Pet Command - Muster

[Ophannus]

Pet Command
"Muster"
Level 50
DRG

Description: Increases Attack, Attack Speed and Accuracy of Wyvern but inhibits breaths.



This would allow our wyvern to deal higher combat damage in situations where the target is highly immune to breath-type damage(read: almost any NM endgame for level 99 players.) In endgame fights, Wyverns hit around 50-65 damage but Breaths deal about 15-20 damage due to the amazingly potent breath resistance that these NMs gain. Since the DRG is constantly using WS, the Wyvern is actually doing weaker damage over time by spamming its breath attack after each WS than if it simply just used melee attacks. I propose this pet command to restrict AUTOMATIC breaths(i.e this includes Healing,Elemental and Remove breaths that are triggered from using a spell or WS but DOES NOT include breaths activated from using Smiting Breath/Restoring Breath). In essence this JA would allow the DRG to completely control when a Wyvern uses breaths either automatically without the JA active, or not at all when it is active.

Once the DRG restricts the Wyvern from activating breaths, the wyvern will attack faster, for more damage and more accurately as well. Additionally this would let the Dragoon use Spirit Link more offensively since an oft forgotten attribute of this ability is that it transfers 50% of the Wyvern's TP to the Dragoon. Up until now this attribute of Spirit Link is ignored by every DRG because whenever we WS the Wyvern spends its TP on a terribly weak breath whereas we could save it for another WS with a Spirit Link transfer of TP during a hard fight.

tl;dr

Give a pet command to increase wyvern attack/haste/acc and restrict automatic Wyvern breaths(breaths that involuntarily activate on WS or when a spell is cast) so we can use spirit link to sap Wyvern TP during hard fights to increase our damage during fights where breath damage is LAUGHABLY worthless(read:almost always)

[Ophannus]

This is why we can't have nice things because people don't vote with likes or comments. Goto the JP boards and people will give ideas they think are good 100-200+ likes which are usually the threads that the devs read and implement. So far none of the ideas NA comment on are ever implemented(because people don't show with likes, seriously the only time the NA team comments is when there's a post in JP which they translate and then post on a NA thread that most closely resembles the OP thread from the JP forums, and if there isn't a similar post on the NA side, they make a new thread and post this 'new information'.)

[Babekeke]

Noone seems to read the job boards until they either get a dev response, or make it onto the 'current topics' or whatever it's called above the dev comments on the main page. Though you did get 6 likes already, I didn't feel anything needed to be added to your idea.

Unfortunately, it's catch 22. We don't get responses to our ideas, so people stop posting ideas, and stop commenting on and liking other people's ideas. So we get even less success leading to even fewer posters and so on and so on.

[SpankWustler]

I like this idea and so do a bunch of aging Chinese-Americans!

http://tvwriter.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Thumbs-Up.jpg

[Babekeke]

Up to 9... next 'like' gets to make it double-figures!

[Mirage]

Here's your 10th like. You're welcome!

[Babekeke]

Good job Mirage, May Altana shine on you, or something. And an 11th from someone arrived too^^

[Babekeke]

There clearly just aren't enough people logging into the english forums. It would be nice if Camate or Okiput could translate this idea to JP and stick it on the other forums and see how it goes down there.

[Leonardus]

Agreed with this. By Level 50, lorewise, your wyvern should be able to understand that there's a time for imitation and a time to vary one's attacks to achieve mutual victory.

[Ophannus]

Dragoon's attack power was probably set lower than jobs like WAR/MNK/DRK/SAM since DRGs have a pet that on paper, is supposed to make up for that low attack power. For example, on a Decent Challenege mob, I can hit for 280-340 per hit and my Wyvern hits for 80-110, it's like a little flying Enspell kind of. I can Stardiver for 2.5-3k and my Wyvern will do a 380 damage breath after and a DRK can do a 3.3kish Resolution so in the end, we're not too far apart. But when you make the target an NM and up the level,so it's 115-120ish, the Resolution will still do 2-3.5k depending on buffs but Stardiver is still only doing 1.5-2k, and the Wyvern will be hitting for 40-60 and Breaths don't do 380 like before, but now do 20-30, reduced by 90%.

[tyrantsyn]

There's 18, I think it's a great idea and a nice trade off.

