Immanence Balance Discussion

[OmnysValefor]

You are correct that no magic-ws's miss and of course correct that Immanence is based on stratagem charge's JA timer, but proper spacing of JAs or multiple scholars makes this a non issue.

I don't want a game where Immanenced spell from a reasonably geared SCH can "miss". Because it is based on timers, it should be able to hit reliably. That said, there's something wrong with magic accuracy having no relevance towards the ability. I don't want Immanence to have a hit-rate cap (like melee strikes do).

In hard content for a person's group (whatever that may be), there is no downside to Immanence. There's no downside to sidelining melee unless the boss specifically is strong against mages (or has lots of shadows, like you brought up). The GEO, BLMs, SCHs all love the same buffs and you can frequently only use offensive buffs with mage-oriented strategies because defensive buffs aren't needed. Even on fights with wide magic aoes, like say Meteor, it's typically not that hard to toss a curaga to the BLMs.

If it didn't have such a tremendous impact on the balance, I don't think many people would care.

On the other hand, the changes SE has been making look promising. Perhaps melee oriented strategies will become more appealing when the AoE changes affect relevant content. If they continue with these changes, perhaps no nerf is needed.

I don't want to see SCH nerfed because nerfs suck.

[Eckamus]

Basically what it seems like people are arguing is that Immanence created skillchains should be based off of the enfeebling magic scale, where spells are resistible. Which is not how it works, Immanence makes a skillchain based off of elemental magic spells, which even a level one character can land on any mob in the game, albeit for 0 damage in most cases. If they intended for Immanence based skillchains to be resistible i would think that there would have been spells incorporated that are resistible.

I am unsure of exactly when Immanence was made available to SCH, as whether it was a new JA recently or always available from when SCH could attain level 87. Either way it only became prevalent method for creating skillchains with the changes made leading up to and post magic burst update. So it appears that immanence was intended to work how it is, but i cannot speak for SE. It would nice if SE would speak on this matter and clarify.

[OmnysValefor]

I am unsure of exactly when Immanence was made available to SCH, as whether it was a new JA recently or always available from when SCH could attain level 87. Either way it only became prevalent method for creating skillchains with the changes made leading up to and post magic burst update. So it appears that immanence was intended to work how it is, but i cannot speak for SE. It would nice if SE would speak on this matter and clarify.

I *think* Immanence has been available ever since 87 has been available, though it doesn't matter.

I wasn't playing when Immanence became the norm but I suspect 550 JP Bonus also made it a lot more attractive.

I don't think it matters what SE intended. There are a lot of changes they've made to the game because players used something differently than SE intended (most famously Ninja tanking--so far that originally a single shadow absorbed an AoE's affect on a player) or came to rely too heavily on something (Embrava would be a good example) or waypoint-zombie'ing the first Fracture kills.

But again, I'm really glad they're taking the proactive approach of "let's fix what's broken" rather than "let's break what works", partly because the latter route helps noone.

[Eckamus]

To put melee and ranged, which has less of a gap to close, on par with a job that can skillchain by JA use only will take quite a bit of adjustment with how the game currently is. There are further adjustments to be made yet, but with the AoE and massively negative effects that can criple any melee. Mainly Amnesia, I don't really see things shifting any time soon. Only becoming more difficult and further separating the player base, if a further nerf to Immanence takes place before things are able to be properly balanced for melee. Properly balancing melee/ranged is the problem and not Immanence itself. That's why i don't see the point in nerfing Immanence, since it was there before and has only been used commonly as it is the most reliable source for skillchains in current endgame content. Not to mention SCH has seen its fair share of nerfs over the years.

With proper balancing, I see nothing wrong with the way Immanence currently works. Since balance would offer several ways to achieve the same goal. Then melee can beat on things and feel good about themselves for being strong and mages can still explode things, since explosions are cool.

[Jin_Uzuki]

Immanence getting a "magic accuracy" check seems a good compromise, however, ultimately I don't think it will change anything.

Plainly speaking, FFXI at this point is too big and has too many abilities to be "balanced". Even if SCH was nerfed a bit, they would still use it for the safety it offered (not to mention, the nerf wouldn't affect top-tier SCH anyway)

[Jakuk]

All a nerf would do is make more people play as BLU, the next OP job.

A nerf changes nothing, the others jobs need to be raised to be on par with the OP jobs, since OP in FFXI is just another way to say competent.