Hey remember SC > MB? Make it required.

[Greatguardian]

Fix't and Agreed.

Nope.

I can make skillchains and magic bursts all day. Anyone can.

We don't because they suck and they reduce the overall damage you do by an epicly massive landslide, so much so that actually sitting around and waiting for everyone to get TP at the same time and making a Black Mage stop casting their other spells long enough to time their nukes to MB off of our Skillchain is detrimental.

People got smart. They can do SC+MB if SC+MB is good. But SC+MB is not good. Make SC+MB good and people will do it again. It would have to be damn good, though, to make up for how much the entire concept epicly sucks in the context of FFXI battle mechanics.

[Phafi]

Nope.

I can make skillchains and magic bursts all day. Anyone can.

We don't because they suck and they reduce the overall damage you do by an epicly massive landslide, so much so that actually sitting around and waiting for everyone to get TP at the same time and making a Black Mage stop casting their other spells long enough to time their nukes to MB off of our Skillchain is detrimental.

People got smart. They can do SC+MB if SC+MB is good. But SC+MB is not good. Make SC+MB good and people will do it again. It would have to be damn good, though, to make up for how much the entire concept epicly sucks in the context of FFXI battle mechanics.

Skillchains and magic bursts aren't bad, it just requires going BLM heavy instead of melee heavy. Which hinders stagger rates. In a fight like Pil, I would much rather have 2 sams and 10 BLMs than 1-2blms and 13 melees(I'd also like to RDM tank him, but that's a different story); but that can't be done while maintaining effective stagger rates.

You get points sir. I would happily agree to any increase in the potency of SC > MB.

We have gotten increases to potency, Magic Burst Bonus and Skillchain Bonus traits were added after skillchains lost popularity.

[Greatguardian]

Skillchains and magic bursts aren't bad, it just requires going BLM heavy instead of melee heavy. Which hinders stagger rates. In a fight like Pil, I would much rather have 2 sams and 10 BLMs than 1-2blms and 13 melees(I'd also like to RDM tank him, but that's a different story); but that can't be done while maintaining effective stagger rates.

Fanatic's Drinks and a good Monk+Warrior tank combo will solve that problem quick. Just run in and zerg when Fanatic's is up, then run in/WS/proc when Fanatic's is down; repeat whenever Fanatic's is refreshed. As long as you aren't one-shot from full HP (which should only happen with shield up, and shield shouldn't stay up long with 2 Cors), melees shouldn't be dropping too often.

I dominated my last Pil parse on Armageddon COR last night, too, doing 30%~ of total alliance damage against 3 Ukons, 1 Vereth, 1 Kannagi, 1 Masamune, 1 Rhongomiant, 1 WoE Gun COR, 1 Gandiva, 1 Almace BLU, and 2 Blms. Throwing more BLMs at it is a pretty old hat way to handle him. It's a lot easier to allocate the black mages to proc duty to keep a steady stream of temp items and staggers flowing in than losing direct damage from the DDs during fanatic's and/or putting DDs in harm's way more often without Fanatic's.

Skillchains were also being fully resisted by Pil too, to stay on topic. 1.5k Wildfire closed a 91 damage Darkness, and the Light SCs that the Mnk was self-SC'ing weren't doing much better.

[Phafi]

Skillchains were also being fully resisted by Pil too, to stay on topic. 1.5k Wildfire closed a 91 damage Darkness, and the Light SCs that the Mnk was self-SC'ing weren't doing much better.

probably because you're making a skillchain that doesn't fit the monster's weakness, had you made light, it would have yielded fire or wind damage which is a caturae's weakness.

[Greatguardian]

probably because you're making a skillchain that doesn't fit the monster's weakness, had you made light, it would have yielded fire or wind damage which is a caturae's weakness.

Skillchains were also being fully resisted by Pil too, to stay on topic. 1.5k Wildfire closed a 91 damage Darkness, and the Light SCs that the Mnk was self-SC'ing weren't doing much better.

Small sample size, obviously, but I certainly didn't see any full damage lights go off.

SC+MB with a horde of BLMs works under the assumption that black mages can do more and/or safer damage than melees. In practice, they certainly don't do more damage than melees, and I don't feel that they offer much additional safety either.

Someone's going to be tanking it, so there will always be a couple melees in range of things no matter what setup you use. Beyond that, as long as melees are only consistently in when they have Fanatic's up, black mages really aren't much safer than standard DDs. Their range grants them the ability to continue to DD without needing Fanatic's, but BLM damage alone isn't really able to hold a candle to Empyrean DDs or especially Corsairs that are rocking Discipline+Coercion+Tactician's+Miser's+Monarch's+Braver's+Stalwart's+the Crit one even if they're (aside from the COR) limited to only zerging when Fanatic's is up.

The Magic Burst +30% atmacite could be interesting, but again would require such a BLM-heavy setup that it's probably not worth doing - especially considering how many procs you lose out on by both ditching melees and having Blms use damage spells rather than proc spells.

[wish12oz]

91 damage Darkness skillchains, and the Light SCs weren't doing much better.

probably because you're making a skillchain that doesn't fit the monster's weakness, had you made light, it would have yielded fire or wind damage which is a caturae's weakness.

This is my favorite part of the thread.

[Brolic]

Nope.

I can make skillchains and magic bursts all day. Anyone can.

We don't because they suck and they reduce the overall damage you do by an epicly massive landslide, so much so that actually sitting around and waiting for everyone to get TP at the same time and making a Black Mage stop casting their other spells long enough to time their nukes to MB off of our Skillchain is detrimental.

People got smart. They can do SC+MB if SC+MB is good. But SC+MB is not good. Make SC+MB good and people will do it again. It would have to be damn good, though, to make up for how much the entire concept epicly sucks in the context of FFXI battle mechanics.

I love when idiots wax nostalgic over ancient magic skillchain in crawlers nest that netted you a whopping 5k an hr xp.