Level Cap Increase (11/17/2011)

[Draylo]

no

[Alkar]

Then these SMN's can stfu about "PREDCLAWPREDCLAWPREDCLAW", cause utility states sometimes they'll have to use Mountain Buster, or Heavenly Strike or Wind Blade...no?

Predator Claws is the best option 90% of the time. The remaining 10% is when you need a magic pact because the target is resistant to physical/has high evasion.
Everyone got new JAs, spells and damage options except for Summoner. Instead we got a bunch of useless buffs and situational magic pacts.
Even the new WS have their uses even if limited... I'd like to know what kind of amazing use Stunga can possibly have.

[Damane]

Predator Claws is the best option 90% of the time. The remaining 10% is when you need a magic pact because the target is resistant to physical/has high evasion.
Everyone got new JAs, spells and damage options except for Summoner. Instead we got a bunch of useless buffs and situational magic pacts.
Even the new WS have their uses even if limited... I'd like to know what kind of amazing use Stunga can possibly have.

SMN was and is allways flawed, that was the case since the job was introduced and will allways be the case. Its a pet job limited by its amount of MP and Blood pact recast timers. There is just too many restriction to this job when you compare it to other pet jobs like BST and PUP.

[NynJa]

Unless I'm mistaken, Shock Squall seems to be a good 5 second stun, if not longer (something I remember reading here). Can you use it to stun spells and what not? Obviously not, but if you use it every time ward recast is up, you can keep a mob stunned for 5+ seconds every 45. Is it practical? Not the most, but complaining about job specific toys when thieves got Conspirator (which doesnt even work if you're mobs target) and Despoil which is still absoltutely useless 18 levels later, drk's got Scarlet Delirium, bards got fucking fencer (WHY LOL)...

[Tachi]

Shock Squall lasts a maximum of 24 seconds, even on some higher level monsters like Uptala. I have no difficulty to stun Lvl 5 Petrify, Death Prophet, Yashka Oblivion or any nuke with it. It is one of my favorite BP in VW now.

[Septimus]

Don't Voidwatch NMs gain resistance to stun? Ramuh is one of my favorite Avatars, but I am afraid to use him most of the time in fear of making monsters stun resistant from spamming Chaotic Strike.

[Tachi]

Aello, Pil, Kaggen builds a resistance to stun, not Akvan and Uptala. Chaotic Strike's Stun is almost always resisted anyway and that BP hardly breaks 1k on them. Predator Claw isn't better either. In my opinion, Ramuh is the only avatar with a Ward worth of using every 45 seconds, the best thing is to max Thunderstom (Merits BP rules in VW) and being on stun duty, not just doing Predator Claw/EA.

[Foldypaws]

I've found Spinning Dive to be pretty good in Voidwatch, much like it was at 75 on HNMs.

[Priran]

this argument is dumb. smns won't be happy until they can shoot teraflares out of their nipples and turn everything into a michael bay film. including the most bombastically imbalanced part of single-player final fantasy as a playable class in a MMO was asking for trouble.

[Draylo]

SMN needs Bahamut!

[Alkar]

this argument is dumb. smns won't be happy until they can shoot teraflares out of their nipples and turn everything into a michael bay film. including the most bombastically imbalanced part of single-player final fantasy as a playable class in a MMO was asking for trouble.

Yeah...... I'd like to see what BLMs would say if they never got anything past tier 4 and AM2 nukes. That's the situation Summoner is in btw in case you didn't notice.
In this very topic there are some complaining that no new WS have been announced... Why isn't this argument valid for anyone else but Summoner?
Why should SMNs simply "be happy" that they have no place in the game and nothing is being done to fix that? New damage options are a given for any job that can actually deal damage... SMN is the only job that hasn't received any upgrade.
Of course this means that we want to obliterate any enemy in seconds because asking for new options and being overpowered are obviously the same thing according to your brilliant logic.

[Zag]

You guys need to relax....

Meteor is confirmed already and BG says the animation on the .DATs was arise.
These will most likely be group 3 merits because they need something good for these merit groups or it will added later on after the release of level 99 cap.

They also confirmed cait sith and atomos as avatars so SMN is not doomed so SMNs need to stop crying. They might be adding group 3 Blood pacts for all the avatars again so don't cry about predator claws yet.

RDM gets gravity II which I would HOPE would mean there is some nasty moves that need to be kited again. No cure V, that will hurt in the long run. But people need to adapt to the fact that rdm cannot main heal anymore and they are a backup healer/enfeebler support job. Same with SCH, SCH is a HUGE support job and pretty huge nuking job.

DRK gets screwed on magic. If you wanted DRK to use their MP, could at least given them Aspir III, Stun 2, Absorb-All, dispel 2, dread spikes II.... something that people would actually USE or even tier 4 spells for procs or something.

job abilities have not been announced yet so expect alot of good ones Im sure.

Last but not least, every single job is getting a SECOND 2 hour job ability PLUS augments to their original 2 hour job ability.
They were originally just going to augment the original 2 hours but they decided on adding a 2nd JA to every job. That was posted on the official forums by an admin so its confirmed 100%.
So people can stop complaining about jobs have mini versions of their 2 hours already as JAs making them less useful. And stop complainging about Astral flow and the dreaded azure lore being labeled as "weak", there is always the other 2 hour JA that will kick ass hopefully or the augment added on to this original.

