Splitting JA timers

[Tanama]

I really hope the dev-team doesn't split the Jump JA timers and leave them as is, with Spirit/Soul Jump having longer recasts. That is going to gimp DRG even more than it already is! And then for them to say:

We are also planning to make it possible to reduce the recast time further via merit points in the future.

means DRG will remain the worst two-handed DD for an even longer period of time. It's bad enough DRG doesn't get invites to anything these days.

We must protest this impending nerf and explain to the dev-team what would work, for example Orphannus' post:

If they boost Jump/High Jump damage significantly and also make them grant bonus TP, it would be worthwhile.

Jump 1.5x TP
High Jump 1.5x TP
Spirit Jump 2.5x TP
Soul Jump 3.5x TP

Under Rouse Wyvern
Jump:2x
High Jump:2x
Spirit Jump:3x
Soul Jump:4x

I think that would be fair.

If they split the jump timers, I would want all jumps to auto-critical hit natively like Spirit and Soul jump do when the wyvern is alive. Also, change it so that the wyvern does not have to be alive so that all Jumps do critical damage regardless and include the TP Bonus on all Jumps as Orphannus suggested.


Please pass this on the dev-team.

Thank you

[Ophannus]

^They won't do that simply because that's what makes Spirit and Soul Jump unique. If they made Jump and High Jump better for split timer purposes, I'd rather them increase their TP gain slightly to make up for the interruption of attack speed.(Assuming 60 minutes of jumps, activating each jump exactly when they're up you're looking at something like 2-3minutes of pure JA delay per hour, that 2-3min of JA delay means that's 2-3min of 0 damage idleness.)

If anything I'd rather them give us traits that enhance our Jump damage/tp gain, something like each tier adds 10 base damage and either a Store TP+ to the Jump, or Jump TP Bonus. I'd really rather them not introduce more "Jump TP Bonus" gear because we don't have the inventory to carry that crap around, and that would also reduce damage of our jumps since we'd rather be jumping in Double/Triple/Quad Attack Gear or Crit Damage Bonus gear than Jump TP bonus gear--unless they make a compound item that beats everything else for that slot in terms of Jump damage AND has a Jump TP Bonus attribute(maybe for neo-Ares gear).

The most parsimonious way to go though is to give us Traits like Shield Mastery/Dual Wield that just improve Jump base damage/TP gain.

+++ Could come up with badass names for the traits:

Skydiver
Airtime
High Time
Killer Air
Air Hike
Spring Heel
High Dive

[Ophannus]

TP overflow isn't a big deal really. Even if Jumps did double damage, it still doesn't justify interrupting your attack for them unless the mob is near death or you're lowmanning something. Interrupting your high haste attacks for an attack that does slightly more damage than a normal strike with the same TP gain and with a 2-3second delay is not justifyable. At least the slightly extra TP would allow you to Jump in damage/DA/TA/QA/STR/Att gear instead of STP to preserve your 5hit rather than basically having to cram every drop of Jump Bonus TP/STP gear into every slot to make NQ Jumps worth a damn. Plus the extra TP overflow helps for times where you get a lousy TP return on a WS or where you miss the first hit.

Even if Jump and HJ did 2x the damage soul and spirit jump do, i'd be hard pressed to use them in zergs, i'd much rather them boost the TP gain than the damage and lets be honest, they'll never give 2x and 3x TP to Jump and High Jump so 1.5x and a bonus to base D are reasonable. Considering DRG has no native attack boosting abilities they might as well make DRG a TP machine since even when we have tons of TP our WS averages are still terribad compared to jobs like DRK and WAR that have 1.5k+ attack without cor or brd buffs or jobs like SAM that get retarded WS Damage+% traits and gear and WS with cratio bonuses.

[ihm]

3 Hits + WS = 3 hits to me. If you want to call it something different, then sure, but that's what I'm referring too as well.

Can I see this gear set you're imagining?

