Korean Live Letter and Job changes (Translated)

[Khalithar]

I personally hope they do not standardize the typal debuffs. I enjoy the class interactions they provide, though I feel like they're only scratching the surface, at gimmick-level. I'd also like to see mitigation debuffs actually see more equal usefulness against weaker enemies, which would necessitate some revisions in how their effects are calculated.

Well... the thing is that the mnk's debuff doesn't really create any interactions now does it? As far as I know (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the blunt damage type only increases the mnk's damage dealt and no one else's. The piercing debuff only helps drg/mch/brd and the slashing is nin/war/drk/pld. But if you're in a party that is say... drg/war/mnk/whm, then their debuffs don't really help each other and there is no interaction whatsoever. The way I'm looking at it, is by standardizing in to a generalized debuff (for argument's sake let's say it's a physical damage taken debuff), it creates more interaction by allowing drg/mnk/war/nin to increase the damage of everyone else together. Plus it also allows certain classes to increase the damage across the board in ways outside of the debuff.

For example, in the party above, if there is only a single debuff for all physical damage dealer types, I would say let the drg apply with Disembowel so the mnk can omit Dragon Kick for an extra Bootshine and the Warrior won't need to use Storm's Eye and can max their potency with Butcher's Block. I would argue that by standardizing the debuff, you would actually increase the amount of interactions in this case. Also, consider this, if you were to only have one single debuff applied by all those classes, it would also free up several debuff slots in the 24man raids since Dragon Kick/Disembowel/Dancing Edge/Storm's Path would all refresh the same debuff. I get where you're coming from with the homogenization, I know how much you value uniqueness and choice in each Job, really I do. But I think that in this particular situation, the benefits outweigh the negatives.

[Vexander]

No nerf to AST = no nerf to Balance, which is the absolute elephant in the room when it comes to problems within the healer compositional meta ATM. I acknowledge that they might mean AST HEALING isn't going to be nerfed, but that cards might be, but I find that a weird statement to make after a proclamation that all jobs are "viable".

Just because Balance is not getting nerfed does not mean Healer Changes aren't coming. It could very well be SCH/WHM are getting a damage boosting buff for 4.0 in their 60-70 job quests. We won't know for sure until the full changes and expansion are before us, but I can't see SE being so laid back about such a big problem if they haven't already resolved it in some manner.

[ToasterMan]

No nerf to AST = no nerf to Balance, which is the absolute elephant in the room when it comes to problems within the healer compositional meta ATM. I acknowledge that they might mean AST HEALING isn't going to be nerfed, but that cards might be, but I find that a weird statement to make after a proclamation that all jobs are "viable".

Oh I'm not going to beat around the bush about it. Balance needs to be completely removed from the game. No doubt about it.

Ironic it's called that because it certainly doesn't balance anything at all.

[RaijinSupreme]

Permanent Enochian?! Removal of Thunder II and III in favor of just upping Thunder's potency?!

I know it's the class that Yoshi-P plays in demos, but geez, do they just love BLM more than anything else or something?
Though I'm almost kind of disappointed in Enochian becoming a permanent buff since I'd gotten so used to enjoying juggling it, constantly improving on the back-and-forth. Well, hopefully whatever new skills and other reworks there are will keep things interesting, rather than feeling like a step backwards towards the ARR Playstyle.

About Enochian, Yoshi-P spoke on this in a previous interview. He said as an example for a battle system change would be that enochian will become a permanent buff, but it will still have a timer. So when the timer after activating enochian reaches 0, it won't fall off, but its potency and effectiveness will decrease instead. So while it will be possible to use Fire IV permanently, the DPS for player who never lets the timer reaches 0 will be far greater than a player who lets it reaches 0 before using it again. It will mean the difference between a good player and a great player.

I think its a cool system, and I also think its to prepare BLM's for the new skills that we will be getting. You may even appreciate the change more so after we find out what the other new skills are.

[Hayward]

If they screw it up, maybe it's time to embrace the MOAR Deeps meta, and do away with the trinity and just let healer and tanks do as much damage as damage dealers and ignore aggro and healing?

