Why don't you...

[Elcura]

You can melee Kirin and KB when they cast, but you're relying on them stopping to cast. Landing melee hits once in awhile is never gonna compare with landing Chi reliably, or Nether Blast every 45s and so on. Its possible as a patchup solution, but its just not good for dot or TP building. Compare that with Faf where a MNK/WAR with decent melee gear can do more DoT than a MNK/WHM with maxed out MND, in that case the real difference maker is TP (no TP whatsoever MNK/WHM, giant mountains of TP MNK/WAR).

I wasn't speaking purely as a MNK, more from a general melee stand point, not every melee has the nice advantage of a strong ranged attack. You can melee every advantage you get, whether it's them stopping to cast a spell or a quick WS. Comparing what does more damage as a MNK on Kirin is easy, but for other jobs that don't have that option it's not so fair cause the only option they have IS to melee to either do DoT or SA(TA) WS. Another reason SAMs are liked for HNM is cause they can get TP without giving the mob any and still SC giving the mob minimal TP compared to a THF/DRK/WAR/RNG/DRG/MNK(melee)

The TP you give Kirin pretty clearly doesn't matter considering his state of permanent Meditate, and KB's TP isn't really much of an issue either. Melee can salvage something out of those fights, but nobody will put melee in over BLMs Nether or Chi unless they're doing it specifically so everyone gets to fight a bit. When people think of TP issues, they're really thinking about 1 thing: Wyrm wing WS. Some other mobs have decently strong TP moves, but really when you think about it Wings are all people think about in this case.

Only reason is because BLMs are still spike damage, given the chance a good melee can easily put up comparable damage to a BLM or SMN (BLM from cool down SMN from recast), no one wants to give melee's a chance to prove how much damage they can do on HNMs cause of the TP rape. Even IF the only reason for TP to be talked about is Wyrm WS it IS still broken and you cannot over look that cause it applies to every HNM encounter in the game.

Pretty much all melee jobs can participate in SCs, some jobs are better as closers since they're better suited for SATA but overall they can all do something.

So basically melee get a whole variety of different downsides, TP alone would only help on certain specific things.

I see 3 reasons why melee's are looked down upon:

1) Spike damage compared to a BLM, all jobs can do good spike damage with SA WS, the only problem is getting TP, which in turn leads people to TP'ing off adds or burning money on pots and wings, there's also dangerous posibility of a Flail from wyrms. Making SC less resisted would partially fix this but getting TP is also an issue.

2) Hit rate and damage on HNMs, some HNMs have insane DEF or EVA, meaning that melee do crap damage but BLMs can still nuke and do something better. Mobs that resist magical damage and takenormal pysical damage still own melee due to dangerous WS spam.

3) TP gained by mob, discussed already

feel free to add more but basically all i'm sayin is that although there are other problems with melee TP is still the main concern as to why melee's are put on the bench.

[DrObvious]

Compare that with Faf where a MNK/WAR with decent melee gear can do more DoT than a MNK/WHM with maxed out MND, in that case the real difference maker is TP (no TP whatsoever MNK/WHM, giant mountains of TP MNK/WAR).

I would counter that by saying fafnir has auto tp gain and mobs have a certain tp behavior. One monk meleeing isn't going to increase fafnir's tp moves by 2-fold.

The major problem is, as Elcura stated earlier, that 5 melees do less damage while gaining tp than 5 blms mbing yet they give some exponentially higher amount of tp.

Anyway, there are a multitude of adjustments that they could make, the possibilities are endless. They really need to balance out summoner, black mage, and melees. Whether this is through the varying of the tp system, the mob use of tp, or the tp moves themselves or all of the above, it's a sorely needed change.

In order to combat this lack of challenge from TP moves, SE has just been making their mobs next to impossible and the game is all about Zerg damage.

I pretty much agree with everything else you said, but I don't consider skillchain damage to be zerging. Beyond Dynamis Lord and King Vinegarroon I can't think of anything else that you really zerg, although I suppose you could probably zerg a lot of things if you really wanted to try hard enough.

