Future Battle Balance Adjustments

Greetings,

Below is a comment from Akihiko Matsui in regards to battle balance plans moving forward.

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Originally Posted by Akihiko_Matsui

Matsui here.

I'd like to give a rough breakdown of the direction we are looking in for future battle adjustments.

• Tanks
  In regards to the issue where enmity immediately reaches the system cap, we would like to make another round of enmity system adjustments based on high item levels. We are aiming to address this in the February version update.
  
  Additionally, we would like to make it so it is easier for tanks to build enmity and properly hold their targets when there are melee damage dealers in the party with them.
  
  Also, rune fencers are currently weak to physical attacks, so we are looking into adjustments from various angles such as via equipment and job traits. We feel it necessary to make them comparable to a paladin for all-around tanking.
  
  While we feel adjustments to ninja are necessary, if we were to simply enhance Utsusemi there is a concern that they would be able to completely shutout enemies (though it depends on content). Naturally we would like the tank and healer roles to work together in a party setting, so we are currently looking into a better way to address this.
  
  
• Damage dealers
  Based on the above, there may be some concerns over rangers and other damage dealers who have specialties involving enmity reduction possibly losing their place.
  
  When it comes to pure damage dealers, there are various types of individual characteristics such as accuracy and attack power, but we would like to reduce the gap based on damage dealt over time.
  
  Especially when forming parties with support jobs, a difference is elicited between jobs with large boons and those with small boons, so we feel it necessary to make adjustments with this in consideration.
  
  There’s a ton to think about when it comes to support and healer balance as well as the treatment of jobs that possess a wide range of roles, but to start out we would first like to make adjustments to enmity and tanks, and strengthen the foundation of party play.
  
  I'll be discussing the specific plans for adjustments and the implementation timing bit by bit as we move forward.

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I, and many I'm sure, would really appreciate it if while you were making this adjustment to tanks and enmity that you would also look into adjusting the Valoredge automaton, so that it maintains hate better (i.e. adding extra enmity to shield bash, its weapon skills, its base enmity accumulation rate, or via a job abilities/attachments.) It would be groundbreaking to see Valoredge tanking in a party or alliance setting and it would alleviate the burden of currently having only one end-game tank: PLD. This being said, this is not necessary for PUPs sake only, because searching for only 6-7 jobs of the other 22 jobs that exist for events seems silly, it would be great if there were more options to choose from to fit tanking roles such as PUP, RUN, NIN, and maybe even WAR, BLU, and DNC too! I would figure the point of having versatile jobs is to do just that!

We have a "job type" bottle neck issue currently with respect to low-man (x<=6) difficult and very difficult battlefield content.

THF, NIN, RDM, BLU, PET take ridiculous amounts of damage over time to effectively tank anything less there are 5 WHM in a 6 man party (exaggeration, but you get the point I hope). I'm not going to get into the why, as players that play these jobs already know why I say such things.

We have multiple DD jobs
We have multiple Specialty /Tool Jobs
We have multiple Mage Jobs
We have multiple pet jobs
We have multiple Ranged ATT jobs
We have the 1/2 Tank Rune Fencer

We Have Only 1 True Tank Job and the barrier to "an Ochain for all" is the amount fighting your going to do for soul and horn NMs, not to mention the plate acquisition.

Not everyone wants to level PLD and fight for weeks to build an Ochain or any other RME Shield. Some people just don't like the job, don't have the time to level it and/or don't have the inventory spaces to level it. Given that you are not providing other options its seems as if you are indirectly telling us all to Level Paladin Or Don't Play and an increasing amount of people are choosing to walk away and not play as opposed to waiting for a PLD to log on.

Want to WKR? Got a PLD? No? Then there will almost always be no WKR

Want to SKCBC for Synth Mats? Well it seems so far that you need to at least be set to difficult to get a drop and popular trend dictates your probably going to need a PLD to do Very Difficult and most Difficult content

Want to do AA? Same Things apply

Yes PLD should have there place, but right now its a tanking monopoly and some more options would be nice. When a server doesn't have enough true tanks (PLD With RME Shield(s), etc) people are not going to be able to create many concurrent parties due to shared resources. As a result, people will not be able to do the things they want to do, nor get the opportunities to earn the drops they want and will stop playing.

If you goal is to get people to just buy the 119 reforge materials on AH then your doing a great job.

If your point is to get people to stop playing then your doing a great job, as its easy to stop playing for good when you continuously cant find a true tank for a party and the barrier to entry for the AA fights are so high that players are unwilling to try to win utilizing a party without a PLD With RME shield.

