2.0: New Disciple of Magic or Spell Reform?

Still nothing from Representative's or Developer's side?

Tons of ideas and not one of them is being taken into considerations? Or atleast buffing Fire/Ice spells at the the very least?

Makes sense that there's no way to email these guys or their translators directly with the finished ideas, but tbh if something was finalized out of this line of thought, on our end, that's the first thing I'd want to do.

Just out of curiosity, Jinrya, if you were looking for an ideal system in general for magics, what sort of checklist would you have for it?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Makes sense that there's no way to email these guys or their translators directly with the finished ideas, but tbh if something was finalized out of this line of thought, on our end, that's the first thing I'd want to do.

Just out of curiosity, Jinrya, if you were looking for an ideal system in general for magics, what sort of checklist would you have for it?

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1. Are the games casters Fun to play?
Doesn't matter if you have 1 or 10 or more. If they aren't fun to play then why have them. Black Mage only have 1 good damaging combo line is not fun. Fire and Ice should be effective.

2. Are there alot of casters? The world of magic is limitless. You can make up ANYTHING, and this isn't SEs first rodeo with casters. Why are there only two? For anyone who role-plays or just like playing casters, this game lacks it.

3. Don't limit casters. Makes a developer look lazy when you limit a caster to only a few abilities. Casters should have the most, and all of them should be useful. 15 abilities, for summoner that's gonna be half or more of their abilities just to summon, at least 8 for the elements and light and dark.

4. Make sure they are all good for different situations. Nothing is more annoying that a class that is left out of events because it's useless. Example what will blm/thm be able to do against Ramuh or Titan? Or Against a mob that spams aoes and burns summoners pets and just makes them waste MP?

5. [Are pet casters balanced to regular casters? Pet casters should be equal to or less than casters such as Black Mage considering they don't have a pet to do constant damage. I go by Everquest online adventures for the ps2 as an example. Perfect balance by the end game's life.

That was the beauty of EQOA, it had a ton of caster class. Sure some of the abilities were the same, but most of the abilities were not.

Wizard had 1 sec cast/recast, had all element aoes, and single target spells. They later got Master class of sorcerer that had unresistable aoes so you could use fire on fire mobs.

Necromancer summoned all different kinds of undead. They had fire spells that had some damage of time spells, while having purely damage of time spells that ticked faster and hard. They could charm undead. Their Master class allowed them to have the best pet in game, swarming death. It could keep itself alive, and the necromancer can heal it. The Necromancer was also a good back up healer.

Enchanter could charm any monster, and for a long time. The most was an hour I believe. Their master class allowed them to have a pet till it died. Raging Rhino (second only to the swarming death) made them unstoppable in PVP lol. They could also have enchanted armors which were good tanks when they soloed.

Magician Elemental summoner. They tied with Necromancer, and Enchanter with damage with their Djinn pet. High Melee, and high spell damage.

Shaman and Druid had spells that Cleric didn't have, but Cleric had the highest tick heals and defensive buffs.

Of course none of this wasn't perfect in the beginning. But this only took 2 years to make it this way. I am not doing it justice with how I describe it, it's better. This game is is almost on it's second year and I feel casters suck just as bad as they did when they game first came out. It's not fun to be a caster.

If I were to really go by a checklist, what they did in EQOA would be my reference of what balanced and unique classes are.

In Two years they added Master classes which gave each class in the game 3 Improved classes and 1 Race Master classes.

Not only did the Master Class boost your stats, it raised the cap on them too if you picked the right ones. You also got access to powerful spells. You actually SEE the difference between a Wizard damage from a Sorcerer's damage.

This is why I am angered by SE's Job systems, it adds NOTHING. Thaumaturge can do equal damage or even more in certain situations to black mage. I was expecting something similar and it all that time waiting amounted to nothing. And now 2.0 is the only thing holding me to this game. And no one is saying anything about caster... so maybe waiting another half a year or more to find out, when a game that was out for almost 8 or more years did somethign sooner and better. Are you serious!?

My personal checklist:

1. Does magic seem to work in a system of its own, that can be realistically taken advantage of?
And here by realistically I kind of mean 'freely'. No excessive or unrealistic lockouts. It should work as physics work for an engineer, or as close to that as can be put in a game.

