Shocked at the reduction in mage damage, quadruple mp cost, and lowered resources

Some of you guys are going a LITTLE overboard on the QQ factor. I'm very happy with the patch, HOWEVER:

MP costs are a bit too high, ESPECIALLY when you consider that there are no true support classes in the game who can offer refresh/MP regen mid-combat. Other than that, mages deserved the nerfs and so did Archers.

I really enjoy the sense of being limited and actually having to conserve mp as much as possible now, mp conserving was never in this game before and it was hard to actually end up using all your mp since the curing was such a easy to do, now instead of just hitting a cure on myself to cure everyone we have to target who we want, take time to rest mp and be somewhat smart about what we are brining into with us as a party, a pre 1.8 mage proberly could have solo healed without major major issue, now we need to think about what we are doing and not waste cures.

I think it will take some time to get used to having to converse mp instead of using it blindingly as we have before, but once we shake off the habbits we have made over the last few months and settle into playing with more thought this is a good change, altho i do think conjs and thms do have less viability to use magic dmg spells and contribute to kiling our foes but that is only if you plan on going thin with only have 1-2 mages which ultimatly will proberly happen.

The system isnt perfect for mages but its a step in the right direction with tweaking i think this could be great in the long run. I belive the diffculty gives room for new class's such as supporting class's to come into play which can make this whole partying process more balenced.

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Originally Posted by Demacia

Some of you guys are going a LITTLE overboard on the QQ factor. I'm very happy with the patch, HOWEVER:

MP costs are a bit too high, ESPECIALLY when you consider that there are no true support classes in the game who can offer refresh/MP regen mid-combat. Other than that, mages deserved the nerfs and so did Archers.

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what? Mp regen MID combat?

NOW THIS is what bothers me about FFXIV. There are too many people who don't value the skill of being prepared.

My first inclination was to mention that I could have sworn there was an ability in there that had MP regen.

I think that once we get the ability to cast spells in Passive mode as mentioned in the patch notes, things will be a bit easier.

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Originally Posted by Morphemes

what? Mp regen MID combat?

NOW THIS is what bothers me about FFXIV. There are too many people who don't value the skill of being prepared.

My first inclination was to mention that I could have sworn there was an ability in there that had MP regen.

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Is FFXIV your first MMO or something?

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Originally Posted by RathSkybreaker

in XI there was 5 members per party in XI if i remember correctly, it's been years.. and you needed one healer.. which wasn't bad at all.. back up was usually a SMN when I played though BLM and RDM worked.. ok thats with 5 people.. with 8 it makes sense to need more heals.....

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XI are 6 member parties and SMN could main heal. MP management was a big part of XI. I cured a 4 man party yesterday through the 25 Dungeon as THM and it was a challange but not impossible.

If people learn to go into passive mode after a fight.
If people stop brainlessly rushing through the dungeons.

We made it to the end boss (full west one not the close one) with 12 minutes to spare.

Now, let me repeat that: I cured the party on 32 THM, after coming back from a 6 month break, on our first attempt we made it to final boss (we wiped there).

I don't see a problem with the Mage Classes, i see a problem with people not able to adapt to the changes. Learn to Play!

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Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

Classes are for solo or small party content though, which means...

...OH NO.

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Finally someone brings this up. :) I was about to go find the quote from Yoshi-P.

Conjurer getting a nerf is fine, but it shoud still be solo friendly, as Yoshi-P himself stated that this is what the classes would be geared for. Jobs are meant for parties. Although for my own part, I'm not as concerned about soloing an NM. Just regular monsters are fine with me. But I want it to be tough because they are always on the verge of killing me, not because I'm running out of mp at a rediculous speed.

Mages and healers already have to deal with a very low defense, and their melee might as well be a breeze blowing. Why should we have to worry about running out of firepower and/or healing power in a few casts? You don't see melee running out of hits. What makes a game fun is being able to use your skills, not sitting.

Now, there might be some items or such in the works that have not been released yet to balance this out, but it would be nice to hear about it so everyone could settle down if that be the case.

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Originally Posted by Chezen

Mages and healers already have to deal with a very low defense, and their melee might as well be a breeze blowing. Why should we have to worry about running out of firepower and/or healing power in a few casts? You don't see melee running out of hits. What makes a game fun is being able to use your skills, not sitting.

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Wait wait wait... you mean mages had low defense? the same mages that solo-tanked NMs? The same mages that magic darted so much? The same mages that could mana burn everything, the same mages that aoe distinction was a simple cast time annoyance?