It is also easy to stop playing when the development team forces you to play jobs you do not enjoy when you are used to choosing how you want to spend your time and money. If your trying to extinct or cannibalize the game you should say that's you intent so people can make the choice to move on or over to 14. Many people I know have said they will never restart a game like this from scratch and this is the last game of this type that they will play. I know that hold true for me personally.

So When? When? When? is the question at hand.

At least, SE is recognizing finally. Also, I would really love to see blu pseudo-tanking again. As even said by SE, blu is meant to tank at times. Perhaps, a future update can give us spells such that allow blu's to tank much better. Upgrades to Warm-up, Barrier Tusk, Saline Coat, and Cocoon (but for magic defense) come to mind.

Please consider making BST a tank too. It's the only role that the job can realistically fill in a party. It's already on heavy armor. It's DD output already sucks. Let us shed hate to our pets more and gain hate more and keep our pets alive through big attacks. There are too many DD jobs and BST will never be chosen because it doesn't have damage output like a DD. BST is a loljob and its really really expensive for a loljob, so please consider fixing that, thanks.

Greetings,

I’d like to give you all a bit more background about the dancer adjustments that are planned for the upcoming February version update. Currently the development team is aware that dancers are having difficulties finding a spot in parties, and they would like to make adjustments to make it easier for them to participate in party content.

In the February version update we will be making adjustments to waltzes, and these adjustments revolve around the idea of the dancer being an attacker that, while falling somewhat short of the firepower possessed by monk and dark knight, are able to give curing support in situations where enemies have crushing attacks. The planned adjustment to waltzes is a very large change, and we’ve decided to implement only this adjustment to start out.

As an adjustment for the future, we are currently looking into having dancer contribute even more to the party by using their specialties, such as increasing the effect of steps much more when dancer is your main job. Additionally we are looking into adjustments for the times when it’s difficult to build finishing moves once you’ve reached the maximum number of steps.

If you want jobs like DNC & PUP to find a place in parties where there currently is none, remove or massively reduce the stupid JA Delay! Every melee job that heavily relies on casting or using Job Abilities falls short of their fellow melee jobs because of the delay attached to those actions, unless you remove or severely reduce those delays, little will change.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Greetings,

I’d like to give you all a bit more background about the dancer adjustments that are planned for the upcoming February version update. Currently the development team is aware that dancers are having difficulties finding a spot in parties, and they would like to make adjustments to make it easier for them to participate in party content.

In the February version update we will be making adjustments to waltzes, and these adjustments revolve around the idea of the dancer being an attacker that, while falling somewhat short of the firepower possessed by monk and dark knight, are able to give curing support in situations where enemies have crushing attacks. The planned adjustment to waltzes is a very large change, and we’ve decided to implement only this adjustment to start out.

As an adjustment for the future, we are currently looking into having dancer contribute even more to the party by using their specialties, such as increasing the effect of steps much more when dancer is your main job. Additionally we are looking into adjustments for the times when it’s difficult to build finishing moves once you’ve reached the maximum number of steps.

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It's nice that improvements are being made, but they won't change the dynamics of dancers unless they become a contender for a top burst healer, just using TP instead of MP.

In other words: unless dancer offers a significant advantage over WHM in healing effectiveness, it will always be ignored. An example of such an advantage would be massive single-target heals for a relatively small amount of TP (~50%) with a low (5 seconds or so) recast time, or a very potent curaga-type dance that also costs relatively little TP (120% or so). This would allow dancer to MAYBE surpass WHM in situations where there is a frequent and prolonged bombardment of massive damage (like an Ark Angel fight). But then again, rebuilding TP fast enough may be a problem due to evasion on such powerful enemies. Without a change like this, the community is too close-minded to spend a party slot on a dancer.

If you recall the ranger's Nightingale pet summoned with the "Animals" ability in FFV, and how it's an insane full-party heal that costs no MP, dancer needs something of that caliber to be relevant.

I don't agree that Dnc needs to be able to heal better than a whm (even situationally) to be able to find a party slot. But something does need to be done, if you do too much on the DD end, you run the risk of imbalancing it, I mean, THF is already completely marginalized even more than DNC, buffing it and not THF is all the sadder for THFs, but they both need to be given something that gives people a reason to invite them.

Removing or reducing JA -> Auto Attack delay as Justin said would be a big help for Dnc and Run, and is something I think that's way overdue, but this alone probably wouldn't be enough to give it a spot.

Buffing the crap out of Haste Samba for DNC main (And increasing the duration on all sambas) would be worth looking into, in my opinion, along with reducing the universal JA -> Auto Attack delay. Also perhaps providing other interesting sambas, something that comes to mind is an "Earthen Armor/Scherzo/Migawari" type Samba, would be pretty amazing and perhaps let them find a spot in AA battles, and an improved haste samba and lower JA delay might let them find a place in delve.

