Flayer: Beastmaster and Blue Mage Proposal

[Nahara]

8: Enhanced Vitality: Increases Vitality by 2. (FLA/BST only. BLU's will be determined by the spells set)
14: Enhanced Strength: Increases Strength by 2. (FLA/BST only. BLU's will be determined by the spells set)
28: Enhanced Vitality II: Increases Vitality by 4. (FLA/BST only. BLU's will be determined by the spells set)
32: Enhanced Killer Instinct II: Increases INT, DEX and MND by 15%.
44: Enhanced Strength II: Increases Strength by 4. (FLA/BST only. BLU's will be determined by the spells set)

Why so many stat boosts and to so many unrelated things (and why is Enhanced Killer Instinct II a %-based boost instead of a flat one, like the other stat boosts)?

Right now, stat boosts are only given at level 8, 14, and 24, and only in the base class's (in this case, the Flayer) core stat. Even if one of the associated jobs has different stat requirements, the stats given via the class traits don't change. The arcanist's traits still boost INT, even though the scholar needs MND. And speaking of stats, what stat DOES the Flayer, Beastmaster, and Blue Mage need? Why does it need STR, VIT, DEX, INT, and MND?

All three seem like DD, so we can rule out and remove VIT, since that stat bonus is given only to tank jobs right now. Is the whip a true ranged weapon (meaning DEX) or just a melee weapon that can be used at a longer range than other melee weapons (meaning STR)? Blue Mage seems more like a caster, though, so should it just focus on INT? Why does it need MND unless it's going to be a healer?

This is just my observation, but classes and jobs right now are pretty much single-attribute dependent. There's pretty much just one stat that their bonus attribute points and the stat budgets on all their gear is focused towards. This makes picking and choosing gear and assigning the bonus attribute points simple decision without much room for confusion. Melee DDs focus on STR, tanks on VIT, ranged DDs on DEX, casters on INT, healers on MND, and then Piety just kinda there to be helpful for healers. I would recommend thinking about what you think each class should do and rework the stat bonuses from there. Remember, if a second job to a class doesn't use the same stats as the base class, the soul crystal can provide bonus stats to make up the difference (like with the SCH crystal providing a very large boost to MND).

[MartaDemireux]

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Enhanced Killer Instinct is an enhancement to the Killer Instinct ability. It's intended to be a reverse of Virus. However I'm currently adjusting much of the class and jobs. As I found an actual Taxonomy within the game and a site that is updating monsters and their abilities I've had to re-imagine a few things. Originally BLU was going to be able to off-heal if needed. That was why there was the inclusion of MND in their Killer Instinct. However now that I'm made aware that no monsters know healing moves like White Wind (yet) I've had to change BLU to just DPS. The DEX was in case certain spells would have a modifier for it but again it doesn't appear that way.

Not all classes learn their stat abilities at those levels. ACN as an example learns them at 14, 16 and 32 and MRD at 8, 16 and 24. My reasoning for giving 4 of them is because BST isn't going to be the powerful one in its pet combo (the SMN is 75% of its DMG IIRC so I wanted BST's pet this time to be the one doing 75% DMG) so it gets 2 traits towards a stat increase instead of 3. STR is the primary stat for whips. VIT is there to give the BST some extra HP when having to tame their pets in case of a failed attempt and to give them some more survivability if they draw hate before they use Snarl. But I can see how having those 2 VIT traits could be confusing.

Through BLU's spells they can either focus on dealing magic damage or physical damage and that's why their stat traits vary depending on which types of spells they wish to set. My goal was to have them at roughly equal STR and INT. The more spells set with a certain stat would give 2 traits of a stat with the 2nd highest giving 2 traits of the other stat.

[Gamemako]

1. There could be as few as 7 pets... 2. How so?

That's an absolutely insane number to begin with. What roles will they have? Healer, tank, rDPS, mDPS, buffer, debuffer... and what? You've got to have some serious role overlap, not to mention the absolute mess of balance you've created by having so many roles crammed into one class, then the need to balance at least 7 different pets with ~5 abilities each. Then you have 2 of each type, so it's back to 70 abilities for one class's pets, plus another dozen for its own abilities. You've got serious redundancy, massive development time, huge balance issues, and then you add this:

(the SMN is 75% of its DMG IIRC so I wanted BST's pet this time to be the one doing 75% DMG)

This just doesn't work. In a game designed around movement mechanics, a class designed with 75% of its output out of its own hands is a disaster. What a hot mess Titan would be when your Coeurl gets blasted off the cliff and you lose 95% of your DPS while you resummon. SMN, by virtue of being DoT-heavy, doesn't completely choke when pet gets DoT'd and melts or gets thrown off a ledge. Your design has no such safeguards. Imagine being a PS3 players and attempting to wrestle with the likes of Malboro/Morbols or Terataur -- unplayable doesn't begin to describe it.

3. For BST they have 7 attacks (5 FLA, 2 BST). All of which have their own uses. Since pets have their own abilities too I went lighter on the weaponskills so you can focus on your pet more.

As I just explained, that just doesn't work in practice. Worse, GLA is dull enough with 7 weaponskills (RoH+RB+SL+SB+SS), and it is at least a tank which puts its attention toward battle management.

