Waved or Reduced MP cost for Magic combo's

[Dreadnought]

I'm not sure that standing still is an issue, as CNJ I have absolutely no MP worries now and don't even have to worry about standing still.

I think SE have done a great job with THM but they now need to address its mana problems, perhaps they can solve this issue even by adding Refresh materia ?

As for the stance it would be designed to be left on all the time, thats kind of the point, similar to Clerics stance.

The trade off is the reduction in damage.

theyre shouldnt be a trade off in reduction of damage because they arent damage dealers. it should be assumed and the trade of should have been in some other aspect.

[Jinko]

theyre shouldnt be a trade off in reduction of damage because they arent damage dealers. it should be assumed and the trade of should have been in some other aspect.

What THM aren't damage dealers, ????

My mention of CNJ was an example that standing still is not needed.

Unfortuantely I disagree then.

Explain why ?

[Zigirus_Essan]

Explain why ?

Allow me to explain with some parse data from my Ifrit fights tonight.

First off, some explanations. You cannot combo magic if the magic is resisted, or partially resisted. It has to be a 100% success for it to count as a combo. Also, much like XI, getting to the cap hit rate with magic should be the first goal for most endgame content. Even if spells do less damage overall, you're doing more damage point for point if you go un-resisted as much as possible. Once that cap is reached, then you can push it forward for more damage per spell. So it stands to reason that from a MP efficiency and combo perspective, going unresisted is a good thing.

My THM gear is based around as much magic accuracy as possible while still maintaining as much magic damage that I can hold on to. My Magic attack sits currently at around 455, and my Magic accuracy at 466 with food. There are gear options I'm going to explore to make both sides of this ratio greater. I can't give a spell success rate since my friends parser didn't include that, but even just by eye balling it I could tell I was getting resisted a lot less. (Magic evasion down from our CNJ's Stone helped as well).

In our fight, we stall as long as possible at the start to break a horn so that later on we don't have to deal with a super harsh regen. Since the mages can't break horns, they all assist curing the tank until the melee's can break it. For this reason we didn't start the parser till immediately after the horns were broken and everyone began to do full damage. Most of the results will include 3 people. Myself, and 2 others that were constantly at the top of the damage list. The classes will vary a bit for different test samples aside from mine which is THM the whole night.

During the fights I DID have 1 or 2 periods in which I had to go from almost no MP to Full. (Usually right before Spikes popped and right after). I solo'd my spike within 20-30 seconds every time. My THM damage is always listed as the first. With Player 1 and Player 2 being listed after respectively.

The Results were as follows:


8700, 6500 LNC with Ifrits Harpoon, 5500 ARC with ifrits bow. Parse ended at a swift whipe of our tank.

8000, 5400 LNC with Ifrits Harpoon,5000 ARC ifrits bow. Also ended when our tank fell (really weird eruptions)

13000, 12000 LNC ifrits Harpoon, 11000 LNC no Ifrits harpoon All members had significant periods of dead time which is my beliefe as to why the range is so narrow. Ifrit defeated.

12000THM, 8000 MRD Ifrits Axe, 7500 LNC no ifrits None of the top 3 DPS (me included) had any deaths. Ifrit Defeated. near perfect dodging on my part from eruptions and other damage sources.

14800 THM, 6800 ARC with ifrits bow, 9000 LNC no ifrits harpoon. ARC dc'd mid figh for about 30 seconds. that fight I almost never got resisted and I'm starting to master timing of combo's, when to use certain spells, and closing my windows of "no damage". Only had to rest from empty to full once in the fight. ifrit jumps maintained MP. Ifrit Defeated

13000, 7100 THM Ifrit's Cudgel (Magic attack bonus only build less than 410 Macc but 490+ Magic attack bonus), LNC no ifrit's harpoon 6700. Ifrit defeated. The other THM, to be fair, had just jumped onto it for the first time and was being a little conservative. Later we had a parse that ended up with him only about 3000 behind me but I forgot to copy down the data.

As you can see, THM when played right with the right equipment kinda towers over anything else even with huge MP costs and regen time. From an over time perspective THM isn't weak by any means, nor is it "suffering". I personally feel that this is also in large part due to the fact that Ifrit as a fight lends itself to THM in that, most of everything he does can be avoided with relative ease on the mages part and little movement is required, therefore allowing many windows for getting MP back in position.

