Black Mage - the solution for everything?

[Mortikhan]

I will bounce another idea around. Instead of just a resistance toward a class in particular why not do portioning of HP that is resistance with diametrically opposing weaknesses. Ok before you say no...let me explain lol.

Example:

Mobs HP is 100k

Blunt (25% of mobs HP)
Magic (25% of mobs HP)
Slashing (25% of mobs HP)
Piecing (25% of mobs HP)

Magic Effect = Magic 100% Blunt 75% Piecing 75% Slashing 50%
Slashing Effect = Slashing 100% Blunt 75% Piercing 75% Magic 50%
Blunt Effect = Blunt 100% Magic 75% Slashing 75% Piercing 50%
Piercing Effect = Piercing 100% Magic 75% Slashing 75% Blunt 50%

Diametrically opposing damage types would still be able to do the fight but it would make it far more difficult. You could still stack if you want to avoid a certain aspect of the fight but will be less efficient than the classes meant to deal the damage to the Bosses portion of health.

Example:

1 War 5 Blm 1 Brd and 1 Whm party:

Magic Portion of HP = War 50% Blm & Whm 100% Brd 75%
Piercing Portion of HP = War 75% Blm & Whm 75% Brd 100%
Slashing Portion of HP = War 100% Blm & Whm 50% Brd 75%
Blunt Portion of HP = War 75% Blm & Whm 75% Brd 50%

The damage would gravitate toward the weakest portion of HP first so Blm attacks would go after the Magic Portion of HP first and Brd damage would go after the Piercing Portion of HP first etc.. Once the Blms get their 25k down though they would start to do less damage vs the two 75% groups (piercing and blunt) then finally have the most trouble with the 25k of Slashing Portion damage on the Boss which they would assist on since the War would have already been chipping away at it.

I would be for switching the percentages around a bit per boss but I can't see how nerfing or making specific content to thwart slacking would benefit anything. When you do things by nerfing and content it just leads to more stacking of another class.

[Enfarious]

So to spin off of the above, which essentially gives 4 different HP pools, each weak/resistant to a different form of attack. How about Bosses that have multiple body parts, ALL of which need to be destroyed for the clear. So keeping the same 4 HP pools attach each to a different body part. Head/Arms/Legs/Torso

[Mortikhan]

So to spin off of the above, which essentially gives 4 different HP pools, each weak/resistant to a different form of attack. How about Bosses that have multiple body parts, ALL of which need to be destroyed for the clear. So keeping the same 4 HP pools attach each to a different body part. Head/Arms/Legs/Torso

I like this but people will still stack to eliminate the most dangerous "parts" of a mob if they attach attacks to it. Would be pretty cool though and would bring back disabling to the game a bit. Would also be pretty effective if they incorporated it as all 4 pools per body part but different resistances. Could also use it to ramp up difficulty through a boss fight as more and more body parts are disabled or trigger other abilities on other parts when one or more parts are eliminated. Lots of ways to go with it, all depends on how in depth they want the boss to be.

[BadOmen]

I think they dont need gimp BLM/THM or BRD/ARC... would be better if they add monsters specialized against these jobs, just like Colibries were anti-blm on xi, reflecting their magic, or monsters with high defense against certain weapons like arrows, that way there dont be always an unstopable job. put monsters around resistant to certain job weapon/spells/abilities/ wathever mixed altogueter. in XI monsters had diferent defense bonus against ceretain kind of weapon damage, they need make that noticeable in XIV too.

[Duelle]

I think they dont need gimp BLM/THM or BRD/ARC... would be better if they add monsters specialized against these jobs, just like Colibries were anti-blm on xi, reflecting their magic, or monsters with high defense against certain weapons like arrows, that way there dont be always an unstopable job. put monsters around resistant to certain job weapon/spells/abilities/ wathever mixed altogueter. in XI monsters had diferent defense bonus against ceretain kind of weapon damage, they need make that noticeable in XIV too.

Colibri were a terrible thing. What we need is bosses with mechanics that challenge casters and ranged without punishing melee. It can be as simple as something like Shadow Crash (ground-targetted high damage/one-shot-capable attack that prioritizes ranged DPS unless there's no ranged DPS in the group). If you want to single out BLM, then add a boss with a mechanic where MP doesn't regen, even when in passive mode, and instead have adds that have to be killed to restore some of the casters' MP (problem with this mechanic is that the healer would also fall under this). There's ways you can encourage diverse comps without the mess created by TAU.

[Asiaine]

Colibri were a terrible thing. What we need is bosses with mechanics that challenge casters and ranged without punishing melee..

Bosses that resist magic might be interesting. Certainly will stop the BLM Burn Mania ^.^; I always thought the idea of a boss that would 'cycle' through weaknesses would be nice (sometimes weak to magic, melee, piercing, etc.) or have adds that had different resistances.

If we had a simple situation:
Boss weak to melee
Half adds weak to magic
Half adds weak to piercing

Would certainly encourage more diversity.

[Chardrizard]

Bosses that resist magic might be interesting. Certainly will stop the BLM Burn Mania ^.^; I always thought the idea of a boss that would 'cycle' through weaknesses would be nice (sometimes weak to magic, melee, piercing, etc.) or have adds that had different resistances.

If we had a simple situation:
Boss weak to melee
Half adds weak to magic
Half adds weak to piercing

Would certainly encourage more diversity.

You just defined Garuda. Except boss has no weakness, it takes damage from anything. But it has 2 adds which one weak to magic, one weak go melee.

[Asiaine]

You just defined Garuda. Except boss has no weakness, it takes damage from anything. But it has 2 adds which one weak to magic, one weak go melee.

Sorry, I should of been more specific: Those that are not 'weak' to something is resistent to something else. So Boss would resist magic, half the adds would resist magic.

[Nabiri]

...would be better if they add monsters specialized against these jobs, just like Colibries were anti-blm on xi, reflecting their magic...

I don't think it would be a good idea to make content that certain jobs couldn't participate in. If a person wants to have only BLM leveled for some reason, they'd end up getting left out. I believe a solution needs to be found but I wouldn't like people excluded.

...or monsters with high defense against certain weapons like arrows, that way there dont be always an unstopable job.

Something like this sounds better to me.. but they'd have to be careful not to make the job useless. If you weaken it too much people just won't bring the job. Making jobs balanced is easier said than done though. :\
I'm sure SE will think of something.

[Enfarious]

I don't think it would be a good idea to make content that certain jobs couldn't participate in. If a person wants to have only BLM leveled for some reason, they'd end up getting left out. I believe a solution needs to be found but I wouldn't like people excluded.

I agree, this would just make a different kind of stacking happen and alienate another job.

Something like this sounds better to me.. but they'd have to be careful not to make the job useless. If you weaken it too much people just won't bring the job. Making jobs balanced is easier said than done though. :\
I'm sure SE will think of something.

I think that the best way to make everything more desirable is in the support type abilities a job brings to the table, if let's say a BLM brings the single highest dmg potential, but a lnc can give us a drain samba type effect like it used to people might consider them worth bringing for melee parties, if on top of that a pug could stun or pacify (w/o having to dodge or combo first) semi-freely (a recast of course) and it actually stuck (based on INT) then "boss" would become more managable for melees making them useful for more than just a second to BLM dmg output. It's why BRD gets to go it serves more than just the role of a DD who can't beat a BLM's dmg, it's why WAR is preferred to PLD WAR provides DPS while tanking, if other jobs can serve up the extra support/enfeebles then chances are they'll get some play time again.