SE, Temper Activation Rate

[Rayik]

Nah. I was trying to point out that while they do benefit melee considerably, those spells were not designed specifically as an update to RDM's melee capabilities. They're simply part of a line of general purpose utility spells. It'd be like saying Black Mage getting Blizzard V was a buff to their ice damage. While it's technically true, it's just a logical progression of what's already been laid out previously.

Ok, I see where you're coming from with the rest of your post, but this is killing me. You can't count the new Gain spells separate from being a true melee buff and then turn around and say they buff melee, but it doesn't count because they were going to anyway previously? We got swords 8 years ago, I think that predates the Gain spells considerably in the "logical progression of melee" thing. Gain-STR is a new spell that's self only, and boosts melee, right there alongside Temper. Logical continuation or not, it is what it is, and those two together are a considerable boost for melee.

We're saying the same thing, just seems like classifying them differently for some reason.

[Mageoholic]

some times idiots just need to be told they are idiots.

[Karbuncle]

some times idiots just need to be told they are idiots.

I disagree !

But thats okay in the end.

[cidbahamut]

Probably.

I'm imagining the paper-napkin design session where the developers sat down and it didn't go "hey let's buff RDM melee by giving it a line of stat boosting spells and two of those spells will boost melee stats". I imagine it more as "hey let's give RDM a cool line of new spells. Boosting base stats would be cool and useful for a bunch of different tasks and fits their theme of 'doing everything'. Oh and it'll make the melee crowd happy too, so everyone wins.".

[Ophannus]

Considering THF's Bully and SCH 2hr spells and 2hr were revamped TWICE so far it's safe to say that when Camate posts about RDM's new ability/spell feedback, Temper should be getting a substantial boost in potency as well as a large reduction in Spontaneity's recast. /pray

[Ophannus]

Gain-STR is a negligble melee boost at best, it's just happenstance that it helps melee but we were bound to get it anyway in line with the other Gain-Stat spells. Gain-STR is about +18 STR with good enhancing skill and will probably end up being around 20-25 at 99. That's nice and all but STR isn't very useful in melee damage calculations if your pDIF isn't capped. Considering RDM's sword skill is low and we lack any native +Attack boosting abilities, the +STR really doesn't increase the damage much of our pitiful little sword swings. If it was Gain-Attack and gave us +50-100 attack then we'd be talking melee boost. But +base stats hardly help DD since our accuracy and attack ratings are atrocious in addition to us having much of melee gear aside from Nashira/Expansion augmented gear and a few pre75 pieces. I wouldn't mind SE producing a new set for mages that enhances melee abilities, make it a synergy recipe. Pieces could have tons of +Haste/Acc/Att/ and maybe even an 'enhance sword enhancment spell+X"

[saevel]

Gain-STR is a negligble melee boost at best, it's just happenstance that it helps melee but we were bound to get it anyway in line with the other Gain-Stat spells. Gain-STR is about +18 STR with good enhancing skill and will probably end up being around 20-25 at 99. That's nice and all but STR isn't very useful in melee damage calculations if your pDIF isn't capped. Considering RDM's sword skill is low and we lack any native +Attack boosting abilities, the +STR really doesn't increase the damage much of our pitiful little sword swings. If it was Gain-Attack and gave us +50-100 attack then we'd be talking melee boost. But +base stats hardly help DD since our accuracy and attack ratings are atrocious in addition to us having much of melee gear aside from Nashira/Expansion augmented gear and a few pre75 pieces. I wouldn't mind SE producing a new set for mages that enhances melee abilities, make it a synergy recipe. Pieces could have tons of +Haste/Acc/Att/ and maybe even an 'enhance sword enhancment spell+X"

Wtf are you smoking. The purpose of STR is to boost fSTR not boost attack, more attack is a side effect not the primary cause. For low DMG / low delay weapons (dagger / sword) fSTR immensely effects damage potential. The lower your delay and the more attacks you get per unit of measurement, the more important fSTR becomes (until its capped). I'll illustrate.

LV 90 Almace
DMG 61 Delay 224
fSTR cap +14 (rank 6 weapon)

LV 90 Khanda +2 (DA 10)
DMG 55 Delay 252
fSTR cap +14 (rank 6 weapon)

To get +14 fSTR you would need 56 (14 * 4) more STR then the target has VIT, unless your fighting TW's this isn't going to happen on RDM outside abyssea. And thus more STR will ALWAYS be good for RDM. Now how much does capped fSTR improve those weapons ?

61+14 = 75, 75/61 = 1.229, 22.9% improved Damage over Time (DoT).
55+14 = 69, 69/55 = 1.254, 25.4% improved Damage over Time (DoT).
476 combined delay * .70 (30% DW) = 333.2 [334] * .90 (10% DA from sword) = 300.6 delay per attack round. 300.6/2 = 150.3 delay per swing.

75+69 = 144 DMG with capped fSTR, 144/2 = 72 DMG averaged per swing.
61+55 = 116 DMG with no fSTR, 116/2 = 58 DMG averaged per swing.
72/58 = 1.241, 24.1% increase in damage averaged per swing from capped fSTR.

