Breath damage increase

[Ophannus]

The last patch ushered in a significant increase to Wyvern physical damage(roughly 50% increase to observable damage compared to before the update. This results in Wyverns hitting for ~300-400ish with high enough attack vs defense ratio. The problem now is that Wyvern Breaths when fully boosted from leveling the Wyvern up(from EXP/Empathy) with Wyrm Armet+2/Glassblower's Belt/Lancer's Torque is ~444 damage with an ilvl119 Polearm. This is roughly equivalent to a regular hit but has 2-3x more delay(the Wyvern charges it after a WS then fires it off a few seconds later, followed by a short delay in which the Wyvern doesn't begin attacking). For example, my Wyvern is hitting mobs for ~410 damage, but when I WS, it uses a Flame Breath for 444 damage(maximum damage possible without deep breathing) but in the time he used that Flame Breath, he could have hit 2-3x for more damage.

Under the current circumstances, a Wyvern's elemental breath does more or less the same damage as a normal hit but takes slower to use, so the breath actually slows the wyvern DPS down than if it just didn't use the breath at all. Considering that Wyvern breaths are based on HP and healing breath is already VERY strong, is it possible to readjust the Elemental Breath damage formula to be a higher function of HP, or some kind of bonus multiplier for ilvl weapon, or maybe add in some kind of modifier for other stats the wyvern has(INT/MND etc)? This way they can increase breath damage without increasing the Wyvern's HP or Healing Breath potency. It's just Elemental Breath that needs a touchup now that melee hits match it's power. It feels like less of a 'special attack' and more like a hindrance.

[Tennotsukai]

Another thing that really needs fixed is this, for both blu and drg though :)

[Demonjustin]

Almost makes me wonder if in some cases WSing as a DRG would actually be worse for you rather than better if you own a Mythic, since you're talking about the 2~3 times attacks for both you & your Wyvern, since your Wyvern is capable of doing some nice damage on its own that it's losing not to mention the fact your gain seems less than normal from WS with all of the massive multi-attack you have going constantly. Either way, for Mythic DRGs it definitely seems that Breaths are a massive downfall more so than ever an advantage.

[Ophannus]

http://cdn.ffxipro.com/images/ss/full/zKk9F09YObTpYkGM.jpg

SMN avatars are doing like 20k+ every 45seconds with their BPs. I think they could afford to double--no triple wyvern breath damage. Even if they did, it wouldn't affect much since breaths are based on HP and chances are in an Ark Angel fight or Divine Might, your Wyvern would not be at full HP for very long, skeweing the breath damage heavily. Breaths are heavily resisted, often deal less than 400 damage due to being based on HP and are slow to use. Any kind of attack based on HP should be either very potent or extremely accurate, but Wyvern breaths are both weak AND resisted often(talking about Naakuals, Delve and Ark Angel II content, not skirmish or reives.)

[Rendra]

I'm not seeing this 50% increase you're talking about. In Foret de Hennetiel my Wyvern hits for about 150-250, I have yet to see him break 300 unless it's a critical hit.

[Demonjustin]

Well he did say if you have a high enough Atk/Def ratio, in Foret it may not be high enough, though, I would say that sounds quite a bit higher than what I recall it doing before isn't it?

[Tennotsukai]

I also think deep breathing needs to be on a lower recast.

[Ophannus]

I parsed before and after. Granted, the afterpatch parse is a much smaller sample size, it's enough to show a clear disparity between hi/low damage and hi/low crit. I targeted the same mobs in both cases. If you like I can go out and gather a comparable sample size but I think the hi/low is enough to demonstrate sufficiently a rather high damage increase.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/600/s48a.png

For people who don't know what the above chart means:

M.low/Hi 50/256 on the top right means my Wyvern's weakest attack was 50 and highest was 256. Compare that to the below 99 and 334. Same goes for crits. Before patch low/high crits were 132/323. After the patch low/high crits were 190/441. Average damage was 165.43 prepatch and 230 post patch. The sample size of this data doesn't provide much statistical power but it just gives you a rough ballpark estimate of the damage increase.

[Tennotsukai]

I'm not seeing this 50% increase you're talking about. In Foret de Hennetiel my Wyvern hits for about 150-250, I have yet to see him break 300 unless it's a critical hit.

Probably due to your profile picture there, so change your pic to one of us and you'll see more damage :)

[Rendra]

Probably due to your profile picture there, so change your pic to one of us and you'll see more damage :)

lol, I'll look into that XD

[Camate]

Greetings,

The development team is currently looking into whether they can make it so players’ stats have stronger effects on wyvern breath abilities. I’ll be sure to let you know once there is some progress! :)

[Tennotsukai]

Also blue mage's breath spells are rather useless too. Try casting them on new content mobs/nm's and you'll see why.

[dragmagi]

Yeah and u spend sometimes at least a 1/9th of our mp trying just to have it resist or do around 100 DMG.

[Tennotsukai]

If this was fixed or adjusted would dragoons see a spot in alliances or parties as a dd? How much damage would this have to increase by to be worthy of end game?

[Ophannus]

It would have to be substantial. Right now my Wyvern's breath is about 400ish and that's at full HP. The odds of a Wyvern remaining at 100% HP on any relevant content is 0%. Ark Angels spam AoEs that deal easily upwards of 2-2.5k on higher difficulties about every 10-15seconds. Delve same thing. The fact that Wyvern Breaths deal damage based on the Wyvern's current HP is a huge design flaw. I would suggest the damage formula be similar to Healing Breath whereby damage is dealt based on Wyvern's Max HP rather than current HP. This would enable it to deal full damage whether the Wyvern is at 1% health or 100% health.

Dragoon weapon skills are weaker than other damage dealers because we don't have Berserk/Last Resort/Impetus/Overwhelm. The Wyvern's Breath damage, which activates on every weapon skill, is meant to bridge the gap and make up for not having a powerful weapon skill buff ability like other jobs. The problem is if the Wyvern is dead or near death, the breath will not do the 400 it's supposed to, but most likely 50-100, this is hampering.

Dragoon has always been that job that could have been great if it weren't for the massive flaws it was cursed with since 2003. Its a shame that we have to rely so heavily on a Mythic Weapon in order to be worth a damn. Hopefully they buff Breath damage the same they did for Physical.