DEV Suggestion to make adjustments to CE and VE - Quality of Life

[Jile]

This post is around the premise that you desire to see a traditional 'tank' in FFXI. If you do not agree with that premise, this post will just annoy you and it's best to just move on and ignore it. lol

Back in the day the -60VE/sec decay functioned much more effectively than today and a significant adjustment needs put into place to regain the 'function' of a tank role if SE still finds importance in such a role?

Enmity as it stands, as I understand it (and paraphrased from the bg-wiki (http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Enmity)):


Cumulative Enmity (CE) is generated when doing damage or using almost any spell or ability until a player has reached the cap of 10,000CE.

Volatile Enmity (VE) is generated when doing damage or using some spells and abilities to a cap of 10,000VE

Total Enmity (TE) is simply a sum of the player's Cumulative Enmity and Volatile Enmity. The cap on total enmity is 20,000. A monster with hate will target the player on the hate list with the highest total enmity.


Adjustment suggestions:

1) Change the current -60VE/second decay to -1000VE/second for all jobs except PLD, RUN and NIN.

2) Add a decay (currently there isn't a decay) to CE matching the level of adjustment on VE. -1000CE/second.

3) Perhaps most critically: Adjust the CE and VE caps on PLD and NIN to 15,000 each where these two tanking jobs could increase their odds of maintaining enmity control over the tanked mob in question.

4) I would also like a JA to be created for PLD and RUN that works in the complete opposite of Enmity Douse, perhaps called Enmity Engulf, which would max TE at my suggested 30,000 so a PLD or RUN could initiate a fight with maximum CE/VE, perhaps as a new 1-hour ability to be used on higher tier fights.

There's no question to the fact this old topic has stirred heated debates for years but no effective adjustments have been made to really rectify these issues.


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Camate - Thank you for being so active in the forums so I ask you specifically - Are there any thoughts on the future of tanking/enmity that the DEV team are looking into that you can share or even hint at?


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Thoughts?

[Kuroganashi]

Agreed !

Could also make new Spells for Enmity last longer >.> Among others ?

as a NIN PLD RUN spells keep running out too quick >< Mid-battle even , Recasting them not only impairs my DPS but also makes me Vunerable to enemy for a few short seconds (1~3 seconds) But still annoying........... when I have to focus on the Fight I gotta keep Recasting shit.

[Grekumah]

Enmity control is not only something that is crucial for a tank; it’s also something that the entire party needs to be concerned with. Due to this, we do not have any plans to make adjustments so that only tanks are able to completely control enmity. It’s for this same reason that we are not thinking about increasing the enmity cap on tanks.

In a future version update we are planning to make enmity adjustments by adding methods to certain jobs to reduce a set amount of enmity. We’d like players to hang in there for a while until these adjustments are made.

[Akivatoo]

lol
/delete PLD item
/reroll Brainless DD
/bow SE

[Zhronne]

Due to this, we do not have any plans to make adjustments so that only tanks are able to completely control enmity.
Then may I ask in which situations exactely do the devs see us using a Tank job? Why should player bring tanks to a particular event instead than a group of Damage dealers that will produce more damage, faster, without having to worry about "holding up" their damage but allowing them to go all out?

Not sure if anybody of you devs played the game or any other game over the last years. Holding up a bit is okayish I guess, but the amount of holding back that would be necessary to make tank jobs work is beyond that. Are you at least aware or are you pretending not to see the elephant in the room?

Thanks for your time.

[Malthar]

I think Dale hijacked Grekumah's mind. lol
Brainjack! You can have this.

[Draylo]

They are probably referring to THF using enmity reducing tactics, SCH can too. I can see those being more beneficial instead of a tank holding hate 24/7 with no penalty.

[Zhronne]

I concur with that Draylo, but there's a long way between the current situation and a Tank holding hate 24/7 afk.
A whole new world of shades in between those extremes.

