Rogue/Ninja Discussion

[Lyall]

GL and HT are imperative abilities to keep running for MNK and DRG. I'm of the mind they need to be retooled entirely, not just buffed.

[Damane]

I like this thinking more than the "nerf NIN" thought/crying I hear in game. Just buff everyone else. *dusts hands* Problem solved and no one is unhappy.

constant buffing isnt the solution, just look at which desaster FFXI went to because the dev team refused to nerf anything because of the cries of people. I mean is NIN really THAT far ahead? i doubt so

[Obsidian]

Something needs to be adjusted, clearly, but I'd rather they buff MNK and DRG instead of nerfing NIN. Specifically, Greased Lightning and Heavy Thrust durations (although DRG needs more than just a longer Heavy Thrust), and ideally rework Haymaker to not be completely useless/unusable. I would rather they buff MNK and DRG because there's still not a compelling reason to bring them over ranged DPS 90% of the time.

[Lyall]

I could see Greased Lightning stepped down one stack at a time instead of dropping off entirely helping a little bit, but HT is stuck as an on/off switch for now. It's tricky; If they make these buffs last so long as to not drop at all they might as well be traits. NIN got it "right" since their attack speed boost seems to only be AA and their flat %-damage is a stance.

[Obsidian]

They could in theory do the same to MNK by taking the bulk of the damage off Greased Lightning and put it back on Fists of Fire. It's just ridiculous that nearly any time a boss leaves the field, you're going to lose all three stacks and have to start from scratch. Especially when the cool down on Perfect Balance is as long as it is. Rockbreaker/Arm of the Destroyer could also use some potency buffs or TP cost reductions. One Ilm Punch is in pretty much the same boat as Haymaker; I don't really care if it's useful in PvP, they can just make the current incarnation a PvP ability.

[Voyage1970]

I could see Greased Lightning stepped down one stack at a time instead of dropping off entirely helping a little bit, but HT is stuck as an on/off switch for now. It's tricky; If they make these buffs last so long as to not drop at all they might as well be traits. NIN got it "right" since their attack speed boost seems to only be AA and their flat %-damage is a stance.

Huton affects both auto-attack and skill speed same as Greased Lightning.

Part of the reason DRG falls behind is specifically because it lacks the 15% DPS boost from GL or Huton, but given the nature of the job I don't really think giving it an attack speed boost would be the way to go. There's also the fact that unlike MNK, if DRG can't get the proper positional bonus they flat out can't use their combo attacks.

Really Impulse Rush should have been a regular DRG ability instead of PvP exclusive. A crit boost is effectively a DPS boost and being able to ignore positional requirements for 20s would go a long way towards helping DRG overcome it's flaws.

[Arthars]

i have yet to see a good mnk/drg out DPS that much by a nin so far...

its pretty equal atm

[Niiro]

Part of the reason DRG falls behind is specifically because it lacks the 15% DPS boost from GL or Huton, but given the nature of the job I don't really think giving it an attack speed boost would be the way to go.

A simple SS boost wouldn't work for DRG either unless they adjusted the TP values of their WS, even with no innate speed increase they run dry way faster than MNK (Phlebo drains TP like nothing else).

To start, DRG's directional requirements should simply be changed to bonuses like MNK's, and maybe balance the penalty for the wrong direction a bit harder.

100 is sort of the "baseline" penalty for the wrong direction on DRG and MNK attacks, maybe they can change the directional bonus to a penalty in the other direction but allow them to combo regardless.

ie. HT is 170 (100+70) from flank, if you miss the flank make the potency 30 (100-70), it would be enough of a penalty that you'd want to get the directional bonus but if you didn't you'd still get the HT buff and it wouldn't interrupt your rotation.

[Alistaire]

Or adjust their trait that boosts their invigorate.

[Voyage1970]

A simple SS boost wouldn't work for DRG either unless they adjusted the TP values of their WS, even with no innate speed increase they run dry way faster than MNK (Phlebo drains TP like nothing else).

That's pretty much what I was alluding to. DRG's current archetype is for slow (by this game's standards) big hits but the big hits aren't big enough to outweigh their speed penalty.

To start, DRG's directional requirements should simply be changed to bonuses like MNK's, and maybe balance the penalty for the wrong direction a bit harder.

