How about an Enfeebling Magic thread?

[SpankWustler]

I agree with simpler math reduces the chances of programming errors. I also agree with TP moves can't be stopped (though Paralyze can stop TP moves).

Actually, paralyze can stop everything but TP moves. Paralyze doesn't stop a player's weapon skills, either. It's weird to think about, considering these two things are the most complex physical movements in all of Final Fantasy XI, but that's how Paralyze rolls.

I think an Addle-like enfeeble would be a nice way to deal with TP gain and TP moves. Rather than crippling the monster's TP move damage or TP gain, it could just be a mild to moderate penalty to both. This would also make the spell more useful against monsters who gain TP mostly through regain, or simply don't need TP to use their super-secret special moves.

More than anything, however, the developers just need to realize that nobody wants to enfeeble critters that any bro with a particularly pointy stick could kill in 15-60 seconds; people want to enfeeble Notorious Monsters.

Or they could just introduce Dia IV and then go build a fort out of their desks and take a nap in it. That sounds a lot more likely.

[Economizer]

I think an Addle-like enfeeble would be a nice way to deal with TP gain and TP moves. Rather than crippling the monster's TP move damage or TP gain, it could just be a mild to moderate penalty to both. This would also make the spell more useful against monsters who gain TP mostly through regain, or simply don't need TP to use their super-secret special moves.

Plague comes to mind, but if you wanted to make something more like Addle, it would probably have an effect of slowing the ready time for TP moves (of course, then SE could just spam mobs that don't ready TP moves like they do already).

Or they could just introduce Dia IV and then go build a fort out of their desks and take a nap in it. That sounds a lot more likely.

It's funny, because as a White Mage, the spell I'm most jealous of that Red Mage gets is Dia III. I wonder if Saboteur increases Dia's defense down effect. Dia IV would probably do something in the range of ~20-25% defense reduction depending on Saboteur's effect. Or perhaps even a 50% reduction that decays rapidly to the baseline reduction.

Of course, while SE is at it, they should make all of the merit spells learnable, and just have the effect for each tier boosted by merits. This would be the single easiest way for Red Mage to receive a nice power boost (and while we're at it, Phalanx II should be learned at full potency and not be merited at all, considering Scholar).

As with any tread related to buffing Red Mage's enfeebles, Red Mage should get a boost to Dark Magic skill, since this opens up more Dark Magic based enfeebles. While we're at it, the elemental debuff spells should be considered for Red Mage, even though they scale pretty horribly.

And if the reason Red Mage hasn't gotten buffed is a fear of soloing, then the solution is simple: give Red Mage the enfeebling equivalent of Bully - the more people you have in your party, the more effective your enfeebles are, even against NM mobs.

[Ophannus]

Phalanx II comes in handy in situations where you can't come /SCH though. To be honest with the ease of EXP gain these days I change my merits daily since I have nothing to spend merits on anyway. If I'm gonna cleave, I'll go 5/5 Phalanx. If I'm gonna burn some empyrean weapon NMs, I'll remove Phalanx 2 and put them in Dia III. etc..

[Defiledsickness]

game breaking.. what? you know addle lands on almost every mob right? (even Pil) it slows the mobs casting time so you can easily stun it's spell. and ya blu has about 4 or 5 spells to lower TP. i would think an amnesia spell similar to the current Break spell would fit nicely tho.

as for merits i just put 5/5 slow2 as it will typically land on most nms and slow is always nice. normally when i play rdm its just for VW or Abyssea so we need the mob alive for triggering. however pil really is a pain :P

[saevel]

game breaking.. what? you know addle lands on almost every mob right? (even Pil) it slows the mobs casting time so you can easily stun it's spell. and ya blu has about 4 or 5 spells to lower TP. i would think an amnesia spell similar to the current Break spell would fit nicely tho.

as for merits i just put 5/5 slow2 as it will typically land on most nms and slow is always nice. normally when i play rdm its just for VW or Abyssea so we need the mob alive for triggering. however pil really is a pain :P

Addle ends up being something like 12~20% on NMs.