2. Is that system interesting?
Does it feel like magic? And within that question, does it feel like both an understandable or exact and purely intuitive or humanistic and mysterious force depending on how you look at it? Do the questions within magic, even down into theory crafting, match or feel tangential to the questions one can ask about the world? Is it expansive? Can it be crossed?

3. [More general than magic-specific] Does you understanding of the art make you feel like you have a niche?
And that goes beyond just how you fit into a group...

4. Is it fun to play?
Whether the game uses action-bars or something less conventional, does it feel fun in pairing attention to execution of spells, to noticing your environment, to figuring out what to use? Which leads to --

5. Is there enough complexity in choice?
Even if you have the most complex and vast choice-work in how you gain your abilities, or the sources they come from or their means of output, if they all do the same thing the difference is overwhelmed, blurred, dismal. I think this, especially when preparing for the long run, has more to do with the choices made in creating a magic system than balancing fights. Inversely, the nature of fights have to be complex, but that too should probably come more from a better deep-seated AI and mechanics design than individual fight crafting, aside from specific highlight (memorable or token) encounters.

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Additionally, more relevant to FFXIV:

There is still a place for classes even in a game that doesn't lock things out by class. In any world setting, people align with like-minded people, and that will almost certainly create certain schools of thought. These will obviously become classes.

That's the physical realm. But additionally, many, many world setting's system of magic includes a humanistic portion. Classes are commonly the archetypes within that portion, such that a player is walking the path of a past hero or past legacy.

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None of this is exactly usable for FFXIV of course, but it was only meant to be my general checklist. It's true I put a lot of faith in backing design, but I think I've seen enough its potential and its results both to warrant that.

I do however think that the prior section's regards to classes should have been in FFXIV from the start, however, especially given the armory system. One should be able to learn any role or style with time, but things plateau and take a leap of inspiration or new perspective, as much to improve the stuck line of thought as to pursue the new one. I think even the poorly executed Skill Point and Fatigue system pointed to that originally. They just never implemented a way to replicate true learning, which honestly is incredibly hard.

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* A clearer example of what I mean above: let's say you pick up a sword, you can learn to swing at varying speeds and strength, to parry, even to feint. In a command scheme this would be like adding abilities as you go that hold the tactical points in combat. You have your Heavy Swing, your Light Swing, etc. A Light Swing too far away can serve to keep an enemy back, a Heavy Swing cut short can serve to intimidate while conserving energy or avoiding a bait-and-sink counter. If that level of mechanics don't exist there's still rhythm, timing to interrupt or be at ready for a parry.

(Think of the command scheme as being a means of execution for what exists, rather than existing to limit or be the parameters for what you can do. Both apply eventually, but the methodology for construction is vastly difference.)

Maybe after many fights you could eventually learn how to time ducking with your dodging with your slicing. But that's an improvement on the player's part. What about character "learning"? Well, things need to get more complicated. But that means the character needs to note complexity--it already exists after all. However, it's not really something that can be evaluated on the field. There's no check we can do to see whether the player, let alone his character, has learned a difference of mindsets.

But a Gladiator guild, for instance, would have that. And it would allow tailored trademark encounters that could more or less force learning to be successful in those encounters. Through this, the player (and character) become more aware of what's backing a fight beyond the obvious. From that they can tailor themselves further. Mindsets become projections of magic. A Gladiator becomes a Paladin, or a Samurai or a Blackguard or what have you. And the options for taking learning from other classes and their styles, domains, and methodologies are always available to you for cross-classing.

A Thaumaturge might learn how to enfeeble someone through multiple methods -- be it projection (of intent), marking (fulfilling the enemy's position in a rite), or calling (divine will), or whatever else. The same kind who would use projection for cursing might also use it for conjuring heat, whether fire alone or on a spectrum between Flame and Frost. Add that to a Gladiator's mindset of keeping a cool head, a Gladiator's control of adrenaline, and training with a Rapier, and you have your Red Mage.

And, what's funny is that to keep a pure class, development only needs to include a large enough humanistic/archetypal source of magic that donning the hat, so to speak, of the Red Mage, using purely Red Mage abilities, carries a large enough bonus through whatever extra power comes from playing on its legacy to warrant skipping other spells.

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Originally Posted by Jinrya-Geki

1. Are the games casters Fun to play?
Doesn't matter if you have 1 or 10 or more. If they aren't fun to play then why have them. Black Mage only have 1 good damaging combo line is not fun. Fire and Ice should be effective.