100 is sort of the "baseline" penalty for the wrong direction on DRG and MNK attacks, maybe they can change the directional bonus to a penalty in the other direction but allow them to combo regardless.

ie. HT is 170 (100+70) from flank, if you miss the flank make the potency 30 (100-70), it would be enough of a penalty that you'd want to get the directional bonus but if you didn't you'd still get the HT buff and it wouldn't interrupt your rotation.

Using MNK as the baseline, Twin Snakes still gives you the 10% damage boost regardless of whether you get the Flank Bonus or not and you only go from 140 > 100. I think making HT go from 170 > 30 is a bit extreme given that it's effectively an 80% decrease in damage. Just changing HT to give the damage boost without flank and letting combos execute without positional requirements would work fine.

As it stands both MNK and DRG have to worry about losing their damage buff mid combat but DRG is the only one who can lose their damage buff while still being able to attack the mob given you can't reach the side for whatever reason. GL gains stacks even if Snap Punch/Demolish aren't hitting flank or back and as stated earlier Twin Snakes gives a buff without flank as well. No reason that Heavy Thrust has to have such an arbitrary conditional.

Make GL last for 20s like HT, make HT give damage buff without flank, allow DRG to combo without positional but make the later combo skills have lower non bonus potency, make Jump 250 potency and change Power Surge to the old 1.0 Power Surge where you gain a stacking damage buff based on the number of jumps you've landed for the fight. Just throwing numbers out but for example 5% damage buff per Jump up to a max of 3 for 15% total once fully ramped up.

[Niiro]

I brought up the increased penalty for DRG's mis-directionals because they only have 2 compared to MNK who has to land all of their attacks from a particular direction.

I like the Power Surge idea a lot, that JA always bugged the hell out of me since it turned what is supposed to be quick, fun OCD attack into something much more sluggish (as if the overlong animation lock on Jump itself wasn't bad enough).

[Kaixin]

I think making GL harder to drop makes the jobs too similar. You might as well make Fists of Fire +40% damage and take away Greased Lightning completely.

If monks need more damage, reduce TP costs and up the speed boost on Greased Lightning, make 'em really fast as lightning. I wouldn't mind forced GL drops in fights if I knew I was indisputably DPS king when fully stacked. And maybe make Demolish add to the timer instead of overwriting it, so you're not penalized for having high skill speed.

I don't know what to do about Dragoons and Heavy Thrust. Changing the flank requirement to just a potency bonus seems like a good start. I agree that Jumps should be made more class-defining, as right now there's no significant difference between jumps and other melee oGCDs.

[Seravi Edalborez]

I like the Power Surge idea a lot, that JA always bugged the hell out of me since it turned what is supposed to be quick, fun OCD attack into something much more sluggish (as if the overlong animation lock on Jump itself wasn't bad enough).

Granted I have literally not played DRG since Levi EX was new, but I played it for T9 farm a few days ago and I found Power Surge to at least be used for SSD if Jump wasn't up yet. Which makes it somewhat more alright than it was before I guess.

[Niiro]

I generally saved SSD for movement, only used it for damage if I knew there was no need for the movement aspect.

Given that if it was time to SSD and Surge was up I'd combine them ofc.

[Lyall]

I think making GL harder to drop makes the jobs too similar. You might as well make Fists of Fire +40% damage and take away Greased Lightning completely.

If monks need more damage, reduce TP costs and up the speed boost on Greased Lightning, make 'em really fast as lightning. I wouldn't mind forced GL drops in fights if I knew I was indisputably DPS king when fully stacked. And maybe make Demolish add to the timer instead of overwriting it, so you're not penalized for having high skill speed.

That's the balancing nightmare. Making Monk comparable DPS in a fight with multiple drops means they're going to annihilate everything on the board when they're not dropping on the training dummy bosses.

Spitballing: Give level 60 monks a trait that makes properly-directioned hits add GL automatically. Land your full combo to start, ride GL3 from the door. Makes the dropoff negligible.

[Kaixin]

I don't see why it's bad that monks get to be kings of T8, summoners get to be kings of 2-4 add fights, blms get to be kings of extremes (extreme amount of adds, extremely long standstill marathon fights where mana/TP becomes an issue), and drgs/nins get to be jack of all trades or somewhere yet to be defined (high movement, multiple GL drop fights?).

I like feeling super strong when I have greased lightning, it's not difficult to manage and I've never felt threatened by other DPS in the first two coils because GL was holding me back. I don't really want the lvl 60 skill to be wasted on greased lightning management.

