Dev Tracker: Discussion

[dasva]

pushing BST into melee range just seems fair tbh.

I suppose it depends on how high we can push combined dps (or possibly utility if the go a totally different direction) while not dying or pet always dying. The whole extra risk of 2 bodies in range dying (while only being able to really gear to protect 1) that can require different buffs/debuffs should come with some potential gain. The obvious would be meleeing along side your pet but then we ran into the problem that pup had. Yes master dps could get decent and yes auto could as well to the point where potential master + potential auto was awesome but constant maneuvering killed master dps and not maneuvering killed auto. I fear the same would be the case with bst except maybe worse because of charmer's merlin and even more frequent ja usage.

Honestly I'd actually prefer to melee alongside my pet and when they said they were adding skillchain elements I was excited to skillchain with my pet.... but I'd also like to not be always be asked to come any other job for every event which would probably be the case if they only changed the range and did nothing else. Maybe that's why people were asking for the ready delay to be removed like pup? I mean right now it doing so wouldn't change a thing because there is nothing for ready spamming to interfere with but if world where it's best to melee alongside our pets again it would be huge to be able to melee and ready moves at the same time. Possibly enough to offset the huge loss from either not using charmer's merlin and pet tp bonus or losing tp from weapon swaps. Another thing would be to make dmg scale with charges better. As is outside of AoEing stuff you lose a lot of dmg using higher charge moves because you end up say doing 30k every 20 seconds when you could be doing 20k every 10. And the 3 charge moves are even more meh. Would in a roundabout way make ja time not as much and would also make the run in and run out thing smn does potentially viable. I'd certainly love some strong self skillchaining again. Though SE seems to have a hard time balancing skillchaining between different characters. They tend to either so powerful that a lot people shout for thfs to skillchain zerg stuff.... or they make it so weak that it doesn't counter act the dps loss from someone having to hold off using their ws unless you can time things well so is regulated to only being done for MBing

[Sechs]

I wish dnc had no JA delay, steps seem pretty vital to its functioning but i believe they said no to that a while ago. What SE wants is us to constantly to be changing our current maneuvers. I mean they want you to pop on 3 water maneuvers so you can resist status ailments. I pretty much stay to the same 3 maneuvers, occasionally throwing on a light or dark depending on if i need regen/refresh, but they must think people change maneuvers alot. Am I the only one who just sticks to 3 maneuvers (I am new to pup)?

I think it's not technically possible to remove JA delay completely (I'm talking about the real delay, not the animation lock). It could be reduced maybe, but not completely removed.
It was possible for PUP because it's a self buff thing that does't require as many checks/communication exchanges as actions that affect other players/targets, which is the case for Steps.

[Damane]

I suppose it depends on how high we can push combined dps (or possibly utility if the go a totally different direction) while not dying or pet always dying. The whole extra risk of 2 bodies in range dying (while only being able to really gear to protect 1) that can require different buffs/debuffs should come with some potential gain. The obvious would be meleeing along side your pet but then we ran into the problem that pup had. Yes master dps could get decent and yes auto could as well to the point where potential master + potential auto was awesome but constant maneuvering killed master dps and not maneuvering killed auto. I fear the same would be the case with bst except maybe worse because of charmer's merlin and even more frequent ja usage.

Honestly I'd actually prefer to melee alongside my pet and when they said they were adding skillchain elements I was excited to skillchain with my pet.... but I'd also like to not be always be asked to come any other job for every event which would probably be the case if they only changed the range and did nothing else. Maybe that's why people were asking for the ready delay to be removed like pup? I mean right now it doing so wouldn't change a thing because there is nothing for ready spamming to interfere with but if world where it's best to melee alongside our pets again it would be huge to be able to melee and ready moves at the same time. Possibly enough to offset the huge loss from either not using charmer's merlin and pet tp bonus or losing tp from weapon swaps. Another thing would be to make dmg scale with charges better. As is outside of AoEing stuff you lose a lot of dmg using higher charge moves because you end up say doing 30k every 20 seconds when you could be doing 20k every 10. And the 3 charge moves are even more meh. Would in a roundabout way make ja time not as much and would also make the run in and run out thing smn does potentially viable. I'd certainly love some strong self skillchaining again. Though SE seems to have a hard time balancing skillchaining between different characters. They tend to either so powerful that a lot people shout for thfs to skillchain zerg stuff.... or they make it so weak that it doesn't counter act the dps loss from someone having to hold off using their ws unless you can time things well so is regulated to only being done for MBing

