Dev Tracker: Discussion

[Prothescar]

We might be able to stack the existing DA/TA spells with this one to get both traits without /war (although you would lose like 3DA I think?) Could make subs like /run and /nin more attractive.

if it does, can drop all DW spells, sub NIN, gain utsusemi and slots for extra SC bonus/Attack bonus/Accuracy bonus traits. Lose Berserk and Aggressor, one of which can be made up for with additional traits without the cost of JA delay or downtime, the other is a bit of a loss but removes the need for either casting Cocoon to counter DEF loss or simply can't be used in some circumstances anyway. Pending SC properties of Thrashing Assault we may want to hold on to QC, Delta Thrust too for solo/duo on things that plague actually lands.

[Ophannus]

Enough of these charades, bring on the empyrean reforged armor.

[Damane]

We might be able to stack the existing DA/TA spells with this one to get both traits without /war (although you would lose like 3DA I think?) Could make subs like /run and /nin more attractive.

Berserk/aggressor is something i really dont like to give up.

the job traits are nice, but this cant be the direction blu goes when our JAs are built around the use of blu magic, which currently is lacking quiet a bit.

[fantasticdan]

if it does, can drop all DW spells, sub NIN, gain utsusemi and slots for extra SC bonus/Attack bonus/Accuracy bonus traits.

This is what I was thinking for a lot of content. Compared to setting DW3 + TA as /war, you'll gain EDIT i'm dumb: 13 points and 4 slots back, and access to utsusemi if you need it. Berserk is kinda situational since the defense update.

[Prothescar]

Berserk/aggressor is something i really dont like to give up.

the job traits are nice, but this cant be the direction blu goes when our JAs are built around the use of blu magic, which currently is lacking quiet a bit.

25 accuracy is easily made up through traits (BLU can get up to 35 ACC through traits which we can fit if dropping DW spells, but T2 should be more than sufficient and is still much higher average accuracy gain than Aggressor is... +22 fulltime, no JA required compared to +25 60% of the time, or 15 average accuracy if you're perfect about using Aggressor on cooldown). Berserk is useful on only some things, it's dangerous or costly to use on a lot of things but is overall the biggest loss from /WAR -> /NIN. In total you gain extra ACC, extra defensive benefits, and potentially make up some of the attack and such via even more traits that can be set because of dropping 4~6 spells.

[Damane]

25 accuracy is easily made up through traits (BLU can get up to 35 ACC through traits which we can fit if dropping DW spells, but T2 should be more than sufficient and is still much higher average accuracy gain than Aggressor is... +22 fulltime, no JA required compared to +25 60% of the time, or 15 average accuracy if you're perfect about using Aggressor on cooldown). Berserk is useful on only some things, it's dangerous or costly to use on a lot of things but is overall the biggest loss from /WAR -> /NIN. In total you gain extra ACC, extra defensive benefits, and potentially make up some of the attack and such via even more traits that can be set because of dropping 4~6 spells.

accuracy is not an issue yeah, but berserk is really a hefty thing to give up and is usefull and almost never dangerous for BLU. only time it gets dangerous is on hard hitting mobs that have a def down move, you can negate berserk def down completly on blu full time. Even if not it wont kill you unless you arent rockign ilvl gear.

[fantasticdan]

Casting cocoon is missing a few attack rounds thou, and if you cast it either way, you'd be sitting at +50% defense rather than neutral. I don't use requiescat often anymore either, so the attack from berserk isn't as big a deal as it was.

[Prothescar]

Consider also that you should be maintaining Nat. Meditation if you're doing it right, so stopping to cast Cocoon just to counterbalance Berserk is removing value from that as well.

[Sechs]

Thank fucking christ.

Spamming F8 near a biv or some bullshit pyres when trying to exp, tab not doing it for you? Rebind those keys to this shit :D

I'm not getting how /targetbnpc is different from /targetnpc

[JSHidaka]

/targetbnpc wont target a Trust/Pet/Avatar/Fellow NPC if you dont have it ignored, plus /targetnpc not always target the closest one to you.

