Job Adjustments manifesto Discussion

[Finuve]

So a lot seemed interesting, some seemed pointless, then there was this

A new ability that raises the amount of damage the dark knight takes, but also raises the amount of magic and elemental weapon skill damage it deals.

no...no no no no no.........easily the worst idea posted

DNC triple attack is pretty awesome though

[Fearforever]

Ninja StoreTP? yes please!

[Kayn]

so this might be the right time to point out some issues regarding puppetmaster that as of today we haven't heard even a "hey guys we know, we are looking into it", so, to any of the forum mods that have any kind of contact with the dev team, please listen, the AI of the automaton needs some serious work, it prioritizes -na status removal instead of curing the master, it cast silence on non casting mobs Ex: crabs, those are two of the most latent issues unresolved since job came out years ago, seeing as this is a discussion on the job manifesto thing, and i dont see anywhere on the puppetmaster section anything about fixing the AI, even better, not just fixing, improving it! wich would make the world of difference with the job.

as a side note and on topic: as a personal suggestion on the puppetmaster job, give a real purpouse on changing physical damage frames, as of now, harlequin has no real purpouse, valoredge is nowhere near a tank, and cant compete with sharpshot for pure damage, so if we want physical damage, sharpshot it is, on the magic side we could use some differentiation also but is not as urgent as on the physical side. but on that matter, maybe haste for the soulsoother frame and better enfeebles for the stormwaker frame?

[Seriha]

A new ability that raises the amount of damage the dark knight takes, but also raises the amount of magic and elemental weapon skill damage it deals.

no...no no no no no.........easily the worst idea posted

Too many DRKs underestimate the potential and consistency of Infernal Scythe. Depending on how ambitious the change is, it could be a very potent tool on physically resistant mobs. And if nukes let you pump out T4s at T3 costs, I wouldn't bitch.



As is, my stake's more on RDM. More enfeebles has the potential to be good. Further tweaking current enfeebles could also be promising. However, without specifics, I can't be hopeful. Claiming RDMs also make our party members demi-gods is folly, as we require /WHM or /SCH to even cast some on others.

[Tamoa]

Example Adjustments

Adding new ability that would allow warriors to change a weapon's damage type (slashing/blunt/piercing) during combat.
Adding a new ability that would ensure the next melee attack lands a critical hit.

So full of win! :D

Also, my whm likes the idea of Charmna, and my blu likes the idea of learning spells from HNMs! :D

[Xellith]

Vision
Puppetmasters feel comfortable in almost any type of role thanks to their automatons, but countless hours of research is needed to create the perfect puppet to deal with various and sundry situations.

We want to bring out the unique characteristics inherent in each automaton via creative new attachments as well as abilities that extract the potential latent in each frame.

Example Adjustments

Introducing an assortment of new attachments.
Adding an ability that restores an automaton's HP.
Fixing the Automotons Broken AI

Fixed that for you... seriously...

[Ravenmore]

So full of win! :D

Also, my whm likes the idea of Charmna, and my blu likes the idea of learning spells from HNMs! :D

Love how they still only give blus adding new blu magic, we were told of the HNM spells when abyssea was new so nothing new there.

[Finuve]

Too many DRKs underestimate the potential and consistency of Infernal Scythe. Depending on how ambitious the change is, it could be a very potent tool on physically resistant mobs. And if nukes let you pump out T4s at T3 costs, I wouldn't bitch.



As is, my stake's more on RDM. More enfeebles has the potential to be good. Further tweaking current enfeebles could also be promising. However, without specifics, I can't be hopeful. Claiming RDMs also make our party members demi-gods is folly, as we require /WHM or /SCH to even cast some on others.
I'd still bitch, infernal scythe is crap outside brew, and I have Quietus why would I want to use it, I want Quietus to be a competitive WS

and as I said on Alla, DRKs dont want to cast elemental magic, we want Dark magic with short cast times that boosts our overall damage, absorb haste would be a good start (though I realize DRK already has some of the best haste access of any job)

if I wanted to cast elemental magic, my BLM wouldnt be level 1

so though I cant speak for all DRKs, most of the ones I know play the job so they can smack things with a scythe, magic should be supplemental for DRK, updates trying to push it to the forefront take away from whats fun about DRK

[Dreamin]

Cait Sith and Atomos


is win for SMN!!!

[Tazz]

COR may finally get an update it needs and lets hope SCH can ga reraise or warp after this since they are aiming at making them 'absolute masters of their art' ! ! ! which should mean new tier of Cure as well!!! cure V YAY!!!!

"We wish for scholars to further their education in order to become absolute masters of their art, and the latter stages of their research will produce skills comparable to those of a white or black mage whose spells may take time to cast, but compensate with both the bliss and destruction they beget."

any blm with elemental celerity will ALWAYS cast before any SCH unless they use alacrity... so how do blm's 'take time to cast' . . . /sigh lol

anyways lots of goodies to look forward to still,
3 phantom rolls yay!!!

please add a single target roll for COR as well like pianissimo for BRD - would be very nice SE thanks!!

[Korpg]

Cait Sith and Atomosis win for SMN!!!

Actually, out of all the updates with avatars in it, I'm more excited about the other thing included in the notes for SMN:


A new ability that expends an additional amount of MP to shorten the recast time for blood pacts.

I just hope that the costs associated with this isn't like +10 perp cost for -10 BP timer to be included into the cap. Meaning that we still are stuck with 45 second recast timer, but we don't "have" to have BP- gear at all....

Lower the cap, not just the recast.

[Korpg]

please add a single target roll for COR as well like pianissimo for BRD - would be very nice SE thanks!!

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the recast time for Phantom Roll about one minute, and the rolls are on a global timer?

Wouldn't that suck for having a Pianissimo effect?

[Firebert_Lakshmi]

Now, would this be Cait Sith#1 or #2?

[Elexia]

Too many DRKs underestimate the potential and consistency of Infernal Scythe.

I love my infernal Scythe.

Also, SE..why not just let us Crit our WS's? If we're purveyors of pain, let our Scythe dish out the hurt >.>

[Korpg]

I love my infernal Scythe.

Also, SE..why not just let us Crit our WS's? If we're purveyors of pain, let our Scythe dish out the hurt >.>

Because they want your weapon skills to be elemental based?

[Finuve]

Because they want your weapon skills to be elemental based?
as some one in the DRK forums put it, SE is trolling us

[Korpg]

Well, think about it.

What job out there has the most number of elemental WSs available....ok, WAR does.

Maybe you guys are getting the shaft.

[Finuve]

I just want SE to ignore everything consisting of the words elemental and DRK(or any variations that mean DRK)

we have good Dark Magic skill, get us using that more, and not for direct damage

[Zetonegi]

My biggest qualm with the update is the PLD DRK PUP and NIN buffs. NIN is fairly strong right now and that's a good time to give them something cute, see what MNK got, instead of a straight buff to general effectiveness. I don't have a problem with the NIN changes, it just seems like other jobs need that kind of change more right now. PLD DRK and PUP and the three jobs in the SE doesn't know what they're doing club. PLD is being treated like its 2005, SE wants DRK to be BLMs? and PUPs still have terrible AI for their automata. I don't even know if the 1st thing listed for DRK will be good, it just looks unappealing as TP is associated with DMG usually. I think if DRK got an absorb Store-TP or something that would be cool. More stuff with their dark magic not SE trying to make them worse BLMs... Speaking of BLMs are they getting berserk for magic? seems cool.


Oh I forget requiem spam time!!!!

[Byrth]

Eh, my take on it:
1) DNC Flourish is going to be a Flourishes III and probably consume 3 Finishing Moves, which means it'll be worthless for everyone Twashtar or not.
2) The second job ability, depended how it's implemented, may be somewhat useful for a DNC with a supporting roll... unless they make it a Waltz.
3) They didn't mention they were splitting Waltz timers, which is a source of great sadness for me.

[Laciant]

War: The ideas for War are less than impressive. Since War can use nearly all weapons I think the idea for changing attributes is pointless. Also making the next hit Crit? Again very underwhelming. Reminds me of "Aggresive Aim" cause alot of war's use Ranged attacks >.> .

Whm: Whm could use an ability to make AoE enhancement spells like the Bar spells single target or let whm cast them from a distance so they dont' have to run in to cast them.

Rng: I like the ideas for rng, anything to lower enmity is good for Rng.

[Sasaraixx]

I have been waiting for this Job Adjustment road map!

SMN
This sounds very good. Hopefully the increased cost isn't something ridiculous. The devil will be in the details on this one, but hopefully the timer gets lowered to at least 30 seconds. That would seriously help with our damage. Wards/Favors and spirits still need work. And I know this is entirely just me, but I've wanted Phoenix as an avatar since COP. Hopefully Cait Sith and Atomos won't be 2hr specific and will add some new elements to the job. I assume all the avatars will get new damage pacts before 99, so these two new avatars could fill in some holes in other areas.

SCH
I am worried. A spell during our 2hr does not sound promising. Unless it is Death and it is as awesome as Vanille's in FFXIII, then I really don't know how using a spell once every 2 hours could help balance the job. It's even more troubling because Tabula Rasa's duration is so short. RDM and BLM are getting mini versions of their two hour, so it would be nice if SCH received the same. Even a trait that allows for occasional chargeless use of strategems would be nice. . . I am encouraged that we will be receiving higher level BLM AND WHM spells. Hopefully that means Cure V and some of the other goodies WHM is getting. The Dark Arts side of the grimoire has been very well developed but our Light Arts could use a few goodies. From a spell stand point, it seems that the job is playing like Sage from FFIII. Hopefully SCH will be more useful than that job.

WHM
Perfect. I know some would prefer a spell to remove Amnesia but I don't think that every status ailment in the game should have a remedy. If I had to choose between Charm and Amnesia for an ~na spell, I would choose the former. -MDT is also pretty sweet.

BLM
With /RDM, Aspir II, more refresh gear, and now a mini-Manafont, BLM's MP issues really are being addressed. That new ability will also make the MP intensive spells more viable. (You know Meteor's MP cost is going to be crazy). More damage to improve the damage/mp ratio is also nice.

RDM
Wait and see. I like enfeebling magic and I welcome these changes. We will just have to see how they are implemented.

BLU
The BLU notes are as informative as always. Haha

I am just very pleased that the team is taking the time to let the player base know what they have in mind. It gives us a chance to send feedback (ahem SCH and DRK) and it's comforting to know that they do have things well thought out. Our vision for certain jobs may not be the same but we can at least see what they have planned.

[Zetonegi]

Mini2hrs are in this season. WAR gets one BLM gets one RDM gets one and now BRD gets one via new JA+Troubadour

[Kuraudo]

War: The ideas for War are less than impressive. Since War can use nearly all weapons I think the idea for changing attributes is pointless. Also making the next hit Crit? Again very underwhelming. Reminds me of "Aggresive Aim" cause alot of war's use Ranged attacks >.> .

I hope you're kidding. This is by far one of the best job adjustments I've seen for WAR. I honestly didn't expect to get something offensive again, but hey I'll take it!

[Francisco]

Just a couple of ideas...

Monk

- In addition to Chakra scaling with level, make it gradually remove additional ailments like Bio, Slow, Plague and Bind. Maybe adjust it so Paralyze doesn't consume the recast timer, and grant a certain amount of resistance to status ailments removed, similar to Divine Caress.
- Reduce Counterstance recast.
- Make Counter attacks grant a small amount of TP.
- Make Counter attacks count as a "guarded" attack as well.

White Mage
- Make Protectra V Merits effect the potency of Protect V and if added, Protectra VI and Protect VI.
- Make Shellra V Merits effect the potency of Shell V and if added, Shellra VI and Shell VI.

[Elexia]

War is an all around DD and yes I'm sure this may be before many of your times, but in Limbus there's a particular section where resistances change and sans Magic, being able to switch between properties is a good thing.

[DerianX]

A few things I'd like to see:

WAR - A defensive ability that adds some survivability. Of all jobs I've played WAR is by far the least self-sufficient against mobs that don't die quickly. Perhaps an augment to retaliation that reduces damage and increases frequency or maybe a job ability that negates damage from the next hit like a mini-stoneskin a la perfect counter.

PLD - An ability or spell that converts a party members enmity to spike damage on the enemy causing enmity gain for the PLD. An ability that temporarily raises the enmity cap for PLD. An ability similar to cover that simply absorbs attacks directed at any party member on the other side of the PLD. Cover reuse time reduction.

BST - A purpose for the "Charm" ability past level 30. Jug pets are nice and all but charming required a bit of tactical planning and preparation that made the job unique. Right now BSTs are basically SMNs that use consumables instead of MP.

DNC - A waltz that restores MP.

[Selzak]

Sorely disappointed in the DRK examples- give the job more utility! More ways to stop an enemy, etc.

PLD needs a general buff; it needs to be able to tank as effectively as NIN. It's already supportive enough.

BLU, BST, WAR, and SMN all look very exciting and well thought-out! :)


Thanks for the awesome post, it's great to see the general direction that the devs are wanting to take the jobs. Thank you so much for sharing this with us, very appreciated!

[Rearden]

There were some good update notes, but as far as the jobs I play, not really impressed. WAR and MNK don't need a lot, in fact as far as Abyssea goes they need nothing - but this game won't always be Abyssea, and we're talking Lv.99 cap. A TP bonus to counter would allow you to potentially use a MNK as a tank in situations where you'd be using a PLD before, similar to what was done with SAM/NIN.

I also feel Guard and Parry need to be reworked into effective combat skills. Right now, regardless of your skill level, your proc rate is still only 5%. It would be better to see these two abilities on par with Shield, where the proc rate is based on your skill/agi vs the monster you are fighting.

RNG being made into a THF+ with Bounty shot and the ability to manage hate for other party members is interesting, but I'd much rather see RNG back to where it was in 2004/2005, with effective ways to manage hate melded in.

[Aequis]

Read the opening comment about RDM and thought SE had put the BRD description in the wrong place:

"Support specialists who excel at transforming their allies from mere mortals into demigods with their enhancements."

I can think of:

Refresh - not exclusive now.
Refresh II - BRD get equivalent MP regeneration, but it's superior as it stacks with Sublimation.
Haste - WHM, BLU, SMN and all /WHM get this.
Phalanx II - even if you gear for it and go 5/5 merits, Phalanx is better and can be used with Accession.

I believe our strength more lies in our ability to debilitate foes and weaken them, but we've not had much of that lately. We will lose Addle exclusivity at Lv.96 to WHM, so we need something to compensate for that. A lot of potential, but let's see what they decide on.

I know all of the things they listed are "examples", but most seem quite odd. PLD looks extremely underwhelming and whilst they are mostly left out of Abyssea set-ups, I was hoping that it would be given something to broaden its use.

DRG. The old Jump/High Jump aren't used anymore, due to the TP-boosting effects of Spirit/Soul Jump and the guaranteed critical hits if the wyvern's out. I don't understand augmenting jumps no-one uses, and then giving them a reverse Trick Attack effect...? Making our wyverns more resistant though, at least they got that right. We also need Camlann's Torment changing somewhat.

DNC changes look okay, but again it depends how they're implemented. WHM is so-so. Cannot think of many situations you need to remove Charm (Salvage, Dynamis-Sandy, about two Abyssea NMs etc.). It used to be Dispellable.

BST, adding to the range of stuff we can Charm is irrelevant if we still cannot Charm inside Abyssea. Even if you forget Abyssea, Lv.76+ jug pets are superior. That part of our job is mostly over.

The rest of the changes that apply to jobs I have levelled really don't excite me that much. I still get the glaring sense that SE aren't really up to speed with how the game is played. Some jobs' roles are now being blurred to the point of obscureness. The example of SCH vs basically any mage is a prime example. Never should anything they do be "comparable" to another job's speciality (in fact better, as they can Rapture/Ebullience) - that's defeating the entire point, Square-Enix...

[Rezeak]

On the DRK thing....

Tp for +DMG = Nice if done correctly

DMG taken for Magic Bonuses.... There is so much to say....

To make Magical WS worth it .... why can't our WS we already have be worth it? outside that yes being able to deal magic Ws DMG on a mob resistant to phyiscal DMG is nice.
To make Elemental magic worth it... We are melees not mages unless ur adding a new low cost/low cast time Dark magic spells for DDing with.


If you want to fix DRK magic or make em use it there are SIMPLE thing u can do
Stun II(Dark based would be a bonus)
Fix Absorb spells - they would all be worth casting if the duration was 3-5 mins + no decay + increased effect
Then maybe a dark based Holy which DMG is based off how much HP u have or havn't got or it could consume TP to cast as well to be balanced so the DMG is decent.

Now add those then give us a DMG taken stance to make absorbs/drains/aspirs insta cast and DRK will use magic simple as.

Btw this is just an example but read the DRK forums some more to get a better idea of what to do with DRKs magics also may i dare say it play DRK and see how useless elemental magic is lmao.

[Nebo]

THF - If Steal/Aurasteal/Despoil recast timers aren't seperated and lowered to start with there is no point in wasting update resources on these. They will still be useless.

The success rate of steal/despoil is not the issue. It is not even the point. The problem with these abilities is that they are useless, poorly designed, and mashed together in a way that makes no logical sense.

Aside from the fact that steal/despoil don't work on NM's or most worthwhile endgame content, there are a total two things worth stealing in the entire game. Increasing the success rate of Steal is not going to address this.

But if you are increasing the success rate of steal with TH, Aurasteal NEEDS to be a seperate ability. If not, dispelling enemies that have useless (I cannot stress this enough) items to steal will become very difficult. But again, Aurasteal should have never been attached to Steal from the start. Stealing an enhancment effect should have never had anything to do with stealing an item. It is simply absurd.

No amount of increasing the success rate for Despoil is going to fix that ability if you don't address what is wrong with it. Inflicting enfeebling effects should have nothing to do with stealing USELESS (are we getting this yet?) items. Despoil should seek to steal the enfeebling effect it inflicts, not items. If Despoil is going to be made useful at all, it needs to be specific. This variable enfeeble that it inflicts now is of no use to anyone. It doesn't work on anything worthwhile, it inflicts effects that have no use whatsoever to the monster type you are fighting (Hello Magic Attack down on mobs that don't use magigc YAY!). Despoil was a complete waste of multiple update resources. Upping its success rate is not going to fix it. Don't waste your time.

More party only restrictions on job abilities....more useless enmity manipulation garbage....more giving away everything that is unique to THF.

GG, SE. GG.

[Airget]

Warrior:
The examples seem kind of mundane for what they want to do with them. IMO I think possibly a JA that allowed them a window to change weapons without losing TP would make use of the fact they are masters of nearly all weaponry. As for changing weapon dmg type to one of the following I also think there's a better way to go about that. Which would be the above job ability. I think if they want to add a sense of uniqueness to what WAR does they should add 2 Job traits. The first one would be usable as a sub and the other would be unique to the Warrior:
37-40-45-49 "Latent Arms" -unlock hidden enhancement based on weapon used-
75-95 "Arms Master" -unlock secret techniques based on weapon used-

The first ability would also have enhancement for katana and Great Katana since it can be used by subs but basically the idea is, each weapon would grant an enhancement when you are Main or sub war. Also WAR would gain unique enhancements only available to them at a higher level. The idea behind this is allowing a venue to encourage the use of war as a sub and allow one to play around with the idea of testing and trying our the different weapon enhancements from the JT "Latent Arms"

Another thing I would suggest is alter the JA Tomahawk to not only lower a mobs "dmg resist" but also open a window that exploits the mobs "hidden" weapon weakness. So let's say along with lowering an elemental dmg resist it also opens a window to take extra damage from blunt attacks. If WAR is aware of that then upon throwing the tomahawk they can alter their weapon to do blunt damage thus increasing their damage by a large amount. Though this doesn't only help them it would also help any other DD using blunt damage against that mob so in effect you also give them a slight enhancement with supporting others.

Monk:
With what they want to do with boost and chakra. I would think that unless they alter or add another Boost command it would be hard to make is used with Chakra. For that I would suggest adding two JA for Monk. "Harness" and "Unleash" basically Harness would be on the same timer as boost however it would be a boost that doesn't get used when you attack. Unleash would be the trigger allowing one to use their charged up boost in an attack or chakra. So a Monk would be able to Harness up Boost and save it for a chakra if they wished, or even a powered up chi blast or a powered up WS attack.

WHM:
Ability to actually reduce magic damage taken will be nice and the ability to actually remove charm will be a godsend for rani, dyna-sandy and the orcish in general. With this though I wonder if they'll consider giving WHM an immunity to being charmed or at least a boost to the resist. One suggestion that comes to mind is a JA that allows the WHM to make themselves immune to one status effect but of course it can only be used on them so basically.
"Divine Aura" (Next -na spell cast on the user will create 100% resist based on healing magic skill)

Let's just say capped healing magic would allow a barrier to last 5 mins and it would be ona 5 min recast allowing the WHM to stay 100% resisted to that as long as they keep in mind of it wearing off.

BLM:
With risk vs reward seeming to be a big deal with BLM they seem to want to improve their damage but at the same time make it a risky trade off. Judging from their example I think what they plan on doing is this
"Elemental Rage" -Increase enmity gained, Increases Mag Crit hit rate by 25%-

Which would fit in with the ability to deal more ele damage but with a risk behind it.

RDM:
I'm curious about the new enfeebling magic. I wonder if they'll actually be new enfeebles or perhaps different elemental alignments of the same enfeeble. Such as an Lightning-based paralyze(Electrocute) or a Fire-based silence(Parch) which would allow them to enfeeble mobs that may be strong again certain elemental affinities.
Or even a JA such as "Cursed Seal" which would allow the next enfeeble to be 100% on the mob however they would be inflicted with the same enfeeble. If they remove the enfeeble on themselves then the enfeeble on the mob would be removed, however the limit for the enfeeble would be a straight 5 min duration.

THF:
The intimidation factor sounds interesting I"m curious to see how that will play out.

PLD:
I think the ability they have in mind should last long then one attack. Hm, the ability they have in mind sounds like one that's already been introduced but lowering enmity lost does sound like something that would be of help to PLD's.

DRK:
I find this adjustment interesting though I would add a tweak to it. With their second idea I feel like perhaps they should make it where the DRK takes damage while this is up to increase it's "Bloodlust" which in turn enhances it's magical abilities. Or perhaps it could be the fact that the more damage they take draws them closer to their astral body allowing them to be more in turn with their magical abilities. I think one thing people are forgetting about jobs like DRK and even NIN is that flexibility through other means of damage types is what gives other melee's and edge over one another.

For example during invincible jobs like WAR and DRG are useless for the most part however MNK can use formless strikes, and DRK/NIN can use their magic to continue dealing damage. The same goes with Perfect Dodge, While WAR could attempt to use RA it's not very practical however DRK/NIN can still use magic to deal damage and RNG can still deal damage within this time frame. Straight up damage improvements aren't the only way to improve a job's ability but also their flexibility with being able to change the type of damage they can do to an enemy. Judging by some of the upcoming updates they have in mind we might be seeing more mobs with changing weaknesses.

BST:
I'm sure some may be disappointed that Charm wasn't really brought up as a change though I am curious as to what kind of enhancements they have in mind that would work just like Odin/Alexander. What's interesting is they aren't planning to make it a 2hr ability so it'll be a new means to be supportive. Though I do ponder if this will clutter a BST inv or if they have something in mind like NIN.

One thing that comes in mind is that the JA works like "Phantom Roll" opening up a list of potential "Pet" AOE enhancements or enfeebles that the BST can choose. Say the BST gets the ability at 30.

They could have fun with this ability, they could have some the BST learn naturally every 10 levels from 30, and then some work like dice that you have to use to learn and could come from NMs or HNMs. Since they do plan on giving BLU HNM spells I don't think it would be unfair to allow BST to call upon HNM like mobs to help them out in battle. Perhaps the JA's recast could be based on the monster called but the item used to call it could be universal.

If they plan on making this ability but have specific jugs be used for each one then the idea will fall flat, however if they can work it out to work in the same manner as "quick draw's" requirement of needing a consumable and Phantom Rolls List selection of what roll to use I can see this being a fun support tool for BST allowing them to play more of a party roll.

