FINAL FANTASY XI Job Adjustmentｓ Manifesto

[Byrthnoth]

Almost exactly like that, yes. Eliminating Bard procs wouldn't really increase the number of Bards in Abyssea, at least not in any party I've ever joined. They don't do Bard a service by including Threnodies as an option, they do Black Mage a disservice.

I agree with the basic analysis that DRK and DRG don't have a large niche.

DRK's niche was/is low-pDIF situations thanks to Attack Bonus traits, powered up Last Resort, and Soul Eater. They are by far the highest attack DD in the game at the moment. But how many monsters really have sky-high defense and don't resist Soul eater? Pretty much only the newest content (Voidwatch, where you don't want to kill things too quickly and meleeing impractical, and new Dynamis NMs.) It's a niche, but it's a tiny niche at the moment.

I think DRG is a result of SE's original game design, which was impractical at best and stupid at worst. I've always suspected that SE designed all of their original jobs around the assumption that SA, TA, and Skillchain/MB were king. Dragoon is supposed to be the ideal TA partner, I think. Level 30 Trick Attack, level 30 High Jump. 1 Minute TA, 1:30 High Jump. When Skillchain/MB died, DRG lost its niche. Now it's just a WAR wannabe (or WAR is a DRG wannabe, depending on your disposition).

[Ksandra]

Almost exactly like that, yes. Eliminating Bard procs wouldn't really increase the number of Bards in Abyssea, at least not in any party I've ever joined.

They don't do Bard a favor by including Threnodies as an option, they do Black Mage a disfavor.

I think his point was that subbing bard is a bitch to land if ES is down. (or if the blm fucks up/gets unlucky and ES casts during a move.) It's way better to have a brd in the group. Usually when we do events we try to have at least one brd main so we don't have to deal with it. Cor's don't even get that.


It's not a complete solution, but it's a step in the right direction.

[Dooom]

Most groups I've been involved with would sooner take another blm/brd than have the second potential blm go brd main.

[Damane]

DD like MNK/NIN/DNC/THF are easy enough to keep alive with a single mage thanks to tons of buffs, Vision and Scars content became extremely simple thanks to level 90 and there is no challenge to justify bringing more than the bare minimum.

Individuals bring more people when the monsters difficulty demand it. Very few things in Abyssea do and so the current trend of 2-4 people sweeping everything is popular.

How exactly did the players decide that "procs or GTFO" was the standard btw? SE decided that when they designed the proc system knowing full well certain classes would be hosed.The system is constructed in such a way that if you don't hit procs, you're right back to pre-Abyssean droprates where things can be either good or in the toilet.

The only thing SE definitively got right was making every DD job viable for alliance EXP through cruor/atma buffs. Of course we got overkill by the time Heroes came around and EXP became a system of AFKing at the Dominion Tacticians.



No one's going to argue that Abyssea didn't do the game good but too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing and that is the situation in FFXI right now.

With buffs being so potent from key items, buffers get undercut, enfeebling is wholly unnecessary when a WHM can keep you going indefinitely and potent damage is just a few atmas away. Who cares if you can Drakesbane repeatedly when jobs like NIN can do the same damage while hitting procs and evading far more attacks?



Funny thing is that Voidwatch has the potential to be the wild card where any job can fit the alliance. The loot system is terrible right now but the idea itself is sound and needed if SE wants to break the current trend.

With a virtually limitless pool of procs and the Abyssean crutches thrown away, you have a situation where players are baited into bringing the previously obsolete jobs back into the fold if for no other reason than procs. It's actually refreshing when you know... you need a tank class to hold a mob and DD aren't just rushing everything down thanks to overpowered buffs.

Voidwatch actually renders all melees useless and leaves only room for cor brd rng pld whm sch rdm blm and smn (maybe to some degree war), everything besides pld that gets near the higher tiers voidwatch NMs gets oneshoted or feeds it unnecessery TP. Do you remember where that setup comes from? Welcome back to the age of HNMs. Seriously I shit on procs in voidwatch, ecxept if you want to get periapt or atmacites. WAR, NIN, MNK and other melees are only in those fights to stay outside, get their TP up and get in for a WS, or get in to get some TP and hopefully not get one shotted from AoEs while trying for trigger. Voidwatch is totaly different from Abyssea, no easy mode. And I like it, because you actually need some brain and good mages for those fights!

I have to say I like the reward system too, you have your own personal chest with your own personal drop!

