Quote Originally Posted by NefGP View Post
So then you quit right around the time ToAU was out then, possibly when it ended. Never even saw WotG. I stuck with it for 9 years, right up until level 95 patch. Even Abyssea, "easy mode" as it was with Atma required a surprisingly fun amount of strategy (also a lot of trail and error). We don't have enfeebling magic anywhere near on the level that we did in XI (or protective magic for that matter).

WHM can't AoE Benediction anymore, or actively prevent/reduce elemental damage and status ailments like in XI. The only real debuff we have is Slow from DRG, and it's a complete joke - most NM are outright immune and it doesn't really slow down attacks all that much anyway. By the time I left XI, RDM had a pretty insane arsenal of enfeebling magic available to it, as did BRD & BLU and others (and some of these stacked which was the craziest part - having a RDM & BRD stack Slow 2 and Elegy was ridiculous)g/
ToAU was released four years after FFXi's original releases. Benediction has a recast timer of 120 minutes.

We have Flash that inflicts blind. Rage of Halone when used in a combo. There's Virus which reduces STR and DEX. These all stack of course. There's Feint for slow. And we have Protect which boosts Physical and Magical defense. Stoneskin also exists. What FFXI protective magic are you talking about?

Benediction had a recast time of 120 minutes, thus was rarely used. And the sole role of both RDM and BRD in FFXI was pretty much the same for both. Repeatedly keep enhancement spells on others and enfeeble mobs with spells or songs. They we're needed to keep the other jobs that use MP from running out. Neither job was useful alone. The roles of these jobs, and almost all the others in FFXI was so narrow that everything had to function within a strict party hierarchy. Hence you did everything parties of six. One tank, one healer, one enfeebler/enhancer, three jobs that could function as DD (damage dealers). Within experience parties, mobs we're pulled to a "camp" area, which we're specific locations with an area, and often already occupied.