Mythic Adjustments - The Balancing Act! Part Deux

[Economizer]

Pretty spot on or close to spot on in most places (as usual).

I'd really only have comments to add, which I'll limit to Yagrush for now.

Yagrush - This is one of the few mythics that has gotten worse since its level 75 debut. Initially, it was a stick you could offhand and make all your -na spells AoE, which was dead useful in the time of individual AoE Status spam and had interesting applications for tanking. At 99, monsters that use AoE statuses tend to use several AoE statuses and kill you all at the same time. WHM AF3+2 head shares the single largest enhancement of this item (occasionally) with anyone who spends some time in Abyssea - Attohwa. Divine Benison, Tranquil Heart, and several other factors have nerfed WHM's ability to generate hate. WHM AF3+2 pants and the myriad of Refresh sources available to us at 99 have greatly reduced the utility of Mystic Boon. Yagrush did not even receive a trait upgrade at level 99 like the other weapons, because further Divine Benison would exceed the cap.

So what role is there left for Yagrush? Will it forever be a -na macro stick? That certainly seems to be what SE has in mind for it. I would argue that the supporting role of this weapon should be widened and not restricted to -na spells. If Mjollnir is WHM's DD weapon, this should be their support weapon. As such, I'd recommend:
* Add 20% Cure Potency to this weapon that can exceeds the 50% cap.
* Add "Augments Divine Veil II" at level 99, which extends the AoE effects of Divine Veil to Haste and Regen. Erase is Enhancing Magic and works with this trait, so two more enhancing spells should be no problem.

Very nice comments, I'll put more emphasis on the point that this thing shouldn't be a macro piece. As a club this weapon should be able to show off White Mage's melee abilities, even if it won't show the best possible damage a White Mage can do.

There should be no problem with 20% cap bypassing cure potency, especially since it would still take incredibly rare situations to get free (if you don't overcure) Cure III/IVs. Even if it had 20% cure potency that didn't bypass cure potency, I think it would still make this thing better then an Arka IV.

Additionally, the AoE effects could even be changed to all native Enhancing spells with no real negative effects, baring much needed adjustments to make Stoneskin, Blink, and Aquaveil to scale better with skill. Of course, an AoE Haste spell for everyone is long overdue regardless; dedicated mages deserve a break from pointless monotony like that that has no real standing on balance.

Since Haste should already have an AoE version already, Regen spells aren't really White Mage's thing anymore (Scholar took that), and any other spells it could be extended to should be buffed, I think a different direction could easily be taken instead.

Divine Benison effects could be changed to apply to Sacrifice and Esuna, and make Divine Veil work with Sacrifice and Esuna in a unique way. Under Divine Veil, Sacrifice would still not be made AoE, but would not afflict the White Mage with any statuses. Esuna would not require any statuses to remove status effects (although it would prioritize if there are ones on the White Mage). Now this would be a buff to White Mage, since you could get the effects on Sacrifice and Esuna merely by using Divine Seal every 10 minutes ago, but considering that Accession already mimics the current effects of Divine Seal with some slight drawbacks, buffing it in general wouldn't be too much of a bad thing. This would be a pretty nice boost to Yagrush's removal abilities.

As a final comment on White Mage Clubs, and fairly offtopic to boot, Mythic Boon on Yagrush is nice, but now every time I think about it, my thoughts are marred by the horrible mess that is Dagan, since that WS also sorta tries to recover MP. I don't even know what SE was really thinking with Dagan. It kinda has niche uses for soloing I guess, but seriously? The only real idea I've seen at fixing it aside from scrapping and starting over has been making the weapon skill party targetable or even AoE. Most posts people do on Empyrean weapons don't even mention Gambanteinn.

[Svens]

I agree that Kenkonken is great, but with the usefulness of overload suppression being diminished by the addition af3+2 body and cooldown, I feel it only increases DPS without really improving any unique aspect about the job. It's a substantial increase, but I was always drawn to the weapon for its overload suppression. If I could try to adjust it to being a useful automaton tool again, I would like to see the following change:

-Increases maneuver duration I-V: The 1 minute maneuver duration is a terrible detriment to the job just as overload was back at 75 cap. Honestly, they should pull a nagi and introduce this on future gear/JAs, with kkk providing the most substantial boost. It was mentioned in the past that there was a balance issue if they did this, but I can't remember the specifics.

[Mayoyama]

I agree that Kenkonken is great, but with the usefulness of overload suppression being diminished by the addition af3+2 body and cooldown, I feel it only increases DPS without really improving any unique aspect about the job. It's a substantial increase, but I was always drawn to the weapon for its overload suppression. If I could try to adjust it to being a useful automaton tool again, I would like to see the following change:

-Increases maneuver duration I-V: The 1 minute maneuver duration is a terrible detriment to the job just as overload was back at 75 cap. Honestly, they should pull a nagi and introduce this on future gear/JAs, with kkk providing the most substantial boost. It was mentioned in the past that there was a balance issue if they did this, but I can't remember the specifics.

I would just like to echo that while kenkonken is a nice dmg boost for pup.. its utility for reducing overload is almost useless now with all the burden reduction gear (af3+2 body, af1 hands, buffoon collar) and cooldown. Changing the overload to something like augments maneuvers (+stat corresponding to element of maneuver) or as svens suggested, increases maneuver duration (although the increase most likely wouldnt be that great)

[Byrth]

Re: Kenkonken
I considered doing "Increases maneuver duration" on Kenkonken, but I thought that was a buff that should be applied to the entire job rather than just the weapon. "Augments Maneuvers" was another option, but that's just a further (pretty minor) damage boost to the weapon that gives the largest DD improvement in the game. I agree it would fit with the general theme of the weapon and wouldn't break anything because it would hardly be an improvement, though.

