On Red Mage melee...

[Supersun]

I would think it would be possible have an enspell that inflects an enfeeble if that enfeeble isn't present on the monster and does damage instead if the monster already has that enfeeble.

[Hyrist]

Why would we get both damage and a utility in a neat package? That's asking for a bit too much, IMO.

The truth of the matter is our enspells archaic in design. They're completely out done by Haste Samba in every coneviable sense. You WOULD have to do upwards of +100-200 damage a hit to even compare with what +5% haste does for you in a build that isn't even maxed out on haste. And that's just subbing Dancer.

Having something like that + Doing what I picture EnPain doing as an enfeeble would be going a bit far.

But it's not as if a comprimise can't be made.

For exmaple, provide an ENSpell 3 line that does the upwards damage we're asking for. Then we can have EnPain be a guarenteed, short duration status effect. Both will grow in damage/potency over amount of rounds inflicted to a cap.

We'll have to actually choose between both of these assets, but we'll have them both available as utilities.

[Supersun]

Why would we get both damage and a utility in a neat package? That's asking for a bit too much, IMO.

Depends entirely on how it's balanced. I mean sure if it hits for like 500 damage in addition to supplying a 100% paralyze then it is too much. Alternatively if it does 1 damage and provided a negligible enfeebling effect then clearly it's not enough.

There's most certainly a happy middle that damage and support can meet at.

This is mainly meant to be another idea.



I should comment on the uncapped damage scaling some more though. Certainly it could work. The biggest issue with that though is once something like that is introduced...well that's it. There's no more room for growth really and our way of damage becomes that sort of gimmick.

It's more or less the same thing that happened with Dark Knight where for a while the job became solely defined by Soul Eater. As soon as you find mobs where that one tactic doesn't work then the job becomes near worthless.

And the counter to enspells isn't all that rare. Anything with -MDT% would completely butcher our damage yet they can't exactly buff us because we already have the potential to obliterate other monsters HATE FREE.

It would also completely break Ceremonial Dagger solos like mentioned before.



Ultimately, I personally just don't like the idea as much. Too gimmicky and shallow. I mean ANYTHING can work if balanced properly (assuming it can be implemented in a reasonable amount of time and the system can handle it).

I mean sure it would potentially fix the job, but if you could choose anyway to fix Rdm would uncapped enspells really be your number one choice? I just feel that there are better solutions out there.

[Hyrist]

I can see a very small portion of damage in Enain, just to prevent Additional Effect: Pain from spamming the screen.

But as far as uncapping Enspell damage. It was half serious. Truth be told we just need a higher cap, but the cap needs to be pretty darn high in comparison to what we have, double if not more than the current caps on Enspell II on average. +100 additional damage shouldn't be unreasonable considering what Damage Dealers are doing both in and out of abysses these days.

But, to be truthful, what about RDM isn't a gimmick? Sure, there's depth to the job, arguably more so than most others. But that's because it's layered gimmicks upon gimmicks. We're a walking bag of tricks as is. Having the ability to put mini-nukes on monsters via melee is just another one of them.

And I'm in Seriha's camp about flatly removing Ceremonial dagger, period. It servers no other purpose BUT to be abused.

[ManaKing]

Ceremonial Dagger has never been anything but a gimmick. There is no reason it should be a factor on our future. Any self-respecting RDM doesn't do that and we shouldn't be constrained by the worst players in the game. I don't think any of us would care if it disappeared from the game tomorrow.


I'm still pointing out that you guys aren't making a very conclusive picture about how you want enspells and enfeebles married.

Are you looking for traits, spells, or job abilities?

Are these to be built off of existing enspells or are we looking at another tier?

If you want to add enfeebles to current Enspell 2s it might actually make them decent. You just attach an enfeeble to every enspell.

Fire > Addle
Water > Poison
Wind > is either Silence or Gravity
Earth > Slow or Break
Ice > Bind or Paralyze
Thunder > Stun (even though we can only stun with shock spikes)

Please express your ideas in a way that people can actually discuss them. I haven't seen anything clear in the last 3 or 4 pages.

[Seriha]

Ideally a trait 50+ that then carries over to all Enspells. SCHs could still Accession, but then our T1s would be better in our hands.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Ideally a trait 50+ that then carries over to all Enspells. SCHs could still Accession, but then our T1s would be better in our hands.

I genuinely have no idea why RDM still doesn't have a trait that enhances it's enspells.

[Doombringer]

i think, me and hyrist anyway, are talking about a new enspell that would inflict dmg (in some negotiable amount), and a new status ailment that was effectively every, or most, status ailments rolled into one. (at some negotiable potency)


the idea being to reduce or remove the casting burden of enfeebs against most mobs, while at the same time rewarding meleeing.


damage and potency are of course negotiable, but as a high level spell i see no reason for this to not completely obsolete lower tier enspells. who cares if rdms aren't using a lvl 15 spell anymore. whens the last time you saw a lvl 90 blm cast fire1? or a lvl 90 whm casting cure2?

i suggest dmg be at enspell2 lvls or higher, calculated on cast.. not swing, and unrestricted to first swing only. as for potency, somewhere in the range of 1 tier below max. so dia/bio2 slow/para/blind1


i'd use it.

[ManaKing]

If the damage isn't going to substantially better than what we get right now, how about make the potency of the enfeebles the same as 1/5 of each of our tier 2 merits? That way we choose which ones we want stronger than base line and can override them with stronger versions of them.

You make the choice to use the debuff enspell and you make the choice about what higher level enfeebles you merit.

It's win/win and fixes a lot of problems.

[Hyrist]

As far as Enpain goes, I'm very particular as to what status effects would pretty much go on it.

Paralyze, Slow, Blind, Addle, and possibly a TP version of Addle.

There's a very important reasoning for this: These are all 'passive' debuffs. Meaning they do not actively prevent action, but rather hamper it.

Let's look at the problems with other debuffs we have.

Dia/Bio/Poison: DoTs, they prevent sleep meaning it would make it difficult to disengage.

Silence/Petrify: They outright prevent actions from taking place and would have to occur on a 'chance' basis. Not a good thing to use as a reliable melee utility.

As far as what degrees of the spell functions at, I'm still in favor of the idea 'increase potency over time'. The actual degrees of these of course would be variable, but stackable with the origonal spells.

So say, with a total of 10 attack rounds equating full stacks. Have it scale say, 1% slow per round (to 10% slow) 2% Paralyze rate per round(to 20% total paralysis chance) -2 accuracy (totaling -20 Accuracy) 2% increase casting time , and 2% increased TP attack use time. ALL at once, all stack-able with their originals. As a whole, the full 10 stacks will be quite powerful. But when you pair them with their corresponding debuffs (especially with use of saboteur) they would be incredible, because it would tip many abilities near the breaking point.

For example: Full stacks on Enpain + Fully Merited Saboteur Slow II can potentially reach 90% Slow. Now imagine if you stack the remaining tier 2s on something like that, as well as Addle, and hopefully a TP attack debuff. You will have crushed the effectiveness of the monster.

Now this doesn't help in incredibly fast mob kills, but also leaves room for us to have a normal Enspell III line that just does normal damage boosts for those situations. So long as we can't have both up at once.