[Glamdring]

Actually, I think that yes, they expect thieves to control enmity, but moreso they expect players to play the way they did for 8 years and LET the tank hold enmity. In other words, hold back on the Zerg and work your fights as a team. I've seen too many "DD DPS is everything" threads to think that will ever happen again however so this is wishful thinking on the devs part. Still, they could win this fight if they really wanted, designing mobs in new content with great gear but that can only realistically be defeated using a party with a dedicated tank and coordinated actions-we are somewhat used to this with all the fights currently generally beaten with monks, sams and rng spamming light skillchains but that won't work nearly as well if they add a mechanism requiring a tank to upcoming content. However, given the way they have "fixed" Rune as the tank they wanted I think it's fair to say they haven't a clue yet on how to make content that requires a tank when they can't even make a dedicated tank job a tank.

Yeah, I'd say there's some work ahead for the devs here.

[Rwolf]

I will say there is nothing wrong inherently with having a more intricate difficult tanking system and enmity being a strategy. However, I personally find glaring issues with this working successfully.

Time limit on content: Almost all current item level content is locked by time to complete. Which in turn promotes strategies that are about being as time efficient as possible. More time = more room for error. The vision that we should have damage dealers restrain their damage output by not engaging or turning around is not going to fly as common acceptance. Stopping damage is the only way you're going to currently keep a monster's attention on the tank without enmity tricks. All strategy boils down to cost versus benefit. The cost to slowing down damage is too high comparative to the benefit you receive from it.

Genre generalization & expectations: The general expectation of a tank class is that it can tank. Tanks by gaming definition are classes that redirect enemy attacks or attention toward themselves in order to protect other characters or units. Protect bolded because to me, it defines their role, damage mitigation. So the expectation is to some extent a tank should be able to hold enmity onto themselves to make it easier on healing. While a White Mage may rely on a Bard or Red Mage for MP sustainability and support. They have the ability to do their job from a base level without much cooperation.

Mutual desire to retain difficulty: Some players and developers prefer the enmity system not be too easy. I don't have a hard opinion either way. I do believe it doesn't have to be easy, but it should be simple. Those are different things. For example, auto-attacking and firing off some instant abilities to hold hate is easy. Anticipating party member output, balancing enmity gain versus enmity loss, and coordinating when to use high damage abilities (like SP) with enmity control is simple. Simple in easy to understand but still requires some thought.

Enmity manipulation made required, not a boon: Enmity manipulation should be a buff in my opinion, it is raw damage mitigation. It is a way to support your party by increasing damage output safely and a way to assist recovery if something bad happens. While damage dealers shouldn't be able to go full offensive with no penalties, there should be a general threshold of moderate damage without much danger. Enmity and potential time completed should be considered when creating content and associating what the content level is. If "X" level party goes into a 45 minute timed area with a tank job. Can they complete a majority of this without stacking all of their (and potentially outsider -_-) abilities/buffs/debuffs/etc?

[Zhronne]

but moreso they expect players to play the way they did for 8 years and LET the tank hold enmity.
I don't think they really expect that, if they do it would mean they're completely oblivious to the current state of the game.
It's not just only a matter of habits as you imply (altough I reckon that plays a part for sure).
It's a matter of the damage>enmity conversion formula. Back at level 75 it wasn't as easy as it is now to reach the enmity cap, the conversion ratio made sense at the time. DDs could hold up their damage within reason, make use of Trick Attack and several other means etc. Well, this system kinda started to crumble towards the end of the 75 era, but it worked just fine for many years.
Wether it was fun or not it's another story I don't wanna discuss that.

My point is that atm it's not possible because the conversion ratio has never been thoroughfully and massively fixed since when they increased the level 75 cap. All we got is a series of small tweaks that are welcome but didn't fix anything.
It's also a matter of appareant incoherence with their policies.
Remember when they did a pretty large enmity maneuver at the beginning of SoA to bring back the conversion and the levels within reason? But then released weapons with insane base damage, bringing total damage (and so enmity generated) up again, and then added +skill to those weapons, and then released Empy WSs for everybody, and then furtherly empowered WSs and Skillchain.
The situation is completely out of control.
How do you expect a single job (THF) with several minutes cooldown JAs to fix all that?

