Flayer: Beastmaster and Blue Mage Proposal

[Duelle]

Since you made BST a tank job, one of the first problems you're going to have is the transition from the class into the job forcing a change in role. DPS>healer works for ACN>SCH because SMN is already there to preserve the role continuance. As such, since you probably have it in your mind to keep BST as a tank, it would probably work better to have Flayer be a tank as well.

Well, I did intend Flayer having a DPS job. It just took me a while to decide on a blue mage suggestion (updated my post, btw).

Also, since you're grabbing a hold of them, it would probably work to have it drag the target closer since you *are* immobilizing them with a whip you've wrapped around them (which means that you're holding on to them).

I guess Lariat could bring the enemy a couple of yalms closer. Then again, the distance thing has been abandoned by the developers as far as I can tell. It's not like in 1.0 where a mid-range weapon like a spear or a whip would have longer reach than a sword. I Suggested Lariat assuming it would require the standard 3-yalm melee range.

It's worse than Blood for Blood (which is 30% for 20 seconds every 80 seconds) while having a side effect that is a fair bit worse (since it decreases damage rather than survivability). The side effect is also something that's a bit wonky because short term reductions in attack speed get rather wonky depending upon how the game calculates relative attack speed, especially given that you're having the attack speed reduction be a fundamental part of the class.

The wording is weird, but I was copying how the game words stuff. What you'd get after recklessness expires is a 15% Slow debuff. Kind of how Berserk's "prevents the use of weapon skills" translates to "you get Pacification".

I'm also not entirely sure that "Recklessness" really makes me think of reducing attack speed when it fades (or any kind of reduction in effectiveness when it *fades*; Recklessness makes me think of a negative effect while it's active). I see that as something more like "Adrenaline Rush", where you push yourself and then get tired when it fades.

As mentioned I wanted Recklessness to originally deal a small amount of damage to the Flayer per attack executed throughout the duration. Use of the whip requires a lot of control, and the idea behind this ability would be that the flayer focuses on hitting harder with the whip, hurting themselves in the process (which is what would happen in real life if you don't maintain control over the whip). Since self damage didn't seem to work, I figured the flayer would want to slow down a bit to regain the right amount of control and momentum over their weapon.

The standard for stun CDs is 20 seconds and it's a straight up plain-Jane stun without anything else. It would probably be better to reduce the CD down to the standard and give it something beyond the stun itself like all of the others do. Something that you may think about would be an extended range on it (such as 10y) to "make up" for the lack of damage.

Noted and changed in my suggestion.

Since you can't attack while it's active and it only lasts 6 seconds, 20 potency is basically nothing. If you really want a trait that causes Lariat to deal some damage, you could safely beef it up to 200 potency or more because, even that high, it's a mere 166.67 potency per GCD compared to the 300 you'd expect to be dealing.

I figured the selling point of Lariat is the CC effect rather than the damage. In fact, the sacrifice in damage potential would be justified by the CC. I could bump if up to a 35 potency DoT, though.

I actually think that Wide Sweeps might actually be a bit OP since getting 2 extra targets with your ST attacks with 25% uptime is *incredibly* good, even with the reduction in damage dealt.

Well, the idea is that you'd pop Wide Sweeps in AoE situations where you have multiple targets to take down. A boss fight with multiple adds (slime adds in the second WP boss come to mind) would pretty much the best place to use (though yes I can see Flayer being very useful for AoE burning stuff in speed runs). I can agree to nerfing the damage by 50% and making it hit two additional targets.

I don't really see how implementing a system like Greased Lightning or Wrath would really complicate things too much. It makes a lot more sense as well since momentum is something that you build up, as opposed to a constant. I don't really see a problem with it as long as it's not just a Greased Lightning clone. You could even tweak some of the abilities to consume Momentum to provide the class itself with a fundamental bonus resource set up like WAR has (Wide Sweeps is a good contender; Lariat might also work).

I was considering using a system like what you're suggesting but as a shortcut for instant spells for BLU. Something like using certain abilities gives you a buff that if you stack to 5 lets you cast one spell instantly. I never really worked the kinks on cast times for blue magic, so that's still a possibility.

Momentum, of course, isn't really something that I think of when I think of whips, mainly because whips aren't large weapons with a lot of inertia. Momentum tends to be more about large objects that move slowly and build up to high speeds after a while, not a weapon that, honestly, stops moving as soon as you make the attack.