Yeah, I know, I'm being cynical. After 4 years, I am beginning to lose faith that the fine folks behind ARR will figure out how to do anything but feed the moar dps meta and screw up tank and healer balance time after time. I hope that they can figure it out. I prefer tanking and healing, so at this point my hopes and wishes are for a successful re-balance of the combat system. My expectations are not high however.

The problem is that the devs can only do so much with a playerbase nigh-obsessed with their compensation issues...er, "efficiency". The whole Zurvan EX debacle proves that with almost frightening clarity. The problem also lies in DPS players trying to cheat the system by queueing up as tanks or healers and playing both roles shockingly wrong. The devs cannot possibly set those issues right without punishing players who do play their roles the right way.

[Reiryuu]

No nerf to AST = no nerf to Balance, which is the absolute elephant in the room when it comes to problems within the healer compositional meta ATM. I acknowledge that they might mean AST HEALING isn't going to be nerfed, but that cards might be, but I find that a weird statement to make after a proclamation that all jobs are "viable".

I am with you, but keep in mind: Viable just means that all jobs can fulfill the role of healing (for healers). MNKs are viable in content, they DPS very well. They just offer no raid utility so people don't like them as much. WHM is the same way and with Cleric Stance and Protect likely being shorn from WHM and added to this new healing role thing, WHM desperately needs some utility and abilities that make it more unique and not just a heal spammer. Some readjusting of abilities would be nice too... Shroud of Saints, for example, to a lower level like AST's mana regen is please? As a healer that does do the leveling roulette regularly, the lack of mana regen really hurts on the lower level dungeons T_T

[Vhailor]

The problem is that the devs can only do so much with a playerbase nigh-obsessed with their compensation issues...er, "efficiency". The whole Zurvan EX debacle proves that with almost frightening clarity. The problem also lies in DPS players trying to cheat the system by queueing up as tanks or healers and playing both roles shockingly wrong. The devs cannot possibly set those issues right without punishing players who do play their roles the right way.

I'm not sure I agree here. The playerbase is only obsessed with DPS because SE's content encourages it. Some content involves fairly brutal DPS checks (typically EX Primals and Savage Raids), which obviously encourages players to optimize DPS. That said, mechanics-based content encourages it too, since SE doesn't effectively counter people 'pushing' mechanics and thereby simplifying a fight via higher-than-intended DPS. At an even more fundamental level, the design of FFXIV encourages rapid-fire spamming of short pieces of content, rather than more involved content that doesn't require, nor benefit from, spamming.

There's a lot SE could do to resolve this. They could design mechanics that punish rapid damage-dealing, or mechanics that draw the attention of the party away from a boss for periods of time. They could make longer dungeons, with appropriately increased rewards, and stick them in a Roulette that you can only do once every three days (with a max of twice a week). There are options. The catch is, SE has to both (a) recognize that the 'moar DPS' meta is a problem, and (b) bring themselves to look in the mirror and realize that some of their fundamental design philosophies are in fact creating the problem.

While those two are big 'ifs', I do think that if SE were to pull both off, they could shift the meta away from optimizing DPS. The player base, by and large, reacts to content; they wouldn't be so obsessed with their e-pe... ah... 'efficiency' if the content didn't reward them so thoroughly for it.

[Yasuhiro]

Getting rid of Thundara was something I saw coming it's pretty useless at 60. Didn't expect Thundaga to go but it makes sense I guess.
Does that mean depending on what level you are the skill will change from Thunder > Thundara > Thundaga depending on what the sync is? or will the next tier of skills just not exist at all just as the live letter said I wonder.

[Khalithar]

Does that mean depending on what level you are the skill will change from Thunder > Thundara > Thundaga depending on what the sync is? or will the next tier of skills just not exist at all just as the live letter said I wonder.

My interpretation of the statement was that as you level, you'll get a trait that increases it's potency at the appropriate levels, whatever they may be.

[ADVSS]

so when does inner beast or storms path become cross role skills?