Immanence Balance Discussion

[Shyles]

What are some of your thoughts on balancing Immanence?

Immanence has been a topic of discussion for a a while now since it is a job ability that has all but replaced the need for melee/ranged physical damage in today's metagame. It really deserves it's own thread. Scholars are the go-to skillchainers now, which is just bizarre to me. From what I have seen, most people seem to agree on this. But what is a viable solution? I wanted to open this up for discussion to see if we can find some fair ways to de-emphasize Immanence, and re-emphasize Melee as the prime skillchainers in end-game battles.

First, as much as I would love for Immanence to die in a fire, I don't think it would be fair to Scholars to completely remove it, since it can be useful for soloing, but I think I have another idea.. What if the damage bonus for Magic bursts are recalculated?

Currently, the damage bonus on Magic Bursts is 100% based on how many steps are used when performing a skillchain!!

Neither the skillchain's damage nor the level of it's skillchain property have any bearing on the Magic Burst damage at all. Only the number of steps in the skillchain matter. And it's extremely front-loaded too.

A 2-step skillchain gives a flat 160% bonus to magic burst damage, and each additional step performed adds another 10% bonus. As long as the skillchain lands, then the corresponding spell hits 160% harder, and magic damage never misses! This means that a Scholar using Immanence can guarantee to land a 2-step level 1 skillchain for 300 damage, and a well-geared Black Mage can still burst it for full damage. The Scholar doesn't even need much gear. A Scholar can still make skillchains even with no gear equipped and floored magic accuracy. In this case, MAB and magic accuracy isn't as important as Stratagem recharge.


What if the MB Damage Bonus was instead awarded based on Skillchain Damage rather than skillchain steps?


What would the pros and cons of this be? Given that immanence skillchain damage can't compete with geared melee players, I think it would probably make the current Immanence strategies ineffective in endgame content without directly changing Immanence. The ability should still situationally useful for low-man content and for soloing. It may also encourage people to start using melee again for skillchain purposes in SC>MB strategies since double light/dark or radiance/umbra skillchains should theoretically create the best magic bursts. Scholars could be used in support roles without completely replacing melees. They can do so many other things other than just skillchaining.

Now since this is my idea, I obviously think it's perfect, so I can't criticize it myself. So please let me know what your thoughts are. What are viable solutions to bridging the gap between Melee skillchainers and Immanence in end-game content?

[Zeldar]

I see no issue at all with 1 mage class having the ability to skillchain. This is not the "fix" that was needed: the ABILITY for melees to be effective is. This is an issue they are obviously working on resolving. They have shown us that it is a priority for them, and have asked for our feedback and patience as they address the issue. SCH being used to skillchain is fullfilling a need in endgame content until we can get the melee issue fixed. Please don't encourage them to take this away from us.

[Zeldar]

Also, once melees are able to participate again due to the accuracy and AoE damage changes, immanence will no longer be the preferred SC method, just a bonus or backup plan. There is no need at all to nerf it. Theres only the need to boost the survivability of our poor DDs. Once this is done, DD skillchains will again be the preferred method.

[OmnysValefor]

I want to say I'm genuinely hoping that the changes to how magic damage against secondary targets is calculated (against players) will be a boon to melee oriented strategies. The problem is that they're trialing this in entirely irrelevant content. My WHM alt has no problem at all sustaining MP through VD ambuscade, noone ever dies except me if the tank isn't fast to grab the adds. I heal through it and have plentiful mp to d2 the entire party and rebuff at book.

Legion isn't the content to test this in. Next fight will be new so we don't even have experience to compare it to really.

If the changes, when they impact relevant content, are good, we might see more melee oriented strategies but they're still going to have to accept that enfeeble spam really is a problem.

Before someone comes in and says that that's the trade-off with melee: the problem is that there no trade-off for mages, aside from fights meant to be resistant to magic damage. Someone makes a skillchain and mages dominate. Done, finito, over. Consider a balanced party against Dazzling Delores (I know, she's nothin). Her mechanics (don't do damage from a distance, it makes enmity go nuts) are meant to nerf mages but mages take less damage from her aoes than the melee they're standing next to). Same with any fight you need to stack up on.

If SE accepts this and starts making changes, Immanence is fine. Although I would make it so nukes for natural 0 (not because of stoneskin) count as a miss.

[Zeldar]

I believe they are using ambuscade as a testing ground because its what is closest to a "control" that they have. Other content varies way too much from mob to mob to properly test anything. Ambuscade is the same for an entire month. By using ambuscade as a testing ground, they get content that nearly everyone does, with many different setups, using almost every job. It would be hard to test in Escha NMs because they differ so greatly and, lets face it, people are very reluctant to use DDs there until this is fixed.

[Zeldar]

As a side note, I really love the "reflect" mechanic. I wish they would use it more often. It would be a crux for mages like enfeebles are for DDs.

[OmnysValefor]

I believe they are using ambuscade as a testing ground because its what is closest to a "control" that they have. Other content varies way too much from mob to mob to properly test anything. Ambuscade is the same for an entire month. By using ambuscade as a testing ground, they get content that nearly everyone does, with many different setups, using almost every job. It would be hard to test in Escha NMs because they differ so greatly and, lets face it, people are very reluctant to use DDs there until this is fixed.

