Dev Tracker: Discussion

[Alistrianna]

Maybe SE will finally give in and put Waltzes on separate timers.

[Sechs]

The layout Byrth wrote in the previous page is fantastic imho

Waltz I => all current single target waltzes (with some adjustment to IV and V)
Waltz II => divine waltz I and II
Waltz III => healing waltz I and healing waltz II (new! AoE)

Would be pretty awesome.

[Byrthnoth]

Well, what I actually said was:

* Split Curing/Divine Waltzes into two categories (Odd/Even) and split Healing Waltz out as a third category.

So that'd be:
Waltz I - Curing Waltz, Curing Waltz III, Curing Waltz V, Divine Waltz
Waltz II - Curing Waltz II, Curing Waltz IV, Divine Waltz II
Waltz III - Healing Waltz

[Alistrianna]

i missed that part of his post somehow lol

[dasva]

JP post today telling BSTs that Wyverns/Avatars were just raised to the level that BST pets have been at since October. I think he also says that they're going to adjust pet jobs in general in an upcoming patch.

Wut? Drg has had 119 since they made the ilvl update while until the last set of juts bst only had one than went that high

[Kyte]

He doesn't literally mean "level." He just means their relative base damage/accuracy.

[dasva]

He doesn't literally mean "level." He just means their relative base damage/accuracy.

I suppose if you count only those 2 stats i might be accurate. But assuming you bpd until this last update avatars blew jugs out of the water

[Damane]

well its good to see that the FFXI dev team is looseing its fear of overpowering pet jobs to some degree. Thats what held the pet jobs constantly back when Tanaka was in charge.

[Byrthnoth]

To be fair, if SMN ever becomes a respectable damage source then there will be no other job used for anything. With good gear, it's already MP self-sufficient at its maximum BP rate. The only thing that stops us from just pet-burning everything is the low DPS/Avatar HP.

If SMN's top DPS becomes about half of Ranger's against hard targets, Ranger will be outdated. You could just bring 4 SMNs instead of 2 RNGs, a COR, and a BRD. It's still hateless (and feeds less TP) and there is essentially no chance of pulling hate. The only useful-ish buffs for SMN are Refresh/Ballad/Evoker's/etc., and they aren't really necessary.

[Damane]

To be fair, if SMN ever becomes a respectable damage source then there will be no other job used for anything. With good gear, it's already MP self-sufficient at its maximum BP rate. The only thing that stops us from just pet-burning everything is the low DPS/Avatar HP.

If SMN's top DPS becomes about half of Ranger's against hard targets, Ranger will be outdated. You could just bring 4 SMNs instead of 2 RNGs, a COR, and a BRD. It's still hateless (and feeds less TP) and there is essentially no chance of pulling hate. The only useful-ish buffs for SMN are Refresh/Ballad/Evoker's/etc., and they aren't really necessary.

dont get me wrong, I am not saying SE should go overboard with buffs, I am well aware that pet jobs could become OP, all I am saying is that they were TOO much restrictiv in the past in terms of buffing pet jobs, which kept them in a total shit place. SMN is starting to shape up okeish now, while it was left in the big wazoo for years on end. Also the addition of BP timers II looks promising.

as for the buffs: do COR pet buffs not give a substantional damage increase on pets? Noone really elaborated on how good cor pet rolls affect pets, especially now that pets are getting stronger. pups roll is maybe neglectable since it gives like what 22 MAB compared to 1 hagondes piece, but beast roll with 20% attack bonus looks yummy, especially now that physical blood pacts got a boost due to the base damage increas of pets. I am not sure how physical blood pacts would do on hard mode stuff with beast roll and drachen roll on them.


on another note 2 new cor rolls would be nice for Geo and Run.
for Run: a roll that acts similar like scherzo/EA
for Geo: a roll that increases magic base damage.

[arus2001]

Personally, I've always disliked how summons were basically treated as disposable. In the off chance they ever did gain more power, I can see tweaks to stuff like recast times or even contributing some degree of enmity generated by the avatar to the SMN. But I doubt that'll ever happen, so SMN fans can put away the pitchforks.

