A "gear" based Berserk

[Swords]

Following a discussion in another thread, I thought about how SE has been fearful of giving RDM's higher tier Cures or Area of Effect buff spells/abilities and our general lack of power in every department has left us lingering FAR behind. As it stands we have little avenue for boosting our current abilities beyond what they are, so why not implement something to do just that.

My proposal is something along the lines of a gear based berserk. Basically it take's whatever stats you have on your gear such as Defense, MND, INT, STR, Acc, Haste, Skill, Cure Potency, and even the base damage of the weapon equipped, and boost those by 25%. As far as implementation, it could be a new Job Ability(JA) at level 99, or a new merit JA/Composure buff that increases the effect (and possibly duration) by 5% for each merit.

Example: You have +20 Acc, M.Acc, Haste, Cure Potency, skill, whatever
1 merit (5%)= +21 Acc, M.Acc, Haste, Cure Potency, skill, whatever
2 merits (10%)= +22
3 merits (15%)= +23
4 merits (20%)= +24
5 merits (25%)= +25 Total

The ability would give us three distinct bonuses.

Scaling: You get more out of what you invest.

For example, say you are trying to stack Magic Attack Bonus to cast Thunder IV. A player who only has 10% would only receive an additional +2.5%, however suppose they had +40% instead they would receive an additional +10%.

Increase Gear Flexibility: Allowed to focus on other/multiple stats.

For example, a player could sacrifice some Accuracy gear in turn for STR or Attack, because the bonus accuracy obtained from the Job Ability would pick up the slack to help cap our accuracy.

Another example, Instead of having to equip 25% haste to reach the gear cap, we would only need to equip 20% and let the JA pick up the other 5%. Of course that's only if the haste gained from the JA counts towards the gear cap and not treated as a JA haste, which could propel us past 30% haste on equipment alone.

Boosts to other misc. gear effects: Increases bonuses for non-traditional stats.

For example, increases the effect for set bonuses, such as further increasing the Composure bonus from the +2 Estoqueur's Armor Set.


And it perhaps the best thing of all, it would work for all aspects of RDM DD, nuker, healer, buffer, enfeebler, that guy who like's to leech in Abyssea exp parties... well maybe not that last one, but still it would be something that everyone can be happy with... except maybe other melee and mage jobs.

Tell me what you think.

EDIT: This is not a fix! This is not an End all adjustment that I'm trying to perpetuate for RDM, it's merely an idea for possible future updates to give us a boost outside of the typical methods thrown around for RDM. While I know people's opinions differ, I feel the idea is within reasonable boundaries taking balance and any possible future updates into consideration.

[Ophannus]

This I think would be difficult to implement and would take a long time to code.

[Seriha]

Simpler solution might be simply giving a level 1 Attack Bonus, Accuracy Bonus (kinda sorta got with Composure), and maybe a Magic Accuracy Bonus trait to go alongside our Magic Attack. I wouldn't be averse to an Enfeebling Potency trait, but functionally it'd probably just reduce the needed MND to cap Slow or something.

Or if you're really fixated on stats like STR, INT, and such, a more universal Gain-ALL like SCH's Stormsurged Voidstorm could be an option. Maybe capping at +10 instead of the estimated +25 for 99 cap.

[Swords]

Well the focus isn't totally based on basic stats gained from gear, it's mostly to incorporate giving more power to all aspects of RDM that would be significant based on the effort you put into your gear, yet not totally overpowering. Granted, MND, INT, and magic accuracy is pretty easy to cap nowadays they wouldn't benefit as much from the JA, but some of the other aspects such as Cure Potency, MAB, Spells effected by skill, and WS modifiers would greatly benefit from any direct boost from the JA.

[Mageoholic]

I don't really understand it.

Why not just increase its stats somewhat. Maybe move its weapons up to A- Increase its elemental to B, Dark and divine to C. Give it access to the EX sword and Dagger WS. Add them back on to the low end (not implying weak DD's) DD armor with THF/DNC/BLU/RNG/COR etc. Give them access to Magian Daggers.