I much be living in an unbalanced world....no wonder it was 90% quit rate.

Just tried to solo R20 leve with my CON

God these Foraging Does hurt >.>

EDIT: But the actual mobs for the leve were easy mode still. 3 spells and they died. It's just the ones that spawn that weren't "hidden imps" were way strong (Like 200 damage per hit >.>)

EDIT2: Ow these Pterocs really hurt...

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Originally Posted by kukurumei

Wait wait wait... you mean mages had low defense? the same mages that solo-tanked NMs? The same mages that magic darted so much? The same mages that could mana burn everything, the same mages that aoe distinction was a simple cast time annoyance?

I much be living in an unbalanced world....no wonder it was 90% quit rate.

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Solo "tanking" a mage is not tanking, it's a combo of heals and attacks. Yes, I solo conjurer. A real tank can take dmg much better.

However, the defense was off, I'll give you that. I should have been getting hit harder.

Edit: You might also note, I did not say you should be able to do that with an NM. That was the OP. I consider NMs to be party content, so I wouldn't think you should be able to solo them easily in any class.

Oh noes, i can no longer spam cures and nukes like crazy!!
I'll actually have to think before using a spell. Damn! This game sucks. :(

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Originally Posted by Sagagemini

Oh noes, i can no longer spam cures and nukes like crazy!!
I'll actually have to think before using a spell. Damn! This game sucks. :(

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For solo play actually, you die before you can even cast a cure spell >.> These things are hitting for 150-200. I only have like 600 HP and they hit way faster than I do + they gang up on you two at a time :P

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Originally Posted by SuzakuCMX

For solo play actually, you die before you can even cast a cure spell >.> These things are hitting for 150-200. I only have like 600 HP and they hit way faster than I do + they gang up on you two at a time :P

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Up your VIT? I had zero problems soloing so far as CON and THM. Even against multiple mobs.

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Originally Posted by Maxi_Irving

Up your VIT? I had zero problems soloing so far as CON and THM. Even against multiple mobs.

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62 VIT R20 CON.

It isn't their regular attacks, but they have a charge attack called Tail Chase they do every 3-5 seconds that keeps hitting me for 200-300 damage each. It's really kicking the crap out of me >_>

EDIT: Also, I keep seeing dead CON and THM out in the fields around Camp Tranquil xD
EDIT2: Okay there's my 3rd death :P It would probably help if it were possibly to kite mobs or if they didn't instantly auto-attack for 100 damage each, or if they didn't automatically bring a friend with them.

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Originally Posted by Maxi_Irving

Up your VIT? I had zero problems soloing so far as CON and THM. Even against multiple mobs.

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So, up my Vit, up my mind... do I have points for piety or int? Those nukes won't be doing any damage...

Gee, use your brains, it's not that hard. Gravity, Bind, Sleep, Bio, Slow, Paralyze. Cripple the mobs and they become a joke.

Sure, the old "i just spam nukes and laugh when they hit me" method won't work anymore, but that does not mean Mages can't solo.

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Originally Posted by Skyrant_Kangaroomouse

Gee, use your brains, it's not that hard. Gravity, Bind, Sleep, Bio, Slow, Paralyze. Cripple the mobs and they become a joke.

Sure, the old "i just spam nukes and laugh when they hit me" method won't work anymore, but that does not mean Mages can't solo.

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Gravity, Bind, Bio, Slow, and Paralyze are all THM spells >.> All CON get are Sleep. And I don't have enough Action Points for that at my current level + my Fire/Thunder + Cure/Sac + Buffs.

Short spell range really hurts the usefulness of those debuffs. Lemme cast gravity when I'm standing 5 feet next to you.

Seems like it's only some mobs though. Bee Swarms = easy. Imps = easy.

Foraging Does and Ringtail Pterocs = holy shit I'm dead after 2 spell casts.

When fighting pteroc type mobs you can simply back away from tail chase while they are charging it up. If they start using backflip you can walk around to their side and completely avoid that was well.

I love the feel of party play in the dungeons so far. It felt like teamwork was much more essential now especially with the crazy hate curega seemed to generate.

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Sure, the old "i just spam nukes and laugh when they hit me" method won't work anymore, but that does not mean Mages can't solo.

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If you can hold it, you can solo it. lol

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Originally Posted by Onji_T

When fighting pteroc type mobs you can simply back away from tail chase while they are charging it up. If they start using backflip you can walk around to their side and completely avoid that was well.

I love the feel of party play in the dungeons so far. It felt like teamwork was much more essential now especially with the crazy hate curega seemed to generate.

