Game/Job balance suggestions

[Eaglestrike]

I don't frequent these forums much, but I have a number of suggestions I'd like to throw around and see if any stick with the Dev team:

Job adjustments:

MNK - They need a fTP increase on one of their WS similar to Savage Blade or Rudra's Storm where it can do very significant damage with high TP. Also maybe a better scaling of DPS with stats.

THF - Change JP category to be 1s off SA and TA instead of the DEX and AGI bonus, respectively.

RDM - Give them Haste 3, fully capped magic haste in one spell.

BRD - One of their JP gifts should be Honor Minne. It should give Defense, Magic Defense and Magic evasion, with a Gjallarhorn it should be between Dunna and Idris geo for their respective spells. The +defense should not stack with Mighty Guard from BLU. Increase the skill cap on their spells above its current 600.

DRG - Their pet needs more baseline DT.

BLU - Multi-part changes:

1) All their stat boosts from gifts need to be reduced. The job baseline is weak and gets stronger with equipping spells, as such it should start with low stats even with gifts. It should be a tier above WHM in melee and a tier above DRG in magic defenses.

2) Mighty Guard should overwrite cocoon. If MG is down via dispels, it can still be used as a defensive spell, but +75% defense is silly strong.

3) Mighty Guard needs to be AOE without the use of Diffusion. This really tears apart any job diversity as MG supplies 15% haste, allows a BLU to self-cap haste and then the party has to either bend over backwards to haste cap another melee...or just invite another BLU.

COR - At least A- Marksmanship...please?

RUN - Could we get a 1min cooldown ability that'll make the next rune enchantment give us 3 of that rune type?

Non-job specific Adjustments:

2h weapons need a better way to reach the delay cap than Hasso or Last Resort. RUN and WAR should not have to rely on subjobs to reach something as basic as attack speed in todays FFXI.

WHM and SCH should get Haste 2.

All melee aside from BLU (and RNG since they're at the higher tier) should get an extra buff to their accuracy from gifts.

Add secondary stats to the Domain Invasion vorseals. Regen should have hp++, Refresh should have MDB++, and Accuracy++ should have Defense++, maybe 10 defense per tier? Also the dragon should have it's magic attack and number of adds it spawns reduced if there are low numbers involved in the fight.

I think that's all I have for now. Thank you for your time.

[OmnysValefor]

I would like to see the return of monk as a high damage-over-time class. More than two melee (sometimes including the tank) has steep diminishing returns vs value in content here the primary goal is to create a skillchain. A class that is not dependent on large ws for damage would actually be welcome. I'd give them a fulltimeable stance that decreased their ws potency but increased their white-damage and caps subtle blow for them. Just an idea.

There are some problems however: Just how hard would a monk have to hit to keep up with the weaponskills people are cranking out at his ilvl? Also, fights where you need to full-time some defensive gear become problematic, but this goes back to the larger problem. It's combat that is flawed and not truly most classes (mnk being an exception).

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I don't think that RDMs need Haste III. I don't think that addresses the flaws in the class at all.

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On delay-capping.. RUN--being a tank--should need to sub something else when an aspect of DPS is their primary concern. As for warrior, I think subbing SAM is a fine thing. There aren't many other subs a warrior would use besides ninja sometimes (I can't say how good war/nin is, especially post-fencer. I rarely see warriors on my server and never war/nin). If you're subbing something else for survivability/tankability, this should come at a cost to your dps. That's the trade-off for subjobs.

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I think all melee including rng (but not blu) should get a further accuracy bonus (even 20). Accuracy is part of what RNG is.

[Eaglestrike]

Making monk a pure damage over time job would be neat, but I'm not sure how feasible it is. WS's are so high damage now, especially with the very high added damage of skillchains, that white damage is well under half of any jobs damage these days. So it would take double or triple of a monks damage to reach that feat, which would potentially break things in other ways.

RDM's major flaw right now is it doesn't fit a party slot. This is because even with haste 2 you need to bring another support job to cap haste for non-BLU (who don't even need haste 2). GEO is a staple of the party now because of frailty and now you basically add a 2nd GEO to haste cap over any other support. A RDM being able to haste cap any melee in the game would allow WHM-RDM-GEO to be a viable backline for a party that consists of almost any melee job combination for the front line. Otherwise a RDM can engage in either melee for SC purposes (mostly for opening, they can TP quickly and have high accuracy, but don't have access to gear to make CDC very potent) or stand back and nuke for respectable damage (in proper gear I've had LS mates claim to hit 90k MB's in Apex). RDM has many neat tools and I think Frazzle/Distract III, Addle II and Inundation are very underestimated in the current game, and this all comes back to RDM not really fitting into a party slot, which haste 3 fixes.

If RUN is tanking it needs to be in tank gear, otherwise it's extremely at risk as the job already lacks defense, running around without DT also is essentially why we never use NIN to tank anything, it's too risky. So to a point you may be right, RUN also doesn't have exceptional offensive traits/JA's to be a huge risk on that end if 2h jobs are given a way to delay cap as an outright option. WAR is essentially locked on /nin for dual wielding or /sam for 2h, and that's just not fun. As a THF I have viable subs of NIN, WAR, SAM, RUN and DNC, as COR I have NIN, DNC, RDM, RNG, SAM, why should a job be locked to only one viable subjob?

The only reason I excluded RNG is because it really doesn't need the accuracy. My COR can shoot ru'aun t3's easily, and pretty sure RNG has well over 100 accuracy over my COR, add on Armageddon which I do not yet have and I think RNG breaking 1700 racc isn't insane, which is well above all other jobs really. This is inside Escha with buffed vorseals, obviously. Ranged damage may need to be looked at, though, otherwise I'd think ranged t4's would be perfectly viable but I don't see that strat being tossed around.

[OmnysValefor]

Making monk a pure damage over time job would be neat, but I'm not sure how feasible it is. WS's are so high damage now, especially with the very high added damage of skillchains, that white damage is well under half of any jobs damage these days. So it would take double or triple of a monks damage to reach that feat, which would potentially break things in other ways.


RDM's major flaw right now is it doesn't fit a party slot. This is because even with haste 2 you need to bring another support job to cap haste for non-BLU (who don't even need haste 2). GEO is a staple of the party now because of frailty and now you basically add a 2nd GEO to haste cap over any other support. A RDM being able to haste cap any melee in the game would allow WHM-RDM-GEO to be a viable backline for a party that consists of almost any melee job combination for the front line. Otherwise a RDM can engage in either melee for SC purposes (mostly for opening, they can TP quickly and have high accuracy, but don't have access to gear to make CDC very potent) or stand back and nuke for respectable damage (in proper gear I've had LS mates claim to hit 90k MB's in Apex). RDM has many neat tools and I think Frazzle/Distract III, Addle II and Inundation are very underestimated in the current game, and this all comes back to RDM not really fitting into a party slot, which haste 3 fixes.

RDM doesn't fit a party spot because it's not the best at anything it does, except enfeebling but that's largely useless these days or just not concern enough to give up a blm/sch/geo's party spot. It used to be nice when paralyze stopped an otherwise unstunnable Meteor, but now, so what. Let the Aegis eat it. If you have to deal with Meteor Spam, let vex/attune or fend/wilt eat it. No loss.

Edit: As matter of fact, constistent damage is better than might-happen huge damage. I'd rather take moderate damage than every meteor than none from some because of paralyze and then have the party wipe because one got through.

I get being immune to silence but I think it's crazy that mobs can be immune (or practically immune) to Paralyze II/Slow II/Blind II. Better yet, make Silence "II" work as well, but make some borderline rage when they do get silenced. Give BLM mobs Myrkr, that would be neat.

Bringing it for Haste II or "III" holds no weight when you can put a GEO or even BRD in that slot and haste upkeep is much easier and they can provide other relevant support (another bubble, a weaker entrusted bubble/other buffs and different buffs to different party members).


If RUN is tanking it needs to be in tank gear, otherwise it's extremely at risk as the job already lacks defense, running around without DT also is essentially why we never use NIN to tank anything, it's too risky. So to a point you may be right, RUN also doesn't have exceptional offensive traits/JA's to be a huge risk on that end if 2h jobs are given a way to delay cap as an outright option.

RUN is locked to DT gear? So is PLD. People have this idea that defense is this amazing stat and yes, I love defense and love that my PLD can hover at 2k defense using food and Defender, but it's -DT that saves my life. I could go tank things in DD gear but I'd die nearly as easy as anyone else. Shield block is still a thing, but goodbye to the 0s that slow TP feed, hello TP feed and hello healer enmity-capping.


WAR is essentially locked on /nin for dual wielding or /sam for 2h, and that's just not fun. As a THF I have viable subs of NIN, WAR, SAM, RUN and DNC, as COR I have NIN, DNC, RDM, RNG, SAM, why should a job be locked to only one viable subjob?

Subbing nin is a trend for warrior now? I thought Fencer was all the rage? Again, never really see them at serious content, or even at the auction house, but of course you're on Asura so maybe you see them a lot more than I do.


The only reason I excluded RNG is because it really doesn't need the accuracy. My COR can shoot ru'aun t3's easily, and pretty sure RNG has well over 100 accuracy over my COR, add on Armageddon which I do not yet have and I think RNG breaking 1700 racc isn't insane, which is well above all other jobs really. This is inside Escha with buffed vorseals, obviously. Ranged damage may need to be looked at, though, otherwise I'd think ranged t4's would be perfectly viable but I don't see that strat being tossed around.

I'm not sure ranged attacks need a buff. Being nearly as safe as mages because of distance (you can't just sit in -DT gear between specials) should come at some expense. I think the reason we don't do ranger burns is because Immanence is too darn good. I love clearing content and Immanence helps a lot of people do that, but it renders melee useless and lets everyone pretend that balance isn't that bad. Balance may be worse now than it ever has been before.

[Helldemon]

Drg's pet wyvern is fine with survivability and DT imo, it's drg that would need a boost to that if anything. They could use a fix to their ws too, they have some of the weakest WS of any job bar blm and smn.

Most Blu's would probably still use diffusion with MG for the extra time it adds

[Eaglestrike]

RDM doesn't fit a party spot because it's not the best at anything it does, except enfeebling but that's largely useless these days or just not concern enough to give up a blm/sch/geo's party spot. It used to be nice when paralyze stopped an otherwise unstunnable Meteor, but now, so what. Let the Aegis eat it. If you have to deal with Meteor Spam, let vex/attune or fend/wilt eat it. No loss.

Edit: As matter of fact, constistent damage is better than might-happen huge damage. I'd rather take moderate damage than every meteor than none from some because of paralyze and then have the party wipe because one got through.

I get being immune to silence but I think it's crazy that mobs can be immune (or practically immune) to Paralyze II/Slow II/Blind II. Better yet, make Silence "II" work as well, but make some borderline rage when they do get silenced. Give BLM mobs Myrkr, that would be neat.

Bringing it for Haste II or "III" holds no weight when you can put a GEO or even BRD in that slot and haste upkeep is much easier and they can provide other relevant support (another bubble, a weaker entrusted bubble/other buffs and different buffs to different party members).

If you're bringing a GEO and Indi-haste is one of their spells, a RDM is better used for that slot in almost all situations. GEO-RDM-WHM is better than GEO-GEO-WHM as a backline. One geo covers frailty/malaise, the biggest things a GEO will ever bring to a group, and then that 2nd geo is going to be to haste cap and a lesser extra buff. But RDM can cure better, has refresh 2 for mages, inundation for melee, dia 3, addle 2 (which comes with an extra -mag acc debuff) and brings frazzle/distract 3 that act as both languor and torpor and a RDM would absolutely be better than a 2nd GEO...if that RDM could cap magic haste. As it stands now RDM cannot replace a WHM in any content that requires a WHM, nor can it replace a GEO or BRD because it cannot cap magic haste. If it had Haste 3 it could cap magic haste and instantly worth bringing into many different configurations, as well as opening up using some of the melee that get hit harder (tossing phalanx 2 onto a war that has access to souveran for example).

Your standard configuration is almost always going to be Tank, DD, DD, GEO, support, WHM. If that support cannot cap magic haste then a 2nd GEO is better in that slot. The reason BRD doesn't really fit is because they cannot offer nearly as significant buff/debuffs (as minuet and such cap at 600 skill) but a RDM has access to significant nuking gear, or significant melee gear, allowing them to play either variety depending on the party needs. But again, magic haste cap is essential to them having a valid party slot.


RUN is locked to DT gear? So is PLD. People have this idea that defense is this amazing stat and yes, I love defense and love that my PLD can hover at 2k defense using food and Defender, but it's -DT that saves my life. I could go tank things in DD gear but I'd die nearly as easy as anyone else. Shield block is still a thing, but goodbye to the 0s that slow TP feed, hello TP feed and hello healer enmity-capping.

This is a bit subjective based on the job and content you're doing, but defense is ABSOLUTELY significant. I know this because of my GEO, I was doing Ironside and wiped, I RR'd on my geo, and yes I switched into my PDT-50% gear, but I also used barrier/wilt/phalanx and I was taking low double digit damage per swing. I was able to survive against him with no issues, and largely because of the capped defense I had on him as without the defense he'd still be hitting for 250-350 a swing, capped DT is still 125-175 a swing, defense is what got me down to 20-40 a swing. On some content defense is absolutely king which is a large part of why RUN's standard tank sub is BLU.


Subbing nin is a trend for warrior now? I thought Fencer was all the rage? Again, never really see them at serious content, or even at the auction house, but of course you're on Asura so maybe you see them a lot more than I do.

No, warriors still don't exist in any capacity, but warrior cannot hit the delay cap unless /nin with DW gear or /sam with hasso. There is some very niche use to say WAR/THF with fencer+savage blade, but you won't see that in too many places. But only having two viable subs is kinda lame, there should be more variety available to 2h jobs.


I'm not sure ranged attacks need a buff. Being nearly as safe as mages because of distance (you can't just sit in -DT gear between specials) should come at some expense. I think the reason we don't do ranger burns is because Immanence is too darn good. I love clearing content and Immanence helps a lot of people do that, but it renders melee useless and lets everyone pretend that balance isn't that bad. Balance may be worse now than it ever has been before.

Fair enough. Major issue is that melee simply cannot survive in content (which is why my final suggestion involves extra HP/MDB) so you cannot get rid of immanence right now without rendering a lot of content impossible (or rather, BST only I'd say).

OH YEAH, I forgot one more suggestion I wanted to make:

COR, BRD and GEO buffs should be alliance-wide. One major issue is that by the time you stack all the support necessary to try to melee t3/t4 content you only have one melee slot left. Alliance-wide buffs could allow a 2-3 job melee party a lot more easily, and could let that be a viable strategy.


Most Blu's would probably still use diffusion with MG for the extra time it adds

Fair point, then increase duration to 5min with proper skill or something, let it be something they can full time, assuming no dispels (or maybe make it undispellable...)

[Hyrist]

Good to see you on the forums Lady.

Sadly I don't agree with much of these changes. In many ways it dosen't fix the Dynamic. Let me take a crack at some of these adjustments for a bit if you'll entertain.

MNK - There is a lot of underutilized skill power here that really could be utilized, rather than just giving a flat fTP fix. It's missing the 550 and 1200 JP break points that other jobs have that give it an edge. Some things in mind for those points is a large Save TP return for using Dragon/Tornado Kick while under the effect of Footwork.

I'm not all that knowledgeable about the class in particular but my understanding was the idea of boosting the class. Adjusting fTP adjusts Puppetmaster as well in this case so probably not the ideal route.

THF - No point nerfing a powerful bonus effect to gain a better retimer. There is already a category in Merits that does exactly what you want. Instead, let's change the 550 Merit marker again, shall we? This time for Thief. A successful Sneak Attack has a chance to reset Trick Attack, and vice versa. Have it on a low-ish percentage. This will accomplish what you want in overall DPS but it also fits the element of Thief being a spike-damage class. It's worth losing the 3% Dual Wield straight for this, and it adds an exciting dynamic to the class.


RDM - Give them Haste 3, fully capped magic haste in one spell.

0.o? Absolutely no point to this. To be dead honest, Red Mage is actually in a good place right now. It's suffering because of problems that the whole player-base is encountering - which is that the flavor of the month jobs have advantages that can't be overcome without nerfing those said mechanics. GEO has buffs no one else has and debuffs that are unresistable. Most classes in game are suffering from physical accuracy problems due to poor scaling and difficulty obtaining sufficient accuracy bonuses. Many second and all third tier Echa bosses are completely Melee unfriendly due to lack of methods of effectively mitigating incoming damage and status effects.

As far as 'Red Mage has nothing specific to make it enticing to parties'. That's by design. If Red Mage is popular just on its mechanics, something is wrong. A Red Mage in and of itself is an individualistic job. It offers a lot of everything and can prove worth in its party slot in almost any role. As far as adjustments it needs? Being someon that was constantly critical of how they handled Red Mage throughout the years I... honestly don't see a Red Mage specific point lacking right now. Evasion reduction, M.Evasion reduction, scaling Defense reduction, enough self-buffs and gear to make Melee worthwhile on many NMs (and more survivable than other melees if played right.) We've got a lot to offer. It's these problems that prevent what we bring to the table from shining that's the issue.

Now, do I have a wishlist? Sure. An attack increasing spell to solve the problem that we're attack starved. As well as a debuff that decreases magical defence/magic damage increasing buff - seeming pretty much every other support has them in spades, I'd like. The latter being more important as we have nothing in that regard as opposed to Physical where we have Dia. But these are minor.

BRD - I like your idea, but I think instead of it being those statistical buffs, that Honor Minne should be flat damage reduction %. Going again on the problem that Melee Range is a bit too dangerous to have melee present in the front lines right now, this spell on a class that leans towards Melee buffs more than magic ones anyways would be a rock solid addition.

BLU - Hm. The problem with nerfing or changing blue right now is that the other jobs aren't at the performance they should be. Buff before nerf. But I do feel the two-tiers of trait bonuses was a bit much just off-hand. Just flat out nerfing it, however, does not solve the problem. No adjustments on spells are needed at this point and changing them are border-lining on jealousy. BLU has a problem with how high it scales at its top end, not necessarily the spells itself.

DRG - Um.. just needs to be played more.. really. I'd like to see a trait that give some stats gained to the pet via gear given back to the DRG. But the stat boosts for keeping both alive are fairly significant and there is a crap ton of available pet gear to make them monstrous, so really DRG itself just needs to keep up with the rest of the problems happening to 2h jobs right now.

COR - Increasing its Marksmanship is a pasebo at this point. COR is pretty popular and can output a lot, both on the WS and on the MB end. Again, decreasing the overall ACC threshold or give ease of access to more ACC vorseals would help.


Non-job specific Adjustments:

2h weapons need a better way to reach the delay cap than Hasso or Last Resort. RUN and WAR should not have to rely on subjobs to reach something as basic as attack speed in todays FFXI.

2H jobs do need an adjustment, especially seeming the idea of locking one subjob for an entire archetype of classes seems a bit outdated.


WHM and SCH should get Haste 2.

Absolutely not, there's no need to add that when there are plethora of other jobs that provide it and these jobs specifically are already staples due to adding other things to the table. Give both of these jobs stronger damage mitigation spells or skills, that's where endgame is truly suffering.(Not regeneration, mitigation.)



All melee aside from BLU (and RNG since they're at the higher tier) should get an extra buff to their accuracy from gifts.

This is one route, but I don't think this solves the core problem. Accuracy has always had problems between cap and floor based off of hard numbers rather than scaling percentages. Accuracy needed to hit higher end monsters in general should be lowered, and the scaling percentage for melees to hit the accuracy floor reduced. Honestly the same could be said for M.Acc but as players are pretty much relying on Magic Bursting to bypass that, it's not seen as an issue. Which makes me wonder, why aren't melee getting bonuses to such things for skill chains? It's a good question to pose.

Secondary stats on vorseals probably good? But more defensive vorseals in general would be great too I don't seem to have a limit to how many vorseals I can activate anyways.


All and all, good ideas I see, but some of them stem from larger problems that just need to be solved to bring things up. I'm always up for bouncing ideas back and forth if you'd like to chat.

[Eaglestrike]

THF - No point nerfing a powerful bonus effect to gain a better retimer. There is already a category in Merits that does exactly what you want. Instead, let's change the 550 Merit marker again, shall we? This time for Thief. A successful Sneak Attack has a chance to reset Trick Attack, and vice versa. Have it on a low-ish percentage. This will accomplish what you want in overall DPS but it also fits the element of Thief being a spike-damage class. It's worth losing the 3% Dual Wield straight for this, and it adds an exciting dynamic to the class.

As much as I'd enjoy a mechanic like this being doable in this game (and I guess maybe it already is based on snake eye relic augment...) this option is both entirely unreliable and likely not something they can program in. The DEX/AGI bonus really isn't that significant anyway, as the bonus damage added to SA and TA is rather tiny compared to simply the fact that it's a forced crit, as the bonus damage of SA and TA are not factored into the fTP bonus of the WS they're stacking things with.


As far as 'Red Mage has nothing specific to make it enticing to parties'. That's by design.

I simply do not agree with this style of development. In an MMO heavily based on party mechanics you should not simply write off a job as a solo one. RDM has been a rather staple of every FF game and every FF game has been a party focused game. To write it off because it was originally very powerful at solo player and keep it from being buffed just seems like lazy development, not smart balance.

You're right in that RDM has a lot going for it, and that's why the only suggestion I have to give the job a party slot is to be able to solo cap magic haste for the party. Ever since BLU could self cap haste and GEO came out with Indi-haste the backline configuration of the game has been heavily skewed, and the combination of locking down a target via enfeebles and giving melee phalanx/haste 2 could offer an alternative than the current "throw BLU's at it".


BRD - I like your idea, but I think instead of it being those statistical buffs, that Honor Minne should be flat damage reduction %. Going again on the problem that Melee Range is a bit too dangerous to have melee present in the front lines right now, this spell on a class that leans towards Melee buffs more than magic ones anyways would be a rock solid addition.

I could get behind this, but as a slight twist, do both. Honor Minne as I suggested it, and then add a Barrier Tusk-style damage reduction song.


BLU - Hm. The problem with nerfing or changing blue right now is that the other jobs aren't at the performance they should be. Buff before nerf. But I do feel the two-tiers of trait bonuses was a bit much just off-hand. Just flat out nerfing it, however, does not solve the problem. No adjustments on spells are needed at this point and changing them are border-lining on jealousy. BLU has a problem with how high it scales at its top end, not necessarily the spells itself.

The biggest nerf I have for BLU is not allowing cocoon and MG to stack, and since none of the other jobs have anything similar to either one of those spells, much less both, there's really no way to buff everyone else without making BLU absolutely insane. The gift nerf I suggested wouldn't be significant in any way, but it'd be a little something to bring them down and I would like to give them AoE Mighty Guard as a compensation for it. All the good BLU's would still be absolutely dominant with these changes, but maybe we'd get some more melee diversity.

As for the buffs before nerfs that's the whole idea behind BRD buffs, to add some more mitigation to everyone. But as it stands you're going to need to nerf BLU's in some way because it's simply too far ahead of everyone else in a few ways. For example if you decrease damage done by bosses, BLU will now benefit from that AND have barrier tusk and +75% damage...they'd just start soloing everything, and the game would be no less skewed towards BLU.


This is one route, but I don't think this solves the core problem. Accuracy has always had problems between cap and floor based off of hard numbers rather than scaling percentages.

And one of the biggest issues is how different accuracy values jobs have. Just look at the max ACC of a BLU vs a THF or SAM. Just adding up traits and gifts and BLU has about 50 accuracy above THF, in the way accuracy works here that's almost a 25% hit rate if you can get the proper gear/buffs to get within the hit zone. The rest of their discrepancy is the fact that Carmine+1 is insane for +acc and only open to some of the jobs while being the cheapest HQ abjuration set by far. Seriously I'm looking to buy the Adhemar version of +1 pants and last sold for 500mil -.- That's so not worth it.

[Hyrist]

I simply do not agree with this style of development. In an MMO heavily based on party mechanics you should not simply write off a job as a solo one. RDM has been a rather staple of every FF game and every FF game has been a party focused game. To write it off because it was originally very powerful at solo player and keep it from being buffed just seems like lazy development, not smart balance.

You're right in that RDM has a lot going for it, and that's why the only suggestion I have to give the job a party slot is to be able to solo cap magic haste for the party. Ever since BLU could self cap haste and GEO came out with Indi-haste the backline configuration of the game has been heavily skewed, and the combination of locking down a target via enfeebles and giving melee phalanx/haste 2 could offer an alternative than the current "throw BLU's at it".

As far as Red Mage being a party staple, that's just player preference to having unnecessary extremes rather than allowing a more rounded class take the plate. Red Mage has been a party staple in Single Player FF games because it can fill multiple roles and be a strong indepndant force (RDM Solo runs go!) and adds to the party because of that flexibility. The very same philosophy applies here, but the player mentality is different.

As far as having something unique to the plate Red Mage already has something quite unique to itself that no other class has - Skillchain Bonus in a unresistant caster debuff form. It's seriously underutilized and underappreciated. Enabling a THF to bust out a 60K Darkness, just from the RDM and the THF working together on a three step is nothing to snuff at. (AND it holds a longer burst window open than a SCH doing it themselves) If anything, I'd recommend a buff to that before something like maxing haste that can already be done with classes that exist in party.



THF - A little bit of unreliable luck is fine, and it can be programmed within existing limitations, the reset mechanic is already programmed into an independent flag trigger, Revitalizer, and Cor 2hr proves that the flag exists. Again, the way you're including it is redundant to already existing mechanics. That's my only real protest. I'd like there to be stronger synergy to properly utilizing these skills independently.

BLU - Cocoon and Mighty Guard, eh, not as huge of a thing, I've seen plenty BLUs get crushed even with both up, this is another one of those 'it's helpful but it amounts to a placebo in the long run' when it comes to the root of the problem with the class. Again, the ability to stack traits high, and then the bonuses to the spell point capacity becomes a stacking problem that enables BLU to dominate in ways no other class can. You tone this down, things like stacking defense to insane levels starts to feel less like a problem.

This goes the same for the accuracy cap problem. Blue Mage is stacking insane levels of traits that give up to 72 Bonus accuracy just from the trait stacking alone, there's your bonus above THF. Carmine isn't the problem in this regard. Also, neither would be problem if the accuracy issue overall with post level 127 mobs wasn't absolutely insane. BLU could have that accuracy and it wouldn't be an issue of the acc requirement was reachable by most jobs without the advantage. Again, the larger problem is the root problem here, BLU seems even more overpowered due to being the exception to the problem.

[Helldemon]

All jobs need to be able to hit 99% acc as well. Or at least One hit Weaponskills(maybe even 100% acc), wiping because your WS misses when you are 200+ over cap is stupid

[Camate]

Thanks for all the passionate suggestions and feedback! We'll pass them over to the development team. :)

[Spectreman]

RDM needs a Hastega III spell and a Phalanxga III spell to be accepted into parties again. Or make Para/Slow,Silence III with good effect on endgame bosses.

[CrAZYVIC]

Using the less resources possible a way to make RDM competitive again.

RDM/SCH new spells Hastega II, Refreshaga II, "Pain" Job points necessary 1000, inflicts DIA IV, BIO IV, POISON IV, SLOW IV and PARALYCE IV on a enemy duration 360 seconds.

Light Arts RDM

Unlocks Cure V
Unlocks Regen III
Unlocks Curaga III

Dark Arts RDM

Unlocks Tier V Nukes

[Hyrist]

Using the less resources possible a way to make RDM competitive again.

RDM/SCH new spells Hastega II, Refreshaga II, "Pain" Job points necessary 1000, inflicts DIA IV, BIO IV, POISON IV, SLOW IV and PARALYCE IV on a enemy duration 360 seconds.

Light Arts RDM

Unlocks Cure V
Unlocks Regen III
Unlocks Curaga III

Dark Arts RDM

Unlocks Tier V Nukes

*stare*

This is where I think you're trolling. RDM already has access to Tier V nukes, they're given, in bulk, as a JP gift. (100 points)

Phalanx (the Tier I version) can already be Accessioned, that can negate about 48 damage per hit when you actually make a gears set for it.

Oh, and Red mage has Refresh III (and Temper II)as a 1200 gift, just thought I'd mention that.


In fact, Red Mage is already 'competitive' in Magic Burst meta, (meaning that it can fill the slot if needed.) as it can both magic burst and contribute to skillchain, and quite well at that - provided they bother putting the effort toward gearing it.

I've been noticing the trend of Red Mages pulling away from the role of simply being support and actually being one of the performers on the ground. Not as high of damage as the peak roles, for certain, but that is due to their level of versatility. I've heard people want buffs from Red Mages so they can pin them into a certain niche, but honestly, that goes against the Jobs Design in my opinion. Beyond that, it's the same issue Red Mages always have - they can do well, but you actually have to put effort in to it in order for that to happen.

IMO it can stay "in obscurity", just be sure not to leave the RDM tag off of the next good set of Leather/Dex gear coming out - for those actually playing the Job.

[Urmom]

Yeah there is no way SE is going to make sch abilities work better for a rdm than sch lol.

