On the Topic of RDM Magics

[cidbahamut]

Really? Nobody has brought up bagging on buff cycles in weeks. Is Shiyo just trying to start a fight out of thin air?

Probably.

Less cat-fighting, more brainstorming for enfeebly goodness.

[Hyrist]

I think that ought to be our goal even if it's realistically unachievable due to the need to keep the game balanced. The whole point of enfeebling ought to be disabling the foe to the point where it's significantly less of a threat, and I don't feel Red Mage really accomplishes that.

I agree. Though I do think we can all agree that TP moves are the root cause of this problem when we take away the issue of 'Spell Immunities'.

This, and 'Auras' which seem to be a nice trend in Abyssea (Does Voidwatch have these?)

So a Debuff that would lock down Sphere effects and prevent them from taking effect would be a good idea for a new debuff, if this idea of Auras are going to be a new mechanic.

But getting back into the idea of attacking TP moves. There's only a set number of ways of doing it.

Stun prevents it (enemy keeps TP).

We have TP reducer moves (Straight TP , or DOT)

TP Gain suppression (Between Subdle blow and other BLU enfeebles.)

Max TP down is a new debuff we've seen.

Then we have "Delay increase." Alla Addle.

Alternatively, perhaps a more advanced, alternate version of stun that 'prevents' a TP attack on a timer, and causes a TP reset, would be an incredible boon for fighting TP moves.

Other Debuff categories we haven't touched?

Magic Defense reduction.

A debuff that enhances Skillchain/Burst damage.

A debuff that causes the monster to deal damage to itself rather than the party. (Could be incorporated into that "TP Killer Stun.")

I think those are enough to chew on for a while.

[cidbahamut]

This, and 'Auras' which seem to be a nice trend in Abyssea (Does Voidwatch have these?)

So a Debuff that would lock down Sphere effects and prevent them from taking effect would be a good idea for a new debuff, if this idea of Auras are going to be a new mechanic.

See, to me that just sounds like a silly workaround to the root problem: stuff getting buffs that are basically immune to Dispel, which brings us back to square one of "we need things to not be immune, dammit". The whole point of dispel is to get rid of a foe's buffs, but now we're just seeing foes that have permanent buffs so Dispel becomes pointless.

A debuff that enhances Skillchain/Burst damage.

If they'd give skillchains an overhaul that brought them back into modern play this could be pretty fantastic. Unfortunately, Skillchains are pretty much dead at the moment aside from the classes who can self-skillchain.

For TP moves, I feel like all the ideas we've come up with trend towards simply making the TP move not happen. I think instead we might want to start gunning for something a little different. Addle reduces magic accuracy right? Why not extend that aspect to TP moves. Add something that severely reduces the potency of the TP move. They'll still be going off and TP feed is always going to be a concern, but instead of one-shotting that Tarutaru in the crossfire it'll instead knock his health in half. Just some sort of Damage Dealt -X% effect, or something along those lines.

[Hyrist]

See, to me that just sounds like a silly workaround to the root problem: stuff getting buffs that are basically immune to Dispel, which brings us back to square one of "we need things to not be immune, dammit". The whole point of dispel is to get rid of a foe's buffs, but now we're just seeing foes that have permanent buffs so Dispel becomes pointless.

Well these buffs don't work along the same lines as dispel. As you said "Buffs that are always on." Perhaps in this case the lockdown spell can serve like a Dispel II that works for this category of ability, or even prevents the monster from receiving further bonus effects when they use an ability.

So dispel removes buffs currently on the mob, and Lockdown prevents buffs more from being placed on the mob for a certain duration.

For TP moves, I feel like all the ideas we've come up with trend towards simply making the TP move not happen. I think instead we might want to start gunning for something a little different. Addle reduces magic accuracy right? Why not extend that aspect to TP moves. Add something that severely reduces the potency of the TP move. They'll still be going off and TP feed is always going to be a concern, but instead of one-shotting that Tarutaru in the crossfire it'll instead knock his health in half. Just some sort of Damage Dealt -X% effect, or something along those lines.