[Nagamaki]

I wasn't really comparing chi with melee as mnk but rather chi/nukes/bp with melee in general, MNK just happens to be the job with both options. If MNK couldn't Chi, they'd be sitting out HNMs like the other melee. Even with Chi a lot of people have no respect for that damage and won't even bother with swapping MNKs in for Chi even though is TP free and allows 3-4 MNKs to share a single spot in the alliance. It makes no logical sense, but that's how narrowminded people are.

I'd add the fact that most melees lose large proportion of their damage on kited mobs to that list of reasons they're looked down upon. Sure they can still do something, but it doesn't compare.

[Flash]

i dont understand what the problem is. Black mage is supposed to do sick amounts of damage like that. There are drawbacks to it, such as the hate spikes you people are always talking about, how many hits before the mage gets completley eaten?

I love how people also think that the higher damage a spell does the more TP it should give a mob, well then this should go for players too, but it never will, more importantly it should not.

I think people totally miss the point, in any game i have ever played the mages have always done insane amounts of damage. In mythology it has always been some sort of magic that has devestated enemies. Now since some of your little ego's have been bruised you want that to change? In changing that you basically screw not only the black mages but yourselves as well. Sounds like a good case of "biting off your nose to spite your face" we got going on here.

[layoneil]

I love how people also think that the higher damage a spell does the more TP it should give a mob, well then this should go for players too

you mean the more damage a player takes the more TP they should get back? i don't see that as being a problem. i've always thought it would be cool if PLDs can get Shield WS that uses TP.

but it never will, more importantly it should not.

why?

I think people totally miss the point, in any game i have ever played the mages have always done insane amounts of damage.

really? cause in other FF games, i did plenty of damage without magic. Bum Rush, Knights of the Round, etc, not magic.

In mythology it has always been some sort of magic that has devestated enemies.

Weapon Skills and Skillchain effects are magical in nature anyway. it's like Thor striking his hammer to produce some devastating effect.

i think the problem people complain about is the TP gain issue, 10 damage on a regular hit giving 10 TP and 1000 damage on a WS also giving 10 TP is also not quite right. it's not an issue specific to spells.

[Elcura]

i dont understand what the problem is. Black mage is supposed to do sick amounts of damage like that. There are drawbacks to it, such as the hate spikes you people are always talking about, how many hits before the mage gets completley eaten?

You don't see the problem? Here you go

5 BLMs on a mob, each do a Thunder IV, mob gains 50 TP.

5 Melee's on a mob, each have 5 attack rounds (no DA's), mob has enough TP to rape you 5 times over.

5 BLMs did 700 damage each Thunder IV, mob loses 3500 HP.

5 Melee's did 50 damage each swing (let's say 5 war/nin), mob loses 2500 HP and melee's are raped by TP moves.

there's the problem, BLM is supposed to do sick amounts of damage, and guess what they do, but the above is ridiculous, besides, with good tanks hate shouldn't be much of an issue, and guess what? What can kill a mage in 2-3 hits can kill a melee just as quickly, getting hate and resting mp is the only draw back BLMs have, SMNs don't even worry about getting hate either.

I love how people also think that the higher damage a spell does the more TP it should give a mob, well then this should go for players too, but it never will, more importantly it should not.

It would if it was made the way I said before, a 1700 Spinning Slash would give more TP then a 20 damage swing. You give no reasons to why it shouldn't happen, why shouldn't it happen? I could suggest one thing for that, cap the amount of TP a mob gains.

I think people totally miss the point, in any game i have ever played the mages have always done insane amounts of damage. In mythology it has always been some sort of magic that has devestated enemies. Now since some of your little ego's have been bruised you want that to change? In changing that you basically screw not only the black mages but yourselves as well. Sounds like a good case of "biting off your nose to spite your face" we got going on here.