BRD:
Can't go wrong with more magic defense lol

RNG:
The idea of a TA like effect with their attacks sounds like a godsend for any tank who's lost hate from a RNG lol

SAM:
enhancing their effectiveness with WS does seem to stick with their mastery of WS and use of meditate and other abilities that allow them to knock out WS with insane speed.

NIN:
The fix example they gave makes me think of something like "Follow Through" -Ignore the next dmg that would deal dmg or go through shadows- which would support their parrying abilities as well as their ability to watch an enemies movement.

It also sounds like they want to create an ability that allows them to be temp tanks to get some stress off the main tank without forcing them to tank the rest of the fight so that they can continue to fight in the way they were before. I am interested to see how these ideals will pan out and with the adjustments they've made so far I would say they've been taking NIN in the right direction.

DRG:
It's support enhancement sounds like something that could be helpful though I"m curious to see how they will play DRG.

SMN;
New avatars that can actually be used will cause any SMN to go crazy. Hopefully that's what's planned with these 2 reveals and the ability to shorten BP timers does sound nice to allow SMN to attack at a faster pace.

BLU:
Vague but they have a huge arsenal of abilities on hand as well as a wide amount of JT that they can access so it's not to bad in terms of what they mention. The fact they are saying HNM abilities will be learn able should be enough though I imagine it'll be quite a challenge to learn them.

PUP:
With recent attachment additions as well as the promise of more I see this as a good path for PUP, Hopefully they do take a look at the AI and tweak it in a more logical way since that does seem to be the major issue atm. I think even adding attachments that prioritized certain actions would make PUP's happy even if they have to use a slot just to make use of the ability.

DNC:
Giving support through means of a regain ability sounds cool, I"m curious as to how much it'll actually give. They already have a nice range of support abilities at hand so this does really support their idea of keeping them as a team player.

SCH:
TP decay on a target sounds nice. It seems like they want to penalize mobs enhancements which does sound like a fun path to take SCH. I wonder ihow many spells will be revealed for the status enhancements. It seems like they might release spells that say "If this enhancement increases their STR/ATT then the effect is cut in half" Though I think it would be more interesting to have backfire enfeebles. Where as dispel just downright gets rid of an enhancement, make spells that cause the enhancement on them to turn into an enfeeble. So in terms of the STR/ATT one instead of granted a STR/ATT boost instead they'll have a slow att speed or something to that effect.

As for the planned idea to add unique spells under the effect of Tabula Rasa I wonder what they actually have in mind lol.

What really catches my eye though is the last thing they mention. I"m curious to see how they'll revamp the merit system for certain jobs. It seems like after all the census reports they finally realized that some jobs just don't find their merits to be useful and SE has taken note of that.

With all this info in hand it definitely looks like they are about ready to introduce the test servers. It would definitely allow them to tweak the abilities and release job adjustments at a quicker pace. Though just seeing everything they have in mind definitely excites me and makes me wonder how it'll all pan out. With everything they have planned it seems like it'lls be possible to actually make each job unique from one another.

[Insaniac]

Eh, my take on it:
1) DNC Flourish is going to be a Flourishes III and probably consume 3 Finishing Moves, which means it'll be worthless for everyone Twashtar or not.
2) The second job ability, depended how it's implemented, may be somewhat useful for a DNC with a supporting roll... unless they make it a Waltz.
3) They didn't mention they were splitting Waltz timers, which is a source of great sadness for me.

It wouldn't make a ton of sense to put a forced triple attack in the same flourish group as a forced double attack would it?

ALSO: Everything Nebo said.

[Olor]

PLEASE GIVE BSTS A FREE PET

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

Having to pay through the nose ALL THE TIME sucks. Give us a decent pet that is free. Make a jug item that we have to enhance with magian trials to get access to a pet or something. Even if we only got 1 free pet on a half hour recast - it would save a ton of money for when you are just doing something quick in a zone or something (like Campaign).

It really sucks to have to either lose my jug pet after a campaign battle, or sit around waiting for another one and farming crappy stuff vs. chasing after one in a different zone.

Also for BLU - more spell points please. I don't see the point in moar spells when you never equip almost ANY of them because you don't have the points...

[Byrth]

It wouldn't make a ton of sense to put a forced triple attack in the same flourish group as a forced double attack would it?

Every other Flourish category (http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Category:Flourish)has 3 members, and it makes a lot of sense to me at least to put a DA force and a TA force in the same category as they're pretty similar abilities. It is isn't like you can both DA and TA on your next hit anyway, and the two current flourishes in Flourishes III are mutually exclusive (don't stack with each other or, oddly, sneak attack).

[Kuraudo]

Paladin

*Adding a new ability that reduces the amount of damage taken by a party member for one hit.

**Adding a new ability that slows enmity reduction.

*The new ability that reduces amount of damage taken for one hit doesn't sound too great. It should be for a certain duration and it shouldn't restrict you to just your party. I'm tired of seeing job abilities being restricted to party only (Like Cover). Please make it where you can use the ability on anyone in the alliance.

**The second ability sounds like the job trait, Guardian. This is NOT what Paladin needs. What we need is a job ability that allows us to steal hate from someone (Like Accomplice) and an ability that gives PLD a tremendous hate boost (Like Provoke but more potent). These abilities would help PLD in the situations of when a healer or damage dealer has capped hate or there is a hate reset.

You developers had the chance to tweak Cover for the July update and didn't bother changing Cover to where we are allowed to Cover anyone in our alliance. I want to be allowed to Cover anyone in my alliance! Not only that but Cover doesn't work very well on certain Notorious Monsters that have conal attacks (Iron Giants) rendering it as a useless ability against them. It's called Cover and yet we can't Cover our members from these type of attacks! Why not!? It's not like it would be game breaking or something. You're hindering us from doing our job as a PLD.

I'm tired of seeing these garbage updates to PLD. It's in need of a huge tweak and yet we get minimal results.

The whole role of a Paladin is to be able to protect your members by taking control of the enemy and yet you developers aren't introducing new abilities that allow us to do that better at higher levels. Let us be better protectors please! :(

[Merton9999]

SCH
Lots of good suggestions on the job board so I won't bother listing them here. I'll just say like many jobs the manifesto doesn't sound anything like what the people on the English boards have been clamoring for at all. The past 15 levels have seen mostly party enhancement spells added to SCH, but with such underwhelming potency that they are often cast just because we have them, without any real benefit. I'd much rather see those spells (as well as storms) enhanced than to get a new TP/status enfeeble, which seems much more suited to RDM. I'm also worried about the Tabula Ras spell. If it's Ultima or Death, great. If it's just another Addendum to let us cast Raise 3, then yuck. Like so many posts on the job board, I agree the healing side is what needs work here - much more potent enhancements or a mechanism/spell that matches Cure V.

RDM
Not possible to get excited about new enfeebles or changes to enfeebling magic yet. This could be great or terrible. I ask that they be RDM-exclusive, useful to a party, and not completely useless on any mob that matters. A Quick Magic ability sounds gee wiz neato, but it's not going to make RDM more desired in a group, unless the cooldown time is extremely short, which I doubt.

WHM
Charmna is OK, but all I care about is Reviviscence.

[Jile]

* Vision
Paragons of virtue who never hesitate to step in and defend their friends in a fight, nor to take the brunt of enemy attacks while wearing the heaviest armor imaginable.

We respect the unselfish and bold nature of the paladin, so we plan on further developing their ability to maintain control of battles and keeping others out of harm's way, if only temporarily.

* Example Adjustments
o Adding a new ability that reduces the amount of damage taken by a party member for one hit.
o Adding a new ability that slows enmity reduction.

Okay, we get it.. Stop beating a dead horse.

<SE>: lolPLD

[Finuve]

People that don't play DRK, please don't try and weigh in on DRK changes and I will continue to not put ideas forth on your jobs

Dev/Reps, please read DRK forums, the people there, hate this elemental magic concept, please see Dark Magic for DRK enhancements

[Malacite]

WAR: Sounds good, they've actually done a very good job with WAR over-all now. The only thing it's really lacking is a half-decent ability to mitigate damage taken.

MNK: Again, sounds like SE knows what they're doing. I would love to see an ability that allows us to AoE Chakra though, including the Regen effect for people with Invigorate merited.

WHM: Still no way to remove Terror or Amnesia? Also, please for the love of God adjust barspells. The status resist spells in particular are border-line useless and almost never work against NMs.

BLM: No word on Meteor yet?

RDM: Sounds pretty good, would still like to see revisions done to it's melee capability though. Access to items like Loki's Kaftan & Oceleot gear (basically any melee gear BLU can also wear) and the inclusion of the EX weaponskills would be nice. A small boost to Sword & Elemental Magic Skill would also be appreciated. Even with all this, RDM would not replace front-line melee jobs, but it would at least be a viable option in the absence of one unlike the way it's been pretty much since launch.

THF: No complaints here.

PLD: How about a new sentinel-like ability that hampers enmity gain for party members (excluding the Paladin)? Since once you're at the enmity cap, there isn't much the PLD can do to save you. Also please consider making Sentinel last 3 minutes like you did with Last Resort for DRK.

DRK: No, no, and just no. Sacrificing TP gain for more damage? We need new dark magic to inflict statuses like Terror and Plague - things that fit DRK thematically but are also practical. Insurgency should really be changed to a critical-hit weaponskill as well, as right now DRK lacks a truly heavy-hitting WS for the first time in ages.

BST: Krabkatoa jug? Pretty please? :3 Seriously though, it'd be nice if we could actually play around with Charm again.

BRD: All very good ideas, no complaints.

RNG: It sounds like SE is finally getting the message - RNG doesn't need more damage, it can already dish out immense pain. The job needs to be able to fly under the radar and it sounds like we're finally getting that long-awaited fix.

SAM: Still no critical WS hmm? Would it be asking too much to get maybe a new job ability to force our next WS to crit?

NIN: I like what you're proposing, but the issue of Shuriken still needs to be addressed, as well as the lack of Jubaku & Dokumori: Ni. Will we ever see these spells? What about San level enfeebles?

DRG: Again kinda hit or miss here. Our last Healing Breath, III, was gotten at level 40. We should be up to at least HB V by now. I'm very happy they're going to buff the wyvern, but I'd also like to see the breath damage bumped up from roughly 1/3 of WS damage to 1/2 (upon WS only, not Smiting Breath)

SMN: Really guys? Cait Sith & Atomos? It's better than nothing, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who was very much hoping for Bahamut & Phoenix, even as Astral-Flow only summons. Rebirth Flame in particular would add so much versatility to SMN, bringing everyone back into the fight to avoid a costly wipe with their 2 hour.

BLU: SPIKE FLAIL!!!

COR: 3 Rolls & Enhancing Phantom Roll? NICE! Just, please don't nerf Chaos Roll...

PUP: Cool stuff, Valoredge frame could stand to be a bit more durable though? An increase to total elemental capacities would be very nice too so we can equip more of the fancier new parts.

DNC: Really like what I'm seeing here, but can we not have the Triple Attack ability be a Flourish? DNC has too many to choose from as it is for powering up weaponskills since they all have shared timers.

SCH: I fully support more SCH-only magic. Is there any chance of increasing Regain's potency though? At 1/tic it's hardly even worth casting. I would also very much like to see either new abilities or magic that allow a SCH to enhance their fellow mage's abilities - that is, if there's a WHM present the SCH can make them more efficient at healing, or increase a BLM's damage potential. SCH tends to work best in tandem with these jobs rather than as a replacement.

[Deadvinta]

Really the only thing I was looking forward to them addressing was RDM's swordplay.


Guess not.

When is SE gonna learn that Bard doesn't need Fencer? RDM kind of does.


Also, Striking Flourish is already stupid, don't make this Triple Attack one any worse.

[Chamaan]

Look, new attachments are fine, but we're already working with a very wide range of very useful attachments, in an incredibly restricted field. If you're going to keep using attachments as a way to get out of actually making changes to the puppets themselves (barrier module shouldn't be needed to make a puppet that's had a shield built in since day 1 use it) give us more freedom to choose what we want. Give us some more attachment slots, or raise the element capacity on each puppet so we can choose which element we want to focus in.

And Warrior. More offense is good. But we're quickly ending up in the same boat as Rng in terms of paper defense vs big damage. Maybe something that greatly increases enmity, Retaliation rate and damage reduction in exchange for lowered swing speed. More retaliations would make up for slow swings long as we kept hate on ourselves.

[Olor]

Also....

DO NOT: Make this odin-like ability require the use of call beast (especially with an expensive jug). I don't consider being asked to have no pet for up to 5 minutes so I can buff a party an increase in utility. If SE wants to do this, they either need to give us another way to call a pet other than jugs (see my request to have a free pet) - or they need to make this new ability usable while we have a pet out. I don't want to have to nuke my 14K dipper jug pet so I can use some lame ability (yes odin using the smn's two-hour is lame).

Replacing familiar with a buff on a two hour timer would also be sucky. Don't do it.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

I'll all for more steal.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Look, I think we're missing something here. Take the manifesto in its entirety. Look at the pictures.

These adjustments and changes are intend to balance out players who each already have two or three empyrean weapons to their name. They're not for the masses.

If you can't manage at least one empyrean weapon, these aren't intended for you. Go level a useful job, n00b.

[Leonlionheart]

:[ I was going to post something about emo DRKs being more emo, but I couldn't think of anything clever.

QQ

[Karinya_of_Carbuncle]

Really the only thing I was looking forward to them addressing was RDM's swordplay.


Is this a joke? RDM does have a big problem right now, but lolmelee isn't it. RDM was never intended to be a primarily melee oriented job at high levels and there's no reason to expect that to change.

The primary problem RDM faces in level 90 content is that RDM (and SCH) is no longer a useful healer! The game has been reduced to only one viable healer job and SE shows no indication of whether they even intended that to be the case. For both RDM and SCH, not a good enough healer + bad selection of yellow procs = unwanted job. Their unique spells are insignificant, or at least unappreciated.

Maybe, if the post-90 endgame doesn't have the enormous HP pools of abyssea, Cure IV will stop being junk, but even so, the fact that you have the same top heal as a BLM or BRD doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

There's no discussion (explicitly at least) of whether SE wants any job other than WHM to be able to heal effectively, or what plans they have to make that possible again at higher levels the way it was at 75.

[Leonlionheart]

Look, I think we're missing something here. Take the manifesto in its entirety. Look at the pictures.

These adjustments and changes are intend to balance out players who each already have two or three empyrean weapons to their name. They're not for the masses.

If you can't manage at least one empyrean weapon, these aren't intended for you. Go level a useful job, n00b.

In that case these job adjustments are for the severely mentally handicapped, as there is NO SITUATION where you should be using 5/5 AF3+2 for anything on any job other than MNK, BLM, and SMN.

[Insaniac]

Every other Flourish category (http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Category:Flourish)has 3 members, and it makes a lot of sense to me at least to put a DA force and a TA force in the same category as they're pretty similar abilities. It is isn't like you can both DA and TA on your next hit anyway, and the two current flourishes in Flourishes III are mutually exclusive (don't stack with each other or, oddly, sneak attack). I follow your logic but wouldn't that make the DA flourish pointless? I know you can enhance it with gear but is that gonna make it useable over a forced triple attack? I'm not trying to argue I'm just actually curious since I'm not a DNC expert.

[Byrth]

I follow your logic but wouldn't that make the DA flourish pointless? I know you can enhance it with gear but is that gonna make it useable over a forced triple attack? I'm not trying to argue I'm just actually curious since I'm not a DNC expert.

Well, it could break down like this:
Climactic Flourish: 100% Crit hit, +20% damage
Striking Flourish: 50% Crit hit, DA
TA Flourish: 0% Crit hit, TA

Whether Striking or the TA Flourish would ever get any use is debatable. Before the past update, the only Flourishes III worth using was Striking for DNCs with Rudra's, and it was just barely worth using over spamming slightly more Eviscerations. The TA Flourish has almost no chance of being useful to us in any way. If they put it on a 30 second timer and had it consume 2 Finishing moves, I'd still never use it.

Very careful balancing could give each one of the Flourishes its own special little niche, but realistically Flourishes III is a wash for anyone but Twashtar or Daka DNCs, and even those DNCs would only be using two of the flourishes. The TA Flourish might be useful for, like, Terpsichore Dancers outside Abyssea, but they'd really likely be better off with Climactic.

[Khiinroye]

The ability to change the damage type of a weapon is by far the strongest example ability, being a 25-50% boost to damage on many mob types. Since warrior is already at the top of the DD food chain, implementing that would be devastating to all the other DD jobs.

The example DRK abilities are terrible. Lowering tp gain is a bad thing, and taking more damage to deal more damage with elemental weaponskills is by far the worst of all of them.

[Zoner]

I hate to say it but lolPup is quickly becoming lolDrk. We got shafted on Quietus, now they want us to use elemental WS? Come on SE do you hate dark knights that much? The TP for DoT seems like a bad idea as well, now days mobs live for only 30secs or so...

[Elexia]

I think SE wants DRK to not exist anymore or they have plans for mobs that take 80x damage to elemental weaponskills, but we know that's not true.

[Hyrist]

Is this a joke?

No it's not. This is a joke. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1XX3ZbVrLs) If SE is going to advertise it, they should back it up as well.



RDM does have a big problem right now, but lolmelee isn't it. RDM was never intended to be a primarily melee oriented job at high levels and there's no reason to expect that to change.

Context is important. In HNM content, I agree with you. In almost everything else, I don't. Red Mage is a job that enhances melee and other traits through magic. This includes however, our own. It is an integral (and advertised) part of the job, and the dangling of high end weapons and certain melee pieces in front of this class, without a utility to use it in more situations, is very frustrating to a good portion of the job's populace, regardless of the language they speak.


The primary problem RDM faces in level 90 content is that RDM (and SCH) is no longer a useful healer! The game has been reduced to only one viable healer job and SE shows no indication of whether they even intended that to be the case. For both RDM and SCH, not a good enough healer + bad selection of yellow procs = unwanted job. Their unique spells are insignificant, or at least unappreciated.

1. As far as Solo healing, I agree with you. However, in the case that more than one job is present, RDM(Sch) + DNC(Rdm,Sch) is often adequate on everything but, *gasp* HNM level mobs. And then, in Abyssea, there's brew.

2. Abyssea is not the end all, be all of the Game. If Voidwatch is any indication RDM still has its uses, even in support healing, in what seems to be a trend they're trying to make with that event. However, they're pretty clearly stating they want us to emphasis more on our more defining traits.


Maybe, if the post-90 endgame doesn't have the enormous HP pools of abyssea, Cure IV will stop being junk, but even so, the fact that you have the same top heal as a BLM or BRD doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

Shouldn't these jobs have their defining traits emphasized first, and become a mock-healer second? Red Mage should be the enhancer/enfeebler they attempt to describe here, especially for HNMs. There are more than enough ways to mock up healing duties with current healing capacities. Not that I'm saying we should never get Cure V, far from it. But the viability of us as a healer should not be the primary concern for neither Red Mage, nor Scholar.


There's no discussion (explicitly at least) of whether SE wants any job other than WHM to be able to heal effectively, or what plans they have to make that possible again at higher levels the way it was at 75.

Because I think it's pretty clear they want White Mage to be unquestionably the go-to healer. And when looking for substitutes, you should be looking to divide the role between jobs that can heal, to get a more equivalent performance.

[Greatguardian]

Elemental Magic is an advertised portion of the Dark Knight job.

Works out pretty well for them.

Sup Occult Acumen.

[Siiri]

The Dark Knight suggested adjustments are the biggest slap in the face I think any job has ever seen, and that is saying a lot. Please let SE consider this garbage with feedback.

[OMEGA_HACK]

Well it looks like they STILL don't really have a strong footed direction for Dragoons...I swear they are on the last of the list...Oh and the only way to make the Wyvern last longer SE is to give it Magic Damage Taken -75% trait (Occ. Absorbs dmg failed on our helm)

And like mentioned already if you give us some weaker rehash of a spell for SCH's "Tabla Rasa" only spell, I'm gonna rage all over these forums, and through the process create a Crimson Grimoire! (joking aside, please just give us Mighty Guard and Ultima for the 2hr; thanks!)

[Hyrist]

The Dark Knight suggested adjustments are the biggest slap in the face I think any job has ever seen, and that is saying a lot. Please let SE consider this garbage with feedback.

The only thing about this Elemental WS business I can think of is that in the "Refinements to Weapon Skills" they're going to give Elemental Weaponskills a gigantic buff. That's the only way this makes sense to me.

[Hyrist]

Well it looks like they STILL don't really have a strong footed direction for Dragoons...I swear they are on the last of the list...Oh and the only way to make the Wyvern last longer SE is to give it Magic Damage Taken -75% trait (Occ. Absorbs dmg failed on our helm)

And like mentioned already if you give us some weaker rehash of a spell for SCH's "Tabla Rasa" only spell, I'm gonna rage all over these forums, and through the process create a Crimson Grimoire! (joking aside, please just give us Mighty Guard and Ultima for the 2hr; thanks!)


...

.....
......

Oh sh--

I just thought of something.

Comet.

Oh if that's true, the rage from the BLMs.

[OMEGA_HACK]

<No thanks!>

Although, I hate to say it, it's probably true....

[Hyrist]

Sadly, it makes "S.E.nce"

[azjazo]

BST summoning pets like SMN's 2hr gimmicks, only, it wont be their 2hr and probably they will get Bahamuth before SMN just to troll us more.

Joke aside... its not funny. Hope we get more details on all the adjustments cuz these statements doesnt sound very prommissing as we get close to the magnus opus of leveling in the Final Fantasy lore. tho its nice to have a word from SE stating "we kinda are working on it"

[Zoner]

Elemental Magic is an advertised portion of the Dark Knight job.

Works out pretty well for them.

Sup Occult Acumen.

Maybe if our elemental nukes from our limited mp pool was on par w/ a blms, but right now a naked rdm could out nuke us. What we need is a FAST high damage dark-based spell and a job ability to make our next WS crit.

[Greatguardian]

On a serious note, does anyone remember 2010's Job Vision dealie? They implemented maybe half of what was on there, and went completely opposite directions for the rest. None of it is set in stone, nor does it reflect any sort of Job Adjustments that are currently in development.

Exhibit A: Monk was slated to get "An ability which would allow them to knock the target off guard after evading an attack" or something similar. What'd we get instead? Impetus. Which rocks. Hardcore.

Honestly, I'm happy with the notes as a whole, since they reflect that the Dev team is taking the Support aspect of Red Mage more seriously. There's little point in being the best enfeebler in the game when high level NMs are straight up immune to enfeebles (sup Requiem syndrome). Dark Knight ideas look terrible, but they don't constitute an actual update yet so I wouldn't worry too much.

Edit: Drk doesn't need crits. Abyssea is over. Last Resort update was awesome. Etc.

[Hyrist]

What we need is a FAST high damage dark-based spell and a job ability to make our next WS crit.

What if this JA + Adjustments would make your next Elemental WS do the on-par damage with a WS you force-crit? I mean, this is expecting much out of SE, mind you, but would you accept it if that was the case?

I think SE's trying not to over-duplicate mechanics here, but reach the same goals through different methods.

[Siiri]

Maybe if our elemental nukes from our limited mp pool was on par w/ a blms, but right now a naked rdm could out nuke us. What we need is a FAST high damage dark-based spell and a job ability to make our next WS crit.

I agree with you, as no doubt do most Drks. But SE apparently has never played DRK, or plays it and casts Aero III for 200 damage and weapon skills with Infernal Scythe for 350. Apparently they think that is awesome and needs to be buffed so Aero III does 250 and Infernal Scythe does 400. This has been going on for years with DRK. I hoped with the advent of the forums they would see the balance issues, but they are just making them worse. Buffing SAM and WAR again?

[AyinDygra]

The Beastmaster ability to call forth pets with characteristic abilities sounds like one of the rewards I listed for Chocobo Derby (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/10475-Chocobo-Derby%21?p=132772&viewfull=1#post132772) (yes, shameless plug.):



They act like normal spells and can be used/cast with or without avatars/pets present.

