Hey remember SC > MB? Make it required.

[ManaKing]

If we are going to have arbitrary procing systems that doesn't make sense except it keeps us busy, you might as well make SC > MB mandatory again.

Make the next expansion require SC or MB to be used to defeat more difficult mobs. Just let them stay at 0% until they are hit by one or the other. If you are going to take the time to forcibly educate people how not to play together properly as a group in aby, you really should make sure everyone knows how to play together properly when it actually matters.

I'm sure I'll get tons of conflicting views on this about how people are too lazy to actually do something in sync with another person, but too bad. Get Skype, get Vent and be sociable. Write decent Macros if you don't voice chat. I'm pretty tired of everyone being too lazy to do SC > MB because it's not required. So make it required again.

UPDATE: if you are going to TL;DR the entire rest of the discussion and only comment on the OP, then realize we moved on to how Party Tactics and SC>MB could be improved to make the game more interesting.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

I was just thinking they need to add new skill chains.

[Selzak]

Or just make Skillchains proc weaknesses.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

They already do, just not the kind you're thinking of. lol

[Arcon]

If we are going to have arbitrary procing systems that doesn't make sense except it keeps us busy, you might as well make SC > MB mandatory again. [..] So make it required again.

It was never required. It was never even that helpful. Only situation I can think of where it was would be KS99 turtle.

[Greatguardian]

SC+MB is the same as it ever was.

People just got smarter.

[ManaKing]

SC+MB is the same as it ever was.

People just got LAZIER.

Fix't and Agreed.

[Concerned4FFxi]

If we are going to have arbitrary procing systems that doesn't make sense except it keeps us busy, you might as well make SC > MB mandatory again.

Make the next expansion require SC or MB to be used to defeat more difficult mobs. Just let them stay at 0% until they are hit by one or the other. If you are going to take the time to forcibly educate people how not to play together properly as a group in aby, you really should make sure everyone knows how to play together properly when it actually matters.

I'm sure I'll get tons of conflicting views on this about how people are too lazy to actually do something in sync with another person, but too bad. Get Skype, get Vent and be sociable. Write decent Macros if you don't voice chat. I'm pretty tired of everyone being too lazy to do SC > MB because it's not required. So make it required again.

This has got to be the best idea i've heard all week. I don't think it should be in abyssea though, they have a system. If Limbus has to have procs than put it there. I really hate procs, I'd hate to see limbus get a proc system, but einherjar is just to much to add a proc system to theres too much going on there.

Only problem is what if I don't have enough tp once the mob reaches 1% to SC/MB, perhaps if you can only do ONLY 1 damage to the mob to start, like King Arthro? (forget his name but he is the HNM crab inside the SW), this way you can always build tp and once you SC/MB the mob takes normal damage from that point on, in addition to the orginal SC/MB damage, and is considered 'weakened'/proc'd.

[Arcon]

Fixed and agreed.

Fixed and disagreed.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Fixed and disagreed.Only if the disagree is about the term lazy as people did not get lazier, they got too impatient to use them.

[Ritsuka]

It was never required. It was never even that helpful. Only situation I can think of where it was would be KS99 turtle.

wow you must be retarded or something. Its always been useful you just had to do the right one and it was the best way to keep the exp chain o,o

[Tennotsukai]

I agree! I believe se should provide an alternative for procing !! SCs to proc red and MBs to proc yellow. My blu would be happy :)

I like this thread.

[Arcon]

wow you must be retarded or something. Its always been useful you just had to do the right one and it was the best way to keep the exp chain o,o

No, you're just bad at math. But it's ok, most people are.

[Economizer]

SC+MB is the same as it ever was.

People just got smarter.

This is the pertinent comment. For anyone who doesn't understand it, here is a bit of explanation:

The only situations I see people use Skillchains or Magic Bursts anymore is either self-chains or groups playing around or showing off.

The reason for this is very clear - while a skillchain does allow for more damage, which is excellent if you can pull off a self-skillchain, very rarely does TP in a party match up so that people can blast weapon skills at the exactly right time, and the damage from waiting for a skillchain or using a weapon skill with a little bit of extra TP simply does not match up enough in many situations to justify putting the effort into a skillchain.

If people really want Skillchains + Magic Bursts to be more viable, there either has to be more damage or other effects from performing them all around, and a better reward for using a weapon skill without having to hit one of the 100/200/300 TP marks exactly.

There are a ton of suggestions that could be made to this end, like having a level four skillchain that requires three skillchains (so players can't self-skillchain it) or making magic bursts boost the potency of -ja style spells. Posting these would be more helpful then simply "making SC+MB neccisary for a victory" by far.

[SpankWustler]

I wouldn't mind skillchains and magic bursts in a proc system. If the Development Bros want us to do tricks in order to be rewarded with drops (or punished with logs, in the case of Voidwatch), why not make the tricks vaguely more interesting than "Colonel Mustard in Abyssea-Vunkerl with a Pitchfork"?

Beyond that, no. Just no. People have moved past Skillchains and Magic Bursts because working together to do less overall damage makes about as much sense as wearing a living box jellyfish as a hat. The way to fix Skillchains and Magic Bursts would be to make Skillchains and Magic Bursts worthwhile somehow, not the horrific maledictions I've read in this topic.

[Kysaiana]

Ah I remember setting up a 3-way SC MB in my first static back in the old old days of Bibiki Bay. Crap used to die pretty fast as opposed to just spamming WS. And then Aht Urgan came out and exp mobs became squishy and everything changed.

These days if you tried to set up a SC on purpose and then MB on top of that you probably just wasted about 3 ws and 2 nukes worth of damage to do 1.5x as much damage. Blms also don't need anymore help pulling hate by doing even more damage in one shot. I don't miss the days of having to spam a pt chat macro stating my TP so the other guy/gal would know when to use his/her ws.

[Mirage]

Having to spam your current TP is an interface flaw that doesn't really belong in this discussion :p.

Anyway, I think they should perhaps just add bonus damage to SCs when more than one person is part of them. +40% damage when two people are part of a SC, +60% when three. etc.

Also, WS damage should pop up in the battle log even if you gearswap before the animation is done playing. I think it's easy to forget how cool it is to make a light SC for 5000 extra damage when you never actually see how much more damage you did.

And lastly, I think if you absolutely wanted to make some arbitrary proc system, you should do it with SCs rather than for example elemental WSes.

[Svens]

Make SCs and MB similar to Xenoblade Chronicles Chain attacks: Additional effects of WS/enfeebles/spell damage the NM is normally immune to able to land 100% corresponding to the element. I think a previous update increased the macc bonus for MBing, but that doesn't mean jack if the NM is immune. Would help those new WSs with nice additional effects and make rdm slightly relevant again.

(If it wasn't clear, for WS additional effects, it would just have to link in a skillchain instead of matching the element, which could possibly open up the use of old, random WS nobody uses.)

[Quetzacoatl]

"u got ukon war?"
"no, but I do have MNK PLD and WHM"
"SAM pls"

Cmon, you HAD to have thought of it too.

[wish12oz]

NO MORE PROC SYSTEMS!
They are stupid and a waste of time.

That is all.

A gimmick fight like sandworm KA is ok once in awhile though, but no more then one.

[Zirael]

Or just make Skillchains proc weaknesses.
Now, now, be careful what you wish for :D

[Greatguardian]

Fix't and Agreed.

Nope.

I can make skillchains and magic bursts all day. Anyone can.

We don't because they suck and they reduce the overall damage you do by an epicly massive landslide, so much so that actually sitting around and waiting for everyone to get TP at the same time and making a Black Mage stop casting their other spells long enough to time their nukes to MB off of our Skillchain is detrimental.

People got smart. They can do SC+MB if SC+MB is good. But SC+MB is not good. Make SC+MB good and people will do it again. It would have to be damn good, though, to make up for how much the entire concept epicly sucks in the context of FFXI battle mechanics.

[Glamdring]

If we are going to have arbitrary procing systems that doesn't make sense except it keeps us busy, you might as well make SC > MB mandatory again.

Make the next expansion require SC or MB to be used to defeat more difficult mobs. Just let them stay at 0% until they are hit by one or the other. If you are going to take the time to forcibly educate people how not to play together properly as a group in aby, you really should make sure everyone knows how to play together properly when it actually matters.

I'm sure I'll get tons of conflicting views on this about how people are too lazy to actually do something in sync with another person, but too bad. Get Skype, get Vent and be sociable. Write decent Macros if you don't voice chat. I'm pretty tired of everyone being too lazy to do SC > MB because it's not required. So make it required again.

problem with that is everyone having aby-burned their jobs to 95 they don't have the skill to connect with the target reliably (they also may not have the time in on the job to get the timing right). Naturally, no sarcasm involved, I'm 100% on board with you.

[Chriscoffey]

I offered a suggestion instead of this proc system which they are leaving. I was saying that they could enforce SC for different tier levels of the mobs to produce a weakness on it to physical/magical or both. It would then open up a time frame on the mob to inflict heavy damage and after the time is gone the HNM has high physical/magical defense properties again.

This could possibly turn the game into samurai only , however, they could pose even more technical skill chains so that it's not a sam only world by tier level of the chain or properties. I know this could be defined further as to what details can be manipulated but it would solve this zerg fest only playing we have now. It would at least give pauses throughout the fights so the mob could change forms/AI by lapsing between time frames.

[Insaniac]

I see people saying that the SCs should enfeeb mobs. It's not a terrible idea but enfeebs really aren't that important in the over-all scheme of a lot of fights. I do like the idea of making MBed spells 100% accurate even if the mob is 100% immune but that's still not enough. I think an interesting idea would be to not only have SCs enfeeb the target mob in some way but also add some kind of buff for players corresponding to maybe the element of the SC or the property of the closing WS. It could be a beneficial sphere effect added to the target mob. Anything to make up for the huge loss in DPS. Haste, DA, TA, Regain, Crit rate, Attack/Acc boost stuff like that. They should also make MBs generate less than normal hate or at least only generate as much hate as the spell would have un-bursted. A good magic burst just means a dead BLM.

[ManaKing]

This is the pertinent comment. For anyone who doesn't understand it, here is a bit of explanation:

The only situations I see people use Skillchains or Magic Bursts anymore is either self-chains or groups playing around or showing off.

The reason for this is very clear - while a skillchain does allow for more damage, which is excellent if you can pull off a self-skillchain, very rarely does TP in a party match up so that people can blast weapon skills at the exactly right time, and the damage from waiting for a skillchain or using a weapon skill with a little bit of extra TP simply does not match up enough in many situations to justify putting the effort into a skillchain.

If people really want Skillchains + Magic Bursts to be more viable, there either has to be more damage or other effects from performing them all around, and a better reward for using a weapon skill without having to hit one of the 100/200/300 TP marks exactly.

There are a ton of suggestions that could be made to this end, like having a level four skillchain that requires three skillchains (so players can't self-skillchain it) or making magic bursts boost the potency of -ja style spells. Posting these would be more helpful then simply "making SC+MB neccisary for a victory" by far.

You get points sir. I would happily agree to any increase in the potency of SC > MB.

[Phafi]

Nope.

I can make skillchains and magic bursts all day. Anyone can.

We don't because they suck and they reduce the overall damage you do by an epicly massive landslide, so much so that actually sitting around and waiting for everyone to get TP at the same time and making a Black Mage stop casting their other spells long enough to time their nukes to MB off of our Skillchain is detrimental.

People got smart. They can do SC+MB if SC+MB is good. But SC+MB is not good. Make SC+MB good and people will do it again. It would have to be damn good, though, to make up for how much the entire concept epicly sucks in the context of FFXI battle mechanics.

Skillchains and magic bursts aren't bad, it just requires going BLM heavy instead of melee heavy. Which hinders stagger rates. In a fight like Pil, I would much rather have 2 sams and 10 BLMs than 1-2blms and 13 melees(I'd also like to RDM tank him, but that's a different story); but that can't be done while maintaining effective stagger rates.


You get points sir. I would happily agree to any increase in the potency of SC > MB.

We have gotten increases to potency, Magic Burst Bonus and Skillchain Bonus traits were added after skillchains lost popularity.

[ManaKing]

Just so we are clear VW is already it's own new monster. This isn't what I'm talking about. Whatever is NEXT should bring back SC and MBs.

They should probably increase the overall damage of SCs and MBs by adding bonus damage or effects. Don't give bonuses to people that can Self SC because they aren't doing anything they aren't doing right now. On the other hand if a SAM, BLU or DNC readies a target for SC and another player executes, then give them the bonus. If the SAM, BLU, or DNC then continues the SC then let the get additional rewards at that point. I won't comment on SCH or SMNs ability to SSC, but it does exist and I don't really care how they are treated with SSCing because it could add something interesting to both of those jobs.

For MB, open up the window that they can drop a MB in after a SC so that a BLM or other mage doesn't have to worry as much about the timing so much as if they were willing to participate.

It sounds like they are going to make the next set of content mean and hard to make up for aby. I would rather deal with people learning to SC and MB than more proc systems that aren't based on anything party based. I could go play a single player FF game, but I'm not going to because it is more fun with other people.


We have gotten increases to potency, Magic Burst Bonus and Skillchain Bonus traits were added after skillchains lost popularity.

While I do actually agree with you, I'm asking for SCs and MBs in general to have higher returns. It's fine and all that BLU gets both of them and can SSC > MB for high damage, but what about the other 15+ jobs that have no where near the same amount of affluence in this arena?

[Theytak]

The problem with making SCs strong enough to warrant using them any time other than Self SC or SC of Opportunity (which I love, but are fairly rare. These are SCs where right as you get TP, someone uses a WS that you can SC with, so you wait half a second before you WS so as to not get that "to soon" SCmiss, and then you can more than double your WS damage), is that it would make samurai even more fucking overpowered than it already is. As it stands, sam is so @^$#%ing easy to play and do stupid amounts of damage that it makes people who put significant amounts of work into other DD jobs effectively less useful than an army of brain-dead AH samurais who have no idea how to gear their job and just hoard str gear. Add in an intelligent sam, and the difference is even more staggering. The amount of work it takes for the few jobs that can come close to rivaling an equally geared sam is outrageous (basically, ukonwar with amazing gear vs amano/masa sam can go either way, but that depends entirely on the players, and the sam will still have the advantage. Any other job is pretty much SOL.)

The reason people have forgotten about how powerful sam is is abyssea, where anyone with a crit WS pretty much wins the game. SE has made it VERY clear they have absolutely no intention of continuing to make abyssea-like content, and once you step foot outside of abyssea, it becomes very clear, very quickly, how overpowered sam still is. Every other job has basically gotten neat toys between 75 and 99, while sam got Broken-ittai (Konzen-ittai) which basically takes sam's insane damage potential and makes it even more ridiculous.

