Dev Tracker: Discussion

[Capuchin]

Abyssea was quite balancing in my opinion because almost every job was powerful. Of course ukko and vere were the strongest, any job could do massive damage. Jobs that were lackluster DD suddenly were on par with the others, THF, NIN, BLU, DNC, DRG, PUP, BLM, SCH, SMN were all formidable in their own right.

Because every job was fairly powerful, procs became a significant differentiating factor. That's a big reason why some jobs like BLM NIN WAR MNK BLU were especially good, and other jobs like PUP BST SMN COR BRD were not terribly helpful. I'm a longtime PUP fan, but Abyssea was arguably the WORST time in the entire game for PUP (and PUP has had some shitty times)! Stringing Pummel did indeed get wonderful numbers with those crits, but when all you were doing was waiting around to proc a mob then anything could kill it fast, being a job with a relatively weak selection of procs was a pretty massive hindrance.

FWIW, I do think Abyssea was great overall, and judging from the year immediately before Abyssea the game really was on a sure path to extinction without that kind of major shakeup. There was a nice tidy logic to things too: well thought out phases by which Empyrean gear/weapons were released over three mini-expansions, a nice sense of job cooperation with each NM dropping seals/+2 items for a handful of jobs who could team up, tiered NM systems that worked pretty well and kept "minor" NMs meaningful. From a design structure standpoint, I think it was outstanding work (note that I'm distinguishing this from a question of whether the design philosophy of vertical/horizontal progress or increased level caps were good, though I think they were needed to break out of utter stagnation).

Personally, I'd be perfectly fine with another paid Abyssea mini-expansion (OMG Cavernous Maws have appeared in the Ulbukan wilderness, kupo!), maybe adding some new proc mechanics, and resulting in reforged Empy armor. At least to bridge the gap from Adoulin to whatever might be after that.

[Shenrien]

I'm a longtime PUP fan, but Abyssea was arguably the WORST time in the entire game for PUP (and PUP has had some shitty times)!

Cutting out all the fluff, I'm pretty sure PUP was pretty terrible from it's release, and is still one of the most unwanted jobs to have at anything. But hey it can at least solo content that is rather out dated with little hassle.

[Capuchin]

Cutting out all the fluff, I'm pretty sure PUP was pretty terrible from it's release, and is still one of the most unwanted jobs to have at anything. But hey it can at least solo content that is rather out dated with little hassle.

There's stuff that PUP is fine for. One modern example: for AAs and any other high tier battlefields where you want to use a tank in a controlled fight, PUP/NIN works pretty great as a DD that generates exceptionally low enmity by using Ventriloquy to dump hate onto a puppet that you can then erase entirely by deactivating. I'd much rather bring my PUP than my well geared MNK in that situation. Though admittedly, if you have the PLD WHM support RNGx3 setup that's probably even better - but you don't always have the ideal mix of jobs, and there are alternate setups that work just fine.

But that's beside the point, I'm not here to rant and rave about PUP not being given a fair shake. Even if you think PUP is awful for everything, one of the most awful times of all for the job was Abyssea. That's truly saying something with all PUP has been through (like the atrocious start full of mage gear, half-baked automaton attachments, and cripplingly bad H2H skill).

I was just countering the comment saying "Abyssea made everyone powerful, even PUP" by noting that power is pretty irrelevant when everyone else has it too and you have much less utility in the other things that are of vital importance (i.e. very limited procs, making it less worth inviting to a party AND more difficult to solo/lowman for drops than jobs with better proc variety). Abyssea wasn't quite as welcoming to all jobs as those kinds of comments would imply, and PUP is a pretty good example of a job that was terrible to bring to the supposedly inclusive Abyssea (and it wasn't alone, COR was another job that was terrible for Abyssea outside of brewing NMs).

[Ophannus]

COR was pretty boss in Abyssea actually. Miser's Roll was incredible, no as good as it was during VW but still quite good. And WF did amazing damage even without Brew.

[Damane]

bst and smn were fine during aby or do i have to remember people about -petdt caped? soloing nms for 30min+

[Seha]

COR was pretty boss in Abyssea actually. Miser's Roll was incredible, no as good as it was during VW but still quite good. And WF did amazing damage even without Brew.

No one brought cor to anything in aby. People did everything in groups of 4 tops and that included war or nin for red proc(mnk for blue), whm, blm and occasionally a brd or a blu. Everyone else could stay home. Cor was pretty much only used for solo brews.

