New 2-hour Abilities

[Theytak]

Greetings!

Thanks for all the feedback thus far on the new 2-hour abilities.
Along with the feedback from the test server, we will be sure to utilize it for further adjustments.

In regards to effect durations and values, they will most likely be adjusted before they are implemented to the live server so please try them out first on the test server and get a feel for them. We are looking forward to hearing your thoughts after testing them out.

We are getting closer to the final stretch to implement these abilities on the test server, so hang in there just a bit longer.

Additionally, we made a few corrections to two of these new abilities. (The original list posted yesterday has been corrected as well.)

• RDM:
  Incorrect: Grants an increase to the effect and effect duration of enhancing magic.
  
  Correct: Grants an increase to the effect of enhancing magic.
  
  
• PUP:
  Incorrect: Soulsoother Head: Benediction (Will only apply to the master and automaton)
  
  Correct: Soulsoother Head: Benediction (Will apply to the party members and automaton itself)
  

Ok, the pup correction is an improvement. Now correct the rest of pup's 2 hour so it doesn't suck.

No, but way to take a long and thought out post and try to turn it into a joke with 4 words. Care to expand on your bolding a little based on opinions and observations, or you just trying to be a nasty little troll garnering a few likes from other trolls at your vile approach towards another human being? You feel taking the mentally handicapped as a laughing matter amusing? I hope you have an enormous sense of well being following your disgusting attitude. I rarely if ever get annoyed at something someone posts on an internet forum, but your post I found both insulting, and vile.

Well, if you want to blatantly ignore every single one of my posts in this very thread because they disagree with you on some part or another, that's fine, but I wasn't trying to troll. I was asking an honest question that I was unsure of, because all of the portions of your post that I bolded are rather... unintelligent. or uninformed. You're not going to be able to successfully guilt trip me, though, given who I am and what I am; I'm just gonna laugh at you, while you sit there on your moral high horse, because I find it comical.

The post was intended to be an insult, though, so mission accomplished, I guess.

Whoever says this new pup 2 hour doesn't rock obviosly hasn't put the time into their puppet enough to realize how much the old one sucks. Thanks camate for the update, but the drg one really does seem useless.

That's cute and all, but I'm fairly certain I've put a fair amount of time into my pup, and everyone else's pups, to be qualified to declare that our new 2hour is just as garbage as overdrive.

[Hashmalum]

Additionally, we made a few corrections to two of these new abilities. (The original list posted yesterday has been corrected as well.)

• RDM:
  Incorrect: Grants an increase to the effect and effect duration of enhancing magic.
  
  Correct: Grants an increase to the effect of enhancing magic.
  
  
• PUP:
  Incorrect: Soulsoother Head: Benediction (Will only apply to the master and automaton)
  
  Correct: Soulsoother Head: Benediction (Will apply to the party members and automaton itself)
  

Wow, the RDM got even worse, and still no mention of being able to apply self-only buffs to other people. This sounds awful. I can't envision a situation where this will be more useful than Chainspell, let alone Tabula Rasa. If this shares a timer with the existing 2 hour abilities, it will never get used. Camate, please tell them to try again.

[Dreamin]

problem is, we don't really know what the job is getting. It could be an increase to the buff, or could end up being something like un~dispel~able enhancing magic. i was feeling the increase duration thing too. Anything to keep me out of those cycle's.

If you think SE will ever give us un-dispel-able enhancing magic, you either have been drinking too much SE coolaid or haven't been playing long enough.

I'm actually not surprised at all that SE gives RDM ENHANCING 2hr. It fits right into their current mindset regarding RDM, which is basically, it's a job that has near-zero usefulness/uniqueness and no one with their right mind should ever play it. {Before ppl jumps all over me, I do have RDM and had to dealt with doing 5x BLM refresh in dynamis back in the old days. I've also done my share of RDM solo'ing back then. I no longer play RDM anymore because there are so many other job alternative that I can use. Only time I have used my RDM in the last year was when I can't find a RDM for our VW - which we no longer need anymore with the change.}

As bad as RDM has gotten though, they're not alone. Look at BST and SMNs (PUP was taken out from their corner with their pet's AI fix a while ago). SMN still only have their level 72 BPs or their merited level 75 elemental BP. While BST has the jobs most unique abilities taken away from them (from anywhere that is of REAL value. Yes, you can still charm but there's nothing that is worth doing now a day that you have anything that you CAN charm).

So yeah I feel bad for RDM but it's not like RDM is the only job that SE is completely clueless about it.

Hopefully with the new director in place now, things will change. One can only hope.

[saevel]

RDM:
Incorrect: Grants an increase to the effect and effect duration of enhancing magic.

