Apex Colibri {Can I have it?}

[OmnysValefor]

As we all know, the optimum setup for an apex party is 1-2 tank/melee 2-4 BLM/SCH and a GEO. It's disgusting, but it's the winning solution.

Two handers are left in the cold, bards are left in the cold. Healing WHM, SCH, RDM generally are left in the cold. A GEO can keep everyone alive as well as any healer if the tank is worth anything.

Edit: Two handers currently gearing up are left in the cold because they're shorted the accuracy bonus that can be aquired from an offhand weapon/augments to said weapon. Grips, even accuracy grips, do not compare.

I hate turning people away when I don't think their acc is sufficient but as the party leader, the success of the group is on my name. If I put together terrible groups, neither the low-acc melee or I will be getting any more parties.

At 75, the situation was reverse. Noone wanted BLM because the target of choice, Greater Colibri, reflected magic damage, but BLM had alternatives and because merit points could be earned on any job, for any job, you didn't have to worry. Also back then, /37 wasn't high enough to let subjobs cast haste.

Suggestion: Apex Colibri. Give them the full skillset they had, and lower their evasion because melee cant eat food. Give them low enough hp that a a three step skillchain from fairly geared melee will kill them, or make them reward more CP.

The ideal setup for this party would be Healer, Bard/Cor/GEO *, Tank/Melee, Melee, Melee/COR

Ranger is included as melee for simplicity's sake.

I haven't once had a high-performing CP party with more than one two melee including the tank. Part of the reason for this is that most players TP so fast, there isn't much room for a third melee.

Suggestion 2: Make a mob that is especially vulnerable to skillchains but absorbs magic damage/magic bursting.

* I think if you design mobs that malaise/languor/acumen/focus (I know people like haste/regain, but all three buffers can help) isn't the best option against, people will start using the other buffers again. If you design mobs that magic bursting isn't far and away the best option, people will start inviting melee.

I've had slow days where I couldn't get a party going and people start laying out a four or 5 step skillchain and my immediate thought is: I'm not working significantly harder for significantly less experience points. One person misses an SC or mistimes, and it's just a mess.

There may be people that read this thread and consider me to be too elitist, but that's really not the case. I'm tired of watching people struggle for enough accuracy only to compete for 1-2 spots in a party.

Edit: Oh and, please make more than one good camp. That's the bottle-neck with crabs. There's one good camp.

On the other hand, if you make them non-aggressive, a bard-party can move around. If there's one weakness geo has, and I'm not complaining, it's a lack of mobility.

[cengeal]

This is anything but elitist. Recently I tried to do an apex party on DRK (which is decently geared, but by no means godly). It went terrible. Even with sublime sushi on, was still struggling to hit. Doesn't help that I was a total MP sponge. Apex Colibri could at least see the return of old-school merit party setups. Most importantly, it would make getting JPs for WAR, DRK, and DRG more enjoyable, and easier as well. There's a lot to work with here, and I hope the dev team responds to it.

[Vae]

So, while I think its a good idea, that will go completely ignored... I would rather, given there was actually some kind of option that allowed players some actual input instead of talking to people that couldn't care less..

That CP was just completely abolished and we had legit levels again.

Aside from completely hating ilvl, I don't particularly enjoy playing this game the same way I used to in 2004. The only difference being higher level magic.

Because yes, Sorrowval parties with blm bursting flood was very entertaining....

Falling upon deaf ears.

[Genz]

It's not a bad idea, but it's only a band-aid.

I'm wondering if the devs are planning any radical change to salvage the game balance, like they did when they chose to nerf Perfect Defense.

[Ulth]

Edit: Two handers currently gearing up are left in the cold because they're shorted the accuracy bonus that can be aquired from an offhand weapon/augments to said weapon. Grips, even accuracy grips, do not compare.

Lets compare a thf using a max augment Taming Sari with a Sandung offhand, (probably the best two daggers for accuracy) to a drk using Cronus with a Flanged Grip. 20 accuracy and 22 dex on the taming sari gives it an accuracy bonus of 37 plus the 50 from the augments on Sandung gives the thf 87 accuracy from their main and sub slot. Cronus has an accuracy of 15 with augmented accuracy of 70 add in the 10 accuracy from the grip and that's a total of 95. 95 is greater than 87.

[OmnysValefor]

In regards to buffers, I think that corsair is in any okay spot, it provides some unique buffs (regain) or buffs that stack with other buffs. (I do not play corsair, worth noting.)

Bard has Scherzo but other than that, GEO's buffs are better. Bard, theoretically, stacks well with geo (can carol + bar + vex/attune + weather or threnody + weather + focus/malaise), but if you have to choose either, geo is almost always the better choice.

I think the thing they must do is roll all the Threnodies into Threnody and all the Carols into one Carol. It's easy to do, give a quest where you have to go cast all the carols/threnodies on an NPC and the reward is the final spell (and removing the other spells). That still leaves bard without an MAB/-MDEF buff, but it has Scherzo. That might do something to reignite favor towards the job.

In regards to CP, I fully (or foolly) believe this could do a lot for CP imbalance. The only problem now is that so many players have capped the jobs they care about, but short of letting us earn cp on one job, for another (which I guess they've said isn't happening), I can't imagine a better solution.

Here's the thing, a lot of melee don't carry much dt gear, and they die but a lot of mages don't either, but they're unaffected by most aoes, most TP moves and especially the double whammy that is frequently what kills the melee. You see blms going down just as quick as thfs when the mages have to stand on the boss (like Delores).

Additionally, a melee in dt gear, swapping for ws/abils/spells, loses Accuracy, Double Attack, Triple Attack, Haste, Store TP, Refresh (blu mostly). To survive the boss, melee darn near have to gear like a pld and hit about as often as a pld (not quite, I know). Melee also eat status effects that hurt them (paralyze and blind) which require babysitting/remedies. Melee get amnesia which cannot be removed if it lands. Also not forgetting attack down, acc down defense down, magic defense down.

A mage in dt gear, swapping for nukes, refresh gear which is a non issue for blm/sch/whm and not much of an issue for the other casters. Mages get silenced, pop an echo and move on. How many bosses use mab/macc down or meva/mdef up? SMN would suffer some if required to wear dt gear (swapping for pet commands).

[dasva]

Or apex skeletons/pots. mnk burn 2016 yes please

[OmnysValefor]

I'll leave it intact, I said it. I didn't realize acc buffs were that high on the augments for JSE weapons but still, doesn't change the general idea of the apex-bird party.

(Last time I looked at jse page, augment info wasn't yet posted).

It also doesn't change that augments on other 2h weapons/h2h need to be addressed.


Lets compare a thf using a max augment Taming Sari with a Sandung offhand, (probably the best two daggers for accuracy) to a drk using Cronus with a Flanged Grip. 20 accuracy and 22 dex on the taming sari gives it an accuracy bonus of 37 plus the 50 from the augments on Sandung gives the thf 87 accuracy from their main and sub slot. Cronus has an accuracy of 15 with augmented accuracy of 70 add in the 10 accuracy from the grip and that's a total of 95. 95 is greater than 87.

Let's not do that, because we're not talking about high end geared players, we're talking about players gearing up. I have no doubt that people killing Ru'Aun and Rei tier 2s and tier 3s can compete in an apex party.

So let's go Taming Sari (22 DEX + 20 ACC) + Nibiru Knife (5 DEX + 20 ACC) -- 40 Acc, 27 DEX making 60 acc total,
vs Nibiru Sickle (20 Acc) + say a 10 or 15 Acc Grip -- 35 Acc total.
vs Nibiru Santi (25 Acc) -- 25 Acc total.

Edit: You know what? I have no interest in playing 2h'ers (besides RUN as a tank, next job) and buffs to these won't change that, but I can see past my own jobs

Edit #2: I also don't have accuracy problems on my melee. I have such a variety of gear, but I've helped people gear up, and as I recently came back, I had to go through gearing up and I can see the problem.

Make melee friendly mobs and you'll have bards willing to sing an acc song. However, on mb mobs, I'm hurting the party by casting geo-precision (or eva-down, can't recall name) because someone doesn't have the acc.

