SMN is destroying battle content. Please consider adjusting it.

[Rawfury]

This has been a popular topic of discussion for roughly 5 months now. Many conversations or discussions on all sorts of forums regarding higher battles devolve to 'just use smns'. The playerbase largely thinks of it as a running joke. Now, common opinion does not make something true. Fortunately, we can easily quantify the requirements for a successful SMN burn as opposed to other jobs.

When setting up a SMN group, you simply need 3 SMN, a RUN, a GEO, and a COR. The SMNs need competitive gear to be sure, the other jobs do not. Given that 3 SMNs can output enough damage in 30 seconds to kill many high end targets(Warder of Courage, Kirin(Escha-Ru'aun), Albumen, Teles, Zerde, Vinipata, Erinys, Schah), and RUN's level 96 ability 'Odyllic Subterfuge' reduces the chance of the monster landing any status effects to the minimum value for 30 seconds, you have very little risk of failure. This setup is not only the fastest and easiest to create, but the fastest and most reliable in execution.

For most of these NMs, 6-man wins using any other strategy are nonexistant. The ones that have been done require a level of gear and coordination far exceeding what SMNs need to do so. Schah in particular is problematic, as the encounter seems to be designed around clearing a succession of 14 adds. SMN does so much damage that players can skip this entirely, reducing what should be a complex and challenging fight with many different damage and status effect sources to 3 macro presses each for a RUN, GEO, COR and spamming a single macro for 3 SMNs.

Furthermore, SMN burns are exclusionary, requiring you limit the number of non-SMNs to a bare minimum to keep the monster's hp low enough that it dies during the duration of special abilities. That's right, SMN does so much more damage in this case that no other job can even hope to replace them. In the event other jobs besides the bare essentials are brought, it's primarily as a 'leech', someone who is contributing nothing to the fight and only allowed to be present by virtue of the SMNs. Allowing one job to have all this power over the rest is ridiculous.

Traditionally, when a setup has dominated all others, an adjustment has been made to either bring other setups in line with it or reduce the dominance. Given new content is few and far between and Reisenjima NMs are a large part of current endgame, I believe reducing the dominance is the better path. Buffing every job to the same level would simply remove any challenge left in this game.

This has been brought up before, to no response. I'm sure if there is a reason it is being left as is, players would be glad to hear it. Many people I know have quit, feeling their jobs no longer have a place. Please consider the damage output when stacking the following abilities:
-Astral Flow
-Astral Conduit
-Indi-Torpor(Idris enhanced)
-Geo-Frailty(Idris enhanced)
-Drachen Roll
-Beast Roll
in combination with Volt Strike throughout the duration. SMN can reach numbers exceeding 700,000 damage in 30 seconds. Unless players are missing something, no other job is able to create half of that damage in that timeframe, even with twice as many support jobs enhancing their damage.

My suggestion is to reduce the attack/defense ratio cap for avatars by roughly 40% and reduce astral conduit to a maximum of 5 blood pacts. With this adjustment, SMN would still be capable of creating the highest spike damage of any job by using their ultimates. Understandably, SMN ultimates have a history of being used in this manner and it makes sense to continue it. However, allowing them to defeat the hardest fights in the game with no opposition from the monsters is ridiculous.

Thank you to anyone reading for your time, I understand this is a lengthy post for a short problem, but I wanted to be as thorough as possible in underlining the issues with it.

[Shiyo]

Yes.
Job is literally destroying any difficulty this game has. It's completely absurd it's been allowed to go on for SEVEN months.

[Gwydion]

Agree 100%.

I'm also bothered that this approach is allowed for SMNs but was recently taken away for Beastmasters (nerf from 20 yalms down to 7 yalms).

I sincerely hope this is unintentional and balance amongst jobs restored to reasonable levels.

[Selindrile]

Technically it was taken away from BLMs too, via the Geo nerfs, but I don't believe the answer is more nerfs, SMN isn't "destroying" battle content, it's the last non-frustrating way to do it, take that away too, and you're not going to just make me stop playing SMN, you're going to "destroy" battle content by just putting it altogether out of reach of a lot of players, or making it annoying enough that they simply won't do it anymore, if they nerfed SMN tomorrow, I simply wouldn't do any more aeonics until something else changed to make it easier.

I'd rather Bsts get their range back, Blms get their Macc back, and melees actually be able to resist debuffs like they could when Vex Attune actually did anything.

As to knowing people that have quit, for me, that came when each of these other things were nerfed.... all that nerfing SMN will do is make more people quit.

Rather than balance everything by making everyone equally miserable, how about let us all actually do the content?

[Shiyo]

Technically it was taken away from BLMs too, via the Geo nerfs, but I don't believe the answer is more nerfs, SMN isn't "destroying" battle content, it's the last non-frustrating way to do it, take that away too, and you're not going to just make me stop playing SMN, you're going to "destroy" battle content by just putting it altogether out of reach of a lot of players, or making it annoying enough that they simply won't do it anymore, if they nerfed SMN tomorrow, I simply wouldn't do any more aeonics until something else changed to make it easier.

I'd rather Bsts get their range back, Blms get their Macc back, and melees actually be able to resist debuffs like they could when Vex Attune actually did anything.

As to knowing people that have quit, for me, that came when each of these other things were nerfed.... all that nerfing SMN will do is make more people quit.

Rather than balance everything by making everyone equally miserable, how about let us all actually do the content? Game doesn't need to be made easier. The hardest bosses should actually be hard. Also power creep is bad, I'm absolutely sick of MMO's allergies to nerfs. Nerfs are good, you want MMO's to be hard.

[Hawklaser]

Game doesn't need to be made easier. The hardest bosses should actually be hard. Also power creep is bad, I'm absolutely sick of MMO's allergies to nerfs. Nerfs are good, you want MMO's to be hard.

No, you don't want them to be hard. You want them to be challenging, but also complete-able by a good portion of your playerbase. The problem with a lot of MMO's is they make the endgame so hard only like 5% of players can complete due to life restrictions. IE average player can't sit down for a week and put in the 70 some hours of prep when content first arrives in order to clear it, can take them months or more especially if it involves competing for a NM pop. Then 1 of 2 things happen, the content becomes super easy with gear from the content so people can be carried through it, or it gets nerfed down to trivial status.

The real trick to keeping MMO's successful is ensuring there is a meaningful goal people can keep working towards for a while, so they can build the social connections that help keep them around when in a lull between goals. Super Hard, and Super Easy doesn't do that, need the right balance so that those who can't play often can still feel like they are making progress.

[Shiyo]

I'd really, really, really REALLY appreciate a developer response. There is no way these developers care so little about their game they would let one single job, 1/22 of the jobs, completely trivalize and break their entire game in half.

[Selindrile]

Designing content that will only be completed by a small portion of your playerbase is a waste of dev time logically for the longevity of the MMO, powercreep is necessary to motivate your playerbase, and healthy, when managed appropriately, honestly this is one of the things FFXI has done better than most MMOs (Outside of adjusting Enmity to go along with it >.>).