Basically, keep in mind that good sams were able to keep up, and compete with, other DDs inside abyssea, WITHOUT HAVING A CRIT WS. The don't lose nearly as much from the lack of the 50~60% increase to crit damage and rate outside of abyssea.

tl;dr: You can't buff SCs unless you nerf Sam.

[Phafi]

If we get something voidwatch tier mobs without temp items, i think skillchains and MBs would be a viable option because it would be safer. Even with temp items people still drop left and right against Pil and whatnot.

[Phafi]

basically, ukonwar with amazing gear vs amano/masa sam can go either way, but that depends entirely on the players, and the sam will still have the advantage. Any other job is pretty much SOL.)


I've tried contless times with an amano sam even in abyssea to make skillchains. Kaiten > Ukko's is pretty buff. The problem is the ninja derping around next to you Kaiten > 1sec > Blade: Hi > (not light) > 1 sec > Ukko's Fury (still no skillchain).
<SAM> WRY YOU RUIN OUR SKILLCHAIN!!!
<WAR> WRY YOU RUIN OUR SKILLCHAIN!!!
<NIN> I had TP, why would I wait and lose out on damage?
<SAM> because we would have done more damage with the light than your Blade: Hi.....
<NIN> LOLNOPE, BLADE: HI IS T3H POWERFULZ

[Theytak]

I've tried contless times with an amano sam even in abyssea to make skillchains. Kaiten > Ukko's is pretty buff. The problem is the ninja derping around next to you Kaiten > 1sec > Blade: Hi > (not light) > 1 sec > Ukko's Fury (still no skillchain).
<SAM> WRY YOU RUIN OUR SKILLCHAIN!!!
<WAR> WRY YOU RUIN OUR SKILLCHAIN!!!
<NIN> I had TP, why would I wait and lose out on damage?
<SAM> because we would have done more damage with the light than your Blade: Hi.....
<NIN> LOLNOPE, BLADE: HI IS T3H POWERFULZ
Pretty much true of every DD that isn't aware of SCs, though. Of course, that's the other issue with SCing, people not being aware of their own damage output. Yes, intentionally setting up SCs every time will kill the damage for anyone involved, but if the people not involved have to wait for the SC, to not interrupt it, they need to be aware of their own damage. Obviously in your case the best damage option is for the nin to wait 3 damn seconds, though.

[Phafi]

If the NIN waited the 3 seconds in that scenario to ws, the SAM would probably already have TP to do another Kaiten which would yield like a 1.5k frag (assuming the kaiten does like 2kish.)

[ManaKing]

tl;dr: You can't buff SCs unless you nerf Sam.

Not if you don't give bonuses for SSC. I understand what you are saying, but I want people actually planning some SCs again and I want those people (aka not 1 person SSCing) to enjoy working together.

The point is we are walking outside of aby and we might not get temps. I really don't care if we do. So I hope people go back to playing well and that SCs pay out even if you have to spend 50% TP, or even 100% TP, waiting on someone else because it will be advantageous both in utility and damage to do so.

[Theytak]

Not if you don't give bonuses for SSC. I understand what you are saying, but I want people actually planning some SCs again and I want those people (aka not 1 person SSCing) to enjoy working together.

The point is we are walking outside of aby and we might not get temps. I really don't care if we do. So I hope people go back to playing well and that SCs pay out even if you have to spend 50% TP, or even 100% TP, waiting on someone else because it will be advantageous both in utility and damage to do so.

If you buff it so SCs are stronger if used by multiple people, it'll just mean more people will be forced to play sam. At 75 it was: "Well geared Sams, Wars, Drks, Rngs, (and Mnks depending on the event) get to DD. If you've got a godly drg we might let you come for angon. Otherwise, melee will be on sam until their gear doesn't suck." but if said SC buffs were put into place without weakening sam, it would be: "Get your butt on sam. No exceptions" for any DD that wasn't tanking. (All of this is referring to melee DD. Blms are excluded as a separate category entirely.)

[Brolic]

Nope.

I can make skillchains and magic bursts all day. Anyone can.

We don't because they suck and they reduce the overall damage you do by an epicly massive landslide, so much so that actually sitting around and waiting for everyone to get TP at the same time and making a Black Mage stop casting their other spells long enough to time their nukes to MB off of our Skillchain is detrimental.

People got smart. They can do SC+MB if SC+MB is good. But SC+MB is not good. Make SC+MB good and people will do it again. It would have to be damn good, though, to make up for how much the entire concept epicly sucks in the context of FFXI battle mechanics.

I love when idiots wax nostalgic over ancient magic skillchain in crawlers nest that netted you a whopping 5k an hr xp.

[Tamoa]

SC and MB as procs? No thank you. Reason? See Greatguardian's post.

[Camiie]

I try to skillchain when possible, but I'd never go out of my way to do so. Hey, I'm horrible at math, and I don't understand all the damage formulas but I know things go better when I just use my most powerful WS and my fellow DDs do the same. If we happen to skillchain then awesome! Bonus damage! If the mage happens to MB off of us, sweet! Even more bonus damage! If we all hold our TP and MP waiting for that magic moment... no.

I'm sure others here could figure it out, but I can't imagine how much damage they'd have to add to the skillchains and MB bonus themselves to make them worth doing.

Of course, what I really wanted to say to the OP is... your avatar is really, really pretty! I mean... my gosh... I love your hair! And your eyes! And... you have the best complexion.. Well I could just say you have the prettiest face ever... and...wait I did already... oh, I should stop! Sorry! Got carried away! Um... /blush... yeah anyway... bye!

[Raksha]

I kind of like the idea of making skillchains able to proc in voidwatch (dont make them a mandatory proc like the current ones though, just make them a pleasant side effect) So if you get fucked wtih HV automaton proc and HV funguar pet proc you don't have to reset, you can just skillchain the mob to death for procs.

Would help on some mobs where the only effective strategy is to proc-lock zerg.

[Greatguardian]

Skillchains and magic bursts aren't bad, it just requires going BLM heavy instead of melee heavy. Which hinders stagger rates. In a fight like Pil, I would much rather have 2 sams and 10 BLMs than 1-2blms and 13 melees(I'd also like to RDM tank him, but that's a different story); but that can't be done while maintaining effective stagger rates.

Fanatic's Drinks and a good Monk+Warrior tank combo will solve that problem quick. Just run in and zerg when Fanatic's is up, then run in/WS/proc when Fanatic's is down; repeat whenever Fanatic's is refreshed. As long as you aren't one-shot from full HP (which should only happen with shield up, and shield shouldn't stay up long with 2 Cors), melees shouldn't be dropping too often.

I dominated my last Pil parse on Armageddon COR last night, too, doing 30%~ of total alliance damage against 3 Ukons, 1 Vereth, 1 Kannagi, 1 Masamune, 1 Rhongomiant, 1 WoE Gun COR, 1 Gandiva, 1 Almace BLU, and 2 Blms. Throwing more BLMs at it is a pretty old hat way to handle him. It's a lot easier to allocate the black mages to proc duty to keep a steady stream of temp items and staggers flowing in than losing direct damage from the DDs during fanatic's and/or putting DDs in harm's way more often without Fanatic's.

Skillchains were also being fully resisted by Pil too, to stay on topic. 1.5k Wildfire closed a 91 damage Darkness, and the Light SCs that the Mnk was self-SC'ing weren't doing much better.

[Insaniac]

Having SCs auto increase lights in VW without a stagger would be kinda kewl.

[Brolic]

Having SCs auto increase lights in VW without a stagger would be kinda kewl.

Not really, take the ability to red stagger out of mages hands and what's the point of bringing any that's not a whm? more so what's the point of bringing anything other than cors and sams?

[Shinzonx]

stop being lazy and just type not everyone wants to hear another guys voice or w/e i dont i perfer typeing

[Phafi]

Skillchains were also being fully resisted by Pil too, to stay on topic. 1.5k Wildfire closed a 91 damage Darkness, and the Light SCs that the Mnk was self-SC'ing weren't doing much better.

probably because you're making a skillchain that doesn't fit the monster's weakness, had you made light, it would have yielded fire or wind damage which is a caturae's weakness.

[Greatguardian]

probably because you're making a skillchain that doesn't fit the monster's weakness, had you made light, it would have yielded fire or wind damage which is a caturae's weakness.


Skillchains were also being fully resisted by Pil too, to stay on topic. 1.5k Wildfire closed a 91 damage Darkness, and the Light SCs that the Mnk was self-SC'ing weren't doing much better.

Small sample size, obviously, but I certainly didn't see any full damage lights go off.

SC+MB with a horde of BLMs works under the assumption that black mages can do more and/or safer damage than melees. In practice, they certainly don't do more damage than melees, and I don't feel that they offer much additional safety either.

Someone's going to be tanking it, so there will always be a couple melees in range of things no matter what setup you use. Beyond that, as long as melees are only consistently in when they have Fanatic's up, black mages really aren't much safer than standard DDs. Their range grants them the ability to continue to DD without needing Fanatic's, but BLM damage alone isn't really able to hold a candle to Empyrean DDs or especially Corsairs that are rocking Discipline+Coercion+Tactician's+Miser's+Monarch's+Braver's+Stalwart's+the Crit one even if they're (aside from the COR) limited to only zerging when Fanatic's is up.

The Magic Burst +30% atmacite could be interesting, but again would require such a BLM-heavy setup that it's probably not worth doing - especially considering how many procs you lose out on by both ditching melees and having Blms use damage spells rather than proc spells.

[Tamoa]

stop being lazy and just type not everyone wants to hear another guys voice or w/e i dont i perfer typeing

Um... what?

[Greatguardian]

playing well

Biggest misconception ever. Right on par with EXP grinding at 5k/hr 1-75 is required to learn how to play a job.

Skillchains don't have a skill aspect. It's so easy, a caveman could do it.

[Insaniac]

Not really, take the ability to red stagger out of mages hands and what's the point of bringing any that's not a whm? more so what's the point of bringing anything other than cors and sams?
You would still need to stagger for temps and I'm not talking about a 20% increase. Maybe 3-5% per SC. Maybe make it so SCs add blue and MBs add red. Most of your lights would still come from staggers but if you were 8% from cap and couldn't find that tasty proc you could just set up an SC or 2.

[Ordoric]

what are you suggestion lvl 4 skillchain ? cosmic evultions

[wish12oz]

91 damage Darkness skillchains, and the Light SCs weren't doing much better.


probably because you're making a skillchain that doesn't fit the monster's weakness, had you made light, it would have yielded fire or wind damage which is a caturae's weakness.

This is my favorite part of the thread.

[Rezeak]

The idea of seeing a new proc system for skillchain/mb makes me ;;

More mobs like Qutrubs/AMK moogles meaning you get quad DMG skillchains and double magic burst bonus making these mobs drop fast for those clever enough to exploit this weakness is the way to go.

Outside that i still solo skillchain and mb on SCH and i see BLUs skillchaining like crazy still so i don't think it's dead.

Not to mention sekkoni WS x2 > Light or darkness = wrecked mob is awesome still :)

[Sappho]

FFXI evolved and changed for better or worse.

Anyone that says that SC+MB *always* sucked is an absolute moron.

They definitely had a very important place in the past.

If the math gurus have gone out and done serious hard number crunching with actual experiments (not anecdotes) and have determined that everyone spamming WS as soon as TP hits 100% is a far better Damage Over Time then setting up SCs then so be it. The game evolved away from SCs.

Anybody want to post those hard numbers? Or is everyone just pissing in the wind about what is really better?

[cidbahamut]

FFXI evolved and changed for better or worse.

Anyone that says that SC+MB *always* sucked is an absolute moron.

They definitely had a very important place in the past.

If the math gurus have gone out and done serious hard number crunching with actual experiments (not anecdotes) and have determined that everyone spamming WS as soon as TP hits 100% is a far better Damage Over Time then setting up SCs then so be it. The game evolved away from SCs.

Anybody want to post those hard numbers? Or is everyone just pissing in the wind about what is really better?

It's a pretty simple concept to follow on paper. I've not seen skillchain damage in forever so if the numbers are for it I'll be all for it. That said, consider the following scenario.

2 DDs, one has a 6-hit build while the other has a 5-hit build.

By the time the DD with the 6-hit build reaches 100 TP, the other DD will be sitting on 120 TP. Let us further assume for the sake of argument that each DD's weaponskill inflicts 2,000 damage. That 20 TP overflow could have been put towards a second weaponskill, so in order to keep pace the skillchain will need to inflict at least 20% of the weaponskill's damage.
2,000 damage * (0.20) = 400 damage
That's just for a basic skillchain with two DDs, and that's just to break even. To be superior it would need to exceed 400 damage.

Now throw in more DDs, single-handed weapons, and human error. Every component increases the damage the skillchain needs to achieve in order to be the superior battle tactic.

With anecdotes of skillchains dealing less than 100 damage, it seems unlikely that the math will favor it, but I'm willing to change my tune if there's some hard data to the contrary.

[scaevola]

This is the pertinent comment. For anyone who doesn't understand it, here is a bit of explanation:

The only situations I see people use Skillchains or Magic Bursts anymore is either self-chains or groups playing around or showing off.

The reason for this is very clear - while a skillchain does allow for more damage, which is excellent if you can pull off a self-skillchain, very rarely does TP in a party match up so that people can blast weapon skills at the exactly right time, and the damage from waiting for a skillchain or using a weapon skill with a little bit of extra TP simply does not match up enough in many situations to justify putting the effort into a skillchain.

If people really want Skillchains + Magic Bursts to be more viable, there either has to be more damage or other effects from performing them all around, and a better reward for using a weapon skill without having to hit one of the 100/200/300 TP marks exactly.

There are a ton of suggestions that could be made to this end, like having a level four skillchain that requires three skillchains (so players can't self-skillchain it) or making magic bursts boost the potency of -ja style spells. Posting these would be more helpful then simply "making SC+MB neccisary for a victory" by far.


The only way to bring SC > MB back for general purposes is to make Sekkanoki a permanent passive trait.

(note that this would be a horrible idea and would not actually succeed in bringing back SC > MB)

[ManaKing]

I try to skillchain when possible, but I'd never go out of my way to do so. Hey, I'm horrible at math, and I don't understand all the damage formulas but I know things go better when I just use my most powerful WS and my fellow DDs do the same. If we happen to skillchain then awesome! Bonus damage! If the mage happens to MB off of us, sweet! Even more bonus damage! If we all hold our TP and MP waiting for that magic moment... no.

I'm sure others here could figure it out, but I can't imagine how much damage they'd have to add to the skillchains and MB bonus themselves to make them worth doing.