[Ulth]

I've done melee set ups on the apex crawlers plenty of times and it works just fine. Also I know a bard who got her stars by meleeing with trusts as a bard in escha zi'tah. The amount of roads to get JP is staggering. SE doesn't need to waste time making something that is incredibly easy even easier because it's not quite as easy as it is for magic burst jobs.

[OmnysValefor]

I didn't say they don't work. I said they don't work nearly as well. The difference is staggering.

And yes, they need to consider where melee stand in all content of the game right now, because it's not a good spot.

[cengeal]

Lets compare a thf using a max augment Taming Sari with a Sandung offhand, (probably the best two daggers for accuracy) to a drk using Cronus with a Flanged Grip. 20 accuracy and 22 dex on the taming sari gives it an accuracy bonus of 37 plus the 50 from the augments on Sandung gives the thf 87 accuracy from their main and sub slot. Cronus has an accuracy of 15 with augmented accuracy of 70 add in the 10 accuracy from the grip and that's a total of 95. 95 is greater than 87.

There are a few problems with this. While the scythe does indeed have a lot of accuracy on it, it doesn't change the fact that scythe WS's in general are very lackluster, whereas dagger has Rudra's Storm. +70 to the crappiest weapon in the game doesn't mean much. Secondly, most DRK's would rather use a GS, weapons that don't have that kind of accuracy boost available. You could argue the real problem is that grips in general just suck compared to wielding a second weapon. I think the most amount of accuracy on a grip is like what, 10? That's pathetic. Finally, 2H jobs have to sacrifice a lot more than dual wield jobs when swapping to accuracy gear. They often lose their DA, TA, critical hit, and most importantly, their X-hit setups. I realize dual wielders also suffer from this, but it affects the 2handers on a greater scale.

Comparing the best versus the best is an ineffective way to measure. While it's easier to get a Cronus with acc+70 than a capped tami sari, it also means less because DRK has lower natural accuracy than thief,and especially dancer, and don't even get me started on BLU. Also keep in mind, not everybody has access to the best equipment, which is a lot of what this thread is about. And like previously stated, scythe WS's are very unimpressive compared to sword and dagger. There's just no place for a scythe wielding DRK of moderate equipment in these groups. Aside from SAM, 2H jobs are rarely a welcome sight in high-end content.

[Ulth]

There are a few problems with this. While the scythe does indeed have a lot of accuracy on it, it doesn't change the fact that scythe WS's in general are very lackluster, whereas dagger has Rudra's Storm. +70 to the crappiest weapon in the game doesn't mean much. Secondly, most DRK's would rather use a GS, weapons that don't have that kind of accuracy boost available. You could argue the real problem is that grips in general just suck compared to wielding a second weapon. I think the most amount of accuracy on a grip is like what, 10? That's pathetic. Finally, 2H jobs have to sacrifice a lot more than dual wield jobs when swapping to accuracy gear. They often lose their DA, TA, critical hit, and most importantly, their X-hit setups. I realize dual wielders also suffer from this, but it affects the 2handers on a greater scale.

Comparing the best versus the best is an ineffective way to measure. While it's easier to get a Cronus with acc+70 than a capped tami sari, it also means less because DRK has lower natural accuracy than thief,and especially dancer, and don't even get me started on BLU. Also keep in mind, not everybody has access to the best equipment, which is a lot of what this thread is about. And like previously stated, scythe WS's are very unimpressive compared to sword and dagger. There's just no place for a scythe wielding DRK of moderate equipment in these groups. Aside from SAM, 2H jobs are rarely a welcome sight in high-end content.

Glad to see you are living in a pre rudra's nerf world. Wish I could go back there. Anyway there is a reason the ftp or number of hits on a dagger weaponskill is higher than say a scythe. So if you were comparing them based solely on that it would look like daggers weaponskills are much better. Only problem is they are done with daggers the weapons with the lowest base damage as opposed to a scythe the weapons with the highest base damage.

There are also disadvantages to dual wielding that you are over looking. One of the big ones is it lowers tp gain by lowering the delay of the weapons. Two hands on the other hand just get straight up job ability haste with their 2 hand weapons. That's really something that would mess up you X hit if you had to lower your weapon's delay rather then getting job haste. Then there is also the recent update where they changed the attack/defense cap for one hand jobs to 3.25 while 2 hand jobs got put at 3.75.

That's also not the best vs the best. That would be comparing RMEs, but that is a whole other can of worms. As for drk have naturally lower accuracy than thf, idk what's the difference between the dex of a 99 thf and drk, probably not a whole lot in the grand scheme of ilvl. Also if your accuracy is so lower perhaps there is some sort of spell you could cast. Maybe one that only drk has that would somehow get you more accuracy.

Should be worth noting that Cronus not only gets +70 accuracy from the augments, but also 10 base damage, and 10% WSD.

[cengeal]

Glad to see you are living in a pre rudra's nerf world. Wish I could go back there. Anyway there is a reason the ftp or number of hits on a dagger weaponskill is higher than say a scythe. So if you were comparing them based solely on that it would look like daggers weaponskills are much better. Only problem is they are done with daggers the weapons with the lowest base damage as opposed to a scythe the weapons with the highest base damage.

There are also disadvantages to dual wielding that you are over looking. One of the big ones is it lowers tp gain by lowering the delay of the weapons. Two hands on the other hand just get straight up job ability haste with their 2 hand weapons. That's really something that would mess up you X hit if you had to lower your weapon's delay rather then getting job haste. Then there is also the recent update where they changed the attack/defense cap for one hand jobs to 3.25 while 2 hand jobs got put at 3.75.

That's also not the best vs the best. That would be comparing RMEs, but that is a whole other can of worms. As for drk have naturally lower accuracy than thf, idk what's the difference between the dex of a 99 thf and drk, probably not a whole lot in the grand scheme of ilvl. Also if your accuracy is so lower perhaps there is some sort of spell you could cast. Maybe one that only drk has that would somehow get you more accuracy.

Should be worth noting that Cronus not only gets +70 accuracy from the augments, but also 10 base damage, and 10% WSD.

I'm not sure if you've ever played DRK, but from your statement it appears no. Rudra's Storm is by far a better WS than any Scythe WS. Even though Rudra's did get nerfed, it is still a very good WS. It's not that Rudra's post nerf is a little better, it's that everything is better.

The disadvantages of dual wielding are nothing compared to the benefits. Getting to use a second weapon with more accuracy, strength, dexterity, critical hit rate, triple attack, you get the point. The best grips are garbage compared to getting to wield a second weapon. Like I said, maybe it wouldn't be that much of a problem if grips were just better in general.

Other can of worms concerning RME's, as you said. DRK gets the least amount of accuracy from JP gifts for melee jobs (as far as I can tell), even though it needs it more than any other job. As a DRK you can -try- to cast absorb spells, but that isn't always successful. Also, the more spells they cast, the less they attack. The augments on Cronus are amazing, i will admit that. But amazing stats on a scythe don't mean much. 2H WS's in general are weak compared to even a post Rudra's nerf, CDC, Savage Blade, etc. Common sense says a Great Axe will do more damage to a large enemy like a Hydra than two dinky daggers. Unfortunately SE doesn't seem to agree with it.

[Ulth]

I'm not sure if you've ever played DRK, but from your statement it appears no. Rudra's Storm is by far a better WS than any Scythe WS. Even though Rudra's did get nerfed, it is still a very good WS. It's not that Rudra's post nerf is a little better, it's that everything is better.

The disadvantages of dual wielding are nothing compared to the benefits. Getting to use a second weapon with more accuracy, strength, dexterity, critical hit rate, triple attack, you get the point. The best grips are garbage compared to getting to wield a second weapon. Like I said, maybe it wouldn't be that much of a problem if grips were just better in general.

Other can of worms concerning RME's, as you said. DRK gets the least amount of accuracy from JP gifts for melee jobs (as far as I can tell), even though it needs it more than any other job. As a DRK you can -try- to cast absorb spells, but that isn't always successful. Also, the more spells they cast, the less they attack. The augments on Cronus are amazing, i will admit that. But amazing stats on a scythe don't mean much. 2H WS's in general are weak compared to even a post Rudra's nerf, CDC, Savage Blade, etc. Common sense says a Great Axe will do more damage to a large enemy like a Hydra than two dinky daggers. Unfortunately SE doesn't seem to agree with it.

