Ambuscade Armor

I think this deserves its own thread.

When I saw Sulevia's Plate Set +1 (and to a lesser extent, the NQ version), I was thrilled. I was thrilled that Square Enix had made a hybrid -DT and +Accuracy set at the expense of haste which can be made up for in other slots.

With Tempus Fugit, you can make up more than half of the gear-haste cap. There are other haste belts as well. You're not going to find a belt that gives you half the accuracy you need.

It was reasonable.

In the past month (and before that), people have been talking about how melee take too much damage. Newbies complain about how they're not welcome at content, and I've been offering a small light of hope that if Sulevia's was that good for an "oh crap" set, or for heavy aoe bosses, perhaps the new versions of Usukane, Skadi, etc would be that good.

Well, we've seen the new Usukane and it isn't. Overall, it's not a great set for any purpose. It won't help the pretty-geared players do anything and while it will help the newbies, it doesn't help one place they need it most: the ability to take incidental damage while still being able to hit the boss.

A friend came back in March, and I helped him obtain all the Ambuscade stuff throughout April for his DRK and PLD. That set has been wonderful for him.. it means I can take him to content that he can survive as a DD, or tank. It's made the difference between me carrying him, and him contributing. His DRK can hit things and do decent WSs while I tank or his PLD can tank while I destroy things.

If he'd been a Ninja or a monk and gotten this set? He could tank or hit things, but he wouldn't be nearly as survivable to the sometimes brutal aoes that some bosses have (like Diabolos HTBF, Crystal Weapon from Angrboada, any uncaught swing at dread spikes).

Ask for them to change the amount of dmg aoe does instead of change armor, if ambuscade gear becomes the one stop for all then it will invalidate all other gear.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

Ask for them to change the amount of dmg aoe does instead of change armor, if ambuscade gear becomes the one stop for all then it will invalidate all other gear.

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They should really make it like a tier effect or w/e. The tank should take the most DMG while the rest take a certain % of that DMG or something along those lines could be improved upon.

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Originally Posted by dmuller30

They should really make it like a tier effect or w/e. The tank should take the most DMG while the rest take a certain % of that DMG or something along those lines could be improved upon.

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Won't work. I'm capable of taking 0 or less than 100 damage from aoe attacks that bring party members to the red. Even if the % was greater than 100% (melee took 200% of the damage the tank did--which again, I'm frequently taking less than 100 from magic attacks--that just puts on the responsibility on the tank's gear choices.

I have no problem with DD needing DT sets. The bane of tp-feed and babysitting that melee require are primary reasons that melee are avoided by so many groups. What? You can't go zerg-out nuts on this boss? That makes sense, he is a boss. Sulevia's finally gave melee an option to be able to take a hit and hit back in the same set, that's not very common outside of augments and sparse 1 and 2% here and there (on gear that's otherwise crappy).

The nice thing about Sulevia's is that even without the DT, it's still a good leg-up set. The DT just gives purpose to a wide range of players, which is something I really like. It's available and useful to war/pld/drk/drg across the gearing spectrum.

I would not remotely describe the new Usukane the same.

Battle designs do need serious rethinking though.

I was really hoping for some -DT because it would've boded well for some nice idle sets in the upcoming months. I'm much less optimistic that the Morrigan's and Marduk will be either good or unique.

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

Won't work. I'm capable of taking 0 or less than 100 damage from aoe attacks that bring party members to the red. Even if the % was greater than 100% (melee took 200% of the damage the tank did--which again, I'm frequently taking less than 100 from magic attacks--that just puts on the responsibility on the tank's gear choices.

I have no problem with DD needing DT sets. The bane of tp-feed and babysitting that melee require are primary reasons that melee are avoided by so many groups. What? You can't go zerg-out nuts on this boss? That makes sense, he is a boss. Sulevia's finally gave melee an option to be able to take a hit and hit back in the same set, that's not very common outside of augments and sparse 1 and 2% here and there (on gear that's otherwise crappy).

