[dev1206] Question and concerns about PGL/MNK new elemental actions.

3 of the new PGL/MNK abilities confuse me. Are these new skills an simple enspell added to our normal attacks? Or do these skills simply make our attacks magical?

PGL Abl. 5: Converts your attacks into fire attacks and grants a bonus to attack power. Effect fades upon reuse. MP is continually consumed while effect is active.

The way PGL ability 5 explains this skill is what gets me confused. Why would we get an attack bonus if our attacks are suppose to be elemental now, I would like some clarification for this.

its probably physical fire damage , and attack power increases the physical fire damage

While I'm not entirely sure, it could be any number of things.

Personally I think it's a new element type, Physical Fire, where your attack power and such are what determine the damage, but it deals fire type damage.

I for one welcome the additions to PGL, the concept of a magic-melee sounds like a lot of fun to me and I am eager to try it out. I am assuming that it works like how Formless Strikes worked in XI and simply takes whatever your raw damage output would be (before defense/VIT calculations) and then changes the type to magic. Once it is converted to "magic damage" then it will be calculated against the monster's elemental resistances. If this is indeed how it works (and has the appropriate en-spell graphic!) I will be very curious to see its effectiveness. I do, however, have some core concerns about PGL post 1.20.

1. "Blindside" survived the axe and will be hanging around in 1.20 and has become one of my favorite abilities. The only problem is that PGL has not a single weapon skill that grants a bonus/combo from the rear. Okay, so, I knock them in the face, move to the side and attack from the left/right (awkward), then run behind and Blindside for my new ninefold Simian Thrash 2.0 but that combo would trigger from any direction. PGL was the only DD class that truly had freedom of movement and I enjoyed running behind my enemies while tanking just to pull off those Blindside Victimize IIs. Why didn't SE take advantage of having Blindside natively and at least given us ONE skill that combos from behind?

2. Every skill seems to require mana to use, and although Featherfoot does recover MP it only works if an attack is evaded. I still strongly feel that Second Wind should recover MP along with HP but it seems clear Yoshi is deadset on Featherfoot=refresh. This means if I'm not tanking, I'm pretty boned as far as MP goes. There are a few skills that recover MP (most of which arent native to PGL) so I'll just have to wait and see how it plays out.

3. Although I can kind of understand why they picked Fire Earth and Wind for PGL/MNK's elements, its kind of disappointing. Like XI, almost every monster is earth or fire based which pretty much makes these attacks crappy. Okay so we get the stupid wind>fire rule against the fire related monsters but I don't really see the others being that effective.

In conclusion: I would lol if PGL got the Auto-refresh trait :) I also hope we get effects on our fists when in the magic modes. I want to see auras of fire around my claws when I'm in fire-attack mode!

Technically speaking, every class has auto-refresh, just disengage and you can restore MP. I can understand in terms of Ifrit and any other big baddies that MP could become an issue for Pugilist/Monk however for Pugilist I do see them using this ability:
CNJ Abl. 2 Temporarily halves enmity and gradually restores MP.

While it does appear the only other accesible ability to restore MP outside of it's class it could still be useful. It's also unclear as to how much mp will be drained during the aura effects so it's very possible that it may be able the last til the end of battle, but if it doesn't then just decide the best time to have it active. Since it doesn't seem to be an effect that grows stronger the longer you put it one I can imagine that you would turn off the Fire aura when the mob increases it's defense or is preparing a move in which it would be useless to have it active.

But ya I think until we actually know the perp cost of said abilities it's hard to judge how it may hinder the class as a whole lol.

Yeah i would like to know the prep cost as well i really just hope it uses your raw dmg + added fire dmg