Correct: Grants an increase to the effect of enhancing magic.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The nerfing has begun.

Can't have RDM actually be useful so they made it worse.

[tyrantsyn]

If you think SE will ever give us un-dispel-able enhancing magic, you either have been drinking too much SE coolaid or haven't been playing long enough.

Nah, you took what I said out of context, but that's a norm around here. I was only speculating about it. Not saying it. No worries tho

That kind of thing would be a complete let down, in less It keep mob's from overwriting the spell's as well. Thought could be a little note worthy.

[Andreah]

To the Dev Team:

I kinda like the general direction where you're going with DNC's new two-hour, but I'm hesitant on a few things. Flourishes, as you know, are shared between three different categories. If this new two-hour resets all Flourish recasts, it'll only be genuinely useful for three different Flourishes at that moment. It sounds a little iffy in a sense it'd be pretty useful already, but you have to keep in mind what those decisions are between.

The first category is the choice been weight, a weaker provoke, and stun, which wouldn't benefit too much from an instant recast reset except in a one-use crisis where you'd need to Stun in that moment. In my experience, the recast on Violent Flourish is so low it's never been an issue that DNC can't already take to the face as it is. Anything beyond that usually can't be reliably stunned without preparation, or are immune to stun altogether, and in a situation where an instant stun would be worth it, I don't know if I'd want to sacrifice the ability to use my Waltzes with a minimal recast timer and no TP cost for two hours just to do so.

The third is the decision between forced criticals on the first strike of your main hand, a one-time forced double attack, or a one-time forced triple attack. The recast timers on those are rather long, and none of them would be genuinely nice to stack together, because even if you had Climactic Flourish to Tertiary, you'd still only get a guaranteed critical on the first hit of the three strikes. In Abyssea, with the right Atmas, Striking and Tertiary are usually unnecessary, since I almost always swing in multiples on my main hand.

Those two categories I mentioned above are the only two I can see gaining minimal to no benefit from the proposed two-hour. The second category, however, can gain a minor amount of benefit on one part; the zero cost of Finishing Moves in order to act. The ability to use Reverse Flourish to regain TP without consuming all of your Finishing Moves is inviting, especially with the idea of tacking Building Flourish on the front of that. Wild Flourish hasn't been useful for a long time to me, since it not only can't do a Lv.3 skillchain closure (like SAM's, which hurt my feelings a bit since I thought WF made DNC unique when it came to skillchains), but the recast time it incurs is the same as Reverse Flourish and I can simply self-skillchain with Reverse Flourish to make Darkness on my own and do more damage in the same amount of time.

Now with all that taken into consideration, it's time I looked at the zero cost to Finishing Moves. This idea is enticing when it comes to Reverse Flourish, but in all honesty, by the time I can re-use any of the categories, my Finishing Moves are already capped. Presto and No Foot Rise even without full merits can make me Building Flourish to Reverse Flourish in the exact same amount of time. With a Terpsichore, this two-hour is rendered completely ineffective in regards to this, as a full set of five Finishing Moves is ten seconds and 10% TP away.

To wrap this up, I think the idea you're looking for is great. It's on the right track, but it's not doing much except pointing out what a Dancer can already do if they put their heart into it. If you have the time to test it, I'd try taking a closer step towards what Trance accomplishes. If you were to cut the recast down of all Flourishes to... maybe... five seconds? Better yet, to try to balance it out, put all Flourish categories on a shared timer, one singular timer, and have a five-second cooldown or something similar. I just wouldn't go over ten seconds. If you did that and maybe reduced the cost of Flourishes to one Finishing Move instead of zero, it'd push the Dancer to have to continually work for it if they're using it to its maximum potential, and it wouldn't be broken.

The only Flourishes a Dancer would really look into using this for during practical everyday use is for Building and Reverse in order to weaponskill more. If you make sure the delay is long enough that they can't self-skillchain with Reverse Flourish to Reverse Flourish, it wouldn't come near SAM's original two-hour, but it'd stand its ground next to Trance as a decent, functional two-hour to use in both a planned situation and in a desperate one. I apologize if this post is a little too lengthy for your already busy schedules, but I thought it'd be important to break down the functionality of what you were proposing and what Dancer already can accomplish.

[Merton9999]

Boo, none of these sound interesting.

Effectiveness will all be in the numbers, which we'll have to wait for. My disappointment is that the effects don't sound that creative. I was hoping to see more fun moves like Embrava and Kaustra.