The nice thing about Sulevia's is that even without the DT, it's still a good leg-up set. The DT just gives purpose to a wide range of players, which is something I really like. It's available and useful to war/pld/drk/drg across the gearing spectrum.

I would not remotely describe the new Usukane the same.

Battle designs do need serious rethinking though.

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I think I didn't word myself correctly. Which I don't really know how to explain what I am thinking but it would work because it is implemented in a few games I am playing. Its the same concept as FFXIV for BLM / SMN the main target gets 100% of the dps while the adds get a lower %. I am a geared BLU front line job and if I didn't have all the buffs / heals there would be no way I would last a few aoes, actually I know this from going to events as MNK. I am above average geared on MNK but most of my time is spent running in and out so I won't get hit /DNC doesn't cut it. Zerging out is totally different because for one you can't zerg out on any boss that I am aware of it is called strategy. But at the current moment melee jobs can't survive a spam of 3 aoes and all the status ailments stun/ paralyze/ fear/ terror/ sleep. I went on my MNK for a few Escha NM's and found myself floored, healers just can't keep up with the crazy aoe dmg that is put out and all the status ailments. Even a good melee class is going to be super bombarded with all of this making it nearly impossible to survive. Adjusting the style to something like this would work, will they implement it ? Probably not but it works well for other games. But to make all gear rely on Ambuscade gear is just silly. Me wearing a full DT set with bad stats is just going to make me even more useless at close range.

I have not seen a monk at endgame-anything but plenty of thieves, so I know what you went through. If you're not full-timing -DT, you're dead. If you are fulltiming -DT, you're not hitting much.

You say Sulevia's has "bad stats". Is it the best TP set in the game? Far from it, and not just due to the lack of haste, but it's a good set for newer players, certain jobs in certain slots and a great set for aoe-heavy fights. Not being able to keep your 4 hit build is a fine trade-off for some surviving and continuing to do damage. A dead 4 hit build is nothing. Many aoe-heavy bosses, if you're weakened, you're done.

Yeah Sulevia's lacks haste, but there are plenty of good haste belts in the game, as well as haste in other slots and not necessarily using 5/5 sulevia's.

There are other ways to reduce your DT and probably more optimal setups for drk/drg (certainly is for PLD and for WAR) than 5/5 Sulevia's, but that requires access to a spectrum of gear that a lot of people don't have access to because they aren't invited to the content.

The thing is the Hizamaru set does have high defensive stats. The problem is they are stats that don't count for anything. It's easy to miss because there is no reason to see how much evasion equipment has anymore. NMs have so much accuracy that I wouldn't be surprised if even in the optimal situation players could not even make it past the floor, let alone cap our evasion against their accuracy, like they so often do to us. Even if we could cap evasion, DT would still be better. Getting hit for half your health every time is better than a 1/5 chance of getting one shot. Back in the day when a mob couldn't kill you with a sneeze evasion was pretty handy. On thf I was pretty much capped evasion and took so little damage over time I could survive with waltz or bloody bolts. Throw in shadows and I might as well have had perfect dodge on. Really it feels sort of like a pendulum swinging too far that lead to this. In SE's attempt to get rid of blink tanking they made it impossible to survive with evasion and shadows even if you aren't the main focus.

I agree entirely, I don't see evasion sets being feasible at all anymore and of course this does nothing for the mnk/sam/pup that can also wear the armor. Almost seems like weapons need Evasion Skill +242 as well.

Back at 75, flash would make some of the toughest NM's in the game regularly miss a paladin, and almost guaranteed miss a ninja. Not anymore. Flash is a hate tool, and merely that. Which I'm fine with, I just miss the strategy of saving flash for when I saw the nin casting Ichi, or saving it for my own PLD/NIN's Ichi.

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

I think this deserves its own thread.

When I saw Sulevia's Plate Set +1 (and to a lesser extent, the NQ version), I was thrilled. I was thrilled that Square Enix had made a hybrid -DT and +Accuracy set at the expense of haste which can be made up for in other slots.

With Tempus Fugit, you can make up more than half of the gear-haste cap. There are other haste belts as well. You're not going to find a belt that gives you half the accuracy you need.