* Ranger could get limited access to these creatures through a non-MP Job Ability called "Forest Friends" to call random weaker versions of: Sylph, Ixion, Unicorn, Moogle, Yeti, Choco & Mog, White Chocobo. They would never know which one they'd get, but it could be influenced by the zone they're in.
~ Sylph: (Midnight Dance: Heals the party's HP.)
~ Ixion: (Rampant Stance: Physical AoE damage, can inflict Weight, Stun, Aspir)
~ Unicorn: (Grace of Hera: AoE Esuna on party with regen)
~ Moogle: (Moogle Dance: Restores some HP to all pets in the party)
~ Yeti: (Moogle Toss: Throws his moogle at the enemy.)
~ Choco & Mog: (Chocobo and Mog Super Double Jump Kick: Two physical jump attacks, TP given to Ranger.)
~ White Chocobo: (Chocobo Recharge: Restores a little MP to the party)

* Beastmaster could have a method to call on some of these with "Nature's Wrath"! Similar selection to Ranger, with different effects in battle, geared toward damage:
~ Sylph: (Lethe Arrows: Ranged attack, knockback, chance for Bind and Amnesia)
~ Ixion: (Trample: Physical AoE damage, can dispel)
~ Moogle: (Mog Bomb: AoE moderate fire damage)
~ Yeti: (Cold Shoulder: Shoulder Slam with chance to stun, deals Ice elemental damage)
~ Choco & Mog: (Stampede: Mog rides the lead chocobo (replaced by your personal chocobo registered to your whistle) of a flock that run through dealing multiple physical attacks. Mog gets knocked off and uses "Mog Flash" that can blind the enemy, then runs away.)

Sounds like only Beastmaster will be getting it though.

[Greatguardian]

Shameless plug or shameless plug?

Regardless, the Bst changes paired with an adjustment to Familiar just seem to me like an Odin/Alexander type ability for BST if they choose to use Familiar without a pet summoned.

[Habiki]

And these job adjustments barely scratch the surface of our ambitious plans! Expect to see the following alterations and improvements as well.


Extras
•Additional Planned Adjustments

•Weapon skill refinements

•Adjustments to enfeebling magic

•Revisions to job-specific merit point enhancement attributes.

Did no one read this, suprised to see so much complaining in the thread, when everything could end up being better then what any of us envision. Their Vision of each jobs role is more exciting then any of their proposed changes or additions thus far.

[Duelle]

as some one in the DRK forums put it, SE is trolling usOn behalf of all Red Mages...welcome to the club? >.>;;

Read the opening comment about RDM and thought SE had put the BRD description in the wrong place:

"Support specialists who excel at transforming their allies from mere mortals into demigods with their enhancements."This a thousand times over. Part of me keeps hoping that's an editing error. Would have been nice if they acknowledged any of the discussions on our forums, too.

[Zoner]

And these job adjustments barely scratch the surface of our ambitious plans! Expect to see the following alterations and improvements as well.


Extras
•Additional Planned Adjustments

•Weapon skill refinements

•Adjustments to enfeebling magic

•Revisions to job-specific merit point enhancement attributes.

Did no one read this, suprised to see so much complaining in the thread, when everything could end up being better then what any of us envision. Their Vision of each jobs role is more exciting then any of their proposed changes or additions thus far.

So I can look forward to my Infernal Scythe dmg going from 400 to 500dmg? woot woot..

[Greatguardian]

No. I think you meant to say "On behalf of a few very vocal Red Mages."

On behalf of the Red Mages who excel in their spellcasting roles and like it that way, Thank Altana.

[Habiki]

So I can look forward to my Infernal Scythe dmg going from 400 to 500dmg? woot woot..

No you can look foward to all your weaponskills getting a boost. Just because theres a new ability that raises the amount of damage the dark knight takes, but also raises the amount of magic and elemental weapon skill damage it deals, doesn't mean you should only use infernal scythe now to make the most of the new JA.

[Zoner]

No you can look foward to all your weaponskills getting a boost. Just because theres a new ability that raises the amount of damage the dark knight takes, but also raises the amount of magic and elemental weapon skill damage it deals, doesn't mean you should only use infernal scythe now to make the most of the new JA.


So I can look forward to my Shadow of Death dmg going from 150 to 200dmg? woot woot..

There fixed it, happy?

[Glamdring]

All told, think the developers nailed it allmost perfect. Top DD jobs are top DD jobs, support roles stay support roles, etc.

Pup, well looks like making the whm pup good for anything beyond status removal, giving Harly and rdm spells beyone level 50 and 72 are still out, can't really see a justification but I'm sure there is one, just not a rational one.

Pld it looks like they still want it to be a tank and they are giving it some tools to deal with how game balance has become totally screwed, not sure they'll be adequate but at least it's an attempt.

Rng, this stuff has needed to happen for years! Some hate control! Assume they'll get some benefit from the damage calc changes that were announced for all jobs.

Drg, not sure, they say they'll do something about how wyvern is so easily 1-2 shot, but the most obvious one-giving it some defense-doesn't appear on the menu.

Bst-ok, I got issues here. Uber pets that do an Odin? What about the call beast timer, because they'll probably be on it. So we get one super move and then for 4:57 (- whatever u got in merits) we are without a pet at all? A bst without a pet is known as a gimp warrior, and soon becomes a corpse.

Brd-Requiem is going to work again? excuse me, I have to go change my pants...

[Olor]

Bst-ok, I got issues here. Uber pets that do an Odin? What about the call beast timer, because they'll probably be on it. So we get one super move and then for 4:57 (- whatever u got in merits) we are without a pet at all? A bst without a pet is known as a gimp warrior, and soon becomes a corpse.


Yeah.... sounds like fun

and by fun, I mean suckage

[RabidSquirrel]

THF - If Steal/Aurasteal/Despoil recast timers aren't seperated and lowered to start with there is no point in wasting update resources on these. They will still be useless.

The success rate of steal/despoil is not the issue. It is not even the point. The problem with these abilities is that they are useless, poorly designed, and mashed together in a way that makes no logical sense.

Aside from the fact that steal/despoil don't work on NM's or most worthwhile endgame content, there are a total two things worth stealing in the entire game. Increasing the success rate of Steal is not going to address this.

But if you are increasing the success rate of steal with TH, Aurasteal NEEDS to be a seperate ability. If not, dispelling enemies that have useless (I cannot stress this enough) items to steal will become very difficult. But again, Aurasteal should have never been attached to Steal from the start. Stealing an enhancment effect should have never had anything to do with stealing an item. It is simply absurd.

No amount of increasing the success rate for Despoil is going to fix that ability if you don't address what is wrong with it. Inflicting enfeebling effects should have nothing to do with stealing USELESS (are we getting this yet?) items. Despoil should seek to steal the enfeebling effect it inflicts, not items. If Despoil is going to be made useful at all, it needs to be specific. This variable enfeeble that it inflicts now is of no use to anyone. It doesn't work on anything worthwhile, it inflicts effects that have no use whatsoever to the monster type you are fighting (Hello Magic Attack down on mobs that don't use magigc YAY!). Despoil was a complete waste of multiple update resources. Upping its success rate is not going to fix it. Don't waste your time.

More party only restrictions on job abilities....more useless enmity manipulation garbage....more giving away everything that is unique to THF.

GG, SE. GG.

This sums up my feelings about the thief changes pretty well.

[hiko]

...

.....
......

Oh sh--

I just thought of something.

Comet.

Oh if that's true, the rage from the BLMs.
i thought of Ultima



On behalf of all Red Mages...welcome to the club? >.>;;
This a thousand times over. Part of me keeps hoping that's an editing error. Would have been nice if they acknowledged any of the discussions on our forums, too.
you mean all the troll that ask rdm to become mele job?
a

[Sparthos]

The BST ability has potential but only if executed properly. Infact, the quick pets only make sense if you can call them along side your normal pet much like NPCs can.

If you can use these super pets in addition to your jugpet/charmed ally then BST just got a DPS bump so long as the damage isn't terrible. Being able to call out a large pet to deal some damage then vanish like avatars has potential.

I know alot of people complain about Charm getting no love but at this point it makes more sense to make better jugpets, make Sic/Ready quit sucking (the TP attacks are pathetic) and work on improving BST DPS through the pet.

If every 76+ jugpet had an aura effect, that'd be even more inline with giving the job utility.

[Nala]

Warrior Example Adjustments
Adding new ability that would allow warriors to change a weapon's damage type (slashing/blunt/piercing) during combat. => Very interesting idea, would allow warriors to be alot more tactical.

Adding a new ability that would ensure the next melee attack lands a critical hit. => not saying im exactly against this idea or that it is even a true clone there of but this is one of many abilities they are giving away from thief, which as i will outline later on is getting jack in the way of compensation.

Monk:
Vision
We'd like to see monks further mature into an even more supportive attacking role (wut?) within the party. There's still room to build upon their renowned self-defense tactics such as Chakra and Counter, and they can also benefit from some extra training in skills like Subtle Blow and Chi Blast that leave foes too weak to fend off attacks from other party members.

even more? since when? mnk's have either been counter tanks or straight DD's as far as i know, unless some one can further elaborate on what they mean by even more? besides as i said with warrior this whole bluing of lines between jobs is kind of counter productive of actually having 20 DIFFRENT jobs, we already have dancer as a supportive attacking class.

Example Adjustments
Adding a new effect to Boost that increases Chakra's effectiveness or makes Chakra's HP-recovery bonus gradually increase by level. => Silly, Plain and simple, only situation i can think of where this makes a difference or is useful is solo between fights as a means to recover a greater amount of HP before resting.

Adding a new effect to Chi Blast that reduces an enemy's TP. => chi blast's recast is such that i would think this to be a marginally useful ability. well would add a tad more utility to ability but still once every 3 min is pretty abysmal in terms of utility.

White Mage

Example Adjustments
Adding a new ability that reduces magic damage taken by party members. => then whats shell for? or perhaps they mean a buff that directly effects MDB?

Adding a new spell that removes Charm from a party member. => honestly now... wheres the damn anti amnsia spells? hell give me an echo drop type item for it ill pay for it... not really much else to say on whm its one of the few jobs ive little experience in, would be interested to hear what the other players have to say in reguards to the needs of WHM.

Black Mage Example Adjustments
Adding new abilities that increase the likelihood of dealing more elemental magic damage at the cost of greater risk. => im gonna take a stab and guess that risk in this cause is higher enmity, doing more damage is nice sure but why do you insist on keep adding anything that screws with enmity while you still acknowlage that the emity system as it stands needs major review.

Adding a new ability that makes the next spell cast cost 0 MP. => sounds nice, cant imagine you'd be able to use it offen, might make for a good desperation/death through type move.

Red Mage Example Adjustments
Adding abilities that reduce to zero the casting time or recast time for the next spell/ninjutsu/song. => meant to mention this on blm but whats up with adding ja's that offer mini 2 hour effects lately, sekkanoki, blm propsed JA and now this? not that its a bad thing but still.

New enfeebling magic spells. => right so you gut RDM by offering much like thief, thier job specific qualities that make them unique (Refresh/convert from SJ) and now want to make them back into more enfeebling role, cant say that better enfeebles/ones that can be landed on up to date content is bad, but if you really want to mainstay thier focus on enfeebling give them spells like amnesia/potent plague, zombie, stuff truly crippling/debilitating.

Thief

/rant on

Don't even bother ajdusting us any more, you're already planing on giving away anything that made us unique or have already done so, ranger with TH, dancer with triple attack, war with force crit capabilities, you want to give us augments to steal? why??? there is only one thing i can think of worth stealing and thats dynamis currency, given the success rate and considering what dynamis is i cant foresee the improvement having a high effect on stolen dynamis currency anyways.

you continuously ignore not only what we have requested in terms of adjustment but also how players actually play, this goes for everything i have said so far and will say, take a damn look at how players actually utilize/play the job before you think you know what needs adjusting.

/rant off

Example Adjustments
Adding a new ability that complements Sneak Attack and Trick Attack. => mildly interested to see what this means...

Raising the chances of successfully executing Steal and Despoil commensurate with Treasure Hunter. => see above...................

Adding a new ability that intimidates an enemy in proportion to the number of members in the party. => Why? just why?

Paladin Example Adjustments
Adding a new ability that reduces the amount of damage taken by a party member for one hit. => a kind of perfect defense type ability perhaps? seems interesting.

Adding a new ability that slows enmity reduction. => once again revamp the enmity system first for heck's seck.

Dark Knight Example Adjustments
A new ability that sacrifices TP gain to make attacks more powerful. => i honestly dont see this as being well received unless its actually potent.

A new ability that raises the amount of damage the dark knight takes, but also raises the amount of magic and elemental weapon skill damage it deals. => see my thief rant + you planing on revamping elemental weapon skills? without atma's they serve no purpose other then looking pretty, making this particular path another empty gesture for a job lacking love currently.

Beastmaster Example Adjustments
A new ability to call forth pets that, like the avatars Odin and Alexander, immediately use their characteristic ability then disappear. => see THF rant again + another useless gesture unless these one shot pets can be called with another pet already in play, bsts typically rely on thier pets to tank for them, a 1 shot pet would effectively be wasting time they could be using to call another real pet or charming something else, meanwhile they are still being beaten on.

Adding more pet-specific abilities.
Revising the effects of the Familiar ability.

these two are too unspecific for me to really comment on.

Bard Example Adjustments
Adding a new song that reduces enemy magic defense.
Revising enemy resistance to Foe Requiem. => wow... after so many years... still relatively minor adjustment.

Adding a new ability that increases the effectiveness of the next song sung. => this include buffs?

Ranger Example Adjustments
Adding the effect of Subtle Blow to ranged attacks that are unleashed from a suitable distance. => sounds good.

Adding an effect to ranged attacks from an enemy's side or back that reduces enmity. => finally a step in the right direction, but again fix the enmity system.

Adding an ability that increases enmity towards party members positioned between the ranger and his/her target. => sooo whats the point in thief again? not that im against this ranger could defiantly use an ability like this.

Samurai Example Adjustments
Adding an ability that increases accuracy and damage of weapon skills. => wasnt really aware we had a major acc problem, interested if the dammage boost will be noticable.

Adding an ability that augments the next weapon skill used with a TP bonus. => interesting but the unkai kote +2 already do this for sekkanoki, not that i wont welcome even more opportunity to take advantage of more TP bonus.

Ninja Example Adjustments
New abilities that make it possible to turn aside enemy attacks and abilities. => perhaps a perfect parry type ability? would be nice if you can actually gain parry skill ups off it if thats the case.

Adding a new ninjutsu that increases the effectiveness of one's own Store TP trait. => kinda cool but again with blurring of job boundaries, STP is more of a samurai thing, once again not against this just saying.

Dragoon Example Adjustments
Adding the effect of reducing magic resistance to certain wyvern breath attacks.

Adding an ability that makes wyverns more difficult to KO. => they didnt get a stout servant trait like automatons did?

Adding an effect to Jump, High Jump, and Super Jump that reduces enmity of the player behind the dragoon. => seems kind of interesting like an inverse thief, but nothing here really helps DRG with DD, not that they per say need it but they are still horribly under rated, need something to help them stand out more.

Summoner

I honestly have no idea what SMN's want curious to hear what kind of adjustments yall are interested in seeing, the blood pact delay one seems decent ish, kinda dubious about new avatars, last time they added the storyline avatars they were 1 trick ponies you could use once every 2 hours... though Alexander is freaking sweet. (give odin some love)


Blue Mage Example Adjustments
Adding new blue magic spells. => any new traits we can expect along with those new spells?

Additional HNM moves for the blue mage to learn. => just hope you dont gimp them too much (1k needles anybody?)

Corsair Example Adjustments
Allowing three phantom rolls to be in effect at the same time. => interesting idea however i can see this as gutting a corsair away from the DD circuit altogether though, with phantom rolls only lasting up to 6 min 40 seconds (max without gear augments) a cor is liable to be expected to constantly be applying mage/melee buffs would drastically reduce the amount of time they are either meleeing/shooting for TP may even limit them down to just QD unless thats your intention?

Further more typical DD buffs conflict with what a corsair would use for DD unless you finally give them a JA like the one bard got (damn cant remember the name now) corsairs will not only find themselves constantly buffing the party but also lacking in rolls that benfit them in the few moments they manage to find to DD.

Adding an ability that increases the effectiveness of phantom rolls.
Revising the potency of certain rolls. => not much to comment here as there is a lack of specification to speculate on.

Puppetmaster Example Adjustments
Introducing an assortment of new attachments. => See Thief rant + cool more attachments, what about AI issues, or better yet why not actually disclose what the hell tactical processor does? hell we dont even know if it works as intended. why should my maton cure my paralysis at 90% hp and 2 seconds later when im almost dead refuse to cure me? i understand there needs to be some kind of balance on how often they can cast but a single timer for all spells? come on...

Adding an ability that restores an automaton's HP.

Dancer Example Adjustments
Introducing an ability that consumes TP to imbue party members with the Regain effect.
Adding an ability that allows for a triple attack. => why not just give them all the TH gear and traits and delete thief already? dancers have higher DW and DD capabilities, thier JA's have synergy, they also already have most of the same traits evasion bonus, Crit attack bonus ect.

Scholar Example Adjustments
Adding spells which gradually reduce an enemy's TP or status enhancements. => meh, shouldn't this be more up RDM's alley? though i cant really think of better suggestions for SCH though, heh well not so much a functionality issue but would be nice if SCH weather effects could count towards elemental trials to a lesser credit, aka 1 objective completion vice 5.

Adding a spell that can be cast while under the effect of Tabula Rasa. => Ultima? would be weird to implement that though since its atypically non elemental, what skill would it employ? or perhaps it would be unresistant aka 100% macc? would seem a fitting spell for a SCH a devout researcher of both schools.

heh sorry for the long post but needed to get most of that off my chest.

[Hyrist]

No. I think you meant to say "On behalf of a few very vocal Red Mages."

On behalf of the Red Mages who excel in their spellcasting roles and like it that way, Thank Altana.

For what? For outright lieing about the capability of our job?

Haste and Refresh does not a demigod make, and there's a long way to go before it can even be considered half that claim. Again, what they said was more reminicent of bard... or even WHITE MAGE than Red Mage as it stands now.

And as far as 'protecting your caster role'. Are you really that paranoid that having a utility that would let Red Mages melee on something beyond the most worthless fodder is suddenly going to undo 9 years of stigma and bad job design? Your caster roles are well secure. There's no harm in writing a utility into the melee side to make having RDM on items like Sagasinger, seem less worthless, or giving some of the broken mechanics a long overdue adjustment.

But until there is some substance behind their claims, Red Mage remains in a bad state for a good deal of the game's content, regardless of of what side of the melee debate you're on. Save your 'thanks' for when the deed is done.

[Tiberius]

It's quite obvious that S-E doesn't know how to properly buff up THF. Some (probably) cruddy intimidation skill? Increase of the success of Steal/Despoil as determined by your level of TH? How about you separate the friggin' timers on Steal and Despoil before you go increasing their utility? Make Aurasteal its own ability, standalone from everything else? While the 5:00 timer in Steal/Despoil is a problem, it's dwarfed by the fact that said skills are limited due to shared timers. It's stunning how S-E hasn't realized this...instead they're busy giving away our Assassin's Charge, and giving us intimidation. Party-only, of course.

What are we, gang leaders now? Ridiculousness.

[Greatguardian]

I'd rather save my thanks for after you log on and complete your parse with Aurara.

But to say RDM is in a weakened role right now is folly. Is it super popular in Abyssea? Nah. It doesn't have Grellows or a very potent healing capacity when people have 4,000 HP, and its Enfeebles are often wasted because they only reduce the damage Monk deals in Counters. Does that mean it's super weak and unpopular everywhere? Heck no.

I'm not a huge fan of the Voidwatch rewards, but the event is pretty awesome. Abyssea is over. Whether people move on from it or not, though, is really a personal matter. Abyssea is easy enough for full Aurore thieves to crap all over the content. Of course plenty of people are going to continue doing it at 95 and 99, but for the most part that's going to be because they're incapable of doing more advanced content which is straight up "too hard" for them.

[Duelle]

RDM does have a big problem right now, but lolmelee isn't it. RDM was never intended to be a primarily melee oriented job at high levels and there's no reason to expect that to change.Red Mage was "intended" to be a generalist that could fill in needed roles in parties while sporting some semblance of versatility. That fell flat on its face when refresh entered the game, which combined with the groups that were already desperate for healers did nothing but sling mud on our job.

As far as the swordplay thing, I lean more to the magic fencer aspect of RDM because that is more like a Red Mage than spamming cures and buffs ever will be.
The primary problem RDM faces in level 90 content is that RDM (and SCH) is no longer a useful healer!This assumes we wanted to be shackled to healing.

There's no discussion (explicitly at least) of whether SE wants any job other than WHM to be able to heal effectively, or what plans they have to make that possible again at higher levels the way it was at 75.That's probably because those of us who were sick of imitating white mages for close to 6 years now are saying "good riddance".

[Glamdring]

now, let's see...

As to the thief rant I play thief, I'm pretty good at it, and frankly I don't see it really needing much of anything except maybe an improvement to Hide and a damage component to Mug. The SATA upgrade is gonna be unusable unless they get closer to old style content. You could hardly get the pt to stand still long enough to land SATA then! as it stands in Aby if you land it, it's an accident. More hate control tools? well, if anyone else will cooperate, sure but seeing people play now I'm not gonna hold my breath.

Red mage... honestly, I don't know what we're gonna do with you guys. You can't even decide amongst yourselves which way to take the job except that it should be set to god-mode... which is NOT going to happen. The only thing that seems almost universal is that you all whine-LOUDLY about it. So, since none of you could make a decision SE did it for you; you are buffers and enfeeblers. Makes sense, you were originally the best in a combined role doing just that from the start of the game. So what is the reaction? whining-LOUDLY. Whatever

Smn seems more like a wake-up call. You wanted to use your BP more? ok, but you have to do something you haven't done since the inception of Abyssea-pay attention to your MP pool. 2 new avatars, we'll have to see what they do. Although not mentioned, with 9 more levels I think it's fair to say that new BP are on the way, too.

seriously, read in total it seems like SE is trying to restore the game balance they all but abolished with the Abyssea play system. In fact, the preamble language about building towards job balance at 99 seems to say just that. Looks like folks are going to have to relearn how to function with party mechanics, hate control and survival issues again, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Or you could just stay in Aby pot-shoting EP-, by 99 EVERY JOB will have achieved god-mode in there, so you should be happy

[xbobx]

Giving pup new attachments is fine and, but make them available easily for all. If jobs are getting all these job adjustments that just happen but pups have to pay 1mil plus for go through stupid time sink hoops for a 0.001 percent chance of drop, its just not right.
You did the right thing putting attachments bought with IS points, then you turn around and do something really stupid with the new attachements and put them in chests that you hardly ever find, or put them on ob forcing you to do old content no one does. that is one thing that always pissed me off, other jobs get some easy great equip to get, but pup, something half decent you put on the hardest mobs in games with rediculous paths and horrible drop rates. then if they too good you nerf them, like burts.

[AyinDygra]

My take on SE's "vision"... in some areas, they're thinking like the players, but in many cases I am made to wonder if they play their own game, or read the english boards. My confidence in their plan for the future of the jobs has taken a major hit. It *almost* sounds like they were asked to make this list up off the top of their heads in about ten minutes. I don't see a well-reasoned and strong vision of how the jobs should operate in the situations they encounter in the game.

Job-by-job reaction and mini-brainstorming exercise:

Warrior
Warriors are physical damage dealers. That's what they've been in past games, and that's what players expect in FFXI. Their use of many weapons is a key feature, and they see it as something to build on too. However, I like the suggestion in this thread about a Job Ability that lets Warriors switch weapons without losing TP a lot more than the example adjustments they listed.

Monk
Well, they've got the punching and countering parts right. The whole "supportive attacking role" probably refers to Penance, reducing enemy TPgain via Chi blast and Mantra, increasing the maxHP of the party, both merited abilities that you can't count on a Monk bringing to a party. I won't say no to more subtle blow and more useful chi blasts, but they're almost completely ignoring guard (still room to build upon their renowned self-defense tactics) Maybe add "holds" to guarded and countered attacks, making them vulnerable to other party member attacks and preventing the enemy from attacking. Chakra should be party-AoE like in several past FF games. (I put forward several ideas in my Monk forum thread too)

White Mage
Nothing ground-breaking here. Ultimate healers and removers of enfeebles. Keeping the party healthy and preventing enfeebles. There are several glaring inadequecies in their repertoire, such as no cure for Amnesia. I could see adding Rosa's Job Ability: Pray for a hateless Curaga type effect and a Job Trait at higher levels that increases its healing power. Another Job Trait I'd give them is something like "Rise" that completely fills the raised person's HP/MP to their reduced maximums. (and many Whm's want Revivivivivivicence (no death sickness raise spell)

Black Mage
Again, very simple job concept, just getting more powerful magic. Glass cannon. A Job trait like "Piercing Magic" could be given to them to prevent the lowest tiers of resists from occurring. It could also bypass "Reflect" status, if that's ever added to FFXI. "Burst Proficiency" could be a trait that returns MP from Magic Bursts.