i do see your point, however i just find it fair that BST should care for defensiv buffs like melees have to care for defensiv buffs too. doing anything with a melee strategy requires vex and attunement. or at least idris-vex. The current situation we have tough is very one sided, BST setups only have to care for debuffs and nothing else which gives them a huge advantage.

[Lyramion]

pushing BST into melee range just seems fair tbh.

BSTs should need to stand there for 10 seconds and pet their pet to make it do a READY move. If you get knocked back meanwhile you are interrupted.

[Draylo]

Have it like the old days where your jug pet can become uncharmed and it will come do a 20k razor fury to your face!!

[barber2006]

It will be interesting to see how close to the mob they pull bst in. If its 16' like summoner is currently it really doesnt change anything. If its 5' then it changes a lot.

To be honest I think clumping bst in with melee jobs isn't really a correct classification. They are a pet class and the other pet classes (smn and pup) operate at a distance in the current environment. And while all bst setups are fine for a lot of content, the better setup for challenging fights involve a pup tank with bst DD. If they change the distance to 5' you could get the same result with a pup and replace the bsts with any other ranged DD (blm, sch, rng) and still get the same riskless damage. The only difference is that those jobs have a harder time soloing CP.

I really think the end result of the distance adjustment will just mean more healers and support having to come to every event. Is that what people are arguing for? Wanting to find more healers at this stage of the game? The ones that are out there will just get spread thinner as I dont see anyone going from bst to whm.

It doesn't bother me that pet linkshells can do events. I know our server just doesn't have the capacity to field cookie cutter pld, thf, cor, sch, sch, blm parties. There just aren't enough people with those jobs to clear content. A pet setup gives most everyone a chance to clear T1 sky mobs, a lot of people T2 sky mobs, and very very few people T3 sky mobs.

Right now on Quetz there are 361 people on, middle of the day on a saturday. 117 are in aldouin probably afk. 91 are in jeuno. Nearly all of these are probably afk. There are 3 people in escha sky and 2 in escha zitah. There are 17 total white mages. I sent them each a tell offering them $20,000,000 to raise me at the ceizak warp station. One responded. There are 7 sch. I gave them the same offer. One responded. I just don't think that in an environment where maybe 100 people are active on a server that this is the time to make people start collecting more healers and support to do events.

I get the counter argument, that its "not fair" that bst can do damage and be safe while a lot of other jobs can't. Also, that bst can "tank" and DD (although I would say any tank you can only cure for 3000 hit points every 53 seconds isn't much of a tank). But selfishly there were only 3 shouts for events last night on Quetz and if we wouldn't have been able to use bst none of them would have probably filled. No events on a Friday night. That's not the gaming experience I want.

Now I'm fortunate enough to have a 99 horn/harp bard, a perfect geo (not counting Idris of course), and an ochain pld. I could server transfer and find groups to play with. But there are a whole lot of people that still enjoy this game that simply would not be able to play if more support/healers were needed on every server. Asking those players to "start over" on gear and job points just so they can contribute just isn't realistically going to happen. But if that's what the devs want I guess we will see how badly a ton of people want to reinvest themselves to play a game this old.

[dasva]

So that resister info is interesting... straight up chance to resist. Almost sounds as if it's like the resist traits and done separately from meva/macc equation. Using both with 3 water maneuvers would've been fairly nice (albeit at the cost of completely gimping any other attachment and by extension basically anything auto build) if it wasn't for that silly halved effect for nm clause.

Oh well looks like debuffs will still be a big issue for autos. Guess just equip them if you got the space to get some resists and keep some spamming maintenance and repair. Maybe Soulsoother tanking to remove it's own debuffs for hate even!!!