It seems almost everyone agrees already, but I really can't see choosing SCH's new 2-hour over Tabula Rasa ... ever. What's the reason for any of these sharing the same timer as current 2-hours? Balance is a boring answer. If the enmity redirection thing remains, please make it potent and long enough that SCH doesn't get stuck with another pretty name like Modus Veritas, Adloquium, or Animus Augeo that doesn't actually do anything people care about. I know other jobs have the same problem, but I don't care about them

[Economizer]

Many of the 2hours are great, but some aren't so great.

I think the optimum example at this point is Monk's which gives the player a choice between a very good offensive option and a very good defensive one.

That said, some jobs, no matter what you give them, you'd be hard pressed to give them something better then their two hour.

Summoner and Scholar come to mind, but with Summoner the 2hour option is actually really good - you get an offensive option that also finally makes Tarutaru's high MP useful, for once (well, at least until you go /RDM and use Convert on a non-Galka race...).

Scholar... well, I can't pretend to be upset since the job already has a great 2hour, but swapping enmity around doesn't exactly Scholarly. Obviously whatever is given is very likely to not have as much utility and power as Embrava if the game is to retain some semblance of balance from one of the most powerful classes, but I think Scholar could use something else more suited to it, or some more tactical element could be added to the proposed 2hour, such as also (in addition to the enmity swap) Scanning the enemy for strengths/weakness, current buffs/debuffs and stats, or also (in addition to the enmity swap, but instead of Scan) slightly buffing the player who got all the enmity with some sort of enmity based buff that wears off as the player loses the main aggro focus. Nothing major, just something more "tactical" to reflect Scholar, not because it needs more power, but because it would fit flavor better.

Anyways, while I also disagree with some assessments of certain 2hour abilities, I'll reflect on White Mage's and Red Mage's 2hour abilities.

WHM Grants party members protection from status ailments.

Much better than Benediction in this day and age. I bet it will still be worse than Perfect Defense, although the duration could make all the difference here.

While just about anything is better then Benediction (which is very situational at best for various reasons), I'd like to point out that this souped up Divine Caress is roughly (maybe exaggerating to make a point here, but still) useless unless it covers EVERY debuff. Perfect Defense exists (and to a lesser extent, the Chainstun combo), so it isn't like 2hour abilities aren't allowed to break monsters. Really, Benediction should remove Doom with perfect accuracy, but since that's been denied White Mages, they should be able to prevent it with this new 2hour, along with Zombie, Amnesia, Charm, Muddle, Max HP/MP down, Petrification, Gradual Petrification, Weakness, and maybe even Death (spell). If that's all really an issue, just make it not stack with Perfect Defense and you have a reasonable tradeoff.

I really think White Mage deserves a good 2hour that isn't just instantly doing a couple spells while stealing hate from the tank.

• RDM:
  Incorrect: Grants an increase to the effect and effect duration of enhancing magic.
  
  Correct: Grants an increase to the effect of enhancing magic.

Any increase to temper and gain spell's would only effect RDM so that's kind of a win and a lost depending on how you look at it.

Yeah, so Red Mage's 2hour is going to be interesting. If it doesn't let you cast self-cast spells on others, those spells should get a much, much bigger boost then others.

If something like that happens, Red Mage could get Haste, Refresh II, Phalanx II at reasonable amounts for the party for what others essentially call a mini-Embrava, but also get highly souped up Barspells for itself and possibly the party... and then for itself get insanely buffed Temper, Phalanx, Gain-STAT, and Enspells.

Basically, if these spells are still self-cast for the 2hour, a well equipped Red Mage should get 100% Double Attack rate, 50~100+ damage Phalanx, at least doubled Gain-STAT (~50+), and Enspells that make Rainemard blush. I think if this was the case, this would be a great 2hour, since you'd be able to toss a few boosted buffs on your party, then become a demigod for a short amount of time. Melee Red Mages would finally have their time to shine, and without hampering the party to do so.

[Xilk]

The google translated JP version seems to imply an "over the duration" thing that wasn't conveyed in the official translation, which is why I'm leaning towards it just being unclear wording. That said, google translate is google translate, soo...

(for the record: "All of the hostility of their own transfer to the PC in front of you during the time effect, with large damage. " is what google translate gives for the original text)

edit: original text, on the off chance someone here (that isn't in cahoots with camate and the gang) can actually read it: 効果時間中、大ダメージを与えるとともに目の前のPCに自身の敵対心をすべて移す。

Wow, I was going to scream to NEVER RELY ON TRANSLATOR SOFTWARE FOR JAPANESE!!
but the first part of the line does literally say that its for the duration of the effect.

[Tamarsamar]

Yeah, I think RDMs can complain just a little bit now.

What was initially posted was already (relatively) bad, and the correction just made it ever-so-slightly worse.