Removing elemental nukes from WHM

[Shougun]

There is absolutely NO PROBLEM with different jobs shining against different mobs, whether they are endgame mobs or not. I would be totally fine with a fight that you need WHMs to kill it, as long as there was also a fight where you need BLMs to kill it instead. If there weren't different mobs that different jobs were more useful on, there wouldn't be any reason to have a bunch of different jobs in the first place.

We are really going to have to eternally disagree on that.

I believe in out of the box thinking but then can imagine a box around that new idea, and no matter allowing white mage to both be main DD and main healer is a bad idea for balance. Unless like I said (throughout this thread in random places lol) its some gimmick boss where raise just owns his face off and you do 999999 damage in 2 spells.

[Laume]

*sits backs, eats popcorn and watches the flame war*

My 2 cents. As long as whm AND cnj have some way to get decent amount of exp by themselves and without a party. I'm happy. I personally think they should just give thm/blm all the original absorb, fear, etc, spells back from the initial release, keep cnj/whm the same and call it good. Whm's can damage. Blm/thm's can do things and considerably more dmg that cnj/whm's can't. Whm's don't get gimped. Everyone's happy.

(those that don't remember the spells can refer to this page. http://ffxiv.zam.com/wiki/Thaumaturge_(FFXIV) . Mass fear? <Yes, Please>)

[Alhanelem]

I said main DD. Meaning they are both main DD and main healer at the same time. In WoW Priest can be a great healer and they can be a great DD - but they are forced to choose by talents (they then become ok at the other thing).

Preist was generally not the best at either because you always had access to some capability of both. Either way, Either way, most games do view the priest/bishop/healer/etc class just as much a holy warrior as they view it a healer. I think multiple play styles for any given class should be welcomed, providing that players understand sometimes you need one style or the other.

Not me or anyone here is proposing to make WHM/CNJ a main DD- But the damage spells have a reason to exist for situational benefit- mainly for solo play and PvP as I described before- but there can be some enemies that are particularly vulnerable to their magic (but even in these cases, a WHM or CNJ would at best match other damage classes, making them an option rather than the defacto solution). WHM has had damaging spells since the first Final Fantasy and there is no reason to reverse this now.

[Shougun]

Preist was generally not the best at either because you always had access to some capability of both. Either way, Either way, most games do view the priest/bishop/healer/etc class just as much a holy warrior as they view it a healer. I think multiple play styles for any given class should be welcomed, providing that players understand sometimes you need one style or the other.

Not me or anyone here is proposing to make WHM/CNJ a main DD- But the damage spells have a reason to exist for situational benefit- mainly for solo play and PvP as I described before- but there can be some enemies that are particularly vulnerable to their magic (but even in these cases, a WHM or CNJ would at best match other damage classes, making them an option rather than the defacto solution). WHM has had damaging spells since the first Final Fantasy and there is no reason to reverse this now.

I think we confused each other then. Because I was saying or at least trying to say main DD.

I agree that WHM should be able to run about solo (and should maintain DD spells), FFXI white mage solo what a nightmare... lol Oh look an easy prey.. splat dead, delevel.. Mot..$!@#$!@ !@#$...

Ok "White Mage LFG!!"

[Alhanelem]

I think we confused each other then. Because I was saying or at least trying to say main DD.

I agree that WHM should be able to run about solo (and should maintain DD spells), FFXI white mage solo what a nightmare... lol Oh look an easy prey.. splat dead, delevel.. Mot..$!@#$!@ !@#$...

Ok "White Mage LFG!!"

No, I'm not looking for WHM to be a "main DD-" but the damage magic should situationally useful (e.g. better than the banish spells were in FFXI) from time to time- It is not a bad idea for the WHM to have something else they can cast when nobody is in need of healing- if the WHM has a lot of downtime, then they are being underutilized and it may be wise to throw in a few damage spells so that they aren't sitting on their arse twiddling their thumbs when they have a surplus of MP. The spells are not there to be cast exclusively and doing so should not yield better results than a BLM for instance. They are there for situational benefit.

[Alhanelem]

If you don't see an imbalance here then I don't know what else to tell you.

splitting the elements could be seen as an imbalance- but just having damaging spells by itself is not an imbalance.

