Encumbrence = Lose 20 levels.

[Ang]

I'd like to point out that its not just encumbrance that presents a huge problem with the iLvl gear...Its becomes a problem every time you need to macro in a different gear set to use with certain magic spells or job abilities which happens much more frequently than being afflicted with encumbrance. For example, to use dark magic spells on my dark knight, I replace every equipped item except weapon and ammo slots, which means I lose about 550 defense, 71 VIT(roughly the same amount in other attribute slots) and about 400 HP....Thats not a good thing when you're fighting NM's like Tojil and he one-shots you very easily. This is a huge oversight and needs to be fixed, if we wouldve just been able to level up normally to 120 or w/e this wouldnt be a problem.This ILvl system is horrible, please do something about it SE....

[Kristal]

For example, to use dark magic spells on my dark knight, I replace every equipped item except weapon and ammo slots, which means I lose about 550 defense, 71 VIT(roughly the same amount in other attribute slots) and about 400 HP....Thats not a good thing when you're fighting NM's like Tojil and he one-shots you very easily. This is a huge oversight and needs to be fixed, if we wouldve just been able to level up normally to 120 or w/e this wouldnt be a problem.This ILvl system is horrible, please do something about it SE....

You need to update your macros then. Don't swap out ilvl gear unless it's with other ilvl gear.
It's not different from tanking a mob with maxed PDT gear, then using a macro to change into squishy cast gear to get a few % better results from a spell.

More gear needs to be added for sure, particularly gear with job specific stats (Adoulin AF's for all jobs) so we don't have to macro lvl 50-99 gear, but players have to read the signs and adjust as the game changes.
I want my quaddamage crits back on PUP, but that's not going to happen unless SE adds new gear with old effects.

[Kristal]

We realize that enemy abilities that remove equipment or give an encumbrance effect have larger impacts now that we've implemented the item level system, and as such, moving forward we will be doing our best to make sure that these kind of abilities are not used by monsters as much. If you encounter monsters that can use these type of abilities, we'll be sure to provide methods to avoid them or prevent them from using it.

One of the Mummers' Coalition tasks requires players to seek out slugs in Rala Waterways and get hit by their encumbrance move, which strips ALL gear for a considerable time. This was added before the item level system, but I think it would be a good idea to add some limiter to these slime-scattering slugs and their scandalous striptease specials...

Perhaps limit encumbrance based on the level of the mob. If a lvl 110 slug uses Fuscous Ooze, it will not remove any item level 111 and above gear.

Or use a point system, where an encumbrance move can remove x levels of gear (ie, 50 points worth of items, where item level 99 and below is 1 point and lvl 120 is 21 points.) Wearing a lot of high itemlevel gear thus reduces the effect.

Another idea is to not remove gear, but negate all it's stats except for item level. (Preventing all gear swaps to and from affected slots.)

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

If you encounter monsters that can use these type of abilities, we'll be sure to provide methods to avoid them or prevent them from using it.

It can be avoided by doing the fight on a Watersday during the waning gibbous moon while facing northwest-by-north and standing exactly 8.735 yalms away from the target, all while under the status effect of Deodorize. Whether or not the weather needs to be a heatwave or just a hot spell has not yet been verified (since 2006).

[Ang]

You need to update your macros then. Don't swap out ilvl gear unless it's with other ilvl gear.
It's not different from tanking a mob with maxed PDT gear, then using a macro to change into squishy cast gear to get a few % better results from a spell.

More gear needs to be added for sure, particularly gear with job specific stats (Adoulin AF's for all jobs) so we don't have to macro lvl 50-99 gear, but players have to read the signs and adjust as the game changes.
I want my quaddamage crits back on PUP, but that's not going to happen unless SE adds new gear with old effects.