Re: Nirvana
Affinity +6 is going to increase Avatar damage a more than MAB+40 because Celestial Avatars start out with MAB. With about 70 MAB (40 from trait, 10 from merits, 20 from gear), Affinity +6 is worth about 60 MAB. Additionally, it is a separate category from "Avatar Blood Pact damage" and "Avatar: Magic Attack Bonus" equipment, so future sources of those stats won't indirectly make the Mythic worse.

Re: Nagi
I think that Nagi is given bad Damage/Delay because it is a mythic and can OA2-3, so directly increasing that would probably not be looked upon kindly by SE. Nagi 62/227 > Vajra 53/200 > Terpsichore 53/205, so Nagi is actually doing pretty well on DPS for a 1H Mythic. Decreasing base damage and delay as I recommended also increases TP gain considerably without affecting delay capped performance (and increases DPS with positive fSTR). As far as Blade: Kamu adjustments, I'd be fine with those too. I left Subtle Blow alone because that's kind of Kikoku's ball of wax (even if it does it poorly). Ninjutsu skill would increase San spell damage by 7% and would lower the proc threshold on Migawari (we assume). Magic Accuracy +30 affects the accuracy of WS additional effects (like Retsu, Rin, Kamu, etc.) I don't know which one Ninjas should prefer.

Re: Yagrush
My idea with Yagrush was the make it sort of like Carnwenhan for the front line white mage. Your Haste order only takes one spell so you can melee more. You can mitigate a large amount of Cure casting with Regen IV-ga. It works as an OA2-3 offhand for Mjollnir or a mainhand for people without Mjollnir. You could use it to get MP back with Mystic Boon so you don't have to stop meleeing, etc. Additionally, it has applications as a healing/status removal mainhand when you're on the back line.
I definitely do think the Esuna/Sacrifice changes would be cool though, and I'd see nothing wrong with ditching the Divine Benison traits in favor of doing a tiered "Augments Divine Veil I~V" that makes those changes/enhancing changes. I feel the Divine Benison stuff was stuck on there because SE had recently made the trait and was out of other ideas that they felt they could implement.

[Areayea]

Re: Nirvana
Affinity +6 is going to increase Avatar damage a more than MAB+40 because Celestial Avatars start out with MAB. With about 70 MAB (40 from trait, 10 from merits, 20 from gear), Affinity +6 is worth about 60 MAB. Additionally, it is a separate category from "Avatar Blood Pact damage" and "Avatar: Magic Attack Bonus" equipment, so future sources of those stats won't indirectly make the Mythic worse.

touche, I guess I see your point, i dumped half my merits in the ava mab and the other in attack, so I suppose that affinity would be better. However, you know SE if they overpower something they'll usually nerf right after, but now I see your point. <3 spurrina gages too btw

[Seha]

Re: Kenkonken
I considered doing "Increases maneuver duration" on Kenkonken, but I thought that was a buff that should be applied to the entire job rather than just the weapon.

I understand where you're coming from, but even addressing it on the job itself, I still think maneuver duration would be highly desirable on this weapon.
Or something that greatly increases puppet's output...but dunno how far you can push it before it becomes broken.

[Concerned4FFxi]

I agree that Kenkonken is great, but with the usefulness of overload suppression being diminished by the addition af3+2 body and cooldown, I feel it only increases DPS without really improving any unique aspect about the job. It's a substantial increase, but I was always drawn to the weapon for its overload suppression. If I could try to adjust it to being a useful automaton tool again, I would like to see the following change:

-Increases maneuver duration I-V: The 1 minute maneuver duration is a terrible detriment to the job just as overload was back at 75 cap. Honestly, they should pull a nagi and introduce this on future gear/JAs, with kkk providing the most substantial boost. It was mentioned in the past that there was a balance issue if they did this, but I can't remember the specifics.

kkk is overpowered

with kkk you wont be wearing af3 body, so it frees up that slot

I do a heck of alot more damage with stringing pummel than I ever do with acentic's fury... i have no mythic weapons, btw. Just go into abby with gn rr and ss atmas on, go butt naked, bust out 20 or so of each ws you'll see stringing pummel stands head and shoulder above most weapon skills.

Yea it's a small test but you dont need to put an apple and an orange into an atom smasher to identify the obvious.

[Mayoyama]

kkk is overpowered

with kkk you wont be wearing af3 body, so it frees up that slot

Just like to point out that one would usually macro this in before using the maneuver to gain the effect if they werent also tping in it (unless using kkk ofc and then it is redundant lol).

And the point is exactly that... the suppreses overloading/burden is no longer as desirable as it once was due to the gear now available.... No one is arguing that the dmg from the wep itself is weak.. just that the additional bonus for overloading should be changed

[Areayea]

all pretty good, just gotta say somethin on the smn... Avatar MAB is awesome if you use the merit point abilities for actual damage.. i've tested it out and it does a lot more when you have the nirvana equipped then it does just with tp, and if you get avatar tp AND MAB it does WAYYY better damage

[Kincard]

There was some request for this, so I decided to translate Byrth's post (Added a few points following the OP as well) over to the Japanese forums.

I usually don't beg for likes but this took me a while to do, so I think I deserve a cookie! Thanks. =P