Easier and harder are relative, a lot of difficulty in XI comes down to randomness, which I feel is unfortunate, does WoC decide to benediction multiple times? Does it decide to charm more times than you have items to mitigate it? Etc, this sort of roguelike rng difficulty may appeal to some, but definitely not to me.

Difficulty is also relative, what feels hard to you may not feel hard to someone else, the sweet spot is (as Hawklaser said) content that feels challenging, but also completable, by most of the players in the game, so only the extreme ends feel that it's too easy, or too hard.

[Nyarlko]

Designing content that will only be completed by a small portion of your playerbase is a waste of dev time logically for the longevity of the MMO, powercreep is necessary to motivate your playerbase, and healthy, when managed appropriately, honestly this is one of the things FFXI has done better than most MMOs (Outside of adjusting Enmity to go along with it >.>).

Easier and harder are relative, a lot of difficulty in XI comes down to randomness, which I feel is unfortunate, does WoC decide to benediction multiple times? Does it decide to charm more times than you have items to mitigate it? Etc, this sort of roguelike rng difficulty may appeal to some, but definitely not to me.

Difficulty is also relative, what feels hard to you may not feel hard to someone else, the sweet spot is (as Hawklaser said) content that feels challenging, but also completable, by most of the players in the game, so only the extreme ends feel that it's too easy, or too hard.

Master Trials ring a bell? Thankfully the backlash on those was so heavy that they've stopped adding more, but logic does not always apply to the dev team. ^^;;

[Shiyo]

Content being difficult for 21/22 jobs and something you can sleep walking doing on 1/22 is not how a game should function.

[Selindrile]

I wouldn't call it "a sleep walk", have had plenty of fails doing it with summoners, and seen plenty of other people fail doing it with summoners, that said, it is markedly easier with SMNs than other options, admittedly, but I think think making it more accessible to other jobs (AS IT ONCE WAS) is the better solution, not nerfing SMN.

[saevel]

Lulz as predicted, people make a well thought out post outlining exactly how SMN makes all content trivial, those abusing SMN come running to defend its honor "not muh SMN!".

SMN is very broke, nobody can possibly argue it's not. The reason it's broke is that a small group of SMN's can get together and through SP abuse blast any content into oblivion with a ludicrously high success rate. Attempting to adjust every fight in the game to accommodate OP SMN would be stupid and counter productive when the developers can just adjust one job out of over twenty and fix the entire situation.

No you shouldn't get to keep your "I Win" button. SE shouldn't hand out "I Win" buttons to all the other jobs. The only sane solution is to take away the "I Win" button that is being abused in the first place.

[Afania]

Easier and harder are relative, a lot of difficulty in XI comes down to randomness, which I feel is unfortunate, does WoC decide to benediction multiple times? Does it decide to charm more times than you have items to mitigate it? Etc, this sort of roguelike rng difficulty may appeal to some, but definitely not to me.


WoC isn't just RNG, much like NNI when it was just out, it's DPS check via RNG. DPS check is a common mechanic in MMO, and I have zero issue with it.




SMN isn't "destroying" battle content, it's the last non-frustrating way to do it, take that away too, and you're not going to just make me stop playing SMN, you're going to "destroy" battle content by just putting it altogether out of reach of a lot of players, or making it annoying enough that they simply won't do it anymore, if they nerfed SMN tomorrow, I simply wouldn't do any more aeonics until something else changed to make it easier.




Rather than balance everything by making everyone equally miserable, how about let us all actually do the content?

If T4 is the only content in game, then I'd agree with you. But at this time, there are plenty of content that's still relevant and lower ilv than T4:

Delve
Ambuscade
Omen
SR
Vagary
T1~T3

.......and more

If you want easy stuff, the game already offer a lot. But you can't just ask EVERYTHING to be easy and not leaving any hard content for those who wants to challenge themselves.

One of the most fun aspect of FFXI is your job performance is as high as you put your hour in. Put more effort in a job and it shows in terms of performance. If SE make EVERY content easy with SMN cheese, what's the point to work harder and gear the job better?

DPS checks? TP/WS gear min/maxing? Who cares. Just lv SMN and zerg.
DD needs Hybrid/MDT-/PDT-/status resist sets? Who cares, just lv SMN, pop odyllic, zerg before it wears.

What's the point to build yagrush, or cursna receive gears, or stoneskin set, or everything and everything if all we need to do is zerg zerg zerg.

Honestly, what fun is that? More than half of the gears and job has absolutely zero use with strategy like that.



Rather than balance everything by making everyone equally miserable, how about let us all actually do the content?

Yeah, playing the game and trying to figure out how to overcome the challenge to get win is miserable, getting virtual items via most boring, mindless and lowest requirement in skill/communication is not. I think you get the priority wrong. Challenge and fun is goal, item(aeonic) is just bonus.

[Shiyo]

I quit this game during Legion because post-abyssea was braindead Alexander invul(or fanatics/fools drinks in vw) everyone + embrava on everyone while DD's mashed their weapon skill button over and over. Literally zero thought, skill, or anything required. Mages/healers were completely and utterly useless and bored out of their minds.

AC summoner zergs are even worse than this. Please stop allowing your game de-evolve into a snoozefest of boredom and garbage. TAKE CARE OF YOUR GAME. RESPECT YOUR GAME. PLEASE REMOVE AC UNTIL YOU HAVE TIME TO READJUST IT.

TAKE CARE OF YOUR GAME. OVER 7 MONTHS OF THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. WAKE UP.

[Nyarlko]

I quit this game during Legion because post-abyssea was braindead Alexander invul(or fanatics/fools drinks in vw) everyone + embrava on everyone while DD's mashed their weapon skill button over and over. Literally zero thought, skill, or anything required. Mages/healers were completely and utterly useless and bored out of their minds.

AC summoner zergs are even worse than this. Please stop allowing your game de-evolve into a snoozefest of boredom and garbage. TAKE CARE OF YOUR GAME. RESPECT YOUR GAME. PLEASE REMOVE AC UNTIL YOU HAVE TIME TO READJUST IT.

TAKE CARE OF YOUR GAME. OVER 7 MONTHS OF THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. WAKE UP.

If it were impossible to complete the content w/o using SMN burns, I could understand your outrage, but that is not the case. It IS possible to defeat everything w/ the standard setups (accounting for fight specific mechanics.)

[Shiyo]

If it were impossible to complete the content w/o using SMN burns, I could understand your outrage, but that is not the case. It IS possible to defeat everything w/ the standard setups (accounting for fight specific mechanics.)

This is a MMORPG, players will always take the path of least resistance. I don't care if I can unequip half my gear or bring bad jobs or non-optimal comps to "pretend to have a challenge" - that isn't what MMORPGs are supposed to be. It's also ONE job, 1/22, LESS THAN FIVE PERCENT OF THE JOBS IN THE GAME, that can completely and utterly obliterate and destroy all difficulty in the game.

SE, all you need to do to fix this is to DISABLE astral conduit until you can redesign it to something different. It's the only reason SMN zergs work, without this, no one would smn zerg things. Please?

