Spheres and Auras

Spheres and Auras

"Auras" have existed since the beginning of FFXI. Recall "The Afflictor" NPCs in Beadeaux, where simply being close enough inflicts a status effect. Fast-forward to the "Avatar's Favor" update, wherein players were able to create beneficial status effects for themselves, if indirectly. Today, we find ourselves able to support our fellow party members via Spheres simply by donning armor from the Voidwatch System. The potential for players to have Auras raises all kinds of questions.

What kinds of Auras would players like to have? At the moment, we have Store TP, Critical Hit Rate, and Magic Attack Bonus. Other buffs are available as well via Avatar's Favor: Refresh, Double Attack, Magic Attack Bonus

How should Auras and Spheres be attainable by players? Should players have to work through systems such as Voidwatch to gain Spheres, or should they be job traits attainable at higher levels as a benefit of having a certain job in the party?

How potent should these buffs be? Store TP goes to +6, Magic Attack Bonus goes to +5,and Critical Hit Rate boosts to +3 via Spheres.

Should Spheres effect the wearer as well? Favors/Auras from Avatars effect the Summoner... so why not Spheres effecting the wearer? Or was this a good development decision after all?

God damnit yes spheres should effect the wearer as well. This would make those pieces of armor incredibly desirable, and give incentive to actually go and do Voidwatch. At the moment they are more like side-grades, better but only by a bit, and only in certain situations. I mean at first I thought "Oh, the fact that they don't affect the wearer is probably just a glitch, and the next update will fix it," but nope. I was absolutely positive it was obvious that the wearer should get them too, but I guess not.

There are already more Aura's actually, but only in Atmacite and not gear. I think that aura's should be more subtle than other affects of gear (MAB+5 is pretty big, but the fact that the wearer doesn't get it makes that particular body utterly useless for everyone but like, idle BRD, who will probably end up in the DD party anyway in aby, or will probably jump around parties outside.) I think that Store TP as a sphere is pretty useless too, because most jobs don't stay that close between their current x hit and the next one, and there's no real difference between a 6hit with 6 more STP and a 6hit w/o the perfect amount of STP.

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Favors/Auras from Avatars effect the Summoner... so why not Spheres effecting the wearer? Or was this a good development decision after all?

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Favors are emitted from the avatar; and the avatar does NOT benefit from the favor. Thus, Favor effects are like sphere effects.

You only need two people to have the armor to be able to get the buff themselves. Your buff to the one guy wearing it, and his buff buffing you, problem solved.

That's a good point. The only catch there is those items are too rare for that to be likely to happen.

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Originally Posted by Mordanthos

You only need two people to have the armor to be able to get the buff themselves. Your buff to the one guy wearing it, and his buff buffing you, problem solved.

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Do the effects stack? I doubt it, but it would be cool if they did...

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"Oh, the fact that they don't affect the wearer is probably just a glitch, and the next update will fix it,"

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My way of thinking about Summoner since 2003. I mean, some things are so obvious to a player it is amazing that developers do not share the view.

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Originally Posted by Malamasala

My way of thinking about Summoner since 2003. I mean, some things are so obvious to a player it is amazing that developers do not share the view.

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The summoner threads would be much more intrested