I think you missed the point, BLMs are still powerful but hey guess what? Melee's are as well, BLM should have more consequences to nuking other then "oops I got hate teehee". Screw mythology, have SE followed mythology so strictly before? I think it's your ego that's bruised, how you jump in this topic and start whining and flailing about SPECULATION THAT WILL PROBABLY NEVER HAPPEN, our ego was never bruised because it's always been like this, it's not like it was a change that happened recently and we got angry.

Changing TP doesn't break the game, it balances it, instead of "HEY WHERE DA BLMS AT?!" people would be able to come on a melee job and hit the mob and have fun at HNMs instead of sitting at the back lines playing with themselves or forcing themselves to lvl a job they don't enjoy. Think about the bigger picture, screwing BLMs would be putting a cap on how much damage a nuke does not adjusting how TP is gained.

I would like to hear some input from BLMs that aren't as ignorant as Flash

[nivlakian]

As I said earlier, I understand the reason for Orfeo's proposed change, but it seems it would have unintended consequences on general XP PT play since mob TP moves would become a non-issue (they'd probably only do 2 at most before death).

Mob TP gain from WS and Magic does appear to be unbalanced and is one reason why spike damage has become generally preferred to DoT. People will generally look to make kills more and more efficient and have reached the conclusion that DoT is not the way to go due to it causing more mob WS.

Some changes that could occur (as an example):
Tier I Spell = 10TP
Tier II Spell = 20TP
Tier III Spell = 30TP
Tier IV Spell = 40TP
SMN Lv70BP = 40TP
Other SMN BP = 10TP
WS = 30TP

Another option is to do something that was suggested earlier which was have TP gain based on damage done and % life lost etc. However, I think if this were implemented (or Orfeo's suggestion), mob WS usage mechanics would probably need to be change as well. Mob TP usage above 20-25% appears to be randomized though it may not be completely, and when they reach ~25% or lower they use WS as soon as they hit 100TP. With lowered TP gain of the mob, one would rarely see any WS until the later parts of the mob's life.

One may worry that BLM may become broken with altered TP gain from spells, but I think it's possible people would adapt. BLM probably would be asked to MB only or to always coordinate free-nukes together.

As far as I know, TP is lost from mob WS at the time it goes off, not when readied. So if all BLMs nuke at the same time, that extra TP always gets used for that one WS being readied (and caps at 300% for mobs as well?). It would become expected that after any coordinated nuke / SC-MB a mob WS is coming.

Solo'ing and manaburns would become more dangerous, but I think people would adapt. For the solo'ing aspect, you'd have to nuke at max distance as much as possible (most already do). However, depending on how the system is altered, your 2nd or 3rd nuke is going to give the mob TP. As soon as the mob comes close enough, it will attempt to ready the move, one would only need to take a few steps back and "Player is out of range" > TP lost.

In manaburns, most likely the mob will only get to ready 1 move before it dies despite however much TP was given. You'd just have to deal with it.


Somewhat off topic:
Some people say Subtle Blow is worthless, but it does help though probably not as much as people would hope. As MNK with the job trait and subtle blow +9 (Black Belt + AF2 gloves), I've subbed BST and charmed things to see how much TP is given. It came out as 11% (I can't charm reliably enough to take the time to figure out the decimal point). I get 10TP per attack round without DA or KA firing. So, evertime I gain 100TP, the mob has ~110%TP which could mean one WS + 10% toward a 2nd.

Prior to the existance of subtle blow, assuming the TP+3 mob tp gain formula applied to each strike, for my one attack round, the mob should get 16TP (and be gaining TP quickly since MNK attacks fast). This could mean one WS + being over halfway to a second one everytime the player gets 100%. That's quite a significant difference imo.

Edit:
Nynja is right, Lv70BP should be in the same league as Tier IV spells. I changed the list.

[NynJa]

SMN BP should give more....

they deal anywhere between 300-1k dmg, and get zero hate for it.

[Lordwafik]

You know what? that's silly, if the mob is getting 40% TP for a fucking ThunderIV, i want 40% TP back too.

BLM casts Thunder IV

Mob gets 10% TP

BLM gets nothing, but hate, and less MP.