It was reasonable.

In the past month (and before that), people have been talking about how melee take too much damage. Newbies complain about how they're not welcome at content, and I've been offering a small light of hope that if Sulevia's was that good for an "oh crap" set, or for heavy aoe bosses, perhaps the new versions of Usukane, Skadi, etc would be that good.

Well, we've seen the new Usukane and it isn't. Overall, it's not a great set for any purpose. It won't help the pretty-geared players do anything and while it will help the newbies, it doesn't help one place they need it most: the ability to take incidental damage while still being able to hit the boss.

A friend came back in March, and I helped him obtain all the Ambuscade stuff throughout April for his DRK and PLD. That set has been wonderful for him.. it means I can take him to content that he can survive as a DD, or tank. It's made the difference between me carrying him, and him contributing. His DRK can hit things and do decent WSs while I tank or his PLD can tank while I destroy things.

If he'd been a Ninja or a monk and gotten this set? He could tank or hit things, but he wouldn't be nearly as survivable to the sometimes brutal aoes that some bosses have (like Diabolos HTBF, Crystal Weapon from Angrboada, any uncaught swing at dread spikes).

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I tend to agree.

It's kinda b.s. how these jobs didn't get a good ACC/ATK - damage set as did the jobs last month. All melee jobs need to have a set like this available to them so they can perform on difficult fights where enemies have high evasion and AoE damage.

I don't play any of these jobs. But if I did - I'd be feeling pretty gypted right now probably.

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Originally Posted by detlef

I was really hoping for some -DT because it would've boded well for some nice idle sets in the upcoming months. I'm much less optimistic that the Morrigan's and Marduk will be either good or unique.

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I don't see the mage or other DD sets being great. Just looking at the Jobs each set will be separated by, I'm not optimistic.

Sakdi set (THF / RNG / BST / COR / DNC / RUN)- Could be good DD set. Probably focusing on Atk/Acc, TA/DA/QA, Crit, maybe ranged stats because RNG and COR are included, probably will offer absolutely nothing useful to BST.

Marduk set (WHM / BRD / SMN)- Support job set. Probably a skill+ and MAcc set. Probably will offer nothing useful to SMN or BRD unless it's on one piece each.

Morrigan set (BLM / RDM / BLU / SCH / GEO)- Nuking set. MAcc/MAB. Current pieces probably offer better options. The only way I'd see this set working better than other stuff is if they offered Magic Burst damage boosts on pieces like head, legs, or feet.

Yeah, I saw the Sulevia set and thought "Great, here's something everybody can use." After emphasizing how anybody could participate in Ambuscade, why wouldn't SE try to push people toward -DT gear since every job can make use of it?

So yeah, disappointed and pessimistic now.

Not necessarily DT gear for every job but at least gear that benefits every job in a way not usually focused on or something that isn't found on many pieces. Maybe this most recent set was a disappointment and the others won't be as "run of the mill".

Yeah this set is disappointing. The fact that the "normal" fight was made way harder this month makes it worse.

I wanted the gear but I've kind of lost interest, the KI mobs are more annoying to get and the monsters in the battlefield suck.

At least the vanadiel 1% can enter quicker now, now that us 99% scum aren't bothering their content anymore!

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Originally Posted by detlef

Yeah, I saw the Sulevia set and thought "Great, here's something everybody can use." After emphasizing how anybody could participate in Ambuscade, why wouldn't SE try to push people toward -DT gear since every job can make use of it?

So yeah, disappointed and pessimistic now.

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More accurately, since every melee job needs accuracy and to be able to survive, every melee needs this.

Mages? Meh, -dt and refresh on the same set would be nice but mages don't need MAB/MACC and -dt on the same piece. Giving mages a cloth version of Sulevia's undoes a lot of what Sulevia's does for melee.

"Great, your nearly invincible while casting and not casting, even though most aoes don't affect you anyway"

I say this as a geo and a blu. I don't need my mab stuff to have dt on it. Yes, I can eat a poorly timed aoe while casting a long spell, but there has to be some risk to mages.