[Babekeke]

There's 18, I think it's a great idea and a nice trade off.

Now up to 27. I imagine that we need 50 before devs are interested.

:(

[Ophannus]

Would be cool if they removed the charge time for Elemental Breaths to make them instant after the DRG uses a ws(so the wyvern can immediately resume attacking again which is 95% of its damage). But inb4 devs cry that it would make wyvern magic bursts impossible if they removed the 2-3second delay, but seriously who ever tactically closes skillchains on DRG and cares when their Wyvern Magic Bursts with a breath for 110 damage on a legion NM?

[Danita]

It doesn't matter. After I die, I have no wyvern anyway.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Now up to 27. I imagine that we need 50 before devs are interested.

:(No, it needs to be posted in the JP forums.

[Ophannus]

Wish there was an inhouse NA DRG player that could translate my ideas into JP and post them...

Especially this:
1)http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/23614-What-DRG-still-needs.
2)http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/27063-Lancer-s-Plackart-2-fulltime-effect-adjustment
3)http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/27064-Gungnir-needs-to-be-addressed.

[Tanama]

Like #29

I do hope the Dev team/Community team have read this thread and your other threads Orphannus. All of the material you wrote are not overpowering, they offer sacrifice and would bring Dragoon up to par with the top tier Ragnarok Dark Knights, Monks and Warriors.

[Babekeke]

Wish there was an inhouse NA DRG player that could translate my ideas into JP and post them...

Especially this:
1)http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/23614-What-DRG-still-needs.
2)http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/27063-Lancer-s-Plackart-2-fulltime-effect-adjustment
3)http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/27064-Gungnir-needs-to-be-addressed.

I actually considered sending it to my JP friend along with a copy put through google translate and ask him to just edit the google translate version to mean what it should mean. Unfortunately he's away for 2 weeks. Also I wasn't sure if you would be happy with me posting your idea for you.

Edit: after looking at the other 3 that you want translating, they might have to be shortened a lot lol.

[Ophannus]

Yeah I'm a bit loquacious with my posts only because I try to reason and justify the DRG fixes by demonstrating DRG's shortcomings and comparing DRG to other DDs. I feel like in order to convey the sense of need and urgency, I would try to be as detailed as possible so the Devs can see it from a player prespective. The reason for this is the Devs don't parse so they don't see that DRKs and WARs are doing massively more damage than DRG, they just see WAR and DRKs doing 2-3k WS and DRG doing 1.5-2k WS and probably think "That's balanced, the WAR and DRKs have stronger WS but that's ok since the DRG has a pet, that should balance out DRG's damage!"

[Babekeke]

40 Likes and counting, let's see if it can reach 50!?

[Okipuit]

Hello Dragoons,

We understand that wyvern breath damage is low and this is something that we would like adjust moving forward.

In regards to Ophannus's dragoon ability suggestion (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/27693-Pet-Command-Muster?p=365851&viewfull=1#post365851), before we adjust wyvern attack, speed, and accuracy, we would need to closely examine the damage dealt in conjunction with the actual dragoon. We'll keep you updated as we progress on this topic.

[SpankWustler]

We understand that wyvern breath damage is low and this is something that we would like adjust moving forward.

http://tvwriter.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Thumbs-Up.jpg

...

Those guys really like wyverns, apparently.

[Ophannus]

To further clarify, the developers need to examine the damage dealt in conjunction with the actual Dragoon on extremely high level targets (Hall of Mul, Provenance Watcher, Odin v.2). In hard fights like this, it seems like the Wyvern does almost nothing, and since the attack power of Dragoon is lower than other classes due to the availability of a pet, it seems unfair that the Wyvern is so weak on hard content. It's like burning a candle at both ends. Dragoon's attack power is weaker than a Warrior or Dark Knight because the Dragoon has a Wyvern--and the wyvern's damage in conjunction with the actual Dragoon should sum up to roughly as much as the other damage dealer jobs. This paradigm does hold true up until the Wyvern stops hitting for 70-80 damage with 300 damage Breaths and starts hitting for 30-40 with 20 damage breaths(while DRKs and WARs continue to do 3000-4000 damage weapon skills and Drakesbane and Stardiver are barely breaking 2k due to lack of strong abilities(thanks to having a Wyvern). The way I see it, the Wyvern's existence is meant to fill in the void the Dragoon has in the attack power department. Instead of getting strong abilities like Berserk or Souleater, the Wyvern was intended to fill in that damage potential over time by attacking fast and adding a breath attack after each WS. The problem is, which I can't stress enough, is the effectiveness of the Wyvern's power against any target higher level than "Even Match"; the usefulness plummets sharply after that threshold.

