Job balancing?

[OmnysValefor]

[...]

everything wipes shadows

Yeah, it used to be that /nin was generally the tradeoff people made when personal survivability was a factor. Nin offers nothing to most jobs but survivability (except bst and war, which gain dual wield).

everything hits for high damage combined with multiple status ailments, etc. Even many NMs these days have AoE basic attacks.

Yeah, there's a lot of bosses (some of them very trival bosses) where I don't want the THF behind me even to TA. He eats an auto-attack cleave and he's dead or near it.

Amnesia (or: ugh, I can't do anythinggggg); Amnesia, as stated, is one of the worst threats in the game, comparable to a mute effect on the mages. But the problem is that mute is nearly nonexistent and non-viable because it locks out your healers instead of just your nukers, leading to a complete party catastrophe, while amnesia is so commonplace that it's easy to see why most melee are hanging up their weapons. If you're constantly stuck in auto-attack, unable to use your JA or WS, you're literally just sitting there swinging and waiting with minimal contribution.

At that point, your "contribution" is worse than the cost. You're feeding the boss TP, you're costing the healer MP. You're creating more enmity for the healer which can be a factor in prolonged fights.

The thing is, I can think of a few Amnesia-level debuffs that could exist (think nyzul lockout-floors), but I don't want to see mages going through the same crap. Hey, once in a while it's a fine mechanic but it's used too much. Way too much.

Just like Silence as Silena, I think it's time for Amnesia to have its own spell. If it balances it a bit more, make it something like Cursna, where it's not a 100%, but do make it something of a higher proc rate than non-gear Cursna.

I really don't want to see "Amnesna" behave like cursna, but if it did, I'd like it to provide protection for a duration based on healing magic skill. "JoeMage casts Amnesna on Kensagaku. Kensagaku is immune to Amnesia for 30s.".

If it gets to the point that you have to exclude to get a minimal number of people, it's a good sign that HP scaling has gone too far.

I've said before that I think HP scaling stops people from being carried, so I want it to stick around. This is another case where the problem is in the game mechanics, as you point out in your untruncated post:

More than the people necessary to create a skillchain, scholars included, are wasted slots, but here's something that people don't usually know: NMs gain a short buff to reduce magic damage taken after being nuked. While cumulative, the buff wears quickly. This means that while the gains from additional nukers is not as punitive as additional melee, it still exists (source). It's also interesting to read threads from that era, rather than relying on people's memory.

Perhaps addressing some of the problems with content and combat design will fix this.

I'm going to shamelessly plug a post I made, but I believe melee need a way to ws without interfering with or contributing to skillchains.

Until something is done about this, too many melee is just a really big problem.

[dmuller30]

I don't think survivablility will be fixed, it seems like SE has more important things going on like upgrading elemental siphon don't even get me started on that one lol. Think that was the last straw for me think I will be retiring SMN. I honestly think although someone said on here earlier it would be a good idea to up resistance on melee jobs against status ailments maybe an implemented trait or give them more resistance on gear. I mean just playing the game one time through on a job would let them know what the problems are, and if they are already then they should be well aware of what updates are needed, but because none of the major problems with balancing have been addressed it seems like none of the devs/programmers play them game at all and just provide us with random un-needed updates.

[Dale]

Until something is done about this, too many melee is just a really big problem.

I agree with you that having a party filled with melee is not ideal.

But that is probably as intended - as there has to be some incentive to create a balanced party else support jobs would be left out of the mix.

[OmnysValefor]

I agree with you that having a party filled with melee is not ideal.

But that is probably as intended - as there has to be some incentive to create a balanced party else support jobs would be left out of the mix.

A balanced party like PLD, WHM, GEO, SCH, SCH or BLM, BLM?

The pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. Two to three (edit: said one to two) melee, including the tank can SC faster than 2 SCH but the baggage melee bring far outweighs this benefit.

And some melee can solo SC pretty darn fast if they can wear offense-oriented gear and have proper support.

That's the other thing mages don't really need. They don't terribly need Geo-Haste.