Of course, what I really wanted to say to the OP is... your avatar is really, really pretty! I mean... my gosh... I love your hair! And your eyes! And... you have the best complexion.. Well I could just say you have the prettiest face ever... and...wait I did already... oh, I should stop! Sorry! Got carried away! Um... /blush... yeah anyway... bye!

IDK, yours is pretty amazing as well. I might have to dye mine's hair to go darker at some point *laughs*.

[ManaKing]

Biggest misconception ever. Right on par with EXP grinding at 5k/hr 1-75 is required to learn how to play a job.

Skillchains don't have a skill aspect. It's so easy, a caveman could do it.

There is no misconception about it. I've seen plenty of people who have no idea how to do a SC properly, much less what it will make. I get that you don't like SC > MB but at least don't talk like an opinion is a fact, when what we are talking about is an opinion.

My opinion is that SCing and team work are aspects of online game play that I appreciate and keep me interested and invested in playing. Your "fact" that SCing doesn't always yield more damage is legitimate, but it does nothing to address the current state of the game that boils down to an extremely stale and boring proc system. If you like a proc system that doesn't rely on actual player cooperation, then why are you playing online with other people? I would much rather make SCs than spam moves that have no actual purpose in teaching anyone to play better in a cooperative manner.

SCs are about actual synergy between people, where as this proc system is about nothing more than bringing the right ingredients to a fight and mashing them into the pot. There is nothing interesting or additive to the experience. I expect more from a game that actually had good game play for majority of it's first 75 levels.



It's a pretty simple concept to follow on paper. I've not seen skillchain damage in forever so if the numbers are for it I'll be all for it. That said, consider the following scenario.

2 DDs, one has a 6-hit build while the other has a 5-hit build.

By the time the DD with the 6-hit build reaches 100 TP, the other DD will be sitting on 120 TP. Let us further assume for the sake of argument that each DD's weaponskill inflicts 2,000 damage. That 20 TP overflow could have been put towards a second weaponskill, so in order to keep pace the skillchain will need to inflict at least 20% of the weaponskill's damage.
2,000 damage * (0.20) = 400 damage
That's just for a basic skillchain with two DDs, and that's just to break even. To be superior it would need to exceed 400 damage.

Now throw in more DDs, single-handed weapons, and human error. Every component increases the damage the skillchain needs to achieve in order to be the superior battle tactic.

With anecdotes of skillchains dealing less than 100 damage, it seems unlikely that the math will favor it, but I'm willing to change my tune if there's some hard data to the contrary.

I mean that is what I'm talking about. SCs and MBs actually doing more damage so that they would be worth it to even the math crunchiest of peoples.

I get that data crunching is fun for some people and they only care about the most efficient strategy, trust me I do. But for the rest of us that actually realize that we are playing a game and actually want to be able to enjoy it, we would really like additive game play that isn't just about data crunching. We would like to have an enjoyable and memorable experience; and that just isn't made out of pretending we are machines.

Watching mobs blow up in front of you from cooperative effort is my favorite memory from early FFXI. Sure the story lines are good and character building is fun, but some of the game play is starting to get sour.

[Greatguardian]

If people actually don't know how to Skillchain, are they having trouble figuring out that pants no go on head too?

@Sappho, I'm honestly too lazy to redo math that was done years ago to appease this discussion. I'll admit it. I'm lazy, and I have no vested interest in it. However, if you want a synopsis, skillchains suffer from lowest common denominator syndrome.

Skillchains decrease or nullify the value of x-hits and additional attacks (DA, TA) on WS damage because, no matter how fast Player A gets TP, they will always have to wait for Player B to get TP before they can weaponskill. If Player A gets two triple attacks in a row on WAR, while Player B misses twice in a row, Player A will be sitting at 300 TP before Player B is ready to skillchain with him.

Beyond that, Skillchains require the entire party/alliance to stop and hold their TP for the assigned pair to skillchain, a matter which can take 4-5 seconds on its own, or longer if there is a magic burst involved. People are sitting on their hands over nothing.

As for the past, no. Skillchains were never, ever good. People did them. That didn't mean they were good. People did Skillchains because people did not understand how the game worked. People also hunted IT+++++++++ monsters for EXP, and thought 5k/hr was epic JP button godmode exp.

Skillchains phased out because people got better at the game, not worse. Reminisce about the good old days all you want. That doesn't mean that running Kirin around with an Earth Staff Paladin for 6 hours was ever a bloody good idea.

[Chriscoffey]

If people actually don't know how to Skillchain, are they having trouble figuring out that pants no go on head too?

@Sappho, I'm honestly too lazy to redo math that was done years ago to appease this discussion. I'll admit it. I'm lazy, and I have no vested interest in it. However, if you want a synopsis, skillchains suffer from lowest common denominator syndrome.

Skillchains decrease or nullify the value of x-hits and additional attacks (DA, TA) on WS damage because, no matter how fast Player A gets TP, they will always have to wait for Player B to get TP before they can weaponskill. If Player A gets two triple attacks in a row on WAR, while Player B misses twice in a row, Player A will be sitting at 300 TP before Player B is ready to skillchain with him.

Beyond that, Skillchains require the entire party/alliance to stop and hold their TP for the assigned pair to skillchain, a matter which can take 4-5 seconds on its own, or longer if there is a magic burst involved. People are sitting on their hands over nothing.

As for the past, no. Skillchains were never, ever good. People did them. That didn't mean they were good. People did Skillchains because people did not understand how the game worked. People also hunted IT+++++++++ monsters for EXP, and thought 5k/hr was epic JP button godmode exp.

Skillchains phased out because people got better at the game, not worse. Reminisce about the good old days all you want. That doesn't mean that running Kirin around with an Earth Staff Paladin for 6 hours was ever a bloody good idea.
I killed several mobs with skillchains faster than any damn party you could have put together other than a ranger burn. I am not sure exactly what game you were playing back in 03-04 but it wasn't the same one I was. People didn't get BETTER they got over buffed to compensate for the jobs being weak(mostly just people saying they got tired of chipping away HP on mobs).

I have read so many of your post and i agree on some but on this topic you are completely off base. When exactly did you start playing this game to have such an opinion about this? I was plane hacking 16,000 exp/hour on smn with a bst on pets, on my first character, when this 5k/hr was epic but that didn't mean the majority of the time on regular mobs it was shit. I also never had a party with any job kill as fast as a distortion/freeze(while leveling) death either.

There were gimmick ways to do things but the majority of the time it wasn't easy because of all this upgraded crap SE has thrown our way. I would challenge most of you to fight Fafnir/Tiamat/Vrtra/etc back at 75 before any of the good updates to jobs were introduced ( This means no guilo/penta 60TP type things/etc). It would be epic just how GOOD people think they are now to see how much has changed.

I want to get back to cooperation and team play. SC should be brought back into play like mentioned above. This zerg fest full time needs taken out and team work put back into the playing style. I saw this style coming to fruitation as K club came into existence then even more when they started huge buffing after 2 handed update. The game IMO has went to hell since then.

[Sappho]

As for the past, no. Skillchains were never, ever good. People did them. That didn't mean they were good. People did Skillchains because people did not understand how the game worked.

You were around during the NA release in October 2003? I'm not saying the past is better than the present and I frankly don't give a fig leaf about going back.

**But** back in the days where you had a fixed party of the same six players leveling together (because everyone had to be the same level) the party format was typically: PLD, WHM, BLM, BRD/RDM, DD, DD.

The only people that had to worry about the Skill Chain rotation were the two DD. If one of the two DD couldn't get his shit together so that both were building TP at the same rate then you kicked his ass to the curb and found someone that didn't suck.

Once WoW came along and every game company in the world wanted to dumb down their shit to the zerg mentality so that they could have an MMO with ten million subscribers, then everything changed.

I never had to sit in Jeuno for six hours with my party flag up waiting for a group. Because I was awesome.

But I quit right before COP launched to go play WoW and farm purplez six nights a week in the same lame ass raid zone. Wheeeee!!!!!

Would I like FFXI to return to the much more difficult days of the past?
Let me try Abyssea for six months and I'll get back to you. I still haven't seen those areas.

[Greatguardian]

I've been playing since windows release in October 2003.

People got better.

Want to know the biggest thing people finally got through their heads years after the game was released?

Fighting IT++++++++ monsters as an EXP party is pants on head retarded.

DDs didn't get uberbuffs out of nowhere. They just started targeting VT monsters which gave them tons more EXP/hour and weren't flooring their Accuracy and Ratio.

Tiamat and Fafnir were also always piss easy, even before the 2H buff. Vrtra was only ever really difficult because of his pets, area aggro, and charm - which meant bringing a larger number of people. Most shells with the requisite numbers were capable of killing him, hell most still are, it's just rarely worth it. Besides, nowadays he's always down because BSTs solo him for the Cashmere.

[Chriscoffey]

You were around during the NA release in October 2003? I'm not saying the past is better than the present and I frankly don't give a fig leaf about going back.

**But** back in the days where you had a fixed party of the same six players leveling together (because everyone had to be the same level) the party format was typically: PLD, WHM, BLM, BRD/RDM, DD, DD.

The only people that had to worry about the Skill Chain rotation were the two DD. If one of the two DD couldn't get his shit together so that both were building TP at the same rate then you kicked his ass to the curb and found someone that didn't suck.

Once WoW came along and every game company in the world wanted to dumb down their shit to the zerg mentality so that they could have an MMO with ten million subscribers, then everything changed.

I never had to sit in Jeuno for six hours with my party flag up waiting for a group. Because I was awesome.

But I quit right before COP launched to go play WoW and farm purplez six nights a week in the same lame ass raid zone. Wheeeee!!!!!

Would I like FFXI to return to the much more difficult days of the past?
Let me try Abyssea for six months and I'll get back to you. I still haven't seen those areas.
You are going to be so disappointed if you are expecting something hard or team fights like before. It is fun for low groups and while i agree on some aspects of the game now is better than the past. I don't like things SE have done to take team work out and let it be a TP/zerg game.

[Greatguardian]

=/ Fight Pil. He's legitimately difficult and requires a team effort. Abyssea isn't the whole game, it's just the casual game.

Voidwatch could definitely use some drop system tweaks to be worth the time for more people, though. I only do it because it's fun.

[Chriscoffey]

I've been playing since windows release in October 2003.

People got better.

Want to know the biggest thing people finally got through their heads years after the game was released?

Fighting IT++++++++ monsters as an EXP party is pants on head retarded.

DDs didn't get uberbuffs out of nowhere. They just started targeting VT monsters which gave them tons more EXP/hour and weren't flooring their Accuracy and Ratio.

Tiamat and Fafnir were also always piss easy, even before the 2H buff. Vrtra was only ever really difficult because of his pets, area aggro, and charm - which meant bringing a larger number of people. Most shells with the requisite numbers were capable of killing him, hell most still are, it's just rarely worth it. Besides, nowadays he's always down because BSTs solo him for the Cashmere.
How exactly are you going to sit there and compare this overbuffed shit we get now to back then on those mobs?

EDIT: I never thought they were the GODS of FFXI but to say they were "easy" in the same sentence as "easy" abyssea/VW shit is seems crazy talk.

[Sappho]

Now you're just comparing apples to oranges.

If you knew people that were still fighting IT+++++ monsters in EXP parties when CoP came out, then I guess *those* people got smarter.

Anyone with two brain cells to rub together quickly figured out that if it took 5 minutes to kill one 200 EXP monster, but you could kill ten 100 EXP monsters in the same time...well DUUUHHHH!!!!! No shit Sherlock.

But we were talking about Skill Chains. But if the people that were playing on your server couldn't do the math on IT+ monsters then it is small wonder that they couldn't get it together for SCs.

[Sappho]

You are going to be so disappointed if you are expecting something hard or team fights like before. It is fun for low groups and while i agree on some aspects of the game now is better than the past. I don't like things SE have done to take team work out and let it be a TP/zerg game.

Honestly, after reading these forums for the month that I have been back, I debated even buying the Abyssea expansions.

[Greatguardian]

Again: No one is incapable of doing SCs unless they are seriously mentally handicapped. They're just worthless.

Back on the point you missed: Skillchains and MBs are comparable to fighting IT monsters. Sure, bonus damage (bonus exp). But in the meantime you could have done 10 other monsters (10 other WS) and gotten way more exp (done way more damage).

SC+MB also loses value on VT monsters because they die so quickly. The old Distortion>Freeze combo to nearly one-shot things was fun for a while, I guess, but it was never an optimal way to kill things.

@Buffs, no I know that players have definitely received better gear and buffs in general since the inception of the game, but a large portion of our progress came from the fact that people like Kaeko, Motenten, and Kirschy sat down and determined how the game worked and what our stats are doing for us. Even in 2004-2005 conditions, if we would have known then what we know now, things would not be nearly so hard as they were perceived to be.

[Chriscoffey]

Again: No one is incapable of doing SCs unless they are seriously mentally handicapped. They're just worthless.

Back on the point you missed: Skillchains and MBs are comparable to fighting IT monsters. Sure, bonus damage (bonus exp). But in the meantime you could have done 10 other monsters (10 other WS) and gotten way more exp (done way more damage).

SC+MB also loses value on VT monsters because they die so quickly. The old Distortion>Freeze combo to nearly one-shot things was fun for a while, I guess, but it was never an optimal way to kill things.

@Buffs, no I know that players have definitely received better gear and buffs in general since the inception of the game, but a large portion of our progress came from the fact that people like Kaeko, Motenten, and Kirschy sat down and determined how the game worked and what our stats are doing for us. Even in 2004-2005 conditions, if we would have known then what we know now, things would not be nearly so hard as they were perceived to be.
See i agree with you on that point , however, there is this looming "We're dead" feeling every time I think about fighting HNM before and it's mainly due to the fact you don't chip away mobs HP anymore. When i can see a mob that suppose to be the cream of the crop HP going down 20% in less than a minute but knowing that didn't happen before it irks me to believe your "easy" mode of today is even close to back then. You chipped away mobs HP and even in doing that it was with teamwork with other people not the zerg fest way because it just wasn't much of an option that I can remember was available. I never was in a party of 15 rangers so i couldn't tell you about that.

[Greatguardian]

That really just comes down to people not knowing how in the world to mine for fish back in the day.

If we level synced to 75, threw on 75-only gear/weapons, and went to kill HNMs, we'd still wreck them faster than we used to because we know how their stats work and how our stats work. We know what's good and what isn't, and how to optimize ourselves.

[Motenten]

Dnc gets +33% SC damage with AF3+2 hands. Sam gets 16%. Mnk and nin get 12%.

So, suppose I close light on mnk with a 2k Smite, or close darkness on dnc with a 1.5k Evis. Dnc's evis generates a potential 2k darkness, and the 2k Smite generates a potential 2240 light. How much time is that worth waiting for?