Is this the way a game designer plans to fix a pretty obvious flaw in the system? By making a job mandatory meaning that you won't be able to play tank strategies without that job? Or if that job gets amnesiaed, killed, paralyzed etc?
It sounds like an incredibly naive and weak solution to a much larger issue, if that's really what they're planning.
So I'm hoping to see more on that regard from the devs in the months to come, not the usual Grekumah™ "We currently have no plans" stuff
(nothing against Grek of course, he just relays the news to us, doesn't produce them ^^)

[Zhronne]

Also to furtherly emphasize what I meant with "holding damage a bit is fine, but this is too much".
Please check other games. Yes, FFXI has a different gameplay model but mine is just an example, I don't expect FFXI to become something that is not.
Tell me where in other games you see damage dealers who can never go all out under any other circumstances except when there are no tanks/you're zerging. Because that's what is happening in FFXI.
You'd be basically forced to cut your dps by more than half to make the system work, and that wouldn't even be enough probably.

Now is that "fine"? Is that "working as intended"? Is that "fun" when you can't even use the instruments your job has?
It's fine to avoid going all out too fast, especially on pulls, especially if your gear is so much better than the tank's.
It's fine to avoid that tanks can keep hate no matter what regardless of everything else (which would de facto eliminate the enmity control element, this is no good).
It's fine having to hold up a bit for DDs and healers too.
But what they're asking -if they're really asking it- makes no sense.

They *have* to do something about enmity if they expect us to use Tanks in content and use DDs in the same pt, instead o the "no tanks just DDs" setup that's been used for the last years. (only other alternative being Tank + RNGs for obvious reasons. Hello out of AoE range and Decoy Shot! Nice to meet you)

[Glamdring]

I don't think they really expect that, if they do it would mean they're completely oblivious to the current state of the game.
It's not just only a matter of habits as you imply (altough I reckon that plays a part for sure).
It's a matter of the damage>enmity conversion formula. Back at level 75 it wasn't as easy as it is now to reach the enmity cap, the conversion ratio made sense at the time. DDs could hold up their damage within reason, make use of Trick Attack and several other means etc. Well, this system kinda started to crumble towards the end of the 75 era, but it worked just fine for many years.
Wether it was fun or not it's another story I don't wanna discuss that.

My point is that atm it's not possible because the conversion ratio has never been thoroughfully and massively fixed since when they increased the level 75 cap. All we got is a series of small tweaks that are welcome but didn't fix anything.
It's also a matter of appareant incoherence with their policies.
Remember when they did a pretty large enmity maneuver at the beginning of SoA to bring back the conversion and the levels within reason? But then released weapons with insane base damage, bringing total damage (and so enmity generated) up again, and then added +skill to those weapons, and then released Empy WSs for everybody, and then furtherly empowered WSs and Skillchain.
The situation is completely out of control.
How do you expect a single job (THF) with several minutes cooldown JAs to fix all that?

Is this the way a game designer plans to fix a pretty obvious flaw in the system? By making a job mandatory meaning that you won't be able to play tank strategies without that job? Or if that job gets amnesiaed, killed, paralyzed etc?
It sounds like an incredibly naive and weak solution to a much larger issue, if that's really what they're planning.
So I'm hoping to see more on that regard from the devs in the months to come, not the usual Grekumah™ "We currently have no plans" stuff
(nothing against Grek of course, he just relays the news to us, doesn't produce them ^^)

actually, I didn't say it here but over in the summoner thread but yes, I think they ARE in fact oblivious to the state of the game. Look at the support jobs, they are all largely dependent on the party maintaining position and holding the mob in 1 place. We have "backline jobs"-nukers, rangers, etc. also dependent on the mob being kept away so they can even stay alive to keep doing their jobs. Well, I've run with enough different parties to know that mob is NOT staying put as things stand. Now, there are some tactical fixes that can be used like the ranger Decoy Shot onto the tank, but in addition, the bind spell, shadowbind ability, using WS/JA with stun, gravity spells, even spamming sleeps but the problem with those is where they are needed-boss mobs-the mobs are resistant and we players may burn through them too fast for them to be up when needed. We actually have to run strats dependent on the use of 1 hour abilities to have them up. And that isn't real enmity control.

