A Concise List of Current Well-known Balance Issues

[Edyth]

The time investment ratio between mythic weapons and empyrean/relic weapons is unbalanced. For example, mythics require nearly 1 solid year of Einherjar to acquire, due to time restrictions and stringent reward restrictions.

There is stat imbalance between mythic weapons and relic/empyrean weapons. The general concensus is that mythic weapons are "not worth it" compared to their far superior, far easier and faster to obtain relic and empyrean counterparts, with only a few exceptions.

Reward to difficulty ratio is unbalanced for the Eco-Warrior quests.

The amount of EXP granted by the items Miratete's Memoirs and Dragon Chronicles is no longer relevant in light of Fields/Grounds of Valor updates.

Items upgraded through Sagheera require a wait time, while far superior items upgraded by Magian Moogles are available instantly.

Currently, Blue Mages are uniquely disabled in Voidwatch for several minutes due to frequently needing to reset spells. One or more of the following solutions needs to take place: amount of blue magic points available needs to be increased to accomodate for Voidwatch weaknesses, the multitude of blue magic spells used for staggering needs to be reduced to 1-2 per element; and/or the timer that blocks blue magic after resetting spells needs to be reduced or eliminated.

Steal and Despoil's recast is too high, especially considering their accuracy and the necessity of Stealing in THF AF quests and testimony acquisition. The recast should be shortened after an unsuccessful steal. This is unbalanced because in farming other testimonies, you get more than one chance per 5 minutes.

The difficulty of staggering certain Abyssean NMs (Shinryu, Iron Giants) is unbalanced, especially in light of staggering in Voidwatch. These NMs should at least be vulnerable to staggering during their normal melee attacks.

Modus Veritas does nothing (rounded to the most accurate generalization). This is unbalanced because if players can merit something, the merited ability should be able to do something. Modus Veritas's accuracy needs to be improved, or the Modus Veritas merit category should be eliminated, or the Modus Veritas merit category should be renamed "Black Hole, Don't Put Merits Here."

Garlaige Citadel's and the Eldieme Necropolis's blockages are still in place, but Quicksand Caves now has a key item available to circumvent the doors there. Although Wings of the Goddess can be used to reach the other sides of Banishing Gates, free travel around Garlaige Citadel is still not possible, and neither is free solo travel around Eldieme. This is unbalanced because jobs with AF quests in these areas have a unique disadvantage, especially for the quest "Hitting the Marquisate," which requires the banishing gates to be opened; there is no way to avoid the gates due to the nature of this quest.

Rangers and Corsairs are uniquely punished for simply attacking, but there is no enhanced skill up rate for archery and marksmanship. Because players are punished for every bullet/arrow/bolt fired, the skill up rate should be enhanced for archery and marksmanship to maintain balance.

The difficult methods for obtaining scrolls of Raise III and the resulting high auction prices are unbalanced with the spell's outdated effect. Methods for obtaining Raise III should be increased; in particular, an NPC selling the scroll at a lower price is a good option. Currently, the scroll is approximately 1 million gil across every server.

Spawn conditions for the three Aht Urhgan Beastkings are now unbalanced because players are strong enough to consistently defeat Gurfurlur the Menacing, Medusa, and Gulool Ja Ja in Besieged, preventing the HNMs from spawning.

[Mifaco]

Any BC can be defeated if you throw enough pets at it. I'd like to see pet HP reduced, or enmity shared with the master, so that SMNs would think twice before doing that 2k predator claws and encouraging more strategy.

[Kitkat]

[LIST]
The time investment ratio between mythic weapons and empyrean/relic weapons is unbalanced. For example, mythics require nearly 1 solid year of Einherjar to acquire, due to time restrictions and stringent reward restrictions.

Currently it is hard to truely judge this since people do not participate in the events that required drops/currency is needed from. Einherjar does take time to meet the prescribed amount, but if done properly will take roughly 59 runs to complete and takes less than half a year being that you can do 121 runs within a standard 365 day calendar. The ease of salvage can make farming easier on top of the availability to gain pouches in neo-nyzul. I could see the entire process of a mythic taking upwards of a year start to finish based on the fact you need tags for assaults, which you complete twice for clear+credit, kill all 3 kings, gain 100k Ichor, gain 30k Alex, etc. Saying Einherjar takes a year is inaccurate unless you are spending the ichor on other items.


There is stat imbalance between mythic weapons and relic/empyrean weapons. The general concensus is that mythic weapons are "not worth it" compared to their far superior, far easier and faster to obtain relic and empyrean counterparts, with only a few exceptions.

The utility of the weapon is the point of the weapon, not the stats. Also, it has been shown that in instances where the weapon has AM3 active they can provide superior DoT. The fact they augment job abilities is the primary function of the weapon, changes to the aftermath and tiering most of the JA enhancing aspects has always been the key point of the weapon. If all you are comparing it to is Relics hidden effect or the +stat/+acc/+att bonus or WS damage then you've missed the point of the weapon entirely.


Items upgraded through Sagheera require a wait time, while far superior items upgraded by Magian Moogles are available instantly.

They are already working on addressing this and several other artificial wait blockers.


The amount of blue magic points available needs to be increased to accomodate for Voidwatch weaknesses. Currentlty, Blue Mages are uniquely disabled in Voidwatch for several minutes due to frequently needing to reset spells.

Being a blu myself, I would much rather they alter the amount of spells required instead of the total points allowed. Most times I keep bare min spells set to accommodate the total amount of spells I have to equip in order to proc in VWNM, but even if your only purpose there was to proc you'd still not have enough room for all the spells. While I wouldn't want to see them go as far as they did with Abyssea (1 spell per element) I wouldn't mind it being limited to 2 per element. Adding more set points to blu would actually unbalance the job since it would allow for individuals to set more job traits without sacrificing high damage/point costing spells to make room. There has always been this trade off on blu and should be maintained.


Steal and Despoil's recast is too high, especially considering their accuracy and the necessity of Stealing in THF AF quests and testimony acquisition. The recast should be shortened after an unsuccessful steal. This is unbalanced because in farming other testimonies, you get more than one chance per 5 minutes.

I would much rather this be changed in a way that despoil is independent of steal being that the item pools are separate from one another. Despoil generally gets only junk items when successful and gives a random down effect, steal can be coupled with aura steal merits and gets a better pool of items while possibly absorbing/stealing an effect. There is little to no reason why these should share timers when they perform such uniquely different functions.


The difficulty of staggering certain Abyssean NMs (Shinryu, Iron Giants) is unbalanced, especially in light of staggering in Voidwatch. These NMs should at least be vulnerable to staggering during their normal melee attacks.

Same could be said for those NM's that spam spells/tp moves making it difficult to proc on. Since you limited it only to these two types I have to disagree with the change as you clearly imbalanced the staggering if you allow this on those mobs for only that reason. Additionally, the ability to spawn these often or fight them numerous times a day with great ease offsets the difficulty in procing them.

[Dazusu]

Not to be an ass, but most of what you listed is opinion, and everything else SE have already responded to.

For example, Mythics aren't as powerful in the traditional sense, but they generally have lower delays, and other bonuses, such as the Swords Convert bonus and the Yagrush's Divine Veil bonus. As for the length of time taken to upgrade - it's already been announced that Einherjar will be revamped - as will Salvage and Alexandrite drop rates will be upped.