Mnk with Smite is generally around 60/40 melee/ws split, so the Light SC is worth about 45% of a ws cycle. That means that if it took me 20 seconds to get TP for the ws, with that Light SC I could stop meleeing for 9 seconds and keep the same DPS as if I didn't sc at all.

If you figure the dnc is at a 70/30 melee/ws split, the Darkness SC is worth about 40% of a ws cycle. 8 seconds out of 20, if they were at the same pace as the mnk.


Next, how much does your DPS go down if you hold TP?

Mnk (Smite), 0.5 over-TP rounds (default agressive play): 262 DPS, 6 rounds/weaponskill.
Add 3 rounds for holding to ~150 TP, so 3.5 over-TP rounds: 236 DPS

Lost 10% of total DPS by holding TP to skillchain.

Add a Light SC's worth of damage to the 3.5 over-TP config: 329 DPS
Add a Fragmentation SC's worth of damage: 292 DPS

Total DPS went up by 11% (Frag) to 25% (Light) by waiting to skillchain. (Applying this to the one closing the skillchain, since they're the ones that need to wait, rather than splitting between the two jobs.)

Dnc obviously gets the most out of it, while mnk/sam/nin just get a nice little boost. Other jobs don't get that boost, but the difference isn't large enough that they wouldn't see roughly the same results as the above example.


People forget about melee damage when considering SC penalties. You've slowed your weaponskill down by a few rounds, but those few rounds also did damage themselves.

The *primary* problem with skillchains is resists. When SCs only do about 1/10 of their potential damage, they are certainly not worth it. This is compounded by the blink problem, where the SC isn't animated and damage isn't displayed if you gear swap on the weaponskill. Because there's no reliable way to see how much damage is being done, people tend to ignore it altogether, on the assumption that it probably got resisted to near nothing anyway.

[Chriscoffey]

That really just comes down to people not knowing how in the world to mine for fish back in the day.

If we level synced to 75, threw on 75-only gear/weapons, and went to kill HNMs, we'd still wreck them faster than we used to because we know how their stats work and how our stats work. We know what's good and what isn't, and how to optimize ourselves.
I really don't think i would do that much better. I was playing mostly mage and remember my melee in party being shit for damage no matter which melee came into party. Dark knight actually was great for damage however they couldn't hit anything due to accuracy problems. There wasn't food or good gear to adjust them properly. This was the typical problem for most things melee related considering that if you had 1 more of any attribute you were a god over someone else. I can remember them not wanting me in a party because i couldn't afford morion earrings back then. I just don't accept its because we are so much smarter,as much as, over boosted compensation.

[Chriscoffey]

Dnc gets +33% SC damage with AF3+2 hands. Sam gets 16%. Mnk and nin get 12%.

So, suppose I close light on mnk with a 2k Smite, or close darkness on dnc with a 1.5k Evis. Dnc's evis generates a potential 2k darkness, and the 2k Smite generates a potential 2240 light. How much time is that worth waiting for?

Mnk with Smite is generally around 60/40 melee/ws split, so the Light SC is worth about 45% of a ws cycle. That means that if it took me 20 seconds to get TP for the ws, with that Light SC I could stop meleeing for 9 seconds and keep the same DPS as if I didn't ws at all.

If you figure the dnc is at a 70/30 melee/ws split, the Darkness SC is worth about 40% of a ws cycle. 8 seconds out of 20, if they were at the same pace as the mnk.


Next, how much does your DPS go down if you hold TP?

Mnk (Smite), 0.5 over-TP rounds (default agressive play): 262 DPS, 6 rounds/weaponskill.
Add 3 rounds for holding to ~150 TP, so 3.5 over-TP rounds: 236 DPS

Lost 10% of total DPS by holding TP to skillchain.

Add a Light SC's worth of damage to the 3.5 over-TP config: 329 DPS
Add a Fragmentation SC's worth of damage: 292 DPS

Total DPS went up by 11% (Frag) to 25% (Light) by waiting to skillchain. (Applying this to the one closing the skillchain, since they're the ones that need to wait, rather than splitting between the two jobs.)

Dnc obviously gets the most out of it, while mnk/sam/nin just get a nice little boost. Other jobs don't get that boost, but the difference isn't large enough that they wouldn't see roughly the same results as the above example.


People forget about melee damage when considering SC penalties. You've slowed your weaponskill down by a few rounds, but those few rounds also did damage themselves.

The *primary* problem with skillchains is resists. When SCs only do about 1/10 of their potential damage, they are certainly not worth it. This is compounded by the blink problem, where the SC isn't animated and damage isn't displayed if you gear swap on the weaponskill. Because there's no reliable way to see how much damage is being done, people tend to ignore it altogether, on the assumption that it probably got resisted to near nothing anyway.
We aren't stupid to believe SC NOW are always going to be better than zerg, however, what we are trying to portray is the simple fact that everyone now is on this zerg mentality after it's introduction. This means to hell with teamwork on a higher level and just TP spamming the fuck out of everything. I didn't say SC are harder but they are harder to do than just button pressing one after another without pausing to see what is going on.

I really believe reintroducing SC back at some form on HNM and teamwork is what FFXI was really about not zerging full time. I am just sitting and waiting to see what the 99 stuff will be about. I don't want another procing system but i would like a more detailed type of SC weakness on mobs where like in hydra cutting off its heads takes away huge regen of HP/etc. I am hoping they can do something similar with SC that is fair enough for most of the jobs which makes teamwork at the forefront of a HNM fight.

[Sappho]

Back on the point you missed: Skillchains and MBs are comparable to fighting IT monsters. Sure, bonus damage (bonus exp). But in the meantime you could have done 10 other monsters (10 other WS) and gotten way more exp (done way more damage).

It doesn't have to be that way.
Clearly I'm shouting at the wind.

I started to write a long example of the way my old static group used to do SCs, but then I realized there's no fucking point. Those days are gone.

Just TP zerg everything to oblivion.

[scaevola]

As for the past, no. Skillchains were never, ever good. People did them. That didn't mean they were good. People did Skillchains because people did not understand how the game worked. People also hunted IT+++++++++ monsters for EXP, and thought 5k/hr was epic JP button godmode exp.


TO

BE

FAIR

back in the day enough people played the game and were leveling concurrently to severely overcrowd most level-appropriate camps that were not

1) peppered with shit like undead or overleveled goblins or other assorted nonsense that could wipe you and set you back like 20 minutes provided you could even recover at all, or

2) out in the middle of goddamn nowhere (looking directly at you, Altepa), so any benefit of more level-appropriate, nonthreatening mobs was immediately counterbalanced by the fact that the only tank in your level range doesn't have the telepoint and rrrrggjhhwdrvgilophvipr

so, wailing away at IT+azillion sort of made sense in that there weren't enough mobs to really support the kind of low-VT-mulching the game had always been designed for in the places where you could reasonably expect to get to with random mouthbreathers; this, more than "skill", was why static XP parties with friends were useful.

Otherwise, U RAPPIN: GOOD

[Chriscoffey]

It doesn't have to be that way.
Clearly I'm shouting at the wind.

I started to write a long example of the way my old static group used to do SCs, but then I realized there's no fucking point. Those days are gone.

Just TP zerg everything to oblivion.
That is pretty much what I'm saying because nobody wants teamwork apparently on an MMO just epeen numbers.

[Sappho]

Total DPS went up by 11% (Frag) to 25% (Light) by waiting to skillchain. (Applying this to the one closing the skillchain, since they're the ones that need to wait, rather than splitting between the two jobs.)


Motenten, I love you so much right now.

[Chriscoffey]

TO

BE

FAIR

back in the day enough people played the game and were leveling concurrently to severely overcrowd most level-appropriate camps that were not

1) peppered with shit like undead or overleveled goblins or other assorted nonsense that could wipe you and set you back like 20 minutes provided you could even recover at all, or

2) out in the middle of goddamn nowhere (looking directly at you, Altepa), so any benefit of more level-appropriate, nonthreatening mobs was immediately counterbalanced by the fact that the only tank in your level range doesn't have the telepoint and rrrrggjhhwdrvgilophvipr

so, wailing away at IT+azillion sort of made sense in that there weren't enough mobs to really support the kind of low-VT-mulching the game had always been designed for in the places where you could reasonably expect to get to with random mouthbreathers; this, more than "skill", was why static XP parties with friends were useful.

Otherwise, U RAPPIN: GOOD
I remember a goblin in yhoater epic wiping like 30 people that zoned in. I miss some of those old days. I never laughed so hard in my life.

[Chriscoffey]

Motenten, I love you so much right now.
Yeah but it will vary accordingly. I just find that most people are so into this TP spam they don't want to change playing style to even consider teamwork in SC again.

[scaevola]

I remember a goblin in yhoater epic wiping like 30 people that zoned in. I miss some of those old days. I never laughed so hard in my life.

The Yuhtunga Bouncer Squad was goddamn hilarious and sort of gave this feeling like the goblins were actually telling us to get the hell off their island thank you very much but I hesitate to call it "fun"

[Greatguardian]

Funny is probably more accurate.

[Alderin]

I would be fine with skillchains the way they are if they did just 1 thing:

Fix the blinking issue when switching to TP gear after closing weapon skill - hides the skillchain animation and also doesn't show up in the log even if a skillchain is present.

[Arbole]

Back in the days of sky and sea, you'd usually be mage heavy because melee could barely hit and/or do any damage to sky/sea gods. Sky gods would mess melee up with their 2-hrs when someone doesn't turn for shadowbind on Seiryu. Every TP move and spell from JoH or JoL would mess up any melee besides plds close to the mob, so a "run in and SC +MB" mentality was both effective damage-wise, and safe practice (rngs were also used by my shells). This mentality lost focus in experience parties when ToAU and birds camps came out, but remained for endgame of the generation, such as ZNM (sara/tinnin, level). Level cap increase came, sky mobs could be hit, hurt, and broken by higher level players. This goes for sea, as well. If SE wants SC + MB to come back in full force, they'd release endgame content to where the big bosses can hardly be hit, hardly be physically damaged, and can one-shot swarms of melee every TP move like olden days. I understand VW bosses do that now, but those don't really count when everyone is given fanatic drinks or whatnot after every proct. This is my personal history of xp parties and endgame tactics throughout the years I've lived in Vana'diel. I personally love SCing and MBing (hence I leveled sam and blm mains), but like everyone says, against mobs that don't have ridiculous eva/def/pdt, coordinating SCs + MBs have no place currently.

Oh, and I'd LOVE it if SE added Cosmic Elucidation as a higher tier SC.

[Chriscoffey]

Back in the days of sky and sea, you'd usually be mage heavy because melee could barely hit and/or do any damage to sky/sea gods. Sky gods would mess melee up with their 2-hrs when someone doesn't turn for shadowbind on Seiryu. Every TP move and spell from JoH or JoL would mess up any melee besides plds close to the mob, so a "run in and SC +MB" mentality was both effective damage-wise, and safe practice (rngs were also used by my shells). This mentality lost focus in experience parties when ToAU and birds camps came out, but remained for endgame of the generation, such as ZNM (sara/tinnin, level). Level cap increase came, sky mobs could be hit, hurt, and broken by higher level players. This goes for sea, as well. If SE wants SC + MB to come back in full force, they'd release endgame content to where the big bosses can hardly be hit, hardly be physically damaged, and can one-shot swarms of melee every TP move like olden days. I understand VW bosses do that now, but those don't really count when everyone is given fanatic drinks or whatnot after every proct. This is my personal history of xp parties and endgame tactics throughout the years I've lived in Vana'diel. I personally love SCing and MBing (hence I leveled sam and blm mains), but like everyone says, against mobs that don't have ridiculous eva/def/pdt, coordinating SCs + MBs have no place currently.

Oh, and I'd LOVE it if SE added Cosmic Elucidation as a higher tier SC.
I hope that is in consideration for some of the things mentioned about bringing back end game SC.

[Shadowsong]

That is pretty much what I'm saying because nobody wants teamwork apparently on an MMO just epeen numbers.

Well this is awfully pessimistic.
People in an MMO want 3 things- 1) To have fun 2) To play with other human beings and 3) To obtain gear and advance their characters
In response to you no, I do not want teamwork to accomplish less than what I can do solo. I would love to do teamwork that increases my effectiveness, why wouldn't I?


Yeah but it will vary accordingly. I just find that most people are so into this TP spam they don't want to change playing style to even consider teamwork in SC again.

Show me one person who is "not even considering it". It has been considered and rejected as inferior. I'm pretty sure actually that every single person in this thread said people would start doing SC again if the damage was upped to offset the TP holds, or some kinda debuff was added.

[Chriscoffey]

Well this is awfully pessimistic.
People in an MMO want 3 things- 1) To have fun 2) To play with other human beings and 3) To obtain gear and advance their characters
In response to you no, I do not want teamwork to accomplish less than what I can do solo. I would love to do teamwork that increases my effectiveness, why wouldn't I?



Show me one person who is "not even considering it". It has been considered and rejected as inferior. I'm pretty sure actually that every single person in this thread said people would start doing SC again if the damage was upped to offset the TP holds, or some kinda debuff was added.
As I said before if the mob was made where you needed SC to do anything to it(a huge increase in damage physical/magical reread my previous posting about this) in some form it wouldn't matter about holding TP much less about your parse end result which is what i was getting at before with the epeen comment. This would mean some job adjustments about how the SC was done or what it did ,however, it could bring back a bit more control and teamwork.

I can't understand why everything has to be a damn parsing event where you just blow shit up and then think "hell yeah this is fun". It was cool on Bahamut Ver.2 back in the day but it's gotten old to see it on every fucking mob we have thrown at us because "hey SC suck amirite? they nerf my damage output". This could change how people use X hits build for getting more TP than needed but still attacking the mob for DOT in between WS.

I welcome a change from this playing but I would go on to say I bet I'm in a minority considering the pace of MMO now where HARD or spending more than 30 minutes on END GAME is crossing into my TV time.

[ManaKing]

People in an MMO want 3 things- 1) To have fun 2) To play with other human beings and 3) To obtain gear and advance their characters
In response to you no, I do not want teamwork to accomplish less than what I can do solo. I would love to do teamwork that increases my effectiveness, why wouldn't I?

I can't agree more with this.

I feel like the zerging has led to less of 2) which leads to less of 1). Oh I can do 3) by just bringing a NIN and a WHM and just pressing the same 4 macros over and over again. Hell I can even dual box them so I don't have to bother with a 2nd person....this is pretty much aby in a nutshell for me.

VW is pretty similar to aby in this respect because all you do is bring as many people as you need to bother with and just chug temps all day long trying to proc....It's boring and random some days.

