Un-gimping magic procs in dynamis

[Yinnyth]

Hello,

It's an understandable request when reviewing the magic weakness triggering percentages compared to job abilities and weapon skills. The order of proc rates is definitely magic > abilities > WS in order from lowest to highest, so magic is the low end.
The reason why magic proc rate was set at a lower value is because weapon skills require TP, and since they cannot be quickly used over and over again in a single battle we set the activation rate higher. Spells on the other hand have a quick casting time and can be reused at a much faster pace. Therefore, the weakness triggering rate is set lower since the amount of times you can cast is considerably faster. (Abilities are 30 seconds to a couple minutes, so this is in the middle)

We've made adjustments so that the procs occur at their expected values, but since magic spells can be used quickly, there is a remaining impression that weaknesses cannot be exploited.

DNC and /DNC excel at proccing JAs. JAs are used instantly and have no cast time. /DNC gets used all the time for farming because it's the easiest and most reliable method for proccing enemies in Dynamis. 15 sec JA + 20 sec JA at 20% proc rate = ~2.3% proc rate per second, not including any extra JAs available.

PUP and /PUP excel at proccing WSs, and every job has the ability to use WSs. WSs are used instantly and have no cast time. PUP hardly ever gets used because it's not widely known how well it works. 30 sec "ws"(bulb) + 30 sec "ws"(strobe) + 3 minute "ws"(bash) + 1 minute "ws"(disruptor) at 15% proc rate = ~1.3% proc rate per second, not including the actual weapon skills used by puppet and master.

The best jobs for proccing magic are whm, blm, rdm, brd, nin, blu, and sch. Due to the casting time of spells, the recast time of spells and the low proc rate, it takes the best casters more time to proc on average than the best DNCs or PUPs. We'll use BRD for example since they have tons of fast cast gear available and tons of useful debuffs they can spam quickly including horde lull, elegy, and nocturne. Without latent active, my bard has song spellcast -47% plus loq earring and veela cape, so roughly 50% casting time down. In one minute, I can cast 12 threnodies. 60 secs for 12 spells at 5% proc rate = 1% proc rate per sec, and I don't have the ability to do anything but spamming magic until it's procced.

Summary:
JAs: DNC can achieve 2.3% chance to proc per second by using step + flourish, and can increase that rate by choosing a SJ with aggressive JAs. Additionally, they still have the ability to take other actions during the time they are attempting to proc.

WSs: PUP can achieve 1.3% chance to proc per second merely by the JAs their puppet uses, and they can increase that proc rate by WSing with their puppet or themselves. Additionally, they can take other actions between the 3 manuevers they have to keep up (fire, light, dark).

Magic: BRD can achieve 1% chance to proc per second, but debuffs are all they can do while they attempt to proc. If they stop to buff/heal/WS/JA, their chance to proc per second goes down.

Magic takes longer to proc than JAs or WSs, and attempting to proc with magic carries the cost of lost opportunity.

[Kfox]

It probably would be programmatically difficult but it would be nice if higher tier damage spells had a high rate of weakness proc-ing. Seems like low magic proc rate promotes players to spam low lvl cheap fast spells like Dia and Bio. If there could be a better way the developers could strike a balance more people would probably do cities instead of just dreamlands. Another thought is to raise the rate for magic procs and maybe remove aoe spells from the proc list. Just a thought.

[Yinnyth]

It probably would be programmatically difficult but it would be nice if higher tier damage spells had a high rate of weakness proc-ing. Seems like low magic proc rate promotes players to spam low lvl cheap fast spells like Dia and Bio. If there could be a better way the developers could strike a balance more people would probably do cities instead of just dreamlands. Another thought is to raise the rate for magic procs and maybe remove aoe spells from the proc list. Just a thought.

That's the fundamental problem with their proc system in general; it rewards quantity over quality. Some jobs are really good at spamming JAs/magic/WSs, and others are really bad at it. It doesn't matter if the spell takes 20 seconds to cast, it still has the same chance to proc as foe lullaby. It doesn't matter if your JA has a 20 minute recast, it still has the same proc rate as box step. It doesn't matter if it takes you a minute to get 100 TP, your WS proc rate is the same as samurai.

Edit: Personally, I'd like it better if there was some minor skill-based way to increase your chances of proccing though. If they could make each magic-proc enemy glow a certain color, and you get a 3x normal chance to proc with spells matching that element.

