Thoughts on the FFXI Job Adjustment Manifesto

[TimeMage]

Thanks, Sasaraixx.

You know what? I'm actually a bit upset at SE for not looking at all the English job forums, and only reply the questions made by Japanese in the Japanese JOB forums. So far, if we want to have anything replied to about our jobs in English, the only place to do it is in the General forums. So, basically, SE is asking us to make offtopic posts because of their ignoring of the English job forums. Good job, SE! -_-

[Sasaraixx]

You got 3 replies to Scholar where most jobs got 0. I wouldn't worry, looks like Scholar has resumed its throne as one of SE"s favorite jobs.

I think the fact that it took 3 posts to address the concerns about SCH is more indicative of the current state of the job than any favoritism on SE's part. And to be fair, I'm sure the devs will be making their way through all of the jobs. The manifesto was only posted 2 weeks ago. Give them some time.

And as for the questions chosen, I don't know where they come from. The reactions from some of the JP posters were exactly the same. Namely, "Um . . .?"

We will just have to wait and see. They are obviously still in the planning/testing phase for a lot of these ideas so it's hard to know what exactly will happen. (Unlike today's DRK notes that mentioned a planned ability for DRK in the next Version Update.)

[Sotek]

And as for the questions chosen, I don't know where they come from. The reactions from some of the JP posters were exactly the same. Namely, "Um . . .?"

I'm guessing whoever passed on some of these ideas has mixed up somewhere along the lines. Maybe Beastmasters asked for an ability to make their pets intimidate a target and that got shuffled into the Scholar suggestions pile somehow. Maybe that's how Scholar got Libra when practically every other job in the game is more suited to it, really it should have been a Thief ability.

[Raksha]

You got 3 replies to Scholar where most jobs got 0. I wouldn't worry, looks like Scholar has resumed its throne as one of SE"s favorite jobs.

To be fair maybe two or three of those questions were things that we actually wanted an answer to, and a lot of questions still haven't been answered. So really they wasted a lot of time to make three posts when they could've made half of one.

[Zanobi]

First post in forums... So... Here goes.

Scholar is my main. I refuse to take WHM or BLM past 55 for now. Maybe later, but... not now...

To the point:

Modus Veritas: I concur with everyone's agreement. Take it back to better accuracy. Also, make it either stack MULTIPLICITAVELY or not at all. (For those non-scholastic [hehee], I mean make MV multiply the damage by each scholar who uses it. Effectively, it makes one helix per scholar, and currently, only one helix PERIOD can be active at a time right? Just make MV a tool that lets the damage equal the same as each scholar having a helix on the mob.)

Libra: Waste of a JA. Those of you who posted about changing Libra to determine weakness? Kind of an iffy subject. If you let Libra determine, for example, Abyssea weakness. It takes away from the work people put into downing the 9 Abyssea bosses for the Abyssite of Discernment. Who would need it? Just Libra and forget it. You'd trigger every time. Part of the fun of Abyssea is working the triggers. On the note of mob damage weakness, I'm pretty sure we've all memorized what each mob is weak to... Colibri are weak to ICE and PIERCING [but strangely seem to have a 95% resistance to magic]. Skeletons are weak to LIGHT and BLUNT. School age knowledge that stuff. If you DON'T know a mobs weakness already, then you've either not really bothered with it or you burned your character to 90 in Abyssea and let others do the work. Not to mention... There's websites out there that tell you weaknesses. SOMEONE is bound to know. SOMEONE is that hardcore. Always.

White Magic: Scholars definitely need a better heal. Cure IV without any stratagems does around 370-430ish depending on your gear. Look at monks. They have 3300+HP in Abyssea now. you'd have to cast Cure IV at least EIGHT TIMES if they were in CRITICAL status. Not to mention, they get hit DURING the cast time of the spell, so unless you Quicken Magic 100% of the time, you're in a world of hurt (not to mention that monk!) E
-Enhancements: Adloquium needs either tweaked to +2 or +3, or add tiers to it while lowering the level requirement of the original. There were regain items for level 75, possible lower (dunno). I would say 60 is a decent level for Adloquium I to be at. Far fetched hear, but... White Mage in Abyssea got a huge focus on elemental resistances. Nothing for status resistances. Maybe give scholars some IMPROVED bar-status spells. Ever fought Yilbegan? Alliance + outside alliance BREAK. Without fast reaction after break wore, dead. Improved status resistances would be nice, but not necessarily vital.
-Light: Far fetched, but... Maybe some higher level light elemental spells. Could be under Divine, could be Elemental, who knows? Who cares? Not essential, but it would be nice if at least ONE job (mainly Scholar, since Paladins and White Mages can't "nuke" EFFICIENTLY while still maintaining their main role) got some more depth into Light elemental magic.
-Storms: Definitely add new tiers to the Storm series. As someone mentioned... Give job traits IN ADDITION to the stats to the Storm II spells. Maybe an increase of +12/+6(Void).

