Thoughts on the FFXI Job Adjustment Manifesto

[OMEGA_HACK]

Not Light Magic but Divine Magic! (Give some use to that almost useless magic skill category lol)

[Merton9999]

Official translation is up on the general Manifesto thread. My translation was pretty good

One thing, the spell is called Merton!! Merton you are obligated to use this spell every 2 hours

Faith would be a nice addition indeed. I'd make the Refresh more potent than 3mp/tick though. We can already do that with /RDM. Maybe 5mp/tick, MAB and Enfeebling Potency Up. You can cover MACC issues by giving weather and Klimaform.

Ultima as the Light magic equivalent of Merton is also a good idea.

LOLOLOLOL The spell name is totally awesome. I seriously expected that if a version of that spell were to be added to XI it would most certainly be named Meltdown. Wonder if they chose Merton because the doll move is already Meltdown? Whatever, the spell name is actually the most exciting part of the announcement to me

Good job on the translation btw!

@OMEGA_HACK
Good idea on Faith and Ultima. I still think MACC would be a good inclusion - after all we will also be able to provide Regain, Regen, and Haste in addition to Brave, so adding MACC to Faith in addition to weather + Klimaform would be along the same lines.

Ultima as divine and Merton as dark would be fun and fitting. I was always hoping for a SCH only divine spell just for a completeness - we have all other magic types natively.

[Sasaraixx]

Not Light Magic but Divine Magic! (Give some use to that almost useless magic skill category lol)

I'm going to say make it elemental magic lol Partly because I'm lazy and don't want to have to make a divine build on SCH and also because I have a feeling that SCH will not be on a lot of that gear.

From a lore standpoint, I don't know if it makes sense for SCH to wield a powerful divine spell like that. Yes, we study both sides of magic, but that is a particular branch that is mastered through prayer and meditation. That doesn't sound like the kind of research a SCH would do. We would probably want research light magic in order to find a tactical use for it in battle. That sounds more like elemental magic to me. This is entirely my opinion obviously.

I wouldn't mind native Repose though! haha

[Sasaraixx]

Part 2 of Mocchi's SCH adjustments was posted this morning. I'm a bit pressed for time, so I don't have time to translate it all, but I'm sure we'll get the official post later today.

The post today was all about strategems and it was a little less encouraging. The questions/requests chosen this time around were not really issues I wanted to see addressed. (Have Manifestation work with nukes, I want alliance wide effects, I want Rapture to raise the potency of Aldoquium, etc. Incidentally the responses were 1) They're looking into Manifestation but b/c the effect wouldn't be reduced in the way -ga spells are it would be unbalanced. 2) No. 3)I'll address that one in a second)

They said Modus Veritas is working as intended and they have no plans to go back to the way it used to be. (I wish they would consider removing the ability to have it stack with other SCHs and let it be 100%.) On the other hand, they said they are looking into lowering the recast timer.

Someone asked that we be given more charges. The team is looking into this, which is why we may not see large increases in the potency of some of the strategems. Being able to use them more often is the trade off. I'd be all for more charges at our current strengths to be honest. They point out that revising this is complex so give them some time. Please, just natively make Aldoquium stronger.

There was one question I didn't quite understand. Something about Haste or Fast Cast being influenced Alacrity and Celerity. Mocchi said they are examining those strategems, but if they did something like that then Slow or other demerit would also be effected. As I said, I wasn't quite clear on that question so wait for the official translation.

We can look forward to a Part 3 regarding magic and other general issues the beginning of next week. I'm glad the team is spending so much time addressing SCH. It seems that they are at least aware that the job needs a lot of attention.

[Sotek]

They said Modus Veritas is working as intended and they have no plans to go back to the way it used to be. (I wish they would consider removing the ability to have it stack with other SCHs and let it be 100%.) On the other hand, they said they are looking into lowering the recast timer.

Fucking great SE. Now I can resist Modus Veritas every five minutes instead of every ten. Christ, just remove the stacking ability and make it 100% accurate again. Even if it had a one second recast it would still be worthless crap since it doesn't hit anything of value. How bloody dense can you be? You completely broke it. It doesn't fucking work at all. No one ever used the stacking ability outside the exploit. How is the answer not painfully obvious? How can it possibly be "working as expected" when it doesn't fucking work?

They better deliver on the spells and general issues, because right now they've just once again displayed how bloody incompetent they are. Maybe they should just delete the English sections if they're only taking suggestions from the Japanese ones, it would save the the trouble of putting forward obvious fixes and watching them get completely ignored for one thing.

[Merton9999]

Thanks for the translation again Sasaraixx! I'm such a spoiler junkie I can't possibly wait for the official one

Modus Veritas
I'll defer to Sotek. All I can do at this point is roll my eyes.

Strategems
I actually never thought about making these more powerful. We have been suggesting that the spells themselves be magnified (storms, adloquium, animus), or that more powerful spells be added or suitably substituted (Cure V or a damage prevention equivalent). If Rapture potency were to be increased, or charges for that matter, it would help with healing in some way, but they'd have to double charges at least to come close to simply adding Cure V. If they actually did make Rapture capable of augmenting enhancing magic, that might work for storms, adloquium, animus, but again our charge count would have to soar. I wouldn't mind if all these things were dealt with via strategem charge count and potency, as long as the charge count increase is dramatic. It would actually be kind of interesting and scholarly to base what spells you decide to enhance on the limitation of strategem charges.

