Formless Strikes Overpowered

I think that formless strikes should be removed or severely hampered. For the past year or two SE has tried to require magical damage to combat the latest and greatest enemies. Instead of mages to fulfill that magical damage component, MNKs are brought instead. MNK already has the highest HP total which makes curing a breeze, they are consistently close to the very top tier of damage dealing in alliance and low man play. I don't think MNK should be the best magical damage dealer in addition to being a powerhouse for physical damage. What are your thoughts?

Technically.... One could argue that SMN is the best magical damage dealer.
Especially now with all the pet MAB gear it has.... 150MAB is practically average for a SMN these days.
Better than BLM or SCH because we don't have to worry about enmity gain... Cause once the mob kills the Avatar... just poop another!
And considering the natural refresh rate... and the HUGE regain of MP from Elemental Siphon... SMN at 99 should never have any MP problems.

And I don't think formless is OP.

I think that Delve is a tad too demanding of spots... (X of these, Y of that job etc)
And considering I can't really recall the last time MNKs were having their heyday at the top...
I am all for letting them take the spotlight in Delve...

For now anyways... There really should be more wiggle room and varied playstyle than what Delve currently supports.

This is really more "I think Delve is dumb" rather than a real "formless needs rethinking"...
The problem is the event... not the job.
At least in this case.

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Originally Posted by FaeQueenCory

And considering I can't really recall the last time MNKs were having their heyday at the top.

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Salvage.

And more on topic, I'm curious as to whether the ammo with magic damage + on it (Dosis Tathlum) affects Formless Strikes. Anyone managed to try it yet?

MNK is a pretty ridiculous damage dealer. I notice MNK dps vs DRK WAR DPS is pretty big. A WAR or DRK may hit an NM for 550-700 per hit but MNKs with how broken Oatixurs are, hit the same mob for ~450-500 per fist. Coupled with the fact that Formless makes them extremely valuable in every delve zone is the fact that they have huge HP and survival tools compared to DRK or WAR. Even before MNKs could use Victory Smite with Oatixur, MNK was usually the top DPS job, now with Victory Smite, their damage is nonpareil. The sad thing is Ukko's Fury, Torcleaver, Camlann's Torment are terrible weapon skills compared to the merit WS counterparts, MNKs and SAM whom were already quite powerful(arguable the most powerful) in Delve content got a substantial boost to DPS by being able to use Tachi:Fudo/Victory Smite while DRK,WAR,DRG didn't really get any kind of boost to DPS by being able to use Empyrean WS. MNK with Victory Smite and SAM are now probably the best DDs by a wide margin that not even ilvl Ragnarok DRKs with Resolution will probably come close. Man, SAM with Tsumaru literally WS every 2 seconds at full haste with the crazy amount of Save TP they have, they have 3hit builds and with all their double attack and full buff haste, 3 hits are achieved so quickly. When I go as DRG and watch my LS SAM with Tsumaru in action, he weapon skills maybe 3-4x in the span of my 1 WS(not to mention his WS due drastically more since Shoha gets an Attack Bonus and Stardiver does not)

I guess this makes up for the fact that MNK was an underused job from 2003-2010 in the HNM scene outside of SATA Full Swing and Chi Blast, but still. MNK has many, many tools, extremely high damage output, can output damage under a wide variety of situations and has an extremely powerful SP1, very good survivability. There are very few situations where someone would 'need' to have a WAR,DRK,DRG,SAM when they can just throw MNKx6 at it. Groups on Cerberus are now lowmanning Tojil with 10 people. They just bring 2 BRDs, 2 WHMs and 6 MNKs and defeat NM 1-5+Boss in Morimar with like 10min to spare, definitely not something you could do with 6DRKs or 6WARs or 6DRGs.

Um... Isn't comparing a 119 weapon to.... anything that's not a 119 weapon... no comparison at all?