Addle also delays the casting of spells, so why not extend that to delaying the use of TP moves? More time to stun, more time to get that sudden Cureskin on your tank. Gives your Melee an opportunity to get out of range, etc. I'm on board with the secondary effects as well but just giving players more time to react to incoming TP moves would be incredible.

[Swords]

For TP moves, I feel like all the ideas we've come up with trend towards simply making the TP move not happen. I think instead we might want to start gunning for something a little different. Addle reduces magic accuracy right? Why not extend that aspect to TP moves. Add something that severely reduces the potency of the TP move. They'll still be going off and TP feed is always going to be a concern, but instead of one-shotting that Tarutaru in the crossfire it'll instead knock his health in half. Just some sort of Damage Dealt -X% effect, or something along those lines.

Could perhaps go with something along the lines of a "-TP bonus" cid. Something that wouldn't prevent TP gain or useage, but when it comes around to actually using a TP move the fTP modifiers would go down a tier. It would be ineffective for moves that have a floored fTP rate like 100% = 3.0, 200% = 3.0, 300% = 3.0, but TP moves that grow like 100% = 2.5, 200% = 3.5, 300% = 5.0 could be severely hampered.

[cidbahamut]

I'm not saying they all have to be separate spells or anything, I'm just throwing out more ideas for us to pick through. I just don't want our only response to TP moves to end up being "don't let them happen in the first place". Heck, a spell that just outright reduced Damage Dealt by X% would be freaking amazing. I'd kill for that kind of power. And before anyone mentions Bio, I'm going to ask whether your entire alliance is subbing BLU for Cocoon. Also: all damage dealt, not just physical.

[Hyrist]

Damage Mitigation spells we have a plenty of, though again, anything that helps reduce the effectiveness of TP attacks a little I'm all in for.

TP is the biggest crux of pain in the game and it's constantly a fear of players getting hit by these massive attacks and destructive status effects.

If there were ways to mitigate it, people might not be so paranoid in the fights themselves, and they could STILL be difficult in other ways.

You know, I just thought about something... for a WHM. A buff that prevents the next attack incoming from being lethal. (Leaves you at 1 HP instead of dieing.) That would be an awesome buff. Heck, RDM could share it.

Put it on those DDs that dive in for WSes or are afraid of heavy AoEs that could kill them.

Or a Debuff on the mob that works to the same effect. Though that won't help the massive AoE enfeebles. I'd love to hamper the mobs ability to do that Enmasse, though I suspect Addle and Barspells are supposed to try to work like that.

[Crimson_Slasher]

I just thought up an idea, i could see a rdm, and a brd equivolent, and perhaps share it to sch, but im not sure if that would apply, but i have an idea for a fun debuff, could be balanced by duration, recast, or effect.

Parochialism - Forces special moves by target to only activate upon the target with the highest enmity.

Now this could be used for a single tp move, then wear off, or be a set duration (before resists) and have a longer recast so this cant be done all the time, though this wouldnt affect aoe spells. This could also (maybe?) prevent some shadow whiping tp moves not dispel the tank's shadows, and this is a substantially powerful party and endgame (HNM?) related enhancement.

[cidbahamut]

I'm not sure I quite follow you CS. TP moves already target the person who has hate, or do you mean AoE TP moves would instead only hit the tank while -aga spells still hit everyone? I could see that being useful in some situations but Murphy's Law would ensure that most of the time it gets eaten up by TP moves that are already single-target.

Oh, oh, new idea!

Enfeeble that inhibits the foe's ability to inflict status ailments. Something that removes the pesky status effects that are tacked onto a bunch of TP moves. No more paralysis/doom/petrification/encumbrance/etc on top of that heavy AoE damage.

[Swords]

Why not just ask for a Paralyze of sorts that would occasionally interrupt a TP move and still consume the TP.