Episode VI: FFXI - Return of the DD!!! -

[Hercule]

Hello,

So, I returning in the game recently since I have more free time to spend.
And nowadays look like DD jobs (WAR, SAM, MNK, SAM, DRK, DRG.... etc....) Are useless in new content, and are alot overdated for nearly anything in the game.

I don't have a big knowledge of all the current situation, but, I will try here to make a quick summary about it based on my knowledge:

- DD take too much damages in new contents
- DD have serious problem with accuracy in new contents
- DD are not anymore usefull for skillchains since SCH can replace them
- It's easier to get rid of any DD in a party, so you don't need supports + heavy healer for them.
- Even a full Job Point DD with R/E/M iLv119 is nowadays almost too weak and useless in events

So, Square-Enix, I would like to know if you plan anything to patch those problems?
And get back "DDs" in the buisness.

And I hope R/E/M future update will really be good, cause currently those weapons don't deserve all the time spent to get them.

Thanks

[machini]

Hello,

So, I returning in the game recently since I have more free time to spend.
And nowadays look like DD jobs (WAR, SAM, MNK, SAM, DRK, DRG.... etc....) Are useless in new content, and are alot overdated for nearly anything in the game.

I don't have a big knowledge of all the current situation, but, I will try here to make a quick summary about it based on my knowledge:


- DD take too much damages in new contents

Bad DDs take too much damage in current content. Bad DDs don't understand and/or refuse to use -DT gear, because it lowers their theoretical maximum DPS. They do not understand that spending half the fight eating dirt lowers their theoretical DPS much more than throwing on a Twilight Torque and a Defending Ring, or a Twilight Torque and a pair of nicely augmented Dark Rings (15% -DT gives you 17% more effective HP; that is, if you have 1000 HP, with -15% Damage Taken in gear on, you'd survive a TP move that previously did 1000 damage and killed you and survive with 150 HP, and for a TP move to kill you with your HP bar full, it would have to deal what would be, without the -DT gear on, 1176 damage. I apologize if you can actually do that math; a lot of people can't so I've stopped assuming anyone can.)[/QUOTE]

- DD have serious problem with accuracy in new contents

Bad DDs and undergeared DDs have accuracy problems in current content. For example, consider Thaumas Coat. With 3% Double Attack, 3% Triple Attack, and 3% Quadruple Attack it would seem like a great DD item, as it is up to 17.6% increase in attacks per round (if you are wearing no other gear with DA/TA/QA.) However, the Thaumas Coat only has +12 Accuracy and +4% Haste, and lacks the stat vomit of item level gear.

For an example, a perfectly augmented Taeon Tabard, which is no longer considered best in slot for anyone that I am aware of, with +20 Accuracy/Attack, 2% Triple Attack, and +7 Strength/Dexterity, will have roughly 27 more accuracy (from actual accuracy, and from Dexterity), give a much higher potential critical hit rate, compared to wearing Taeon, and give a much higher fSTR, which affects physical damage.

Those are merely the offensive stats on it (for melee.) It also has 65 more Defense, 63 more evasion (counting actual evasion stat and the contribution from Agility, and 22 Vitality which, just as Strength increases damage, Vitality helps reduce it.

None of this is even considering the effective level increase from wearing item level gear, which in and of itself helps increase hit rate and evasion rate.

63 evasion is the difference between a monster hitting you 75% of the time and one hitting you 44% of the time. That means you'd be getting hit up to 30% less (not even counting the benefit of higher effective level) and that translates in to taking significantly less damage. Combine that with the above mention -15% DT gear, and you're now taking roughly 41% less damage than someone without -15% DT and wearing a Thaumas Coat.

There are many items in the game that could be considered a sort of "skill test", in that part of your skill as a player is being able to see an item that is superficially attractive, but actually bad. Seeing a player running around in certain pieces of gear can be a red flag that they're not going to perform well and/or could use some help and/or mentoring.

It's easier to get rid of any DD in a party, so you don't need supports + heavy healer for them.

As you mention supports and healers, this again is part of the above mentioned problems: namely, too many DDs are incapable of building for anything but damage and, in sacrificing survivability for offensive potential, they wind up doing less damage, not being able to contribute, and become part of the reason why it's hard for any melee DD to get into current content. People tend to focus on the negative; you remember more easily the times things go wrong than the times they go right. One spectacularly bad melee DD does more damage to the playerbase's willingness to take melee DDs on content than a good one can fix.

Even a full Job Point DD with R/E/M iLv119 is nowadays almost too weak and useless in events.

While I hate sounding like a broken record, this is again mostly the fault of bad DDs. People who can't take a hit and get killed in a single TP move give all DDs a bad name. For an example of being able to take a hit, on Dancer I am capable of achieving an effective -55.2% physical damage taken (-44% PDT from gear when I throw it all on, and the a multiplicative -20% from Fan Dance.) This means that if I am fighting alongside a THF in no -DT gear while I am in full defensive mode, having roughly the same amount of HP, a single attack or spell would need to deal 123.2% more physical damage to kill me from full HP as it would to kill the THF. That is, a physical damage move that would hit a THF with 2000 HP for 2000 damage would only deal 896 damage to me, while, to kill me from full HP, a physical attack would need to deal ~4465 damage, assuming the THF and I are taking roughly the same damage if I had no -DT.

And, again, something that I think should be obvious is you can't deal any damage at all if you're eating dirt. Combine that with content, such as Vagary leg and body runs, where a single death ruins the run, and you see why people are hesitant to take melee DDs on a great deal of content.