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Originally Posted by Selindrile

Also perhaps providing other interesting sambas, something that comes to mind is an "Earthen Armor/Scherzo/Migawari" type Samba

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I'd like it better if they made it a Jig than a Samba. Call it Juggernaut Jig and please make it happen!

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Originally Posted by Camate

Greetings,

I’d like to give you all a bit more background about the dancer adjustments that are planned for the upcoming February version update. Currently the development team is aware that dancers are having difficulties finding a spot in parties, and they would like to make adjustments to make it easier for them to participate in party content.

In the February version update we will be making adjustments to waltzes, and these adjustments revolve around the idea of the dancer being an attacker that, while falling somewhat short of the firepower possessed by monk and dark knight, are able to give curing support in situations where enemies have crushing attacks. The planned adjustment to waltzes is a very large change, and we’ve decided to implement only this adjustment to start out.

As an adjustment for the future, we are currently looking into having dancer contribute even more to the party by using their specialties, such as increasing the effect of steps much more when dancer is your main job. Additionally we are looking into adjustments for the times when it’s difficult to build finishing moves once you’ve reached the maximum number of steps.

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going to reply to this in pieces below...

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Originally Posted by Camate

while falling somewhat short of the firepower possessed by monk and dark knight, are able to give curing support in situations where enemies have crushing attacks.

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In my experiences as dancer main in delve, skc battles, and new archangels and divine might, a full waltz potency set dancer + divine waltz II is a nice instant burst aoe heal,
However:
*Please increase area of effect radius of Divine Waltz and Divine Waltz II (currently ~10' yalms) to match that of WHM Curaga (15' yalms). The difference seems minor but its quite relevant for things like post-meteor attack hp recovery during AA TT/DM
*Paralyze aura monsters make us an unreliable as support healer because a paralyze proc resets the timer.
*Dancers lack the ability to area of effect healing waltz (remove 1 status effect from all party members within a distance of the dancer). 'Crushing attacks' right now usually apply multiple status down effects, it would be helpful if dancers could at least emulate the affect of a sch/whm or whm/sch doing accession+erase, with a high tp cost or cooldown to balance it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Camate

As an adjustment for the future, we are currently looking into having dancer contribute even more to the party by using their specialties

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Increasing the haste samba benefit more from dancer main jobs would be nice here, subbed dancer gets a significant amount of JA haste from it compared to dancer main- a broader difference between the two would help.

A combination like Drg/Dnc for something like Tojil was generally taken over a dancer main because they are a more potent dps choice and could also bring 2 of the best dancer JA to the fight (haste samba + box step, while still being a must-have job for runs because of Angon)

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Originally Posted by Camate

, such as increasing the effect of steps much more when dancer is your main job.

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The only step non dancers generally care about usually is capped out Box Step, The new AA-MR fight on harder modes is the only time I remember ever where Quickstep has become highly desired.
Feather step feels like it needs a boost, especially when harder content monsters appear to have significant critical hit evasion, its never something you willingly apply unless you somehow capped out box and quickstep.

Dancers would be more appealing for others to bring for events if we can further 'out step' others subbing dancer. Consider letting presto give 1 more finishing move than it currently does (it would then become +4 moves when you presto+step on a new target) and an additional level increase on the step affect (daze Lv. 3 on a new target with presto+step).

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Originally Posted by Camate

Additionally we are looking into adjustments for the times when it’s difficult to build finishing moves once you’ve reached the maximum number of steps.

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Usually dancers swap to a different step if they want presto+step to give 3 finishing moves and the previous step level was capped. I don't see this as a crippling issue

Finally, in closing, I would like to still be able to use some fair amount of TP and finishing moves for dealing damage on hard content. Healing support is great, there's been lots of times i've felt good about saving people with waltzes, but the joy of attacking extremely fast, doing competent damage and being able to self skillchain and solo lots of things is why most people love the job.

Can you please look into reducing the cooldown on Climactic Flourish from 90 seconds to maybe 60 seconds? Its ability to do damage combined with Rudra's Storm weaponskill makes it one of our best options on extremely hard targets (delve boss/hardmode skc/aa/dm) but the cooldown time seems rather extreme when you look at how far we lag behind in damage contribution to pure DD jobs.