No, I think the big change needed is to increase the decay rate on the volatile enmity-and maybe to increase the portion of hate that is volatile. If that's done then tank jobs-which generally have more hate generating tools to use-could keep pulling attention back to themselves. The DD would only need to turn away when they had attention for the short interval until they lose it. And thief might have a chance to use their enmity control abilities properly, and then use that great hate freeze ability to proper effect. Of course, if they revamp back-line jobs such that nukers are again desired for large damage output that could also change (and allow bind and sleep and stun spam as well). and to be honest, I miss using nukers in parties.

[saevel]

They finally see the primary issue here, that most jobs don't have any reliable enmity sink ability.

Guys in every MMO a powerful melee can rip hate off the "tank" and frequently does. This is expected and the reason powerful short range DD's are often on high defense gear vs the back line support. The melee is expected to withstand the punishment for short periods of time then the boss NM switch's back to the tank. In FFXI speak this means DD's need to have -DT sets that focus on defense, MDB, MDT, PDT and whatever other defensive stat they can put on.

The real issue is that due to the enmity system, there is no real way to sink static enmity other then getting your face kicked in. Once your at 10,000CE your pretty much going to be "tank" no matter what you do since VE from damage is a multiplier of CE, if your capping CE you've long since caped VE. The amount of damage you'd have to take to reduce your CE by any appreciable amount is far above our HP totals and the time it takes to recap it is less then 30~60s. Because of this there is zero reason to disengage or "watch hate", your going to cap it super fast and then your going to keep it capped the entire fight with no way of sinking it. Every job needs an enmity sink, the ability to either completely transplant all your hate onto another job (reverse collaborator) or the ability to make a large portion vanish. These abilities need to be on relatively short timers, something on the order of 60~120 seconds, not 5 ~ 10 minutes. In this way melee's could hack away and when things get intense they could take turns sinking their enmity and thus enabling a central melee (the tank) to hold the lions share of hate.

[Mefuki]

In a future version update we are planning to make enmity adjustments by adding methods to certain jobs to reduce a set amount of enmity.

I see. Would you like to take this opportunity to finally fix Hydro Shot to do what it was suppose to in the first place?

[Zhronne]

@Glamdring
Working on the decay rate of enmity and/or adding further sources of decay are all good ideas, I like those.
Not sure if alone they would solve the issue but they would greatly contribute.
There are 2000 different approaches they could go to "fix" enmity without making it trivial.
Imho the one that I consider being not the ideal/perfect one maybe, but the one that's likely easier to implement, is the one Byrth suggested. Making the Damage>Enmity conversion and Enmity generation in general, be a dynamic value reliant on the current target's total HP, instead that a fixed value.

Either way I don't really care, as long as they finally acknowledge the issue and decide to do something big about it.
So far they haven't, just small, often useless tweaks or ruined by the next patch. It's likely because they're keeping the position Grekumah just exposed, i.e. they think everything is allright (lol)

[Afania]

Then may I ask in which situations exactely do the devs see us using a Tank job? Why should player bring tanks to a particular event instead than a group of Damage dealers that will produce more damage, faster, without having to worry about "holding up" their damage but allowing them to go all out?

Not sure if anybody of you devs played the game or any other game over the last years. Holding up a bit is okayish I guess, but the amount of holding back that would be necessary to make tank jobs work is beyond that. Are you at least aware or are you pretending not to see the elephant in the room?

Thanks for your time.



They finally see the primary issue here, that most jobs don't have any reliable enmity sink ability.

Guys in every MMO a powerful melee can rip hate off the "tank" and frequently does. This is expected and the reason powerful short range DD's are often on high defense gear vs the back line support. The melee is expected to withstand the punishment for short periods of time then the boss NM switch's back to the tank. In FFXI speak this means DD's need to have -DT sets that focus on defense, MDB, MDT, PDT and whatever other defensive stat they can put on.

The real issue is that due to the enmity system, there is no real way to sink static enmity other then getting your face kicked in. Once your at 10,000CE your pretty much going to be "tank" no matter what you do since VE from damage is a multiplier of CE, if your capping CE you've long since caped VE. The amount of damage you'd have to take to reduce your CE by any appreciable amount is far above our HP totals and the time it takes to recap it is less then 30~60s. Because of this there is zero reason to disengage or "watch hate", your going to cap it super fast and then your going to keep it capped the entire fight with no way of sinking it. Every job needs an enmity sink, the ability to either completely transplant all your hate onto another job (reverse collaborator) or the ability to make a large portion vanish. These abilities need to be on relatively short timers, something on the order of 60~120 seconds, not 5 ~ 10 minutes. In this way melee's could hack away and when things get intense they could take turns sinking their enmity and thus enabling a central melee (the tank) to hold the lions share of hate.