Higher Tier debuffs would certainly be reasonable and nice and decent duration is nice though no way they going to make a base duration 6 minutes. New tier of frazzle/distract wouldn't be horrible and maybe some similar ones. And if we going the debuff route (and there is a real role for rdm as a debuffer) some kind of trait or jp that makes landing debuffs decently easier. Take away the saboteur nerf

[Smokenttp]

just giving my 2 cents here, i pretty much agree on the acc issues,the aoe ones (both of wich the dev team is currently looking) and that more weapon skills needs to be buffed to a point where their damage becomes more significant closing double light/darkness skill chains at the end of 5 step scs or closing radiance/umbra(an 8k victory smite closing radiance dont do near as much damage as an 15k chant du cygne closing an radiance). the way i think they should approach acc issue whoever would be probably by buffing current acc abilities/spells in some sort(to keep suport jobs relevant overall) and adding more potent acc foods, the reason behind that is to help current gear to not loose as much place and maybe even get currently unused gear to be relevant again. as for the aoe problem this is really a balancing issues and maybe even solving the acc issues opens up more spot for dt gear overall wich would kinda help (but then again each nm needs to be checked separatly as 50%(DT cap) of lets say 5k is still enough to one shot alot of jobs in the game), status effects are still an issue tough and clarifications/revamps on status resistence job traits could be an interresting way to solve those so that is just some ideia throwed in. As for the blu nerf i pretty much am against it , while i see alot of valid points onto what you guys said adjusting acc and buffing wses would overall close the gap. as for other spells sugestions i like some of then and i agree with the more defensive buffs but i am unsure on the necessity of haste/ga 3 at all.As for the mnk i belive that what you guys sugested is pretty much being looked upon by se but i would reather h2h wses to get buffed overall then for mnk to become an auto-attack machine (+ it would be alot harder to balance as well). For the run sugestion the OP did i kinda like it would be interresting at least. As for OP thf sugention i am unsure i liked someone ideia of reseting sa/ta better as long as you could push it to a reliable %.

[Hyrist]

Some information:

Red Mage already gains Distract III and Frazzle III as the 550 gift. Both cap at about -90 Evasion and Magic Evasion respectively. (That's just under 7% of 1300 evasion/m.evasion More percentage the lower the evasion is.)

Addle II, also a 550 Gift, increases spellcasting time form 25-40% Depending on dMND and RNG.

We get 20 Magic Accuracy form Job Point category, 70 Magical Accuracy from Gifts, and a further 40 Magical Accuracy under the effects of Saboteur - all before gear bonuses, not including the effects of Styme or items like the Moonshade earring that can occasionally force-cap M.Acc. Help landing spells? We have it in droves.

Pair this with our unresistables. 15% defense from Dia III and the Skillchain Bonus from Innundation, and you can completely neglect the typical enfeebling line of Slow, Silence, Paralyze, and Blind if they're not effective and still have a powerfull debuff list to work with.

[Raydeus]

What if Addle also affected Abilities? Increasing channeling time and adding some sort of minimum recast delay that prevented mobs from spamming abilities one after the other.

(Edit > I say Addle because I'm not sure the devs would want to add yet another spell, but an ability version of Addle would be good.)

PS > Speaking of Distract and Frazzle, is it just me or the caps should be more around 50 / 100 /150 eva/m.eva instead?

[Kensagaku]

You'd have to couple it with high stun resistance/immunity being included on more mobs though, because if you get a good delay timer on TP moves then we're just going to go back to melee zerg + stunning all moves circa Legion/early Delve. It's especially the case with Idris being so powerful and allowing you to put a high-power Languor on the target along with an Indi-Focus for the stunner, meaning that if the mob doesn't have a reasonable resistance, then they're literally just going to get stunlocked and content goes from too punishing to melee back to steamroll. It's nice to clear the content, but steamrolling it is just asking our already small updates to become obsolete as more and more people run out of content to do.

[Immortta]

I love how people are crying for a nerf to BLU yet nobody even uses BLU above content 135 level... Why does nobody complain about how GEO is essentially required for every single fight and how BLM/SCH are dominating the damage scene? All that needs to happen to make other melee jobs competitive for the trash content people use BLU on (UNMs, Ambuscade and High tier battles mainly) is to increase the dmg of their WS. Surviving is not that hard w/competent support and people are exaggerating the bonus cocoon+MG gives. Other jobs have defensive options as well and in this trash content not much can one shot you outright. If we're talking about making melee viable on 135 or above, BLU suffers in that area as well. They already said they were looking into AOE dmg reduction and acc boosts. I'd say they should focus on making each job different so it can bring something to the table instead of straight DPS. DRG used to have that with Angon and something similar would be nice for other jobs in addition to a WS/2h update.

[Raydeus]

I admit I'm going by the assumption Stun doesn't work anymore or resistance is built very fast. Because I'm old school and I'm used to RDM enfs doing sh... nothing much.

[Kensagaku]

Stun is pretty resistant for the most part from what I've seen, but we've also only been using Languor. What happens if you toss on a RDM's Frazzle III? Or add in a COR for Warlock's Roll as well? It's possible that stunlocking could quickly become a thing if you make a small party revolving around a Stun build. Of course, I'm guessing here, and it could be that this is no threat. But even if stunning isn't a thing and melee running out to avoid a TP move is (you'd be surprised how many don't know what a DT set is or how to equip it long enough to take a hit), it still won't melee any more viable simply because people will still choose mages for DPS without having to run in circles.

[Immortta]

Oh another thing they need to get rid of is the HP scaling. Sorry it just doesn't work and causes people to exclude others and certain jobs. I think it's just a big detriment to the game considering people can win these fights regardless of the HP increase, it just makes it more stressful and forces change in setup.

[Urmom]

Yeah it's not that we can't get enough support to make sure our DDs hit the mob and survive... it's just that it then makes you have to deal even more damage faster. Heck scaling wouldn't even be as bad if everything wasn't such a strict time limit. While I'm certainly not saying we should bring back fights that are designed to take hours things like 15 minutes with hp scaling really discourages comradery and trying different things or just not going with the absolute most efficient set ups because you will just completely lose instead of just taking longer or have a harder time and maybe wipe

[Dale]

Yeah it's not that we can't get enough support to make sure our DDs hit the mob and survive... it's just that it then makes you have to deal even more damage faster. Heck scaling wouldn't even be as bad if everything wasn't such a strict time limit. While I'm certainly not saying we should bring back fights that are designed to take hours things like 15 minutes with hp scaling really discourages comradery and trying different things or just not going with the absolute most efficient set ups because you will just completely lose instead of just taking longer or have a harder time and maybe wipe

I don't care for all the time limits either.

They probably have them so as to add more value to the damage dealer classes. That way the more defensive jobs can't whittle everything down on their own.

Over all, I believe this game does a good job at providing an interesting and useful variety of jobs. Sure, there are some balance issues. But considering the complexities of its battle system I believe it does a pretty good job. One only has to go play final fantasy 14 to see what a perfectly balanced game looks like - and it's rather dull.

[CrAZYVIC]

*stare*

This is where I think you're trolling. RDM already has access to Tier V nukes, they're given, in bulk, as a JP gift. (100 points)

Phalanx (the Tier I version) can already be Accessioned, that can negate about 48 damage per hit when you actually make a gears set for it.

Oh, and Red mage has Refresh III (and Temper II)as a 1200 gift, just thought I'd mention that.


In fact, Red Mage is already 'competitive' in Magic Burst meta, (meaning that it can fill the slot if needed.) as it can both magic burst and contribute to skillchain, and quite well at that - provided they bother putting the effort toward gearing it.

I've been noticing the trend of Red Mages pulling away from the role of simply being support and actually being one of the performers on the ground. Not as high of damage as the peak roles, for certain, but that is due to their level of versatility. I've heard people want buffs from Red Mages so they can pin them into a certain niche, but honestly, that goes against the Jobs Design in my opinion. Beyond that, it's the same issue Red Mages always have - they can do well, but you actually have to put effort in to it in order for that to happen.

IMO it can stay "in obscurity", just be sure not to leave the RDM tag off of the next good set of Leather/Dex gear coming out - for those actually playing the Job.

Ah ok my bad sorry!. I play mostly SAM, WAR, DRK and THF. I hardly touch mage jobs!.

[Rydal]

The only 3 things I can see helping RDM truly:

1. Either adding RDM to a few more melee sets or giving them more traits/JAs that are melee focused. It's either you want us to be jack of all trades or not. RDM Job gifts and points are for the most part magic focused and they are attack and accuracy starved in endgame content without the best gear (sometimes even then). We aren't included on any melee Ambuscade gear, only one Reisenjima set (that isn't even melee focused without augments), and one 119 Abjuration. Many still have to use Taeon.

2. New spells. Nothing ridiculous like Refreshaga III or Haste III. Simple and unqiue enfeebles and enhances: Amnesia, Confuse, Curse, Stop (can be a Terror-inducing enfeeble), Poison III, Silence II (?), Reflect I/II (whatever happened to that? We can share it with RUN), Wall, Enspells III (or just redoing II), etc. Another idea is that they could have GEO-inspired, single target buffs/debuffs that affect stats, like Malaise or Fury. They'd be reliant on skill and magic accuracy, can be resisted, have to be reapplied every minute or so, etc. It wouldn't take anything away from GEO since they would stack, give RDM a nice unique place in parties again that falls in with their role. We already get Distract/Frazzle so why not add a few other stat reducing spells?

3. Redoing Stymie. It's a horrible SP ability. Even if it were a duration rather than 1 time would make it infinitely better. GEO debuffs require no accuracy to take affect, just being on the hate list and in range. RDM should be able to use an SP ability to have extremely accurate debuffs for a short period of time. OR! Something else that isn't the crap we have now.

Also, PLEASE at least add Relic WS quests and GEO/RUN to Empyrean WS quests. They don't even have to have the weapon (which I don't understand why they can't but not going to argue about that).

[Deedlitchan]

1. Either adding RDM to a few more melee sets or giving them more traits/JAs that are melee focused. It's either you want us to be jack of all trades or not. RDM Job gifts and points are for the most part magic focused and they are attack and accuracy starved in endgame content without the best gear (sometimes even then). We aren't included on any melee Ambuscade gear, only one Reisenjima set (that isn't even melee focused without augments), and one 119 Abjuration. Many still have to use Taeon.

This, muchly this, especially on the gear bit. It's a travesty we were left off the Herculean set as well as others. Also, that worthless Shield Mastery trait should be done away with and replaced with something useful, maybe accuracy bonus.

[OmnysValefor]

The only 3 things I can see helping RDM truly:

1. Either adding RDM to a few more melee sets or giving them more traits/JAs that are melee focused. It's either you want us to be jack of all trades or not. RDM Job gifts and points are for the most part magic focused and they are attack and accuracy starved in endgame content without the best gear (sometimes even then). We aren't included on any melee Ambuscade gear, only one Reisenjima set (that isn't even melee focused without augments), and one 119 Abjuration. Many still have to use Taeon.

I think this is the clash with RDM. It is a jack of all trades, but different RDMs want RDM to be a master of different aspects and some RDMs want to be a master of all aspects. RDM is a "master" of enfeebling aside from resists/immunities.

Is any other job a master of two aspects? As solid as PLD, BLU, WHM, SCH, GEO, BLM are, they're still average or worse at secondary roles. SCH being kind of the exception, maybe. BLU is an acceptable tank, but RUN and PLD do it better.


2. New spells. Nothing ridiculous like Refreshaga III or Haste III. Simple and unqiue enfeebles and enhances: Amnesia, Confuse, Curse, Stop (can be a Terror-inducing enfeeble), Poison III, Silence II (?), Reflect I/II (whatever happened to that? We can share it with RUN), Wall, Enspells III (or just redoing II), etc. Another idea is that they could have GEO-inspired, single target buffs/debuffs that affect stats, like Malaise or Fury. They'd be reliant on skill and magic accuracy, can be resisted, have to be reapplied every minute or so, etc. It wouldn't take anything away from GEO since they would stack, give RDM a nice unique place in parties again that falls in with their role. We already get Distract/Frazzle so why not add a few other stat reducing spells?

Neat ideas, but SE would make the bosses immune to the best ones. They know how absurdly OP Amnesia is, they're not going to let players cast it on any remotely worthwhile boss. Curse (-hp) isn't happening, curse (gravity) might happen but there's little point and curse (zombie) might happen but the usage for that is highly highly situational and the best bosses for it would be immune to the effect.

How would Silence II even work?

As for buffing RDM in the buff/debuff department, attention in that regard should go to Bard first.

I feel like RDM is as good as it ever was (well, close) except that bosses are immune/highly resistant to debuffs or the debuffs just aren't needed. Who cares if you can silence/paralyze Thundaga V when it's only going to hit the PLD and only going to hit him for less than 100 anyway.

[Thorva]

If a Tizona/Almace AG BLU go serious, will trash out any DPS you put in front of him. well not even a BLU a Murgeis/Almace AG RDM can do the same. Not amount of Skills can compesate this. beat with 5.0 FTP vs 10/14 FTP at 1000%p Lol


This almost made me fall out of my chair laughing. You should get out of your mog house more.

[CrAZYVIC]

This almost made me fall out of my chair laughing. You should get out of your mog house more.

Yeah you are right. The game its fine

Its fine Geo made obsolete RDM, BRD and COR for support
iTs fine people use BLM - SCH - GEO to kill content LV135 +
Its fine mele jobs get one shoted on -50% damage taken reduction gear on content LV135+
Its fine since Rudra's storm update the two-handers, Ranger, MNK are obsolete jobs
Its fine the people shout for BLU only no matter if you have a mythic WAR, SAM or DRK.

So i hope square enix delay this fix for two hander jobs 2 or 3 years. So we can go down of 30k players to 5k anyways FF14 have nearly 800k players so the future of FF11 can go to the hell right? np!

[Shyles]

If a Tizona/Almace AG BLU go serious, will trash out any DPS you put in front of him. well not even a BLU a Murgeis/Almace AG RDM can do the same. Not amount of Skills can compesate this. beat with 5.0 FTP vs 10/14 FTP at 1000%p Lol


This almost made me fall out of my chair laughing. You should get out of your mog house more.

All I can say is that I also don't agree with Crazy in regards to BLU. Just speaking from my perspective, I am a Dancer main and since the AG III update, I have yet to be out-damaged let alone "trashed out" by a BLU. Maybe I just haven't seen any truly good BLUs. The closest time was in an incursion run, and a mythic BLU was about even with me (CDC and PK ws spamga). I have, however been beaten in dps pretty handily by certain Ninjas, Dark Knights, and a Warriors. Those people were also very well geared and knew their jobs very well.

Also fTP isn't necessarily everything in terms of DPS balance. For example, if I am allowed to either self-skillchain, or close skillchains, then a Blue Mage falls way behind because Dancers can get 31% skillchain bonus without sacrificing WS gear, and can even cap SCB if they wanted to. CDC spam will cause problems if it doesn't play well with other SC properties in the party.

At this stage in the game, many melee jobs are capable of dealing very impressive damage with the right amount of dedication, proper gearing and homework. I will agree that Mythic BLUs are good, but they are not that far ahead other jobs anymore (if at all), and very few of the BLU population will actually make their mythic or empy. Honestly, you are more likely to find a 2100 JP BLU in Rawhide gear that only know how to spam CDC and interrupt skillchains..

So if we're going to compare melee damage balance, I think most melee jobs are in a good spot from what I've seen. The real imbalance though is between melee damage and magic damage. Things like enmity control, accuracy, AoE status effects, and damage taken, and immanence stealing our jobs. At least some of that is being addressed in the next update, so I'm happy.

[Urmom]

Curse (-hp) isn't happening,
This one actually might be done if the value isn't too high. It's been awhile since it's been worth using but the slug pet has a -10% hp move that worked on nms a fair amount

[Rydal]

I think this is the clash with RDM. It is a jack of all trades, but different RDMs want RDM to be a master of different aspects and some RDMs want to be a master of all aspects. RDM is a "master" of enfeebling aside from resists/immunities.

Is any other job a master of two aspects? As solid as PLD, BLU, WHM, SCH, GEO, BLM are, they're still average or worse at secondary roles. SCH being kind of the exception, maybe. BLU is an acceptable tank, but RUN and PLD do it better.

The problem with RDM being a debuffing "master" is that it actually isn't. Who can stand up to a WHM when it comes to healing? A try-hard SCH maybe but otherwise no one. Who can out nuke BLM? Try-hard RDM, GEO, SCH, BLU but again not really when it comes to magic bursting. PLD, RUN and PUP pretty much corner the tanking market, with both RUN and PUP being able to DD and magic burst with some success. Hell, even BLM can tank decently now with Mana Wall (I saw a BLM hold Tojil for at least 7 minutes before dying with minimal outside support). When was the last time anyone shouted for a RDM for debuffing? Most of the spells are either worthless in the endgame or can be used by any other job with equal success. RDM's bread and butter Paralyze II isn't even potent enough to affect high level NMs to the point that they'd be considered in a party slot over SCH or GEO. Distract and Frazzle II/III, Addle I/II and Inundation are all great debuffs (I wish they added more unique ones like this) but none warrant a dedicated slot in an Escha or Reisenjima party. Aside from those and Haste/Refresh II(and III), RDM's buffs/debuffs are pretty much covered by subbing the job or are obtained naturally from other jobs or gotten in other (better) ways.

SCH is an interesting job. It masters healing (both directly through targeted cures and indirectly through Regen 5 which WHM can't do). It masters damage dealing with magic. It's buffing is on par with RDM minus a few unique spells on both sides (Regain, Regen, Enmity and AoE support on SCH, Refresh, Haste, a few stat debuffs on RDM). It's Dark magic is up there with BLM and GEO (Aspir III, best user of Stun). They don't need to melee because they can skillchain with JAs (ridiculous). SCH single-handedly outjobs most other jobs and the gear it is on fully supports all of this. BLU can easily switch from nuking to melee effectively, tank decently, and also heal and support to a decent degree (Mighty Guard is absolutely ridiculously good and there are spells like Diamondhide and White Wind). How is it that these jobs can perform well in multiple roles, sometimes outperforming jobs more suited to those roles, but RDM has to multi task with inferior, non-unique options. Basically, why bring RDM when SCH can do all that and more? BLU can do the same while also out DDing RDM and providing unique supports.


Neat ideas, but SE would make the bosses immune to the best ones. They know how absurdly OP Amnesia is, they're not going to let players cast it on any remotely worthwhile boss. Curse (-hp) isn't happening, curse (gravity) might happen but there's little point and curse (zombie) might happen but the usage for that is highly highly situational and the best bosses for it would be immune to the effect.

How would Silence II even work?

I was just throwing out ideas that made sense and that already exist in-game. Idk what Silence II would do really... Maybe Disease would be good too. But as long as they don't make all the NMs completely immune to the debuffs, they'd be exceedingly helpful. Stymie+Saboteur Amnesia? Stop could be a new way to Stun bosses. RDM gets access to debuffs that are almost never resisted (Dia, Bio, Inundation), how about a DoT spell that depletes enemy TP? An Addle-like spell that works on physical/TP attacks- reducing accuracy and making charge times for TP moves longer (and thus, easier to stun/stop/run away from).


As for buffing RDM in the buff/debuff department, attention in that regard should go to Bard first.

RDM and BRD have completely different buffs and debuffs. Songs and magic spells are not mutually exclusive.


I feel like RDM is as good as it ever was (well, close) except that bosses are immune/highly resistant to debuffs or the debuffs just aren't needed. Who cares if you can silence/paralyze Thundaga V when it's only going to hit the PLD and only going to hit him for less than 100 anyway.

Exactly my point. If debuffs aren't needed, then RDM isn't needed. Yes, RDM can nuke, heal, support, but other jobs can do that better, almost to the point that they will refuse to bring a RDM in place of say a WHM or BLM or GEO in most fights. If RDM got debuffs/buffs that help kill a dangerous NM faster or stops TP moves effectively or makes dangerous, unavoidable moves/spells more manageable, then they'd be seen in parties more than a backup healer or a wtf r u doing?! frontliner that has to outgear everyone else to do so.

Hell, give me Reflect and Dualcast, maybe Poison III and IV, fix Stymie, and give us more gear options and I'll shut up.

[Hyrist]

Poison's not going to matter, and how are you going to implement Reflect, most any spell that matters for anything would be AoE anyways, and on the NMs that matter, most of that magic damage is TP moves that reflect wouldn't affect.

Dualcast is a pointless cooldown unless you're trying to squeeze more damage into a skillchain window, and we already have both Spontaneity and Chainspell for these things, so giving us ANOTHER version of pretty much the same concept (more casting in the same window of time) likely isn't going to happen.

Most jobs can't do the Heal, Nuke, Support, Frontline stuff all at once, even Red Mage has troubles performing at its peak with all of them at a time, but Red Mage has some of the smoothest transitions to these because most if it is gear related. No switching form Dark Arts to Light arts to just cast cure. We can skillchain AND MB to joint effectiveness. (Though Nuking and Melee compete for main weapon support, damage wise.) This is often overlooked in usefullness but many habitual RDMs (The ones that overgear the group, as you so put it) tend to carve their own way into a party. And when one of these drops off, they're still serviceable in the other parts if they keep gearing. Personally it's that versatility that keeps RDM interesting for me.

What I keep hearing is that people want an easy way to placate an efficiency obsessed meta mentality and I honestly don't think there is one without making Red Mage utterly broken. You're asking to compete with unresistant debuffs, uninterruptible AoE buffs for both magic and melee selectively, Skillchains without TP feed and THE heaviest hitting Melees, Healers, and Nukers all at once - with a gimick - something that would be invaluable to every party every time.

The only two things we don't already have our hands in is assisting the damage output of Mages, and a direct impact on the action of TP moves themselves. The idea of an 'Addle' for TP moves is actually good, regardless of whether or not stun resistance is increased for it. Because it will give players time to flee distance and/or equip damage down gear. However I would picture the scaling on that to be a pretty harsh as far as dMND demands go in order to make Red Mages work for the impact.

The other would be an unresistant 'Dia' for Mages, heck, make a 'Bio' that also conflicts with the first spell and we'll complete the set. Problem is, that will literally give us a tool for every situation. Will SE be ok with that? I don't think so - but if we are closing the net in our debuffs to make us invaluable, there's a clear answer.

[Rooj]

Poison's not going to matter

I disagree. Poison 2 does well over 100 per tick, which may not sound like much, but it casts instantly and doesn't feed the mob TP. A higher tier of this is very welcome.

RDM is mostly fine. The only real problem with it is that it can do too much, and the average player can't really handle all of that at once. Most people prefer simpler jobs with very specific and limited roles. With so few people playing RDM these days, many players don't even comprehend what a RDM can do in their party.

I have plenty of ideas for RDM, but none of it would ever be implemented. At this point it's better to expect modifications to existing mechanics and abilities, rather than new additions. Personally what I'd love to see is the removal of merit cap on job specific categories. Let us have it all. And then make Dia and Bio stack. I've read many complaints about how melees are being punished in a lot of end-game content at the moment, but I wonder if anyone has tried throwing defensive things out like Bio 3? Probably not, since no one has it merited.

[OmnysValefor]

The problem with RDM being a debuffing "master" is that it actually isn't.

Just because debuffs are irrelevant doesn't mean that RDM isn't the best debuffer for traditional debuffs. Dia III's 15% doesn't compare to Frailty's defense-down, and likewise for Bio III/Wilt's attack down and RDM offers nothing to really compare with Acumen/Malaise.

The irony actually is that the 15% effect of Dia/Bio III is right in line with a 900 skill GEO (without Dunna or Idris). Maybe a weapon, at least like Dunna, would be good for RDM.

That said, I'd still say RDM is the better debuffer, it's just that content really doesn't need them. If you have the free-spot, Frazzle III is nice, but not a necessity.

I mean, I've played PLD for years.. when it was at its highest and at its lowest. Durying late aby/voidwatch/early adoulin, when PLD couldn't hold hate, it was still probably the best tank in the game. That's kind of where RDM is. It's still the best debuffer, its debuffs just aren't needed.


SCH is an interesting job. It masters healing (both directly through targeted cures and indirectly through Regen 5 which WHM can't do).

I find that WHM is generally preferrable to SCH. Depending on the fight, we might have the SCH dip into light arts for a second and give us a potent Regen but SCH is well designed in that it can't flip back and forth throughout a fight effectively and performs subpar at the role that opposes the Arts its using (Dark Arts makes for a sucky healer, etc).

BLU cannot "easily" switch from melee to nuking effectively. There's a 1m cd on the switch and on hard content, you'll find missing the traits sucks. While not necessary, nuking effectively on blu means using different weapons than your melee weapons. Good blus make decisions, what spells and traits they need, which ones they'll sacrifice. I'll give you that BLU is in a better spot than any other melee right now. BLU magic also doesn't burst without Burst Affinity and runs into some m.acc issues on high content unless you're geared for it. BLU is not an incompetent nuker, but it's by no means competition for BLM, SCH, RDM or GEO. However, the hybrid elemental spells it gets are very nice for clearing adds and the job is quite tankable while clearing adds.

I have tanked on blu (nothing too serious) but as much of that is a good -DT set as it is anything else. There are some blu spells with great-enmity but these aren't spells that I usually have set. There's nothing that my blu has tanked that I didn't think a "real tank" wouldn't probably be better for.

I wouldn't mind SE giving RDM stances like Scholar or something akin to BLU spellsets/points (though that would require an absurd overhaul of the job, rendering the point moot) but a lot of players seem to want RDM to just be able to excel at many things or everything at no cost to performance. The current design of RDM means that, short of subjob, it's an /equipset away from excelling at a different role.


I was just throwing out ideas that made sense and that already exist in-game. Idk what Silence II would do really... Maybe Disease would be good too. But as long as they don't make all the NMs completely immune to the debuffs, they'd be exceedingly helpful. Stymie+Saboteur Amnesia? Stop could be a new way to Stun bosses. RDM gets access to debuffs that are almost never resisted (Dia, Bio, Inundation), how about a DoT spell that depletes enemy TP? An Addle-like spell that works on physical/TP attacks- reducing accuracy and making charge times for TP moves longer (and thus, easier to stun/stop/run away from).

Again, neat ideas but considering that so much is immune/nearly immune to basic staple debuffs, I don't see SE giving more-worthwhile debuffs actual use. They also have to create content and a meta-balance that makes melee worth bringing and makes RDM worth taking. Unless the TP moves can kill the tank, a TP-plague wouldn't be considered necessary on a lot of bosses.


RDM and BRD have completely different buffs and debuffs. Songs and magic spells are not mutually exclusive.

Agreed, but I think BRD's buffs need some love before RDM's buff spells get some. People need a reason to bring Bard again.

[Hyrist]

On the subject of modifying existing mechanics. Tie Magical Defense down to Dia, and Magical Attack down to Bio (and their respective higher tiers). You can add the TP move delay to Addle itself or tack it onto Slow and give that old spell some love, no need to add onto the spell list when we have plenty of existing spells to work with.

Oh, and small correction.

Dia III's 15% doesn't compare to Frailty's defense-down
It doesn't need to. It stacks. Also stacks with Traditional defense down like Frightful Roar. Same thing with Bio and Attack down.

I find that people are too focused on what their one individual performances can be and less on what some stacked support can do for everyone involved. This leads to lapses in knowledge regarding these things.

[OmnysValefor]

On the subject of modifying existing mechanics. Tie Magical Defense down to Dia, and Magical Attack down to Bio (and their respective higher tiers). You can add the TP move delay to Addle itself or tack it onto Slow and give that old spell some love, no need to add onto the spell list when we have plenty of existing spells to work with.

Oh, and small correction.

It doesn't need to. It stacks. Also stacks with Traditional defense down like Frightful Roar. Same thing with Bio and Attack down.

I find that people are too focused on what their one individual performances can be and less on what some stacked support can do for everyone involved. This leads to lapses in knowledge regarding these things.

Yes, it does stack, but when you're comparing -15% defense down vs -30%, the choice is obvious (when you're considering one job or the other) and since Dia II is -10%, it's really a choice of -5% additional from an RDM or -30% from an NQ GEO since the geo, whms, or blms can provide Dia II.

Edit: And I get it, you'll come back and say RDM can simultaneously Frazzle, Distract, Dia, Bio, Paralyze and the list goes on but the combined potency of all those buffs is frequently not enough to outweigh what one or two (especially two) geos can do especially if melee aren't part of your strategy.

[Hyrist]

Yes, it does stack, but when you're comparing -15% defense down vs -30%, the choice is obvious (when you're considering one job or the other) and since Dia II is -10%, it's really a choice of -5% additional from an RDM or -30% from an NQ GEO since the geo, whms, or blms can provide Dia II.

Edit: And I get it, you'll come back and say RDM can simultaneously Frazzle, Distract, Dia, Bio, Paralyze and the list goes on but the combined potency of all those buffs is frequently not enough to outweigh what one or two (especially two) geos can do especially if melee aren't part of your strategy.

That's a problem with Geomancer, not Red Mage, who suffer zero penalties due to level scaling on their primary function. They, in fact, become MORE valuable as the monster difficulty goes up and have been due for a nerf in this regard since its inception. Though, you can't stack Geomancer buffs with themselves, you just try to add more Geomancers to stack different buffs/debuffs of high potency.

And as far as the 5% jump on Dia II to Dia III, that's an argument to boost Dia, but again, I corrected only that it stacks with Geomancer's. Not that it's a replacement. There is no OR, it's And. As far as getting Dia III buffed, I'm all for it.

As far as your other argument:
Put bluntly, you don't wait for two hours shouting for a BLM when you need another nuker, you invite the RDM that's geared for it. You don't wait four hours for your second Geomancer, you bring your Red Mage along. A well geared Red Mage is the ultimate 'filler' job when all you REALLY need, is a warm body.

And you keep overlooking Innundation, which becomes a more of a damage boost the longer your skillchains run, and the more powerful they are.

And for the Melee not being a part of your strategy, that's a gameplay issue, again, not a Red Mage issue. Stand Alone, Red Mage is in a very powerful place right now. It just happens to be in a spot outside the current meta. There's no real reason to gimick our way back into it. Just fix the problems plaguing the game as a whole, and dedicated Red Mages will find their way into groups, usually by association.

[OmnysValefor]

I don't think GEO needs a nerf, I think Bard desperately needs a buff, cor does and frankly, I don't--and never have--played Red Mage. I can't say what the job needs, but I find it difficult to believe that the job is fine with the representation being so abysmal.

Like I've said before, the problem is that different RDMs want RDM to be buffed in different areas (healing, buffing, nuking, debuffing, melee, tankability) and some people want it to be a master of everything. Outside of the rare exception, noone seriously asks for PLD or WHM's offensive ability to be buffed, even though these are aspects of the job.