This is probably the best post i seen done by Camate and I for once am very happy :) to know that they are looking into making future adjustment to Dnc job. For 5 long years i never bother to sign up but Thank you to that post Camate made i have sign up in Forum and I am very interested in what kind of adjustment to dnc. Like Camate said increasing the effect of steps is a very good start. Since people that sub dnc have access to quickstep, box step and stutter step. I was wondering would that make more since if a Main job Dnc like for example feather step have multiple effect like box step and quickstep in it? Or can add a new Ja steps that bring down enemy attack and magic attack it be nice. Anyways I'll hold off on what i want to see on Dnc and let Camate and the Director come up with some good ideas for Dnc and I'm all for it whatever you got cook up. =) In the meantime I am looking forward into February 18 update it's gonna be fun and excitement.

Break Dance ((Can I Have it?))

Seriously though- glad to see this. Dancer's a fun job I haven't played in a long long time because there's even less of a party opportunity than PUP. I could totally see Dancer shining with increased waltz potency, and perhaps a major resist sleep trait, and the ability for healing waltz to remove petrification effects. At that point while it wouldn't be a top healer, it could fill a unique role in dealing some decent damage while making sure the main healer is alive, awake, and not petrified!

Waltzes don't need to be more potent in my opinion, they cure plenty of HP, they need reduced cost and recast timers, and probably new abilities to be relevant. In the current higher level content, you can cure the crap out of someone, and then wait for your timers while they go from full-dead in the interim. Or have everything you do be paralyzed.

The Waltz recast change will make DNC a viable main healer for a lot of content. For instance, against AAs that don't spam unblinkable AoEs.

Currently: PLD, WHM, BRD/WHM, COR/whatever, DD, DD
Future: PLD, DNC, BRD/WHM, COR/WHM, DD, DD

COR and BRD can handle a Haste order and status removal along with back-up cures and Dia II + Light Shot x2. DNC could main heal and provide Haste Samba/Steps. It's a pure upgrade even if the DNC sits on TP and doesn't use WSs. The biggest problem in the above setup, imop, is that the DNC runs the risk of getting hate/killed while WHM does not, and a weakened DNC won't be able to get TP and heal very well.




Demonjustin already hit the main problem with the DNC job, which is JA delay. DNC is the most useful to parties in high Haste situations (due to Haste Samba), which are exactly the types of situations where its JA delay hurts it the most. This delay needs to be decreased significantly.


Other random wishlist:
* Waltz Potency - Decrease the base potency and increase the effect of CHR+VIT on Waltz HP healed. Balance it so that a naked player Waltzes for about the same amount as they do currently. This will let Waltz be more affected by increased stats on gear.
* Saber/Fan Dance - Decrease the delay after canceling these abilities until we can use Waltz/Samba, respectively. Currently we have to wait over a second, which is quite annoying.
* Steps - I like the idea of increasing potency on the main job (which I have been suggesting for several years). Please do that so Steps might even be worth using when lowman.
* Drain/Aspir Samba - Minor gripe, but please make these based off weapon delay before delay reduction. Also, it would be nice if they did damage. If you made these changes, Haste Samba might not be the only Samba people use.
* Building Flourish - Move it to category III and make it apply to melee hits (but be consumed by WS).
* Wild Flourish - Make this work with Tier 2 skillchain properties (like Konzen-Ittai). Currently we are unable to use this ability with some of our WSs, like Rudra's Storm.
* Striking Flourish - Please make this ability allow the first hit of WSs to crit at a normal rate, and have Charis Casaque +1/2 add their critical hit rate bonuses to that. If you do that, it might actually be worth using.
* Ternary Flourish - I don't know how to save this ability, but please try something! Making the additional swings mimic the fTP of the first hit would be a possibility.

Waiting on the update..

I can only say that I hope S.E. has done something about Rune Fencer Damage Mitigation/Taken. All of the information pre-date has centered around offense and possibly maintaining hate. Hopefully we are not going to be dealing with the same defensive issues. Its one thing to get hate/keep hate, its another to consistently be able to take the punishment of these NMs in the new areas.

I found it quite surprising that the organization would provide the player base a job (Rune Fencer) (to whose base story is apart of a) within a new expansion and the job turns out to be among the least suited to handle the content battle wise. Consistently getting destroyed because its doesn't have the tools to take the punishment the new content brought.

Rune Fencer needs to be able to stand in front of nms just as well as a Pld does. All the leaked information seems to be geared towards getting the monsters attention... then what????? What covers the 3.5 minute gap when Battuta Is Down, shadows have been absorbed and the NM is focused on the Rune??? *If we have to worry about getting hate off the Rune then you can't call it a tank. * Hopefully this update brings solutions in that regards. If not, my opinion is you keep the job updates until its resolved. If survivability is not going to be addressed in this update it would clearly indicate that there has been a rather backward approach with respect to the job adjustments strategy AND you will do more damage to the jobs reputation than good.