@Bold, but there's no "control-sample" if they don't know how players (not devs, players--devs appear to perform wildly different in this game than players) are handling the fight without the changes. Further, the fights are over in frequently less than 3 minutes. There's not much to learn here.

And the players will have no input because they've never done the fight before. Something a little more relevant would be much nicer.


As a side note, I really love the "reflect" mechanic. I wish they would use it more often. It would be a crux for mages like enfeebles are for DDs.

I wouldn't want to see it used everywhere, but I agree it would be nice to see again, whether the reflect was passed back to the casters (lol no more thundaja), or on to the tank.

PVP is a bit cumbersome in this game but I wanna put my aegis head to head against my scholar friend. Just never get around to it. If he wins, then I'll have some things to say about Immanence! (lol)

[Zeldar]

Dude, I want reflect again partly so I can mess with my friends by nuking them, lol. It'll be like old time Lamia besieged when we got to nuke the charmed !!!!

I get what you are saying with Ambuscade being the wrong avenue for testing because yeah, it IS pretty easy. Maybe intense ambuscade on VD would give some good measurements, but who does that???? Maybe after the initial testing they will expand the mechanics to better content.

[detlef]

Dude, I want reflect again partly so I can mess with my friends by nuking them, lol. It'll be like old time Lamia besieged when we got to nuke the charmed !!!!Those people who nuked charmed people are flailing wyrms in Domain Invasion now.

[Zeldar]

Lol, not me... that would screw up my own rewards bc it wouldnt die as fast if everyone else was dead.

[Selindrile]

I see no issue at all with 1 mage class having the ability to skillchain. This is not the "fix" that was needed: the ABILITY for melees to be effective is. This is an issue they are obviously working on resolving. They have shown us that it is a priority for them, and have asked for our feedback and patience as they address the issue. SCH being used to skillchain is fullfilling a need in endgame content until we can get the melee issue fixed. Please don't encourage them to take this away from us.

I find it very odd to be on the same side of this issue with you, considering you've been arguing against the melee changes this entire time, lol. But yeah, they've obviously realized the issues melees have endgame and are working on it, let them do it, it will take some time, but in the meantime this change would prevent a lot of endgame content from getting completed at all in the short term.

A proposed "melee fix" could be to allow damage past certain threshholds to get a bigger bonus to burst damage, but, directly harming how much Sch gives now, would derail a lot of content's only realistic way to be completed at the moment.

[Zeldar]

Lol Selindrile. I've been arguing against certain melee requests, but have always maintained that its the inability of melees to survive up close that needs to be addressed. On some other issues, I think you managed to change my mind a bit. On others, I'm just a stubborn old man really.

[Shyles]

Thanks for the feedback everyone! :D

(Edit: Sorry for writing so much. I get carried away sometimes ><)

I kind of look at the melee/magic balance issue as something that won't be solved all at once. It will take time, and several adjustments. I think direct buffs impacting melees and AoE adjustments (like in the august update) will certainly help, but I have a feeling it won't change much on it's own. Unless Immanence is adjusted, Scholars will still be the safer and more consistent option for skillchains. On the other hand, if SE were to shut down Immanence today (hypothetical.. don't panic), then players would struggle, at least for a time. Given how metagaming works though, I think players would find other working strategies in reasonable time. Who knows. It's speculation and brainstorming, which is what this discussion is all about.

So it will probably require adjustments to both melee and magic users to find a more balanced job participation in end-game. I don't think the fact that players are relying on Immanence right now to "fulfill a need" is a good excuse not to at least talk about adjustments to it. When a strategy can render 15 other jobs impractical to use by exploiting a single job's ability even with modest gear requirements, then it has to be looked at.

Even if the upcoming melee adjustments are spectacular, do you really think Scholars wouldn't still dominate? Let's imagine melees could survive the hardest bosses. They would still take more damage than mages so healers will still work harder for melees than for a Scholar who can stand out of range. Let's imagine the monster AGI change is major and hit rate is greatly improved. We can still miss. Also paralyze, stuns, or amnesia could ruin skillchains at critical moments. Spells always land, so scholars are still more consistent. Even now, melee can skillchain for the hardest bosses if they have excellent gear swaps, an excellent healer and enough buffs. Though even with the upcoming update, Scholars would still be the least cost path. Would it be appropriate to talk about Immanence strategies then?

Lastly I just want to clarify something. I'm not suggesting that they should "take away" Immanence. I just wanted to open it up for discussion. I think Immanence is a interesting gimmick, but we can't ignore the ripple effect it's having particularly on physical DD. It's the same as if Rune Fencer's Lunge was so superior at magic bursting that it would actually be impractical to use mages. Skillchains are meant for Physical DD and Magic Bursts are meant for Mages. My suggestion wouldn't change Immanence at all, but rather change MB bonus to be calculated based on SC Damage rather than the # of steps. The goal would be to make Scholar SCs more gear dependent and make it so physical DD can actually compete with it in end-game. Well-geared Scholars would likely be fine with skillchaining as well as filling other roles. Don't you think that would be a fair adjustment to the status quo?

[Zeldar]

You are leaving out one critical point in your arguement: once they fix the melee issue, melee's will do much more damage at a much faster rate than sch. Yes yes, some mobs literally are "burst it with 4 deaths and its gone," but that isn't the majority of them. A well geared WAR or SAM will still outdamage the sch by a large amount, killing the mob much faster. DDs are more than just skillchain mules for the mages.