[Dale]

A balanced party like PLD, WHM, GEO, SCH, SCH or BLM, BLM?

The pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. Two to three (edit: said one to two) melee, including the tank can SC faster than 2 SCH but the baggage melee bring far outweighs this benefit.

And some melee can solo SC pretty darn fast if they can wear offense-oriented gear and have proper support.

That's the other thing mages don't really need. They don't terribly need Geo-Haste.

I was mostly commenting on your point that all you need is enough melee (or DPS generally) to create skill chains. Adding any more than that can start to cause more problems than it alleviates.

That's probably true. But I believe that's as intended because it creates an inventive for support jobs. If all anyone has to do is load up on DPS jobs to kill quicker, then that is what they would likely do. I've seen that tragic scenario play out on multiple MMORPGs, where support jobs slowly go extinct in favor of DPS jobs. And I would hate to see that happen on this game. It's one of the few MMORPGs on the market today that still have a vibrant support role available for players.

As to your Mage > Melee argument, I am sure that is true in many cases. But so long as a melee can get the job done I don't really have a problem with it.

Survivability is definitely an issue. But it seems SE is finally starting to realize this with their recent ambuscade offerings. It only took them over a decade to start to address it.

[OmnysValefor]

I was mostly commenting on your point that all you need is enough melee (or DPS generally) to create skill chains. Adding any more than that can start to cause more problems than it alleviates.

That's probably true. But I believe that's as intended because it creates an inventive for support jobs. If all anyone has to do is load up on DPS jobs to kill quicker, then that is what they would likely do. I've seen that tragic scenario play out on multiple MMORPGs, where support jobs slowly go extinct in favor of DPS jobs. And I would hate to see that happen on this game. It's one of the few MMORPGs on the market today that still have a vibrant support role available for players.

As to your Mage > Melee argument, I am sure that is true in many cases. But so long as a melee can get the job done I don't really have a problem with it.

Survivability is definitely an issue. But it seems SE is finally starting to realize this with their recent ambuscade offerings. It only took them over a decade to start to address it.

You're mixing and matching support (brd, cor, rdm, geo--geo mostly; and I'm excluding healers because they're necessary) with mage DD. You'll have a far-easier time killing anything in this game with mages than with melee.

I don't remember Support ever going extinct in this game. More haste, more atk/-def on NM targets is always a good thing. Yeah, you can so-far outgear something that you "attack-cap" but in those cases you're usually fighting something that strategy isn't needed, because you outgear it so far.

The design of support in this game is that the supporting player does more for the other members of the party than another melee/nuking job would and I think XI has usually done well at making that happen, especially on content where accuracy is an issue.

You just don't see GEOs using precision/torpor (acc+/eva-) because you don't invite melee.

[OmnysValefor]

Survivability is definitely an issue. But it seems SE is finally starting to realize this with their recent ambuscade offerings. It only took them over a decade to start to address it.

Just saw this line, even though I'd replied to this particular post before. Sorry.

Sulevia's addresses that concern. The new Usukane does nothing to address this. Regen isn't a terrible stat but you almost always want -dt (dt, mdt, pdt, mdb) over regen. Some players like to wear regen gear while not in combat/out of range for aoes but if you're fighting, damage reduction gear.

I was super-duper stoked about Sulevia's. It's an amazing set for newbies, gap fillers, and my very-geared PLD uses the legs in my -breath set). It's also a generally terrific set for drk/drg that need more DT (unsure about war, since they dip into so much of PLD's best stuff).

The new usukane just isn't.

Take the Ambuscade fight this month. Maybe the high amount of evasion on the set helps the mnk evade some of Mow and survive, but the drk wearing Sulevia's doesn't have to depend on a chance for the set's benefit to proc, they can rely on the -dt. And the -dt may be what saves them and will do more for the demon's elemental aoes and Hecatomb Waves.

Many other fights, the -dt is much much better than it is in this scenario.

I hate to sound like a broken record but mnk/sam/nin deserved better. Pup deserved different.