SCH adjustments & Additions

[hideka]

You're really gonna' have to expand on why you're saying no to the introduction of Crimson Arts. You say that it turns SCH into RDM. You seem to forget that, currently, Dark Arts turns us into BLM and White Arts turns us in into WHM. Even you, in your very first post, suggested giving Dark Arts a latent Magic Attack Bonus and giving Light Arts a latent Cure Potency enhancement, thus turning SCH into BLM and WHM even more. Isn't the point of all of our wrangling to turn Scholar into the unique job it should be?

The Crimson Grimoire is a important part of the Scholar story. It's high-time that they incorporate it into the game. I expected more constructive criticism from you, Hideka.

that was my bad, i had all of 5 minutes to type out that post before i left for work. normally i do go off on huge trists as to why stuff like this is a bad or good idea.

let me be a little more specific here:
The blood seed grimorie: while it is cool in its concept, and would play into the SCH plot line, it would however bring scholar FAR too close to the Redmage Cast set, the diffrences between the two jobs would be far too slim, and wouldnt bring enough to the table for SCH to really merit having the ability.

as it stands now switching between the arts is extremely painless with 45 second strategems; were this post made...... back in 75 cap days it would have been PERFECT, however now that we are nearing 99 cap, other jobs (namingly WHM BLM) have surpassed us in our individual fields, and RDM's have surpassed everyone in terms of being a hybrid, i feel it is a bad move for SCH to take ANY steps towards becoming more like another class. at this point we need things that will bring us further into our own individual role that will help boost us further along and make us more desireable in a party.

Unfortunately with the crimson grimorie idea, we really are not gaining anything we already did not have, and we are being moved into a nearly IDENTICAL spell list to that of a redmage, thus making us less unique. the point of me suggesting native cure potency and magic attack bonus on our arts was to help compensate for the lack of gear on those fields, as well as to boost those fields for players who sub scholar (not nearly enough do, as rdm is pretty much the ultimate magical SJ for the time being).

animus rasa would be unrealistic due to the fact that it would either have a horribly high recast, making it into a "every once in a while spell", or have a short recast/duration causing us to have to spam the crap out of it thus turning us into good old 75 cap redmages who pretty much only spam 1-3 spells untill our brains melt.

fusion spells would consist of 2 elements for 1 cast, allowing you to place 3-4 elements into a SC using 2 spells resulting in a T2-T3 SC, a T3 SC is only possible when 2 forces contribute all 4 aligned elements into a SC AKA fire light wind thunder = light. so fusion > Fragmentation = Light.

as for incorporating the crimson grimorie into the game Try this on for size:


(gogo crappy MS paint demo!)

the essential logic behind this is:
you can select a light based grimorie and a dark based grimorie, and then incorporate diffrent schemia into your grimories to enhance your own HP, MP, Elemental affinity, Spell Selection, and stats.

each grimorie would have its own individual effects, the base grimories having the same effect as our current light arts and dark arts bonuses

Example:
Dark grimorie: -10% Mp costs -10% casting time/ recasting time +20% MP for white magic, +20% casting time for white magic Increases Skill Cap to B

Explanation: in this example the dark grimorie is the base dark arts grimorie.

Example 2:
Shadow Grimorie: -25% black magic MP costs Increases Dark Magic potency. Increases White Magic MP, casting and Recasting Costs by 50%, decreases potency of healing magic. Increases Skill Cap to B


there would be several variations of each grimorie, each causing dark arts and light arts to be altered in various ways, all in line with the previous examples.

Spells from WHM BLM & RDM specific trees will be added in as equippable Schemia. by equipping these spells, you are able to access them under VERRY specific conditions:

1). your level is High enough to access this Spell.
2). You have enough MP to cast the spell
3). the spell will consume 1 stratagem, but at only half the recast time ( 60 second strat recast > 30 second strat recast)
4). the bonuses from your current art do not apply to this spell (aside from skill)
5). must be under matching art.

each schemia carries a multitude of diffrent effects which are listed on the Description of the schemia.



keep in mind that these values are purely for example, and would be something to toy arround with with balance.

essentially all spells for white and black magic (excluding Ja tier, and top tier cure spells) would be avalible in schemia form. if you know the spell already from another job you can have the schemia NPC automatically insert it for you, and if you dont have the spell, you can trade a scroll for the spell to the schemia NPC and have it converted into a schemia and inserted.



if you take note in the grimorie picture, i have several things that might not make sense at first glance.

