3.0: Elemental Weakness/Resistance?

[Ultimatecalibur]

Yeah, why would we possibly want EXISTING jobs to be remotely interesting when we can waste time building new jobs which have the SAME dull rotation and do the SAME thing on EVERY enemy?

The point I was making is that enemies are boring as sin. If they're not going to make the mob mechanics fun, then they could at least make the combat mechanics more involved. Whether that's through utilizing elemental weaknesses, forcing players to adopt different spells and skills on different mob types I care not. However, it's the most obvious choice and a glaring omission in the Final Fantasy series.

The only reason mob and boss mechanics are "boring as sin" is because the preferred dps strategy is "overgear, bunch them up and burn them down fast." To many times have I seen melee dps waste stuns for slight dps increases instead of saving them to stop mechanics such as spawns/summons (additional enemies spawn if enemy is not interrupted), evolutions (enemy is replaced by a stronger enemy if not interrupted) and AoEs. To many times have I tried to interrupt a mechanic as a tank only to see "Resisted" pop up instead due to mdps. I'd love to see a scholar skilled enough to Silence ADS with Selene.

How often have you slept a mob in endgame dungeon content? Do you even know what can be slept? Do you know which mobs and bosses have abilities that can be stunned, silenced or slept to stop them? Do you know how to avoid getting eaten by the first boss of Lost City?

Look at your attributes tab. Go ahead. Notice the 'elemental resistances' portion. Also note that it's about as useless as a broken saber. Why does this even exist if they're going to make elements so utterly worthless? Why does elemental materia even exist if it's solely to add points to a stat which has zero impact?

Oh, they have impact though it is not easy to see. If using gear that boost the appropriate resistance, you will occasionally see a Full Resist(aka a magic damage Dodge) when fighting Primals in addition to taking less damage from magic attacks.

If this game can make people stop and think for 2 seconds before choosing an attack, it will have succeeded in making a combat system which is engaging. Until then, it'll be the relentless spam-a-thon it has always been since being reinvented.

No, many dps and healers are so obsessed with burn and blitz strategies that they do not realize that there are things that they can already do through crowd control. Returning the Elemental Wheel and Race Wheels will not change the obsession with "Burn and Blitz" strategies, it will only change the rotations used.

No offense but those bonus stats those armors get sound really sucky. Were they all equally bad or was there that one BiS armor bonus that every tank who didn't have couldn't get into a good party without having it first?

Because that's what we're really talking about here. Diversity, to an extent, is an illusion. In a system that includes bonus stats and set bonuses, there will always be one weapon or armor that people consider staple and if you don't have it on your class then you're doing it wrong. Imagine if the Curtana gave 5% MP every five second and the soldiery sword gave you 10% more to your max hp. Curtana is useless and soldiery weapon is the sword all tanks should have or they suck.

Real diverse.

The Curtana 5% MP regen would actually be better than the +10% hp boost. Tanks are already at the point where they have enough hp and are often equipping dps accessories for faster kills.

[Dhex]

Real diverse.

Diversity in a matter of speaking depends on more on how they structure the additional stats or bonuses.

You give what I would consider an intentionally bad example by making a comparison with 10% HP vs 5% MP every 5s.


If there was a piece of end-game content that required PLD to constantly use Flash (waves of adds or a mechanic that requires it) - would 5% MP every 5s seem like a bad investment? If you had 10% HP instead you'd need to bring an Ether or a Bard - you'd need to have a strategy to over come it - or go and run the other content and get that 5% MP every 5s piece of gear so you could make the fight easier.

That isn't a bad thing. Isn't the point of getting gear to ease the difficulty of content?

Right now gear just makes content less control-able - which is pretty backwards when you think about it.

In 1.0 AF gear gave you certain bonuses on certain abilities, Melded gear could give you more raw stats, and GC gear gave you a significant Set Bonus depending on how many pieces you wore.

A better example would be; Bravura Nexus extends Inner Beast Duration by 5s vs. H.A Battleaxe increases Enmity +5 & Increase DMG +2% vs. Conquerer returns 3% DMG as HP

Then you put gear sets into effect for that Job; General Tanking set such as Sol. Tome gear -> Increases DMG/Attack Speed/+HP etc. per Piece, AF (Job Specific) adds bonuses to Job abilities, Raid/Dungeon gear adds HP over time, Knockback resistance, Damage reduction. H.A Gear could get a set bonus that makes doing Coil desirable etc. etc.


Then you've got a reason not only to collect them all - but to mix and match depending on what you'r fighting.

If you know a certain fight has high DPS checks - put on a gear set that outputs more damage.
If you know a certain fight has lots of HPS checks - put on more Damage reduction gear or gear that enhances key Traits/Abilities.

(Like you already do - Stacking STR as an OT for T7 & T8)

Striving for a perfect end-all be-all "set" of gear is just silly.

