Dev Tracker: Discussion

[The Assman]

Hurray for Kupofried + Apururu + Qultada + Ulmia + Koru/Arciela

[scaevola]

Trusts in vagary should be pretty amusing. Can't really think of a good use for any of them off the top of my head right now, but I'm sure one will present itself in time.

Not exactly game-breaking, but Brygid, Star Sybil, and Kuyin are gravy.

[Teryu]

They mentioned that MND worked on frazzle and distract, is this a case of SE not knowing how black magic works or does mnd actually affect these 2 spells?

[Damane]

They mentioned that MND worked on frazzle and distract, is this a case of SE not knowing how black magic works or does mnd actually affect these 2 spells?

mnd does indeed affect frazzle and distract and not INT. this was stated way back with 1&2 frazzle/distract from SE as well as people tested it

[Fwahm]

INT affects Frazzle/Distract magic accuracy, but their potency is affected by MND/Enfeebling Skill.

[vivbiibasjiu]

Implying official gear sets don't exist now...

Implying it does the same thing

[geno3302]

Implying it does the same thing

I'll just keep offering to ban people for the mods, any time you want to flip that magical mod power switch.

[dasva]

Implying it does the same thing

Actually I'm implying that it does what you claimed "cheatswap" is needed to do being make sidegrade gear usable... which it completely does. Which you'd know if you were playing legit...

[arus2001]

Actually I'm implying that it does what you claimed "cheatswap" is needed to do being make sidegrade gear usable... which it completely does. Which you'd know if you were playing legit...

To be fair, he is right, even if being vague in the assertion. The game's default macro system simply doesn't account for conditional swaps like being in combat, a certain buff being up/down, weather, and so on. There's also the matter of delays, both in simply triggering things without keybinds and fractional waits within macros themselves. Being limited to 20 sets is also something that simply wouldn't fly for me since I like to play multiple jobs.

Then again, I'm still lame in simply using txt binds since xml, lua, or whatever is just not something I've been arsed to learn. Which I guess is a barrier of its own for some who can't hope to understand code at all, nevermind edit it safely.

[nivlakian]

Being limited to 20 sets is also something that simply wouldn't fly for me since I like to play multiple jobs.

They increased it to 100 sets some time ago for what it's worth.

[dasva]

To be fair, he is right, even if being vague in the assertion. The game's default macro system simply doesn't account for conditional swaps like being in combat, a certain buff being up/down, weather, and so on. There's also the matter of delays, both in simply triggering things without keybinds and fractional waits within macros themselves. Being limited to 20 sets is also something that simply wouldn't fly for me since I like to play multiple jobs.

Then again, I'm still lame in simply using txt binds since xml, lua, or whatever is just not something I've been arsed to learn. Which I guess is a barrier of its own for some who can't hope to understand code at all, nevermind edit it safely.

Well yeah but we weren't really talking about going to the max just the merit of sidegrades which have been usable to a degree long before even spellcast. The game has always been about sidegrades and to some degree they have always been usable. Things like gearswap just made them much more usable and took away a decent amount of the effort required. Are you going to squeeze ever ounce of dps out of pure ig stuff? Not even close. Can you still use sidegrade stuff for various conditions? Sure just wont be as fast or as complete

[Bukadan]

People just insist on excuses when it comes to why they dont swap gear for every important action (essentially everything if you want to be worth a damn). They then resort to outrage or insulting someone/something because hey, its outrage culture.

[Hitou]

How the crap did a 3 page argument about changing gear happen just because I challenged Draylo's assertion that people are "scared" of anything in Escha? I'm sorry if I somehow made it seem like the gear wasn't good there. I literally said it wasn't bad. I just can't be assed to farm silt and then find 2+ other people that have also been assed to farm silt in order to fight the crap there. I might be inclined to do so in the future but for now I'm too busy with other things to care. This only applies to me though, I suppose other people might be quaking in their boots at the big scary monsters in Escha like they're actually hard or something. At any rate, why do people want there to be congestion in Escha anyway?

[urat]

Im pretty sure most jobs only have 1 or 2 mediocre drops tops each in escha. Skirmish gear is so damn fucking broken compared to any other piece of gear in the game, SE will forever be hard pressed to outdo it as long as the current cap is 119.

Outside of releases ilvl 122 gear that blows skirmish gear out of the water and once again waters down ALL content, SE will probably never outdo skirmish gear.

The handful of pieces of gear that outdo skirmish gear are very specific ones that are broken on their own already.

Skirmish 5/5 + skirmish weapons + JSE back + adoulin ring of choice + Windbuffet belt/Isa Belt/Witful Belt + Pet:DT- earrings / Double Attack Earrings Covers

This covers pretty much every job in the game for 11/16 slots. Off ring, Neck, Ranged, Ammo, Offhand are the only really variable slots for jobs (Summoner ring, triple attack ring, JSE neck sometimes, shield or another skirmish weapon, charmer's merlin, etc etc)

If SE is smart, they will only drop 122 tier main body gear and weapons, and make them unbelievably hard to get.

Myself I think SE should add iLvl reqs to content ala ff14. If skirmish required iLvl 116 to enter, and if theoretical 122 gear dropping new content required 119 to enter, then old content and old gear wouldn't be outdated, because you need it to get the new gear.

[Sechs]

This only applies to me though

Wrong.
It applies to the majority of the current playerbase.
We could be discussing on the reasons of this and each of us could be giving his own explanation, but fact remains that harldy anybody is giving a fuck about Escha.
A bit more after they tweaked a few things last patch, but it's still a tiny minority.