[Sechs]

I get the first part of your sentence (and it seems very useful), but the last part? /targetnpc always targets the closest NPC in the sightline where your character is looking, or where the screen camera is pointing, I don't remember which one is the exact criteria, but it's always the closest targetable non-player thing.

[Prothescar]

point is this bypasses stupid shit like pyres and waypoints and caskets

[JSHidaka]

they should do other that bypass mobs... the WoE Crystal for example, it would target a Mob first other than the crystal

[Ligray]

Well during freshly picked this morning Matsui showed off Ra'kaznar Inner Court!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3SsD1ATmDw
Skip to 1hr 11minute mark.

[KetSC]

(Note - I wanted to post this a while back when the conversation was a bit more relevant but I only bothered finishing up this post just now. Here is the post.)

(Also I started this post before the new wave of SMN posts from the dev.)

Some summoners don't complain but the summoners that do complain, really complain a lot.

(Disclaimer - I'm not saying all summoners complain. Just that the ones that do complain, really complain a lot.)

In the history if FFXI, summoner (ones that complain, not saying all summoners complain) have been one the jobs that complained most.

Yet, summoner has always been a wanted and useful job in almost every single event the game offered (even back when SMNs didn't have seperate blood pact categories - SMNs already overtook BST in anything relevant by just nether blasting everything or healing and hastegaing stuff or astral flowing stuff even when all the BPs were in one category). (The seperating of blood pacts into two categories helped a lot but most jobs back then were bad compared to SMN; again remember it took a ton of buffs for almost every other job to become on par or better than SMN but even with buffs to other jobs, SMN had a place in almost every event.) Summoner was at the top half of the tier list of jobs.

SMN and BST comparison:

1. Summoners have always been good in the majority of BCs and missions. Astral Flow owned stuff.

For example, Carmine Dobsonflies (Jaeger Ring, Voyager Sallet, Dobson Bandanna) can easily be done with 3-4 SMNs and 1 PLD. And the majority of BCs and missions, astral flow owned stuff.

Even outside of events where astral flow was decent, SMN was practically valuable in the majority (90%) of all content in FFXI.

While the only thing good BST is good at is probably soloing a level 20 BC or the level 30 BC (and getting to level 20 and 30 respectively isn't hard if you really wanted to solo those BCs for money). That's where it ends for BST (outside of those BCs, BST was a terrible job all around during the 75 era).

Spoiler: show

Also soloing those two BCs isn't even that much helpful. You can probably do three runs of those BCs, with two other players using a "your pop, your drop" system, in the time it takes a BST to solo one of those BCs.

And doing BCs for gil was popular back then. So, BST didn't even really have an advantage in regards to BCs at all. They could do it solo but all it did was save a little time looking for others which is barely much for BST. The small benefit of not having to find two other people to do it (and again, back then, doing BCs were popular and finding people was easy), is barely any benefit to BSTs at all.

Anything worth soloing on BST (back then), you'd just get your NM stolen (a mischarm would cause the NM you are fighting to lose claim).

Spoiler: show

Those NMs (for example, lets say Despot) had lots of competition and if it was seen unclaimed once, then it'd be stolen. Anything BST can solo (that is worth soloing), RDM can solo (and other jobs too) without as much risk of getting their NM stolen.

BST was my 2nd job to 75 but SMN at level 40 has contributed and done a lot more than my BST has at 75 (ENMs, BCs, missions, etc). My level 40 SMN got way more done than BST at 75 (again, SMN was useful in (ENMs, BCs, missions, etc and basically everything; even at level 40, SMN did way more than BST at 75).

BST pets do have lots of health but it doesn't matter because BST itself is basically a WAR (with no JAs or JTs) stuck using one hand axe (and after the 2 handed buff, this meant BST was the weakest DD, even a mage meleeing with a staff dealt more damage). The pet has a lot of health and definitely does a lot of damage to lower level enemies but anything even match or higher, the damage is really low (only slightly better than a DRG's wyvern).

Once I got SMN at 75, I basically did almost everything on SMN (besides meriting).

Spoiler: show

SMN were wanted in exp PTs and in end game events, they were useful. BST could solo (slowly solo that is) but not that being able to solo a relatively useless job at 75 is useful (again, a level 40 SMN can probably do more stuff and get more stuff done than a BST at 75).