↓ Disable this ability
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Astral_Conduit ← Disable this ability
↑ Disable this ability

[Nyarlko]

This is a MMORPG, players will always take the path of least resistance. I don't care if I can unequip half my gear or bring bad jobs or non-optimal comps to "pretend to have a challenge" - that isn't what MMORPGs are supposed to be. It's also ONE job, 1/22, LESS THAN FIVE PERCENT OF THE JOBS IN THE GAME, that can completely and utterly obliterate and destroy all difficulty in the game.

This past weekend, I just ran some WoC/Kirin clears in a 12 player group, 5x SMN w/ Idris GEO and COR support, and the difference in damage output between those with "good gear" vs those with "good gear + Nirvana" vs those with "Master + BIS + Nirvana" was absolute night and day. The SMNs without Nirvana actually had similar BP damage output to similarly buffed melees WS (though well geared melees would actually outpace those SMNs quite quickly, even when taking AC into account.)

I've also done WoC/Kirin w/ melee burns, and sufficiently geared melee can kill nearly as fast as SMN burns, so I'm still trying to figure out what you are complaining about other than possible gear envy. ^^;; If you are upset about specific NMs being anti-melee, then list and complain about those.

[Shiyo]

It's almost like melee can die or get cced and summoners are max distance avoiding every single boss mechanic.


Do you honestly believe I have "gear evvy"? Wow.

Why don't you understand what "THIS KILLS THINGS IN 30-60 SECONDS BY MASHING ONE BUTTON AT A SAFE DISTANCE OUT OF ALL OF A BOSSES MECHANICS" and "You need to protect your melee and hope magic evasion and carols and barspells block all the nasty spells and cure them" differences are? It's not like melee TP burning stuff takes skill either, but compared to SMN AC burning? It's massively more risk and skill based and people have to actually be protected and kept alive.

This isn't the first time you've been completely incapable of understanding simple logic, it's literally ALL THE TIME. You should also get your smiley faces under control.

[Nyarlko]

It's almost like melee can die or get cced and summoners are max distance avoiding every single boss mechanic.


Do you honestly believe I have "gear evvy"? Wow.

Why don't you understand what "THIS KILLS THINGS IN 30-60 SECONDS BY MASHING ONE BUTTON AT A SAFE DISTANCE OUT OF ALL OF A BOSSES MECHANICS" and "You need to protect your melee and hope magic evasion and carols and barspells block all the nasty spells and cure them" differences are? It's not like melee TP burning stuff takes skill either, but compared to SMN AC burning? It's massively more risk and skill based and people have to actually be protected and kept alive.

This isn't the first time you've been completely incapable of understanding simple logic, it's literally ALL THE TIME. You should also get your smiley faces under control.

Except it takes just as much support, coordination, and gear to pull that off with SMNs as it does melee. If you don't know what you are doing as SMN, your numbers are not going to be all that impressive. Most of the Nirvana SMNs I've talked to also insist on running in for at least one WS to setup aftermath for pets, so they are not entirely able to avoid mechanics all the time if they actually want to actually "do things right". I know there are more than a few NMs that have AOEs that are greater than max distance as well (since I've died to them on BST when I thought I would be safe.) It is not actually as easy as you seem to think it is to pull off those <60sec kills.

I understand logic. I love logic. You don't use logic in your anger fueled posts like this one. Oh, and my smileys aren't going anywhere. ^^

[Urmom]

I'm gonna have to stop you because while it still takes some it 100% takes less support, coordination and gear to smn things and it's the entire reason it's become popular (well combined with hp scaling). Support literally can do it with none but the absolute most used is a geo, run and cor (the cor being able to mule ahead of time). For AC burning you literally just need a good bp set though having a fast cast set is very good idea as well. And coordination is cor: if you have one put the same 2 buffs up before fight. Then when mob pops geo cast your 1-2 spells run flash and use sp on mob.

As far as AM... thing is outside of a few mobs that do things on pop/pull the first couple of seconds of any fight are extremely safe with the mob having zero tp and every nm since forever being designed to get worse at lower hps. The biggest danger is them meleeing a non tank popper to death right away. Also remember while AoEs can go far in fact can even go past farther than you can see in the log... they can only do so horizontally. If you watch the some of those AC burns you can see how they specifically choose their spawn points on hills to take advantage of the fact all AoEs have very small vertical ranges.

Let's not forget bst got nerfed hard for doing decently less dmg than melees could but with the safety of a rng. Or how blu kind of got roundabout nerfed by way of gear options and making some of it's advantageous less important just because it was one of the better dps melees (but not the best) but could do so without as much support. Or how way back in the day rngs were doing as much dmg as melees but because of safety and no use for haste could do so with less support.

[Shiyo]

Except it takes just as much support, coordination, and gear to pull that off with SMNs as it does melee. If you don't know what you are doing as SMN, your numbers are not going to be all that impressive. Most of the Nirvana SMNs I've talked to also insist on running in for at least one WS to setup aftermath for pets, so they are not entirely able to avoid mechanics all the time if they actually want to actually "do things right". I know there are more than a few NMs that have AOEs that are greater than max distance as well (since I've died to them on BST when I thought I would be safe.) It is not actually as easy as you seem to think it is to pull off those <60sec kills.

I understand logic. I love logic. You don't use logic in your anger fueled posts like this one. Oh, and my smileys aren't going anywhere. ^^

Stop defending a blatantly overpowered class and making this game worse by making SE think some players are ok with something completely destroying this games difficulty and turning it into a joke. Why do you want this game to be WORSE OFF and not BETTER? Why do you want cheesy boring braindead strategies to run rampant and be the norm? Why do you want the game to de-evolve into a state where everyone is going to be playing summoner and not even using this games battle system(skillchains + magic bursts) to kill things properly with skill and teamwork?

Players like you posting opinions are horrible for the game as a whole, and you need to stop. Just don't post anymore, and let informed people tell SE how things need to change for the game to be more enjoyable and better.

I have no idea what you think you're doing by having these opinions, but they are bringing NOTHING POSITIVE to the game at all, you need to stop posting them and keep them to yourself. If you want to see this game get better and become the best it can be, I highly recommend you listen to my advice.

[Rawfury]

The only people defending SMN are the people who can't win without it. I have nirvanas(plural), apogee sets+1(plural), and just about everything else SMN could have.

I've killed everything that's SMN burnable with SMNs, I've killed everything that's RNG-able with RNGs, I've killed everything nukable with BLMs, and I've killed everything meleeable with BLUs.

To even pretend that SMN is anywhere near the same level of difficulty is laughable at best. Sure, a melee burn can kill albumen or WoC in 2 minutes. To do that, they need 4-8 songs, 2-4 rolls, at least 2 idris or otherwise great GEOs, a dedicated tank, an attentive healer, and there's still some chance they'll die. Melee need TP sets, WS sets, and ideally hybrid or DT sets to maintain survivability. So bare minimum to successfully win, you're looking at 8 players with 12-15 gear sets. Most groups will need more players/sets to do well.

