How about an Enfeebling Magic thread?

[saevel]

I'd rather enfeebles be redesigned with some of the effects changed so that we can have some actual enfeebling instead of using spells to outright avoid stuff. I doubt mobs would be immune to paralyze if its effect was "Attack Down & Accuracy Down" instead of "randomly prevents an action". Break could be treated as a stun with a root attached, and so on. Sure, it doesn't work like it did in Final Fantasy VI or VII or X, but they'd fit in the context of an MMORPG.

Another thing to consider would be spells building off each other. Say, Bio's Attack down acting as a booster for Paralyze's effects, or perhaps Slow acting as a booster to Addle. That at least creates a pseudo chain of spells that need to be casted.

Oh, and Dia/Bio being exclusive of each other needs to go away. Giving Attack Down and Defense Down to a mob is not exactly OP, game-breaking or anything.

All our enfeebles are pre-49, any changes to them will also effect WHM, BLM and SCH.

We like to enjoy Dia III at 15%, but BLU/RDM can do Dia II (10%) + Frightful Roar (10%) for a combined defense reduction of 20%. They every debuff under the sun available to them, granted most have "gotchas" attached to them. The idea was for SE to create similar spells for RDM, not available to WHM / BLM / SCH, that allow a RDM to reduce the targets status and reduce it's capability's. Reducing the target's defense is mathematically the same as enhancing everyone's attack, thus you can indirectly buff your alliance. This would be inline with what the dev's vision of RDM is.

[Duelle]

All our enfeebles are pre-49, any changes to them will also effect WHM, BLM and SCH.

I don't believe in spell exclusivity on RDM because the class by concept borrows from other classes. The application and use of the stuff they borrow is what should make the job unique, not whether RDM has spells others do not.

As far as enfeebles, I was aiming directly at the stuff that works in absolutes. It's why I'd suggest something like turning Paralyze into Attack Down & Accuracy Down, with values scaling along with Enfeebling Skill. This makes T2 somewhat moot if you make changes, but I wouldn't loose sleep over T2 enfeebles going away forever and RDM getting something else in place of it. Hell, RDM merits need an overhaul anyways.

Reducing the target's defense is mathematically the same as enhancing everyone's attack, thus you can indirectly buff your alliance. This would be inline with what the dev's vision of RDM is.

Except that Bio could then be used to mitigate incoming damage. Having both spells stack would also make it seem like the spell is not there to just take up space. Nerf the DoT on Bio if the combined DoTs seem to be too much, but both effects should be usable on the same mob.

[saevel]

I don't believe in spell exclusivity on RDM because the class by concept borrows from other classes. The application and use of the stuff they borrow is what should make the job unique, not whether RDM has spells others do not.

As far as enfeebles, I was aiming directly at the stuff that works in absolutes. It's why I'd suggest something like turning Paralyze into Attack Down & Accuracy Down, with values scaling along with Enfeebling Skill. This makes T2 somewhat moot if you make changes, but I wouldn't loose sleep over T2 enfeebles going away forever and RDM getting something else in place of it. Hell, RDM merits need an overhaul anyways.
Except that Bio could then be used to mitigate incoming damage. Having both spells stack would also make it seem like the spell is not there to just take up space. Nerf the DoT on Bio if the combined DoTs seem to be too much, but both effects should be usable on the same mob.

They should make enfeebling magic job specific on RDM for the same reason Aflatus / Cure V / pretty much all of WHM, is job specific to WHM and why -ja nukes are job specific to BLM. It creates a role for each job to fill and prevents players from abusing one job over the others. This is a thread about buff RDM's enfeebling capacity to make it actually useful, would be counter productive to make awesome debuffs then give them to everyone else.

Monster vs Player melee damage formula works differently then us to the monster. I believe our friends have been busy figuring this out. We've all known for years that defense becomes useless after a certain easy to reach point. That's why turtle PLD's have went the way for the dodo long before Abyssea was every created. You mitigate more damage by killing the target faster then by attempting to reduce it's attack.

[Greatguardian]

Monster vs Player melee damage formula works differently then us to the monster. I believe our friends have been busy figuring this out. We've all known for years that defense becomes useless after a certain easy to reach point. That's why turtle PLD's have went the way for the dodo long before Abyssea was every created. You mitigate more damage by killing the target faster then by attempting to reduce it's attack.

My model has the formula nearly working the same way, except that monsters have a lower cRatio floor at 1.0 and generally have ridiculously high Attack values. I mean like 1,500-2,000 Attack being common for strong NMs.

It's typically more that Defense is useless in small numbers, and becomes increasingly effective until the cutoff point at 1.0 cRatio. The problem is, in order to reach those relatively nice returns, you need assloads of defense - like full turtle 1k-2k defense. Stacking enough Defense-specific buffs to get that sort of rating is just counterintuitive because of all the powerful offensive buffs you give up in doing so, and because no matter what monsters will never score below 1.0 cRatio on you (meaning you can't ever fully mitigate damage).