There were no 119 GS... There is a 119 GK... and from my experience, aside from formless shenanigans where there's a heavy PDT on the mob or w/e...
A good MNK and a good SAM are kinda equal in DD.

And as to the drg... Go get Drakesbane!! Even without the mythic bonus, that beast of a WS was faaaaaar out damaging Stardiver. (ok, not super out damaging... BUT it was dealing more on average from what I've seen. And iirc, Drakesbane can crit while Stardiver, being a MeritWS, can't)

Yes, MNK is being used more... but then every other DD has kinda always out shone WAR... just by the nature of all their swanky JAs. (SAM self skillchain crazy, DRG jumping, DRK having basically the same JAs but more potent while being suicidal, etc)

And as to Delve.... I don't think MNK being used in Delve implies MNK is broken.

No more so than WKRs being nothing but SMNs means that SMN is broken.

It's the fault of the content being skewed to support only a few jobs.
Obviously, WKRs aren't as bad as Delve is with the exclusion of all other jobs... But Delve is... kinda awful at including more than 9 jobs.

Drakesbane is terrible without Ryunohige. Even with Ryunohige it's not THAT great unless you're buffed to the teeth. It has a 20% attack penalty and a very low crit% rate compared to Stringing Pummel/Victory Smite/Chant du Cygne. Probably something like 5-10% crit at 100%TP.

If you think MNK is "the best magical damage dealer" you need to look at your gear for BLM.

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Originally Posted by Ophannus

Drakesbane is terrible without Ryunohige. Even with Ryunohige it's not THAT great unless you're buffed to the teeth. It has a 20% attack penalty and a very low crit% rate compared to Stringing Pummel/Victory Smite/Chant du Cygne. Probably something like 5-10% crit at 100%TP.

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That's a base crit. with merits and gear, you're gonna crit more.
And I can call BS on the bold.
I have personally seen Drakesbane vs 5/5 Stardiver... with a 113 skirmish weapon.
They dealt virtually the same dmg with the same gear. (and only full skirmish gear at that)

And I say virtually because Drakesbane out damaged Stardiver every time.
But it wasn't a huge damage difference. (like 1-200)
So with Ryunohige... it'll be a lot more of a difference... but saying that "drakesbane is terrible" is just BS.

And comparing WSs between weapon types is inane.
"GS WSs can't restore MP, so they are clearly inferior to staff WS"...
There is some validity in "this weaponskill has a higher attack bonus" or "this WS had a crit effect"... But that's not really a valid statement to say a weaponskill is crap.
Otherwise... Evisceration is the most godly WS in the game and THFs are the best DD ever, cause all that crit bonus.
Which we all know is complete and utter BS.

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Originally Posted by Tptn937

I think that formless strikes should be removed or severely hampered. For the past year or two SE has tried to require magical damage to combat the latest and greatest enemies. Instead of mages to fulfill that magical damage component, MNKs are brought instead. MNK already has the highest HP total which makes curing a breeze, they are consistently close to the very top tier of damage dealing in alliance and low man play. I don't think MNK should be the best magical damage dealer in addition to being a powerhouse for physical damage. What are your thoughts?

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I agree, I think Formless has become to powerful for a utility ability. It went from an ability good against select mobs like Flans or Slimes into an ability which dominates an entire piece of content due to the developers creating special aspects to the mobs most of which revolves around magic damage itself.

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Originally Posted by FaeQueenCory

This is really more "I think Delve is dumb" rather than a real "formless needs rethinking"...
The problem is the event... not the job.
At least in this case.

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Really the job is an issue, if I do any event, not just Delve, any event where I need both Physical and Magical DMG, MNK is the job I will take every time because it can do both of them very effectively. The only time you take a BLM is when a MNK simply can not do the job for certain reasons, such as Adamantoise, which to my understanding creates issues through high DEF, not PDT, which is why BLMs work and MNKs do not, or the case of Azure light in Abyssea, where magic DMG from a spell has to be the killing blow. But in the case of Delve, or any other event in history where magic DMG was preferred for a reason, such as flans or slimes and such, a MNK is better than BLM because MNK can get such a low delay and high DPS while still performing excellently throughout the remainder of the event.

