Adjustments to Embrava and Perfect Defense

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Originally Posted by ManaKing

make way for new strats, about time those ones died

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There are no other "strats". If you don't have PD on you then you die.

I for one dont buy the whole story on 'there MAY be item/ways to get SMN skill to 600 down the road'. They sold us that last time to BST when they nerf'ed Falcorr/Dippy's TH. They said that in the future, there 'may be items' that would allow the raising of the TH and then turn around several months later to tell us that it was meant as 'if the items were to exist'.

So, no, I dont buy that crap. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me! People should just assumed that the max skill cap for SMN will be 545 or whatever the number works out to be. [Or unless they decided to raise the level cap again down the road].

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Originally Posted by Camate

Next, keep in mind that these adjustments to Perfect Defense and Aura were made with the idea that all special abilities’ cool down timers will be shortened. With that said, during this week’s Test Server update we are also planning on making adjustments so that the cool down timer on current and new special abilities will be halved. (We are also planning to make it possible to cut this time even further via equipment and merit points.)

We understand that these adjustments will change the usage of these abilities and may cause inconvenience to some, and we apologize for this. We would like to proceed with these adjustments carefully, so we will be looking closely at the feedback we receive. Also, we realize that there are a good amount of people who oppose these changes, but we would appreciate it if you could post specific feedback about what would be the preferred method for going about these changes.

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Camate,

Thank you for the response.

As far as Embrava is concerned, I think the general consensus is that the Regain effect should remain, but be weakened. We just don't see a use for Refresh when there are so many other forms of it available. Also, Embrava is primarily a melee buff and as such the Refresh effect would not be useful. With the Haste effect being weakened it is not possible to cap magical haste with Embrava alone, so outside of solo play I don't think we will see the buff take on a new usefulness for mages. (As a side note, I think there is a way to make a useful Faith like spell, but perhaps that should go to Red Mage.) Cap the Regain potency at 3 tp/tick at 500 enhancing skill. If you are absolutely insistent on not keeping the Regain effect, PLEASE buff Aldoquium to 2tp.

The duration also needs to be increased. We do need to take into account Perpetuance, AF3+2 hands and the fact that you can cast Embrava again right before Tabula Rasa wears off to add almost 3 minutes to the duration. That being said, I think the base duration should be 2 minutes. This would allow you to reach almost a 7.5 minute duration, half of what was possible before. I think that is ideal. We realize that the shortened recast timers for the special abilities was also a factor in your decision. If the duration of the spell isn't long enough to be worthwhile to use in the first place, then it really isn't of much consequence if you can reuse the ability more often.

I have no problems with the Perfect Defense adjustments and I am very happy that the duration is now tied to summoning magic skill. I do hope the 60 second duration becomes achievable with future gear/merits. It gives career Summoners something to strive for.

We also think the content needs to be adjusted more. The reason PD/Embrava were so abused is because monsters deal out so much damage so quickly that you are often left with no choice but to kill it ASAP. The AOE damage, instant death spells/abilities and rampant status ailments also need to be addressed. You should also consider removing order lamp floors from NNI and/or increasing the floor jump possibility to 3-9.

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Originally Posted by Yinnyth

Oh, side note... good luck on LB10 post nerf.

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Lol, you can do that with 4 non-r/m/e DDs and a whm, as long as you have a single tail. That's right, not even a full party!

Two tails and you can do it with 3 DDs and perhaps not even need a healer. As long as you had someone to buff you, like a brd and/or cor, it'd be fine.

Even if you did bring a sch for it, you'd still have 40% magic haste with just embrava and haste. More than enough for that fight, as it is over in less than a minute anyway.

I don't like the idea of even more gear that is only for summoning magic, are we gonna be forced to choose between gear with smn magic and gear with avatar effects? I don't like where this is going....

As summoners we only have 1 magic skill and our avatars don't even reflect it as it is with power and ability strength, so to force us to gather a whole set of armor for our 2hr isn't right, its a 2hr for a reason cause its powerful since you still have yet to do anything with the elemental avatars damage output in the name of !@#$'n BALANCE. Balance went out the window long ago.

Also on a side note, summoner burn parties where banned for suspicious RMT activity yet Fellcleave parties are A OK and their power reflects their skills so when will summoners?

unless they increase the level cap, there's no way summoner will ever hit 600 skill. most slots already have +9~10 skill on them. 550 and Maybe 560 is possible though.

