Date of SoA Revealed: 3/27/13

[Obsidian]

I can only assume the expansion will be adding more mobs that deal heavy magic damage. As far as physical damage mitigation, it kind of looks like /SAM will be the default subjob, so it'll at least have Seigan/Third Eye, but in situations where physical damage is the primary concern, perhaps RUN could be used as a DD instead of a tank; it does have Resolution, after all.

It's going to really suck if RUN isn't on a lot of existing PLD/WAR/DRK gear. I'm interested in the job, but I don't think my inventory could handle needing a ton of RUN-exclusive gear.

[Taim Meich]

My real problem with the interview is that

While Rune Fencers are new to the franchise, Geomancers have a long and storied history of sucking. The only game in which they've actually been useful was Final Fantasy Tactics, and even that was debatable. Despite this fact, the new version of Geomancer looks as if it's going to be quite good, working as a sort of fusion of Bard and Black Mage.

Geomancers are actually fucking awesome in FFT! Grrrr...

[Prothescar]

Mog was basically a GEO and he was badass

[Spagnutty]

Now I want to channel Mog by adding dance emotes to all my GEO JA macros.

[Jeryhn]

Reading over it a couple times, it seems RUN's DPS potential is really going to depend on how how the added elemental damage gets from their Rune Enchantment enspells, and whether or not their Enhancing Magic skill will effect damage and resistance rates. If say, using one Enchantment gives the RUN an equivalent to Enspell 1, then stacking it after five seconds gives Enspell 2, etc., the damage could get pretty high depending on how high they can stack a single Enchantment. I really hope they get a much higher Enhancing skill than is currently available for other jobs.

For mobs that don't outright resist magic damage or are even weak to it, this type of white damage could scale up pretty quickly and wouldn't require RUNs to worry about having access to Attack-increasing abilities like Berserk, instead having things like Hasso from SAM to lower their wait time between attacks to pump out as much elemental damage as possible. It also occurs to me that with this type of system in place that the sole reason they're updating Last Resort from DRK sub could be to address the lack of RUN having both a decent way to increase their physical attack power while maintaining a JA effect to shorten their wait time between attacks.

There's also the matter of expending your stacked Runes to deal the bigger elemental attack through Effusion. If it functions just like an elemental weapon skill, its primary function could be setting up solo-skillchains or something for a decent spike damage capability.

Unfortunately, it seems monsters that spam Amnesia-type abilities are really going to hinder RUN's capabilities no matter the role they're playing.

GEO looks pretty straightforward. Their usefulness is just gonna come down to the potency of their buffs really. Sounds like its techically a pet class since you'll have to worry about luopan HP. I assume the Cardinal Chant thing is only going to affect their -ra type elemental spells.

[Tarage]

Now if only SE would make a job that does everything SMN should have, so I can level it...

[S N K]

S/E stated in an interview long ago right after Vanafest that RUN/GEO won't be added to empys/relics, but they will have their own mythics

See that's such a crock of shit. It's not like Calabolg will break RUN.

[Rocl]

I just imagine monsters starting to do elemental damage with their normal hits (a la Formless Strikes, but with an elemental alignment) '~' I don't think it'd make Rune Fencer any more viable but ... that's the logical SE jump I see. Let's make these theoretical attacks unblockable and they go through Utsusemi too.

[Byrthnoth]

Mandau wouldn't break DNC (though it would be the best non-mythic mainhand)
Annihilator wouldn't break COR.
Excalibur wouldn't break BLU (though it might offer competition for Almace in some cases?)
Claustrum wouldn't break SCH.
Spharai wouldn't break PUP.

I feel that SE avoids adding jobs to relic weapons because they don't want to make them more useful. For instance, if you had all jobs at 99, liked them equally, and were going to make a relic weapon with the above relic->job assignments, making Mandau would be a solid choice because it could be used by four jobs.

That's pretty much the only thing I can think of.

[Rocl]

Claustrum wouldn't break SCH.

We both know this is a lie.

[Robertfb]

Mandau wouldn't break DNC (though it would be the best non-mythic mainhand)
Annihilator wouldn't break COR.
Excalibur wouldn't break BLU (though it might offer competition for Almace in some cases?)
Claustrum wouldn't break SCH.
Spharai wouldn't break PUP.

I feel that SE avoids adding jobs to relic weapons because they don't want to make them more useful. For instance, if you had all jobs at 99, liked them equally, and were going to make a relic weapon with the above relic->job assignments, making Mandau would be a solid choice because it could be used by four jobs.

That's pretty much the only thing I can think of.

I think the real reason for this is simply they just don't want to have to go through their fucked up spagetti code and risk breaking tons of things in the game by coding those jobs onto relics

[Slycer]

We both know this is a lie.

i lol'ed

Byrth's reason does make sense, although it would make more sense if the weapons didn't initially have differing numbers of jobs on them. Not that anyone is meleeing on RDM or BRD because of Mandau, but ya.

[Elizara]

BTW, a tip from Alla I'll mention over here.

If you haven't preordered Seekers yet (I'm guessing this is US only) Amazon is running a end of February sale. SoA, (this is both collection and just the expansion) is on the list. Here's the list. The coupon code is CAGROCKS, use that and you'll get about 10 bucks knocked off the price of the expansion or the new collection. Don't know if SoA is the only preorder this works on but thought I'd pass it on. I just canceled and redid my preorder to take advantage!

[ronin sparthos]

I just imagine monsters starting to do elemental damage with their normal hits (a la Formless Strikes, but with an elemental alignment) '~' I don't think it'd make Rune Fencer any more viable but ... that's the logical SE jump I see. Let's make these theoretical attacks unblockable and they go through Utsusemi too.

Iron Giant/Monoceros type normal attacks that are actually unnamed TP moves could be given an elemental alignment. It'd also make sense given all the new HNM will adopt the same attack patterns.

Btw if RUN wont be on emps then doesnt that mean all TOTM weaps are out?

[Rocl]

Btw if RUN wont be on emps then doesnt that mean all TOTM weaps are out?

Not at all. WHM/BRD/RDM etc can't use Empyrean Staff but can use Elemental Staff Trials, so I don't see why RUN won't get a similar deal.

[SephYuyX]

BTW, a tip from Alla I'll mention over here.

If you haven't preordered Seekers yet (I'm guessing this is US only) Amazon is running a end of February sale. SoA, (this is both collection and just the expansion) is on the list. Here's the list. The coupon code is CAGROCKS, use that and you'll get about 10 bucks knocked off the price of the expansion or the new collection. Don't know if SoA is the only preorder this works on but thought I'd pass it on. I just canceled and redid my preorder to take advantage!

I dont see anything listed on Amazon, but are there any in game goodies for buying the collection?

[Darkmagi]

Well, I'm pretty hyped to play my melee rdm 2.0.

[Elizara]

Seph; Yes. Chocobo Shirt and if you don't have it, Destrier Beret.

I can confirm that coupon code works on the stand alone expansion (which is what I need). According to reports you can only use it once, but this might be a good thing to use it on! (I don't buy games often so this works for me.)

[Guitarman]

edit: nevermind! just answered.

[Byrthnoth]

Reading the GEO description again, that could be a really fun job. It is going to need refresh, defense down, and substantial haste buffs, though.