I really hope that the next generation of end game requires a little more planning that GOGOGOGOGOOGOGO RAWR!!!!!!! WSWSWSWSWSWSWSWSWS PROC!!!!! TEMPS!!!!! WSWSWSWS MAGIC X 20!!!! GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO!!!!

[Shadowsong]

It seems that what you want is less making SCing more relevant, and more team related combat.
Instead of talking about making an old, dead, inefficient mechanic suddenly relevant again, we should talk about new concepts that rewards coordination

[Arcon]

Who here said they don't want SCs to be better? Who here said they only wanna zerg? You guys are making up your own enemies.

No one is arguing that. People are just arguing your stupid insistance on the absurd idea that SCs/MBs used to be better in the past. That's just wrong. Doesn't mean we don't want them to be useful.

[Shadowsong]

I feel like the zerging has led to less of 2) which leads to less of 1). Oh I can do 3) by just bringing a NIN and a WHM and just pressing the same 4 macros over and over again. Hell I can even dual box them so I don't have to bother with a 2nd person....this is pretty much aby in a nutshell for me.

That's you. I have tremendous amounts of fun zerging things. I also prefer to play with my smallish group of friends willingly rather than be forced to accept anyone for an exp party simply because they are the job we need. And Im sorry you apparently had such a bad experience in Abby, I suggest including some friends in your adventures even if you dont HAVE to have them. It seems like you are actively avoiding interaction with others.

What do you say to the people who enjoy this gameplay? (and here's a hint, we are the majority. And if you dont believe that, ask yourself why these methods were developed in the first place)

[Chriscoffey]

Who here said they don't want SCs to be better? Who here said they only wanna zerg? You guys are making up your own enemies.

No one is arguing that. People are just arguing your stupid insistance on the absurd idea that SCs/MBs used to be better in the past. That's just wrong. Doesn't mean we don't want them to be useful.
I really would have liked to see you guys ,who are pushing this concept at us, explain how it sucked against zerging which is what is implied by these asinine statements being made against it. I don't recall ANY zerging type from melee during my first years on this game from anything other than a ranger burn. I didn't see anyone ranger burning HNM from my experience. I have been on several servers through the years like Ifrit ( Claimtrain ), Seraph ( Kanzen also helping BTL ), Ragnarok ( no HNM but watched a few HNM fights ), Quetzalcoatl ( Perseverance ), Carbuncle ( few HNM LS ) and to the best of my knowledge SC was an effective way of doing some HNM not zerging from massive TP gain. It wasn't applicable to even get that much damn TP and that fast due to most jobs not having access to higher haste.

Like i said before I have no idea WHEN most of you became so active as players in the FFXI community but I know what I saw on multiple servers and SCing was effective until SE started jacking up melee.

EDIT: The main point of all of this is the haste factored a big deal in not being able to zerg as effective as today. Many jobs didn't have access to this much haste where it exponentially makes you faster as you get smaller amounts.

[Chriscoffey]

That's you. I have tremendous amounts of fun zerging things. I also prefer to play with my smallish group of friends willingly rather than be forced to accept anyone for an exp party simply because they are the job we need. And Im sorry you apparently had such a bad experience in Abby, I suggest including some friends in your adventures even if you dont HAVE to have them. It seems like you are actively avoiding interaction with others.

What do you say to the people who enjoy this gameplay? (and here's a hint, we are the majority. And if you dont believe that, ask yourself why these methods were developed in the first place)
I have nothing to say to those who like this type of game play other than don't complain when there are things that take teamwork and detailed "gimmicks" to beat to be made easier so you can win. There can be exactly both types of playing involved in FFXI.

I just hope you don't go into "my money is as good as your money" type rebuttals. I am getting tired of that type of behavior. To the people who argue that they like the easier way of playing I agree with you 100% for it being in game. I just don't agree you should determine everyone as being in that category and make everything else just as easy.

EDIT: You should read the thread about Tanaka's ideas about how FFXI has become because of abyssea. Here is the link :http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/17773-Newest-interview-%28abyssea-was-a-mistake-%29

I think you will find SE cares more about the minority in FFXI since you believe us to be just that.

[Shadowsong]

"my money is as good as your money argument"? Why would anyone even use that in this case.
First of all, why are we discussing how applicable a mechanic was at the beginning of the game? Who cares what we used to do?
Also, who is complaining when things take teamwork? When teamwork makes me stronger, why would I not want to do it? Why are you creating enemies?

Yes, back when the game first came out people used Skillchains................ until people figured out fighting ITs in exp was retarded. Also, back then we didnt know pDEF/pVIT/ect, parse results, stat caps, detailed DPS calculations, intimate game mechanic knowledge, the importance of Haste and Double Attack, proper sub job combinations, proper food choices, the importance of certain BRD songs over others, pigeonholded utility jobs, you see where I'm going with this?

There is nearly 8 years of game data and information availible to anyone now. Back in the day, you just did whatever your party leader told you to do. And come on, one shotting a robber crab with a Freeze SC seemed pretty badass in 2005. It didn't matter that the crab before that took 5 minutes because you were too scared to use your TP and your BLM was resting MP from constant Ancient Magic.

[Theytak]

Zergs started making their way in to exp in late '05, after the fall of Rng. Everyone who jumped off the rng bandwagon suddenly had to go back to the non-rng style of WS WS SC MB and found it to be incredibly slow. I remember the first time I had a non-SC party, around 65 in bibiki bay. I had just started doing Dragon Kick to open for light in my previous party, so I was expecting as much this time around, but instead I was met with "Nah, just go balls to the wall and ws when you get TP". Totally blew my mind, but it was a lot less stressful. By the time I hit 75 it had caught on as the more popular method for exp, though SCs were still fairly common (this was just after ToAU came out).

Zergs in End Game are totally different though, and are something that requires a lot more work and preparation than you guys give them credit. No way in fuck could Joe-shmoe AH Melee walk in to a zerg and be of ANY benefit. The reason they hadn't been used before they were was because they weren't even POSSIBLE before. Hitting the haste cap was a pipe-dream for some jobs, and utterly impossible for the rest, due to the relatively limited gear selections at the time. After ToAU came out and made haste gear somewhat more readily available to the stronger zerg jobs, and we got Cat 2 merits, and such, mages started being more well informed about their abilities, people started getting bored of the old slow fights and decided to experiment, and found something that worked.

Don't you remember how unbelievable it was the first time you heard about someone zerging kirin in under 2 minutes? I thought it was a hoax. Then I saw the video and shat myself, lol. Then other groups tried to copy this strategy, and failed miserably. The vast majority couldn't do it, because they didn't have the gear and experience to pull it off.

Fast forward to today and zerg strats are fairly common and easy to pull off due to the higher levels and better availability of gear.

Personally, I enjoy both styles; long and drawn out fights where you slowly whittle down the NM while trying not to be annihilated, and also NMs where everyone just fucking goes apeshit after getting every maxed out buff possible and trying to kill the fucker as fast as humanly possible because any other strategy just doesn't work due to how insanely obnoxious the NMs TP moves are or due to time restraints, examples being Dynamis Lord before the overhaul, and pretty much every boss in Einherjar.

[Shinzonx]

I was refering to the main poster saying make people download skype vent or w/e most people dont like those programs and some can mess up your pc i dont like to have to click from one screen to another to talk through a mic when i can just type what i want to say dont want to read stop being lazy

[Theytak]

I was refering to the main poster saying make people download skype vent or w/e most people dont like those programs and some can mess up your pc i dont like to have to click from one screen to another to talk through a mic when i can just type what i want to say dont want to read stop being lazy

the only way a voice chat program would mess up your PC is if you were stupid enough to not pay attention to where you download it from, or if you some how manage to go out of your way to accidentally sabotage it.... Also it's not even remotely fair to call using voice chat over text chat lazy when voice chat is faster, clearer, and makes organizing strategy 100x easier. It has nothing to do with not wanting to read, and everything to do with the fact that people can talk and react to a volatile situation 10x faster over voice chat due to the way the human brain works. I mean if you're deaf or a robot, I could understand, but otherwise it'll always be better to be able to hit 1 extra button while trying to save someone's ass to tell people what your'e doing than trying to do it while typing it out and thus hindering your ability to do your job properly, or not saying anything and hindering communication.

If anything I want to ask you to stop being lazy and learn the definition of a run on sentence... or learn how to use some punctuation.

[Chriscoffey]

"my money is as good as your money argument"? Why would anyone even use that in this case.
First of all, why are we discussing how applicable a mechanic was at the beginning of the game? Who cares what we used to do?
Also, who is complaining when things take teamwork? When teamwork makes me stronger, why would I not want to do it? Why are you creating enemies?

Yes, back when the game first came out people used Skillchains................ until people figured out fighting ITs in exp was retarded. Also, back then we didnt know pDEF/pVIT/ect, parse results, stat caps, detailed DPS calculations, intimate game mechanic knowledge, the importance of Haste and Double Attack, proper sub job combinations, proper food choices, the importance of certain BRD songs over others, pigeonholded utility jobs, you see where I'm going with this?

There is nearly 8 years of game data and information availible to anyone now. Back in the day, you just did whatever your party leader told you to do. And come on, one shotting a robber crab with a Freeze SC seemed pretty badass in 2005. It didn't matter that the crab before that took 5 minutes because you were too scared to use your TP and your BLM was resting MP from constant Ancient Magic.
Therein lies your problem my parties weren't holding TP for long periods because you weren't attacking on melee like a speed demon due to what Theytak mentioned earlier about gear/abilities. This has been said numerous times , however, noone seems to understand this but older players. The players stating people were holding TP forever are the same ones that never detail their rebuttal proving otherwise.

I know a few times some jobs were holding TP but it wasn't for long maybe 1-3 rounds and as mentioned before you still were doing damage. The end result was better MB damage which more than compensated the alliance with better damage boost. I know way more than i know now but that still doesn't change the simple fact GEAR OR ABILITIES TO ZERG WASN'T READILY AVAILABLE FOR YEARS like it is today.

[Chriscoffey]

Zergs started making their way in to exp in late '05, after the fall of Rng. Everyone who jumped off the rng bandwagon suddenly had to go back to the non-rng style of WS WS SC MB and found it to be incredibly slow. I remember the first time I had a non-SC party, around 65 in bibiki bay. I had just started doing Dragon Kick to open for light in my previous party, so I was expecting as much this time around, but instead I was met with "Nah, just go balls to the wall and ws when you get TP". Totally blew my mind, but it was a lot less stressful. By the time I hit 75 it had caught on as the more popular method for exp, though SCs were still fairly common (this was just after ToAU came out).

Zergs in End Game are totally different though, and are something that requires a lot more work and preparation than you guys give them credit. No way in fuck could Joe-shmoe AH Melee walk in to a zerg and be of ANY benefit. The reason they hadn't been used before they were was because they weren't even POSSIBLE before. Hitting the haste cap was a pipe-dream for some jobs, and utterly impossible for the rest, due to the relatively limited gear selections at the time. After ToAU came out and made haste gear somewhat more readily available to the stronger zerg jobs, and we got Cat 2 merits, and such, mages started being more well informed about their abilities, people started getting bored of the old slow fights and decided to experiment, and found something that worked.

Don't you remember how unbelievable it was the first time you heard about someone zerging kirin in under 2 minutes? I thought it was a hoax. Then I saw the video and shat myself, lol. Then other groups tried to copy this strategy, and failed miserably. The vast majority couldn't do it, because they didn't have the gear and experience to pull it off.

Fast forward to today and zerg strats are fairly common and easy to pull off due to the higher levels and better availability of gear.

Personally, I enjoy both styles; long and drawn out fights where you slowly whittle down the NM while trying not to be annihilated, and also NMs where everyone just fucking goes apeshit after getting every maxed out buff possible and trying to kill the fucker as fast as humanly possible because any other strategy just doesn't work due to how insanely obnoxious the NMs TP moves are or due to time restraints, examples being Dynamis Lord before the overhaul, and pretty much every boss in Einherjar.
I would bet people still argue against this being true(without examples of course) and this is 100% to the forefront of why we could use SC(or variation) again due to everyone being on the zerg bandwagon.

[Sappho]

I love how everyone just ignores the raw math that Motenten posted which shows how total DPS goes *up* with waiting to skill chain.

Also, let me say it again, anyone that holds TP forever just waiting for their partner to get to 100 TP for a skill chain is guilty of bad playing. You have to know how to play your job well and your SC partner has to know how to play his job well.

That's the problem. Lazy and Easy always trumps Skill.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Skillchains are typically heavily resisted on most stronger mobs, that's why most people ignore SC damage. That's also after SE introduced skillchain bonus traits.

Looking at last pug Idlebrahn the only SC that didn't do insignificant damage was from a Sam and War skillchaining light. And considering the damage done on the highest light, I'm fairly certain it was either double, or the War closed it with Ukko's (4.6k Light).

[Brolic]

I love how everyone just ignores the raw math that Motenten posted which shows how total DPS goes *up* with waiting to skill chain.

Also, let me say it again, anyone that holds TP forever just waiting for their partner to get to 100 TP for a skill chain is guilty of bad playing. You have to know how to play your job well and your SC partner has to know how to play his job well.

That's the problem. Lazy and Easy always trumps Skill.

No quick and efficient trumps everything. the fastest way to kill something is the most skilled.

[Arcon]

I love how everyone just ignores the raw math that Motenten posted which shows how total DPS goes *up* with waiting to skill chain.

No one ignores it, but it's the prime example of a "spherical chicken in a vacuum". It's situational math that ignores many of the very common traps of an EXP party, such as other people having to hold their WS too not to interrupt the SCing parties. Also differing accuracy and multihit variables, which may have the same expected value but increase the variance, which means cases where the two don't line up perfectly are more common. Another factor is TP return after WS, which may place one job ahead of another. Disregarding even the fact that despite x-hit builds it may take people a different amount of time to get to the required TP. What if a SAM uses Meditate? What if Conserve TP kicks in, what if one job makes 50 TP after opening the SC before the other job can even go? And, probably the biggest factor, is that sometimes the best weapon skills don't close required Skillchains. Will you give up Ukko's Fury to close a Darkness Skillchain?

Also, keep in mind that his math was performed with jobs that get a Skillchain bonus.

Skillchains are not rewarding enough to be employed regularly. That's the only reason why people don't do it. Sometimes it actually is rewarding, and that's when people do use it (see my first example, KS99 turtle). But most of the time it's just not worth it, nowhere near it.

[ManaKing]

That's you. I have tremendous amounts of fun zerging things. I also prefer to play with my smallish group of friends willingly rather than be forced to accept anyone for an exp party simply because they are the job we need. And Im sorry you apparently had such a bad experience in Abby, I suggest including some friends in your adventures even if you dont HAVE to have them. It seems like you are actively avoiding interaction with others.