[arus2001]

Myself I think SE should add iLvl reqs to content ala ff14.

And then how do you account for swapping to gear under the ilvl req? Truth be told, XIV had issues where people would use gear not for their class just to meet ilvl checks for queuing, only to swap back to lesser stuff after getting inside the instance. Then, surprise, things like DPS checks fail.

The whole swapping metric, while some people like it, is pretty much cancer to balance. Instead of taking the one piece of gear covering multiple jobs route that Skirmish stuff has taken, erring more toward JSE with mods specifically tailored to a class with minimized swapping really should've been the route to take. Unfortunately, we went back to the sidegrade route similar to how people whined about their RMEs being antiquated since replacing anything in XI in anything under a year is considered a crime. Tiered endgame simply isn't something XI is and was never good at. And part of that lies in job (im)balance or stupid things like "Play a healer until the job you want is geared up!" Overall, some of these moves I'm seeing them make (minimum player reqs, abnormal content linking, etc.) with only 3-4 months of new content left are pretty fucking boneheaded when it comes to striving for fair longevity. And the "purists" are only going to get more angry when the required nerf bats eventually come if people don't quit beforehand in frustration. Because, you know, 2005 was best XI.

[Damane]

Im pretty sure most jobs only have 1 or 2 mediocre drops tops each in escha. Skirmish gear is so damn fucking broken compared to any other piece of gear in the game, SE will forever be hard pressed to outdo it as long as the current cap is 119.

Outside of releases ilvl 122 gear that blows skirmish gear out of the water and once again waters down ALL content, SE will probably never outdo skirmish gear.

The handful of pieces of gear that outdo skirmish gear are very specific ones that are broken on their own already.

Skirmish 5/5 + skirmish weapons + JSE back + adoulin ring of choice + Windbuffet belt/Isa Belt/Witful Belt + Pet:DT- earrings / Double Attack Earrings Covers

This covers pretty much every job in the game for 11/16 slots. Off ring, Neck, Ranged, Ammo, Offhand are the only really variable slots for jobs (Summoner ring, triple attack ring, JSE neck sometimes, shield or another skirmish weapon, charmer's merlin, etc etc)

If SE is smart, they will only drop 122 tier main body gear and weapons, and make them unbelievably hard to get.

Myself I think SE should add iLvl reqs to content ala ff14. If skirmish required iLvl 116 to enter, and if theoretical 122 gear dropping new content required 119 to enter, then old content and old gear wouldn't be outdated, because you need it to get the new gear.

half of this makes no sense. Skirmish gear is very good, but not allways best in slot. And ilvl requirements dont work for FFXI and shouldnt be placed anyway.

[urat]

half of this makes no sense. Skirmish gear is very good, but not allways best in slot. And ilvl requirements dont work for FFXI and shouldnt be placed anyway.

The point is, the majority of 119 gear comes from pretty much strictly end game content atm, to flesh out in 6/6 119 gear to make the check basically requires a player to go take the 1-2 days of effort to gear up.

Sure whatever swap after you get in, point is as it stands most gear is vastly outclassed by skirmish gear and if SE makes gear that beats skirmish gear, in the same move they'll also shit all over every other piece of gear too.

You use non skirmish gear for JAs/spells that arent covered by it. Examples would be beastmaster's reward, for example, which has no relevant skirmish augment.

I think maybe tanking gear, -DT stuff for paladin, is the only type of gear that isn't "just go 5/5 skirmish and youll be good" and refresh gear as well. I don't think any alluvion skirmish armor has refresh?

So I idle on smn in refresh gear, but because theres so much mp refreshing vomit on content today (escha nms and unity nms both replenish my MP pool every pop) I'd be an idiot to do either of those events in refresh gear. Instead Im way better off in ,you guessed it, 5/5 skirmish gear maximizing my pet's dps because I basically have infinite mp.

Beastmaster? Though despair helm or kupo hat are best hats for pet dps, a well augmented skirmish head is only ever so slightly behind them, and arguably the best for getting a nice mix of both pet dps stats AND pet:dt-4%

Most melee jobs? I'm pretty sure skirmish 5/5 with acc/att/double attack/DT-4% are best dps pieces for pretty much every job. Dancer has its retarded 119 empy dualwield body which is sick, monk has martial arts body, anything else I'm missing?

My point is this: Once you have the special belts (windbuffet/witful/isa), set earrings and nice dps rings, gearing up every job is a four step process:

Step 1: get your 5/5 skirmish gear + weapons
Step 2: JSE back
Step 3: Get your couple 119 reforge pieces that are serious business (bst hands, reverse flourish gear for dnc, BP delay gear for smn, TH8 for thf, etc etc)
Step 4: augment your skirmish gear

Boom you're now pretty pimp. Go find your marginal 1% efficiency increase macro swap pieces that lie about all over the world until you either get bored and stop logging in or go make a RME.

Skirmish gear makes up the massive majority of upgrades for every job in the game now, and Skirmish+119 reforging is basically the entirety of ffxi right now. A minuscule amount of gear doesn't lie in that zone, most of which are teensy upgrades that most of the time arent really worth it anyways.

[BerenTebogo]

There is so much wrong in that post that it's really not worth dissecting point by point.

Just, lol, you're very wrong.

Skirmish gear is great, but if all you have is augmented skirm gear you are a scrubbucket.

[Fwahm]

Exactly. Alluvion skirmish gear is very powerful and versatile, but they're not THAT versatile. For example, you want to know how much alluvion skirmish gear I use on my Red Mage for enfeebling? Just the feet, and even those are usually passed over in favor of other pieces depending on the situation.