And like I said before, the problem with RDM is that broad buffs increase its capacity in everything, at little/no performance cost. An rdm/drk can melee at the frontline, buff, debuff, and jump to the backline simply by switching to a different macro set.


]As far as your other argument:
Put bluntly, you don't wait for two hours shouting for a BLM when you need another nuker, you invite the RDM that's geared for it. You don't wait four hours for your second Geomancer, you bring your Red Mage along. A well geared Red Mage is the ultimate 'filler' job when all you REALLY need, is a warm body.

I'll be honest: In the six months I've been back, I've played with two real red mages. I don't try to avoid them either, it's that the representation is that bad (at least on lowpop Valefor). Yes, I absolutely prefer an SCH or BLM over a red mage but I know the basic gear they have access to and know they should be capable nukers and while their debuffs are not necessary, they are useful.


And for the Melee not being a part of your strategy, that's a gameplay issue, again, not a Red Mage issue. Stand Alone, Red Mage is in a very powerful place right now. It just happens to be in a spot outside the current meta. There's no real reason to gimick our way back into it. Just fix the problems plaguing the game as a whole, and dedicated Red Mages will find their way into groups, usually by association.

On this, we agree completely. Unless the boss is magic-resistant to a large degree, it's just easier/safer/smarter/faster to bring mages most of the time, whatever the color.

[detlef]

Bringing a RDM is something you do when you already have your bases covered. Adding a 2nd GEO is almost always better than adding your 1st RDM. You might even bring a 3rd GEO. You don't really need Dia3 if you have a COR. Frazzle3 and Distract3 are nice but are almost always luxuries.

Also, no I wouldn't settle for a RDM if I needed a BLM. I'd argue that the RDM should consider leveling and JPing BLM as well for when the situation calls for it rather than forcing an oval peg into a circular hole.

Anyway Hyrist, you're espousing Inundation quite a bit, do you mind explaining how it works? What is the bonus? What is the recast? Is it hard to land? Is it practical to use?

[Hyrist]

Anyway Hyrist, you're espousing Inundation quite a bit, do you mind explaining how it works? What is the bonus? What is the recast? Is it hard to land? Is it practical to use?

Put simply, it is a stacking form of Skillchain bonus that breaks the 30% Cap classes like Dancer has (The spell itself starts at 50% with 2 different weapon types in rotation.) and grows exponentially as you stack Skillchains. This multiplies with elemental weakness modifiers and Skillchain Damage bonuses.

Exact numbers on this thing is difficult because it seems to have multiple factors working with the damage. Some say it's static 50% but I've hit four-times damage on a 3 step skillchain with it reliably using trusts (double light). It defiantly needs more testing to verify, but the damage contribution on it is huge so long as you have your Melees actually working together instead of just WS spamming.

The benefit for this is twofold as teaming up skillchains builds skillchain damage, stacks with Innundation's growth and keeps magic burst windows open longer. The crux is the danger Melee suffers on higher tier mobs and the fact that MBs are still subject to resists and magic damage reduction (Frazzle however does help.), but I don't see how this would conflict with say, a Summoner/Samurai rotation like in the ToAU era. I haven't been able to test if it works on Scholar Skillchains yet (will be pulling a scholar for this testing soon.)

Oh, and the spell is unresitable. It lands as reliably as Dia or Bio, and I believe it has a 3 minute base duration. Things I will have to time and verify as I continue testing - however I am amazed that this spell has gone overlooked for so long. I'm guessing it's due to the BLU/No Melee Meta. The stacking bonus seems to rely upon differing weapon types.

Small link to FFXIAH thread showing a screenshot of stacked damage. http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/46562/inundation-spell/#3042612

EDIT:

Ok, some spit-balling math on this from playing around with it seems that the base bonus is 50% multiplicative (x1.5), each step in a skillchain adds another 50% to the calculation. The problem is I'm trying to figure out where in the overall calculation this fits as other skillchain bonuses.

Click the spoiler below if you want to read some really rough math brainstorming.




Obviously this is a very rough theory that needs much more testing. I'll be working on getting more specifics once I figure out some of the factors that cause these larger damage spikes. The simple theory of 50% flat skillchain damage doesn't add up to some of these high numbers we're seeing.

[Urmom]

Yes, it does stack, but when you're comparing -15% defense down vs -30%, the choice is obvious (when you're considering one job or the other) and since Dia II is -10%, it's really a choice of -5% additional from an RDM or -30% from an NQ GEO since the geo, whms, or blms can provide Dia II.

If you bring a cor around it's not even a choice. Just have the cor double light shot Dia II and it will be better than your non light shotted Dia III

[Urmom]

Put simply, it is a stacking form of Skillchain bonus that breaks the 30% Cap classes like Dancer has (The spell itself starts at 50% with 2 different weapon types in rotation.) and grows exponentially as you stack Skillchains. This multiplies with elemental weakness modifiers and Skillchain Damage bonuses.

That's not what exponential means....

Anyways I did some testing way back when it came out and it was a separate factor from everything else which is nice but the bonus for each step with a different weapon type decreased each step and pets definitely counted though never got to testing to see if different pets counted separately from each other. Seems to have been deleted so going to have to go by memory but I definitely remember 50% for 2 weapon type skillchain and then I believe was another 33% for next step if using another weapon type then 25% and so on. Haven't used it for awhile but I seem to remember some rdms I know saying something as broken about it awhile back. Like it would wear off after first skillchain.

Though it's all kind of moot because balancing weapon types and using often inferior ws while waiting and holding tp for the right moment is going to destroy your dps. Which is why no ones really cared to do do too much with it. Especially with the dmg cap still existing. If it wasn't for the dmg cap could probably pull of some rather cool stuff with it that might actually be worth the effort. Ya know like ending a 6 step/type level 3 skillchain with a 99999 ws which by my rough estimate assuming no special dmg takes and such on the mob and the pattern holds on the bonus almost 800k skillchain lol. But there's that cap and the fact we can get really high ws and skillchain dmg just by spamming the same 1-2 ws instead so....

[Hyrist]

That's not what exponential means....

So you got baited on semantics, good one there.


Though it's all kind of moot because balancing weapon types and using often inferior ws while waiting and holding tp for the right moment is going to destroy your dps. Which is why no ones really cared to do do too much with it. Especially with the dmg cap still existing. If it wasn't for the dmg cap could probably pull of some rather cool stuff with it that might actually be worth the effort. Ya know like ending a 6 step/type level 3 skillchain with a 99999 ws which by my rough estimate assuming no special dmg takes and such on the mob and the pattern holds on the bonus almost 800k skillchain lol. But there's that cap and the fact we can get really high ws and skillchain dmg just by spamming the same 1-2 ws instead so....

... so at minimum it's a 50% skillchain damage boost multiplicative before resists/bonuses, and grows from there depending on your coordination with melee. Meaning your heaviest hitting melee are likely to hit the damage cap and your lesser damage WSes that skillchain will hit harder. Knowing where to cut that off so you're using it as a boosting DPS is up to actually having someone who know's what they're doing organizing your skillchains.

You're also overplaying how many players can even hit max damage in skillchains. There's still a clear hierarchy of melee who are better suited to open skillchains than to close them. In a skillchain/MB meta it's free, unresistant damage that scales.

Only time when holding TP is a DPS loss is if you've got Melee sitting on 2000 + TP frequently and their WS hits hardest among the group. Usually in situations like that you have them participate as the closer for multiple openers who aren't building TP as frequently or don't have as high damage output with their WS.

If you're halfway decent at skillchaining you won't be ruining your DPS. You're also forgetting the other important factor here - keeping your skillchain window open continuously.

[OmnysValefor]

Let's not not forget that in the present design, giving bosses the abundance of tp they'd get from 2-3 different damage dealers (different weapon type) is a bad idea when it can be avoided. 1-2 DD can give you all the skillchains you need, just as frequently.

But then so can 2 SCH.

[Fae]

Oh another thing they need to get rid of is the HP scaling. Sorry it just doesn't work and causes people to exclude others and certain jobs. I think it's just a big detriment to the game considering people can win these fights regardless of the HP increase, it just makes it more stressful and forces change in setup.

When I measured how much 1 extra person added to the Zi'tah Behemoth it was like 50k HP. That's less than one nuke from one magic burst. No one even knows for sure how HP scaling works no one has tested it. It probably adds more to higher level NMs with more Max HP and it probably affects stats other than just HP. Even if it added 250k hp to a mob though, if the person you're bringing is another Death BLM that's less than 3 magic bursts, which is going to be much more than made up for over a 30 minute fight.

It's mostly used as an excuse by LS leaders to exclude people, when in fact the reason they exclude people is either social (they like their crew already) or gear and skill (you would make the fight harder instead of easier). Without HP scaling, how big a LS you have and how many people you can throw at something becomes more important than how good of a player and crew you have. Which is nothing I want to return to, ever. If you tell people that though, they usually get defensive and aggressive and it's much easier on them if you blame the game mechanics or SE than the players.

I should also add that without fail if all the players are adequately geared, having more blm in an endgame fight makes the fight go faster, not slower. 18 man clears are not only faster but more reliable, IF the players are all up to par and not dead weight. 4 BLM doing death is much faster than 2, even if it means having another GEO SCH and COR along to support them (though a 2nd GEO and SCH Probably there anyway in most setups).

[Hyrist]

Let's not not forget that in the present design, giving bosses the abundance of tp they'd get from 2-3 different damage dealers (different weapon type) is a bad idea when it can be avoided. 1-2 DD can give you all the skillchains you need, just as frequently.

But then so can 2 SCH.

This boils back down to the whole "it's not Red Mage, it's a larger problem" argument I've been proving here, so nobody has forgotten anything. You'd also have to have two Melee that are effectively ovegeared for the content they are doing to get the result you're asking. And both the two Melee and 2 SCH situation have larger gaps in their MB window. Which, for Apex parties, dosen't matter, but for some of these larger fights, you'd be ending it a lot quicker if your nukers could simply chain nuke through a large MB window at full burst.

But, if you MUST remove Melee from the equation. I'll remind you that Inundation is a spell that deals no damage, is unresitable, and works with all skillchains regardless of the source. As I said, old ToAU tactics (which were also TP-phobic in nature.) still work just fine.

What it takes, in order to make good use for it, is teamwork. Inundation is free skillchain damage that rewards co-ordination and continual teamwork with a bigger bottom line. Probably why I like it so much. This Nuke heavy meta that's all stat abuse doesn't sit as well with me, and makes me feel like it'll get nerfed somehow in the future.

[Cicion]

Corsair could use A+ Marksmanship or accuracy bonus traits, as well as increasing the potency of hunters roll, warlocks roll there quite low compared to geomancer variants or possibly a 3rd roll if you increase jobpoints gifts further, as well as raise the acc bonus gifts we gained to that of what other DDs recieve.

Geomancer Dagan would be cool and increase there club skill to the A's as well as add them to some better damage dealing clubs like Izcalli, geomancers Ra'3s i find are a disgusting huge waste of mp and could either increase the damage to blackmages ja counterpart or reduce the mp cost, Geomancer could also have the magicburst bonus trait to level 2-3. Before people call me out and say Cardinal Chant Already does this it does not break the 40% cap like the trait does.

Whitemages erase2(erases 2 magical enfeebles) as well as give them regen5 and A+ club skill and higher acc bonus gifts, mabey make divine magic alot stronger nukewise?

Redmage i think should redo the group 1 merits, Just make magic accuracy 1 catagory (+3maacc) Add Enhancing magic effect +1(applies to haste regen refresh bars gains temper and enspell and possibly future enhances) to group 1s as well as Enfeebling Effect +1 (so we could get 20% dia3 defense downs and increase potency of all other enfeebles). If you cant do proposed group 1 changes mabey put the group2 spells on scrolls make a catagory for dia and bio effect +1 phalanx effect +1 and haste effect +1. You raised pup blu and dancers main combat skills to A+ over the years i dont see why we cant have A- in sword or dagger or give us some accurcy bonus traits. Could also give Redmage A+ Enhancing magic skill and make spells break the 500 skill cap for more potency (I'm looking at you phalanx and barspells) Redmage needs a magic defense - enfeeble bad as well as add to Inundation to either increase magic burst damage or reduce the damage reduction for multiple magic bursts done in a skillchain. More enhances i would like to see would be Bravery (Add accuracy/att to you or party member) and Faith (Magic Attack/Acc boost to you or party member) Enspell 2s should work on multi attacks and give half the acc bonus of enlight and half the attackbonus of endark based on enhancing magic, or give us enlight 1 endark1. Blink2 for Red and white. Would be fun to have Dreadspikes on Redmage. Get rid of shieldmastery and our divine skill to make room for other traits i may suggest us unless you wanna throw Reprisal/enlight our way. Gain/Boost spells need to break 500 enhancing skill cap to further raise the stats past 25. Introduce the magic Accurcy bonus traits to Rdm Geo Sch Blm Brd Nin Whm Drk to varieing degrees.(Dont see why Blumage is the only job who gets this) We got Regen 1 at lvl 21 same lvl as Whitemage yet we still only have Regen2 at level 76 when they got it at 44, we should have up to regen 4. Spontaneity as well as divine seal and elemental seal should be 5 min recasts(or lower) not 10. Another way to add enhancing magic effect +5 and enfeebling effect +5 would be to A put it on a ring like Corsairs Barataria Ring or B put it on Redmages mythic sword. As for job gifts adjustments again adjust the acc bonus gifts we and whitemage receive and give us cure 5 when we hit 100 JobPoints to unlock tier5 nukes. Could add Rdm to herculean gear or Adhemar Attire Set.

Scholar Let Adloquium Scale with skill to get 1-3 tp a tick. Increase schs magic burst trait to level 4 (its 3 atm) In the future if you add more gifts with Job Points let them get tier6 nukes under Addendum: Black, Addendum: White give us access to cure5 mabey Esuna as well, or put storm2s or helix on scroll and make the 1200 job gift the addendum upgrade. At level 49 should give sub schs 3 strategems and 1 minute and 20 seconds recharges. Accension should work on any enhancing spell period. I dont see why they dont want a scholar being able to accension that haste into a ga or that redmage accensioning that haste2/temper2/refresh3

Alot of certain job abilities are locked out when subbed. Examples are Yonin Innin from sub nin, Afflatus Solace Afflatus Misery from whitemage, Velocity Shot from ranger yet you'll give everyone access to convert from Redmage? This is silly and should be corrected.

Ninja take away the direction requirments from yonin and innin, if im tanking and the monsters still facing me and i wanna boost my magic burst damage with that innin nuke i should have the freedom to. More ninjitsu Jubaku ni and Kakka ni(15 storetp base) and make Kakka ichi lvl 49 Give ninja a foil equivalent ninjitsu that would solve enmity issues if you chose to tank. Take all the San Nukes and put them on a scrolls, combine all the group 1 nuke effects into one catagory, add Daken effect +1 as a new group 1 another group one could be kakka effect +1(more storetp) Group2 combine all the ninja nuke buffs into one category, next new group2 would be yonin effect +1 and 2nd would be innin effect +1. Critical attack bonus trait we should have lvl 2-3. Could Adjust Daken to allow it to work with Chakarams, boomerangs pebbles so jobs like dancer/thief can throw Chakarams , Boomerangs or rocks while autoattacking, or make some all job shurikens.

Thief Mug Steal Despoil lower there recasts(2-3mins), Conspirator Lower the recast or double duration, Make Hide erase all Enmity on thf regardless what your fighting, Accomplice should be 2-3 min recast not 5 Group 1 merits sneak attack and triple attack should be combined into one catagory for -2 secs each. Bring back Mercy Stroke ftp to 6:0 and Mandalic Stab Ftp to 5:0 add 1 for all 1000 tp increase increments Exenerator could use a buff as well its pretty bad. If the new 2hander and hand to hand weapon buff is that strong increase rudras ftp by 1 or .50 for each 1000 tp.

Dancer Update steps to be like pup manuvers no job ability delay when using them.

Puppetmaster id like to set 16 attachments vs 12 mabey via more pup quests or raise elemental capacity by another 1-2 via quests or more future gifts. I'll trade my evasion bonus lvl 4 for accurcy bonus lvl 4 anyday.

Monk Crit att bonus lvl 2-3



Essentially i think all jas that are 5min should be reduced to 3-4 same with most 10 min abillities should be halfed, or if you masterd your job all main job ability recast is reduced by 25 %

Sorry if i didn't list any other additions for other jobs as i dont really know what other dds need outside of a huge buff to even compete with Bluemages.

Dont forget to leave a like if you agree with any of my suggestions, its the only way these might even possibly be looked at

[Catmato]

it probably affects stats other than just HP.

When HP scaling was introduced to Delve, SE said that enemies' HP would be reduced, but their strength was not adjusted.

[Urmom]

So you got baited on semantics, good one there.



... so at minimum it's a 50% skillchain damage boost multiplicative before resists/bonuses, and grows from there depending on your coordination with melee. Meaning your heaviest hitting melee are likely to hit the damage cap and your lesser damage WSes that skillchain will hit harder. Knowing where to cut that off so you're using it as a boosting DPS is up to actually having someone who know's what they're doing organizing your skillchains.

You're also overplaying how many players can even hit max damage in skillchains. There's still a clear hierarchy of melee who are better suited to open skillchains than to close them. In a skillchain/MB meta it's free, unresistant damage that scales.

Only time when holding TP is a DPS loss is if you've got Melee sitting on 2000 + TP frequently and their WS hits hardest among the group. Usually in situations like that you have them participate as the closer for multiple openers who aren't building TP as frequently or don't have as high damage output with their WS.

If you're halfway decent at skillchaining you won't be ruining your DPS. You're also forgetting the other important factor here - keeping your skillchain window open continuously.

I think you are highly overestimating how well people can not only coordinate doing ws but also somehow timing when they get enough tp for holding it to not be a downside. Fact is in practice more than 2 dds at high attack speeds it often becomes detrimental to make sure you perform skillchains. Having some idea of timing to try for them helps but actively holding tp and dmg back not so much. This is why it adding more dds lowers your average dps and sometimes even overall dps.

And you are forgetting that keeping your skillchain window often open isn't actually a plus because you are constantly changing the elements making the timing of those MB much harder. Not to mention each step shortens the window to begin with. You are also forgetting that too much magic that close together imposes huge penalties on the dmg.

And don't forget to do these long multi step multi weapon type skillchains you will have to use inferior ws and inferior skillchains. So it's not like you it's not like you are necessarily doing more dmg than the guy just self lighting

[OmnysValefor]

Urmom nailed it.

---

The simple fact is all the coordination, preparation and babysitting that such a strategy requires often leads to inferior or equal results than just bringing PLD, WHM, GEO, SCH, [GEO, SCH or BLM], BLM. There are no melee that need cared for or waited on while they wait for amensia to wear off. TP isn't being fed, excess tp isn't being fed, animation locks + dread spikes aren't killing your dual wielders, vex/attune probably isn't needed. Your source of skillchains doesn't have to worry about sitting vulnerable or struggling to hit the boss.

Hyrist, you called me out earlier as if I'm saying that these are red mage problems.. they aren't, but they're problems that affect red mage and a lot of other jobs. The tragedy is that the game is designed in such a lopsided fashion that when you doneed a good BRD or RDM or NIN, it's often difficult to find one and I can't blame people "Oh, now you want me?"

[Raydeus]

The tragedy is that the game is designed in such a lopsided fashion that when you doneed a good BRD or RDM or NIN, it's often difficult to find one and I can't blame people "Oh, now you want me?"

Can confirm.

[Hyrist]

Hey, when you argue on behalf of laziness , there isn't an argument in the world that will convince those that prefer it otherwise.

But it's 2016. It's not as if all our players are playing on 3 different consoles. VoiP is free and plentiful. All it takes is one shot caller, especially if that shot caller knows what their doing.

A self Skillchainer benefits from Inundation as well. However, they're not going out damage a team that turns that one self skillchain into two separate skillchains, especially if they're properly stacked. A mage team that can continuously burst will also out DPS a team that has to wait between the WSes not skillchaining to burst, all other variables being the same. Then there's also the unspecified Burst bonus that comes with skillchain stacking. (which we should have numbers on by now, guessing research is harder these days.)

Oh, and you can keep any element you chose through 3 skill-chains consistently. With fire, you can do it for four, and is the only element that can. (That trick is only for longest bursting window though, not for max WS/SC damage) So no, altering your Mage's Elements and hurting their windows flatly isn't a thing, and if it is, you're doing it wrong. Again, you prioritize free-nuking of your bursters if your Mage DPS outscales your Melee - which in this Meta it does a bit of lost WS damage is easily overcompensated by one more MBed nuke in the same span of time. More than likely though, you can find enough hard-hitting WSes to complete that chain without devastating your damage. Only hurts damage when you're stacking weapon types too much and you wind up stretching one Weapon's capability of reaching all tier 2 skillchain types.

But again, if all you want to be is lazy, then you can always just settle for the 50% bonus skillchain damage. You don't need to be special or skilled for it. Just happens to be a really nice spell for melee, that gets better the more you get smart with your skillchains. It's something that's been overlooked.

[OmnysValefor]

I don't appreciate the insult.

The problem is that one tactic approaches the boss with "this will probably work", and the other tactic approaches the boss with "this is smarter, safer, faster, and easier" in 90% of content. Manaburn presently has all the benefits and none of the weaknesses.

- Safe mages
- TP feed is not an issue
- Accuracy for skillchain components is not an issue -- If Strats are available, a scholar and stand at max range, double weak--when magic acc is floored--and make a skillchain. Granted, if a mage is double weak, they probably won't stay alive for long, this is just to illustrate how irrelevant magic accuracy is for sch skillchaining.
- For whatever reason, Magic Accuracy seems easier to meet, and bursting grants a m.acc bonus
- Without melee, you can focus all your buffs towards one type
- All mages benefit from most mage buffs
- The tank just isn't likely to die most the time, especially if less tp feed is coming
- Mages produce far less enmity which matters after a hate reset or in content where enmity is a bit shakier (like HTBF)
- Most debuffs/aoes don't even hit mages so there's less babysitting/distraction for the healer.

I actually can't believe the game is where it's at and am kind of disappointed, but don't blame me for it.

[Hyrist]

I was tired of being political correct. It really does boil down to the habitual obsession with gamers taking the path of least resistance and that's all that there is to it. Call it efficiency or laziness, but it boils down to even if benefits or a harder tactic were to out-scale the 'safe way', you will always find the majority argument to always side with the least amount of effort involved. Even if the better result incurs more risk, players will prefer the riskless route. That's why higher difficulty trials typically run with a uniform group. In my humble opinion it stops being a game at that point and turns it into a chore. The playerbase's obsession with this is as much at fault with the decline of the game and the push towards more soloists over groups.

We're reaching the point where, as a player, you should be looking for other players, not looking for other jobs. Making tactics work rather than arm-stringing players into play jobs they don't enjoy just to participate. The inverse quickens this game's end dramatically.


I am in agreement with you that several components of the game flatly should not exist how they are. As I'm particularly harsh right now, let me get some nastiness out of my system by putting some short and cutting changes to accommodate the issues you listed. We are in a suggestion thread, after all.

- Safe mages - More AoEs specifically targeted at Long range only attacks where safe range is close. Have this alternate with normal aoes. Also have AoE attacks that target the lowest on the hate scale. You should absolutely never have a 'safe' class in an mmo.
- TP feed is not an issue - Remove TP feed and give every monster high Regain or, by comparison, give monsters inverse Occult Acumen multiplied by a factor of 10-100. Heavy or frequent damage should be universally dangerous one way or another.
- Accuracy for skillchain components is not an issue -- If Strats are available, a scholar and stand at max range, double weak--when magic acc is floored--and make a skillchain. Granted, if a mage is double weak, they probably won't stay alive for long, this is just to illustrate how irrelevant magic accuracy is for sch skillchaining. - Remove Immanence, replace with a skill that grands Magic Burst Accuracy and Damage.
- For whatever reason, Magic Accuracy seems easier to meet, and bursting grants a m.acc bonus. - Tune the Magical Evasion Scaling to level and Melee Evasion Scaling per level to match. Have all skillchains grant an Physical Evasion Down debuff of 30%, debuff lasts five seconds.
- Without melee, you can focus all your buffs towards one type - hard-cap M.Atk,M.Defence difference calculations to similar levels of attack.
- All mages benefit from most mage buffs - Remain unchanged. Physical Damage calculations are also universal. Have March apply to Ranged Attack speed.
- The tank just isn't likely to die most the time, especially if less tp feed is coming - Redundant, addressed TP feed argument above.
- Mages produce far less enmity which matters after a hate reset or in content where enmity is a bit shakier (like HTBF) - Targeted AoEs on different parts of the Emnity scale (above) removes 'safety' issue. Hard-cap enmity reduction below lvl 75 levels to be sure.
- Most debuffs/aoes don't even hit mages so there's less babysitting/distraction for the healer. - Targeted AoEs at back-line, AoEs that strike at ~50 radius.


I actually can't believe the game is where it's at and am kind of disappointed, but don't blame me for it.
I don't blame you for the state of the game. I blame the playerbase mentality for shamelessly and uniformly exploiting it to the point of excluding our fellow players. Valuing gains to the point that will lead us into a quicker dead end both in terms of capping characters out quicker and having little to nothing to do, and in pushing players away causing this game's lifeline to close out sooner, above actually working with and playing with people, as people and enjoying the time we have in game rather than the loot in your pool.

I've literally heard the argument to me that the most important factor in this game is the time/gil ratio of content. And I spent two days off the game baffled at when our playerbase BECAME the gilsellers. But that's literally the state of the game right now, and, yeah, I'm salty you're arguing on behalf of that mentality.

[Shyles]

I agree with pretty much everything, Hyrist. You touched on a lot of complaints I've had about Melee vs. Magic job balancing. I agree that there should be a similar level of survival threat for all jobs, and perhaps boss mechanics that actively encourage player movement. And I definitely agree that TP feed is an outdated mechanic that disproportionately affects melee. It would be neat to see that replaced with either HP-triggered or phase triggered attacks, and introduce more environmental ("don't stand in fire") kind of threats to keep us on our toes. That way the damage could be a threat to anyone, but avoidable if you're paying attention.

The only problem though is that now that the development team is smaller, we're not likely to see any drastic game mechanic changes like that. We're kind of stuck with primarily Radial and Cone AoE threats, which makes things a little one dimensional as far as balancing boss encounters. It will always be safer for those who can stand out of range. Still, we did see some Environment mechanics in the Cloud of Darkness fight. So perhaps there is a little hope there!

[Hyrist]

That's understandable, but I was making extreme fixes.

Easier to implement and more moderately done are things like Eminty adjustments, increase in TP feed from casting (so long as it's flagged as a different source, can we get confirmation on that?) The removal of Immanence is also kind of a critical issue. Skillchains were supposed to be a teamwork component between Mages and Melee, and that one skill completely removes that mechanic and its intended purpose.

As far as targeted WSes. If we're talking problems with making mages and Melee Equal have more global AoEs. I'm talking range radius of 50 yalms. Everyone gets hit, nobody is 'safe'. Yes, this 'burdens' the healers, but it actually makes use of them, and makes damage mitigation skills and abilities useful. The AoEs don't have to be frequent and killing on their own.)You can balance out the global damage with the removal of TP feed, have them impact soft threats. And it's not hard to program in Regain, it will just take time to do it to so many monsters at this point. Still, focusing on endgame (Escha) mobs really should just do the trick.

We have enough depth in existing code to make fights more engaging and more universal in threat. Meanwhile all these obscene efficiency arguments are really moot until tier 2s in Eschas (And spotty there.) The harder part about Escha is actually getting warm bodies to show and help gear people up. And that's due to how hostile the environment endgame is towards Melee and anything not in this 'mage onry' meta.

Most other issues are just numbers adjustments. These calculations are literally just sitting in the code and can be altered fairly easily.

[OmnysValefor]

Eh, some of these pops are expensive or annoying to farm. Loot is not 100% and when it's something half or more of your group needs 1 (or more ._.) of, you take the effective strategy.

With a bit of luck, ninja can tank many of the bosses in the game. RDM can heal it (content where the backline jobs are safe), but we don't bring NIN and RDM, we bring RUN/PLD and SCH/WHM. Why? Because it's more intelligent. It's not lazy to bring the tank that can properly mitigate the damage or the healer that can properly protect the tank. In the same way, it's only practical to bring the most intelligent strategy.

You come here and read a few posts I've made and assume things like I'm arguing for the current meta, and I'm really not:
- I've just accepted it. I've been complaining for a long time that the rate at which melee TP have now rendered more than 2 melee (sometimes including the tank) useless. Needs to be fixed but SE barely acknowledges it. Attack speed is so fast that two melee can reliably pull off three step skillchains. Here's one idea I had A command to shut off the skillchain properties of weaponskills (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/50537-A-command-to-shut-off-the-skillchain-properties-of-weaponskills.)
- I've commented on the problem that refresh/sources of full mana are probably too abundant. The trade-off used to be that melee started empty, built up (tp), mages started full and emptied out ("these kids today probably don't know the difference between hMP and HMP"). Now, Mages start full and pretty much stay full. They used to be glass-cannons but now they're rock solid machine guns even on a simple boss like delores whose mechanics were meant to try to thwart mages a little bit.
- and various other things.

A friend in game said it best: The imbalance right now often leaves you feeling like you're mercing for your own ls--you're playing on the effective jobs, to get the task done so that some guy can join and lot a piece of gear and drop--and he's content to do just that.

I do agree, and have suggested before, that Immanence needs some tough love but combat needs an overhaul first. One that, like Shyles said, we probably won't see. Square shouldn't just say "Immanence has been removed" and leave LS's struggling to to gear people have have been focusing on Amalric rather than Ryuo.

The funny thing about Amnesia is Nyzul has had the mage-counter all along. A boss that inhibits the use of certain types of magic at certain phases.

[Cesil]

Heh..I want to come back to this game full time (I play it a little atm) and my boyfriend wants to come back, but upon hearing that ninja can't really tank anything..I dunno.

