Time Mage, Geomancer, Dark Knight, Templar, Berserker proposals

Mmmmm.. dat Berserker <3

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ehayte

Cool idea, but Homgang is a level 42 MRD ability, so you'd need to make this the level 45 Zerker ability.

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Ah, I see. An easy enough fix, just replace with Butcher's Cleave.

But now an attempt at Templar. I don't think the Templar on the OP really acknowledges LNC lower max HP and lower armor, so I wanted to give it a swing. I didn't want to encroach too much on Pally or Warrior niches, so I thought, why not an active mitigation tank that focuses on parry.

Continued in next post...

Templar

30 LNC/15 GLD

Passive Effects:
Can parry from all sides
Abilities with a positional bonus benefit from frontal attacks instead

Cross Class: GLD/MRD

LV 30
Clairvoyance
Buff
Increases emnity generated
Increases armor and parry by 20%
Successful parries reduce Life Surge CD by 4s

LV 35
Unyielding
20s cd
Extends the duration of Keen Flurry by 30s

LV 40
Riposte
10s cd
Can only be used after Parrying
Deliver an attack with a potency of 100
Reduces damage dealt by 10%
Lasts 20s

Lv 45
Break Free
90s cd
Can be used while stunned
Removes all negative status ailments
Reduce damage recieved by 15% for 8s

LV 50
Valor
Buff
After a successful parry you gain Glory
Each Glory stack gives 2% more max hp, up to 10%
Lasts 30s

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gorehound

I don't think the Templar on the OP really acknowledges LNC lower max HP and lower armor

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Honestly I didn't really feel the need to. MRD has about the same HP as GLA, WAR only has a ton of HP due to abilities and its soul. TMP doesn't have needs to be restricted to LNC gear. Look at SMN/SCH/ACN. Their gear at endgame is split into ACN/THM/BLM/SMN for nuking and CNJ/WHM/SCH for healing. ACN can't wear SCH gear and SCH can't wear ACN gear. TMP could easily be placed on heavy gear sets like DL. As for stats lets look at ACN/SCH/SMN again:

(naked except for darklight book, no bonus stats used)
ACN: HP:1743 MP:2912 INT:242 MND:166 PIE:200
SMN: HP:1988 MP:2983 INT:262 MND:176 PIE:210
SCH: HP:1988 MP:3346 INT:242 MND:247 PIE:240

What we see here is that not only does equipping a job stone give increased stats all-around but different job stones give different stat increases. The 2 main we see here are SCH's getting 70 more MND and 400 more MP to better suit their role. Reminder: This is before all the role-specific armor as well which boost their values even higher (SCH 264 INT 328 MND : SMN 368 INT 161 MND in AK/WP).

TMP could (and likely would) follow this. They would have job-specific weapons too (like SCH has its own healing books separate from ACN/SMN nuking books) that would have stats focused on its role as well as their own AF2.

As for the abilities I chose, they're appropriate to what we've seen from TMPs in the past. With yours it looks like some don't make all that much sense. For example, an ability to affect another ability should be covered by a trait or instead be replaced by another ability that does the same thing (similar to how ACN gets two pet buffs or ARC can have multiple crit rate +s). Parrying also has its flaws in that currently you're capped at a rate around 24% IIRC (don't quote me on this). But you do have interesting ideas don't get me wrong.

Changes to OP:
TMP
-Changed Lifebreak from a 7 minute damage/enmity spike to a 5 minute attack with a soft cap potency of 450 with increased enmity. Damage and enmity are affected by how many DoTs the TMP has on the target (I wanted them to actually make use of the DoTs).
-Heavy Thrust will now also grant the TMP increased enmity while the buff is maintained.
-Bone Crusher now has increased potency when used in a combo. Counter is no longer guaranteed to prevent abuse.
-Clarified that Astra will increase enmity in all targets and the debuff immunity will only last 25s or until you avoid an immunity.
-Faith will now also increase HP by 10% and had its duration increased to 60s (inspired from Gorehound's Valor).

Quote:

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40: Faith: (A) Increases the effect of healing magic on you and raises maximum HP by 10% (60s). Recast: 120s
45: Astra: (A) Makes you immune to the next negative status effect placed on you (25s). Increases enmity on all engaged targets on use. Recast: 60s.

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I think Faith has either a bit too long of a duration or too short of a recast. When 10% max hp is available 50% of the time, it's almost redundant to make that a cooldown. I think 20% hp for 15s with a 120s recast would be more powerful for surviving burst when played well, or 15% for 15s with a 90s recast. Basically, it's powerful enough to survive easier but only available roughly 10-20% of the time.

I kind of think the same thing of Astra. I get that it is a pre-emptive negative effect shielding ability, but it's still up almost 50% of the time, but due to it's enmity tie in I think the shorter duration is better here. Maybe even 10s duration with a 45s recast (brings the uptime from ~40% down to ~20%). More well timed play is required for the debuff prevention, but allows for strong AE tanking with the faster usage of increasing enmity

I still really like this thread and its ideas, but the devil is in the details and what not.