Yes, there were SMNs that complained about having to heal and using Hastega (before they doubled the radius of blood pact wards;the radius was really small before and you had to make sure all melee were standing almost at the same spot) but it can be done.

They could replace a WHM or RDM in exp PTs. The only area where SMNs had trouble were meriting in ToAU (lack of Cure III and lack of convert + refresh was troublesome) + the competition later on meant that meriting was probably the one of the few areas where SMN was definitely a no no (RDM was better in almost every where compared to SMN in terms of meriting). (However the majority of jobs were unwanted in bird meriting anyway. BST was definitely a no no. While SMN can sneak into bird parties when RDMs aren't available, BST can never get into one.) (And no, soloing for 5k exp per hour on BST doesn't compare to 20-30k exp per hour in merit parties.)

2. When they added Diabolos, summoners have always been welcomed and wanted in most end game events (at least ones that do not zerg everything down; the majority of LS back then did things the old and slow way and SMN was a good DD and support job).

SMN could either sub whm for extra healing or sub /drk for extra stunning (and use avatar blood pacts).

Spoiler: show

Yes, in most content you can zerg everything down but not every LS (back then) had BRD or people that wanted to play BRD. So when they did things the slow way (boost and chi blasting kirin) SMN was a decent source of hate free damage (that also could either help heal or stun as /DRK if needed, while still doing hate free damage).

3. When they added and later buffed merit category 2 (merit blood pacts), summoners DD capabilities were further increased. You didn't have to be stuck using Nether Blast anymore and could use something a bit more stronger.

4. When they added Alexander and Odin, summoners were even more wanted in events.

5. Summoners are one of the few jobs that can easily deal with NMs (whether from abyssea, VW, or whatever) that spammed or used a death move or death-like move (sandworm or cactuar are good examples).

6. After they buffed SMN physical damage around 5 months ago, SMN now outdoes BST in almost every single event. The only area where BST does better than SMN is campaign (BST pets are a lot more tanky and can cleave well) and dynamis farming (but BST gets greatly outdone by THF/DNC, DNC/THF, and PUP/THF) (PUP/THF can easily farm and proc weapon skill mobs).

Those are the only two events BST does better than SMN.

Spoiler: show

A RoE, skirmish, and/or bayld THF, DNC, or PUP (and you can get any job from 1 to 99 in 1-3 days) outdoes BST in dynamis farming. So while BST can farm dynamis, they do a lot worse (if you were a SMN, it'd be better to spend 1-3 days to get THF, DNC, or PUP up to 99 and get RoE or Bayld gear then do 2x better as those jobs than a fully geared BST in terms of dynamis farming).

Even in Abyssea, SMN outdoes BST in almost every way. The only thing SMN lacks is a crit based weapon skill to take advantage of razed ruins but avatar physical BPs can crit and garuda does 10k+ damage easily. For example - I farmed Ochain as SMN/THF and it did really well (way better than BST).

Spoiler: show

I used atma of razed ruins, gnarled horn, and apocalypse (didn't bother with regen/refresh atmas because spirit taker + garuda can keep hp/mp up) and owned stuff. For Maere, if it nightmared, I'd just used a clear salve or a healing salve. (Also I'd likely have astral conduit up so I could take it out in 30 seconds or less). Non-pet jobs will have to get nightmared and take 5-10 minutes longer.

(Not saying BST can't deal with Maere but with the ease of 2 hour refreshing, astral conduit is way better than unleash. Plus SMN is much safer and can heal and melee stuff as /THF without as much worry.)

SMN has fleet wind and whispering wind (BST has to use rabbit jug to heal).

The 75 horn stage, I went SMN/RDM and got lights up easily. Blue chests with soothing lights were common (so I could keep refreshing my abilities) and Azdaja was taken down in 30 seconds each time (and sometimes he would drop another gold chest with another pop, then I'd just use a revitalizer or try to get a blue chest with soothing lights and and pop another one). Even without astral conduit, it takes only 5 minutes to take out Azdaja. (Also even without TH2+ in this case, it seemed drop rate of 2 horns was 75%, so drop was high even with TH1 from belt).

