Skill cap adjustments, when?

[Ophannus]

Camate mentioned a few months ago that the Developers were working on readjusting combat skillcaps and available wepaon skills for certain jobs to promote balance. I was wondering if this idea was scrapped or if some jobs were finally going to get an update i.e DRK's Parrying Skill since they have Tactical Parry or RDM's Sword skill.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Or smn's smn skill.
Or nin's katana skill.

[Economizer]

Give throwing skill to more jobs. Blue Mages especially.

And why does Scholar, who is terrible at melee have parrying when White Mage, which is at least competent at it not? Actually, don't give White Mage native parrying, just boost their native club skill - the new club WS isn't WHM only, so at least an A- would be nice. Since other jobs will be getting staff WS natively without subbing White Mage with these changes, having a higher club skill to offset this would be nice.


Or smn's smn skill.
Or nin's katana skill.

Not every skill has a job with an A+ on it. Summoning Magic skill is very much so balanced with the cap of the player's current level for example, so raising it wouldn't exactly help. Katana makes a bit more sense at least.

[Dfoley]

Probably got lost with the parry/guared skill rate increase they promised and never added.

[Theytak]

They can give blu pup's throwing skill. It's not like we have any use for it...

[Luvbunny]

This thread is so funny - seeing how "balance" is just a whole load of BS - jobs have skills that is not applicable to them... It's like the developer just cut and paste the job skill and never really think ahead of what it uses for. Laziness exist within SE FFXI developer since 2003 - even when they do have a good budget to work with and the game was at its prime. Back then they can get cocky and told us to take it from behind, as it is, or go play something else. Now, they are still ignoring most of our suggestion and feedback and claim they no longer have manpower or it is "too difficult" to adjust and to balance properly. What they need to do is put back Yoshi to FFXI and move Tanaturd back to 14 so he can finish burning down that IP to the ground and call it a day and accomplish his greatest achievement - creating a game so full of "challenge" (fatigue system, hellooooooo??) that the player base just flat out rejected from the launch.

[RAIST]

Probably got lost with the parry/guared skill rate increase they promised and never added.

IDK about this....it's starting feel like they ninja'd a tweak to the skills' proc rates on us. May not have been a tweak specifically to the skillup rate, but a tweak to how often the skills proc, which would increase the skillup rate by extension.

I just got 24 points to guard on MNK working on the +3 tier WS line in Abyssea and my guard is grossly underleveled (still in the mid 60's). While working on WHM WS club line with /SAM (parry was roughly ~150 from sub)--I continually saw parry proc on level 80-ish flies both in Abyssea and Riverne (also got like 15 skillups on Shield to take it to 234 or something like that). Just geared up on SAM and was running around trying different camps for it's +3 trial, and was seeing Parry proc a lot, but the targets I finally decided to use on this trial are too low for it to skill (parry approaching 76 caps on NIN & SAM), but it is parsing a lot on them too.

So, if you're having trouble getting it to skill, might need to review your targets if it is parsing a lot like I'm seeing and you aren't getting the skillups--maybe try some elshina or something too. If it's not proc'ing a lot, might also be your gear and/or job choices getting in the way (evasion/AGL bonuses).

[Byrth]

As I said in this thread (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/17111-Where-are-the-Parrying-and-Guarding-Solutions-Promised?p=237169&viewfull=1#post237169), they doubled the base skillup rate for parrying. They likely also increased it for Guard and Shield.

The problem with skilling these abilities (especially Guard) is that you have to fail evasion, counter, etc. checks before they even have a chance to proc, and then the proc rate is incredibly low (~5-10%) on anything that you can get a skillup from. Then, on top of that, your odds of skilling up per Guard/Parry are also pretty low (it used to be ~2%). So any time a monk with a 50% Counter rate and a 20% Evade rate takes a swing, they only really have a 0.04% chance of a skillup. At an average of .2 skill per skillup, they would need to take about 5 million swings before they'd cap guard.

Lower your Counter rate. Floor your evasion rate. Now you only need to take ~2.5 million swings to cap guard.

After the patch (doubled skillup rate), you'd be looking at about 2 and 1 million swings respectively. It's not impossible to take a few million swings, especially with a hoard of Mandragora/Phalanx and afking. It's freaking dumb to have to do that to cap skills though.


They should eliminate skilling up. Skills should just auto-cap when you ding the next level. Skilling up is an annoyance at this point that doesn't add actual interesting content (anyone can afk in Abyssea with Regen Atma). I wish they had opted to eliminate it instead of investing so much effort in items/foods that increase rates.

[Luvbunny]

They will never get rid of skill ups - it is one of their easy time sink to make sure that players are still playing for hours skilling up after they ride their express train that is Abyssea. Add to that the various weapon skill quest, mythic weapon skill quest, magian trials, etc... All these so called "(mindless) challenge" is to ensure that players have something to do for a good while. Expect for more of these coming up. 1500 plates, super low drop rates, high tier scrolls dropped from bcnms that most hardly go do, and more of these so called "challenge". FFXI is a cash cow for them to milk till it is dry - minimal works - so that they can fund Mr.Tanaturd greatest achievement that is FF14!!