Red Mage
"We've decided to rename Red Mage: Oracle (From FFT). Forget the whole white and black magic thing and the magic fencing with swords... they're mainly enhancers and enfeeblers now. We're giving their dual magic side to Scholar and melee side to a new job that we're not talking about yet (Mystic Knight.)" That's what I read. "Red Mage" doesn't exist anymore.

Thief
I don't know what to say... they still see value in enmity control and treasure hunter. I get it, Thieves are tricky and the enemy shouldn't know where their attacks came from. They can steal stuff from the enemies. Recently, they became more like "criminals", collaborating and being accomplices, and now a new ability on the table is something like "Gang leader": intimidating an enemy depending on the party size. Stealing most certainly should be the focus of the Thief job. Since real items are a gil-concern, and probably the reason Steal is on a 5min timer right now, they should focus on adding temporary items and other non-gil-producing items to the loot pools of enemies that can be used strategically in battle (potions, grenades, etc) (with a new steal command on a much shorter timer to grab these non-sellable items), as well as stealing intangibles like Stealing Time (haste thief+slow enemy). Another key ability of Thieves is misdirection using distractions that could allow for Sneak Attacks from any direction. "Caution" could be a "circle ability" that increases the party's critical hit evasion rates and increases defensive skill activation rates. (I've got a thread on this job in its forum too)

Paladin
*sigh* Moving on.

Dark Knight
Giving up HP to do damage is the Dark Knight's world. They've got Dark Magic, focusing on absorbing stats and soul stealing. They're intimidating, able to inflict stun and they should intimidate all enemies (not restricted to family types). They're mainly a melee job, so their casting should be similar to Blue Mage (Fast). I could see Dark Knight getting Scathe from FFXII. FFX-2 had Dark Knights immune to status ailments, so an ability to shrug off ailments would be an interesting concept in FFXI. A Job Ability like "Fearful Strikes" that increases critical hit rate and adds a very short duration Terror on crit hits could be useful, and fits the theme (Could make it scythe only, or more effective with scythes.)

Beastmaster
Interesting turn to take on Beastmaster, with party-buffing pets. The comparison to Odin and Alexander for the instant-use pets was less than ideal if they meant for them to really be treated more like Spells or Job Abilities with a pet graphic effect.

Bard
Interesting, not much to say. Reducing enemy resistance to things like Foe Requiem and all Enfeebles across the board will bring a lot more strategy back into the game, where people have given up on using their full range of abilities since they're usually ineffective when they'd be of most use.

Ranger
Adding enmity reduction to their attacks is a massive step in the right direction.

Samurai
One word: Weaponskills. They've had this focus going for them the whole time. Self-skillchains are all the rage these days, since parties don't really coordinate for them very often.

Ninja
Not exactly what's been expected, but interesting. Deflecting/Turning aside enemy attacks instead of using a shadow to absorb them has interesting uses if this means the attack just moves to another target (like a secondary tank). For cases where a Ninja is tanking with a partner, the idea of having a smokescreen to attack from out of sight could be used to temporarily remove the ninja from the enemy's hate list so they can recast shadows, or still build hate that gets applied when the smokescreen wears off. (I posted on the ninja boards about 3 plausible additions to Ninja: Image Trickery, Smokescreen, and Fade)

Dragoon
I'm glad to see them putting more focus on Jumps and wyvern defense. I recently put forth a few ideas on classic Dragoon strategies in the Drg forums, probably after this road map was put together. I hope the direction they're going incorporates a little more from past versions of Dragoon.

Summoner
The concept is still there. I'm happy to see Atomos (hopefully a mobile glowy maw), less happy about Cait Sith, and still waiting for Phoenix - maybe a new type of summon tied to a new Job Trait: Phoenix Ember... so when a party member dies, Phoenix has a random chance of raising them, including the Summoner. (random auto-reraiseIII)

Blue Mage
Yep, not much has changed here. (more specifics would be welcome with update notes and previews.)

Corsair
Totally ignored the feedback thread on XI rolls... the vision of the gambler is as expected though. Maybe they'll consider the trick dice concept put forth in the "throwing arts" thread, using dice attacks to build up 3 separate results, then creating an effect based on those results, like slots of past games.

Puppetmaster
If they're going to keep adding attachments, they'll need to give us more attachment slots and more elemental capacity. The ideas they're putting forth could be handled with frame upgrades as others have said. Fixing the Automaton casting AI is a huge issue (THE issue) among those who use the mage frames. We need more melee heads too, and maybe a new head/frame combo or more. A way to control our automaton's weaponskills without restricting our maneuver choice would be great. (Maybe AI cards that go in a new slot in both head and body that turn on/off different abilities/spells, and maybe add new abilities/spells! - Abilities on body card, spells on head card)

Dancer
AoE Regain, triple attacks... and no sign of splitting Waltz Recast timers. Looks like they don't want Dancer to be a focused healer, just a support/enfeebling DD who "can" heal occasionally. "And perform better in ensemble casts" leads me to think there may be abilities for groups of two or more Dancers. That has potential, especially in alliances. But it could just be referring to being in a party... which would be disappointing. (there are many ideas in the Dancer forum!)

Scholar
Strategists... they seem to just be FFXI's "Red Mages" who have to choose between white and black magic at any given time. Their Damage over Time abilities are interesting, but the Helix spells never made much sense for the theme (more like Geomancer spells tacked onto the new mage job, since they didn't add Geomancer). If they really wanted to push the whole Strategist part of the job, they should get abilities that support the party's abilities to coordinate their attacks. In this regard, I'd give them abilities like Samurai and Dancer's Wild Flourish to invoke skillchains, a new Etherbound equivalent to allow magic bursts after a single weaponskill, extending the window in which skillchains and magic bursts can trigger, enhanced damage of weaponskills and magic bursts, weakening enemy resistance to magic or certain damage types. Controlling who has hate is a big part of strategy also (the two animus spells were steps in the right direction for the theme). All of these things introduce more "strategy" than "Do I use Black Magic or White Magic right now?" to the decisions of a Scholar.

(I'd have used more paragraphs, but wanted to keep the format itself clean, and it kept me from going into too much detail, since I do go into much more detail in the related posts that I didn't link to, shameless plugging and all...)

[Malacite]

As long as these WS "Refinements" don't equate into more nerfs, I'm fine.

Seriously SE do not screw with our Empyrean WS. Well, not the good ones anyway. A massive buff to the older elemental skills would be wonderful, while fixing some of the more lackluster ones both new an old. DRG didn't need Wheeling Thrust +1 SE.

Atonement, for example, could really stand to have it's damage uncapped and have the damage scale much higher with more TP & Enmity. Almost all of the 70~71 quested WS really need their fTP modifiers for 100 & 200 bumped up to justify using them.

Finally, I would really like to see some refinements to the "Break" Weaponskills. Shieldbreak is arguably the best early-game weaponskill of all, but by the time you get Weapon Break there's no point in using them anymore because there are far better WS available around that time (Rampage, Raging Rush, Guillotine etc...) and Fullbreak is a joke since while it inflicts multiple stat downs, they are all at half-strength of the singular versions. The WS itself does junk damage too.

[Andrien]

Paladin: Their only purpose is to protect/defend full time, not temporally. Adjust Rampert. Rampert magic shield should not work like Stoneskin, instead it should work like sentinel except it mitigates magical damage. Add another job ability to share the effects of our own buffs with the whole party.(Fealty and/or Sentinel for everyone) Paladin should stand out more with divine magic. Holy II etc.

Ninja: Shuriken needs to be addressed. Ninja can already dish out damage quickly at high speeds at close range combat much more effectively than their best combat skill known as Throwing. I'd like to see Shuriken adjusted in a way that they can deal massive spike damage if the player chooses to enter a stance for shuriken. Their are even some throwing weapons with base damage 250. Unfortunately those weapons are rare and can be carried in single file only. We need some more affordable Shurikens that is stack-able like that.

Blue Mage: Need more Blue Magic Points. Being stuck at 55 points is kind of tough in my opinion. Summer Breeze, (if nothing to erase we gain Regain instead) Autumn Breeze would be fantastic, and Spike Flail. Edit: also like to note that the mp cost and spell casting time should not be huge! k thanks^^

[Miera]

Needs more Automaton AI fix. SE WHYYYY!?!?

also.. I like the SMN Idea, can you fix the Elemental AI too? <_< if all they are good for is to siphon then why do they even attack or cast spells? -.-

[Ravenmore]

Paladin: Their only purpose is to protect/defend full time, not temporally. Adjust Rampert. Rampert magic shield should not work like Stoneskin, instead it should work like sentinel except it mitigates magical damage. Add another job ability to share the effects of our own buffs with the whole party.(Fealty and/or Sentinel for everyone) Paladin should stand out more with divine magic. Holy II etc.

Ninja: Shuriken needs to be addressed. Ninja can already dish out damage quickly at high speeds at close range combat much more effectively than their best combat skill known as Throwing. I'd like to see Shuriken adjusted in a way that they can deal massive spike damage if the player chooses to enter a stance for shuriken. Their are even some throwing weapons with base damage 250. Unfortunately those weapons are rare and can be carried in single file only. We need some more affordable Shurikens that is stack-able like that.

Blue Mage: Need more Blue Magic Points. Being stuck at 55 points is kind of tough in my opinion. Summer Breeze, (if nothing to erase we gain Regain instead) Autumn Breeze would be fantastic, and Spike Flail. Edit: also like to note that the mp cost and spell casting time should not be huge! k thanks^^

Why wouldn't we get more points at 91, we got them at 81. Just because they don't say we will be getting them doesn't mean thier not coming. Before the last update they didn't even say sam was getting the next tier of STP. The only time I can remeber them saying a new tier of a JT was th3 for thifs since there was a big up roar over if they would get it of not. Drgs acc bouns 3 wasn't even mention.

You know the HNM spells are going to cost a lot of MP, on par with 1000 needles best case worst case we get to cast them under effect of our 2hour. With the spells found in the .dats we could make out better then most of the other jobs. They even finally listen to blus and revamp our 2hour.

[Duelle]

Red Mage
"We've decided to rename Red Mage: Oracle (From FFT). Forget the whole white and black magic thing and the magic fencing with swords... they're mainly enhancers and enfeeblers now. We're giving their dual magic side to Scholar and melee side to a new job that we're not talking about yet (Mystic Knight.)" That's what I read. "Red Mage" doesn't exist anymore.It is at times like this that I wish I had more space in the signature box, that way I could sig this and preserve it for posterity.

[Nala]

Glamdring: (wow just realized where i reconized your name from nice hobbit ref. >.<) i agree thf can do decent damage (managed a few 6.5k evisceration's x.x), guess i failed to re-enforce the reason for my agitation, its that the few abilities that are a part of being a DD as thf and make it unique are being out sourced with nothing of impact given back.

[Seha]

Adding an ability that increases the effectiveness of phantom rolls.A welcome addition.


Revising the potency of certain rolls.If this means buffing, very well welcome, if it means nerfing GTFO.


Allowing three phantom rolls to be in effect at the same time.Now, I really hope that by 3 rolls they don't mean the new 11 bonus, cause that sucks.
Anyway, whilst good to be able to keep three buffs, PR recast time becomes an issue. Meriting this will most likely be vital, or else we can just start forgetting even bringing the weapons cause the time to deal damage will be very limited. I like having more buff capabilities since that's my role in the party, but at this rate I guess I'll only have the time to QD and WS.


Revisions to job-specific merit point enhancement attributes.QD/PR recast merits -5 sec per upgrade yes please!!

[Dieth]

"Adding a new spell that removes Charm from a party member." - We already know how to deal with charmed players.
1. Have the Blackmage kill them
2. Sleep them.
3. Bind them.
4. Gravity them.

I implore you if anything you should do "Adding a new spell that removes Amnesia from a party member."

[Niyariko]

Please fix automaton's AI before anything else for pup, this is THE priority for pup job update.

please give us attachments that can reasonably reduce idle time between each spell cast.

[lllen]

Rdm - seems you can give us all the enfeebles in the world, but just give us something to get us back in the game. My poor Rdm hasn't played in months, has been over a year since Rdm went to Abyssea, there doesn't seem to be a need for us anymore, except Dyna. I have blm, Whm, Blu and Thf they get to play all the time. Lol, funny how my rdm has the most af3 gear and only wears it in the mh.

[Laphine]

Warrior
Warriors are physical damage dealers. That's what they've been in past games, and that's what players expect in FFXI. Their use of many weapons is a key feature, and they see it as something to build on too. However, I like the suggestion in this thread about a Job Ability that lets Warriors switch weapons without losing TP a lot more than the example adjustments they listed.

Hmm i liked this. I think this is actually something that would benefit everyone. It certainly allows more tactical use of some nearly useless weapons (pdt magians for one). Mages could realistically benefit from their empyrean staff ws (and even other ws that drain mp). As a thf main, this would be like the manna from heaven. We would no longer get annoyed about full timing such an outdated weapon like Thief's Knife for TH purpose.

[Korpg]

Mages could realistically benefit from their empyrean staff ws (and even other ws that drain mp).

Just need to correct you there:

Spirit Taker doesn't drain MP, it converts damage delt into MP for the mage. Mystic Boon does the same for Club.

Myrkr is basically a glorified Starlight, where it does no damage but recovers MP (and in the case of Myrkr, removes one bad status effect).

The weaponskills you are refering to are Energy Drain/Steal from daggers, which the only mage to benefit from this is RDM. Unless you have a SMN or BLM who actually uses dagger that is.

[TimeMage]

PUP: Fix the AI!! -nas shouldn't be prioritized over cures when a light maneuver is up and Damage Gauge is equiped.


SCH: The plague spell they may add better be quite potent, or it won't matter a bit: Absorb-TP from DRK has a recast of 1 min and I've seen it drain upwards of 100 TP on the attohwa boss. Let's assume that was a fluke and 60 TP is more reasonable: the minimum the plague spell had to do to be somewhat useful would be -3 TP/tick. Considering how Adloquium is only +1 TP/tick... somehow I doubt it u_u

There's also the mysterious Tabula Rasa only spell: It better be some awesome thing that is a good curaga and a potent nuke at the same time, or some stupid sh*t like that, because otherwise it would be a let down.

And, despite of what I said, I'm fairly optimistic about SCH. We don't really need new revolutionary spells and JAs to be again sought after. We need, however, to ride carefully the line that makes us almost as good as WHM and almost as good as BLM in our respective arts. Too much and we're stepping on other jobs toes, too little and we're not worth carrying around even taking into account our versatility. I think that the addition of one or two spells (mainly from white magic, specifically Cure V, even if it's nerfed somewhat) and tweaking up some of our existing ones (the animus spells and adloquium need their potency to vary with enhancing magic) we can be a good, useful, and competent job again.

[Laphine]

yeah, i was not talking about a staff ws specifically. My parenthesis reference was indeed towards energy drain/steal. My intention was to say if a mage has any ws that affect mp they will be more likely to use it. And whichever is best for that specific job or situation.

For some reason this discussion made me remember that, for those that have it, occult acumen would suddenly make much more sense too.

[Covenant]

Overall, the "Manifesto" was above average in my opinion. Unfortunately, without providing "Hard Numbers" many of the "Manifesto" idea seem underwhelming at this point in time.

In my opinion the one phrase that sent shivers of joy down was the whole,"...up to this point SE focused on balance between party members, and moving forward we'd like to "power up" each job"(to paraphrase).

This was one of the major themes of disappointment in my book, up to this point. Here we are approaching lvl 99 and still jobs are being held back for "balance" sake but not for level sake. SE bonus whether gear or /JA have always been lack luster for the most part. 30sec durations, decaying effects, bonuses of +5-8 per stat, etc. All seem weak in my opinion.

If one is worried about balance, if all jobs get overpowered EQUALLY, then their still in balance. Even with this overpowerness, players would still not approach the levels of some of the NM's and HNM's. Speaking about Summoners spirits lack of physical down, someone mentioned that the difference between a players spirit def and a mob elemental defense is something like "40/400 defense" in favor of mobs. That a regular mob, Not even NM. Mob MP pools are already infinite, and their HP are in the +10k range.

Playerd SHOULD feel like "...Demi-Gods". We've already faced Promathia, Bahamut, HNM's, "Sky Gods", "Sea-Gods", innumerable quests, we've saved nations in the present as well as past, unburying weapons and gear of legends...heck we've even faced a demented version of Shantoto and lived to tell the tale.

[Byrth]

Players who think this is just some theoretical thing they're tossing around in Japan should probably take a look at the video at the end of Spira's datamine (http://wilddragonchase.blogspot.com/2011/07/ffxi-sudden-version-update-datamine.html).

Maybe they're still debating the exact mechanics, but the animations are made and on your computer.

[Cream_Soda]

I think that's going the wrong direction with monk, honestly.

Invigorate as it is only helps with solo. Even regen II is more powerful. Unless there's a plan to make it more powerful than mage regen, I don't see the point, as mage regen would always be preferred and honestly, there are better classes for soloing than monk. While it'd be nice, I wouldn't want to waste an update for something that's more geared towards solo.

As far as subtle blow goes, it's already incredibly easy for mnk to hit the cap and penance already reduces monster tp gain. I could see something like a stronger penance working very well, because that helps w/ TP fed from all of your group, but adding more subtle blow, that is only for the mnk himself, I feel is pointless, because it's already so easy to cap as it is now.

To expand on counter, though, it would be nice to see TP gain from countered attacks (i mean, even the enemy gets TP when you counter their attack) or possibly a higher level counterstance job trait, could say counterstance II for example, that's not stackable with the lower level version and is basically just an improved version for higher levels (for example, not reducing your defense to levels so low, the enemy's attack is always capped vs you).

I spoke of the regen effect of chakra, but did not of chakra itself. For Chakra, the HP returned is more than fine, provided you have a decent VIT build (which not very many mnks put their effort into, hence their low returns). That being said, it would be nice to see more ailments be removed with chakra, such as plague or doom. That, in my eyes, would be a very useful addition to chakra.

[Greatguardian]

To be fair, as far as Monk goes, our last "Manifesto" had us getting evasive stun type deals reminiscent of FF14 while we ended up getting Impetus.

[Malacite]

o. O Was that Stun II // Stunga I saw in that video?!

Also, not surprising there's a bunch of new stuff in there since the major update (lv 95 cap) is next month.

[Venat]

I would like more details on blue magic spells that are coming.

I would like to see BLU get a Parry boost ability.

This would be a somewhat support to the DEF of bluemages. Everyones been asking for a better Coccon but I think it would be better to add a Parry boost ability that you can use every 5mins.

Parry boost lasts 30secs

[Urteil]

I would like more details on blue magic spells that are coming.

I would like to see BLU get a Parry boost ability.

This would be a somewhat support to the DEF of bluemages. Everyones been asking for a better Coccon but I think it would be better to add a Parry boost ability that you can use every 5mins.

Parry boost lasts 30secs


BLU's asking for anything is downright disgusting.

Take your HNM spells and leave, while most of us stand here with our mouth agape horrified at SE's breach from reality.

[Karinya_of_Carbuncle]

Red Mage was "intended" to be a generalist that could fill in needed roles in parties while sporting some semblance of versatility. That fell flat on its face when refresh entered the game, which combined with the groups that were already desperate for healers did nothing but sling mud on our job.

Healing is often a needed role in a group. Melee on the other hand... there's how many jobs that melee better than RDM *and* don't have the choice of doing anything else? Melee is basically never something a group needs more of, and if they did, they wouldn't look at a RDM for it even if it meleed better than BLU (which, unlike RDM, has an A sword skill, but would still be not that great a melee if it didn't spend MP on spells to add more damage). That's why it's important for RDM to have the option of nuking or healing decently, and not so important for us to have the option of melee (in group situations).

RDM melee is more of a solo/small group thing than something that should be attempted against VT and up, and it's pretty much always been that way for higher level RDM. Even at lower levels RDM melee is more of a bonus than something you would actually invite the RDM for. This has been our core job design since launch (in fact, since before FFXI existed at all, to the extent that the jobs draw on earlier FFs such as FFV's job system), there's really no excuse for people to try to substitute their own concept of the job for the devs' and just say it's "supposed" to be that way.


This assumes we wanted to be shackled to healing.

I don't want to be "shackled" to healing, I want to have the OPTION of being an adequate healer if that is what the party/alliance needs. That's part of the versatility of RDM. Just like I want to have the option of nuking, or the option of enfeebling (on mobs that aren't immune). Enfeebling isn't very meaningful at the moment, but SE is showing some signs of wanting to improve that in future content.

A game with 20 jobs shouldn't have only 1 of them being capable of being a viable healer for a group. That's bad game design and is going to lead to either way too many people playing the same job and the others being neglected, a massive healer shortage, or both.

On the other hand, I agree with whoever posted upthread that RDM enhancing is kind of weak compared to the real enhancing kings, BRD and COR. Not that RDM enhancing is insignificant, but it's not exactly pivotal (especially when it's made redundant by the much stronger Abyssea buffs). Maybe it could be improved, but BRD or COR level enhancing tends to become the whole job, and I don't really want that for RDM either.

P.S. Have you played any other FF games? RDM has never been more than second-rate, at best, at melee. For years, their signature ability has been to cast more spells faster than other mages, never anything melee-related. In FFV, for example, RDM doesn't have a single learnable ability that improves physical damage. The actual DD jobs are getting things like Dual Wield, Boost (the FFV versions of both of those are *much* stronger), Barrage (works a little differently but insanely strong), Jump for double damage usable every attack round, etc. There is no viable RDM melee build -- at most, you can give them a melee-supporting ability from some *other* job to give them something to do that doesn't cost MP. IIRC, pretty much the same is true in FFIII. I have no idea where people got the idea that RDM were ever supposed to have first-rate melee abilities. First-rate melee jobs don't have a B in their primary weapon.

[wildsprite]

RDM is still an adequate healer outside of abyssea, which I personally despise people that want their jobs adjusted based on that big old mess that nearly destroyed FFXI in the first place(and before you argue that it helped, no it really didnt, we need more players to join the game to keep it going not a big old mess that gives a crap load of EXP that is the only thing most people want to do), RDM has 2 main weapons, sword and dagger, they should have better weapon skill sets and stronger ability to hit, that should be addressed before anything else, and screwing us by making it so we are forced to take less enmity was not a smooth move on SE's part, they went and screwed over one of the few things front line that RDM could do, tank, you all seem to think that RDM was designed to back line, that was not the original idea of RDM, RDM was supposed to be able to effectively take on almost any role in the party, not to be better than those roles but to be proficient at them

[Supersun]

There's a difference between not having first rate melee and being worse or equal then a Whm.

[Greatguardian]

White Mage has always been a powerful melee job (for a mage). You say that like you expect something different from a mage class that's incapable of casting half-decent offensive spells.

[Neisan_Quetz]

The worst meleeing mages are Blm and Smn anyway, can't even cap haste (without using a gimp staff/sub/lolRune Choppa).

[Greatguardian]

Exactly. When SE designed the game, they made sure that there weren't going to be any classes that absolutely relied on a group to kill anything. Bard was given basic proficiency with Daggers, melee gear, and Evisceration because they're a support class with absolutely no other offensive capabilities. White Mage was given proficiency with Clubs, access to Maul class weapons, and Hexa Strike because they're a healing class with absolutely no decent offensive spells.

Why can't Summoner, Black Mage, and Scholar melee super effectively with staves then? Simple. They have nukes/Avatars. They have offensive capabilities, so they don't need melee proficiency in order to solo. They can actually bring something from full HP to 0 on their own. The only reason Whm and Brd have those Melee options is so that they can do the same if they absolutely have to.

It's not some sort of insult to say that a mage is less melee proficient than White Mage. It simply implies that the Devs thought the job was strong enough without it.