Why should Iron Giants be staggerable during regular attacks? How is it "unbalanced", why can't that just be "different"? Or as I like to call it - the smouldering remnants of a skill requirement (let me guess: "that's not skill, it's just an inconvenience" - same could be said about everything in the game.)

About the only thing I agree with is Corsairs and Rangers. They pay for the ability to do damage (it's not cheap either) and have no distinct advantage.

As for the rest of your post.. I sum it all up as 'opinion' not necessarily globally accepted unbalance.

[Camiie]

Any BC can be defeated if you throw enough pets at it.


Any BC can be defeated if you find a way to reduce the mob's HP to zero or otherwise meet the requirements of victory. Why is "throw enough pets at it" any less valid a strategy than using Spells and Weapon Skills till the mob dies?



I'd like to see pet HP reduced, or enmity shared with the master, so that SMNs would think twice before doing that 2k predator claws and encouraging more strategy.


As opposed to the ingenious strategy of Jump, Auto-attack, Weapon Skill?

[Jerbob]

Any BC can be defeated if you throw enough pets at it. I'd like to see pet HP reduced, or enmity shared with the master, so that SMNs would think twice before doing that 2k predator claws and encouraging more strategy.

Can you explain this in more depth? It's possible to defeat any BC if you throw enough people at it. Does it really matter if pet jobs can team up and do them together? On the one hand you've got some support, healers and damage dealers, and on the other you've got a combination of puppetmasters, summoners and beastmasters - and often you need more people for a pet job strategy than a non-pet strategy.

Pet job players need to co-ordinate with each other just as other jobs do - Call Beast and Reward timers, MP and blood pact timers, pet HP, Automaton role and attachments in use, variations in effectiveness of different pets in different situations, and so on, and just like more traditiona strategies, this becomes more difficult and skill dependent as the task increases in difficulty. Pet jobs are just as penalised when something goes wrong, if not more so - a pet dying at the wrong time can shift the enmity balance across the whole party, or for solo play can botch a whole fight.

Pets already take a lot of damage. Beastmasters can soak up damage better than most, but are reliant on timers and consumables. Avatars in particular can be very squishy and despite dealing high damage (for a given value of "high" considering their appalling melee damage, reliance timers and when compared to true damage dealing jobs), they simply don't hold hate on anything that matters, even against tiny enmity actions like using bloodpacts or casting Stoneskin when too close.

Pets are also slow to deal damage, costly for some jobs, difficult to replace for others, and are so ridden with little bugs and issues that SE refuses to fix that it's remarkable that people can use them at all in high pressure situations. Watching ten summoners and beastmasters slowly wading through Walk of Echoes does not mean that the jobs are overpowered or broken - an organised group of 10 players on other jobs can most likely achieve the same effect. When disposible pets are[i/] incredibly important - the few situations that pet jobs can handle that other jobs struggle at - consider how much damage those other jobs can deal, how much more effectively they can support and heal injuries, and how much more extensive their options for equipment, food and the like are, and how those many advantages work in their favour in [i]innumerable other situations.

A lot of things are possible for pet jobs, but very rarely are pet jobs the best solution, and even rarer are they the only solution. I will grant you that some (and certainly not all) situations do not require massive amounts of co-ordination, but please consider how many situations require a perfect synergy between other jobs in order for success, then compare like for like.

[cidbahamut]

Not to be an ass, but most of what you listed is opinion, and everything else SE have already responded to.

For example, Mythics aren't as powerful in the traditional sense, but they generally have lower delays, and other bonuses, such as the Swords Convert bonus and the Yagrush's Divine Veil bonus. As for the length of time taken to upgrade - it's already been announced that Einherjar will be revamped - as will Salvage and Alexandrite drop rates will be upped.


http://images.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/9034612.jpg

[Insaniac]

Most mythics are actually pretty beastly now. 3 minute OA3 equal the ability to spam really strong merit WSs and thats before considering utility enhancments. BLM is the best meteor staff in the game. SCH and RDM are terrible and maybe RNG? The rest are solid unless I am forgetting a stinker.

[Elexia]

Not to be an ass, but most of what you listed is opinion, and everything else SE have already responded to.

Lol opinion. Mythic acquisition is unbalanced as hell. Period.


For example, Mythics aren't as powerful in the traditional sense, but they generally have lower delays, and other bonuses, such as the Swords Convert bonus and the Yagrush's Divine Veil bonus. As for the length of time taken to upgrade - it's already been announced that Einherjar will be revamped - as will Salvage and Alexandrite drop rates will be upped.

Upping Alexandrites isn't a solution at all. Do you know what else is required to take on a Mythic? They'd need to throw the 'King' requirement out the window or throw them in a (NOT INFLATED FOR THE SAKE OF IT) BCNM that also counts as the kill, or make the deaths of them in Besieged count. They're not hard, but they aren't always up or slaughtered in Besieged and people have to wait days for them to respawn.


Why should Iron Giants be staggerable during regular attacks? How is it "unbalanced", why can't that just be "different"? Or as I like to call it - the smouldering remnants of a skill requirement (let me guess: "that's not skill, it's just an inconvenience" - same could be said about everything in the game.)

Attacks that count as TP moves makes staggering unnecessarily hard. Period. I get that the system used behind the monsters in this game is a bit weird (and sometimes creative) but it takes no skill to stagger an iron giant, just hope and pray it doesn't attack when your spell or WS goes off.


As for the rest of your post.. I sum it all up as 'opinion' not necessarily globally accepted unbalance.

She has a lot of facts, not opinion, but based on some of your posts, I can see why you'd consider it opinions.

[Urteil]

Lol opinion. Mythic acquisition is unbalanced as hell. Period.



Upping Alexandrites isn't a solution at all. Do you know what else is required to take on a Mythic? They'd need to throw the 'King' requirement out the window or throw them in a (NOT INFLATED FOR THE SAKE OF IT) BCNM that also counts as the kill, or make the deaths of them in Besieged count. They're not hard, but they aren't always up or slaughtered in Besieged and people have to wait days for them to respawn.



Attacks that count as TP moves makes staggering unnecessarily hard. Period. I get that the system used behind the monsters in this game is a bit weird (and sometimes creative) but it takes no skill to stagger an iron giant, just hope and pray it doesn't attack when your spell or WS goes off.



She has a lot of facts, not opinion, but based on some of your posts, I can see why you'd consider it opinions.


Camping the kings wasn't hard casually check it once a day and you'll get it eventually. You simply don't deserve one. The king kills/chariot kills/odin kill is by far the easiest of the requirements and if someone is hung up about this I'm sorry to break it to you, but you getting a mythic isn't going to happen.

Also a neat trick is that a very large percent of the time when a particular beast-man army is preparing to attack, the leader is forced to spawn. He disappears when they are advancing and returns later even if he was killed in the besieged 1-2 hours later. I killed a couple of mine with my LS during the advancing period.

Staggering giants is quite easy if you have a player kite them towards a player ready to WS enroute, simply attack after the animation of the swing ends. If the giant doesn't TP or double attack you will proc. However the business of the monster immediately casting a spell or TPing after an attack ruining a proc isn't specific to iron giants, all monsters do this. This sounds like you are just terrible at procing.

[Elexia]

However the business of the monster immediately casting a spell or TPing after an attack ruining a proc isn't specific to iron giants, all monsters do this

To my knowledge not all monsters regular attacks are considered TP moves.


This sounds like you are just terrible at procing.