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They took the Suikoden route of magic design, whcih means each element has a specific use. It's pretty clever if you want to condense stuff and not have clutter when it comes to abilities. Clutter happens to be something native to Final Fantasy's magic, so I wasn't so bothered by the decision.

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2. Are there alot of casters? The world of magic is limitless. You can make up ANYTHING, and this isn't SEs first rodeo with casters. Why are there only two? For anyone who role-plays or just like playing casters, this game lacks it.

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Black Magic, White Magic. That's it. Final Fantasy's magic was pretty much divided by these two schools, and they have been the real constants in the series, Sure, Blue Magic does exist, but is nigh uncontrollable and real hard to balance. Then comes the fact that you have to implement it in a way that makes sense. There's nothing in XIV that would make sense for Blue Magic, requiring the developers to re-imagine Blue Magic again and then implement a class for it to be built on and then actually release Blue Mage.

Personally, I think you're confusing schools of magic with fancy titles that we refer to as job names.

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3. Don't limit casters. Makes a developer look lazy when you limit a caster to only a few abilities. Casters should have the most, and all of them should be useful. 15 abilities, for summoner that's gonna be half or more of their abilities just to summon, at least 8 for the elements and light and dark.

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I expect Summoner to have individual action bars per avatar that's out.

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4. Make sure they are all good for different situations. Nothing is more annoying that a class that is left out of events because it's useless. Example what will blm/thm be able to do against Ramuh or Titan? Or Against a mob that spams aoes and burns summoners pets and just makes them waste MP?

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Situational play sucks and will regardless exclude someone. The answer is to make gameplay and encounters inclusive rather than exclusive.

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5. [Are pet casters balanced to regular casters? Pet casters should be equal to or less than casters such as Black Mage considering they don't have a pet to do constant damage. I go by Everquest online adventures for the ps2 as an example. Perfect balance by the end game's life.

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Balance should be between master and pet. If you want to do SMN vs BLM, I'd say both should be doing about the same DPS, but both bringing some form of utility that makes them nice to have around but not make either mandatory. Along of the lines of WoW, where you could bring a Warlock and a Mage and not have them overlap because despite both doing the same DPS, the Warlock would bring Blood Pact (+Stamina to the whole party) and Curse of the Elements (+Spell Damage taken on the mob) while the Mage could bring Amplify Magic (+Magic effects on a party member) and Time Warp (think Haste, but on steroids).

Jinrya wants to be Red Mage again so badly.

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Originally Posted by Firon

Resonance makes the Aoe range bigger So Flare hits bosses you dont have to get close to them and you can add the dot to them to slow down bosses rgen which is better than aero and, Blizzara isn't just for raids and spamming AoE, its a utility spell that if you get to much aggro you on you can blizzara and run then sleep. Just cause you cant find more than once for the spell does not mean its not good. Learn your job.

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Bumping cause I don't want to interrupt Reinhart's awesome thread. So I'll bring it here.

Congratulations you showed me what a moron you are. You obviously know nothing of black mage.

First off, Flare is a shotgun effect as I stated earlier. It's full potential damage is on you, if the mob is literally on the line between getting hit or not, the damage is gonna be crap. The DoT isn't even good. Against a boss, unless it's Mistress Mizer, is the worst spell to use. The DoT won't do jack to the boss regen because it's a boss! Enfeebles absolutely are 99.99% of the time useless. Even if it lands it will hardly to anything, the 2nd time you're just wasting time. Resonance doesn't help enough on this spell.

Blizzara, what are you not getting about how uesless this spell is? If any, and I say any damage the falls on the mob, the bind effect is removed. What does everyone do in a raid against trash mobs, hhhhhhhhhmmmm I think it's spam aoes. So the bind effect is once again, useless. The damage on Blizzara is the same as flare pitiful and not worth using in a regular fight, in a boss fight it doesn't even exist. The only time I ever used it is in the black mage AF fight.

Sleepga is exactly the same situation as Blizzara, with everyone spamming aoe on trash mobs. It's slightly more useful because of sleeping toads.

Jinrya I am just going to point out that I am very, very goddamn thankful for Blizzarra. I can't count the amount of times that sucker saved my life when doing leves.

i think you should be more open to news, instead to force your classic blm point of view to all costs

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Originally Posted by Skies

Jinrya I am just going to point out that I am very, very goddamn thankful for Blizzarra. I can't count the amount of times that sucker saved my life when doing leves.