[Supersun]

I also think that SE somewhat had a vision of previous FFs where daggers would be the "mage" + thf melee weapon (explains daggers crappy damage ratings until that one update) while sword was actually a DD weapon along with one handed axes and 2h weapons.

Mind you back then I can't exactly say SE knew exactly what they were doing and sword eventually became the crapfest of a weapon it is today.

Really, I bet there's plenty of choices that they wish they could have taken back if given a second chance.

[StingRay104]

Exactly. When SE designed the game, they made sure that there weren't going to be any classes that absolutely relied on a group to kill anything. Bard was given basic proficiency with Daggers, melee gear, and Evisceration because they're a support class with absolutely no other offensive capabilities. White Mage was given proficiency with Clubs, access to Maul class weapons, and Hexa Strike because they're a healing class with absolutely no decent offensive spells.

Why can't Summoner, Black Mage, and Scholar melee super effectively with staves then? Simple. They have nukes/Avatars. They have offensive capabilities, so they don't need melee proficiency in order to solo. They can actually bring something from full HP to 0 on their own. The only reason Whm and Brd have those Melee options is so that they can do the same if they absolutely have to.

It's not some sort of insult to say that a mage is less melee proficient than White Mage. It simply implies that the Devs thought the job was strong enough without it.

I think your confused. When this game first came out and in fact being designed the whole purpose of FFXI was group activity. They didn't want another MMO that was pure solo everything was made for group content. Now if you meant to say SE never intended any job to be defenseless then your right, SE made sure that each job could at least defend itself if needed. Aside from that I agree with your post.

[Greatguardian]

I think your confused. When this game first came out and in fact being designed the whole purpose of FFXI was group activity. They didn't want another MMO that was pure solo everything was made for group content. Now if you meant to say SE never intended any job to be defenseless then your right, SE made sure that each job could at least defend itself if needed. Aside from that I agree with your post.

That is exactly what I'm saying. FFXI has always been a group oriented game, but at the same time it was quite clear that the Devs did not want to leave any single job unable to defend itself or fight off aggro if they absolutely needed to. For mage jobs with no native offensive spellcasting proficiency, melee options were added.

[Kyte]

The worst meleeing mages are Blm and SCH anyway, can't even cap haste (without using a gimp staff/sub/lolRune Choppa).

fixed. Not to say I'm a huge SMN melee fan, but it is considerably more relevant than SCH melee.


When SE designed the game, they made sure that there weren't going to be any classes that absolutely relied on a group to kill anything.

Nitpick, but when SE designed the game Holy was stupid powerful. Then again, the nerf on Holy was before or as they released Hexa. That's not to say that your point invalid, however (in fact it sort of strengthens it).

[Neisan_Quetz]

Potentially, they're still mostly in the same boat. Although At least Smn can self haste/buff their melee I guess.

[Kyte]

That and they have the option of meleeing alongside their avatars when soloing. lolSMNmeleegear and combat skill is also a step above SCH.

[Dallas]

That and they have the option of meleeing alongside their avatars when soloing. lolSMNmeleegear and combat skill is also a step above SCH.

They conveniently forget the multitude of melee buffs that SMN gets to choose from. They forget the 2hand bonus that puts SMN that far ahead of WHM or RDM to start, and the avatar that provides the best meat shield any melee mage could hope for (one that you'd sooner ditch than heal). Nope, SMN isn't supposed to touch melee...

Solo farming, SMN wipes the floor with most jobs. I'll admit though, only a half-dozen jobs appear to be up to the challenge. Haters gonna hate.

On topic, SMN appears to be going full-tilt MP drain. It will be fun to watch how many SMN scramble to find more mp.

[Neisan_Quetz]

EDIT: Flubbed the calculations, it's 405 accuracy on Smn with Hasso versus 397 on Rdm assuming full merits on both and Suppa/Composure on Rdm disregarding RR/cruor buffs, okay, I'll give you your +8 'miles ahead' accuracy.

[Greatguardian]

EDIT: Flubbed the calculations, it's 405 accuracy on Smn with Hasso versus 397 on Rdm asusming full merits on both and Suppa on Rdm, okay, I'll give you your +8 'miles ahead' accuracy.

Don't bother. He's just trying to start more trouble here.

[Dallas]

So we are arming the RDM to narrow the margin? We're also assuming that only the RDM would think of meleeing with the best melee atma? LOL. Consider this: RR helps out 2h weapons MORE than 1h weapons. Oh snap!

And then you got the "5x" guy himself telling you that it's not worth your time coming up with anything resembing honest posts. If we mashed all of you together, we'd have some sort of "super troll" that still couldn't lie well. Haters gonna hate, but they sure ain't gonna think.

[noodles355]

All I read was WAR getting Sneak Attack, Dancer getting Assassin's Charge, and thief getting improved success rate on steal and despoil (which are already useless outside of dynamis currancy and brigandish blade).

Go go SE.

[Duelle]

Healing is often a needed role in a group. Melee on the other hand... there's how many jobs that melee better than RDM *and* don't have the choice of doing anything else? Melee is basically never something a group needs more of, and if they did, they wouldn't look at a RDM for it even if it meleed better than BLU (which, unlike RDM, has an A sword skill, but would still be not that great a melee if it didn't spend MP on spells to add more damage). That's why it's important for RDM to have the option of nuking or healing decently, and not so important for us to have the option of melee (in group situations).You're trying to justify stuffing an archetype that generally has no business doing dedicated healing into the role of healer through demand. Not getting off to a good start, there, seeing that such a mindset is not too far from the asinine and old "you have an MP pool, so start healing".

RDM melee is more of a solo/small group thing than something that should be attempted against VT and up, and it's pretty much always been that way for higher level RDM.Solo is meaningless in a game designed from the ground up on partying.

I don't want to be "shackled" to healing, I want to have the OPTION of being an adequate healer if that is what the party/alliance needs. That's part of the versatility of RDM. Just like I want to have the option of nuking, or the option of enfeebling (on mobs that aren't immune). Enfeebling isn't very meaningful at the moment, but SE is showing some signs of wanting to improve that in future content.Just like you want the option of being an adequate healer, I want the option of being an adequate front-liner. We should be on the same side, instead of trying to downplay what we want to do in-game.

A game with 20 jobs shouldn't have only 1 of them being capable of being a viable healer for a group. That's bad game design and is going to lead to either way too many people playing the same job and the others being neglected, a massive healer shortage, or both.Which isn't my problem, but more connected to how FF's job classes were conceived. Sure, someone was bound to get the short end of the stick, I simply expected it to be someone who had a history of being a caster and had no melee inclinations at all.

That aside, most of us know healing is not a popular role. It's no excuse for grabbing a popular class (like Red Mage) and stuffing it into healing to create a pool of healers. All that does is anger a bunch of people and create needless drama.

P.S. Have you played any other FF games? RDM has never been more than second-rate, at best, at melee. For years, their signature ability has been to cast more spells faster than other mages, never anything melee-related. In FFV, for example, RDM doesn't have a single learnable ability that improves physical damage. The actual DD jobs are getting things like Dual Wield, Boost (the FFV versions of both of those are *much* stronger), Barrage (works a little differently but insanely strong), Jump for double damage usable every attack round, etc. There is no viable RDM melee build -- at most, you can give them a melee-supporting ability from some *other* job to give them something to do that doesn't cost MP. IIRC, pretty much the same is true in FFIII. I have no idea where people got the idea that RDM were ever supposed to have first-rate melee abilities. First-rate melee jobs don't have a B in their primary weapon.Some of us know certain concepts don't work in MMORPGs. The more MMOs you've played and the more design philosophies you've been exposed to, the easier it is to spot. RDM's core design from the console FFs is a prime example of this, because while game balance in the console games ignores min-maxing for the most part (barring bosses designed around min-maxing like the weapons in VII, Ovni in IX and Shinryuu where applicable), that same style will NOT fly in an MMORPG because of how encounter balance tends to go.

That being said, I've seen RDM's plight and issues in other games. For exactly the same reasons and with the exact same community reactions. In plain english, hybrids get screwed over more often than not, and few make the effort to actually make the hybrids viable in more than one role. The worst part is that said hybrids get stuck with mundane and boring tasks with sorry gimmicks to make them "needed" (like Refresh). I personally would not have an issue with any of this if the job had been called oracle, green mage or something that did NOT have a history of being a guy that knows magic and wields a sword. Being a magic swordsman whose only purpose in-game is to buff other players and spam cures is demeaning, to say the least. Try sticking a light-touched warrior archetype into the same situation and see the uproar and complaints. Trust me, it ain't pretty.

[Malamasala]

In my opinion, RDM is just an alternative to PLD. Not intended to deal massive damage, but do add some while they take hits. Of course SE's vision is different, in that all it supposedly does is debuff and buff.

I'm obviously biased, but I'd say I'm holding true to red mages of the past, while SE just want to explore new possibilities by experimenting.

[Neisan_Quetz]

So we are arming the RDM to narrow the margin? We're also assuming that only the RDM would think of meleeing with the best melee atma? LOL. Consider this: RR helps out 2h weapons MORE than 1h weapons. Oh snap!

And then you got the "5x" guy himself telling you that it's not worth your time coming up with anything resembing honest posts. If we mashed all of you together, we'd have some sort of "super troll" that still couldn't lie well. Haters gonna hate, but they sure ain't gonna think.

Do you just spout stuff with no idea what you're talking about? If either is going to melee I'd hope they're not stupid enough to melee in full Af/Emp/PDT atmas or something stupid like that so of course they're going to 'arm' themselves for melee... seriously just stop talking. As bad as it is Rdm still has better melee gear than Smn. Don't try and play the BP card or now you're assuming both are meleeing the same mob without being in the same pt (not that I'd pt with a melee smn in the first place inside abyssea because you're mostly useless, the Rdm too, but w/e).

Both can cap without issue on IT trash not Thf mobs (Even if the Rdm is meleeing in -8 accuracy), Anything more evasive both are either switching to pizza/sushi anyway/Rdm can use Dex Shamshir putting them within approx. ~5-10 of Smn's accuracy.

[Korpg]

Just ignore Dallas, the guy still thinks he discovered Abyssea.

[Leonlionheart]

They conveniently forget the multitude of melee buffs that SMN gets to choose from. They forget the 2hand bonus that puts SMN that far ahead of WHM or RDM to start, and the avatar that provides the best meat shield any melee mage could hope for (one that you'd sooner ditch than heal). Nope, SMN isn't supposed to touch melee...

Solo farming, SMN wipes the floor with most jobs. I'll admit though, only a half-dozen jobs appear to be up to the challenge. Haters gonna hate.

On topic, SMN appears to be going full-tilt MP drain. It will be fun to watch how many SMN scramble to find more mp.

In this thread Ballad III+II and Refresh don't give back up to 18 MP/tick. Refresh II would make that 22. Evoker's Roll could make it 26. Auto-Refresh means 28. Gear means up to 33.

In this thread you can't sub RDM and use convert.

In this thread you can't even use elemental syphon.

In this thread MP is hard.

[Diemond]

I'm glad SE is giving me the chance to let me think they are listening to my 2 cents about the jobs I love/play.
DRG
every jump should have its own timer. this will enhance drg DD capability and make the jumps more of a for front of the job.
Parry rate for lance should be higher
Wyvern
implement a slot system for wyvern like the one for pup's. I would love to armor up my little guy. using synergy to create armor with various color options to personalize our partners. give our wyvern 4-6 slots to add pieces that have benefits such as: add HP, add DEF, add double att, add magic def, enhance wyvern breath....etc

being that wyverns are flying creatures. I would like to see them stop taking damage from ground strike type aoe's. this also goes for drg's in mid highjump and soul jump

NIN
add a perfect parry stance
increase evasion for HNM's (bringing back nin tanks)
but i guess the real prob is magic absolutely rapes nin, so increased mag evasion or def wouldn't hurt
the nin 2hr should have been changed at day 1. how about making it where our shadows do dmg until they are struke down. and as long as our 2hr is active re-summoned shadows continue to do dmg.

SMN
an ability to shed hate to avatars
decreased BP timers is a must, but the penalty to giving up mp is bad. since the decrease in timer is a double edged sword. where we run out of mp even faster while we still struggle to decide which buffs the party need and be able to get in 1 damaging BP and keep party members buffed.
Pheonix would be a much better add than both atamos and catsith. with the ability to raise in an area effect not just party members. which would be awesome for besieged, campaigns..etc

Sch
give libra the ability to tell monsters weaknesses. make libra a shout instead of a say.
the storm effects should give auras that add increased att, increased def, double att.....etc. and if players are struke with an element spell or WS opposing there aura they take more dmg.

I stopped playing last year. But the idea SE might use some of our ideas had me reactivate my character just to post. So don't let me down SE!

[Dallas]

Anything more evasive both are either switching to pizza/sushi anyway/Rdm can use Dex Shamshir putting them within approx. ~5-10 of Smn's accuracy.
I was talking about naked RDM vs naked SMN because I was hoping you ignore me enough for me to get to smack you with this one twice.

...And then the SMN pulls out one of their many accuracy buffs and/or evasion debuffs... SNAP! 30-60 accuracy difference.

EDIT: the best melee mage was always SMN, then SE released BLU.

[Neisan_Quetz]

... Okay, so we can agree you're just retarded and don't read at all.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

EDIT: the best melee mage was always SMN, then SE released BLU.Blu doesn't count as it is a melee job with MP, such as pld. You're just cunfused because it has mage in the name. Besides, whm always had better melee dmg.

[Karinya_of_Carbuncle]

Sure, someone was bound to get the short end of the stick

You think healing, enhancing, enfeebling, CC, and possibly also nuking are "the short end of the stick" and "demeaning, to say the least" and yet you expect to be taken seriously on how to design and balance a hybrid?

If you want a DD job, there are lots of them. Tons. Oodles. A glut, even. Go level one. Please. If you level BLU you can swing a sword and also do lots of damage. If you level DRK you can swing an even bigger sword and do damage with even less spellcasting. RDM doesn't need to be a clone of either of those jobs, and it doesn't need to be swinging a sword 100% or even a majority of the time, either.

RDM is not a magic swordsman. You know how I know that? I've played FFV. A game in which there is an actual magic swordsman job (it's even called "magic swordsman" in Japanese, IIRC). And also RDM. They play nothing alike. RDM is much more magic oriented. RDMs use a sword only when they have nothing better to do or want to avoid spending MP. Sword mages have enaspir, so running out of MP isn't that big a problem -- but they don't have ANY regular magic. So they can only usefully cast one spell at a time and then have to swing the sword to get that spell to do anything. (This takes a minimum of 2 turns, so pairing them with a time mage is highly recommended.)

I actually kind of wish that job existed in FFXI, but RDM isn't it and never will be (and can't be -- there's a reason magic swordsman has no other magic except through the equivalent of subjob). The weak enspells that exist in this game are nowhere near the power of real sword magic, but at the same time, RDM is nowhere near as sword-focused as FFV sword mages. Swords are an option, but not always the best option.

If magic swordsman did ever exist in this game, it would have an A in sword (or possibly greatsword) and enhancing and probably no other magic skills or spells except through SJ (and probably wouldn't sub mages much anyway, since it would actually be a melee job - NIN or DNC for 1h swords or SAM for 2h would probably be more useful). *That* job would belong on the front lines most of the time. RDM usually doesn't.

Your idea of what you want RDM to be is not what RDM is, ever has been (in this game or any of its predecessors), or most likely, ever will be. Please accept that and find a job more suited to what you want to do and stop trying to ruin a versatile magic-oriented (and endurance/control-oriented) hybrid job for people who enjoy playing it.

[Leonlionheart]

EDIT: the best melee mage was always SMN, then SE released BLU.

Hexa Strike, Reverant Mail, Seawolf Cudgel, and Sea Robber Cudgel want to have a word with you

[Seriha]

RDM doesn't need to be a clone of either of those jobs, and it doesn't need to be swinging a sword 100% or even a majority of the time, either.

Yet it's okay to be a WHM clone? Prior to this manifesto, the following found here (http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/intro/about/job01.html?pageID=about) is the best we can assess of SE's early vision of RDM:


Red Mage:
These fighter-mages can utilize both black and white magic, as well as the arts of the sword.

Nothing about slapping a staff to your back and hanging in the rear. Yes, we know healers and/or support jobs are typically in short supply in any MMO because they're often unfun to play and the first criticized when things go wrong with a group. There's no mistaking players perverted the intent of Refresh and Convert, something that could initially keep a RDM from having to rest and losing TP, into brute force healing tactics. The above, considering how RDMs have been viewed for the better part of a decade, is rather bluntly inaccurate and borderline SE lying to people interested in the job.

Now, the recent vision blurb is just icing on that "SE doesn't have a clue!" cake. RDMs do not buff people to demi-god status. While they at least acknowledge the faults of enfeebling and hint it becoming a more prominent feature for the job, it's still not hard to remain skeptical. As is, current enfeebles certainly aren't needed for the EXP game, which is the best place a RDM could possibly draw a weapon. However, assuming you could get into a group NOT as a healer, you're on a job that, for a long time now, has been statistically deficient in native traits and equipment to the point this aspect of versatility is never a consideration when people are building parties. Rather simply, people would prefer to wait for an accepted DD class to show up LFG than gamble on a RDM, who according to every melee hater you'll ever talk to, owns absolutely no melee gear beyond the weapon.

When it comes to enfeebling, marrying it to melee is not outside the realm of possibility (See: Dancer). While I can't see this an approach SE is willing to take given the perpetual ignorance on the issue, it could be done, and people could like it if it's done right. Which is pretty much the problem. People hate RDM melee because SE didn't build them right.

[Korpg]

I was talking about naked RDM vs naked SMN because I was hoping you ignore me enough for me to get to smack you with this one twice.

...And then the SMN pulls out one of their many accuracy buffs and/or evasion debuffs... SNAP! 30-60 accuracy difference.

EDIT: the best melee mage was always SMN, then SE released BLU.

I thought that you didn't want to go the "naked job" route?

Didn't Greatguardian already pointed out how weak of a melee SMN is compared to actual DD jobs, even when the melee SMN is geared fully and the DD is naked (only weapon)?

Besides, WHM and RDM are both much better melees than SMN, even before ToAU....

[Duelle]

You think healing, enhancing, enfeebling, CC, and possibly also nuking are "the short end of the stick" and "demeaning, to say the least" and yet you expect to be taken seriously on how to design and balance a hybrid?When your class is sold as a hybrid, implying choice in roles and flexibility, and said hybrid turns out to be nothing more than a support bot and healer instead, it indeed is the short end of the stick. When you're told your class is part caster, part melee, and then you find yourself casting cures and buffs as they are the only thing of value in a party, that is indeed demeaning.

I would be fine if RDM A (geared and set up for melee) got to stand in the front and swing and RDM B (who enjoys a different playstyle and gears for it) gets to cast and support. I'd be ecstatic if RDM C, after getting the needed gear for it, got to tank. And even more if RDM D, with the proper subs and gear, got to focus on nuking (you know, like SCH gets to do should the player choose to). That's how you design a hybrid. Not with half-powered traits, next to no JAs, casting limitations to create busywork, the mother of all bad gimmicks to create a party slot for the class (refresh), and more than just a handful of oversights in design that go unfixed and uncorrected for the sake of passing them off as class "features" (genbu-soloing).

If you want a DD job, there are lots of them.Turning your eyes away from the problem does not make the problem go away. Doesn't work in real life, and certainly doesn't work in-game.
If you level BLU you can swing a sword and also do lots of damage.Monster magic and a scimitar don't equate to magic fencer. It was a poor attempt to fill the void without actually fixing the problem. Then it turned into its own thing, as we so clearly see now.
If you level DRK you can swing an even bigger sword and do damage with even less spellcasting.DRK is a completely different beast and should not be part of this exchange of words. Hell, as a DRK main I'm a little offended to see it included in the context of Red Mage.
RDM is not a magic swordsman. You know how I know that? I've played FFV. A game in which there is an actual magic swordsman job (it's even called "magic swordsman" in Japanese, IIRC).RDM is also not an enfeebler. I know that because FFTactics had a real enfeebler class that was called Oracle/Mystic/Ying Yang Mage. RDM is also not a buffer, because Tactics Advance 2 (and XII to an extent) had a buff-focused job called Green Mage. See where I'm going with this?

You're trying to argue semantics based on names rather than looking at the archetypes. The console FFs love filling themselves with classes based on other classes or splitting archetypes into pieces because console games can afford to do that sort of thing. This goes back to my "certain things that work in console FFs don't work in MMORPGs" bit.

Speaking of which, 魔法剣士, or Mystic Knight as we know it here, was basically a black mage replacement with a sword and a limited spell selection. Not exactly anywhere close to a flexible hybrid, rather a BLM without the cast times. It's already been used and debunked as part of the anti-melee camp's argument against the melee camp, so please let us not go down that route.

I actually kind of wish that job existed in FFXI, but RDM isn't it and never will be (and can't be -- there's a reason magic swordsman has no other magic except through the equivalent of subjob). The weak enspells that exist in this game are nowhere near the power of real sword magic, but at the same time, RDM is nowhere near as sword-focused as FFV sword mages.We're not asking for the ability to cast Flare through a sword. I'm also aware of the damage V's version of Spellblade was capable of, and how that wouldn't fit into a hybrid's design without some toning down and limitations--which I am perfectly fine with.

Your idea of what you want RDM to be is not what RDM is, ever has been (in this game or any of its predecessors), or most likely, ever will be. Please accept that and find a job more suited to what you want to do and stop trying to ruin a versatile magic-oriented (and endurance/control-oriented) hybrid job for people who enjoy playing it.Based on what evidence? Fighter and Black Mage weren't bitching at Red Mage for swinging his sword in FF1. Bartz the Red Mage wasn't getting kicked from the party for not spamming refresh and haste because he spent his attack turn swinging in FFV. Ingus the Red Mage was not getting grief from Luneth for not being a dedicated healer so that Refia and Arc could go Monk and Black Mage respectively in FFIII. And none were crying about how the Red Mages' melee hurt their exp/hour and fed the mob TP or some other asinine argument to stick them to the back.

You're fine with the way the class currently plays. I can respect that, but also keep in mind that you are basically dismissing the melee camp despite the fact we're also playing the same class. We could be mutually supportive, but respect and acceptance goes both ways. Stop by our boards and read some of the discussions. Some are livid to see White Mage and Bard match or out-perform us in melee. Others want melee buffs or utility tied to melee, and then you have crazies like me that would not mind a full redesign if it meant the melee camp and the backliners both got what they wanted out of the class.

Hybrid implies choice in terms of class design. The choice isn't there, and has not been there since CoP.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

I thought that you didn't want to go the "naked job" route?

Didn't Greatguardian already pointed out how weak of a melee SMN is compared to actual DD jobs, even when the melee SMN is geared fully and the DD is naked (only weapon)?

Besides, WHM and RDM are both much better melees than SMN, even before ToAU....What if the DD is a naked thf w/o a weapon doing H2H? lol

[Korpg]

What if the DD is a naked thf w/o a weapon doing H2H? lol

Well, if you compare the damage output of a melee SMN decked out against a naked DD using their weakest weapon....yeah, I would say that the damage is about equal...

Have to ask the math wiz for that though.

[Merton9999]

RDM is not a magic swordsman. You know how I know that? I've played FFV.

BLU is not a swordsman. You know how I know that? I’ve played FFVI.
SCH is not a manipulator of weather. You know how I know that? I’ve played FFIII.
DNC should be wielding carpets as weapons. You know how I know that? I’ve played FFT.

Oh, and RDM is a swordsman. You know how I know that? I’ve played FFI. I hit Fight a lot more in that game than I did the magic commands…

Seriously, wearing your experience with a previous FF installment like a badge and pretending it should be the canonical blueprint by which a job is FFXI should be designed is pointless. At best, it's an artificial way to turn your preference into an objective principle. It’s quite obvious that BLU, DNC, SCH and RDM have a combination of skills from previous FF games. The idea that one should be stressed over another simply because the job name matches another game is indefensible.

I don’t care about RDM melee. But I certainly wouldn’t be offended if SE buffed it. In fact, if you look at the ideas on the RDM melee threads, most people are suggesting a stance concept that allows RDM melee to be valuable while still allowing the option to play the job the way it currently functions. How is that ruinous?