[Shyles]

I hope you're right. I am a little skeptical though. Even though I'm really looking forward to the update, I have a feeling that the VIT and AGI changes won't be that dramatic. People don't like wasting pop items, so they will use the easiest way to win. If Scholars still provide the safest path to victory, then their lower damage output would be a reasonable sacrifice.

We will find out soon, but I will remain cautiously optimistic.

[Zeldar]

"We will find out soon, but I will remain cautiously optimistic."

Probably the best approach when dealing with changes in the game, lol.

[Ketaru]

If enemy evasion has been reduced such that melee can hit high tier mobs without as much difficulty, I would think the real follow-up question would be, "So wouldn't that make RNGs, CORs, and maybe SAM/RNGs the preferred skillchainers now? They can pull off the damage and still be at a range."

EDIT: On top of that, RNG and COR have three magic WSs between them that never miss.

[OmnysValefor]

You are leaving out one critical point in your arguement: once they fix the melee issue, melee's will do much more damage at a much faster rate than sch. Yes yes, some mobs literally are "burst it with 4 deaths and its gone," but that isn't the majority of them. A well geared WAR or SAM will still outdamage the sch by a large amount, killing the mob much faster. DDs are more than just skillchain mules for the mages.

But that's how it should be. To some extent, the tradeoff should be safety vs speed of kill.

Although in a 6(or 7) man setup of melee, melee, tank, healer, geo, blm(maybe another blm), you run into the question of who you'll buff. An Immanence-oriented group still sidesteps that problem.

Also something occurred to me. The perfect content to test changes to AoE damage against players would have been avatar HTBFs. Because right now, if you don't bring scherzo/ward, you don't bring melee lol. (Edit: RUN might be great if your group can kill fast, but then you run into enmity problems in HTBF and one of thosee melee will be tanking)

[Shyles]

If enemy evasion has been reduced such that melee can hit high tier mobs without as much difficulty, I would think the real follow-up question would be, "So wouldn't that make RNGs, CORs, and maybe SAM/RNGs the preferred skillchainers now? They can pull off the damage and still be at a range."

EDIT: On top of that, RNG and COR have three magic WSs between them that never miss.

I have been thinking about that since yesterday too. The more I think about it, I have been thinking about the issue from the prism of a melee player. Spicyryan estimated around ~ 300 less evasion on Maju, and a Summoner could almost cap hit rate with their avatar's 1586 acc. So Acc cap may be around 1600~1650. That is definitely something a Ranger could reach, but might still be a stretch for several melee jobs excluding maybe mythic dancers and blue mages. They would need exceptionally good accuracy augments and a lot of help from acc buffs and eva down. Maybe even a relic or mythic as well.

The lower level content is faring much better for people. They're saying it takes about ~100 less accuracy to cap on lvl 130 Apex mobs now, which will make a lot of people happy. It's still going to be the biggest deciding factor on what jobs are viable for T3 fights though.


But that's how it should be. To some extent, the tradeoff should be safety vs speed of kill.

Although in a 6(or 7) man setup of melee, melee, tank, healer, geo, blm(maybe another blm), you run into the question of who you'll buff. An Immanence-oriented group still sidesteps that problem.

Very good point as well. A mixed alliance would probably work, but it would mean taking more people and increasing the level scaling. The melees alone would likely need multiple supports. If a group wanted to use melee for Maju while keeping the group size low, They could bring one extra Idris GEO for Torpor and Precision for about 190 effective accuracy assuming capped potency. However, the melees would still need at least about 1310~1360 unbuffed accuracy to cap. That's still pretty demanding without superb augments, not even mentioning the other offensive stats they might have to sacrifice. Realistically though, it would probably mean mixed parties would need at least 2 support jobs buffing the melees, in addition to what they are using for the mages. A full melee party would probably work better than mixed assuming they have sufficient support, though it might make the healer murder a Stark. Mage burn parties still have the clear advantage from almost every angle.

So Immanence still seems to be the overwhelmingly easier and more practical route. It doesn't require additional mixed support, it has far less demanding gear requirements, it works at a safe range, and it doesn't miss.

[Mookies75]

If enemy evasion has been reduced such that melee can hit high tier mobs without as much difficulty, I would think the real follow-up question would be, "So wouldn't that make RNGs, CORs, and maybe SAM/RNGs the preferred skillchainers now? They can pull off the damage and still be at a range."

EDIT: On top of that, RNG and COR have three magic WSs between them that never miss.

Perhaps.

I think fixing ACC was a good start but the underlying issue is Enfeeble / TP spam. Maybe they could give MNK, NIN, SAM a trait that gives them a chance on hit to inhibit TP gain. It would give people a reason to bring said Jobs as well as improve survivability for melee. If they don't want to mess with how often enfeebles can hit, perhaps they need to buff diminishing returns on players?

People may still opt to bring SCH for SC on fights where the enfeebles/TP moves are too much for melee.

[Olor]

SCH skillchains are way more of a balance issue than BST pets ever were - so I think they should be given equal treatment.

It's just not reasonable and balanced for a mage job to take over the one and only thing melees have going for them.