Somehow I doubt you've every really played drk either. Can you imagine how bad a blu would be if they didn't have sets for fast cast, magic attack, and magic accuracy. I can, they tend to be bad blus. If your absorb spells aren't landing you need more magic accuracy genius. Lucky you drk gets more magic accuracy than thf from gifts, but don't worry I would cry over that. And you are right drk gets the least amount of accuracy however they get the most amount of attack. It's almost like that is a particular quality that drk is associated with. War on the other hand gets more critical hit damage than thf even though thf is the job with the highest tier of critical attack bonus. Also don't try and say that attack isn't important. If you are fighting something you can't cap accuracy on I highly doubt you have 3.75 times more attack than they have defense.

Rudra's is garbage. The only time to use it is when you are stacking it with SA/TA/CF, or if you really need to close darkness. Best unstacked dagger skills are evisceration for thfs, Mandalic stab for mythic thfs, Mordant Rime for mythic brds, and Pyrrhic Kleos for dnc mythic or otherwise. Mandau and Mercy Stroke are a joke even at 119 III. CDC and savage blade do seem very powerful but really they are just very powerful in the hands of blu, people seem to forget that they are also used by pld.

Anyway it's funny you would end it on that hydra example, because that really just sums up your position. You don't want to be balanced with one hand weapons. You want two hand weapons to be better than them. You want all of those job's benefits and none of their draw backs. Why? because you can't be bothered to even try to be good at drk. When was the last time you opened a spreadsheet on drk huh?

P.S. In the event you were fighting a hydra, while a great axe would be useful at first they mostly cause large superficial wounds. Most killing blows tend to be delivered with longer piercing weapons like daggers. Which fits as thf tend to be the best anchors on skillchains.

P.P.S. And if we are really being realistic scythes aren't even weapons they are farming equipment.

[dasva]

Wut? Savage blade is great on fencer war.

[Ulth]

Wut? Savage blade is great on fencer war.

Right you are. Savage blade can be used effectively by pld, war, and rdm yet I never hear people complain about those jobs doing too much damage

[cengeal]

Somehow I doubt you've every really played drk either. Can you imagine how bad a blu would be if they didn't have sets for fast cast, magic attack, and magic accuracy. I can, they tend to be bad blus. If your absorb spells aren't landing you need more magic accuracy genius. Lucky you drk gets more magic accuracy than thf from gifts, but don't worry I would cry over that. And you are right drk gets the least amount of accuracy however they get the most amount of attack. It's almost like that is a particular quality that drk is associated with. War on the other hand gets more critical hit damage than thf even though thf is the job with the highest tier of critical attack bonus. Also don't try and say that attack isn't important. If you are fighting something you can't cap accuracy on I highly doubt you have 3.75 times more attack than they have defense.

Rudra's is garbage. The only time to use it is when you are stacking it with SA/TA/CF, or if you really need to close darkness. Best unstacked dagger skills are evisceration for thfs, Mandalic stab for mythic thfs, Mordant Rime for mythic brds, and Pyrrhic Kleos for dnc mythic or otherwise. Mandau and Mercy Stroke are a joke even at 119 III. CDC and savage blade do seem very powerful but really they are just very powerful in the hands of blu, people seem to forget that they are also used by pld.

Anyway it's funny you would end it on that hydra example, because that really just sums up your position. You don't want to be balanced with one hand weapons. You want two hand weapons to be better than them. You want all of those job's benefits and none of their draw backs. Why? because you can't be bothered to even try to be good at drk. When was the last time you opened a spreadsheet on drk huh?

P.S. In the event you were fighting a hydra, while a great axe would be useful at first they mostly cause large superficial wounds. Most killing blows tend to be delivered with longer piercing weapons like daggers. Which fits as thf tend to be the best anchors on skillchains.

P.P.S. And if we are really being realistic scythes aren't even weapons they are farming equipment.

Well, Congratulations, you somehow managed to turn this into a personal feud. This is the problem with these forums: No matter what you try to do, there's always a cynical naysayer trying to destroy the thread with superficial arguments. For some reason, you don't seem to think this is a problem. And yes, I do play DRK. I do not claim to be great at it, but it's decently geared, and I have a good amount of magic accuracy to land absorb/drain spells, genius. There are certain monsters, like bats or undead, that you cannot reliably land absorb spells on. Therefore, those spells cannot be relied on 100% of the time. And I never said attack wasn't important, but accuracy is more important, and only a complete fool would argue that. So what if you can do a 10k Torcleaver 50% of the time? Not only are you missing, but the SC failed, as did the MB's. Therefore, the party fails because your accuracy as a DRK cannot keep up. Now if 2 THF's SC'd with Rudra's for crappy damage, they at least landed the SC and opened up MB opportunities.

If you think Rudra's is garbage, try any scythe WS. Claiming Rudra's to be garbage doesn't help your argument that 2H weapons don't need to be rehauled. And a WAR can do some very high damage with savage blade. As can RUN. As can any job that can use it. Because it's a powerful WS. It may not be the #1 option, or the ideal weapon choice for most jobs, but any job that can use Savage Blade has something good going for it. I have no problem with Savage Blade being powerful: I love it. It's a great WS. As somebody who's always enjoyed and only recently started to take it seriously, I just believe scythe should have it's own WS that can compare. And that WS shouldn't be exclusive to a weapon that takes months to make.

And yes, two handed weapons should be more powerful. Why should a WAR using a sword and shield be more powerful than a DRK with a scythe? Just because they would be better DD's does not make them the better jobs. DNC has so much more potential to it than DDing. THF has more uses than just being a DD. And don't get me started on how BLU would still be useful. My point is these lightweight jobs that dual wield should not come out on top of the heavy jobs. Despite being heavy, they can't take punishment without sacrificing their DPS. These jobs were supposed to be the best DD's, but that's far from being true.

I could spend hours dissecting your comments and tell you all the problems with what you've said, and I'm sure you could attempt to do the same to me. You make yourself look like a fool with your pathetic attempts of being condescending and sarcastic. You're not as smart as you think you are. Your attitude, mindset, and opinions have done nothing but make me dislike you. That is all you've accomplished here. Nothing else. You think you've made excellent points and arguments and destroyed mine by personally attacking my DRK and me as a player, assuming I don't have a magic accuracy set for drain and absorb spells. You made a complete evaluation on me based on what you think you know. Do yourself a favor and learn how to perform critical thinking.

[Hoshi]

Seems this thread has verged away a bit from the OP but reading the title all I could think of was how hellacious snatch morsel spam is going to be on a mob where you probably need sublime sushi to hit it. ;3

[Urthdigger]

Seems this thread has verged away a bit from the OP but reading the title all I could think of was how hellacious snatch morsel spam is going to be on a mob where you probably need sublime sushi to hit it. ;3

And then the tank eats food with evasion on it.

[Siviard]

I could see the Reflect trolling now.

Troll BLM casts Death on the Apex Colibri
Apex Colibri tries to Reflect Death
Troll BLM warps out!
Apex Colibri has Death "stored"
CP party tank pulls the Apex Colibri
CP party tank gets one-shotted by Death
Troll BLM LOLs

[machini]

"I am become Death, Apex of Colibiri."

[Ulth]

Well, Congratulations, you somehow managed to turn this into a personal feud. This is the problem with these forums: No matter what you try to do, there's always a cynical naysayer trying to destroy the thread with superficial arguments. For some reason, you don't seem to think this is a problem. And yes, I do play DRK. I do not claim to be great at it, but it's decently geared, and I have a good amount of magic accuracy to land absorb/drain spells, genius. There are certain monsters, like bats or undead, that you cannot reliably land absorb spells on. Therefore, those spells cannot be relied on 100% of the time. And I never said attack wasn't important, but accuracy is more important, and only a complete fool would argue that. So what if you can do a 10k Torcleaver 50% of the time? Not only are you missing, but the SC failed, as did the MB's. Therefore, the party fails because your accuracy as a DRK cannot keep up. Now if 2 THF's SC'd with Rudra's for crappy damage, they at least landed the SC and opened up MB opportunities.

