Adjustments to Embrava and Perfect Defense

[Merton9999]

Mages can benefit from the regain o embrava more than they can from the refresh if they're in the right situation. Spirit Taker.

This and procing staff and club in Abyssea. I know it's old but my mind is still on things I actually like to do, all of which this Embrava nerf will render unbearably time consuming after having it as is for so long.

[Ranthozyk]

As a player who has both leveled and enjoyed the many aspects of both the Scholar and Summoner jobs I implore the development team to reconsider the adjustments to, at the very least, Embrava. As others have mentioned, completely removing the regain effect makes the spell essentially worthless with the viable amounts of mp restoring equipment and buffs from other jobs the new refresh effect adds. Creating more of a compromise would be the best situation for rectifying the current plans; please consider retaining a regain effect, but with a lower potency (such as 3), along with a lower potency refresh effect (3 is also good for this). A few others in this thread have suggested this, but a 3 refresh/regain split would be the most compromising.
If the regain effect cannot absolutely be retained, the effects of Adloquium should be increased based upon enhancing magic skill (500+), up to a cap of, at the very least, 3. The regen effect should remain at its current potency. The haste effect can certainly be reduced if needed, but it is already possible to reach the haste cap with bard's march songs, and this doesn't seem like a logical adjustment. The effect duration needs to come to a compromise; 90 seconds is simply too short, even with a reduction to the 2 hour timer for all jobs. Something that would max out at about 5-8 minutes (WITH perpetuance) would be a common ground that seems acceptable, while favoring more balance.

The Perfect Defense adjustment is definitely more reasonable. However; I propose that it be set at a 60 second duration with 500 summoning magic skill, with increasing duration from then on, as creating equipment with even more summoning magic skill to reach 600 will be very difficult while sacrificing other statistics; to an ideal cap of 90 seconds for those invested in summoner to reach this 600 skill cap. If 90 seconds is too long, perhaps one of 70 or 75 would be more plausible.

If a compromise cannot be made, then the content suggested for development must be altered further to provide true game balance. The problem with these events is monster attack strength (Legion: 1000-2000 damage TP abilities is not fair game balance with the rate at which these monsters gain TP, along with tacking on enfeebling effects to these damaging abilities), speed, and radius (Arch Dynamis Lord being the supreme culprit, and Legion abilities of Ironclads/Botulus/etc.). Also the enfeebling and death spells of the monsters should be reduced if these compromise changes cannot be made and the content itself must be re-adjusted, as monsters can effectively incapacitate entire alliances with these incredibly powerful AoE effects.

[Glamdring]

Greetings everyone!

As was previously mentioned, with the addition of the new special abilities as well as the shortening on the cool down timers for the current special abilities, we are planning to adjust the effects of both Embrava and Perfect Defense. The adjustments will be reflected in this week’s Test Server update, but I’d like to share the information with you beforehand.

• Embrava:
  • Effect duration: Currently 5 minutes → Adjusted to 90 seconds
  • Haste: Currently 1% increase for every 15 enhancing skill points → Adjusted to 1% increase for every 20 enhancing skill points. Maximum of 25% at 500 skill
  • Regain Effect: While the value will remain unchanged, the Regain effect will be changed to Refresh.
• Perfect Defense:
  • Effect duration: Currently 90 seconds → Adjusted to 30 seconds. +1 sec for every 20 summoning skill points, maximum of 60 seconds with 600 skill (30 seconds +30 seconds)
  • Effect: No change

Along with the above adjustments, the content that featured these abilities heavily into their strategies will see adjustments as well.

• Nyzul Isle Uncharted Area Survey
  We'll be reducing the number of Astrariums necessary to exchange for equipment from 25 to 5.
  *As a result of this, the number of Astrariums players have in possession will be reduced by 1/5.
  
  The idea that you'll need some luck on your side to reach level 100 will not change. While we expect that the number of floors reachable and the frequency will decrease due to the adjustments to Embrava, we decided to balance this by reducing the number of Astrariums required for equipment.
  
  
• Legion
  Monster HP will be reduced by around 10%
  
  This will be applied to all monsters, and adjusted so the overall pace will become faster making it possible to defeat close to the same amount of monsters as before within the 30 minutes time limit.
  
  
• Einherjar
  Odin's Chamber II: Odin's HP will be reduced by around 10-15%.
  
  As this is different from Legion and only a single monster battle, we will be adjusting the HP on a slightly larger range.

Besides the above content, Perfect Defense and Embrava are utilized for Arch Dynamis Lord and Provenance Watcher; however, the battle times for these monsters are relatively short, so we would like to monitor the battle situation at their current difficulty.