But even in a setting not as favorable for THM where MP conservation is key and there are little opportunities to stand and rest for MP, I don't think their Damage would suffer so much that any other DD would replace them. I havn't done the moogle fight yet to get any of my own opinions from it, but I can't imagine you have 0 time to regen your MP.

And don't take my word or parse results for it. Do your own parses or research with LS members in many different situations and see how it works out for you as long as you're looking for a true, un-biased truth about it.

So to finally answer your question Directly Jinko. If you put in a stance for it. I don't see why you wouldn't just want to make THM that way permanently by mechanic. But in my opinion the numerical data proves that it isn't needed in order for THM to be an effective damage dealer.

At most, the only thing people can say to me for arguments sake about it is that "I just don't like standing around waiting for MP as a personal preference" in which case, You are entitled to think that. But in terms of balance, It works as intended and well. (and maybe in Ifrits case, over powered)

TL;DR I personally don't see how Less damage for half MP would be any more Beneficial than it is now. Running out of MP mid fight doesn't detract from THM's ability as a whole and ultimately leaves it up to the player to play it well and skillfully to maximize it's potential.

[Jinko]

So to finally answer your question Directly Jinko. If you put in a stance for it. I don't see why you wouldn't just want to make THM that way permanently by mechanic. But in my opinion the numerical data proves that it isn't needed in order for THM to be an effective damage dealer.

How much of the fight did you spend doing nothing because you ran out of mana ?
The reason for not making THM that way permentaly is being people still like to solo leves and having a decreased dmg output could end up with them taking too much damage before they can effectively kill something.

At most, the only thing people can say to me for arguments sake about it is that "I just don't like standing around waiting for MP as a personal preference" in which case, You are entitled to think that. But in terms of balance, It works as intended and well. (and maybe in Ifrits case, over powered)

This is why I suggested the stance, mainly the idea being you are active through the entire fight whilst still maintaining the same damage in theory.

TL;DR I personally don't see how Less damage for half MP would be any more Beneficial than it is now. Running out of MP mid fight doesn't detract from THM's ability as a whole and ultimately leaves it up to the player to play it well and skillfully to maximize it's potential.

It's not supposed to be benefical, expect that you are actually doing something throughout the whole fight instead of burning through your whole mana pool in minutes and standing there doing nothing.

You can't give THM more mana and not take away elsewhere otherwise they will become ridiculously overpowered. (which in effect is what Firon is suggesting, sorry Fir :P)

[Zigirus_Essan]

How much of the fight did you spend doing nothing because you ran out of mana ?

If you re-read, I said it. "During the fights I DID have 1 or 2 periods in which I had to go from almost no MP to Full. "
This process takes roughly 1 minute tops. so all in all, 2 minutes + whatever time spent evading Eruption.

The rest of what you said I'll respond with this:

I think you misunderstand my point. I don't want THM to change at all. I don't want it's Damage and MP cost lowered equally, I don't want a stance that does it. I don't want MP cost's waived or halved during a combo.

I don't think there will be any fight that will constantly require you to move around 100% of the time without any chance of regaining MP.

You make it sound like once your MP is gone, that's it, game over. You're empty and useless for the rest of the fight.
Admitting that I fully rested twice, while periods of resting in between casting, yeah, I was standing around a bit waiting on MP, but lo and behold, the damage was still significant and in gobs loads more than what anyone else in that fight could put out.

Talking with a friend, the moogle fight isn't even about avoidance as much as it is about endurance and killing moogles in the right order. So as a THM, I don't even have to move if I place myself correctly the whole fight.

Present me a situation in which you are unable for any amount of time able to remain stationary to get MP back, and I'll think about the idea of Halving MP cost and Damage as a stance to be more than just personal play style preference.

[Jinko]

I read what you said, no need to get arsey, when 1 or 2 times does not say how long you were inactive during the fight.

For all I know 1 or 2 times could equal 6 mins, (thanks for clearing that up)

I think you misunderstand my point. I don't want THM to change at all. I don't want it's Damage and MP cost lowered equally, I don't want a stance that does it. I don't want MP cost's waived or halved during a combo.