If you think Rudra's is garbage, try any scythe WS. Claiming Rudra's to be garbage doesn't help your argument that 2H weapons don't need to be rehauled. And a WAR can do some very high damage with savage blade. As can RUN. As can any job that can use it. Because it's a powerful WS. It may not be the #1 option, or the ideal weapon choice for most jobs, but any job that can use Savage Blade has something good going for it. I have no problem with Savage Blade being powerful: I love it. It's a great WS. As somebody who's always enjoyed and only recently started to take it seriously, I just believe scythe should have it's own WS that can compare. And that WS shouldn't be exclusive to a weapon that takes months to make.

And yes, two handed weapons should be more powerful. Why should a WAR using a sword and shield be more powerful than a DRK with a scythe? Just because they would be better DD's does not make them the better jobs. DNC has so much more potential to it than DDing. THF has more uses than just being a DD. And don't get me started on how BLU would still be useful. My point is these lightweight jobs that dual wield should not come out on top of the heavy jobs. Despite being heavy, they can't take punishment without sacrificing their DPS. These jobs were supposed to be the best DD's, but that's far from being true.

I could spend hours dissecting your comments and tell you all the problems with what you've said, and I'm sure you could attempt to do the same to me. You make yourself look like a fool with your pathetic attempts of being condescending and sarcastic. You're not as smart as you think you are. Your attitude, mindset, and opinions have done nothing but make me dislike you. That is all you've accomplished here. Nothing else. You think you've made excellent points and arguments and destroyed mine by personally attacking my DRK and me as a player, assuming I don't have a magic accuracy set for drain and absorb spells. You made a complete evaluation on me based on what you think you know. Do yourself a favor and learn how to perform critical thinking.

Look up, that cynical naysayer trying to destroy the thread with a superficial argument is you, genius. The original poster stated that two hand weapons get less accuracy from their main and sub slots, and I showed it wasn't the case. That should of been the end of it, but then you chimed in with something unrelated and false, and well I just can't stand people being wrong on the internet. Of course I know that is a lost cause, especially with you. Personally I think I do a outstanding job of being condescending and sarcastic, and while you say you could spend hours pointing out the things wrong I've said, if your previous posts are any indicator, I'm sure you will just keep redirecting the topic to something unrelated and projecting your own insecurities.

[OmnysValefor]

Seems this thread has verged away a bit from the OP but reading the title all I could think of was how hellacious snatch morsel spam is going to be on a mob where you probably need sublime sushi to hit it. ;3


And then the tank eats food with evasion on it.

Well, in my defense, I said in the OP that the evasion should be about 50 (maybe heavier) less than other mobs so that the parties without bard/cor/geo (because they can still happen) still can hit the mob, though Distract, Distract II do exist.

---

I agree with Prometus.. why must people on these boards just be about deflating harmless ideas intended to help the playerbase? It would not take much development effort to create an Apex Colibri and would be a fun nostalgia trip for a lot of people. NIN tanking colibri was some of the most fun I ever had in this game, surrounded by several sleeping birds just waiting to try to kill you.

I guess i'll go back to

/yell {main} {Flash} {Can I have it?} {Front line job} {Can I have it?} GEO SCH BLM {Can I have it?}

Ignore the melee, they're not going to bosses anyway.


The original poster stated that two hand weapons get less accuracy from their main and sub slots, and I showed it wasn't the case. That should of been the end of it, but then you chimed in with something unrelated and false, and well I just can't stand people being wrong on the internet.

You did, you showed that with one series of weapons. Better damage weapons still suffer the same problem though.

[Ulth]

You did, you showed that with one series of weapons. Better damage weapons still suffer the same problem though.

Okay drk again, but since I guess there is no love for scythes and you prefer greatswords Ragnarok 119 III has 60 accuracy when the best RME daggers would be mythic while offhanding Empyrean. Neither mythic dagger has additional accuracy added to it while Twashtar Has 50 dex, So that is 37.5 accuracy for the daggers while Ragnarok has 60. Of course Apocalypse also has +60 accuracy on it.

[cengeal]

Look up, that cynical naysayer trying to destroy the thread with a superficial argument is you, genius. The original poster stated that two hand weapons get less accuracy from their main and sub slots, and I showed it wasn't the case. That should of been the end of it, but then you chimed in with something unrelated and false, and well I just can't stand people being wrong on the internet. Of course I know that is a lost cause, especially with you. Personally I think I do a outstanding job of being condescending and sarcastic, and while you say you could spend hours pointing out the things wrong I've said, if your previous posts are any indicator, I'm sure you will just keep redirecting the topic to something unrelated and projecting your own insecurities.

You're right, I did get off topic quite a bit, and I have no problem admitting that. That's because the current game design is largely discriminatory against 2H jobs. You proved that a single weapon + a specific grip had more accuracy than 2 daggers combined. Excluding relics, you could make that point maybe two more times (new GA and polearm augments). The 119 weapons from Oboro can be augmented with a lot of accuracy, and the augments on most are pretty amazing, but that doesn't really fix the discrepancy. Those single weapons are exceptions, because they are single weapons. And what I said was not false: Scythe WS's are terrible, no amount of accuracy will change that (although i can't speak for Apocalypse owners, as I do not have one). DRK got kind of screwed there. Even though they have an A+ in scythe, GS is the better weapon choice.

Rudra's is not a garbage WS. It may not be the best, but it's far better than Wasp Sting. I may have gone off on a bit of a tangent, but what I said is hardly irrelevant to the spirit of the thread. Often times when you look at numbers (which is exactly what you did), you don't see the whole picture.

I think the real problem here is you're convinced your opinion is superior to others'. Because I took the effort and time to dig deeper to explain why the scythe and grip combo isn't as great as it may appear on paper, you became stubborn. I like to think that I at least tried to see your point of view, but I realize I may have failed at that. Rather than try to see it from my point of view, or at least play devil's advocate, you immediately went to the "No, I'm right and you're wrong," mindset. You started making assumptions about me based on a fact I stated (absorb spells don't always work), thus making a fool out of yourself. You also went off topic yourself, but apparently that's only a big deal if I do it. It seems that you're allowed to criticize other people, but they're not allowed to criticize you.

So how about this: If more people say I'm the cynical naysayer than people say you are, I won't post on this thread again. Your inability to demonstrate any sense of humility would only help my case at this point.

[machini]

I agree with Prometus.. why must people on these boards just be about deflating harmless ideas intended to help the playerbase? It would not take much development effort to create an Apex Colibri and would be a fun nostalgia trip for a lot of people.

I mean no offense to you personally, as I am fairly ignorant of your knowledge, but a great many people who post on these forums are extremely lacking in knowledge of how some (n.b.: most) of the game mechanics work, have a very limited grasp of how the mechanics can interact with each other, and an extremely limited grasp of the kind of technical challenges involved in adding even the "simplest" functionality -- just go look up some of the threads where people have gone on and on and on about how easy it would by for Squeenix to make a 'classic' server for a perfect example of people who are entirely ignorant on a subject demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger effect.

If you were to make an Apex mob that had 'low' evasion so that people who can barely hit 1000 accuracy could go into full DPS mode, that's going to have the effect of all those people who buff up to 1100~1200 accuracy to kill the more evasive apex mobs to go kill the ones that are easier to hit, and instead of needing all that accuracy buffage they'll just get more attack, double attack, haste, etc, etc, and tear through them even harder, especially when you consider that birds are weak to getting stabbed in the face.

On top of that, Colibri steal food, iirc. If you want a truly authentic experience, you're going to have to have those DRKs and SAMs who require that sublime sushi to cap hit rate constantly have to eat a new piece on every mob when it steals their food.

Accuracy is something that needs to be adjusted, as it is getting kind of ridiculous at this point, especially when some of the Oboro 119 JSE gear has higher accuracy than that job's mythic weapons.

One of the things that, unfortunately, must be considered when adding "easier" content like this is that if it's sufficiently easier, it becomes trivial to people who find "normal" content to be "easy".