Depends. The idea of momentum came from how chain whips are used in martial arts. The stuff I read on it mentioned that the martial artist wraps and unwraps the whip constantly to keep the weapon's momentum (rather than having to spend time doing the wind up). It's not a perfect transition of that idea, but I did keep it in mind.

For balance sake, the damage transfer needs to be restricted to 80% to prevent massive eHP bloat and match the current tanks. Mean mitigation would be fixed by having the pet get healed for 25% of whatever healed you (which equates to a 25% increase in healing) though that's basically duplicating the effects of Shield Oath while using the same fundamental mechanisms as Defiance (you pet healing for a part of whatever healed you is basically +healing and the damage transfer to a secondary source is basically +hp) though it has the advantage of being painted over a few times. Also, immunity to auras and AoE attacks isn't enough. To keep things balanced, the pet needs to be unaffected by *any* multitarget effect at all, including heals since the pet getting healed by the AoE means that the BST benefits twice. As such, it's probably better go say that the pet is only affected by effects specifically targeting it: no AoEs, no cleaves, nothing.

These are all fair points. I'll change them in my suggestion.

Also, unless you plan on the transfer unaffected by anything else temporary effects, you shouldn't have the surv CDs affect both of them since that would be another case of double dipping.

The double dipping is intentional, which is why I made the cooldowns so seemingly weak. Effect potency may have to be tweaked to keep it balanced with PLD and WAR, but the idea is that the double dipping would in effect make the cooldowns stronger without giving BLU or Flayer access to tank-level cooldowns when they are DPS.

This does bring up the question of what the -dam should be and how much damage the pet deals. The damage reduction should be large enough to account for the DPS increase derived from the pet. I'm not sure what the pot/GCD for the pet auto-attacks is, but, assuming it's ~50, that's ~13% of total damage for your character.

I'm making a change in this. Lifelink would nerf the BST's own damage by 30%. The pet's damage could then be tweaked to make up the difference and maintain parity with WAR and PLD.

Someone was looking at WoW hunters when they were doing this.

Considering WoW's pet system blew FFXI's pet system out of the water in nearly every aspect, this isn't a bad thing. >.>

the AI manipulation abilities are pet abilities, not local abilities. You don't need to have Sic be given at all because it would just be part of the standard allotment of controls.

I wouldn't want BST to have that horrid pet UI we currently have in the game. By giving BST commands and having pets respond appropriately, I was aiming to tone down the micromanagement jobs like SCH have on their plate. Unlike a healer that's safe in the distance, the tank already has enough to worry about to micromanage a pet on top of trying to stay alive and avoiding the marks on the ground.

I'm also not sure why you'd feel the need to specifically lock them into Heel AI all the time.

I did this in part because of how Lifelink requires the master and pet to be near each other. Screwy AI (like SCH and SMN pets running off randomly) would likely get the BST killed.

This is probably the best option because it doesn't require what is, honestly, a completely arbitrary new system that doesn't really serve a useful purpose other than assuaging people's expectations from WoW. What's the difference between going out and finding an animal as part of a job quest and going out on your own and grabbing it? If anything, the job quest makes more sense because you're finding a *specific* animal as opposed to simply a type of animal and you're specifically training *that* animal and forming a bond with *that* animal over a long period of time. It lets you work in a better story too, because you're tying the animals you're dealing with into it rather than being able to handle whatever random beast you just tamed as well as the beast you've had with you since the beginning.

Well, some people like certain animals more than others. I'm sure some would want a wolf pet, while others may want a buffalo pet.

I did have a backup for story-determined pets:

Suggested pets (story-determined)
30 Wolf - Wild Fang, Nerve Sever, Furious Howl
35 Mantis - Standing Chine, Kneeling Snath, Impale
40 Vulture - Feather Barrage, Wing Cutter, Helldive
45 Crab - Scissor Clip, Bubble Shower, Pincer Hold
50 Drake - Slam, Burning Cyclone, Smouldering Scales

Of course the story would have to revolve either the player character being tasked with taming rare animals or re-taming beasts that went out of control after their master died or something.

I'm not sure how exactly you can say that it works against the theme since the theme is simply an animal trainer.

More a response to FFXI nostalgia. I've seen too many BSTs complain when SE started moving away from taming pets and more in the direction of jug-summoned monsters.

Something I was considering was replacing Tenacity with a self-cover ability (similar to how Interceptor could randomly absorb attacks aimed at Shadow in FFVI) and use that as a defensive cooldown. It would reduce the number of abilities per pet to two, though...