Removing diversity makes the game a "Log in once a week do one raid get one style of gear log out til next week" treadmill.


Striving for a perfect "balance" is stupid.
PvE is PvE - do we care if it's fair for the monster? No. We (players) identified how to deal with the mechanics and we can nullify it's advantage via gear or strategy - isn't that the point? That's why we're playing the game! To kick the cr@p out of monsters with our friends and improve ourselves in the process.

PvP is a separate issue that's already ultimately been solved by iLv caps - and if an ability is too overpowered it becomes a trend - Square will notice and remove it.
(Removing Cleric's Stance from WHM/SCH and reducing BLM sleep duration in PVP only is enough to show this.)

This game is unbelievably rigid right now, and extremely exclusionary with it's content - and in my opinion it just breeds a narrow-minded community.

[Yukiko]

Just for the notes: ST (CT2, on Skylla):
When you merge fire and ice it becomes water, you will get fire resistance when beeing in that water pit.
Have you checked the stats? You will get fire resistance up to 1000+
If you meld all you could into fire resistance it should be possible to get 500+

Anyone tested that gear on elementals or primals?

[Dhex]

Just for the notes: ST (CT2, on Skylla):
When you merge fire and ice it becomes water, you will get fire resistance when beeing in that water pit.
Have you checked the stats? You will get fire resistance up to 1000+
If you meld all you could into fire resistance it should be possible to get 500+

Anyone tested that gear on elementals or primals?

Back in HMs some people were doing that - unfortunately Elemental resistance (as I recall) only gets applied to Elemental magic damage - and most Primal damage isn't calculated as Elemental magic damage.

[MartaDemireux]

Back in HMs some people were doing that - unfortunately Elemental resistance (as I recall) only gets applied to Elemental magic damage - and most Primal damage isn't calculated as Elemental magic damage.

This but also ends up working out that if you gear for max resistance instead of max DPS the fight will be extended enough so that the healing required equals out but it takes longer to kill, leaving more room for error. This is why we gear for max DPS to down them ASAP. It puts less strain on the healers of course but only if the whole group can play without errors over a long period.

[Yukiko]

Back in HMs some people were doing that - unfortunately Elemental resistance (as I recall) only gets applied to Elemental magic damage - and most Primal damage isn't calculated as Elemental magic damage.

Yes, but do we know which enemies use "real" element attacks?
The thing is even when its working you sacrify way too much and will not pass the DPs checks!
Poor design, but still it is working somehow as we see against Skylla...

I think, or lets say i hope SE is just testing around to balance a future element wheel.
I guess thats what they mean when saying: "Hope never dies!"

[Dhex]

Yes, but do we know which enemies use "real" element attacks?

A new job like Geomancer using Elemental resistance buffs to reduce magic damage (Elemental) and reduce certain styles of damage (Slashing/Piercing/Blunt) on the party would be an interesting addition if we're looking at damage type reduction.


Removing the Element Wheel for dealing damage is entirely justified though; Black Mage would no longer function properly if half their rotation wasn't usable or was otherwise greatly reduced in efficiency. Summoner luckily dodges or at least is only grazed by that bullet since they have mostly unaspected spells - but it would raise issues with the way certain pet damage might be calculated.

Personally I'd like to see more tools for players on how they tackle monsters - rather than making a more rigid dogma of a "Monster-based" Elemental Wheel resistance to certain types of damage. If Square sticks to Phys. & Magic Damage - with Elements & Damage types involved they should certainly let players do more about how they protect themselves against it - Elemental Materia obviously doesn't function; again I just don't think they need to give monsters any special resistance to the Elements because it limits rather than diversifies the game - unless they do it similar to Hell's Claw (Hunt A Rank NM) where it will buff itself to reflect either Phys. or Magic damage.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Back in HMs some people were doing that - unfortunately Elemental resistance (as I recall) only gets applied to Elemental magic damage - and most Primal damage isn't calculated as Elemental magic damage.

Ramuh EX might be one of the few fights where boosting the main tank's Lightning Resistance would have a noticeable effect.

[TheRogueX]

In 1.0 had both resistance but BLMs had all the element spells so if u encounter an enemy with a elemental resistance you just change the spell. Now we can't do that because they separate the spells between BLM and WHM. The weapon resistance is more realistic since those didn't change much but elemental resistance as right now would be impossible unless a class/job rework yet again

I would be perfectly ok with WHM being changed to not have elemental attack spells, but they sorta forced the issue by the design of Conjurer.

I'm curious though: What was Conjurer like in 1.0? How did it fight?

[Tessman]

I'm pretty sure most people wanting to play BLM, at least at first, did so with the intent of being able to exploit elemental weaknesses.

If you went into the game thinking this, then you've been completely divorced from MMO mechanics for the last decade.

Elemental Weaknesses don't work in MMOs, or any game where balance between classes matters even a little bit hth.