against NM with high magic evasion or magic shield. One of the T4 is aren't killed with BLM strat, there's a couple more lower tier NM that's more ideal to use physical dmg as well.

2) It has lower "DPS ceiling" than melees. Like I said melee has higher DPS ceiling when they are capped haste spamming WS that SC with each other.

BLU v.s other melee is more of an issue because BLU v.s other melee has way more upside than downside(defensively, at least), thus preventing other melee gets invite to party. BLM doesn't prevent any job gets party invite. Anytime the content is more ideal to use mage setup, BLM the only choice and there's nothing else to choose from, anytime the content is more ideal to use melee setup it'll never get picked.

[Nyarlko]

Here's an idea for NM scaling.. Make BRD not count. I have a massive pile of awesome bard gear that I never get to use because GEO totally (and COR to a lesser degree) outclasses BRD when it comes to both buffs and debuffs. Many players would choose to fill a party slot with a trust over a BRD at this point. So... make it so BRD counts as 0 towards group size ^^ Devs seem to think that BRD and GEO "fill different roles", so a change of this level would be required in order for us spoony ones to have a chance to see endgame play. RDM seems to be in a somewhat similar predicament, but is still able to visibly contribute more easily, so only (#of parties-1) RDM counts.

This may seem facetious, but should be easier to implement for the devs than doing the overhaul BRD needs desperately. As it stands, the only possible reason to bring a BRD over anything else is for those niche fights where light-based sleep/dispel are required AND you can't find a BLU with a decent m.acc set who's also willing to set 1-2 different spells than their normal kit. If they make the scaling see us as the non-player that most players seem to see as, so we don't make the fight harder by coming along, then maybe we'll have a chance to play too.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also, as an enthusiastic dualboxer, I've come to the conclusion from my own experience that with the current mob TP-gain model, it is almost always a bad idea to have more players actually hitting the target than the absolute minimal requirements. There are lots of T1 NMs in Escha-Zit'ah that I have zero issues dualboxing with Trusts and a leecher, but will have a hard time with if said leecher starts hitting the mob due to the increased TP-feed causing TP-move spam. More TP-moves used by the target = more MP going out of my healer in a shorter period of time = higher chance of something going wrong.

I believe that the root of all our melee v. mage issues on higher clvl fights is the excessive strain that putting more bodies into AOE range causes on the healers. This is not a L2WHM issue, this is back-to-back-to-back-to-etc TP move spam that can put out more damage than a BIS WHM will numerically be able to recover without taking solid agro from the tank. Let's not forget the overload of status debuffs that frequently come with those moves, which need to be -na'd/erased if it's not one of the increasingly common non-removable debuffs like amnesia or weakened..

With so many melee running around delay capped, and with that being expected by most of us, NMs get fed so much TP that it's possible to never see them take a single melee swing at the tank between moves now. The crazy accuracy requirements used to force most melee to give up on getting a party spot. Post-evasion-nerf, event organizers are just going to be forced to directly inform melee players that "using melee on this fight would be a liability and probably cause a wipe" even if their accuracy is high enough for the content.

Patch day today, so I haven't had a chance to test out the new AOE nerf, but as I mentioned, most AOEs nowadays are not merely damage to HP. Even if it's a 50% nerf, I'm not sure I would be welcome to 140+ events as a melee due to how much more MP and time the healer will have to use to keep me up and swinging, when I'm not lobotomized by Amnesia, Encumberment, Weakened, Doomed and/or Cursed.

This needs to be addressed. In the old days, this wasn't that big an issue since it was pretty darn unlikely to find a melee who could reach haste cap. Mob TP filled at rate that made it reasonable for healers to deal with, and melees had time to react by using items like Remedy. It most definitely is an issue now. Newer mobs also seem able to cast magic spells less often than in older content. It may not seem like much, but those few seconds of the mob being idle were frequently precious and could be used as recovery time.

Either change the formulas so that mobs gain less TP per hit received or add in a timer/cooldown on TP-move usage. Mobs use moves at lower levels of TP as their HP goes down, and combined with the lack of alternatives like casting spells, it results in move spam increasing as the fights progress.
There needs to be a bare minimum of 5sec between TP-moves so that at least one -na spell per party member (who is supposed to be in melee range) can be healed. A larger gap between moves would be welcome of course, but anything over 10sec would likely be too easily abuseable to be considered on most fights.

[Oddwaffle]

I agree with the TP feeding. There is a HUGE difference between a group consisting of 1 PLD + WHM + a Skill Chain SCH + a bunch of BLM vs a similar group with melee for better skill chain but more TP feed. The group with melee requires more healers, more support and most likely make the fight riskier because of TP spam. The Blm+Sch party will probably only cause 1 TP move after 1 single large barrage of magic nukes.

