Dev Tracker: Discussion

[Sechs]

So after all that's what they meant with "adjusting" enfeebling Geomancy?
It was kinda one of two things: fixing the lame geo debuffs (para, poison etc) or nerfing the cool ones. Maybe it could be both.
Be they gonna nerf at least Frailty!

[dasva]

That's about what I took out of it but probably best to light the Kincard signal for a more complete translation

[Nyarlko]

Given the context of the thread they posted in, it's most likely a buff to Enfeebling magic and debuff song accuracy/potency and a nerf to correlating geo debuffs. The JPside POL entry has it as "Noroiuta" which would roughly translate to "curse song", so I'm pretty sure this round of adjustments are just going to be debuff songs unfortunately ;;.. Was hoping this was the announced prep-work before releasing the new AllSongs gear, but probably/hopefully isn't related to that.

Won't be surprised if they try to balance it so that most debuff classes still stack but don't neuter NMs (once spells like Elegy and Paralyze can actually land reliably w/o needing massive macc, debuffs might become important again, but could possibly get out of hand if not adjusted beforehand.) I'm thinking that they might even be removing the macc check to match up to geo's unresistability. I expect the devs would be worried if we could reliably stack up SlowII/Elegy/geo-slow for instance... Though it could be funny to watch things never swing. XD

[dasva]

But mobs already never swing when they spam tp moves .

[JeanPaul]

Going from this post, it looks to me more like they're saying they'll balance enfeebles/songs/bubbles to be more even in performance. The issue, they say, is that doubling up on bubbles (ie: Vex + Attunement or Fury + Frailty) is too potent compared to other forms of support. They follow that they believe some enemies/strategies are not currently reasonable without a GEO, and as such they'll also be looking at adjusting enemies to compensate.

[Sechs]

I dunno. Minuet and Fury work well combined together since Minu is a static value that affects the base attack, so it gets furtherly multiplied by Fury.
There's no song for def down, like Frailty.
If we're talking about macc down, there's Nocturne (or Addle, they don't stack) but they give a really small value of macc down. Addle2 is more noticeable but I think it's still far from Vex.
There's no buff for Meva up like Attunement.
There's also no debuff to lower a target's MDB (like Malaise) and there's buff to boost players' mab (let's leave COR out of the scenario since they didn't mention the job).
Strangely enough, stuff like Para2, Slow2 and Elegy are powerful compared to stuff like Indi-Slow and Indi-Paralyze, but they're kinda useless on NMs. They could buff the GEO versions all they want, which in a sense would be fair, but it still wouldn't change the cards on the table.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the most "unbalanced" debuff GEO has is Frailty. When, with an Idris and Bolster, Frailty alone can almost bring players to PDIF cap, you know there's something wrong there.
I don't think Malaise, while very powerful, has the same "potency". I think the same applied to Torpor before the AGI adjustment: it was very powerful but not as much as Frailty, wasn't it?
Nerfing Frailty slightly would make stuff like Minuet and Chaos Roll and even Dia2-4 more desirable even when bolster is up, moreso when Bolster isn't up and/or your GEO doesn't have an Idris.


Speaking of which, I might talk against my own interest, but I think there's space for them to release an item with Geomancy +1 or +2 (keeping the overall cap at 10) so that non-Idris players can get to a total of 6/7. Wouldn't really change Idris' utility but it would close the gap a bit, and I think it would be quite fair in the long run for the game's health.

[BerenTebogo]

I think the most prominent issue with frailty is that it took us from a world where DEF- was applied via dia, angon, gungnir relic proc, and frightful roar (and a few other random shits I'm sure), to a world where any asshole can be put in a party and nearly floor DEF.

I mean, I love it, but it isn't hard to see how the change was a bit drastic.

[Sechs]

Yeah, I definitely think a small nerf to Frailty is due and would work well with the synergyes other jobs can bring on the table when PDIF is concerned.
I wouldn't really nerf anything else though. All the other debuffs and buffs GEO can provide are surely powerful, but imho they don't really require a nerf.