The real issue isn't enmity cap, the real issue is that DD in turtle mode + a good healer can survive pretty much everything in this game. So why do you need a "tank job" if a DPS job can survive just fine. Even if you can have a PLD keep hate off a SAM 100% of time, so what? We're just gonna use a SAM anyways.

IMO, every DD has access to 50% PDT- and unlimited MP from WHM pants is the real reason why the concept of tank job doesn't work very well in FFXI.

[Glamdring]

1st off, getting a DD to go into turtle mode is about as easy as trying to convince a schizophrenic that the voices are not real and don't need to be obeyed. And as they WON'T-not can't-go into turtle mode the limitless whm mp suddenly becomes limited. not to mention once they start having to curebomb THEY become the target, which in a well-played party they would not be, nor would they need to curebomb. That is the point of a tank. And quite frankly almost every DD I see, no matter how good they are (or think they are) can't keep a party alive worth a Turkish lira. All going without a tank does is increase the likelihood of a wipe, and that lowers the available time to do the content that the earlier poster brought up. Put it this way, using a tank and moderating damage may add a minute to a 5 minute NM fight, a wipe adds about 6 minutes minimum, coupled with the distinct possibility of having to fight the NM that just wiped you again (likely regened back to 100%), only without the advantage of the 1 hours that were burned trying to live through the hate control clusterF you just had.

Now, we have tank jobs with hate control tools, we have a couple jobs with the ability to control that hate but in the system as it currently stands that simply does not work. In addition, at least one of those tanks has largely been removed from the table; end-game AoE has largely robbed ninja of the ability to blink tank because shadows last seconds at most. Warrior never really was viable as a full-time tank past about level 30. The eva tanks popularized during the Aby era are not as effective; monks are not as dodgy now and nobody is going to seriously entertain a dancer as a tank these days even if it could hold the hate, which it can't. Beast pets can't tank even with just the master meleeing anymore, Valoredge autos never really could tank despite the intent in the design, and as I said above, getting a DD to forego their damage gear for defensive simply isn't going to happen. And as to a mage trying to tank? same problem as ninja, only their defense is even less impressive. Rune isn't very good unless the mob is tied to 1 or 2 damage types of an elemental nature-although very good then. That leaves paladin, and a paladin needs the party to allow them to get to the hate cap and stay there to be effective, which the DD simply will not allow. And because the DD won't allow that hate to be established the jobs with hate management abilities are largely incapable because the job abilities do require the mob to hold position.

That's why the system needs an overhaul. Now, as Zhronne pointed out there are several mechanisms that could work, or a combination of them, but the point is the system NEEDS work. Wishful thinking like the DD going into defensive mode isn't a solution, it's a pipe dream.

[Malithar]

That leaves paladin, and a paladin needs the party to allow them to get to the hate cap and stay there to be effective, which the DD simply will not allow. And because the DD won't allow that hate to be established the jobs with hate management abilities are largely incapable because the job abilities do require the mob to hold position.

DDs have absolutely nothing to do with how well a Pld can hold hate. If anything, a DD taking hate allows the Pld to better build hate due to no longer losing VE from taking damage, as backwards as that may sound. Establishing hate, letting the Pld cap hate, etc, none of it has anything to do with the DDs. Once you're capped, you're pretty much stuck as VE doesn't degrade quickly enough, that's not some fault of the DDs, unless you expect them to turn around for minutes at a time only to recap with literally a few auto attacks and a WS, if not less. At cap, the positional JA I'm assuming you're referring to is Trick Attack. This will really do nothing at cap, cause surprise, you're capped. I doubt it'd even act as the last action taken, it's probably configured to simply transfer the hate, though I haven't seen any testing to say one way or the other.

