Shield changes

[zaviermhigo]

I never really solo'd, so this may seem to kinda crap on some people's faces, but the only thing I've ever used shield skill was war drum for was to pull mobs, nuke em, and chain. maybe an occasional aegis boon, but it was never that useful, it was more "in this situation, or when the mob does this maybe I'll need this ability", if those abilities survive class reform you level up gladiator to get them, just as gladiator levels up thm to get emulate, or cnj/thm to get sac/cure III, whether or not you like it , it's fair, thm/cnj isn't going to be needing tanking abilities, you'll have stoneskin and firm conviction to help you, they might even give you more traits or abilities which cancel damage in a more mage-y way lol. So pessimistic so fast. I could be biased because I've always had my boyfriend be the tank, but I have faith in tanks to pull hate, all I should need to do is sit there and cast magic in an appropriate manner to not pull hate, just saying.

[PSxpert2011]

I'm just helping in making a stand to irrelevant change to the shield skill. There's probably more issues to address but I'm starting here.

You got a problem with that? Too bad, at least I'm making a stand to the majority. Having a option to many is not going to hurt the few. Taking away choices will hurt us all leading to more ridiculous alterations to the game.

If SE wants to turn this into another FFXI clone, why waist my time and money being here??

If you think mages with a single handed weapon cant wear armor and hold a shield with high enough shield skill, the pessimist is you my friend, very bias and closed minded. You don't make any sense!

[Alhanelem]

I can make the exact same argument about having to level cnj or thm for spells on my gladiator. Or having to level marauder for defender, or pugilist for second wind. Personally I like the change and am looking forward to seeing it in action.

I should probably clarify: I do not like this change not directly because of having to level up another class to gain skills, but more directly because shield was essentially its own sub-class, and now they're basically just getting rid of it. I was hoping for the day when we'd be able to set it as a main class, but instead it's being removed and its skills being offloaded to another class. It seems like an awfully quick fix to a perceived problem (not actual problem) to the developers.

Uhm, what shield skills are so damned critical that you can't survive without them?

They aren't "So damned critical." They're very nice to have. Shield bash gives me an extra tool to deal with some special attacks, on top of being a way to spend the TP I recieve (mostly from getting hit). Aegis boon is an amazing survival skill when combined with Punishing Barbs (admittedly, this combo used to be ridiculously powerful- it's been drastically nerved but it's still useful) and shield bash II just takes that a step further.

No, you don't set all of the shieldskills, usually just one or both of those two.

Mages shouldn't be in melee range anyway.

You have no choice in the matter when you're soloing. The enemy will be in your face most of the time. Bind doesn't help because basically every enemy has a ranged attack so they can kick your butt from a distance. Gravity doesn't help for the same reason.

Even if we did have a choice, this is once again the closed-minded, think-inside-the-box perspective that users of magic MUST be frail old men with canes that can never take a hit. There are many "mage" jobs in Final Fantasy that blur this line. Up until now, these classes could blur this line if they chose to. You do not make the rules as to what mages can and cannot be.

The fact of the matter is, this is only a skills change and not an equipment change. DoMs can still equip shields and those shields can still have stats. If they never wanted us to be able to use a shield, they would have made all shields DoW only. All this means is the destruction of what could possibly have been a real class in the future, and an inconvinence to any DoMs who currently have these skills set but will find them gone when they log in after the update.

[indira]

guess shield will only be DEF & stats for mages

[Alhanelem]

guess shield will only be DEF & stats for mages

You'll still be able to set those skills, but you'll have to raise gladiator to do it. For the most part, any con/thm using a shield probably already is raising gladiator, because it was a great way to get shield maxed out. but since you'll have limited slots for cross-class actions, that makes things more difficult.

[Estellios]

I'd rather have that then have my precious 15 abilities be wasted on freaking shield skills ><

[Alhanelem]

I'd rather have that then have my precious 15 abilities be wasted on freaking shield skills ><

If you don't want your "freaking" shield skills, you don't have to use them. Those that do should still be able to.

It's been revealed that some of the existing shield commands are not only on Gladiator now, but are also exclusive. Great.

Shield bash is not exclusive, but Aegis Boon, basically the most useful shield skill (even though it was nerfed to hell in the last couple patches), is. THese were the only two actions I have ever set. Most of the others are not very applicable. So now, there's only really one useful shield skill that's not exclusive, and only two total.

This really didn't need to be changed at all, much less changed in the way it was. These classes using shields was never "broken" or "overpowered" and their use, which is almost exlcusively in solo situations, did not harm or negatively impact anyone's gameplay experience. Why mess with something that isn't broken?

Every class that can use a shield will get its own class-specific shield skills.

This turned out not to be the case

[Chardrizard]

Why would you use shield when you are mostly in passive mode these days....? since they doesnt work on active mode.

[Alhanelem]

Why would you use shield when you are mostly in passive mode these days....? since they doesnt work on active mode.

Because I still use active mode while soloing, and you still need to be in active mode to use your magically-oriented TP attacks.

Now, it's not entirely a bad thing, but you can tell i'm a little frustrated right now because even not counting the shield changes, thaumaturge and conjurer not only transformed almost totally, but with the job system, will go an almost total role-reversal.

THM had a very clear astral/umbral theme, and the class quests were based on this. Now, they're elemental and no longer seem to have the astral/umbral component at all (in fact it seems to have been removed from the game in all but storyline)

[Neptune]

I agree, the dev team should reverse this decision.