1). The bottom elemental circles are essentialy your current affinity for elements based off of currently equipped schemias. the affinity granted by this is diffrent then the affinity granted by the elemental staves. the affinity increases the base damage for any matching spells by that ammount, and reduces any incoming damage of the matching element by that ammount.

2). Light arts +25 / Dark arts + 30. these effects are granted by certian schemias when equipped. they raise the skill granted by Light arts and dark arts by the respective ammounts

3) stat + 0 / 0: the grimories and schemias will occasionally increase certian stats like HP, MP, str & INT. the first number represents your bonus under light arts, the second number represents your bonus under dark arts.


now i know that this pretty much sounds OP: keep in mind, at max SCH can add in 12 spells to their list. MAX. and they have SEVERELY limiting penalties for casting them. theyd also have to choose spells over direct arts boosting schemias or stratagem enhancing schemias.

also this whole idea was to just expand on your crimson grimorie idea ,

while this concept would make sch so we could fill a WHM or BLMs spot would be awesome and take SCH to a whole new level of complexity and planning, we would still just be cookie cuttering WHM and blm which isnt what id like to see from SCH. so id have to say i still stand firm by my previous suggestions, however.... if the two were to some how accidentialy have sex... and produce a totally awesome baby that combined both ideas into one awesome job... then i wouldnt complain in the slightest.

[Kasandaro]

@ kasandro :
minuo pretium was dark arts, the light arts counterpart was Pravenio decessus.
the issue with making P.D. get overwritten by cureskin, is that the effect is limited by a 45 second timer naturally, so if someone went to heal the guy you just gave a death ward to, and wiped it, it would be a total waste of a strategem and MP. I also said that there would be an internal cool down on the effect per target. gonna refrence a wow mechanic really quick here, so apologies in advance:

Fair. I'm just thinking there shouldn't be a situation where a target has both cureskin and pravenius, for balance issues - maybe stack/block them the way Refresh/Sublimation mess with each other? (Course, that means mucking about around Stoneskin itself, so I dunno.)

(I've been swiping healing mechanics I want to see from GW; you're allowed to quote WoW at me. ^^)

as to which sj sch will use: RDM is the superior choice by far. now allow us to use misery/solace, and manawall (drop it to level 50), and MABEY youd see WHM and blm as useable choices, but other then that, RDM all the way lol.

Mana Wall at 49* (50 would just taunt us). And I think one of WHM's biggest weapons in their arsenal is Solace's cureskin: being able to drop 1K+ cures, with 250+ stoneskins, every six seconds really is huge for healing. I really don't want that subbable.

My point was, as /RDM is the de facto choice, why is it an issue (not raised by you) that SCH does not get the basic enfeebles natively. I mean, yes, it'd be nice occasionally to sub something to use our epic club or staff (or dagger! Blau Dolch ftw!) skills, but really.

{different reply, cutting the "gigantic brick wall-o-text" for length}
as for incorporating the crimson grimorie into the game Try this on for size:

So some weird hybrid of BLU spells and Automaton traits? Would need hella balancing to pull off, but it would certainly be interesting. Would have to have a very bizarre set of schema to not tap dance all over the other casters' toes.

[Fetus]

The blood seed grimorie: while it is cool in its concept, and would play into the SCH plot line, it would however bring scholar FAR too close to the Redmage Cast set, the diffrences between the two jobs would be far too slim, and wouldnt bring enough to the table for SCH to really merit having the ability.