Given my experience with you on Phoenix, you're the last person I want to hear from about being terrible at something. >.>

[Glamdring]

Currently it is hard to truely judge this since people do not participate in the events that required drops/currency is needed from. Einherjar does take time to meet the prescribed amount, but if done properly will take roughly 59 runs to complete and takes less than half a year being that you can do 121 runs within a standard 365 day calendar. The ease of salvage can make farming easier on top of the availability to gain pouches in neo-nyzul. I could see the entire process of a mythic taking upwards of a year start to finish based on the fact you need tags for assaults, which you complete twice for clear+credit, kill all 3 kings, gain 100k Ichor, gain 30k Alex, etc. Saying Einherjar takes a year is inaccurate unless you are spending the ichor on other items.

You're operating under the assumption that only 1 person is attempting to build that mythic. The opposite is more likely to be the case. Not to mention, with the restrictions that are still in place that prevent soloers and the like from most of the requirements to build a Mythic and the artificial delays in the process as well people simply aren't doing the content, so the option of purchasing alexandrite and ichors would never have the availibility that relic building has with currency. similarily, most of the grind content on Empy weaps-full or ghetto-is reduced because so much of the kill line is force-pop.

i've never liked the requirement of just camping and staring at a screen. Make me farm a pop item or set, fine. then I can build a group of friends to tackle it when we are all available, for as many pops as we have. There would still be delays in the task, as SE seems to want, but at least we would be doing something, and our progress (or lack of it) would be tied to what it really should be-are you working at it? Sitting around with your thumb up your butt waiting for a ToD repop isn't working, it's just depleting Oxygen while generating Carbon Dioxide. Unless you're suffering from a respiratory condition, I don't know how that qualifies as fun...

[Nala]

The time investment ratio between mythic weapons and empyrean/relic weapons is unbalanced. For example, mythics require nearly 1 solid year of Einherjar to acquire, due to time restrictions and stringent reward restrictions.

There is stat imbalance between mythic weapons and relic/empyrean weapons. The general concensus is that mythic weapons are "not worth it" compared to their far superior, far easier and faster to obtain relic and empyrean counterparts, with only a few exceptions.

The amount of blue magic points available needs to be increased to accomodate for Voidwatch weaknesses. Currentlty, Blue Mages are uniquely disabled in Voidwatch for several minutes due to frequently needing to reset spells.

Steal and Despoil's recast is too high, especially considering their accuracy and the necessity of Stealing in THF AF quests and testimony acquisition. The recast should be shortened after an unsuccessful steal. This is unbalanced because in farming other testimonies, you get more than one chance per 5 minutes.

Modus Veritas does nothing (rounded to the most accurate generalization). This is unbalanced because there is a merit category available for this ability that does nothing.


First off with mythics the theory was to have a long involved quest line but ultimately be cheaper to make in the end, however the total required alexandrite was not only over 50% more then any relic but also dropped in lesser quantities. average prices of alex now forces mythic prices to be nearly 2-3x that of a relic now.

as far as stat imbalance im not too sure where you get that from ryunohige is suposedly one of the better if not best weapons in the game along with mythic gkt being now the best GKT for sam (only due to shoha)

eh they don't exactly have to re adjust set points if they just plain lower the amount of spells that proc.

cant agree with ya more on steal/despoil/aurasteal with the added lack of actual things to steal from newer content i'd rather see these abilities gutted for abilities that actually do something anything, more hate steal (non shared timmer) new type of damage or stance anything that ACTUALLY improves thf, not thier twisted idea of balance either.

Unless your refering to the whole fact that modus can miss then it does have a point.

[Anapingofness]

The time investment ratio between mythic weapons and empyrean/relic weapons is unbalanced. For example, mythics require nearly 1 solid year of Einherjar to acquire, due to time restrictions and stringent reward restrictions.

There is stat imbalance between mythic weapons and relic/empyrean weapons. The general concensus is that mythic weapons are "not worth it" compared to their far superior, far easier and faster to obtain relic and empyrean counterparts, with only a few exceptions.

Reward to difficulty ratio is unbalanced for the Eco-Warrior quests.

The amount of EXP granted by the items Miratete's Memoirs and Dragon Chronicles is no longer relevant in light of Fields/Grounds of Valor updates.

Items upgraded through Sagheera require a wait time, while far superior items upgraded by Magian Moogles are available instantly.

The amount of blue magic points available needs to be increased to accomodate for Voidwatch weaknesses. Currentlty, Blue Mages are uniquely disabled in Voidwatch for several minutes due to frequently needing to reset spells.

Steal and Despoil's recast is too high, especially considering their accuracy and the necessity of Stealing in THF AF quests and testimony acquisition. The recast should be shortened after an unsuccessful steal. This is unbalanced because in farming other testimonies, you get more than one chance per 5 minutes.

The difficulty of staggering certain Abyssean NMs (Shinryu, Iron Giants) is unbalanced, especially in light of staggering in Voidwatch. These NMs should at least be vulnerable to staggering during their normal melee attacks.

Modus Veritas does nothing (rounded to the most accurate generalization). This is unbalanced because there is a merit category available for this ability that does nothing.

Garlaige Citadel's blockage is still in place, but Quicksand Caves now has a key item available to circumvent the doors there. Although Wings of the Goddess can be used to reach the other sides of Banishing Gates, free travel around Garlaige Citadel is still not possible. This is unbalanced because jobs with AF quests in Garlaige Citadel have a unique disadvantage.

Rangers and Corsairs are uniquely punished for simply attacking, but there is no enhanced skill up rate for archery and marksmanship. Because players are punished for every bullet/arrow/bolt fired, the skill up rate should be enhanced for archery and marksmanship to maintain balance.


Holy crap! A list of actual balance issues! Kudos Edyth! Kudos to you my friend! I wholeheartedly agree and then some!

[Kaisha]

I don't get the Garlaige complaint. WOTG route gets you behind third gate, which leads to the area behind the first gate, and the glowing ??? for the mandy quest gets you behind the second gate, essentially allowing full access to the zone solo, given you bothered keep a flower or two in inventory.

Sagheera wait time is getting reduced to once every JP midnight also, rather than conquest tally also, check the latest dev tracker posts.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

I don't get the Garlaige complaint. WOTG route gets you behind third gate, which leads to the area behind the first gate, and the glowing ??? for the mandy quest gets you behind the second gate, essentially allowing full access to the zone solo, given you bothered keep a flower or two in inventory.

Sagheera wait time is getting reduced to once every JP midnight also, rather than conquest tally also, check the latest dev tracker posts.VW also drops you behind the gates.

[Dazusu]

Lol opinion. Mythic acquisition is unbalanced as hell. Period.

I was referring to the power of Mythics vs. other weapons - not acquiring them. Reading your post, you seem to think that one of the hardest things (one of the most unbalanced?) is killing the 3 Kings. If you think 'waiting days' for one to pop is troublesome, I have to question whether you played this game pre-abyssea. You should be used to such 'waits'


She has a lot of facts, not opinion, but based on some of your posts, I can see why you'd consider it opinions.

I was talking about the 'facts' being interpreted as unbalanced, not the details in the post.

Please read my posts properly if you absolutely must reply to them. I get you disagree with many of my opinions - but it doesn't make them any less valid, as my disagreement with the OP doesn't make their concerns (to them and those who agree with them) any less valid.



unnecessarily hard.

then later...


it takes no skill to stagger an iron giant

You use skill to make something that's 'hard' become easier and faster.

