Ophannus
07-30-2011, 10:57 AM
Since the dev team made it a point that they would reevaluate and rebalance merits, I thought I would create a thread specifically for these kinds of adjustments to share our views.
Group 1 Merits for DRG are pretty solid but almost all DRGs will opt for Jump/High Jump recasts as these affect our two most useful abilities that create instantaneous damage as well as generate TP. This has never been more true than after Spirit and Soul Jump were added. If the dev team ever adds an expansion to the amount of points we can spend on Group 1 category, then I think some merits that lower recast of superfluous abilities should be removed. For example, I'd wager that almost no DRG ever merits Ancient Circle. It's a 10 minute ability that lasts for 60-90 seconds with such a situational and niche effect. There's no justification for adding it even if they fight Wyrms or Dragons frequently. More Jumps and more High Jumps are still better. Spirit Link recast is also something a DRG would not bother with. Spirit Link is such a hit or miss ability. If you're fighting something that does moderate AoE, a 3 minute spirit link is all you need. If you're fighting something that AoE's heavily, and extra 30 seconds off spirit link likely will just prolong the inevitable.
To replace these I submit the following:
Wyvern HP+ merits. It could be +5%, +2%, +2%, +2%, +2%. Will add wyvern survivability while also enhancing breath's.
Group 2's.
Angon: Angon is perfect, there's nothing wrong with it. The only adjustments I can see to it would be maybe create more kinds of angons we can throw that have a variety of effects. Most of the time the defense down is super awesome, but sometimes another effect would be more beneficial, perhaps an evasion down angon, or a bind angon. I realize that some mobs resist bind and that Angon's defense down always lands no matter what, but perhaps it could be more akin to a Shadowbind effect. It can even have a lower duration to make it balanced since it has a shorter recast. Or a magic defense down angon for situations where physical attacks aren't used. Just something to give DRG a more supportive effect to the party, rather than being another generic DD.
Deep Breathing: This effect is already straight forward, I can't think of any adjustments that could be made. I personally have maxed this out just because an 800 HP healing breathing or restoring breath every 5minutes has saved me numerous times. Maybe if used with a healing breath, it could be extended to be an AoE, although that might make it a bit overpowered considering it generates so little enmity. Perhaps a status effect on the elemental breath, but also it's difficult to select the breath used since it's random. I can't think of any worthwhile adjustments for this job ability.
Strafe: Strafe right now is worthless. Since Elemental Breath damage is based off of the function of WyvernCurrentHP/WyvernMaxHP it's unlikely that the wyvern will use it's breath attacks at full damage on most HNMs due to AoE. So this makes strafe only really useful for small fry mobs like EXP mobs where the wyvern will remain at full HP most of the time, justifying the higher accuracy and thus more consistent breaths. The follow are suggestions for making Strafe more useful:
1) Make it increase breath potency by 5% for the first merit and 2% thereafter in addition to the +5 accuracy it provides. This could be mutually exclusive or not, compared to the Group 1 merit suggestion for Wyvern HP merits. This would have a similar effect on wyvern breaths, though this is more specific for breaths whereas Wyvern HP merits would only increase breath damage as a residual side effect of +HP.
2) Make Strafe more like Optimization/Fine-Tuning, increasing the Wyvern's physical damage taken, attack and accuracy. Since BST pets and PUPs get Stout Servant, this would be a great way for DRGs to enhance a Wyvern's statistics and make them a more robust ally. Currently the Wyvern is like a floating 40DMG Staff, dealing 30-40 damage to most HNMs, assuming they don't miss, but take twice as much damage as we do.