I can kill Apex Efts solo on DNC without much difficulty. Or I could, it's probably easier now that I've had gear upgrades. With trusts and a bit of luck, I can kill an Apex Eft in 2 minutes or less. Again, it's been a while since I tried, I could probably do it slightly faster now. These things require 1150~1160 accuracy to cap hit rate if you don't have and -enemy evasion down effects, I think. I know with Koru and ~1120 acc I seem to never miss. Anyway. Point is, if those Apex Colibri give just half the CAP that those efts do, but I can kill them 4 times as fast, then it's better off for me to go kill them. Less cap per kill, but more total because of faster kills.

Now I'm just one person with trusts. If I had an actual human BLM or, better still, a GEO there with me to magic burst off of my back to back self double darknesses, that kills them even faster. And if it's a GEO, now not only am I already capped on hit rate without having to throw on any accuracy gear (meaning I can throw on all my straight up damage gear) but now I have 40% more attack and the bird has ...-27%? defense, meaning I'm going to murder those weak to getting stabbed in the face birds even faster.

Yes, some jobs have higher accuracy than others, and some difference between the jobs is nice, as it helps keep all of them from just being the exact same things with different skins like in other MMOs I could name. The problem is when the disparity becomes so great it's impossible for most people to do anything effectively on anything approaching worth doing. Should jobs with ridiculously high levels of Accuracy Bonus have higher accuracy than jobs that have none? Yes. Should a DRK with the same amount of +accuracy from gear and gifts be 250 total accuracy behind my DNC? No.

[Vae]

Does every thread have to meltdown into the same old shit, i mean really.

We all know it's quite unequally balanced against melee right now, pretty obviously. All he wants is a slightly easier mob to allow the lesser players to be able to play.

Colibri is just the easiest mob you can go with, except maybe Apex Toads, which have zero tp moves.

The details are irrelevant. You either want lesser players to be able to gain "reasonable" cp on unbalanced melee jobs, or you don't. Arguing about drk and scythe and random shit accomplishes nothing.

[machini]

Does every thread have to meltdown into the same old shit, i mean really.

We all know it's quite unequally balanced against melee right now, pretty obviously. All he wants is a slightly easier mob to allow the lesser players to be able to play.

Colibri is just the easiest mob you can go with, except maybe Apex Toads, which have zero tp moves.

The details are irrelevant. You either want lesser players to be able to gain "reasonable" cp on unbalanced melee jobs, or you don't. Arguing about drk and scythe and random shit accomplishes nothing.

Adding easier Apex mobs will let those "lesser" players get capacity points. It won't give them the 200/+ accuracy they're missing to allow them to do any relevant end-game content.

I'd rather fix the cause of the problem instead of treat the symptoms. Slapping band aids on the stumps of severed limbs doesn't staunch the flow.

[machini]

Of course, I'd also like a million dollars and a particle wave ray gun, but I don't see that happening any time soon, either.

[Vae]

They just want something to do other than stand around in adoulin. No one is taking melee to anything content wise. Elemental magic only.

The problems with melee are quite apparent, this thread isn't the place to bring them up.

Yes, magic needs a large nerf, yes immanence needs to be removed, yes magic bursts need to be cut in half or lower, yes enmity for mages is non-existant, yes mobs are way to evasive, yes aoe damage is astronomical to dd, yes debuffs are far too numerous, yes tp move spam and regain is ABSURD. Eventually they'll fix all that (2017)

[Ulth]

They just want something to do other than stand around in adoulin. No one is taking melee to anything content wise. Elemental magic only.

The problems with melee are quite apparent, this thread isn't the place to bring them up.

Yes, magic needs a large nerf, yes immanence needs to be removed, yes magic bursts need to be cut in half or lower, yes enmity for mages is non-existant, yes mobs are way to evasive, yes aoe damage is astronomical to dd, yes debuffs are far too numerous, yes tp move spam and regain is ABSURD. Eventually they'll fix all that (2017)

Well in the freshly picked they say that they are looking into the accuracy problem. I'm guessing dex and accuracy becomes one to one and combat skill stays at one to one for skill over 200.

But back to the topic that the thread is about, weak apex mobs is pretty much an oxymoron. Apex in this context meaning the pinnacle of those monster's strength. There are plenty of easier mobs already and there is scaling difficulty so there will always be a mob about your gear level for you to cp on. Is it slower to cp on weaker mobs, absolutely, but that is how it should be. Why would you do something harder if there was no benefit to it.

[OmnysValefor]

Machini I took no offense at your replies.

I do understand the mechanics of the game and that people love it when the grind is mindless and simple, which is why we kill crabs the way we do. If you could macro movement, you could macro your role in great apex parties. The Tank WS's mob, flashes next mob while partner ws's. The tank tries to keep things lined up so that /autotarget engages the next mob. The mages, accounting for their own fastcast, no when to start casting so that their big nukes land at the opportune time and are casting another in case of a resist/shell at a poor time.

I had a wall of text to reply to you, but I'll be honest: The Accuracy augments on JSE weapons, aside from being expensive if you are fresh/freshly returning and not sitting on a pile of r/b/p (it will probably go down in weeks/months) goes a long long way towards helping people reach apex-level accuracy. /eggonmyface in that regard, but I've already owned that.

If, as a dnc or war, your shiny new escha weapon lowers your accuracy so far that you can't hit the mobs, then you're just not ready to use it, and that's fine. That's not bad design. The problem lies in design of the target mobs so heavily favoring mages.

Haste is all over melee gear at all ilvls. It's hard not to haste cap and nearly every melee player has "good" haste. With Haste/Haste II and Haste/Regain buffs from support roles, everyone is TPing fast.

If I invite a very geared thf and a newbie war to a "bird party", I'll find an SC war can open because the thf will do better ws damage, so should close. This also gives the warrior a second/two lead to start re-getting TP while the thf times her ws. The THF may well tp so fast that she still beats the warrior back to 1000 but the gap won't be so bad that the party is greatly suffering for the war's presence but that's kind of where crabs have us because melee don't get geo bubbles in crab parties. In most crab parties melee get Haste 1 and indi-haste if they're smart enough to be close enough to the geo. They don't get Minuet or Madrigal but the reward for buffing melee is not as potent as the reward for buffing mages.

Copying a mob is also not a terribly difficult thing to do, which is why every mmo does it so much. It's why we're fighting most of the same mobs at 119+ we were fighting in Dunes. It requires tweaking of stats and testing, for sure, but it's not an overly complex process. None of us can say what SE actually goes through to copy a monster, but they do it plenty, they have it down to a science--literally.

[machini]

Honestly, I think a simple "fix" for mage enmity in re: magic damage would be "dealing large amounts of magic damage in a short period of time dramatically increases enmity generated by magic damage."

Of course, you'd have to separate "skillchain damage" from the general "magic damage" as, while I just woke up and spent five minutes searching for my glasses only to find I was wearing them, I seem to recall skillchain damage is magic damage.

It would force mages to not just go pew pew bang bang constantly and actually have to think about whether or not it's a good idea to cast a spell, although arguably it would just be an arbitrary "no mage damage over x dps", but everything is arbitrary, innit?

[machini]

[snippety snip]

I agree with more or less everything you said. I am particularly loved by some people in my linkshell because I am more than willing to take new/undergeared players to delve/hard mode fights/whatnot to help them gear. A lot of the content they find hard I find relatively easy. And my inquiry into your understanding of the mechanics was solely because I have found that a lot of the difficulty new/returning/undergeared players (which I was fairly sure you were not, but I figured I'd check anyway) have with content is not that they do not have the tools/gear available to do it, but simply that they don't realize they do and don't know how or when to do it. A lot of people (who are not uber leet end game people, which I don't consider myself, considering I'm not BiS geared on most anything) act as though /RUN doesn't exist at all, and have no idea how or what the JAs do, but after going into avatar fights a couple of times and seeing me get hit for 500~900 damage by stuff that hits them for 2000/+ damage can really help, as a lot of people don't view subjobs as situational, for just one example. Another would be not understanding the interaction between Haste and DW/MA. Telling people to throw on (and often helping them get) "simple" stuff like the delve DW earrings can be a pretty major DPS increase for them, and from my experience in helping gear people like this, they think that the 'old' gear is worthless, and then because they can't get the latest and greatest gear they get majorly discouraged, so showing them that there is gear in their grasp that they can get with a little help or a little perseverance helps, 'cause I've seen people get discouraged and quit because "there's so much to do to catch up" when it could be done relatively quickly, if they knew how.