As far as the rest there's not much to comment, and I'd guess most of the US posters feel the same. It seems SE is using the Japanese feedback only to guide their response, and do us the service of just translating what they tell them. It's a little aggravating.

On the other hand it is definitely encouraging that SCH is getting at least three posts from the community team. Let's hope all the talk actually translates into something.

[Raksha]

I think they just go and find the most retarded questions to answer, tbh. I don't think I've ever once heard someone suggest that the current stratagems are underpowered.

Personally I just toss Modus Veritas in with Libra and the merit stratagems as things I don't ever have to bother trying to use. It would be great if they were made functional, but its not like they fill gaping holes in SCHs playstyle.

[Sasaraixx]

You're very welcome

The news today was a bit disappointing. Our fellow SCH's on the JP forum weren't overjoyed either. There is a concensus that while having strategems improve some of our enhancing spells is a nice boost, it ignores the fact that the spells are weak to begin with. I shouldn't have to use Rapture to make Aldoquium worth using. We would literally have to have charges out the wazoo to pull that off.

I cosign all comments regarding Modus Veritas.

I think some of those questions may not have been because the person thinks the strategems are weak, but that by increasing their potency/potential it might help fix other areas of SCH. I don't agree with this personally.

I'm waiting for the official translation to pop up because that Haste/Fast Cast comment didn't make sense to me.

Oh well, I hope the spells information will be more encouraging. I was actually fairly excited by yesterdays news.

[Merton9999]

Personally I just toss Modus Veritas in with Libra and the merit stratagems as things I don't ever have to bother trying to use. It would be great if they were made functional, but its not like they fill gaping holes in SCHs playstyle.

I like this point, and it's exactly what I've learned to do regarding MV, Libra and merit strats, but just for my own peace of mind. The problem is they added this official forum and said "Hey, what do you guys think about these proposed adjustments?", then nearly everyone that responds proposes the same simple balanced adjustment for MV, and the SE response is "Nope, we like it this way." Huh? To me, it's annoying not because these abilities are so crucial for the job but because the invitation to comment was made and then ignored for no reason.

I'm also stuck on the Overpromise and Underdeliver problem that plagues FFXI announcement to implementation history, especially for SCH. Modus Veritas, Libra, Adloquium, Animus spells, exemption of spells from Accession/Manifestation, and even storm effects all fit into this stigma. Sure more jobs are crying for updates, but it seems like SCH has been stuck with the most lemons.

[Sotek]

Sasaraixx, if it's not beyond your ability to translate, could I trouble you to take a bunch of ideas you like from here and go slap them in the Japanese forums? If you're not already, that is.

Anyway, I give up trying to hammer common sense into SE, back to new ideas:

Rather than adjusting Stratagems I think a new JA would be OK as a replacement for Cure V. I never looked at Cure V as a spell I even particularly needed, I've always suggested tagging a hefty amount of enmity on it for Scholar, so it was never going to be something to spam ala-White Mage, it's just having a spell for when the shit hits the fan is a lot more useful than not.
Something that Doubles the Potency of the next Stratagem while making it cost extra Stratagems. Slap a ten minute timer (or whatever works) on it and let it work with any Stratagem, in the case of something like Manifestation it would allow for AoE nukes - that's not something I've ever really wanted for Scholar, but on a ten minute timer it would hardly be game changing and it would fill a demand.
I doubt it would actually fix Scholar in terms of Light Arts, but if they're buffing Arts anyway I can't see it being too useless. I've main healed with Cure IV before, the only reason it's not something I regularly do is because I lack any tool for bad moments, Cure V would have filled that as a spell I hardly ever used (yet somehow still crushes White Mage toes), but a Double Potency Double Stratagem ability would work fine. Had I got Cure V I was temped to get Tranquility just for it just to reduce the enmity gain, so the Stratagem cost is no real problem for me. Recast would probably need some work though.
I also feel like bringing up another idea I had at the start of these forums since it kind of fits with the above idea, basically lets you use a single Stratagem twice. Effectively what I'd want Tabula Rasa to be doing, another reason I bring it up, of course. Though that idea kind of waned when I stopped using Immanence for solo Skill Chains, it would still be very useful and stack well with the other ability, though.

As for actual Stratagems, they mention adding more. I dislike that idea, I'd rather have "Grimoire Recast" changed to "Stratagem Recast" for our merits. I'll be undoing my Modus merits anyway, would be nice to have something that actually effects my game play, even it it's just -2 seconds per merit. I guess I'll go with Sublimation in the mean time but Sublimation is already overkill since it got updated a while back.
Scholar merits really need some work, they've always been shit, Stormsurge was the best and that's just +Stats for crying out loud. If they're changing that I'd opt for +2% Potency for weather per merit with the first merit making Storm spells the same as Gain spells with Enhancing Magic effecting the Stats gain, 5/5 Stormsurge would equal Gain spells while also effectively providing Double Weather. When Storm II was something everyone expected anyway, I hardly see it as being a problem.