On lower difficulty content i.e Abyssea, Nyzul, Salvage, Wyvern damage is fair, as the breaths are not resisted and their regular attacks do moderate damage in conjunction with the Dragoon. It's on high endgame content where the damage becomes so lackluster that the Wyvern adds negligible damage to the Dragoon's performance and the only reason to bother keeping it alive is the benefit the DRG gets by proxy i.e Spirit and Soul Jump bonuses.

I would say that Wyvern breaths don't need a damage increase per se, their base damage is fine for what it is(a chunk of bonus damage on top of ever DRG weaponskill). What the wyvern breaths do need is perhaps an examination and reconsideration of NMs relative immunity to Breath-type damage. If breaths dealt as much damage when unresisted to these NMs as on regular mobs, that would be fine. Even with Deep Breathing and maximum Wyvern breath accuracy from Strafe,gear etc, I'm fairly certain Breath damage is still reduced as much as 80% on these NMs(maximum I was able to do was around 80 damage and I'm almost certain it wasn't a 1/2 , 1/4 or 1/8 resist; it's straight damage reduction).

Furthermore, as I said, a reconciliation of breath damage versus NMs would also benefit BLU since the physical attack power of their physical spells spells are skewed enormously against high level targets as well as PLD which would benefit from unrestrained Atonement/Spirits Within damage--consistent and accurate, albeit lowish damage against NMs would simply be another tool to aid them in holding hate versus monstrously buffed DDs.

[Tennotsukai]

Thank you, Camate! I also hope this coincides with Blu's breath spells lacking far far behind in damage.

[Tennotsukai]

Thank you, Camate! I also hope this coincides with Blu's breath spells lacking far far behind in damage.

Oops, I meant Okipuit, thank you! sorry...

[Martel]

Firstly, Seconding Ophannus' posts. Nice to know the dev are at least looking at the DRG/Wyvern concern.

Secondly, some nitpicking.


Furthermore, as I said, a reconciliation of breath damage versus NMs would also benefit BLU since the physical attack power of their physical spells spells are skewed enormously against high level targets as well as PLD which would benefit from unrestrained Atonement/Spirits Within damage--consistent and accurate, albeit lowish damage against NMs would simply be another tool to aid them in holding hate versus monstrously buffed DDs.
I didn't think Atonement and Spirits Within were Breath DMG. Although, pretty much every NM since VoidWalkers has has at least -50% to Atonement's DMG type. I thought they, along with Chi blast, were under a different DMG type.

[VraeliaRDM]

There's your damn 50 likes.

It would be SO fucking awesome though if SE actually gives a shit about RDM like they do every other job in this game.

[Supahkronic]

Good idea. But I would still LOVE to see the wyvern's healing breath fixed. They fixed the issue for SMN, but didn't fix the wyvern! ie-

Player uses Restoring Breath.
Wyvern readies Healing Breath.
Player defeats monster.
Healing Breath fails to activate, but the timer stays down like it went off.

[Hashmalum]

...

...

Amazing. This may be a first. If there is a JP post about this subject whose translated reply we are receiving, I can't find it. While I wouldn't call it confirmed yet, this may be the first time the NA community has received a specific reply about anything.

[Ophannus]

^This.


