Thoughts on the FFXI Job Adjustment Manifesto

[Economizer]

If I'm not mistaken, I think they've said in a previous post that these changes to Light/Dark arts would only effect SCH main. And I don't think WHM benefiting from this is supposed to be the point, either. SE has said that instead of giving us Cure V, this is supposed to be SCH's "healing fix", or something. I'm not entirely sure though, so it would be great if Camate or another rep could give us details on this.

I was under the impression that the Light/Dark Arts changes were going to be for scaling with level, and the most basic parts of it might be available while /SCH, much like how Sublimation scales up with level currently. In my option, this is the way to go, but I know some people are so opposed to anything that might remotely buff White Mage even in an indirect way that they'd oppose something very logical like this.

Regen isn't very MP efficient vs. cures for White Mages, but is for Red Mages and Scholars, since they can increase the duration, and don't benefit from cheaper cure spells. Nothing, not even SCH, the best sub for White Mage, can make Regen worth it, sort of doubling duration while subbing it.

This too. 1 TP a tick is waaaay too little and not worth my 40 MP (Light Arts) and 5 seconds of wasted cast time. Not only is it 1 TP a tick, it's only 60 TP for it's full duration (Or 150 with Perpetuance and +2 hands over 7.5 mins). 60 TP isn't even a single WS, and it's over the course of 3 minutes. That doesn't sound silly to the dev team? I pretty much use the spell as a joke:

I'd say the perfect balance is 3/tick. I think a lot of us SCHs were hoping the Regain spell would make us desired in groups similar to how Refresh made RDM desired. 1 TP a tick doesn't do this, so please reconsider the workings of this spell.

Something else you might want to consider is if the spell gave 5-10TP a tic, but the tics were on the helix tics. You are more likely to be able to give a DD just enough TP to do a weapon skill with a lump sum payment of TP like this then you would be with more distributed amounts, and on the plus side, it fits Scholar even more.

Why? I mean I fully agree in Haste not being accessionable with /SCH, but imho SCH main should be able to, why not?

Haste is the most important buff in this game. Being able to AOE it across parties is not an ability that should be underestimated, nor snubbed.

Oh also I forgot. Regen IV works with Accession! Works even as WHM/SCH.

Nice to hear, I was worried based on the tone here that it wouldn't work with that despite that not being the trend. I still won't cast it on White Mage except as a joke, even if a minor part of the duration and tic upgrade came to Regen spells from /SCH. But Scholars will have more reason to cast it, which is great. The question now is if it is enough to help Scholars (considering on a ton of the Abyssea content you don't need a White Mage anymore, it might be for that at least baring procs).

And there are so many different reasons why WHM is and always will be the #1 healer in this game that I'm tired of listing them. You could give Cure V to RDM and that wouldn't change at all. If SCH continues receive buffs to Light Arts then it will not need the spell.

It would change a lot of things. People will always go with the least amount of support and healing they can manage. Would you rather have the healer who is "good enough" at healing, has an edge at preventing physical damage, and is just slightly behind at preventing magical damage, and can nuke and enfeeble better while more reliably keeping Haste up, or would you rather have someone who is can cure somewhat better then "good enough"?

The White Mage fears are completely founded and logical. The second anyone is able fill the same role "good enough" there won't be a need to go for anything but all out damage. This has happened time and time again, and will in the future if people are given the chance.

And after this adjustment, assuming nothing else changes, there is no reason to bring SCH to Voidwatch.

Wow. I'm guessing the only reason you are saying this is because some of the weather spells are sub usable, or your group doesn't bring many mages. Scholar's weather spells make mages more efficient, by a pretty sizable amount, and if you have a handful of mages nuking and a Scholar, you essentially have an extra mage nuking in addition to the Scholar's capabilities.

I don't really see the point of Helix spells being sub usable except to make any job able to nuke with /SCH but it definitely isn't the only reason to bring Scholar to large events. Hopefully you can point these out whenever you feel like coming Scholar to an alliance sized event.

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All in all, ignoring the infighting, Scholars have been getting much needed adjustments. I can't really give a clear judgement on whether the arts adjustments being tested are "enough" but I can say that I still feel that a general boost to cures based on Healing Magic skill would be a nice addition to the game. If we can get the support of all jobs that cast cure spells without being illogically divided, we might be able to get SE to make Healing Magic skill boost the current cures we have over their current limits.

