Let Producer Matsui Know How He Should Catch Up on 2 Years!

[Prothscar]

I'm not sure how in depth you want these suggestions to be, so I'll be as brief as I can be.

#1: Rebalancing of One Handed Weapons (As Compared to Two Handed Weapons)

Currently, two handed weapons enjoy a rather large benefit over one handed weapons. They gain a fairly significant attack and accuracy bonus from STR and DEX, just for being two handed weapons, and also sport a higher tolerance to monster defense and level. While this was somewhat of an adequate solution to "balancing" the weapon categories at level 75, player equipment and job progression has changed considerably since then. Currently, at level 99 with level 99 equipment, job abilities, and job traits, this advantage for two handed weapons is unnecessary. It serves only to limit the number of jobs that are able to effectively and efficiently engage in higher end, and in most cases middle tier, content due to artificially limiting their damage output.

I would put forth the motion to abolish these advantages, i.e., have two handed weapons and one handed weapons gain the same attack and accuracy that two handed weapons currently gain from STR and DEX, and also, increase one handed weapon attack caps (currently, two handed weapons cap at 2.25 times attack over defense, while one handers cap at only two times) and other caps (two handed weapon pDIF randomizer capping at 2.625 while one handed weapons cap at just 2.375). Removal of these natural benefits for two handed weapons would elevate one handed weapon user's positions in ability to deal damage, however it would not cause them to overpower two handed weapon users. It would not cause one handed weapon jobs to be more desirable, indeed probably not even as desirable as two handed jobs, but it would be a start. One handed jobs serving only niche purposes that have absolutely no place in the current FFXI landscape is unacceptable, allowing them to potentially deal elevated damage on higher end content with lots of buffs would be dandy.





Now for some smaller, more personal concerns.

#2: Weaponskill Merit Cap

Come on now, this is sorta unnecessary, don't you agree? Why can we only merit three weaponskills? I'm not going to ask for them all, (even though I see no reason why letting us merit every one of the weaponskills, if we so desire, and decide to put in the time is a horrible, unbalanced thing), but I do feel strongly that the cap for this merit category should be raised. Allowing us five to seven of these weaponskills would be adequate for most, I'd think, but limiting us to only three puts a severe damper on a majority of the playerbase.

Merits do not typically serve your original idea of "player diversity". No, instead, they bottleneck the players into choosing certain merits that actually have some effect on performance due to limited ability to spend merits, and in the case of weaponskills force us to choose between having a weaponskill that lets us stand with our peers or not having that weaponskill and dooming us to mediocrity. Several of the merited weaponskills are all but required in the current FFXI metagame for a job to function at an acceptable level, or at a level that anyone would ever want to see themselves functioning at compared to their peers. If I play Corsair, Samurai, Dragoon, and Dark Knight, why do I have to choose between Resolution, Tachi: Shoha, Last Stand, and Stardiver? Why can't I have them all? How is forcing me to be mediocre on the jobs that I choose not to merit advocating diversity even close to as much as it's imprisoning me to an artificially introduced choice?

Please look into increasing the cap on this merit category.




#3: Physical Blue Magic

This one will be a doozy, so bear with me.

Physical blue magic as absolutely, positively, worthless on any target that is close to or higher than a Blue Mage's level due to monster stats and level correction. This is caused by the fact that the ability to gain Blue Magic Attack, and thus overcome a monster's defenses and level, is significantly hampered compared to any other type of offensive action in the game. Currently, blue magic attack is thought and widely believed to be based on the formula [Blue Magic Skill + 8 + STR/2] and is not affected by any attack boosting sources outside of that formula.

Thus, Blue Mages can only increase the attack power of our spells by increasing our Blue Magic Skill or STR, both of which are in relatively limited supply when compared to any other type of attack or attack boosting stat for other types of physical damage.

For example, a Warrior can increase their attack power by eating food, using the job Ability "Berserk", and getting Minuets from a BRD. A Blue Mage can increase their attack power by... using limited amounts of Blue Magic Skill and STR gear and using spells with attack boosts that do not even come close to surmounting any type of mid-to-high level monster's defense and/or level.

See where the problem is?

I propose two possible solutions to this problem:

Solution A: Adjust the Blue Magic Attack formula

[Blue Magic Skill + 8 + STR] and ignore a portion of the level correction penalty

[(Blue Magic Skill + 8 + STR/2) * x] where x = 1.5, 1.75, or 2.

Either of these solutions would significantly enhance a Blue Mage's ability to properly utilize their spells on high level targets, while still maintaining balance through spell recast times, MP costs, and the fact that this will only partially increase the overall strength of physical blue magic.


Solution B: Allow Blue Magic Attack to benefit from attack buffs

For example, allow physical blue magic to benefit from food, Berserk, and Minuets.


Please consider looking into this. As it stands, Blue Mages are reduced to run-of-the-mill, under-the-bridge one handed melee DDs on any target that rates as Very Tough or higher due to our severely dwarfed attack score on physical blue magic, which just happens to be our signature.





#4: Blue Magic Procs in Voidwatch

Hi, so... can't help but notice that Blue Mage is the only job that didn't receive its required Voidwatch proc list adjustment. Why? We were arguably the most needy of any job in Voidwatch to have our proc list trimmed to size, the only job that I'd say was worse off would be SMN, and they got their update.

Why is it that I have to spend every single one of my Blue Magic points on proc spells while still being unable to fit them all and having to wait 60 seconds for my spells to be ready to cast after resetting them in order to proc? Why? Can't we just have one, maybe two spells per element? Please?



#5: Please fix our broken BLU spells

They're worthless otherwise. Barbed Crescent, Hecatomb Wave, Sandspin, Tourbillion, and a couple of others are all completely useless in their current state. Their additional effects are the only reasons to use them to begin with, and with those additional effects not functioning properly (i.e., not landing on anything), they are never, ever, ever worth using.

Personally, I feel particularly slighted that my 5 minute recast, unremarkably damaging Tourbillion spell doesn't work properly.




That's about it. There's plenty more that I feel needs adjustment and whatnot, but I figure I've spoken more than my fair share as it is. Hopefully you consider some of these suggestions!