Fair enough, so what you doing in this thread if you are happy with the class as it is. .

Talking with a friend, the moogle fight isn't even about avoidance as much as it is about endurance and killing moogles in the right order. So as a THM, I don't even have to move if I place myself correctly the whole fight.

When moogle gets big and is coming for you, last thing you wana be doing is standing still.
Also its almost impossible for the tank to keep all the mogs on them at all times, expect to do some sort of kiting unless you are doing single target damage.

Personally I think standing still to generate mana is a silly mechanic, I would rather they have something like a refresh effect which is based off a paticular stat.

Refresh materia may mean you would have to sacrifice some magic accuracy but its all about trade offs in these kinds of games, only time will tell how much accuracy is required to be hit capped.

[Zigirus_Essan]

I read what you said, no need to get arsey, when 1 or 2 times does not say how long you were inactive during the fight.

For all I know 1 or 2 times could equal 6 mins, (thanks for clearing that up)

My apolgoies, I wasn't trying to come off as crass or demeaning. Generally it takes a little less than 20 seconds to get 1100 Mp without moving. since my MP pool is close to 3500 I just equate that to about a minute. It could be less since increments build with each tick to a point. Something I'll look into.

Fair enough, so what you doing in this thread if you are happy with the class as it is.

I'm just trying to present the facts as they are in the data objectively. Weather it be that THM is over powered,under powered, severly gimp, or on part with everyone else; I just want the truth to come to light as best as possible.

If after that people still feel that THM requires some sort of ease on the MP cost/and or abilities to maintain and recover MP, then that's their opinion. Based on what I know however, I don't think it needs any adjustment what so ever from an actual game balance stand point. Personal play style is subjective to each player.

When moogle gets big and is coming for you, last thing you wana be doing is standing still.

I haven't done the fight and i rather not speculate on hearsay, which I regrettably did briefly in my last post in reference to my friend.

I guess for me, there may be content in the future (and possibly now with the moogle fight) in which THM might not be the best class to choose for a given fight. Sad to say, that's what happens in any MMO with various classes with different roles and niches. Ultimately, some content will be harder for one class over another.

But on that same token I don't see THM being so screwed over in a situation that you would want to refuse it outright. it might not be optimal, but if you are ever able to stop and recover MP for atleast 20 seconds at a time, THm can still dish out a ton of damage. But things like that generally fall onto the community and its issues anyway with classism and "one size cookie cutter fits all" mentality.

[Jinko]

True enough, FWIW we tried a THM burn strategy on the moogle and it failed pretty horribly, we managed to kill the GLD moogle super fast though which was kind of funny as the two CNJ were nuking him aswell.

Sadly the THM ran out of mana and that was the end of that, tanks couldn't keep hate either, which is another point, its all well and good to put out huge burst damage but if this is making the tanks job a nightmare whats the point.

You could say manage your enmity but isn't this basically the same as reducing your dmg output ? reducing your damage = managing your mana, its all the same thing IMO.

You could then argue well its handy to have burst damage but thats where a stance comes in handy as you can switch back and forth as you need it.

Im surprised THM didn't get a similar ability as CNJ to sacrfice HP for MP. (they do get convert as BLM I guess, so there is that to keep in mind, so your probably right looking at the bigger picture this whole discussion is maybe a moot topic)

[Firon]

I'm not asking to spam spells What i want is a way to keep mana up so when fights become more dynamic I'm not running not gaining mp.

Take the Ifrit fight for example if that one attack was not based on where Ifrit was standing that fight would be hell for thm once they run out of mp they are just stuck dodging attacks. This theory applies to the moogle fight once i run out of mp just standing in one spot could make me loose 700 mp i was trying to gain back or possibly die from aoe. I would love to have that move CNJ has to sacrifice hp for mp, that move should have been DoM only.

I personally think using the ifrit fight where mages hardly have to move is not a good example to keep mp up cause when i did it as thm pre patch my mp never dropped under 1k from healing the tank.

Also like i said look @ the mp cost for the idea i presented most of the cost are hardly that lower than the normal full combo. 1133 for thunder combo with my idea the mp cost is 800+ mp

[Alyssa]

/signed
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