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Good to know :P I ended up failing it because I ran out of time waiting for Weakness to wear off xD

i mean dont you think they are trying to make the game harder neptune? should you really be able to solo NM's? no.. im sorry you shouldnt.

I'm not seeing it Suzaku. What rank were those Doe? I just fought some myself as R21 THM and had no trouble at all.

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Originally Posted by Maxi_Irving

I'm not seeing it Suzaku. What rank were those Doe? I just fought some myself as R21 THM and had no trouble at all.

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They were R25.

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Originally Posted by Neptune

I have to say one thing I really enjoyed in this game was playing my Conjurer. The Nature's Fury ability, which lets you use aoe on your auto attack to burn up levequest targets was really fun.

-Nature's Fury recast time means I can only use my aoe attack twice a minute.
-Cure 3 MP cost has been quadrupled from 36 MP to 130, meaning I have less than 7 cures to use when soloing an NM. Some of these NMs hit for around 500 HP, meaning you would need one Cure 3 for every hit just about. Now, I doubt I'll be able to continue going on adventures by myself since I simply won't be able to cure myself through the damage.
-Since aoe has been removed from cures I'll now have to leave some of my abilities behind so I can assign Curaga spells to my action bar, and since 7 heals take priority over any kind of damage, I guess I'm playing a healer all of a sudden and I can forget about being a caster damage dealer
-Siphon MP no longer aoe means I have less resources to work with and improvise with out in the field

Well, how do you feel if you're a magic user? Did this change impact your playstyle or your enjoyment of your class?

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I didn't read through the thread at all, but I think I can offer some tips for you. Bare in mind I haven't done any instances so this may not apply to those.

- I find the lack of basic attack with no cooldown for casters HURTS. Really bad. I think they should adjust the CD to something like 3 or 5 seconds (whatever Archer's is). No advice here, I play THM and DoTs do sufficient damage.

- Cure costs have been raised dramatically but I found a pretty good remedy for soloing. Get Stygian Spikes and you'll never go oom between your 10min MP ability and Siphoning corpses. This obviously wouldn't work in instances, but I would assume in instances it will be possible to swap in and out of active stance to regen more.

- I don't see the issue of cures being split. It's a whole 2 AP, you shouldn't run around with everything equipped all the time, that's silly. If you're soloing, you don't need Curaga. If you're in an instance and you're a healer, you might need Curaga - replace your nuked with it. If you're in an instance and you're not a healer, just equip your basic single target heals.

- Siphon MP is no longer AOE'd but I think I answered this one above. The true strength of Stygian Spikes is really showing now. Prior to the patch all the THMs leveled CON for Shock Spikes because it was so good, now it's time for CONs to level THM for Stygian Spikes. :p

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Originally Posted by Neptune

Well, how do you feel if you're a magic user? Did this change impact your playstyle or your enjoyment of your class?

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How do I feel? I feel it's too early to judge. They clearly changed things up dramatically. I went out to solo some leves and had an incredibly difficult time trying to do so. I could hardly solo 1 star leves I use to tear through on 3 stars. So that part sucked, but as I started swapping around my action bar and trying different abilities and different strategies for approaching battle, things eased up a bit. It's still REALLY hard, but I think over time it's adaptable. Just don't give up. :D

all in all i think the changes will be for the better, i do agree though that i would like to see a slight reduction to the mp cost for at least the non-aoe cures that way to better help the solo aspect of leveling (notice i said leveling and not nm fighting >.<)

I'm happy.

Bear in mind they are also adjusting the impact of Stats so it may turn out that those adjustments balance out over the next two patches.

Don't mages drink juice anymore? I wouldn't know, I've been off and on playing this since last September that I haven't really partied with a group of randoms. I believe, however, that a few stacks of the proper juice, and maybe some pie (or whatever raises MP caps in this) would help to relieve some pressure on MP pools.

In XI, food and drink weren't an option, they were a necessity in every party situation, and if you didn't have food or drink that augmented the role you were in, you were considered inferior (a gimp).

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Originally Posted by Onji_T

When fighting pteroc type mobs you can simply back away from tail chase while they are charging it up. If they start using backflip you can walk around to their side and completely avoid that was well.

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Nigh impossible if you're actively fighting (locked in place using skills, can't cancel them unless it's a mage spell) and live in America (you're an upwards of 2 seconds earlier than your position on the server). This has killed me countless times, probably the #1 cause of my deaths.