Meanwhile, SMN needs 2 rolls, 1 GEO, 1 RUN and to pop their JAs. Someone who's never played COR before could put 2 rolls up successfully. Someone who's never played RUN before could flash, foil, elemental sforzo, odyllic subterfuge in a row with a simple instruction. GEO needs a geomancy casting set(or just idris and nothing else), COR needs a barataria ring off the AH, and RUN can do fine in sparks gear since they will not die during odyllic subterfuge. SMN needs a volt strike set, and nothing else. So, bare minimum, you're looking at 5-6 players with about 4 full gear sets between them.

There's no comparison. None. Zero. Zilch. The only reason to pretend otherwise is because you're incapable of winning with a challenging strategy and can't bear the thought of losing your free wins.

[Nyarlko]

I'm gonna have to stop you because while it still takes some it 100% takes less support, coordination and gear to smn things and it's the entire reason it's become popular (well combined with hp scaling). Support literally can do it with none but the absolute most used is a geo, run and cor (the cor being able to mule ahead of time). For AC burning you literally just need a good bp set though having a fast cast set is very good idea as well. And coordination is cor: if you have one put the same 2 buffs up before fight. Then when mob pops geo cast your 1-2 spells run flash and use sp on mob.

As far as AM... thing is outside of a few mobs that do things on pop/pull the first couple of seconds of any fight are extremely safe with the mob having zero tp and every nm since forever being designed to get worse at lower hps. The biggest danger is them meleeing a non tank popper to death right away. Also remember while AoEs can go far in fact can even go past farther than you can see in the log... they can only do so horizontally. If you watch the some of those AC burns you can see how they specifically choose their spawn points on hills to take advantage of the fact all AoEs have very small vertical ranges.

Let's not forget bst got nerfed hard for doing decently less dmg than melees could but with the safety of a rng. Or how blu kind of got roundabout nerfed by way of gear options and making some of it's advantageous less important just because it was one of the better dps melees (but not the best) but could do so without as much support. Or how way back in the day rngs were doing as much dmg as melees but because of safety and no use for haste could do so with less support.

100% less support would be 0% support, which is not the case. Pre-pop buff/drop COR is also a thing for melee groups due to HP scaling, so that's kinda iffy as a point. BRD doesn't really apply to SMN (or BLM) output though, so we're still looking at using both of the other relevant support jobs. If a group comprised of only SMN was the norm and still pulling off <60sec kills, then I'd see this as being a bigger issue.

I've been splattered by AOEs at the bottom of the hill in Reisenjima and I'm sure that I was more than normal max casting distance at the very least, so I personally don't like relying on height differences to avoid AOE if possible.

I don't want what happened to BST to happen to any other job. :( I don't play SMN, but I do sympathize with them as a fellow pet job. Kneejerk over-nerfing is always a bad thing. Even though I am quite irritated that there were no accompanying adjustments to JAs/traits to encourage master melee, I can still kinda/sorta get what the devs said was the reason for the BST JA distance nerf, but the concept of a SMN swinging away next to their avatar just isn't there compared to BST lore. (You also forgot about the more recent anti-Death nerf for BLM on certain Geas Fete NMs, but no one complains about manaburn setups popping out 99999s..)

From what I can tell, a simple adjustment to JP categories might be in order to tone down a bit of the extreme difference between 0JP/2100JP, but calling for the removal of an SP ability is flat out ridiculous. For example, simply changing the bottommost category ("Blood Pact Damage") from "3" to "2" per point would drop BPD+20% alone, so there are definitely other things that could be adjusted if tuning is needed. There is no need to remove anything if solutions could be found by simple changes.

BTW, does anyone know how much BPD+ a BIS/master SMN has? I'm curious about how much of an impact something like my JP suggestion would have on gameplay in a practical sense.

[Rawfury]

BPD job points add to the base of the blood pact, they aren't a percent multiplier. Here you have a perfect example of one of these 'elite' smns that worked so hard to get where they are, not even knowing the basics of their own job.

While nobody wants an over-nerf, the reality is that it's obscenely overpowered right now. A weak nerf will not change anything besides the gear requirement on the SMNs. Since you're only acquiring a single set, it's still very attainable no matter how high the bar is set. People will rush to make the same melee RMEA over a 5-10% damage gain, meanwhile SMN is doing double to triple the next best job's damage during a zerg.

No amount of gear requirement will make this cease to be a problem, it'll just make it even more exclusionary. For a nerf to be sufficient, it needs to prevent even perfectly geared SMNs from being able to kill NMs of this magnitude during a single conduit. As long as SMNs are able to kill the NM within 30 seconds, odyllic subterfuge will guarantee them a win and it will continue to be the prevailing method of doing just about every fight.

[Nyarlko]

BPD job points add to the base of the blood pact, they aren't a percent multiplier. Here you have a perfect example of one of these 'elite' smns that worked so hard to get where they are, not even knowing the basics of their own job.

I don't play SMN, though it's leveled and skill capped, plus templating and terminology are the same as BPD from gear. Pretty easy mistake to make I'd say. Does the Magic Damage category work the same way? I assumed so, but my assumption that BPD+ works like gear was wrong, so probably good to ask.

[Shiyo]

No, calling for Astral conduit to be disabled until time can be spent to readjust it, which is literally the only reason SMN zergs works is NOT ridiculous. It's common sense.

[Zeargi]

BPD job points add to the base of the blood pact, they aren't a percent multiplier. Here you have a perfect example of one of these 'elite' smns that worked so hard to get where they are, not even knowing the basics of their own job.


Nyarlko never claimed to be an 'elite' SMN though, just coming to the defense of them. Just saying. >_> I've already spoken my peace in the two other topics on the exact same thing....

But if it's that important, let's talk this out:

* People use this tactic as a means to keep out of range and limit the HP growth of Aeonic Weapon monsters (Which is the only thing I hear that people are actually complaining about)
* People say that AC is "broken", but this is a half truth: The damage of 1 SMN can be competed equally by any job. It's when 3 or more SMNs are against a single target that this becomes an issue.
* Melees are punished with extreme AoEs, growing HP of Mobs, Full Clears of Debuffs on mobs, Scores of player debuffes, and the chance of death and lack of recovery due to weakened.

So, What can be done to balance it out? Shiyo's idea is just going to begrudge people if they simply remove the ability all together and cause greater backlash as this is a 1hr ability. Saevel's idea of forced weakened destroys the job as a whole and would make it unplayable for those that want to solo outside of events. Limiting the charges of AC MIGHT do something, but I would likely guess it would then just force all the SMNs to be 100% perfect/BIS for everything and cutout all others and narrow it for those that will be allowed to complete it even more. As well as it really limits the usage if a SMN decides to help out in other ways like Spring Water/Whispering Wind/Soothing Ruby/Healing Ruby Spam or a rapid Raise 2 fest in an alliance (Which I have done and saved a run because enough people could get back up.)

So, what does that leave...