As for the -DT and infinite Whm MP deal, I'd recommend playing with DDs that understand the concept that death = 0 DPS. Whm over healing greatly reduces the impact that AF3+2 legs have on their MP efficiency. Healing efficiently with them, with very low amounts of Refresh, does create a situation where Whm does not lose very much MP at all.

[Jile]

Enmity control is not only something that is crucial for a tank; it’s also something that the entire party needs to be concerned with. Due to this, we do not have any plans to make adjustments so that only tanks are able to completely control enmity. It’s for this same reason that we are not thinking about increasing the enmity cap on tanks.

In a future version update we are planning to make enmity adjustments by adding methods to certain jobs to reduce a set amount of enmity. We’d like players to hang in there for a while until these adjustments are made.

Grekumah, again thank you for taking the time to review/discuss this.

When this game was new, damage approaching 1,000 was outstanding. In 2014 critical hits break 1,000! Yet, enmity caps are left in the olden days.

There is a break in logic here Grekumah, the dev's need to appreciate that. If the dev's don't want to change enmity to where any one specific job has a higher amount of CAP then I propose the enmity CAP be removed completely. Without a cap there might be a chance that a long battle could be worked with more maintainable order - yes this still requires some holding back on the DD's part but it would allow someone like a THF to plant hate back on the tank when needed with far greater effect.

[Glamdring]

Mal, I was referring to a pld who can go into full turtle themselves. You can hold the mob pretty decently as a pld if you get to hate cap and then take only token damage which the pld only instantly heals itself for. I've seen that tactic used pretty effectively, if the pld is already at cap before anyone else does anything then the hate doesn't get to bounce much with the pld getting the bit of hate from self-curing the little damage they do get and their on damage inflicted-unfortunately that's pretty much exclusively Aegis/Ochain territory. Because the mob will stay on the 1st person to reach cap if they never fall off the cap. But it is very difficult to do and your pld generally has to be the best geared guy in the party to pull it off. and no, TA is not the only one I was referring to, also Decoy Shot and even Cover and of course Conspirator (because the whole party needs to get in range for max effect), accomplice requires the target to be in range as well which it is sometimes hard to use it on the healer when they are back-line. Now, Decoy Shot won't be a factor if letting the pld get to cap 1st, or you can allow your rng to go when the pld does and hit cap in like 4 seconds that way. But yes as to the whm I was referring to what happens when the hate is everywhere so the whm is either having to fire a lot of Cure 5+ on individuals or curaga 4 and the like, congrats, your whm is now your tank, anyone bring a spatula to get him off the floor when they get killed again trying to get up so you still have a healer but without time to put up RR?

I've just seen too many parties go down on too much content because everyone wants to rush in and show off the 16k WS on their Sam as an example instead of letting a tank hold things in place. I mean all those monks you are bringing in in today's environment are supposed to be your "tank", well not when the sam is popping 16k and the whm is spamming back to back cure 6 on him or Curaga 4 if the mob decides to answer with a 1.5k AoE TP move. Now, I'm also not saying this needs to only be pld, if SE is serious they need to revamp nin so blink tanking is an option again and do something drastic to rune defensive ability (I still like the idea of Riposte, the fencing answer to Counter). But I think it's going to need to be more fundamental than that, as not taking damage is only part of the issue, taking hate back and then holding it is just as important as the damage mitigation. But tactically exactly what the players would have to do is really hard to speculate on when we have no idea what-if anything-SE might do to address things.

[Malithar]

You can hold the mob pretty decently as a pld if you get to hate cap and then take only token damage which the pld only instantly heals itself for. I've seen that tactic used pretty effectively, if the pld is already at cap before anyone else does anything then the hate doesn't get to bounce much with the pld getting the bit of hate from self-curing the little damage they do get and their on damage inflicted-unfortunately that's pretty much exclusively Aegis/Ochain territory.
Except that's not how it works. There is no "staying at the cap." Hate is constantly changing, every second you're losing 60 VE, every point of damage you take is reducing your CE, and every action you take is increasing your enmity. Fine, you're right at the cap, teetering back and fourth. And what about that DD that just hit cap? Now you're in a situation where essentually each action, auto attack by one of the players or mob, TP move, WS, etc, is shifting hate. The Pld can't "tank decently" in that situation because at best, the mob is focusing on them 50% of the time. Next DD caps? 33%. Next, 25%. There's no point in a "tank" in that situation, cause everyone is tanking. And with -DT sets, it's pretty much fine on all content, and even fine on most content without -DT sets.