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Ya but thats about the extent for its usefulness only if your soloing really.

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Originally Posted by yukikaze_yanagi

i think you should be more open to news, instead to force your classic blm point of view to all costs

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Well if blm is going to be limited to only 3 elements, those 3 should be good not just 1 out of the 3. Or SE should just change Black Mage to Thunder Mage.

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Originally Posted by Skies

Jinrya I am just going to point out that I am very, very goddamn thankful for Blizzarra. I can't count the amount of times that sucker saved my life when doing leves.

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Skies, it's good when you are soloing mobs when you want to run away. In terms of crowd control when in a party with everyone spamming attacks it's useless. The same goes with sleepga. With the current enfeeble system crowd control spells are very ineffective.

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Originally Posted by yukikaze_yanagi

i think you should be more open to news, instead to force your classic blm point of view to all costs

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Yukikaze, I am open to any idea to Black mage. But when the class version of Black Mage could do great damage with Fire/Ice/Lightning spells plus make them single target or toggle aoe, or bio actually able to high damage then do a powerful damage over time spell, or enfeebles actually work such as blind and slow, or the ancient magic spells doing incredibly high damage before you get to the point of doing 9999 damage with every spell, compared to what we have now... where we only do consistant damage with two thunder spells... it's very boring.

I too think blm have some issue, but every time i read one of your blockade on blm you look more and more conservative. Majority of people asked AoE toggle to be removed, and it's been done.
Bio no longer exist
elfeblees too, will be reintroduced somehow, but now don't exist
am doind 9999 ? Quite an overkill over here, neither ffxi' ancient never did so much...
blm need more variety, yes, but you're just asking old thm, which no more exist. find some other class to play until they put a mage class more suitable to you then

Give BLM 3 elemental stances so they can change their main damage focus based on the situation.
Weak to Ice? Use "Ice Stance". Now the blizzard line deals higher damage and can combo while thunder and fire get crowd control properties and thunder loses the damage capabilities. "Fire Stance"> Fire spells are now single target with a different combo bonus, thunder and blizzard for crowd control. "Thunder Stance"> what we have now.

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Originally Posted by yukikaze_yanagi

I too think blm have some issue, but every time i read one of your blockade on blm you look more and more conservative. Majority of people asked AoE toggle to be removed, and it's been done.
Bio no longer exist
elfeblees too, will be reintroduced somehow, but now don't exist
am doind 9999 ? Quite an overkill over here, neither ffxi' ancient never did so much...
blm need more variety, yes, but you're just asking old thm, which no more exist. find some other class to play until they put a mage class more suitable to you then

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It was an example of old classic Final Fantasy not the online ones.

I would love to level a new caster job if there were more. I don't like any of the DoW classes.

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Originally Posted by Alkar

Give BLM 3 elemental stances so they can change their main damage focus based on the situation.
Weak to Ice? Use "Ice Stance". Now the blizzard line deals higher damage and can combo while thunder and fire get crowd control properties and thunder loses the damage capabilities. "Fire Stance"> Fire spells are now single target with a different combo bonus, thunder and blizzard for crowd control. "Thunder Stance"> what we have now.

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Actually i think you got a great idea
"astral stance": gain access to stone aero and water spells
"umbral stance": gain access to fire thunder and ice
That way they could give all elements to blm again without flooding action bar

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Originally Posted by yukikaze_yanagi

Actually i think you got a great idea
"astral stance": gain access to stone aero and water spells
"umbral stance": gain access to fire thunder and ice
That way they could give all elements to blm again without flooding action bar

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BLM would need to be reassigned to CNJ, CNJ would need to be designed around the stances, and THM would have to get redesigned again. /sign

Do you guys seriously think that Sleepga and Blizzara are useless as CC because they break on damage? Haghahooaohoahohohohohoo

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

Do you guys seriously think that Sleepga and Blizzara are useless as CC because they break on damage? Haghahooaohoahohohohohoo

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When the purpose of spell is to stop an enemy, and it doesn't because everyone just kills the monsters in a few seconds. How useful can that spell be? Instead of putting out damage you waste mp and time doing something that isn't important.