I had a friend who wanted to play BLU give up and quit the game for several months because she felt completely useless (we had just started gearing her BLU), and she had no jobs that were 99 that weren't in spark gear. When she resubbed, in less than a week she was hitting ~1100 accuracy with <100 job points and feeling really silly over getting so discouraged and quitting (when I was telling her it wouldn't take long to get her up to speed and she didn't listen).

I'm sorry, I've completely forget what I was supposed to be talking about.

[Ketaru]

Right you are. Savage blade can be used effectively by pld, war, and rdm yet I never hear people complain about those jobs doing too much damage

Well yeah. People always want to see the job du jour nerfed, even if others must necessarily be pushed under the bus along with them.

[Hoshi]

I guess I'm a bit confused because we already have a melee friendly target with the apex erucas. My friends like to CP and our typical setup for an eruca party is 3 melee, whm, geo, blm. The blm does help the damage a bit but even just the 3 of us making the light skillchain does quite a bit of damage to the mob. If the blm forgets to burst for the whole thing we only have to make 2 skillchains to kill a mob.

[OmnysValefor]

Erucas simply don't get as good as CP (per kill or per hour) as crabs, but crabs are not designed for melee parties.

A great crab party can kill a crab in like 15 seconds. If the tank is smart, the next crab is already attacking him before the target is dead. Crabs are no danger to the tank, or even quasi-tank in good gear. The process is so streamlined that the crab never gets enough tp to consider casting shell.

I tanked blu 150-2100, and died once because someone somehow agroed 3 additional crabs and I honestly believe the blm was just too bored with the macroable-nature to pay attention and sleepga.

Even if Erucas are dying that fast, they're giving less CP and since they're lower level, I believe their chain breaks easier.

Flame breath can actually hurt as well.

And finally, my blu frequently had flash at 10s recast thanks to personal Haste II and Geo-Haste, along with fastcast gear. One flash is all that was generally needed to keep a mob on me til it was dead. The same formulas do not apply to melee. While damage-enmity does not outscale damage-taken enmity-loss (making it difficult for melee to tank without flash), melee damage does vastly outscale magic burst enmity. Flashing one mob for the 15 seconds it lives works with mages, but you'll see melee eating flame breaths.

Provoke? Provoke has a hard 30 second cooldown.

Do I want birds that, like crabs, die before they get to use a tp move? Not at all, but I want something melee players can do that is competitive to crabs so that the other jobs will be willing to come.

Crabs: Have MP, May cast Shell or Defense Boost (big deal about the defense boost)
Bats: Have No MP, can't be easily slept/dispelled with black sleeps. AoE attack Down, AoE acc down. In a melee party, bats require a lot lot of babysitting unless you have a yagrush whm.
Fish: Have no MP. Strangely large hitbox that makes them annoying to pull. Has potent evasion boost as a tp move which can be dispelled.
Ercuca: Have no MP. May use Cocoon (which sucks for melee oriented mob but can be dispelled). I can't recall, honestly, but doesn't sticky thread overwrite Haste, but not Haste II?

Colibri are just an ideal target for melee. That's why we lived in Thickets at 75.

Because of Feather Tickle, you would want either a PLD\RUN + 2-3 DD or a NIN + 1-3 DD leaving a spot for a support job and healer. I'd love it if they made a room filled with birds where you moved from mob to mob. That's bard's strength over geo: mobility and crowd control. Now you might say "If the bard heals, you can add one more DD", and that's true, but there almost isn't room for a another DD in that setup because everyone TPs so ridiculously fast these days. THFs accidentally making darkness for Rudraing too fast.

[Stompa]

As we all know, the optimum setup for an apex party is 1-2 tank/melee 2-4 BLM/SCH and a GEO. It's disgusting, but it's the winning solution.



All the shouts I hear for CP burns are for SCH/GEO just endlessly, it is so disheartening and boring to read it all the time. I probably spend too much time on Social-Media, but when I hear those /shouts I immediately think ; "Check Your Wizard Privilege!" XD

I think it is great that BLM SCH GEO have important roles, and I am happy for them. Its cool if they keep nuking those CAP mobs forever, that is fine by me. But it is so BORING when that becomes the only thing people want to do. And it is especially a problem with Jobpoints which are locked on your current job.

I did solo WAR Jobmaster, literally solo without a single party. I actually enjoyed it too, because I love playing WAR. But I feel sorry for other Melee people who are excluded from CP parties because of the trend in nuke parties. There are some really excellent highly-skilled Melee players out there, if you had them in your party it would be a both enjoyable and productive party experience.

I agree with the general points in this thread, about end-game accuracy issues and the importance of a plentiful supply of apex camps for traditional Melee parties. Those parties were the backbone of FFXI, and the traditional party format was what made FFXI so popular and fun to play.

[OmnysValefor]

All the shouts I hear for CP burns are for SCH/GEO just endlessly, it is so disheartening and boring to read it all the time. I probably spend too much time on Social-Media, but when I hear those /shouts I immediately think ; "Check Your Wizard Privilege!" XD

Valefor is lowlow-pop and terrible for it. I put together Apex /yell groups more than anyone currently and yeah, my first yell as a GEO looks like this.

{Capacity Points} {Do you need it?} {Flash} {Front line job} {Can I have it?} {Front line job} {Can I have it?} BLM SCH GEO {Can I have it?}.

That's right, 2-geo parties work exceptionally well if they're both capable nukers, or one is willing to heal.

If the prospects are dismal, I'll add in RDM and BRD/COR to shouts, but for as long as I've been shouting, I've yet to party with a single bard.

You are hurting your party by inviting a WHM or, very sorry to say this, Summoner or more than 2 melee.


I did solo WAR Jobmaster, literally solo without a single party. I actually enjoyed it too, because I love playing WAR. But I feel sorry for other Melee people who are excluded from CP parties because of the trend in nuke parties. There are some really excellent highly-skilled Melee players out there, if you had them in your party it would be a both enjoyable and productive party experience.

Did you do this with Fell Cleave? Probably. I earned spatterings of JP on blu by raining AOE, but it was more for merit farming than actually wanting JP. Some jobs have pretty terrible aoe options, or none at all.

Also, this snip reminded me of a thf I met the other day. He did everything I suggested and you know what he did when the BLMs/Me got hit? Collaborator! First thf I've seen do that in ages! I made note to thank him and point out how rare that is. But yeah, not a lot of people will ever play with his thf and see that he's good at his entire job, because he's competing for the same 1-2 party spots as every other melee on the server.

[Stompa]

Did you do this with Fell Cleave?

No, I always fight single mobs, unless a few of them aggro me. This is because of my own preference, that I don't want to dominate an area, if somebody else arrives there are mobs wandering around unclaimed, which they can fight. Also under TOS there is a monster domination clause, which while being somewhat vague, discourages players from mass-pulling mobs, especially on solo.

I did use Gaxe in the beginning, with Upheaval ws mostly. I like to use King's Justice too, because it makes me feel like I'm a righteous soldier of the Empire, lol.

That was for the first 1000~ Jobpoints, then the Savage Blade and Fencer stuff happened, so I used Sword for the next 1100 jobpoints. I find that I get 15k Savage Blades with 1000tp, while I seem to get 8k with Upheaval with the same base tp.


Also, this snip reminded me of a thf I met the other day. He did everything I suggested and you know what he did when the BLMs/Me got hit? Collaborator! First thf I've seen do that in ages! I made note to thank him and point out how rare that is. But yeah, not a lot of people will ever play with his thf and see that he's good at his entire job, because he's competing for the same 1-2 party spots as every other melee on the server.

I'm still talking about the THF we had in a Jungle party ten years ago, lol. She was a bionic super THF, running around dodging the goblins and pulling mandragoras back to the camp just in time for XP Chains. She was awesome, you could see the mad game-skills she had, she was just totally stellar even in that low-level basic party situation. Its funny how you remember those really skilled players for ten years lol.

[OmnysValefor]

No, I always fight single mobs, unless a few of them aggro me. This is because of my own preference, that I don't want to dominate an area, if somebody else arrives there are mobs wandering around unclaimed, which they can fight. Also under TOS there is a monster domination clause, which while being somewhat vague, discourages players from mass-pulling mobs, especially on solo.