[Byrthnoth]

I think you guys are underestimating how essential Frailty's current potency is to every meleeburn strat. Nerfing it would only push us back to manaburning endgame.

[Sechs]

I think you guys are underestimating how essential Frailty's current potency is to every meleeburn strat. Nerfing it would only push us back to manaburning endgame.

Depends on how big the nerf is, and how good the buff is to other sources.
They could be buffing Minuet and Dia for instance and the result would be more or less the same as we get today, but you'd need to work harder with buff synergy instead of just throwing a Bolster Idris Frailty and forget about everything else, no?

[BerenTebogo]

Independent of anything else, Dia 3 should scale with merits and go to at least 20%

[Prothescar]

lmao. "Geomancy being so strong was a bug and we're fixing it now"

hopefully the other changes to brd and rdm are as good as the frazzle/distract ones.

[Kincard]

If I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, I guess I would assume it was some kind of minor equation hiccup that didn't raise an eyebrow until after they added a shitload of Geomancy+ gear and whatnot, then they went back to dig in the code and went "well shit". It was also implied in the post that something in the calculation was being applied multiple times or something, but they didn't really specify.

[jacobs67]

Well they didn't mention nerfing Frailty just Vex/Attunement/Languor/Focus right? (the geomancies related to magic accurucy and evasion)

[Kincard]

Yeah, the only mentioned magic accuracy/evasion when talking about Geomancer, so it doesn't sound like Frailty is on the chopping block. Doesn't sound like Geomancer's going to be any less important even if this ends up being a straight nerf after considering the monster adjustments.

[Sechs]

lmao. "Geomancy being so strong was a bug and we're fixing it now"

hopefully the other changes to brd and rdm are as good as the frazzle/distract ones.

Nice one, using the "we're not nerfing it, we're just fixing a bug!" excuse and trying to get away with it XD

Jokes apart, I think it's true. Maybe things won't change much in the end. They're gonna reduce stats of mobs, maybe even with nerfed Focus/Malaise the result will be the same.
I think they meant Focus/Malaise only and not Vex/Attunement, but we'll see I guess.


From their words it seems to me they won't nerf other GEO buffs, which is a bit of a surprise. I honestly thought a *small* nerf to Frailty would've actually been beneficial (if followed by buffs to other jobs, of course).

[Toth]

I actually like these changes because the game is way tooooo reliant on GEOs at the moment. I think what they want to do is to equalize the three supports so you can have choices on whom to bring and not suffer a severe loss in potency. As it stands now, you would need 2 GEOs to reduce evasion, magic evasion, defense and mag accuracy. This adjustment could allow a RDM to take over at least two of those roles with Frazzle and Distract. Not sure what songs a BRD can offer, unless they mean accuracy songs?

[jacobs67]

Nice one, using the "we're not nerfing it, we're just fixing a bug!" excuse and trying to get away with it XD

Jokes apart, I think it's true. Maybe things won't change much in the end. They're gonna reduce stats of mobs, maybe even with nerfed Focus/Malaise the result will be the same.
I think they meant Focus/Malaise only and not Vex/Attunement, but we'll see I guess.

From their words it seems to me they won't nerf other GEO buffs, which is a bit of a surprise. I honestly thought a *small* nerf to Frailty would've actually been beneficial (if followed by buffs to other jobs, of course).

It wouldn't be Malaise since that just reduces magic defense, you're thinking of Languor which reduces magic evasion

[Sechs]

Actually yeah, brainfart, was totally thinking about Languor in my mind, sorry.

[dasva]

Independent of anything else, Dia 3 should scale with merits and go to at least 20%

Even then it wont make much difference as long as the cap on dia effects is 20% and you can get that from the cor/rdm you bring for other reasons. Maybe make it boostable with qd and/or actually work with saboteur/enhance enfeeble effect gear