The Mobs themselves and the players with other jobs. Personally, I believe that changing the mobs of these Aeonics would be the best and easiest solution. It would then require people to use other jobs if they could no longer breezing through the mechanics, but the other jobs could use a boost and bit of support as well. Shiyo, so lovingly points out that Melees can die and weakened is the biggest problem. As I've mentioned before Reviviscense is already part of the lore within the game, and would be a great tool to give WHMs. The problem then is its time limit, AoE, and what can be done for the other "Healing" class, SCH, to balance it out (Even though they're just MB openers now). The other thing that should be looked at is full status clears for NMs. The most statuses that can be removed at one time on players is 6, and that is via SMN's Soothing Ruby. So why can't they change Esuna to completely clear off all of the -na status in one go like in other games, rather than force a WHM or SCH to spam each of the -na spells only to have to do it all over again. Give SCH and WHM this NEW Esuna would help them manage things more and to give WHM the edge still, the effects of Misery could add the effect of Erase+ to it. Erase+ could remove 1 non-normally removable status like: Amnesia, Charm, Mute, etc.

I love SMN it's been my favorite class since I first got to play it back in the earlier titles, and it's always been a beastly power-house. So it's been nice to finally have SMN in FFXI be that force to be reckoned with as it's suppose to be a forbidden art. But I don't like that there are people that bandwagon things and make things not fun for others. I live on SMN, it's my main class and likely the only job I'll go through the pain of making a Mythic for. But there has to be something that can do to even the playing field and make it so that people will stop using cookie cutter bull****. I don't enjoy fighting with people over things like this, but there is a solution that can make everyone happy.

[Rawfury]

SMN can do in the range of 700,000 damage in 30 seconds with conduit. The best case for a perfectly geared melee with many, many more buffs is ~250k damage in 30 seconds. So, no, 1 SMN cannot be 'competed equally' by any job. In fact, no job can even do half of what SMN can do in 30 seconds.

Why is the 30 seconds number so important? Odyllic subterfuge lasts 30 seconds, and reduces the monster's land rate for all magic to the minimum value. This provides an incredible safety net and allows SMN based setups to forego all defensive strategy for those 30 seconds. Even given that melee can catch up by the 3-4 minute mark, they have to account for all of the damage and debuffs in play.. and are looking at a 6-8x longer fight.

Adjusting 7-10 aeonic NMs and debuff removal is not really a fix, either. It will still be SMN burn tumult curator, SMN burn master trials(at least b&w is already being done this way), SMN burn omen.. everything new that comes out will suffer the same issues as well. Adjusting all content design is a laughable solution, SMN's damage is hilariously unbalanced atm and the only way to resolve this is to correct that.

Even if you were to follow through on these ridiculous suggestions, allowing such free status removal and removing threats to melee just trivializes the game in general. It's very balanced as is, with a wide variety of setups able to clear these NMs by utilizing coordination and teamwork. The only exception is SMN, who just needs to flail their ctrl-1 macro for 30 seconds and collect loot.

It's pathetic how hard you guys are reaching to try to justify things staying how they are.

[Zeargi]

SMN can do in the range of 700,000 damage in 30 seconds with conduit. The best case for a perfectly geared melee with many, many more buffs is ~250k damage in 30 seconds. So, no, 1 SMN cannot be 'competed equally' by any job. In fact, no job can even do half of what SMN can do in 30 seconds.

Why is the 30 seconds number so important? Odyllic subterfuge lasts 30 seconds, and reduces the monster's land rate for all magic to the minimum value. This provides an incredible safety net and allows SMN based setups to forego all defensive strategy for those 30 seconds. Even given that melee can catch up by the 3-4 minute mark, they have to account for all of the damage and debuffs in play.. and are looking at a 6-8x longer fight.

Adjusting 7-10 aeonic NMs and debuff removal is not really a fix, either. It will still be SMN burn tumult curator, SMN burn master trials(at least b&w is already being done this way), SMN burn omen.. everything new that comes out will suffer the same issues as well. Adjusting all content design is a laughable solution, SMN's damage is hilariously unbalanced atm and the only way to resolve this is to correct that.

Even if you were to follow through on these ridiculous suggestions, allowing such free status removal and removing threats to melee just trivializes the game in general. It's very balanced as is, with a wide variety of setups able to clear these NMs by utilizing coordination and teamwork. The only exception is SMN, who just needs to flail their ctrl-1 macro for 30 seconds and collect loot.

So basically you're saying this is solely about the time it takes to kill something and not that others can do it... >_>

And I really want to know where you're getting this 700,000 number from. I'd like to see that really. I'm far from the best SMN as it, but I've never reached anywhere near that number on any endgame thing


It's pathetic how hard you guys are reaching to try to justify things staying how they are. Hey, at least I've been offering some ideas, it's better than most of the post here. So, rather than trying to cut people down and use nothing more than insults to NOT help the problem, why don't we ACTUALLY brainstorm and come up with something

[Rawfury]

I'm getting the 700,000 number from actual parses of t4 using full BiS SMN. I did not isolate conduit or do a hard statistical analysis, but typically the numbers seen are in that range. It's entirely possible if you strictly count conduit pacts and not an initial apogee usage, the average would be as low as 550-600k. This is 18-20k DPS.

That said, the highest spreadsheet damage that has been observed is SAM, with warcry from a WAR active, as well as secondary 1h, they can push around 12k DPS. Over 30 seconds, that's 360k. In reality, between the loss of WS speed and attack delay from communication intervals, potential debuffs, and other problems, I have yet to see a melee top 10k DPS for a full minute, even though many I know are perfectly equipped by today's standards. Don't forget that this is including buffs from (at least) 2 GEOs, 2 CORs, and 2 BRDs. SMN only needs one GEO and one COR to put out their numbers.

The fact of the matter is, when buffed properly SMN does damage that far exceeds all melee. Nobody has killed Schah before dealing with adds using a non-SMN setup. Other zergs are rarely below 2 minutes from engage, while SMN's are consistantly below 1 minute and usually below 30 seconds. It's very easy to state and support that SMN has a colossal dps advantage despite having significantly cheaper (and less) gear needed to do so. Thus, any argument in favor of keeping SMN as is, should address and support that they should be able to do that much.

Perhaps if every fight was long enough that cheap zergs weren't a possibility, I could understand it. SMN certainly has a history of strong 1hr usage, and there've been many mission fights where astral flow was the go-to strategy. However, it's very clear to see that SE's design resources are quite limited these days, and expecting an overhaul of the entirety of endgame just so SMN can continue to be overpowered is laughably shortsighted. As is, you can trivialize over 80% of the content players would consider challenging by simply abusing SMN's 1hr.

edit: forgot to address first point


So basically you're saying this is solely about the time it takes to kill something and not that others can do it... >_>
No, it's about the effort required. A SMN based setup can kill in 30 seconds vs 2 minutes. This alone doesn't mean much. It matters because combining a 30 second kill with odyllic subterfuge removes all need for defensive capability.

