Please fix how Essences are obtained for DPS in Bozja! Poor Design/Oversight?

[zeth07]

"Forgotten Fragment of Skill" drops in the 1st Zone off of mobs right outside the entrance at a VERY HIGH drop rate even though they are passive and tier 1 enemies. Fragment of Skill also only has a pool of FIVE possible Essences.

Forgotten Fragment of Skill:
- HEALERS = Essence of the Aetherweaver = Increases damage by 80%
- TANKS = Essence of the Martialist = Increases damage by 60%
- Tanks/DPS = Essence of the Savior = Increase heal potency by 60% = Just WHY? The idea is to fill in for healers sure, but still.
- Heals/Casters = Essence of the Veteran = Increases defenses/hp = Ok I guess but heals would use Aetherweaver, would be useful soloing maybe.
- Non-Caster DPS = Essence of the Platebearer = Increase defense/HP = same as above.

As you can see tanks and healers only need to farm that and very easily at that and they will have plenty of essences to increase their DPS in the content that matters. Meanwhile DPS have......nothing. Increased survivability sure.

Now lets see what happens when DPS want to increase you know their DPS...

"Forgotten Fragment of Awakening" drops in the 2nd Zone off a variety of mobs, but as far as I've seen none of them have more than a 20% drop rate if you're lucky unless I am overlooking something. I could spend 30mins-1hour farming tier 2 mobs and maybe have 10 fragments of Awakening if I'm lucky. Do the same thing with fragments of Skill and you're probably getting a drop every minute in my experience.

To make matters worse, the loot pool for Fragments of Awakening are now SEVEN. Let's take a look.

Forgotten Fragment of Awakening

- Everyone = Essence of the Breathtaker = Increase poison resistance, move speed, mount speed, and increase evasion by 10% = Utterly useless trash.
- Tanks = Essence of the Guardian = Increase defense and HP barely. Practically useless.
- TANK = Essence of the Irregular = Increase damage by 90% by take more damage and have less HP. A trade off of 30% more damage compared to Martialist, it's a choice at least.
- HEALERS/Some casters = Essence of the Ordained = Increases damage by 20%, more heals, and max MP. It's something, but for whatever reason BLM is left out.
- HEALERS = Essence of the Profane = Increases damage by 100% but 70% less heals. Another trade off one.
- DPS = Essence of the Watcher = Reduce max HP by 5% but increase evasion by 40%. WHY? Just what is the point of that?
- DPS = Essence of the Skirmisher = Increases damage by 20% and crit rate by 15%. Finally DPS get something useful.

So there it is, ONE Essence for DPS that's actually useful up to this point and it's a 1/7 chance to even get it from things that have questionable drop rates. Out of 12 possible Essences up to this point DPS have just a SINGLE useful Essence.

How about the ones that drop in Castrum?

Forgotten Fragment of Superstition:
- TANKS = Essence of Bloodsucker = Increase damage by 40% and absorbs HP.
- HEALERS = Essence of the Templar = Increases damage by 60%, defense and max HP.
- DPS = Essence of the Beast = Increases defense and max HP, absorbs damage dealt.....gee thanks.

The Deep Essences are the same way but instead of trying to farm your specific Fragment out in the wild, you just get RNG drops in Castrum instead that might not even be the Fragment you need and then you're right back to a 1/7 chance to get Deep Skirmisher.

Some might say just farm Clusters and buy the Pure Essences.....

1) Those can't be used until Rank 15.
2) They can ONLY be used in DR.
3) There's a huge gap from Rank 10-15 before you can even use them.


So before people complain about DPS not using Essences realize that they have poorly designed how they are obtained compared to the Tanks/Healers. Whether or not people would use them even after a fix is a different problem entirely and for another topic entirely.

One simple fix I could see is to switch out Essence of the Savior and Essence of the Skirmisher. Make Skirmishers available from Skill and Savior available from Awakening.

The most notable design decision that makes the problem more noticeable is the fact that the Pure Essences don't even match the other corresponding items in the "set" because every role needed their own Pure "for whatever reason". What's really telling is that Pure Essence of the Duelist matches the Savior set and yet Skirmisher has no Pure icon matched with it? I wonder why that is.....

They basically separated out the DPS essences to Skirmisher and had to go back in with the Pures to fill out what actually made sense.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Forgotten Fragment of Skill

Possibly because they're designing in a way the essences provides what each role naturally lacks of. Therefore Tanks and Healers gets DPS essences (remember they're also devoid of direct hit that DPS have while synced) while DPS who's usually the squishiest of all role, they receive tanky essences instead. The role trifecta of Tank-Healer-DPS kinda blurrs in this content. It doesn't matter which class you're rolling, it's designed so that DPS can tank/heal when their group lacks one, or Tanks/Healers can ramp up their damage in case no DPS is around.