I do AoE pull, but I try not to pull strays away from soloers going 1v1 and I try not to aoe near other people's packs. Zi'tah is packed enough and respawns fast enough, there's enough for 2-3 groups to aoe pull. If I see you killing one mob with one near you, i'll do my best to kite around you so I don't pick up your probable next target.

I like your bionic super THF story.

[cengeal]

I thought of another set of ideas: Apex Imps with increased magic defense. Would be a bit more challenging than apex colibri, and not as ideal, but could be more fun now that melee have more ways to deal with their pesky moves. Breaking their horns would be easier now.

The other was apex jnun. Despite the lower exp they provided, I used to love fighting these in Caedarva Mire. They were very squishy and took increased slashing damage. Again, these would have increased M Defense.

[machini]

I thought of another set of ideas: Apex Imps with increased magic defense. Would be a bit more challenging than apex colibri, and not as ideal, but could be more fun now that melee have more ways to deal with their pesky moves. Breaking their horns would be easier now.

The other was apex jnun. Despite the lower exp they provided, I used to love fighting these in Caedarva Mire. They were very squishy and took increased slashing damage. Again, these would have increased M Defense.

How about "Apex monster that shifts its vulnerability between blunt, piercing/ranged, slashing, and magic, has a lot of HP, and gives a lot of CP, the combination of high CP per kill and rotating weakness meaning we're forcing you to bring a somewhat balanced party set up."

I mean, if I can get... What? 30 job points per minute on DNC with my eyes closed, make a monster with rotating weakness like that, give it roughly 250kHP, make it give 20 or 30 KCP per kill before bonuses (Honestly not sure what most stuff gives anymore as a base).

Party DPS will be reduced since you can't bring all the same exact thing, and the split between damage types means you'd need a more diverse party composition. The HP is not dramatically increased over other Apex mobs (I think they tend to have about half that), but the high HP combined with low overall DPS due to rotating weakness means they would take several times as long to kill. Adjust the CP accordingly, then add a bonus on top of that as a reward for bringing jobs along that no one likes for damage types. You now have an Apex mob that demands you bring melees, and rewards the party with higher CP/time for it.

Or instead of rotating weakness, make the damage from any single type go down the more of it is dealt relative to other damage types.

There's tons of things they could do that would incentivize diverse party set ups and melee inclusion. This specific example of an idea might not be entirely thought out, as I've not given it intensive, deep consideration, but I think it's better than most other choices.

I understand people might be pissed at the... not VW-y feeling, but the "you're forcing us to play X style" aspect.

[cengeal]

How about "Apex monster that shifts its vulnerability between blunt, piercing/ranged, slashing, and magic, has a lot of HP, and gives a lot of CP, the combination of high CP per kill and rotating weakness meaning we're forcing you to bring a somewhat balanced party set up."

I mean, if I can get... What? 30 job points per minute on DNC with my eyes closed, make a monster with rotating weakness like that, give it roughly 250kHP, make it give 20 or 30 KCP per kill before bonuses (Honestly not sure what most stuff gives anymore as a base).

Party DPS will be reduced since you can't bring all the same exact thing, and the split between damage types means you'd need a more diverse party composition. The HP is not dramatically increased over other Apex mobs (I think they tend to have about half that), but the high HP combined with low overall DPS due to rotating weakness means they would take several times as long to kill. Adjust the CP accordingly, then add a bonus on top of that as a reward for bringing jobs along that no one likes for damage types. You now have an Apex mob that demands you bring melees, and rewards the party with higher CP/time for it.

Or instead of rotating weakness, make the damage from any single type go down the more of it is dealt relative to other damage types.

There's tons of things they could do that would incentivize diverse party set ups and melee inclusion. This specific example of an idea might not be entirely thought out, as I've not given it intensive, deep consideration, but I think it's better than most other choices.

I understand people might be pissed at the... not VW-y feeling, but the "you're forcing us to play X style" aspect.

I love the idea of the rotating weakness for a regular monster that gives a lot of CP. But if it absorbed damage it wasn't weak to (which is probably what SE would do) would make it pointless. This would be a great idea, and would definitely allow job diversity in a party. Or at least encourage jobs to do things outside of the norm.

[Ulth]

If I still needed Job points I would just do them in reisenjima. At least that way you get silt and augment stones.

[machini]

I love the idea of the rotating weakness for a regular monster that gives a lot of CP. But if it absorbed damage it wasn't weak to (which is probably what SE would do) would make it pointless. This would be a great idea, and would definitely allow job diversity in a party. Or at least encourage jobs to do things outside of the norm.

What would probably work best is "Monster takes severely reduced damage from everything except ______ damage type, which changes between blunt, slashing, piercing/ranged, and magic. The relatively higher HP of this monster compared to other Apex monsters, combined with the rotating damage resistance mean that it will take significantly longer to kill, perhaps 3-4 times as long. Therefore it gives proportionately more Capacity Points when killed, with an additional bonus on top of that for the fact that you actually have to have a 'more balanced' party set up, which encourages jobs that would never get brought to come out."

This isn't rocket surgery.

[detlef]

Your hypothetical monster sounds awful to fight and would just be ignored. Does anybody actually enjoy Temperance fights?

Also, is the 65536 CP/mob an actual cap or a display thing? Because if it's a real cap then there's no way anybody would pick your mob over existing mobs.

Maybe it IS rocket surgery.

[Vae]

It sort of is rocket science, i mean think about it, yes they just copy/paste and raise some stats, but realistically, how many hundreds of mobs have been added to adoulin areas that have never, or essentially never been fought.

Every 10 mobs designed, only the least annoying one is going to be bothered with. And if ALL 10 are more annoying than the previous best mob, well good job, you completely wasted your time.

No one, is ever going to kill an Apex Gargouille. No one is ever going to kill an Apex Dvrgr, or essentially ANY of the inner ra'kaz Apex. (now I know that you're a snowflake and you're going to say "but i kill them all the time, im awesome!" good for you, no one cares.)

Every single enemy in a zone, may as well be an Apex Crab. If it's more annoying than the crab is, no ones ever gonna touch it, unless they're desperate, or doing some kind of quest(RoE maybe) involving them.

[machini]

Your hypothetical monster sounds awful to fight and would just be ignored. Does anybody actually enjoy Temperance fights?

Also, is the 65536 CP/mob an actual cap or a display thing? Because if it's a real cap then there's no way anybody would pick your mob over existing mobs.

Maybe it IS rocket surgery.

Of course it's awful if you're one of those people who will only use the absolute laziest strategies for everything.

[machini]

Seriously, what is hard about it? Other than the fact you can do neat stuff like have RDM in demand, since it can do slashing and magic, or WAR since they can do blunt, slashing, and piercing, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

[OmnysValefor]

Of course it's awful if you're one of those people who will only use the absolute laziest strategies for everything.

In detlef's defense: He's right. That's what people want is something that can be efficiently and reliably taken down. Swapping weaknesses screws up the order of things and breaks a good chain for no good reason. It's why crabs are much more popular than bats--because their debuffs hurt the performance of the party (acc-down mainly, as most melee are in that range).

I said it earlier in the thread. People will sometimes start laying out four-ws SC's and I don't even want to bother.

Give us a boss/event that had mechanics and dropped multiple JP (like 10 or more)? I'd be down for that. But grinding away, I want to know that we can keep kill speed consistent. Lazy has nothing to do with it.

[detlef]

Seriously, what is hard about it? Other than the fact you can do neat stuff like have RDM in demand, since it can do slashing and magic, or WAR since they can do blunt, slashing, and piercing, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.I guess I have many concerns.

Are you going to make it so you can kill it fast enough to maintain an XP or CP chain? If killing it takes 3-4 times as long as a regular XP mob then it sounds like you won't be maintaining your chain.

If you have to damage it multiple ways does that mean you're going to have to switch your buffs on the fly? That sounds like a headache.

As I mentioned, I'm not certain whether you can earn more than 65,535 CP in one kill. So if that is the cap then how does this compare to something that you can kill 4x per minute?

