History repeats itself: Time for the Great Archer Nerf of 2011

so your rebuttle against other implementations is that they are stupid.

You know, the funny thing is, WoW doesn't have this problem....

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

Classically, mages have been stupidly designed in MMOs and thus they run amok at endgame for the same reasons archer classes do.

I have stated exactly how to nerf archers. Cut their damage output by 1/3. Just because your affected and biased opinion doesn't dictate that's valid doesn't mean anyone should listen to you. Why is that not valid? Just because you say so apparenly. I've already told you why it is in fact valid, because 3 archers, generates 33%*3=100% of a phantom meleer. And that argument promptly goes straight over your heads.

I've said that three three times now. I don't know how to say it any clearer to you all.

Would you rather we just ban your ass if you show up with 6 archers in your party at a raid because at that point you've proven yourself a chronic threat to the game's balance? What do you want? As long as there is no functional point in a meleer, you're getting something here. Because you can't handle the responsibility of that imbalance without turning the product to crap just like your forefathers did to FFXI.

So what do you want? "Nothing" isn't an option. You are not mature enough to handle that option. Sooner or later you will ditch as many lancers, pugs, and marauders as you can. When the AoEs get hard. When the paralyze gets too severe. You'll cop out and get your archers on.

To prevent that inevitable failure on your part, you should be nerfed now so you CAN'T fail like that. So how do YOU want it?

My guess is that half of you secretly love the idea of eventually being the in-demand, doted-on job, charging pugs to kill the dragon, telling lancers to go sit in a corner. Telling marauders to go level something useful to endgame if they want in your endgame shells.

Half of you all want that world back, because you know 80% of the game's population will not give in like you and just level whatever broken trash job gets them attention and glory. They WILL sit there as a pugilist and take it as opposed to playing like you. And that makes you all the more in-demand. If SE makes all the meleers your equals, then you're no longer special and in-demand.

That's what most of you really want in archer. You only play ranged attackers in MMOs because ranged attackers always get special consideration and attention in their endgame design.

And that's just a sad reason to play a job. For attention.

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Once again thats not a solution and just shows u dont know the mechanics of archer, my views are not biased as i prefer to play lancer, i only ranked up archer for the reduced threat skill and raging strike II (as i feel archer is rather boring to play). You calling my views biased is just ignorant. Simply stating to reduce their damage by 1/3 is not a solution, your unable to provide a smart way to reduce their damage output other than saying to reduce their dmg they do by 1/3 . This shows you havent even thought about damage types and how some mobs are more susceptible to certain damage types than others. i had already stated my suggestion for reducing archer output such as making multishot only usable while out of combat since alot of damage comes from doing a buffed multishot and you still criticized it lol.

No one class needs a nerf, the class system as a whole needs balance and class definition. We know class definition is on the way, we know they're changing it in some way. I would hope part of that is balancing out the classes.

If damage is all equal against a single target then Archer would become fairly obsolete. Pugilist can do constant, sustained damage. Lancer is great for line-of-sight damage. Marauder has tons of cone AoE damage. The only thing Archer affords is convenience to the player for not getting hurt. The only function I can see an Archer fulfilling would be incapacitation from a safe distance. My only problem is if say an Archer does the same damage to a single target as a Marauder does, why bring the Archer? Marauder has tons of AoE skills, you'll hit more enemies for the same damage.

The classes need their roles and specializations. Outside of pure damage dealing abilities there needs to be a reason to bring one class over the other.

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

If you can't handle not playing a broken archer, maybe you need to quit instead of archer. Archer will be just fine without the chronic kinds of players who always look for it to be overpowered, or else they whine cry and quit.

There'd be a point for archer in the game. Just not for YOU to play it.

Being the top DD isn't the only thing you can do. You can avoid all AoE damage and debilitations. Sorry. Don't think that's an advantage? That's your ignorance to be fixed, because if you played FFXI from 2002-2007, you honestly can't argue that it's not an advantage unless you're just blatantly oblivious.

Don't make the mistake of posturing that archer would be nothing without YOUR vision of archer governing it. Square Enix already made it clear that if they have to choose between you and a balanced archer, they won't choose you.

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I already have another class to play. Your solution is not viable. As I have pointed out several times if you take away an archers DD you need to give them something to make them of value to a party. That's what balancing is. What you're asking for is not balanced.