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Originally Posted by Babekeke

Salvage.

And more on topic, I'm curious as to whether the ammo with magic damage + on it (Dosis Tathlum) affects Formless Strikes. Anyone managed to try it yet?

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I would assume not since all of the same damage calculations for MNK still take place the same under Formless Strikes, the only difference is that the DMG is converted to magic DMG, and I think it is given a reduction to damage as a penalty for that reason. Anything like Magic Attack or Defense, Damage, or anything else Magic related shouldn't really effect its DMG.

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Originally Posted by Ophannus

I guess this makes up for the fact that MNK was an underused job from 2003-2010 in the HNM scene outside of SATA Full Swing and Chi Blast, but still. MNK has many, many tools, extremely high damage output, can output damage under a wide variety of situations and has an extremely powerful SP1, very good survivability. There are very few situations where someone would 'need' to have a WAR,DRK,DRG,SAM when they can just throw MNKx6 at it. Groups on Cerberus are now lowmanning Tojil with 10 people. They just bring 2 BRDs, 2 WHMs and 6 MNKs and defeat NM 1-5+Boss in Morimar with like 10min to spare, definitely not something you could do with 6DRKs or 6WARs or 6DRGs.

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This is really the main thing about it all, MNK already wins in so many fields that this is just adding on to whats already a somewhat overpowered job. MNK is the best DD from the normal selection easily because it has such great abilities and has the most HP, on top if that the fact it has the best DPS too and then Formless comes along and puts it as one of the best sources for magic damage.

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Originally Posted by FaeQueenCory

And as to the drg... Go get Drakesbane!! Even without the mythic bonus, that beast of a WS was faaaaaar out damaging Stardiver. (ok, not super out damaging... BUT it was dealing more on average from what I've seen. And iirc, Drakesbane can crit while Stardiver, being a MeritWS, can't)

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This entire thing about SD/DB is offtopic, but to humor it, DB wins on low DEF/crit buff, SD wins on high DEF, with Ryuno DB wins in almost all cases to my knowledge unless your attack is just that horrible due to penalty.

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Yes, MNK is being used more... but then every other DD has kinda always out shone WAR... just by the nature of all their swanky JAs. (SAM self skillchain crazy, DRG jumping, DRK having basically the same JAs but more potent while being suicidal, etc)

And as to Delve.... I don't think MNK being used in Delve implies MNK is broken.

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Again its not about the job being broken because of Delve, its the fact that it can perform magic damage so well and that magic damage itself is now becoming a required gimmick for events rather than a simple advantage against certain mobs.

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Originally Posted by Redryno

If you think MNK is "the best magical damage dealer" you need to look at your gear for BLM.

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The best? No, not far off though since it can stack so much attack speed so easily and with buffs, not incurring a forced 2 second delay between all spells and forcing it to attack slower than it should have to, also, it has more attack buffs, and it has the ability to do Physical damage to everything, making it much more powerful overall than a BLM. BLM does more Magic Damage, but it falls short everywhere else, which is where the issue comes in, when you do not need a real magic damage dealer to do magic damage because a melee can really do the job better in the end.

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Originally Posted by Demon6324236

I agree, I think Formless has become to powerful for a utility ability. It went from an ability good against select mobs like Flans or Slimes into an ability which dominates an entire piece of content due to the developers creating special aspects to the mobs most of which revolves around magic damage itself.

Really the job is an issue, if I do any event, not just Delve, any event where I need both Physical and Magical DMG, MNK is the job I will take every time because it can do both of them very effectively. The only time you take a BLM is when a MNK simply can not do the job for certain reasons, such as Adamantoise, which to my understanding creates issues through high DEF, not PDT, which is why BLMs work and MNKs do not, or the case of Azure light in Abyssea, where magic DMG from a spell has to be the killing blow. But in the case of Delve, or any other event in history where magic DMG was preferred for a reason, such as flans or slimes and such, a MNK is better than BLM because MNK can get such a low delay and high DPS while still performing excellently throughout the remainder of the event.