[Voyage1970]

I don't see why it's bad that monks get to be kings of T8, summoners get to be kings of 2-4 add fights, blms get to be kings of extremes (extreme amount of adds, extremely long standstill marathon fights where mana/TP becomes an issue), and drgs/nins get to be jack of all trades or somewhere yet to be defined (high movement, multiple GL drop fights?).

I like feeling super strong when I have greased lightning, it's not difficult to manage and I've never felt threatened by other DPS in the first two coils because GL was holding me back. I don't really want the lvl 60 skill to be wasted on greased lightning management.

Then you get into the territory of excluding jobs from content because one has a clear superiority over the others. Instead of balancing jobs aren't certain fight mechanics they should balance the job around playstyles. MNK can be the king of speed, DRG can be the king of strength, and NIN is the middle child mixing both. That way any new mechanics they add in future content won't have to be balanced for any one particular job and only has to be balanced around DPS goal posts in general.

I really don't want to see future content have systems in place that force MNKs to drop GL just so they aren't the be all end all choice when it comes to DPS. It sorely limits the creativity they can put forth when in every batch of endgame fights at least one will require add spam so SMN is good, one for extreme marathons so BLM is top, one for sandbags so MNK is top, and one to fuck those 3 over so DRG/NIN get to shine. And if you leave any of those out then why bother playing the step-child job when it isn't efficient to do so, and you know judging by how many "elite pros" we have in simple DF dungeon speed-runs that even the casuals will latch on to whatever is considered best and reject anything else.

[Kaixin]

Sure, but if there aren't GL drops or challenges to keep GL then there's no reason for it at all. It's like having the STR down on rage of halone. Does not affect decision-making in using rage of halone whatsoever.

GL drops without PB up are rare so buffing monk by making it easier to get or hold onto GL isn't the right way to go about it. Especially if you want boss encounters that won't force monks to drop GL in the first place. My favorite GL related mechanic is in Titan/Titan Extreme, where monks with high enough HP and savvy can, instead of sitting on the rim, position themselves right outside Titan's hitbox when he jumps back down in the center to refresh GL with 0 seconds left on the timer.

Different classes being good at something shouldn't mean the other classes are bad at it. After all, groups still aim for PLD/WAR and WHM/SCH. No one is weeping for the poor second SCH who is being 'excluded.' Having DPS classes with strengths in different areas might make team composition more of a strategic element. Of course, if it's pushed to the extreme of "no melee garuda ex," that'd be bad, but it doesn't have to get that far.

If you want to say "well then people will be unfairly expected to play multiple classes and I just wanna play one" what about being rich? Having pentamelded gear on day 1 IS a clear advantage but there's not a lot of complaints about that. I'm sure you can eventually do 4xBRD T13, just like you can step into T10 not fully pentamelded.

[Voyage1970]

Yeah I understand your point, I'm just playing devil's advocate with how the OF will react or what Yoshida's mindset might be when considering the mainstream casual crowd. Though even your examples of PLD/WAR and SCH/WHM group combos, before WAR was updated there were plenty of times where people opted for PLD/PLD simply because WAR didn't really bring anything to the table that PLD didn't do better. After the update there is actually a legitimate benefit to bringing WAR in that Storm's Path now lowers damage taken by the party. Same with SCH/WHM, SCH has many party buffs that benefit WHMs and DPS alike. It has synergy with it's direct competition so that even if WHM was definitively better than SCH (I have no idea I don't play healers) having a WHM/WHM is still worse than WHM/SCH. Succor and Adloquim along with bubble shield go hand in hand with WHMs massive cure dumps instead of fighting each other.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I wouldn't see any issues with having certain jobs excel in certain encounters as long as there was reason to bring the remaining jobs. Not just as a well it's not terrible so if you enjoy this job more feel free to use it, but actual contributions that no other jobs can give. I know DRG contributes to BRD's damage and all that but it really doesn't bring much else to the table as far as party synergy goes. MNK has Mantra for group survivability and Dragon Kick lowers INT to reduce magic damage taken. NIN has Trick Attack for 10% damage boost the entire party contributes from and Goad for fellow DPS TP Regen while Dancing Edge is a moot point if you have a WAR but it still contributes to a PLDs DPS and Hate generation if for whatever reason you don't have a WAR. Hell MNK and NIN even have both a stun and a silence while DRG only gets a stun.

[Yukari]

I guess it's also a little bit of, there's nothing that a DRG brings to the table for another DRG. In every other DPS case, there's something nice that you can do with multiple copies of any given DPS (more songs, better requiem usage, DK bitch, more TA).