IE. Break the shit out of it. Make it so damn powerful it pisses everyone off. Then tweak it back to the point it is capable of being about 80% of a dedicated job (like it was in ToAU) when performing a singular specific duty. Make its only limiting factor lie in the fact that while it can do everything reasonably well but its not the best at it, and adding more tasks on top (say healing+buffing+nuking) reduces the overall effectiveness of them all.

Stop making RDM's limitation be stats and gear options, make its limitations be the fact it can not do everything well, but it is fairly sufficient in singular roles. (like it was at 75).

If I want to nuke and heal and buff, I use my BLM/WHM because its just as good if not better in that capacity, especially in abyssea.

Fix the Gear and Stats.

I should note that I use my DNC/NIN to melee because it is much better than my RDM, which is Ironic because at 75 my RDM/NIN was slightly better than my DNC (thank you joyeuse).

[Swords]

I see what your getting at, but for some reason alot of people seem to shoot for a singular fix (or at least make it sound that way) which isn't going to happen. Even my idea wouldn't be a huge boost but it would augment what we have (and will eventually get) through gear. Further down the line I think it would work well in conjunction with any WS/skill/gear adjustments and other updates to let us get a little more from our gear since we won't have the benefit of some of the super powered melee/mage gear like Twilight, Sky gods, and various gear that have insane stats .

[Mageoholic]

we don't really need super powered gear, we just need to be put back on the gear that we had been on @ the 75 cap. Really RDM should not be overly competitive for any slot, but it should be nearly as efficient.

Back in the day 75-80% was where we were in all aspects. (we were never really a great healer outside of EXP, and our nuking was substandard, but what RDM had was longevity. Our melee had been consistently reported in these areas numerous times in debates over the years).

Now we are about 75-80% in nuking still thanks to the boost that T4's provided, but our healing, and melee sides have dropped considerably. We are in the neighbor hood of 50% of a WHM, mostly because we lost our ace card, convert. Our melee is hovering around the 65-70% area, supported only by the fact we have 3 crit related multi hit WS's. (CDC/Evis/Vorpal) and really only applies in abyssea, outside of abyssea if you don't have CDC your pretty well shit and drop to he 55-60% area, as WS that don't crit are highly efficient without the benefit of atma.

That is the issue, SE has limited RDM in certain aspects because it fears it will be to good. What SE fails to realize is that RDM will never be as good as a dedicated job, because the moment a RDM takes on another task they are diminishing the value of both.

RDM needs to be altered so it can achieve the 80% value of other jobs when performing a specific role. The only downside to RDM currently is the fact that it is lagging behind in specific elements, via gear and ability (slightly adjusted for melee this update) . Th only limiting factor to RDM should be the fact it is able to perform multiple tasks on the fly, and doing so reduces efficiency in everything.

We could be put on all the same gear as jobs in our "gear class" and still be out performed, we could raise all our stats 1 letter level and still be out performed. It is not a matter of balance, it is an issue with SE not understanding how RDM functions in the game. It is a terrible class when performing more then 2-3 functions.

SE needs to stop looking at the long list of stuff RDM can do, and look at the short list of what RDM can do effectively in a given role, and currently that is only nuking.

[Seriha]

Can we just drop that 80% crap ideal already? Nobody wants 80% of one thing when they can get 100% elsewhere. The "other things" RDM brings to the table was never really enough to justify that 20% loss.

[Neisan_Quetz]

I don't believe we're anywhere close to that in nuking anymore.

[Mageoholic]

Can we just drop that 80% crap ideal already? Nobody wants 80% of one thing when they can get 100% elsewhere. The "other things" RDM brings to the table was never really enough to justify that 20% loss.

Then go level a job that is only able to fill a dedicated singular role then....oh wait you did, numerous times. (so did I and so did mostly every other RDM that didn't play it just to be WHM-1).

The fact is RDM should not be 100% when it still posses the ability to function in other aspects simply due through gear swaps. All other classes that can do multiple modes have some form of block in place that does not allow for seamless transition. SCH has arts timers, BLU has spells sets, DNC has to use TP for support instead of DMG, PUP has to requip and redeploy autos, DRG varies by sub. RDM can sub whatever it wants and still has the ability to nuke/buff/debuff/melee/heal and can increase these abilities through native skill and gear swaps. The issue is the native skill and gear swaps have been restricted to RDM now to the point where it really shows.