I'm tired of people saying cnj is not a healer and WHM is. WHM is everything that CNJ is, plus a few things and minus a few others. Considering that WHM gives you holy, WHM actually strengthens both ends of CNJ.

And again, just because you're a healer doesn't mean you have to be totally helpless.

Yes WHM/CNJ is overpowered. It should never have the same or even similar capability to BLM in regards to a nuking job.

WHM/CNJ is not overpowered. It did not ever have the same capability to BLM in regards to nuking. Only in very specific situations was it particularly effective to use WHM/CNJ specifically for their damage spells. For the most part they existed to facilitate solo leveling.

Beyond that, it's not up to us to decide what a job should and shouldn't be. Everyone has their own vision of this. Let the devs use their own vision.

[Altena]

splitting the elements could be seen as an imbalance- but just having damaging spells by itself is not an imbalance.

I'm tired of people saying cnj is not a healer and WHM is. WHM is everything that CNJ is, plus a few things and minus a few others. Considering that WHM gives you holy, WHM actually strengthens both ends of CNJ.

And again, just because you're a healer doesn't mean you have to be totally helpless.

WHM/CNJ is not overpowered. It did not ever have the same capability to BLM in regards to nuking. Only in very specific situations was it particularly effective to use WHM/CNJ specifically for their damage spells. For the most part they existed to facilitate solo leveling.

Beyond that, it's not up to us to decide what a job should and shouldn't be. Everyone has their own vision of this. Let the devs use their own vision.

Actually well said. Sort of where I was coming from early in the thread until people started arching up and calling me the devil because I wanted to take away some of their spells.

Advanced jobs don't remove a whole lot from a class, that I totally agree, and they often have extremely useful abilities/spells to replace what is lost. Pretty much in all situations - a Job is going to be more useful then a class in the current system.

I don't want WHM to be completely useless at pulling their own weight in terms of damage.
And yes I know that currently there are very few situations where WHM is on par or stronger then a BLM (pretty much just DH 15 min runs and SB'ing unfinished relic, but the latter isn't because of elemental nukes).

What I do fear is that the elemental chain is currently lop sided, and in order to fix the chain they would have to increase the strength of the current WHM elements.
This would cause an imbalance because it would push WHM to a closer strength as BLM.

I don't want WHM to be a useless nuker, but then again I don't want them stepping on BLM's toes by being too powerful. This would come with stronger WHM elemental spells, however a lack of these spells causes the elemental chain to be uneven.

[Laume]

WHM/CNJ is not overpowered. It did not ever have the same capability to BLM in regards to nuking. Only in very specific situations was it particularly effective to use WHM/CNJ specifically for their damage spells. For the most part they existed to facilitate solo leveling.

If I may interject here. When I played whm/cnj in 1.21+, clerical stance was a GREAT equalizer. I can do decent damage (not as much as my thm with all the buffs unless I'm using an element that a mob is weak against.) but I couldn't heal myself to save my life... literally... So, given the down time of casting and recasting clerical stance, I had to pick and choose (sometimes, to my death) when I wanted to nuke and when I wanted to heal. My solo strategy with whm/cnj (cnj, mostly.I used some archer skills to keep me alive from time to time.) was to blow as much mp in damage as I can before my stoneskin wore off. Not exactly a good strategy for a nuking job.

And correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like the main concerns are that:
A) cnj/whm's shouldn't be able to replace thm/blm's for their role.
B) cnj/whm's shouldn't be the main DD.

So I'd like to suggest (because I did play thm/blm too) that maybe it's not that cnj/whm's are over powered, but that thm/blm's are underpowered. I mean, I think all people that played thm/blm can agree that burst and flare does a surprisingly small amount of damage for the mp that it costs. Would it satisfy both sides if they just made blm's more powerful? Or/and if they gave thm/blm's a good amount of debuffs?

And as for cnj's being main DD's, the truth is, unless the party is made up 4+ whm's, that's really not going to happen. We just don't have the mp pool to do that and heal. (Not to mention, it's a waste since we're more apt to healing than nuking anyways.)