Hey guys remember pre-Ranger nerf in FFXI when all the HNM groups were rolling with RDM+RNG only parties? Oh wait, that didn't happen because it's all in Peregrine's head. XIV's class composition woes are entirely encounter design and overall system design flaws and the solution's not "nerf THM and ARC".

The current system and encounters are prone to class-stacking because they don't require anything more than raw generic damage and because stats in general are completely broken such that actual "tank" classes aren't taking significantly less damage than others and are only useful for their larger HP pool.

Your nerf "solution" would merely suggest to players that "hey, you can bring other classes... if you feel like it" (which they can now anyway since the content is so easy that only OCD minmaxers or terrible players need to stack ARC) and doesn't actually do anything to fix the real problem of all damage being generic and interchangeable.

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Originally Posted by Raikki

Hey guys remember pre-Ranger nerf in FFXI when all the HNM groups were rolling with RDM+RNG only parties? Oh wait, that didn't happen because it's all in Peregrine's head.

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Now if that isn't the most ignorant post in the thread...
Your typical fafnir party went:

Pld, pld, whm, rdm, brd, brd.
Blm, Blm, Blm, Blm, Rdm, Brd.
Rng, Rng, Rng, Whm, Rng, Brd.

Thief in the corner ready to be swapped in.
Rest of the meleers just straight ****in wherever. A fly party for all anyone cared.

You fail. If you even played XI before ToAU, you sure as hell weren't paying attention. Not that most english speakers would know. Game was mostly fixed by the time most of you all showed up to Fafnir with a decent shot at getting it. Post-DAT patch, for sure.

Every last offensive job in that setup claimed they "earned their positions" just like you all are. And every last one of them was beaten within an inch of their lives with a nerf bat for it.

Friendly reminder:

This is a troll thread. After 49 pages of discussion only 11 people have thumbed it up. If you stop posting in it, it will go away.


(Yes, I posted in it to tell you this, hopefully for the greater good.)

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

Now if that isn't the most ignorant post in the thread...
Your typical fafnir party went:

Pld, pld, whm, rdm, brd, brd.
Blm, Blm, Blm, Blm, Rdm, Brd.
Rng, Rng, Rng, Whm, Rng, Brd.
Thief in the corner ready to be swapped in.
Rest of the meleers just straight ****in wherever. A fly party for all anyone cared.

You fail. If you even played XI before ToAU, you sure as hell weren't paying attention. Not that most english speakers would know. Game was mostly fixed by the time most of you all showed up to Fafnir with a decent shot at getting it. Post-DAT patch, for sure.

Every last offensive job in that setup claimed they "earned their positions" just like you all are. And every last one of them was beaten within an inch of their lives with a nerf bat for it.

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Bring Rng to Fafnir, right that is really smart.

let this thread die. It's just 1 guy vs everyone else.

uhhh yeah, maybe its cause some people played early, but yeah ranger was becoming the only DD people respected for endgame NMs. monk had to take all of its clothes off, put on some mind robes, and boost for 2 minutes 30 second in the corner, then get swapped in the alliance for one chi blast, and monk was lucky because sam drk drg war were lucky if the ls was pretty good theyd try to get a sneak attack off once in awhile.

Most hard nms had a variety of AOE skills that made the upkeep of melees not worthwhile, also the ffeding the mob tp angle, and the debuffs.
and it wasnt just endgame, the hot thing became ranger burn parties.

I think many of yall came to ffxi late, because not only did they nerf ranger, they boosted 2 hand weapon damage, ranger was so far ahead most DD it was insane. Before merits most DD did like 20-40 a regular hit on hard NMs.

Anyhow people say lancer got buffs, marauder got aoe, what reason does pugilist have to do less damage than an archer? before you say because it can tank, understand that is no help in most party situations, unless they are tanking, also most of you vastly overate archers lack of defense, they have evasion, a native blink like skill, and can use any number of defensive skills. they also have quickstride, i think they can avoid damage a lot better than a pug who needs to be inside of a monster to do his job.
i literally have to fight a toad inside the toad or it says out of range, and i can completely avoid tail chase on lancer by standing at the end of attack range.
why is the guy who can attack with the least risk, the one who has the most damage?

