Overall Battle System Adjustments for the Future

[Carth]

That's the point...? Removing level correction will help one-handed DDs out quite a bit. You should at least explain yourself next time, rather than just being scared by change.

I'm... not? I'm actually extremely excited for this change.

Edit: Let me lay out just how huge of a change removing LCF and changing atk/def caps would be.

-DEF/VIT may actually become a useful stat.
-Berserk, Last Resort, Counterstance, and other abilities that lower DEF become (extremely) more dangerous to use.
-BLU's Cocoon becomes useful, and may possibly become overpowered.
-The difference between 1-handed users and 2-handed users in terms of damage becomes less noticeable.

Grouped together, this would be a big step in lessening the dominance of the optimal Zerg strategy. If they revise the Enmity system correctly, this would make PLD useful, and even further, make Turtle PLD an optional build instead of a laughable mess. Enfeebles such as ATK down and Bio would have far more potency for bloodtanking, and DD jobs would have to be more mindful with their defenses (bringing -PDT gear set). All in all, this can be a very positive and exciting change.

Or we can all just go /NIN and blink tank, but hey, at least it's progress.

[Miloki]

Happy Friday everyone!

Next, on to dark knight…

There are two large principles that the development team is keeping in mind:

• To make job adjustments by comparing aspects collectively to close the gap between dark knight
• To not make adjustments by comparing only fire-power to leave dark knight behind

As mentioned previously, with the adjustments to the attack/defense ratio, a greater emphasis will be placed on defense. In the event that you jump into battles and pay no attention to your defense, you will take damage for nearly two-times the amount that it is now, so the way the job is played will change. With that said, based on these changes to the attack/defense ratio we will be fleshing out specifics for what kind of adjustments are necessary for other jobs and let you know once we have some information.

I would just like to point a few things out about Dark Knight before someone with a nerfbat goes all...batty.

DRKs are one of the LOL jobs of yesteryear, and reducing anything we currently enjoy will be seen as a slap in the face to people who struggled making their DRK competitive back in pre-Aht Urgan to pre-Abyssea days. We stuck with the job, the devs should as well.

Our Scythe WS pretty much suck. Is is too much to ask for a 2 or 5 hit WS that can crit (!), str mod and maybe even an additional effect worth a crap (ie: not silence).

Availability of decent GS. There aren't alot. The AH-able Great Swords were meh at 95 cap...kinda lawl now. Magian Trials gives a few good options, the rest are drops in the above-mentioned content that I don't much partake in because I would rather not spend my limited playtime in randomland.

DRK MP still isn't very useful. Many of our spells don't work on anything EP and above, or they just plain aren't worth the time to cast. We hit hard with our weapon normally, casting a spell slows that down, and therefore must have some use. I still think DRK should be able to induce plague effect on enemies.

Job Abilities. We need one that increases damage above lvl 30. Pretty sure DRKs are the only DD that doesn't get a damage job ability post level 30. I have higher level JA's that increase dmg FROM MY SUB than I do natively. It doesn't need to be epic, just something simple. We don't need haste, accuracy or attack. Store TP could be good. I would like a 5 or 10 min cooldown 90 sec duration of 10% DA. I don't think its gamebreaking, but it is a JA we can use without risk of dying because of it. By the way...

Enmity...A PLD can't seem to hold hate sometimes, but I sure can. How about a JA that causes plague and reduces enmity? Call it Weapon Bash II. Kind of a two-birds one JA idea, much like some of DRGs higher lvl jumps that do weird things. Plague and -50 cumulative enmity or something.

Resolution. If its such a problem, then take away a hit I guess...or reduce the fTP a touch. Don't make us go back to spinning slash please...I mean really, Great Swords were our second fiddle for years and years and years...and don't change this without addressing some of the above please.

Just my thoughts...

[Umisame]

What about summoners?
Are we going to continue with 45 seconds cap for Blood Pacts?
We still use level 70 BP to do dmg, are we going to get new BP rages?
Magic will be changed, is this going to affect avatars too?

[Annalise]

What about summoners?
Are we going to continue with 45 seconds cap for Blood Pacts?
We still use level 70 BP to do dmg, are we going to get new BP rages?
Magic will be changed, is this going to affect avatars too?

Wondering that myself. Perhaps when they take a look at adjusting mages some more, something will come to fruition.

[SpankWustler]

What about summoners?
Are we going to continue with 45 seconds cap for Blood Pacts?
We still use level 70 BP to do dmg, are we going to get new BP rages?
Magic will be changed, is this going to affect avatars too?

Depending on how wide-spread the level correction changes are, and how level correction applies to pets, just that change could have a noticeable impact on the physical damage from all pet jobs. While pets might end up less able to tear weak monsters to pieces, there's an equal chance they'll perform better against stronger stuffs.

Somebody who knows more than I do about that should probably use this opportunity to make me look dumb. It would be informative.

Of course, since a lot of what Summoner does is magical or unique to the job or support-oriented or just plain weird, whatever happens to level correction would probably affect Summoner least out of all pet jobs.