If you want to be 100% comparable, then SE will need to put a check in place, likely something like Arts that switches between our mage and melee roles. However you would be back a week later complaining your Cures to a 20% hit so your melee could take a 20% increase.

And I know you would. because it is you.

[Hyrist]

Well, to be frank. Unless Swords themselves are balanced correctly against other weapons, there's simply no point in NOT being 100% of a Sword user.

PLD uses Swords for Hate, so damage output is more of a secondary use. But even then they note how they're not dealing as much as they feel they should.

And while BLU does well with damage, this is more attributed to their spells assisting their swords than any seriously comparable output on the swords themselves before Almace.

If they raise the effectiveness of the Weapon Catagory (IE, improve Sword Weaponskills by a substantial amount.) then I can see RDM being a fair chunk behind in the deal. But as it stands there's absolutely no reason for it.

[Greatguardian]

Rdm was never 80% of anything. That bullshit number was disproved so many bloody times, it's not even funny to see it cited any more. When you compare a good Red Mage to a really, really terrible Samurai, of course the numbers are going to be inflated. Read through the RdMelee thread to find a much more recent parse with ALL data included, where Almace RDM with minimal casting load (self haste and enspells only) parsed about 40%~ of Verethragna MNK.

Red Mage during ToAU?

100% Best Healer and Enhancer in the game (Lasted until Scars of Abyssea)
100% Best Soloist in the game (Still true)
100% Best Nuker over Time in the game (Lasted until Scars of Abyssea and lv85 Blm adjustments, elemental celerity, etc)
40%~ DD potential compared to any DD worth a damn (Hasn't moved)

Red Mage doesn't need to be as awesome at healing as White Mage is [now], it just needs a unique role to fill. MP enhancement has become commonplace, and Rdm's unique enfeebles are useless when monsters are immune to them. I'd like an Enfeebling adjustment more than anything else. I'd like Magic Accuracy+ to be added to Saboteur, as well as additional dMND tiers for existing Enfeebles. This whole "Herp I'm immune to all ur magickz" thing needs to go, too. Making monsters have a high Magic Evasion is one thing, making them flat out immune is another.

[Hyrist]

where Almace RDM with minimal casting load (self haste and enspells only) parsed about 40%~ of Verethragna MNK.

Incorrect, Doombriner was also refreshing the BLU (whom he was outdamaging) and assisting in curing, though minimally. Re-read the testimony, and the parse.

[Seriha]

If you want to be 100% comparable, then SE will need to put a check in place, likely something like Arts that switches between our mage and melee roles. However you would be back a week later complaining your Cures to a 20% hit so your melee could take a 20% increase.

I'm not saying 100%, but that 80% of the old days didn't exactly get us anywhere. Performance loss enters the picture the moment you lock in the main slots to keep TP. Nowadays that means losing out on a bunch of cure and nuke potency. The act of merely stopping to cast also hurts the physical side, so we fall behind there, too.

Besides, how do you propose a RDM do it all for long periods of time? If you're in melee gear, at best you're getting 7 MP Refresh for yourself. A Cure IV is 88 MP, a nice chunk of tics to keep up with if trying to heal actively. You aren't nuking too often, either, especially with them costing even more MP. The actual "balances" are already there, SE just needs to equalize performances in a good way so picking one style isn't such a facepalm inducing endeavor and you're not going to get that by agreeing to be third-rate.

[Hyrist]

Right, being capable to focus one role 'decently' does nothing for a job that, by default must multitask. It's why we run into such gear issues no matter what style of RDM you choose.

Anyways, I'm back to 'wait and see' mode, as I fiddle with car troubles and my schedule. With WS adjustments coming down the pipeline being potentially game changing I'm content to figure out what SE is going to be doing to help RDM become a better enfeebeler. Cause if there was only 2 departments I wanted to work well on my RDM, it'd be Melee (through self-enhancing) and Enfeeblement.

[Swords]

Well, to be frank. Unless Swords themselves are balanced correctly against other weapons, there's simply no point in NOT being 100% of a Sword user.