[RAIST]

As I said in this thread (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/17111-Where-are-the-Parrying-and-Guarding-Solutions-Promised?p=237169&viewfull=1#post237169), they doubled the base skillup rate for parrying. They likely also increased it for Guard and Shield.

The problem with skilling these abilities (especially Guard) is that you have to fail evasion, counter, etc. checks before they even have a chance to proc, and then the proc rate is incredibly low (~5-10%) on anything that you can get a skillup from. Then, on top of that, your odds of skilling up per Guard/Parry are also pretty low (it used to be ~2%). So any time a monk with a 50% Counter rate and a 20% Evade rate takes a swing, they only really have a 0.04% chance of a skillup. At an average of .2 skill per skillup, they would need to take about 5 million swings before they'd cap guard.

Lower your Counter rate. Floor your evasion rate. Now you only need to take ~2.5 million swings to cap guard.

After the patch (doubled skillup rate), you'd be looking at about 2 and 1 million swings respectively. It's not impossible to take a few million swings, especially with a hoard of Mandragora/Phalanx and afking. It's freaking dumb to have to do that to cap skills though.


They should eliminate skilling up. Skills should just auto-cap when you ding the next level. Skilling up is an annoyance at this point that doesn't add actual interesting content (anyone can afk in Abyssea with Regen Atma). I wish they had opted to eliminate it instead of investing so much effort in items/foods that increase rates.

eh... I see what you were trying to say with the numbers, but I think the math may be a bit exagerated. Granted, I don't have weeks of parsing to prove/disprove anything, just commenting on my particular experience since I reactivated a few weeks ago.

I got around 2 dozen points on guard and 15 on shield doing 800 WS trials on MNK and WHM. That was on Canyon Scorpions in Abyssea - Tahrongi, and Plateau Flies/Darners in Abyssea - La Theinne/Rivern A01. I was typically One-on-One, using weak WS for the most part to make them last longer--when one was about to die, I'd pull the next when practical, so I might have had 2 on me for a few seconds for a few extra hits in a roundor two, but not full time like pulling a mass of mandies in the tree. When Sekkanoki was up, I'd pull extras simply for the fun of making a big skill chain (which raped them, so I'd sometimes link/pull an extra one at start on purpose just to keep things flowing)--but again, it was two mobs for only a few rounds in that scenario too

Trust me...I wasn't taking MILLIONS of hits. Maybe a few thousand over the course of about 45 minutes in Riverne on one job and maybe 5 or 6 sessions in abyssea (got a few TE's sometimes, so averaged under 2 hrs each run, as I was capping ruby light, and fought until booted). It wasn't days of pulling mass mobs for hours on end to process at a 5% rate against a million hits.

A large portion of those skillups were .4 and .5--they started going more .2's towards the end, but at first it was a .4 or .5 about every 3-5 fights. They did slow down towards the end, but they were still coming. I even dinged a level on Shield in Besieged against mamools afterwards that I went to just because it was up (went from 234-235 shield and got 15k xp for spamming hexa/halo's while goofing off for less than an hour, not bad).

May need to look into what you are fighting, what you are wearing, and what job traits/abilities/merits/stat bonuses are enhancing your stats to see if you can't adjust something somewhere to see if it makes a difference (ie: On WHM, I kept AGL boosted, with minimal evasion gear--wanted to get beat on for the TP gain, and on MNK I only used Focus/Dodge when pulling the extra mobs for the big Sekkanoki skill change events, etc.)

[Dfoley]

I dont think they have done anything to parry or guard. I just went out in full + guard gear (300 with all the gear and merits and natural skill)

took roaring laughter - ducal guard - 20 regen atma
went to altepa
pulled 10+ mandy
had protect/phalanx II/full set of -pdt gear
skill up ring (no earring) and skill up food

in 120 minutes of non stop 10 mandies beating on me i got 3 skill ups (as 3.0)

Tried the same in attohwa, same result 2.4 skill ups in 2 hours.


None of that seems to fun/balances/worth while. At that rate it will take me 120 + hours to cap guard, doing the above capped evasion, shield, and 6 weapon skills in 120 minutes TOTAL. As in a single 120min stint was enough to cap all of that. Its not about time sinks when you can skill up everything else 1000x faster

[RAIST]

your guard skill may have been too high to get the big skillups. I just used basically defense/regen/refresh/regain atmas and the cruor buffs. Think it was a mix Stronghold, Vicissitude, VV, and Minikin, depedning on the job. Basically, aside from merits and a few odd pieces of gear (like feral mask and MNK AF legs, or fortified chain, etc) the skills were more or less their natural levels.

