Heavensward Preliminary Patch Notes Discussion

[Carth]

Balance will forever lean towards homogenized characteristics, while uniqueness will lean towards unbalance. Sucks, but it is how it is. I'd rather a balanced game where I can play what I want and not feel like I'm waiting for said job to become the flavor of the month/year/patch so that its accepted by the community.

I played Blue Mage.

I don't disagree. FFXIV is better off the way it is now and I shall hope it never has the severe unbalance that FFXI had. I think the worst unbalance we had so far is Paladin stomping Warrior for T1-T5 and then SE blew that out of the water.

It would just be nice to have more variety between jobs. At this point I only feel a very wide difference between Paladin and Warrior (Cooldown Management vs Wrath management). Bard's up there too because songs. Everything else kinda meshes together especially when you start talking about the DPS classes and that positional garbage.

[Argantes]

Just woke up so late to the FATE conversation but tbh, if it wasn't for FATEs I probably wouldn't have had anything but healers and PLD at 50 now.

I can't be bothered to lvl Archer, Lancer or Rogue cause I can't just sit there and gain random exp just before or after work.
Duty Finder can be a right dick for those classes and FATE groups pretty much only exist from Coerthas on.

I would be fine with doing MSQ for exp and FATEs to fill the gaps at the same pace for HW.

As for second jobs.
I'd be well happy if I could just FATE them to 60. I can at least do those at a constant pace with little to no wait in between.
Hell I'd be happy enough if there was enough room and mobs for generic exp parties or even solo grind spots.

[Detzu]

There is a ton of anger towards this nerf, i've never seen so many people this mad in my endgame LSes.

Meanwhile, casual shitters are praising the Sun for furnishings.

I don't understand why. It affects auto-attacks not abilities, and the effect has been reduced not nullified. In counterpart, you get dmg buff on critical hits, and skill speed affects your DoT.

[Niiro]

People are just salty about the gil they spent putting DET on their relics (as if they're going to be relevant anyway).

It'll pass.

[Destinye]

People are just salty about the gil they spent putting DET on their relics (as if they're going to be relevant anyway).

It'll pass.

I'm not tbh..unloaded my 72 Det IVs I had tucked away lol, so instead of the 27.7ishm I woulda made I only made 13m but eh. I do agree though, these kind of changes are normally done when a battle system is changed significantly.

While XI wasn't the pinnacle of balance, you still could get your shit pushed in in a heartbeat since it's like, while between jobs you weren't balanced, certain enemies and bosses will gladly put you in your place. Lets see if the SKS speed changes are significant enough.

As a side note..something about Machinist guns looking like glorified X-bows irk me kinda.

[Silenka]

The issue with balance is more on the user-end in my opinion. You can get content done with any job but it may take a longer time to do with some jobs than with others, or just not be as optimal. Users will always be looking for the #1 best fastest way to do something and set that as the ideal for everyone to be following. BLM can put out X% more dps than SMN, all things equal? That means SMN is shit and needs to be adjusted. I mean when you refuse to compromise and only accept the fastest/most accurate way to do things as the norm, of course you're gonna get homogenization. Everything has to be samey because differences are not tolerated by people who play MMOs seriously. And casuals are looked down on by them for accepting those differences and not caring whether they're finishing the dungeon 5 minutes faster than average or hitting the highest dps the game allows. Users are the ones who most gimp the multi-class experience.

[Edelweiss]

I don't understand why. It affects auto-attacks not abilities, and the effect has been reduced not nullified. In counterpart, you get dmg buff on critical hits, and skill speed affects your DoT.

It's because the nerf, in context, essentially makes no sense after having buffed CHR so heavily. Some people are pissed about their Zodiacs, sure, but it has much more to do with what appears to be a dumb nerf combined with a big buff (that itself just seems to recreate, if not surpass, any issue that DET posed).

I don't share any one's optimism, given the nerfs to Flare and Holy now as well. I'm finding any optimism had I had for Heavensward (and the game in general), has rapidly gone. I really don't want these dungeons to take even longer, but it looks like there's no choice now except to take the raw "balance" fucking.

