[dev1010] Job Adjustments

[Carth]

Aren't rdm still the best enfeeblers in the game? They are more a niche healer now, and abby makes refresh not so cool anymore, but it is migrating to a favorite subjob choice for many casters. Plus they still solo stuff pretty well. And I have some inkling that there will be 90-99 as post abyssea wherein refresh will be valued again.

Pre-Tier2 merits, that A+ Enfeebling was a massive joke. Thanks to Slow II and Paralyze II however, yes, we are the best enfeeblers. However, Enfeebling can only get you so far. Admittedly, Slow II is godly, but Paralyze II has always been up in the air pre-Saboteur.

I do have to address one thing.

And I have some inkling that there will be 90-99 as post abyssea wherein refresh will be valued again.

Out of all the things, this is what most RDMs don't want. Throughout the entirety of RDM's lifespan in FFXI it has always been defined by Refresh. Refresh made us valuable healer in exp parties, Refresh made us better than WHMs, Refresh made us powerful soloists, and most of all Refresh (and Convert, admittedly) has made the community and the developers fear any update that ever came our way, even for DD purposes.

Refresh doesn't make the job "just fine", but that's been our niche ever since 2005. If we are meant to be the strongest enfeeblers, then the developers need to stop twiddling our thumbs and give us more enfeebles, not something as idiotic as tranquil heart (due to the many roles RDM can take up, it shouldn't have their native enmity messed with at all).

[Seriha]

Maybe, but back in the day there was no clear vision for each of the job. The community essentially designed the jobs for whatever roles they needed. Now the developers are tapping into that and trying to refine each job. For a classed based game with 20 different classes it doesn't make much sense to have a class that fills every roll.

This is a bit of a catch 22 for RDM. While I can understand the concept of SE catering to styles of play the players have come up with for jobs (NIN is basically the prime example), RDM didn't so much have the luxury of that choice.

Physically, it's a no-brainer the job is lacking. Most of it's good melee gear was sub-par relative to other specialists under the 75 cap, and most of it is still "the best" today, minus a few tweaks. Pair this with lower skill caps and WS restrictions on a weapon class that wasn't really known for big damage to begin with (sword), and it's unsurprising people either never bothered with melee or shunned melee enthusiasts.

Magically, some might try to peg enfeebling as our bread and butter, but not really. If this was something SE truly wanted to embrace, there is a far greater variety of enfeebles they could give RDM. Addle was a start in this direction, but if I'm not mistaken, the DATs show WHM will be getting it eventually. All things considered, a WHM/RDM can enfeeble comparably to a RDM. Meanwhile, BLUs have a number of AoE debuffs, some currently unique to the job.

In terms of elemental magic, back in the day RDM's dealt with both magic accuracy issues on difficult mobs, and during the leveling process, being rather behind BLM when it came to tier ups. /SCH helped the former issue tremendously, and parts of the empyrean set are certainly good nuking pieces, but the job's still third rung under BLM and SCH, maybe even worse if you consider the potential of Automatons or BLUs with Charged Whisker solo cleaving.

Since people didn't want RDMs for lackluster melee and basically preferred BLMs for nuking (RDMs couldn't MB distortion with Blizz 2 until 55), all that really left was support. Unsurprisingly, people desperate for EXP put up with it, as no matter the MMO it's often a thankless and stressful task that other players tend to avoid. Eventually the idea that Convert and Refresh made RDM a "better healer than WHM" started circulating around, devoid of circumstance, and suddenly any problems people DID have with the job were blown off because people still invited it to heal. Add a dash of soloing antics exploiting Bind/Gravity/Zoning/Pinning, and we went from that to overpowered.

It's unfortunate it took basically every other job getting so far ahead for people to start thinking, "Hey, maybe RDM could use some attention..." but for those of who've been here all along, we're not at all surprised about this state of affairs. Of course, they'll all have varied ideas for repair, some as mundane as simply doling out Cure V... which just begs to repeat the job's position prior to Abyssea without offering any sense of diversity or charm. In short, those crackers are WHMs in denial.

Seems like Final Fantasy XI and XIV are going towards what most games now and days become, Super-Easy Mode. If people don't lose experience till 30, they are gonna whine more for high Tier Raises later levels because they got spoiled on no exp lost for a third of their levels. And it helps getting into a game when there are consequences like losing experience, because then it makes players more dedicated to get that exp back and beyond. If the game is too easy, then no one is going to bother playing it. It might not be Super-Easy Mode yet, but its going toward that direction, with 30-99 Abyssea leveling and now no experience lost from 1-30.