Because the mob will stay on the 1st person to reach cap if they never fall off the cap. But it is very difficult to do and your pld generally has to be the best geared guy in the party to pull it off.
As said above, that's not how it works. There is no taunt or way to remain at the cap as you claim. Even if you evaded/parried every single attack, you're still losing 60 VE per second, and assuming you were at the cap, and someone else reaches the cap, the mob will turn to them if they performed the last action on the mob.


Decoy Shot and even Cover and of course Conspirator (because the whole party needs to get in range for max effect), accomplice requires the target to be in range as well which it is sometimes hard to use it on the healer when they are back-line. Now, Decoy Shot won't be a factor if letting the pld get to cap 1st, or you can allow your rng to go when the pld does and hit cap in like 4 seconds that way.

No idea what Conspirator has to do with things here, it's an AoE +Acc and +subtle blow effect. Decoy Shot is unlike anything else we have in the game. Rngs that would sit around and wait for the Pld to cap are just wasting time. Wait for the Pld to get into position? Sure, absolutely. Wait a bit longer to WS to ensure position is correct and such? Sure. But there's no need to sit around and wait for him to cap because Decoy is giving him the enmity that you're generating. In effect, you're capping him. Cover, honestly, just doesn't really do enough. You block auto attacks and spells (with relic head), but the most deadly thing nearly all mobs share is TP moves, which it does nothing for. Not saying Cover can't save someone, but you can't really fault DDs for Cover's lacking when the mob is spinning like a top due to Enmity. If you're complaining about the positioning, then move to the position that Cover works.


But yes as to the whm I was referring to what happens when the hate is everywhere so the whm is either having to fire a lot of Cure 5+ on individuals or curaga 4 and the like, congrats, your whm is now your tank, anyone bring a spatula to get him off the floor when they get killed again trying to get up so you still have a healer but without time to put up RR?

Notice I said efficient curing. What you just described is anything but. Never mind that even in that situation, you shouldn't pull hate that quickly, but even if you did, just like I've said for DDs, there is an answer. -DT sets. Can't stress this enough, a good -DT set should be a top priority for any job that you play. It's literally game changing for these instances of "oh but now I've got hate ; ;"

[Zheta]

Why not just tweak the formulas so that most actions/attacks generate a fraction of the current CE/VE, time sheds more VE, and getting hit sheds more CE? That seems so easy. Problem Solved.

Enmity should tend toward bottoming out rather than capping out.

Go go gadget test server. Do it.

[Martel]

Why not just tweak the formulas so that most actions/attacks generate a fraction of the current CE/VE, time sheds more VE, and getting hit sheds more CE? That seems so easy. Problem Solved.

Enmity should tend toward bottoming out rather than capping out.

Go go gadget test server. Do it.They've done the bolded one twice now. With the first adjustment reducing dmg dealt CE/VE gained by 70%. Fat lot of good it did.

[Zhronne]

They've done the bolded one twice now. With the first adjustment reducing dmg dealt CE/VE gained by 70%. Fat lot of good it did.
It's what I meant with the fixing things then making those fixes useless often in the same or next patch.

If the average damage done by a DD stayed the same it were back when SoA just shipped then all the mentioned CE/VE reduction changes might have been useful.
But in light of the new base damage of 119 weapons, new WSs, the WSs and magic and SC reform etc... it means pretty much nothing in light of all of this lol.

[Zheta]

They've done the bolded one twice now. With the first adjustment reducing dmg dealt CE/VE gained by 70%. Fat lot of good it did.

Yes. It probably should have been more like 98/99% for most actions in addition to higher decays.

The numbers should be really low, and drop very rapidly such that tank specific actions and lessened damage taken allows tanks to stay slightly ahead only if they're using all the high hate tools available to them. If a melee is hit 1-2 times that should almost floor their CE. Then additional tools like Thief JAs, Super Jump, etc. can be expanded upon to reduce VE akin to a counter-Provoke.

Focus more on bottoming out the process rather than trying to escalate.