[Kincard]

The changes to the merit weapon skills are a good compromise (and in fact a better change than simply increasing the category max by a few points), and I will explain why:

As Motenten listed out, it means that under the new system, a 1/5 WS (65%) will be nearly as strong as a 4/5 WS currently is (68%). There are exceptions (Particularly Tachi: Shoha because of how powerful a SAM's other WSs are), but this means that a level 1 weapon skill will almost always be useful now. That extra 20% mod is admittedly quite a bit, but I don't think a lot of you are understanding what the idea behind the adjustment is.

Now, the vision the devs initially thought of (That we can choose between being versatile or being specialized) is actually true, because now even a level 1 weapon skill can be quite useful. As someone who plays a great variety of jobs, I greatly prefer this change over them simply adding an extra 5-10 total levels to the merit category, because now players can pick and choose. Beforehand, investing 1 point into a weapon skill would be completely useless. Now, most of the merit WSs will outdo most non-REM WSs with a single point invested.

Granted, it would be cool to have both this adjustment and a raise to the cap, but people are really exaggerating when they say that you are choosing between having 5 weak weapon skills and 1 strong weapon skill...that was true before. Now you are choosing between having 5 good weapon skill, 2 great weapon skills or 1 amazing weapon skill etc. It's far more flexible than it used to be.

[Motenten]

Actually, giving it some more thought, I think 17 would be the ideal number.

At 18, people are likely to just do 5/5/4/4, and given how close 4 is to 5 now, you're more or less giving 4 full weaponskills, which I think SE's been trying to avoid.

At 17, though, it becomes 5/5/4/3, which isn't quite as good, and lends itself to more general choices. While most people will almost certainly keep 5/5 on the first two, it's the last set of points that matters.

People who want to keep their third WS at 5 will be given 2 extra points to use on 'extra' weaponskills. For those who want more variety, you're given plenty of room to maneuver among the options. 4/2/1, 3/2/2, 3/2/1/1, 2/2/1/1/1, etc., depending on how many weaponskills they really want. Given that 1 merit in a weaponskill could be considered 'adequate', and that you'd want 2-3 to push it towards 'good', that seems like enough flexibility to allow people to specialize to their own preference.

Keeping it at 15, you can kind of do the same thing, but it really feels a lot more restrictive on your options. 16 might be an 'ok' compromise, but it really doesn't feel like it would lend itself to the proliferation of choice that you'd get at 17.

[Trumpy]

I am happy with the proposed changes to merit WSes. Although i would like a few more merits for cap in that category, i wouldnt mind having a 1 or 2 merit point ws and not have to cap each to make it worthwhile. With 20 (22 soon) jobs there needs to be more options to cap these than 3, but since it is merits i understand they want you to choose. that is basically the whole point of all the merits is to make you choose.

But it isnt like we can wield these weapons all at once and have access to all these WSes at the same time. even if dual wielding 2 weapons you can only access the main hands WSes. This is the same reason i dont get why we cant merit more combat skills (though they have increased this through the years) except these u can benefit from while dual weidling 2 different weapons of course, but you still can only benefit from 2 of those at one time.

All the other stuff i approve. the magic stuff: so now maybe utilizing a mobs magic weakness might actually work cause earth and water might actually do a lil bit more dmg to be worthwhile. of course 90% of the mobs out there are weak to ice or thunder one way or the other but its nice to have options.

[Kincard]

I should echo the sentiments of others regarding the planned 1H adjustments that a simple adjustment to the STR/DEX scaling of attack and accuracy VS 2 Handers will not help very much at all. Even at level 99 it results in maybe 30-40 extra attack and accuracy on the 2 handers. This is no insignificant amount, but closing this gap, even if it was for both hands, would not help 1 handers at all. The different ratio cap imposed on 1H jobs is what needs to be examined for things to be rebalanced, because acc/attack can generally be capped for any job if they are under the correct buffs, and these are situations 1H jobs truly fall behind by a massive amount.

There can be other, more creative ways of adjusting this (like giving 1Hs different bonuses from stats vs 2Hs, like they get more crit per point of DEX or something like that), but basically the point is that the STR/DEX scaling differences are actually a pretty minor factor in the big picture.

Other than that, i think the adjustments look amazing and I can't wait for them to go live!

[saevel]

There can be other, more creative ways of adjusting this (like giving 1Hs different bonuses from stats vs 2Hs, like they get more crit per point of DEX or something like that), but basically the point is that the STR/DEX scaling differences are actually a pretty minor factor in the big picture

Well allowing the 15% haste from LR to apply to 1H would be a very interesting buff in and of itself. 1H also struggle to hit 20% delay floor without resorting to excessive DR which isn't as efficient as straight haste. Abilities such as soul eater also effect 1H more then 2H due to faster hit rate, of course there are some negative side effects. I'd like to see SE adjusted such that it only removes the damage it does, so at level 30 SE would take 5% HP away as damage from /DRK, at 45 it would be 4.25% HP for 5% damage. Would make SE useful for jobs like MNK, NIN, BLU, THF, DNC, ect..

We all know it's the ratio that is the problem. Specifically after level correction nerfs our damage into the ground. I would really like to see 1H have a more generous critical hit rate formula. Maybe needing dDex 20 rather then dDex 40 for any real difference to appear.