Increase Subtle Blow Cap

[Kincard]

Gonna try to keep this short.

Basically, subtle blow caps at 50. Currently the innate traits at the level cap give NINs 27, MNKs 25, and DNCs 20. Subbing NIN will get you 15. Any sane NIN will merit subtle blow instead of the amazing -ton spell enhancements in group 1 so they'll have a base of 32.

Add in Rajas, that's +5.

A WHM with Auspice gives +10, and if I'm not mistaken, Orison Duckbills +2 will push it to +20. A Ninja can cast Myoshu: Ichi and get +10.

So with all that, it's easy to see that it's laughably easy to cap subtle blow. I think just that alone should be reason enough to raise the cap really, since MNK and NIN have a bunch of other gear on top of this that has no real use when it's so easy to cap the stat.

But a bigger problem comes when you consider the way monsters gain TP. The idea behind jobs like MNK and NIN is for them to be "low TP-feeding DPS". The concept falls flat when they're basically feeding the same amount of TP as the two-handers jobs- Monster TP has a static value added to each hit that connects, so faster-hitting jobs will be feeding more TP assuming no subtle blow.

tl;dr
1. Too easy to cap subtle blow on jobs that "specialize" in it, makes a bunch of gear useless
2. Even when you do it doesn't make said jobs feed less TP, it just equalizes them with two-handers

[Mirabelle]

So MNK's, NIN's and DNC jobs are failing? That's news to me. Seems to me they have been the premiere melee jobs of the Abyssea era.

But I'm all for adding a bit more to the subtle blow cap. Makes MNK's roll on COR somewhat useful.

[Kincard]

Where in that post did I say that MNKs, NINs and DNCs are failing? I was saying they fail in their job concept (SE has said themselves that they want MNK to be about limiting monster TP gain, and really the only tools they have for that off the top of my head is Penance), not that the jobs themselves fail. The whole idea behind subtle blow gives the illusion that it makes jobs with it more efficient at dealing damage, when in fact it basically makes them about the same as two-handers, TP-feed wise. That means if two-handers got a bunch of subtle blow through Monk's roll or whatever they end up being more efficient in that regard.

[Theytak]

Gonna try to keep this short.

Basically, subtle blow caps at 50. Currently the innate traits at the level cap give NINs 27, MNKs 25, and DNCs 20. Subbing NIN will get you 15. Any sane NIN will merit subtle blow instead of the amazing -ton spell enhancements in group 1 so they'll have a base of 32.

Add in Rajas, that's +5.

A WHM with Auspice gives +10, and if I'm not mistaken, Orison Duckbills +2 will push it to +20. A Ninja can cast Myoshu: Ichi and get +10.

So with all that, it's easy to see that it's laughably easy to cap subtle blow. I think just that alone should be reason enough to raise the cap really, since MNK and NIN have a bunch of other gear on top of this that has no real use when it's so easy to cap the stat.

Don't you remember that they added a secondary subtle blow effect to AGI? It has its own 50% cap, which is easily reached by pretty much every DD job with just natural AGI by 80~85, applied separately from regular subtle blow. The two together result in approximately 75% reduction in TP/hit. Add to that Penance or Yurin, and nin and mnk shouldn't have any problem with feeding TP. I won't deny that it's incredibly easy to cap, given that my TP set on mnk has 47 subtle blow with only one gear change (torero torque). And that's without auspice.

But a bigger problem comes when you consider the way monsters gain TP. The idea behind jobs like MNK and NIN is for them to be "low TP-feeding DPS". The concept falls flat when they're basically feeding the same amount of TP as the two-handers jobs- Monster TP has a static value added to each hit that connects, so faster-hitting jobs will be feeding more TP assuming no subtle blow.

waitwhat? The monster gets the same TP you do +3 (before Store TP) each time you hit it. Assuming Martial Arts VII+ average delay of ~+50 on the better h2h weapons, and for nin ~400 combined delay and DW +50% (DW5, AF body, Suppa, AF3+2 head)....

h2h: 4.8 TP/hit, thus 7.8 base given TP/hit; -75% before penance/yurin is 1.9 given TP/hit, 1.4 with penance (can't remember what yurin's inhibit TP is if it's different than penance)

katana: 4.3 TP/hit, thus 7.3 base given TP/hit; -75% before penance/yurin is 1.8 given tp/hit, 1.3 with penance.