The setup can be executed with 5-6 members using a total of ~4 full sets of equipment between them. The COR and GEO can be pretty near naked, and the RUN only needs a bit of ilevel gear to avoid dying to physical damage(which is a non-issue on almost all recent monsters).

A successful melee zerg needs at least 8 members, usually closer to 12. All of them need multiple gear sets, coordination, and teamwork to do this properly.

The ability to kill in 30 seconds is what's making the difference here. If SMN were forced to take 2 minutes, they would not have all these advantages. It's not the difference in time that matters in itself, it's the difference in fight flow caused by that difference in time.

[Shiyo]

and expecting an overhaul of the entirety of endgame just so SMN can continue to be overpowered is laughably shortsighted. As is, you can trivialize over 80% of the content players would consider challenging by simply abusing SMN's 1hr.

Yep, this is 100% the main problem. I can't believe summoner mains think that their job is ok, it's just the game is badly designed. Like seriously? Open your eyes.

[Zeargi]

I'm getting the 700,000 number from actual parses of t4 using full BiS SMN. I did not isolate conduit or do a hard statistical analysis, but typically the numbers seen are in that range. It's entirely possible if you strictly count conduit pacts and not an initial apogee usage, the average would be as low as 550-600k. This is 18-20k DPS. And that was YOUR SMN? If so, that is pretty impressive

Ultimately, how can it be fixed? I feel that your suggestion hurts SMNs that want to use AC in other ways than just spamming Volt Strike, and the ATT/DEF 40% would hurt SMN that want to do other things solo. A 20% reduce to ATT and maybe a change to the JP Categories like the Physical Att or BPD?



Yep, this is 100% the main problem. I can't believe summoner mains think that their job is ok, it's just the game is badly designed. Like seriously? Open your eyes.

Also, you've still not added anything helpful to this conversation at all. At least Rawfury is trying to address this from a technical sense.

[Rawfury]

My suggestion was just a crude estimation of what would make SMN zergs success rate comparable to melee with similar preparation(you could probably still win with enough SMNs, but you wouldn't be winning with a halfass group and you'd take more than the length of conduit.. basically you would need to consider an actual tank and holding strategy and entertain the NMs mechanics).

Obviously it's not the only way to accomplish it, and a similar damage reduction could be implemented by doing as Saevel suggested and treating it similarly to BLMs. The interval would need to be longer, perhaps every BP after the first will receive a 30 > 60 > 90% damage reduction with the reduction dropping by 1 tier every 5 seconds. As far as gameplay, my concern with that is that it would interfere with groups using large amounts of SMN as a hate-free ranged DD, similar to RNG. Perhaps it wouldn't interfere enough to discourage them, though.

In a more practical sense, SE's limited staff probably can't easily implement something like that. We know they can manipulate the existing values that result in the damage they do.

[Urmom]

100% less support would be 0% support, which is not the case. Pre-pop buff/drop COR is also a thing for melee groups due to HP scaling, so that's kinda iffy as a point. BRD doesn't really apply to SMN (or BLM) output though, so we're still looking at using both of the other relevant support jobs. If a group comprised of only SMN was the norm and still pulling off <60sec kills, then I'd see this as being a bigger issue.

I've been splattered by AOEs at the bottom of the hill in Reisenjima and I'm sure that I was more than normal max casting distance at the very least, so I personally don't like relying on height differences to avoid AOE if possible.

I don't want what happened to BST to happen to any other job. :( I don't play SMN, but I do sympathize with them as a fellow pet job. Kneejerk over-nerfing is always a bad thing. Even though I am quite irritated that there were no accompanying adjustments to JAs/traits to encourage master melee, I can still kinda/sorta get what the devs said was the reason for the BST JA distance nerf, but the concept of a SMN swinging away next to their avatar just isn't there compared to BST lore. (You also forgot about the more recent anti-Death nerf for BLM on certain Geas Fete NMs, but no one complains about manaburn setups popping out 99999s..)

From what I can tell, a simple adjustment to JP categories might be in order to tone down a bit of the extreme difference between 0JP/2100JP, but calling for the removal of an SP ability is flat out ridiculous. For example, simply changing the bottommost category ("Blood Pact Damage") from "3" to "2" per point would drop BPD+20% alone, so there are definitely other things that could be adjusted if tuning is needed. There is no need to remove anything if solutions could be found by simple changes.

BTW, does anyone know how much BPD+ a BIS/master SMN has? I'm curious about how much of an impact something like my JP suggestion would have on gameplay in a practical sense.

Oh cmon you took that the wrong way on purpose. You know I meant as in definitely not takes zero so stop being obtuse. Prebuffing wasn't my point that said it works less well on other set ups because the buffs wear before the mob dies. My point was that overall takes less people to get the kill done. Again hit and a miss on the point. The point isn't that you can do it with only smns but that you need less support and less bodies total. This allows them to keep party size down so that they can take advantage of hp scaling such that they can actually finish before zerg done so they less likely to get hit by something annoying or just so it wont land. That said the dmg difference between swapping a smn and a geo isn't so huge that smn party couldn't still take these things down.

Some spells like Meteor sure. Moves and other spells well that's on you messing up. Even then there are ways of avoiding those as well though tend to be used by bst dds more often. And part of the advantage of doing it fast like this is even if mob has annoying AoEs they wont do jack with Odyllic Subterfuge which on it's own is merely an OK sp but when the mob dies in that time makes it really good

That's great but that kind of thing is completely unnecessary and not the point. Point is other jobs have been thoroughly nerfed for less and only thing needed here would be an adjustment to AC because outside of it smn is merely good and honestly distance nerfing them wouldn't really stop AC burns. Honestly I forget the death thing because everyone just switched to 99999 T6s so it was in the end kind of ineffective "nerf". As far as bst I mean what lore? It certainly not how the job had been played since it was introduced.

Already addressed but no that's not how the it works. More importantly if that was how it worked it would make it's dmg pretty meh otherwise. Whoa there no one said remove the sp just adjust it. Not exactly the first time an SP has been adjusted. Could just do something similar to the old avatars favor downside onto it or any number of things. I forget the exact mechanic but I believe in exchange for the benefits of favor you lowered your the avatars dmg.

BPD depends on how lucky you get with oseem and DM but it doesn't really matter for your jp argument

Let's look at this another way. Imagine how this game would look if the multiple nuke in short period nerf wasn't in place and fully supported rdms could consistently do 60k nukes. Even if only on mb it would be kind of crazy

Super edit: Should add that while it's not as good and takes a bit more coordination bp zerging is still possible and still fairly strong without AC. Imagine Apogee double bp, random deal, apogee double bp, WC and repeat, everyone revit and repeat for 12 bps in a short amount of time. Note might need some mp restoration in there too

[Nyarlko]

... Lots of stuff. Posts are getting long with full quotes now...

I was just being a smartass about a misstatement on your part. ;) This is why I tend to use emoji all over the place, even though I seem to be catching flak for that recently. XD It is nearly an absolute mathematical certainty that someone will interpret my writing in a tone not intended whenever I cut down on their usage, most often resulting in unwarranted offense taken.

