Creating "Job Abilities" for Throwing, Shield, Parrying, and Blocking

[AyinDygra]

Guard, Evasion, Parry, Shield (these are the 4 skills you're making abilities for)
It might be best to use the game's term of "Guarding" attacks, rather than blocking, since "Blocking" generally refers to the function of a Shield.

[Kimble]

Yeah, there is no such thing as "blocking"

And... yeah, Guard sucks.

[kingfury]

It's called guarding, and it already reduces damage by acting as a negative critical hit.

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Oops, >< you're absolutely right! Quick fix needed around the Thread lol. Thanks. I meant "Guarding" ^^ but brain defined the visual action as "Blocking" lol.

Nothing wrong with reducing a bit more damage though.

[Kimble]

Great, now we are all going to have to tell you again how Guarding is useless, that the way its coded, skill doesnt have any affect on your guard rate just like parrying, and how for guard to even proc, you have to fail your eva and counter check, as well as not having shadows up to absorb the hit if /nin.

[kingfury]

Better change the wiki on the topic of proc rate then:

"Guard only works when the player is using a Hand-to-Hand weapon (or barehand). The higher your Guarding Skill, the better the chance that it will activate."

And yeah, I'm aware of all that stuff since it's the same for folks wielding a shield hoping to "Block" an attack. Like the EA for Shield on the OP (Shield Trust), I would opt that Guarding should definitely have an EA that increases the proc rate so that it can rise above all these nice factors.

[Kimble]

Monk already has counter, which over all, is much more useful than guarding.

[kingfury]

Agreed, but this is all about bolstering these slow to proc combat skills, so these abilities would just be nice little bonuses to what some jobs can already do.

Like a PLD can already block like a champ with a shield, so any other shield abilities would only contribute to their efficiency. Other jobs however, that don't do so well at blocking with a shield but have decent shield skill might see new life while using these abilities so long as they're truly effective.

The goal is to just bolster the combat skills so players might see them more often during battle.

[Kimble]

Here is your problem though, by trying to bolster these combat skills for other jobs, you are going to overpower the job that is most proficient with said skill. Factoring all the other defensive skills MNK (guarding) and PLD (shield), your changes would make them almost unkillable and greatly affecting balance.

Only 2 jobs can use Guarding, MNK and PUP, and we already went over Shield. WAR as C skill and all other jobs have D-F skill.

[kingfury]

I think so long as the durations of these abilities are tailored to work for shorter amounts of time compared to our standard JA's, they shouldn't grant a player God mode status and make them ultimately non-killable.

From the OP "Note: The duration of these Enhancement Abilities could be relatively very short compared to most standard JA timers, with fair recast timers to uphold game balance."

A WAR can reach an A level skill rating with gear and merits easy and most other jobs could see some decent boost as well if they plan accordingly.

[Kimble]

Considering you can keep counterstance up 100% anything to guard wont be all that useful.

And, If a WAR is gearing to get their shield skill to A level, that WAR is doing everything wrong.