Quote Originally Posted by Nightfyre View Post
So what I see here is a new spell with the potential to fill a niche - efficient physical spell vs high-level NMs - and it's been nerfed into the ground for those NMs because of how dire the need for acc is in that situation even without a penalty. What we have now is a new spell for old content instead of a new spell that will lead the way into new content... and really, why shouldn't we get new and effective spells? There will be more spells at 99, and some of them may replace old mainstays. I'm okay with that. But not once in this entire discussion, despite your repeated asking, have I sought for Heavy Strike to replace these old physical spells. I've sought for it to fill a niche they never had a place in to begin with.
Exactly. This is a design phliosophy that I adhere to in regards to Blue Mage and I'd hope the develepers would have the same one. There's no point in wasting time adding redundant (Dark Orb), penelty-heavy (Barrier Tusk, Mortal Ray) and downright useless spells due to lack of a niche to fill (post acc mod Heavy Strike).

The central points when designing these spells should be: Where would this spell be used? Does the mp cost/casting time/recast time etc warrant their use? Keeping in mind that Blue Mage is a hybrid job and can do many things but cannot fufill all the roles at one time, what spells can we add that are still lacking from it's repertoire, things that need to be added to round out their various roles.

It's like Nightfyre said, when going after lower level/defense monsters, most just use Delta Thrust. In fact, we have a nice set of spells to use on these kinds of monsters. That's not the problem. That aspect of our job is fine. But, we still have niches that need filling. What purpose does it serve to add yet another good on lower level/defense spell but bad on high level NM's? Why would I even bother with Heavy Strike, acc penelty and all, on these weaker monsters when I already have spells that fill that role?

Heavy Strike has a chance to fill in a missing space in one of our roles and all of our spells should follow suit. They need reasons to be used and SE can make it happen if they're clever about their effects, gives them reasonable opportunity costs and allows them to fill niches that have been empty for a long time.