Concern about proposed DRG adjustments in September

The developers mentioned speeding up the charge time for breaths during the next update but this may have unintended consequences. Many DRGs rely on the moderate delay of Healing Breath's activation in order to equip the proper equipment to boost its effectivness. Since equipment that has "Wyvern HP + X%" takes about 1-2 seconds to be recognized by the server(Opposed to Wyvern HP +X"), if the Breath activates too quickly, the benefit from the +% gear will become much harder to use. Removing the "percent" aspect from those pieces of equipment that increase Wyvern HP would be a step in the right direction since it takes comparitevly long for the server to calculate the HP%. Many times it isn't calculated fast enough between the time we hit our "Healing Breath" macro, with the gear included, and the breath actually activating, so any potency that HP% gear grants is lost. Maybe change pieces that have HP+% to simply "Enhances Wyvern Breath Potency" to a similar effect, or just HP+300 or something.

Additionally, many DRGs swap to equipment that enhances Wyvern Breath Attacks immediately after a weapon skill(Glassblower Belt, Relic Helmet, Lancer's Torque etc) to increase breath damage. If the Breath goes off too quickly after a weapon skill, this again would be too hard to use. Also Wyvern Breaths would not be able to skillchain if they fire off too quickly(although a magic burst Wyvern breath only benefits from increased accuracy anyway)

I would rather elemental Breaths damage be boosted dramatically to a value 2-3x greater than their current power, to justify the charge time it takes to use(and the loss of 1-2 attack rounds) rather than speeding them up too much.

Also as Ophannus mentioned a year ago, a Job Ability 'stance' that prevents the Wyvern from using Breaths or locks their TP from being expended upon every breath would be a great way for DRG to benefit from the aspect of Spirit Link that draws TP from the Wyvern. That property of the JA is hard to use because Wyverns spend all their TP every few seconds, whenever a DRG uses a WS(an Wyvern TP adds minimal benefit to Wyvern's TP), maybe channging it so Wyvern Breaths don't spend TP unless used with Restoring/Smiting Breath, so we can use the TP transfer aspect of Spirit Link more tactically for increasing our weapon skill frequency further in battle?

As much as i agree with you. Lets take this win we got today and run with it. And lets hope the haste effect is JA haste and not gear haste.

This is something we've been asking for, for a long time. I for one don't mind that we'll have to readjust our macros to get breaths to work correctly. I'm just happy that they finally gave in and gave us what we've asking for since this job was added to the game.

Additionally, there's only one relevant piece of gear that still uses Wyvern: HP+% on it, which is the Vishap Brais/+1. Pteroslaver Greaves moved to HP+#, and Wyvern Mail, Ostreger Mitts, and Updraft Mantle (or Lancer's Pelerine) are all HP+#. So maybe to fix your issue, you simply trigger Healing Breath in your Vishap legs (+23/50 HP on them anyway!) and then by the time the breath goes off and takes hold, it should have calculated the Breath potency. For post-Weapon Skill breaths, that's a bit harder short of WSing in them, but until I see the Strafe trait + merit combo and see that it makes Wyvern breaths relevant, I'm not too unhappy about a gimped breath doing gimped damage. =x

That being said, bring on September! I'm excited to see Dragoon be revitalized. :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kensagaku

For post-Weapon Skill breaths, that's a bit harder short of WSing in them, but until I see the Strafe trait + merit combo and see that it makes Wyvern breaths relevant, I'm not too unhappy about a gimped breath doing gimped damage. =x

---

Elemental breaths use CURRENT wyvern HP in the damage calculation. So you don't swap in WHP+ gear in any case. Only enhances breath gear like wyrm armet, or lancer's torque would be used for elemental breaths.

And even then, you'd only swap in post ws if you were in a low haste situation. At capped haste, you're almost certain to land a melee hit before the breath fires and you swap back to TP gear.

With a 1 second charge time, post update, perhaps swapping in breath+ gear post WS will be more viable.

Pardon, I've never paid much attention to elemental breaths because their damage output has been rather low. xD; I'm used to healing breath! But thank you for that correction.