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Originally Posted by Jinrya-Geki

When the purpose of spell is to stop an enemy, and it doesn't because everyone just kills the monsters in a few seconds. How useful can that spell be? Instead of putting out damage you waste mp and time doing something that isn't important.

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Perhaps your party is dead in your signature because you undervalue crowd control.

Enfeebles don't work on bosses :/

But forget it, I don't give a shit anymore...

tired of trying.

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Originally Posted by Jinrya-Geki

Enfeebles don't work on bosses :/

But forget it, I don't give a shit anymore...

tired of trying.

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You will continue to try eternally in mind, however, Jinrya. In fact, I will ever remember the Jinrya Interrupt on many threads.

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Originally Posted by Skies

You will continue to try eternally in mind, however, Jinrya. In fact, I will ever remember the Jinrya Interrupt on many threads.

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Nope, I give up entirely.

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Originally Posted by yukikaze_yanagi

Actually i think you got a great idea
"astral stance": gain access to stone aero and water spells
"umbral stance": gain access to fire thunder and ice
That way they could give all elements to blm again without flooding action bar

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That's a bit extreme. BLM is fine with only 3 elements but the issue here is not something that can be seen yet.
Right now there's no boss that outright resists thunder completely so the issue of Thunder being the main source of damage doesn't exist, yet. Now let's jump ahead and consider things like Ramuh... here comes the issue. In that case BLM is useless as it can't compare to anyone else with their damage and wouldn't be able to participate due to gameplay issue not community stacking certain jobs. Blizzard and Fire spells aren't good damaging spells compared to the Thunder line.
My idea is simply to allow BLM to pick their main element of choice depending on the situation and be able to perform just as well with all three elements when it comes to raw damage.

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

Do you guys seriously think that Sleepga and Blizzara are useless as CC because they break on damage? Haghahooaohoahohohohohoo

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well doesnt help when every job has some form of aoe that they spam. War steel cyclone, leg sweep, that brd aoe not sure what it was called, not so much with aura pulse from mnks. making the sleepga very useless. and blizzara is only good for soloing. (and the exception of the BLM af body fight)

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Originally Posted by KoujiGeki

well doesnt help when every job has some form of aoe that they spam. War steel cyclone, leg sweep, that brd aoe not sure what it was called, not so much with aura pulse from mnks. making the sleepga very useless. and blizzara is only good for soloing. (and the exception of the BLM af body fight)

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Generally, when you're using CC moves like that, the LAST thing you wanna do is AoE anyway, because by then you don't need to barf out tons and tons of damage all over the damn place, you need to make sure that certain enemies do not engage in battle.
Not saying that the tool is perfect at all, but your use for it appears to be misguided.

What the op don't understand is zerging thru content does not mean CC is useless it's up to the blm to find out when to use the enfeebs and for him to say they don't work is laughable when as a blm I have soloed Coincounter from 10% hp cause of blizarra. I have also a number of times stunned a boss with thundra to stop it from killing a tank with an Tp move like 100 ton swing or the chimera moves or an bad breath.

Also hey just made debuffs on all jobs even stronger last patch and DRG i would say is second for CC skills, I found out today a drg opening with leg sweep in raids will stun everything and give blm worry free time to nuke w/o dying.

While flare DoT is not OP it does help the regen on bosses tagged along with Aero Resonance > Flare is so helpful on boss fights that it should always be used.

Only thing i do agree with that BLM should have a move similar to Cleric stance that will toggle some moves aoe or just simply add more combo's to make certain spells Single target just like the whm line of spells.

Time to plug my old thread that was largely overlooked. ^^

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-system-for-ya.

This system would make a lot of people happy, i think.

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Originally Posted by Skies

Generally, when you're using CC moves like that, the LAST thing you wanna do is AoE anyway, because by then you don't need to barf out tons and tons of damage all over the damn place, you need to make sure that certain enemies do not engage in battle.
Not saying that the tool is perfect at all, but your use for it appears to be misguided.

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no i was saying other trigger happy players i know that if we need CC im not using my aoes as a DD or if im Blm at the time.

Once more for the Red Wizard...

Work in progress. Points in question marked with **. Bullets are mostly technical details that came up in imagining counter-arguments or to briefly clarify.

Three parts: the reform, examples of cross-element combinations, and a footnote. I recommend skipping the middle.