The problem is SE already gave us a spell-casting swordsman. They already gave us a job that applies its melee buffs to other front-liners. They already gave us a way to self SC with a spell and WS. RDMs were asking for these things when the job was suddenly made party-friendly through the addition of a party-targetable spell that didn’t use any of RDM’s skills. But why give them to a job that everyone already leveled? It made a lot more sense to introduce magic-melee abilities to new jobs that would sell expansion packs and require years of monthly payments to fully develop.

I have a feeling SE is not basing RDM on FFV. I think they are basing it in part on ongoing subscriptions. This is why I expect the vision statement for RDM to be carried out over melee enhancements or anything that discourages leveling BLU, SCH, or any currently unpopular job that got abilities long-suggested for RDM.

And honestly I’m fine with it. If enfeebling becomes valuable on HNMs, I’ll be happy. If new party-target buffs are added, I’ll simply look at the rather well-designed RDM AF3 on my mannequin for the rest of my time here.

For the quick magic ability, I’ll suggest it be party-targetable. Give me a way to let a tank have 0 recast on shadows, let my WHM get R3 off instantly, etc. That could be fun. It would go a lot farther in the direction of turning my party members into demi-gods than Haste and Refresh II, and would certainly be a lot more interesting than another cycle spell.

[Leonlionheart]

Like the post above, SE is trying to do what they think the player base wants.

In case you haven't noticed 90% of what people say out loud is complaining in this world. So it's reasonable to say that you are only hearing complaining, but there is probably quite a large portion of people (More than will read this thread, or visit the forums) that are quite happy with the way RDM, DRK, and SMN are going, but they are content so why make a ruckus?

If FFXI Forums is TL;DR for you: There's a LOT more motivation to complain than there is to be grateful.

[Duelle]

But why give them to a job that everyone already leveled? It made a lot more sense to introduce magic-melee abilities to new jobs that would sell expansion packs and require years of monthly payments to fully develop.If we were still in 2005, I would be inclined to agree with you.

This is why I expect the vision statement for RDM to be carried out over melee enhancements or anything that discourages leveling BLU, SCH, or any currently unpopular job that got abilities long-suggested for RDM.This is a false assumption. Red Mage being melee-worthy won't discourage people from leveling Blue Mage or Scholar. Their giving those classes things that were suggested for Red Mage and said classes still being not very popular is a sign that maybe they should try working on Red Mage instead of wasting developer resources/time and annoying people in the same process.

[Leonlionheart]

This is a false assumption. Red Mage being melee-worthy viable won't discourage people from leveling Blue Mage or Scholar. Their giving those classes things that were suggested for Red Mage and said classes still being not very popular is a sign that maybe they should try working on Red Mage instead of wasting developer resources/time and annoying people in the same process.

To balance RDM:

get rid of spells

add in swift blade.

Now RDM can do what you want it to!

[Seriha]

In case you haven't noticed 90% of what people say out loud is complaining in this world. So it's reasonable to say that you are only hearing complaining, but there is probably quite a large portion of people (More than will read this thread, or visit the forums) that are quite happy with the way RDM, DRK, and SMN are going, but they are content so why make a ruckus?Bit of a catch 22. If a job is incapable of playing a way acceptable to the masses, and in turn people never try (or get to try) knowing that, then of course nobody will play that way (or get ridiculed to hell and back for trying). See the old days of lolDRG, lolPUP, etc.. Now, you don't see the sane RDMs asking to match a WAR as a physical DD. However, asking for viability given the job concept is a bit different than people suddenly trying to demand THF be a main healer with no native healing magics or other party friendly abilities to that effect. At present, RDMs are pretty much told to do it solo or on things that don't matter, which is basically the detractors saying your desires don't matter since once you hit 90 and start chasing endgame gear, such things "matter" to some degree.

So, really, if the job you care for is delegated to nothing more than glacier's pace solo play or tinkering in older content that's no challenge at present, I can't say it makes for the most enjoyable of MMO experiences. Either way, the DD rat race is something 19 jobs are gonna fall short on, and those 19 jobs deserve unique, meaningful, and themely aspects to have them around in any situation. Clinging to some semblance of history isn't a bad thing since it's ultimately what makes this a Final Fantasy game and not Generic Medieval Fantasy MMO #23473.

[Korpg]

However, asking for viability given the job concept is a bit different than people suddenly trying to demand THF be a main healer with no native healing magics or other party friendly abilities to that effect.

Sorry, but I think this is funny how you mention this.

Asking a THF to main heal is just about the same as asking a SMN to main heal. Both have no native healing magics (BP:Ws don't count) but they are asked to do so just the same.

a THF/DNC mainheal is just as viable as a SMN/WHM main heal, just saying.

[Greatguardian]

Hexa Strike, Reverant Mail, Seawolf Cudgel, and Sea Robber Cudgel want to have a word with you

WHM is a significantly stronger melee than SMN. But it's fairly obvious he's just trolling this thread by comparing SMN+Avatar to mages who don't cast spells.

[Merton9999]

This is a false assumption. Red Mage being melee-worthy won't discourage people from leveling Blue Mage or Scholar. Their giving those classes things that were suggested for Red Mage and said classes still being not very popular is a sign that maybe they should try working on Red Mage instead of wasting developer resources/time and annoying people in the same process.

It's false for you but fits my personal experience exactly. And at best I think you've pointed out a correlation here, but the causation side would be an endless abyss of debate I won't continue. I can only say what I've experienced. The only reason I bothered with BLU and DNC is because they played like I always hoped RDM would. I lost count how many times I've heard "I love BLU! It's what RDM should have been!" and "I love DNC! It's would RDM should have been!" Anecdotal of course, but it's my experience. If RDM became a valuable melee job, I'd love it. And I'd drop BLU and DNC forever. Dang, maybe I should fight for this - I need a 9 month hiatus.

[Korpg]

It's false for you but fits my personal experience exactly. And at best I think you've pointed out a correlation here, but the causation side would be an endless abyss of debate I won't continue. I can only say what I've experienced. The only reason I bothered with BLU and DNC is because they played like I always hoped RDM would. I lost count how many times I've heard "I love BLU! It's what RDM should have been!" and "I love DNC! It's would RDM should have been!" Anecdotal of course, but it's my experience. If RDM became a valuable melee job, I'd love it. And I'd drop BLU and DNC forever. Dang, maybe I should fight for this - I need a 9 month hiatus.

What is keeping you from making your RDM into being a great melee?

[Duelle]

It's false for you but fits my personal experience exactly. And at best I think you've pointed out a correlation here, but the causation side would be an endless abyss of debate I won't continue. I can only say what I've experienced.Fair enough. The reason I see your statement as such is because I file it in the same category as the "if X class is viable in Y role, everyone will play that and play nothing else" argument, which has been debunked several times over.

The only reason I bothered with BLU and DNC is because they played like I always hoped RDM would. I lost count how many times I've heard "I love BLU! It's what RDM should have been!" and "I love DNC! It's would RDM should have been!" Anecdotal of course, but it's my experience. If RDM became a valuable melee job, I'd love it. And I'd drop BLU and DNC forever.And just like you would drop DNC and BLU, there'll be people who just stick to those jobs because they like them (remember that BLU in particular was the most requested job pre-TAU) or the styles of the jobs have grown on them. As has always been said, people will play what they like.

[Supersun]

What is keeping you from making your RDM into being a great melee?

Being forced to still wear lvl 75 armor for 90% of my gear?

[Dallas]

Hexa Strike, Reverant Mail, Seawolf Cudgel, and Sea Robber Cudgel want to have a word with you

What do they have to say? "Hi, we are under the delusion that 15 attack and/or accuracy or so makes up for half the base DPS?" At least you lose big.

[Korpg]

Being forced to still wear lvl 75 armor for 90% of my gear?

So?

Waste of text

[Korpg]

What do they have to say? "Hi, we are under the delusion that 15 attack and/or accuracy or so makes up for half the base DPS?" At least you lose big.

Apparently Dallas hasn't seen a 2k Hexa Strike from a level 75 WHM when the cap was still at 75....

Heck, I seen 5k Hexa Strikes in Abyssea, since Dallas likes to compare damage in that content only.

Lets not forget that WHMs get 100% TP a lot faster than a SMN can, unless that SMN can, of course, pop a wing.

[Supersun]

Ehh...

I'm not saying Smn melee is anything special, but being able to /sam does give you a big advantage in this case.

Certainly not enough to beat whm since all the smns WS are garbage, but still, unless the whm is using a K club I wouldn't say that the Whm gets TP a whole lot faster.

Unless Smn gear is worse then I think it is.

[Korpg]

Ehh...

I'm not saying Smn melee is anything special, but being able to /sam does give you a big advantage in this case.

Certainly not enough to beat whm since all the smns WS are garbage, but still, unless the whm is using a K club I wouldn't say that the Whm gets TP a whole lot faster.

Unless Smn gear is worse then I think it is.

Oh, its horrible.

You have 3 choices in gearing: Haste only, Accuracy only, or Perp only.

Most SMNs know that their safest damage output (for both the SMN and the whole party) is avatar damage only. Meaning that the BPs and generally having the avatar do the meleeing for the SMN.

Then you got Dallas, the only SMN here who thinks that 75% accuracy rate is ok and should gear for haste only. He spouts a 22% haste but only 14 Acc with his gear set. Inside Abyssea he might get 85% accuracy on trash mobs, 80% on trash NMs, and 75% on any NM worthwhile. Outside, he is just swinging faster.

Then you got the few melee SMNs who know that TP gain means actually hitting the mob, and know how important accuracy is for anything big. They lose out on a lot of haste, but can actually get TP faster without atma help. Inside abyssea they can continue to use Spirit Taker and recover just as much MP as a 300% Myrkr. But actually DD and their WSs actually do damage against the mob, which allows them to be more useful to the party. But then again, lolmelee.

Perp gear SMNs are mainly those who are able to solo hard stuff without risk to the summoner. They are generally oldschool players who solo'd SMN from 1 to 75 and know the pain it was to level the job on bombs and gobbies. They are the true players, but occasionally melee on trash mobs because, well, who cares?

SMN gear is horrible for melee. Best that SMNs can get is either 22% haste or ~40 accuracy. Nothing to melee on Orthus with.

[Supersun]

To be fair though...

as long as he's eating sushi I'd imagine he would be fine. I mean by 99 with how high our combat skills are going to get I wouldn't be surprised if any job even naked could auto cap accuracy using sushi unless all sushi's actually have a cap that we don't know about (we know the cap for a lot of them though).

From there it's mainly a matter of attack I would assume since he would have to down grade from pizza to do so. Normally I would say it isn't worth it, but I'd imagine that Smns attack is pretty crappy in the first place so adding whatever +% the pizza adds isn't really going to help.

[Dallas]

The idiots burned through a thousand posts without naming a single relevant mob that SMN couldn't cap accuracy on, without sushi. They have resurrected the lie here with the random number "75%." Good for them. It's time for them to shave their heads and make a religion out of it.

Let's let this thread die too.

[Malamasala]

SMN gear is horrible for melee. Best that SMNs can get is either 22% haste or ~40 accuracy. Nothing to melee on Orthus with.

Works perfectly to melee on Alfard though. As always you got to pick your mobs. Most would claim you feed too much TP though, so regardless of NM, they want you away from it. SE really needs to make SMN completely TP free, so we don't have to listen to the whining of others. We are perfectly capable of whining ourselves, you know.

[Logandor]

About the update, looking forward to the new stuff for whm but still feeling like drg is getting a little short ended again :/ Granted we can go into aby and support our own on most mobs but to be honest even with me taking extra care to ensure my comrade (Ember) survives she still dosen't breath hard enough on her breath attacks to make too much of a difference. I am glad to see they are looking into helping us keep our little flying buddies alive but may I please stress if her healing breath was 4 or 5 it would make soloing aby pages a little more simpler on us who are not wanted in aby parties mainly do to fact we can't survive on our own or can't help the alliance. -->has seen this happen before to more then a few dragoons, more then once. Any who I am glad they are at least not leaving drg out on the update. This should be helpful in at least one way or another.
Whm oh hell yeah when I saw that I was going sweet man can't wait. Is there though ever going to be something we can do to help our tanks on the tiger nm out in the range on amnesia though so they can proc for the atma? Just wondering.
Thf well it sounds interesting though sense I have not personally been on thf long enough to have an opinion on it just say lets see how it goes.
All the rest, curiosity killed the cat and can't wait to see.

[Razushu]

Works perfectly to melee on Alfard though. As always you got to pick your mobs. Most would claim you feed too much TP though, so regardless of NM, they want you away from it. SE really needs to make SMN completely TP free, so we don't have to listen to the whining of others. We are perfectly capable of whining ourselves, you know.

It would be nice if they gave our avatars Subtle blow traits, our make them BLM/MNK or something that improves their DPS.

[Louispv]

We plan to broaden the range of monsters that beastmasters can coax into becoming their pets.
Very cool that we'll get more charmables. Probably only the greater beast that should have been charmable in the first place, yet weren't for some reason, though. Peiste, gnats, bugards, gnoles, etc. We still won't have any undead/demon/arcana/dragon/beastmen/sea/empty/abyssean pets I wager.

My main question is, "will this be at all useful?" Will we ever be able to charm these things for anything but for fun? There are no charmables in dynamis/ limbus/ sea/ indoor sky/ salvage and nyzul (despite 90% of them being charmable elsewhere)/ voidwatch / einherjar/ abyssea/ and just the vast majority of normal zones. So there are no charmable monsters in the game, functionally, since there are no charmable monsters in any zone anyone spends any time in. Even in events that take place in normal zones full of charmables, such as voidwatch and field parchment fights, the confrontation status effect disables the charm ability. (because you cannot act on non confrontation enemies)

Will I simply go charm a buffalo, giggle to myself, then leave it and forget this adjustment? Or is SE going to remember that ability BST has had since level 1 when designing content?

Furthermore, we'd like to see beastmasters shed their reputation as lone wolves by endowing their pets with more abilities that provide assistance to party members.
Do not redo Avatar's Favor. Do not redo Avatar's Favor. Do not redo Avatar's Favor. Do not redo Avatar's Favor. Do not redo Avatar's Favor. Do not redo Avatar's Favor. Do not redo Avatar's Favor. Do not redo Avatar's Favor. Do not redo Avatar's Favor.

Seriously, do not make us weaken our pets to buff the party. Have the party enhancements be ready moves. Have the party enhancements be a job ability. Have them expend an item, (that is cheap and stacks to 99) I don't care. We're already weak enough, do not weaken us further just for a party buff.

A new ability to call forth pets that, like the avatars Odin and Alexander, immediately use their characteristic ability then disappear.
Choco-meteor/ white wind (full hp/mp refill)/ 10,000 needles anyone? Don't even care if I have to use familiar first to do that.

Adding more pet-specific abilities.
If we're a WAR that focuses on pets instead of wepaons, a pet specific berserk/aggressor/bloodrage would be easiest. Spur was a good start. Don't weaken the master to enhance the pets though, or you're going against your second previous sentence.

Revising the effects of the Familiar ability.
About damn time. All it does to jugs is max pet hp+10%. If the pet isn't at full health when you use it, it doesn't even refill the hp. Having your pet use it's 2 hour ability would be nice. Ex. Perfect dodge for yuly, hundred fists for merle, mighty strikes for everything else really, all of our current jugs are WAR.

Weapon skill refinements
Please, oh please be talking about cloudsplitter!

Who's bright Idea was it to make an empyrian ws weaker than Primal rend? How is the nyzul ws stronger than the one on a weapon that beats relics? When every other empyrian ws reliably does 2k-5k damage (with occasional 10k damage ukko's) how is an 800 damage ws at all acceptable? And it does half that on anything with magic defense bonus/lightning resistance/ shell. Raging axe does more damage most of the time, for Pete's sake! You know, the level 1 WS?

It's not like elemental ws's suck. Primal rend does about 100-200 more than cloudsplitter, and I'd be happy with that. Hell, you'd be hard pressed to do less than 1500 with wildfire. Bump cloudplitter up to 1200 damage naked with no atmas, or just make it physical damage, please!

[Selzak]

I'm curious why jobs defined as "hybrid" jobs don't operate on stances to divide their capabilities. PLD and DRK have both consistently been the most confused jobs in application, despite being a couple of the most obvious jobs in what they're meant to be.

Both PLD and DRK should have a magical/support/survival stance, along with a melee/attack/offense stance.

While playing DRK (and I assume the same holds true for PLD), I feel like a have a ton of superfluous abilities and spells and none of them quite get the job done. Instead of having all of that fluff at once, the job should definitely be broken into two categories where a DRK is allowed to fit one role or the other, but now actually accomplish it well.

One stance should allow the DRK to play a support role and take care of itself against weaker enemies. Making Dread Spikes last longer (wouldn't hurt to nerf the spell beforehand), Stuns more readily available, and spells more useful in general while gaining a weak Refresh and Casting Time- along with a Store TP- and Weapon Delay+ or something. Could also lock out some abilities, like Souleater. This is the stance where Elemental Weapon Skills could surpass Physical Weapon Skills, where the Elemental Weapon Skills might gain a small boost and Physical Weapon Skills a noticeable decline in damage- perhaps through a reduction to Attack.

The other stance could focus on the small aspects of the job that are hurting its melee endeavors at the moment. Spells like Dread Spikes could be locked, and all spells could be given a longer recast time. Here the DRK should get a boost to Critical Attack Rate (the job screams critical attacks in the first place- it's supposed to deal spike damage)- this should definitely apply to Weapon Skills, since that's the priority. The idea with this stance is purely physical damage. The DRK could be required to stand anywhere but in front of the enemy for this stance (not meant to make it hit even harder against weaker opponents- the other stance is for soloing), and gain an enmity reduction to top the stance off and make it worth using in a party.

The 'solo' stance for PLD should allow it to dispatch enemies more readily, while the 'party' stance should grant it some form of damage reduction (or something) to make it on par (and possibly better, through magical damage reduction) with NIN.


I doubt it should be applied exactly as I posted, but I think the general idea (both for PLD and DRK) is necessary at this point. They seem to be getting jostled all over the place with random abilities that the players either do not want or can not use.

[Korpg]

The idiots burned through a thousand posts without naming a single relevant mob that SMN couldn't cap accuracy on, without sushi. They have resurrected the lie here with the random number "75%." Good for them. It's time for them to shave their heads and make a religion out of it.

Let's let this thread die too.

You have burned thru 500+ posts without proving a damn thing about why you are deluded into thinking you are the best.

Besides, you still haven't answered my question. What is the hardest mob you have soloed? Why are you afraid of answering that question? Is it because the answer truly is Bubbly Bernie?

75% is not a lie, its about the accuracy rate a melee with an A- weapon would have on an IT naked of everything but their weapon. Which is the accuracy rate you would have with the best melee gear possible with your staff. Unless you want to state that you have better accuracy rate than that, then prove it. Abyssea buffs don't count because I'm not talking about just one content, I'm talking about them all.

[Korpg]

Works perfectly to melee on Alfard though. As always you got to pick your mobs. Most would claim you feed too much TP though, so regardless of NM, they want you away from it. SE really needs to make SMN completely TP free, so we don't have to listen to the whining of others. We are perfectly capable of whining ourselves, you know.

Hope you are meleeing on the tail, and not in front though.

Although, cap enmity and you are dead. Not even 2k HP buffs can save you there when you have the def of a soggy paper bag.

[Korpg]

It would be nice if they gave our avatars Subtle blow traits, our make them BLM/MNK or something that improves their DPS.

That would be very nice.

But consider this, a back line SMN with Cure IV is basically a MNK without Victory Smite but elemental damage "WS" instead that can do upwards to 11k constantly, but can also help cure others and doesn't need a raise if dead, nor is weakened after "reviving." The only thing this type of MNK can't do is counter.

[StingRay104]

I'm curious why jobs defined as "hybrid" jobs don't operate on stances to divide their capabilities. PLD and DRK have both consistently been the most confused jobs in application, despite being a couple of the most obvious jobs in what they're meant to be.

Both PLD and DRK should have a magical/support/survival stance, along with a melee/attack/offense stance.

While playing DRK (and I assume the same holds true for PLD), I feel like a have a ton of superfluous abilities and spells and none of them quite get the job done. Instead of having all of that fluff at once, the job should definitely be broken into two categories where a DRK is allowed to fit one role or the other, but now actually accomplish it well.

One stance should allow the DRK to play a support role and take care of itself against weaker enemies. Making Dread Spikes last longer (wouldn't hurt to nerf the spell beforehand), Stuns more readily available, and spells more useful in general while gaining a weak Refresh and Casting Time- along with a Store TP- and Weapon Delay+ or something. Could also lock out some abilities, like Souleater. This is the stance where Elemental Weapon Skills could surpass Physical Weapon Skills, where the Elemental Weapon Skills might gain a small boost and Physical Weapon Skills a noticeable decline in damage- perhaps through a reduction to Attack.

The other stance could focus on the small aspects of the job that are hurting its melee endeavors at the moment. Spells like Dread Spikes could be locked, and all spells could be given a longer recast time. Here the DRK should get a boost to Critical Attack Rate (the job screams critical attacks in the first place- it's supposed to deal spike damage)- this should definitely apply to Weapon Skills, since that's the priority. The idea with this stance is purely physical damage. The DRK could be required to stand anywhere but in front of the enemy for this stance (not meant to make it hit even harder against weaker opponents- the other stance is for soloing), and gain an enmity reduction to top the stance off and make it worth using in a party.

The 'solo' stance for PLD should allow it to dispatch enemies more readily, while the 'party' stance should grant it some form of damage reduction (or something) to make it on par (and possibly better, through magical damage reduction) with NIN.


I doubt it should be applied exactly as I posted, but I think the general idea (both for PLD and DRK) is necessary at this point. They seem to be getting jostled all over the place with random abilities that the players either do not want or can not use.

wow your just repeating a bunch of ideas I posted in my "How to fix drk" thread. The problem is SE isn't listening to what I originally posted, just taken one thing they liked (The part in the magic stance that increased magic att and ele ws damage) and saying to hell with the rest for balance issues. I think in general SE needs to start actually listening to everything we have to say.

P.S. Korpg you made a mistake on your post about how ridiculous it is to ask thf to heal when ppl ask smn to heal. Check Carby out for his heal BP's and also /sch gives yopu ridiculously high heal skill for not having any native and you got tons of mp.

[Razushu]

wow your just repeating a bunch of ideas I posted in my "How to fix drk" thread. The problem is SE isn't listening to what I originally posted, just taken one thing they liked (The part in the magic stance that increased magic att and ele ws damage) and saying to hell with the rest for balance issues. I think in general SE needs to start actually listening to everything we have to say.

P.S. Korpg you made a mistake on your post about how ridiculous it is to ask thf to heal when ppl ask smn to heal. Check Carby out for his heal BP's and also /sch gives yopu ridiculously high heal skill for not having any native and you got tons of mp.

healing skill doesn't really effect any of the healing magic subjobs offer us and /sch for healing is dead in the water unless they make it so we get Cure IV from it

[Neisan_Quetz]

So you can spam Cure 3 with your awesome B+ healing skill and use Carbuncle once every 45 seconds really?

If Smn is going to be healing they'll be tied to /Whm period.

[Korpg]

P.S. Korpg you made a mistake on your post about how ridiculous it is to ask thf to heal when ppl ask smn to heal. Check Carby out for his heal BP's and also /sch gives yopu ridiculously high heal skill for not having any native and you got tons of mp.

Curing Waltz III is better than Cure III, instantanous, and doesn't cost anything but TP. Which you get from whacking a mob, not resting on your rump so you can still do your job while "main heal."

I still stand by my example. Asking SMN to main heal is the same as asking a THF to main heal.

[Selzak]

Curing Waltz III is better than Cure III, instantanous, and doesn't cost anything but TP. Which you get from whacking a mob, not resting on your rump so you can still do your job while "main heal."

I still stand by my example. Asking SMN to main heal is the same as asking a THF to main heal.
tl;dr
I'm a SMN and I hate being asked to heal.

[Korpg]

tl;dr
I'm a SMN and I hate being asked to heal.

3 lines is tl;dr?

Besides, if I wanted to main heal, I'll come as WHM, not SMN.