If you want to make your lower hp a fair trade off, then, you gonna actually have to create situations where you can get hit, lets be honest archer also has enimity skills on lowest cooldown, they are probably the least likely DD to get hate for damage dealt. So wheres the balance?

haha i remember that chi blast thing, man that was lame =p

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Originally Posted by Physic

uhhh yeah, maybe its cause some people played early, but yeah ranger was becoming the only DD people respected for endgame NMs. monk had to take all of its clothes off, put on some mind robes, and boost for 2 minutes 30 second in the corner, then get swapped in the alliance for one chi blast, and monk was lucky because sam drk drg war were lucky if the ls was pretty good theyd try to get a sneak attack off once in awhile.

Most hard nms had a variety of AOE skills that made the upkeep of melees not worthwhile, also the ffeding the mob tp angle, and the debuffs.
and it wasnt just endgame, the hot thing became ranger burn parties.

I think many of yall came to ffxi late, because not only did they nerf ranger, they boosted 2 hand weapon damage, ranger was so far ahead most DD it was insane. Before merits most DD did like 20-40 a regular hit on hard NMs.

Anyhow people say lancer got buffs, marauder got aoe, what reason does pugilist have to do less damage than an archer? before you say because it can tank, understand that is no help in most party situations, unless they are tanking, also most of you vastly overate archers lack of defense, they have evasion, a native blink like skill, and can use any number of defensive skills. they also have quickstride, i think they can avoid damage a lot better than a pug who needs to be inside of a monster to do his job.
i literally have to fight a toad inside the toad or it says out of range, and i can completely avoid tail chase on lancer by standing at the end of attack range.
why is the guy who can attack with the least risk, the one who has the most damage?

If you want to make your lower hp a fair trade off, then, you gonna actually have to create situations where you can get hit, lets be honest archer also has enimity skills on lowest cooldown, they are probably the least likely DD to get hate for damage dealt. So wheres the balance?

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Oh ARC can have it's damage reduced but you still have to make it the same as other DD or lower it further and give them some kind of support role. The problem is the people crying nerf aren't asking for balance to keep the class viable while asking for the reduction in DD. Every class but ARC and GLD have multiple roles they can fill in a party. Saying an ARC shouldn't have DD is the same as saying a GLD shouldn't have provoke at this point.

Like i said before, if it were up to me Id add party vs party combat so deeply in this game, that it would be a rare thing where you can just fight one dude. Id also make some mobs have different hate multipliers for certain types of damage/healing, Making off tanks matter, and likely that some points in battle you may take damage. Then ranger would be justified damage wise, but honestly in that type of situation, id forgo damage as the main class focus and go with utility, aoe shadowbinds, special types of debuff arrows (say changing their weakness, like oil arrows, things that make them weaker to slashing/peircing etc)

Problem is, since most people arent used to that kind of complex play, and having to take/avoid damage, It would probably be hated by all, and they would want perfect tanks who could lock down all hate on multiple mobs at once easily, so they can go back to doing only one thing.

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Originally Posted by Physic

Like i said before, if it were up to me Id add party vs party combat so deeply in this game, that it would be a rare thing where you can just fight one dude. Id also make some mobs have different hate multipliers for certain types of damage/healing, Making off tanks matter, and likely that some points in battle you may take damage. Then ranger would be justified damage wise, but honestly in that type of situation, id forgo damage as the main class focus and go with utility, aoe shadowbinds, special types of debuff arrows (say changing their weakness, like oil arrows, things that make them weaker to slashing/peircing etc)

Problem is, since most people arent used to that kind of complex play, and having to take/avoid damage, It would probably be hated by all, and they would want perfect tanks who could lock down all hate on multiple mobs at once easily, so they can go back to doing only one thing.

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Ok that makes since and definitely more fun than what we have right now.

I'm failing to see the need behind the OP's rather militant crusade to destroy Archer damage output. Does it need some adjusting to bring it more in line with other DD classes? Probably. It is, however, a moot point until the sweeping battle changes that SE are promising are put into place. Any adjustment made now to the class may severely under-power Archer when the changes to combat are "finalized".

I'm sure everyone is aware of the upcoming battle adjustments and changes, I just wanted to chime in and say that the dev. team is committed to performing class balancing adjustments as needed.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

I'm sure everyone is aware of the upcoming battle adjustments and changes, I just wanted to chime in and say that the dev. team is committed to performing class balancing adjustments as needed.

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Thank you!

And once again I know nothing that I didn't already know 5 minutes ago.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

I'm sure everyone is aware of the upcoming battle adjustments and changes, I just wanted to chime in and say that the dev. team is committed to performing class balancing adjustments as needed.

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do not forget to increase magic attack!

and real AMs

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Originally Posted by Kurokikaze

And once again I know nothing that I didn't already know 5 minutes ago.