You're like a parody of yourself. Keep it up.

[Alhanelem]

Any BC can be defeated if you throw enough pets at it. I'd like to see pet HP reduced, or enmity shared with the master, so that SMNs would think twice before doing that 2k predator claws and encouraging more strategy.
Yeah, because summoners are totally overpowered and used to beat everything. We wouldn't want SMN to ever be wanted now, would we?

... not.
2k damage ever 45 - 60 seconds is *not* a lot.. Sharing enmity would make the job unplayable solo as hate would be constantly bouncing back and forth between the pet and master, even with the summoner doing absolutely nothing. Pet HP is already low for summons. While massing pets can make certain fights pretty easy, it's far from the fastest or most efficient way to win, and there are many other strategies that trivialize different pieces of content.

The last thing we need is SE to crap all over summoner when recent updates to the job have already been a joke.

This "concise list of balance issues" is nearly all opinion, not fact. Where there are facts, it's subjective whether or not it's actually a problem.


Modus Veritas does nothing (rounded to the most accurate generalization). This is unbalanced because there is a merit category available for this ability that does nothing.One uncommonly used ability does not make a job unbalanced. SCH overall is very strong. "balanced" doesn't mean "all abilities and functions of a given job are equally useful" - especially given the fact that it's impossible to directly compare most abilities to eachother.

[Anapingofness]

I don't get the Garlaige complaint. WOTG route gets you behind third gate, which leads to the area behind the first gate, and the glowing ??? for the mandy quest gets you behind the second gate, essentially allowing full access to the zone solo, given you bothered keep a flower or two in inventory.

Sagheera wait time is getting reduced to once every JP midnight also, rather than conquest tally also, check the latest dev tracker posts.

You're right. That path will get the job done but it is a long and rather convoluted path. Most of us have done the "open the X gate dance" or "get behind the gates jig". Personally, I get aggravated every time I have to go to Garlaige or behind any of the gates. It becomes such a pain after you do it for the hundredth time. =\


Is it too much to ask for a KI that will get us past the gates? It could be obtained via quest or some such thing. They did something similar with Delkfut's Tower.

[Yinnyth]

The amount of blue magic points available needs to be increased to accomodate for Voidwatch weaknesses. Currentlty, Blue Mages are uniquely disabled in Voidwatch for several minutes due to frequently needing to reset spells.

This is something which has always confused me about people who make VW groups. They get one blu to cover all blu weaknesses and then 3-5 blms. And then they act surprised when they run out of black magic procs and no one is getting any of the WS/blue magic procs within a reasonable amount of time.

Anyways, this is less a problem of "blu needs more set points" and more a problem of "leaders need more brain points".

[Jandel]

Garlaige Citadel's blockage is still in place, but Quicksand Caves now has a key item available to circumvent the doors there. Although Wings of the Goddess can be used to reach the other sides of Banishing Gates, free travel around Garlaige Citadel is still not possible. This is unbalanced because jobs with AF quests in Garlaige Citadel have a unique disadvantage.


What about Eldieme doors? At last, with WOTG and Mandy quest you can go solo looking for a chest...
You need a door-keeper to roam in those necropolis!

[Genoxd]

Any BC can be defeated if you throw enough pets at it. I'd like to see pet HP reduced, or enmity shared with the master, so that SMNs would think twice before doing that 2k predator claws and encouraging more strategy.

If I'm getting enmity for my avatars then I want to be able to do as much DMG as a WAR and BP every 10sec with no MP cost.

[Transmit]

Staggering Giants with insta-use WS's is fine. But trying to land an AM proc on them drives me insane. I don't think anyone would object if SE said Abyssea was getting VW style proc's, but at the same time I wouldnt bother fighting for it either as abysseas been done to death.

[Duelle]

If I'm getting enmity for my avatars then I want to be able to do as much DMG as a WAR and BP every 10sec with no MP cost.No MP cost would be pushing it, but I agree with your sentiment. I'd reduce MP costs by probably 85% and remove perpetuation entirely. Give each BP its own cooldown, too. Not really outlandish to ask for more damage, specially considering that summoners before Garnet and Yuna were wielders of destructive force and respected damage dealers.

[Alhanelem]

Summoners are lucky to be accepted for the events they're currently used at. It's a highly underutilized job (along with a number of others) and underpowered at that. Summoners have to wait at least 45 seconds to do 2k damage, good DDs can do far more damage far more frequently.

[Xantavia]

I don't get the Garlaige complaint. WOTG route gets you behind third gate, which leads to the area behind the first gate, and the glowing ??? for the mandy quest gets you behind the second gate, essentially allowing full access to the zone solo, given you bothered keep a flower or two in inventory.

Sagheera wait time is getting reduced to once every JP midnight also, rather than conquest tally also, check the latest dev tracker posts.
If was briefly mentioned, but those methods don't help if trying to do THF AF quests. You have to check several ??? on both sides of the gates, without zoning. Only way to finish is to get help opening the doors.

OP, I disagree with the comment about Raise 3. It drops from a BCNM style fight, making it accessible to anybody with the seals at any time they want to attempt the fight. I was much more annoyed trying to get Quake (I eventually gave up and bought it).

[Jamesy]

Most mythics are actually pretty beastly now. 3 minute OA3 equal the ability to spam really strong merit WSs and thats before considering utility enhancments. BLM is the best meteor staff in the game. SCH and RDM are terrible and maybe RNG? The rest are solid unless I am forgetting a stinker.

Just saying you ar dumb if you think scholar's mythic is terrible or you just have no idea how the job or game works because scholars staff is 100% effective all the time since you can cast weather on yourself as well at 99 weather requirement is removed and macc mab is permenant full time.

[Arcon]

Just saying you ar dumb if you think scholar's mythic is terrible or you just have no idea how the job or game works because scholars staff is 100% effective all the time since you can cast weather on yourself as well at 99 weather requirement is removed and macc mab is permenant full time.

Magic Attack and Accuracy are permanent at any level. The only thing affected by weather is the Enmity, and that's near useless. And to my knowledge, it's not removed at 99 either. 30 Magic Accuracy and 40 Magic Attack is nothing to brag about. It's about as good as HQ elemental staves, depending on your other gear. Trials staves blow it out of the water. SCH's mythic is near useless.

[Jamesy]

Stats of hq elemental staves:
+2 damage+15% acc+30 perp-3 rev damage-15% -30 +3

Tupsimati at 99
[Main] All Races DPS: 1552 DMG:104 Delay:402 Accuracy+30Magic Acc.+30 "Magic Atk. Bonus"+40Same elemental magic as weather:Enmity-20 "Omniscience" AfterglowAftermath: Inc. Mag. Acc./Mag. Atk.Occ. attacks twice or thrice LV 99 SCH

Oh and the trial staves damage only goes up to +35%


So if anything tupsimati is awesome and usefull inventory space saver unless on scholar you enjoy having your inventory space at 80/80 like mine is all the time

[Insaniac]

Notsureiftroll.gif

[Arcon]

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I think he just doesn't understand how MAB works.

[Aquilla]

To the OP: Excellent list. There are probably more items that can go there legitimately, but I would love to see Squeenix actually address these complaints.

To SE: these are problems that need to be addressed. That is all.

[Alhanelem]

There's nothing excellent about that list. It's just a pile of subjective opinions, proposing un-needed nerfs to jobs that he doesn't like and probably doesn't even play.