[Glamdring]

Martel, I was factoring in the decay rate. No pld is 100% immune to damage, the curing of the little bit of damage they do take (which is why it needs to be the pld curing himself, not the party healer) means they are continually recapping the VE. In the event they are not taking damage they cure other party members and use their JA. It doesn't work 100% of the time, and TP moves-especially those with a hate reset-are especially dangerous, but it does work on most content with a good paladin.

The comments about Decoy shot were that the range does not need to wait for the paladin to reach cap, they can go immediately-assuming Decoy is up-and GET the pld to cap in a hurry. I'll agree cover needs help, in the same way that SATA does for thief, they don't work in a normal party these days where as you said the mob is spinning like a top or-as you didn't say-doing laps between the DD and the backline. which brings up...

The white mage getting hate. I agree it's undisciplined healing. However, that's exactly what is required when hate goes all over the map-unless the whole party has RR and you don't mind wiping and resetting. Because people won't all be in range of the curaga or someone will keep damage-either melee or DoT on the mob when you try to sleep it for some recovery or any of 100 other things that can go wrong.

But I stand by what I say, while I agree that a defensive set should be in everyone's arsenal on their primary job(s), it often isn't, but even if it is, getting people to put it on is next to impossible, they just complain that the healer and other back-line people should "play better". Well we wouldn't have to be playing off strategy if the DD would mitigate some of the damage they are taking (and a tank and Defensive gear are both part of that, dancer sambas help, using their own job's defensive abilities, etc). Example, I'm primarily a bard in party play and I am continually confronted with players who just rush in before I can get buffs on them, even against boss mobs with silence spells/moves, mages who run out of range when I try to Ballad them, etc. Hint, Pianissimo 3 songs on 5 different players means that 3rd song will die off quick in the rotation, even if that was a reasonable option, which it isn't. I see the same issue for many other support job players. I understand all end-game stuff has a clock, but the point of the buffs we are TRYING vainly to apply is to speed up the rate at which we move through the content, via various means. And don't even get me started on the players who decide to run off on their own in the erroneous assumption that they are so good they can solo the stuff-the raise we backline people will be handing out IF we get back there eventually would seem to indicate they aren't that awesome after all.

[Martel]

Martel, I was factoring in the decay rate. No pld is 100% immune to damage, the curing of the little bit of damage they do take (which is why it needs to be the pld curing himself, not the party healer) means they are continually recapping the VE. In the event they are not taking damage they cure other party members and use their JA. It doesn't work 100% of the time, and TP moves-especially those with a hate reset-are especially dangerous, but it does work on most content with a good paladin. I think perhaps you have the wrong address. I don't believe I said anything to you. Martel != Malithar

[Glamdring]

you are right, Martel, I was looking at the avatar pic of the guy above me and missed you have the same one. sorry.

[dasva]

[QUOTE=Zhronne;532773Making the Damage>Enmity conversion and Enmity generation in general, be a dynamic value reliant on the current target's total HP, instead that a fixed value.[/QUOTE]

It's actually not fixed. It's based on mob level. Which is why it kinda worked 1-75. Because generally mobs of similar levels had similar hps so it sorta was adjusting for hp. But as 75 progressed and our strength went up mob stats including hp often went up but level didn't necessarily probably because level difference penalties couldn't be overcome with any amount of stats. But at least it was fairly similiarish so wasn't too awful bad

Which is part of why it started to break down at the end of 75. Now though we have ilvl 113 content mobs with 2mil + hp and 115 ilvl BC fights with 100k hp mobs (I assume those are the approximate mob levels). There now there is effectively no correlation between levels and hps. And as such no correlation between max amount of enmity you can generate between mobs. Add onto the fact that a lot of the really high ones also have mechanisms/weaknesses that increase your dmg output on them and it's completely out of control. One mob you can generate enmity 10 times faster and 10 times as much than another of the same level. As such I can't think of any adjustment that could balance things on all relevant mobs other than changing it to hp. Merely adjusting the formula doesn't fix that it just makes it so some of the higher ones you can't get too much but the lower ones you can never cap with dmg at all. Especially when you do a really simple one like add 100 to the denominator to the level adjust equation which is what it looks like they did