Empathy: At first I thought this was a useful ability. I could give my wyvern Shell/Protect on the first Spirit Link, then Haste and minuet on the second. But as it turned out, it made such little difference increased wyvern attack and attack speed made hardly any difference in it's damage output, and the benefits of shell on my wyvern were so underwhelming on most HNMs that it was borderline unnoticable in terms of damage resistance. Instead of my wyvern being taken down to 10% HP on a single AoE, it'd be taken down to 30% in one AoE, but in both cases it'd die on the second one regardless. The only benefits I could see this trait getting is a boost to the number of effects that transfer with only Level 1 Empathy. Currently it's 1 effect for Level 1 and each additional level copies an additional effect. What needs to happen is Level 1 needs to be 2 or 3 statuses per Spirit Link. By the time Spirit Link's recast is back up, a lot of my buffs may have worn, since Haste only lasts 5 minutes and Songs only last 2-3, it's hard to maintain buffs on my Wyvern. Additionally if the ability is kept in its current form as one that transfers buffs to the wyvern, perhaps make the ability steal less HP from the Dragoon the more buffs that transfers. This would not negatively impact the amount of HP the wyvern is healed, but rather simply reduce the HP cost the Dragoon pays when using Spirit Link. 1 buff= -10% HP. 5 buffs= -50% HP. The wyvern is healed the same as it would normally just less HP is loss on the Dragoon's part depending on how many buffs he transfers.
Another approach is nix the ability to transfer buffs to our wyvern completely because in general, while allowing us to give our wyvern things like haste and march and rolls is interesting and fun, it's very novel and not useful. I propose eliminating that approach and instead make empathy grant the Wyvern a poweful latent auto regen effect. At level 1 it could trigger when below 50%. Each additional merit would increase the threshold by which the latent regen triggers by 10% per merit up to 90%. The regen could be potent as well, thinking 10-15 HP/merit. That's not a lot of HP and wouldn't upset game balance as 15hp/tick only amounts to maybe 300 hp per minute and anything hitting our wyvern is hitting it for close to 100 damage per hit anyway. But this would ease the damage our wyvern sustains in battle.
Another approach to this is simply add a powerful Regen to Spirit Link not unlike what Invigorate does to Chakra. If strong enough and given a moderate duration, could bridge the gap between Spirit Link recasts and give enough leeway to let our wyverns survive long enough for the next Link. Maybe 5-10 HP per tick for 90 seconds after Spirit Link is used. Or another deal could be it gives both the wyvern and the dragoon this regen.
Group 1 Merits for DRG are pretty solid but almost all DRGs will opt for Jump/High Jump recasts as these affect our two most useful abilities that create instantaneous damage as well as generate TP. This has never been more true than after Spirit and Soul Jump were added. If the dev team ever adds an expansion to the amount of points we can spend on Group 1 category, then I think some merits that lower recast of superfluous abilities should be removed. For example, I'd wager that almost no DRG ever merits Ancient Circle. It's a 10 minute ability that lasts for 60-90 seconds with such a situational and niche effect. There's no justification for adding it even if they fight Wyrms or Dragons frequently. More Jumps and more High Jumps are still better. Spirit Link recast is also something a DRG would not bother with. Spirit Link is such a hit or miss ability. If you're fighting something that does moderate AoE, a 3 minute spirit link is all you need. If you're fighting something that AoE's heavily, and extra 30 seconds off spirit link likely will just prolong the inevitable.
To replace these I submit the following:
Wyvern HP+ merits. It could be +5%, +2%, +2%, +2%, +2%. Will add wyvern survivability while also enhancing breath's.
Group 2's.
Angon: Angon is perfect, there's nothing wrong with it. The only adjustments I can see to it would be maybe create more kinds of angons we can throw that have a variety of effects. Most of the time the defense down is super awesome, but sometimes another effect would be more beneficial, perhaps an evasion down angon, or a bind angon. I realize that some mobs resist bind and that Angon's defense down always lands no matter what, but perhaps it could be more akin to a Shadowbind effect. It can even have a lower duration to make it balanced since it has a shorter recast. Or a magic defense down angon for situations where physical attacks aren't used. Just something to give DRG a more supportive effect to the party, rather than being another generic DD.