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Wait... But you just said the exact opposite in the bold...
"it's become too used because the devs make content that practically requires it, but it's not the fault of the devs for making that content"???
>_>

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Originally Posted by Demon6324236

I would assume not since all of the same damage calculations for MNK still take place the same under Formless Strikes, the only difference is that the DMG is converted to magic DMG, and I think it is given a reduction to damage as a penalty for that reason. Anything like Magic Attack or Defense, Damage, or anything else Magic related shouldn't really effect its DMG.

This is really the main thing about it all, MNK already wins in so many fields that this is just adding on to whats already a somewhat overpowered job. MNK is the best DD from the normal selection easily because it has such great abilities and has the most HP, on top if that the fact it has the best DPS too and then Formless comes along and puts it as one of the best sources for magic damage.

This entire thing about SD/DB is offtopic, but to humor it, DB wins on low DEF/crit buff, SD wins on high DEF, with Ryuno DB wins in almost all cases to my knowledge unless your attack is just that horrible due to penalty.

Again its not about the job being broken because of Delve, its the fact that it can perform magic damage so well and that magic damage itself is now becoming a required gimmick for events rather than a simple advantage against certain mobs.

The best? No, not far off though since it can stack so much attack speed so easily and with buffs, not incurring a forced 2 second delay between all spells and forcing it to attack slower than it should have to, also, it has more attack buffs, and it has the ability to do Physical damage to everything, making it much more powerful overall than a BLM. BLM does more Magic Damage, but it falls short everywhere else, which is where the issue comes in, when you do not need a real magic damage dealer to do magic damage because a melee can really do the job better in the end.

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REM + REM WS = always better...
Just from what I've seen in my drg friends with their iLv spears... Drakesbane has been outperforming Stardiver constantly... Or at least it has every single time I have ever seen them use it.

And you're right, the job isn't broken because of Delve... it's just that Delve severely caters to demanding MNKs due to the design of the NMs.
Alexander's PD was never really overpowered....
But the Devs kept making content that practically demanded its use.
They realized it, so they neutered PD to make it so they wouldn't make content that then relied on PD to be defeated...
And I think it's basically the same thing here: Delve has been made so that MNKs with Formless is the PD of yesteryear.
Though I don't think FS is as potent as PD...
I think to "fix" this... all they have to do is program NMs in the other 3-4 fractures to not rely on these MDT/PDT shenanigans that the current ones do.

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Originally Posted by FaeQueenCory

Wait... But you just said the exact opposite in the bold...
"it's become too used because the devs make content that practically requires it, but it's not the fault of the devs for making that content"???
>_>

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Delve does not require a MNK with formless, Delve requires magic damage. There are many jobs which can fulfill this role. Take out a DD and put in a BLM give them Ballad and MAB Rolls, you will see them throwing down great nukes, Mata can be killed by SCHs, GEOs, RDM, and BLM, you should have 6 jobs at very least capable of throwing nukes at him for capped DMG with spells on a 10 second recast timer or lower, which should make him a joke, that's 23 nukes, split between 6 people. The thing is that no one takes a BLM, why? MNK can do it, why bother?

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REM + REM WS = always better...
Just from what I've seen in my drg friends with their iLv spears... Drakesbane has been outperforming Stardiver constantly... Or at least it has every single time I have ever seen them use it.

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Question is, what are they fighting, if the target has less DEF than their attack by a large enough amount, that's why. Drakes will win most of the time if the target has quite a bit of DEF lower, which is why as an Upu DRG I always use Drakes in anything outside of Adoulin, my attack crushes everything DEF in old content.