I would update macro except there is no Ilvl gear with dark magic skill on it. If I stopped using all that dark magic skill gear it would mean losing more than "just a few % better results from a spelL It means losing over 100 dark magic skill, a little over 50 attack from endark, over 30% potency from absorb spells and most importantly every spell that is cast gets resisted. A dark knight that cant use its spells is basically a gimp warrior... only use Ilvl gear? thats gotta be a joke...should whm's stop using all their cure potency gear? should mnks stop using HP gear?
There are so many other situations where "old gear" is needed and it really sucks you have to lose 20 levels in order to use it.

[Danita]

Today:
Stone III 59, Stonega III 145, Stonega II 52, Hit 126, Hit 120, Hit 128, Hit 63, 175 Quake Blast (level down to naked 99), Hit 540, Stonega III 657, Hit 281 (Dead). Up to that point, I was fighting ~8 normal monsters and 2 bosses, after that point I died near instantly.

It's a shame that this is working as intended.

[Rubeus]

It can be avoided by doing the fight on a Watersday during the waning gibbous moon while facing northwest-by-north and standing exactly 8.735 yalms away from the target, all while under the status effect of Deodorize. Whether or not the weather needs to be a heatwave or just a hot spell has not yet been verified (since 2006).

you forgot to add in that you can't have buffs (including food and signet) on (with the obvious exception of deodorize, which will wear if you attack/are attacked), it must be between 6:00 am and 10:00 am game time, it can't be during a conquest tally or the hourly updates, it only works if you have aquan earring on, and of course if you have the 4 king suite Cardian Cards in your inventory that can't hurt either. Certainly doing every quest in the game involving amorphs HAS to add about 1% chance of success, as well. more information is needed as to whether or not you can use the spell deodorize or if deodorizers are better.

xD

[Demon6324236]

Just be honest people. This was simply another oversight on our 'level up' through gear. You made an overpowered enfeeble to remove every piece of gear a person is wearing, then made gear the only way to become strong enough to fight any of the enemies being released. You say 'moving forward we will be doing our best to make sure that these kind of abilities are not used by monsters as much' which implies, they can still use them. Moving forward, by which I assume you mean, new NMs in Adoulin, be them old or new races, we would be crushed if we got hit with this attack even a single time.

My Defense on a naked job is under 200 for most, even with Protect V you are going to be looking at 375 or so Defense, up against a NM with what? 1k Attack? 1.5k Attack? They would easily cap the Attack/Defense ratio on us which you changed when Adoulin came out so they could cap at 4 times our defense. Effectively what you are telling us in a nutshell is, like many other TP moves, but to a more extreme extent in my opinion, if we do not prevent this move by stunning or some other method, we might as well give up the instant it hits us, because after that it will only proceed to kill us all very quickly. Not to mention by the way, a naked player has no use now. Spells have no accuracy without our massive magic accuracy gear, nothing can be hit due to their high evasion, we have no weapons, so on. So yeah, instead of trying to make is less completely stupid and overpowered, why not just A, remove this status ailment completely, as it was a bad idea to begin with, or B, balance it to work with Item Levels, not only in new content, on new mobs, but on old content too. If you want to simulate the effect of having leveled as you claim to want to, you can not cut corners like this in a way that it adversely effects your players in a negative way so much so that it makes it unplayable in some instances. There's no reason my level 113~119 RDM should be deleveled to level 99 while fighting a NM because it uses a move to take my cloths off, at least before Adoulin, it only removed our gear, but our levels too, is to much...

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

you forgot to add...

I can't believe I forgot to include the all-important Luck Egg.

[Louispv]

Velk SE. You put them all over. The love to use, back-to-back, their ws that removes your weapons and keeps you from re-equipping them, with a duration long enough that it stays up permanently. So not only can we not damage them in any way because we lose 200 accuracy and attack, but DRG and BST are extra screwed since our pets immediately drop 20 levels as soon as the weapons come off, too.

You really shouldn't have gone with I-levels at all, but now that you have, you really need to remove this status effect from the game entirely.