Deep Breathing: This effect is already straight forward, I can't think of any adjustments that could be made. I personally have maxed this out just because an 800 HP healing breathing or restoring breath every 5minutes has saved me numerous times. Maybe if used with a healing breath, it could be extended to be an AoE, although that might make it a bit overpowered considering it generates so little enmity. Perhaps a status effect on the elemental breath, but also it's difficult to select the breath used since it's random. I can't think of any worthwhile adjustments for this job ability.
Strafe: Strafe right now is worthless. Since Elemental Breath damage is based off of the function of WyvernCurrentHP/WyvernMaxHP it's unlikely that the wyvern will use it's breath attacks at full damage on most HNMs due to AoE. So this makes strafe only really useful for small fry mobs like EXP mobs where the wyvern will remain at full HP most of the time, justifying the higher accuracy and thus more consistent breaths. The follow are suggestions for making Strafe more useful:
1) Make it increase breath potency by 5% for the first merit and 2% thereafter in addition to the +5 accuracy it provides. This could be mutually exclusive or not, compared to the Group 1 merit suggestion for Wyvern HP merits. This would have a similar effect on wyvern breaths, though this is more specific for breaths whereas Wyvern HP merits would only increase breath damage as a residual side effect of +HP.
2) Make Strafe more like Optimization/Fine-Tuning, increasing the Wyvern's physical damage taken, attack and accuracy. Since BST pets and PUPs get Stout Servant, this would be a great way for DRGs to enhance a Wyvern's statistics and make them a more robust ally. Currently the Wyvern is like a floating 40DMG Staff, dealing 30-40 damage to most HNMs, assuming they don't miss, but take twice as much damage as we do.
Empathy: At first I thought this was a useful ability. I could give my wyvern Shell/Protect on the first Spirit Link, then Haste and minuet on the second. But as it turned out, it made such little difference increased wyvern attack and attack speed made hardly any difference in it's damage output, and the benefits of shell on my wyvern were so underwhelming on most HNMs that it was borderline unnoticable in terms of damage resistance. Instead of my wyvern being taken down to 10% HP on a single AoE, it'd be taken down to 30% in one AoE, but in both cases it'd die on the second one regardless. The only benefits I could see this trait getting is a boost to the number of effects that transfer with only Level 1 Empathy. Currently it's 1 effect for Level 1 and each additional level copies an additional effect. What needs to happen is Level 1 needs to be 2 or 3 statuses per Spirit Link. By the time Spirit Link's recast is back up, a lot of my buffs may have worn, since Haste only lasts 5 minutes and Songs only last 2-3, it's hard to maintain buffs on my Wyvern. Additionally if the ability is kept in its current form as one that transfers buffs to the wyvern, perhaps make the ability steal less HP from the Dragoon the more buffs that transfers. This would not negatively impact the amount of HP the wyvern is healed, but rather simply reduce the HP cost the Dragoon pays when using Spirit Link. 1 buff= -10% HP. 5 buffs= -50% HP. The wyvern is healed the same as it would normally just less HP is loss on the Dragoon's part depending on how many buffs he transfers.
Another approach is nix the ability to transfer buffs to our wyvern completely because in general, while allowing us to give our wyvern things like haste and march and rolls is interesting and fun, it's very novel and not useful. I propose eliminating that approach and instead make empathy grant the Wyvern a poweful latent auto regen effect. At level 1 it could trigger when below 50%. Each additional merit would increase the threshold by which the latent regen triggers by 10% per merit up to 90%. The regen could be potent as well, thinking 10-15 HP/merit. That's not a lot of HP and wouldn't upset game balance as 15hp/tick only amounts to maybe 300 hp per minute and anything hitting our wyvern is hitting it for close to 100 damage per hit anyway. But this would ease the damage our wyvern sustains in battle.
Another approach to this is simply add a powerful Regen to Spirit Link not unlike what Invigorate does to Chakra. If strong enough and given a moderate duration, could bridge the gap between Spirit Link recasts and give enough leeway to let our wyverns survive long enough for the next Link. Maybe 5-10 HP per tick for 90 seconds after Spirit Link is used. Or another deal could be it gives both the wyvern and the dragoon this regen.