[Prothescar]

They've historically been pretty disposable. The only real exception was FF10, where they replaced the party and acted as a meat shield pretty much. Only difference between XI and other FFs is that the summons can persist through more than one attack.

Honestly, I think SMN would have almost been better off having their avatars act as powerful, but expensive, nukes/buffs like older FFs and having SMN capable of casting some black magic. Would've probably been easier to balance that way. As Byrth said, having a ridiculously powerful pet that is basically infinite in replace-ability would be pretty ridiculous.

[Byrthnoth]

And Avatar's Favor, which is arguably the best idea that SE has ever poorly implemented.

I would like to see SE fix Avatar's Favor so SMN is a quasi-viable second buffer (competing with COR), make Physical BPs viable on things other than EPs, and otherwise not mess with SMN too much.

[Kyte]

as for the buffs: do COR pet buffs not give a substantional damage increase on pets? Noone really elaborated on how good cor pet rolls affect pets, especially now that pets are getting stronger. pups roll is maybe neglectable since it gives like what 22 MAB compared to 1 hagondes piece, but beast roll with 20% attack bonus looks yummy, especially now that physical blood pacts got a boost due to the base damage increas of pets. I am not sure how physical blood pacts would do on hard mode stuff with beast roll and drachen roll on them.
.

Companion's Roll is pretty decent if you're using Magical BPs, plus the regen can't hurt.


As for Avatar's Favor- it would be nice if they would at least remove the stupid penalty.

[Prothescar]

Favor would be a lot better if it was at max potency from the time of summoning.

[Byrthnoth]

* Beast Roll is strong, and it might make physical BPs superior to magical BPs against monsters with a certain defense range. However, I can't really imagine that minor increase in damage would be significant enough to sacrifice another potential SMN (the guy playing COR) for.

* Puppet's Roll maxxes out at 22 MAB, which sounds great until you realize that a fairly well geared SMN already has something like +250 pet MAB. That makes an XI roll represent only +6% damage.

* Drachen Roll is pretty useless, because your avatar's physical BPs are generally rendered useless long before the avatars start missing.

* Companion's Roll is really the only decent COR roll for Avatars at the moment. I'd give that + Evoker's or Puppet's depending how good the SMNs were.

[dasva]

Favor would be a lot better if it was at max potency from the time of summoning.

And didn't semi reset after bps. Should really just make pt buffs/auras work on pets

[Sechs]

And Avatar's Favor, which is arguably the best idea that SE has ever poorly implemented.

I would like to see SE fix Avatar's Favor so SMN is a quasi-viable second buffer (competing with COR), make Physical BPs viable on things other than EPs, and otherwise not mess with SMN too much.

Avatar's Favour up already decreases the avatar's stats (and so should decrease their damage as well) so I don't see why they have to make the Favour bonus reset each time a BP is used (each time the avatar autoattacks a target too? I forgot).
And yeah, some of those buffs are pretty awesome and some stack with other similar buffs.
It would be a nice hybrid supporter job, I love this kind of role (hybrid/support) which seem to be disappearing from modern MMOs.

[Sechs]

Yeah altough it's pretty obvious info, something we could have guessed, that we already know or that doesn't really matter.
We still don't know what most of us were really interested in knowing, i.e. HOW/WHERE will the necessary "steps/ingredients" required for these new AFs be obtained.

[Malithar]

For those too lazy to click the links, we're getting head, hands, and legs as 119 in Feb.

We prolly won't know til the day of the update how/where we get them to 109 and 119. Personally, I'm leaning towards either the Rem Tales since it's the same NPC we upgrade them through, or minor NMs in each corresponding Delve area drop mats for 109, and boss drops 119 mats. Beating them allows you to buy them with plasm.

Or could be a dick move and it's done with RME upgrade mats. Prolly why my Beit's and Boulders still sell when they're 5x the going price lol.

Interesting bit for the Geos and Runs that skipped out on any of the pieces of the AF set.

Undertaking the Quests
Talk to Hestefa* in the Celennia Memorial Library while wearing all five pieces of the appropriate artifact armor set to begin the quests.