Likewise, because cRatio caps, the difference between something like 2 Defense and 500 Defense is absolutely nil - allowing people to use abilities like Berserk and Counterstance with absolute impunity on stronger monsters.

[saevel]

My model has the formula nearly working the same way, except that monsters have a lower cRatio floor at 1.0 and generally have ridiculously high Attack values. I mean like 1,500-2,000 Attack being common for strong NMs.

It's typically more that Defense is useless in small numbers, and becomes increasingly effective until the cutoff point at 1.0 cRatio. The problem is, in order to reach those relatively nice returns, you need assloads of defense - like full turtle 1k-2k defense. Stacking enough Defense-specific buffs to get that sort of rating is just counterintuitive because of all the powerful offensive buffs you give up in doing so, and because no matter what monsters will never score below 1.0 cRatio on you (meaning you can't ever fully mitigate damage).

Likewise, because cRatio caps, the difference between something like 2 Defense and 500 Defense is absolutely nil - allowing people to use abilities like Berserk and Counterstance with absolute impunity on stronger monsters.

GG you do realize I was the person who came up with the 1.0 Ratio idea originally, it was shortly after ToAU was released and I had leveled up /BLU for my RDM. I went out testing some defense values (Pro IV + Cocoon + Taco) and saw absolutely no difference fighting VT monsters. Knowing that monsters do not have ridiculously high attack, without some sort of buffs (berserk) or them being a DRK, I had to figure out why I wasn't forcing their damage to the 0.5 floor we know. I never thought of there being a positive level correction and their formula scaling completely differently then ours. I had assumed that if I could get the monster to 0.5 that it would start hitting for 0 similar to what happens with us.

Testing has recently shown that while there isn't a 1.0 ratio floor, vs anything bigger then you the chances of you getting under 1.0 are rather slim. And even then the actual benefit would be small.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

I don't believe in spell exclusivity on RDM because the class by concept borrows from other classes. The application and use of the stuff they borrow is what should make the job unique, not whether RDM has spells others do not.

As far as enfeebles, I was aiming directly at the stuff that works in absolutes. It's why I'd suggest something like turning Paralyze into Attack Down & Accuracy Down, with values scaling along with Enfeebling Skill. This makes T2 somewhat moot if you make changes, but I wouldn't loose sleep over T2 enfeebles going away forever and RDM getting something else in place of it. Hell, RDM merits need an overhaul anyways.
Except that Bio could then be used to mitigate incoming damage. Having both spells stack would also make it seem like the spell is not there to just take up space. Nerf the DoT on Bio if the combined DoTs seem to be too much, but both effects should be usable on the same mob.

RDM is quite a bit different from the previous game and enters in territories such as Mystic Knight and so on, and unlike previous games they do have a specialty, they specialise in Enfeebling and as such they should have unique spells in that field and I mean outside of merits.

[Duelle]

RDM is quite a bit different from the previous game and enters in territories such as Mystic Knight and so on

I'd say enspells lean in that "application and use of the stuff RDM borrows" direction. Sure, it was inspired by Mystic Knight, but if it were taken straight from Mystic Knight, we would have Spellblade and would be casting nukes through our swords (something I'd outright welcome, mind you).

That being said, RDM is hardier than your standard mage, but weaker than your average warrior. It'd make sense for them to use their (self-cast) buffs or Job abilities to lean one way or the other to make up for what they lack vs the standard mage or warrior.

Connected to this is a point I brought up in the DRK nuke thread: just because we borrow spells does not mean said spells should work exactly the same as those form the jobs we borrow them from. Nukes in particular are subject to this because Elemental nukes follow the damage ruleset that BLM follows...which clearly favors BLMs. Which means one job gets spells they can use, the others have wastes of space and little more. A spell cast by a BLM or WHM or SCH should look or act different when cast by the melee-caster hybrids (PLD, DRK and RDM). Fire from a RDM should be different from Fire from a DRK, which would be different from the "original" version cast by BLM or SCH. That way you have uniqueness in terms of gameplay without having to add something completely different to make the job seem "unique".

and unlike previous games they do have a specialty, they specialise in Enfeebling and as such they should have unique spells in that field and I mean outside of merits.

Which hasn't exactly panned out. The fact that Final Fantasy's debuff spells are for the most part absolutes don't help at all. Which goes back to what I said several posts ago: redesign enfeebles to work and be balanced in a standard MMO setting instead of trying to port the effects straight out of a console FF and then be forced to make your mobs immune to said effects to prevent said effects from making the encounters trivial or outright nerf the effects when cast by player characters (see: Break).