Thoughts on the FFXI Job Adjustment Manifesto

[Ank]

Yeah this is terribly disappointing..

A two hour update, and a couple spell extensions that were coming anyways..
Not sure anyone would have cared about raise3.

After all the crying that was happening after the video of merton, the update notes feel like we got trolled just a little bit.

[Raksha]

Raise/reraise III were natural upgrades? I never expected SCH to get those TBH. Guess i missed some updates :X

I saw it coming from a mile away. In fact I've had raise 3 scroll in mog storage since lvl 80 cap.

[Merton9999]

I don't think I can put my disappointment into words really. I'll go with insulting.

After three feedback posts dedicated to SCH and just the presence of these forums themselves, this is a huge let down. Raise III and Reraise III are pointless, and a slap in the face to the requests for more healing capability. Maybe I should be happy that when I pull hate and die from Rapture + Cure IV spam it will now only take me 5 seconds to recover the lost exp instead of 10. Ridiculous.

Oh wait, since I'll now maybe be coming to Abyssea on SCH only for hours of boring Fell Cleave burns, I suppose I can get excited about being able to use Crapstra for 90 seconds once per ISL chest. Seriously, for as terrible as I expected this spell to be in practice, I thought I at least had a nostalgic name to enjoy. Yet another SCH nerf, and this time before implementation. We better get some use out of it now before it gets obsoleted as too powerful and starts to miss. Actually we probably have a couple years, because they'll need time to implement merits for it so they can make them useless when they nerf it.

BLM and RDM are getting superior versions of our strategems. MV still sucks. No healing helix or damage prevention spell, no AOE nukes (except Crapstra every two hours), still stuck with tier 1 weather that everyone /SCH will get except three of them. lolquium, Libra range, Animuseless ... all unaddressed with only the hope of 96-99 that's probably another year away.

What was the point of these forums again? Right now they seem like another way for SE to prove its position as the poster company for Overpromise and Underdeliver, especially when it comes to SCH.

[Sotek]

So they check these forums, give us feedback and then do the opposite. Should have seen it coming really, I knew this was going to be as disappointing as Odin/Alexander from the start. At least they did something with Tabula Rasa, though I'd rather they just make it so Stratagems don't naturally wear off during it like the bloody NPCs version, but tripling the duration of something you lose half the time of due to Stratagems isn't too bad. Its still a half baked fix, though.
I'd say Merton/Brave (why exactly have they been renamed?) better be good, but they're only really good for Abyssea where you can spam it to begin with, regardless of how good they are, so I'll say SE seems to want to leave us five pegs behind; we'll be good in Abyssea when it's irrelevant.

Would have at least been nice if they gave us a new Job Ability like every other job.

Scholar
Gemini (Lv.95)
Allows next Stratagem to last for two spells.

Go add it fast SE. I may even forgive you.
I wouldn't particularly mind this update if it wasn't "Scholar is getting two new spells and nothing else". I knew from the start "New two hour spells" would translate into an update notice just like this one. I'd raise hell about this, but fuck it. I've said it all before and it has fallen on deaf ears time and time again. Unless I get a one on one with the development team (or whoever handles this crap) themselves, I really can't be asked. And given the fact that the development team turned around and said Modus Veritas is fine, it's probably a very bad idea to leave me in a room with them.

I'm just going to walk away happy that I didn't read;

Existing Spells Made Available to New Jobs
Recall-Jugner (SCH Lv.91)
Recall-Meriph (SCH Lv.91)
Recall-Pashh (SCH Lv.91)
Retrace (SCH Lv.91)

Christ I would have blown a fuse. Nice to see my post of the front page out did it in 'Likes' at least, shame that didn't seem to make an ounce of difference. If I take my Scholar past Lv.90 it'll be from EXP from NMs, I can't be asked to actively level something SE doesn't give a shit about.

[TimeMage]

As expected, SCH got Fire V and Blizzard V. I don't know if I should finish my Ice magian staff, or wait until I'm 95... Detectors are a PITA to kill with only Blizz IV, I bet I could oneshot the DC ones with Blizz V. On the other hand, I need to start thinking in a Dark staff for Kaustra... Ugh.

As for Embrava, the potency of the various buffs will be the key of its usefulness. I bet it scales with level (Or max MP, since it consumes 30% of it), and hope it's really potent at 95.

Other than that, no buffs to our Light Arts self outside of RIII and RRIII. What can I say? RRIII is convenient, but not that awesome anymore. And without a better form of healing, we're stuck as nukers, and occasional buffers, nothing more.

All in all, a really underwhelming update, not because of just getting a boost to our 2H (It's really nice they made it 90 seconds, at least now the time lost using stratagems will be compensated...), but because they outright IGNORED our concerns about our Light Arts side.

[Ahrana]

I'm trying to stay positive, but it's hard to really be psyched about the update notes. I guess all we can do is wait and see how potent the 2-hr spells are. If they're good maybe we can have a spot in 2-hr burn fights right next to the summoners.

On the plus side, anyone who comes in here crying about how OP scholars are we can now point them at this video without acknowledging their argument.

[Ank]

What's worse is with only another what, four levels left? I really don't see a full allotment of storm or helices fitting in there by 99. Pray for a merit update to stormsurge that effectively does the same. Actually a possible merit update could still surprise us but I'm not very hopeful for anything at the moment.

Some kind of maelstrom weather that grants all weather's at once could be cool to, if they don't want us to have double weathers.

Like hell I'm buying raise 3 though.

[Sira]

half the whm i know dont even have r3, its just not worth getting...

[Watts101]

Have you ever been shaking someones hand right as they put a knife in your back? Sure feel that way at the moment. Seriously, what did we get? Here! we'll give you something nifty that you can only use every 2 ours and is now available at lvl 5. Why at level 5? Because clearly SE would rather us delvl our sch's and be more effective at lvl 5 than we currently are at 90. I dont dislike the new 2hr ability but i sure expected to see cure 5 under current white magic to be obtained not LOL raiseIII/reraiseIII. I barely use reraise 2 why on earth would i need reraise 3? Nice i guess, but definetly not what sch or rdm need spellwise especially in the healing deparment. Truth is we got totally screwed. All i can hope is that what they posted was simply the tip of the iceberg not the main course on a very very very VERY small silver platter. Eh, why bother believing they'll follow through though, they always draw up short citing balance issues. You want us comparable to WHM and BLM while not stepping on the WHM or BLM's toes. Why create SCH then? Seriously.

[TimeMage]

Why create SCH then?

Isn't it clear? We're the subjob they wanted for mages. Right now, not much more, sadly.