The Brais' HP+20% not being accounted is still a solid 300ish HP potency to healing breath. I wish they would do something about it like changing the HP on Brais to a static amount instead of a percentage, say like Wyvern HP+300 instead of 20%. It's hard to use % gear for Healing Breath and since that's all Wyvern HP gear is useful for, Artifact Legs/Brais have lost a lot of value unless you equip it, wait 3-4 seconds, then use Healing Breath(not practical in any situation)


This, however makes DRG solo a joke since HB will activate instantly, not more "OH SH--!" moments when you're sitting at 5HP and waiting 2-3 seconds for HB to activate as you pray that the mob misses its next attack before you get healed.

Ill take the increase in dps for lower healing breaths if needed.

Greetings,

With the amount of time required for a breath to activate, it will somewhat affect the timing for swapping out equipment for Healing Breath enhancements making it a bit trickier, but we would like you all to actually try this out when it goes live and then let us know your feedback in regards to the usage.

Additionally, I’d like to give a bit more information regarding the upcoming adjustments.

• Haste effect
  The new haste effect gained by the dragoon as a wyvern’s level rise will stack with equipment haste as well as magical haste effects similar to Hasso and Spirit Surge.
  
• Strafe
  At the level 80 stage for the Strafe job trait, breath accuracy will cumulatively be +100.

with all new gear, cap haste is mega easy, making new haste effect similar to hasso really isnt going to help much out, instead could count it towards magic haste

No, he said it will stack. He didn't say it will be similar to hasso. So your total haste will be ja haste + equipment haste + magical haste + wyvern haste, with respect to the haste cap, of course.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Grekumah

Greetings,

With the amount of time required for a breath to activate, it will somewhat affect the timing for swapping out equipment for Healing Breath enhancements making it a bit trickier, but we would like you all to actually try this out when it goes live and then let us know your feedback in regards to the usage.

Additionally, I’d like to give a bit more information regarding the upcoming adjustments.

• Haste effect
  The new haste effect gained by the dragoon as a wyvern’s level rise will stack with equipment haste as well as magical haste effects similar to Hasso and Spirit Surge.
  
• Strafe
  At the level 80 stage for the Strafe job trait, breath accuracy will cumulatively be +100.

---

Neat. I'm glad they let you be the one to deliver good news for once.

Glad its JA haste, if it was gear or magic haste it would be welcome, but not nearly as effective. Most the time when you are doing end game events, you are capped magic/gear haste anyway.

Don't forget, it will also mean that /WAR is going to be quite competitive with /SAM. With /WAR you'll have an effective Hasso equivalent for JA haste. Defender with Wyvern will give you +45% defense and only -5% attack. Berserk will give you +45% attack and only -5% defense. Double Attack, higher HP, Warcry, Provoke, Aggressor. Also the 15STP isn't as necessary anymore(easily made up from gear and actually 492 delay lances give slightly more TP now after the WS update). Also 5hits aren't as necessary since fTP changes, overflow of TP isn't necessarily as wasteful as it once was.

Yea /sam is going to be a thing of the past most likely. /War or /Drk onry. with /drk you could cap ja haste and get more attack, or you can /war and get all those goodies.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Grekumah

Greetings,

With the amount of time required for a breath to activate, it will somewhat affect the timing for swapping out equipment for Healing Breath enhancements making it a bit trickier, but we would like you all to actually try this out when it goes live and then let us know your feedback in regards to the usage.

---

Translation: Please use windower and gearswap, you will enjoy FFXI more.

Quote:

---

Translation: Please use windower and gearswap, you will enjoy FFXI more.

---

The delay is server side. Go equip Brais and watch your Wyvern's HP bar. Watch how long it takes for it to update the HP after the brais are equipped. It doesn't matter how fast the player equips the brais, the server still takes 2-3 seconds to update and the breath will be activating in 1 second post patch.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xsilver

It's hard to use % gear for Healing Breath and since that's all Wyvern HP gear is useful for

---

I'm sorry.. what?

You should have Wyvern HP or HP% gear in your Steady wing set so your wyvern doesn't die as well, so that's not all its useful for. You can get Stoneskin on your wyvern up to 3k+ in some situations with proper gearing.

I do agree with your second point though. Making healing breath get off faster is much more important than having it land for 300 or so more.