--Spell Reform--

Introduction of Caster TP:
Casters will use TP. However, it will be generated differently. TP will increase with casts of the same element, and diminish even in combat, starting 3 seconds after the last cast in that element. Each element gives a bonus as TP increases, and is usable while being generated. TP, and the bonus with it, is consumed by your highest tier spell of any element whose cast can take advantage of the bonus. The consumed effect is roughly double the passive bonus. If the caster has no Tier 2 spells, TP will be consumed by changing elements.
• The effect is doubled at the start of the consuming cast, but the bonus is not consumed until after the cast is completed.
• A highest-tier spell is unable to “take advantage of the bonus” and therefore does not consume TP when no part of the spell’s casting or effect is advantaged by the bonus. In the case of Ice TP as in the section below, the highest Lightning tier advantaged by the bonus is Thundara, due to its stun chance.
• **Considering other ways of handling TP consumption in a more active manner.
• **May add a spell that consumes the TP but continues the bonus for a standard duration, allowing it to stack once starting on a new TP type.

Each spell Tier will only benefit from TP bonuses to a point. Tier 1 spells will gain no further bonus past 1250 TP, and Tier 2 spells will max out at 2000 TP.
• **The second amount may need adjusting.
• Caster maximum TP is still 3000.

Element TP effects:
Ice increases status effect affliction chance, duration, and the number of attacks needed to break a breakable status effect. Fire increases AoE size and reduces cast speed, rounded to the nearest yalm and quarter second. Lightning increases damage by 1% per 20 TP.
• **Have not decided on effects for Wind and Earth yet. Post originally made only with Black Mages in mind.
• Ice bonus protection of your breakable status effects protects against one additional attack for every 1250 TP.

Recast Times:
Tier 1 recast times removed, damage dealt and mana spent scaled down by 50%. (“Other Drastic Changes to Caster Playstyle” important to this change.)

Many other spells now use ‘optimal recast time’. Effect is reduced before waiting the optimal amount of time before recast. Time since last cast marked on ability icon. The ‘optimal recast’ times will average half of their previous recast times.

Some ‘optimal recast’ times are two-stage. Aerora, Thundara, and Blizzara will all do full damage at 10, 12, and 15 seconds respectively, but will not carry dispel effects, instant cast, or chance of Bind until 20, 24, and 30 seconds respectively.
• Two stage ‘optimal recast time’ abilities will mention this feature in their tooltips and will make use of additional text colors along their progress to ‘half-optimal’ and ‘full-optimal’ to show both proximity and to which stage.
• The inability to cause secondary effects will be taken into account when considering whether or not a spell can make use of a bonus in regards to TP consumption.

TP Generation:
Generally a Tier 1 cast is worth between 200 and 250 TP, and a Tier 2 cast between 300 and 500.

Quality of Life Changes:
Spell-chain: Casters can string together multiple spells. These will show as icons above a bar with a length in units of seconds. In default UI, the bar stays the same size as spells and their times are added, the seconds becoming smaller portions of the bar. This is to smooth out casting, help deal with latency, and generally make casting a bit less frustrating.

Direct Casting: The need to hit Enter or click on the target after selecting a spell can also be turned off. Modes include ‘Default’, ‘Always on Target’, and ‘Target When Locked’.

Other Drastic Changes to Caster Playstyle:
Players can cast while walking.
• This is primarily to increase the total options of cast strings without the obvious land-locking
• Walking refers to slowed movement speed, which is done automatically. “Walking” mode toggle is not necessary.

Time spent still somewhat decreases mana cost of spells. This follows a slow de-exponential curve.
• While not perfectly necessary, it’s a noticeable difference in mana-conservation in a long fight.

Time spent not casting slightly increases the effect of spells. TP slowly gained while targeted by an enemy.
• Returns some of the burst of casters in situations such as grinding and doing leves and adds kiting plausibility.

TP generated while out of combat to a maximum of 1000. Bonus will follow the first cast.
• Same rationale as above. Imagine something like casting Aero using Wind TP for increased range to start a solo fight.

Smaller Changes:
• Flare will be the only self-AoE. All other Self-AoEs have become target-centered AoEs.
• Blizzara initially has a low chance of binding any enemy other than the target or enemies within a half yalm of it.
• Some especially long Tier 2 spell recast times now have recast times fitting between the Tier 1 and Tier 3 of the same spell type.
• Many caster auxiliary spells changed out. **Haven’t finished them yet, but I plan to make them act through the different elements, such that relatively few abilities have a huge effect.