4. It's a one time taming system.

Then why bother? If it syncs to player level and is resurrected on death, you're asking players to use an ability 7 times in the entire game and call it a day. This is a waste of a slot and a waste of a mechanic.

Your design does not work in ARR and just doesn't have proper design considerations behind it. You need to define roles to your class, jobs and pets and explain how those roles will be fulfilled. Your Beastmaster passes enmity to your pet, but the Beastmaster is never going to take aggro due to being gimped in damage output in the first place. It doesn't make any sense at all to even include the abilities. Your Blue Mage loses a pet that is a large portion of its damage output, and replaces it with nothing at all -- the potency on abilities is still pathetic. Lash -> Flame Lash is 270 unbuffable potency (assuming your Flame Lash at 9s, since ticks are at 3s intervals -- it has to be 9s or 12s, not 10s), or 135 per GCD. MRD, by contrast, puts up an effective 275.56 potency per GCD after accounting for Maim and Storm's Eye, plus has a superior damage self-buff. You'd be outdamaged by tanks if you attempted melee, so you're absolutely stuck with spellcasting for damage, and I'm not seeing the abilities for that.

[Kitru]

Then why bother? If it syncs to player level and is resurrected on death, you're asking players to use an ability 7 times in the entire game and call it a day. This is a waste of a slot and a waste of a mechanic.

Why does it have to be an ability at all? Just make it part of the job quests. The first 2-3 of your class quests are taming various monsters and the quest reward that you get is a summon spell. You don't *have* to have an ability in game just because it's part of the loadout of a job in other FFs, especially if that ability is really just there to allow you to actually use the job's abilities. Plus, this would have the advantage of being simpler to implement while also getting rid of the insanity of having a squirrel dealing as much damage as a wolf or the annoyance that bringing a goobbue would present unless it was drastically resized.

Of course, if both Beastmaster and Blue Mage are going to be DPS and so much of what makes a job is based upon the class itself, they're both going to play almost exactly the same. SCH and SMN manage to play differently because they're completely different roles though, when you're DPSing as a SCH, you're pretty much identical to a SMN. If you've got multiple jobs based off of the same class, they really should have different roles because, otherwise, you're going to have 2 jobs with almost identical playstyle and ability lists that even end up doing the exact same thing.

As to the Blue Mage ability list itself, I highly doubt that they'll provide a single class with a second set of additionals that ends up being larger than the entire additional list of every other class in game or even their own ability list (you've got 29 Blue Mage abilities; classes bring 17-20), especially when you only want to allow 3 to be used. A much more likely implementation of Blue Mage (if it ever gets implemented, which I doubt for various other reasons) would be to have there be a total of 5 Blue Mage abilities that you "learn" as part of the job quests: it would keep the list small so that it's easy to balance and implement without getting completely insane. It would also allow them to bring in iconic abilities, like White Wind, that aren't used by any enemies in game. The list would probably be something like Aqua Breath (AoE Water damage cone), White Wind (AoE HoT and cleanse on a long CD, like 180 sec), Earthquake (AoE Earth damage with stun), Flamethrower (ST Fire damage), and Self-Destruct (reduces current hp to 1, massive damage AoE). You could even explain the limited list by saying something like Blue Magic can only be learned from exposure to primal energies so that you get Flamethrower first, by revisiting Ifrit's domain; Earthquake second, by revisiting Titan's domain; Aqua Breath third, by visiting Leviathan's domain in La Noscea; White Wind fourth, by visiting Garuda's domain; and then Self-Destruct last as a kind of secret technique learned by combining the energy of all of those primals.

[Gamemako]

Make it so 1 type pet can be stored take beastkin for instance, you have admantoise, buffalo, sheep, and wolf. You have to pick which type you wanted to store and when that 1 dies guess what? Go out and find a new 1 to store. This way the ability stays useful and you would be able to choose your arsenal of 7 pets to use but they are all disposable.

Every single Titan party ever would immediately kick all such players. Actually, any sensible part would do so. Pets die in dungeons. Hell, wipes happen. With a setup like that, any screwup means the character is permanently gimped for the remainder of the dungeon. I wouldn't want a player like that in my party. Getting tagged by certain-doom Bad Breath or something would mean you'd have to spend time and gil running all over the godsdamned place trying to recapture lost pets.

...or the annoyance that bringing a goobbue would present unless it was drastically resized.

Reminds me of Shale in DA:O, who got an entire joke backstory related to the developers needing to downsize the model to fit through doors.

Of course, if both Beastmaster and Blue Mage are going to be DPS and so much of what makes a job is based upon the class itself, they're both going to play almost exactly the same....

Er, I don't think his Blue Mage has the pet anymore. It dumps the pet in favor of magic attacks in the summon slots. They really wouldn't play the same in this case because his Flayer has no useful melee abilities (absolutely pathetic damage output), meaning Blue Mage would have to get nearly all damage and utility from magic slots.

As to the Blue Mage ability list itself, I highly doubt that they'll provide a single class with a second set of additionals that ends up being larger than the entire additional list of every other class in game or even their own ability list (you've got 29 Blue Mage abilities; classes bring 17-20), especially when you only want to allow 3 to be used.

Not to mention the number of pet abilities. This class and job would require about 60 pet abilities and 29 spells, plus the other 18 abilities. That's four times the development work of another class and an absolute balance nightmare.