Also some tests were done with Chi Blast/Atonement/SW and it was found there is no 'spirit damage' and they fall under 'non elemental breath' damage. There are only 3 damage types in the game: Physical, Magical, Breath. Atonement I'm not 100% sure about but Spirits Within is definitely breath(it's also an HP based attack which should be a clue that it's a breath). Since newer NMs take very little damage from Atonement, SW, Chi Blast and Breath damage but not magic specifically(most NMs have MDB but only a few have direct MDT/SDT), it could be inferred that SW/Mijin Gakure/Chi/Atonement are probably breath based since typically the thing with breath damage is that it ignores magic defense and they do a static/fixed amount of damage based on a proportion of HP or in Atonement's case Enmity. The hypothesis that those abilities are breaths fits in line with the fact that they may have not intended for chi/mijin/SW to be affected but since those NMs resist breaths and chi/mijin/SW, then those abilities and WS are most probably breaths as well since it would extra work to make NMs resist those separately rather than if they were just lumped in with other abilities of the same damage type i.e breath.

Also I think it was found that Cerberus takes extra damage from Atonement, SW, Chi Blast as well as breaths. So rather than it being that he takes extra damage from all of those separately, it's easier to just categorize all the aforementioned abilities/WS as dealing breath damage i.e nonphysical, nonmagical.

[Hashmalum]

^This.


Also some tests were done with Chi Blast/Atonement/SW and it was found there is no 'spirit damage' and they fall under 'non elemental breath' damage. There are only 3 damage types in the game: Physical, Magical, Breath. Atonement I'm not 100% sure about but Spirits Within is definitely breath(it's also an HP based attack which should be a clue that it's a breath). Since newer NMs take very little damage from Atonement, SW, Chi Blast and Breath damage but not magic specifically(most NMs have MDB but only a few have direct MDT/SDT), it could be inferred that SW/Mijin Gakure/Chi/Atonement are probably breath based since typically the thing with breath damage is that it ignores magic defense and they do a static/fixed amount of damage based on a proportion of HP or in Atonement's case Enmity. The hypothesis that those abilities are breaths fits in line with the fact that they may have not intended for chi/mijin/SW to be affected but since those NMs resist breaths and chi/mijin/SW, then those abilities and WS are most probably breaths as well since it would extra work to make NMs resist those separately rather than if they were just lumped in with other abilities of the same damage type i.e breath.

Also I think it was found that Cerberus takes extra damage from Atonement, SW, Chi Blast as well as breaths. So rather than it being that he takes extra damage from all of those separately, it's easier to just categorize all the aforementioned abilities/WS as dealing breath damage i.e nonphysical, nonmagical.Sorry if this is off-topic, but... What sort of damage is Souleater, given that mobs can have resistance to it?

[Sukasaroth]

would also like to a a stay command -_-

[SpankWustler]

Also some tests were done with Chi Blast/Atonement/SW and it was found there is no 'spirit damage' and they fall under 'non elemental breath' damage. There are only 3 damage types in the game: Physical, Magical, Breath. Atonement I'm not 100% sure about but Spirits Within is definitely breath(it's also an HP based attack which should be a clue that it's a breath). Since newer NMs take very little damage from Atonement, SW, Chi Blast and Breath damage but not magic specifically(most NMs have MDB but only a few have direct MDT/SDT), it could be inferred that SW/Mijin Gakure/Chi/Atonement are probably breath based since typically the thing with breath damage is that it ignores magic defense and they do a static/fixed amount of damage based on a proportion of HP or in Atonement's case Enmity. The hypothesis that those abilities are breaths fits in line with the fact that they may have not intended for chi/mijin/SW to be affected but since those NMs resist breaths and chi/mijin/SW, then those abilities and WS are most probably breaths as well since it would extra work to make NMs resist those separately rather than if they were just lumped in with other abilities of the same damage type i.e breath.

This brings up another point, in line with the breath resistance stuck to so much stuff.

If there are a number of separate resistances at play, some goofball got the idea in his head that breath spells and wyvern breaths and Atonement and Mijin Gakure all did too much damage. He was sitting at his desk one day, spinning around in his chair as fast as he could, and it occurred to him that 750 damage is an awful lot.

Then, people went along with that idea. Everybody went along with that idea.

I can almost understand why the breath resistance was construed as something that maybe had a right to exist, since it crept in at roughly the same time that huge +HP buffs became available, but the bonus resistance to stuff like Atonement and Mijin Gakure almost makes it seem like a mean joke. Like somebody somewhere knew that breaths and static-damage special abilities produced poor damage compared to everything else roughly 90% of the time, and wanted to drive that point home as part of some strange philosophy.