[Siiri]

In response to the 6 man 2 mages why not Sch - Why would you bring Sch over Blm at 95 (other mage being Whm)?

Because sometimes it is fun to let people come the job they want. If we are going to win no matter what, and when I go with my friends we are, its come what you want within reason. Not everyone wants to always go whm, blm and 4 wars or 4 sams or whatever the best DD is now outside abyssea.

[Neisan_Quetz]

That doesn't make Sch any more viable or efficient for the task at hand.

[Siiri]

That doesn't make Sch any more viable or efficient for the task at hand.

If the logic is only one job should be perfect for each role, then I guess I will advance the opinion that the pure job with only one function, IE the black mage and white mage, should be the perfect job over the hybrid that can flip between the 2 roles. So if we are all running the perfect parties at all time we should cut about 12 jobs out of the game.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Now you're getting it.

I say we start with Pup.

[Ank]

I was under the impression that the Light/Dark Arts changes were going to be for scaling with level

Thats the only reference to light/dark arts adjustments I could find that explicitly said for mains only, and it was in "sch adjustment part [x]" talking about a vague possible future. The current adjustment is for mains only though, atleast casting on test shows that.

IIRC these same posts seemed to indicate that the devs thought letting rapture affect adloquium (1.5tp/tick instead of 1tp/tick?) would be over powered so don't hold your breaths for anything there.

If we are going to win no matter what

Well at least I know I can come sch to things we can't lose regardless.

[Economizer]

Thats the only reference to light/dark arts adjustments I could find that explicitly said for mains only, and it was in "sch adjustment part [x]" talking about a vague possible future. The current adjustment is for mains only though, atleast casting on test shows that.

I haven't really seen a lot of the testing info so far, but I'll take your word for it. While I think it would be better flavor wise for the adjustments to not just affect SCH main (unless the changes start happening at level 50) I don't think it will really impact White Mages at all to have some minor changes or no changes from /SCH. Red Mage might be more impacted by this, since Regen is also MP efficient for them under ideal circumstances, but Red Mage's sub job selection isn't as black and white as it is for White Mage.

[Delvish]

I find it most amusing that it was BLMs not too long ago that were complaining about us with dark arts regarding our over-powered abilities. Given what they have, we only stood toe-to-toe with their less experienced compatriots. Now that there are adjustments to Light Arts short of Cure V, we have WHMs paying us visits now. Are we that hated that we can't be allowed a moment's peace when I can't even hold a candle to my AF clad whm level 70 fiancee? We are honestly hard pressed to reach 900 point cures while she can do just that with a single spell. These light arts adjustments are more of a necessity than a nice boost. Enjoy your high chair WHM, because no matter what adjustments we get, you will always have a place, just as you always have (sans merit burns, but those were boring anyway and a relic of the past).

[Boofaceing]

I dont play Scholar. I see that the most fighting on this boards happens over these type of things from War hating on Samurai and back and forth. My opinion is that they are advanced classes. An Advanced Samurai should not have a warrior holding a candle to them. A black Mage studies the White magics and he is then a Scholar and he should be able to well hold a candle to any of the other 2 magic groups. He is an advanced class, a scholar of magics, which if I recall not only from lore but just from a university, a scholar beats out a single mage skilled in one art anyways. Scholars possess great knowledge of magical powers, more so then a simple mage reading scrolls to learn his incantations as the game puts it.

Just my 2 cents, I am in for supporting advanced jobs being advanced. (Have seen you guys in action, it was pretty bad compared to others. My impulses were screaming 'Why didn't this guy just go BLM/WHM or BLM/RDM at the least?'. That was at lower level though, maybe it changes drastically at higher and the people argueing still have a point?)

[Sasaraixx]

I was under the impression that the Light/Dark Arts changes were going to be for scaling with level, and the most basic parts of it might be available while /SCH, much like how Sublimation scales up with level currently. In my option, this is the way to go, but I know some people are so opposed to anything that might remotely buff White Mage even in an indirect way that they'd oppose something very logical like this.

As others have said, you are incorrect. It was specifically addressed in one of the Q&As that these changes would be for SCH main. And there is nothing logical about this being available via sub. These changes are supposed to deal with the current problems SCH is having. It is no different than them adding new spells or JA. It is also no different than Afflatus not being available to other jobs via sub.