Ignoring abyssea, the mnk would have 5~15% double attack (depending on sub, assuming brutal earring), and 22~25% kick attack rate (because I can't find anyone who agrees on what the KA2 % rate is, and accounting for AF3+2 set bonus procs), while nin would have presumably, 15~20% DA depending on gear and accounting for AF3+2 set proc, (I'm just spitballing because I don't know how used the double/triple attack gear is due to being gone for a while),

Say a 5 minute fight where all individuals have significant haste, ignoring the possibility of the NM having regain. Additionally, due to the fact that 1) no one that I've seen has actually pinned down exactly how agi effects subtle blow aside from the 75% net cap, and 2) it would apply to everyone in this situation due to level, I'm going to remove it from the equation (and thus use only actual subtle blow+), so it should be noted that the actual given TP/hits should be a bit lower than they are shown below. Comparing three sets: (Mnk and War are paired due to Counter and Retaliation, Nin and Sam due to lack of counter/retaliation, since the counter procs from Seigan/Third Eye and AF3+2 Augmented Yonin should cancel each other out) All will also ignore penance/yurin since those would apply to all melees. For the war and mnk, counter rate outside of abyssea with merits should be effectively the same as retaliation rate, and will depend heavily on the delay of the mob being fought, accuracy, shadows, and the player's ability to keep or lose hate. Thus, I've paird mnk and war together to more or less negate that variable (This isn't in depth analysis, I'm just trying to point out a baseline difference)
1: Mnk/nin to War/nin
2: Mnk/war to War/sam
3: Nin/war to Sam/war

Group 1:
Length of the Recorded Fighting time: 300 seconds

Mnk/nin: Capped Subtle Blow, TP/hit = 4.9, Given TP/hit = 3.9, lightly less than 2 seconds between attack rounds (should be ~106 delay at delay floor for 530 combined delay before MA traits and haste, unless I borked the numbers somewhere), so 169 attack rounds; 354 punches, 42 kicks (using 5% DA 25% KA), 406 total attacks, -5% due to acc ceiling, 385 connected attacks, for a total granted TP of 1501

War/nin: +20 subtle blow from /nin and rajas, 504 delay great axe will give 13.7 TP/hit, 16.7 given TP/hit, 13.3 given TP/hit. 504 delay at 80% haste is ~100 delay, 180 attack rounds, at a ~30% double attack rate (base+merits+gear, knowing that wars get DA2 from testing on BG) is 234 attacks, 222 successful, for 2951 granted TP

Group 2:

Mnk/war: Capped subtle blow, TP/hit = 4.9 given TP/hit = 3.9, 169 attack rounds, 10% DA difference should give ~430 attacks, of which 408 would be successful, for a total given TP of 1591

War/sam: losing the +15 SB from /nin, 16.7 -> 15.8 gTP/hit -> 222 successful attacks for 3507 TP

Group 3:

Nin/war: ~200 delay after DW, 4.3 TP/hit, 3.6 gTP/hit, capped haste, ~80 delay, ~225 attack rounds, 540 attacks with ~20% double attack, after 95% hit rate; 513 successful; total given TP of ~1846

Sam/war: 450 delay gkatana, 5 SB from rajas, 11.5 TP/hit (before Store TP), 13.7 given TP/hit, at haste cap and 20% double attack, 90 delay, 200 attack rounds, 240 attacks, 228 successful. No idea how to account for zanshin here, so I'll do this:
- no Zanshin procs or Zanshin allows the expected 95% hit rate: 3123 given TP
- Zanshin allows for higher than expected hit rate by 2.5% (234 successful): 3205 given TP
- Zanshin allows for a perfect 100% hit rate of the expected amount of attacks (240 successful): 3288 given TP

If the war or sam manage to cap subtle blow via auspice, rajas, /nin, and +10 SB from some other source, it comes out like this:

Before AGI:
Mnk: 1591 given TP (3.9 gTP/hit)
War: 1842 given TP (3.6 gTP/hit)
Nin: 1846 given TP (8.3 gTP/hit)
Sam: 1504~1584 given TP (7.2 gTP/hit)


...ok I see your point. With how easy it is to cap subtle blow now with Auspice and /nin, it does kind of steal mnk and nin's thunder, I'm also kind of surprised to see sam come out with less TP given than monk, though given the staggering difference the number of attacks, it does make sense. If I were to account for it, the AGI mod will effectively cut the given TP by about half, so that lessens the sting a bit but wow... I never noticed that before.

[Kincard]

I do remember the AGI-subtle blow thing, but people have to gear for AGI in their TP gear for it to matter (which they won't do, obviously, unless it's found among a bunch of other stats that actually help)- It is NOT an easy stat to cap actually, it requires dAGI to be 75, and while that's probably not too hard to reach for certain builds in Abyssea (Basically any job using Gnarled Horn), it's mostly negligible outside.

Also I want to clarify that I'm not complaining that NIN and MNK arn't good jobs or anything like that- I just find it odd that they have all these ways for them to increase their subtle blow when the cap is so easy to reach, and the current cap makes it so that in any situation where you're not increasing subtle blow, they're actually equal to other jobs. They are often surpassed in that ability by two handers the instant any buffs that increase it come along (A 11 Boosted Monk's Roll gives +50 just by itself...in b4 lolMonk'sRoll), because the two-handers are getting a bonus from it, but the MNKs and NINs arn't because they've already capped it without the buffs.

[Theytak]

Also worth noting is that the more haste you have, the less effective subtle blow becomes. I ran the numbers with more practical haste (it's a LOT easier to cap haste on mnk and nin, due to how MA/DW count towards the cap), and just the loss of JA haste (basically, 68.75% haste from capped gear/magic haste, where mnk would still be at haste cap) is enough to almost tie war's fed TP with Mnk's, even at the measly 20% SB.