They must be killed with fire before Tanaka sees them and thinks they might be a good idea, not praised.

[Edyth]

Balance in videogames is an abstract concept. Therefore, it can only be discussed in opinions supported by facts.

I did not support every point, such as the difficulty to reward ratio in Eco-Warrior, and the irrelevant amount of experience points granted by scrolls, due to the fact that I assume my audience has prior knowledge of such things, and that knowledge alone is support enough.

Also, the offensive post about pet jobs was not my own.

[Alhanelem]

Balance in videogames is an abstract concept. Therefore, it can only be discussed in opinions supported by facts. As radical as your opinions may be, Tahngarthor, I always thought you were intelligent until now.It's fine to give opinions on balance. It's not fine to pose those opinions as facts, as the OP did.

Also, there's nothing radical about my opinions here. One of the OP's points which he is upset about - and I especially take issue with - that pet jobs can be used to beat various contents en masse- and deciding that these jobs are unbalanced because of that. Almost any content can be beaten by throwing a lot of <insert job here> at it. How many fights did we beat by throwing a bunch of BLMs at them? A bunch of heavy DDs?

It's not the fact that the original poster gave opinions on balance- it's the fact that he posed his opinions as indisputable facts. His list of "balance issues" is entirely subjective, and are not all "well known" to be balance issues. Some of the points are valid, but even those should not be written as if to imply that they are facts. The post also wasn't written in a way to invite opinions, it was just a statement- something like "I know all the balance issues with the game, and here they are."

So, thanks for the personal attacks. Also, it would seem I'm not as predictable as you think me to be.

[Edyth]

It's fine to give opinions on balance. It's not fine to pose those opinions as facts, as the OP did.

Also, there's nothing radical about my opinions here. The OP is upset that pet jobs can be used to beat various contents en masse- and deciding that these jobs are unbalanced because of that. Almost any content can be beaten by throwing a lot of <insert job here> at it. How many fights did we beat by throwing a bunch of BLMs at them? A bunch of heavy DDs?

It's not the fact that the original poster gave opinions on balance- it's the fact that he posed his opinions as indisputable facts. His list of "balance issues" is entirely subjective, and are not all "well known" to be balance issues. Some of the points are valid, but even those should not be written as if to imply that they are facts.

So, thanks for the personal attacks. Also, it would seem I'm not as predictable as you think me to be.

Your civility is admirable. I am the original poster. However, that remark about pet jobs was not part of my post; the second poster put that there, and I never added it to my list. He did mimic my bolding of important information, which I did because the original post is lengthy, so I assume that is why it appeared to be part of my list.

SMN 99 is my main job. The last thing I want is nerfs to pet jobs. Given that you interpreted the second poster's idea to be one of my own, I can understand why a PUP 99 would be offended. I apologize for my attacks. It was a misunderstanding. That comment about pet jobs, if it were part of my list, would easily taint and ruin the entire list for a pet job main.

I didn't understand why suggesting that free travel around Garlaige or an increase in Modus Veritas's effectiveness caused such a great offense.

Edit: I have removed the insults from my other post. I'm sorry. And by radical opinions, I meant that around the forum, you are vocal and I see people disagree with you often. In spite of personally disagreeing with many of your posts, I recognize you as one of the most intelligent posters here.

[Alhanelem]

I didn't understand why suggesting that free travel around Garlaige or an increase in Modus Veritas's effectiveness caused such a great offense.I'm not necessarily opposed everything that was written. I'm definitely at odds with specific things (as is obvious) but for the rest of it, it's more the manner in which it was written.

side note: Modus Veritas is not a weak ability in function- it's just that the nerfs that were put in place to prevent its abuse to kill NMs instantly also made it unuseable outside of normal monsters. They just need to make it not stack, or not stack more than 1 or 2 times, and then remove the NM resistance. However, my point in mentioning this earlier was that every job has some things that are less useful than others. When was the last time you cast Goblin Gavotte on BRD? That doesn't mean that there are imbalances in the jobs, though.

[Kitkat]

Still stand firm in my belief the list is too fact-less or based on biased opinion. Only about 3 of your points held any weight as far as concerns go, but the rest were based off glancing biased opinion, or had inaccurate information behind them placing a biased perception of 'unbalanced' to them. I tried my best to remain concise and to the point with each, but in the future it would probably be best if you understood some of the reasoning behind the way things are built before stating it is unbalanced.

To clarify, I only mean you need to look at both the pro and con of why something would be considered unbalanced. Your arguments clearly only showed cons giving it a biased opinion, which is something I believe Alhenalem is trying to tell you. Obviously if you look at the cons only it clearly appears that something is unbalanced, but if you compare them to the pros then you start to see the reason behind why it is the way it is.

This is not to say that Mythics are balanced in terms of effort+time compared to relic or Emp, obviously it isn't (but that isn't to say that they are completly unbalanced either considering Emp collection on 90+ items comes from content people do regularly). However, you have to look at the fact devs are still in the process of updating older content and releasing newer content (which I believe is turning out to be bad given the limited staff they have on FFXI). I believe they mentioned changes to Einherjar in the works some time ago, but as of yet is has not come about. On the other hand Neo-dyn made collecting currency practically a joke along with most of the NM requirements a walk in the park (and I stress most, not all).

You didn't stress this so much as you stressed the stats though, hence why I mentioned the fact they are primarily based on utility rather than damage output. Since merited WS, these have become vastly more desired due to length of aftermath effect and how it reacts during WS. Something I think you completely disregarded in your consensus when comparing the fact stats appeared unbalanced compared to emp and relic.

Without going into further detail on picking apart other points in your OP, which I already hit on and would rather not reiterate again in further detail, I would hope that you as well as your supporters of this....list...will take more time to think about just how much they really are unbalanced when looking at the whole picture instead of a few minor inconveniences of happenstance.

[Byrth]

It's a pretty random list, and I'm given the impression that the FFXI team doesn't have the resources to address most of the issues. I have given up really suggesting new things to be added or anything besides localization errors, so:
http://www.patandkat.com/pat/weblog/images/dogbert-bah.png

[Fupafighter]

You're right. That path will get the job done but it is a long and rather convoluted path. Most of us have done the "open the X gate dance" or "get behind the gates jig". Personally, I get aggravated every time I have to go to Garlaige or behind any of the gates. It becomes such a pain after you do it for the hundredth time. =\


Is it too much to ask for a KI that will get us past the gates? It could be obtained via quest or some such thing. They did something similar with Delkfut's Tower.

Dude... you can buy flowers for like 100 gil a piece in upper jeuno in a store near the dancers. My god stop being stingy and lazy.

[Fupafighter]

Staggering Giants with insta-use WS's is fine. But trying to land an AM proc on them drives me insane. I don't think anyone would object if SE said Abyssea was getting VW style proc's, but at the same time I wouldnt bother fighting for it either as abysseas been done to death.
My tip to you is have your tank run past you while you're casting. If your tank is far enough away, the giant won't swing. That's how I did stuff, and typically when we red proced giants, we would run the giant past the procers and let them ws as it gets to them.

[Rezeak]

These aren't balance issues there QQ issues

i mean comon bsing about that cor and rng should be able to stand by the mob when there clearly designed to be ranged DDs is just retarded and the skill issue .... yea abyssea hero you need to do some work gtfo.