I was watching my friend fight some of the new end game bosses and they were using a bunch of BST and mages...that seems kind of silly. Why alienate jobs still and do this? Well anyway, if that is indeed the way it is..I hope the devs will incorporate melee again and make all tanks useful.

[Helldemon]

I think they just need to make melee only give about 2 tp to the mob per swing just like the way mobs attacks only give that much. That alone should cut down on tp moves quite a bit. They'll still get to 1k fairly quickly even with only 2 melee but iirc how mobs tp'd depended on both how quickly they are taking damage/how much tp they have. Right now with 2 melee with capped haste mobs are perma 3k tp. Not sure SE could do away with the tp system since melee/bst pet's also rely on it so it's probably connected? Though, if SE uncapped Subtle Blow and just gave all jobs 100 subtle blow in traits, I guess that would work. They would still have to add regain to every single mob and decide how much each should get.

[Hyrist]

A friend in game said it best: The imbalance right now often leaves you feeling like you're mercing for your own ls--you're playing on the effective jobs, to get the task done so that some guy can join and lot a piece of gear and drop--and he's content to do just that.

And this is where we get existential...

See, this is where I get labeled an Altruist. This idea of "mercing for friends." And this complaint that "Pop's are expensive." They're pretty selfish arguments. If you don't like the gameplay so much that you're overburdened by helping others, doesn't that betray the idea of playing the game? Or is taking the time to help people feel like that much of a waste of time that it saps the very reason for being. If that's the case, wouldn't a single player game like something of the Souls series suit your play desires better?

The game is not so hard that you absolutely cannot play the class you want. Yes, often those who chose to be more flexible end up sticking to the classes needed the most, or that make things the easiest. But isn't that the reason for leveling those classes to begin with? Or was it simply the selfish desire to exploit the existence of those Meta classes to get what you want out of the game quicker?

This is why I stick to one class, and have that one class be a Hybird. There's no question of my passion and my flexibility being in conflict. My desires and my limits are one and the same, and are defined directly by my choice. There's no room for error of interpretation of will there. I can do a lot on Red Mage, I make the choice not to be the Main healer as my only preference against what I'm capable of, and that's mainly out of hesitation to take that responsibility. If RDM could still tank effectively, I'd do that too to help people. Sure, there are 'better jobs' but in my experience those 'better jobs' are often out there for their own sake. They're after the bottom line playing those jobs to gear up what they really want to play. Which to me feels counter-intuitive. I'm playing the job I want to play and I endeavor to help with it.

I deal with the limits of the class because I enjoy the gameplay of it that much more, which means going to help others isn't 'mercing for your friends'. That sort of label isn't even a consideration, even in the (rare) instances where I'm flat out carrying.

So I can't get on board with the 'Oh but the pops are expensive' 'Oh it feels like mercing' arguments because I disagree with the base philosophy behind those statements. That tells me you're not playing something you genuinely enjoy, be it the game, the class or the company you play it with. And that enjoyment is dependent on a bottom line that seems selfish on the outside. I just can't, personally, abide by that train of thought, not for myself. It was the fact that I had to subscribe by that train of thought to get by back in the older days of the game that actually drove me away form it.

Thankfully, there are ways around that now for the majority of the game and goals I have in mind, so I don't have to. And now I can work on my character to make him more powerful so that I can take that growing power to help others. That's an ideal game for me, as I love the concept of character and team building.

[OmnysValefor]

See, this is where I get labeled an Altruist. This idea of "mercing for friends." And this complaint that "Pop's are expensive." They're pretty selfish arguments. If you don't like the gameplay so much that you're overburdened by helping others, doesn't that betray the idea of playing the game? Or is taking the time to help people feel like that much of a waste of time that it saps the very reason for being. If that's the case, wouldn't a single player game like something of the Souls series suit your play desires better?

You misunderstand. He wasn't saying that he minded "mercing" for friends (as in, helping ls-mates get the gear they wanted) or that he didn't want them in the alliance but it's simply impractical. He was being critical of the game in that moment, and perhaps critical of people unwilling to level anything else because yes, there are some amazingly simple NMs that are made substantially harder if you take bad jobs.

Losing is no fun, I'm sure we've all had a fight or two where after a few wipes, people were just ready to log off, sometimes people fake-dc (whether they admit it or not). Winning is fun. You don't get a special reward for banging your head against a wall knowing that there's a better strategy but stubbornly refusing to try it.


The game is not so hard that you absolutely cannot play the class you want. Yes, often those who chose to be more flexible end up sticking to the classes needed the most, or that make things the easiest. But isn't that the reason for leveling those classes to begin with? Or was it simply the selfish desire to exploit the existence of those Meta classes to get what you want out of the game quicker?

I play PLD because I love it. When it was practically useless during late aby/vw/early adoulin, I did the things on PLD that it was still good for. Supertanking, or a safety net on some bosses, and voking the VW boss while the melee tossed up temps to protect themselves. On content where PLD had no valid use (and there was a lot), I went something else.

In early Delve, I was wanted again because I could take half the zone to a corner somewhere so the group could deal with killing the bosses which, since we were pressed for time, was a necesary strategy.

I did not play BST in Aby because it was overpowered, I played BST because it worked exceptionally well on some fights and allowed me to help my friends get things they wanted in a very effective fashion. "This boss charms? He can't charm Falcorr".

I started playing GEO without the slightest inkling for how potent it was. My group at the time had a PLD that was better geared than me and I felt terrible for being on PLD while he was standing there on BLM with a nice pld hanging in his mog house. I do not love GEO because it's overpowered, I actually think GEO is reasonably powered and that Bard needs an overhaul and COR needs some buffs.

I don't play classes to exploit anything, I play classes to help my friends win. I've had moments in this game where we won something when we didn't really expect to--like when I ended up monk-tanking charby or my very first Byakko which started as a profound mess--but that doesn't mean that I went to future charbys with the intention of tanking as monk or Byakkos and told the nin to pop Byakko again without shadows.


This is why I stick to one class, and have that one class be a Hybird. There's no question of my passion and my flexibility being in conflict. My desires and my limits are one and the same, and are defined directly by my choice. There's no room for error of interpretation of will there. I can do a lot on Red Mage, I make the choice not to be the Main healer as my only preference against what I'm capable of, and that's mainly out of hesitation to take that responsibility. If RDM could still tank effectively, I'd do that too to help people. Sure, there are 'better jobs' but in my experience those 'better jobs' are often out there for their own sake. They're after the bottom line playing those jobs to gear up what they really want to play. Which to me feels counter-intuitive. I'm playing the job I want to play and I endeavor to help with it.

See, I wouldn't call you flexible at all, if you stick to one job regardless of the circumstance. There are times that you're weighing your group down. I don't let myself do that. Like I said, when PLD had a valid use, I went PLD--when it didn't, I went something else. When someone else had a better PLD, I was quite happy to go something else. Now? My paladin is top-notch (still needs some HQs) but if the synergy of the party works better with someone else, or some other job tanking while I play GEO or something else.. I'll do that. I'm not exploiting anything, I'm being a member of a team.

[Hyrist]

There's a lot of back and forth language here and I need to clear it up.

First off, Exploit in and of itself is not a negative term, it just has the expectation of it in the context of gaming. The mechanics surrounding around GEO, and the verb of you taking advantage of those mechanics, that is the very definition of exploit. It's the right word to use there. You don't need to resort to exploiting the most effective method to 'be a team player' and it's the wrong word usage to imply otherwise.

And while you wouldn't call me as a person flexible, I wouldn't disagree with your impression. I said that my flexibility is clearly defined. The roles I can do is broader than say, Monk. In that manner I am flexible. You're indicating that I am inflexible because I refuse to play other jobs. That too is also correct. Neither one of these statements are wrong. I can do more roles, but I'm not as effective at each role as if I were to say play a specialist. But never am I playing something that players come to rely upon that I actually dislike or grow to dislike either, which as much, if not more of an issue in groups. The whole "Pigeon hole" problem that comes with leveling multiple jobs, but getting stuck on one.

To expect a player to forfeit their right to play class they enjoy, simply to play a class that's more effective, that's a problem more than just 'weighing down'. The game is mean to be played, not worked.

The difference here is expectation. If you found GEO enjoyable and you play to help others, you lose nothing. You enjoy yourself. But if I, personally, were to know that you do not like playing GEO, and heard someone place the expectation of you to play it simply because you have it leveled. I'd voice my protest. To me, that is just as valid of being a team member as someone willing to flex over to another class they enjoy.

The only time I would say that sort of expectation on effectiveness is valid, is if you are actually paying someone (Gil) to clear content, aka, mercing.

In the end, I will take a passionate player out of Meta, get them through and make it work, than someone who begrudges or is even just dispassionate about what they're playing, even if it nets me a higher winrate. Because in the end, what you're going to remember is whether or not you had a good time. And while you say "Losing is no fun", I'd actually contest that. There are plenty of players that wipe or lose to content all day laughing their buts off and having a great time. And there are those who would rather struggle harder to win on something they enjoy and identify with. That special reward you get for winning a piece of content without using the 'best method'. It's the feeling of accomplishment. This is especially true when you're doing it with a group that's all playing Jobs they strongly enjoy and identify with. It's actually a fundamental principle behind any raid groups I run - especially outside of FFXI (FFXIV in particular).

To me, I've had so much fun in my time in FFXI with making outside strategies work, that I find that just a clear cut meta that pretty much just crushes content to be rather cheapening. I don't expect that feeling to reflect other people's feelings, however. But I do feel that levying any sort of expectations on others, especially in a game's twilight, is the wrong mindset.

If you'd rather play for yourself and be conscientious of yours and others 'time' above their enjoyment, or define your enjoyment by simply being time efficient, that's your prerogative. But I feel that enforcing this perspective as the norm is heavily counterproductive to the overall health of the game.

[OmnysValefor]

There's a lot of back and forth language here and I need to clear it up.

First off, Exploit in and of itself is not a negative term, it just has the expectation of it in the context of gaming. The mechanics surrounding around GEO, and the verb of you taking advantage of those mechanics, that is the very definition of exploit. It's the right word to use there. You don't need to resort to exploiting the most effective method to 'be a team player' and it's the wrong word usage to imply otherwise.

Exploit does typically have negative connotations and since you've been abrasive towards my opinion on these things, I took the negative implication.

No, maybe you don't need to be leveraging the most effective method to be a team player but you should bring some versatility. I'm 100% sure others in your group love certain jobs but are willing to change maybe to lesser-loved jobs and maybe to jobs they don't even really like.

FFXI and FFXIV (and a few other mmos) offer the capability to play different classes on the same character. Other games, like WoW, merely offer different "specs" or "trees" but the way these change the class is night and day. WoW's Retribution Paladin is almost a different class than WoW's protection Paladin. Players often play different roles on the same character and even different characters on the same account.

I find GEO (and bard!) very very boring. It's cool bridging the gap for players, or providing the protections. It's cool that, even though I don't like the job, I come very prepared and am usually the last mage standing in the event of a wipe. The win is fun, and getting my group the win is fun and that's reason enough for me to try other jobs.

Melee RDM right now struggles from a severe lack of adequate gearing options but there are other jobs you might like that would be great for when your party needed a potent melee.


To expect a player to forfeit their right to play class they enjoy, simply to play a class that's more effective, that's a problem more than just 'weighing down'. The game is mean to be played, not worked.

In my opinion, to want loot from an array of content that you can't adequately assist with is a real problem, and if you try other jobs, you might even actually find you like them. I also readily admit, and have admitted, that the blame is not entirely with the players (those that embrace the meta or disparage it). We should see wider diversity in jobs present, but we don't. I'm grinding out RUN right now, because there are some things that it just tanks better than PLD and the are other things (plenty) where the tanking is mostly equal, but Rayke/Gambit are invaluable. Yes, I am presently always comparing my HQ PLD to my NQ RUN and it's a little frustrating.


If you'd rather play for yourself and be conscientious of yours and others 'time' above their enjoyment, or define your enjoyment by simply being time efficient, that's your prerogative. But I feel that enforcing this perspective as the norm is heavily counterproductive to the overall health of the game.

More abrasiveness.

[Olor]

I will say it would just be nicer to see a greater diversity of jobs useful in content. I'd also like the playerbase to be more fun oriented, and for me "fun oriented" means taking people on the jobs they want to play.

Yes it does make things harder sometimes but the times I remember are not really the times where things are the perfect setup, but when friends tackled things together and overcame the odds.

There are real design flaws in the current paradigm and those design flaws are hurting the game.

I don't blame folks who have a lot of jobs leveled and a lot of decent gear who can clear things for doing things in the way that makes the most sense for them.

Still, I think that because of the lack of general knowledge about things and the hesitancy to fail that the game is not very friendly for a lot of players.

If jobs were more broadly useful this would break down somewhat, and if mechanics were more transparent. Honestly, how is a new player going to know about spell macros? How are they going to know they need a fast cast, duration and potency set for bard songs? Are we helping these players succeed?

I love how deep and complicated FFXI but at this stage of the game's life what it needs more than anything is community and memory of what truly made this game special - overcoming challenges with our friends.

One of my fondest memories of this game was on my second character - her highest leveled job was whm... like 31 or 33 or something, and some LS mates in their 50s died in Quicksand caves. I had never been there but I had the Altepa telepoint, so I bought a teleport, and went off to save them, the whm that teleported me joined, and we raised everyone just before their timers ran down. It was epic. It was ridiculous, but someone raising you when the sand bats in the dunes sniped you on the way to lizard camp was what made this game special and a lot of that has been lost.

Anyway, rambling, but I think we'd all probably like to see a bit more balance, but the more important thing is having fun when we do play - being generous and kind, and having a good time.

[Hyrist]

You can consider what I say abrasive, that's fine by me Omnys. I may disapprove of the mentality but it holds no bearing of my opinion on you as an individual. I do feel that having to point out situations in which you feel offended, however, distracts from the point of things. I don't know if this is an intentional red herring or argumentative leverage or you simply wish to call out what you find offensive, but it does not lend anything to the disagreement.


In my opinion, to want loot from an array of content that you can't adequately assist with is a real problem.

Let's not confuse adequacy with efficiency. To be adequate at anything in this game, you have but to clear it. The vast majority of this content does not require the meta that players who do enforce efficiency want to imply. Tiers 1 and the vast majority of 2 of all Esha NMs can be done with sub-optimal jobs and sub optimum compositions. They can, and have, been defeated by compositions lacking any of the 'best' currently in the meta.

So I feel you're stating a moot opinion here. There are no jobs that can't 'adequately' assist. The problem is the level of difficulty disparity between the optimal jobs and those that have fallen behind in efficiency. Nothing more.


I also readily admit, and have admitted, that the blame is not entirely with the players (those that embrace the meta or disparage it).

We're not disagreeing here. However you seem willing to argue down any responsibility on the unwelcoming atmosphere that many players create by embracing the meta to the point of neglect of other classes.


We should see wider diversity in jobs present, but we don't.

And I feel that it's our responsibility to not be so harsh on those who are attempting diversity, and seeking methods of improving its effectiveness, both in balance recommendations, and through use of current mechanics.


I'm grinding out RUN right now, because there are some things that it just tanks better than PLD and the are other things (plenty) where the tanking is mostly equal, but Rayke/Gambit are invaluable. Yes, I am presently always comparing my HQ PLD to my NQ RUN and it's a little frustrating.

To which I have to question your philosophy again. You're playing a game in a way that frustrates you. To me, that not only devalues the game for you, but devalues the experience of those you are playing with. A person who dislikes the job they are playing are as noticeable as a job that's not properly geared. Excitement and boredom are both infectious - which is why I question the overall effectiveness of pressing efficiency to such levels. Enjoyment is the purpose of this game, not the loot, in my understanding on how pastimes are supposed to operate.


I'm 100% sure others in your group love certain jobs but are willing to change maybe to lesser-loved jobs and maybe to jobs they don't even really like.

You're absolutely right, and I take up the exact argument with them as well. If they play a class they dislike, I flatly discourage them from doing it, especially in any group I lead. If there is a way of making a composition work containing jobs in my group everyone enjoys - then I will use that above the optimum. 100% of the time, the mood of the event in question is higher by a marked amount.



No, maybe you don't need to be leveraging the most effective method to be a team player but you should bring some versatility.


Melee RDM right now struggles from a severe lack of adequate gearing options but there are other jobs you might like that would be great for when your party needed a potent melee.

You seem to make the presumption that Melee is all I do. This would be incorrect. As I said before, Red Mage in and of itself is a highly versatile class. Healing sets, nuking sets, enfeebeling, enhancing, melee - I work on them all. A Red Mage is no less versatile than other mage Hybrids in this regard, with the standing exception of AoE power. The trade off for that, however, is how quickly a Red Mage can switch gears. I can show up to a group in Melee gear, but swap to healing or nuking instantly and not have to wait on a cooldown.

Also, your presumption an Red Mage's accessibility to effective Melee gear is a bit off. I can, with my current gear, hit all T1 Escha mobs just fine, and I wouldn't call myself decently geared yet. I'm currently below Carmine levels of Accuracy. I honestly don't seek to melee really past that point, with the exception of a few Tier 2s and potentially Sinister Reign. Most Red Mages don't, iirc. However, back on point: the situation isn't even remotely severe. I acknowledge that it exists, however. But it has never existed to the hyperbole players have pushed upon the class in the history in the game. And while our best gearing point poi of that was when Escha Sky, was the highest loot table, it's still quite favorable.

That said, when accuracy or danger in the front-line is too much of a trouble, I can hop to the back-line and assist there. Sadly that's not true for most classes that can Melee. Red Mage has the advantage of its extensive toolkit at its disposal.

Finding others of similar playstyle to your own, or that get along with your own plastyle is really the only requirement here, however. I don't want players to feel dejected from the game simply because their class is out of Meta, especially when the can get really far when they do put effort in.

As far as me personally...


..and if you try other jobs, you might even actually find you like them.

I have, and I really don't, sadly. Nothing has captivated me the way Red Mage does. I tried hard to like Blue Mage. It felt wrong back in the 75 Era and seeing it preform and picturing me there actually makes me feel a bit off - like it's a cheap knockoff of what I really want to do. Dancer was meh at best. Dark Knight just... no.

Ninja, Paladin, and Rune Fencer are the only remaining hybrids (melee casters) with remote draw to them, and frankly it's only because they're tanks, and that's the one role I can't touch on with RDM. (Except when people start dieing, but I don't count survival tanking. I can't keep hate well enough.)

Any other class archtype? {No Thanks.} That's what I play other games for.

[OmnysValefor]

You can consider what I say abrasive, that's fine by me Omnys. I may disapprove of the mentality but it holds no bearing of my opinion on you as an individual. I do feel that having to point out situations in which you feel offended, however, distracts from the point of things. I don't know if this is an intentional red herring or argumentative leverage or you simply wish to call out what you find offensive, but it does not lend anything to the disagreement.

Meh, it might be just be but I have a difficult time having a conversation who shows blatant disrespect to the other person.

I am not trying to flame you or to disparage you in any fashion now or at any point in this thread.


Let's not confuse adequacy with efficiency. To be adequate at anything in this game, you have but to clear it. The vast majority of this content does not require the meta that players who do enforce efficiency want to imply. Tiers 1 and the vast majority of 2 of all Esha NMs can be done with sub-optimal jobs and sub optimum compositions. They can, and have, been defeated by compositions lacking any of the 'best' currently in the meta.

That's not true though. If you carry a melee through content that they don't have the accuracy to hit, were they adequate for it? No, being adequate means contributing a fair amount, whether it be in healing, tanking, or damage-done.


We're not disagreeing here. However you seem willing to argue down any responsibility on the unwelcoming atmosphere that many players create by embracing the meta to the point of neglect of other classes.

I just more take the attitude that if we wait for things to change, we'll be waiting a long time. I can both clear content with my efficient group and come here and keep reminding SE that balance and mechanics are severely broken.


To which I have to question your philosophy again. You're playing a game in a way that frustrates you. To me, that not only devalues the game for you, but devalues the experience of those you are playing with. A person who dislikes the job they are playing are as noticeable as a job that's not properly geared. Excitement and boredom are both infectious - which is why I question the overall effectiveness of pressing efficiency to such levels. Enjoyment is the purpose of this game, not the loot, in my understanding on how pastimes are supposed to operate.

Playing RUN doesn't frustrate me, but I can understand why you read it that way. I didn't finish my thought and I don't know why. I must have gotten distracted. My apologies. It's frustrating to try to respect RUN for what it is when presently, there's not a whole lot of fights that bringing my PLD for just doesn't feel like the better option. I also don't fully understand some aspects of RUN.


You're absolutely right, and I take up the exact argument with them as well. If they play a class they dislike, I flatly discourage them from doing it, especially in any group I lead. If there is a way of making a composition work containing jobs in my group everyone enjoys - then I will use that above the optimum. 100% of the time, the mood of the event in question is higher by a marked amount.

I don't know, there seems to be two modes in XI. You can either steamroll content or struggle with it. Sometimes, even the optimum setup is still only a chance to win. I kill some things that I don't have to bring a Burtgang paladin to but--at the same time--why wouldn't I? Why not make it easier on my friends.

That's probably an important difference between you and I and I'm not trying to say anything badly about you with this: I get enjoyment out of doing as much as I can for the group. Doing everything I can to make sure that we win. Your enjoyment is different, you don't mind a struggle if it means the outset is more fun. I guess once I've killed an NM one or five times, the battle itself stops being fun.


You seem to make the presumption that Melee is all I do. This would be incorrect. As I said before, Red Mage in and of itself is a highly versatile class. Healing sets, nuking sets, enfeebeling, enhancing, melee - I work on them all. A Red Mage is no less versatile than other mage Hybrids in this regard, with the standing exception of AoE power. The trade off for that, however, is how quickly a Red Mage can switch gears. I can show up to a group in Melee gear, but swap to healing or nuking instantly and not have to wait on a cooldown.

Also, your presumption an Red Mage's accessibility to effective Melee gear is a bit off. I can, with my current gear, hit all T1 Escha mobs just fine, and I wouldn't call myself decently geared yet. I'm currently below Carmine levels of Accuracy. I honestly don't seek to melee really past that point, with the exception of a few Tier 2s and potentially Sinister Reign. Most Red Mages don't, iirc. However, back on point: the situation isn't even remotely severe. I acknowledge that it exists, however. But it has never existed to the hyperbole players have pushed upon the class in the history in the game. And while our best gearing point poi of that was when Escha Sky, was the highest loot table, it's still quite favorable.

That said, when accuracy or danger in the front-line is too much of a trouble, I can hop to the back-line and assist there. Sadly that's not true for most classes that can Melee. Red Mage has the advantage of its extensive toolkit at its disposal.

I believe you said before that you don't heal on RDM, as a personal choice and I don't blame you. Healing is probably RDM's weakest role right now. While I don't think very highly of RDM melee, a melee RDM is only possibly slower. It probably won't lead to a wipe, though it might lead to a timeout.

You made your affinity for melee RDM known and I assumed since you still talked about versatility that you were also nuking. If the boss can be enfeebled, and you have an RDM there, it's an RDM you want enfeebling.

I am aware of RDM's hypothetical versatility as I said before when I said that if SE makes RDM too good at too many aspects, the dynamics of the class could make it so that an RDM/DRK is only a separate macro book away from being useful on the frontline or the backline. SCH is unlikely to be able to hop between roles mid fight effectively due to stratagems and BLU has a 1 minute cooldown and spell points on it. It also probably wants to change weapons when its role changes (though an RDM would too).

If RDM was offered better melee gear or better at healing, it could freely switch at no cost to its performance other than an inferior sub job.

As I've said, that's the problem with RDM. Different RDMs want it to be great at different things and some RDMs want it to be great at everything simultaneously. When Scholar and Rune Fencer were announced, there were several RDMs saying "RDM should have these things" each time.

I don't know what kind of content you're clearing as a whole but you mention being able to hit all Escha T1s. Is that pretty much what you're clearing? No judgment either way but when talking about RDM accuracy issues, I'm thinking a bit higher where even focused melee have some problems hitting.

As for rdm tanking? You might give RDM/BLU a shot. I LOVE PLD/BLU and love RUN/BLU. You will probably (I don't know) need time to establish hate but between RDM's fast cast and always having Haste II, this shouldn't be that bad. Jettataura and Geist Wall are your bread and butter. Soporofic, Sheep Song, and Stinking Gas are also good. All but Jettataura are aoe but they do no damage (even if they do randomly land) so you run no risk of waking sleeping mobs.

I'd try to design sets that I was PDT capped even while casting. Unmoving Collar +1's 10 Enmity is a great piece.

For a tanking set I'd probably start with this. If I'm remembering the stats on these items right, this is above 50% PDT (assuming 6% dark ring, allowing some flux) and capping MDT could be done with other slots. Have several sets though because sometimes MDT is not an important consideration.

Mafic Cudgel*3 / Genbu Shield*1
??? / Twilight Toruqe*2 / Genmei Earring / ???
??? / ??? / Dark Ring / Defending Ring
??? / Flume Belt / ??? / ??? (Medium's Sabots, maybe?)

1. If you can get a group for Escha Genbu, get that shield. Defense on shields matters more than other pieces of gear. It affects how much the shield blocks for. Granted, you're not going to block often, but, when you do, you want to block more. Otherwise old Genbu's shield is fine. Genmei earring also comes from new Genbu and is -2% PDT.

2. If you can get a +1 Loricate torque, more power to you.

3. I know, you're probably thinking "RDM's club skill is terrible", but most of the time my PLD's accuracy is terrible. Survival above Accuracy.

I also have no idea how well an RDM/RUN or RDM/PLD (inferior, but Sentinel) would hold hate.

Are you going to kill anything big with it? Probably not since damage mitigation (relevant dt capping/resisting) is core to tanking nowadays, while maximizing other stats like hp, enmty, etc.

You clearly play for different reasons than I do. Neither are necessary wrong but sometimes we can be oil and water.

[Hyrist]

I am not trying to flame you or to disparage you in any fashion now or at any point in this thread.

And it is not you as a person I have any qualms with. Litterally at all. As you said, oil and water. I simply don't agree with effiency playstyle. I don't like effect I've seen it have on people over the years. I've seen it turn people into something terrible and I can't agree with what it does even on the passive level.




That's not true though. If you carry a melee through content that they don't have the accuracy to hit, were they adequate for it? No, being adequate means contributing a fair amount, whether it be in healing, tanking, or damage-done.


Again, the only measurement for success of a group is pass/fail. A person being carried is the issue of a player's preparation and balance. It's best to title it as a semantics debate and leave it at that, but here's the mental breakdown from my perspective so we don't confuse one another.

Adequate - Meets the pass/fail check.
Worthwhile - A subjective value above Adaquate where the performance is deemed welcome among their peers.
Optimal - Known as the best combination among the local meta.

What you're arguing for, in my view, isn't adequate, it's worthwhile.


I just more take the attitude that if we wait for things to change, we'll be waiting a long time. I can both clear content with my efficient group and come here and keep reminding SE that balance and mechanics are severely broken.


While you do that, I'm encouraging those to explore the lesser end of the broken mechanics to fully flush out once shining parts of off meta classes, and what unique aspects of these jobs were/are attractive and how to make them a highlight of the class. The more the class is explored, the more accurate feedback we can give on that per-class basis. Meanwhile doing so also means players play the jobs they're truly passionate about more. To be flat out honest, the most the Melee group has to do right now is skillchain, which means any two melee that can do it consistently, can be worthwhile.



Playing RUN doesn't frustrate me, but I can understand why you read it that way. I didn't finish my thought and I don't know why. I must have gotten distracted. My apologies. It's frustrating to try to respect RUN for what it is when presently, there's not a whole lot of fights that bringing my PLD for just doesn't feel like the better option. I also don't fully understand some aspects of RUN.

Ah, my mistake for reading then. The case in point, however is that I'd still pick up the argument with you of playing something you dislike.



I don't know, there seems to be two modes in XI. You can either steamroll content or struggle with it. Sometimes, even the optimum setup is still only a chance to win. I kill some things that I don't have to bring a Burtgang paladin to but--at the same time--why wouldn't I? Why not make it easier on my friends.

If you took your paladin to owning a Burtgang, you obviously enjoy it. There's no conflict here. The conflict is making it an expectation that you're always the one 'taking it for the team'. I won't do that and won't expect anyone else to do that. If and when I find another class that I genuinely like and find worth the investment to gear, then that adds to what I do. A job's effectiveness alone cannot be the sole reason to play it. There has to be an adequate measure of enjoyment in it too, or you risk draining a person's passion for the game/group/activity and losing them - which is not only bad for that person, if playing a job they enjoyed more would have gotten them to stay, but demoralizing to your group, especially if that optimal class was a clutch one for your composition.


That's probably an important difference between you and I and I'm not trying to say anything badly about you with this: I get enjoyment out of doing as much as I can for the group. Doing everything I can to make sure that we win. Your enjoyment is different, you don't mind a struggle if it means the outset is more fun. I guess once I've killed an NM one or five times, the battle itself stops being fun.

I feel as if I derive more enjoyment from taking something that is initially a struggle, and refine it through teamwork and tactics. This also makes it more fun as the class and group progresses both statistically, and in comfort with each other, to revisit and apply what we've learned additionally. To crush something with overwhelming force means there is no real refinement process: The fight becomes routine much quicker, the game's fun burns out faster.

This is no mean to be insulting, but I liken it to playing a game with Cheat Codes on. Sure, you get through faster, you get to the end and can move onto the next level - but you're done and it doesn't feel as fun as when you struggled through the game without them.

Case in point. If you ever say, get laid up sick or have time on your hands with an emulator... try to beat the original Contra without the Konami code. Its an entirely different experience.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(( making a break as this is now two conversations))



I believe you said before that you don't heal on RDM, as a personal choice and I don't blame you. Healing is probably RDM's weakest role right now. While I don't think very highly of RDM melee, a melee RDM is only possibly slower. It probably won't lead to a wipe, though it might lead to a timeout.