BST would have trouble building up lights during that stage.

Outside of Delve I, SMN can be used and contribute well in almost every event. Sure, they aren't one of the most wanted PUG jobs but they can be used in everything.

Again, BST is useless in almost all content except old content and even in old content (I already mentioned how SMN owns BST in abyssea) BST is outdone by almost all jobs. The only old content BST does decently compared to other jobs is campaign battles against mobs with Shell IV (and RUN with great axe and blue mage can both outdo BST in terms of physical damage cleaving and tankiness).

BST (outside of when Abyssea was still new and the Dynamis 2.0 era with TH3) has been always been bottom tier (if not the worse job in the history of FFXI).

While BST was probably one of the better jobs during the abyssea era (and during Dynamis 2.0 before they removed TH3), it has always been a bottom tier (probably the worse job in the game) for the majority of FFXI.

Plus, BST required no gear at all during the Abyssea era and Dynamis 2.0 era (not that "gearing" BST even helps much compared to other job). (Monster gloves + 2 augmented wasn't needed since most pets were at 99 already.) BST rocked during Abyssea and Dynamis 2.0 but during those days, you could just get BST from 1 to 99 in one or two days then do anything you needed to do on BST.

BST at best is a farming job (and it was a good one during abyssea but "only during the abyssea era"). Outside of the abyssea era (and again, BST was at best a simple farming job that you can easily level 1-99 and farm away easily), BST has always been terrible.

The reason why I say BST is at best a farming job is because BST doesn't actually get better than farming stuff (and again this was only relevant during the Abyssea era, and during the era anyone can easily level 1-99 BST to farm; so it's not like it was exclusive to BST mains). BST almost with no gear isn't that much better than BST with all of the best gear. So if you really wanted to farm (and most people did do this, that's why BST was most the popular job back then) simply level it to 99 in 3 days, then farm away as a farming job.

That is why BST was at best only a farming job (and only during the abyssea era). That means "BST mains" get nothing (again, gearing BST barely helps at all... BST still is bottom tier even with the best gear possible). BST with a mythic and all 119 gear is still much weaker than every other job with random RoE, Bayld, or Sparks gear.

Even my level 93 PLD with Ochain solo'd stuff faster (and also survived better) in Adoulin areas than my BST at item level 119 could. I used dagger as PLD/RDM, trained all the mobs, then Aeolian Edge spam while my BST at 119 usually dies within seconds to more than 2 mobs (also even without magic accuracy on dagger, it still hits most Adoulin mobs for 500+ damage and barely resists). In fact, I leveled PLD from 93 to 95 in Adoulin really quickly (thanks to RoE 500 damage bonus also). I trained all mobs, Aeolian Edge spammed all the way (before I got bored and just trained all mobs in abyssea instead which is faster). My PLD at level 93 can take out 20 mobs in the time my BST, with 119 gear and a 119 pet, can take out 3 mobs.

And of course, as SMN, I just train a bunch of mobs and Cataclysm spam. (This is also in Marjami Ravine too.) With 3 healing Trust NPCs, it usually is enough to keep me alive while I take down the entire wave of mobs. And if I am bored and want to do abyssea exping instead (need RoE Sparks and/or exp), I can go SMN/GEO, train all the mobs in abyssea, and spam Blizzara over and over. It is much better than what BST can do. And again, SMN also beats BST in meleeing and damaging in abyssea too. Also again I did all of Ochain as SMN/THF and then SMN/RDM (during the Azdaja stage) with razed ruins, gnarled horn, and apocalypse. Didn't even bother needing any healing atmas. See my abyssea section above if you haven't read it already.

While SMN does have to geared well to do much, their ability scales a lot better with better gear (BST will always be either "pet owns old content that most jobs can do better than bst now" or "a one handed WAR with no JAs or JTs") (BST pets are still horrible for the majority of content that matters.)

Spoiler: show

BST is barely good anymore in old content (most jobs already outdo BST in old content). BST is terrible in anything adoulin related.

