FFXI Job Direction?? Dev Team, Please Respond.

[Ravenmore]

Only in abyssea does rdm lose out to other jobs just subing whm. Outside of abyssea rdm and whm are still the best healers to have in your tank party. Cure 6 cost to much MP when outside of abyssea you tank should never need that kind of single cure power though out the fight. Also with out a rdm and refresh 2 good luck with mp.

Void walker is nice content that is challenging but with out rewards for all jobs people won't do it. Why should a whm/rdm/sch/healer do content that offers nothing they can't get else were with far less effort. Abyssea showed the player base a event were all jobs can get great gear not only melee or only mages.

[Supersun]

Only in abyssea does rdm lose out to other jobs just subing whm. Outside of abyssea rdm and whm are still the best healers to have in your tank party. Cure 6 cost to much MP when outside of abyssea you tank should never need that kind of single cure power though out the fight. Also with out a rdm and refresh 2 good luck with mp.

This is half true. There are certainly much better refreshers then Red mage due to most other types of refresh stacking with whm's via /rdm.

And while certainly Red Mages are in fact better healers now, at 99 all the other refreshers will receive a huge buff to their healing when they receive Cure 4 with refresh and convert.

99Brd/Rdm is looking to be a stupidly powerful job with +35% haste, +12 MP/tick refresh, Cure 4, Convert, +80% slow (at least between Brd + Whm). Rdm will not likely be able to compete with this unless they receive some powerful new enfeebles to make up the lack of stackable refresh and less then White Mage powered healing.

[Ravenmore]

This is half true. There are certainly much better refreshers then Red mage due to most other types of refresh stacking with whm's via /rdm.

And while certainly Red Mages are in fact better healers now, at 99 all the other refreshers will receive a huge buff to their healing when they receive Cure 4 with refresh and convert.

99Brd/Rdm is looking to be a stupidly powerful job with +35% haste, +12 MP/tick refresh, Cure 4, Convert, +80% slow (at least between Brd + Whm). Rdm will not likely be able to compete with this unless they receive some powerful new enfeebles to make up the lack of stackable refresh and less then White Mage powered healing.

Refresh 2 is still better then /rdm refresh. Not to mention they can keep refresh 2 on them self for 9mins with little effort getting the gear needed for it. Way it is now relic brds are more lol then rdms. Those people I would feel sorry for but for the most part they were given it to begin with.

[Soundwave]

Regardless, I think the road map for jobs would be really good right about now to stop all speculation....and allow people to comment on things that are going to happen so the dev team can actually make informed decisions based off what we say.

One thing is for sure....a lot of people been asking adjustments for summoner...I'd be really disappointed if SE does not listen to the people.

[Ravenmore]

I'm sure we will get a road map soon. Them even saying it in the minor update notes is a big step in the right direction. Couple of years ago we were lucky to get hints at vanfest and update notes week or 2 before the update.

What imm'm really wondering about is how they going to let us use the test server, is it going to be log on anytime we want to, random invites or sever invites so on. If we can use gear that we have on our char so we can get a realisc view of how the content will play out for your avg player not going though on GM god mode like how they show off for community sites.

[Soundwave]

Guessing the Job road map will come a bit before August, I hope to see it by July and not just before the August update.

I'm somewhat scared of this road map, I really wonder if they have even considered anything we have said about any jobs or will it be...."here you go enjoy we are sure you will like it."

[Ravenmore]

They listen some what holding final judgment till I see what knid of damage boost pld jas get, and if they used any of the ideas for cover mention on here. Might not have to wait and see if they listen to us.

[Soundwave]

._./\._. Time for foood!

[Return1]

I think you got that backwards. What SMN does, is exactly like in past FFs. We just deal damage. What we complain about is that all other parts of the job is not working. I can't debuff, because it isn't worthwhile. I can't buff, because they are all useless. I can't heal, because the recast is too long. I can't give out refresh, because I need to assault my pet to build TP for nukes. And spirits are not even worth mentioning.

Earthen Armor and Hastega are amazing buffs. You don't have to build tp to nuke, you just do it to do more damage, so you have to choose between enhanced damage or more magical/refresh support. A lot of the buffs can be used and give decent effects. Enspells and ATK+ are decent DD bonuses, not BRD or COR powerful mind you, but still better than sitting there whining about how useless you are. You also don't have to only use refresh favor. You could use MAB favor, etc.

While it is nice, my Earthen Armors have never saved anyone. Either it is on, and they never get any high damage TP move, or it wears off and they get hit right after. And it can't be denied that spending 120 MP over and over again on something that "may" help is a complete disaster in game design. You could as well make RR last 5 minutes, and have all mages constantly re-applying RR "incase I die".

It's called knowing your situation. A lot of the new mobs have dangerous moves that can one shot you. This trend will only continue outside of abyssea. Some mobs have the ability to hit you with weakness, making their normal melee hits likely to kill you, unless you got EA+Scherzo. EA + Scherzo is a massive boost to things with powerful AoEs as well. Meteor is suddenly easy to handle, Astral Flow is made into a joke, and any tp move that doesn't inflict death is survivable, even if it's an AoE like Citadel Buster.

I'd agree with you if SE changed Earthen Armor to 15 min duration. Until then you are just sponging MP while playing the lottery that your tank should end up 1-shot suddenly. I might be insane, but I don't think it should cost you 2000 MP to save a tank from death. Look at BRD, it pays ZERO MP for the same thing, which is vastly superior in support.

Wrong.

BRD's Scherzo is free, but only half as strong. It also takes up one of 2 spells a BRD can put up, halving any Refresh or Offensive bonus they can give. That's a horrible argument you're trying to use against EA. Also, all of these new fights are 30 minutes long, and with a decent EA duration, it caps you at 1200mp cost, even less if you have the 450 summoning magic build putting you at 3:30 duration. On top of that, it doesn't have to be a hit that would one shot you, but a hit that would put you in danger of being killed immediately afterwards.

You can play classic SMN just fine though, because if all you do is 70BP it over and over, the blood boon and elemental siphon will let you keep going far longer than any other BLM. But I doubt anyone has complained about the damage output of SMN. It is everything else, spirits, wards, low level rage pacts, perpetuation, mana cede, etc. that needs adjustments. Paying 100 MP for 100 more damage is just ridiculous. I'm not touching mana cede unless I'm in Abyssea these days.

No one's saying those aren't valid points. I however prefer to look at the upside to summoner currently. SMN is the only job capable of high Physical or Magical damage bursts at will. SMN has the best of the emergency prevention tools, which stacks to become greatly enhanced with BRD's song. SMN lends itself well to zerg fights. SMN can offr mild support enhancements. SMN can offer crowd control through despawning adds or in emergencies can attempt a sleepga.

Sure there's room for improement, but that goes for every job. SMN is in a really good place right now.

[Dallas]

Sure there's room for improement, but that goes for every job. SMN is in a really good place right now.

I'm glad there are other people happy with the job. SMN could use 2 things:

1) Some sort of pet: enmity tool not attached to BP: Rage. SMN can't do much outside the scope of "one BP every 45 seconds" without serious risk of dying. Good gear doesn't fix the problem.

2) Staff mastery. SMN is the only job that melees exclusively with staff. If SE is ever going to make a job master of this weapon, SMN deserves it. Throw in some simple staff stances just for fun: 1) that turns every hit into a cross between Spirit Taker and Aspir Samba (low %age damage converted to MP, but also works on undead) 2) that turns every hit into a cross between Drain Samba and Stoneskin (low %age of damage restores stoneskin)