[Urthdigger]

Maybe they could give MNK, NIN, SAM a trait that gives them a chance on hit to inhibit TP gain.

Perhaps make penance's duration match chi blast's recast at 5/5 merits? Granted, that only helps when you bring a MNK.

[Zeldar]

SCH skillchains are way more of a balance issue than BST pets ever were - so I think they should be given equal treatment.

It's just not reasonable and balanced for a mage job to take over the one and only thing melees have going for them.

WHAT????? Do you forget what we call most melee's? DAMAGE DEALERS. Skillchains are a very important part of being a DD, but not the only part. Besides, does your SCH make double light? Well, our DDs do. We used DDs last night in escha. Admittedly they had issues hitting the belladona in ru'aun, but so did our top rangers. Other than that, they did very well.

[Shyles]

SCH skillchains are way more of a balance issue than BST pets ever were - so I think they should be given equal treatment.

It's just not reasonable and balanced for a mage job to take over the one and only thing melees have going for them.

Since the time MBs got buffed, I think that as long as skillchain damage has no impact on MB damage, Immanence will continue to be abused. It makes no sense to me that the MB bonus is tied to the # of skillchain steps and not SC damage or levels. It makes it so that all that matters for an MB is for the skillchainer to be accurate. So we're comparing safe skillchainers to risky skillchainers... Unless you like unnecessary challenges, you would be crazy not to use Scholars for hard fights right now..

Change MB bonus calculations to be based on Skillchain Damage instead of # of steps, and that gimmick is fixed. Scholars can keep Immanence for smaller endeavors but it absolutely should not replace physical DD for SCing in hard events. I would gladly accept riskier NM strategies if it involved melee jobs actually being considered for them.

[Zeldar]

But there IS a HUGE advantage to a 3 step skillchain. A. my bursts ARE greater for a higher level sc, and B. I can burst 3-4 times off of a 3-step. c. the SC damage and the damage leading up to it are much greater than a SCH sc could ever be. You guys are just hating on SCH for absolutely no reason at all. Whats next, complaining that a RNG or COR can SC without getting close?

[Olor]

WHAT????? Do you forget what we call most melee's? DAMAGE DEALERS. Skillchains are a very important part of being a DD, but not the only part.

DAMAGE DEALERS? LOL. Compared to magic bursts they might as well be kittens scratching the mob.

Skillchains are the melee part of the equation - magic bursts are the mage's part. Now that skillchaining and magic bursting is pretty much required for all hard content it is unfair for mages to be able to do both parts, especially as it stands now where SCH is MORE effective since they don't have to worry about TP or accuracy or standing in range. That's just not balanced.

I get it. You like Immanence cause you benefit from it.

But Immanence is 1000 times more unbalanced than BST distance strats ever were.

It is not fair and right for SCH to replace WAR DRK DRG THF DNC NIN MNK as skillchainers.

Just cause something has worked a certain way for a long time doesn't mean it is balanced for today's game. As it stands - Immanence is not.

I don't agree about just changing MB damage to scale off of damage from SC because that would make a lot of monsters a LOT harder, but I don't think melee will ever have a real place in content again as long as the Immanence easy button is available.

[Zeldar]

I just don't get what kind of horrible DDs you guys play with. I really don't. Maybe I should server swap to Asura to see it first hand. DDs can't be as bad there as you guys say. Oh I know: the good ones are out there doing, not in here complaining. And before you say "oh, its not that they are bad, its that they arent needed" or some bullcrap like that, if having a sch do your skillchains works out better for your group on most of these mobs, your DDs suck. They suck bad.

[Olor]

DD needs to have enough accuracy to hit and a good enough DT set not to die
a SCH needs to have stratagems

It's not a very equal playing field. DDs have a very high gear requirement to not suck.

I am sure there are lots of people with great DDs on Asura, but in terms of the average pickup, no one is going to intentionally choose to make their run harder.

[Zeldar]

Awe, you mean a game designed around acquiring gear and character growth is requiring you to acquire gear and grow your character? Its a rediculous as the "I want to solo all the time in a multi-player game" arguement. Perhaps some people should really evaluate whether or not they are playing the right game.

[Jile]

Awe, you mean a game designed around acquiring gear and character growth is requiring you to acquire gear and grow your character? Its a rediculous as the "I want to solo all the time in a multi-player game" arguement. Perhaps some people should really evaluate whether or not they are playing the right game.

Sure would be nice if we didn't push the remaining playerbase, regardless of how they play, away. Regardless of how solo-preference players play is irrelevant to the issue that some aspects of the game are far far weighted toward certain jobs.... If the BST nerf was needed, many more nerf's are needed as well...

[Zeldar]

Sure would be nice if we didn't push the remaining playerbase, regardless of how they play, away. Regardless of how solo-preference players play is irrelevant to the issue that some aspects of the game are far far weighted toward certain jobs.... If the BST nerf was needed, many more nerf's are needed as well...

Sure would be nice if they changed the core of the game to meet your gaming style? I guess it sure would be nice if football wasn't so hard-hitting so even a 95 pound girl could play linebacker with the big buys. I guess it sure would be nice if your 5 of your friends could control the rest of your party in every final fantasy game too. Yeah, this is the same line of thought as all those pansy parents that think every kid should get a trophy just for showing up. All games have core systems that are meant to be followed.This games core system is that of an MMORPG. They have deviated from that enough for solo play.