[NynJa]

Asking those players to "start over" on gear and job points just so they can contribute just isn't realistically going to happen.

Who the fuck only has one job leveled in this 10+ year old game?!?

[goozira]

I don't understand what would be fair about bst meleeing more when the only buff it has is Fencer (Snarl too, if you consider hate control a buff). There is Killer Instinct, but that's situational and merited. If people want bst to melee, then bst should get some offensive/defensive buffs or SE should reduce Call Beast to under a minute. Gotta have some trade-offs besides saying "we wanna see bsts die to 1% HP mobs".

[Damane]

Who the fuck only has one job leveled in this 10+ year old game?!?

1. off this ^

2. if there arent enough people on your server blame SE for not merging less populated servers together

3. if there arent enough people on your server blame yourself for not moving to a more populated server (tought its primary SE's fault for not merging servers less populated)

population shouldnt be an excuse to let BST dominate the scene. Dont get me wrong i dont play any melee job, my jobs are WHM GEO SCH BLU and RUN so i am not that much effect (especially with Idris), i just found the current situation very dumb (and it dumbs down the game).

I tend to avoid all BST shouts if i dont know the people in it because 90% of those BSTs are garbage and stuff is usually cleared 10 times faster with a proper linkshell setup, but thats just me ¬.¬

[Damane]

I don't understand what would be fair about bst meleeing more when the only buff it has is Fencer (Snarl too, if you consider hate control a buff). There is Killer Instinct, but that's situational and merited. If people want bst to melee, then bst should get some offensive/defensive buffs or SE should reduce Call Beast to under a minute. Gotta have some trade-offs besides saying "we wanna see bsts die to 1% HP mobs".

i dont see your point here. you can up your pet survivability if you have to care for defensiv debuffs, like melees have to. you are forced now to go into melee range? fine think about survivability like all other melees out there. Sometimes that means gimping yourself or your pet, but melees have to gimp themself too at points because of that. If status effects are annoying, slap on indi/geo-vex, like a melee setup has to deal with too.

and you wont wipe to 1% when you have a tank and healer woooo

[Tarage]

Who the fuck only has one job leveled in this 10+ year old game?!?

Guilty.

[Lyramion]

Who the fuck only has one DD job leveled in this 10+ year old game?!?

You can survive quite fine being a mage !

[gaira]

with as many changes to the fotm job this game has had over its lifetime, it's funny how people still don't like certain ones being on top for any amount of time. sure bst is no risk and all reward, but who cares? if it lets you gear something else you like playing what does it matter.

[Damane]

with as many changes to the fotm job this game has had over its lifetime, it's funny how people still don't like certain ones being on top for any amount of time. sure bst is no risk and all reward, but who cares? if it lets you gear something else you like playing what does it matter.

because gearing something else with BST lets you play said other jobs on anything relevant, gotcha! there definitly was fotm jobs lets look at it:
during VW era most DD jobs were kinda balanced and welcome for procs, there was no flavour of the month.
during delve MNK was prefered, but you still had DRK SAM WAR RNG on various stuff (bee etc.)
skirmish was open to all jobs basicly
yorcia skimirh favoured mages with aoe nukes but it didnt make them flavour of the month
delve 2 was sam era mostly for yorcia delve, but people had still to bring other jobs for kamihr (magic DDs blunet etc) and ranged for marjami.
skillchain buff and sam was on top
WS adjustments THF was on top with DNC
somwhere in between came the tank enmity adjustments and MB adjustments
tank + mages was a viable strategy, but didnt work everyhwere, but was in full streanth on some events but definitly not all

keep in mind the above situation still made it possible for other DD jobs mage jobs/buffers to join the ranks


and then came the BST wagon.... excelling at all events -vagary. pushing all other jobs out, because lets face it a BST PT isnt compatible with DDs because they want buffs for their pets and dont need surivability buffs/debuffs. This rendered the following jobs useless in their setup depending what they were facing:
BRD
SCH
BLM
DD jobs: WAR RNG MNK DRK SAM DRG DNC BLU list goes on

to some extent it excluded tanks and healers too

whats compatible with BST and works well in their setup:
GEO COR PUP SMN BST

congratulation on exluding 17 other jobs on most events out just to keep 1 job at the top.
This is the flaw here, while THF SAM and MNK were fotm jobs at some point, their position at the top didnt exclude automaticly 17 other jobs, because they were compatible to do setups with other DDs mages etc where both benefited from buffs setups etc.

a situation where 75% of the games jobs are totally neglected by the community is definitly not a healthy situation imho.