All of these adjustments will be implemented during the Test Server update this week, but we will continue to look at balance and make adjustments as needed.

ok, I can agree with everything EXCEPT the "some luck" to reach 100. I've been very vocal in mutliple aspects of the game in my belief that "if you do the work, you should get access to the reward" and I haven't changed my belief 1 iota. Reaching 100 should simply be dependant on having: a. beaten the content, and b. having the points to get to 100. you see, that is what was RIGHT with Nyzul 1.0. Keeping it "luck-dependant" is synonomyous with keeping it "hack-dependant". While the Devs may choose to put on their blinders, the fact is many players use 3rd pt tools to reach 100, and anyone who is even remotely paying attention to the outside sites knows this-as I know the anti-RMT group does; keeping hacks viable to an increased success rate simply sends the message that SE is now ok and in fact EMBRACES the use of 3rd party tools to beat your content.

if that's the case, stop pussy-footing around and just say so, but if not, simply tie the content to doing the work. I realize this will probably piss off alot of 3rd party tool users, but since you actually have to respect a person before their opinion matters to you, well, let's just say I don't and leave it at that

[Malthar]

<irony>Incidentally, SE forgot to add that blue mage will have more procs for voidwatch.</irony>

[Muras]

Next, keep in mind that these adjustments to Perfect Defense and Embrava were made with the idea that all special abilities’ cool down timers will be shortened. With that said, during this week’s Test Server update we are also planning on making adjustments so that the cool down timer on current and new special abilities will be halved. (We are also planning to make it possible to cut this time even further via equipment and merit points.)

I just want to make it very clear that what I said in my earlier post was based on this knowledge. At the very least I haven't forgotten that Mr. Matsui has said they'll be reducing the recasts of the 2 hour abilities. As far as I'm concerned, the proposed changes the development team have offered for Embrava don't even make it good enough to be used on a 10 minute recast timer, much less 30-60 minutes.

[Vold]

we would appreciate it if you could post specific feedback about what would be the preferred method for going about these changes.

Any method that doesn't make me want to call Commander Cody to tell him to execute order 66. How you go about it, I leave to you. But just for the record the correct method will include either serious HNM nerfs or these two JAs remaining where they are, untouched.

I like what PD does. It makes the impossible possible, which I presume is the only reason for it to exist because otherwise it's pretty useless. I suppose the same goes for Embrava but it'd be far more useful for someone somewhere than these proposed PD adjustments. I do think in whatever case we could stand to have a little less need for PD and Embrava.

[Sargent]

Added thought with ADL: Either Terror duration needs nerfing, or PD needs to grant resistance against it. It's a 30 second Terror on a fight where if it's not dead when PD drops, the alliance dies in seconds.

[Raucent]

As stated multiple times the regain being changed to Refresh benefits almost no one DD wise teh only DD that would even use the mp would be BLU or DRK, I don't know if the devs seem to think adding refresh would suddenly make the mages melee or something.... NO never gonna happen.

Perfect Defense the nerf is ... ok, With changes to specific events:

Arch Dynamis Lord The Aoe Range of his attacks are beyond absurd the back line jobs have to be WAAAAY outside support range to avoid being destroyed by his TP attacks, the Terror can easily outlast Perfect Defense, in effect making it USELESS

Legion reducing mobs HP by 10% equaling the sheer effect of pre nerf Embrava, kinda doubt that, with the Haste Regen AND Regain from embrava the mobs were dying quick enough. As stated many times in this thread the biggest issue with the current "end game" is the sheer damage of the AoE attacks, 2000 aoe's generally equal dead alliance, single target attacks reaching the 2k range is far preferable, as it gives players a chance to regroup have a secondary tank hold while the first is raised and recovered.

Nyzul 2.0 Embrava is almost Necessary to reach the higher floors with the up to 1/2 run duration the haste regen and Regain worked to lessen the downtime during the grinds of kill alls / Boss Floors, The Order lamps tend to be run killers on an already heavily luck based event.

Odin 2/ Prov. watcher : can't comment as i've only read the wiki/BG about the fight never attempted

In essence the way the changes to Embrava and Perfect Defense combined with the "changes" to existing events
in general seems to be "how can we reduce the efficiency as much as possible, while giving as little back as possible"

[Babekeke]

Next, keep in mind that these adjustments to Perfect Defense and Embrava were made with the idea that all special abilities’ cool down timers will be shortened. With that said, during this week’s Test Server update we are also planning on making adjustments so that the cool down timer on current and new special abilities will be halved. (We are also planning to make it possible to cut this time even further via equipment and merit points.)

We understand that these adjustments will change the usage of these abilities and may cause inconvenience to some, and we apologize for this. We would like to proceed with these adjustments carefully, so we will be looking closely at the feedback we receive. Also, we realize that there are a good amount of people who oppose these changes, but we would appreciate it if you could post specific feedback about what would be the preferred method for going about these changes.

Any news on how Astral Flow will be changed to be useful as a whole instead of just used for PD now?

[ManaKing]

There are no other "strats". If you don't have PD on you then you die.

against ADL, yeah not really, but he's a big FU to us all anyways. He's not a real boss, he has no tactics, he's just better than you, which is why you have to cheat to win. Adjust ADL, adjust content. Get rid of PD and Embrava dragging SMN and SCH along so that they don't get real adjustments. SMN is regarded as boring because all you really ever do is throw PD. You just throw 1 move and then maybe do shock squall rotations. I'd personally like more for SMN. It would be nice if you could use Astral Flow for damage...you know against bosses.