Actually I tend to find Red Mage's melee, when properly geared, will outpace its nuking over time. But the truth is, that's because there's supposed to be no conflict between them. A Red Mage going full on damage, as opposed to support/damage, should be bursting as well as WSing. However, typically support damage winds up being faster due to how quickly TP is built up. Better geared RDMs than me have made me aware that Red Mage has the potential for continuous self skill-chain. Support/Damage is typically the approach I fall into.

It seems to me that you're unaware of a lot of what Red Mage has at its disposal. Red Mage can cap healing bonus without a weapon, as well as gain (and break, if my source is correct) Magic Burst Bonus cap. We sit on a large amount of Magical Accuracy bonuses even before gear thanks to gifts, which assists in a lot of what we do.


You made your affinity for melee RDM known and I assumed since you still talked about versatility that you were also nuking. If the boss can be enfeebled, and you have an RDM there, it's an RDM you want enfeebling.

Depending on the RDM, really. If a backline RDM isn't 550, then I end up overwriting their debuffs with my higher versions. If people are bleeding, I try to help heal, especially if healing isn't doing so well. My gear is finally getting to the point where I can attempt some MB too, even without a staff/club on hand. When I play frontline, I try to spot and fill the gaps in the party. Knowing how and when to react often makes the difference between dead party members, and a more quickly dead mob.



I am aware of RDM's hypothetical versatility as I said before when I said that if SE makes RDM too good at too many aspects, the dynamics of the class could make it so that an RDM/DRK is only a separate macro book away from being useful on the frontline or the backline. SCH is unlikely to be able to hop between roles mid fight effectively due to stratagems and BLU has a 1 minute cooldown and spell points on it. It also probably wants to change weapons when its role changes (though an RDM would too).

If RDM was offered better melee gear or better at healing, it could freely switch at no cost to its performance other than an inferior sub job.

I haven't re-explored RDM/DRK since returning, but much of what you're saying in theory is already proven true. Red Mage does not lack for gear, honestly. The difficulty is that Red Mage has to slice through the stat vomit more particularly than other classes and razor focus on what they do.



As I've said, that's the problem with RDM. Different RDMs want it to be great at different things and some RDMs want it to be great at everything simultaneously. When Scholar and Rune Fencer were announced, there were several RDMs saying "RDM should have these things" each time.

And I'm in a unique position to know why. Red Mages made continual suggestions on how to improve various aspects of the class over the years. In the course of the game, we watched our suggestions, verbatim, be taken and applied to new jobs rather than an update to Red mage itself. The Emphasis on adaptable Hybrid role, Light/Dark Caster Modes, Aura style buffs to cut down on the repeat cast time, and even a caster-style tank. All wound up in new jobs. That left the community rather bitter.


I don't know what kind of content you're clearing as a whole but you mention being able to hit all Escha T1s. Is that pretty much what you're clearing? No judgment either way but when talking about RDM accuracy issues, I'm thinking a bit higher where even focused melee have some problems hitting.

Yes. My standard is simple: Where Melee are welcome to hit, a Red Mage can stand on the front lines with them. (gear permitting) And this is true statistically. The accuracy issue isn't one that Red Mage suffers before Melee do. Right now I have enough for Apex Crabs (though I prefer to solo raptors than deal with 2 hr wait shout parties and argue for my place). Accuracy is not something Red Mage wants for more than other Melee jobs, they just need to know where they're gearing it, some of it is pretty hard to reach.



As for rdm tanking? You might give RDM/BLU a shot. I LOVE PLD/BLU and love RUN/BLU. You will probably (I don't know) need time to establish hate but between RDM's fast cast and always having Haste II, this shouldn't be that bad. Jettataura and Geist Wall are your bread and butter. Soporofic, Sheep Song, and Stinking Gas are also good. All but Jettataura are aoe but they do no damage (even if they do randomly land) so you run no risk of waking sleeping mobs.

I'd try to design sets that I was PDT capped even while casting. Unmoving Collar +1's 10 Enmity is a great piece.

I did recently hear discussions about /BLU for enmity generation as well as defense. It may be something to check out.



For a tanking set I'd probably start with this. If I'm remembering the stats on these items right, this is above 50% PDT (assuming 6% dark ring, allowing some flux) and capping MDT could be done with other slots. Have several sets though because sometimes MDT is not an important consideration.

Mafic Cudgel*3 / Genbu Shield*1
??? / Twilight Toruqe*2 / Genmei Earring / ???
??? / ??? / Dark Ring / Defending Ring
??? / Flume Belt / ??? / ??? (Medium's Sabots, maybe?)

Medium's don't provide PDT, but that slot is good for Battlecast Gaiters and other such.


1. If you can get a group for Escha Genbu, get that shield. Defense on shields matters more than other pieces of gear. It affects how much the shield blocks for. Granted, you're not going to block often, but, when you do, you want to block more. Otherwise old Genbu's shield is fine. Genmei earring also comes from new Genbu and is -2% PDT.

2. If you can get a +1 Loricate torque, more power to you.

Some of this will likely be merced for the sake of simplicity, my solo ventures typically are attempts to get pop items to lower that cost.


3. I know, you're probably thinking "RDM's club skill is terrible", but most of the time my PLD's accuracy is terrible. Survival above Accuracy.

Actually I was thinking that my Claidheamh Soluis is just sitting there in inventory where I could be augmenting it for Physical damage Reduction. There's more than 5% missing in the ??? sections of the set you have listed so I can have a Sword if I want to mix and match. Club is good though.



I also have no idea how well an RDM/RUN or RDM/PLD (inferior, but Sentinel) would hold hate.

Not well, I would think. What Red mage really lacks for is consistent hate tools and they have none natively. Lower level PLD and RUN will use hate tools from other jobs to facilitate their existing ones, but without them, hate becomes difficult. As it's applied as a subjob, I would have the hate effectiveness of a lower level PLD and RUN without an appropriate subjob.


Are you going to kill anything big with it? Probably not since damage mitigation (relevant dt capping/resisting) is core to tanking nowadays, while maximizing other stats like hp, enmty, etc.

No but you've given me a route to attempt. A lot of my problems of late has been the fact that I'm reaching the limit of what Trust Tanks can do for me.


You clearly play for different reasons than I do. Neither are necessary wrong but sometimes we can be oil and water.

And I have no problems bowing out of gameplay when it means my playstyle will hamper the enjoyment of others. Though, I'm finding out that it's not as common as I would think, which is reassuring.

[Shyles]

Seriously, give it a rest. You've both made points I agree with, and both have made points I don't agree with. But this has devolved into a flame war that seems to be more of a contest of who can make their point in 900 words or more. I'm sure I'm not the only one that stopped reading a while ago. If you haven't made your points by now, then you're probably not going to.

If you're going to continue to argue, at least be courteous enough to keep them short. Otherwise, maybe bring up a different job balance topic to talk about.

[Hyrist]

Seriously, give it a rest. You've both made points I agree with, and both have made points I don't agree with. But this has devolved into a flame war that seems to be more of a contest of who can make their point in 900 words or more. I'm sure I'm not the only one that stopped reading a while ago. If you haven't made your points by now, then you're probably not going to.

If you're going to continue to argue, at least be courteous enough to keep them short. Otherwise, maybe bring up a different job balance topic to talk about.

Actually I rather liked his last post. This was more sharing information back and forth than arguing. Conversations, like players, can progress even through difficult stints with a bit of persistence and understanding.

[Olor]

My impression is that other than some misunderstandings folks have been respectful. Interesting convo!

[Thorva]

Yeah you are right. The game its fine

Its fine Geo made obsolete RDM, BRD and COR for support
iTs fine people use BLM - SCH - GEO to kill content LV135 +
Its fine mele jobs get one shoted on -50% damage taken reduction gear on content LV135+
Its fine since Rudra's storm update the two-handers, Ranger, MNK are obsolete jobs
Its fine the people shout for BLU only no matter if you have a mythic WAR, SAM or DRK.

So i hope square enix delay this fix for two hander jobs 2 or 3 years. So we can go down of 30k players to 5k anyways FF14 have nearly 800k players so the future of FF11 can go to the hell right? np!

My comment was about the "nothing beats blu in parse" crap, but let's take a look at your comment.

Also the "blu CDC spam" is an absolute terrible way to kill things, chaining your sc even 1 more step to a double light is a much faster kill speed. This was proven during the koga vs rudra times. Koga sam solo could kill faster than a thf spamming 30-50k rudra because of the sc dmg, a good sam was able to roll out 6step and hit 99999 light sc. The other option was for the sam and thf to work together to have thf close double darkness, those were far more effective ways to kill. Doesn't even need to end with cdc, when I drk and we take a blu I don't finish the ws even though I ws harder because the chain sc dmg does more with the blu closing with savage blade.

We ran VD ambuscade probably a few hundred times now, cdc and reso spam was literally the slowest run we had avg over 3 minute engage time per run. So we switched the dd to chain blu and drk ws with blu closing savage blade. Dropped our engaged time down to about 90 seconds. Then we switched to me solo on drk just running double light sc, scourge/reso/torc 3 times and killed it in about 60 seconds per engaged time. Seriously chain your ws, working together works far better than the lone ranger cdc spam. Sad, most blu don't even have AoE spells or nuke sets, can't tell you how many blu I have seen that ONLY have tp and cdc sets, no heal, no fast cast, no nuke sets, no idle, no -dt, just tp and cdc. People abusing a fighting style that isn't done right to begin with, much less not that grand.

If you are getting oneshotted on melee in -50% dt gear you shouldn't be messing with that content, you aren't ready for it. I seriously don't see how that is remotely possible to be oneshotted in -50 dt gear.

As for "mythic war, sam, drk" first off none of those jobs should be using mythic anymore. The speed of fights don't work with the need to build up AM3, secondly drk and war's best weapons is actually Ragnarok, relic, Sam should be using Aeonic or relic if the acc is needed. However you can get by and still do t3 reisenjima nms without r/e/m just take the time to build your gear for acc. I have personally pushed out 30k torcleaver before I made AG rag/apoc using macbain.

Mnk was never supposed to be a main DD, it wasn't designed that way, look at the job abilities of jobs and you will know what jobs are supposed to be on top.

Rng is not obsolete, make a trueflight set and get in a group with a cor, geo and a have each person pop AoE tp wings you can bomb things with trueflight.

Drg is shafted in dmg, my rdm/nin beats drg just spamming cdc/savage

Which is another problem enfeebling is utterly useless now, and with sch and blm getting myrkr there is no need for refresh 3. Nobody cares about haste 2 enough to bring a rdm, therefore rdm is shafted. However rdm may not be the best at any 1 thing, I have main healed (only healer) an ally on 128 incursion as rdm/sch, 132 main healed a vagary, if it is possible to heal 18 people in 128 I am sure a rdm can heal 135 content in a pt of 6. Rdm might not be the best nuker, but it can still hit 60k in decent gear, 70k+ in great gear. I wouldn't be surprised to see a rdm hit 80k+ honestly, and rdm gets extremely high m. acc. To top all that off, a r/e/m/a rdm can put out some serious dmg in melee, while they are not top dog in parse like war and drk are, they can spam the crap out of sc and MB off themselves and hit the 1200 acc everyone screams for so often. So rdm isn't entirely shafted.

Brd, well let's face it, the last time brd was used was when delve first came out, geo is the new brd and is seriously over powered. Very few complain about geo being needed for literally everything, and even more broken with idris.

Cor is not dead, in fact I got all my t3/4 wins on cor. Even WoC has cor's thrown at it all the time.

About 2 months ago I was hearing how my leveling drk and making rag/apoc was a waste of time, nothing beats a blu. I refused to believe it, now my ls only lets me come drk for more than half the content we do.

Yes I still have to get on sch for 145 content, some 135 content depending on who is online, but we have learned it is just as effective to super buff a sole 2hd DD and obliterate anything 135 and lower.

Yeah, it sucks I can't go drk and rdm to literally everything in the game, but I will stick to my guns in saying 2 months ago I sat in your seat saying the same thing, game is unfair, game is unbalanced. only blu, geo, sch, blm for all fights. Well that is only true on special occasions,
#1) you have a crappy group that you shouldn't be with that thinks only blu for dd
#2) you don't have good enough gear to be in the content level you are in
#3) 145+ content, (not much to say there, that is mage set up)

The only jobs truly getting shafted would be brd and drg. Maybe mnk, but mnk was designed as an eva/counter tank, the only jobs that can beat it in hp is hq sovereign pld/war or a drain 3 drk. Mnk was in the limelight as a DD for entirely too long, not even its role.

The only adjustments that are really lacking in endgame content is the nm eva or the nm AoE in 145 content, a way to bring back brd and raise on drg DD, while fixing rdm role back to enfeeble/enhance, spells like virus, plague, confuse, reflect would help here, but still needs a huge raise in enfeeble potency as well as the ability to land enfeebles without ele seal, 1600 m. acc a geo, rdm 1hr, sabo, elite level gear spamming immunobreak.

FF14 having 800k people I find hard to believe since they let slip about a year ago they were down to about 500k subscribers across 3 online games, that and more than 100k people were online streaming the future of ffxi back in march of last year I think it was (don't quote me on that date). Now while i doubt 100k people are on ffxi, I still would like to know where you got your numbers.

[OmnysValefor]

mnk was designed as an eva/counter tank, the only jobs that can beat it in hp is hq sovereign pld/war or a drain 3 drk. Mnk was in the limelight as a DD for entirely too long, not even its role.

Legitimately, what?

Hey, I loved counterstance at 75, but everybody I knew then called it trash but I don't recall monk tanking anything of note before Abyssea, besides Salvage. Unlike how somebody had to say in every party that "Ninja was supposed to be the DD, and SAM the tank".

It tanked abyssea because it did good damage, had the highest HP, people were starting to appreciate the value of counter, and Paladins couldn't hold hate. Towards mid-abyssea, a decent monk and whm could duo almost everything.

I started just before ToAU so I never got to play in a bones party, but I'm told monks tanked them (blunt damage, skeletons, good stuff).

The problem with Counterstance is and always was that you can't counter TP moves and have floored defense for said TP Moves so it was on luck or shadows whether you survived an attack outside abyssea.

Yeah, I've said a few times that one of my best memories was CS-tanking Charby on mnk/nin, but I didn't go there with the intent, the ninja was just really awfully bad. Even knowing that I could do it, I never went back with the intent to do it again.

[Zeldar]

Monk didnt just tank a bones party...they WERE the party...lol... 5 mnks and a rdm!

[Thorva]

Legitimately, what?

Hey, I loved counterstance at 75, but everybody I knew then called it trash but I don't recall monk tanking anything of note before Abyssea, besides Salvage. Unlike how somebody had to say in every party that "Ninja was supposed to be the DD, and SAM the tank".

It tanked abyssea because it did good damage, had the highest HP, people were starting to appreciate the value of counter, and Paladins couldn't hold hate. Towards mid-abyssea, a decent monk and whm could duo almost everything.

I started just before ToAU so I never got to play in a bones party, but I'm told monks tanked them (blunt damage, skeletons, good stuff).

The problem with Counterstance is and always was that you can't counter TP moves and have floored defense for said TP Moves so it was on luck or shadows whether you survived an attack outside abyssea.

Yeah, I've said a few times that one of my best memories was CS-tanking Charby on mnk/nin, but I didn't go there with the intent, the ninja was just really awfully bad. Even knowing that I could do it, I never went back with the intent to do it again.

I had this huge thing typed out going on and on about a bunch of crap, decided to delete it seemed a bit excessive.

Anyway, counterstance does suck, a mnk can tank just like anything else out there with -dt and enmity. Rdm did it wonderfully pre-tranq heart and can still do it with the right gear. Mnk does it fine with enmity gear and actions. People just naturally wore -dt gear on pld and not as much on mnk, therefore it only tanked in times were mnk could be considered op. I.E. Weakness to blunt, Abyssea, and Delve, abyssea due to atma, and delve due to mantra/formless strikes.

As for nin is a DD and sam is a tank, I have heard that myself, but truth be told I don't know about those, both have tank (shadows/third eye) and DD aspects to them (nin attack speed, ws and ability to MB, sam with sTP, ws spike dmg and chaining of ws)

I said mnk was in the limelight as a DD for far too long because it, like blu, shouldn't be competing with war, drk, drg for DD slots. War having customization choice to DD or tank.

[OmnysValefor]

Counterstance didn't suck, primarily because you can counter through shadows, just like you can parry through shadows.

The reason monk was a bad tank in most content at 75 is because you want defense you can rely on--you only gear chance stats once you're capped. IE, you only gear % absorbs/annuls magic damage once you're MDT capped. You only gear HP/Defense once you're PDT capped, when these respective types of damage are a concern.

At 75, and especially before late 75, the problem was that most -DT gear sucked. It sacrificed all other stats for abysmal numbers of -DT and usually it was just -PDT or MDT. Great, your "monk tank" is now pdt-capped (well, good PDT) but it can't hit so it's never going to hold hate (since damage done was part of monk's enmity).

Now, it's a different game. I don't know what monk can or cannot tank these days because I never see anyone good on it because the job is in a bad spot.

I think monk should be competitive with top-end DD now that the aby days are over (even though it was top DD and top tank in aby). I think, as I've said in other threads, it would be great to see it return as high damage-over-time, and while capable of ws'ing, made not ws-dependent. I think that would be good for the meta.

[Thorva]

Counterstance did suck, does suck and always will suck.

It did suck in the past because it was so entirely difficult to cap counter in the 75 era, while absolutely destroying your own def.
Currently sucks because even if you cap counter rate it won't do anything for the tp moves oh nms with much higher levels of attack and dmg with the def being so low.
Counterstance will always suck because SE won't remove the -def of it.

Counter by itself is great, but you can also rely on guarding. No need to put all your eggs in one basket. Want to tank on mnk, fine load up on enmity -dt gear and counter gear, no need to use counterstance. Just one of those abilities at is a waste. Same concept of why "drk always dies" or "drk always misses" that is only true if you play and gear to die and miss.

[OmnysValefor]

Counterstance did suck, does suck and always will suck.

It did suck in the past because it was so entirely difficult to cap counter in the 75 era, while absolutely destroying your own def.
Currently sucks because even if you cap counter rate it won't do anything for the tp moves oh nms with much higher levels of attack and dmg with the def being so low.
Counterstance will always suck because SE won't remove the -def of it.

Counter by itself is great, but you can also rely on guarding. No need to put all your eggs in one basket. Want to tank on mnk, fine load up on enmity -dt gear and counter gear, no need to use counterstance. Just one of those abilities at is a waste. Same concept of why "drk always dies" or "drk always misses" that is only true if you play and gear to die and miss.

See, I didn't and don't see it that way. So much of the stuff hit pld (unblocked, without -dt!) and a samurai or monk for the same amount of damage. Defense at 75 just wasn't an impressive stat against high level NMs (I still ate my tacos, used defender, made sure protect was on). TP moves were more dangerous but that's okay because monk was never meant to be a tank from anything I've ever heard. It was a great tank in Abyssea, but if enmity had worked in abyssea, people would have still liked to have PLDs and NINs there.

And of course, you didn't just throw up CS if you weren't the hate target. Served absolutely no good in that situation. Delve NMs? Was no need, and probably would have been a bad idea. But CS between 75 and Adoulin got a far worse wrap than it deserved.

[Rooj]

I recently returned after many years, and am still playing catch up, but I'm hoping the T3+ Escha NMs are a lot harder than the T2. I see people always going for these extremely specific boring as heck party comps (TANK WHM GEO MAGE MAGE MAGE ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ). And then my LS goes and does Ruaun T2s and Bakunawa with 0 healers or tanks. Please tell me it gets harder. I mean I'm sure anything higher will require more traditional party setups, but I feel like all the end-game content I've done so far (Apex, Ambuscade, Vagary, Incursion, Delve, Skirmish, T2 Escha NMs) has been pretty simple and does not AT ALL require the insanely definitive setups that people are willing to spend HOURS shouting for. Like people will only take the EXACT 6 jobs they want and will absolutely not compromise whatsoever. Then when I finally do the content myself, all I can think to myself is "rofl". SMH. I haven't dabbled in SR, Hard Mode Story Battles, or T3+ Escha NMs, but I'm willing to gamble once I do I'll still be shaking my head.

I've been denied many a party for various content because of my job (I only and will only ever play RDM). It's never justified. I get denied Vagary groups because I'm not a WHM - but when I do get in, I heal the WHMs group members before they even can. I get denied Apex as melee, yet I get 1K TP in 5 seconds just like every other melee. My mage gear is terrible, but my highest MB is 55K. I can land debuffs like nobody's business. I mean hell, have you fought a silenced Gestalt? It's hilarious watching people deal with Dread Spikes while I'm over here like, "What Dread Spikes?"

RDM is so bad guys. Plz buff.

[Hyrist]

@ RDM comment: I giggled, Bikini. Ever you want to Duo stuff and I'm around, I'm game. Though, you outgear me. Let those Apex parties look for a Geo for four hours while we murderface raptors or something.

Switching gears to jobs like Monk, and Samurai. From the notes that we've been given so far, SE seems to be bent on giving them a way for their standard hits to be more worthwhile.

To be honest, the only thing I can think of is a sort of Martial trait at higher level that adds a modifier to their normal attack hit. If they focus that on HtH and 2h specifically, and have it be high enough, this will allow them to do more damage during their TP phase and allow them to have lower overall skillchains.

So, instead of doing 13k WSes, they're doing 5 hits for 5k total damage above the norm (5 hit setup) then WSing for 8k. This would also solidify the opener/closer dichotomy which would work for more healthy skillchain groupings.

It won't change the situation where you can't really fit more than 3 people skillchaining max, but it will make more variant groups welcome.

[Urthdigger]

Now, it's a different game. I don't know what monk can or cannot tank these days because I never see anyone good on it because the job is in a bad spot.


I'd be interested in that as well. I've been a big fan of MNK since I started, and I like countering things, but there's no denying it's in a bad spot at the moment. Looking at the JP gifts however, it's clear that SE wants it to be a tank: Outside of a MA trait increase, literally all job specific gifts are bonuses to counter and guard. That said, my own attempts at soloing stuff with trusts has been less than stellar, and it definitely seems that it's squishier than other options, especially against spellcasters.

[Zeldar]

They cant add new spells, as they've said a few times.

[Rooj]

@ RDM comment: I giggled, Bikini. Ever you want to Duo stuff and I'm around, I'm game. Though, you outgear me. Let those Apex parties look for a Geo for four hours while we murderface raptors or something.

I got Master last night :) Would've happened a lot sooner if people weren't so weird. And GEOs knew that they have to tag mobs for their debuffs to work (it's... disturbing how many don't know this, yet everyone wants to throw GEOs at everything.. perfect example of how people want to be recognized (AND ARE) for their job and not their ability to play said job).

I've filled many different roles in Apex parties. There is a wide array of gear and ability levels among the people you'll meet in Apex. In one party there was a guy doing 25K Leaden Salute with 60K Darkness (WHICH IS WHY I LAUGH AT THE GUY ASKING FOR COR TO BE BUFFED. NO. JUST NO.) so the mob was already half dead each time and thus only really needed 1 BLM nuke to die. In the majority of my parties, all that was really needed nuking was 2 BLMs. In very few parties did we ever need all 4 nukers nuking.

When meleeing, we pull so fast that I don't even use Frazzle. There's no time. The tank should have pulled a mob before the last one even died, so that it becomes autotargeted and the SC immediately begins. And the moment the 2nd WS hits, the mob dies. And you've autotargeted the next mob.

Very rarely have I ever seen a "healer" needed. Sometimes the SCH will keep Accession Regen 5 up, and sometimes the SCH will cast 0 cures or regens because reasons. Most of the melee I've partied with don't take a whole lot of damage. Sometimes though I definitely have to work to keep people alive.

My favorite things to do in Apex:
MB Aspir for up to 700.
Dispel Bubble Curtain before nukes hit.
Be a RDM that can fill any role.

[OmnysValefor]

I don't and never have played Corsair (too much specific gear), but it may 'need' (for the sake of balance) some buffs to its primary role of buffing.

What a job can do in apex parties is not the metric we tend to measure by, otherwise every job except SMN (pre-this update) is fine. I could heal most apex parties on GEO, doesn't make geo a healer. Doing apex just the way you describe (flashing the next mob) is/was? a bit faster than BPs could keep up with.

That's just an example. SMN was of course fine on content where the metric isn't "how fast can you be ready to participate in a skillchain?"

[OmnysValefor]

I'd be interested in that as well. I've been a big fan of MNK since I started, and I like countering things, but there's no denying it's in a bad spot at the moment. Looking at the JP gifts however, it's clear that SE wants it to be a tank: Outside of a MA trait increase, literally all job specific gifts are bonuses to counter and guard. That said, my own attempts at soloing stuff with trusts has been less than stellar, and it definitely seems that it's squishier than other options, especially against spellcasters.

Yes, and the Martial Arts+ is actually bad for the job.

Thank you though, I did mean to bring that up: Monk would have probably been even tankier at 75 if guard wasn't so difficult to cap back then. I capped parry for PLD and NIN and still gave up on guard. Now though, what defines a tank is different and defense does have an impact, as well as a plethora of DT gear but it's hard to maintain good defensive and offensive stats simultaneously, which a dd-tank needs.

[Rydal]

They cant add new spells, as they've said a few times.

They can't add new graphics. Most of the spells he listed are already in-game (Regenaga spells are just aoe normal spells similar to Accession/Regen 5). Whether you agree with the list or not is a different story.

As for RDM's place in an Apex party, I've done many different things in Apex parties: nuker, buffer/healer, debuffer. In my last grind in Apex, I was in a COR PLD RDM GEO SCH (insert DD here) party. I was there just to do Inundation as the skillchain the COR produced usually hit 99999 with Inundation. The SCH was actually leeching when we got our rhythm down, to my annoyance. Don't sleep on that spell.

I don't know if COR needs buffs in the buffing department. COR enjoys many unique buffs that stack well with all other buffs (Pet buffs for example). Maybe if they had a Gift that gave them an extra roll (550?). I think COR is in a good spot.

Also, I know you were just using an example, but SMN works perfectly fine in an Apex party if they are just backup damage (aka your party is moving through mobs faster than 30sec and SMN being a main SC/MB job would slow them down). If you Rage>Ward>Rage>Ward in 15 second intervals, you can provide support and damage fairly well (Hastega 2, all stats+, MAtk/MDef+, STP Bonus, etc).

[Rooj]

I don't and never have played Corsair (too much specific gear), but it may 'need' (for the sake of balance) some buffs to its primary role of buffing.

What a job can do in apex parties is not the metric we tend to measure by, otherwise every job except SMN (pre-this update) is fine. I could heal most apex parties on GEO, doesn't make geo a healer. Doing apex just the way you describe (flashing the next mob) is/was? a bit faster than BPs could keep up with.

That's just an example. SMN was of course fine on content where the metric isn't "how fast can you be ready to participate in a skillchain?"

Oddly, my first 2 Apex parties each had a SMN (MBing with Shiva) and it was fine (again like I said, you typically only need 2 people to MB to kill the mob) - though I haven't had a SMN in my party since. SMN seems way more awesome than it used to be, throwing out neat buffs like group TP Bonus.

COR doesn't need anything. I'm sort of under the impression that you never actually play with the jobs that you bash on. I'm going to assume it's your graveyard of a server that you need to leave, that is causing the problem. These tiny servers are full of antisocial players with cliques and LSes that would rather NOT EVEN DO CONTENT than play with "pugs" or people they don't know. You probably play with the same people each time who play the same jobs on the same content. When you move to Asura, like you should, you actually see a wider variety of classes in content (it's still an issue, but NOTHING like I was used to on my old server) when you join groups for stuff. It's great, moving to Asura was one of the best decisions I've ever made on this game. People are still prejudice anywhere you go, it's just a lot more common on small servers. I feel sorry for you, honestly. I love pugging stuff and meeting people, sometimes running into the same players, it's how friendships and linkshells are formed and grow. Your method of playing the game is incredibly boring to me and I believe it is ruining the game for you (I mean you've basically already said that yourself anyway).

[Helldemon]

If you are getting oneshotted on melee in -50% dt gear you shouldn't be messing with that content, you aren't ready for it. I seriously don't see how that is remotely possible to be oneshotted in -50 dt gear.

Ilvl 119 Unity NM wearing good 119 gear is something people aren't ready for?

[Olor]

COR doesn't need anything.

Cor could use some love for their buffs really. At this point the only job wanted for buffs only is GEO and that is imbalanced IMO.

[Rooj]

Cor could use some love for their buffs really. At this point the only job wanted for buffs only is GEO and that is imbalanced IMO.

Sorry that you play with the wrong people.

[Selindrile]

Cor could use some love for their buffs really. At this point the only job wanted for buffs only is GEO and that is imbalanced IMO.

Eh, Cor isn't Geo but it's probably in a better spot than either Brd or Rdm at the moment, and they're all in a better spot than non-Pld&Run melees, generally speaking. Dnc and Blu have some situational uses. And yes, anyone can do a lot of the easier content on any job whatsoever as long as your party composition isn't ridiculous.

[Zeldar]

Cor could use some love for their buffs really. At this point the only job wanted for buffs only is GEO and that is imbalanced IMO.

Are you saying a cor should come to the party and only buff? COR can do some serious damage as well, it isn't there just to roll and sleep.

[Castanica]

Cor and Geo are fairly even right now, Cor has some pretty beastly damage output to go with their decent buffs.

Rdm and bard are loljobs.

[Olor]

Eh, Cor isn't Geo but it's probably in a better spot than either Brd or Rdm at the moment, and they're all in a better spot than non-Pld&Run melees, generally speaking. Dnc and Blu have some situational uses. And yes, anyone can do a lot of the easier content on any job whatsoever as long as your party composition isn't ridiculous.

No, I am saying compared to GEO all other buffing jobs are behind. I am not saying COR is useless (and yes it is in a better spot than a lot of jobs, and much better than bard) but it's nowhere near equal to GEO in terms of desirability. Unless there are so many COR out there that no one ever needs to shout for one ever... but GEO, well I see shouts for GEO all day and night.