Abyssea, SMN and PUP both greatly outdo BST (and for a few NMs like cactuar and sandworm, SMN is the only one able to deal with them easily). Astral Conduit is superior to Unleash (except for cleaving) in most cases (BST pets deal 2-3k damage at most while SMNs deal 10k+ damage per BP).

Also even in cases where SMN needs to AoE everything down, Astral Flow still rocks. In reives for example, one aerial blast takes everything out (8k damage to everything). (Plus the AoE is 2x bigger than anything BST has too.)

(Yes, Unleash does last twice as long though but still, the damage output is 3-4x less than SMN with astral conduit.)

Dynamis, DNC/THF, THF/DNC, and even PUP/THF (they can farm WS proc enemies easily) all outdo BST (which is stuck with TH1 at most; if they go /THF they can't really proc).

VW - BST has to resummon and use up a jug each time a new VW starts (while a minor annoyance, still an annoyance). Going SMN is easier (plus, you can help proc staff and/or club as well as waiting for when a specific avatar's weakness is up).

Also, a BST with Aymur literally gets out DPSed by a SMN with Nirvana.

BST/WAR or BST/NIN vs SMN/SAM = SMN/SAM literally beats BST at meleeing.

Ruinator is one of the best one-hand weapon skills in the game (especially with weaponskill gorget and belt) but BST still lacks native dual wield (and you won't cap -delay without dual wield or without a DNC with 10% haste samba) and using /NIN kind of sucks (plus it doesn't help Aymur).

Not only that, BST is still stuck with the horrible "Beast Affinity" problem - AKA not being able to use any pets. (Yes they have been releasing HQ pets over time but instead of having to wait 2-3 months to use <x> or <y> pet that BST could use 10 levels ago, why not just uncap all pets and change BST affinity to something else?)

If they continue with increasing item level, BST will have yet another period where they are stuck with 3-4 pets (while the rest of the pets are still stuck at some low item level, though with BST affinity and monster gloves +2, BST does have a +15 level cushion they can back on but still, it is really silly).

TL;DR - SMN can also fill the role of melee DD (yes, SMN/SAM) or magic DD or support.

SMN is useful and can be used in every single event (except Delve I where they are greatly outdone by the standard job setups). Despite that, (in the history of FFXI) SMNs are the ones that complain the most. (I'm not saying all SMNs are complainers but when SMNs complain, they really complain (especially when it involves BSTs).

SMN outdoes BST in almost every single event. Even meleeing - SMN/SAM with Nirvana beats BST/NIN or BST/WAR with Aymur meleeing.

The only events BST does better than SMN is campaign (pets are tanky and can physical damage cleave mobs with Shell IV) and dynamis farming (but again, THF/DNC, DNC/THF, and PUP/THF (PUP/THF farms on WS procs) even with just bayld or RoE gear all are superior to BST since they can have TH3+ and proc while BST is stuck with TH1).

BST is literally the worst job in the game but BST complains no where near as much as SMN (and when BST does have something to say, the complaining SMNs shuts them down).

While SMN could still use buffs, BST also needs buffs too.

From the recent posts, it sounds like the two main things for BST are new foods and damage increase to Sic/Ready. Even if they doubled Sic/Ready damage - BST will still be a one-handed axe WAR without any relevant JAs/JTs while the pet won't be able to even cap haste still.

Also yes, BST are getting new jugs but it's still kind of silly that they won't just uncap (or uncap most jobs) and change beast affinity to do something else. Again, they're just going through rotations of letting us use old pets (that we used to be able to use a few levels ago) in each update when they could just remove pet level caps and let BST use any pet at any level.

[dasva]

Holy wall of text.... just want to say though I soloed my voyager on blm back when the place was still capped

[fantasticdan]

Same but on blu with pinecone bomb lol.

[Byrthnoth]

tl;dr: If there was a retard fight between SMN and BST at random points along FFXI's progression, KetSC thinks that SMN would win most of the time.

[JSHidaka]

1. Summoners have always been good in the majority of BCs and missions. Astral Flow owned stuff.

tl;dr
Astral flow was only good under capped BC's with lots of mobs, uncapped even @ 75, could super tank the mobs and kill them 1 by 1.

[Tarage]

And people think I complain about shit...