BLM can put out X% more dps than SMN, all things equal? That means SMN is shit and needs to be adjusted.

SMN is shit because it is a poorly-designed mess with profoundly retarded limitations shackled to it by the devs. It's AoE capabilities were limited by the hilarious limitations on Bane, it's documented MP problems, Enkindle being a fucking joke on an absurdly long recast, etc. Summoner is shit because it was perpetually at the bottom of the barrel due to a myriad of core issues with the job.

[Elcura]

The Flare and Holy nerf could just be to bring BLM and WHM more in-line with everyone elses AoE damage? Cause I know on MNK I can melt face on any group of enemies, but the times I can do so are effectively very few (so once every 3mins MNK is a AoE destruction machine, after that RIP). DRG, NIN and BRD can put out damage consistently if TP holds, but not to the level that BLM and WHM potentially can. SMN has it the worst, and MNK is pretty bad too but every job is capable of melting lots of trash in some way. But WHM and BLM seemed 100% better at it, faster and could do it often.

Generally I think it'll still be faster to mob and blast stuff away, at the very least it'll still be more efficient than single target rotations, but yeah this doesn't give me hope that dungeons will be faster. Maybe if trash is more relevant it won't matter as much.

[Taim Meich]

SMN is shit because it is a poorly-designed mess with profoundly retarded limitations shackled to it by the devs. It's AoE capabilities were limited by the hilarious limitations on Bane, it's documented MP problems, Enkindle being a fucking joke on an absurdly long recast, etc. Summoner is shit because it was perpetually at the bottom of the barrel due to a myriad of core issues with the job.

Well, well, perpetually is a pretty strong word here. SMN was at the bottom of the barrell in most Final Coil, sure. T8 in Second Coil wasn't exactly playing to its strong points, either. But any fight with a decent number of pauses and enough movement or multiple, separated targets was awesome for SMN, and we had a few of those: T1, T6, T7 and specially T9, Titan and Leviathan in the primals department (Moogle hard too, in fac that one is ridiculous, but also a joke fight, so). Sure, SMN was poorly balanced against the endurance machine BLM was, but that doesn't mean it was always bad.

The changes are very promising, though, and i'm really looking forward to them, though. I'm dreading hitting the Ruin III button in the wrong time, though: goodbye, MP, in one mistake! >_<

[The Stig]

My combined Skill Speed of 35~ on my Excalibur and Aegis will mean my Circle of Scorn will do more damage! Woohoo! lol

I went the cheapest route... there's Piety, Accuracy, Parry and Determination (5 total I think?) peppered in there.

[Buffy]

I'm not sure I'm right on this, but I appear to have already downloaded and updated the patch and I'm ready to play?

A decade of FFXI patches makes me question how such a thing is possible.

[Kaisha]

A decade of FFXI patches makes me question how such a thing is possible.

POL was a bandwidth-capped piece of shit that hammered the server with requests for every individual file of the update vs. every sane MMO which dumps a single packaged file to update from.

[Edelweiss]

The Flare and Holy nerf could just be to bring BLM and WHM more in-line with everyone elses AoE damage? Cause I know on MNK I can melt face on any group of enemies, but the times I can do so are effectively very few (so once every 3mins MNK is a AoE destruction machine, after that RIP). DRG, NIN and BRD can put out damage consistently if TP holds, but not to the level that BLM and WHM potentially can. SMN has it the worst, and MNK is pretty bad too but every job is capable of melting lots of trash in some way. But WHM and BLM seemed 100% better at it, faster and could do it often.

Generally I think it'll still be faster to mob and blast stuff away, at the very least it'll still be more efficient than single target rotations, but yeah this doesn't give me hope that dungeons will be faster. Maybe if trash is more relevant it won't matter as much.

Instead of nerfing the fuck out of them, we'd have been collectively better off if the AoE capabilities of those other jobs could all collectively be brought up to a level that'd make them competitive with Holy or Flare bombing. I legitimately don't think anyone besides the OF actually wants garbage trash packs to take thrice as long now. And given that they're cracking down hard on trash mobs yielding any kind of worthwhile experience points, I sincerely doubt they will be any more relevant. In fact they'll be less relevant than ever, but with the added "fuck you" of being unable to skip or avoid them in any meaningful amount.

