How About a Little Love for Mages, Please

[Brigandier]

That's because Elemental Staves (especially HQ ones) were completely and utterly OP and should have never went live like that. They were far, far above the tier they should have been -- and the ability to switch out gear mid fight made them highly useful for niche reasons, rather than the "one weapon fits all" that later weapons were. With luck, nothing like that will happen here, for simple virtue of learning from past mistakes (pipe dream, I know).

This. Ultimately the only reason higher level staves see no use in XI is due to the additional stats not comparing to the additional stats the elemental ones give. SE devs could easily add higher level staves that people would want more than elemental ones, but the problem is they bit themselves in the ass by making the elemental ones OP. Anything more than they give is pretty crazy.

[Raldo]

Well, if they'd been affected by the weapon's base damage, they wouldn't have been OP forever.

So you're aware that they were OP, but not you're not ok with an idea that would fix their overpoweredness.

I don't even...

I have work to do, so I'll have to pass the torch of replying on to someone else, sorry.

[Brigandier]

Well, if they'd been affected by the weapon's base damage, they wouldn't have been OP forever.

So you're aware that they were OP, but not you're not ok with an idea that would fix their overpoweredness.

I don't even...

Actually, they have released the Magian staves that are slightly better but *far* more work to obtain. So definitely there are higher level options that outdo them, if you're willing to do the work. I consider these magian staves to be the "fix".

[Ashthra]

Well, if they'd been affected by the weapon's base damage, they wouldn't have been OP forever.

So you're aware that they were OP, but not you're not ok with an idea that would fix their overpoweredness.

I don't even...

Because it wouldn't fix their OP nature. Unless the weapon damage from the staves was rendered the most important stat on the staff (thus rendering every stat on every weapon thereby useless), or the weapon damage of a relic staff being FAR superior (which would then eat into the stat resources, thus defeating the point of the upgrade to begin with), they would still be more powerful than other weapons that had a more "well-rounded" stat approach, because it wouldn't be enough to overcome the value of a staff that vastly improves your effective casting ability of an entire school spell. You know what would have made those staves not OP?

You are not allowed to switch weapons in combat.

Problem solved. You're welcome. Now, onto FFXIV's scaling problem...

[Elexia]

Why not? XI has nothing to do with this. Of course two differently leveled mages will do different damage.

If a MRD uses a Lv1 weapon, they do less damage. Why shouldn't the same apply to mages? If you need some reasoning for it so it doesn't break your immersion, then... lets say the staff is a conduit through which they cast their spell, and more powerful staves make the spell more powerful.

...

For one thing, Melee aren't using magic and fight a completely different battle lol. A level 1, lower base damage weapon should logically do less damage because they're smacking things with it. A lower base damage weapon should not affect magic in the same way because they are not using the same damage formulas or else a MRD with say a 170 base dmg weapon will nuke just as hard if not harder than a THM.

[Raldo]

So, since trying to explain with you folks why making the weapon damage affect spell damage is a good thing, lets turn the tables.

Please explain to me why making the weapon damage affect spell damage is a bad thing.

[Jennestia]

Well, if they'd been affected by the weapon's base damage, they wouldn't have been OP forever.

So you're aware that they were OP, but not you're not ok with an idea that would fix their overpoweredness.

I don't even...

That wouldn't fix them being overpowered. The fact it was 10%(NQ) and 15%(HQ) potency to magic made it overpowered because at it's introduction that was the only thing that directly boosted magic damage beyond INT and elemental magic skill. (resists)

They were the go to mage weapons because instead of using x amount of INT and MND to increase debuffs and nukes, you can get a raw 10-15% increase with the staves. (which actually wasn't that significant the the cap hit 75 and beyond.)

Even Bayo stated that FFXIV isn't like FFXI in terms of stat calculation, which means if we're trying to get "damage data" you have to take everything into consideration, not just baseline damage from unmodified weapons because materia is how we're clearly supposed to enhance damage. The stat caps could be more organized that much is for sure.

[Brigandier]

Please explain to me why making the weapon damage affect spell damage is a bad thing.

1. Limits what weapons you can use down to a couple options (granted, materia tiers requiring certain levels is already doing that to an extent, no Fire Brand for my fire spells...)
2. Yet another stat to have to factor in, when we could just keep going off the additional stats everyone is used to. They are verified to work.
3. It removes the edge from us who have taken the time to properly meld weapons for max damage with the system that is already in place.
4. Massively dumbs down a system that rewards players that put thought into what they buy/meld. Due to spell damage increase being shifted onto weapon's base damage vs additional stats, INT *will* be nerfed accordingly if it goes in.

[Raldo]

None of those seem like problems to me, so I suppose neither side will be convincing the other side. I agree that the fire brand thing sucks, but I think they should have kept them all the same level (like the dated versions were).

Edit: They really need to implement forum polls if they intend to get an idea of how many people do or do not want something suggested on the forums. This opinion on this seems rather split, and I would love to know the number of people on each side.

[Brigandier]

None of those seem like problems to me, so I suppose neither side will be convincing the other side.

I gave up on convincing anyone on these forums of anything a long time ago, but the arguments are still required. It's all about convincing the dev teams.