Edit: 0.o just pulled up Laughter...couldn't remember it's stats: estimated at +12% Counter rate. Also, getting a big evasion bump from Ducal too (+30?). So, kinda had some strikes against you.

[Dfoley]

Edit: 0.o just pulled up Laughter...couldn't remember it's stats: estimated at +12% Counter rate. Also, getting a big evasion bump from Ducal too (+30?). So, kinda had some strikes against you.

May want to go check those atma again sparky.

Ducal guard: Guard dmg taken down (major), -50%pdt when less then 50% hp, - movement speed

No evasion at all on ducal guard, not sure where you are getting 30.

Roaring laughter is - evasion (roughly -30)

That + agressor = no issue with getting hit 60% + of the time.

[RAIST]

eh.. probly thinking of C&D...usually pair that with DG on MNK.

The +12% to counter though is an issue---roughly 1/8 or 1/9 hits is countered BEFORE guard gets rolled on it, so you are reducing your chances for quard to process.

And when you say full guard set, is that full as in +67 skill, or a cheaper/easier set in the +30-40 range? The point there is just what is your native skill. Those mobs start their spawns around the 80-85 mark if I remember right (unless there is some serious slaughtering going on).

[Dfoley]

Native is 240ish , and full as in +60ish skill cause I was at 298 with everything.

12% counter doesnt mean much when you pair aggressor with the -evasion on roaring laughter. Without roaring laughter i evade more than 12% more often, so the net potential for guard is actually higher. Because if you evade 80% of the hits, vs 40% its considerably more chances.

Not to mention, in altepa, they con decent con which is enough to cap you at 95...

[RAIST]

it is still a reduction in proc rate though. 88/100 chances to roll vs 100/100 on hits that fail Counter check. By removing that atma and going with something else, you could increase your chances for skillup but a little over 13% from the previous setup (reclaiming 12 more rolls over 88 in theory, that's about 13.5% more).

Choosing the level of your targets are screwy now with those tweaks they made a while back. I sometimes found I had better luck going after mobs that are close to or just below my skill level vs. the harder mobs. I was popping 290-300 level in sky on some jobs doing trials. Sounds like you are running with a native skill in the upper 60's, ramping up to about 80-ish level with gear/merits, fighting mobs in the 85+ range. IDK.. might be worth it to try some lower level mobs. Maybe Vision zone?

[Byrth]

Well, I'm going off this (http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/105757-Combat-Skill-up-effects-discussion-Martial-Master-Prouesse-Ring-Saltena-Poultry-Pitaru?p=4807874&viewfull=1#post4807874). At the moment, you have about a 4% chance of skilling up per Parry and you're going to average about 0.3 skill per parry. It used to be about a 2% chance of skillup.

[Dfoley]

it is still a reduction in proc rate though. 88/100 chances to roll vs 100/100 on hits that fail Counter check. By removing that atma and going with something else, you could increase your chances for skillup but a little over 13% from the previous setup (reclaiming 12 more rolls over 88 in theory, that's about 13.5% more).

Choosing the level of your targets are screwy now with those tweaks they made a while back. I sometimes found I had better luck going after mobs that are close to or just below my skill level vs. the harder mobs. I was popping 290-300 level in sky on some jobs doing trials. Sounds like you are running with a native skill in the upper 60's, ramping up to about 80-ish level with gear/merits, fighting mobs in the 85+ range. IDK.. might be worth it to try some lower level mobs. Maybe Vision zone?


You really arent getting the math dude...

Without roaring laughter:
~80% evasion 20% of hit make it past evasion of which 15% will naturally be counter (.85*20/100=17/100 hits to possibly guard)

with roaring laughter:
60% evasion 40% of hits make it past evasion of which 27% will be counter (.73*40/100 = 29/100 hits to possibly guard)

Even with the increased counter, the decrease in evasion actually adds way more hits of which can be guarded....


Yes if, there was an -EVA atma that didnt have counter it would be a better option. However, none exist to my or wikis knowledge. Agressor + Roaring laughter is the best way to lower your evasion as far as possible.

And as for the bold part, i tried attohwa. I cannot easily try a vision zone since the mandy dont link/agro and it would kill my healer.



All of this is irrelevant though, as the ultimate conclusion is the skill up rate for guard is entirely too low when skills like shield and every weapon in the game can be capped in 1/100th of the time

[RAIST]

don't think you're quite grasping the concept either...-30 evasion from that atma is just a drop in the bucket when your natural evasion skill is at what....376? It might not even be enough to counter just what you get from the extra agility on cruror buffs. You could probably get the same effect from gear, and not be dealing with the interference from the increased counter rate. All I know is at just 91 and running regen/regain atmas and cruor buffs, I took quite a pounding at times from those Canyon Scorps with capped skill, and the skillups were coming pretty steady for me.

With your setup, you might need to just skip Abyssea completely for that matter and just tweak your stats with gear. Not like there is a vast shortage of mobs 70+ you can pull in mass somewhere else. Have to think outside the box if what you are doing isn't working.