[Ketaru]

Perhaps.

I think fixing ACC was a good start but the underlying issue is Enfeeble / TP spam. Maybe they could give MNK, NIN, SAM a trait that gives them a chance on hit to inhibit TP gain. It would give people a reason to bring said Jobs as well as improve survivability for melee. If they don't want to mess with how often enfeebles can hit, perhaps they need to buff diminishing returns on players?

That would be all well and good for MNK, NIN, or SAM. But at what would point would enemies be so nerfed that the difference in playstyles between ranged jobs and melee jobs completely lose all meaning? Thinking about a job like RNG- which, in my opinion has been punished more than enough for its brief moment as a bandwagon job back in the early 2000s- shouldn't the fact they can safely deal damage at a range count for something in deciding jobs to bring?

[kylani]

Sure would be nice if we didn't push the remaining playerbase, regardless of how they play, away. Regardless of how solo-preference players play is irrelevant to the issue that some aspects of the game are far far weighted toward certain jobs.... If the BST nerf was needed, many more nerf's are needed as well...

I hated the bst nerf, though the main thing I hated was how SE broke the commands more than the changed distance itself. I am fine meleeing with my pet. I actually like meleeing. It's fighting beside my pet and the commands not working that drives me crazy.

That said, I really hate comments that say 'because my job was nerfed, other jobs should be'. I don't know anything about immanence except what I've read, so I'm not weighing in on whether it's unbalanced or not, but no job should be nerfed because another job was. Jobs should be adjusted for general balance. If other jobs can be buffed to balance things, I'd prefer a buff over a nerf. That said, I understand sometimes some adjustment is needed because you can't buff everyone.

At this stage of the game, I mainly hope SE finds a way to balance so that everyone can enjoy the game on the job they love. Nothing makes me sadder than folks having to play a job they hate, to get gear for the job they really want to play. I loved my old static groups. Somehow I lucked out into finding folks who enjoyed playing together and figuring out how to make it work with jobs folks wanted to play. Those days/victories will always be sweetest to me because it was about teamwork and friendship and enjoying figuring out how to beat the content with what you had, not about the expedient way to get something. It felt more like an adventure, and gear was just a nice side benefit.

[Shyles]

I agree with alot of what Kylani said. Everyone likes buffs, but sometimes things do need to be nerfed. That isn't to say that nerfing/removing/adjusting Immanence is going to fix everything, but it will certainly even the playing field quite a bit. I think at the end of the day, the Immanence gimmick would have to be eliminated as a viable strategy for end-game if other strategies are going to be more widely explored. It's far safer, it needs less support, and it's far less gear intensive than melee options.

The question that I wanted to pose to people in this thread was, How? What are some options? I offered that MB bonus could be recalculated to be based on SC damage rather than the # of steps. An MB from a 2-step Darkness should hit harder than a 2-step Scission for example. I think that would help tremendously since I think it would encourage players to use melees for SCs instead of a Scholar, but maybe it wouldn't! What are some other options that we could discuss?

Should Immanence or MBs not be adjusted, but rather make Physical DD equally as safe and accurate with similar offensive gear requirements?

Should Immanence be removed entirely?

Should Scholars get a BST-like nerf, and have to stand in melee range when skillchaining with Immanence? (Ex: Makes it possible for your next elemental magic spell to be used in a skillchain, but range is reduced)

Should Immanence spells have an unquantified hit-rate penalty like Desperate Flourish?

These are all just random examples that popped into my head, and some probably would have bad consequences. Let's talk about potential solutions and consequences.

As it stands, we have a situation where players have to pick between using a safe job and unsafe jobs, and the choice is pretty easy. If there are safe and unsafe jobs, that's just a sign of bad balancing. There shouldn't be any safe jobs, which is why BST's "Ready" range was reduced. There should be a certain balanced amount of risk to every job, regardless of role. That's why I think an Immanence nerf is more necessary and critical right now than buffing physical DDs.

[Olor]

I think that immanence should have a chance of missing and require wearing an accuracy set with as much accuracy as melee DDs need to wear in order to actually hit. Just make it like BLU spells - they can miss. I think making it a lot harder to land would take away the main advantage it has over melee DDs.

[Shyles]

I think that immanence should have a chance of missing and require wearing an accuracy set with as much accuracy as melee DDs need to wear in order to actually hit. Just make it like BLU spells - they can miss. I think making it a lot harder to land would take away the main advantage it has over melee DDs.

I could get behind something like that! So specifically with blue magic spells, it's the physical damage spells that are subject to accuracy/evasion, right? So what if spells under the effect of Immanence were counted as physical damage?

[Zeldar]

Actually magic spells are subject to magic accuracy and magic evasion as well. Its not uncommon to nuke a set of mobs and see 1 or 2 out of 10 take half the damage. I could get behind immanence having a small chance of missing if the SCH isn't geared well, but since it is basically magic damage, it would make sense for it to be based on magic accuracy.

[OmnysValefor]

The only time magic accuracy comes into play really is the fact that a double weak sch (thus floored magic acc, all spells hittin for 0) will still land both Immanence.

In practice, that's not really a concern, because if your sch is double-weak, it's probably a wipe and they're probably struggling for stratagems anyway.