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Congratulations!

lol perform class balances as needed?

Sup THM.

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Originally Posted by Moth

the reason why there are so many iron/engraved bhuj's on the wards is because: 1. they are so easy to make. 2. everyone is trying to HQ them, therefor lots of NQ's on the wards that people are trying to dump off their retainers.
I am by no means an archer "fanboy", my archer is level 15. But you are not going to win this battle Peregrine, sorry to dissapoint.

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This right here. Crab bows are a lot harder to make than Bhujs.

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Originally Posted by Kurokikaze

And once again I know nothing that I didn't already know 5 minutes ago.

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Implying we knew anything in the firstplace. :P

I'll give you that one. lol

Actually... We knew theres going to be Auto Attack and a Job System going forward. :P

Oh, we know more than that!

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Originally Posted by Myri

I'm failing to see the need behind the OP's rather militant crusade to destroy Archer damage output. Does it need some adjusting to bring it more in line with other DD classes? Probably. It is, however, a moot point until the sweeping battle changes that SE are promising are put into place. Any adjustment made now to the class may severely under-power Archer when the changes to combat are "finalized".

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Argued about a dozen times, and refuted every time. You don't wait and sit on problems. You don't wait for them to become problems before you fix imbalances. In fact, they probably haven't.

Thaumaturge and archer have probably already been nerfed, and that nerf will probably come before the player base starts really abusing them. There's a difference between what many of you all want, which is to wait for the problem to manifest itself overtly before acting on it, and what the devs may do, which is wait for an efficient time to balance two problem jobs.

Biggest mistake SE could ever do (again) is to let archer manifest as a problem before they actually nerf it. Then you not only have to balance the job, you have to choke allllll those players who flocked to archer to imbalance-get in the delay time when you could have fixed it BEFORE they became affected fanboys of it. Give them an inch, and suddenly you're dealing with a mob of players who are spoiled and think they deserve the imbalance because they're too biased to think about anyone who isn't an archer. They'll just argue that if the pug wants to be useful, no one is stopping him from levelling archer.

And at that point it's over. You already screwed up. You should have beaten that player months ago with a stick, before the pugilist quit the game.

Make no mistake...self-entitled ranged classes hurt the game. In XI, the devs screwed up royally. They lost both the close-DDs from 2002-2006 after their jobs weren't given the endgame respect and balance they deserve, AND they lost the spoiled brat blms and rangers from 2006 to 2008 after they finally realized their game was dying and thus beat the **** out of the players that caused it.

Save all that. Nerf em before they start leaving the close-DDs in town to go fight the Malboro NM in the dungeon. That way the other DDs don't get put in 2nd class citizen status and the ranged classes don't get morbidly obese off coddling imbalances to the point where they would ragequit en masse if touched.

The best way to not have a spoiled brat of a child is to never accidentally teach it to behave like that. Once you have a spoiled brat on your hands...it's hard to fix it.

Apparently nerfing a class is the only way to fix these problems... Cause you know, they couldn't possibly buff/rebalance the other classes to make them more competitive. That would make too much sense.

Archer isn't that strong - the other classes are just really weak. THM is the exception with its gamebreaking arsenal (cough*emulate*cough).

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

I'm not the one ignorant on archer's power. You are. You think you know the numbers just because you play it? You're biased and subjective. I'm looking at the numbers right now. You need about a 30% reduction in damage. I don't have to play you to see your output. This is yet another discredited argument.

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No more discredited than your OP. I already know archer's strengths and weaknesses pretty well, nevermind the fact that you insist the weaknesses are irrelevant. you are the one who is ignorant.

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Originally Posted by Kurokikaze

Apparently nerfing a class is the only way to fix these problems... Cause you know, they couldn't possibly buff/rebalance the other classes to make them more competitive. That would make too much sense.

Archer isn't that strong - the other classes are just really weak. THM is the exception with its gamebreaking arsenal (cough*emulate*cough).

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Very true, Mrd for example could use more accuracy, alot more accuracy. I know it's a heavy damage class, but does that justify the fact that 8 or 9 times out of 10, you will miss, or the target will evade?

Hello Everyone!

We understand your passion regarding changes and balance in game. It is very commendable and shows us that you really care for our game.

With that said, it does seem this thread has gotten a bit off topic so we are going to close it.

Thank you for your understanding.

-Senior Game Master Jhanaka