[NynJa]

What can SE give to smn's that wont be a sidegrade? They already deal significant hate free damage every 45 sec, dont really have to worry about managing their enmity cause of it (unlike that melee job who goes on the "time to win parse" tirade and winds up dead and useless), and should something go terribly wrong, they can fully function double weakened in an offensive matter (probably the only job in the game who can).

Are smn's going to win parses? No...they have their own merits though.

[Priran]

Yeah...... I'd like to see what BLMs would say if they never got anything past tier 4 and AM2 nukes. That's the situation Summoner is in btw in case you didn't notice.
In this very topic there are some complaining that no new WS have been announced... Why isn't this argument valid for anyone else but Summoner?
Why should SMNs simply "be happy" that they have no place in the game and nothing is being done to fix that? New damage options are a given for any job that can actually deal damage... SMN is the only job that hasn't received any upgrade.
Of course this means that we want to obliterate any enemy in seconds because asking for new options and being overpowered are obviously the same thing according to your brilliant logic.

SMN got the strongest buff in the game at 75 (still useful) and since then, the magical merit BPs got buffed, SMN got Earthen Armor, SE announced 2 new avatars, it's become possible to keep pretty much any avatar out permanently, etc. You're not even complaining about anything legitimate, you just don't like watching the same animation over and over and over like if they add a new bread-and-butter BP, you won't be tired of seeing that before the month is out. A lot of jobs have it worse than SMN, the difference is no one picked up RDM expecting a 5 minute cutscene with gregorian chanting every time they cast a spell.

[solracht]

5 minute cutscene with gregorian chanting every time they cast a spell.

lol'd

[Alkar]

SMN got the strongest buff in the game at 75 (still useful) and since then, the magical merit BPs got buffed, SMN got Earthen Armor, SE announced 2 new avatars, it's become possible to keep pretty much any avatar out permanently, etc. You're not even complaining about anything legitimate, you just don't like watching the same animation over and over and over like if they add a new bread-and-butter BP, you won't be tired of seeing that before the month is out. A lot of jobs have it worse than SMN, the difference is no one picked up RDM expecting a 5 minute cutscene with gregorian chanting every time they cast a spell.

In that case I suppose tier 5 for BLM wasn't needed after all. All they had to do was boost tier 4 right?
I'm not sure where I mentioned cutscenes honestly, I think you're confusing me with someone else or simply trying too hard to be funny.

[Crab_Cake]

Last but not least, every single job is getting a SECOND 2 hour job ability PLUS augments to their original 2 hour job ability.
They were originally just going to augment the original 2 hours but they decided on adding a 2nd JA to every job. That was posted on the official forums by an admin so its confirmed 100%.
So people can stop complaining about jobs have mini versions of their 2 hours already as JAs making them less useful. And stop complainging about Astral flow and the dreaded azure lore being labeled as "weak", there is always the other 2 hour JA that will kick ass hopefully or the augment added on to this original.

Speaking of that - Ninja better get the best 2 hour ever because Ninja's 2 hour is arguably the worse (and yes I played BST too. NIN was even worse than BST) since forever. Okay in terms of usability it probably gets a lot more use than some other 2 hours (yes I know a free warp every 2 hours was kind of good guys) but in terms of serious stuff like BCNMs or whatever NIN's 2 hour was useless.

Spoiler: show

Though NIN's weak 2 hour (at least at the lower levels) is made up by the fact that NIN/RDM or NIN/BLM was really strong (in fact you could solo the mimic mine in BCNM50 as NIN/RDM easily). Levels 40+ they were still really good before birds popped up then NINs became useless in exp parties.

BST's 2 hour at least adds a bit of haste and some other stat boost to your pet (regardless of jug or not) so BST's 2 hour was somewhat useful in BCs or so.

At least ninja's new weapon skill is really good apparently (the one that does quadruple damage and can critical >.>)? Of course it requires a fully upgraded empy weapon right but is NIN's new weapon + weapon skill one of the strongest out of the others? (I don't play FFXI anymore but I do like keeping updates on it.)

As for the SMN debate - I seriously think they should have gave SMN Cure spells from the very beginning. (Heck they should do it now. Better late than never. Give SMN Cure I-IV and give them some -na spells + Curaga.)

For most of FFXI's life, SMN was just a WHM but with lower level Cure spells. Since I haven't really played since level cap was raised to 85, I don't know what SMN are doing nowadays but SE did screw up with SMN in the sense that an easy "fix" to SMN was just giving them Cure spells. Yes they could have revamp SMN all together but they didn't, hence the "easy fix" being just give them Cure spells if SE is too lazy to revamp SMN.

I don't know about anyone else but I was fine with healing as a SMN then occasionally just using a blood pact.

Though personally I liked hybrid classes which can heal + do some other thing (in fact that's why I like BLU. BLU can heal).

[Septimus]

In that case I suppose tier 5 for BLM wasn't needed after all. All they had to do was boost tier 4 right?
I'm not sure where I mentioned cutscenes honestly, I think you're confusing me with someone else or simply trying too hard to be funny.

While we are at it, why does anyone need new weaponskills. Or for that matter, new weapons? Or new gear? Or new NMs? In fact, why bother raising the level cap at all; we should all be happy as level 1s running around in starter gear.

What's that? "Progress?" That doesn't belong in FFXI!

[Forte]

You do realize SE has said specifically that the Group 3 merits are going to be for 2-hours only, right?

So if BLM do get Meteor, it's going to be a 2-hour.

[NynJa]

if its broken like alexander / sch 2h spells are, its ok