It would change a lot of things. People will always go with the least amount of support and healing they can manage. Would you rather have the healer who is "good enough" at healing, has an edge at preventing physical damage, and is just slightly behind at preventing magical damage, and can nuke and enfeeble better while more reliably keeping Haste up, or would you rather have someone who is can cure somewhat better then "good enough"?

No. It wouldn't. People will always go with the least amount of jobs needed. A WHM is always going to be included in that group. SCH and RDM are vastly inferior to BLM when it comes to procs. You are *always* going to have a BLM in your group if you are smart. That makes the added nuking utility from RDM useless. (And if you are main healing on anything remotely difficult you are not going to be nuking.) The edge in preventing physical damage is also debatable given cureskin.

More reliably keep up Haste? A Haste cycle is so hard these days. . . And the superior enfeebling magic is also a weak argument, given how so many NMs are flat out immune to the best enfeebles. Dia III is the one exception, but if you think that plus Cure V is going to be enough to bump WHM back to pre-buff merit party status, then you are incredibly paranoid.

For someone who claims to be a WHM and posts so much about the job, your underestimation of what it brings to the table is astounding. "Can cure somewhat better then "good enough." Are you serious? Unique procs, physical and magical damage mitigation, more efficient and potent cures, useful enhancing magic, quicker cure casting, status removal,

The White Mage fears are completely founded and logical. The second anyone is able fill the same role "good enough" there won't be a need to go for anything but all out damage. This has happened time and time again, and will in the future if people are given the chance.

. . . Guess what? WHM is still the better job of the 3 for going all out! If we were talking about BRDs being able to be passable main healers then the above statement would have some merit. But, we're not.

Wow. I'm guessing the only reason you are saying this is because some of the weather spells are sub usable, or your group doesn't bring many mages. Scholar's weather spells make mages more efficient, by a pretty sizable amount, and if you have a handful of mages nuking and a Scholar, you essentially have an extra mage nuking in addition to the Scholar's capabilities.

No, I'm saying that because SCH now only has one unique proc in VW and that was misses most of the time. There is no *need* to bring a SCH any longer. And bringing a SCH to cast weather spells on other mages (most of which can be cast on themselves) is not a reason to bring SCH to any event. You'd be better off inviting a SMN if you are talking about damage and utility.

I don't really see the point of Helix spells being sub usable except to make any job able to nuke with /SCH but it definitely isn't the only reason to bring Scholar to large events. Hopefully you can point these out whenever you feel like coming Scholar to an alliance sized event.

Yes, it is. You've already said that groups will always use the least amount of people needed to do an event. Old content is laughably easy and casual now, so people will generally go with whatever job the want. Endgame now is VW and maybe Abyssea. The most important element of these events is the proc system. People will always do what is most efficient to get everyone in their groups the most drops as possible. BLM didn't become popular in Abyssea because of all of the great direct and indirect buffs it has received over these levels. It's because it brings so many yellow procs to the table. Guess what this adjustment did? Take away the only unique proc spells SCH had.

The other important considerations are 1)making sure you don't die and 2)being able to kill the thing you are fighting. Because WHM is head and shoulders above on #1, you don't need a SCH to fill that roll. SCH could step in for #2, but given the above, you're better off with a BLM.

You're also making arguments that really have nothing to do with the heart of what we are saying. There is no role, no need, no great ability that would make SCH a staple in lots of different situations. All you've come up with is casting weather spells on other mages, which is weak at best, and arguing that SCH *can* come to large scale events. Of couse, it *can* go. I could bring just about any combination of jobs to events and win. That is not the issue. It is that SCH really doesn't have a defining role or utility that make it either necessary or highly sought after. And as you already admitted, it is the nature to do things as efficiently as possible in this game.

but I can say that I still feel that a general boost to cures based on Healing Magic skill would be a nice addition to the game. If we can get the support of all jobs that cast cure spells without being illogically divided, we might be able to get SE to make Healing Magic skill boost the current cures we have over their current limits.

That has nothing to do with this discussion and I don't know where this "illogical divide" you speak of exists. Everyone realizes that it is silly for /WHM jobs to be able to heal almost as well as SCH or RDM. An adjustment to healing magic would address this. It wouldn't change anything about SCH or RDM current problems or would it be much of a buff for WHM either, given how well it does everything else. Still, I doubt you'll find any SCH or RDM who would oppose it.