Adjustments to Embrava and Perfect Defense

[Glamdring]

the biggest part I like in the new boss' post is the comments about adjusting strategies because it leads me to believe there is a concerted effort to get those jobs currently on the scrap heap back into the mix of end game content. That being said, the job I'm still worried about is red mage. Almost everything rdm can do another job can do better. Now, despite the fact I pride myself on being an idea man, particularily with unconventional thinking, I just can't conceive of a way to breath life into rdm without taking it from one of the other jobs, and believe me, i've tried. Tier 5 nukes-scholar and blm may get the axe, higher cures/regen/group buffing-whm and sch (possibly even brd) may get the axe, increased melee damage-blu may go and pld has just recently gotten back into the discussion in a limited way, they may be gone, damage resistance/tanking-seems to impact rune as it has been described, and maybe nin or dnc

guess what I'm asking for is some idea of how that might be addressed. it's a problem for everyone, and you have a LARGE player base with at least some understanding of game mechanics. if you can bring what you have so far to the table maybe we can help you guys brainstorm a bit? judging by the activity in the rdm forum there are plenty of us willing as well. Now, I'm not a rdm (despite having a 99, it's really just there to skill magic), but I've been in tons of parties and seen many different niches that need to be filled. The best way to fill those varies dependent upon what jobs are available. The strength of rdm was that it could fill so many of those niches, but with the advent of scholar also being able to multi-role while nuking harder and curing better + AoE buffs, rdm's role as a gap filler just flat out died. so it needs another task that people will conceivably want-but without killing scholar.

So I guess what i'm saying is that if you are committed to 2-way communication, let's give it a shot and see where this goes!

[Karbuncle]

90 second buff to an entire party's defences that make all attacks and status effects do nothing?

Have you even used Perfect Defense...? bgt doesn't make you invulnerable, Just highly resistant. You're still very capable of being killed with PD up... Even a lot of debuffs do get through it, Including the most annoying ones like Terror, Death, Dispel, and Doom.

The first ~15-20 Seconds of Perfect Defense, You do take heavily resisted damage, But after that You can and will die if not cured or provided support.

I admit it needs and Adjustment, But whats happening to it now is flat out unreasonable. The HIghest possible duration is 2/3rd of its current duration and is at this time, unobtainable... They could have just nerfed the Duration to 45~60(Depending on necessary level of Balance) Seconds and kept everything else the same. Using Summoning Magic skill, While Clever, Just hurts more SMNs than it helps. I personally am sitting at 460 Skill after Gear, But I'm still far from capped...

I like the idea they're nerfing these abilities so that they don't have to rely on balancing content around them in the future, But at the same time, removing 10% of a mobs HP Isn't exactly adjusting the content enough to become beatable without use of these methods.

I mean a lot of stuff is still beatable without PD/Embrava, even though its a popular strategy, but some content is so eyerippingly annoying without it that people needing said event would almost never find help for it. Mostly this is in regards to ADL, Which has Terrible drops and is luck reliant and annoying as is.

... Ugh, I've gotten all Rant-y. Long story short, I like the Idea of what they're doing to this, But at the same time, their 'Adjusting current content' needs to be a bit more significant since some of the content (ADL) seems to have been designed entirely around using PD.

Edit: I also hope he seriously considers without these ABilities, Jobs like SMN and SCH are not RDM-Tier in terms of usefulness. I.E No one will remember the job exists.

[Byrth]

Honestly, if they implemented the patch exactly as stated:
1) ADL win rates would drop a little.
2) Nyzul win rates would probably go up because they're overnerfing it.
3) Legion would be slightly more painful (one more bard swap) but not really that different. I can do one more bard swap if you give monsters 10% less HP.
4) Provenance would be slightly more annoying, in that you'd need better DDs to win the zerg because you have to eat 2 Marches.
5) AV would get slightly more annoying
6) Pandemonium Warden's final form would get a little more annoying

Other than those, there are pretty much no cases where PD and Embrava are used strategically at the moment. Embrava is certainly used in a lot of situations because it's convenient (a lot of healing, a lot of haste, and you don't even have to be using a dualbox), but that's exactly what SE is okay with eliminating. Similarly, I bring a SMN character to Tier 3 Einherjar because doing the bosses with PD is just easier. SE is probably fine with me not being able to abuse that anymore.

Long story short, I don't think the nerf/buffs proposed are really that destructive.

[Babekeke]

Honestly, if they implemented the patch exactly as stated:
1) ADL win rates would drop a little.
2) Nyzul win rates would probably go up because they're overnerfing it.
3) Legion would be slightly more painful (one more bard swap) but not really that different. I can do one more bard swap if you give monsters 10% less HP.
4) Provenance would be slightly more annoying, in that you'd need better DDs to win the zerg because you have to eat 2 Marches.
5) AV would get slightly more annoying
6) Pandemonium Warden's final form would get a little more annoying

Other than those, there are pretty much no cases where PD and Embrava are used strategically at the moment. Embrava is certainly used in a lot of situations because it's convenient (a lot of healing, a lot of haste, and you don't even have to be using a dualbox), but that's exactly what SE is okay with eliminating. Similarly, I bring a SMN character to Tier 3 Einherjar because doing the bosses with PD is just easier. SE is probably fine with me not being able to abuse that anymore.

Long story short, I don't think the nerf/buffs proposed are really that destructive.

The biggest nerf of all is buffs no longer being lockable, making the brd rotations a bitch.

As for needing better DDs since you need to eat 2 marches in prov, alternatively, use a 99 daur brd and pickup brd, or 2 x 90~95 daur brds.