Our enfeebles destroy normal mobs, I know this as I've gone Ichi -> Ichi whole holding the mini-Dragon pets of the new Tiamat VWNM. SE has nerfed them into oblivion on HNMs because of people like Avesta. Applying everything we have at max potency would make any NM significantly easier then it currently is, SE doesn't' like that.

[Airyl]

Addle ends up being something like 12~20% on NMs.

Our enfeebles destroy normal mobs, I know this as I've gone Ichi -> Ichi whole holding the mini-Dragon pets of the new Tiamat VWNM. SE has nerfed them into oblivion on HNMs because of people like Avesta. Applying everything we have at max potency would make any NM significantly easier then it currently is, SE doesn't' like that.

I think that SE just needs to get off it's period about it's NMs. What's so wrong with gradually building resistance and giving them a bit more HP if they want it to be hard? You can't solo it for a month that way and it let's us not feel like idiots for leveling a job and then being told "NOPE, CAN'T USE ANY OF THE TOOLS THAT ARE YOUR SPECIALTY!!"

Unless I'm missing something glaringly obvious here? ;p

[Rayik]

Rant retracted. This isn't the place for it. When enfeebling magic actually works as intended, I might pick RDM back up again.

[Septimus]

I like the idea. SpankWustler is absolutely correct- enfeebles do not matter for trash mobs, trash mobs die in mere moments. RDMs need desperately need new enfeebles (that actually land) to have a seat at the HNM table.

Honestly, I don't think that Sadness would be too broken to use on HNMs if they made the potency based off of dINT instead of the duration. (Like Slow's potency is based off of dMND.) Go from Store TP -10 on the low end to -50 on the high end and it would be useful but not game-breaking. (Besides, it seems like every new monster added anymore has Auto-Regain.)

Pain is a great concept, but to be a plausible spell that they would implement I think that it would be a reduction in the computation of statistical modifiers for TP moves, not a flooring. Maybe go from -25% to -75% depending on dINT. Once more, it will have an effect on HNMs, but it won't be a "press button kill NM" type thing.

Heat sounds nifty, but it would have to be heavily nerfed if it was added to the game. They would probably make NMs would maybe take 10%, HNMs maybe 5% if that making the spell fairly useless.

But really, RDM needs more outside of the box thinking like this in order to be a productive job again.

[Hyrist]

Personally, priority wise, I beleive something to address TP moves that are actually happening need to come first and foremost.

Something that addresses the damage dealt in particular for high damage or AoE type attacks are preferable. TP Reduction spells are already in existence, and Addle does provide some magical accuracy loss.

But there needs to be a stronger presence against the actual moves/attacks themselves and this is where we're lacking the most, defensively.

I would, however, like to see a revisiting in offensive debuffs. Things that reduce Magical Defense, or increases the Rate/Damage of Critical hits based of of a magical debuff in spell form would be very welcomed as we don't have much aside from Dia tiers in terms of increasing damage for the party.

It would also regard issues in our support/buff line where we run into the debate against cycles, spheres, and aga spells. If we had debuffs that helped offensively instead of a buff, we'd have a stronger support role for HNM game just off of that.

Most importantly, these debuffs need to be RED MAGE ONLY Sharing them with other jobs is what takes our specialty away from us, SE. Saboteur is not enough to handle this issue.

Pretty much regarding TP attacks, however, is first priority. Something that's passive and allows the TP move to happen, but to noticeably lesser effect overall. After that point our library should be ok to slip into more offensive enfeebles.

[Ketaru]

Most importantly, these debuffs need to be RED MAGE ONLY Sharing them with other jobs is what takes our specialty away from us, SE. Saboteur is not enough to handle this issue.

We're probably going to get Addle II and Suchandsuchnewdebuff II in the next line of merits (who wants to bet Gravity II is going to be in there?). And to them, that's what makes it all A-OK. Even though it will boil down to meriting what is most efficient as opposed to having the full range of new spells and not having to choose at all.

Let's face it. None of us worth our merit chose to learn Blind II. But if I didn't have to choose at all, absolutely I would use it because there would simply be no reason not to. If you ask me, I say they just remove the Category cap on Category II merits and let everybody learn all of their abilities/spells/traits.