[StingRay104]

healing skill doesn't really effect any of the healing magic subjobs offer us and /sch for healing is dead in the water unless they make it so we get Cure IV from it

But it doesn't make the request as ridiculous as he makes it out to be, trust me I know Korpg we used to be in a shell together. But your right any job without cure 5 & 6 is a terrible healer and should never even attempt to heal in abyssea, hell even outside abyssea its gettin rough. SE should really allow SCH to have cure 5 & even cure 6, its not like sch gonna out perform whm as a healer, whm kicks ass at healing, which it should.

[Razushu]

But it doesn't make the request as ridiculous as he makes it out to be, trust me I know Korpg we used to be in a shell together. But your right any job without cure 5 & 6 is a terrible healer and should never even attempt to heal in abyssea, hell even outside abyssea its gettin rough. SE should really allow SCH to have cure 5 & even cure 6, its not like sch gonna out perform whm as a healer, whm kicks ass at healing, which it should.

Cure IV can still be enough outside Abyssea, where HP pools aren't so overinflated. It's just a little more casting intensive

[Rosina]

the way I read the changes, nothing was set in stone. They just gave us examples of stuff they might add/do. I think they are trying to make each job seem different with a clear role and play style. much like what they are doing for ff14.

Pretty much read the top part of the announcement. It does state something along the lines of "this isn't set in stone, take all info with a grain of salt."

I more or less didn't get what was writen. What the stuff I did understand, seemed pretty good.

I wouldn't assume the examples are official. More or less put to gage raction or to explain what they are wishing to do.


Stuff I would like to see though are:

A bit better melee skill for red mages. Red mage from what i know from final fantasy and the 2 tatics games (red mage=fencer) Always used their swords. Back when i started @ ps2 lauch I've also used my sword with red mage. I had no issue fighting with my group while casting my spells.

more automaton frames to be similar with ther various jobs of ffxi for puppetmaster (mostly for fun and different looks instead of the same 3)

I would like a new weapon added for dancer, pretty muchtaking a page out of eternal sonata. March and salsa were basicaly two dancers and used the hand to hand/ dual blade charkem (sp) style weapons. Similar to the ring like throwing disks, but with a handle. Pretty much in my eye a dancer can play just like a thf just with those buffer dances. There really is nothing unique. I think with its own weapon type and a new dance motion style of combat. I think this can give dancer a needed boost to set it self apart. :)

Anway that is my 2 cents.

I'm not really caring if anything I said will be added. Just felt like giving my 2 cents

[Korpg]

But it doesn't make the request as ridiculous as he makes it out to be, trust me I know Korpg we used to be in a shell together. But your right any job without cure 5 & 6 is a terrible healer and should never even attempt to heal in abyssea, hell even outside abyssea its gettin rough. SE should really allow SCH to have cure 5 & even cure 6, its not like sch gonna out perform whm as a healer, whm kicks ass at healing, which it should.

Out of all the times we were together, how many of them was I a main heal? I didn't have WHM done until very recently, and I only had RDM75 for the longest. SMN for even longer than RDM.

But yeah, my example still stands, you shouldn't ask a job to be a main heal based on its subjob capabilities. THF/DNC example still stands.

[StingRay104]

Out of all the times we were together, how many of them was I a main heal? I didn't have WHM done until very recently, and I only had RDM75 for the longest. SMN for even longer than RDM.

But yeah, my example still stands, you shouldn't ask a job to be a main heal based on its subjob capabilities. THF/DNC example still stands.

True you didn't main heal for us on smn but your still missing the point.

Smn curative abilities:
Healing Ruby I & II
Regen for avatar favor Carby
Whispering Wind
Spring Water

for debate points:
Huge mp pool
Auto refresh II
The fact I have seen smn main heal parties before.

THF curative abilities:
N/A

Debate:
If sub dnc could use cure waltz

So you see smn actually has NATIVE CURATIVE ABILITIES, and thus would be more capable of healing or even main heal.
Thf has got NO NATIVE CURATIVE ABILITIES and thus to even consider it main heal is nothing short of a joke. Thus your point has become invalid. However if you were to say any group that relies on a smn main heal is a joke I would agree with you. But smn is much more viable as a main heal than thf whom has nothing to offer except /dnc which would be more effective on jobs that build tp faster like sam.

[Kwate]

People that don't play DRK, please don't try and weigh in on DRK changes and I will continue to not put ideas forth on your jobs

Dev/Reps, please read DRK forums, the people there, hate this elemental magic concept, please see Dark Magic for DRK enhancements

Funny you say that when I see DRK threads in both the "general" and "other" forums. Why not keep it in the DRK thread?

[Supersun]

Funny, as long as MP isn't an issue Smn/Whm is actually a better healer then Rdm atm.

[StingRay104]

Funny you say that when I see DRK threads in both the "general" and "other" forums. Why not keep it in the DRK thread?

Well in his defense SE doesn't read or care about the individual job threads.

[Duelle]

Smn curative abilities:
Healing Ruby I & II
Regen for avatar favor Carby
Whispering Wind
Spring Water

<snip>

So you see smn actually has NATIVE CURATIVE ABILITIES, and thus would be more capable of healing or even main heal.The stigma came about way before favors and the other stuff came into the game. Keeping an avatar out in those days was a guaranteed MP deficit, unless it was specifically carby (at which point all you could do was sic and healing ruby every minute), and you had carby mitts with a HQ light staff. What pushed SMNs to healing was the MP pool and the WHM sub more than anything else.

[StingRay104]

Just curious why did you cut my post short of where I mentioned smns high mp and auto refresh?

[Duelle]

Just curious why did you cut my post short of where I mentioned smns high mp and auto refresh?You listed those as debatable. That led me to believe the crux of your argument was the curative abilities alone. If I was mistaken, then I apologize.

[StingRay104]

Well I listed them as debatable because they were mostly as points to support /healer and not so much the jobs own capabilities. I know the stigma first came before favor's but my point was that smn has native curing and thf doesn't which in turn makes it more viable for smn to be a healer than thf. I personally took about 4 years to lvl smn from 1-30 because I just kept getting fed up with not being able to use it as a smn, something SE has still to this day failed to fix on smn might I add. I spent forever trying to keep my smn magic skill capped and eventually I just gave up.

[Korpg]

Somehow, I don't think that having a weak cure every 45 seconds is considered a native healing ability.

Even with Favor maxed out, +22 Regen isn't all to sneeze with. But the time it takes to get to 22 Regen plus not being able to BP at all until you hit that 22 Regen (otherwise have to start all over) kindof sucks.

So, we are left with /WHM and Cure IV. Which means that SMN has about as much healing ability as a THF does.

[Hayward]

*I swear some of these talking points go from having a shelf life to possessing a half-life rivaling Uranium(236). 7 years later and non-Summoners are STILL peddling this lunacy about large MP reserve = healer? The farther away from /WHM the job moves, the more I'll like it. I like that the avatars and their multifaceted talents are the main attraction and I hope S-E keeps it that way regardless of what the ignorant playerbase conjures up in its collective mind.

*At the risk of contradicting myself, all I have to say to Dark Knights regarding S-E's vision is can it. If all you see in your job is swinging a Scythe/Great Sword and barely touching your spells, you missed the point of the job entirely. This vision takes away any excuse you have not to use magic--don't even bother running out that "Casting lowers my DPS" line because that min-max garbage doesn't interest me at all.

*I'd like to know a little more about what S-E intends to do with BST before I make a judgement. This vision seems a little too vague, which makes me uneasy.

*I'm a little curious how S-E is going to get Blue Mages to learn these HNM spells they hope to put into play. It's not like one can just go out and play with Fafnir in the hopes of learning Spike Flail, which I seriously doubt will be the spell learned from Wyrms. I hope that this signals the abolishment of the 21-24 hour spawn cycle. Otherwise this will not go over well even with KSNM substitutes.

[Louispv]

*I'm a little curious how S-E is going to get Blue Mages to learn these HNM spells they hope to put into play. It's not like one can just go out and play with Fafnir in the hopes of learning Spike Flail, which I seriously doubt will be the spell learned from Wyrms. I hope that this signals the abolishment of the 21-24 hour spawn cycle. Otherwise this will not go over well even with KSNM substitutes.
There are wyrms and adamantoises in tharhongi and a nm behemoth in la theine. there are 2 force popped hydras and cerberi in grauberg and altepa. There are khimairas in ulegrande and a nm khimaira. It's not a problem.

[Ravenmore]

In abyssea spike flail on a couple is easier to deal with then the rest of wyrms tp moves and annoying crap they do.

[OMEGA_HACK]

In abyssea its easier to deal with.
Fixed this for you.
:P

[StingRay104]

Somehow, I don't think that having a weak cure every 45 seconds is considered a native healing ability.

Even with Favor maxed out, +22 Regen isn't all to sneeze with. But the time it takes to get to 22 Regen plus not being able to BP at all until you hit that 22 Regen (otherwise have to start all over) kindof sucks.

So, we are left with /WHM and Cure IV. Which means that SMN has about as much healing ability as a THF does.

Ok so a job with native curing ability is as good of a healer as a job with no native curing ability? If you say yes to this than you admit your an idiot. I've always known this aspect about you, your completely blind to the truth when you love a job. Smn should never be a main heal, but unfortunately it can work as a main heal outside abyssea, and due to SE's severe lack of doing anything with the job this is the role its been forced to do over the years. I would love to see them do something right with smn but unfortunately smn is in the same boat as pup, SE just doesn't understand.

[Malamasala]

Did they change favors? I'm pretty sure it was "BP and you halve your favor potency", not that you could wait it to cap out and then keep it capped.

[Duelle]

What is keeping you from making your RDM into being a great melee?
Being forced to still wear lvl 75 armor for 90% of my gear?Tack on:

- Lack of WS access outside of extremely sub-optimal job set ups
- Lack of mechanics to properly support melee as a choice for RDM players outside of soloing and campaign
- Lack of Utility or other means through which to justify front-lining
- Lack of front line utility in general

Gear is also a part of it. Oh how I wish the Estoqueur's set had melee stats on some if not all pieces.

[Korpg]

Gear is also a part of it. Oh how I wish the Estoqueur's set had melee stats on some if not all pieces.

Because we all play RDM the same?

[Duelle]

Because we all play RDM the same?Oh, I didn't know the crapton of mage gear that has been tossed at us pre and ever during abyssea aside from AF3 didn't count. Besides, 2/3 mage AF and 1/3 melee AF would have been nice. Then again, a lot of us were hoping that empyrean armor followed a system similar to the magian weapons, specially after the whole "unlocking the power of this gear will involve magian trials" bit. Jobs like RDM would have had a melee and caster routes, PLD would have probably gotten damage dealer and tank routes and so on.

[Greatguardian]

RDM AF3 is awesome. The fact that it's such powerful mage armor, combined with the Vision announcement on the job, speaks volumes to what [most people] and the Devs already agree on.

[Covenant]

@stingray104 Yes, WHM is "the Healer" but saying a summoner shouldn't main heal is a little off the mark. A summoner alone, yes I agree 100% they shouldn't heal. However, if you factor in carbuncle and/or light spirit, them no.

It's the avatar/spirit that becomes the healer not the summoner. The summoner is just a vessel for the power of the avatar/spirit and is limited by MP pool. There shouldn't be any limit imposed on the avatar/spirit, and they should easily match a WHM and BLM abilities provided they manage MP properly.
At earlier levels this balance was held between summoner vs BLM and WHM. Later in game, SE lost focus and perspective of the job summoner. They decided to make it more of a solo'rs job and lost nearly all party effects or party balance...or so it seems to me. This is reflected in the lack of actual Bloodpacts and wards.

[Sparthos]

RDM has a lack of WS options?

Get Chant du Cygne.

[Duelle]

RDM has a lack of WS options?

Get Chant du Cygne.Fix through gear, thus meaningless in terms of base design of the class. And why should we put up with Fast Blade (discount lolSavage Blade) as the only useful sword WS we get until we complete an empyrean at lv90? We're supposed to be proficient with swords and yet we miss out on the bread and butter WS in the leveling process.

[Greatguardian]

If I can't do it naked, I can't do it at all.

Classic.

As an aside, you should level Paladin and frequent those forums too. Apparently, Ochain fixing everything that was wrong with shields doesn't count either because no one whining about it has the motivation to get off their lazy bloody ass and get one. Badelaire+2 is even easier, no excuses.

[Razushu]

Fix through gear, thus meaningless in terms of base design of the class. And why should we put up with Fast Blade (discount lolSavage Blade) as the only useful sword WS we get until we complete an empyrean at lv90? We're supposed to be proficient with swords and yet we miss out on the bread and butter WS in the leveling process.

As an all-rounder I wouldn't say you're meant to be "proficient" in any one aspect, more you're meant to be OK at everything, which is why you're left off the high tier WS.

[Sparthos]

More dodging of the point. RDM has access to CDC which is the same high tier WS being used by PLD and BLU.

Either you work towards it or you dont. Sword has always been a soso weapon type in terms of doing damage anyway.

[Supersun]

To be fair that was also in part because a few swords were stupidly powerful and giving them better WSs would have been a real quick way to break a couple of jobs.

[Duelle]

If I can't do it naked, I can't do it at all.If you want the short version: Proper design has faculties that "are" when looking at the class at the baseline, and "get stronger" when you toss gear in. Things like Almace and CDC makes something that "isn't" into something that "is". I don't think I need to go into specifics, but suffice to say, a role or style of play that is not something you grow into (which is basically the larger issue with Red Mage melee) is an indicator of bad design. You want to play at the hybrid, you have to make the choices available. Almace should be something that makes RDM melee stronger, NOT something that takes it from lol to acceptable.

As an aside, you should level Paladin and frequent those forums too. Apparently, Ochain fixing everything that was wrong with shields doesn't count either because no one whining about it has the motivation to get off their lazy bloody ass and get one.Considering that this is stuff that the player should grow into, I agree with that crowd. You're somehow thinking it is alright for gear to be on/off switches for gameplay, whereas I look at gear as something that should enhance and strengthen what's already there.

Besides, is it that damn difficult to fix shields to work properly?

[Korpg]

If you want the short version: Proper design has faculties that "are" when looking at the class at the baseline, and "get stronger" when you toss gear in. Things like Almace and CDC makes something that "isn't" into something that "is". I don't think I need to go into specifics, but suffice to say, a role or style of play that is not something you grow into (which is basically the larger issue with Red Mage melee) is an indicator of bad design. You want to play at the hybrid, you have to make the choices available. Almace should be something that makes RDM melee stronger, NOT something that takes it from lol to acceptable.

Somehow, I don't get you. You first say that it should make RDM melee stronger (it does) not making it acceptable....wait, what?

Nobody is going to mind you meleeing on trash mobs, even on seal mobs. Anything harder, you would have to justify the TP fed to the mob by the damage delt on CDC. Which you can, believe it or not.

Instead of being super negative about your job, why not strive to make it outstanding, which anyone can do inside Abyssea. Will you beat an Ukon WAR in terms of damage and tankability? No, but then again, you weren't supposed to either. Take what you got, and go with it.

Besides, Savage Blade isn't lol. Death Blossom isn't lol either. And that is a RDM only WS, incase you forgot or don't have.


Besides, is it that damn difficult to fix shields to work properly?

Wait, you want 100% block rate for all jobs who can equip a shield? Wouldn't that be broken and also make PLD worthless?

[Seriha]

CDC > Vorpal Blade > Death Blossom > Savage Blade > Fast Blade.

You can wiggle Sanguine Blade in above Savage at times, but the problem with the general chain of progression is that RDM lacks a native Vorpal (And Sanguine), DB requires 75+ and running a particular event, Savage is a quested WS, and Fast Blade of course being our first WS and basically the holdover until SB (We also miss out on RLB or Seraph Blade without a special sub).

These "mile stones" are like a series of steep climbs instead of a gradual progression. Yes, when you hit them, they may be effective to a degree, but the primary issue is the gap between the haves and have nots, and even the haves are scorned for reasons RDMs have been throwing at SE for years. I love how GG tried to slip in that cheap shot about how RDMs play is how SE has deemed to gear them because that's how we play, but as I've said before, that's a catch 22 or chicken and the egg scenario. The way RDMs play and have played is not a result of people choosing one style over another with all things equal. No, the deck has long since been stacked in the caster favor when it comes to gear, abilities, traits, the earlier mentioned restrictions in WS, and the general social need of support/curative jobs in an MMO with the gross misconception that early day WHMs couldn't do what RDM was. Add some nerfs to enmity generation, with Tranquil Heart on top of that, and even the tanking style got boned for reasons we're really not sure why, as far as RDMs go, at least.

Nobody's saying that RDMs shouldn't have gear to chase, but the lack of strong hybrid options effectively doubles the effort a RDM has to put forth if they truly wish to be versatile as a mage and melee. With the stigma against melee, when you see a RDM asking to do whatever to improve their martial prowess, it's not uncommon for people to not want to help if there's nothing in it for them (And I still say the best way for a RDM to get an Almace is to be a BLU, which is its own level of wrong). And while people love to hate on the Teal/Perle/Aurore sets, they put out a modestly acceptable baseline for people of their given jobs to start at and build upon if they hadn't been running the 75 treadmill to get the best of the best the old cap had to offer. When you compare the Haste/STR/DEX/ACC/ATK of Perle to just Turban/Dusk Gloves/Dusk Ledelsens, even though the latter is lower level gear, the gap is pretty huge. Even when you start throwing in more incrementally difficult pieces to acquire like Goliard Body or augmented pants (And before you guys rage, it's more about the inability to just buy at the AH), while Haste values may start closing in on each other, the other stats are still largely untouched. This, at present, eventually becomes the best RDM can get, with a CDC weapon being more of a must have instead of a finishing touch (You don't exactly see: "No Ukko's? No thanks!" when it comes to WARs, do you?). Meanwhile, all those "gimp" DDs using the mentioned sets have continued growth beyond that, some not even needing Empyrean weapons to spank a RDM.

We're well beyond the point of justification with the "Well, that's all they can do!" angle. We've seen SE throw out various abilities over the years with pros and cons. Something can be done while allaying the fears of the balancemongers, to satisfy all parties, but the fact even the more simplistic and reasonable requests have been paid no heed is perhaps the most infuriating part of this years long issue. I know it's easy for it to be a non-issue for some, or you get those who sit back smiling in spite over their perceived RDM's fall from grace because "they took their job" or "soloed something they shouldn't" in the past.

With the Jack angle being more of a player demand/sanity check, conceptually it falls flat when one side grows too strong over the other, broaching more into the territory of a specialist. While we're certainly curious about new enfeebles and improvements to current ones on top of that, such is a straying from the versatility that drew some to the job. Perhaps more cynically, if you're never asked to do something, it's not a job feature, and I've never in my 8 years of playing see a leader do a /sea all for a RDM to ask for a melee. Hell, I haven't, either, knowing the shortcomings. The relationship between RDMs and SCHs is particularly troublesome at the moment, as they're going to be very similar jobs at 99, many feeling SCH will be outright superior without things to make RDM stand out. Enfeebles could do that, yes, but some will be disappointed if improved swordplay is not on the table since it's something SCHs don't have.

[Duelle]

Somehow, I don't get you. You first say that it should make RDM melee stronger (it does) not making it acceptable....wait, what?I get the feeling you're pretending to not understand me, but alright. What I'm getting at is on a baseline level, RDM melee should be acceptable by the time you can even start considering making an Almace. Almace and CDC would therefore be boosts to an already-working playstyle. Almace right now is an on/off switch.

Besides, Savage Blade isn't lol. Death Blossom isn't lol either. And that is a RDM only WS, incase you forgot or don't have.Savage Blade is pretty lol, actually. Admittedly, not by design but more because of how people expect you to play in the front lines (AKA reach 100 TP and let loose, NOT get 300 TP and let loose which is what Savage Blade was designed for).

Wait, you want 100% block rate for all jobs who can equip a shield? Wouldn't that be broken and also make PLD worthless?You're putting words in my mouth.

Either way, Shield design is pretty bad, since (and I mentioned this once somewhere around here) it is entirely reliant on block, shield size and little else. Generally (as in other games and even some past FFs), survivability increases just from equipping the shield alone before factoring blocks and everything else. A proper way to deal with things would be to go that route (by having the shield boost passive damage mitigation, some avoidance, maybe even some parry and have it scale with VIT or STR) and then buff PLD to be the job that gets the most out of that. Sure, you're also buffing anyone who has access to shields, but it also fixes something that doesn't work as it should. Kind of like defense rating.

[Dallas]

Ignore Korpg, Duelle. He is anti-melee SMN. Since no one has bothered figuring out how to make melee RDM stronger than melee SMN, he will spout random numbers forever.

If he mentions:
1) lack of accuracy
2) lack of attack
3) TP feed
4) WAR, Byakko's Axe, Ukon or otherwise

He's in blind rage mode. These are all arguments that someone else proposed and he has assimilated.

[Korpg]

Dallas, shush, the adults are talking now, go back to playing with your letter blocks like a good little kid.


I get the feeling you're pretending to not understand me, but alright. What I'm getting at is on a baseline level, RDM melee should be acceptable by the time you can even start considering making an Almace. Almace and CDC would therefore be boosts to an already-working playstyle. Almace right now is an on/off switch.
Savage Blade is pretty lol, actually. Admittedly, not by design but more because of how people expect you to play in the front lines (AKA reach 100 TP and let loose, NOT get 300 TP and let loose which is what Savage Blade was designed for).
You're putting words in my mouth.

I don't care if you want to melee, go ahead. You can make your RDM play the way you want, I'll do it with mine. I'm not putting words in your mouth, I'm just stating that neither Savage Blade nor Death Blossom is bad at all. If you think doing 2k damage on either one is bad, then that is you.


Either way, Shield design is pretty bad, since (and I mentioned this once somewhere around here) it is entirely reliant on block, shield size and little else. Generally (as in other games and even some past FFs), survivability increases just from equipping the shield alone before factoring blocks and everything else. A proper way to deal with things would be to go that route (by having the shield boost passive damage mitigation, some avoidance, maybe even some parry and have it scale with VIT or STR) and then buff PLD to be the job that gets the most out of that. Sure, you're also buffing anyone who has access to shields, but it also fixes something that doesn't work as it should. Kind of like defense rating.


If I understand you correctly, your main gripe isn't shield, but it is how Defense is figured in this game. Well, I can't help you there, maybe somebody else can talk to you about Defense and stuff like that.

[Razushu]

Ignore Korpg, Duelle. He is anti-melee SMN. Since no one has bothered figuring out how to make melee RDM stronger than melee SMN, he will spout random numbers forever.

If he mentions:
1) lack of accuracy
2) lack of attack
3) TP feed
4) WAR, Byakko's Axe, Ukon or otherwise

He's in blind rage mode. These are all arguments that someone else proposed and he has assimilated.

Dallas there's no comparsion between SMN melee and RDM melee. RDM was implemented as a light melee/nuker/healer hybrid. SMN on the other hand was a backline pet mage. I've nothing against RDM melee, I've seen it do great as a light DD(and this is without the need for phony numbers to back it up).

[Dallas]

Raz, if you haven't levelled staff skill, go back to the other thread.

[Razushu]

Raz, if you haven't levelled staff skill, go back to the other thread.

My skills are more than leveled enough to understand the difference between a mage(SMN) and a DD*.

* WAR, SAM, DRG ETC.

[Duelle]

I don't care if you want to melee, go ahead. You can make your RDM play the way you want, I'll do it with mine. I'm not putting words in your mouth, I'm just stating that neither Savage Blade nor Death Blossom is bad at all. If you think doing 2k damage on either one is bad, then that is you.Nice of you to ignore my points with a stock "I don't care" response. Also, try to read the quotes in the proper order and context. The words in mouth bit is on shields, not on Red Mage melee.

If I understand you correctly, your main gripe isn't shield, but it is how Defense is figured in this game.Try reading what I say instead of making random claims. Shield is part of a greater whole in the game of damage mitigation. As I said, normally survivability is supposed to increase from just equipping the shield. What we have here instead is blocks and shield size coming into play while the shield is a stat stick, sans the stats.

[Korpg]

I don't know what you want, you are being very confusing.