What do you say to the people who enjoy this gameplay? (and here's a hint, we are the majority. And if you dont believe that, ask yourself why these methods were developed in the first place)

You completely missed the point. I do things with a group of 5-12 people constantly. I don't mind that people SSC, but what bothers me is that even with all of us on vent and having a good time together, we still don't really ever have a good reason to SC because it can literally slows down the DPS that we do on mobs with decent magical resistance.

I don't dual box because it is as boring as possible, I just said that I can and that nothing would stop me from getting gear. If you want to come up with more party tactics with me in addition to SCs and MBs I would be extremely appreciative. What I am looking for is more party play. I want cooperation that actually wield benefits because it is a more rewarding style of play that is more memorable.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't zerg plenty of content, I'm just saying I'm getting sick of it being the only thing people do because they don't have incentives to make their jobs work together. SE added incentive to zerg a long time ago, but if you look at the empy weapons, they don't do anything to slow the trend down. A bunch of weapons that you can SSC dark or light if you are /SAM. They don't make anything better if you mix them with other people, they don't add anything to cooperative play. These are the pieces of equipment that everyone wants to have for even casual play at this point.

I want large bonuses to SCs that aren't SSC, I want there to be more than just double dark and light as the end result for a coordinated SC, and I want SE to add SCing as a cornerstone of what their next endgame content is so that I can be sure that people actually know what they are doing.

[ManaKing]

No one ignores it, but it's the prime example of a "spherical chicken in a vacuum". It's situational math that ignores many of the very common traps of an EXP party, such as other people having to hold their WS too not to interrupt the SCing parties. Also differing accuracy and multihit variables, which may have the same expected value but increase the variance, which means cases where the two don't line up perfectly are more common. Another factor is TP return after WS, which may place one job ahead of another. Disregarding even the fact that despite x-hit builds it may take people a different amount of time to get to the required TP. What if a SAM uses Meditate? What if Conserve TP kicks in, what if one job makes 50 TP after opening the SC before the other job can even go? And, probably the biggest factor, is that sometimes the best weapon skills don't close required Skillchains. Will you give up Ukko's Fury to close a Darkness Skillchain?

Also, keep in mind that his math was performed with jobs that get a Skillchain bonus.

Skillchains are not rewarding enough to be employed regularly. That's the only reason why people don't do it. Sometimes it actually is rewarding, and that's when people do use it (see my first example, KS99 turtle). But most of the time it's just not worth it, nowhere near it.

+1'd and quoted for emphasis.

Arcon is looking at the reality of this situation. There are plenty of reasons that SCs aren't being used right now. The numbers that Motenten gave us are correct, but they apply to jobs that don't have to wait for another person anyways. There is no reason for a SAM, DNC, or BLU to wait on anyone else, currently. They can SSC and make sure it is well timed and that the second WS is the correct WS, because they are the one's doing it.

I'm saying what about the rest of us? What about the people that would like to benefit from SCing and MBing and party play? What can we come up with as a request to SE so that they can put it into the game to make us happy with our future updates?

This doesn't have to be some epic fight to the death over opinions and misunderstandings. The past is the past. It doesn't matter whether or not you think SCs were effective in the past. The point is if you are actually attempting to make this game better than you should be focusing on the present and the future. I only reference the past because my memories of party play in FFXI for the first couple of years are much more positive than they are right now. The reason for that was the emphasis on party Tactics.

If you want SCs to actually be in the game and used, then please contribute ideas instead of turning this into an argument. If everyone agrees that they would like more party play, then start talking about that instead of things that are irrelevant about the past.

I'm still asking for SCs to be put back into end game boss fights. I'm still asking for party play to be integral for SOME boss fights. It doesn't have to be every boss and it doesn't have to be another proc system(I'd prefer if it didn't), it just has to give us more TACTICS that we can use against mobs. Thus why I brought up SC in the Tactics forum, because it used to be a tactic and now it really isn't. I wish that addressed.

[Motenten]

The point of my post was to show that, taken at face value, skillchaining -- including holding TP to skillchain -- is worth it, as it improves overall DPS. That was to counter the argument that skillchaining is not and has never been worthwhile simply due to TP sync issues.

The problem is that we don't get skillchain damage "at face value", except on fairly weak mobs where a skillchain is generally going to be overkill anyway. We instead get heavily crippled skillchain damage on any mob where we'd give serious consideration to using this tactic.

Note: I was -not- talking about self-skillchaining. My numbers were explicitly for someone who had to wait for another DD to reach 100 TP to initiate the skillchain.


There are two changes that are needed for skillchains to be considered useful:

1) Fix the missing log info when you change gear. It's alright if the animation doesn't show (though it would be nice if it did), but the players absolutely need to be able to see the damage done for it to be "real".

2) Adjust the accuracy of the skillchain effect. This is very vague, as we really have no idea what affects the "magic accuracy" of the skillchain damage. I would be inclined to take a page from blue magic and make the accuracy the same as the accuracy of the mainhand weapon that closed the chain, but I have no reference point as to how that would compare to the current system.

The sc accuracy is obviously checked against the mob's magic evasion. We know that mages and cors can do respectable damage with nukes (ie: non-resisted, generally), aside from certain elements on particular mobs, and we know that the magic accuracy available to them is in the same general vicinity as the physical accuracy available to melee. So why is it that the melee's skillchain damage is lucky to break double digits on higher end mobs (the equivalent of a third or fourth tier resist)?

Whatever the cause, it needs fixing.

Those two things are really all that's needed for skillchaining to be a potentially useful tactic in fights. It won't always be useful, but it at least -can- be useful some of the time.

[Shadowsong]

If you want to come up with more party tactics with me in addition to SCs and MBs I would be extremely appreciative. What I am looking for is more party play. I want cooperation that actually wield benefits because it is a more rewarding style of play that is more memorable.

I have paid this company over $1200 so far in my life. THEY make the content, I play it.
I think the discussion would have been more productive if the OP used the terminology you just did.
We should be discussing how to make teamwork and cooperation more rewarding, not how to bring back an atiquated mechanic. That said though, I have no problem with them making SC more viable, and I don't think anyone does :/

edit: An idea could be to make each WS done on a mob throughout a fight weaken it towards further WS from other players. Or make it so certain Job Abilities work better when used in conjunction with others jobs' JA. Just rough ideas off the top of my head, but I think this is an unexplored region mechanics-wise and has a lot of potential.

[Sp1cyryan]

Walls, fences, and sidewalks of text everywhere.

There really is nothing to debate on this. Once you saw the OP request for SC MB to be "mandatory again" you should have just walked away.

That or tried to keep the response to two letters. Simply an N and an O is all you need.

[ManaKing]

I have paid this company over $1200 so far in my life. THEY make the content, I play it.
I think the discussion would have been more productive if the OP used the terminology you just did.
We should be discussing how to make teamwork and cooperation more rewarding, not how to bring back an atiquated mechanic. That said though, I have no problem with them making SC more viable, and I don't think anyone does :/

edit: An idea could be to make each WS done on a mob throughout a fight weaken it towards further WS from other players. Or make it so certain Job Abilities work better when used in conjunction with others jobs' JA. Just rough ideas off the top of my head, but I think this is an unexplored region mechanics-wise and has a lot of potential.

I am the OP. I brain storm while the topic open because the point of having a forum conversation is so that I can have people come up with things that might not be in line with my original ideas. I don't care if my original point becomes moot over the course of the discussion so long as I am given enough opinions and concerns to warrant it.

I apologize if sometimes my original posts are inflammatory. I generally post when I think of something that doesn't sit right with me, so I am generally very strongly opinionated when I post. The result is that my original post only encompasses what I wanted changed at the time. But as I get more feedback from other people, my opinion can change so long as i see the merit of their opinion.

Motenten has been an amazing source of information on this thread alone. I would completely stand behind anything she (i'm assuming) says because she already understands more of fine details that need to be explored and commented on. Both of her fixes sound completely legitimate and objectively worded. What is SC accuracy based on? I have no idea. Also I would love to know exactly how much damage SCs do every time I do one. While it might not be the fix I wanted at the time I posted, it might be the first step in putting SCs back in the game in a more permanent manner.

[Shadowsong]

The OP was not inflammatory, it just gave me a bad vibe, idk how to describe it. It came off as preachy, sorry if that offends lol. Usually whenever someone has a "have to" or a "must" somewhere in an OP it's bound to attract craziness.

I tend to try and be as broad as possible in any OP I make to foster the discussion.

This conversation should move away from making Skillchains more viable, since basically the only fix to that would be to "make them do more damage".
Lets discuss what else we can do to make teamwork more rewarding. Maybe an offshoot of the proc system can be applicable.

[Cdryik]

Or just make Skillchains proc weaknesses.

This !

Make skillchain proc weaknesses, then magic burst enhance the effect of the proc !

[Tsukino_Kaji]

This !

Make skillchain proc weaknesses, then magic burst enhance the effect of the proc !Except the MB still will be a different element.

[Nynja]

need more mobs with slight qutrub mechanics for this. Give the mobs substantial HP, make them take normal damage, but SC/MB's deal 5x dmg. The people who you are calling lazy are right. Whats the point of forcing yourself to hold to 150-200%TP to deal an extra 1k dmg in SC dmg, when you could have just WSed twice at 1.5k each without dealing with coordination and timing?

do less work, get more results.

[nomanni]

SC mb is so 2006 dont need dont want

[ManaKing]

SC mb is so 2006 dont need dont want

SC > MB is currently so 2006, but it could be updated to actually benefit this game. If you are still responding to the OP and didn't read the rest of the post, well then your opinion is obviously well informed and appropriately short.

[hiko]

The point of my post was to show that, taken at face value, skillchaining -- including holding TP to skillchain -- is worth it, as it improves overall DPS. That was to counter the argument that skillchaining is not and has never been worthwhile simply due to TP sync issues.

The problem is that we don't get skillchain damage "at face value", except on fairly weak mobs where a skillchain is generally going to be overkill anyway. We instead get heavily crippled skillchain damage on any mob where we'd give serious consideration to using this tactic.

Note: I was -not- talking about self-skillchaining. My numbers were explicitly for someone who had to wait for another DD to reach 100 TP to initiate the skillchain.


another "weak" point of SC overall dmg is you might need to use a subpar WS to make SC

[Delvish]

another &quot;weak&quot; point of SC overall dmg is you might need to use a subpar WS to make SC

With the new WS coming out with actually decent SC properties, this becomes less of a hassle now, considering each weapon -should- now have at least 3 potent WS with which to choose from. Sure, you may have to deviate from your bread-n-butter, but at least hopefully saving you from something like Burning Blade.

[Greatguardian]

Well, Empyreans can all self/cross Tier 3 SC pretty easily. And who the hell actually melees without an Empyrean/WoE anyways?

Using lower level WS probably won't be a huge issue.

[saevel]

2) Adjust the accuracy of the skillchain effect. This is very vague, as we really have no idea what affects the "magic accuracy" of the skillchain damage. I would be inclined to take a page from blue magic and make the accuracy the same as the accuracy of the mainhand weapon that closed the chain, but I have no reference point as to how that would compare to the current system.

The sc accuracy is obviously checked against the mob's magic evasion. We know that mages and cors can do respectable damage with nukes (ie: non-resisted, generally), aside from certain elements on particular mobs, and we know that the magic accuracy available to them is in the same general vicinity as the physical accuracy available to melee. So why is it that the melee's skillchain damage is lucky to break double digits on higher end mobs (the equivalent of a third or fourth tier resist)?

Whatever the cause, it needs fixing.

SC's don't work due to the timing involved. Two or three people can reasonably coordinate a SC, anymore after that and someone will either be holding TP or interrupting the SC. The magic accuracy used for the SC is the same as what's used for magical WS. The magic accuracy of the closing SC member with their weapon skill used as the base component. Since heavy DD's don't WS with magic accuracy gear on you end up with dicey magic accuracy and thus seemingly random SC values. SC damage should be unresistable flat damage, but it's SE.

[ManaKing]

SC damage should be unresistable flat damage, but it's SE.

Yup and double yup

[Theytak]

SC damage should be unresistable flat damage, but it's SE.
While I agree, even that wouldn't make SCs something other than a hindrance.

[saevel]

While I agree, even that wouldn't make SCs something other than a hindrance.

No but it would reward those who actually work to time their WS's such that they produce SC's. Me and my friends who often low man stuff try to time our WS's to create SC's and double SC's. We're on vent and there's rarely more then three people engaged so it's not difficult, but still we should get more out of it then resisted damage.

[Zemarin]

FIRST OFF:
SE made SCing not important.. Go fight some IT mobs SC's shine there.
However SE capped XP and made IT mobs lose thier worth.. On HNM's SC's were good to use, maybe VNM's I haven't done many.

However when talking to an era of ppl where they know nothing but Abyssea...and their Idea of winning anything is to bring their fimped 10 rangers, or 10 blms or 10 bst and stuff magically just dies. And no ones allowed to melee cause it feed too much TP. SC's can't play play an significant part.

However I must digress that in low mans and being able to coordinate them isn't really that problematic. and like Monten said they do indeed add significantly to damage. Most DD's are arrogant/ignorant of mage Damage and more worried about their own on top of ur general backline mages being scared or ordered not to do anything besides cast stun. The result is Sc's are usually not preformed and then you have situations where mobs absorb SC's and what not it get's messy so ppl don't go out of their way to do em.. and if ur on console u cant see other's TP so that does help much at all.

However I will agree for the most part most things you fight do not need a SC, and is a hindrance, except in high defense/level corrected Situations...

When you fighting anything worth a grain of salt in low mans SC's can end a fight Quickly! Ppl talk alot about sacrificing damage as well. When almost every WS that makes light/darkness does near identical damage besides relic/emp/mythic weapons... Whenever I'm on a DD i don't prance around Firing off Ws's nonchalantly, Sc's can make up for lost dmg in a miss in a multi WS. and really missing out on 20 tp in order to gain a second Ws's worth of Damage is not a big loss, and if someone tellls you ur bad at math for that, then they are dumb.. cause 20TP for an extra 1k dmg is > 200 TP for that same dmg.. A 4000 Rudras storm outside Abyssea can close a 4000 Darkness? What is not to want to SC for that, cause I might lose out on 500 dmg from my scythe? I just gained 4000 for that 500 i missed out. No one will refer to these situations cause all they understand is *insert boring NM that a ninja and whm can prolly dual box*

[Hercule]

Please SE, guive us back Skllchain --> MB mechanism.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Please SE, guive us back Skllchain --> MB mechanism.How is it you posted this today without being linked?

[Arcon]

Please SE, guive us back Skllchain --> MB mechanism.

