Formless Strikes Overpowered

[Demon6324236]

I think that formless strikes should be removed or severely hampered. For the past year or two SE has tried to require magical damage to combat the latest and greatest enemies. Instead of mages to fulfill that magical damage component, MNKs are brought instead. MNK already has the highest HP total which makes curing a breeze, they are consistently close to the very top tier of damage dealing in alliance and low man play. I don't think MNK should be the best magical damage dealer in addition to being a powerhouse for physical damage. What are your thoughts?

I agree, I think Formless has become to powerful for a utility ability. It went from an ability good against select mobs like Flans or Slimes into an ability which dominates an entire piece of content due to the developers creating special aspects to the mobs most of which revolves around magic damage itself.

This is really more "I think Delve is dumb" rather than a real "formless needs rethinking"...
The problem is the event... not the job.
At least in this case.

Really the job is an issue, if I do any event, not just Delve, any event where I need both Physical and Magical DMG, MNK is the job I will take every time because it can do both of them very effectively. The only time you take a BLM is when a MNK simply can not do the job for certain reasons, such as Adamantoise, which to my understanding creates issues through high DEF, not PDT, which is why BLMs work and MNKs do not, or the case of Azure light in Abyssea, where magic DMG from a spell has to be the killing blow. But in the case of Delve, or any other event in history where magic DMG was preferred for a reason, such as flans or slimes and such, a MNK is better than BLM because MNK can get such a low delay and high DPS while still performing excellently throughout the remainder of the event.

Salvage.

And more on topic, I'm curious as to whether the ammo with magic damage + on it (Dosis Tathlum) affects Formless Strikes. Anyone managed to try it yet?

I would assume not since all of the same damage calculations for MNK still take place the same under Formless Strikes, the only difference is that the DMG is converted to magic DMG, and I think it is given a reduction to damage as a penalty for that reason. Anything like Magic Attack or Defense, Damage, or anything else Magic related shouldn't really effect its DMG.

I guess this makes up for the fact that MNK was an underused job from 2003-2010 in the HNM scene outside of SATA Full Swing and Chi Blast, but still. MNK has many, many tools, extremely high damage output, can output damage under a wide variety of situations and has an extremely powerful SP1, very good survivability. There are very few situations where someone would 'need' to have a WAR,DRK,DRG,SAM when they can just throw MNKx6 at it. Groups on Cerberus are now lowmanning Tojil with 10 people. They just bring 2 BRDs, 2 WHMs and 6 MNKs and defeat NM 1-5+Boss in Morimar with like 10min to spare, definitely not something you could do with 6DRKs or 6WARs or 6DRGs.

This is really the main thing about it all, MNK already wins in so many fields that this is just adding on to whats already a somewhat overpowered job. MNK is the best DD from the normal selection easily because it has such great abilities and has the most HP, on top if that the fact it has the best DPS too and then Formless comes along and puts it as one of the best sources for magic damage.

And as to the drg... Go get Drakesbane!! Even without the mythic bonus, that beast of a WS was faaaaaar out damaging Stardiver. (ok, not super out damaging... BUT it was dealing more on average from what I've seen. And iirc, Drakesbane can crit while Stardiver, being a MeritWS, can't)

This entire thing about SD/DB is offtopic, but to humor it, DB wins on low DEF/crit buff, SD wins on high DEF, with Ryuno DB wins in almost all cases to my knowledge unless your attack is just that horrible due to penalty.

Yes, MNK is being used more... but then every other DD has kinda always out shone WAR... just by the nature of all their swanky JAs. (SAM self skillchain crazy, DRG jumping, DRK having basically the same JAs but more potent while being suicidal, etc)

And as to Delve.... I don't think MNK being used in Delve implies MNK is broken.

Again its not about the job being broken because of Delve, its the fact that it can perform magic damage so well and that magic damage itself is now becoming a required gimmick for events rather than a simple advantage against certain mobs.

If you think MNK is "the best magical damage dealer" you need to look at your gear for BLM.

The best? No, not far off though since it can stack so much attack speed so easily and with buffs, not incurring a forced 2 second delay between all spells and forcing it to attack slower than it should have to, also, it has more attack buffs, and it has the ability to do Physical damage to everything, making it much more powerful overall than a BLM. BLM does more Magic Damage, but it falls short everywhere else, which is where the issue comes in, when you do not need a real magic damage dealer to do magic damage because a melee can really do the job better in the end.