But yeah, you can have an awful-geared sch mule popping Immanences for you.

[Olor]

I could get behind something like that! So specifically with blue magic spells, it's the physical damage spells that are subject to accuracy/evasion, right? So what if spells under the effect of Immanence were counted as physical damage?

Exactly. BLU physical magic needs accuracy to land and unlike magical magic it can miss entirely. If they made immanence the same it would make SCH less than 100% reliable - making other SC openers more competitive.

I don't think it would solve it entirely but it would help lessen the advantage SCH has over physical DDs in Skillchaining without changing the damage equation of magic bursts entirely and thus making everything way more difficult.

[Rooj]

It doesn't matter if Immanence can miss. The people who only bring mages to content are still going to only bring mages to content, who cares if it takes a few more minutes to beat a boss, when they are under the impression content can never be cleared with melee.

[OmnysValefor]

It doesn't matter if Immanence can miss. The people who only bring mages to content are still going to only bring mages to content, who cares if it takes a few more minutes to beat a boss, when they are under the impression content can never be cleared with melee.

Nobody thinks that, maybe the the exception of t4 stuff.

The difference in maintenance is just a canyon wide. That's all.

But the changes to evasion and aoes and the like, and the change to defense, might start changing this drastic imbalance.

Edit: The critical disparity presently is that melee need a lot of upkeep across tiers of content which mages generally do not. If you have melee, you need a healer to watch them and you probably need a geo to protect them (and/or perhaps a bard--scherzo or summoner).

Mages also all generally love the same buffs as the guy providing them.

[Zeldar]

It doesn't matter if Immanence can miss. The people who only bring mages to content are still going to only bring mages to content, who cares if it takes a few more minutes to beat a boss, when they are under the impression content can never be cleared with melee.

Not true at all. As the game changes, strategies change. People bring whatever works best in most cases. Otherwise, people would still be bringing SAM to everything and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

[Rooj]

Samurai Fantasy XI.

[Shyles]

It doesn't matter if Immanence can miss. The people who only bring mages to content are still going to only bring mages to content, who cares if it takes a few more minutes to beat a boss, when they are under the impression content can never be cleared with melee.

The main reason why I think it does matter is because of Stratagems. I believe a 550 JP Scholar has a 33 second Stratagem recharge rate, which is quite fast considering they can hold 5 of them. Even then though, they still have to be careful when managing their stratagems.

Hooooowever, in regards to Olor's suggestion of making Immanence change spells to physical magic (making it subject to accuracy instead of magic accuracy), then those stratagems become even more precious. Every time a spell misses, they would waste a stratagem, and potentially drop a skillchain. Thus, the outcome would be that Scholar skillchainers would face the exact same accuracy challenges as any other skillchainer, which would make them less exclusively attractive. Another aspect is that I don't believe Scholars have comparably abundant access to physical accuracy in their gear, so it would give physical jobs the advantage for skillchain duty in the really hard fights. Scholars would probably need even more accuracy buffs to cap.

Now I was trying to imagine the potential outcomes of this, and it seems to me that if by any means Immanence was nerfed directly, such as with Olor's suggestion, then Rangers would simply take over Scholars as preferred skillchainers since they can use powerful 100% accurate Magic WSes from a safe distance. So melee players would still probably be out of a job. Still, even as a melee player, I think that would be a faaaaar more acceptable scenario, given that Rangers at least need to build TP, and therefore still need to overcome accuracy barriers to skillchain.

That's why I instead suggested changing the way Magic Burst bonuses were calculated to be based on SC damage rather than the # of steps. Perhaps even a modifier based on the SC tier (Ex: a 2-step darkness would provide a better MB modifier than a 2-step Scission).

If recalculated correctly, then the Magic Burst bonus should still be good if the Skillchain hits hard enough. The direct benefit would be that both melee and ranged jobs would have an advantage over Immanence, and players would be forced to solve the accuracy problem without side-stepping it entirely. For example, A party would get much more damage from Magic Bursting a 5~10k Darkness made by a physical job rather than a Scholar making 0~300 dmg Scission.

EDIT: I also wanted to add that if Immanence is de-emphasized and Physical DD are desired again, then they are going to need more than just Geomancers to reach the hit cap on the 1600+ ACC fights. So that would mean a demand for bards, red mages, cors, etc!! Two birds with one stone!

[Olor]

I really like the practical approach you're bringing to this Shyles. I think BRD would still need the potency of their ACC etc songs to be increased to be worth taking for the most part, but you're right that a new meta would probably help a lot of jobs that are struggling now.

[Ketaru]

EDIT: I also wanted to add that if Immanence is de-emphasized and Physical DD are desired again, then they are going to need more than just Geomancers to reach the hit cap on the 1600+ ACC fights. So that would mean a demand for bards, red mages, cors, etc!! Two birds with one stone!

Would it? We're at a point in the game where alliance fights are almost never practical and it is impossible to rotate in buffing/enfeebling jobs to perform their singular roles. The more support jobs you tack on, where does that leave room for tanks, melee, and healers?