The mechanism never went away.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

The mechanism never went away.It doesn't answer the bigger question of how he is posting without having a linked account.

[Hercule]

It doesn't answer the bigger question of how he is posting without having a linked account.

? i dont understant what you talking about, my account work from my Square enix ID password and security token

[hiko]

? i dont understant what you talking about, my account work from my Square enix ID password and security token
when he posted your account datas where not shown, looked like un unlinked post

[Hercule]

Ok it was maybe a bug or idk...

PS: Trop fort ton pseudo ingame :p

[Demios]

My solution is to get rid of the timing restrictions on SC/MB. If 2 DD's WS back to back or 30 seconds apart, it should still make a SC, if a mage tries to MB 1 second after SC closes, or 30 seconds after it should still proc MB. This way SC/MB would almost be automatic given the right WS's are used to make a SC, and the right spell hits to make a MB. Generally in zerg setups people will just be spamming anyway, so why not just let those WS's make SC's for extra damage, and why not let the mage's have the freedom to cast their MB proc spell anytime after the SC has hit as long as a new SC doesnt overrule it. The DD's would be zerging, while the mages nuke anyway, why not make it so that if they happen to line up correctly that you get the extra damage from it, if not, meh no biggie they were spamming anyway regardless. This way people who want to use SC/MB would have an easier time setting it up and implementing it, while the Zerg crowd would only take advantage of the damage benefits if they stumble on the skillchain while tearing through ws's.

[Fupafighter]

My solution is to get rid of the timing restrictions on SC/MB. If 2 DD's WS back to back or 30 seconds apart, it should still make a SC, if a mage tries to MB 1 second after SC closes, or 30 seconds after it should still proc MB. This way SC/MB would almost be automatic given the right WS's are used to make a SC, and the right spell hits to make a MB. Generally in zerg setups people will just be spamming anyway, so why not just let those WS's make SC's for extra damage, and why not let the mage's have the freedom to cast their MB proc spell anytime after the SC has hit as long as a new SC doesnt overrule it. The DD's would be zerging, while the mages nuke anyway, why not make it so that if they happen to line up correctly that you get the extra damage from it, if not, meh no biggie they were spamming anyway regardless. This way people who want to use SC/MB would have an easier time setting it up and implementing it, while the Zerg crowd would only take advantage of the damage benefits if they stumble on the skillchain while tearing through ws's.

You know Magic bursting isn't hard. Spells like thunder 5 and bliz 5 take what, 5 seconds with proper gear? Legion is the only thing I can think of that would even matter to use MB. And in those situations, DD aren't zerging. So just ask the sams to help you setup, I'll gladly open or close to help setup a MB, and so will many other people if it means we aren't failing content lol.

[Llana_Virren]

My solution is to get rid of the timing restrictions on SC/MB. If 2 DD's WS back to back or 30 seconds apart, it should still make a SC, if a mage tries to MB 1 second after SC closes, or 30 seconds after it should still proc MB.

I'm going to go on an extreme here, and suggest that essentially, performing a Fusion SC would permanently give a bonus to Fire and Light damage for the remainder of the fight?

I think that the amount of time between WSs could be adjusted (perhaps), and that the duration of a Magic Burst window be extended, but certainly not for anything beyond 10-12 seconds. Otherwise, you're gonna have each BLM in a group single-handedly double-MBing Thunaja, Firaja, etc.... no, that'd be a little -too- much.

On the other hand, it would be interesting if new SCs (with these extended weakness times) required multiple SCs without an interim SC.
For example: Instead of WS1 -> WS2 (SC Lv1) -> WS3 (SC Lv2)
Or: WS1 -> WS2 (SC Lv2)
You could have: WS1 -> WS2 (Special Effect trigger without a SC) -> WS3 (SC Lv3 only if previous trigger is initated)
Or: You could require a certain SC to proc in order to remove a physica/magical barrier effect....

This however, complicates the DD coordination greatly, and with the current mechanics in place, zerg will continue to surpass SC/MB relevance.

You'd need some -serious- overhaul to SCs to change that.

[Xihp]

I haven't read completely through all 13 pages of this thread, BUT I think the most simple solution would just be increasing the effectiveness of SC.


Basically:
Keep - all the setups, combinations, skillchains, the magic bursts, and even the timings the same. (Although a little more leeway on timing would be nice, even a second for laggers).
But simply change the damage of skillchains or the damage bonus of magic bursts and maybe reduce the enemy's stats.

Imagine a simple Scission, an earth elemental based effect, which lowers the opponents Dexterity, which is commonly associated with the lightning element.

Now imagine Dark/Light skillchains. Which would lower more of the enemy's stats.

Now that is just weapon skills. Physical Damage - Physical Stats reduced.

Next step would be Magic Bursts.

Let's say the first Scission is MB'd with a Stone 1. This should increase the enemy's damage cap taken against Lightning based attacks.

This would lead to another round of Skillchaining and Magic Bursting. The team would need to rotate weaponskills to create a SC to take advantage of the new Lightning weakness.

Of course this is still a lot of planning and understanding of mechanics, but it would definitely be worthwhile against harder enemies and missions.

So maybe update the cap of damage of skillchains. Example: level 1: 100%, level 2:200%, level 3:300%

Although this may seem like a drastic increase, how often do you ever see a skillchain involving more than 2/3 weapon skills?

2 Members spam Weaponskills for maximizing their own damage...

OR

2 Members spending the extra 30 seconds for each other and coordinating a proper and VERY effective skillchain to maximize the overall damage.

From what I've seen the 30 seconds is too much for just a 100% bonus damage SC, when they could just burn the TP and do another WS for just the same amount.

This is why increasing the damage and creating an alluring incentive for people where they can see the significance of teamwork.

[Llana_Virren]

Here's the problem: WS spam alone would create multiple Light SCs (with far fewer difficulties than lowering WS damage o accommodate a SC), and since the Tier 3 SCs are supposed to be more powerful, this would still keep "mandatory SCs" out of relevance.

However, you could make it so that Lv1 SCs lower/temporarily remove magic immunity to an element, Lv2 SCs increase Macc and MATK to an element, and Lv3 SCs lower stats.

[Xihp]

Here's the problem: WS spam alone would create multiple Light SCs (with far fewer difficulties than lowering WS damage o accommodate a SC), and since the Tier 3 SCs are supposed to be more powerful, this would still keep "mandatory SCs" out of relevance.

However, you could make it so that Lv1 SCs lower/temporarily remove magic immunity to an element, Lv2 SCs increase Macc and MATK to an element, and Lv3 SCs lower stats.


Sounds like every lazy FFXI player. If they increased the damage and gave us some incentive to switch up our weaponskills, then people wouldn't be so focused on "The easiest way to do decent damage is spam my 1 favorite weaponskill that does big damage". No player wants to use a lesser weaponskill to skillchain with their team just for a magic burst that does mediocre damage. They should just increase the SC damage.

The reason we used to do SC->MB was because that extra 65% damage on a skillchain was AWESOME. Setting up that magic burst with a Tachi: Enpi -> SATA Viper Bite -> Distortion Damage -> Magic Burst.

Back then we NEEDED the extra damage, but most players now kill everything so fast, we forget the option is there until a boss fight. And even then, most players don't bother. Most of the time because we focus on procs first, then by the time we finish our procs, the mob is almost dead and we zerg it down. No point in spending that 15 seconds on a SC if that 15 seconds is all it takes to kill the mob.

What if.... Skillchains add a TH effect?! :O Teamwork points or something. Like a hidden counter on the mob, increasing drop rates or exp or something.

[Zerich]

Sounds like every lazy FFXI player. If they increased the damage and gave us some incentive to switch up our weaponskills, then people wouldn't be so focused on "The easiest way to do decent damage is spam my 1 favorite weaponskill that does big damage".

or you could just make an empy weapon for your DD and use that WS (they all have Light or Dark properties). VOILA!
SC-baby!

[Llana_Virren]

Sounds like every lazy FFXI player. If they increased the damage and gave us some incentive to switch up our weaponskills, then people wouldn't be so focused on "The easiest way to do decent damage is spam my 1 favorite weaponskill that does big damage". No player wants to use a lesser weaponskill to skillchain with their team just for a magic burst that does mediocre damage. They should just increase the SC damage.

The reason we used to do SC->MB was because that extra 65% damage on a skillchain was AWESOME. Setting up that magic burst with a Tachi: Enpi -> SATA Viper Bite -> Distortion Damage -> Magic Burst.

Back then we NEEDED the extra damage, but most players now kill everything so fast, we forget the option is there until a boss fight. And even then, most players don't bother. Most of the time because we focus on procs first, then by the time we finish our procs, the mob is almost dead and we zerg it down. No point in spending that 15 seconds on a SC if that 15 seconds is all it takes to kill the mob.

What if.... Skillchains add a TH effect?! :O Teamwork points or something. Like a hidden counter on the mob, increasing drop rates or exp or something.

These would have been great suggestions 5 years ago when they would have been utilized. The current (and foreseen) environment would not be conducive to these ideae, however. Procs > TH, and Proc > SC. I suggested on a RDM topic that perhaps certain WSs or abilities, when used in a combination (ie SC or chained abilities) woudl temporarily remove NM immunities.

However "nice" and "innovative" these ideas may be, the mechanics of the game simply don't make them relevent.

[Rambus]

They already do, just not the kind you're thinking of. lol

that made me laugh.

Anyways the game was like that once and everyone complained it was too hard or maybe it was because my monk did not get invites because it does not do distortion, that sc was overrated anyway. Ether even I do not remember all the reasons they complained about having to sc and mb, just that they did.

I liked having to sc and mb but that was lost a long time ago to omg i needz to ws at 100 tp!

[Mirage]

Hello everyone! Since last time I posted in this thread, I have actually thought of another idea for skillchains.

What if performing skillchains with multiple people caused the participants in the skillchain to receive buffs based on the properties of the WS?

Skillchain properties consisting of multiple elements would grant buffs for all elements involved, but the way I imagined it, while you would get more buffs, each individual buff would decrease in potency. For example:

Creating a single element skillchain such as Detonation (wind) would significantly greatly increase the evasion and resistance to the wind element when two or more players took part in creating the skillchain. Creating Scission, however, would greatly increase the players' resistance to physical damage, and increase their resistance to the earth element.

If you created fragmentation (lightning+wind) however, you would only receive a moderate increase in evasion and wind resistance, but in addition also receive a boost to accuracy (or maybe critical hit rate instead, i dunno) and lightning resistance.

Creating a Light skillchain would then grant a buff based on fire (attack power, perhaps), light (perhaps cure potency?), wind and lightning, but the boosts to these would only be slight compared to if you did a SC with fewer elements. Of course, all this would be in addition to the ability to magic burst for extra magic accuracy and damage, if you for some reason would want to do this.

In my opinion, this is balanced. The lowest damage SCs have specific but potent buffs, while the strong SCs have several but unfocused buffs in addition to their damage output. Additionally, this buff would only function when there are several participants in the SC, so it would not further increase the power of jobs that can currently easily solo skillchains. Obviously, people would go for light/darkness skillchains for maximum damage output, and there is no doubt that in many situations, this would be the best choice. However, this new system would allow people to sacrifice damage output for other buffs if it would benefit the situation.

I could see this being really useful in lowman situations, where it would enable for example a sam/dnc and sch/whatever to perform Gekko->Immanence Ice to create a magic attack bonus for the sch, after a mob changed from being vulnerable to physical damage to being very strong to physical damage, making it ideal for the smn to nuke it down. It could also allow someone with not-so-great evasion to sacrifice damage output to increase their evasion while they backup tank after "something" went wrong. Even if you were on nin, tanking something that was incredibly evasive and had extreme accuracy, repeatedly performing fragmentation SCs with the ninja to keep the SC buff up fulltime could make the fight much safer.

I imagine that there would be very many situations where you could benefit from these. Please keep in mind that I do not intend for my element-buff suggestions to be set in stone. If you have other/better suggestions for buffs these SCs could grant, feel free to mention them.

I have not yet thought of what would be a balanced potency and duration for these buffs, but it should be enough for it to be noticable. I also think that if you perform several SCs with multiple people in quick succession, the most recent buff should overwire the earlier buffs. For example if a SAM used sekkanoki to perform SCs with two different players, the two other players would receive the buffs as normal, but the samurai would have the buff from his first SC be overwritten by the buff from the second SC.

Outside of the buffs, which would always be beneficial, there would be no change in how anything would work. In a zerg, you'd still not care about any of this and just spam whatever as fast as possible. No penalties would be put on this sort of fight, or any fight of any kind. However, those that take a few extra seconds to organize/synchronize their WSes in a situation where there isn't three WSes going off every 2 seconds, would be able to create new strategies for fighting various monsters that they perhaps think are pretty hard with their setup.

[Emitremmus]

This is actually a pretty cool idea I could get behind. I could see the ginormous bees in Adoulin only taking SC damage. It would be cool to have an enemy that only took SC damage from the element of the game day, but at the same time you would have people sitting there looking at charts for half an hour only to find out they don't have the right setup to make that SC, lol. Seeing people having to use timing and actual teamwork to kill something would be very nostalgic.

On a side note, it would be cool to bring SCs back into the spotlight by making them have bonuses similar to the flourish system. Each SC you close would give you a charge for a new job specific ability or something like that...hell perhaps new WS that require you to have X number of charges available to perform it. There's a lot of possibilities for something like this. Me gusta.

[Rustic]

In part, requiring skillchains would actually be one of the best checks to sheer zerg damage in the game.

Imagine if bigger NM's (or HNM's) took vastly reduced physical/magical damage off the bat. Skillchains would "crack" the defense temporarily, allowing for normal physical damage. Likewise magic bursts for magical damage. FAILING to close and/or MB would restore the defenses in question as the mob "turtled up". Broad-spectrum (Darkness/Light) SC's would create the shortest windows of vulnerability, while specific element ones would produce longer openings for normal damage, namely whichever matched the mob's elemental weakness. For MB's, it'd be based on how much MP went into the spell producing the MB- SC'ing Dia for a Light SC would only produce a few seconds of magical vulnerability, while Holy II would leave the target open for a much longer period of time.

Say it's a giant Orc NM. Orcs have Water weakness. Say, a Darkness SC would produce a 10 second window where normal damage was full. A Distortion SC would be 20. A Reverberation would be 30. MBing a Water-type spell on the target would cause magical vulnerability beyond the period of the magic burst for an amount of time between 2-30 seconds depending on the strength of the MB'd spell. Firing off a WS that isn't SC'd would reset the defense immediately after the window to close it failed, failing to MB a SC would reset magic defense.