The differences between BLM/RDM/WHM/SCH are already incredibly subtle and anything short of a game-changing overhaul wouldn't "fix" that. The differences between any of these four jobs is a handful of spells and a couple job abilities. My point is, Crimson Arts doesn't make SCH any more like a RDM than Dark Arts already makes SCH like a BLM than Light Arts already makes SCH like a WHM. Crimson Arts brings just as much as Light Arts or Dark Arts does, in theory. In the utopian scenario, SCH would gain access to Cure V via Addendum: White and it already does gain access to Tier-V elemental spells via Addendum: Black. To attain complete optimization, you either pick Light or Dark Arts and access the respective addendum. Crimson Arts offers a different platform to operate on. You would gain access to enhanced stratagems, excellent new magic but lose out on Tier-V spells from Light Arts or Dark Arts. It's a fair exchange. The game is about marginal gains and balance. This is marginal and balanced.

as it stands now switching between the arts is extremely painless with 45 second strategems;

48 seconds.

were this post made...... back in 75 cap days it would have been PERFECT, however now that we are nearing 99 cap, other jobs (namingly WHM BLM) have surpassed us in our individual fields, and RDM's have surpassed everyone in terms of being a hybrid, i feel it is a bad move for SCH to take ANY steps towards becoming more like another class. at this point we need things that will bring us further into our own individual role that will help boost us further along and make us more desireable in a party.

They were never our individual fields to begin with. WHM and BLM came first. They will always be superior for doing what they were built to do. SCH will never touch that. Scholar appears to transcend these boundaries at times, but you can't judge a job on what it does only on occassion.

Unfortunately with the crimson grimorie idea, we really are not gaining anything we already did not have, and we are being moved into a nearly IDENTICAL spell list to that of a redmage, thus making us less unique. the point of me suggesting native cure potency and magic attack bonus on our arts was to help compensate for the lack of gear on those fields, as well as to boost those fields for players who sub scholar (not nearly enough do, as rdm is pretty much the ultimate magical SJ for the time being).

Again, it optimizes slightly different magic skills, grants the same bonuses/penalties as Dark/Light Arts to those respective magic skills and gives SCH the ability to augment their stratagems to become more potent at the cost of HP. Again, with the "uniqueness" issue, we're all basically the same already. There is no realy difference between BLM/RDM/WHM/SCH if you are judging how unique they are based upon their spell acquisition. The differences lay mostly with job abilities. The problem is when we use /BLM/WHM/RDM as a support job, we get very little in terms of additional job abilities. When they use /SCH as a support job, they basically get 80% of what SCH has to offer. You start giving latent Cure Potency to Light Arts and latent Magic Attack Bonus to Dark Arts, it's over. Nobody will play SCH because using /SCH as a support job will be about as good as actually having it leveled. The only thing you'd be missing is Rapture/Ebullience/Perpetuance/Immanence and faster stratagem recast timers.

animus rasa would be unrealistic due to the fact that it would either have a horribly high recast, making it into a "every once in a while spell", or have a short recast/duration causing us to have to spam the crap out of it thus turning us into good old 75 cap redmages who pretty much only spam 1-3 spells untill our brains melt.

Again, it's a balancing issue. You can't have something like Animus Rasa without balancing it. A large recast time is what balances it. People complain about the recast time on Klimaform, but you still use it don't you? It hasn't turned you into a one-trick pony, has it? No, it hasn't. But it hasn't helped you get any invites lately, has it? No, it hasn't. You wanted something that would make SCH more valued. This is a good start.

I do really enjoy your idea of building our own grimoire. It's akin to a PUP building their automaton, but at the same time it still feels novel. But I feel like it's something that should've been introduced around... level 10 when SCH first gains access to Dark/Light Arts. I'm not sure how I feel about adding things like Ancient Magic Schemas, since it just brings SCH a couple spells closer to being a BLM, despite how similar they already are and it has no real purpose for existing outside of allowing SCH to proc grellow !! inside of lolAbyssea. I'm not sure why schemas would be adding things like +STR or +DEX unless you're just dictating that they're adding that bonus because STR is affiliated with fire and DEX with thunder and INT with ice, etc.

If that's the case, every user-made Grimoire is just likely to be a Elemental Magic Grimoire that has loads of ice-magic schemas to get as much bonus INT as possible and have a relatively devastating line of magic to top it off. Not to mention any additional bonuses they end up getting from the schemas. Also, the compounding affinity would just make something like this totally broken.

As a rough draft for an idea, it's good. But to consider it for serious implementation, it needs to definitely be refined further. It should be mentioned that something like this needs to be SCH onry, obviously. Good work, though, as usual.