[Ophannus]

I think they nerfed breaths against NMs because they ignore usual defenses. High DEF and VIT give NMs great physical defense and MDB/INT/MND and MDT give NMs great magic defense, but until TOAU, most NMs had 0 defense against breath damage. So in order to keep NM difficulty relatively high, they probably added a breath damage taken-% component to new NMs since no other stat would reduce breath damage(it ignores all defenses). Breath Damage is more effective than magic or physical because 1) breaths don't miss 2) they resist less(i've heard they have fewer resist states than magic, they don't have 1/8 resists only 1/2 and 1/4)). Since breaths do moderate damage but are very accurate and consistent, it would be an easy way to wittle NMs down. This is probably why they nerfed it.

Souleater damage might also be breath damage, I've never tested it but it would be interesting and difficult. Does Souleater add damage even when a mob's Invincible or if you hit for 0?

[Xilk]

Beastmaster has a couple breath's as well, but I must say Discreet Louise's breaths have severe accuracy handicaps. When testing I often had resists on level 0~1 mobs... Which now that I think about it, was before they fixed the stat mixup w/ louise and the normal funguar.

Raphie's breath attack doesn't seem to have that problem that I recall. Guess I'll have to go testing again.

[SpankWustler]

I think they nerfed breaths against NMs because they ignore usual defenses. High DEF and VIT give NMs great physical defense and MDB/INT/MND and MDT give NMs great magic defense, but until TOAU, most NMs had 0 defense against breath damage. So in order to keep NM difficulty relatively high, they probably added a breath damage taken-% component to new NMs since no other stat would reduce breath damage(it ignores all defenses). Breath Damage is more effective than magic or physical because 1) breaths don't miss 2) they resist less(i've heard they have fewer resist states than magic, they don't have 1/8 resists only 1/2 and 1/4)). Since breaths do moderate damage but are very accurate and consistent, it would be an easy way to wittle NMs down. This is probably why they nerfed it.

Interesting. I had no idea that breath resistance started as early as Treasures of Aht Urhgan. I knew my breath damage on some NM's was worse than numbers on paper indicated, but being Tarutaru, I was using the breath spells on a lark anyway and just assumed I sucked horribly in some intangible way. I also just assumed the changes came later.

Knowing the change was made that early does put the resistance in a much different perspective. That means stuff has resisted breath spells as long as players could really control breath spells. Given the special brand of extra-acidic vitriol that the Development Bros seem to possess for anything that deals static damage or bypasses some kind of defense in any way, I guess I should have expected that.

Of course, the huge amount of breath resistance on newer stuff is still hilarious in any context. I imagine a dejected wyvern looking through a FFXI AH advanced search for something that might benefit him in the face of roundabouts -80% breath damage taken, finding nothing, and weeping.

Weeping through his mouth via a 27 damage Aqua Breath.

[Daydreamer]

Breath attack's are designed for the last 10% to 20% HP of a Mobs life, mostly NM's. As the Mobs HP drop's the accuracy of the breath attacks increases.

While most monsters get enhanced MDB and PDT as well as higher atk and atk speed in the last portion of their HP. I think they wanted us to use the breath attacks to cut through the last part of a battle.

So Dev's if you read this or hear this. We get that (^^) about how the breath attacks were intended to be used. But the accuracy of a breath spell should be adjusted 100%. They take a long time to cast on blue mage and cost a substantial amount of MP, also they are the prime source of extra damage from a dragoons wyvern.

I like that our HP or a wyvern's HP adjust's the power of breath spells. Accuracy issues just need to go away if you really want to give them balance. Each breath attack should function as good as spirits within. Some food to feed a pet wyvern so you can keep their HP full would be awesome also. Not just the "JA" the poor little critters die way to much in big fights with heavy aoe. Special foods with stoneskin, phalanx, +100 MDB, and maybe even let them eat more then one food at a time and yes include the food from the armor being worn at the time you call the pet. Wyverns arent that big bad and buff that your going to unbalance the game by letting them "Live longer" and "Hurt their targets".

I know alot of folks wont like the food idea because its just one more thing to buy one more thing to pack around. But I think folks would buy them up real fast if it meant birdie didnt die 30 secs into the fight.

[Ophannus]

Never ever heard of accuracy rising as HP is lowered.