If COR was equal to GEO I expect I'd see people looking for one more than once in a blue moon.

[Raiyara]

They cant add new spells, as they've said a few times.

They cant really add new graphics for new spells as such but they can add new spells if the resources already exist.

Dia 4 and 5 and even aga 4 and 5 could be added for example because the dats already exist for them. Basically if the spell is in the dats it can be added as the main elements are there they just need to add the spells to the spell list.

[Castanica]

They cant really add new graphics for new spells as such but they can add new spells if the resources already exist.

Dia 4 and 5 and even aga 4 and 5 could be added for example because the dats already exist for them. Basically if the spell is in the dats it can be added as the main elements are there they just need to add the spells to the spell list.

They can add whatever they want to, it's more a matter of not wanting to.

If what was said was true they would not of just added 2 animated and flashy cosmetic weapons for master trials.

https://youtu.be/zHpHFnqRqTg?t=1764

[OmnysValefor]

Why is a new tier of Dia so important to people? If anything just buff Dia II/III and move on. I'm not a huge fan of having spells that I never use because I will always be using better (I'll always use Dia II instead of Dia for instance. If there's an RDM, we'll always want their max Dia).

[Selindrile]

Why is a new tier of Dia so important to people? If anything just buff Dia II/III and move on. I'm not a huge fan of having spells that I never use because I will always be using better (I'll always use Dia II instead of Dia for instance. If there's an RDM, we'll always want their max Dia).

Probably because they don't want to be pidgeonholed into Dia III merits, which is a legitimate annoyance, though, that could be solved by just letting us merit everything.

[Afania]

No, I am saying compared to GEO all other buffing jobs are behind. I am not saying COR is useless (and yes it is in a better spot than a lot of jobs, and much better than bard) but it's nowhere near equal to GEO in terms of desirability. Unless there are so many COR out there that no one ever needs to shout for one ever... but GEO, well I see shouts for GEO all day and night.

If COR was equal to GEO I expect I'd see people looking for one more than once in a blue moon.


COR is a DD job(that can buff), and the reason why people don't shout for it is because the community don't recognize COR as a DD job, or recognize it as a DD job but don't know how much dmg it can do. So when they need a DD they shout for BLM BLU BST whatever, when they need a buff job they shout for a GEO.

COR lacking desirability is because the community don't know it can actually do dmg. If they know one single COR can kill many NM faster than avg single BLM(which are often hindered by longgg death recast and 100k dmg cap per SC) with 200k dmg cap per SC, they'd probably shout for COR a bit more often.

[nyheen]

COR is a DD job(that can buff), and the reason why people don't shout for it is because the community don't recognize COR as a DD job, or recognize it as a DD job but don't know how much dmg it can do. So when they need a DD they shout for BLM BLU BST whatever, when they need a buff job they shout for a GEO.

COR lacking desirability is because the community don't know it can actually do dmg. If they know one single COR can kill many NM faster than avg single BLM(which are often hindered by longgg death recast and 100k dmg cap per SC) with 200k dmg cap per SC, they'd probably shout for COR a bit more often.

^this right here, sames goes for the other jobs as well. some jobs take lot more time and effort to become successful. most see cor as a buffer only, there was a time when they was in exp pts nude just to pop the cards. lot of these jobs out here like war,drg,pup,cor,drk are very good DD as well, like example pup is one of the most challenging difficult jobs to become on the top endgame etc list due to how hard it is to understand it. so most pushes it to the side and lvl stuff like bst,geo,pld,whm etc. since the difficulty is set on easy-normal with jobs like that.

[Afania]

If COR was equal to GEO I expect I'd see people looking for one more than once in a blue moon.

I don't know why people don't invite COR to DD more often either.....

https://www.imageupload.co.uk/images/2016/07/12/leadendmg_maju.png

[Rooj]

http://img.medicalxpress.com/newman/gfx/news/2013/newstudydoes.png

[Urmom]

I don't know why people don't invite COR to DD more often either.....

https://www.imageupload.co.uk/images/2016/07/12/leadendmg_maju.png

But did you get the skillchain!?!

[CrAZYVIC]

Its not the COR itself its the GEO buffs/debuffs.

Geo its the cancer of this game. "Lets create a job make obsolete COR, BRD and RDM". "Then lets force every party have one GEO if they want smooth wins".

If square nerf the "Magic damage" but dont Nerf GEO. COR will be in the same stake as BRD its in the present.

The balance in this game its terrible.

[Hyrist]

Aside from the bitterness in the tone above. I do believe that Geo is due for some nerfs. Right now it is the only job in the game that's main function pretty much bypasses all concept of level correction and resistance. The highest potency defence reduction Red Mage ever got was 15% on Dia III - a spell we have to merit to have, has a short duration, and is single target. Geo get's it in an AoE, along with an AoE attack buff. And none of Red Mage's most powerful gear, gifts, or job abilities enhance its potency, in direct contrast on how Geomancer's works.

And that's just one example.

It literally has skewed the expectations and functions of the entire game's balance - I believe that deserves addressing.

I'm also not a fan of bypassing Melee Skillchains entirely through Scholar JA's either.

[OmnysValefor]

I've said it before. I don't think SE knows what to do with RDM. Jack-of-all trades/Master of none (besides enfeebling) isn't great when you want each player to bring their best.

Enfeebles don't matter a lot of the time.

The only reason I don't want them to nerf GEO is because they won't adjust the fights to compensate. I think it would be much better to just overhaul bard, perhaps buff corsair and I don't honestly know what to do with red mage.

[Eaglestrike]

I've said it before. I don't think SE knows what to do with RDM. Jack-of-all trades/Master of none (besides enfeebling) isn't great when you want each player to bring their best.

Enfeebles don't matter a lot of the time.

The only reason I don't want them to nerf GEO is because they won't adjust the fights to compensate. I think it would be much better to just overhaul bard, perhaps buff corsair and I don't honestly know what to do with red mage.

Skipped many of the last few pages, but refer to my OP. If RDM can cap magic haste, RDM will be a better addition than a 2nd GEO in just about any group in the game.

[Afania]

Its not the COR itself its the GEO buffs/debuffs.

Geo its the cancer of this game. "Lets create a job make obsolete COR, BRD and RDM". "Then lets force every party have one GEO if they want smooth wins".

If square nerf the "Magic damage" but dont Nerf GEO. COR will be in the same stake as BRD its in the present.

The balance in this game its terrible.


Although I agree that it's GEO buffs/debuffs that makes magical WS so strong, I don't know if I'd agree with the statement of "COR will be the same stake as BRD without magic damage".

From my personal experience, it's still pretty tough to cap pDIF with just fury/frailty, unless you bring an idris and use 1hr or something. But with a COR+GEO it's much easier with chaos roll+ dia 4.

Been doing a lot of ambuscade this month, which is a content that needs physical dmg more than magical. So far every single pt I joined with COR in pt setup runs significantly faster than pt with just GEO as buffer but no COR. I mean, you can always use both GEO and COR in same pt to accomplish best buff results. On the other hand GEO+GEO don't necessary produce better DPS than GEO+COR since there's limited amount of dps bubble you can use after fury/fraility, assuming the pt hit rate is capped and entrust haste last entire run.

If anything it's BRD as a buff job that's screwed. Pretty sure GEO+none aeonic BRD won't produce as much DPS as GEO+COR unless I'm missing something. Haven't done the dps math for GEO+aeonic BRD v.s GEO+COR. Also aeonic isn't available to majority of playerbase atm, v.s COR buff gears require very little effort to obtain and can still produce better results.

Either way, I think COR as a buff/support job is still pretty strong overall. I'd argue that it's in a way better position than RDM and BRD, personally.

[Zeldar]

I don't know who you guys play with, but my LS still strongly supports COR and BRD, and even rolls with RDM occassionally. BRD has buffs that nobody has. COR has buffs that nobody has. Additionally, the buffs they have that say GEO also has, STACK with each other ! Sure, in a 6 man group it may be one or the other, in which case GEO gets the spot. In an alliance, a smart group is going to stack its buffs with multiple support per party. Also, I read above that "enfeebles don't matter." Tell that to someone fighting a peiste who NEEDS to be blinded, or a mage mob that is crippled by silence and addle. For a while, RDM couldn't land an enfeeble to save their lives on higher content, but they adjusted that. If your rdm enfeebles don't matter, your rdm is doing it wrong. I'm not saying the class doesn't need adjusted, but as usual, people are going way over the top to try to get their point across.

[OmnysValefor]

Yeah, Peiste has to be blinded, and the GEOs, BLMs, or SCHs can take care of that. Other than mechanic-requirements, enfeebles don't matter. It doesn't matter if it's Blind II or Blind again.

Next I'll say Ninja's not a tank anymore and you'll name of the 2-3 mobs in the game that Ninjas are actually preferable for.

Yes, GEO Focus/Languor stack with Threnodies, but threnodies are single element and when focus/languor are enough (which they usually are), there's no reason to bring a bard. As for Vex/Attune stacking with Carols, this is actually valid in cases where you really really want to guarantee a resist (say a charm) but not really huge beyond that.

Fade/Fend stack with Vex/Attune for general purposes better than carols because they cover all elements. Now, I haven't been in a situation where I've needed all four buffs but I'm putting that out there.

I'm not saying there aren't cases where GEO+(BRD or COR) are alright, but generally GEO + GEO usually is better.

If the GEO or SCH can land the silence, there's not reason to bring an RDM--if the boss is even silenceable which most are not.

So I say again, because the tank is usually the only thing in the boss's reach: Enfeebles don't matter, unless it's mechanically important to the fight.

[Vinedrai]

Skipped many of the last few pages, but refer to my OP. If RDM can cap magic haste, RDM will be a better addition than a 2nd GEO in just about any group in the game.

Um... No. Indi/Geo-Haste + Haste I = capped magic haste, so it wouldn't really matter if RDM was able to cap magic haste with a single spell. Only significant addition a RDM could bring is Frazzle II, but nobody would replace a GEO or a COR with a RDM just for that. If they give RDM one of mdef debuff, mab debuff, mab buff, macc buff etc. (assuming it wouldn't suck), only then I could see RDM being used instead of one of the GEOs in an end game alliance setyup.

[Zeldar]

Ugh, such a lack of vision. BRDs sing more than just carols......have you forgotten marches, minuets, and the other few dozen songs a brd has? Do you think that Flurry 2 and Haste 2 are equal to tier1 that can be used as rdm sub? Distract, Frazzle, Refresh, Para2, Slow2 (which DO land on most mobs)? In an 18 man alliance, If you dont have at least one brd or cor theres something seriously wrong in your planning. RDM can contribute to ANY fight. Am I saying they are preferable to GEO? Not a chance, but you arent going to put 6 GEOs in an alliance. Again, I'm not saying brd,cor or rdm would ever REPLACE geo , or take a geo spot in low man content. I'm saying that if you dont see the benefit in SUPPLEMENTING geo with other buffing jobs in an alliance fight, you are really missing out.

[Zeldar]

And if your tank doesnt see the benefit of debuffs on a mob, your tank is spoiled with an excellent healer. Paralyze2, slow2, blind2, bio3 all have SIGNIFICANT effects on how hard or how often your tank gets punched in the face. Speaking of tanking, no I'm not crazy enough to think NIN is relevant in any real content anymore.

[OmnysValefor]

Ugh, such a lack of vision. BRDs sing more than just carols......have you forgotten marches, minuets, and the other few dozen songs a brd has?

Nope, I was just trying to cover bard's unique buffs you mentioned ("BRD has buffs that nobody has. COR has buffs that nobody has."). Bard's minuets (edit: said marches, typo) and madrigals aren't as potent as GEO's. I think the only thing Bard does more potent is refresh. In cases like Fury, the comparison isn't even close.


Do you think that Flurry 2 and Haste 2 are equal to tier1 that can be used as rdm sub? Distract, Frazzle, Refresh, Para2, Slow2 (which DO land on most mobs)?

Of course t2s are more potent. I was just saying they're not so necessary much of the time. This isn't 2007, you don't hope Paralyze catches meteor, you vex or attune or against it.


In an 18 man alliance, If you dont have at least one brd or cor theres something seriously wrong in your planning.

I don't know about you, I don't find myself doing 18-man that often anymore.. It's not that i'm not killing things, it's that these things don't need 18 people and in fact are only made harder with the additional people.

Suppose you can kill something with

PLD, WHM, SCH, SCH, GEO, BLM. That's easy, the whm can take care of that group easily. If you add a another nuker, you run into two problems--

1.) Someone needs to watch out for the BLM. Maybe he WHM can do that, heck the tank can help (I do), or maybe you get an 8th person, a healer, to do that.
2.) The short-term buff NMs gain against nukes so that you can't just stack BLMs. You run into the question of whether the BLM is contributing as much as they're costing. A lot of times 2 BLMs meeting this resist will outdamage what one BLM would do. Three might not outdamage two.

You say "lack of vision", like FFXI is painting. It's not, it relies on cold math. There are best strategies for everything and frequently it's the same strategy. It's a shame, it truly is, but it's where the game is at.

I know all of the ways in which bard is strong (mobile, not mp-dependent, does have a few unique buffs like Scherzo*, light-sleep) but I also know why GEO is preferable. It's gross that 2 GEOs is so nice, and sometimes 3 GEO is. I can't say much for 4 GEO, but I'm rarely in groups big enough to utilize that many buffers. I could see how acc/-eva/+att/-def/vex/attune/barrier/wilt might be awesome though.

On the other hand, Scherzo is frustrating because a lot of moves go right past it because they're multi-hit attacks.

[Zeldar]

Well I do do alliance content quite a bit. I agree that, due to scaling, low-man is more desirable,and in such limited party space its a no-brainer that GEO gets the spot. I agree 100% that GEO is in a better spot than other support jobs. I agree that the other jobs need revamped. I don't agree that they are useless, which looking back, isn't what you were saying...its really in response to a post on the last page...lol. I also don't agree that debuffs usually don't matter. I can see where, if you play with a bad rdm, you won't really see the effect he has on a party. If you play with a rdm that is good at what he does, you'll see him curing, debuffing, buffing, nuking, Not using a sword in party darnit, and for the love of God subbing whm so he can cure your status ailments as well.

[Afania]

I'm not saying there aren't cases where GEO+(BRD or COR) are alright, but generally GEO + GEO usually is better.



As I said in previous page, in a melee setup, unless you need vex/attunement or DD isn't capping acc, this is just not true. There are only 2 GEO bubbles that directly improve DD output in hit rate capped situations, which is fury/frailty. If you roll with 2 GEO which bubble are you gonna use on 2nd GEO? While with COR in pt you can keep stacking more attack with chaos/dia 4 and improve TP gain past haste cap via SAM roll.

There IS a reason why majority of melee setup is BLU BLU GEO GEO COR WHM, with 2nd GEO being vex/attunement GEO but not DD buff GEO. If GEO+GEO is better for DPS then the popular setup would be BLU BLU GEO GEO GEO WHM instead.

GEO+COR is just better, in majority of situations. GEO+GEO is only useful IF you need vex/attunement, and even if you need 2nd GEO for vex/attunement, GEO GEO COR is still better.

[detlef]

So you're saying COR is better than a 2nd GEO in situations where you don't need to worry about hitting the mob or being hit by the mob. In such a situation it really seems like it doesn't matter what job you use. Is that something worth arguing about?

[OmnysValefor]

As I said in previous page, in a melee setup, unless you need vex/attunement or DD isn't capping acc, this is just not true. There are only 2 GEO bubbles that directly improve DD output in hit rate capped situations, which is fury/frailty. If you roll with 2 GEO which bubble are you gonna use on 2nd GEO? While with COR in pt you can keep stacking more attack with chaos/dia 4 and improve TP gain past haste cap via SAM roll.

No doubt, and BLU is preferable for that because they can achieve higher acc than any other melee with Accuracy Bonus V attainable and dex all over their gear (and even the modifier for their preferred ws). 2 BLUs also bring Haste II for themselves, fulltimeable, or nearly, MG (depending on merits) and Tenebral crush which stacks with Frailty.

Yeah in situations where your melee don't need more accuracy and aren't at any risk, a second GEO (indi-dex? lol) doesn't offer much. However, most fights are more dangerous to the melee than to the tank.

FFXIAH makes it seem like every melee has things like accuracy sets and what-not, and I wish that were the case, but many of the playing population end up needing Precision.

[Afania]

So you're saying COR is better than a 2nd GEO in situations where you don't need to worry about hitting the mob or being hit by the mob. In such a situation it really seems like it doesn't matter what job you use. Is that something worth arguing about?

If you decide to bring w/e job or kill speed doesn't matter, then go ahead bring w/e job you have. I'm merely correcting Omny's statement about stacking multiple GEO buffs yielding better result. My personal experience is that using COR+GEO tend to have significantly faster kill speed than GEO+GEO or GEO+ another DD. And I believe it's a useful info to know for those who actually care about the kill speed.

Also just FYI to those who think "it doesn't matter what job you use", yesterday I was in an ambu pt with 2 GEO, each fight takes 5.5~6.5 min without COR. As soon as I switch to COR we're getting 2 min win including 1 min buff time, we didn't change DD job nor member in the pt. IMO a 60%+ reduction in clear time by adding additional COR buff is not as irrelevant as you claim.


No doubt, and BLU is preferable for that because they can achieve higher acc than any other melee with Accuracy Bonus V attainable and dex all over their gear (and even the modifier for their preferred ws). 2 BLUs also bring Haste II for themselves, fulltimeable, or nearly, MG (depending on merits) and Tenebral crush which stacks with Frailty.

Yeah in situations where your melee don't need more accuracy and aren't at any risk, a second GEO (indi-dex? lol) doesn't offer much. However, most fights are more dangerous to the melee than to the tank.

FFXIAH makes it seem like every melee has things like accuracy sets and what-not, and I wish that were the case, but many of the playing population end up needing Precision.

Alternatively you can have GEO entrust precision and have BLU cap haste themselves, or switch sam roll to hunters to cap hit rate and still get way more attack than GEO(fury/frailty)+GEO(precision/haste or DEX) setup. Even though GEO is consider the No.1 buff job, there's no need to pop on the forum and scream "GEO GEO GEOOOOOO let's invite more GEOs! More GEO the better" when GEO+COR often yield better result.



It's gross that 2 GEOs is so nice, and sometimes 3 GEO is. I can't say much for 4 GEO, but I'm rarely in groups big enough to utilize that many buffers. I could see how acc/-eva/+att/-def/vex/attune/barrier/wilt might be awesome though.


Also I've done pretty much every content that favors melee setup, I can't think of anything that I'd need 3 GEO in pt with 2 of them doing defensive bubbles atm. Most things I can think of uses 2 GEO max, with 1 GEO doing defensive bubbles and another one doing DD bubbles. Just because GEO is nice, doesn't mean you need invite THAT many GEOs and promote 3+ GEO setup.

[Zeldar]

3 geos CAN be nice on higher tier mobs with mixed setups. Give the mob eva-. attk- and mdef- or def- , 1 party may be rng and need fury, while 2nd party could be all blms and want MACC+ MAB, even a 3rd party that could use ACC+or ATTK+. There are definately USES for 3 geo, but that doesn't discount what COR and BRD bring to the table.

[Afania]

3 geos CAN be nice on higher tier mobs with mixed setups. Give the mob eva-. attk- and mdef- or def- , 1 party may be rng and need fury, while 2nd party could be all blms and want MACC+ MAB, even a 3rd party that could use ACC+or ATTK+. There are definately USES for 3 geo, but that doesn't discount what COR and BRD bring to the table.

I'm pretty sure he isn't promoting 3 GEO in a mixed setup either :p because acc/-eva/+att/-def/vex/attune/barrier/wilt is clearly for melee jobs.

[OmnysValefor]

I'm not denying that in purely moar-firepower situations with properly geared players, mixing buff-jobs works better because SE deliberately designed it so same-buffs don't stack (wisely so). There's just not a lot of pure-firepower situations. A lot of times you need or want focus/languor or you want vex/attune; sometimes fade/fend or barrier/wilt.


Also just FYI to those who think "it doesn't matter what job you use", yesterday I was in an ambu pt with 2 GEO, each fight takes 5.5~6.5 min without COR. As soon as I switch to COR we're getting 2 min win including 1 min buff time, we didn't change DD job nor member in the pt. IMO a 60%+ reduction in clear time by adding additional COR buff is not as irrelevant as you claim.

Meh, I just got a 5 man VD ambuscade (we were helping my awful cor-mule grind towards last month's ambuscade set) as Idris/thf/thf/warrior-tank/whm/terrible cor mule and we were doing 2 minute fight-time. As I know you know, it depends a great deal on the strength of the players in the party. I can absolutely promise you that another geo, a bard, another DD, anything would have been better in that slot and would have brought us down to to 1 - 1.5m fight time.

It sounds like your cor was making up for a deficiency in some of your members' gear (and hey, that's often what buffers do, no insult to anyone intended!)

But Ambuscade isn't really the content we measure by.

[Afania]

I'm not denying that in purely moar-firepower situations with properly geared players, mixing buff-jobs works better because SE deliberately designed it so same-buffs don't stack (wisely so). There's just not a lot of pure-firepower situations. A lot of times you need or want focus/languor or you want vex/attune; sometimes fade/fend or barrier/wilt.



Meh, I just got a 5 man VD ambuscade (we were helping my awful cor-mule grind towards last month's ambuscade set) as Idris/thf/thf/warrior-tank/whm/terrible cor mule and we were doing 2 minute fight-time. As I know you know, it depends a great deal on the strength of the players in the party. I can absolutely promise you that another geo, a bard, another DD, anything would have been better in that slot and would have brought us down to to 1 - 1.5m fight time.

It sounds like your cor was making up for a deficiency in some of your members' gear (and hey, that's often what buffers do, no insult to anyone intended!)

But Ambuscade isn't really the content we measure by.

Before you criticize other's gear and make assumptions about a pt you don't know, I suggest it's better to look at things from bigger perspective instead of just jump in and make assumptions about other's gears. 5~6 min kill is purely setup issue(I didn't make the pt), a pt with DNC+BLU, NQ GEO x2 and no COR simply aren't going to kill as fast as WAR, double THF, idris GEO and COR, assuming everyone has same level of gears. Idris GEO+COR is just better buff choice than NQ GEO x2 even if COR is roll only. WAR THF THF just has more fire power than DNC+BLU. After all WAR can use piercing+stardiver, THF x2 can drop the NM HP down real quick with Sneak attack. BLU just can't do any of these things. It's basically 3 piercing DD v.s just 1? No amount of legendary weapon and HQ abj can make up the power of having COR AND 2 extra piercing DD in pt.

Basically you just come in and show off with a near perfect setup with every single right job including GEO+COR then proceed to claim you have fast kills. Thanks for proving my point that GEO+COR>GEO+GEO.

I'll just show you by writing down the number based on bg-wiki data. If any of the number are wrong feel free to point out. A "terrible COR" can still roll, and no other 2nd GEO, BRD, or another DD can make up the power of chaos roll/dia 4 unless you are capping pdif with your idris GEO alone.

Just FYI, if you "prioritize" chaos roll and use roll potency ring plus every JA for chaos roll, the average buff potency of chaos roll would be roughly 47% attack boost. Unless you use RDM in pt, COR provides additional 10% def- from light shot. A 47% attack boost and 10% def- is slightly better than dunna Fury, which is also 47% attack boost AFAIK. If you need minor acc buffs, GEO(fury/frailty)+ COR(hunter/chaos) still provides much, MUCH more attack than GEO(fury/frailty)+GEO(precision/whatever). Since it's Fury/failty v.s fury/failty+chaos roll+dia 4.

If you need 2 acc buffs, NQ GEO(precision/frailty)+ roll only COR(hunter/chaos) also beats NQ GEO(fury/frailty)+ NQ GEO(precision/torpor). Since both setup uses 2 buff slot for accuracy, both setup uses frailty, but COR+GEO setup has a little bit extra defense down while attack boost buffs are the same. It's basically 47% attack+ 10% defense down v.s 47% attack only. Note that precision+torpor probably provide a bit more hit rate than avg hunter+precision. But most DD probably caps hit rate with just precision+hunter unless they're really, really behind on gears. In that case I don't see COR+GEO behind GEO+GEO.

Although Idris fury is more potent which is 61% attack boost, but I think at that point you need to compare Idris GEO v.s a COR that can DD in ambuscade. In that case it's 61% attack boost v.s 47% attack boost, 10% defense down and 25k last stand spam. Which I highly doubt GEO+COR is behind. Not to mention the highest chaos roll obtainable is 67% attack boost, with a little bit more luck COR buff has a chance to outperform idris Fury.

In the end I just don't see GEO+COR setup being inferior to GEO+GEO or GEO+DD in any way. Idk why you keep popping on these forums, continue to advocate GEO+GEO or GEO+DD over and over, with pretty much zero math nor personal experience. The only personal experience you provide is 2 min run with COR in pt(again, thanks for proving my point). The only thing you said so far is "I'm pretty sure we'll do better with GEO+GEO or GEO+DD instead of GEO+COR I promise!". How does GEO+DD do better if that DD doesn't provide any buffs to help your THF drop that big fat SA rudras to kill boss before adds pop? Love how community pretend COR buff doesn't do anything to dps.

[Afania]

It sounds like your cor was making up for a deficiency in some of your members' gear (and hey, that's often what buffers do, no insult to anyone intended!)

But Ambuscade isn't really the content we measure by.

Also If you're saying "only gimp geared DD needs buffs", feel free to talk to those guys on FFXIAH.com WAR and DRK forum. There's one person on WAR and DRK forum with AG weapons, 5/5 HQ abj and very good sets, who still brings COR for buffs to melee content. Buff job isn't for gimp DDs only, it works for everyone and pdif is equally hard to cap regardless of your gears.

Also if you want to play the "lolambuscade" card, I have done every single melee-able NM with melee setup, including reisen T3s, escha gods and so on. Feel free to come up with situation/setup/math to prove that GEO+GEO or GEO+DD is a better choice. Instead of just pop on the forum and keep screaming GEO GEO GEOOOO! Or Throw more DDs at it!!!

[OmnysValefor]

Before you criticize other's gear and make assumptions about a pt you don't know, I suggest it's better to look at things from bigger perspective instead of just jump in and make assumptions about other's gears. 5~6 min kill is purely setup issue(I didn't make the pt), a pt with DNC+BLU, NQ GEO x2 and no COR simply aren't going to kill as fast as WAR, double THF, idris GEO and COR, assuming everyone has same level of gears. Idris GEO+COR is just better buff choice than NQ GEO x2 even if COR is roll only. WAR THF THF just has more fire power than DNC+BLU. After all WAR can use piercing+stardiver, THF x2 can drop the NM HP down real quick with Sneak attack. BLU just can't do any of these things. It's basically 3 piercing DD v.s just 1? No amount of legendary weapon and HQ abj can make up the power of having COR AND 2 extra piercing DD in pt.

Basically you just come in and show off with a near perfect setup with every single right job including GEO+COR then proceed to claim you have fast kills. Thanks for proving my point that GEO+COR>GEO+GEO.

I was saying it was a terrible cor mule (mine) and that literally anything would have made us faster (Another geo, a bard, a real cor, another DD, probably something not piercing since the thieves had the bird down).



In the end I just don't see GEO+COR setup being inferior to GEO+GEO or GEO+DD in any way. Idk why you keep popping on these forums, continue to advocate GEO+GEO or GEO+DD over and over, with pretty much zero math nor personal experience.

You actually have no idea what my personal experience is, nor do I yours, beyond what we've discussed here. I already admitted that stacking one type of firepower, mixing buffers only makes sense but real battles beyond spambuscade, you generally want more than pure increase to damage. You might need more acc or something defensive/something to keep your party unenfeebled.

And since you keep wanting the boil this down to Ambuscade: GEO is ready immediately. Corsair has prep time.


Also If you're saying "only gimp geared DD needs buffs", feel free to talk to those guys on FFXIAH.com WAR and DRK forum. There's one person on WAR and DRK forum with AG weapons, 5/5 HQ abj and very good sets, who still brings COR for buffs to melee content. Buff job isn't for gimp DDs only, it works for everyone and pdif is equally hard to cap regardless of your gears.

Also if you want to play the "lolambuscade" card, I have done every single melee-able NM with melee setup, including reisen T3s, escha gods and so on. Feel free to come up with situation/setup/math to prove that GEO+GEO or GEO+DD is a better choice. Instead of just pop on the forum and keep screaming GEO GEO GEOOOO! Or Throw more DDs at it!!!

I didn't even imply buffs were for "gimps" only. Offensive buffs are typically critical in group-first clears (group-second, group-fifth, they're useful for quite a while. I'm sure you outgear t2 Rei--and beyond--but you take buffers I'm sure, same as I do) and always useful. Progressing through a tier, a group might find accuracy buffs not as potent but of course the useful attack/-defense buffs will last longer and past that, there's always DoT buffs (haste, DA, etc). It just seems that if a cor so dramatically increased your kill speed, it sounds like the group needed the additional buffer.

As for "throw more DDs at it", when have I said that? I prefer lowman (meh, dead server). I actually think that it's way too easy to have too many DDs because melee get TP so fast and mages stay full. We're in 2016 operating on 2008 mechanics.

[Afania]

I was saying it was a terrible cor mule (mine) and that literally anything would have made us faster (Another geo, a bard, a real cor, another DD, probably something not piercing since the thieves had the bird down).




Omnys, I think there's no point to continue this discussion anymore. I just went through 3 pages of math demonstrating how a "terrible" COR mule with nothing except relic hat/roll ring would add more DPS to the pt than a 2nd dunna GEO, I even went on and calculated the average Chaos roll number with JA for you. But it seems that you're dead set with the "GEO is the best choice" mind set that no amount of math and discussion can change your mind.



You actually have no idea what my personal experience is, nor do I yours, beyond what we've discussed here.


I didn't, that's why I didn't make any assumption about your pt DD gear level, unlike you just make assumption about my pt DDs.