Losing EXP has never made me go, "Damn, I wanna get it back and then some!" Perhaps there's a brief pause for reflection on why the death occurred, but that can exist without the level downs and all the other situational inconveniences surrounding death, including weaknesses.

So, drop the haughty act. Time Sinks do not equate to true difficulty.

[Tamarsamar]

*clipped, but still awesome*

It's unfortunate it took basically every other job getting so far ahead for people to start thinking, "Hey, maybe RDM could use some attention..." but for those of who've been here all along, we're not at all surprised about this state of affairs. Of course, they'll all have varied ideas for repair, some as mundane as simply doling out Cure V... which just begs to repeat the job's position prior to Abyssea without offering any sense of diversity or charm. In short, those crackers are WHMs in denial.

I . . . I think I love you now. o_o;

[Kurosen]

Losing EXP has never made me go, "Damn, I wanna get it back and then some!" Perhaps there's a brief pause for reflection on why the death occurred, but that can exist without the level downs and all the other situational inconveniences surrounding death, including weaknesses.

So, drop the haughty act. Time Sinks do not equate to true difficulty.

I didn't mean it to sound like getting Exp back after dying is fun, but it is a part of the game...or was at least. I'm just worried players are going to think its too easy, or not worth the time.

[Hoshi]

I think what's really nice about these adjustments is that most of it was taken straight from forum discussions. It's awesome to see devs really listening on the job specific forums.

[viion]

I absolutely love the exp death penalty thing, losing EXP is not something a new or returning player wants to go through a lot.

[Tamarsamar]

See, the thing is is that Tranquil Heart does basically nothing on a Red Mage, since we literally cannot gain hate even if we tried. Like I said, all it is is an insult, a spit to the face, of an already long-since dead aspect of the Red Mage job.

I admonish the person who earlier claimed that this was slightly above Shield Mastery, because even that has a situational use or two for the reduced spell interruption while soloing (and I was offended by that, anyway, since I like soloing on /PLD).

[Feliciaa]

It's great that SE is trying to fix RNG crit and Bounty shot....

However, they completely ignored the big Enmity issue with RNGs in group play. As it is now, RNGs in a group just means any other melee is going to lose atk swings or WSs because the mob is running between melee and the RNG.

Or the RNG has to greatly hold back or do everything in melee range which completely kills the point of the "sweet spot" and True Shot.

[AtrixWolfe]

It's great that SE is trying to fix RNG crit and Bounty shot....

However, they completely ignored the big Enmity issue with RNGs in group play. As it is now, RNGs in a group just means any other melee is going to lose atk swings or WSs because the mob is running between melee and the RNG.

Or the RNG has to greatly hold back or do everything in melee range which completely kills the point of the "sweet spot" and True Shot.

With atma and gear getting max -enmity capped on rng is actually easy. While alone -50% on a very well geared ranger isn't enough to let them open house, it is pretty close for an average geared ranger.
If you combined this with a tank that has +enmity gear I can see enmity control as not a problem for ranger. Asking tanks to actually do that however might get difficult unfortunately.
I fought a snoll NM with -enmity capped, without food I could not pull hate from a pretty average geared thf no matter how hard I tried. I was able to do it after a while the 2nd fight however, when I did use a yellow curry bun. It was over 50% dead when I did this however, and the thf used accomplice and I never got hate again. Keep in mind +enmity gear caps at +100% so it has a lot more potential than -enmity. And then there's always the traditional way of doing it. Pairing with a thief in your party and letting them close a SATA skill chain which always let me open house before... though in all honesty the last time I got to try it out was a b tree aprty so I don't know if holds up end game.

So really the problem I see with RNG and DD that can't tank in general right now is not enmity but rather the tp feeding they do, and as far as tp feeding goes... Ranger doesn't get any subtle blow really. Not in gear or traits. And that might come down to whether or not you want a dd in your party or not these days.

Other than that, we're really good at blue procs for piercing.. and can do a fair amount of slashing.. and end game we do some sick dmg with the proper weapon I've heard both Cor and Rng can do 10k wildfires. And Jishnu's Radiance for 8k.

I dunno what to make of the exp changes. It's unnecessary imo. If there's no penalty for death it doesn't mean much. It's already lol in abyssea. People used to get upset. And avoid it at all costs. Due to experience gains it already is like, well at least my hp/mp is full. Or yay free teleport. Or yay, I zombie tanked this nm. And still gained exp after dying six times.