I don't think people want to pay that much attention for an hour straight or longer. There's a big difference between the amount of focus it takes to fight an NM versus farming some crabs or Reisenjima mobs.

I agree with you that there's room for something in the game that gives big chunks of CP or JP as an alternatives to CP PTs. But any solution is probably going to be hurt by the all powerful chain.

[Hoshi]

Pretty sure that's an actual cap, not a display cap.

[OmnysValefor]

65535 might seem odd to you but it's based in computing:
65536 (number) - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/65536_%28number%29)

2^16 = 65,536

It stops at 65,535 to account for 0.

Essentially, it's the highest number that can be returned for that value because of the chosen field type.

In Square's defense, this was decided for a game where 200 XP was a lot.

[machini]

Huh. I was unaware there was an actual cap for that. I figured they would have used more than two bytes for it, given damage can go up to 99,999 for display, at least. I wonder if the remaining bits of that number are used to contain whether it's a job point or merit point, and how many you have. There is a cap on job points in pool after all. 16 bits for amount and 10 bits for how many you have (job point bank caps at 500?), and a flag for job point/merit point would only be 27 bits, though. I guess the remaining 5 bits could specify which player to display it for, or be padding or something, assuming that's how it works. Of course, I have no idea exactly how XI packages its data.

And now I will be banned for having a cursory knowledge of networking and being able to do powers of two. yay, exponents.

[machini]

Oh wait that's 17 bits. Hurr

[Ketaru]

Your hypothetical monster sounds awful to fight and would just be ignored. Does anybody actually enjoy Temperance fights?

Also, is the 65536 CP/mob an actual cap or a display thing? Because if it's a real cap then there's no way anybody would pick your mob over existing mobs.

Maybe it IS rocket surgery.

If such a mob existed that gave a significant amount of CP for defeating it, I'm sure there would be more of an interest in it. The problem is that, for the entire of history of this game, enemies never rewarded players in a way that corresponded to their actual difficulty. Many of the NMs today are significantly more difficult to beat than Apex crabs. But I don't see them giving us one JP per kill.

[detlef]

If such a mob existed that gave a significant amount of CP for defeating it, I'm sure there would be more of an interest in it. The problem is that, for the entire of history of this game, enemies never rewarded players in a way that corresponded to their actual difficulty. Many of the NMs today are significantly more difficult to beat than Apex crabs. But I don't see them giving us one JP per kill.Right, but I already gave a few reasons why such a mob probably couldn't give that significant amount of CP and why it still might not be competitive with existing options. It'd have to give multiple JP on kill and still have to be a very quick and straightforward fight for it to be an option.

Really, I think the only way to get people to fight such a mob would be to give it some kind of additional incentive beyond CP such as attractive drops or a copper voucher every kill or something.

[OmnysValefor]

A chunk of Bayld per kill along with a reliably cp rate.

Still, swapping weakness leaves many melee out in the cold for the simple fact that many jobs are only proficient in one weapon, and while jse weapons are amazing for people that need acc: What are you supposed to do when the melee lose 50+ acc, more considering skill, swapping to a new type?

[machini]

A chunk of Bayld per kill along with a reliably cp rate.

Still, swapping weakness leaves many melee out in the cold for the simple fact that many jobs are only proficient in one weapon, and while jse weapons are amazing for people that need acc: What are you supposed to do when the melee lose 50+ acc, more considering skill, swapping to a new type?

The point is that you would want to bring more than one DD, instead of just one DD and have them do all the damage. Instead of having a tank, a whm, a geo, and three black mages, or whatever the current nuking setups are, you'd do something like, say, MNK DRG DRK COR WHM BLM. That would cover piercing/ranged, slashing, blunt, and magic.

The idea is to give a reason for people to want to bring jobs that otherwise can't get included because they bring nothing to the group. This will be done my giving them something they do bring, even if it's just a damage type.

[OmnysValefor]

A magic resistant mob covers all those bases. Everyone TPs so ridiculously fast with haste (spell) and march/geo-haste that the type of melee you bring really doesn't matter.

People don't particularly care whether to nukers are GEO, SCH, RDM, or BLM so long as one sc results in the mob dying.

Give me a mob designed for SC damage, and I'll bring a monk, drg, samurai, I don't care. I already do, just for only one spot in the party.

Another reason Apex Colibri would be perfect: Feather Tickle stops putting an acc check on the tank, and lets them be more concerned about tanking (which is hard on newbies, being tankable enough, and meeting acc checks).

[dasva]

If such a mob existed that gave a significant amount of CP for defeating it, I'm sure there would be more of an interest in it. The problem is that, for the entire of history of this game, enemies never rewarded players in a way that corresponded to their actual difficulty. Many of the NMs today are significantly more difficult to beat than Apex crabs. But I don't see them giving us one JP per kill.

Oh it exists. Hard to hit without some kind of campaign and ring I think. Mot really sure if it's actual cap or display though at least as far as rings were concerned different characters got different amounts despite the same display. ie some wore some didn't

https://bucket.bluegartr.com/04e022a4fa508732ce1bc023b8387598.png

[OmnysValefor]

I think he means that bosses never rewarded experience in proportion to their difficulty in comparison to the extermination of the crabs.

SR gives 10k capacity points, I think? A single crab during campaign does that much. SR takes at least 10 minutes. A crab takes at most a minute.

Now granted, SR offers the potential of great loot, but let's be honest: the box has junk most of the time.

It's easy to explain why some rings wore faster when some didn't, if everyone was getting 65,535: Some people were getting a larger bonus from their rings to reach that cap than others.

[Ketaru]

Now granted, SR offers the potential of great loot, but let's be honest: the box has junk most of the time.

Should just change that last option to "1 Job Point." It was cute the first time a linkshell member said Balamor had the amazing magickal powers of converting 5000 Bayld to 1000 Bayld, but that joke runs dry just after one or two uses.

[OmnysValefor]

Not a bad thought, but 5 job points at least. It's going to take most good groups at least 10 minutes, as much as 20. 5 job points is more than reasonable.

[dasva]

I think he means that bosses never rewarded experience in proportion to their difficulty in comparison to the extermination of the crabs.

SR gives 10k capacity points, I think? A single crab during campaign does that much. SR takes at least 10 minutes. A crab takes at most a minute.

Now granted, SR offers the potential of great loot, but let's be honest: the box has junk most of the time.

It's easy to explain why some rings wore faster when some didn't, if everyone was getting 65,535: Some people were getting a larger bonus from their rings to reach that cap than others.

Mob isn't much stronger than most apex though a tad more annoying..

As far as what happened certainly possible it used up the ring then applied the cap literally making part of the ring do nothing. Or maybe it didn't been awhile since I tried it and honestly didn't expect that much. Also been awhile since they've done a cp bonus that wasn't tied to chains

[Pixela]

In a game with vastly more DPS jobs and a few mages it's hilarious how they have set the current capacity point party system.

Most people can't even get into these parties.

[Pixela]

https://i.imgur.com/ceKXfxo.jpg

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml

[Sp1cyryan]

https://i.imgur.com/ceKXfxo.jpg

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml

I'm glad they made the Crawler's Nest S so big that half a dozen soloers, two AoE parties, and 9 different bot groups can fit in the zone. They should just replace every mob in quifim with Apex Colibri to show what the game is anymore.

[Pixela]

Colibri can reflect any magic cast on them.

[Venat]

To fix the bot issue they can just make the mobs despawn/spawn like undead and appear in different camps around the zone. Not miles away but like a few rooms over. I dont afk leveling bots for the most part know how to wander around beyond a single room or even the (buyer) player afk exping. If SE just ban hammers the bot players & gate Seekers Adulion entry better via zilart storyline clear then people would be less likely to do this stuff.

[Sp1cyryan]

To fix the bot issue they can just make the mobs despawn/spawn like undead and appear in different camps around the zone. Not miles away but like a few rooms over. I dont afk leveling bots for the most part know how to wander around beyond a single room or even the (buyer) player afk exping. If SE just ban hammers the bot players & gate Seekers Adulion entry better via zilart storyline clear then people would be less likely to do this stuff.

The STF should be doing their job and banning these bots.

They honestly could also work existing functions so that any player AFK for more than 30 minutes gains no points.