3.0: Elemental Weakness/Resistance?

[Catsby]

I'm pretty sure the other problem is that it's actually pretty weak as a defensive stat, such that even though you know you'd be primarily taking lightning damage in something like Ramuh EX, it's still not worth going to all the trouble of stacking lightning resist even if you're the tank.

it's mostly hamstrung by formulaic ilvl gear, echo and too many instant death abilities.

[Nutz]

While I agree that the resistances in place in this game are generally a joke -- the only place where you have to put in any thought (or did) was BCoB T2, there's no compelling reason to put them in place. I think they've done a fantastic job of making every class/ job viable for every piece of content. Sure, there are a couple of pieces where job X might be a bit better than job Y, but nothing like the crap-fest in FFXI where many pieces of content could not be completed by the majority of the player base without at least a couple of slots being filled with specific jobs, if not the entire roster being set in stone.

Also, some of you guys must have played a different FFXI. The one I played, where I was a BLM more or less the entire time, had me casting blizzard spells 80% of the time. If I wasn't casting blizzard I was casting thunder.

[HakuroDK]

I'll be honest right now. If this were ANY OTHER MMO, I wouldn't even care about the Elemental Wheel. DCUO? That would actually be harmed by an elemental wheel since characters pick a powerset focus and can only attack using that one element that they have.

But this is Final Fantasy. This is the franchise that practically invented the Elemental Wheel and mechanics on how to make the elemental wheel an increase in challenge.

You remember Amon from Syrcus Tower? In FFIII, one of his most famous abilities was called "Barrier Shift", which caused his elemental weaknesses and resistances to randomize. That same ability was given to many bosses in future games. Magus from Chrono Trigger comes to mind, as does Spherimorph from Final Fantasy X, and such mechanics just seem very much in the spirit of Final Fantasy as a franchise. I mean heck, we have everything that says an elemental wheel should exist, from the six elemental primals to elemental crystals to synthesis using the power of the elements... everything says this game should have an elemental wheel, but it doesn't exist.

[Exstal]

You should see how badly people play the game as it is. I actually had a party member tell me he wasn't going to re-position himself during T5 phases because it would "lower his dps potential". This was after he burned to death in lava/fireballs about 3 times.

I can't bring myself to level any more DPS jobs because them doing 'white' damage makes them all feel the same. The only real difference left is where you stand when you do it. Emphasizing damage resistances would be awesome because it would add so much more depth and potential to the game both in and outside of combat.

Monks that use all attacks from flank, or only use a single line of combos. Black Mages only using Firaga then transpose. SMN using Ifrit on bosses and spamming Ruin. These people always give me a good chuckle.

I'm not sure what to feel on damage resistances. If it wasn't so difficult to gear multiple classes with relevant gear I'd be okay with excluding certain jobs from certain fights if was simply easy to just switch to another job with equivalent gear.

[Catsby]

...where many pieces of content could not be completed by the majority of the player base without at least a couple of slots being filled with specific jobs, if not the entire roster being set in stone.Also, some of you guys must have played a different FFXI. The one I played, where I was a BLM more or less the entire time, had me casting blizzard spells 80% of the time. If I wasn't casting blizzard I was casting thunder.

Jobs getting sidelined was mostly linkshells being bad/overpopulated and not because the jobs were useless. I remember tanking top tier HNM as THF, magic DD as NIN and pulling as BRD. The BLM spell thing is basically the same problem as ilvl. the spells scaled partially off their level rather than their element and were granted to you at varying levels. This usually meant the higher level spell was the best one.

[Instrumentality]

No. /10char

[dreffen]

So obviously, from 1.X to 2.X, elemental weaknesses and resistances were thrown completely out the window in favor of "easier gameplay".

Now that the game has a healthy amount of players and will continue to have a healthy amount of players by the time 3.0 comes out, can we bring those back with the new expansion? Just seems kinda weird for Fire spells to damage enemies like Ifrit and Fire Sprites, or Thunder spells to damage Ramuh and Lightning Sprites.

I'm pretty sure most people wanting to play BLM, at least at first, did so with the intent of being able to exploit elemental weaknesses.

Hey, how about no.

[HakuroDK]

Hey, how about no.

Q. As a GLD, how does the elemental wheel even affect you?

[Alukah]

That's why I had this topic suggesting all these changes for 3.0 rather than anytime in the 2.X era. If they're gonna be overhauling things anyway, might as well slip some of this stuff in too, yeah?

I don't think you have been paying attention to any of the recent live letters, Yoshida has been using 3.0 as an excuse to not implement anything complicated, saying that new players will come with 3.0 and he doesn't want to stress them out with anything complicated.

I'd wait until 4.x for any kind of complexity.

[HakuroDK]

I don't think you have been paying attention to any of the recent live letters, Yoshida has been using 3.0 as an excuse to not implement anything complicated, saying that new players will come with 3.0 and he doesn't want to stress them out with anything complicated.

I'd wait until 4.x for any kind of complexity.

You know, sometimes I wonder just how complicated an elemental wheel is. It can't really be all that complicated, can it? Really? Honestly? That... really boggles my mind.