I already admitted that stacking one type of firepower, mixing buffers only makes sense but real battles beyond spambuscade, you generally want more than pure increase to damage. You might need more acc or something defensive/something to keep your party unenfeebled.


Again, I went through 3 pages of math including situations that you're using acc buffs to show that COR+GEO>GEO+GEO. But you just continue with usual "GEO+GEO>GEO+COR just because" argument.

And yes, I already heard your argument about vex/attunement, and I already acknowledged the fact that it's required on some NM in my very first post. There's no need to keep using the "but we need defensive bubbles" argument as I didn't argue against you about the usefulness of defensive bubbles.

Basically this is the argument in past 3 pages:
Omnys: GEO is so nice we should use 2~3 of them, because DD buffs are potent and we need defensive bubbles.

Afania: GEO+COR provides more attack than GEO+GEO if you don't need acc nor vex/attunement.

Omnys: GEO is so nice and we should use 2~3 of them because DD buffs are potent and we need defensive bubbles.

Afania: GEO+COR still provide more DPS increase when you need acc. *went on and shows math and numbers*.

Omnys: GEO is so nice and we should use 2~3 of them because DD buffs are potent and we need defensive bubbles.

Afania: Even when you need defensive bubbles, GEO GEO COR is still better choice than GEO GEO GEO.

Omnys: GEO is so nice and we should use 2~3 of them because DD buffs are potent and we need defensive bubbles.

I feel like a broken record repeating the same thing over and over, while you also repeating the same thing over and over.




And since you keep wanting the boil this down to Ambuscade: GEO is ready immediately. Corsair has prep time.


There are ways to lower the prep time in ambuscade. Crooked card> chaos roll, if you land on No.6 don't double up, instead use snake eye and get No.7. Random deal and do crooked card SAM roll immediately. The key to finish 2 rolls fast is not to double up on 6 and use random deal after 1st roll so you can use 2nd roll immediately. Reset random deal after each fight at moogle when waiting for your turn to get in.

I usually finish my 1st roll while WHM do pro/shell, finish 2nd roll while WHM do bar+boost spells. I finish my rolls about the same time as everyone else unless I get something like 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 which rarely happens.

I didn't insist this discussion should be ambuscade only. I've done melee setup in many, many content that favors melee setup, and I can't think of one single NM that favors GEO GEO GEO over GEO GEO COR even when you need defensive bubbles. Feel free to give me an example if you have it though, I may be missing something.



I didn't even imply buffs were for "gimps" only. Offensive buffs are typically critical in group-first clears (group-second, group-fifth, they're useful for quite a while. I'm sure you outgear t2 Rei--and beyond--but you take buffers I'm sure, same as I do) and always useful. Progressing through a tier, a group might find accuracy buffs not as potent but of course the useful attack/-defense buffs will last longer and past that, there's always DoT buffs (haste, DA, etc). It just seems that if a cor so dramatically increased your kill speed, it sounds like the group needed the additional buffer.


The reason why I'm so vocal here about chaos roll is because I feel the community often underestimate the impact of capping pdif with more attack buffs since a lot of people out there actually ask for DA/SAM roll over chaos roll, when chaos roll provide much, much greater DPS increase than every other COR DD roll barring hunter for acc. Ever since one of the update pushes pdif cap higher, the ceiling of WS went up as you stack attack buffs, on the same time it's also very hard to hit that ceiling. That means a fully buffed WS will hit a lot harder than low buff WS, unless you're BLU using CDC.

The ambuscade pt I was in, the DNC lead claimed that he can zerg the NM from 75% with his WS before adds pop with his 55k WSs. But he didn't use a COR in pt. After 1~2 runs he was like "why my WS isn't hitting 55k like last run and we kill so slow". His friend reminded him that last run he had COR buffs, so I changed to COR and gave him chaos roll, he's finally happy with his WS dmg again.

With how ambuscade works, the kill speed difference between 0 sets of add and 1 is huge, and there's also a huge kill speed difference between 2 sets of adds and 3 sets. Since people needs to switch target to adds and maybe even change weapon/reset TP to kill adds.

In other words, if you can hit certain level of WS dmg in ambuscade and zerg the NM before TP moves, you get less adds and you kill a lot faster than low WS avg. The "no adds pop" 15 sec zerg video on youtube was done with super buffed high dmg WS from multiple DD, with massive attack buffs and TP bonus from savagery warcry. Without all these buffs their kill speed aren't going to be anywhere close to 15 sec since they'd have to deal with adds.

This has nothing to do with gears, no amount of elite gears can generate that much attack like chaos roll/dia 4 does.

I also have to point out, in every single COR v.s GEO discussion we see on forums, a lot of the chaos roll potency number being used are below real chaos roll potency with JA up. In fact I just noticed my previous calculation was wrong as well, avg chaos roll potency is 49% attack boost, not 47%. That makes chaos roll more potent than dunna indi fury.

Tl;dr, Your friend may tell you GEO>COR, COR buff suck and doesn't make a difference because that's what forum people said. But this is just not true. Like you said earlier, FFXI is about math, math and more math. There are certain setup that works more effectively than another because that's how the game calculate numbers.



As for "throw more DDs at it", when have I said that? I prefer lowman (meh, dead server). I actually think that it's way too easy to have too many DDs because melee get TP so fast and mages stay full. We're in 2016 operating on 2008 mechanics.

I was referring to your statement of "we could have kill faster with a DD instead of my COR mule"

[Camate]

Greetings,

While briefly mentioned during the AMA the other day, and also outlined in the August version update announcement, we’ll be making several adjustments to make it easier for melee to function in battle.


Adjustments to defense from VIT
We’ll be increasing the amount of defense players gain depending on their VIT.


Adjustments to monster evasion
We’ll be lowering the evasion values for high-level monsters. The higher the monster’s level, the more we will be reducing their evasion.


Adjustments to damage from AoE abilities
When a monster utilizes a magic-based AoE ability, we will be reducing the damage incurred by players other than the main target. As this is tied to overall battle balancing, we’ll first be implementing this adjustment for the monsters that appear in Legion and Ambuscade, and we’d like everyone to try it out and let us know your feedback.

[Siviard]

Greetings,

While briefly mentioned during the AMA the other day, and also outlined in the August version update announcement, we’ll be making several adjustments to make it easier for melee to function in battle.


Adjustments to defense from VIT
We’ll be increasing the amount of defense players gain depending on their VIT.


Adjustments to monster evasion
We’ll be lowering the evasion values for high-level monsters. The higher the monster’s level, the more we will be reducing their evasion.


Adjustments to damage from AoE abilities
When a monster utilizes a magic-based AoE ability, we will be reducing the damage incurred by players other than the main target. As this is tied to overall battle balancing, we’ll first be implementing this adjustment for the monsters that appear in Legion and Ambuscade, and we’d like everyone to try it out and let us know your feedback.



1. VIT adjustment - I'm reserving judgment on this one. Could be great, could be "meh". If it's a 1 VIT = 1 DEF that would be spectacular. If it's a 1.5 VIT = 1 DEF ratio, that might still be good.

2. Monster evasion - Awesome. Can't wait to try doing NMs on jobs like WAR, DRK, SAM & DRG

3. AoE damage - While I understand some in-game testing is required due to this being considered a balance issue......hardly anyone does Legion anymore, and who's to say next month's Ambuscade NMs use any magic based AoE at all? IMHO, a proper place to test this would be Escha-Zi'tah NMs and/or High-Tier Battlefields like the Ark Angels/Divine Might, where there is a fair amount of danger from magic based AoE moves, especially Ark Angel TT and Ark Angel EV

[Shyles]

Yay! I am actually really looking forward to this. My biggest frustrations have been mostly about survival in 130+ content, accuracy in 135+ content, and enmity in 119~125 content. I just hope they're substantial enough to make a difference. If they are, then these adjustments could allow melee to compete with Scholars for Escha T3+.

I am wondering whether the AoE damage reduction will apply to both Spell damage and TP-based magical AoEs. Melee jobs (particularly dual-wielders) still feed NMs a lot of TP even with capped subtle blow. Hopefully it will apply to both.

[OmnysValefor]

It's probably a zone modifier, and since Ambuscade takes place in Legion, this happens.

[Mookies75]

Could you consider adjusting how negative status affect spam works? Possibly putting a heavier diminishing return on them? Or making trusts more resistant to status effects than they currently are? Or at least make it so that remedies will work through paralyze?

In a lot of content NM's will have near 100% uptime on the status effects they spam either due to insane regain/tp move frequency or extremely low cooldowns on their aoe negative status effect spells.

I get that groups should have access to a GEO vex/attune for the hard fights. But soloers are hit pretty hard by the status effect spam even in lower tier content, especially if they're trying to get geared. You can't tell your trust to use a remedy, so you're pigeon holed into using DNC sub else risk getting wiped on the first silencga.

Would you also consider adding a GEO trust with vex/attune for soloers if you're going to stand by the false claim that status effects don't have 100% uptime in most cases?

It also bothers me that the paladin-ish tanks like August won't wake anyone up when you've been sleepga'd...

[OmnysValefor]

Could you consider adjusting how negative status affect spam works? Possibly putting a heavier diminishing return on them? Or making trusts more resistant to status effects than they currently are? Or at least make it so that remedies will work through paralyze?

Or making players in general more resistant. It would also be nice to see Unity whms respond to a bar to an enfeeble when hit with that enfeeble.


I get that groups should have access to a GEO vex/attune for the hard fights. But soloers are hit pretty hard by the status effect spam even in lower tier content, especially if they're trying to get geared. You can't tell your trust to use a remedy, so you're pigeon holed into using DNC sub else risk getting wiped on the first silencga.

As a good GEO (no Idris) and someone with access to plenty of GEOs (a few Idrises), I don't think vex/attune should be as mandatory as it is but god it is. Yeah, top-end tear stuff, okay but some measly NMs are just so much easier with Vex/Attune.

Right now it's like: You need V/A or a Yagrush or probably both for the hard stuff. It's gotten way way way out of hand.


It also bothers me that the paladin-ish tanks like August won't wake anyone up when you've been sleepga'd...

August will, though he gives no preferential order to who he wakes. It might be the DRK. You might have cases of him being silenced.

Some AI improvement to make him look first for a WHM/SCH//RDM/PLD/DNC would be nice.

[Zeldar]

I'd settle for making my WHM trust smart enough to ALWAYS stay out of range. All too often my Apururu gets silenced or beat up because he took his time getting out of the way. He's a unity LEADER...shouldn't he be smarter than that? As for status effects, they are just part of the game. Your WHM needs to know which moves give which effects and plan accordingly. They need to have a priority list when it comes to these effects....like knowing to silena the PLD first. A mediocre WHM can get by on mediocre content. Hardcore content calls for a hardcore whm.

[BBWallace]

Aprururu isn't a he.

[Selindrile]

While adjusting non-main-target damage is a step in the right direction, I think that's a healthy adjustment, the status debuffs/dispels are more the reason melees aren't used. Melees feed the mob more tp, and have to absorb a lot more WS, this is the core of the issue, when you spend so much of the fight disabled, even if you're alive, your damage is crap compared to someone who isn't getting hit by such things.

Vit and Agi bonus, I think are buffs we didn't really need, but sure, we'll see how they affect things.

[OmnysValefor]

I'd settle for making my WHM trust smart enough to ALWAYS stay out of range. All too often my Apururu gets silenced or beat up because he took his time getting out of the way. He's a unity LEADER...shouldn't he be smarter than that? As for status effects, they are just part of the game. Your WHM needs to know which moves give which effects and plan accordingly. They need to have a priority list when it comes to these effects....like knowing to silena the PLD first. A mediocre WHM can get by on mediocre content. Hardcore content calls for a hardcore whm.

To the part I bolded: While this is technically correct, this line-of-thought is wrong. Enfeebling spam has gotten way too out of hand, especially when mages simply are unaffected by it.


...

Vit and Agi bonus, I think are buffs we didn't really need, but sure, we'll see how they affect things.

Can't say for sure about vit, though I'm not really excited for it. At most, it will mean a buff of like 75 defense to most melee. However, the agi change is reducing the evasion monsters have and that is a good move for melee-oriented strategies.

[Zeldar]

Which enfeeble spam is way out of hand? On the NMs I've fought on THF or BLU, its really a matter of my WHM getting rid of the ailment in a timely manner. Its part of the game. Yeah being slowed sucks. Being paralyzed sucks. Being poisoned and bio'd sucks. Having a great WHM that knows what he is doing fixes all of these things.

[Urmom]

For normal debuffs like slow let's say the problem isn't just that you get debuffed but that it's often AoE and with multiple melees your whm sometimes doesn't even have time to erase everyone before a new set of debuffs hits melee town. Often becomes better making sure all the melees have remedies/pancea on them. That said this is less of an issue specifically with debuffs and more of an issue with mobs basically having perma Meikyo Shisui when you put multiple melees on them.

That said there are other debuffs can't really be dealt with like terror or amnesia or huge stat down or like huge def down etc or mechanics that stop them from being removed that things that are problematic in themselves. Even semi frequent stuns/petrify can be rather debilitating to melees regardless of whm (mythic aside)

[Selindrile]

Which enfeeble spam is way out of hand? On the NMs I've fought on THF or BLU, its really a matter of my WHM getting rid of the ailment in a timely manner. Its part of the game. Yeah being slowed sucks. Being paralyzed sucks. Being poisoned and bio'd sucks. Having a great WHM that knows what he is doing fixes all of these things.

Yakshi - Doomga, Strophadia - Amnesia, Ironside - Dispelga/Amnesiaga/Terrorga/Gearlock, Mauve-Wristed Gomberry - Splitting, melees can't aoe as well, Golden Kist - Everything, Dazzling Dolores - Charm, Amnesia, Virava - Charmga Spam, Wrathhare - Whirl Claws with added effect death spam, Aglaophotis - Amnesia, Harpeia - Several super annoying spams, Vidala - Uses Perfect Dodge... There are more, I haven't even started with the actual hard ones yet.

Urmom has a good point though, I said something similar earlier, if these moves were done far less frequently, this would be less of an issue.

The problem is mostly the enfeebles that the Whm can't remove, namely amnesia/charm/terror/stun, or the massive dispels that take the mob 1 second to use, but require 8-9 recasts from your mages while doing your other jobs, also many of the melee buffs simply can't be put back up, if it dispels your berserk, or your Mighty Guard or the like, you just have to wait, because you can't put it back up for a while.

Most of this list is easy, because we outgear it, but the point is it's WAY harder to do with melees than mages even if most you can complete with melee, the problem is the discrepancy, if SE continues to make mobs that spam disables that make melees inefficient, we'll keep doing everything with mages, that's all.

[Rooj]

These status ailment complaints are one reason I love playing RDM, and also why I recently started full-timing the new tathlum. I mean I have to know the fight beforehand, but I use my barelement and barstatus spells religiously (using Barblizzard helps resist Paralyze, plus Barparalyze, plus Tathlum). And then I make fun of my party for being debuffed while I'm still DPSing away. Ammo stats aren't really that great in the first place, and your ammo hardly matters if you're paralyzed or slowed, etc anyway.

I will say that by far, my greatest bane in this game is mass dispel. Now that makes me cry emo tears of blood.

[Rooj]

Vidala - Uses Perfect Dodge...

There are WSes that go through PD. I'm not sure but I'd imagine pretty much everyone has one at this point, IDK. Melee should be using their TP gain JAs/temps during this time. Also as RDM when something uses PD/Invincible, Poison II is still ticking, Enspells still hurt on Invincible, and it's also the perfect time to throw out some extra debuffs/nukes.

[Zeldar]

Clerics drink removes a lot of this junk. I know you only have 1 in Gaes Feat, but maybe they could add a system similar to VW where certain temps are replenished. The proc system is already there, just not as prevalent as in VW. Maybe they could add temp item replenishment to GF as well, and tie the ones you get to the vorseals you have earned. Not a perfect "fix" but we don't want this stuff too easy, do we?

As a side note, try everyone grouping up directly behind Dazzling Dolores except the tank. It works wonders. Some of the others you mentioned just make it necessary to at the very least have a hybrid party setup, such as Vidala. It doesn't PD the whole fight. As with mobs in the past that use PD, you just need to nuke it while PD is up...same with any mob that uses invincible. Its a mechanic of the game.

[Selindrile]

Again, to repeat myself, there are answers many of these issues (not all), and a lot of it is very completable, reguardless, as I said, it's mostly quite easy to complete, the point is, all of these mechanics make melees far worse than mages at the end of the day, you're providing solutions to these problems, while we long ago found the better solution, circumvent them by not using melee and completing the content faster (due to not having to deal with these issues) and easier.

At the end of the day this is the conversation we keep having.

People who want change: It's harder to do content on melees than mages because of these issues.

People who don't want change: There are workarounds to some of these issues.

But at it's heart, you still have to put forth the effort to make these workarounds happen, and be less efficient and slower than mages for having to take the time to do these things, rather than just doing it on mages, which is the entire point.

[Zeldar]

Working around these things is a part of a melee's job, just as working around removing them from you is a WHMs job. Avoiding them is a mages job. There are mechanics on mobs that make mages useless as well. MANY mobs in this game are magic resistant. For a while, a pimped out BLM couldn't get into ANY type of content due to magic resistance. RDM was made nearly useless for a while because of this as well, and many people haven't figured out yet that RDM is useful again. I'm just saying that every job has its hurdles. Changing the game isn't always the best solution...learning to overcome them on your own sometimes is. Perhaps if the mob is using too many TP moves, your whm needs to learn the effects of auspice, your thf needs to learn to use conspirator, your DDs need more subtle blow, and you need a rdm or geo to slow the mob down a bit and make it less accurate. Some mechanics to help with your problems are already there: the question is, are you willing to use them?

[Ataraxia]

Greetings,

While briefly mentioned during the AMA the other day, and also outlined in the August version update announcement, we’ll be making several adjustments to make it easier for melee to function in battle.


Adjustments to defense from VIT
We’ll be increasing the amount of defense players gain depending on their VIT.


Adjustments to monster evasion
We’ll be lowering the evasion values for high-level monsters. The higher the monster’s level, the more we will be reducing their evasion.


Adjustments to damage from AoE abilities
When a monster utilizes a magic-based AoE ability, we will be reducing the damage incurred by players other than the main target. As this is tied to overall battle balancing, we’ll first be implementing this adjustment for the monsters that appear in Legion and Ambuscade, and we’d like everyone to try it out and let us know your feedback.





wow finally this is probably the best news i heard coming from Camate and Akihiko Matsui. I hope your adjustment include High tier mission battle like AA, Avatar and others. I hope you can run a test on all content if a Warrior, Mnk, Drg or Dark Knight can win in difficult or Very Difficult mode.

High tier mission battle at difficult level are a lot tougher than fighting a NM in Reisenjima Tier 1 level 129. For example, we get one shot astral flow from avatar in difficult and our trust die but fighting Bugard NM in Reisenjima seems much easier. I hope the adjustment is good enough so people can enjoy doing high tier mission and unity cord NM. =)

[Rooj]

Playing a job because it makes content easier instead of playing a job that I love is something that I have never and will never do. And I find it depressing that people play that way. Also now that I think about it, I've never had a mage in the party during Vidala lol.

I would rather not complete content than play a different job. Period.

[Selindrile]

Working around these things is a part of a melee's job, just as working around removing them from you is a WHMs job. Avoiding them is a mages job.

Many of these things do have workarounds, some reasonable, some not, but you're missing the entire point, at some point (and we passed this long ago on most of these mobs) the workaround is so sub-optimal that using another job that doesn't need to use this workaround is the far better option.


There are mechanics on mobs that make mages useless as well. MANY mobs in this game are magic resistant. For a while, a pimped out BLM couldn't get into ANY type of content due to magic resistance.

Yep! And guess what, we made a change, now they're usable on any content! \^^/


Perhaps if the mob is using too many TP moves, your whm needs to learn the effects of auspice, your thf needs to learn to use conspirator, your DDs need more subtle blow, and you need a rdm or geo to slow the mob down a bit and make it less accurate. Some mechanics to help with your problems are already there: the question is, are you willing to use them?

This statement, more than anything highlights the hilarious disconnect, even if everyone uses 50 subtle blow (which is cap, auspice included) I highly doubt that would decrease WS frequency at all, in a melee setup NMs usually have 3k TP before they finish their current WS, they gain so much TP by being hit, that even halfing it, and removing 100% of their TP gain from melee. (Though I doubt you could make most real endgame mobs inaccurate even with all the -accuracy/+evasion you could manage, which even if you could floor them at 20% would make very little difference in their overall tp gain.)

Simply put, the speed at which melee attack with their 80% delay reduction makes player TP gain very fast, nearly instantaneously, and the rate at which a player feeds tp is a very similar rate, so the moment you have two melees, even if they both used 50% subtle blow (which would notably hurt your DPS), the NM gains TP just as fast if not faster, and their WS are far more devastating, and if you as a player are using a multihit ws, you pretty much instantly feed him a ton of TP anyway.

[Rooj]

Also I wanted to add to a discussion that happened much earlier in the thread, about NMs being immune to debuffs.

Several years ago around the Voidwatch era they decided to make ALL new content debuffable, with zero immunities. If you adjust your chat log, it will tell you when you cast a spell if something is completely immune to it or if it only resisted (it's my understanding that complete immunities only exist in pre-ilvl content). It will also tell you if an Immunobreak occurs, something I never see people talk about and something that people really need to learn about. Just the other day, a few of us were farming Taelmoth the Diremaw. Once he gets to around 50% he starts spamming Azure Lore and 1 shotting people (I imagine the normal strategy here is to kite), except this never happened because I had him Silenced every time.

It's truly a blessing being able to Silence mobs that cast terrible things like Breakga, Paralyga, Slowga, Dispelga... etc. I can't wait till I get more MACC. Making MACC cape @ next Ambu :)

[Zeldar]

No no Rooj, you don't get the point ! They don't want to bring mages, especially RED mages ! They want to do it all as nothing but a bunch of DDs and MAYBE a WHM !! Come on man, don't make them silence a mob, just make the mob not cast at all... While you're at it, how about the mob not use TP moves. You know what, I have a solution that will make them happy : how about the mob just stands there and does nothing....THAT will make for a fun game !!!!!!!!!!

[Zeldar]

I of course say this with sarcasm, but this is the direction the community is slowly moving towards. Every time something is a tiny bit difficult, people cry . So SE dumbs down our beloved game for people that cry all the time, then guess what? ITS STILL NOT ENOUGH!!!!!! So what happens? They cry some more. I mean come on, they are already making it so you won't need so much accuracy, which is silly in my opinion. "Oh , I want to fight mobs that are 20 levels higher than me, but I expect to hit with every swing in my capped haste and multi-hit gear. Make it so I don't need an accuracy set at all. Put a ton of accuracy on ALL of my gear, OK?" Then they announce that they are looking into the amount of damage that mobs do with AoE attacks so that melees can play again. Man, thats a godsend, but is it enough for the community? NO... they now want the mobs to stop enfeebling them too. Whats next, PLDs want Ochain and Aegis to be synergized together so they dont need to swap? WAR want a weapon that deals all forms of damage so they won't have to swap? Is your own TP gain rate enough for you? Probably not, so how about they raise your TP per hit to 250? I mean seriously people....do you want new battle content, or do you want them to spend all of their resources making this game so easy that its boring?

[Mookies75]

Which enfeeble spam is way out of hand? On the NMs I've fought on THF or BLU, its really a matter of my WHM getting rid of the ailment in a timely manner. Its part of the game. Yeah being slowed sucks. Being paralyzed sucks. Being poisoned and bio'd sucks. Having a great WHM that knows what he is doing fixes all of these things.

You're missing the point. The problem is that these potent debuffs have near 100% uptime. So even if they were to be removed, they would go right back up. That is essentially a flat nerf for all melee, some affected worse than others, and it is the MAIN issue melee are having right now besides getting one shot by TP spam.

You have mobs that spam stunga via spell or tp move, mobs that spam aoe stat down, aoe petrify, POTENT aoe paralyze (to the point where it takes 30 attempts to use a remedy), sleepgas, 100% uptime encumberance, 100% uptime amnesia, doomga, aoe curse, aoe status drains, etc, etc, etc. And on top of that, this is not a problem that is limited to high tier content. Even HTBF, or content that is solable for gearing purposes, suffers from the same poorly thought out difficulty increase techniques. Do you even play this game? You should know all of this if so. I feel like you're just trolling people here.

If you're going to sit there and say being slow3'd for the duration of a fight doesn't matter, then you might as well go into the fight naked. And again, I want to make sure this is very clear, the problem is the near immediate re-application of said debuffs and the near 100% uptime they have.

And this is not just a problem in group play. People who choose to, or are forced to, Solo, are heavily affected by these poor design choices. And at a point of this games life where soloing is being more and more encouraged, something needs to be done to address the fact that these negative status effects are way too harsh for EVERYONE. I'm not saying make the game easier, I'm saying stop making it unfair and cheesy.

[Zeldar]

You are being overly dramatic. Yes, some mobs can be spammy. Its the equivalent of them having an aura. Mobs in the game have doom , paralyze, and slow auras. Some have perma-spikes that cannot be removed, which have added effects of paralyze, stun, hp drain, even death. YOU are not getting the point of the game obviously: these effects were put there to add a level of difficulty ! They aren't making DDs unplayable, they are making them interesting. OK, so I get the point that this mechanic does make some groups choose a ranged approach over an up close and personal approach. A. strategy is part of the game, and B. an unwillingness to overcome obstacles is the fault of the group of players in question, not the game mechanics. If you love WAR and your group doesn't allow you to play it, find another group that suits your playstyle. Find a WHM with a Yagrush ( yes, its a difficult to obtain END GAME weapon, but arent we talking about END GAME content?).

[Zeldar]

I guess maybe I don't get it. Maybe thats because I play with a group of players that are good at what they do and enjoy a degree of difficulty. As most of them will bluntly say, and what I've been holding off saying is: if you are having this many problems, your solution is GET GOOD.

[OmnysValefor]

Working around these things is a part of a melee's job, just as working around removing them from you is a WHMs job. Avoiding them is a mages job. There are mechanics on mobs that make mages useless as well?

That used to be acceptable thinking when mages didn't have infinite MP. In 75 era, no matter how far a BLM outgeared the content, mp was still an issue. It no longer is between /convert, Myrkr, 3 tiers of aspir, BLM AF Body or the Meebles version that some people use, various sources of refresh, frequently temps, plentiful refresh on gear (Remember when your refresh set was ... vermy cloak?)

If the boss isn't harshly resistant to magic damage, there is no reason to favor melee over mages. Frequently, not always, magic bursting kills the boss faster, especially if it's something that is dead before the sch runs out of strats. If you incorporate the tank into closing skillchains when they can, this is very easy to achieve.


I guess maybe I don't get it. Maybe thats because I play with a group of players that are good at what they do and enjoy a degree of difficulty. As most of them will bluntly say, and what I've been holding off saying is: if you are having this many problems, your solution is GET GOOD.

I play with a group of people that are good at what they do and enjoy clearing difficult content. We don't bring suboptimal solutions because it's just inferior. Killing faster / more intelligently / safer is just smarter. I enjoy playing PLD but I'll get on another job if it better accommodates the group.

I loathe this line of thought that if people do it differently than you, they're somehow "not good".

[Shyles]

I guess maybe I don't get it. Maybe thats because I play with a group of players that are good at what they do and enjoy a degree of difficulty. As most of them will bluntly say, and what I've been holding off saying is: if you are having this many problems, your solution is GET GOOD.

The problem, Zeldar, is that what you're suggesting about going to find a Yagrush WHM is impractical in the current metagame. On this topic, Selindrile is right, and the majority of people follow the path of least resistance. To explain, let's imagine any one of the powerful endgame NMs with cornucopias of Status effects and heavy AoE damage. Yes, an excellent WHM/SCH with Yagrush that is on-point with status removals is almost a necessity if using melee jobs in the alliance. But they're not needed at all for Mage Burns. So why would one bother hunting down an exceptionally capable white mage that can keep melees alive, when they can get any random white mage, or even a whm trust, to heal for a mage-only alliance?

And please don't assume everyone here is lobbying to make the game easier. We're not. The people you are calling whiny and dramatic are pointing out major imbalances. I like challenges as much as you do, but I don't like it when there are glaring imbalances that outright discourage participation of entire job types. You were mocking people's complaints about accuracy... If a melee player has low accuracy, they miss and deal 0 damage. They also gain no TP so they can't skillchain. Magic damage always hits. It's why Scholars can skill chain so consistently on the hardest bosses. So if someone wanted to kill Schah, why would anyone bother with melee jobs when they can just go with the safe, consistent mage job?

Lastly, Monster TP gains are indeed very imbalanced in the current metagame. Magic spells feed a flat 10 TP per spell, but Melee hits Feed TP based on weapon delay. With how fast we're hitting now, subtle blow makes very little difference anymore. We feed TP to the NM very very fast while mages feed next to nothing. It literally makes taking a melee a liability for the alliance, because it will make the fight harder and more dangerous for everyone. So again, why would you take a melee to Schah?

Fixing these things won't necessarily make the game easier. It will balance the playing field. It might let people feel better about bringing their Dark Knight friend to a tough fight. It makes the game more enjoyable for more than a select few. So please don't patronize people and tell them to "Get Good". I think they're really good at their jobs, but are frustrated that their jobs aren't competitive in the current metagame. It's unfortunate that you don't understand that.

[Rooj]

I play with a group of people that are good at what they do and enjoy clearing difficult content.

How can you call if difficult content if only 1 player in your entire group is ever getting hit by anything including AOEs? lol

[detlef]

How can you call if difficult content if only 1 player in your entire group is ever getting hit by anything including AOEs? lolSo content is only difficult if you have a lot of people in range?

[OmnysValefor]

I guess content is only hard if you make it hard.

For some people jobs are fun, for others success is fun. Fun for me is contributing the best I can to success.