And I hope R/E/M future update will really be good, cause currently those weapons don't deserve all the time spent to get them.

This I agree on. There are a lot of easy fixes, but I doubt those will happen. It is frustrating, though, for a lot of people, that their mythics are barely better, or, in some instances, worse, than things that some can get with extremely little effort.

[Mithlas]

machini, I really appreciate your insight. :}

[Hercule]

machini, you know when i said "I recently returning in the game" that's mean what it's mean, i don't even tried one of the new content already because currently all the people doing this content just don't want any DD but only PLD, RUN, RDM, BLM, SCH, BLU...etc

So, the problem is not to know if i'm a "Casual" a "Bad Player" a "Douche Bag" or anything as that, but that is just an ascertainment i've made.
(And I have some friends with full JP high end gear & Mythic DD that don't anymore play their favorites jobs in event nowadays)

Then the reason why I talk on the forum about this is because I see no post about it and until I can do the high end event in the future, I just would hope this will have to change because I love playing my "LOL bullshit Scythe DRK" even if he is not the best and I would love to complete thoses new stuffs with my favorite job and be able to join any random shout party.

[machini]

I didn't mean to imply you were a casual, a bad player, or any other sort of thing. I was merely explaining the why of why melee DD is currently so undesired.

[Hercule]

I remember back in time i'm was in a really good high end LS and we was one of the first LS of the server to do Legion, at that time in this event all DD was full time in DT set, it was mandatory.

So it was not bad at all, and still fun to play, but, I think even if DD could do that now in current event, a setup without any DD will still be better in comparaison, so even if DDs did what you say, i don't think it could change anything, because it is less complicated with the new method I guess.

[Pups323]

My issue is machini is only half right:

Good DD or bad DD....a mnk/pup/war (aka front line dd) is going to get hit by ae more than a back line job (geo/blm/sch) and is thus less desired. Unlike FF14, we have no way to plan for and dodge ae other than having a -DT set.

Acc is an issue, even a 'good' DD with a high acc set needs more acc than an average blm needs macc. A blm using skill chain magic bursts is going to feed less tp, and do more dmg with less acc needed on gear. A good DD is going to need 1100+ acc (aka 300-400 from gear) before buffs to cap acc on anything, a good blm needs maybe +100 macc on gear to start dealing 99,999 dmg magic bursts.

The current setup favors mages too strongly for everything. They do more dmg, they take less dmg, the require less gear, etc everything favors mages.

I am not saying you cant do it with melee (which you cant for most high end mobs), I am just saying it will be harder and require better gear. And even in full DT all the time they will still take more than the 0 dmg mages take which will require more healing, etc.

Not to mention, in your full -dt gear, you no longer have that capped acc you need to hit the mob sooooooo....yeah

[machini]

The first thing you list is something that is addressed in my post. Being a Good DD means having a -DT set and using it when circumstances warrant it.

And I can hit 1099 ACC in full DT with food and no outside buffs. And then I can stack Quickstep for -44 evasion, effectively raising everyone's accuracy by 44. Throw on Hunter's Roll, and you're looking at ~1160 ACC with the target having -44 Evasion.

And you are entirely wrong. A BLM requires more than +100 macc to do high damage magic bursts. They require someone, virtually always a melee DD, to do skillchains for them so that they can magic burst. And to do that the melee needs high accuracy. And to stay in range, they need to survive. And there will most certainly be a COR, BRD, GEO, or possibly some combination of those three present, for Wizard's Roll, Ballad, or Geomancer buffs/debuffs. And if the BLMs have buffs (which they will), the DDs will have buffs, too.

So... you were saying?

[machini]

I also want to point out, aside from Terpsichore, nothing I have is best in slot anymore, except possibly Horos Toeshoes +1, and there's better acc options.

If you had, for example, a full set of Herculean gear from Reisenjima, you could, if I'm reading this correctly, get it augmented with 30 accuracy, 30 attack, and -4% DT per piece. have that on your whole set and you're looking at +150 acc and -20%DT on just those five slots. That's on top of the 37 already on the set. So that's 187 accuracy and -20%DT. Which is 117 more accuracy than I have on my -DT set. And it would mean I could hit 37%-DT with Vocane Ring and Defending Ring, or someone with two nice Dark Rings could hit -30%. Throw on a Twilight Torque and a Mollusca Mantle, and that would be -47% DT with Defending and Vocane, or -40% with two dark rings.

So not only can you get -40~47% DT, but you can get higher accuracy than I have in my current DT set, and better base stats on the gear to boot. I mean, if I had that, I could hit -47% DT, and hit ~1220 accuracy, with just food. And then with Quickstep I could lower the target's evasion by 44, effectively giving me ~1260 accuracy. And this is all before any outside buffs.

So please, go on telling me about how melee DD are worthless.

[Kensagaku]

Eh, to be fair, using the random lottery augs is a poor argument simply because you can spend stones for days and not get anywhere near them. I've yet to get a single DT-4% augment, for example, and I've spent more than a thousand stones on Herculean pieces alone, no exaggeration. Heaven forbid trying to get that elusive -4% AND a good Acc/Attack.

That being said, it's still not that hard to keep an eye out, filter the chat log as needed, and tap a DT set macro so that you don't need a fulltimed DT set. Make an itemset, tap your macro, tap another macro to switch back post-TP and boom, less damage taken. As you said, it's not hard to get a good DT set going.