TP overflow isn't a big deal really. Even if Jumps did double damage, it still doesn't justify interrupting your attack for them unless the mob is near death or you're lowmanning something. Interrupting your high haste attacks for an attack that does slightly more damage than a normal strike with the same TP gain and with a 2-3second delay is not justifyable. At least the slightly extra TP would allow you to Jump in damage/DA/TA/QA/STR/Att gear instead of STP to preserve your 5hit rather than basically having to cram every drop of Jump Bonus TP/STP gear into every slot to make NQ Jumps worth a damn. Plus the extra TP overflow helps for times where you get a lousy TP return on a WS or where you miss the first hit.

Even if Jump and HJ did 2x the damage soul and spirit jump do, i'd be hard pressed to use them in zergs, i'd much rather them boost the TP gain than the damage and lets be honest, they'll never give 2x and 3x TP to Jump and High Jump so 1.5x and a bonus to base D are reasonable. Considering DRG has no native attack boosting abilities they might as well make DRG a TP machine since even when we have tons of TP our WS averages are still terribad compared to jobs like DRK and WAR that have 1.5k+ attack without cor or brd buffs or jobs like SAM that get retarded WS Damage+% traits and gear and WS with cratio bonuses.

Jump can put out decent-ish damage really if you throw the gear into it, max out STR and VIT, and I guess if they did adjust the TP gain on it to 1.5x then it means you could essentially forgo sTP under assumption 1.5x base tp is probably around the tp required to count as a single hit in a 5hit, but unless the jump its self actually is doing about 3 times your melee damage then it's worthless, considering that at capped haste you're attacking every 1.6-1.7 seconds, the 2 second delay after the JA means that your overall dps is going down by using it.

[Ophannus]

Even with a 50% VIT mod, dumping a ton of VIT really doesn't boost the damage much. Adding a crapton of VIT adds very, very little damage and you're lucky to notice it unless your pdif is capped or when you crit.

The only way they can make the split timers viable is if they lower the intended Spirit/Soul Jump timers lower than they're currently aiming for. Something like 90seconds for Spirit Jump and 2.5min for Soul Jump followed by either 1.5x TP for NQ jumps or Regular TP+X bonus where X is like 10-15ish. Or give us a JA stance that lets NQ Jumps DA or something for 3minutes.

[Tanama]

@Orphannus

Jump enhancing traits would be most welcome if done properly. I would hope they add traits that increase jump damage and TP gain. Then, add powerful merits like DRK's "Desperate Blows", DNC's "Saber Dance" etc. you get the picture.

From the sound of things, it looks like the next category of merits will look something like this:

--------------------------------------------
Group 3 (Max.total ability increases: 10) (Hopefully it would max at 15 instead)
--------------------------------------------
Call Wyvern Recast [20 minutes → 15 Minutes]
Spirit Jump Recast [00:01:30 → 00:01:15]
Soul Jump Recast [00:03:00 → 00:02:30]
Dragon Breaker effect [Enhances effect]
Jump Effect [Increases damage and accuracy by 5%. Applies to all jumps]
--------------------------------------------
Group 4 (Max.total ability increases: 15[!])
--------------------------------------------
Overall Damage Enhancing JA [Job Ability] (Job ability Haste and Attack Buff)
New Powerful Jump [Job Ability] Merits increases damage, accuracy and TP Bonus - Also has a unique jump animation like the Lancer's jumps in Final Fantasy XIV.
Jump enhancing Job Trait [Causes jumps to deal severe damage. Severe damage increases with more merits]
Wyvern enhancing Job Trait [Like "Strafe", No DRG would merit this unless the upgrade is significant.]

A lot of that is hopeful thinking.


Bottom-line: I am all for increased jump damage if the Jumps do get separated. As Ihm posted, it needs to be significant for it to be worthwhile.

[ihm]

Tbf, I'll let them do anything they want with jumps if they take the attack penalty off drakesbane <3. A guy can dream right?

[Tanama]

Well, there is this from the Job Adjustments Manifesto written in 2011:

Additional Planned Adjustments

• Weapon skill refinements

and this from earlier this year:

In regards to weapon skills, we are also planning to revamp each job's weapon skills in the future.

There's still hope!

[Ophannus]

Doubt they're still going to do that, it was almost 2 years ago.

[Ophannus]

All DRG really needs is just an Attack Buff JA of some sort and to reduce breath damage% from new NMs so Wyverns can deal more than 0.5% total damage in a fight.