Now lets use Ukon,
LV 90 Ukon
DMG 131 Delay 482
fSTR cap of +22, rank 16 weapon. Requires 88 more STR then the target has VIT, no WAR will have this on anything not TW outside abyssea in TP gear (73 required after the weapon's STR is counted). Thus more STR will always help WAR outside abyssea.

131 + 22 = 153/131 = 1.167, 16.7% increase in Damage over Time from capped fSTR.
Now since this is a 2H weapon I don't need to factor in DW or other non-haste based delay reduction.

That huge GAXE gets a 16.7% damage bonus from having 22 fTR (88 extra STR) while the swords above get a 24.1% damage bonus from only having 14 fSTR (56 extra STR), or 17 STR less then the WAR. Now lets go a bit deeper, the swords are getting that 24.1% bonus every 150.3 delay (once each swing) while the GAXE is getting its 16.7% damage bonus once every 482 delay.

482/150.3 = 3.206, basically the sword is swinging %320 faster then the GAXE for 2.1 times less damage (153/72). Everything else being equal the sword would win DPS (WS is a different situation). Now WAR's obviously have more attack / accuracy, haste (Hasso) and DA/TA for reducing average delay further.

Now I'm not comparing WAR to RDM, merely using their weapons to demonstrate that STR favors lower damage / faster weapons more then it does higher damage / slower weapons. STR is like enspells, it's calculated per hit with no respect to how fast your hitting and is a static value that doesn't scale well with higher DMG.

In short, I have +17 Gain-STAT now at 426 enhancing magic, the update between 90 and 95 is +7 skill per level for 461 skill (assuming no other gear), that equals a +21 STR bonus. 21/4 = 5.25 fSTR, we get +5 DMG for free with a 25% chance of +6. Assuming the skill scaling remains the same, then 99 will be 28 more skill or 489 skill for +23.9 STR. That is +5 with a 75% chance of +6, or if you can get 1 more enhancing magic for 490 skill you end up wtih +24 STR and +6 fSTR all the time.

So yeah Gain-STR is immense, it's fricking huge. I would take Gain-STR over Gain-DEX anyway, unless your fighting something weak enough to put you over 20 dDEX. Now if we got +crit damage gear and a ton more +DEX on +Haste gear, then Gain-DEX might be looked at for bumping our crit rate up (dDEX 40 to 50 is +10% crit rate).

[Kitkat]

Yes, VWNM can be tediously hard on some of the fights not to mention striking weak-points while doing it to build your chance at getting items/key items in an area that is relatively limited. I've yet to try the new ones, but heard they will require crowd control tactics to be used again unless you'd rather just wipe.

I don't take from Camate's post that the boost will be substantial, but that it will still have the ability to be boosted to accommodate the fact that everything else enhancing based generally gets stronger as the skill goes up for rdm and that like some of these spells there will be an upper cap to keep it from getting too strong. Knowing SE I expect 5% base increase to 10% generously, or as blu recently learned about their Double attack trait only being 7% instead of the perceived 10%, a more realistic low end cap of 7~8%. I say this mainly due to how strength of enhancing magic spells has scaled down as the cap continues to rise. Phalanx beyond 300 skill has a similar equation to 5/5 phalanx II (which I assume is only to keep it balanced with Phalanx II since if it didn't change Phalanx would be up around 40 mitigation by now while II would start lagging behind by 320 tier).

Edit: Dat mining on test server shows that they are adding new alternatives to dusk+1 hands/feet, neck options and a few other items that will go towards complimenting rdm melee, but it is yet to be seen how easy/hard these items are to get at this point. Nothing shown that is specific to rdm much like enhancing sword was or other +enspell dmg options they added also (which is rather limited if I recall correctly).

[Hyrist]

Again, you resort to insults when you can't come up with a good counter.

Are you going to come up with an intellectual reply to the topic or just try to anger me?

My playtime has absolutely nothing to do with this topic except for my leanings towards having this game be more accessible to those who cannot dedicate a regular schedule to the game. My idea makes up for that fact by instead of providing random rewards, making a system that allows for clear progression towards a goal regardless of play frequency. Those who play more would still progress faster given the system I've listed above, but those who live erratic schedules would not be subject to either getting lucky or getting nothing, or, in cases of more organized shells, constantly being at the rear of the list due to having a life outside FFXI.

It actually takes the DKP system and applies it directly into an in-game mechanic and keeps it in context to the event at hand. It also helps regard the RNG troubles that this game is notorious for.

[SpankWustler]

NeoDynamis is going to be full of weak monsters, with a few really hard ones here and there.

The new tiers of VoidWatch are going to be nothing but really hard monsters.

Before this, there was Abyssea and the initial tiers of Voidwatch. A similar dichotomy.

This seems like a fair indication that SE wants to maintain the status quo. Some stuff with fodder mixed in and some stuff with only huge monsters that hate all life and want to snuff it out with unpleasant status effects and area of effect attacks.

Works for me, as long as I never have to spend four hours a day cleaning my house due to boredom that is due to waiting on a dragon again. Although, that spot at the back of my over has never been so free of gunk before or since.