Dev Tracker: Discussion

[dasva]

@Dasva
I didn't test Meva myself, other people did and reported that Automatons were showing some strangely low Meva values.
I did some tests (together with other people) about Macc though, and unlike all other stats which get directly boosted by a decent amount by Animators (and gifts), Macc receives virtually nothing.
If Animators do give Macc, it's a really really small amount, nowhere comparable to the amount they get for the other stats.
When you compare to players I don't think we need to take into account gear slots. Even naked with just weapon one of my mage jobs @ 1200 JPs is still performing incredibly better than my Spiritreaver Automaton is. And I'm talking about Apex mobs but I got similar results (of course better) even on mandies outside of Adoulin.
You can read the full tests we made on... FFXIAH I think?
Basically the sum of it all is that either Animators do not give Macc to Automatons at all (aside from the indirect macc you get from INT and MND) or if they do, it's a really really negligible amount.

Which brings us back to the thing I was talking a few posts ago with Byrth. I'd love for SE to give us the full amount and values of stats an Animator gives, because that way we'd be able to tell which "hidden" stats are present, if at all. I'm kinda skeptic there's any to be honest.

I didn't test it specifically for values and such because well fuck those things are insanely annoying to do but you can see significant differences between resist rate of things both being used on and used by auto though not as much as you'd expect. Like you think about the sheer amount of macc players get now if you only gained the little bit from stats even a full perfect pet macc set would have spiritreaver at a floored hit rate on things a player with only 1 weapon would be capping on. You'd be so far below the floor that you'd literally need to have a full macc set and attachment set up completely ignore mab at all to get the same macc as a just weapon player if that was the case. Heck a decently pre soa geared blm would have more macc lol. idk if you've played around with it but just adding a couple of pieces of macc gear/attachments makes rather noticeable changes on apex which means probably not floored or at least close to floor

Blm with 1200 jp and just the Oboro weapon is getting 235 macc from those things not counting how much the int gives plus has innate higher skill... so yeah your spiritreaver could do much worse and it could still get a meaningful amount more than the dint thing by just that standard.

Do you have link to testing? Your descriptions make it sound rather rough and very qualitative but I can have a look

[dasva]

There is no such thing as any playable character in the game above 99, all characters and pets are 99 and the iLVL statvomit just simulates the stats you would gain from those levels,

This isn't 100% true. Completely independent of stat vomit the game does account for ilvl when it comes to things like magical ws and cure enmity. Possibly lvl correction too but given that only exists on pre soa content it's hard to test and completely worthless anyways

[Yeager]

Regarding Omen, I'm reserving judgment until I see the AF +2 and +3 stats along with these new accessories we're supposedly getting as well. I'm curious though, will these be the "All Jobs" variety? Or will they be JSE like the JSE accessory items (neck/waist & earring) from Abyssea?

[arus2001]

Honestly wouldn't expect much different from the AF, just bigger stats. At most, maybe they slap a set bonus on them akin to Abyssea's stuff. Accessories are more a wildcard since they're not ilvl reliant, and if anything from Abyssea isn't usable now, it's really more a matter of figuring out what would make them appealing over other options, especially augmented ambuscade capes.

[Trumpy]

I think the basic difference between reforged +1 and +3 artifact will be any peice with acc will have like 40ish acc so they compete with ambuscade gear and such.

[Toth]

The fact automaton's magic damage is so low doesn't help either. Even with a good MAB set, automaton's tier V damage is pretty poor and only careful but time consuming maneuver management makes it somewhat decent. However, the fact that I cannot get even good MBs in a CP party with just base stats and gear and no maneuvers is an issue with the frame.

[Sechs]

Because needing a Relic, a Mythic, an Empyrean, an Aeonic and still being undesired was not enough.
BRD clearly needed more mandatory gear to farm.

I swear I don't get their way of "fixing" broken stuff by adding new equipment. Shouldn't the job be "fixed" on its own, instead of having to rely on gear so much?


Regardless, we can all hope this gear won't be too bad to obtain, as a small treat for a job who had to suffer so much for so long.
On a side note: Honor March is gonna get quite... interesting

[Kincard]

it's probably that they're making a new armor set every month anyway so they were like "hey let's stick songs+1 on the set one of these months, that'll shut them bards up"

[Sechs]

Nah, confident it will be crafted gear with NQ and HQ version and a very expensive HQ one, trust me -.-

[Byrthnoth]

I can see why they're doing it and it will improve Bard, but it doesn't fix the fundamental problem with buffing class balance and may not change how the buffing jobs are used at all. Song+? will make Bard a more attractive secondary buffer for casual content, but GEO will be the best second buffer in situations where you need Vex/Attunement, COR will still be better in situations where you don't need Vex/Attunement and also don't need more Acc (Samurai's Roll is awesome, and Chaos Roll makes sure you're attack capped with BoG Frailty). Even with Song+, Bard will continue to excel at the two things it's good at (MP recovery, or singing-dropping-popping), and BLM tanks will become even more viable.

So I guess I see this as more of a buff to BLM than BRD.

[dasva]

But think how awesome Scherzo will be now!

[Sechs]

Just another "All songs +1" could potentially make Honor March into Acc/Racc+60, Att/Ratt+240, Haste+17%
Add another Songs+1 and you could get around Acc/Racc+75, Att/Ratt+300, Haste+20%

Pretty hot for melee setups. Makes me think they should've made the acc/att values a bit smaller. Tbf when you think about it... it doesn't really make sense that the song that does "a bit of everything" provides almost 3 times the amount of attack provided by the highest tier attack-only song.
Oh well, not that I'm complaining, but I hate this "mandatory equipment to fix jobs" approach, it's really really stupid and imho unfair.