[saevel]

Honestly, if they implemented the patch exactly as stated:
1) ADL win rates would drop a little.
2) Nyzul win rates would probably go up because they're overnerfing it.
3) Legion would be slightly more painful (one more bard swap) but not really that different. I can do one more bard swap if you give monsters 10% less HP.
4) Provenance would be slightly more annoying, in that you'd need better DDs to win the zerg because you have to eat 2 Marches.
5) AV would get slightly more annoying
6) Pandemonium Warden's final form would get a little more annoying

Other than those, there are pretty much no cases where PD and Embrava are used strategically at the moment. Embrava is certainly used in a lot of situations because it's convenient (a lot of healing, a lot of haste, and you don't even have to be using a dualbox), but that's exactly what SE is okay with eliminating. Similarly, I bring a SMN character to Tier 3 Einherjar because doing the bosses with PD is just easier. SE is probably fine with me not being able to abuse that anymore.

Long story short, I don't think the nerf/buffs proposed are really that destructive.

BS on that first one. It's a 50/50 chance of you picking the right one when it splits and without PD the chances of killing the 2nd clone are pretty low. That's amusing you even survived the initial double 30foot oblivion smash's and that everyone isn't afflicted by a high potency paralyze. Win rates going to drop a lot, it won't by any means be impossible but it will be FAR more then "a little".

[Byrth]

BS on that first one. It's a 50/50 chance of you picking the right one when it splits and without PD the chances of killing the 2nd clone are pretty low. That's amusing you even survived the initial double 30foot oblivion smash's and that everyone isn't afflicted by a high potency paralyze. Win rates going to drop a lot, it won't by any means be impossible but it will be FAR more then "a little".

Many of the groups that lowman ADL at the moment (which are the major source of marrows) are only realistically capable of killing one of the two clones post-split. It doesn't take them 90 seconds to do that. Additionally, this is being implemented (we assume) in the same patch as chainspell shock squalls. I think people will still kill one of the two clones, but some groups that are managing to kill both at the moment will only kill one now.

So some fraction of the total marrow supplier pool will drop from a 100% win rate to a 50% win rate, some will stay at a 50% win rate, and some will stay at a 100% win rate. I don't think it's going to affect the price of marrows that much in the end.

[Llana_Virren]

Many of the groups that lowman ADL at the moment (which are the major source of marrows) are only realistically capable of killing one of the two clones post-split. It doesn't take them 90 seconds to do that. Additionally, this is being implemented (we assume) in the same patch as chainspell shock squalls. I think people will still kill one of the two clones, but some groups that are managing to kill both at the moment will only kill one now.

So some fraction of the total marrow supplier pool will drop from a 100% win rate to a 50% win rate, some will stay at a 50% win rate, and some will stay at a 100% win rate. I don't think it's going to affect the price of marrows that much in the end.

The primary source of supply for marrows are LS-wide fights, not a low-man party. And, consequences considered, if the influx of marrows to economy was reduced 50% (which I think is a generous assumption), you will most certainly see a raise in prices. I would estimate based on Lakshmi that the price will ascent to ~20M per at its peak.

[Byrth]

My group is 5 melee and a THF mule along with support-job mules that aren't in alliance and one summoner that is. What I meant was:
If my 6-person group can kill with 90 second PD now

->

The primary source of supply for marrows are LS-wide fights, not a low-man party.

->

Hopefully an alliance with twice as many DDs can still kill it with less PD if they're the primary source.

[Cowardlybabooon]

Honestly, if they implemented the patch exactly as stated:
1) ADL win rates would drop a little.
2) Nyzul win rates would probably go up because they're overnerfing it.
3) Legion would be slightly more painful (one more bard swap) but not really that different. I can do one more bard swap if you give monsters 10% less HP.
4) Provenance would be slightly more annoying, in that you'd need better DDs to win the zerg because you have to eat 2 Marches.
5) AV would get slightly more annoying
6) Pandemonium Warden's final form would get a little more annoying

Other than those, there are pretty much no cases where PD and Embrava are used strategically at the moment. Embrava is certainly used in a lot of situations because it's convenient (a lot of healing, a lot of haste, and you don't even have to be using a dualbox), but that's exactly what SE is okay with eliminating. Similarly, I bring a SMN character to Tier 3 Einherjar because doing the bosses with PD is just easier. SE is probably fine with me not being able to abuse that anymore.

Long story short, I don't think the nerf/buffs proposed are really that destructive.

Totally agree with Byrth on this.

Directed at Matsui: Thanks for the excellent explanations. I appreciate you acknowledging how volatile the player base is these days and how easily they get pissed off at pretty much anything SE does. Myself being pretty happy with FFXI in general, I will say that these adjustments are actually much appreciated. I don't get excited at all every Saturday and Sunday when we go kill Arch Dynamis Lord as a linkshell 5-8 times in a run, never losing, and never having any complications. Granted that no matter what you do, we will continue to try to work toward a situation where we win all the time, I very much like the idea of taking away a zerg that is dependent on 1 or 2 abilities, and adding 20 new special abilities that we can experiment with for new strategies.

It appears that the people who are mad about this are being a bit short sighted, as we still haven't seen which of the new special abilities turns out to be accidentally overpowered and becomes our new go-to. Maybe it turns out that PUP automations with invincible will be holding the second ADL pop off to the side, or BSTs will be spamming call beast and holding them. These are examples, so don't spend too much time refuting my brainstorm here.

Lastly, my linkshell and most of my friend's linkshells who do ADL all split the gil from the marrows. If you currently win 8 times per run, and that drops to 4 times per run, the price of marrows will go up, the split will get bigger, and you can buy your marrows for your own relic with that money. If you're working on a relic and you're not in a linkshell that does ADL or some other massive gil making event, you might reconsider what you do with your time, or just deal with it and hang on to your 95 relic until you can solo dynamis enough times to buy them.