-----------------------------------------------

Melee goes thwackity on mob

Melee gets TP

Mob also gets TP and uses TP moves

Melee also get to WS using their TP and get to use that to their advantage and shift hate around if /thf, or just do nice blobs of damage.




Soooooo unless us BLM are getting MP back or some TP back on every nuke, poo on wanting to raise TP gained per nuke. That's just dumb. If they do change it to something as shitty as that, dont come complaining about how PLD sucks as tank because of all the TP moves ok? You're all just asking for it.

[Nagamaki]

There's an old thread where how Subtle Blow works was detailed (by me among others).

MNK75 gets Subtle Blow 25 base trait and can get to +51 (+50 using a non retarded weapon, cause yeah Meteor Cesti are pretty retarded).

+1 Subtle Blow means a reduction of 1% of the amount of TP each hit does. In other words if your hit (or spell, or WS) was going to give 10%, its gonna give 9.9%. So with +50 Subtle Blow, all actions give halved TP. I've done extensive tests with this as MNK/BST and then with other jobs /BST.

So subtle blow isn't useless especially for solo, but in HNM situations the impact gets lost in the amount of hits going on. On MNK my regular melee setup gives me 41 SB (trait, Rajas, BB, Melee Crown) and 45 when solo (Melee Gloves instead of Bandomusha) so I give close to half TP. Solo, half TP means almost half the WS (combined with Counter tanking, which prevents the mob from gaining TP by hitting you). On a HNM, half TP from 1 member of the alliance means very little, maybe a few extra seconds between WSs.


To clarify my point though, this level of focus on TP use is really a narrow view of the problems with melee damage. Aside from Wyrms (specifically, aside from the various wing attacks and Flail) Tp moves on HNMs are not much of a threat. On any mob where melee can SATA, the increased use of WS by the mob is easily offset by the massive damage and hate control SATA provides. On wyrms that option is nullified, or at least a lot riskier, because of Flail. I don't know about other linkshells, but I don't recall people complaining of gods spamming TP moves, or KB, or most HNMs that aren't wyrms. There's Aspi you might melee more, but Aspi is heaven for building TP on other mobs so its really a moot point there. Even on wyrms, aside from Wings their TP moves are more of less jokes.

[Elcura]

I can't really argue more to my point about TP or whatever, I feel I've covered pretty much everything I wanted to say.

Something for people to remember though, it's very rare to be able to do high DoT AND WS but easier and more likely to do one or the other. Only situation I can think where you can do both is war/nin on fafnir (even then WS isn't omfgbbq). When people sub THF for big shot WS they eliminate DoT power, and when people sub whatever job for DoT they eliminate WS power, very few jobs and setups can pull them both off consistantly on very few HNMs.

[nivlakian]

You know what? that's silly, if the mob is getting 40% TP for a fucking ThunderIV, i want 40% TP back too.

BLM casts Thunder IV
Mob gets 10% TP
BLM gets nothing, but hate, and less MP.

-----------------------------------------------

Melee goes thwackity on mob
Melee gets TP
Mob also gets TP and uses TP moves

Melee also get to WS using their TP and get to use that to their advantage and shift hate around if /thf, or just do nice blobs of damage.

Soooooo unless us BLM are getting MP back or some TP back on every nuke, poo on wanting to raise TP gained per nuke. That's just dumb. If they do change it to something as shitty as that, dont come complaining about how PLD sucks as tank because of all the TP moves ok? You're all just asking for it.

I understand that we gain nothing from nuking really, but since this topic was about melee tp... I just gave my opinion on a solution that SE seems more likely to give. Reducing mob TP gain from melee, just makes mobs easier as they would do nothing, but melee (no TP to WS). The current form of TP gain seems intentional to give mobs dynamic/reactionary methods of fighting. Rather than getting rid of that, they'd probably make it such that it is unavoidable (everything gives large amounts of TP).