Reducing the TP spam from monsters and bosses have its own draw back: It makes Subtle Blows pretty much useless outside of some niche situations.

A lot of old mechanics were introduced to reduce abuse and 'improving' the old jobs are currently useless or detrimental but they are still considered beneficial by the developers. Those things get carried to the currently FFXI where a lot of things changed.

[Ketaru]

Reducing the TP spam from monsters and bosses have its own draw back: It makes Subtle Blows pretty much useless outside of some niche situations.

Was Subtle Blow ever a consideration though? In order to see the changes that people want in this game, it might be time to reconsider and let a niche job trait fade into obscurity, much like Shield Mastery for pretty much anyone other than PLD. It's a nice convenience when its effect is noticeable, but not enough for anybody to say, "This job has Subtle Blow and this other one doesn't. Let's pick the one with Subtle Blow."

[Nyarlko]

Was Subtle Blow ever a consideration though? In order to see the changes that people want in this game, it might be time to reconsider and let a niche job trait fade into obscurity, much like Shield Mastery for pretty much anyone other than PLD. It's a nice convenience when its effect is noticeable, but not enough for anybody to say, "This job has Subtle Blow and this other one doesn't. Let's pick the one with Subtle Blow."

Subtle Blow only makes a noticible difference if you have a ton of it. I believe it caps at 50% from gear as well? If you are capped, then you feed 1/2 as much TP to the mob, which actually sounds pretty good until you see that it just means that the feed from 2x delay capped melees has slowed down enough to allow 1-2 melee swings in between TP moves.. :/ In practice, it already is pretty useless in other words. And it should never be in a position to be so important that it becomes a factor in deciding group comps. In order for SB to be looked towards as a solution, it would have to be something drastic like an across-the-board SB+30% for players which is applied additively to SB from gear, but doesn't apply to cap. Even if we reduced our TP feed by 80%, I'm betting that TP move usage would still be much higher than what we were expected to deal with in 75cap days.

This issue falls squarely into the category of "System that used to work fine, hasn't kept up w/ the times." There are a lot of things that fall into this category that seem to have been ignored for a long time. TP gain formulas (for both monsters and players), acc/eva formulas, excessive AOE damage, Merit Point categories being primarily either required/pointless with no room open for actual choice.. BRD. ._.;; (Please fix bard. T_T I miss being able to compete for the support role party spot.)
All of these things have been stagnant for quite a few years at this point. Credit given to the current dev team for actively taking steps in recent months to start addressing the acc/eva and volume of AOE damage issues. I for one appreciate that steps are being taken to start fixing problems, and if baby steps are needed, it's understandable. I hope that the next issue you take a jab at is TP feed, because right now, it feels like a WHM w/ 100% quick cast wouldn't have time to cast 3x spells between TP moves if a full melee comp is used.

[Oddwaffle]

Was Subtle Blow ever a consideration though? In order to see the changes that people want in this game, it might be time to reconsider and let a niche job trait fade into obscurity, much like Shield Mastery for pretty much anyone other than PLD. It's a nice convenience when its effect is noticeable, but not enough for anybody to say, "This job has Subtle Blow and this other one doesn't. Let's pick the one with Subtle Blow."

Yet the developers seem convinced that the trait is so beneficial that they keep having them in mnk and nin gear. They even have ninja meriting subtle blow.

[Nyarlko]

I agree with the TP feeding. There is a HUGE difference between a group consisting of 1 PLD + WHM + a Skill Chain SCH + a bunch of BLM vs a similar group with melee for better skill chain but more TP feed. The group with melee requires more healers, more support and most likely make the fight riskier because of TP spam. The Blm+Sch party will probably only cause 1 TP move after 1 single large barrage of magic nukes.

Reducing the TP spam from monsters and bosses have its own draw back: It makes Subtle Blows pretty much useless outside of some niche situations.

A lot of old mechanics were introduced to reduce abuse and 'improving' the old jobs are currently useless or detrimental but they are still considered beneficial by the developers. Those things get carried to the currently FFXI where a lot of things changed.

Can't really consider merits for this discussion.. They are from 75cap days and the devs seem to be scared of messing with any of them causing balance problems at this point. :/ There are plenty of examples of merit categories that "should" be changed, but won't be.

Subtle Blow was once in a position where it was possible to be relevant, like many other JTs/JAs, but nowadays something like "making Subtle Blow worthless" should not be considered as a justification for postponing/preventing needed system changes.