[Ksandra]

Most groups I've been involved with would sooner take another blm/brd than have the second potential blm go brd main.

different strokes for different folks I guess. Again not saying it's the ultimate solution, but we got sick of dealing with blm/brd, so now we take a brd main, which while again isn't the best situation, but it's better than what cor gets atm.

[edit] I'm not saying that brd doesn't have issues with being needed, I'm just saying they are at least in a better position than cor atm.

[Dimmauk]

CORs role in Abyssea is get Wildfire, and Brew NMs so people can get more Emps faster.

[Mahoro]

Voidwatch actually renders all melees useless and leaves only room for cor brd rng pld whm sch rdm blm and smn (maybe to some degree war), everything besides pld that gets near the higher tiers voidwatch NMs gets oneshoted or feeds it unnecessery TP. Do you remember where that setup comes from? Welcome back to the age of HNMs. Seriously I shit on procs in voidwatch, ecxept if you want to get periapt or atmacites. WAR, NIN, MNK and other melees are only in those fights to stay outside, get their TP up and get in for a WS, or get in to get some TP and hopefully not get one shotted from AoEs while trying for trigger. Voidwatch is totaly different from Abyssea, no easy mode. And I like it, because you actually need some brain and good mages for those fights!

I have to say I like the reward system too, you have your own personal chest with your own personal drop!

Agreed. VW is the only part of the game I find challenging anymore (except for maybe a couple Arch NM's in Dynamis), which is a bit sad. I love that the jobs rendered useless in Abyssea in terms of procs come back full force in Voidwatch. And for those who said they can't think of any situation where people say "hey let's get a COR!", it is here. Tactician's Roll is pretty indispensable for your melee who are running in and WS'ing.

[fantasticdan]

I actually completely disagree with this. The fact is that there are tons of players out there who fucking love those added jobs. Most mmos find that demand for something new, and they were smart to do so. The mistake in relation to those jobs wasn't the fact they were added, it was that they don't make them perhaps more useful than they are for certain ones. BLU and DNC I definitely think have founded their niche. Probably the worst atm is COR with pup coming in second. But it's not so much that they shouldn't have existed, just SE needs to open their eyes and see what needs to be done to fix them. And that can be said of pretty much every class old and new. I would rape your face if they were to take dnc away just so drg could have steps. >

For blu, pup, dnc, and to a much lesser extent cor I agree, but sch was a terrible idea. If anything, they should have fixed the magic skill system in general (make mage subs work like light/dark arts, /rdm bumps up your enfeebling/enhancing, /blm for dark/ele, /whm for healing/divine.), and added more AoE enhancing/enfeebling natively (or JA's to do so.) Helixes could have been an interesting way for rdm's to do magic damage (enfeebling nuke/dots?), and storm spells could have gone to blm.

[Deader2818]

COR was never "needed" per say. Even back in the day, there were a good handful of people that would rather go BRD + BRD than COR + BRD.

As far as I have seen and as ive seen others say. COR is really nice for voidwatch and I assume will keep being so for anything that has bad aoes. They can buff the party while staying out of AOE range and dropping good damage on wildfire while creating very little hate.

[Toth]

I always felt drg's role was to be "the DD which gets less hate", through High/Super/Soul jumps. Admittedly though, we're at a stage in the game where very few fights let you DD full time (because you're often holding off so you can find triggers), and where enmity/having a real "tank" matters. As such, their "get less hate" aspect doesn't really matter or gets overlooked because it's so unimportant in today's FFXI, but I remember Back In The Day that being able to go all-out and then just jump my hate away was so awesome. It's solo abilities also used to set it apart from other DD, but again, they don't matter anymore with the way exp and NMs have changed (and also the introduction of Dancer).



Every time I have seen a pup try and "heal", it's ended terribly; if you have another healer there then the pup may as well use a DD frame for all the help it's healing will give. The AI is FUBAR for it's whm mode. Am I correct in thinking it can only cast once every 15s?

Yes, that is correct. I have little faith in my whm frame being an effective healer for anything but soloing.

[Shadowhusky]

So pretty much the only jobs I care about still aren't getting major overhauls. While one is still getting shat on. Good job SE. Still not coming back~

[Septimus]

DD like MNK/NIN/DNC/THF are easy enough to keep alive with a single mage thanks to tons of buffs, Vision and Scars content became extremely simple thanks to level 90 and there is no challenge to justify bringing more than the bare minimum.