Now I was trying to imagine the potential outcomes of this, and it seems to me that if by any means Immanence was nerfed directly, such as with Olor's suggestion, then Rangers would simply take over Scholars as preferred skillchainers since they can use powerful 100% accurate Magic WSes from a safe distance. So melee players would still probably be out of a job. Still, even as a melee player, I think that would be a faaaaar more acceptable scenario, given that Rangers at least need to build TP, and therefore still need to overcome accuracy barriers to skillchain.

I brought up ranged jobs as a consideration because I almost feel like all these calls to weaken mobs to the point of irrelevance misses the point. In another post, you said there should never be a "safe" distance to skillchain. I would counter with "but distance should never be irrelevant." As the job exists now, if you took away their biggest selling point, what would a job like RNG have left beyond the odd piercing-weak target like last month's Ambuscade?

If Immanence was ever nerfed and RNG indeed became the next desirable skillchainer, would you want to nerf RNG again?

[Shyles]

Would it? We're at a point in the game where alliance fights are almost never practical and it is impossible to rotate in buffing/enfeebling jobs to perform their singular roles. The more support jobs you tack on, where does that leave room for tanks, melee, and healers?

(thumbs up for good questions!) Melees in these hard fights would certainly create a demand for other support jobs, but I agree with your concern to a degree. Unless the melee already has about 1200~1250 unbuffed accuracy, melee or mixed party strategies in T3+ Reisenjima fights would almost certainly mean larger alliances, which means higher HP scaling. I think that is offset (albiet very slightly) by the addition of white damage and higher WS damage that physical DD provide.

When chatting with Byrth a while ago (who also mains DNC, but much better than me.. lol), he told me that he had tested a small-alliance melee strategy on T3+ fights, but basically as the only DD. The party was basically made up of a PLD, WHM, a Mythic DNC, and then as many support jobs necessary to hit cap, which was basically all of them... He was able to cap both hit and haste on Maju (pre-EVA nerf), but it took about 1400 accuracy plus a Geo, bard, red mage, corsair all providing as much ACC+ and EVA- as possible. In my LS, Llewelyn said he had to do the same thing to hit Maju as BLU. So it's possible, but admittedly nowhere near practical in the current meta. The gear requirements alone make Immanence+MB strategies much easier.


In another post, you said there should never be a "safe" distance to skillchain. I would counter with "but distance should never be irrelevant." As the job exists now, if you took away their biggest selling point, what would a job like RNG have left beyond the odd piercing-weak target like last month's Ambuscade?

As a minor correction, I said that there should be "no safe jobs". There are many ways a developer can add hazards to ranged classes without blurring the line between melee and ranged. IMO, highlighting a ranged job's mobility is far more interesting than highlighting their ability to stand at a safe range. But that is probably a topic for another discussion. The main point is that in the current metagame, the safety gap between melee and ranged is too massive, and SE needs to find ways to reduce that gap if there is going to be any semblance of balance in this game. It's a very valid concern though, and I think that there is really no easy answer since we don't truly know the extent of the software/hardware limitations the new team is dealing with right now. I have some pipe dream ideas, but they would likely involve an unreasonable amount of development :p.


If Immanence was ever nerfed and RNG indeed became the next desirable skillchainer, would you want to nerf RNG again?

I certainly wouldn't lobby for it. As I mentioned before, Rangers have to deal with same accuracy problems as the rest of us. It's far less gimmicky than Immanence. I think it would also benefit other jobs to some degree, with the first beneficiaries being support jobs. And given Ranger is a physical DD job, I think it might help the developers get a better picture of offensive hurdles facing all physical DD right now. That is just speculation, but if Immanence is ever nerfed, then we will almost certainly see a new metagame, and it would be interesting to see how players adjust to it.

[detlef]

As a minor correction, I said that there should be "no safe jobs". There are many ways a developer can add hazards to ranged classes without blurring the line between melee and ranged. IMO, highlighting a ranged job's mobility is far more interesting than highlighting their ability to stand at a safe range. But that is probably a topic for another discussion. The main point is that in the current metagame, the safety gap between melee and ranged is too massive, and SE needs to find ways to reduce that gap if there is going to be any semblance of balance in this game. It's a very valid concern though, and I think that there is really no easy answer since we don't truly know the extent of the software/hardware limitations the new team is dealing with right now. I have some pipe dream ideas, but they would likely involve an unreasonable amount of development :p.That's an interesting concept with ranged DD using mobility as advantage instead of safety. But since you interrupt when moving, I don't know how that'd work. Very interesting idea though.

[OmnysValefor]

I don't think XI's connection speed, or that of most games to be honest, can keep up with movement sensitive fights/jobs. That's probably why we don't get a lot of fights that have things you need to move out of.

When I played XIV 2.0 (at launch), there were many videos of people dying to "hot spots" that they were clearly out of but the server made a calculation and decided the player didn't make it out in time. I've played other movement-sensitive games where this wasn't a problem.

Point is, as was discussed (https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxi/comments/4ulgh1/official_ffxi_developer_ama_with_producer_akihiko/d5qower) in the AMA:


Byrth: FFXI was designed with dial-up modem internet speeds in mind. It sends UDP packets about twice a second and caps their size at ~1.25KB. Thus, the maximum bandwidth of the server-client connection is approximately 2.5KB/s. Game performance in demanding situations (like zoning or fighting multiple monsters) could be dramatically improved if you increased the frequency or size limit of these packets. Is it possible that you would consider doing either of these things?