If you REALLY want to screw over PD, just put a damage cap on how much a DD can deal within a set period of time, say, 50k/min (overal physical damage) after which the enemy gets -99%PDT for 1 minute. kinda like Meteor for BLM, since you didn't want people to just bring a bunch of them to do anything at all. (PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS, it was only meant to show how bad an idea the meteor pre-release nerf is.

i can undertand how all sch are feeling about the embrava neft, after they got 500 skill, about 200-400 caleno fights, 100+ bitchini for the boost, time spent on farming genbu or money for scraps etc etc etc

my feedback for embrava is
duration 2 mins
haste 25% ok
regain max to 3-4 instead of 6 + refresh effect +2-3 depending on the regain effect

Perfect defense
duration 45 secs, skill `+ 10 = 1 extra sec

Nyzul isle, remove lamp order or just make it 3 lamps, 3-5 lamps is too many
bosses do massive dmg even the nms, just cut the dmg they do

Kaustra from Booses should be shorter duration example einherjar and legion since embrava was being used to counter kuastra

legion Hp-15-20% should be ideal

ADL reduce tp moves range to 20' pet commands are 15ish-20ish depepding on the NM and cast range is usually 20', ADL moves are 35' and after he splits can use 2-3 tp moves + aga IV on istant cast

Ppl abused on perfect defense and embrava but the reason was SE did new content almost impossible to win w/o those abilities, instead of neft the abilities they should go and fix the event.

Looks like I'm late to the party, but what on earth did I just read?

Embrava
"The regain effect will be replaced with a Deodorize effect."

It might as well be that. I'm anxious to see the compensation for this. Libra II that has to be used in melee range of the mob and strategically reveals its... cholesterol level?

I'm not sure what to seriously suggest here. I'm inclined to believe Raksha's timeline, or think the devs have an actual reasonable adjustment in mind but are intentionally putting forth something infuriating so they can come back with a not-as-horrible adjustment and claim they listened to people.

I'm not into the RNG events that feel like blue-light-special, thrift store versions of Abyssea. My main use for Embrava was significantly reducing the time it took to do Magian trials and Empyrean item farming. The duration will kill the former, the lack of regain the latter. I know I'm behind the times on this stuff but I play very little. After two years I have no interest in doubling the time it takes me to do either one of these. Embrava in the form you've proposed here will feel like I'm losing a limb in RL.

I guess I'll play the "we listened to you" game though. Scrap the refresh and change the regain to 3 TP. Change the duration to 3 minutes. What I'd prefer is leave the spell the way it is and find some way to scale the RNG events like Abyssea was. Make them challenging at inception for a hardcore group but completely doable without PD and Embrava if everyone is well geared and coordinated, then as people beat things and acquire spoils make them easier for everyone as a result of the rewards (a la atma, atmacites, brews). Of course you'd still see SCH and SMN requirements, but if the events become more accessible and more frequently repeatable as well those requirements might lessen.

Also, I'm continually upset by dev justifications for these things. The fact that 2-hours will become usable every hour now is irrelevant. It's almost as bad as trying to make Gravity II look cool because it can overwrite Gravity.

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Originally Posted by Secondplanet

I don't like the idea of even more gear that is only for summoning magic, are we gonna be forced to choose between gear with smn magic and gear with avatar effects? I don't like where this is going....

As summoners we only have 1 magic skill and our avatars don't even reflect it as it is with power and ability strength, so to force us to gather a whole set of armor for our 2hr isn't right, its a 2hr for a reason cause its powerful since you still have yet to do anything with the elemental avatars damage output in the name of !@#$'n BALANCE. Balance went out the window long ago.

Also on a side note, summoner burn parties where banned for suspicious RMT activity yet Fellcleave parties are A OK and their power reflects their skills so when will summoners?

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Who said the gear has to be one or the other? There are pieces out there already that have avatar buffs and SMN skill on them and I hope that SE continues to release more. Also, don't forget that the other half of you avatar abilities ARE effected by SMN skill. You should be collecting SMN skill gear anyway.

And other mages have to deal with a lot more equipment issues than SMN. How many pieces of equipment do you see that are effective nuking, enhancing and healing pieces? You have to gear appropriately and separately for each. I don't see why SMN should be an exception. We have macros to swap gear for a reason. And also, other jobs need to gear for their 2 hours as well. (And Perfect Defense is only one aspect of Astral Flow.)

The adjustment inconveniences some? Try everyone.

Regardless, my two cents on the matter is the monsters need to be adjusted. If youre really so deadset on nerfing PD and Embrava, Nerf PD to realistic skill cap to hit the maximum. I agree a LS shouldnt be able to use an army of abyssea burned 0 skill mules to PD constantly, a skill cap is fine, but it's unrealistic, and no one cares about the future, we cannot see what 'May come', We want what is currently available, and a realistic cap for PD needs to be set.

Embrava's only overpower i see is how long it can remain on you with perpetuance and +2 savant. Lower the duration of effect or make it unstackable with perpetuance if you have to but leave the spell the f**k alone. Refresh is useless, we dont want EVEN MORE refresh tools when so many are available outside scholar. Its a 2 hour spell, i thought SE was aiming to make 2 hours useful, not destroy them to an unusable state.