I agree, but I guess I'm just neurotic about it. It would be like playing WHM and having a piece of gear that has Cure Potency +20% that you can't really use reliably.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xsilver

I agree, but I guess I'm just neurotic about it. It would be like playing WHM and having a piece of gear that has Cure Potency +20% that you can't really use reliably.

---

Oh no.. I understand. As a Tarutaru, i've always felt that being able to cure almost all my HP with a normal, non-deep breathing healing breath, has been a godsend. But.. you are stretching it a bit. A 5-7mp heal for 1.1k HP vs 1.4k HP is still broken as hell and is not like a WHM having 20% cure potency they can't use.

We are all really looking a gift horse in the mouth here. There was no way they were going to buff us while still allowing us to have the most broken heal in the game. (1.4k HP heal for 5-7mp)

20% Att and 10% JA Haste + Faster Heals.. ya, I can give up 300hp on healing breath. If they want to buff our attack boost to 50% I would give up healing breath all together.. because what am I soloing in current FFXI? :3

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Minikom

with all new gear, cap haste is mega easy, making new haste effect similar to hasso really isnt going to help much out, instead could count it towards magic haste

---

JA haste means it's separate from equipment/magic, which totals to 68.75% if you cap both. whereas delay reduction cap is 80%. so you have a 11.25% gap to close, and this JA haste will cover 10% of that. as in, this is good, and i'm not sure why you're complaining.

Because people are more worried about complaining about stuff before they read. We wanted Hasso/JA haste, gear/magical is almost worthless for anything you do end game.

Should offset Drakesbane's crappiness(although it will also make Stardiver better too so relatively speaking, Drakes will still suck lol)

Quote:

---

I'm sorry.. what?

You should have Wyvern HP or HP% gear in your Steady wing set so your wyvern doesn't die as well, so that's not all its useful for. You can get Stoneskin on your wyvern up to 3k+ in some situations with proper gearing.

---

If it takes the server 3 seconds to calculate the HP+23% on Vishap Brais +1 for Healing Breath, what makes you think you're benefiting at all from that Wyvern HP+23% on Steady Wing which is a 1 second delay? Unless, of course, you swap to Wyvern HP gear, idle in it for 3-4 seconds(for Brais% to kick in)--and then use Steady Wing; a dramatic loss of DPS.

Just tested it out, when I equip wyvern HP gear, then use Restoring Breath I heal 1113. If I equip Wyvern HP gear, wait 2-3 seconds, then use Restoring Breath, I heal for 1583. The server does not calculate Wyvern HP fast enough to take advantage of the new 1second use time. I thought this was only the case for gear that add %, but other pieces seem to cause a slow latency too. Losing out on 400-500 HP is pretty significant :/

I tried a macro

/equip itemset 5 <wait1>
/pet "Restoring Breath" <me>
Result: Healing Breath IV heals for 1113

/equip itemset 5 <wait3>
/pet "Restoring Breath" <me>
Result: Healing Breath IV heals for 1583

It takes at least 3 seconds of being equipped for the server to recognize the Wyvern HP gear. Why is this the case for Wyvern HP but no other stat in the game? It makes trying to gear and make macros for Healing Breath a headache.

Here's a good suggestion perhaps. Increase potency of Healing Breath IV to be a set amount and remove Wyvern HP calculations from the formula however, keep the pieces of equipment that give direct bonuses to breaths like AF2 Armet, Glassblower Belt and Lancer Torque. This way we don't have to worry about Wyvern HP gear for Breaths. Also do the same for Steady Wing, and maybe give "Enhances Steady Wing" to Vishap Brais.

I thought my breaths seemed a bit low... Completely forgot about this.

Has anyone found a solution to the healing breath gear yet? The 3-4 second delay in wyvern HP gear taking effect seems to make it impossible to equip a max HP set for triggering healing breath, and then a max wyvern HP set for healing breath effect. SE, was this intentional on your part or an oversight? Can we get some feedback here, please?

Probably an oversight. They ought to change Drachen/Vishap brais to a static HP+ instead of a percent, so HP+300 or so for Vishap Brais +1. Otherwise they're not being factored in to my Healing Breath unless I leave it on for 3-4 seconds. Without the brais, my healing breath is ~980-1k, with brais it's closer to 1350.