I know and understand about all of the myriad advantages of rapid kills, and don't think that I disagree with any of the points made on that front. In one of these threads I suggested a time based damage cap to prevent 30sec zergs. I think that capping early damage might be enough on it's own to reduce the advantages that a lowman SMN burn enjoy to hopefully also reduce the feeling of unfairness for some.

Disregarding RDM, did you know that GEO can get w/in MBD+10 of BLM's total MBD+? :D Thankfully, due to players being too lazy to deal with positioning for Cardinal Chant bonuses, we're not seeing GEOburns all over the place, but I'm still surprised they haven't become a thing. I doubt that RDMs would be able to carve out a party spot even in the case that the diminishing returns was removed, since GEO should still beat them hands down on MB damage, and BLMs would be popping out all9s regularly. :( I sympathize w/ RDMs too, but can't figure out what it's actually meant to be doing these days.
(Well, it was only MBD+4 below BLM before Ea was added, haven't rechecked to see if that changed, so I'll lowball w/ +10 lol)

Shiyo is calling for the removal of the SP ability Astral Conduit from the game, at least until it is sufficiently nerfed to make Shiyo happy. So there's at least one who is calling for that to happen. ^^;; I refuse to stay silent on this point given how ludicrous this suggestion is.

Your super edit requires a lot of JA usage, luck, temp items, and team coordination. Don't see anything wrong with that at all. ^_^

[Vashkoda]

So to summarize, the issue here seems to be people who are upset that master gifted, top-geared, appropriately buffed SMNs in a small party can produce spike damage over 30 seconds that can kill many NMs, and find it unfair because other jobs cannot produce that output over 30 seconds without putting themselves in harm's way and without inviting a ton of support jobs, thus buffing NM hp levels and making them almost impossible to kill. While some people see a solution to be reducing the danger posed by NMs so that melee can safely attack it, or to remove hp scaling so more support jobs can be invited, or to remove time-based mechanics so that quick-zergs don't feel like almost an obligatory strat, others feel that the only solution is to nerf SMN AC. Yet if you nerf SMN AC, your're still left in the same boat you're in now - extremely dangerous NMs that have been made all the more difficult after the GEO "bug fix" was done that resulted in a massive nerf to everyone. The only other strategy for Schah, for example, that I'm aware of *after the GEO nerf*, is using RNGs. Will the next call for nerfs be against RNGs? Is this really the best way to go about fixing this game?


Just don't post anymore, and let informed people tell SE how things need to change.... I have no idea what you think you're doing by having these opinions, but they are bringing NOTHING POSITIVE to the game at all, you need to stop posting them and keep them to yourself. If you want to see this game get better and become the best it can be, I highly recommend you listen to my advice.

I don't actually see you offering any helpful advice, Shiyo, in any of the threads where you advocate a SMN nerf. In fact you seem to be shooting down any ideas others bring up to fix the situation. And I think it's a little presumptuous of you to assume that your opinion on this topic is worth more than anyone else's.

For starters, it needs to be pointed out that this advantage of "huge spike damage in 30 seconds with a small party" is only really relevant in certain scenarios. In areas without NM hp scaling (and only in Escha/Reisen is it actually penalizing you for bringing more than 6), you can invite more support jobs to allow dd jobs to shine. The only penalty I've seen brought up is you have to share drops with more people (but if the content is actually possible to clear with multiple setups, everyone will eventually get what they want). Plus there is content (VW, Incursion, SR, Unity Wanted NMs, Ambuscade, Omen) where people get their own individual rewards regardless. In fact Ambuscade (and now Omen, kinda) rewards you for bringing *more* people, which many felt was a better system.

The other issue is whether NM mechanics favor a quick kill. People have already brought up Schah as the most annoying NM with time-based moves, and SMNs taking him out quickly seems to be 80% of what the beef in this whole thread is about. While well-supported and geared melee jobs used to take him out, the nerf to GEO support is ultimately what made that strategy too difficult for most groups. I remember how right after that nerf, SE announced they were going to adjust some NMs, and people assumed it was going to be the T4s because no one could even imagine fighting them with nerfed GEO spells. It didn't happen, and players were quick to switch to other strats to stay out of harm's way, like RNGs and SMNs. When you boil it all down, *this* is ultimately what all the hate in this thread is about.

SMNs can zerg, sure, for about 30 seconds, and on a single target. How does that help against NMs with multiple forms, or alternating damage vulnerabilities, or when there are multiple targets? It's not like SMN are the go-to job for every single NM in this game, and it would be ridiculous to go to the trouble to build a AC setup for things that other setups can handle (the time it takes to restore 1hrs can be more than the time saved by using AC burn). There is new battle content coming soon, and with all the fuss people have been making over SMN, I'm sure the devs are going to take these things into account. At this point, Escha is almost 3 years old. The devs tend to make content easier rather than harder as time goes on, so for those still angry at SMN because they can't seem to get aeonics any other way, just be patient.

[Shiyo]

Have not shot down a single idea except "CHANGE THE ENTIRE GAME BECAUSE MY ONE JOB BREAKS IT" which is NOT worth considering since summoner is less than 5% of total jobs in the game, 1/22, and no other jobs break the game in a way that requires every single boss to be redesigned.

Sorry that I'm not going to entertain summoner mains completely irrational opinions that the entire game is broken and summoner is fine while 21 other jobs don't break the game in any way or have any problem with bosses being broken, only one single job, less than 5% of total jobs does, meaning that ONE JOB needs to be adjusted.

Literally no one is "angry we can't get aeonics any other way", you're literally talking to people who have been clearing HELM's for years now and thinking they're "angry they can't beat it without summoner"? Really? No one is saying that, people just want CHEESY EASY GUARANTEED wins that require 1/100th the effort of any other strategy in the game to be DELETED ENTIRELY from existence.

It all comes back to the same old conversation from you summoner supporters " you guys are just jealous of our power!!!!!". No, no one is "jealous", we aren't 11 year olds, we are grown adult who want to see this game not de-evolve into a boring snoozefest of mashing 1 macro at max distance with 1 gear set and clearing 100% of the games content in 30 seconds.

This game has a fantastic combat system, we want to take advantage of it's fun combat and jobs, not abuse 1 very glaringly broken mechanic(Astral conduit) for the rest of this games life span. Adding new bosses that "can't be AC zerged" doesn't change the fact that there's a MASSIVE amount of content that's completely destroyed by this ONE SINGLE ABLITY. ]

AC is broken, you disable it until the developers can figure out a way to redesign it. End of story.
No revamping the game, no changing every boss, no even changing summoner entirely, literally removing a single ability that allows a single strategy that completely destroys the games battle content. My solution is by far the easiest, quickest, and least dev intensive.

I have no idea what the problem is with disabling something that is the entire basis of this strategy and is completely and utterly broken, until develop time can be spent to revamp it. It's literally the easiest possible solution you have to fixing this problem and not letting it infest your game for another 7 months. SEVEN months already is far, far, far too long, and it's completely unacceptable and downright disgusting that this has been allowed to exist for over 7 months now.