About the shields: Think about it. If you have a huge shield that can block your entire body, wouldn't that be able to block the most damage that is coming to you? But wait, a huge shield must weigh a ton, so it is hard to use it effectively. Hence the "Tower" sized shield. Bucklers are the same way: Small shields that can block more often, but not as much blocking damage part, hence the "Buckler" sized shields. Shields in between block less damage than the towers, but more times than the towers, but block more damage than the bucklers, but less times than the bucklers.

I honestly think that you want DT- on your shield, that is what I am getting from you. But you will just accuse me of putting words in your mouth again, won't you?

[Leonlionheart]

Guys, RDM and SMN melee is silly. 2k is not good damage in abyssea, go back to refresh, haste, blind, paralyze, slow: like what the job is obviously for. K.

Just gonna make you mad but you need to be put in your place!

[Korpg]

Hey, if he can continue to buff/debuff, I'm ok with him meleeing on trash mobs.

Important stuff, he can go watch like Dallas does.

[Leonlionheart]

Well on EXP mobs who cares.

But if you GET CLOSE TO AZDAJA I will SCREAM YOUR F***ING EAR OFF.

[Malamasala]

Dallas there's no comparsion between SMN melee and RDM melee. RDM was implemented as a light melee/nuker/healer hybrid. SMN on the other hand was a backline pet mage. I've nothing against RDM melee, I've seen it do great as a light DD(and this is without the need for phony numbers to back it up).

When are these meaningless debates going to end?

All jobs who can walk up next to a mob and melee it, without significantly hurting their role, is fine, right? I'm pretty sure both RDM and SMN can do that. Well, GOOD RDMs or SMNs. I won't make a statement that anyone could do it without putting effort into it.

[Razushu]

When are these meaningless debates going to end?

All jobs who can walk up next to a mob and melee it, without significantly hurting their role, is fine, right? I'm pretty sure both RDM and SMN can do that. Well, GOOD RDMs or SMNs. I won't make a statement that anyone could do it without putting effort into it.

Unfortunately they're probably only going to end when Dallas stops being enteraining, and right now it's still too much fun poking him to let up. I apologise if I upset any of the more sensible meleeing mages out there, but I'm not actually attacking mage melee. I'm just playing with Dallas. Mage melee like most things has a place somewhere in this game, and like I've said before if the mobs weak enough and no one else involved minds go for it.

[Korpg]

When are these meaningless debates going to end?

All jobs who can walk up next to a mob and melee it, without significantly hurting their role, is fine, right? I'm pretty sure both RDM and SMN can do that. Well, GOOD RDMs or SMNs. I won't make a statement that anyone could do it without putting effort into it.

Yet, Great SMNs don't need to melee to still get the kills they need, and can solo harder stuff than Groundskeepers and such.

But that is besides the point....or is it?

[Dallas]

Just gonna make you mad but you need to be put in your place!

I have no doubt you think you are the bandwagon Ukon WAR for the job.

[Leonlionheart]

I have no doubt you think you are the bandwagon Ukon WAR for the job.

Sorry guy, played WAR since /nin was the only sub for it, and you leveled in sky. Not bandwagoned at all.

At least there are people bandwagoning it, not so much could be said for SMN melee lul

Edit: Well lol maybe it was bandwagoned back then?

[Dallas]

Edit: Well lol maybe it was bandwagoned back then?

I believe WAR/NIN was bandwagon until the 2h update, when SAM replaced it. Ukon is the bandwagon I was referring to, but it's only part of my point. I'm actually poking fun at the futility of using bandwagon arguments against someone who has created bandwagon.

A melee job rushing out to get the emp weapon to brag about being the best is bandwagon. Yes, that includes non-traditional melee like myself. It's not identical but it's close. The main difference is that emp staff is a game changer.

So on one hand, I have a Ukon WAR saying "you should be in the back with all other SMN," and on the other hand, I have my own emp weapon saying "unlimited MP when SE is telling us we'll need unlimited MP." I already have everything I need. There's no way I'm hopping on the short bus with all the cryers and complainers.

So basically WARs, get used to it. If you are meleeing, I'll be meleeing.

[Leonlionheart]

For all of Asura's mental failure, I'm sorry that Fenrir has to deal with Dallas.

[Razushu]

For all of Asura's mental failure, I'm sorry that Fenrir has to deal with Dallas.

His wiki forums profile claims he's on Carbuncle, so we may yet escape his idiocy.

[Razushu]

I believe WAR/NIN was bandwagon until the 2h update, when SAM replaced it. Ukon is the bandwagon I was referring to, but it's only part of my point. I'm actually poking fun at the futility of using bandwagon arguments against someone who has created bandwagon.

A melee job rushing out to get the emp weapon to brag about being the best is bandwagon. Yes, that includes non-traditional melee like myself. It's not identical but it's close. The main difference is that emp staff is a game changer.

So on one hand, I have a Ukon WAR saying "you should be in the back with all other SMN," and on the other hand, I have my own emp weapon saying "unlimited MP when SE is telling us we'll need unlimited MP." I already have everything I need. There's no way I'm hopping on the short bus with all the cryers and complainers.

So basically WARs, get used to it. If you are meleeing, I'll be meleeing.

1) A melee job going out to get the best weapon for melee isn't bandwagon it just makes sense.

2) a melee weapon for the weakest class in the game and a player insisting it is somehow now a frontline DD is not a game changer, unless the change you're trying to push is the return of lolSMN.(Everyone with sense knows mage melee is for exp/fun/trash mobs.)

3) Everyone has unlimited MP nowadays inside and outside Abyssea.

4) If insist on meleeing everything I'd get used to being kicked from every party you get in, unless your ls/flist are willing to put up with a gimp DD.

[Leonlionheart]

ITT: Bandwagon = Trying to be the best you can.

I'll live with bandwagon.

[Razushu]

ITT: Bandwagon = Trying to be the best you can.

I'll live with bandwagon.

The real question is, if god forbid the majority of the SMN populace started thinking they were melees. This would then be the "bandwagon". Would Dallas drop meleesmn? Would he start advocating something else for fulltime, like backline DRK or PUP/RNG?

[Greatguardian]

I get the feeling you're pretending to not understand me, but alright. What I'm getting at is on a baseline level, RDM melee should be acceptable by the time you can even start considering making an Almace. Almace and CDC would therefore be boosts to an already-working playstyle. Almace right now is an on/off switch.

Acceptable is subjective, and that's the point. Is Red Mage just not allowed to melee if they have total crap gear? By the game? No. By people? Yes. Why? Because people have standards. Those standards are put into place by said people. Almace does make Red Mage melee better, a lot better. And that happens to help bring it up from what people consider "Unacceptably bad" to "Acceptably good enough".

There is no game design fault here. People are simply considerably less inclined to give gimps free reign to do whatever the hell they want in a group and just assume that they're contributing what they need to contribute. If you came up to me in full teal and a joyeuse and told me you were a DD-only who refused to cast any magic spells because it would detract from your super freaking awesome savage blade damage, I'd tell you to get lost. If you came up to me rocking an Almace/Khanda or Almace/Fleuret combo with a capped Haste TP set and legit macros, and asked me if I wouldn't mind you melee'ing if you were capable of doing so while also performing and prioritizing the magical functions that I invited you for, more freaking power to you.

Your problem isn't game design, it's people and yourself. And as a member of the group "people", I feel absolutely no inclination towards letting you or anyone else do whatever the hell useless stuff you want while bumming rewards off of my group, my work, and my time. If you want to do whatever you want (be it melee or whatever, I don't even care), be good enough at it that you're not a total leech on me and everyone else with me. Because it's very possible within the game to do so.

[JovialRat]

all i read was : these are what we can offer you guys cause of ps2 limitations.

[Malamasala]

Yet, Great SMNs don't need to melee to still get the kills they need, and can solo harder stuff than Groundskeepers and such.

But that is besides the point....or is it?

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. So BLU being able to do their job from backline means only bad BLUs melee? In Abyssea a DNC can get regain and stand at backlines and heal... is this the superior way over melee for TP?

If you can do your role in melee range or back line, simply choose what you'd like. I do however suggest against melee range if you expect to die every 30 seconds. But that is a personal opinion of mine.

[Razushu]

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. So BLU being able to do their job from backline means only bad BLUs melee? In Abyssea a DNC can get regain and stand at backlines and heal... is this the superior way over melee for TP?

If you can do your role in melee range or back line, simply choose what you'd like. I do however suggest against melee range if you expect to die every 30 seconds. But that is a personal opinion of mine.

Mala tbh the argument for SMNmelee, is the exact same as an argument for backline DNC. Trying to play a job in a role where it's weakest and wasn't built for in the first place. Although it is weird you never see a melee gear for backline and expect to be viable there.

Not saying mages shouldn't melee if they want when the situation allows. People with sense(like you seem to have) should be able to play the way they want, if it's not too determiental to the goal.

[Leonlionheart]

Mala tbh the argument for SMNmelee, is the exact same as an argument for backline DNC or BLU. Trying to play a job in a role where it's weakest and wasn't built for in the first place. Although it is weird you never see a melee gear for backline and expect to be viable there.

Not saying mages shouldn't melee if they want when the situation allows. People with sense(like you seem to have) should be able to play the way they want, if it's not too determiental to the goal.

Hold the phone. Backline BLU can, in some cases, be amazing. It actually cures FANTASTIC outside of abyssea, with the most MP efficient cure in the game. Well cures better than SMN RDM SCH anyway, if you're fully geared for cure.

[Razushu]

Hold the phone. Backline BLU can, in some cases, be amazing. It actually cures FANTASTIC outside of abyssea, with the most MP efficient cure in the game. Well cures better than SMN RDM SCH anyway, if you're fully geared for cure.

My apologies. Statement revoked.

[Korpg]

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. So BLU being able to do their job from backline means only bad BLUs melee?

Considering that you have to be at least 5 yards away from the mob for most physical damage spells to work, and the essence of being a melee is to be within range to swing a weapon, then yeah, being in the back means you are a bad melee, regardless of the job.

[Leonlionheart]

Considering that you have to be at least 5 yards away from the mob for most physical damage spells to work, and the essence of being a melee is to be within range to swing a weapon, then yeah, being in the back means you are a bad melee, regardless of the job.

lol whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite

[Leonlionheart]

My apologies. Statement revoked.

You'll find like 3 BLUs ever who actually gear for it, so it's really uncommon. But I thoroughly enjoy BLU curing outside abyssea, with proper refresh.
The set is very specific though, as it requires Add on hat and legs to be aug'd with cure potency to really shine.

[Supersun]

Cannonball spamming blus weren't THAT rare were they?

[Korpg]

Cannonball spamming blus weren't THAT rare were they?

Maybe on 75 content, and only a few mobs, but now? Not even thought of.

[Sparthos]

Benthic, the new Cannonball.

[Korpg]

Just as accurate too!

Edit: well, without /THF that is....

[Kwate]

As BLU/THF, give me Vanity Dive. BT is ok as well (inventory space is too taxing for an effective AGI build), but since I have DEX builds for CDC and CW farming VD tends to be a hot spell to use. 5~8k SACA/EFF

[Leonlionheart]

I didn't know people still subbed THF...

BLU's spike damage is good, but I'm pretty sure good DPS is better.

[Supersun]

Spike damage tends to be slightly less...TP feedy though.

It has its uses...just that use hasn't arisen since like 2004

[Duelle]

Almace does make Red Mage melee better, a lot better. And that happens to help bring it up from what people consider "Unacceptably bad" to "Acceptably good enough".You're still not seeing the difference between strengthen what is there and make something exist from nothingness. RDM melee pre-Almace is not even on the table. That's what basically needs to change. You'd have a decent argument if across all levels we had RDMs in melee gear getting invites to melee instead of the lolrefreshplz thing. Then you can make the claim that Almace simply boosts RDM melee, and I'd agree with you 100%.

There is no game design fault here. People are simply considerably less inclined to give gimps free reign to do whatever the hell they want in a group and just assume that they're contributing what they need to contribute. If you came up to me in full teal and a joyeuse and told me you were a DD-only who refused to cast any magic spells because it would detract from your super freaking awesome savage blade damage, I'd tell you to get lost.Despite having more than full teal and a joyeuse, I've still been told to heal or gtfo. I'm not super geared, and I'll be the first one to admit it, but I understand the concept of wearing melee gear to melee. Sadly, that's not enough to justify front-lining because a caster-based RDM is much more valuable to the group in the current game (I'll get to the mechanics part of all this soon enough, by the way), hence why I'm so adamant about a needed change to give front-liners and back-liners both what they want out of the class instead of leaving the melee camp as some outcast that is pretty much "redeemed" by one weapon.

If you came up to me rocking an Almace/Khanda or Almace/Fleuret combo with a capped Haste TP set and legit macros, and asked me if I wouldn't mind you melee'ing if you were capable of doing so while also performing and prioritizing the magical functions that I invited you for, more freaking power to you.This is another issue, and as a part of that problem, you don't seem to realize it. The short version, though, is as follows: I shouldn't have to beg you for permission to melee.

It'd be one thing if class dynamics allowed me to be more open and look for group or join a group while stating that I'm melee-focused. Then I'd be fine with a party leader telling me something like "sorry, we're looking for back-line support" or "we're actually looking for heals". It'd be even nicer if there was some obvious distinction between the melee'ers and the back-liners (in before "one is bad, one is good lolz"). We may not have fancy titles like Elemental, Retribution, Enhancing, Feral Combat or Balance, but we do have the job/subjob combos to go by.

If you want to do whatever you want (be it melee or whatever, I don't even care), be good enough at it that you're not a total leech on me and everyone else with me. Because it's very possible within the game to do so.You're contradicting yourself, since you put emphasis in melee with the "normal" buff duties attached then hint you'd be alright as long as one is "good" enough.

Part of what I mentioned above is connected to the "people problem", which you seem to hint is enough to dismiss the claims of the melee camp. What you have not acknowledged is that the "people problem" comes about and is affected by game mechanics. The same thing that created the "people problem" for PLDs when NIN tanking took over, the same "people problem" (admittedly combined with really bad PR) that DRGs suffered under when they were considered gimp, the same "people problem" that ousted WHM from healing in parties during TAU, the same "people problem" that sentenced BST for years of solo play, the same "people problem" that condemned SMN to playing /WHM before the developers got their heads out of the sand; and, yes, the same "people problem" that relegated melee as a solo toy for RDM.

I mention mechanics in terms of RDM melee because without proper in-game support (something beyond subjob and melee gear) it has proven to not be enough. You have issues with redundancy, which is specially devastating to the melee camp because what is currently expected of our job is to run refresh and haste cycles with enfeebling tacked on for variety. We can't do all that in the front because that takes away from the point of being in the front lines, not to mention that in its current incarnation a caster-focused RDM can do that much better with much less risk involved.

This is why I feel melee needs to have its own emphasized elements and reason for being in the party. Where some feel utility will be pivotal in saving us, I feel more damage and some front-exclusive utility (preferably on the enfeebling side with a couple of party-wide buffs to facilitate front-lining and for placebo purposes in the case of the nay-sayers) will do the trick. More melee gear and weapon skill access will also help. The main part of all this, however, is that this isn't something that should be tossed at RDM at a really late level in the game, but more something for a RDM to grow into as they level. I hope that it isn't that difficult to understand why the melee camp feels the way it feels, and why most of us just sighed in disdain when we saw SE yet again not even acknowledge our existence.

[Greatguardian]

You really don't seem to get that there is no arbitrary line between "Total crap" and "Good enough" except for what the observing player dictates. That's fine, though. I've come to expect that.

But really, I'm not sure I get why people are so concerned with pre-90 job dynamics. They are drastically different at 90 across the board with pretty much everybody anyways. Pre-75 Paladin is worlds different from Post-75 Paladin. The same is true for just about everybody else. There is no "growing into" phase that you have to hit in order to be able to do something at 90, because just about no one plays the same way at 90 as in EXP parties before 90.

That's still assuming that EXP parties exist, too. Abyssea leeching and Summoner burning are very real things, and many people will simply absolutely not play Red Mage from 30-90 at all. Does that mean they're going to be total crap at it? Absolutely not. But any weird little melee buff to RDM40 is not going to do a damn thing for just about 95% of the FFXI population.

But really, if someone invites a Red Mage to support, that is on the person doing the inviting. When you, or anyone, joins a group, you do what the group leader believes is in the best interest of the group, or you leave and get another group. If you have trouble finding groups because you want to do something that people feel is contrary to what you should be doing, then you're just going to have to deal with that. No amount of melee buffing to Red Mage is going to change people's mind about how much crap it is, or change the fact that what they want when they /sea all RDM is a support-class mage rather than yet another little pokey pokey stab stab.

If you have a group of friends that lets you melee, more power to you. But if you want to change the mind of the entire community, you're going to have to realize that it will never, ever happen as long as the average melee RDM remains so utterly horrible to be around. The average melee Rdm is absolutely useless. They'll show up to a group, and then refuse to cast spells. It's like "DD only Ninjas" who like sub Thf and refuse to cast Utsusemi because they're so unbelievably gimp/cheap that they can't afford bloody shihei. Your average melee Rdm makes everybody's life harder. They'll sit there and let people die despite having a full load of MP. They won't even Refresh the bloody White Mage, that is stuck Hasting them. And worst of all, they really do run around in full teal and a joyeuse and think they're doing jack bloody squat with their crappy enspell damage, 50% accuracy, 0% Haste gear, 300 attack, and 50 damage fast blades.

If you want people in the community to take melee Rdm seriously, provide examples of Red Mages who melee that don't freaking suck. Because, while the exceedingly rare one might exist, no one is ever going to invite a random Red Mage to a group and even entertain the possibility that they might be one of them.

Edit: Just to prove a point, Doombringer for example is one of the best melee Red Mages I've actually seen. And he still has a good chunk of gear he could improve on. He doesn't have a Zelus, and isn't using Goliard/ACP body. But he still only parsed like 40% of a comparably geared Monk despite getting March/Madrigal instead of March/March. If he's only parsing 40% in a situation where he's getting a buff advantage and barely doing any casting, people with weaker gear than him and/or people who're actually going to be casting spells are going to be contributing jack bloody squat.

[Dallas]

His wiki forums profile claims he's on Carbuncle, so we may yet escape his idiocy.

One thing we can be sure of, I'm not on Bahamut server.

[Duelle]

You really don't seem to get that there is no arbitrary line between "Total crap" and "Good enough" except for what the observing player dictates. That's fine, though. I've come to expect that.The fact that the collective (or as you call it, "people") decreed our melee as useless in a party is enough of an indication of where we stand. Otherwise we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

But really, I'm not sure I get why people are so concerned with pre-90 job dynamics. They are drastically different at 90 across the board with pretty much everybody anyways. Pre-75 Paladin is worlds different from Post-75 Paladin. The same is true for just about everybody else. There is no "growing into" phase that you have to hit in order to be able to do something at 90, because just about no one plays the same way at 90 as in EXP parties before 90.You seem to forget the pre-75 dynamics are what set our trends to stone when we started doing endgame. If you see class X doing something between lv10 when you started partying in the dunes all the way until you hit 75 to start grinding merits, then by god you're going to expect that class to continue doing as it exactly was for those 65 levels. It's even proven to work retroactively, with guys making NINs tank in the dunes despite the fact NIN tanking doesn't really work until you get Utsusemi Ni at 37.

That's still assuming that EXP parties exist, too. Abyssea leeching and Summoner burning are very real things, and many people will simply absolutely not play Red Mage from 30-90 at all. Does that mean they're going to be total crap at it? Absolutely not. But any weird little melee buff to RDM40 is not going to do a damn thing for just about 95% of the FFXI population.You'd be surprised. There's people out there who, much like me, are stuck with irregular work schedules. This means I rarely see the same people twice when I do get a chance to log on. This means we try to party if time allows and spam FoV when possible.

But really, if someone invites a Red Mage to support, that is on the person doing the inviting. When you, or anyone, joins a group, you do what the group leader believes is in the best interest of the group, or you leave and get another group.Which would be fine...if RDM was a real choice for a front-liner. This would mean that for every guy that is looking for a healer or buffer there's also a guy looking to fill a melee slot in his party that would be willing to take you. That's clearly not the case.

But if you want to change the mind of the entire community, you're going to have to realize that it will never, ever happen as long as the average melee RDM remains so utterly horrible to be around. The average melee Rdm is absolutely useless. They'll show up to a group, and then refuse to cast spells....Your average melee Rdm makes everybody's life harder. They'll sit there and let people die despite having a full load of MP. They won't even Refresh the bloody White Mage, that is stuck Hasting them.Let's stop right there and look at performance relative to role before we continue.

1) Not casting spells.
2) Not casting emergency cures.
3) Not casting Refresh.
4) Not casting haste on themselves.

#1 I agree with complaining about that 100%. At the same time, I look at mechanics in the front line (of which none exist in the case of RDM) and do take into account how much melee time is lost while casting and whether that somehow makes up for the damage lost and thus lesser performance in the front lines.

#2 I agree with as well, but what I would love is something to facilitate off-healing in emergencies. Again, nothing exists for RDM in that regard. At least nothing built into the class to tell the player "this is what you do when you want to heal someone in an emergency".

#3 I'll concede on if and only if Refresh is changed to a long duration spell (I'm talking 10 minutes baseline) when the Red Mage is in melee. An alternative would be for Refresh to proc on the party when the RDM uses a weapon skill, with the effect being maintained by the RDM hitting the target - only applicable while in the front lines, of course. Cycle spells have no place in the front lines.

#4 See my reply to #3. I admit, it's a pain to constantly rebuff, and it's the reason I suggested Readiness (basically cast 4 buffs on yourself at the same time) in the melee thread.

To continue, I'm of the mind enfeebling in particular could be tied into melee in a way unique to RDM (using RDM's own enfeebling magic in a different way). Elemental magic could be tied to RDM melee as well to give some use to those spells available to us. That way you reap certain benefits from a front line RDM and get different benefits from a back line RDM. A very rough idea, though I do have my proposed redesign sitting around here somewhere...

Just to prove a point, Doombringer for example is one of the best melee Red Mages I've actually seen. And he still has a good chunk of gear he could improve on. He doesn't have a Zelus, and isn't using Goliard/ACP body. But he still only parsed like 40% of a comparably geared Monk despite getting March/Madrigal instead of March/March. If he's only parsing 40% in a situation where he's getting a buff advantage and barely doing any casting, people with weaker gear than him and/or people who're actually going to be casting spells are going to be contributing jack bloody squat.I saw the parses as well. All I got from that is that the damage, as I have mentioned before, needs a buff. On your comment about casting, I'll say it is also testament to the fact the melee and caster sides of RDM do not play nice with each other.

And, saving this one for last:
No amount of melee buffing to Red Mage is going to change people's mind about how much crap it is, or change the fact that what they want when they /sea all RDM is a support-class mage rather than yet another little pokey pokey stab stab.A bold claim, but I'll be happy to counter.

There once was a class that happened to be in the exact same pickle RDM has been in for years. Toward whom people reacted the exact same way whenever melee was brought up. With very similar design (sword & magic hybrid, limited healing capability, buffs, utility right out of the box, even some real defensive moves), and the same shortcomings (low damage compared to the "real" front-liners, ease in being pigeonholed to buffbot and healer, little in-game support for a melee-oriented playstyle). Whose melee camp was called selfish for not wanting to sit pretty and let the "real heroes" stand in the front lines while they wore dresses and hung back with the priests. Whose melee camp also went to great lengths to argue for their style of play, and faced major resistance not only from players of other classes, but also players within their own class. Sound familiar?

Anyway, the melee buffs came and went. And you know what happened? It was suddenly okay for them to melee in groups. If you chose to front line and were geared for it, you were more than welcome to swing your weapon; hell, you didn't have to wear best-in-slot gear or wielding legendaries for people to accept you melee'ing things. The guys that liked healing and buffing got to continue doing so, while the melee camp happily did what they had wanted to do all along. It was a win for everyone.

So please, don't tell me it's impossible, because I was there when it happened. Hence my constant mentioning that RDM's issues aren't exclusive to this game. The first thing that came to mind when I saw it turn out the way it did was "this is the idea SE should follow to fix RDM".

[Urteil]

Does anyone else find it rather ironic and insulting that SE has such a huge boner for DRK casting magic, and they haven't even pulled down the zipper on their pants so to speak:

And given us magic attack bonus I?

Just sayin'.