********************** I recommend skipping the rest ***********************

Exacts of Element Combinations

In addition to strategies like using Fire TP to expand Blizzara or Flare range or Ice TP to increase Thundara stun chance, there are certain exact mixtures of elements with unique effects. These will vary for different tiers but follow similar situations and niches of use across the two elements being combined.

Examples:

[**I can add the exact tables later. Pretty tired and I want to wrap this up. **]

Ice after Fire:
Enmity reduction. Scale is increased with the size of the Fire-type, and the reduction or redirection of enmity is caused by Ice.

Fire after Ice:
Attempts to spread your debilitating effects already on the target to those nearby at cost of the target’s debilitating effect.

Lightning after Ice:
Causes AoE damage. Animation of ice being shattered.

Ice after Lightning:
Magic defense down.

Earth after Ice:
Causes AoE damage. Animation of ice being shattered.

Earth after Lightning:
Stonera AoE range increased if targeting an enemy hit by a Lightning spell in the last 4 seconds. If Thundara fails to stun, Stone will attempt to stun again, at half Thundara’s stun chance.

Lightning after Wind:
Chance of spreading Lightning damage to an additional enemy recently hit by a Wind spell if the enemy is within 2 yalms of the target.

Wind after Fire:
Aerora repeats a percentage of the last Fire-type spell’s damage on the enemies hit by the Fire-type spell. Aero attempts to deal a large part of the last Fire-type spell’s damage previously dealt to the target as a DoT over 6 seconds.

Fire after Wind:
Aero bleed damage DoT increased by a percentage of Fire damage. Fira deals additional damage as if magic defense was reduced on units affected by Aerora dispels. Firaga deals increased damage to any enemy hit by Aerora.

Wind after Earth:
Aero deals a percentage of the last Earth spell’s damage to target if the previously affected enemy is within 2 yalms of the target. Aerora deals a percentage of the last Earth spell’s damage to the target and those around it if targeting the enemy hit by the Earth spell. This is possible for 4 seconds, with 1 second added per cast that takes advantage of it.

Wind after Ice:
Aero and Aerora act as if Wind resistance was decreased and critical rating increased on targets affected by your debilitating effects.



*********** Etc, etc. Sorry, been at this about two hours now. I'm out of it.*************

Gameplay summary: It's a lot faster, a lot more variable, a lot more fluid, and with a lot more small strategies. There is also now an actual reason for using other elements than Fire in AoE situations, Thunder for mostly single target damage fights, and even some added power to Ice through other elements. A lot of this favors classes over jobs, but I think Black Mages will still get a good amount out of this.

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Originally Posted by Jinrya-Geki

Oh god, please any disciple of magic that doesn't debuff, please. Debuffs are so useless right now it would be such a waste of a new damage dealing or healing mage.

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Spells like Slow, Paralyze, Bind, Gravity ect ect. always have a more potent effect than attack spells with secondary debufs.

I should stop doing long posts. It seems the forums don't have as many speed-readers as I'd hoped.

blm should get all the elemental nukes & some enfeebs and give whm divine nukes.

Personally, I don't think BLM should get enfeebles because it compromises its role as a true glass canon. Enfeebles are usually very potent defensive spells. I think it makes more sense to save those for others like a RDM.

I'm all for giving BLM a larger arsenal of elemental spell though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nazrakin

Personally, I don't think BLM should get enfeebles because it compromises its role as a true glass canon.

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BLM has always been about Black Magic. This includes enfeebles and nukes. The thing I'd be worried about is how elemental affinities are played upon once we start getting enemies that are resistant to Thunder. I have something in mind for that, but don't know what anyone else could suggest to address that concern.

Quote:

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I think it makes more sense to save those for others like a RDM.

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Keep us out of this until Fencer is introduced, please.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nazrakin

Personally, I don't think BLM should get enfeebles because it compromises its role as a true glass canon. Enfeebles are usually very potent defensive spells. I think it makes more sense to save those for others like a RDM.

I'm all for giving BLM a larger arsenal of elemental spell though.

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Yeah, can't wait for RDM to be reintroduced and hopefully it deals with enfeebling. Same with SCH, they can work exactly like they did in FFXI except Libra could shift elemental properties/reveal them sorta like 'Study' did.