Quote Originally Posted by Economizer View Post
I wouldn't say Chainspell is the best 2hour currently in the game by far (SCH, SMN, BRD, WAR, SAM, MNK and arguably a few others come to mind),
While Tabula Rasa and Astral Flow are "pretty good" on their own merits (I'd even cede that Tabula Rasa is "up there" with Chainspell), I'm guessing that you only mention them because Embrava and Perfect Defense are flavor-of-the-month right now. If so, then by those standards, SMN's new 2-hour is complete garbage (even though it's really anything but). Of course, last time I checked, SCH's new 2-hour is complete garbage regardless, but isn't that partially because it has something to do with enmity?

Soul Voice is really good, but it's only really good for doing one, maybe two things, so it's not quite as flexible as Chainspell.

Mighty Strikes is awesome in concept, but in practice it's only particularly impressive against mobs with stupidly high Defense . . . which Chainspell-nuke also happens to be good against, unless said mobs have stupidly high resistance, too. Also, it's even more single-purpose than Soul Voice above. Kind of a shame that WAR's alternative to this is basically Formless Strikes on a 2-Hour timer, though, since at least Mighty Strikes allows for a couple of unusually powerful Weaponskills . . .

Meikyo Shisui is admittedly the thing my dreams are made of; one day, I'd love to organize a bunch of SAM's doing a single continuously-long SC (with perhaps some other DDs for Fragmentation, if need be) and basically SC-burn some big boss monster to death (fun fact that far too few SAMs are aware of: SCs actually get more powerful the longer they go, though this caps after about 6 WS or so). It does something much more efficiently than Chainspell does, I'll give it that much.

It goes without saying that Hundred Fists is also quite impressive . . . but a Chainspelling RDM basically laughs in the face of a Hundred Fisting MNK (particularly in the face of Spikes), barring a disproportionate difference in level.

You neglect to mention Azure Lore and Trance. Azure Lore is now basically at least Blue Magic Meikyo Shisui, with the option for Magic Bursting. Trance I would almost put on the level of Chainspell for what it can do, but we still have a greater variety of spells than DNC has Dances.

So, out of all 2-hours listed, only Tabula Rasa and maybe Trance come particularly close, with special mention to Astral Flow, Soul Voice, Meikyo Shisui, and Azure Lore. Helping putting Tabula Rasa over the top is the popularity of Embrava. Still, I stand by my point that Chainspell is still one of the best 2-hours, even if not the best 2-hour.

Whatever they do with this new 2hour, it should be good out of the box, many of the new 2hours are,
Woah, wait, what? Have you seen the list of new 2-hours? When it was first revealed, the good ones were the exception (though, SE seems to be slowly going about trying to remedy this). As crappy as RDM's 2-hour is in its current state, at least we aren't WAR, THF, BST, or SCH . . .

Bard's (aka Shattersoul Rock & Roll), even situationally compared to the current powerful 2hours those jobs have.
You actually have no idea how much I wish Bard's new 2-hour was given to Red Mage instead. Much like Fencer, it's pretty much wasted on Bard.