It's true BLM lacks options to alleviate hate like melee can with /thf, but melee appear to be much more penalized for doing damage in general than BLM or SMN. Full MP bar on BLM can lead to over 6k damage to a monster and not 1 TP move can be done in response.

I'm not saying I necessarily want this change, but things do appear unfair. What would you suggest be done instead?

[Lordwafik]

leave blm how it is.

Wait, leave alot of jobs how they are. I thought THF got a ton of +Subtle blow gear recently, which lets them melee along side other jobs without their daggers being too horrible?

The only really big HNM that is worrying with TP moves is Fafhogg, and last I checked he has meditate/auto-tp gain anyway, so you can spam it all you like. I think Nny's LS use ridill war/nin's to tank him? (correct me if im wrong, but I remember him saying something like that).

Lots of TP moves arent even that bad on HNM fights, the most annoying one to give TP to is Byakko (Claw and Para), but then again, Byakko is where BLM's are horribly shit and Melee can shine on him.

But then again I wasnt saying how HNM fights sucked for TP gain, I was more talking about Exp pt's. If you change blm to have more TP per nuke, either we should be getting MP back, or getting TP back, because blm get ziltch in return. Nobody will wanna fight spiders, skeletons, or any other high attack low defense mobs, because they'll spam Sickle Slash/Black Cloud etc. Heck even the RDM wont be allowed to MB anymore. Wait , speaking of MB, that's funny, because BLM will probably get killed after every magic burst with your solution, if WS = 30%.

Melee 1 SC gogo, Mob now has +30% TP
Melee 2 SC gogo, Mob now has +30% TP to make it +60%
(Would a skillchain get counted as TP? After all SC is damage).
BLM Magic bursts thunder IV, for say 1300 dmg, and adds +40% TP to the mob, which now gives it 100% , and now the mob is looking at the BLM and is like "Oh no you di'ent" and then uses Heavy Strike, or whatever = Roasted BLM.

It's almost bad enough as it is when a blm pulls hate and gets TP'd in the face, the last thing we need is more unessesary deaths.

The game is fine, people want blms nerfed so they can have a space in the allience. But that's not a game fault, that's a player fault. These NM's were all killable back when people would have 2 or 3 blms MAX, before Subtle blow was added, before Hachiman was added, etc. People are just throwing more blms at anything now, and then blaming it on SE. Throw some melee at it and have faith in them. Some things are killable by a ton of blms, some are killable by a ton of melee.

[Eternus]

lol last time I was in a alliance that killed Nidhogg it took 19 mins.. we had 2 WAR/NINs beating on it and a THF and a MNK.. maybe more melee than that. Seriously we have tanked Fafnir with WAR/NINs and they held hate better than PLD against BLM nukes due to the rampage spam done with ridill in offhand for tp. If have your melee do tons of frag and light SCs on Fafhogg for your BLMs to MB you will smoke him fast.

[Demetrick]

...and now the mob is looking at the BLM and is like "Oh no you di'ent" and then uses Heavy Strike, or whatever = Roasted BLM.

It's almost bad enough as it is when a blm pulls hate and gets TP'd in the face, the last thing we need is more unessesary deaths.

LoL, I imagine goblins snapping there fingers back and forth while saying that.

[nivlakian]

The only really big HNM that is worrying with TP moves is Fafhogg, and last I checked he has meditate/auto-tp gain anyway, so you can spam it all you like. I think Nny's LS use ridill war/nin's to tank him? (correct me if im wrong, but I remember him saying something like that).

Yeah, Nny is part of my LS and we've used a variety of tanks for things. We started with PLD/WAR then NIN/WAR and WAR/NIN and nowadays have been using PLD/NIN as well. Nny has indeed used Ridill while tanking against fafnir and manages to come out at or near the top of damage done.

Fafnir does seem to have some sort of auto-TP thing anyway. When it decides to repeatedly use wing over and over, it seems everyone is like "Stop melee'ing, you're killing us all" when it isn't completely the melee's fault... Fafnir could just do it anyway. Just... no one notices him spamming the other moves as much since it doesn't directly harm them.