[Prothescar]

Miser's Roll didn't even exist until at least a year after Heroes came out.

[Sechs]

No one brought cor to anything in aby. People did everything in groups of 4 tops and that included war or nin for red proc(mnk for blue), whm, blm and occasionally a brd or a blu. Everyone else could stay home. Cor was pretty much only used for solo brews.

I did stuff with LS (usually had at least 2 full PTs, during the first steps of Visions of Abyssea we sometimes had so many people we had to leave someone outside the alliance lol) and I also did stuff with a static group of 7 people (meaning we did stuff with 3 lowest 7 top) and in neither of those 2 types of group we used COR.
Or if we did it was very very rare.

First time I remember we started using COR a lot was when Voidwatch came out. Or if we did some zerg outside of Abyssea uhm... was there anything to zerg back then? I don't even remember honestly.
During the first months of Abyssea we still ocasionally did stuff outside, but by the time we were deep into Scars I doubt we did anything other than Abyssea =/

[Seha]

I had to lv thief specifically cause I couldn't get anything done in aby as cor. I was still requested a lot though for everything after: ADL, Legion and VW were cor fantasy. Overall cor has always been fine in all events in game, abyssea was the only exception.

Ophannus plays a different game Idk.

[fantasticdan]

But that's beside the point, I'm not here to rant and rave about PUP not being given a fair shake. Even if you think PUP is awful for everything, one of the most awful times of all for the job was Abyssea.

Pup was a strong solo job in the abyssea era at least. At 75 it was completely worthless.

[dasva]

No one brought cor to anything in aby. People did everything in groups of 4 tops and that included war or nin for red proc(mnk for blue), whm, blm and occasionally a brd or a blu. Everyone else could stay home. Cor was pretty much only used for solo brews.

I quite regularly used thf and/or rng for blue. And generally used rng for solo brewing. Also I don't think I ever saw a brd once we stopped doing alliance fights in abyssea. blm/brd proccing ftw

[Sechs]

BRD was a surplus and something skippable for superlowmen, but personally I always liked a 5-6 men sized party to a duo/trio (especially if multiboxed, damn I hate multiboxing so much >.> never want to do that crap again).
It might be because of what I said, but while not all the time, I played with bards somehow often still.
I remember mainhealing on BRD too lol

[Byrthnoth]

That Avatar's favor change is straight up awesome and might fix SMN as a buffing job if they do it right.

[dasva]

Sounds like mp conservation is going to be important to smn again but given what it sounds like they will gain that wont be a bad thing

[Sechs]

Reforged Empyreal.
<When?>

[Kincard]

They'll probably have to up the caps on the Favors too or something, if they want SMNs to be a good support job. Obviously they're trying to make it a support/DPS hybrid but since it can only have one buff up I don't see it as being unreasonable to make it a really powerful one, alongside the fact that there should probably be a better selection of good ones than just "decent attack buff" and "good crit buff".

[Spira]

i thoroughly enjoyed the abyssea era as SMN/BST/PUP because it was one place in the game where your pets weren't total shit and you could actually function very well in just a group of each other. We had pets that could tank, melee, nuke.. can't say we ever needed to heal. I had a ball of a time with MonstersInc.

PUP was incredibly fun solo as well. plop on an evasion atma and you're a veritable evasion tank with healbot.

[ronin sparthos]

Stopped reading after someone made the statement that Abyssea was the worst time for PUP. Right, because Empyrean, Deus Ex Automata, new useful JAs, the long-awaited AI tweaks (!!) and weaponskills weren't gamechangers that launched the job (among many others) into the stratosphere. PUP pre-Abyssea wasn't a job, it was a mangled mess you (and I) played for fun. Post-Abyssea the job finally came into it's own, albeit still at the bottom of the highly competitive DD pile.

I'd love to transport some of you back to the Yilbegan era for kicks cause your memory units are obviously fried. Have fun with those Fay Augments, fuckity bye~!

[ronin sparthos]

Reforged Empyreal.
<When?>

I know right, I want my Geomancer snocoat.

[Karbuncle]

Reforged Empyreal.
<When?>

Well they have to release Empyreals in order for us to reforge them.... Or did you mean Empyrean?

No wait, you want reforged Empyreal Arrow! ... Empyreal Paradox? Thats it! We need a Hard-Mode Promathia fight!

(nobutreally, I hope Empyrean is reforged soon, if only so I can see the stats on it)