PLD uses Swords for Hate, so damage output is more of a secondary use. But even then they note how they're not dealing as much as they feel they should.

And while BLU does well with damage, this is more attributed to their spells assisting their swords than any seriously comparable output on the swords themselves before Almace.


This is partially due to the base damage of 1h and 2h weapons are growing significantly apart. Even comparing relics side by side Excalibur only got 20 more DMG by the 95 trial, while Gungnir got +47 more damage, and a Apocalypse recieves +41 DMG. I can agree to the fact 2h weapons need to be more damaging to offset their delay, but I think SE overlooked an unintended side-effect to the level cap and didn't compensate for the difference appropriately.

Bringing this up did point out another potential bonus, that I didn't think about when writing in my original post. I intended the JA bonus to take into account for everything the player was wearing which means base damage of the weapon would be included, and therein would perhaps be the most significant boost overall for any melee damage.

[Greatguardian]

Incorrect, Doombriner was also refreshing the BLU (whom he was outdamaging) and assisting in curing, though minimally. Re-read the testimony, and the parse.

o okay. 2 Refreshes, 1 Haste, 1 Enspell, and minimal occasional cures with a White Mage and a Bard there.

The point was that casting load was minimal.

[saevel]

Actually if you want to compare. Once you factor in fSTR swords are one of the highest DPS weapons in the game, only thing higher is H2H and some Daggers (Mandau, ect..). I know you guys look at swords and see 57~60 ish damage vs a GAXE / PLM's 120+ but please remember the delay of the weapons involved and how fSTR dramatically favors low D / low delay weapons.

A D57 Sword (Almace @85) has a fSTR cap of +14 or 56 more STR then the monster has VIT So actual D value is 71 with a delay of 224 for 19.01 DPS.

A D122 Great Axe (Ukon @85) has a fSTR cap of 21 or 84 more STR then the monster has VIT. Actual D value is 143 with a delay of 482 for 17.8 DPS.

Though Ukon has 2.1 times the base DMG of Almace and 2.15 times the delay, it only gets 1.5 times the fSTR bonus and that bonus requires 27 more STR (honestly 17 after the +10 from the weapon).

Onto this we can add another 42.8% increase via DWIII + Suppa, although it must share this increase with your off hand weapon. Thankfully mine is also D57 Delay 230 so it's fairly uniform.

This bonus is applied to each strike, so while the 2H gets one +21 fSTR per 482 delay swing, I'm getting two +14 fSTR's from both of my 454 delay (318 after DW, 159 per hand) swords. Pretty much 3.03 times faster then the GAXE, so 42 for Swords in the same time period the GAXE is getting +21. And they have to work harder (not that difficult for a WAR considering their gear selection).

[Shiyo]

100% Best Nuker over Time in the game (Lasted until Scars of Abyssea and lv85 Blm adjustments, elemental celerity, etc)

Incorrect, SCH was and still is.

[Neisan_Quetz]

SCH was more mp efficient then Blm (for single target nukes) but unless I'm mistaken pre level cap rise and other adjustments Rdm was able to keep up in damage through nuking more often, unless the target was resistant to magic.

[Greatguardian]

SCH was more mp efficient then Blm (for single target nukes) but unless I'm mistaken pre level cap rise and other adjustments Rdm was able to keep up in damage through nuking more often, unless the target was resistant to magic.

This is correct. Rog mathed it out ages ago, back when he still played. Up until the 85 cap increase where BLM retroactively got Elemental Celerity, Red Mage won the damage over time race on anything that didn't require a Blm to use a full Elemental Skill+ build on (which Sch would have had issues on too anyways). Being able to cast significantly faster and more often adds up. It's the same notion behind AMII being significantly worse than T4 nukes, etc.

[Neisan_Quetz]

They're having a huge argument over on the PUP forum on AH (of all places) but with Enmity Douse, Manawall and Manawell short of spamming Equanamity/Ebullience or the unknown enmity affect on Emp Body Sch is still behind Blm in overall magic damage/damage mitigation.

Going over it in my head it's not looking close when you factor in wall/douse/well/convert combo.

[Shiyo]

I never run out of MP on SCH/RDM, I pull hate before I ever get close to running out of mp...and I NEVER EVER use convert. Not even when healing, SCH is too mp effecient.