Wait , speaking of MB, that's funny, because BLM will probably get killed after every magic burst with your solution, if WS = 30%.

Melee 1 SC gogo, Mob now has +30% TP
Melee 2 SC gogo, Mob now has +30% TP to make it +60%
(Would a skillchain get counted as TP? After all SC is damage).
BLM Magic bursts thunder IV, for say 1300 dmg, and adds +40% TP to the mob, which now gives it 100% , and now the mob is looking at the BLM and is like "Oh no you di'ent" and then uses Heavy Strike, or whatever = Roasted BLM.

It's almost bad enough as it is when a blm pulls hate and gets TP'd in the face, the last thing we need is more unessesary deaths.

Unintentional consequence
That's why multiple people need to discuss any proposed solutions since altering one aspect of the game can greatly affect another (like the most recent patch). I don't agree with Orfeo's solution so although I have an Allakhazam account, I haven't posted to support it.

[Kaylia]

[Deleted]

Wrong topic

[layoneil]

lol last time I was in a alliance that killed Nidhogg it took 19 mins.. we had 2 WAR/NINs beating on it and a THF and a MNK.. maybe more melee than that. Seriously we have tanked Fafnir with WAR/NINs and they held hate better than PLD against BLM nukes due to the rampage spam done with ridill in offhand for tp. If have your melee do tons of frag and light SCs on Fafhogg for your BLMs to MB you will smoke him fast.

they held hate better than your PLDs. 19 mins is slightly over average for our kill times and we tank with PLDs and damage with mostly BLMs and a few SMNs. BLMs > SMNs for Fafhogg. we smoke them faster than you do without SCing, which is why we see better than you why melees are mostly irrelevant.

The only really big HNM that is worrying with TP moves is Fafhogg, and last I checked he has meditate/auto-tp gain anyway, so you can spam it all you like.

their TP Regen is slow, you can kill them with 3 wings in 30 minutes if you do it methodically with BLMs and SMNs. you can also get 3 wings in a row if you put a Ridill in there.

Soooooo unless us BLM are getting MP back or some TP back on every nuke, poo on wanting to raise TP gained per nuke. That's just dumb. If they do change it to something as shitty as that, dont come complaining about how PLD sucks as tank because of all the TP moves ok? You're all just asking for it.

total equality is an unrealistic expectation. if BLMs get MP back for nuking, melees need to get TP from natural resting (no sleep pots), and they need TP cookies too. i don't care if BLMs get TP in proportion to their nukes.

and people already complain about PLD/WAR tanks. they slow down XP, they suck at small NMs, ENMs, BCNMs, etc.

[edgarfigaro]

I wish people would just shut up about blms. Seriously...what did we do to you? No one seems to mind mnk burns, or spamage parties, but "OMG MANABURN SUX" even though the previous parties do so much better than blm groups. For HNM...for about 2 months I was the only blm for the most part and we still killed everything fine (one time we were low on melee, but had like 5 smns standing around, so we just did it like vrtra and kited it around while BP's were down...not the most time effective strat, but it killed him in 45 minutes which is ok). The ONLY HNM in the game that I feel requires blms is Aspid, and there are ways around that anyways. Oh, and genbu, but he sucks and can be solo'ed in 3 hours by a rdm anyways, so meh.

Basically, if your ls can't do anything without blms...get another ls.

[Eternus]

Most of our BLMs would rather come WAR or DRK (or some other melee job they deem as more fun) to Fafhogg it seems. We kill him either way. I guess if we could get 10 BLM or something we could kill him faster but whatever lol. Fafnir can be killed faster than 19 mins and we have kill Faf with 12 people... that was Nidhogg in 19. Seems like Nidhogg has more HP sometimes. But some Fafnirs wing a shitload more. Doesn't matter since its level varies. The point I was making is you can kill Fafhogg in a decent amount of time with a good amount of melee in alliance. You don't have to throw BLM at him to do well, just with a crapload of BLM you can kill in 9 to 14 mins.