Individuals bring more people when the monsters difficulty demand it. Very few things in Abyssea do and so the current trend of 2-4 people sweeping everything is popular.

How exactly did the players decide that "procs or GTFO" was the standard btw? SE decided that when they designed the proc system knowing full well certain classes would be hosed.The system is constructed in such a way that if you don't hit procs, you're right back to pre-Abyssean droprates where things can be either good or in the toilet.

The only thing SE definitively got right was making every DD job viable for alliance EXP through cruor/atma buffs. Of course we got overkill by the time Heroes came around and EXP became a system of AFKing at the Dominion Tacticians.



No one's going to argue that Abyssea didn't do the game good but too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing and that is the situation in FFXI right now.

With buffs being so potent from key items, buffers get undercut, enfeebling is wholly unnecessary when a WHM can keep you going indefinitely and potent damage is just a few atmas away. Who cares if you can Drakesbane repeatedly when jobs like NIN can do the same damage while hitting procs and evading far more attacks?



Funny thing is that Voidwatch has the potential to be the wild card where any job can fit the alliance. The loot system is terrible right now but the idea itself is sound and needed if SE wants to break the current trend.

With a virtually limitless pool of procs and the Abyssean crutches thrown away, you have a situation where players are baited into bringing the previously obsolete jobs back into the fold if for no other reason than procs. It's actually refreshing when you know... you need a tank class to hold a mob and DD aren't just rushing everything down thanks to overpowered buffs.

As someone already said, this isn't the players' fault. It's a stupid system due to the fact that it so heavily favours just a handful of jobs by giving them far superior access to what is essentially a way to boost your item acquisition rate tremendously. FFXI has always been about the drops, so you can't blame players for favouring jobs whose use far better facilitates getting what you want.

Edit: also, regarding Abyssea, it was a sugar rush, but now it's left them in a very difficult position. Short-term, yes, it's been successful and refreshing (although most people are sick of it by now), but in the long term they've backed themselves into a corner and are going to need some serious creativity in order to get some sense of challenge or progression back into the game.

OK, I guess I will go at it the other way. When in the history for FFXI has the game ever not been about players picking their favorite job/jobs and excluding every other job? First RNG was the only job worth bringing to a fight, then it was nerfed to hell and back and people only wanted BLM, then Square made elementally resistant mobs so SMN became the useful job, then everyone realized that those mobs had sucky rewards anyway and WAR and SAM became the best jobs, then people realized the Souleater zerging was awesome so DRK became useful, then Square nerfed Souleater zerging because they want DRKs to be miserable, so everyone jumped back on the SAM band-wagon. As opposed to one job being the go-to DD, now WAR, MNK, NIN, and THF are up-front.

They tried to get every job included by making blue procs. The problem is that they spaced them out in a bad way so that a good MNK and a WHM can cover all of blunt, so if you really want an item you pull/pop it at night. But if you are trying to get blue in the other periods you need a RNG, DRG, and a THF or DNC for piercing, and PLD, WAR, DRK, SAM, and NIN for slashing. But most people are going to try to get lucky with the jobs they have or just ignore blue outside of night and exclude the jobs that they don't want to bring anyway. (But since most people are mass farming the NMs for +1/+2 items and/or Empyrean weapon items, you are going to get the blue items eventually anyway.)

I doubt that Square intended WAR, MNK, NIN, THF, WHM, BLM to kill everything in Abyssea, I think that the Devs were taken completely by surprise when everyone started low-manning everything. The players did the math and figured out the most expedient method to get the most procs and items possible, the Dev team cannot be faulted for not seeing how it would play out because players are amazing unpredictable.

I have to say I like the reward system too, you have your own personal chest with your own personal drop!

That way everyone gets their own little slice of disappointment as opposed to lotting against everyone else for said disappointment!

[Septimus]

So pretty much the only jobs I care about still aren't getting major overhauls. While one is still getting shat on. Good job SE. Still not coming back~

Those were just thoughts about what they are going to do with the jobs, not promises. They may do more, they may do less, they may do nothing.

[Ranth]

Occult Acumen I
Total TP Bonus: +2.5% MP cost

Cast Quadratic, receive 2.2TP. It wont change anything. The trait seems to have SOME use at tier 2 and 3, where you'll actually get some noticable TP return, and blu wont get anything past tier 1.