[fantasticdan]

i dont play any melee job, my jobs are WHM GEO SCH BLU and RUN

Blu is the best melee in the game right now.

[barber2006]

Who the fuck only has one job leveled in this 10+ year old game?!?

I know of two whole people who have 1200 JP on multiple jobs. I don't personally know anyone with multiple mythics. While many people have a lot of 'serviceable' jobs the bulk of their time is focused on one. The bulk of the time to "regear" (job points, spending 50M on perfect skirmish augments, etc) is still quite time consuming despite how easy it is to ding 99. Most of the people I know probably wouldn't go through the grind again if they had to pick a new job starting in sparks gear.

[Damane]

I know of two whole people who have 1200 JP on multiple jobs. I don't personally know anyone with multiple mythics. While many people have a lot of 'serviceable' jobs the bulk of their time is focused on one. The bulk of the time to "regear" (job points, spending 50M on perfect skirmish augments, etc) is still quite time consuming despite how easy it is to ding 99. Most of the people I know probably wouldn't go through the grind again if they had to pick a new job starting in sparks gear.

the only jobs where job points really really really matter much at all is SCH BLU (and BST to some extend) all other jobs function very well without Job points. They are nice, but JPs arent that mandatory ecxept for SCH BLU and BST.

@fantasticdan: i know that, but i barely play BLU on events, i usually use it outside when doing low lvl stuff or when fooling around or for skirmishes

[dasva]

i dont see your point here. you can up your pet survivability if you have to care for defensiv debuffs, like melees have to. you are forced now to go into melee range? fine think about survivability like all other melees out there. Sometimes that means gimping yourself or your pet, but melees have to gimp themself too at points because of that. If status effects are annoying, slap on indi/geo-vex, like a melee setup has to deal with too.

and you wont wipe to 1% when you have a tank and healer woooo

The difference is you have to choose. Yeah if you get defensive buffs you can gear more for pet... but melees can do both. You have to buff and gear separately for 2 which means overall you only can really defensively gear and buff about half as much for each one. And you actually have to convince said buffer to give you those buffs when outside of a full bst pt it would probably be better to give other more offensive buffs. Geo debuffs make things a bit easier but it's only so much and only if you can find a good one. And if geos are making things that much easier why are you using a subpar DD like bst to begin with?

a situation where 75% of the games jobs are totally neglected by the community is definitly not a healthy situation imho.

That's simply not true though. Maybe on your server but over here mage strats are far more prevalent for 90% of the content then bst. Sounds the problem is the people on your server really as pretty much every complaint I've heard about everyone only wanting bst was from Asura... it should also be noted that most melee DDs would be ignored just as much even if bst was deleted from the game just would make mage strats even more prevalent than they are and maybe make rng ones a little more popular again. Has more to do with NM design than anything else. If meleeing is that horrible than people will use some form of ranged dmg no matter how horribly it is (unless there are time limits) or even some silly run in and SA ws strats. I mean who all remembers SACA cannonball or sam/thfs running up lol. Not exactly great dps there but relative safety (and 100% accuracy) won out sometimes.

[gaira]

agree with dasva, most common strats can be reduced to making it easy to survive. smn pd during ADL/VW era, take a stunner to delve 1, pld + rng AA fights, etc. bst gets hate because it plays well into the not taking damage/risks part, but they aren't the only ones that can do this.

it's no coincidence that absolutely no one wants geo to be nerfed. without them many fights become extremely more difficult, and damage can be generated from many jobs.