#2 would be accidental AoE's because the game appears to be designed to infuriate you as mob wander paths interact with eachother, and some even intentionally move towards you. In small areas with tighter mob density, this is very bad. As a Marauder, this is ridiculous. As a mage, also ridiculous, but at least mages can control their AoEs while Marauders are SoL. Throw in levequest mobs and yeah, good luck not accidentally attacking something that isn't part of the mob group.

#3 is tried between the the incredibly random damage spikes mobs like the imps and cactaurs do and levequest difficulty; getting absolutely destroyed by one leve's mobs after you just wiped the floor with the previous leve's mobs.

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Originally Posted by XangaXanga

Don't mages drink juice anymore? I wouldn't know, I've been off and on playing this since last September that I haven't really partied with a group of randoms. I believe, however, that a few stacks of the proper juice, and maybe some pie (or whatever raises MP caps in this) would help to relieve some pressure on MP pools.

In XI, food and drink weren't an option, they were a necessity in every party situation, and if you didn't have food or drink that augmented the role you were in, you were considered inferior (a gimp).

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I hope the food adjustments in 1.19 make it a viable option again.

I was ranking up conj with my Fiance, and logged in yesterday to play on conj some...
Worse night of my life on ff14. Looks like I'm going back to a melee class again...

more whining because something got changed to the way it should have been in the first place... seriously...

Another thing I would like to bring up is, before this patch mages could straight tank mobs and just spam cures on themselves, now this is not the case. So when mage soloing we may need to get more creative. For example, gravity and repose mobs and nuke from a distance. Kite nuke style time! Not sure how well this works because alot of mobs have a ranged attack, but, the attack much less frequently with their ranged move i think. Also could do some sleep nuking! It'll be slower, but much safer and more efficient. This is for soloing obviously not pt play :P

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Originally Posted by XangaXanga

Don't mages drink juice anymore? I wouldn't know, I've been off and on playing this since last September that I haven't really partied with a group of randoms. I believe, however, that a few stacks of the proper juice, and maybe some pie (or whatever raises MP caps in this) would help to relieve some pressure on MP pools.

In XI, food and drink weren't an option, they were a necessity in every party situation, and if you didn't have food or drink that augmented the role you were in, you were considered inferior (a gimp).

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Juice doesn't do what it did in XI (provide a gimpy MP regen), it just provides a small boost to mg.craft and mnd or int, maybe a small boost to MP pool. I'd agree that if there was some form of in-combat MP regen similar to ballad/refresh/juice then the changes to mage mp costs wouldn't have been so bad but we don't have anything like that atm. So while SE may have made these changes to MP costs to pave the way for some abilities like this from BRD or RDM, its clearly a situation where we'll get the carriage before the horse. If it takes months to implement MP regen, we'll be banging our heads in frustration while waiting for it.

Ok, I've finally been able to play conjurer solo and evaluate it on my own... and I'm not having a problem. You just can't go up against stuff soloers were never meant to solo.

I have tried some monsters up to 5 levels over me, and leves at my level. I still feel pretty powerful. My only issues are that over time, my mp will get low and it's kinda boring to stand there, but not too bad. Use some food items and/or ethers, it would be fine. Also, I'm just going one on one. If I got a group, it might be a little tough.

For leves, again, I just went on my level, had no trouble. I always thought being able to kill monsters more than 10 levels above you was silly anyway.

Now, these comments are about soloing, not grouping. I could still see healers having an issue. But from a soloing aspect, I'm happy with these changes.

The fact of the matter is this. It doesn't matter if you could solo an NM pre-patch 1.18 anymore, it was the fact that Rank90+ mobs was being killed by Rank50's. Adjustments was needed. Time to reevaluate the way you play. "skillful play"

Having tons of fun on conj/thm Finally... All I gotta say is the changes make them alot more balanced and it's not one big cure fest :P Actually have to use enmity abilities... synchronize movements with team, and conserve mp^^ Fantastic... especially compared to before :D Keep up good work dev team!

As I'm only low 20s con/thm take it with a grain of salt but the changes make sense to me. I found it very odd after mp regen was patched in that I still had abilities like siphon that seemed completely useless. I never had to worry about mp. Also, and maybe that changed at higher lvls, but there seemed to be not much distinction between con and thm. Now they have roles which is fine IMO. I enjoy playing thm more than con and the only problem I see now is that there's not enough population for me to easily get into a group where there is another conjuror willing to heal while I focus on debuffs and off-heals. I suppose I just need to find an active group of people and that should be easier if SE keeps up the patches (and improvements IMO)