[dev1032] All THM Spells Completely Int-Blind, As Intended?

[Zephy]

Hey I've noticed that in this forum and others related to the game, that people like to suggest that THMs pump INT as well as MND and PIE. But none of the THM spells actually scale with higher INT, from racial base to 170 there is no discernable difference in damage in Scourge, Banish, Scourge II, Banish II, (incidently Scourge/Banish are unaffected by elemental allotment as well) and Shadowsear. I've tested this extensibly and I've had another person who was even more meticulous than myself confirm it.

Maybe it doesn't matter, but to me this really means that INT is basically a stat that only matters to a single combat classes abilities (CON Spells). Sure, INT continues to affect THM weaponskills, but I've always found them lackluster (perhaps wrongly so?)

This doesn't seem like it's really well known by the community, and I've always wondered if this was an intentional design decision by the development team?

[zaviermhigo]

The fact of the matter is too many people put merit in int, pie, and mnd, when you should be worried about your elemental stats. Earth, ice, and water are umbral stats, 80% of THM spells are umbral. Fire,Lighting and Wind are astral stats, less useful since only 20% of THM spells are astral.

Int and pie do make a difference, but if you honestly don't see an effect when playing around with those, you should try restatting your elements.

Edit: refer to my post about elements, I went digging and it rocked my world up about what I believe.

[Zephy]

Well I did say it in parenthesis, but at least for damage, stacking the 3 astral or the 3 umbral elements has 0 affect on Scourge/Banish.

[Raim]

I redistributed evenly into INT/PIE, distributed my elemental affinities amongst the three major Umbral, and made sure to buy gear for my spell accuracy. Still missing most of my debuffs, and if they do land, last for only 5-10 seconds. Seems like a worthless class.

[Zephy]

I was going to say that the class isn't worthless, and then I was going to say how it is one of the most defensive classes in the game, and how on NMs DoT THM damage ranks competitively versus the damage output of the highest caliber ARCs. But the truth is that this is such a narrow window of usefulness that I agree with your sentiments.

The THM NM solos are done by exploiting one single ability in their arsenal, which pretty much everyone is sure is due for a nerf. And to be frank having the THM's signature damage abilities be only relevant on Notorious Monsters seems pretty pitiable. On my ARC I am kicking ass all of the time, and on my THM I only really shine in the few long fights the game has to offer.

Debuffs CD and Duration doesn't sync up with the majority of the combat in the game, making the class feel really disjointed with the pace of battle. And pretty much every single grind or leve fight you engage in is too short for DoTs to be much of a contender.

So while I understand that the class has some things that make it overpowered versus the End Game content that currently exists in the game, I worry that when these issues are addressed we're going to be left with exactly what you said. A worthless class.

So I have to ask why there seems to be a disparity between the application of INT and Elemental Allotment on Thaumaturge Spells (That is to say that there is none, it is nonexistent) and the same characteristics when applied to Conjurer Spells. On Conjurer damage scales nicely with both added INT and Elemental Allotment.

[Crowley]

I kick ass all the time on my THM. I have high INT and PIE and my main nuke affinities are 80+.

The kicker is .... I use CON nukes with "One with Nature" and Shadowsear. Prof II Blood Rite II Chainspell. Abuse the mob's weak element and you will drop jaws! Just intelligently manage your cooldowns to maximize the damage.

edit: Anyone else notice that CON affinity with One with Nature is not 100 anymore? Chainspell CD > 5m

[Zephy]

I am perfectly aware that CON spells carry over their qualities when used on THM. Pretty much every serious DoM player is going to cap both CON and THM and roll with THM primary for the superior AoE.

What I want to know is why from a design perspective SE decided that INT/elemental-allotment to damage wouldn't be applicable to even a single spell in the Thaumaturge spell list.

[Crowley]

Yes that was a reply to the folks stating that DoM are weak DD classes.

I do think that they messed up a ton of spells and their formulae.

[Zephy]

This guy put together some pretty solid data to indicate the extent to which INT has no influence on THM Spells:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ken-Unbalanced

Again, I'd like to see some sort of awknowledgement from SE that they're aware of this issue, or that it's always been this way by design.

[Aiko]

I'd like to see some sort of awknowledgement from SE that they're aware of this issue, or that it's always been this way by design.

Door number one. The devs are aware of the issue and are working to simplify the damage formulas, or at least that's what Naoki Yoshida said in his interview with Core:

Our Lead Battle Director, Matsui-san, is currently undergoing--they're basically going to change the equations for how stuff is calculated, all of these attributes. As they balance each of the classes with the new balance system, they're going to go through and check each action. And then see how that needs to be adjusted, and reassign each attribute as they go along.

Since it's going to be such a huge undertaking, it's going to happen in steps--it's not all going to change in the next patch, but over the next few patches we hope to change it. But we want to reassess everything, so it's not like we're going to be looking at one broken thing, we're going to be changing pretty much everything.

One of the reasons that you have some of the things not affecting something at all--like Shell not working on a lot of spells--is because right now a lot of the calculations for that stuff is too complex. Because it's so complex, it's difficult to balance. They want to make it simpler, not just so the players know what's going on--having to have some super program going on in the background to understand the calculations--but also so when the devs do balancing, it's easier for them to balance.