So.. we wait... and hope..

Greetings,

I have some additional information to share regarding future dancer adjustments, which focuses on steps.

First, to ensure that steps land, the team plans to make it so step accuracy can be better supplemented with equipment. Additionally, we’ll be making it so the effect duration can be lengthened through the use of job points in the March version update.

Also, as mentioned previously, the team is continuing to look into adjustments so that the effects of steps are much more powerful when using them while dancer is your main job. While I cannot give an exact time frame for this as of yet, we’ll be sure to keep you all updated on the status.

As long as we have a minimum ~5% chance of missing a step/violent flourish due to the current accuracy check mechanics, we aren't a reliable source of stunning so people won't bring dancers for their stunning skills or place them in a stun rotation with a stun mage. This is a good example of where our job utility isn't a selling point to someone making a party/alliance for hard battle content.

We already sacrifice significant dps due to JA delay and although longer step duration initially seems nice to have, it doesn't address the dps loss from JA delay when we want to aggressively build steps and use finishing moves.
As it stands, we are only a fair DD option if you have near perfect gear and compete with less hardcore players playing mnk that gets KO'd during the fight allowing us to catch up on total damage dealt.

I'm fortunate enough to have friends and a LS that lets me bring dancer to these events and avoids the current meta-bandwagon of throw monks and rangers at everything, but for most of the playerbase i'd say the Dnc job still has an uphill battle for acceptance.

We might have better luck getting more dancers into endgame/hardcore content if you do indeed make box step from DNC main much stronger while still making it stack with all other defense down effects.

For parties that want accuracy, our current quickstep (+24 after spending time stacking to level 5 and incurring a ton of JA delay) isn't competitive enough with Corsair's hunter roll (up to +65 acc) or 1 bard song (blade madrigal +34acc or more)

"Step Accuracy" is a stupid statistic, 99% of the time people are better off with just normal accuracy+ gear, but with the natural 95% acc cap along with the magic accuracy component, it's just another thing that can go wrong when trying to stun. So your missed stun rate is already much worse than a Blm's (Blu suffers from the same issue.).

Step potency could be increased, the amount of time it lasts on a monster (without being reapplied) could be increased, but you know what would make steps more viable in the long run? Making it so you didn't have to lose 50% of your attack rounds to use them. (Job ability attack delay) beats out the positive debuff aspects of steps thoroughly in short battles, and often in long battles as well, but, people don't bring dancers to anything with long battles, generally.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Greetings,

I have some additional information to share regarding future dancer adjustments, which focuses on steps.

First, to ensure that steps land, the team plans to make it so step accuracy can be better supplemented with equipment. Additionally, we’ll be making it so the effect duration can be lengthened through the use of job points in the March version update.

Also, as mentioned previously, the team is continuing to look into adjustments so that the effects of steps are much more powerful when using them while dancer is your main job. While I cannot give an exact time frame for this as of yet, we’ll be sure to keep you all updated on the status.

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In order for this to be really useful, you also need to make the changes to Finishing Moves that were being considered a while ago. Make them so that they still give full FMs even when used with level 5 Daze already active on the monster. Currently it defaults to 1 if the daze is already level 5, which means that you need to let debuffs wear off (made more difficult by increasing duration) in order to continue to build FMs very well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Camate

Greetings,

I have some additional information to share regarding future dancer adjustments, which focuses on steps.

First, to ensure that steps land, the team plans to make it so step accuracy can be better supplemented with equipment. Additionally, we’ll be making it so the effect duration can be lengthened through the use of job points in the March version update.

Also, as mentioned previously, the team is continuing to look into adjustments so that the effects of steps are much more powerful when using them while dancer is your main job. While I cannot give an exact time frame for this as of yet, we’ll be sure to keep you all updated on the status.

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Hello Camate for the post done by Sapphires, Selindrile and byrth they all do have a good point of opinion for DNC adjustment. I hope you look carefully into DNC adjustment. I have been playing this job for a long time now when they first introduce Dnc 75. I hope good adjustment are being done for Dnc to be offensive and supporter for tank job. If it's possible would it be ok for Dnc to have a TP regain job-trait since they rely so much on using a lot of TP when compare to a Whm, Rdm, Sch job they have refresh to keep up MP? Next Question are their any plans being done to Flourishes III, Climactic Flourish, Striking Flourish, Ternary Flourish? =) I like to try out this upcoming adjustment you have for DNC and see how it goes from there. :D

well said things need change soon!!