I'll like to see Time Mage, and Necromancer the most. All the other suggestions are good too.

Time Mage definitely would need a Haste.

Version 1:
Off-GCD
20seconds duration.
60seconds cooldown.
Time for the target flows 10% faster. This includes auto attack, charging the cast time, charging gcd time and charging offgcd cooldowns. Also move speed increased by 10%.

Version 2:
On-GCD
5 seconds casting time, or 5 seconds gcd
15 seconds duration
Time for the target flows 10% faster. This includes charging the cast time, charging gcd time and charging offgcd cooldowns.

Maybe also Quick, as a lvl 50 ability

300 seconds cooldown
All targets abilities become ready to cast immediately. Both on-gcd and off gcd. Doesn't work on target's Quick ability.

Now about Dark Knight.

Darkness needs to do the aoe damage, and based on hp spent. Op didnt mention any damage.

Also FFT skills:

Dark Sword
On-GCD
80 tp cost
1 second casting time
120 potency
Recover hp equal to damage dealt

Night Sword
On-GCD
60 TP cost
1 seconds cast time
90 potency
Absorb damage dealt as mp. (Damage can be dealt to MP if such feature were to exist.)

To be honest, as much I would like to see a Dark Knight use a great sword, I have a feeling they would probably be a branch of Marauder seeing as their A+ weapon in FF11 was a scythe, and it would probably be easier to copy animations from great axes as well.

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Originally Posted by Cactuar213

To be honest, as much I would like to see a Dark Knight use a great sword, I have a feeling they would probably be a branch of Marauder seeing as their A+ weapon in FF11 was a scythe, and it would probably be easier to copy animations from great axes as well.

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To get them with a great sword or any weapon other than a weapon used by an existing class, they'd have to go with a separate class completely. If that did happen, I'd expect DRK to be a tank class rather than a DPS class (DRK was always a *really* durable class, which is really what the tank classes are being drawn out of since there hasn't really been a "tank" role in any of the FFs pre-MMO). The only way I see DRK going DPS is if it's grown out of GLA using sword and shield.

As to the OP, there are a few issues. In general, I highly doubt that they're going to have jobs change the weapon types used by the split jobs for numerous reasons. Weapon determines base class, which job is simply a template added on top of. Changing sword and board to great sword or great axe to dual hatchets seems like an arbitrary choice, since it's not like there are mechanical differences two slot set ups having their stats splits so that 2/3rds of the stats of the stats are on the main hand and the other 1/3rd is on the OH. On top of that, you'd be asking for every single attack to be given a whole new animation to account for the new set up, which is a lot of development work (casters have only 3 animations with different particle effects so they can manage different weapon loadouts easily because it's not like much changes). In general, it's just really not likely to happen. What's the problem with a Berserker using a great axe or a Dark Knight using a sword and board? They've already gone outside of what the classes have done historically by having WAR use a great axe when historically it was a sword and board, or, at the very least, 2h sword class. It makes more sense to operate within the bounds of what they've already done rather than trying to push the envelope and start requiring arbitrary changes that would require a lot of work to implement.

I'm curious as to why you gave Time Mage Cleric Stance. You've explicitly designed them as a DPS class, and Cleric Stance is the healer "solo" stance. Providing it to a DPS class is, effectively, pointless (and likely borders on being just a bit overpowered, in all likelihood, since it's a 10% increase in damage dealt). Unless the plan would be for them to be a Mind based DPS class that runs in Cleric Stance at all time (with a commensurate decrease in base damage to account for the 10% increase that Cleric Stance provides), I'm not entirely sure it's wise to include it on their additionals list. Keep in mind, whether an ability has affinity with another class is purely arbitrary so the devs can pick and choose however they want. The Demi spells would also be more than a bit OP, especially if they were Mind based, because, as gear progresses, the potency would increase while their damage stats are also increasing, since MP pools grow with Piety and you're basing potency off of max hp. Gravity pushes the envelope on class balance, not for PvE (since it's not like NPCs cleanse), but in PvP because, with a 30 sec Heavy, you're essentially taking a melee out of the fight for that entire duration, especially if it can't be cleansed by a healer. Stop would make more sense as a straight up stun (push it up to 5s duration), mainly because adding a new status effect that is unique to a single job is asking for a lot while there's no real reason that it couldn't just be a stun, given than BLM and THM don't have access to one in the first place.

I always felt that Time Mage would make a lot of sense as the THM healing class, but I'll echo what someone said earlier and say that the resource mechanic of the THM just doesn't play well with a healer. It's *possible* that they could create a healer out of it, but it would require completely repurposing Umbral Ice and Astral Fire (likely having each apply a different secondary buff to the given abilities) and playing a very delicate game with making the job useful at 30-35 (it would likely have to be built upon the assumption that you're bringing Cure to the party or, *possibly*, causing Blizzard and Fire to deal *substantially* less damage but heal nearby targets).