[Castanica]

FFXI has always been the same, if you want to play the job you like... you either are going to make your own groups, have gear from the gods of Olympus or know people that will invite you.

Everyone else plays the jobs that gets them the ability to do content.

Heck, most every mmorpg is the same. On many games I play tank or healer because a those jobs get instant group invites, melee jobs = 30-60 min waits.

[Selindrile]

How can you call if difficult content if only 1 player in your entire group is ever getting hit by anything including AOEs? lol

Whether content is "difficult" or not generally is decided by the percentage of the population can complete it, at the end of the day, not by the method they use. A small percentage of players can clear Reisenjimma Helm or Kirin/WoC with any job selection, much less melee, therefore it would be considered "difficult", an even smaller percentage can clear master trials, therefore it's considered difficult.

[Rooj]

Just saying, it seems silly to call it difficult while you're cheesing it at the same time, lol.

[Selindrile]

Well I'm just saying, that it's illogical to consider it silly, difficulty in MMO terms is purely a function of the percentage of players that can complete it, by whatever means.

[Rooj]

That's only true in a game that's balanced, and according to you all, it isn't. Soooo....

[Selindrile]

Why on Earth would that only be true in a balanced game?

[Rooj]

If the game is so imbalanced that you're only bringing 25% or less of the total jobs in the game to clear content, how do the other 75% of the jobs clear the content then? You are practically saying it's impossible to clear content with melee. That means the content is imbalanced, not difficult lol. When you are CHOOSING (yes, you are making a choice) to ONLY play jobs where you get to stand out of range of anything the NM does, you are choosing a cheesy no skill strategy. And hey, that's fine, but don't pretend it's difficult. If every player in the game wanted to ruin the experience for themselves and only bring PLD WHM GEO GEO BLM SCH to every NM in the game, I'm sure the kill rate of this "difficult" content would be exceedingly higher.

Difficulty requires you to actually have to pay attention to what is going on around you, both the monsters and other players, and to actually deal with the mechanics at hand, not hide from them completely.

[Urmom]

The problem, Zeldar, is that what you're suggesting about going to find a Yagrush WHM is impractical in the current metagame. On this topic, Selindrile is right, and the majority of people follow the path of least resistance. To explain, let's imagine any one of the powerful endgame NMs with cornucopias of Status effects and heavy AoE damage. Yes, an excellent WHM/SCH with Yagrush that is on-point with status removals is almost a necessity if using melee jobs in the alliance. But they're not needed at all for Mage Burns. So why would one bother hunting down an exceptionally capable white mage that can keep melees alive, when they can get any random white mage, or even a whm trust, to heal for a mage-only alliance?

1 small addendums. On a lot of the stuff an extra idris geo can serve a similar function of keeping people in range from being too debilitated in a more proactive manner.... but it also faces similar difficulties of finding said person and well adding another person into being in range.

[Urmom]

If the game is so imbalanced that you're only bringing 25% or less of the total jobs in the game to clear content, how do the other 75% of the jobs clear the content then? You are practically saying it's impossible to clear content with melee. That means the content is imbalanced, not difficult lol. When you are CHOOSING (yes, you are making a choice) to ONLY play jobs where you get to stand out of range of anything the NM does, you are choosing a cheesy no skill strategy. And hey, that's fine, but don't pretend it's difficult. If every player in the game wanted to ruin the experience for themselves and only bring PLD WHM GEO GEO BLM SCH to every NM in the game, I'm sure the kill rate of this "difficult" content would be exceedingly higher.

Difficulty requires you to actually have to pay attention to what is going on around you, both the monsters and other players, and to actually deal with the mechanics at hand, not hide from them completely.Um I get the feeling you haven't fought much of the highest ilvl stuff. Because some of those things are difficult even with the right jobs to "cheese" thru it as you say. And there is definitely a bit of skill a lot of them you still have to pay attention and sometimes a single mistake can still wipe you. You still have to deal with their mechanics. Still gotta keep tank(s) alive. Deal with adds. Keep the geo stuff up. Time your skillchains. Sometimes remove tp constantly and still make sure you deal dmg fast enough etc. Just because you don't keep everyone in range doesn't mean everything is easy if that were true everyone and their mom would have aeonics.

And it's not like meleeing always automatically means people are paying more attention. First delve kills? Yeah super buff and have a sch stun lock so much skill for the people not on sch. Early VD fights with huge AoE like avatars? Yeah a lot of people switched from rng strat to melee with things like EA/scherzo because it was way faster and took way less skill and less room for things like hate resets to cause a wipe

[Zeldar]

How can you call if difficult content if only 1 player in your entire group is ever getting hit by anything including AOEs? lol

Mt group utilizes SAM, WAR, GEOs that are actually geared and smart enough to survive within range of the mob to give these DDs indi buffs, THF, and BLU. Are you saying these 5 aren't getting hit? When we bring everyone in the LS that wants to come to an event, sometimes these close range jobs are all they have leveled. Some have these just just so well geared and mastered that it wouldn't make sense for them to bring another ( because they GOT GOOD.) They don't complain about status ailments....our WHMs actually remove them quickly. As for the accuracy compared to magic accuracy comment, mages need magic accuracy on gear just like DDs need accuracy on gear. Gearing is the fix, not nerfing. Do you see BLMs complaining about content with obstacles that THEY have to overcome? Rotating magic weakness, magic shields, the fact that we can't aspir undead, complete immunity to magic ... these are all issues mages deal with. Some of these issues leave mages out of the fight. They aren't crying.

[OmnysValefor]

More likely Zeldar, he was talking to me.

Oh I forget the plethora of NMs that are just so mean to mages.

Oh gee, there's the caturae, and hydras, there's uh Selkit and the blue mage. I'm sure there are others, but that's off the top of my head. The caturae are equally mean to nearly everything that doesn't have requiescat.

That's the thing: Fights can shut down melee with enfeebles/aoe spam, but the only way SE knows how to affect mages is to mess with how much damage their spells do. There are a few ways to could mess with mages, but I'm not here to try to make things more annoying.

BTW, my GEO runs around pdt/mdt-capped, which is easier for mine because I don't have an idris and thus can freely use Mafic Cudgel. All the GEOs I know and play with have dt kits. It's not like this is a hard thing and signifies any level of skill.


mages need magic accuracy on gear just like DDs need accuracy on gear.

While of course true, skillchaining grants a bonus to magic accuracy and scholars don't need any magic accuracy* to perform their skillchains.

I took a SCH friend out, we killed him twice, making him double weak and flooring his magic accuracy and then we tested his ability to perform skillchains: unaffected.

Properly geared mages, when they're in danger of taking damage, idle in -DT kits until the few seconds they need to be casting. This is completely different from melee who need the accuracy to get TP so that they can WS. Mages need their accuracy for a few seconds, DDs always need their accuracy.

Paint it any way you like it, the balance is severely tilted towards mages.

[Zeldar]

"Properly geared mages, when they're in danger of taking damage, idle in -DT kits until the few seconds they need to be casting. This is completely different from melee who need the accuracy to get TP so that they can WS. Mages need their accuracy for a few seconds, DDs always need their accuracy."

Excellent point.

[Selindrile]

If the game is so imbalanced that you're only bringing 25% or less of the total jobs in the game to clear content, how do the other 75% of the jobs clear the content then? You are practically saying it's impossible to clear content with melee. That means the content is imbalanced, not difficult lol. When you are CHOOSING (yes, you are making a choice) to ONLY play jobs where you get to stand out of range of anything the NM does, you are choosing a cheesy no skill strategy. And hey, that's fine, but don't pretend it's difficult. If every player in the game wanted to ruin the experience for themselves and only bring PLD WHM GEO GEO BLM SCH to every NM in the game, I'm sure the kill rate of this "difficult" content would be exceedingly higher.

Difficulty requires you to actually have to pay attention to what is going on around you, both the monsters and other players, and to actually deal with the mechanics at hand, not hide from them completely.

Most of this is not true at all, yes this content is difficult, and yes this content is imbalanced, it is both of these things. The TYPES of difficulty you're trying to differentiate in this case are known as Artificial Difficulty and Designed Difficulty in terms of game design. There is a lot of artificial difficulty in this event, but it is difficulty, nonetheless, refer to: http://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/hard-mode-good-difficulty-versus-bad-difficulty--gamedev-3596

[Railer]

Any chance that enhancing magic can get longer duration? When on runefencer I have so much more preparation to tank then paladin by the time I cycle through all my buffs.

Half of them are almost ready to be reapplied. During the fight I really don't have time to reapply half of them.

[Castanica]

Can we get some level 100+ mobs in Aht Urgan areas? It's a real pain having to kill level 80 mobs for Imperial standing, I know about besieged but I never seem to be able to catch one.

[OmnysValefor]

Any chance that enhancing magic can get longer duration? When on runefencer I have so much more preparation to tank then paladin by the time I cycle through all my buffs.

Half of them are almost ready to be reapplied. During the fight I really don't have time to reapply half of them.

Between RUN's 100/1200, Erilaz Head +1 and Futhark Trousers +1 there's quite a bit of enhancing duration (55%). How much more do you want?

[OmnysValefor]

Can we get some level 100+ mobs in Aht Urgan areas? It's a real pain having to kill level 80 mobs for Imperial standing, I know about besieged but I never seem to be able to catch one.

Could be fun, but wanted to say you can trade vouchers for ISP too. Just a reminder.

[Ataraxia]

Greetings,

While briefly mentioned during the AMA the other day, and also outlined in the August version update announcement, we’ll be making several adjustments to make it easier for melee to function in battle.


Adjustments to defense from VIT
We’ll be increasing the amount of defense players gain depending on their VIT.


Adjustments to monster evasion
We’ll be lowering the evasion values for high-level monsters. The higher the monster’s level, the more we will be reducing their evasion.


Adjustments to damage from AoE abilities
When a monster utilizes a magic-based AoE ability, we will be reducing the damage incurred by players other than the main target. As this is tied to overall battle balancing, we’ll first be implementing this adjustment for the monsters that appear in Legion and Ambuscade, and we’d like everyone to try it out and let us know your feedback.




hello Camate and Akihiko Matsui I have notice that not many people talk about the Doh Gate apex crab. I know you have no plans to allow people to transfer their hard earn job points to others job that can't get job points fast like the black mage, scholar, geo, and rdm. So will this new adjustment allow people to invite DD party set up for Apex monsters in Doh Gate?

I have killed apex monster for a long time now with a party set up like sch,geo, pld, bst, blmx2 that can kill apex crab every 15 to 30 seconds using magic burst earning 30,000 to 60,000 chain capacity points per enemy. Now my concern is how is a DD job going to compete with that kind of power from magic burst? I don't know how you gonna balance this between DD and Mages because it seems like a difficult task to please people without getting hate.

[Jakuk]

Between RUN's 100/1200, Erilaz Head +1 and Futhark Trousers +1 there's quite a bit of enhancing duration (55%). How much more do you want?

They probably want Composure style duration, personally it's pointless not like you can keep buffs up for any extended amount of time anyway.

[Eaglestrike]

hello Camate and Akihiko Matsui I have notice that not many people talk about the Doh Gate apex crab. I know you have no plans to allow people to transfer their hard earn job points to others job that can't get job points fast like the black mage, scholar, geo, and rdm. So will this new adjustment allow people to invite DD party set up for Apex monsters in Doh Gate?

I have killed apex monster for a long time now with a party set up like sch,geo, pld, bst, blmx2 that can kill apex crab every 15 to 30 seconds using magic burst earning 30,000 to 60,000 chain capacity points per enemy. Now my concern is how is a DD job going to compete with that kind of power from magic burst? I don't know how you gonna balance this between DD and Mages because it seems like a difficult task to please people without getting hate.

I JP'd my RUN to 2100 against Apex bats in a melee style group. The only thing stopping a melee style party from working is the community.

Protip: You should still skillchain even if there isn't anyone to magic burst. WS's almost always mirror damage and multi-steps start to get added multipliers on it. So you can close a 4-step and get 2-3x the WS in damage.

But don't try to do a melee style party on crabs, they don't take melee damage well, do bats (barwater to resist attack down) or raptors in Moh Gates.

[Zeldar]

Crawlers are also very forgiving for a DD. I have been in apex parties as BLU with many other DD types to SC for the blms with the same result as a bst or sch solo skillchaining for my blm. I have had a SMN as a burst buddy, I have had a DRG solo skillchaining for me to burst off of. Jobs not being welcomed into an apex party is not the fault of the system at all... any DD pair can make light or darkness quickly with decent buffs. The fault lies in the community. People always have and always will have their favorite set-ups and their prejudices against certain jobs. It doesn't mean that job is ineffective: it means people are unaccepting of it. I'll CP party with anyone, I really don't care. I'll leave if we die a few times. I'll leave if we can't kill the mob in a reasonable amount of time. I will not leave because there is a certain job in my party.

[Rydal]

Meleers can do fine in crabs/Jagils. You have to multi-step your SC. GEO, COR and RDM makes a melee focused Apex group shine. Bubbles, Rolls, Leaden Salute and Inundation can make Light/Darkness kill the mob in 1 or 2 WS rounds. The groups I mastered RDM with had COR BLU PLD GEO RDM SCH or COR COR PLD GEO RDM RDM. The SCH or second RDM didn't do anything half the time because Darkness reached 99999 and killed the mob. I've done duo crab/jagil with DRG and GEO. DRG self SC and GEO helped damage a little with MB, but DRG was doing most of the damage, self-3-step Light or Darkness.

[OmnysValefor]

They probably want Composure style duration, personally it's pointless not like you can keep buffs up for any extended amount of time anyway.

"not like you can keep buffs up for any extended amount of time", huh? You might be sarcastic or have meant the reverse.

Depends on macros / jp progression: Cast phalanx once every 3-4 minutes. Cast crusade once every 5-8. Aquaveil rarely needs recast, and Foil is meant to be repeatedly cast (and is delicious enmity so that's awesome). Temper has great duration as well, as do barspells if you're using your own (vs a healer's).

As a PLD main (but also liking RUN 2k/2100 atm), I'd love some buff duration gear. The "hardest" part about run is juggling runes after you've used Rayke or Gambit.

[Jakuk]

"not like you can keep buffs up for any extended amount of time", huh? You might be sarcastic or have meant the reverse.

Depends on macros / jp progression: Cast phalanx once every 3-4 minutes. Cast crusade once every 5-8. Aquaveil rarely needs recast, and Foil is meant to be repeatedly cast (and is delicious enmity so that's awesome). Temper has great duration as well, as do barspells if you're using your own (vs a healer's).

As a PLD main (but also liking RUN 2k/2100 atm), I'd love some buff duration gear. The "hardest" part about run is juggling runes after you've used Rayke or Gambit.

Or referring to the frequency of Dispel moves mobs have.

[OmnysValefor]

Or referring to the frequency of Dispel moves mobs have.

Oh, alright. I really just thought you made a typo. Thanks for clearing that up!

[Eaglestrike]

Meleers can do fine in crabs/Jagils. You have to multi-step your SC. GEO, COR and RDM makes a melee focused Apex group shine. Bubbles, Rolls, Leaden Salute and Inundation can make Light/Darkness kill the mob in 1 or 2 WS rounds. The groups I mastered RDM with had COR BLU PLD GEO RDM SCH or COR COR PLD GEO RDM RDM. The SCH or second RDM didn't do anything half the time because Darkness reached 99999 and killed the mob. I've done duo crab/jagil with DRG and GEO. DRG self SC and GEO helped damage a little with MB, but DRG was doing most of the damage, self-3-step Light or Darkness.

If you're doing a fully melee-focused Apex party then crabs are a terrible mob to choose. They are PLD mobs with defense boosting TP moves. They were historically the exp mob of choice because they were also the least dangerous mob types. In Apex danger isn't really an issue (as most Apex groups skip a WHM) so there is no good reason to go to Apex crabs in a melee group. Go to another mob type and you will get better CP.

[Ataraxia]

I JP'd my RUN to 2100 against Apex bats in a melee style group. The only thing stopping a melee style party from working is the community.

Protip: You should still skillchain even if there isn't anyone to magic burst. WS's almost always mirror damage and multi-steps start to get added multipliers on it. So you can close a 4-step and get 2-3x the WS in damage.

But don't try to do a melee style party on crabs, they don't take melee damage well, do bats (barwater to resist attack down) or raptors in Moh Gates.


So Apex Bats is the way to go with melee set up. How long does it take your group to kill a apex bat with melee set up? 30 second per enemy or 1 minute? is it possible to chain capacity points up to 100+? I remember moh gate bat offer melee friendly chain capacity points but they aren't apex mob but it use to be popular way back than.

If apex monster are being adjusted along with content level NM as mention by Camate in august update than it could be good to experience point in Doh Gate with a melee party instead of a magic burst set up or maybe only content level NM are being adjusted not Apex monsters. Otherwise, spending time solo with trust in Reisenjima for job points might be better at this moment.

[OmnysValefor]

I prefer crabs, mana burns, but crawlers are my favorite melee target but I honestly prefer a trust rdm (koru moru is great) because they never miss a dispel which is highly useful getting rid of the cocoon. Humans get bored/tired/distracted/react slower.

The same could be said for meleeing crabs but yeah they do have higher defense, a defense move, and a Shell move if you do have someone bursting.

[Railer]

Between RUN's 100/1200, Erilaz Head +1 and Futhark Trousers +1 there's quite a bit of enhancing duration (55%). How much more do you want?

Well have you seen the duration of some blu magic spells? They last almost 14 minutes or more I would be fine with something along the lines of that.

[Rydal]

I'm just saying I've been in melee focused parties that have done fine with crabs. Usually a RDM or trust dispels the defense boost or the party is focused on SC damage (stacking Darkness with Leaden Salute will overkill the mob anyway). Have done bats before as well but I remember people with lower JP having acc issues because they are more evasive.

[Shyles]

Well have you seen the duration of some blu magic spells? They last almost 14 minutes or more I would be fine with something along the lines of that.

Which spells are you referring to? I'll admit that I haven't payed much attention to blue spell durations, but most of the regularly used blue spells I've seen (Like Erratic Flutter, Mighty Guard, etc..) are usually around 5 mins. I haven't seen any notable blue spells that lasted 14 mins. I've heard of Scholars can get their Regen durations up that high, and of course Red Mages with composure, but that's when they're in healing/support roles. So my assumption was that high buff durations were meant to be a unique design trait for support jobs. I don't think longer spell durations will benefit tanks much in the end, since they're the most likely to be targeted with dispels anyway.

To be honest, the spell duration complaint for Rune Fencer is new to me. I'm definitely not an authority on the job, but I have played with many Rune Fencers both in Pick-up-Groups and in my LSes. I haven't ever seen them struggle to manage the buffs while tanking nor have I seen them complain about durations. So I'm a little skeptical of how widespread this concern really is.

Also on the topic of Apex parties (Not sure why that topic is in this thread), Moh Gates is excellent for Melee jobs. It is good for both soloing and Melee burns. We already have a thread open about Apex tips and discussion though (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/51049-Apex-CP-Guide). It's a better thread for Apex since Apex mobs don't have much to do with job balancing.

[Rooj]

and of course Red Mages with composure, but that's when they're in healing/support roles.

Just wanted to throw out there that RDM's role has nothing to do with their enhancing magic duration, and it is completely based around a gearswap. ^^ And Composure which stays on :D

[Shyles]

Just wanted to throw out there that RDM's role has nothing to do with their enhancing magic duration, and it is completely based around a gearswap. ^^ And Composure which stays on :D

I probably didn't choose my words well enough, but I don't think you read my post in the right context. I wasn't saying that there was some kind of support "stance" for red mage if that's what you were thinking. I meant it in that Scholar and Red Mage are both primarily support jobs. So with regards to class design and balancing, it makes sense to me that the developers may have decided that the support jobs should be the jobs with the best access to longer buff durations through gear and job abilities. They probably want DD and Tanks to remain dependent on those jobs to a certain degree, rather than giving them similar access to duration increasing equipment.

With that said, Rune Fencers already have several ways to increase enhancing durations in their AF gear. So that's why I don't personally agree that Rune Fencers really need longer spell durations. It hasn't really been a problem for the RUN tanks that I've seen.


EDIT: I looked at the list of Blue spells on BG-wiki (though it doesn't look complete), to see if I could find anything backing up Railer's comment about 14 min blu spells, and I couldn't find anything. All of the enhancing spells listed cap at 5 mins, not counting unbridled learning. With 5/5 merits into diffusion, you can get another 25%, and if you use diffusion while wearing the relic boots, you get another 25%. So unless there is some other factor I don't know about, it's a maximum 7.5 mins for enhancing blue spells, and it requires an ability with a 10 minute recast. It's hardly overpowered. Rune Fencers are in a muuuch better place in comparison. Scholars and Red mages can definitely get much higher durations on certain spells. But if I'm right about the job archetypes, then they're supposed to.

[Angrykitty]

Any plans on removing the bugs for Yoran-Oran (UC) where he doesn't use his weaponskill to replinish his own MP? I also noticed he has an unreasonable latency when removing debuffs and casting cures on the main tank. Is this intended for him to play like a handicapped Tarutaru? Would it be possible for us to animate a safety helmet on him as well so when he runs around not spamming cures he can at least be protected from falls?

[OmnysValefor]

I probably didn't choose my words well enough, but I don't think you read my post in the right context. I wasn't saying that there was some kind of support "stance" for red mage if that's what you were thinking. I meant it in that Scholar and Red Mage are both primarily support jobs. So with regards to class design and balancing, it makes sense to me that the developers may have decided that the support jobs should be the jobs with the best access to longer buff durations through gear and job abilities. They probably want DD and Tanks to remain dependent on those jobs to a certain degree, rather than giving them similar access to duration increasing equipment.

With that said, Rune Fencers already have several ways to increase enhancing durations in their AF gear. So that's why I don't personally agree that Rune Fencers really need longer spell durations. It hasn't really been a problem for the RUN tanks that I've seen.

@the part I bolded.

I agree with this. Tanking is generally pretty easy. Occasional participation in skillchains and buff upkeep is about all there is to do besides maintaining hate which doesn't change a whole lot in complexity regardless of your gear.

Towards the blue mage comment someone else made.. Carch Verve's aquaveil is the major long-duration buff (but requires use of Unbridled Learning, a 5m CD). Nature's meditation (attack boost) lasts 1:30, Haste lasts 5 minutes. Other spells like stoneskins and blinks don't really matter (not that they last extraordinarily long). Not saying BLU needs buffs, but I wouldn't complain at some buff duration options for it, lol^^.

[Angrykitty]

Planning to improve the ambuscade entry system? It's still like shoving cats through a key hole.

[Zeldar]

I did ambuscade enough this month to get 30k total hallmarks , mostly during peak NA times, and didn't run into a problem even once. The longest I've waited is maybe a minute.

[Railer]

Lets see to prepare to tank on runefence tank I have to cast nin shadows, spike spell, stoneskin, aquaveil , put 3 runes(which takes 12 seconds), barspell, crusade , phalanx, temper, refresh, Regen and maybe protect/shell. Then some one dc's or forgets tribs ect...

The reason I want spell duration increase is becasuse in the middle of the fight there simply isn't time between foil and flash casting shadows and various other run abilities. Some of these spells are covered by other support jobs but hp scaling often leaves these jobs out from participating.

I'm not saying that only Run should get enhancing duration buff, just enhancing in general.

[OmnysValefor]

Lets see to prepare to tank on runefence tank I have to cast nin shadows, spike spell, stoneskin, aquaveil , put 3 runes(which takes 12 seconds), barspell, crusade , phalanx, temper, refresh, Regen and maybe protect/shell. Then some one dc's or forgets tribs ect...

Figured I'd go ahead and bold he ones that you generally need to cast, most the time, and nin shadows if you're /nin. WHM's and SCH's (esp SCH) regen is more potent and likewise for WHM's barspells. Refresh it during fight, maybe if the whm can't. I can refresh myself during the fight if noone else is. You basically just listed off every buff RUN has as buffs RUN needs to cast.

I can cast Temper early in the fight after first enmity unload. It has some volatile enmity on it (the kind that decays over time) so it's probably better than whiffing.

There are very few fights that open hard and need pre-emptive stoneskin for.

I like rune > crusade > rune > phalanx > rune > aquaveil.

Oh and foil.

If you're talking about apex, you hardly need to preload all those spells. Stagger them throughout the fights.

[Afania]

Figured I'd go ahead and bold he ones that you generally need to cast, most the time, and nin shadows if you're /nin. WHM's and SCH's (esp SCH) regen is more potent and likewise for WHM's barspells. Refresh it during fight, maybe if the whm can't. I can refresh myself during the fight if noone else is. You basically just listed off every buff RUN has as buffs RUN needs to cast.

I can cast Temper early in the fight after first enmity unload. It has some volatile enmity on it (the kind that decays over time) so it's probably better than whiffing.

There are very few fights that open hard and need pre-emptive stoneskin for.

I like rune > crusade > rune > phalanx > rune > aquaveil.

Oh and foil.

If you're talking about apex, you hardly need to preload all those spells. Stagger them throughout the fights.

Tbh I'd rate SS a spell that needs to be cast constantly on RUN. It's like HP buffer that can buff RUN's HP to 3k in escha even without +HP gears(or 3.5k with good +HP gears), and gives extra room to take hits from high dmg TP moves. SS is cheap and it doesn't take a lot of time to cast on RUN, I don't see a reason not to cast it.

Spikes may have a use, I found shock spikes stuns some adds in escha so it make them hit less if they're stunned every hit.

[Railer]

Figured I'd go ahead and bold he ones that you generally need to cast, most the time, and nin shadows if you're /nin. WHM's and SCH's (esp SCH) regen is more potent and likewise for WHM's barspells. Refresh it during fight, maybe if the whm can't. I can refresh myself during the fight if noone else is. You basically just listed off every buff RUN has as buffs RUN needs to cast.

I can cast Temper early in the fight after first enmity unload. It has some volatile enmity on it (the kind that decays over time) so it's probably better than whiffing.

There are very few fights that open hard and need pre-emptive stoneskin for.

I like rune > crusade > rune > phalanx > rune > aquaveil.

Oh and foil.

If you're talking about apex, you hardly need to preload all those spells. Stagger them throughout the fights.
My Run is complete 2100 jps full equipment sets and so on. The fights I have to preload all these spells are the current end game nms the ls does(esha t1-t4 and helms).Honestly all that buffing is lame when all a pld has to do is cast 1-3 spells and its good to go.

[Diavolo]

My Run is complete 2100 jps full equipment sets and so on. The fights I have to preload all these spells are the current end game nms the ls does(esha t1-t4 and helms).Honestly all that buffing is lame when all a pld has to do is cast 1-3 spells and its good to go.

I view it as a fair trade off, PLD makes it easier/simpler to play the role of tank, but it loses out on the substantial offensive benefits RUN brings to the table for tougher end game content using mage-heavy setups.

[Zeldar]

PLD has its fair share of self buffing to do. You included pro/shell in run buffs so its only fair to include them in PLD, phalanx,crusade,enlight and reprisal.

[OmnysValefor]

Tbh I'd rate SS a spell that needs to be cast constantly on RUN. It's like HP buffer that can buff RUN's HP to 3k in escha even without +HP gears(or 3.5k with good +HP gears), and gives extra room to take hits from high dmg TP moves. SS is cheap and it doesn't take a lot of time to cast on RUN, I don't see a reason not to cast it.

Spikes may have a use, I found shock spikes stuns some adds in escha so it make them hit less if they're stunned every hit.

Not disagreeing, and if it's a fight you know well, you might even know the ideal time to cast stonekin, but there are very few fights that open hard and need stoneskin at the start.

On top of that, stoneskin has a long duration anyway and is consumed quickly, it probably doesn't need to be recast even if someone did forget a trib.

Spikes are hit or miss. They're not reliable at all but it is nice when they do proc.

[Selindrile]

Regardless, I fail to see the harm in general in enhancing the duration on all buffing magic that has a recast lower than it's duration. I get not changing Reprisal, or Dread Spikes, or any Unbridled Spell's duration, afterall, these are meant to be duration limited buffs.

But any other spell you find yourself recasting all the time: Crusade, Foil, Phalanx, Temper, Refresh, Barspells, Cocoon, Nature's Meditation, Spikes, Barspells, Boost-Stat, Auspice, Regen, Aquaveil, I see no harm whatsoever in increasing the duration on.

Yes, technically it makes you more efficient as you can melee/whatever during the time you would've been reapplying, but I highly doubt it would seriously imbalance anything, and it would be one heck of a lot less annoying as a quality of life issue. I'm all for it.

I do agree though, there's not much point to increasing the duration on Shadows or Stoneskin, unless you up the stoneskin amount, which, would be nice but not necessary.

[Mookies75]

Suggestion: Give MNK/SAM/NIN a job trait that has a chance on hit to inhibit mob TP gain. It would also need to stop innate regain when it procs.

It would help with TP move spam via a mechanic you can adjust as needed, and it would give people a reason to take said jobs to content. Other than MNK, I think SAM and NIN just need a tiny bump to become viable in the current BLU everything meta.

[Zeldar]

Suggestion: Give MNK/SAM/NIN a job trait that has a chance on hit to inhibit mob TP gain. It would also need to stop innate regain when it procs.

It would help with TP move spam via a mechanic you can adjust as needed, and it would give people a reason to take said jobs to content. Other than MNK, I think SAM and NIN just need a tiny bump to become viable in the current BLU everything meta.

Not so sure this would work. THF can inhibit TP gain, as can NIN. THF can even steal some TP, though not quickly. These jobs aren't shouted for in content.

[Atomic_Skull]

THF - Change JP category to be 1s off SA and TA instead of the DEX and AGI bonus, respectively.


I approve but it will never happen because it would make THF too competitive with DNC and DNC is to THF what RUN is to RDM i.e. in SE's mind DNC is what we always wanted THF to be.




COR - At least A- Marksmanship...please?

RNG is so broken and useless now that it can't be saved anyway so sure, why not? Might as well put that final nail in the coffin and just grey it out.