Black Magic: NEEDS MORE WORK. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!!! Personally... 90 Scholar. In a party, I watched the numbers. Me and a Black Mage. Aero V. NEITHER OF US USED ASCETIC POTION. I had BETTER GEAR THAN HE DID. I HAD BETTER ATMA THAN HE DID. THIS DUDE WAS JUST STARTING ABYSSEA. I used Ebullience. I had WAY better gear than he did. He was in base level Goetia. +0 you might say. Even Teal was better than what he had. His Aero V still stomped mine. Completely. BROKEN. MESSED UP. If my gear/atma/MAB is greater than someone else, AND ON TOP OF IT I add another 20% from Ebullience, I had well better hit harder than him. But I don't. I can't. Why? Because "Black Mages do Black Magic best." BLM gets tier II MAB trait. 20%. SCH? 10%. SCH adds Ebullience. Another 20% OFF OF THE RESULT of that. so roughly scholar gets 32%. At least 12% MORE than BLM BASE. Plus, with my gear better than his, I had roughly 25 more MAB than him BASE. AND ON TOP OF THAT. With ATMA, I had the +50MAB Atma. that's MINIMUM of 75% more damage. That's me. A scholar. NOT EVEN REACHING MAB cap (Ebullience doesn't count towards it), and the BLM had less than HALF of my MAB BASE. I should have done MORE damage with Aero V than HE did. And neither of us resisted BTW. Go figure? There's more to it than meets the eye. Unless I get resisted 100% of the time with Capped + 8/8 merit? Not likely. Fortune does not smile upon Scholars in the face of damage. FIX it.
-Helices: Interesting concept of DoT. And it failed. Highest I've done is 320/tick, and that's with every piece of gear with INT/MAB, appropriate weather, ascetic potion, proper Atma, everything. Divide that by nine. that's 35.55 DPS. I've seen more DPS from Regurgitate. Unless the helix is what pulls the mob, then it's not worth it. Add Tier II helices or add another spell set to replace them.

The Middle Path: Scholars were intended to walk that fine line between light and dark. They've changed from being STRATEGISTS, to ENMITY CONTROL, to who knows what. Scholar has no DEFINED role anymore. Same with Red Mage. Red Mage is the master enfeebler, but most NM's are immune, or are so succeptible a war/(mage) could enfeeble them. Red Mage lost it's job as well (that's another story I have for a different day ). Scholar needs to be defined. Be it, the top ENHANCER (since there is none), or maybe put it at 10% less effective than WHM and BLM, but not the 50% or lower like it is now. Scholar has so much untapped, waiting potential.

Misc Suggestions:
1. Someone mention before dual element spells.
a. Maybe something like Frostfire? (Yes, WoW has it. Don't be retarded.)
b. Maybe something to open and close LIGHT and DARKNESS exclusively?
Different possibilities await for opening/closing skillchains of different levels. Scholar is the only one that can do it at the moment with spells, why not expand upon it?
2. A more enhancing roll. Another someone's idea that I loved. Let Scholar be the ONE job that gets ALLIANCE wide skills for buffing or something. Most groups only have one scholar at a time anyways, why not put that to good use? One character focusing on keeping an alliance buffed with Prot/Shell, Aldoquium, etc. Instead of having your WHM stop in the middle of a fight just to rebuff everyone while the tank takes chunks of damage. Also, increase scholar's Light Arts enhancing cap to A- or A+. WHM gets healing, BLM gets Elemental, DRK gets Dark, RDM, gets Enfeeble... screw divine. Divine sucks. But. There's no job with Enhancing. More enhancing spells? I PERSONALLY as a 90 scholar wouldn't mind just sitting back and buffing. Could be like a Bard, but with different effects. Kind of a bard/corsair fusion. Alliance wide refresh, attack speed, resistances. Sheesh, even Corsairs can out-dps a Scholar. [Technically speaking, traditional Scholars, or, as they were TRADITIONALLY referred to as, tacticians, were non-combatants. Scholar could be that ONE non-combatant job.]
3. LOWER LEVEL SCHOLARS!!! PLEASE add some unique scholar spells to lower levels. The level gaps between the elementals and the light arts spells is too drastic. It's like leveling with two sub jobs and no main job.

Anywho, nuff sed. Said my gripe. I hope they fix Scholar soon...