Even if a mob doesn't have a specific weakness to an element, it can be simply given a generic "break" from SC/MB, possibly reduced vs. mobs that have a specific weakness- and the time breaks are effective for can be varied, to make that mob more or less challenging. Normal mobs could have a similar system- only instead of being a defense break, it leaves the mob vulnerable to additional damage. Closing a SC would increase regular damage rather than remove an exceptional defense for a period of time, and MBing would leave the mob with a magical vulnerability beyond the normal length of an MB- and failing to close an SC/MB would only remove the vulnerability while leaving the mob at normal levels of damage/defense for it's type, rather than giving it superior defenses.

Gotta be something to give combat more sense and reason than "spam your highest DPS at the mob", or else it's all zerg, all the time. It's not like enmity is much of an issue now either...

[Trumpy]

Im not saying hold off til you can perform a SC but if you have tp on 2 people and can do them it only speeds things up. I dont think i really ever say "hey dude you do tachi retsu and i will follow with shadowstich!" but i will try to time a WS i do to make a SC if possible. sometimes it can really speed up things. Also we dont usually change the WS we do just to make a SC just if they happen to make them.

[Annalise]

Make skillchains increase drop rates. Problem solved, people use them now.

Enjoy your Blade: Rin > Wasp Sting > Distortion skillchains for maximum skillchains on a target.

Honestly though for me... it comes down to this.

Know your skillchain properties. Don't make plans to set them up, but if something comes along that could be useful, utilize it. That's more complicated than setting up skillchains, or just spamming TP.

Example:
BST and PUP.
BST uses ruinator and I am closing in on 100 TP. I know that ruinator is distortion.
I am using Victory Smite mainly, which is fragmentation. I also have Stringing Pummel, which is gravitation. Victory Smite and Stringing Pummel are pretty comparable.

If I use Victory Smite, no skill chain happens and I just go on punching things (while Koumei keeps curing me, or casting silence over and over and over and over if the mob has MP [Hi Qilin!]). If I use Stringing Pummel, I make darkness and potentially do a chunk more damage.

TP spam rather than skillchain planning has been shown mathematically to be more effective, and skillchains are usually accidental and a nice bonus. However, if you know your skillchain properties when random opportunities arise, you can take it slightly further. It's all within reason, though. If you are on PUP and have Shijin Spiral (fusion) and no Pummel/smite, if someone uses a fusion weaponskill, DO NOT use dragon kick to make light because combined the damage will probably be less even if light isn't resisted.

In an alliance setting this usually doesn't matter because by the time you use a weaponskill you can skillchain with, someone else probably already weaponskilled. With less people though, this becomes more viable.

tl;dr: skillchain < tp burn @ 100 < tp burn @ 100 with random bonus skillchain damage < tp burn @ 100 with knowledge of skillchain properties to use at an advantage rather than random luck

[Mirage]

In part, requiring skillchains would actually be one of the best checks to sheer zerg damage in the game.

Imagine if bigger NM's (or HNM's) took vastly reduced physical/magical damage off the bat. Skillchains would "crack" the defense temporarily, allowing for normal physical damage. Likewise magic bursts for magical damage. FAILING to close and/or MB would restore the defenses in question as the mob "turtled up". Broad-spectrum (Darkness/Light) SC's would create the shortest windows of vulnerability, while specific element ones would produce longer openings for normal damage, namely whichever matched the mob's elemental weakness. For MB's, it'd be based on how much MP went into the spell producing the MB- SC'ing Dia for a Light SC would only produce a few seconds of magical vulnerability, while Holy II would leave the target open for a much longer period of time.

Say it's a giant Orc NM. Orcs have Water weakness. Say, a Darkness SC would produce a 10 second window where normal damage was full. A Distortion SC would be 20. A Reverberation would be 30. MBing a Water-type spell on the target would cause magical vulnerability beyond the period of the magic burst for an amount of time between 2-30 seconds depending on the strength of the MB'd spell. Firing off a WS that isn't SC'd would reset the defense immediately after the window to close it failed, failing to MB a SC would reset magic defense.

Even if a mob doesn't have a specific weakness to an element, it can be simply given a generic "break" from SC/MB, possibly reduced vs. mobs that have a specific weakness- and the time breaks are effective for can be varied, to make that mob more or less challenging. Normal mobs could have a similar system- only instead of being a defense break, it leaves the mob vulnerable to additional damage. Closing a SC would increase regular damage rather than remove an exceptional defense for a period of time, and MBing would leave the mob with a magical vulnerability beyond the normal length of an MB- and failing to close an SC/MB would only remove the vulnerability while leaving the mob at normal levels of damage/defense for it's type, rather than giving it superior defenses.

Gotta be something to give combat more sense and reason than "spam your highest DPS at the mob", or else it's all zerg, all the time. It's not like enmity is much of an issue now either...

Sounds like staggering in FF13/-2. I'm not opposed to the idea.

[Pebe]

How I think current magic Burst System could be made more useful:

Currently Magic Bursts increase magic accuracy and magic damage.

So if there were NMs in the game that took very little physical damage, like turtles, but had very high magic resists rates but took good magic damage, like aspid way back in the day. People would have to use the skillchain system to kill it efficiently, either that use non-physical/magical damage sources like spirits within/requiescat, or i guess tomahawk rotations, but even then magic bursts would be the most efficient of the 3.

How I think magic Bursts could be changed:
I believe Magic Bursts should redirect the enmity of all damage done to the person who opened or closed(probably closed would be better) the skillchain. You could even make this exceed the hate cap then decay over time back down to hate cap. Wouldn't this be an interesting way to bring PLD back into the mix for holding hate even when other DDs are beating on the mob?

[Laraul]

You people really think that SCs and MBs we're "necessary"? Sure people tried using them in exp parties. But they quickly learned that because SCs are so tricky to pull of without something going wrong they gave up completely. To make matters worse the game never let's you know when you may perform a skill chain, or what weapon or skills qualify for a skill chain. Even if people once did do SCs and MBs, they now know that they aren't worth the effort.

You want to bring this back, then maybe it's time the game made SCs and MBs practical. The game needs to tell you when a weaponskill should be performed to create an SC so you don't go at the wrong time. I mean c'mon. This is OBVIOUS right? Because that's all people do when they attempt to skillchain in a group. Perform it at the WRONG time.

[Kari]

The only content that this could possibly be "required" or even "good", would be 6-man or lower content.
With anything higher, it would just be an annoying system like proccing.

However, if they made it so SC/MB did a good amount of damage, it would be lovely to see it welcomed back into lowman content.

[ManaKing]

I don't believe you know what you are talking about. SC > MB was the way most people originally XP partied at the beginning of this game. There are charts and info everywhere on how to do it properly.

[Annalise]

I don't believe you know what you are talking about. SC > MB was the way most people originally XP partied at the beginning of this game. There are charts and info everywhere on how to do it properly.

True, yet arrow burns (RNG/NIN x 4, BRD, RDM) and Manaburns (RDM, BLM x4-5, potentially a bard) back then were also considered better, and they generally did not follow the SC > MB format. Especially arrow burns which were essentially like TP burns. You could SC of course, but the ones my bard was in didn't bother. And the EXP of those (before the RNG nerf) was pretty top notch compared to anything else, even manaburns.

[Schrute]

Skillchains were necessary under the right context and those who think otherwise I would love to hear the counter examples. My example would be ksnm99 where the best strategy we used at lvl 75 was skill chain at 60% and have an army of blackmages magic burst the piss out of it, because it takes off for flight leaving most front line jobs useless during this time. Magic bursting added in more damage for when it went into flight and forcing it to land faster.

I'm sure ls's who had people with completed relics of various kinds could probably zerg it down, but none the less, this was one of the best strategies for this fight.

Another example would be fighting nidhog at 75. I would love to see a video of nidhog zerged with out PD or relic holders. I'm sure there are videos out there, but the basic strategy we used for nid was skillchians magic bursting. The main reason, because wings did about 300 AOE dmg, this could be offset with capped stoneskin, blm's could hit this cap with the right gear and enhancing skill. Having few DD that could make frag or light, this was essential to for feeding the mob as little tp as possible so that wings weren't spammed. I for one really enjoyed this strategy, especially double thunder weather on thunders day, breaking 3k back then on magic burst was just insane, but it also meant you were a dead taru lol.

If SE wanted to really send us back to the stoneage of developing stratagies I would love to see Fanatics drinks gone in VW. of course zerging can still be done as long as procs are called out and executed, but if those were gone as well, as well as PD getting nerfed. I know PD is not getting as big as nerf as it could have been but it did prevent people from just lvling smn on mules to sit and wait to PD.

Tiamat. We used skillchains and just flat out nuking and rotated blm's that capped hate>logged out completley and continued the battle. Would love to see a video of tiamat zerged at lvl75 as well. I sure there are videos of this as well but how many shells could do it? Been so long since i fought tiamat and when it was lvl 75, i can't remember if it was dmg or just timed intervals of flight or being on the ground.

In my opinion, as I have stated many times in other posts, keep the window for magic bursting to remain open and not just close when another WS goes off. Hell keep multiple windows open for magic bursting, blms could use the over all boost.

PS EDIT: I'm sure a lot of battle like nighog could be zerged with chainspell stuns ect. don't want to get chewed out for leaving that out

[Teakwood]

God yes. I've had my fingers crossed for an incentive to SC+MB again... literally since the beginning of ToAU era, it's pretty much the only thing I turn into a nostalgic goofass about.

Wouldn't really like to see any of these ideas rolled out in existing content but it'd be -amazing- if Adoulin gave SC+MB a reason to exist again.

[Trumpy]

its always was fun to me to set up a SC and MB and the hilarity when one thing would prevent it from happening from one of the participants. every now and then its nice to see if doing a SC will "one shot" (i know its more like 3 shot but im talking bout the stategy as a whole) a mob when i am doin things with friends. But lately this aspect is satiated within me by a few of my jobs that can self SC.

[raps1355]

Until we change the fact that 3 100 tp weaponskills do more than a 300tp one, people will not hold tp for sc.

[saevel]

Until we change the fact that 3 100 tp weaponskills do more than a 300tp one, people will not hold tp for sc.

This is the biggest reason we don't use SC's. The timing on it is simply too strict, go to early and it doesn't count, go to late and it doesn't count. Nuke too early and it won't count, nuke too late and it won't count. It's simply more efficient to ignore the entire concept and just hit things as hard as possible.

There is a TV Trope exactly for this,

Awesome but Impractical (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AwesomeButImpractical)

[hiko]

Until we change the fact that 3 100 tp weaponskills do more than a 300tp one, people will not hold tp for sc.

because when you want to SC you have to hold to 300TP?

[Arcon]

because when you want to SC you have to hold to 300TP?

No, but you have to hold, and the more you hold the more damage you waste.

But that's not the only problem SC faces. Not only would one person have to hold, but all persons involved in the battle, which is a lot to ask and will never happen unless the window opening for SC execution is lowered as well.

[ManaKing]

SC lost practicality when Alliance based play became the norm. The only way to make it relevant for Alliances is to artificially increase the significance of it or to make it better designed.

If SCs are required for proc systems or drops or clearing content, then that would be a way you could make them significant but not actually more relevant to game. I don't like proc systems. They feel like a cop out. Instead of fixing the already very broken hate system, they distracted us with spamming random JAs, spells, and WSs for no actual purpose.

If they wanted to make it better designed, then they could do a number of things to make it relevant for game play. SC damage is largely useless against terrible things that have extreme amounts of magic resistance. That really should be addressed in some way. They don't have to make it so SCs do obscene amounts of damage, but it is ridiculous that you can do Light on something for 1/8 of the closing WS damage. That's just bad and makes people see the obvious weakness in an otherwise fun system.

They could adjust it so that you could toggle SCing on a party level or an alliance level. That way, you put all your corresponding WSs in different parties so they don't cross the streams.

[saevel]

SC lost practicality when Alliance based play became the norm.

SC's lost practicality LONG before Abyssea. They were dieing near the end of COP and going into ToAU. Nobody SC'd after level 70 when everything turned into spampage on deco's in sky or vs demons or vs cockatrices and tigers.

Sky NM was SC based for awhile, but then shells figured they could kill NM's much faster if they just blasted the NM with two PLD's in a pseudo-zerg.

[Rustic]

SC's lost practicality LONG before Abyssea. They were dieing near the end of COP and going into ToAU. Nobody SC'd after level 70 when everything turned into spampage on deco's in sky or vs demons or vs cockatrices and tigers.

Sky NM was SC based for awhile, but then shells figured they could kill NM's much faster if they just blasted the NM with two PLD's in a pseudo-zerg.

That was the start, and it should have been the warning signs- much like the exp system now, the combat system has significant flaws that it's "marquee feature" of SC/MB is generally ignored in favor of spamming DPS...because spamming DPS is more effective and efficient.

[Horadrim]

Only if the disagree is about the term lazy as people did not get lazier, they got too impatient to use them.

To be honest, as much as I liked them, the incentive was minimal -- if they want people to do SC+MB they need to greatly increase the bonus damage received for the chain and intensify the effects of bursts. Maybe have them generate positive buffs that can stack over time based on the number of skill chains done within a decent window of time (15 minutes?) and decay over time. Then pair that with decent bonus damage and people would start doing them a lot more.

Right now there's no real reason to coordinate that much aside from nostalgia.


That was the start, and it should have been the warning signs- much like the exp system now, the combat system has significant flaws that it's "marquee feature" of SC/MB is generally ignored in favor of spamming DPS...because spamming DPS is more effective and efficient.


SC's were moving out of the door before CoP even came out. They were honestly barely used even when I was first learning them back in 2003 -- it was mostly the Japanese players perpetuating their use and even when they came up the additional damage in areas like Yhoator Jungle and the like was "meh" worthy. They just seemed new and excited because most NA's were still learning the game back then.

[saevel]

Well we could make them "required" by having the NM do a 9,999 damage aoe move if you WS and it doesn't form a SC.

There problem "fixed" .........

[Rustic]

Well we could make them "required" by having the NM do a 9,999 damage aoe move if you WS and it doesn't form a SC.

There problem "fixed" .........

Murdering the entire area for a whiffed SC is a mite overkill.

Making it harder if you spam WS's to kill the mob, however? I got no problems with that. SC/MB being back in the picture as an anti-zerg measure works by me, since it helps to neutralize the typical DPS race most big content has become.

[saevel]

Murdering the entire area for a whiffed SC is a mite overkill.

Making it harder if you spam WS's to kill the mob, however? I got no problems with that. SC/MB being back in the picture as an anti-zerg measure works by me, since it helps to neutralize the typical DPS race most big content has become.

Why not the both accomplish the exact same thing with the same level of efficiency?

Eventually it'll dawn on people exactly why we stopped using SC's in 2004~2005. Until then you'll dream of this land of magic fairy's and unicorns where what your think actually works.