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And you're right, the job isn't broken because of Delve... it's just that Delve severely caters to demanding MNKs due to the design of the NMs.
Alexander's PD was never really overpowered....
But the Devs kept making content that practically demanded its use.
They realized it, so they neutered PD to make it so they wouldn't make content that then relied on PD to be defeated...
And I think it's basically the same thing here: Delve has been made so that MNKs with Formless is the PD of yesteryear.
Though I don't think FS is as potent as PD...
I think to "fix" this... all they have to do is program NMs in the other 3-4 fractures to not rely on these MDT/PDT shenanigans that the current ones do.

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I think its worse than PD really. PD was a 1 shot thing, once per event, Formless can be used multiple times and reset by CORs multiple times if need by, once by an ability with what I think is like a 20min recast, and the other is their SP. PD was at least a 1 shot wonder, you popped it then you just stunned. So far as making NMs that do not rely on PDT/MDT things, its not easy to come up with a gimmick to make the NM unique which does not rely on such a thing, or at least I have a hard time coming up with them.

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Originally Posted by Demon6324236

Delve does not require a MNK with formless, Delve requires magic damage. There are many jobs which can fulfill this role. Take out a DD and put in a BLM give them Ballad and MAB Rolls, you will see them throwing down great nukes, Mata can be killed by SCHs, GEOs, RDM, and BLM, you should have 6 jobs at very least capable of throwing nukes at him for capped DMG with spells on a 10 second recast timer or lower, which should make him a joke, that's 23 nukes, split between 6 people. The thing is that no one takes a BLM, why? MNK can do it, why bother?

[...]

I think its worse than PD really. PD was a 1 shot thing, once per event, Formless can be used multiple times and reset by CORs multiple times if need by, once by an ability with what I think is like a 20min recast, and the other is their SP. PD was at least a 1 shot wonder, you popped it then you just stunned. So far as making NMs that do not rely on PDT/MDT things, its not easy to come up with a gimmick to make the NM unique which does not rely on such a thing, or at least I have a hard time coming up with them.

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Technically... PD could be reset as well. So that point is irrelevant.
But I think it's potency is greater.
Sure, it's a 1shot... but Formless doesn't have the same complete shutdown that PD does did.... it at least requires SOME talent to use effectively.
But this is really apple and oranges when we're talking about potency...

But when it comes to design of the content I think it's the same thing:
With PD: "well the players have PD.... so... they can just use that"
with FS: "well... they have MNKs with Oats... so they can just use that"

I think the problem with "why not BLM" is that up to this point... BLM could only have achieved a 117/8 weapon.
(not to mention that SCH or RDM can do the same as BLM... it's just easier on players to make the MNKs do the magic dmg to let the SCHs and RDMs focus on stunning... though I guess GEOs could do it too... after poopin luopons.)
Now with REMs... maybe we'll see more variance... But I don't really think so.
Delve is a very... exclusive endgame... It's one of the things that I though was very good design for VW: all jobs have a place. Even if it's only one slot... everyone can do it equally.
And it's exclusivity is entirely its design, just as you pointed out: "The thing is that no one takes a BLM, why? MNK can do it, why bother?" And the only thing they are doing other than that is poking things until it's dead, they can handle one more thing.
(plus MNK is one of the few that had 119 capabilities.)

Hopefully... with the advent of 119 AF sets... coupled with the 119 REMs...
Maybe Delve will start to be more inclusive...

Remember, it's not JUST that MNKs have formless... it's that they also have a 119 weapon and are a DD.

Just thought I'd point out to you guys so you can actually argue about Formless correctly.

It's not magical damage. It's non-physical damage. There is a difference. Formless is a great ability, not because it's overpowered, but because it gives monks more versatility.

As others have already said here, it's not the ability that makes monk too strong. It's the content.

Complaining about Formless in Delve is like complaining about Mighty Strikes in a zone where your 2 hour abilities were constantly reset.