My feeling on mythics is that yea it's good there hard because now relics are in the average difficultly to get it's nice to have 1 set of items that are hard to get and are definilty are a real achievment

[Alhanelem]

For future reference: Something that affects everyone the same way (e.g. banishing gates) isn't a balance issue. It might be an annoyance issue, sure, but it's not one of balance.

[Aquilla]

balance -- things being equal.
banishing gates are similar to the gates in quicksand gates, because they require multiple people to open and bar your progress.
quicksand gates got a fix, banishing gates didn't -- so, un-balanced.

it's exactly the same thing as saying 'dipper yuly has TH2, players with with /thf have TH2. Bst/dnc shouldn't have what players /thf have, so /nerf.'

debate, go!

[Alhanelem]

"similar" != "the same." your argument is invalid.

[Malamasala]

I only did a quick scan, but I didn't see the two most obvious balance issues.

1. Spirits delay between spells is ridiculous. (Still about 20 seconds per spell in best conditions). This coupled with random spell selection means you usually get 1 good spell per minute. At least the perpetuation cost is corrected now.

2. Cost vs efficiency of Wards. Lots of wards are just MP sinks without any benefits. One of the classics are Inferno Howl, that is HALF as strong as the COR version, lasts ONE TENTH of the time, and costs closer to 80 MP. You just end up saying "screw these wards, I'll pretend they do not exist".

[Alhanelem]

1. Spirits delay between spells is ridiculous.Not a balance issue. Useless abilities have no impact on balance unless the rest of the abilities available to the person are also useless. Summoner has these great things called avatars. You should try using them sometime.


2. Cost vs efficiency of Wards.Not a balance issue. There are plenty of beneficial wards with reasonable costs. This isn't a balance issue any more than "Goblin Gavotte is useless" is. Is BRD imbalanced and bad because it has like 50 songs that nobody ever uses? No, it's not. BRD is still a widely used and benficial yet not overpowered job. Summoner is probably underpowered, but it has nothing to do with how useless carbuncle's random stat buff (for example) is.
To improve summoner, they need to make what is already useable more competitive. Making terrible crap cost less MP or cast more often is not going to bring the job into balance with others.


You just end up saying "screw these wards, I'll pretend they do not exist". That's perfectly fine. Use the ones that are worth using instead of complaining that the ones that aren't worth using aren't. In many cases it's simply because the effect of various BPs is not desireable enough to warrant use of a 45-60 second timer over something else that's far more desireable. For instance, would you rather spend your BP timer on a dispel ability over healing or hasting your whole party? Given other people can dispell without tying up a 45-second timer that's also used for 30 other abilities, the choice should be obvious- There's no way to make dispel better to where those BPs would actually be used. Most of the time the reason a BP is not used has nothing to do with its cost in MP.

[Luvbunny]

It is a balance issue, those "useless now" BP used to be very useful, back when level cap was 75 and when you do normal 6 people party - where you don't always get your optimal job combination. A lot of the SMN buffs were somewhat useful back then. Now that the game has changed drastically, I don't think they get to SMN yet when it come to adjusting the job. I think DRG and PUP are the 2 jobs that got the most drastic overhaul in a good way. Scholar got the best new 2 hours, and other jobs got mild adjustment that are semi useful.

[Alhanelem]

those "useless now" BP used to be very useful, back when level cap was 75 and when you do normal 6 people partyI can't think of one BP that fits this description. There's hardly a BP that's useless now that wasn't useless when it was new.


Scholar got the best new 2 hours, and other jobs got mild adjustment that are semi useful. Actually I think perfect defense is better than anything SCH has. But that just goes to show how subjective this is.

[Urteil]

To my knowledge not all monsters regular attacks are considered TP moves.



Given my experience with you on Phoenix, you're the last person I want to hear from about being terrible at something. >.>

1) Lol. What, who said they were.

2) I try my best to not deal with terrible people. Our interactions have been slim to none making you forgettable at best.

3) Based on your not max level and the fact your profile everywhere seems to be hidden you're basically a high level sock puppet spewing repugnant crying garbage.

It would be a good idea to stop posting.

[Arcon]

It is a balance issue, those "useless now" BP used to be very useful, back when level cap was 75 and when you do normal 6 people party - where you don't always get your optimal job combination. A lot of the SMN buffs were somewhat useful back then.

I think you've got it backwards. SMN got quite a few major increases with the updates. All wards that were useful back then (which are very, very few) are still useful now, plus there's quite a few new wards. Inferno Howl is also one of the new ones, and despite what Malamasala said, it is still very useful. I am not aware of any COR equivalent of that, as I know next to nothing about the job, can someone tell me what exactly they meant? COR has an Enfire that deals up to 90 damage per hit and lasts for over 40min? Either way, my point is it's still very useful. It can increase a party's damage output significantly on certain mobs (for example, it almost doubles the damage output on the LB10 taru, making it an extremely easy win).

Fleet Wind was also added, again very useful, as is Earthen Armor. Before Abyssea, all SMN had was Hastega and Dream Shroud, the rest was hardly worthwhile. I've seen Aerial Armor and Earthen Ward used because of the long duration, but even that wasn't too useful and people did it more because of a "why not" attitude.

Also, BPs themselves were adjusted for the level cap increase (constant duration with up to 3min20s bonus from skill, which makes even Inferno Howl last over 4min, Hastega even over 6min), as well as a general perpetuation cost adjustment (lowered at some point during level cap increases).

[Byrth]

I think he was talking about Ifrit's lolWarcry (Crimson Howl?) and comparing it to Chaos Roll.

But PS. SMN could (and does) have its own thread for all the things wrong with it.

PPS. No one cares about spirits but you, Mellowy.

[Kitkat]

Think he was referring to Inferno Howl (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Inferno_Howl) actually. Even then it isn't 90 dmg at capped skill, unless he was referring to total enfire dmg per attack round of a h2h/dual wielder. Then he compared it to the lack of cor being able to give an enfire effect or similar that increases damage. Though that can be countered with other beneficial rolls cor can give to DD's increasing WS frequency and DoT by delay reduction. Hard to really compare the two when they aren't anything alike and the thing being compared is highly situational in use....further supporting the situational utility of Smn.

My smn isn't leveled so I can't really say much on its functional use, but of the things I do the only time I ever see smn in force is WoE. Pretty much everything else no one really cares to have one around.

[Sp1cyryan]

There really is just about nothing in the OP I found important to change.

[Alhanelem]

SMN is instrumental in the final LB fight. low melee damage makes inferno howl stand out, literally doubling (or more) people's damage, along with perfect defense.
PD makes anything easier. I'd like to be used for a lot more than that, but I'll take it.

[Sp1cyryan]

SMN is instrumental in the final LB fight. low melee damage makes inferno howl stand out, literally doubling (or more) people's damage, along with perfect defense.
PD makes anything easier. I'd like to be used for a lot more than that, but I'll take it.

I did G10 on my mule last week. SMN is only a hindrance now. The rarab tail lowers his defense and now leaves him terrorized for a minute. I did it as MNK THF (you know green pants, leaping boots at 95, etc) full perle DRG, a DRK, another DRG, and a BST. The fight was a joke we used one tail and killed him in exactly 1 minute so he never moved and possibly never even attacked. Two rarab tails and you can probably do this with a party of 3 decent DDs.