It's also noted that the 1st zone has notably higher loot frequency probably to ensure players can prepare themselves for what's coming in later zones.

Forgotten Fragment of Awakening

This fragment contains essences that's not as simplistic (as in, straight buff) as the one we see in Skill fragments. That being said...

1. Breathtaker: is -NOT- useless. If you think 'DaMaGe' is the -only- important aspect from essences then you're only looking from one side of coin. Read how each essence interacts with other actions & items. These are not meant to be used as a straightforward upgrade. Some may even find movement speed increase is valuable because it reduces travel time and allows you to reach skirmishes sooner before it's too late to get yourself a gold credit. (Zadnor Skirmishes says hello)
2. Ordained: They leave BLM out because they're the only caster that does not have natural access to restorative spell. RDM has Vercure, SMN has Physick (Please don't actually use this lmao).
3. Watcher: Again, some actions synergies with this essences. You are not meant to use it simply because you want the +40% Evasion or you're simply wasting it. One of the latest example is Watcher + Lost Chainspell. Try and read what they have in store for users.

The rest, I do agree with you. Particularly speaking Skirmisher. Out of the awakening loot pool, it's the only outlier for being a 'straight buff' essence. This one probably should be moved to Skill loot pool instead for another. Heck, maybe even Guardian too.

Forgotten Fragment of Superstition & other CLL Loots

You have permanent Nascent Flash/Bloodbath. Almost everything you attack are now living potions for yourself. If that's not enough because they don't give you the delicious damage buff, they just got buffed recently to synergies with Lost Assassinate. Read that one up and see how bonker the actual potential is vs even Skirmisher.

I do agree that them being rare is the main reason I think we could've spend those pesky bronze/silver/gold coins for CLL fragments. What are they used for anyway at this point? Not even silver/gold can buy us the haste law order upgrade material, we need DRs for that. Once we have the gear for whatever reason these coins loses their value really quick.

I have no say regarding Pure Essences however, due to the fact they are really made for DRs alone.

[Flay_wind]

[B]- DPS = Essence of the Beast = Increases defense and max HP, absorbs damage dealt.....gee thanks.

For the record Beast + Lost Assassination = More or less permanent Lost Font of Power. In addition you have really high hp and life drain on all your attacks. And you can have another thing on top of that. It's kinda bonkers.

[Fawkes]

I just wish I could get essences doing things I'm already doing. I don't want to have to go out of my way to farm them.

I mean I can get like a lifetime supply of that HP bubble thing on accident just by doing one skirmish, why can't I get at least one ordained essence in there somewhere?

[Nestama]

Essences are definitely something you need to read the tool tips for everything on. Ordained + Chainspell = no MP cost instant cast spells. Alternatively, Watcher + Chainspell increases the buff timer from 30 seconds to 90 seconds (and this is including Magic Burst, a 45% damage buff. Watcher + Chainspell is basically a BLM's dream, as they can now cast AND move for 90 seconds and then do it all again once the buff wears off). Watcher also affects Lost Swift and Lost Impetus. Watcher + Lost Swift will grant you Rapid Recaster for 60 seconds (basically lowering ability CD's by 60%) and Watcher + Impetus will do the same, but for everyone (but 25% instead of 60%) and only for 15 seconds; so Jobs that rely heavily on oGCD's will love this.

I'm pretty sure it's also possible to be an Evasion DPS Tank.

[Jettinson]

Most of essences are to be used combined for some items/skills. Breathtaker sounds bad but with some evasion up and having 90% of your auto potion/ether to not be removed makes it a viable solo build. Not the best but carried me enough at start.

But I will say that Skirmisher should either be moved to Fragment of Skill or make Awakening drop rate higher. At least it gives DPS a guaranteed damage increase even though you are off better getting Deep essences through Clusters.

[Seraphor]

Yeah they should just turn all Indigo Stars into Essence of Deeps that increases damage by a million percent.

Nearly all of the essences are meant to fill in the gaps between roles to allow different roles to either solo or fill in for the others.
Tanks: More damage or healing
Healers: More defence or damage
DPS: More defence or healing

The reason why DPS only get +20% damage while tanks/healers get +40-70% damage, is because DPS already deal 50% more damage than them.

[Deceptus]

The problem with the basic essences for DPS as well as Healers that increases defense and HP is that those stats are meaningless in the raid content due to Doom mechanic and one shot abilities.

HP doesn't matter if it's gone instantly.

Same reason the HP and Healing Valor Honors are not as valuable as the DPS one.