[TimeMage]

Black Magic: NEEDS MORE WORK. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!!! Personally... 90 Scholar. In a party, I watched the numbers. Me and a Black Mage. Aero V. NEITHER OF US USED ASCETIC POTION. I had BETTER GEAR THAN HE DID. I HAD BETTER ATMA THAN HE DID. THIS DUDE WAS JUST STARTING ABYSSEA. I used Ebullience. I had WAY better gear than he did. He was in base level Goetia. +0 you might say. Even Teal was better than what he had. His Aero V still stomped mine. Completely. BROKEN. MESSED UP. If my gear/atma/MAB is greater than someone else, AND ON TOP OF IT I add another 20% from Ebullience, I had well better hit harder than him. But I don't. I can't. Why? Because "Black Mages do Black Magic best." BLM gets tier II MAB trait. 20%. SCH? 10%. SCH adds Ebullience. Another 20% OFF OF THE RESULT of that. so roughly scholar gets 32%. At least 12% MORE than BLM BASE. Plus, with my gear better than his, I had roughly 25 more MAB than him BASE. AND ON TOP OF THAT. With ATMA, I had the +50MAB Atma. that's MINIMUM of 75% more damage. That's me. A scholar. NOT EVEN REACHING MAB cap (Ebullience doesn't count towards it), and the BLM had less than HALF of my MAB BASE. I should have done MORE damage with Aero V than HE did. And neither of us resisted BTW. Go figure? There's more to it than meets the eye. Unless I get resisted 100% of the time with Capped + 8/8 merit? Not likely. Fortune does not smile upon Scholars in the face of damage. FIX it.

Can't believe this. Only good BLMs surpass my Aero Vs with theirs, and I surpass many okay BLM Blizzard Vs with my own Aero Vs. Either the BLM was better than you said, you are not as good as you say, or you just witnessed ONE instance of a resist in your nuke and though it was the norm.

-Helices: Interesting concept of DoT. And it failed. Highest I've done is 320/tick, and that's with every piece of gear with INT/MAB, appropriate weather, ascetic potion, proper Atma, everything. Divide that by nine. that's 35.55 DPS. I've seen more DPS from Regurgitate. Unless the helix is what pulls the mob, then it's not worth it. Add Tier II helices or add another spell set to replace them.

I've done 600+ Helices several times. And not only to trash mobs, but to NMs too. The normal amount for NMs ranges from 200 to 400. I don't know what set you have for Helices, but it isn't very good.

And I'm not even that pimped out, I'm missing most +2 pieces and only have the wind +2 magian staff.

[Raksha]

That's me. A scholar. NOT EVEN REACHING MAB cap (Ebullience doesn't count towards it), and the BLM had less than HALF of my MAB BASE.

Where'd you get your info about an MAB cap?

[Ahrana]

I don't believe there is a MAB cap.

The one thing he was right about is that scholar is suffering from SE trying to change it's job description. At 75 sch was a competitor for blm on single target nuking damage, with the flexability that if it completely changed roles it could do some moderate healing via phalanx, stoneskin and cure 4. It seems SE decided that they wanted blm's to pull away in single target nuking, but they haven't given scholar anything to fill the huge gap they left in job utility.

If they don't find something to give it in the next 9 levels scholar is going to turn into lolsch, which will make me sad.

I don't necessarilly need to be the highest nuker out there, I don't screenshot damage for epeen, but I want to be a valuable asset to a party. We're getting decent single target nukes, but it would be nice to be able to kick up the damage of people around us. The regain spell was kind of in line with that theme, even though it was underwhelming. I still like the idea of being able to open up level 3 skillchains with a single spell (or having dual element spells, however you want to say it) that will allow us to work with melee to push out more damage (skill chain partner on demand!). Tier 2 storm spells so we can increase the damage of other mages.

They just need to decide what they want us to do, because they've been really indecisive for 15 levels so far.

[Raksha]

-Helices: Interesting concept of DoT. And it failed. Highest I've done is 320/tick, and that's with every piece of gear with INT/MAB, appropriate weather, ascetic potion, proper Atma, everything. Divide that by nine. that's 35.55 DPS. I've seen more DPS from Regurgitate. Unless the helix is what pulls the mob, then it's not worth it. Add Tier II helices or add another spell set to replace them.

Try nuking flans, it's good for your e-peen (Also immanence is fun):

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/3...1224005337.png
http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/999...0130135659.png
http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/8...0702222804.png
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/2...1219144838.png
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/509...1224125726.png
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/723...0411213235.png

I don't believe there is a MAB cap.

Me neither.

[TimeMage]

There isn't MAB cap, or if there is, it can't be reached even with a brew.

And BTW, for epeen screenshots... Magic bursting Qutrubs is the way to go! :P