ADJUST THE ABILITY. DISABLE ASTRAL CONDUIT UNTIL IT CAN BE REDESIGNED.

[Urmom]

So to summarize, the issue here seems to be people who are upset that master gifted, top-geared, appropriately buffed SMNs in a small party can produce spike damage over 30 seconds that can kill many NMs, and find it unfair because other jobs cannot produce that output over 30 seconds without putting themselves in harm's way and without inviting a ton of support jobs, thus buffing NM hp levels and making them almost impossible to kill. While some people see a solution to be reducing the danger posed by NMs so that melee can safely attack it, or to remove hp scaling so more support jobs can be invited, or to remove time-based mechanics so that quick-zergs don't feel like almost an obligatory strat, others feel that the only solution is to nerf SMN AC. Yet if you nerf SMN AC, your're still left in the same boat you're in now - extremely dangerous NMs that have been made all the more difficult after the GEO "bug fix" was done that resulted in a massive nerf to everyone. The only other strategy for Schah, for example, that I'm aware of *after the GEO nerf*, is using RNGs. Will the next call for nerfs be against RNGs? Is this really the best way to go about fixing this game?

I'd actually like hp scaling as it as you allude to addresses other issues. Fact is right now adding anyone who isn't adding more to the teams dps than the average already there ends up hurting your kill speed and possible your ability to win. Which mathematically becomes harder and harder and potentially impossible after a point. This leads to people who are actually contributing ending up being deadweight or worse and places an absolute priority on efficiency of slots when there is already inherent benefits to going with less.

As far as Schah goes bst and smn can still produce good chunks of physical dmg from relative safety. Pretty sure see vids where bsts were the main source of dmg

[Rawfury]

Another update and this is still seemingly being ignored. If we could get a response saying that SE understands how SMN zergs work and is ok with them, with or without backing, it would probably go a long way to ease feelings of discontent.

As far as users are concerned, it seems like the developer team is completely unaware of this happening and has been ignoring it for the better part of a year. It doesn't build confidence in the future.

[Halley]

They're going to wait until a certain number of nirvana are made (this was the only way to ever get them created). Then they'll fix it.

It's too late to matter anyway. Damage is long since done, there is no damage control anymore. Even the shouts for HELMS is all but gone. Everyone already scummoner burnt all 16.

[Nyarlko]

Another update and this is still seemingly being ignored. If we could get a response saying that SE understands how SMN zergs work and is ok with them, with or without backing, it would probably go a long way to ease feelings of discontent.

As far as users are concerned, it seems like the developer team is completely unaware of this happening and has been ignoring it for the better part of a year. It doesn't build confidence in the future.

I'm sure the team is aware of player concerns since there's been some fuss on JPside as well, and they actually have people that can read player posts. We are currently in ComRep limbo w/o anyone obviously assigned to handle this side of the forums at the moment. :(

[Rawfury]

This is still a problem.

[Shiyo]

It'll be a problem for half a decade to a decade.
Geo vex + attunement was perfect defense 2.0 for what, 4 years? 5 years?

[Halley]

This is still a problem.

It took 5 years to fix GEO, so you've got a long time to go and a lot more complaining to do.

Diffused Mighty Guard is still Super broken too. So is enmity zero 99k nukes. Invincible mana wall BLMs.

Maybe it's just time to accept reality and accept content no longer matters, everything will eventually be more broken and this amount of hilarious power creep is the new standard.

It's not like it matters anymore. Aeonic groups already finished all Aeonics. Unless you take them away who cares after this long. Yeah they'll roll it forward and everything will be won immediately with SMN. Oh well.

[Zwicked]

Firstly apologies that my post is a bit off tangent but......

One solution may be to add a defensive feature to NM's to resist sustained "spike" damage like certain nm's whose characteristics change in proportion to the amount of magic/physical damage they take. NM's could build a rapid resist based upon the % amount of hp they lose over time to draw out battles and put an end to these stupid zerg stratagies. Many people effectively cheat to win these types of fights with pre buffs before initiating fights via swapping in cor/brd ect for buffs then replacing them with the real party members. A lot of people also use 3rd party software eg. windower plugins that give an unfair advantage over vanilla players such as auto ws @ 1000% tp, auto swap to magic dmg - gear when a spell is targeted on you and as a previous person said this was the root cause of all of the harder NM being added. It's not so much SE's fault that the game is messed up it is the players. From delve times sch stun bots were the main strategy to hold/zerg NM. Many players use alts w/ cure scripts. Scripts to lv skills, every day in adoulin era smn would be outside town calling/dismissing avatars to skill up (pre skill book era). I know people who have been kicked out of parties for not using such tools.

Also the whole 6 man is easier thing is a major problem imo. Events should get easier with more people not harder like with omen scaling. FF needs to go back to its roots as a MMO and actually encourage players to team up together to beat content. The glory days I remember were when the Void Watch content was current and people would yell to make alliances for VWNM battles. These days players are more and more insular, they play in small teams often containing alts/bots and as far as I see little help is given to any newer players that arrive.

Smn burn to kill all won't last since the smn will complete everything and quit because they have nothing left to do. People that cheat in the end only cheat themselves so really we should be glad that some content is stupidly hard or else we would have no goals left to keep us playing. End of random thought process~

[Urmom]

Invincible mana wall BLMs.

They aren't really invincible just have a huge sort of dmg reduction that is semi balanced by the fact it comes out of a resource that is much harder to restore. In order to get the levels you see people going gaga about requires a ton of support and well only lasts 5 minutes unless it gets dispelled early so requires even more to reset for longer fights. It's kind of why you only see it used on a few very specific fights

[Selindrile]

Also the whole 6 man is easier thing is a major problem imo. Events should get easier with more people not harder like with omen scaling. FF needs to go back to its roots as a MMO and actually encourage players to team up together to beat content. The glory days I remember were when the Void Watch content was current and people would yell to make alliances for VWNM battles. These days players are more and more insular, they play in small teams often containing alts/bots and as far as I see little help is given to any newer players that arrive.

I very much agree that adding more players should make things easier, they did this with Omen, and that's great, the way HP scaling works in Unity/Escha/Reisen really makes for some unfortunate situations in the game, dealing with party makeup. This is not unlike how trusts don't punish you with extra scaling HP on things, or a smaller XP/CP split, though inviting more humans does.... also encourages solo/lowman play over banding together. (Though Apex mobs mostly address the XP/CP issue.)

That said I still prefer to play today's XI to almost any in the past, and I played since US release, perhaps when Vagary was new though I liked even better. (Though I certainly do miss the higher playerbase of yesteryear.)

And I very much disagree with everything else in that post, but, we've all got our opinions.

[Urmom]

Solo/lowman has kind of always had an inherent advantage... less people to get drops for and less people to organize.

[Rawfury]

do something

[Shiyo]

Can you google translate your post and post it on the JP forum? Only way they'll look at it, sadly.

But yeah, stop letting players beat a game button your game please. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUeeFybkRxA )