Spoilers*Test Server

[Prothscar]

No, breath enhancing gear does not have any effect on White Wind.

[Defiledsickness]

blu is probably still gimped against NM's but at least Heavy Strike is awesome on regular mobs. it beats out QC for Damage/cost especially in abyssea with crit mods for it and CDC. and we are even further from needing a refresh atma (always good).

i mean we always needed /thf to be effective on NM's at 75, did you really expect it to change? at least people bring Blu to everything since it can do anything if needed (i've finished off VW nms etc when they killed the tank and started on mages. or tanked etc).

we just got a -15% dt spell, already had an 8shadow blink spell (almost instant cast), and already had great tanking spells; blu will still be badass this update.

[Yugl]

The duration, cost, and mechanics (Multiplication as opposed to addition) of barrier tusk stinks and unless I'm getting a ton of inventory on spell points (or a good JT), it's probably not worth setting. Yes, I expected change going from 75 to 99, but I guess that was expecting too much of 24 levels. We already rock regular mobs and most won't demand the excess damage produced by Heavy Strike.

[Mightyg]

You guys are disagreeing with Daniel_Hatcher, but what he's saying is true.

It's not neccesarily how it SHOULD be, but it is how it is.

A large part of it isn't even SE's fault. It's ours. We're always trying to be better and more efficient at what we're doing and critically analyse every last detail in this game to the point of arguement. Or we read other peoples testimonies, and just take the lazy route and copy it.

LV75 Merit Parties - No Room for Black Mages.
Pre-Easy Mode Sky - SAM SAM SAM SAM
Abyssea - Boy, sure is a long time since I've seen a Dragoon.

The only thing with Voidwatch is in the past I've always managed to find a way into completing most content with just BLU. However, it doesn't sound likely with VW.

Which tbh I'm not even sure I'm too bothered by it. I just hope upgrading Almace doesn't have to lead me towards it.

Unfortunately when Voidwatch counts as about 50-75% of the new content we're getting, it starts to become an issue. I mean really, of all the things to nerf a spell with, I'd say accuracy loss is probably one of the most rage inducing to me at least. I'm pretty sure any long time player of FFXI has missed enough swings, weaponskills, full resist spells, target out of range lose all your tp to last a few lifetimes.

[Prothscar]

SE wants BLU to be a jack of all trades. What they don't realize is, the playerbase isn't completely fucktarded, so they bring the jobs with actual proficiency in the roles that BLU can fill rather than settling for 60% maximum efficiency. Give BLU a role that it can perform effectively, and leave the rest as it is: filler, support for those that can actually do the role that we're meant to be able to do but perform ineffectively at.

[Demonofhunger]

I think we've gotten spoiled with the last few updates that actually had things we needed and wanted.

Since this update only has one thing we need and want (a spell we can use against HNMs), I think we should just count ourselves lucky.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

I think we've gotten spoiled with the last few updates that actually had things we needed and wanted.

This entirely.

[Trisscar]

This entirely.

Same here. Even without some godly spells for BLU I can still gank the mobs for all I'm worth. And really, what more do we need?

[Prothscar]

I Since this update only has one thing we need and want (a spell we can use against HNMs), I think we should just count ourselves lucky.

Except for one flaw: we can't use it against HNMs because of the piss poor accuracy.

[Mefuki]

blu is probably still gimped against NM's but at least Heavy Strike is awesome on regular mobs. it beats out QC for Damage/cost especially in abyssea with crit mods for it and CDC. and we are even further from needing a refresh atma (always good).

That's one of my points, though. We already do very well against normal monsters. We can spam Delta Thrust, we can use CA-->Savage Blade--->Goblin Rush on every other or every third mob and, if fighting multiple monsters, finish one off with BT while getting the next prepared for combat.

There's a kind of thought process that SE should be going through when releasing new BLU spells and when applied to Heavy Strike would look something like:

Who's the target of the spell? Your opponent.

Physical or magical? Physical.

Does it have additional effects? No.

Is it conal or AoE? No, neither.

Any unqiue mods or properties? Well, it's got a 75% STR mod and it autocrits.

Ok, so by this point we've firmly established that this spell is for our physical DD role. However, this is where the reasoning breaks down a bit. We already do very well against normal monsters, so obviously it shouldn't be made for them.

What would you use it on/when would you use it? With those mods, it'd be perfect on high level NMs. Excellent, that's exactly what I want to see, a spell that fills a niche that's missing from one of our roles. But, wait, now we're doing too much damage to regular monsters, so reduce it's accuracy. A lot.

So, now we have a spell that was designed to be used on high level NM's but with accuracy so bad, it can't land reliably on an NM designed for the 90 cap at level 95 and using sushi. I understand wanting to limit the damage done to regular monsters for the sake of game balance as well as balance between our other physical spells but I feel reducing accuracy was the wrong way to do it.

As a fix, I propose that the accuracy of Heavy Strike should be commensurate with the target's level. The higher the target's level, the greater it's innate accuracy. This way, it can still maintain it's niche function while still keeping things on an even footing with the other jobs as well as our other physical DD spells.

What do you other BLU's think?