[Byrthnoth]

Well, two things (one of which I'm hoping saves it):
1) The difference between Song+0 and Song+1 is smaller for Minuets and Madrigals than the difference between Song+1 and Song+2. Perhaps Honor March will get even more Acc/Atk going from +1 to +2 than it did going from +0 to +1.
2) With RME you can maintain Marcato'd Honor March. If we assume there is no extra boost for +2 vs. +1, this is actually 93 Acc/Racc, 372 Atk/RAtk, and 25.5% or 27.3% Haste depending which page you read on bgwiki.

That puts BRD within striking distance of Idris Indi-Precision and Entrust'd Haste, but even if you stack it up with another 3 Minuets (~616 attack total) you're still far shy of the benefits of an Idris BoG Frailty (more or less +270% attack). Also, a good portion of the time you don't actually need Precision. So, Bard will keep playing second fiddle to GEO. It's not that it won't be useful (or isn't currently useful), but you're never going to go for a bard over that first GEO.

[Sechs]

Even without knowing the values yet, the problem goes beyond what you said (on which I completely agree btw).
It doesn't solve the prebuff thing. You don't want bards during fight, you want BRD mules to prebuff your melees before you pop the target.
It doesn't solve the fact it's semiuseless in mage setups (aside from BLMtanking)
It doesn't solve the fact it requires a fuckton of rare equipment and it still hardly compares to a Dunna GEO in terms of overall utility.

This last aspect is often underestimated but it's deeply intertwined with the community and how it evolves.
It's a matter of how a job is "perceived" by the community. Part of this perception obviously comes from the objectives merits of that job.
The rest come from other factors. Like how easy it is to gear up and play that job, or to how easy it is to implement strategies around it (usually a few groups create strategies with that job, and everybody else follow like sheeps).

So... even if BRD overcomes its intrinsic weakness from an objective point of view, it's still gonna be hard to change the people's perception when you need a Relic, a Mythic, a 99 Empy and an Aeonic to even be remotely considered.
It's not really your average joe there. And if it's not, people won't shout for BRDs and the role BRD has in the community as a whole, will hardly change.
Sure, things might get a bit better for us lucky RMEA holders, but for everybody else?

If you deem a job is "broken" or needs tweaking, then bloody tweak the job instead of adding new fucking equipment, gdi.

[dasva]

Along with being shit for mage setups it's also 1000% useless for pet setups. Also fairly minimal use to tanks. It was a job designed mostly around buffing melee dds. But in todays age where there are so many other jobs and people aren't really melee burning shit left and right that's not really good enough

[Byrthnoth]

If they increased Minuet potency and removed Frailty from the game, BRD would be desired again.

Also, if they gave Threnodies a huge magic accuracy boost (or just outright made them unresistable) that would make BRD more desirable again. -180 resistance to a specific element is huge.

[Sechs]

It was a job designed mostly around buffing melee dds.

I don't think it was "designed" that way. It's just how things are because the game changed a lot and the job didn't.
Back when MP still mattered a lot, ballads were insanely useful to name one among many examples.
But yeah, you're right it's totally how things are nowadays.


@Byrth
The problem is not sticking threnody if you have good gear, use food and rotate them. Maybe you might need focus and/or languor but trust me, most of the time the issue is not sticking them.
The issue is that they hardly make a difference.
Not sure how ele resistance converts to meva-, but it's very far from 1:1

In theory threnodies should benefit from the new "all songs+" gear, I guess?
The reason why they're not empowering threnodies, in my opinion, is that they stack with Frazzle and Languor. Add Focus to that and it could make mage setups too powerful in some circumstances?
I dunno, I just suspect that's why they're being cautious on buffing threnodies.

[dasva]

I don't think it was "designed" that way. It's just how things are because the game changed a lot and the job didn't.
Back when MP still mattered a lot, ballads were insanely useful to name one among many examples.
But yeah, you're right it's totally how things are nowadays.

I'll give you the ballad thing... if you had Ghorn back when relics were rare. But I'm curious about the "many" examples. Sure sometimes back then we would march up the tank for utsesmi recast essentially still a DD buff though being used for a different purpose. Some buffing for rngs but most of that was min. I see it as being more of a case of what else we've gained as players. Like Byrth suggested Frailty is pretty huge game... as are other geo buff/debuffs for different situations. Someone needs to do some real testing on threnodies though.

[urat]

I don't know about you guys but bard is still one of the most powerful jobs in a JP farming party as puller, for all of the same reasons it was amazing back in the meripo days.

Pulling 5-6 mobs at once and sleeping them nicely lined up for your DPS to chew through is very desirable, especially in long term farming conditions where double ballad actually matters for the mages.

I think an Honor March 3 song bard probably beats an idris geo purely because it can run ballad on the mages while also buffing the DPS, something a geo can't really do.

However, because you can't spend JP earned on any job, this makes bard only good for the individual player for capacity points on itself, unlike the old days where you would level and gear bard to farm merits for your real main job.

Until your end game LS saw you had a 75 bard and then that also became your main anyways. Heh.

I think I would like to see one of the following buffs to bard to become what I consider on par with geo.

A: Bard songs effect the entire alliance now. This is not a principle of balance, we can make bard's put songs on the entire alliance if we want to, so this is not a matter of balance, its just a quality of life update so bards dont have to party swap anymore.

B: Add some new songs that buff pets instead. Corsair has pet rolls, Geo negative spells buff pets, bard should be able to buff pets too with select songs. End of discussion. I dont want my songs to go on to the pet, I want songs that go on the owner but buff its pet. Just like pet rolls, easy and fair.

C: Give bard natural Dual Wield I, seriously.

[NynJa]

The other option would be to give bard new debuffs instead of just Threnodies, Requiem and Elegy...def down, MDef down, etc. Of course, they probably wouldnt land ever.