[Alhanelem]

SMN is only a hindrance now. The rarab tail lowers his defense and now leaves him terrorized for a minute.SMN is NEVER, EVER a hinderance in that fight. SMN increases the damage output of your party by far more in that fight than adding a DD in its place.

Screw the rarab tail. It's a waste of time to obtain it when the fight is perfectly beatable without it. The first time we ran it, we considered getting them, but nobody wanted to wait for it.

[Sp1cyryan]

SMN is NEVER, EVER a hinderance in that fight. SMN increases the damage output of your party by far more in that fight than adding a DD in its place.

Screw the rarab tail. It's a waste of time to obtain it when the fight is perfectly beatable without it. The first time we ran it, we considered getting them, but nobody wanted to wait for it.

No, in the setting I just described SMN is a hindrance. Plain and simple, and the time factored into getting a rarab tail (easy anyway) is irrelevant.

[Alhanelem]

It's not irrelevant, because it's not needed and a waste. Why bother taking the extra time - however long or short you think it is - to collect an optional item when you really don't need it at all to win?

The setting you described is a setting that typically shouldnt exist. I don't even know anyone who used a rarab tail to win. The fight is easy enough without it.

[Zerich]

It's not irrelevant, because it's not needed and a waste. Why bother taking the extra time - however long or short you think it is - to collect an optional item when you really don't need it at all to win?

The setting you described is a setting that typically shouldnt exist. I don't even know anyone who used a rarab tail to win. The fight is easy enough without it.

Why bother factoring in the time it takes to progress with ToAU to get Alexander Prime?

It's just a (now out of date) strategy for the final limit break fight, unless you aren't strong enough to farm the rarab items.

[Luvbunny]

The updates that SMN got is pale in comparison to the updates that PUP and DRG got. Is it better than nothing? yes. Are the few that useful are good? yes very much so. But it's like a moot point, the SMN job has been neglected for so long that the players will take every little update we can get and just make do with it since that's all we will ever get for now. At least till the developers willing to put 110% to this game again instead of putting skeleton crews while the majority of them are being put on task such as creating FF14 version 2.0. The thing that is very frustrating is that we know the team is extremely capable to create a fun enjoyable content, they already did it and did it extremely well, but for some reason they completely refuse to do it again or learn from past success like ToAU and Abyssea....

Unless they announce some sort of mini add ons (this is the best we will get this year lol) by end of summer, this game is going downhill again. Guild Wars 2, Tera, and Diablo 3 will take some percentage of the player base, and without giving the rest a hope dangling carrot, I see a dire future. FF14 Version 2.0 is not the golden ticket.

[Alhanelem]

FF14 Version 2.0 is not the golden ticket. Don't write it off, really, don't. But you're still going to have to wait a while for that- They're basically rebuilding the engine from scratch because the original developers messed up so much that they were limited in how far they could go to fix things with the current system- that's why it's taking so long.

Anyway, I agree SMN still needs more. That's why I was bothered so much by the OP stating that he felt pet jobs were OP because you can throw pets at BCNMs to win. Thing is, you can throw BLMs at stuff to win, you can throw DDs at stuff to win... You get the idea- it's not a valid point.

[Luvbunny]

It's funny how they see FF14 Version 2.0 is worth the effort when they already have the golden ticket of FFXI. Simply rebuilding the engine from scratch on FFXI and create true HD version would be great, migrate everyone to PS3, Xbox and PC for good. I mean FF14 will be out for PS3 probably close to 2013 at this point and won't be truly ready in a good way at least by mid 2013 or so, usually it takes a year or more to get a good balanced content - unless they took the lesson of abyssea and implement it. Ah what do you know, Yoshi is the star of abyssea and ToAU :)

[Luvbunny]

Anyway, I agree SMN still needs more. That's why I was bothered so much by the OP stating that he felt pet jobs were OP because you can throw pets at BCNMs to win. Thing is, you can throw BLMs at stuff to win, you can throw DDs at stuff to win... You get the idea- it's not a valid point.

I don't think the original OP posted it, another person who has no clue on how to play pet jobs did it. He must be either misinform, too lazy to level pet jobs, or just hold a grudge over pet jobs lol. Yeah you can throw pretty much all DDs, Mages, Smn, Bst, etc take your pick. People took advantage of zerg set up for years!! It's not that we cannot think of other strategies, but when you find out the sure win strategy that consume the least amount of time with the most possible reward, you do it, verbatim, end of story. Just like in real life, you gain profit by doing it with the least amount of time to get the most out of an event. Not everyone is crazy for punishment for a grindtastic fest with tons of death and frustration for an artificial "challenge".

Btw, we have not seen any pet jobs yet in FF14, I have a feeling the original team hated it so much that they decided not to add pet jobs to 14, since they have to do another work in balancing the AI. So say goodbye to PUP, BST, and SMN to ever appear on 14 :)

[Arcon]

Why bother factoring in the time it takes to progress with ToAU to get Alexander Prime?

Because Alexander can and is used outside of it. Alexander is not related to this fight itself.


It's just a (now out of date) strategy for the final limit break fight, unless you aren't strong enough to farm the rarab items.

That's just a (now possible) strategy for the final limit break fight, unless you're smart enough to see that running around killing fodder mobs takes hours compared to the two minutes it takes to shout for a SMN or ask a SMN friend to join you, or even zero time if one of the people who needs it even has SMN leveled. Not everyone likes to waste their time like you do. People have shit to do and places to be. Both strategies are valid and equally simple, but only one of them is smart.

[Sp1cyryan]

Because Alexander can and is used outside of it. Alexander is not related to this fight itself.



That's just a (now possible) strategy for the final limit break fight, unless you're smart enough to see that running around killing fodder mobs takes hours compared to the two minutes it takes to shout for a SMN or ask a SMN friend to join you, or even zero time if one of the people who needs it even has SMN leveled. Not everyone likes to waste their time like you do. People have shit to do and places to be. Both strategies are valid and equally simple, but only one of them is smart.

G10 is down to the newer population since you, I, and Sally Joe have already completed it. Newer people either don't have SMN or Alex. WHY NOT FACTOR THAT IN?!

Point is the tail and the time it takes was irrelevant because he said SMN is never a hindrance in that fight and I gave an easy to encounter possibly more likely scenario where it would be.

Perfect defense does not last as long as the tail and does not provide as much protection as the tail considering starts decaying 45 seconds into its use. So now that you have given up this DD slot to a SMN that has to use all its MP then stop and recover MP for however long that takes (even just siphoning and getting back into the battle is time out) you now need a WHM to compensate. As the fight will not be over in 1 minute with the type of people you will be picking up for such an event. So now you are two DD down and at risk for losing considering now you are braving his hundred fists somewhere around decaying time.

Do not get me wrong. I have won the fight with Alex several times before the tail adjustment and it was my preferred strategy. However, it did not guarantee a win and I would still use the tail with it to buy some time to try and get damage on him when he used to run around before PDing. You get people who are terrible in groups for this fight easily as not everyone is a celebrity and has people better equipped for victory people fill the slot.

With the change you just need DD and a tail to get more of a guarantee for winning. DDs which are much more accessible than SMNs and WHMs (especially ones that are not slow and/or bad). With the change you can still go with the THF with terrible gear, under capped skills, and a lack of any use at all and still not even come close to losing.

I am on SMN a lot and honestly I think Alhanelem is being more of a fanboy than objective.

The time it takes to get the tail is moot as you can easily take time shouting for a SMN forever, possibly losing the fight (not farfetced). PD is an outdated, but still viable strategy. It just happens to be inferior now.