[Altena]

If I may interject here. When I played whm/cnj in 1.21+, clerical stance was a GREAT equalizer. I can do decent damage (not as much as my thm with all the buffs unless I'm using an element that a mob is weak against.) but I couldn't heal myself to save my life... literally... So, given the down time of casting and recasting clerical stance, I had to pick and choose (sometimes, to my death) when I wanted to nuke and when I wanted to heal. My solo strategy with whm/cnj (cnj, mostly.I used some archer skills to keep me alive from time to time.) was to blow as much mp in damage as I can before my stoneskin wore off. Not exactly a good strategy for a nuking job.

And correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like the main concerns are that:
A) cnj/whm's shouldn't be able to replace thm/blm's for their role.
B) cnj/whm's shouldn't be the main DD.

So I'd like to suggest (because I did play thm/blm too) that maybe it's not that cnj/whm's are over powered, but that thm/blm's are underpowered. I mean, I think all people that played thm/blm can agree that burst and flare does a surprisingly small amount of damage for the mp that it costs. Would it satisfy both sides if they just made blm's more powerful? Or/and if they gave thm/blm's a good amount of debuffs?

And as for cnj's being main DD's, the truth is, unless the party is made up 4+ whm's, that's really not going to happen. We just don't have the mp pool to do that and heal. (Not to mention, it's a waste since we're more apt to healing than nuking anyways.)

In my opinion, what made WHM extremely strong solo was actually a mix between Stoneskin and Regen, along with their elemental nukes.

You could effectively full buff > pop cleric stance > throw on a regen > nuke until SS wore > throw on another regen and SS. I barely ever actually casted "Cure" when solo'ing.

I do like your opinion though.

As for the concerns -
- The game does not utilize the elemental chain/affinity/wheel/whatever, creating a fairly bland magic/spellcasting system.
- Half of this elemental chain is gimped, as it is on a main healer in whom would be overpowered if the Aero/Stone spells were to be buffed or expanded on.
- BLM is currently quite a boring job to play. This is totally just opinion, however fixing the elemental chain would slightly improve their mechanics.
- WHM (based on the original suggestion) would not truly be affected - aside from reduced elemental affinity. Their nuking and solo capacity would still stay the same, however it would not have to tie into the elemental chain and effectively opens it up to be expanded on.

I sort of disagree with the MP pool issue. The only end game content I have experienced where WHM's can run out of MP is IE and from time to time Princess in CC (usually with a PUG :P) just because the fights are long. The other content we have never personally had MP issues that I can think of. Most of our WHM's nuke half the time during boss fights. Garuda was a snooze fest until phase 3..

BLM is definitely not under powered. They are one of the most desired jobs for a good chunk of end game content. The issue is that they are boring to play most of the time (once again, opinion), they don't have very much flexibility in spells, targeting weaknesses and generally become a 123 spam (with slight variation of course.. Throw blizzard and fires in there from time to time).

[Reika]

The way they currently do classes will prevent them from branching into other jobs. Jobs only add 5 extra skills to these classes, and take none away. And no, the 5 crossclass skills you cant use anymore doesnt count as 'this classes skills'. Like I keep saying, only by overhauling all these classes can they fix the problems with them. And it will also be the only way they open up new jobs for them. Some people simply cant see any problems or imbalance, i'm simply not going to argue it with them anymore....

For ex, how will they be able to add Dark Knight to Gladiator as a mod once said they were thinking about (With the effect of never being able to be pld, which I wouldnt mind) if Gladiator skills are all Paladin-ish sounding? Dark Knights simply dont use Flash, and if they didn't plan on making it a tanking class, it would have way too many tanking skills to be DD oriented! They would have to completely change all the base skills and traits of the gladiator to match Dark Knights personality. If they were to ever add Necromacer on top of THM, they can't, because necromancers aren't elementalists. They would have to go and revert it all back to following its lore of life/death and curses.

And the problem with WHM DD'ing good solo and CNJ DD'ing good solo that some people seem to be ignoring is that SE themselves MADE jobs for PARTYING. none of the jobs should have ever been equal or better than classes solo. But WHM is better, Warrior is BY FAR better, pld is better, drg is better, brd is way better, mnk is way better, blm is sorta better if you play it right.

I would have no qualms if they came in here and renounced that whole idea, but they probably wont. It would however be way better if they reformed these classes and jobs to play completely differently from each other, keep THEIR identities as [Classnamehere] or [Jobnamehere] and could preform both party and solo functions with their identities.

I can only hope that they did jobs way differently in beta, or they are at least reading these comments and are thinking about making it right.