[Thorbean]

Hello,

It's an understandable request when reviewing the magic weakness triggering percentages compared to job abilities and weapon skills. The order of proc rates is definitely magic > abilities > WS in order from lowest to highest, so magic is the low end.
The reason why magic proc rate was set at a lower value is because weapon skills require TP, and since they cannot be quickly used over and over again in a single battle we set the activation rate higher. Spells on the other hand have a quick casting time and can be reused at a much faster pace. Therefore, the weakness triggering rate is set lower since the amount of times you can cast is considerably faster. (Abilities are 30 seconds to a couple minutes, so this is in the middle)

We've made adjustments so that the procs occur at their expected values, but since magic spells can be used quickly, there is a remaining impression that weaknesses cannot be exploited.

I'd hoped to hear that issues like this are actually being tested by the Dev team. It sounds like they have no idea how the game actually plays and just make assumptions based on nothing.

In 60 seconds you can get off 5 box steps and 3 violent flourishes.
In 60 seconds you can get around 10 Dia off, maybe 12 as RDM (casting animation cuts into spam speed alot).
In the time your JA's are cooling down you are also dealing damage and gaining TP without giving anything up (MP/time/dps).

All you have to do is log on to one of the servers and do a quick search through dynamis for the penny to drop. I can't believe this hasn't been done by someone working on the game already. Almost every person in there will be /DNC or DNC main, besides the occassional PUP. Congestion is shocking sometimes, and spreading the farmers over many camps will go a long way to easing that.

I doubt anyone would mind if you just made all mobs proc from JA 100% of the time either, it would have little impact on how the content plays currently and there would be far less competition at each camp.

[Motenten]

In one minute, I can cast 12 threnodies. 60 secs for 12 spells at 5% proc rate = 1% proc rate per sec

While I largely agree with your argument, your numbers here don't add up. Threnodies have a 2 second cast time, so with 50% spell cast time reduction it would be 1 second each. Of course you can't actually spam them 1 second apart because of the fundamental spellcasting delay, so you're still working with about 2 seconds each. Recast time is 24 seconds, though you can reduce that with haste enough that you're always going to have a threnody available (only need 33% haste to drop it under the 16 seconds a full cycle would take).

That would give you about 4 cycles (30 proc attempts) per minute. Of course you lose a fair bit of time when you have to rebuff (marches, hastes for DDs, etc) or cure -- probably 15% of all your time goes to that. That means ~26 casts, or about 3 cycles of threnodies.

The problem is what the base proc rate for magic is. If it's 5%, then even 26 attempts per minute is horrendous. Assuming 2-3 mobs per minute, that's 9-13 attempts per mob, which gives you a per-mob proc rate of 35% to 50%. If it's a 10% base proc rate, then that's 60% to 75% proc rate per mob.

The 10% rate isn't horrible, but it depends on the player being able to do almost nothing but spam spells. If I have to run for 15 seconds to the next mob, that's only one or two JA attempts lost, but it's a full cycle of spell attempts lost. Time lost to 'other stuff' (casting, running, whatever) is more detrimental to the magic user than to the JA user.


The devs apparently also don't account for the damage opportunity cost of using magic procs. If I'm using a brd, for example, I gain a lot more from letting 1 or 2 DDs focus on JA procs and fighting while the brd runs around pulling then I do by letting the brd be stuck in one spot spamming magic. It may be possible to work around that, but in every scenario I've run, you lose more by either not simply adding another DD instead of a mage, or not having the mage focus on crowd control and pulling instead of procing.

I'd say that magic procs would need to be bumped up to at least a 15% raw proc rate to be a competitive option with other proc choices.

[Thoraeon]

DNC and /DNC excel at proccing JAs. JAs are used instantly and have no cast time. /DNC gets used all the time for farming because it's the easiest and most reliable method for proccing enemies in Dynamis. 15 sec JA + 20 sec JA at 20% proc rate = ~2.3% proc rate per second, not including any extra JAs available.

PUP and /PUP excel at proccing WSs, and every job has the ability to use WSs. WSs are used instantly and have no cast time. PUP hardly ever gets used because it's not widely known how well it works. 30 sec "ws"(bulb) + 30 sec "ws"(strobe) + 3 minute "ws"(bash) + 1 minute "ws"(disruptor) at 15% proc rate = ~1.3% proc rate per second, not including the actual weapon skills used by puppet and master.

The best jobs for proccing magic are whm, blm, rdm, brd, nin, blu, and sch. Due to the casting time of spells, the recast time of spells and the low proc rate, it takes the best casters more time to proc on average than the best DNCs or PUPs. We'll use BRD for example since they have tons of fast cast gear available and tons of useful debuffs they can spam quickly including horde lull, elegy, and nocturne. Without latent active, my bard has song spellcast -47% plus loq earring and veela cape, so roughly 50% casting time down. In one minute, I can cast 12 threnodies. 60 secs for 12 spells at 5% proc rate = 1% proc rate per sec, and I don't have the ability to do anything but spamming magic until it's procced.