FFXI_Devteam: [...]this would be difficult to address. It would require making changes to various aspects of the game engine itself, so it’s actually much more difficult than what one may assume.

[Eckamus]

Not sure if it was mentioned, but Immanence is basically just a ranged magic based weapon skill. As such with any magic based weapon skill it cannot miss, only be resisted to the extent that is does 0 damage. Regardless it would still Skillchain as any melee/ranged magic based weapon skills would, even if they do 0 damage. It is based on timers of a JA and not on TP gain to perform the actions required to make a skillchain. To an extent SAM, DNC and BLU have access to a similar abilities with Konzen-ittai, Wild Flourish and Chain Affinity. DNC having access to be able to perform this action even more often than SCH.

So should we nerf DNC ability to skillchain more often than a SCH can with similar mechanics?

Unless I'm mistaken, Immanence has already been nerfed once, making it so that shadows absorb the spell being cast. So personally i don't feel that a even further nerf needs to be done.

[OmnysValefor]

You are correct that no magic-ws's miss and of course correct that Immanence is based on stratagem charge's JA timer, but proper spacing of JAs or multiple scholars makes this a non issue.

I don't want a game where Immanenced spell from a reasonably geared SCH can "miss". Because it is based on timers, it should be able to hit reliably. That said, there's something wrong with magic accuracy having no relevance towards the ability. I don't want Immanence to have a hit-rate cap (like melee strikes do).

In hard content for a person's group (whatever that may be), there is no downside to Immanence. There's no downside to sidelining melee unless the boss specifically is strong against mages (or has lots of shadows, like you brought up). The GEO, BLMs, SCHs all love the same buffs and you can frequently only use offensive buffs with mage-oriented strategies because defensive buffs aren't needed. Even on fights with wide magic aoes, like say Meteor, it's typically not that hard to toss a curaga to the BLMs.

If it didn't have such a tremendous impact on the balance, I don't think many people would care.

On the other hand, the changes SE has been making look promising. Perhaps melee oriented strategies will become more appealing when the AoE changes affect relevant content. If they continue with these changes, perhaps no nerf is needed.

I don't want to see SCH nerfed because nerfs suck.

[Eckamus]

Basically what it seems like people are arguing is that Immanence created skillchains should be based off of the enfeebling magic scale, where spells are resistible. Which is not how it works, Immanence makes a skillchain based off of elemental magic spells, which even a level one character can land on any mob in the game, albeit for 0 damage in most cases. If they intended for Immanence based skillchains to be resistible i would think that there would have been spells incorporated that are resistible.

I am unsure of exactly when Immanence was made available to SCH, as whether it was a new JA recently or always available from when SCH could attain level 87. Either way it only became prevalent method for creating skillchains with the changes made leading up to and post magic burst update. So it appears that immanence was intended to work how it is, but i cannot speak for SE. It would nice if SE would speak on this matter and clarify.

[OmnysValefor]

I am unsure of exactly when Immanence was made available to SCH, as whether it was a new JA recently or always available from when SCH could attain level 87. Either way it only became prevalent method for creating skillchains with the changes made leading up to and post magic burst update. So it appears that immanence was intended to work how it is, but i cannot speak for SE. It would nice if SE would speak on this matter and clarify.

I *think* Immanence has been available ever since 87 has been available, though it doesn't matter.

I wasn't playing when Immanence became the norm but I suspect 550 JP Bonus also made it a lot more attractive.

I don't think it matters what SE intended. There are a lot of changes they've made to the game because players used something differently than SE intended (most famously Ninja tanking--so far that originally a single shadow absorbed an AoE's affect on a player) or came to rely too heavily on something (Embrava would be a good example) or waypoint-zombie'ing the first Fracture kills.

But again, I'm really glad they're taking the proactive approach of "let's fix what's broken" rather than "let's break what works", partly because the latter route helps noone.

[Eckamus]

To put melee and ranged, which has less of a gap to close, on par with a job that can skillchain by JA use only will take quite a bit of adjustment with how the game currently is. There are further adjustments to be made yet, but with the AoE and massively negative effects that can criple any melee. Mainly Amnesia, I don't really see things shifting any time soon. Only becoming more difficult and further separating the player base, if a further nerf to Immanence takes place before things are able to be properly balanced for melee. Properly balancing melee/ranged is the problem and not Immanence itself. That's why i don't see the point in nerfing Immanence, since it was there before and has only been used commonly as it is the most reliable source for skillchains in current endgame content. Not to mention SCH has seen its fair share of nerfs over the years.

With proper balancing, I see nothing wrong with the way Immanence currently works. Since balance would offer several ways to achieve the same goal. Then melee can beat on things and feel good about themselves for being strong and mages can still explode things, since explosions are cool.

[Jin_Uzuki]

Immanence getting a "magic accuracy" check seems a good compromise, however, ultimately I don't think it will change anything.

Plainly speaking, FFXI at this point is too big and has too many abilities to be "balanced". Even if SCH was nerfed a bit, they would still use it for the safety it offered (not to mention, the nerf wouldn't affect top-tier SCH anyway)

[Jakuk]

All a nerf would do is make more people play as BLU, the next OP job.

A nerf changes nothing, the others jobs need to be raised to be on par with the OP jobs, since OP in FFXI is just another way to say competent.