[Neisan_Quetz]

We are talking about pre level cap raise, you weren't having endless mp back then on Sch.

As of 95 Blm can cap hate from damage on nukes and not care by popping Manawall, drop a free nuke (i.e. Impact for -20% stats on the mob) with Manawell, drop hate when mp low with Enmity Douse, Convert for a new MP bar, resume nuking until capped hate again, You can't.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

We are talking about pre level cap raise, you weren't having endless mp back then on Sch.

As of 95 Blm can cap hate from damage on nukes and not care by popping Manawall, drop a free nuke (i.e. Impact for -20% stats on the mob) with Manawell, drop hate when mp low with Enmity Douse, Convert for a new MP bar, resume nuking until capped hate again, You can't.

Yup, before the level cap when Sublimation sucked.

[Mageoholic]

Red Mage during ToAU?

1) 100% Best Healer and Enhancer in the game (Lasted until Scars of Abyssea)
2) 100% Best Soloist in the game (Still true)
3) 100% Best Nuker over Time in the game (Lasted until Scars of Abyssea and lv85 Blm adjustments, elemental celerity, etc)
4) 40%~ DD potential compared to any DD worth a damn (Hasn't moved)

1) Because EXP was the game am I right. Or did I just imagine every endgame event having a WHM as main healer, with a RDM there to refresh the WHM and PLD? It also must be my imagination that RDM had to cast 6 protects and 6 shells before a fight in order to provide the same buffs WHM did with 2 spells...

2.) Its hardly the best, it is however the most diverse. It can nuke/melee But a SCH or BLM can nuke solo faster, a DNC THF or NIN can blink solo better RDM is outclassed in both regards.

3.) Best Nuker over time is correct, however that only comes into discussion on mobs that lived longer than a BLM's MP limits, even then you never brought a group of nuking RDM's to KSNM's you brought BLM's because they were superior.

4.) 40% lol thats as arbitrary as me putting 80%. http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html?fjob=2;mid=1206353602237783735;page=2;howmany=50#m1207114845248382386 old but relevant. Starfox was able to do 78% of a MNK/NIN That is about 80%. I am sure 40% is true too, but stop using Errant gear. (oh and if you scroll down there is a colibri party parse where starfox did the most damage.)

[Neisan_Quetz]

1. Whm was the best healer but Rdm could main heal much of the same content, this isn't the case anymore.
2. Agreed
3. Mp limits? Pre Wotg Blm had no mp regeneration short of... Resting and roughly 1/tick in gear. Bar MP stones/extremely resistant mobs (in which case bringing a blm was stupid anyway) Sch and Rdm had Blm beat in magic damage over time.
4. Obligatory lolMnk/nin. Also Sams with Haguns at birds. Get that shit out of here.

[Greatguardian]

1. What Neisan said. There were also many cases where Red Mage completely floored White Mage even in Endgame healing.

2. Sch and Blm were nowhere near as competent as Red Mage, and Red Mage was able to tackle significantly more powerful monsters than Dancer. Now? Sch, Blm, and Dnc can solo weaker things significantly better than Red Mage. That doesn't mean Red Mage lost its edge on stronger targets, it just means that there are fewer stronger targets that are worth solo'ing.

3. Again, Pre-Abyssea only. And this had nothing to do with MP limits. Over 30 seconds, a Red Mage will have done more magic damage than a Black Mage, regardless of their respective MP pools. It's just a nice bonus that Red Mage has a ton more MP to work with. People brought Black Mages to KS99s because their per-nuke damage was higher, which was more useful when people actually magic bursted. If the Blms were just spamming nukes, then bringing them was a mistake because a competent Red Mage would have done it better.

4. What Neisan said. Mnk/Nin has always been retarded, Haguns on birds is beyond retarded. The Sam was /NIN too? And they had a NIN/WAR there? Those DDs were beyond gimp. At least Gokku provided all relevant information and gearsets for his test, which is where that 40% number was pulled from. Show me a level 75 sync party where the DDs are not complete and utter shit and the Red Mage is doing 80% of any one of their damage and we'll talk.