The problem I see with Geomancer is that it becomes *way* too reliant upon the given locale, which is largely outside of the control of the player, and some of those locales would be *way* more useful than others (Poison is the biggest but Slow and Det Down are also better than most). A more likely way for it to be introduced would be for Geomancer to gain 4-5 different abilities that are each tied to a specific locale as part of their job quests, similar to Mog's Dance skills from FFVI (which was a fusion of Dance and Geomancy, much more mechanically identical to Geomancy though). Desert, Forest, Tundra, Plains and Coast are the 5 most likely given the games' zones (though I could also see "City" for some of the Garlean forts and "Wasteland" for the areas destroyed by the Cataclysm), though you'd need to come up with given effects for each. I would expect to see some be straight up attacks (Plains or Forest as a Wind/Poison attack and Coast as a Water/Lightning attack) with some others being debuff/buff patches (Tundra as a slow patch that deals Ice damage; Forest as a ground patch that heals allies or increases resource regeneration). Having all of their effects vary based upon something outside of player control just seems less likely than simply allowing the Geomancer to learn about the locales and then bring them along with them.

I always tend to think of Geomancers in the terms that they were implemented in FFT, which meant that they used Axes, so I envisioned them as being a caster DPS/support job based off of the Marauder: they'd do most of their attacks as just wailing on someone with an axe but use Geomancy to bolster themselves and their team while impeding their foes.

For Dark Knight, there are a lot of problems. As a melee class, mobility is paramount and forcing a target to stand still gets in the way of that so anything with a cast would need to be fixed to be instant. It would also mean that everything they get from THM is largely pointless since all of the additionals are built around casting. Dread Spikes would, in all likelihood, not be done as a 10% reflect mainly because it would be crazy strong (Vengeance has a set potency per attack taken for a reason: imagine using that right before Mountain Buster). Blood Weapon and Dread Spikes are really just copycat abilities for what MRD already has (Bloodbath and Vengeance) and that you're providing as additionals so you're not really coming up with anything new or unique for them but rather doubling up on the same abilities. On top of all of this, hp-as-resource-mechanic is massively detrimental in solo situations and funky in group situations since it means that the cost is negligible for the user because they're just shifting the cost to their healer. To justify it, DRK would need to deal more damage than any other DPS because they're costing their group more, unless you plan on making the hp cost so small that it's effectively nonexistent, at which point you have to ask yourself why it's there in the first place. Hp-as-resource works in the single player FFs because you're playing the entire group as a single entity and have the *choice* to use those abilities and heal them back up. In an MMO, you're getting to make a choice for *someone else* to have to clean up, which is pretty bad design. Furthermore, with Souleater, you're encouraging the player to be at low HP in order to deal more damage with one of their attacks, which never really turns out well (City of Heroes tried it with Blasters and they quickly had to do away with that because it ended up causing an inordinate amount of deaths) and doesn't really fit with everything else they've got, which is about restoring the hp that they keep sacrificing. If you really want to include something like that, don't make it deal more damage the lower your hp is; just require yourself to be below a certain threshold, like 50%, to use the attack (which works out well with the 5m CD; wait to drop that low and then unleash hell with a 500 potency AoE). Also, on a random note, what's the point of Flash into Darkness with an hp instead of mp cost when it doesn't do damage so no DPS would ever want to use it in the first place?

Most of this is reason why I feel that DRK would be best implemented as a tank class based off of a new class that uses a 2h-sword, which has always been one of the signature weapons of the Dark Knight. You can get the dark themed abilities into the class without having to load so much of it onto the job itself, hp-as-resource is a viable option since the healer is *already* healing the tank, especially if you opt to use the hp in order to fuel largely *defensive* benefits, so that you're sacrificing hp in order to decrease healing load, which ends up benefiting healers rather than screwing them over, and it requires pretty much the same development effort as what you're already suggesting. Of course, I wouldn't make it require/be based off of any casting classes because, as the devs learned with BRD, unless the additionals you're getting are actually *useful*, it's kind of pointless to provide them; I'd just have it use GLA and either MRD or LNC (GLA is pretty much required thanks to Provoke; LNC and MRD work with their decent tank additionals).

Berserker itself looks fine, beyond the weapon issues I mentioned at the start. Hone Senses once again has the problem of just being a copycat version of Internal Release, which they're *already* getting through PGL. As a +crit ability, it might be better to just have it be something like a 50% increased crit chance on your special attacks with a limited number of charges. I'd also kind of prefer to see a DPS stance like Defiance provided to it, mainly because Wrath as a resource always felt kind of kewl and Berserker would work well with that. Since Berserkers have always been really fast attackers, you could easily make the stance provide an increase to attack speed with each stack and then have it be consumed to do the various special attacks: one AoE, one utility, and one big ST.