"Game Description: Grants bonus TP when dealing damage with elemental or dark magic.

Converts a percentage of MP spent on a direct-damage Elemental Magic or Dark Magic spell to TP."

It wouldn't work with Blue Magic, but I'm sure they'll still give it to us for no reason anyways. It'll be "So, why did we get Rapid Shot exactly?" all over again.

[drwaffles]

I doubt that Square intended WAR, MNK, NIN, THF, WHM, BLM to kill everything in Abyssea, I think that the Devs were taken completely by surprise when everyone started low-manning everything. The players did the math and figured out the most expedient method to get the most procs and items possible, the Dev team cannot be faulted for not seeing how it would play out because players are amazing unpredictable.

I have to disagree - players are very predictable. They'll work out the most efficient way to navigate or circumvent the systems put in place by the devs. Whilst I don't think it's fair to expect the devs to come up with a system that doesn't favour certain jobs more than others (otherwise every job would be the same) there's no excuse for ignoring the fact that the current system has unintentionally made certain jobs infinitely more useful than others. It also doesn't help matters that the three red/blue proc jobs in question (WAR, MNK and NIN) also happen to be the three strongest DDs in terms of raw damage output.

Also, saying "the game has always been about the exclusion of certain jobs in favour of others at different points in time" isn't an excuse, especially considering the disparity is even more evident now than ever before. Sure, in the past people favoured RNGs, Ridill WARs, Gaxe WARs and SAMs at different stages of the game's life, but even then a good player on a "lesser" job could compete with or excel against average to poor players on "good" jobs. DRKs, DRGs, MNKs, even THFs could top parses if they were geared and played correctly. Nowadays, as many have pointed out, even a top-tier player on a "lesser" job has a hard time even coming close to competing with mediocre players on "good" jobs. And since they're also comparatively useless for proc'ing they've become virtually obsolete, and the dev team has sat by idly and allowed the problem to perpetuate. Sure, now that Abyssea is over the problem will probably be alleviated somewhat, but the disparity is still there and, from the looks of this post, they don't seem to be doing much to actively remedy the situation.

[Ksandra]

For blu, pup, dnc, and to a much lesser extent cor I agree, but sch was a terrible idea. If anything, they should have fixed the magic skill system in general (make mage subs work like light/dark arts, /rdm bumps up your enfeebling/enhancing, /blm for dark/ele, /whm for healing/divine.), and added more AoE enhancing/enfeebling natively (or JA's to do so.) Helixes could have been an interesting way for rdm's to do magic damage (enfeebling nuke/dots?), and storm spells could have gone to blm.

I do agree that sch seemed to fit in awkwardly. I could see them wanting to add another mage job instead of just hybrid jobs, but it does really seem they don't know what to do with the class. It sucks for them because no matter what they do with it it's either going to be weaker than an rdm blm or whm, or stronger which will make the rdm, blm, or whm bitch like mad.




also, good to know that cor has a slot in voidwatch, we haven't used them yet but then we haven't finished a series yet so maybe we will end up using them.

[Septimus]

I have to disagree - players are very predictable. They'll work out the most efficient way to navigate or circumvent the systems put in place by the devs. Whilst I don't think it's fair to expect the devs to come up with a system that doesn't favour certain jobs more than others (otherwise every job would be the same) there's no excuse for ignoring the fact that the current system has unintentionally made certain jobs infinitely more useful than others. It also doesn't help matters that the three red/blue proc jobs in question (WAR, MNK and NIN) also happen to be the three strongest DDs in terms of raw damage output.

Also, saying "the game has always been about the exclusion of certain jobs in favour of others at different points in time" isn't an excuse, especially considering the disparity is even more evident now than ever before. Sure, in the past people favoured RNGs, Ridill WARs, Gaxe WARs and SAMs at different stages of the game's life, but even then a good player on a "lesser" job could compete with or excel against average to poor players on "good" jobs. DRKs, DRGs, MNKs, even THFs could top parses if they were geared and played correctly. Nowadays, as many have pointed out, even a top-tier player on a "lesser" job has a hard time even coming close to competing with mediocre players on "good" jobs. And since they're also comparatively useless for proc'ing they've become virtually obsolete, and the dev team has sat by idly and allowed the problem to perpetuate. Sure, now that Abyssea is over the problem will probably be alleviated somewhat, but the disparity is still there and, from the looks of this post, they don't seem to be doing much to actively remedy the situation.