[Luvbunny]

Perfect Defense is valid, you also need to factor ENFIRE damage, and can also add double attack boost from Ifrit, add to that that you can give your party ice spikes, stoneskinga and hastega, SMN IS A MUST for the battle. You do realize that once SMN used PD, they are not useless, astral flow last 3 mnts, you can use convert or sublimation to gain mp back - and elemental siphon. So within the 45 seconds, summoner can add more damage via astral flow, add elixir and whatnot, they can actually do 2 astral flow back to back within 3 mnts, and still do another round of damage post astral flow with Heavenly Strike. Obviously you will need a very good summoner who actually understand the job, not some drive by summoner via abyssea school of leveling. SMN + SCH + 4 beast/4 monk is your ideal set up.

[Alhanelem]

Newer people either don't have SMN or Alex. WHY NOT FACTOR THAT IN?!Because there are tons of older people around who do have it and can help, that's why. I've helped a whole bunch of people with the limit break quest. Many people needing the limit break quest aren't even newer players, they're older players who took a break. A friend of mine just did this. He'd played for years, and quit after 90 cap. He came back, and I told him "You have SMN. Just get a bunch of DDs, use inferno howl, then perfect defense, sit back and watch the fight win itself."


However, it did not guarantee a winYou really should not EVER lose with this. If you are, then you lost on purpose or played with people who don't know how to target an enemy and press the attack button (or you didn't use inferno howl).

[Arcon]

Perfect defense does not last as long as the tail and does not provide as much protection as the tail considering starts decaying 45 seconds into its use. So now that you have given up this DD slot to a SMN that has to use all its MP then stop and recover MP for however long that takes (even just siphoning and getting back into the battle is time out) you now need a WHM to compensate.

Completely wrong. WHM is completely unnecessary, I've never even done the fight with one and I've helped tons of people with the fight. And even without a WHM a SMN does not need to cure for the entire fight. I do it either as SMN + 5xDD or SMN + SCH + 4xDD, and in either case I very rarely had to cure (only with extremely shitty DDs, when the fight got unnecessarily prolonged). And the SMN + SCH approach not only offers you a curing member, but it has actually even higher DD output than the other option, because of Embrava.

Engage at distance > Hastega > Tabula Rasa > Accession > Embrava > melee buffs (Zergressor/Warcry/whatever) > Inferno Howl > Alexander > Run in and melee without using any WS/JA/Spells

The result is Tarutaru tartare in a few seconds. And if you're that scared you can even do Accession > Regen V, which will make you recover 100 HP/tick and which is more than the Taru can possibly dish out under PD, even if he had a fulltime Hundred Fists effect. I've done it with many subpar DDs. Worst win I got was SMN, SCH, BLUx2, THF, PLD, me being SMN and SCH mule and most of them were barely AH geared. One of us died right as PD wore off, but we still won without ever throwing a cure on anyone (which was my bad, as I didn't feel the need to control the mule). Just tell noobs to get full pink or perle gear for cruor, if they don't have anything else, along with Headlong Belt and possibly some food (I've always done it without) and they're set. As long as they hit fast, they don't need to hit heavy, because Inferno Howl will do most of their damage. It's just a bonus to win it in even less time. Note that a BRD instead of a SCH also works just as well, only without the Regen (unless it's a Daurdabla BRD, but that's just a bonus and not, in any way, required).

And for the record, no one is arguing that a tail is a safer strategy, so stop bringing that up. The safest strategy before the adjustment was getting 5x BLM and a refresher and use several tails. That works just as well (I even did it with just one tail with a good group), but that's not the point. The point is it's unnecessary when it can be done almost just as safely with way less effort. It's not hard if done correctly. You won't find many people who need it, which means many people who have it can help, which means they're usually better geared, skilled and higher level. I help everyone I see shouting for it and I know there's others too. I even farmed a tail for myself months ago and I've yet to use it, and I've probably been doing two fights a week since then. Farming one is just a waste of time. But if you're that paranoid about the win, sure, go ahead, I certainly won't stop you.

[Camiie]

Perfect defense does not last as long as the tail and does not provide as much protection as the tail considering starts decaying 45 seconds into its use. So now that you have given up this DD slot to a SMN that has to use all its MP then stop and recover MP for however long that takes (even just siphoning and getting back into the battle is time out) you now need a WHM to compensate. As the fight will not be over in 1 minute with the type of people you will be picking up for such an event. So now you are two DD down and at risk for losing considering now you are braving his hundred fists somewhere around decaying time


Last time I did this fight we did MNK MNK MNK MNK WAR(The guy who needed it who was in full perle) SMN. We won before PD wore off. Even with the decay on PD, the taru barely did any damage. The WAR and I farmed up a tail and didn't even need it. He was to use the tail as soon as PD wore. SMN is NOT a wasted slot here.

[Luvbunny]

Yeah this is one of those "stupid artificial barrier" that is unnecessary and then they adjust it so that it is even more easier now. People want to get to the meat of the game, which is now, pretty much grindfestastic that is magian trials anything weapon+gears+plus 2 whatever and the luck based "gambling" mentality that is voidwatch, walk of echoes, neo nyzul and legion. There is no more story driven thing to do, no new contents to consume. What is left is gear collecting in the most grinding way possible. Which is fine when it comes to abyssea since the battle system is fun with atmas - but not so much when it comes to post abyssea content.

[Kitkat]

LB10 or not, doesn't really change the situational utility of the job. I don't call having a job that is situationally useful in a handful of circumstances really all that commendable. Especially when there are alternative options available making that situational utility only a "convenience" rather than a necessity in LB10. Which, regardless of your argumentative pro/con sums up smn in LB10 fairly well: just a situational convenience over alternative options since the change of rarab tail effect. Did the fight with and without SMN both before and after change...have to say...I found it no harder to win LB10 without a SMN and with a tail now, than it is with a smn and without a tail. Primary difference between the two is you have 90 seconds...or 60 seconds to destroy the taru (the later of which can be used multiple times in one fight). Especially when people are trying to say that the point is to make the job beyond using it just for PD in certain situations since anything else is better than a smn taking up that spot in just about everything else but those few circumstances where they stand out.

[Shadowsong]

What a shocker, a balance thread by an OP that spews out opinions to stuff no one cares about which wildly spins into a SMN IS BROKEN > NO ITS NOOOOOOOOOT thread.
Who coulda seen this coming!?!?!?!?

PS Mellowy coming in and talking about Spirits definitely was the cherry on top

edit: I'm waitin for that DRK who makes 9 threads a day bitching about everything to show up

[Hayward]

What another shocker, some random know-it-all who apparently benefits from said imbalances and pops into a thread to berate someone who has the nerve to point them out.

[Urteil]

What a shocker, a balance thread by an OP that spews out opinions to stuff no one cares about which wildly spins into a SMN IS BROKEN > NO ITS NOOOOOOOOOT thread.
Who coulda seen this coming!?!?!?!?

PS Mellowy coming in and talking about Spirits definitely was the cherry on top

edit: I'm waitin for that DRK who makes 9 threads a day bitching about everything to show up


So the nobody that cares is you, or isn't you? Or what.

I mean you posted so, you care about stuff you not-care about. . . but are posting about nobody stuff that nobody cares about but you?

But you don't care.




You do realize that when you spit upward you only soil your own face right.