Job Adjustments for the Next Version Update

[Alpheus]

Think you may be giving SE too much credit.

lol well put

Edit: Also the rest of your post I agree with so only quoting the start of it

[Raksha]

what camate meant was:

"We know that no one is gonna be retarded enough to switch their duplus grip for some crap that still wont make your wyvern worth a shit, so we're not even gonna bother."

[Thorbean]

The MP cost/Damage of spells is a complete mess. Why standardise the damage/cast time/recast, then split the MP costs so drastically between elements?

Surely if you are making the damage more equal, the cost should be more equal too. Otherwise whats the point in using thunder V (10%ish more damage than stone V) at the cost of 300 MP (100% higher MP cost than stone V).

I'm not against the more standardised damage/cast time/recast, I'd like the MP costs to follow roughly the same scale though.

[Glamdring]

...or don't want to do them..., That said, the main reason tanking died was more that tanks couldn't even hope to try and hold hate in a zerg situation. If they could, which SEis slowly working them back towards, that would only make zerging even better.

Didn't quote the part about soloing, I still hold to my opinion pup was meant as a soloer, I just think they did a piss-poor job on the roll out. The fact that some people could solo despite that is really more a testament to their ability in the face of massive design/implementation flaws-face it pup was rolled out with the the auto meant to deal the damage and the player tanking, in essentially mage gear. That's not my idea of fun and why I didn't pick up the job until Aby.

As to the "official" strategy thing, I left the relevant part. See, there's my beef, it's not that it doesn't work, it's that people don't WANT to do the alt tactics. Yes, they are probably slower, BUT they allow players to play on the jobs they prefer (for the most part) instead of being forced into jobs they don't like because strategy "x" requires that build. That is why jobs die. I've seen you over in the rdm discussions so I'm positive you know what I'm talking about. Lest we forget, the primary reason for playing a GAME is to have fun, if you aren't enjoying the job you are pigeonholed into the fun part is lost, so you are left with a secondary reason to play, i.e. I do like to help my friends which is why I still roll out my brd or thf as needed even though I prefer my other jobs.

The tank thing, I know they are FINALLY working on it, but waiting this long was a MASSIVE screw-up. Pld is essentially dead now due to YEARS of this issue. It was designed essentially as a single-purpose job-to take hits so the rest of us don't have to-but even in its heyday holding hate wasn't an absolute, the players around it had to play smart, and yes, that meant holding back at times until the pld (with or without a cooperative thf) could reestablish their place at the top of the hate list. Even moreso for nin which didn't have inate hate building tools the way pld and war do. Rune is even worse, we have Flash... and? We're going to be dependent on our DD output-GS doesn't suck, but that means we have to haste almost exclusively in our gear builds and with the choices out there that means our weak physical def is going to suffer since the haste gear for the most part is on bad defensive pieces. And the other prob is that all the melee DD are also hasted out the wazoo so we still will lag on damage-generated enmity. They are going to need to beef our enmity from JA, probably the runes and wards if they are serious about us ever tanking. Still, the fact they are TRYING to bring back legitimate tanks will be a help and well received by our nuking and ranger friends that have been absent from the DD table for too long...

I still think a thf is going to be mandatory now for hate control instead of just for building TH IF they can manage to revive tanking at all, looking at the new weaps numbers I have doubts about tanks being able to try to hold hate in the face of that kind of Zerg, or nukes being able to keep up for that matter. Too bad, blm was a fun job...

[Alhanelem]

The MP cost/Damage of spells is a complete mess. Why standardise the damage/cast time/recast, then split the MP costs so drastically between elements?

Surely if you are making the damage more equal, the cost should be more equal too. Otherwise whats the point in using thunder V (10%ish more damage than stone V) at the cost of 300 MP (100% higher MP cost than stone V).

I'm not against the more standardised damage/cast time/recast, I'd like the MP costs to follow roughly the same scale though.

You have to consider power over time. If thunder V is more damage efficient, the MP cost is turned up higher to compensate, so that you only use the highest damage output when you need a sudden burst- otherwise due to the MP cost, it will be more efficient to use a lesser spell.

[RAIST]

You have to consider power over time. If thunder V is more damage efficient, the MP cost is turned up higher to compensate, so that you only use the highest damage output when you need a sudden burst- otherwise due to the MP cost, it will be more efficient to use a lesser spell.

I see what you are saying, and at first glance I was inclined to agree....but the numbers seem to be telling a slightly different story.

Old values:
Stone V: 626-855 damage for 222MP (2.82 - 3.85 damage per mp point)
Thunder V: 874-1103 damage for 294MP (2.97 - 3.75 damage per mp point)

New Values
Stone V: 650-1200 damage for 156MP (4.17 - 7.69 damage per mp point)
Thunder V: 900-1300 damage for 306MP (2.94 - 4.24 damage per mp point)

They were actually fairly balanced before. You spent pretty close to the same ratio for doing a set amount of damage. For instance (and bear in mind these are base values and not taking MAB and such into account, we're comparing the raw numbers used early in the formula, and only adjusted by INT):

breaking 3000 base damage via each spell:

Old values:
Stone V: 4 or 5 casts (3420 - 3130) for 888 - 1110 MP
Thunder V: 3 or 4 casts (3309 - 3496) for 882 - 1176 MP

New values:
Stone V: 3 to 5 casts (3600 - 3250) for 468 - 780MP
Thunder V: 3 or 4 casts (3900 - 3600) for 918 - 1224

With this adjustment, it is skewed so you are spending considerably less MP in comparison for Stone V, and a bit more MP for Thunder V to surpass the same benchmark for base damage. Before, you were spending roughly the same amount of MP for the same output.

Bear in mind also that you are potentially casting the same number of times as well, so it's not really making a massive improvement for efficiency (unless you are staying on the high side of INT, and that is really only an advantage weighted towards Stone, and in a BIG way). Granted, if you were to expand this out for really long fights requiring you to do much larger amounts of base damage over time it may have a more profound impact, but even then it may only be a couple casts.

As for the "sudden burst of damage" angle.... look at the high end comparison of those two spells:

Stone V: 1200 for 156 MP
Thunder V: 1300 for 306 MP

Barring resists due to elemental affinity and what not, they are really out of whack there for the damage/cost ratio---and generating very close to the same damage output.

So depending on just where your dINT is falling....this is potentially really out of whack.

[Fynlar]

To people that are pessimistic about potential pet changes (and honestly, I can understand that):

Have you taken a look at the Alternator yet?

If this thing is a sign of boosts other pets will get (presumably with Delve weaponry, but still), I'm honestly not too concerned.

[Hawklaser]

Willing to wait and see on the spell adjustments, as while the stone line does become more efficient, it also takes a fairly large amount of Int to make it get up to around where Thunder performs. So unless out side of abyssea RDM, BLM, and SCHs are consistently able to get +100 int over their target I don't quite see this becoming a huge issue yet.

[Aezelas]

Still, the fact they are TRYING to bring back legitimate tanks will be a help and well received by our nuking and ranger friends that have been absent from the DD table for too long...

I still think a thf is going to be mandatory now for hate control instead of just for building TH IF they can manage to revive tanking at all, looking at the new weaps numbers I have doubts about tanks being able to try to hold hate in the face of that kind of Zerg, or nukes being able to keep up for that matter. Too bad, blm was a fun job...

And then, they set a time limit on delve nms and we're going zergfest.
SE is going back and forth, and i'm not sure about what we can expect.
PLD still shines in Naakuals fights though.

[Alahra]

Are there any plans to make Ninja relevant for content beyond Abyssea?