To get all blue procs you need RNG, DRG, SAM, PLD, and DRK on top of WAR, WHM, NIN, and MNK. That is hardly exclusionary on the part of the dev team. The players decided to cut out the jobs that they deemed unnecessary. (I.E. RNG, DRG, SAM, PLD, and DRK.)

They could have made the blue procs from Nyzul weapon skills, starter jobs in the morning, additional jobs in the afternoon, expansion jobs at night, and I am fairly certain that it would be pretty much the same jobs that we see now- they would focus on procing in the morning when WAR, MNK, BLM, WHM, and THF were available.

[ronin sparthos]

To get all blue procs you need RNG, DRG, SAM, PLD, and DRK on top of WAR, WHM, NIN, and MNK. That is hardly exclusionary on the part of the dev team. The players decided to cut out the jobs that they deemed unnecessary. (I.E. RNG, DRG, SAM, PLD, and DRK.)

They could have made the blue procs from Nyzul weapon skills, starter jobs in the morning, additional jobs in the afternoon, expansion jobs at night, and I am fairly certain that it would be pretty much the same jobs that we see now- they would focus on procing in the morning when WAR, MNK, BLM, WHM, and THF were available.

Blue procs are the lowest priority in Abyssea.

Compared to getting key items through red or obtaining seals and +2 items with yellow, blue is usually something of an afterthought on most NMs.

The reason certain classes are excluded is multi-faceted but if SE really thought Blue !!s was going to be enough to keep every class in play, I question their knowledge of the base. I am more inclined to believe that SE wanted to create an arena where people could make quick progress, enjoy more relaxed gameplay and to hell with the problems that might arise down the road.

It'll all blow over by 99 seems to be the mindset.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that when you can constantly chug Stalwarts/Champs/Ascetics that buffers are going to become marginalized, 10mp/tic with just one Atma means that you're refreshers are going to be getting unemployment slips or that too many stat boosts means that your tanks are going to become DD.

[Septimus]

Blue procs are the lowest priority in Abyssea.

Compared to getting key items through red or obtaining seals and +2 items with yellow, blue is usually something of an afterthought on most NMs.

The reason certain classes are excluded is multi-faceted but if SE really thought Blue !!s was going to be enough to keep every class in play, I question their knowledge of the base. I am more inclined to believe that SE wanted to create an arena where people could make quick progress, enjoy more relaxed gameplay and to hell with the problems that might arise down the road.

It'll all blow over by 99 seems to be the mindset.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that when you can constantly chug Stalwarts/Champs/Ascetics that buffers are going to become marginalized, 10mp/tic with just one Atma means that you're refreshers are going to be getting unemployment slips or that too many stat boosts means that your tanks are going to become DD.

OK, so instead they could change red procs to Nyzul Weapon skills, and blue procs to elemental weapon skills. Or green procs to Nyzul weapon skills and blue procs to magic. Do you honestly think that the jobs that people take to Abyssea would change at all? They cannot force the player base to do anything that the player base doesn't want to do.

Speaking as a RDM I wanted a pink slip from Refresh. It is a sad that the only useful role that you can have in the game is to cast two spells (Refresh and Haste) because your enfeebles will be resisted on anything that matters no matter how much time you spent getting the best gear and merits possible. I would be happy to never cast Refresh on anyone ever again if my capped enfeebling magic and nifty gear actually meant something.

[Nightfyre]

DRK's niche was/is low-pDIF situations thanks to Attack Bonus traits, powered up Last Resort, and Soul Eater. They are by far the highest attack DD in the game at the moment. But how many monsters really have sky-high defense and don't resist Soul eater? Pretty much only the newest content (Voidwatch, where you don't want to kill things too quickly and meleeing impractical, and new Dynamis NMs.) It's a niche, but it's a tiny niche at the moment.

DRK used to have a decent niche as a tank too. Hoping they'll revive that but if they maintain current trends as far as NM mechanics I'm not holding my breath.

Random but related question, how does Absorb-TP fare vs VWNMs?

DRG still did reasonably well at 75 even after SC-MB died out, though it was in no small part due to Angon and you never saw more than 1-2 in any good group. What really hurt DRG was an improved understanding of enmity mechanics and more importantly, massive gains in our ability to generate hate. DRG just isn't that sturdy, if timers are down and Seigan drops at a bad time (or gets completely bypassed) you're in for a lot of pain.