Well, well, perpetually is a pretty strong word here. SMN was at the bottom of the barrell in most Final Coil, sure. T8 in Second Coil wasn't exactly playing to its strong points, either. But any fight with a decent number of pauses and enough movement or multiple, separated targets was awesome for SMN, and we had a few of those: T1, T6, T7 and specially T9, Titan and Leviathan in the primals department (Moogle hard too, in fac that one is ridiculous, but also a joke fight, so). Sure, SMN was poorly balanced against the endurance machine BLM was, but that doesn't mean it was always bad.

It was shit perpetually. BLM did AoE damage better, and any combination of melees did single-target better. And if you brought a BLM, at least it didn't involve playing Ballad sooner because you depleted your MP pool faster than anyone else's resource(s) demanded.

The only examples you gave where SMN wasn't actually a dumpster fire, would be Leviathan (and that's principally due to being able to double up on DoTs on the Head and Tail while still having both sets of DoTs count towards chipping away HP) and Turn 7 (due to Miasma's immense utility in making the Renauds a joke to place). Other than those two, I can't really recall a point where SMN made a strong case for inclusion, or wasn't a step down in terms of DPS (assuming the melee weren't retarded). Plus there was the added clunkiness of Egis and the liability to die to everything.

[Kaisha]

Wasn't SMN superior to BLM in a lot of BCOB/SCOB turns before BLM got their potency bumped up? I recalled using them a lot in Turn 5/9.

[Taim Meich]

Wasn't SMN superior to BLM in a lot of BCOB/SCOB turns before BLM got their potency bumped up? I recalled using them a lot in Turn 5/9.

I don't feel SMN was specially better than BLM in T5, it wasn't worse either. In T9, with all the jumps screwing with Astral Fire, decent amount of movement required, and some instances of multiple separated targets (Golems) I feel SMN is quite better.

[StUfF]

Wasn't SMN superior to BLM in a lot of BCOB/SCOB turns before BLM got their potency bumped up? I recalled using them a lot in Turn 5/9.

Yes, until BLM got their potency buffs they could not compete with SMN at all.
SMN were top tier for any fight where melee could not sustain 100% uptime, they were probably overall best for T1-9 when it was still relevant.

[Kiarax]

People didn't like SMN for T5 when Conflags were actually a DPS check since they couldn't burst them, but any group worth a damn didn't have any problems with it. Aside from that SMN was definitely considered better than BLM for quite a while.

[lilbubbles]

Wasn't SMN superior to BLM in a lot of BCOB/SCOB turns before BLM got their potency bumped up? I recalled using them a lot in Turn 5/9.

Is there a good place for returning players to get info on changes made while they were gone?

I quit after beating t9 when it was relevant due to lockout drama.. but I'm back for expansion and confused by how bad my smn is now when before I used to shit on people. People are also saying Ifrit is good cause some bug was fixed, but I can't find any info on that...

[Serenseven]

Is there a good place for returning players to get info on changes made while they were gone?

I quit after beating t9 when it was relevant due to lockout drama.. but I'm back for expansion and confused by how bad my smn is now when before I used to shit on people. People are also saying Ifrit is good cause some bug was fixed, but I can't find any info on that...

Consult the Lodestone's patch note log here: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...patchnote_log/

[Ophannus]

There was something to be said about a healer busting out 900-1200 Holies 5-6x and still having MP left over whereas as a DRG, after like 8 Doom Spike for about 380 to about 600 when fully buffed, after that, I'm done for several minutes. 8 Doom Spikes is like one wave, if there's 2-3 waves in a row, I'm spent after the first half of the second wave. WHM? Keeps pumping those ridic Holies. Never understood why Holy was so strong and could be cast so frequently whereas melee DPS can barely keep up. They shouldn't have touched Flare though. Casters should specialize in Aoe damage while melee specialize in single target, drg may be one of the best AoE jobs now that we can. Geirakogul every 10 seconds.