Summary:
JAs: DNC can achieve 2.3% chance to proc per second by using step + flourish, and can increase that rate by choosing a SJ with aggressive JAs. Additionally, they still have the ability to take other actions during the time they are attempting to proc.

WSs: PUP can achieve 1.3% chance to proc per second merely by the JAs their puppet uses, and they can increase that proc rate by WSing with their puppet or themselves. Additionally, they can take other actions between the 3 manuevers they have to keep up (fire, light, dark).

Magic: BRD can achieve 1% chance to proc per second, but debuffs are all they can do while they attempt to proc. If they stop to buff/heal/WS/JA, their chance to proc per second goes down.

Magic takes longer to proc than JAs or WSs, and attempting to proc with magic carries the cost of lost opportunity.

The reason why they cannot increase magic proc rate is BLU. Can easily spam Delta Thrust, Head Butt, or 20 other possible quick cast/recast spells that they have.

[FrankReynolds]

Am I the only one who thinks that these procs are pointless and they should just get rid of them entirely? Why not just add say 50% more HP to the mobs to compensate for the fact that you can kill as fast as you want without proccing and juts get rid of procs? It would open up entire zones instead of having everybody fighting over the same mobs.

[Kincard]

While I'm not a fan of the proc system, that idea doesn't work because removing procs removes all limitations on what job you enter as and how many you can claim at once, so strategies like mass Fell Cleaving and parties monopolizing several groups of monsters at once would not be an uncommon tactic. And if you want to argue that every camp would be open, I think that's precisely what they want to avoid to "control" the amount of ancient currency being brought in. They would reduce the bill drop rate dramatically.

[Mirage]

The reason why magic proc rate was set at a lower value is because weapon skills require TP, and since they cannot be quickly used over and over again in a single battle we set the activation rate higher. Spells on the other hand have a quick casting time and can be reused at a much faster pace. Therefore, the weakness triggering rate is set lower since the amount of times you can cast is considerably faster. (Abilities are 30 seconds to a couple minutes, so this is in the middle)

This is actually not correct. If you do a quick search of the dynamis zones, you will notice that the vast majority of players are either dancer, or using dancer as their sub job. This is not only because dancer is a very powerful subjob for any melee that does not have native MP or curative abilities, but also because dancer has two abilities on a cooldown timer that is a lot lower than 30 seconds. You can do steps every 15 seconds, and violent flourish every 20 seconds. Combined, these allow you to use 7 job abilities per minute, or 3.5 JAs every 30 seconds.

It doesn't matter that most JAs are on a higher timer than a dancer's steps and flourishes, when everyone uses dancer or dancer as a subjob, and always tries to proc with these JAs instead of other abilities with a longer cooldown.

I think someone in the dev team should get on a lv99 job and try to farm dynamis a few times, each time while focusing on a single type of procs. It wouldn't come as a surprise which of the runs were the most profitable, and that's where the imbalance lies.

It might just be the case that because of the great variance between cooldowns for various types of spells and abilities, the current proc system is simply not functioning in a balanced way. Perhaps abilities should be weighted by how often they are possible to use. Perhaps "High Jump" should have a much greater chance to proc than "Stutter step", considering the step can be used 10 times more often than high jump, and perhaps foot kick should have a lower chance to proc than Dia, considering foot kick has half the cast time of dia.

[Glamdring]

Hello,

It's an understandable request when reviewing the magic weakness triggering percentages compared to job abilities and weapon skills. The order of proc rates is definitely magic > abilities > WS in order from lowest to highest, so magic is the low end.
The reason why magic proc rate was set at a lower value is because weapon skills require TP, and since they cannot be quickly used over and over again in a single battle we set the activation rate higher. Spells on the other hand have a quick casting time and can be reused at a much faster pace. Therefore, the weakness triggering rate is set lower since the amount of times you can cast is considerably faster. (Abilities are 30 seconds to a couple minutes, so this is in the middle)

We've made adjustments so that the procs occur at their expected values, but since magic spells can be used quickly, there is a remaining impression that weaknesses cannot be exploited.

it's not an impression, it's a fact. Casters tend to be on the squishy side, and that's by design, we get that. The problem is that solo you can't live long enough to spam tier I spells (as an example) for the proc. In a group the problem is that if there are any melees they kill the mob so fast that you don't have time for more than 1-2 procs before it's dead (maybe 3 if your melee are smart enough to not burn their TP on WS until after the proc). THAT is why magic mobs are not targeted. It is NOT a lingering impression, it's cold, hard fact.