Information on New and Existing Jobs

[Kenji]

Reposting with some updates. Removed some jobs that either haven't said much in the way of wanted improvements, or are mostly fine at the moment. Same rules apply: vote for the ones you like, strike down the ones you don't

WHM: New Teleport Spells. Hastega. Holy 2. AoE status cures, or a 1-3 min Divine Veil seperate JA.
RDM: Break spell. En-spells II, that do damage and have a secondary enfeebling effect (ie, Enthunder II also has a random chance to stun. EnBlizzard has a random chance to paralyze); A TP -> MP convert JA
BLM: passive ability to return 25-50% MP on MB's
THF: Perfect Dodge able to dodge ranged as well. Calculated Thrusts, lasts 1 min, 5 min cooldown - Evasion is greatly lowered and chance of critical hits increased. Accomplice lowered to 3 min cooldown. Passive ability to increase proc rate on bolts. A way to dodge AoE if not the target?
PLD: Invincible negating Magic Damage as well. Ability to gain MP from being hit
DRK: endrain/enaspir spells. Blood weapon lasting 1 min and an accuracy increase? T3 nukes.
BST: Uncap all pets, reskin the current pets that look like normal mobs to more unique styles like Courier Carrie. Some ability to use BST's TP to force pet to use a specific TP ability, and/or additional pet commands related to TP usage
BRD: Different instrument types. Let them play a guitar or a trumpet or something. These different instruments would each allow an extra song to be placed on targets
RNG: Ability to tell ranged from a target. Aim skills: Legs = Gravity / Arm = Slow / Head = INT/MND down / Throat = Silence etc.
NIN: Jubaku:Ni/Hojo:San/Dokumori:San. Throwing-based weaponskills.
DRG: Wyvern Commands. JA Lancet - absorb some HP, MP, and TP? Penetration Passive trait - ignore some defense of target while equipped with a spear
SMN: Decreased Perpetuation costs, Auto-Refresh II, Blood Pact: Revitalize(healing BPs) and Blood Pact: Cripple(Enfeebling BPs)
BLU: Mighty Guard, Battery Charge, White Wind. 1000 needles improved so that it hits more often, raise MP cost and cooldown to balance it.
COR: DNC roll = regain?
PUP: B+ Hand to Hand skill. Better gear choices.
DNC: Passive Auto-regain that gives 1TP a tick, up to 100 TP. And/or a TP samba.
Dispelling Step, more status effect steps? Skadi and/or Homam gear?
SCH: Blink and stoneskin will be welcome. Aquaveil could be nice as well. Helixes need to tick more often and be stackable(no more than 1 per SCH). Weather spells need a shorter recast or longer duration. More charges for stratgems and/or get charges back faster. Other possible spells: Haste, Slow, Regain, T4 nukes.

I realize there's still debate about SMN here. Waiting for more community consensus.

[ronin sparthos]

Ninja was the other job i was referring to, but summoners invites vs ninja is no contest. Ninja got lucky that someone thought up the tank idea or nin wouldnt be the popular main job its become today.

Keep in mind, we also don't have Phoenix, who traditionally held the raises. And might have a healing move as well, so it would go under here. And to continue the theme: Blood Pact: Cripple. Any avatar move which doesn't do damage, but enfeebles the mob, would go here. Ward would keep everything else that is a buff.

Now you've got 4 different moves per minute. You're a buff, debuffer, doing some damage and off-healing as well.

Pheonix is pretty much gone where Bahamut and Odin have gone in terms of ever being summonable, off the table. Alexander is still arguable since they left that portal inside whats left of his robot form open as maybe a reason to later add him if they so please. Carbuncle could have been given a simple R1 ages ago, since hes a light-based avatar. Some healing pacts on top of what summoner has wouldnt be too crazy, raise, an erase and some single target cures for good measure. (Maybe some cures with bonus effects on top of them) Mainly fixing perp costs would help alot, but some more healing pacts would help a summoner in parties where cure III isnt gonna cut it.

Blood Pact: Rage - Your DD pacts, 1min timer
Blood Pact: Ward - Your support pacts, 1min timer
Blood Pact: Soothe - Your healing pacts, all on seperate timers.

Soothe would take the stress off 'Ward' timers and allow you to have some focused cure spells to complement your /whm sub and overall bump smn up as a capable healer in exp. Carby could be a raiser, scatter some cures/status cures/erase across the celestials and then summoner could then have the options between standard white magic and avatar healing spells. Couple this with some midlevel Rage pacts that are respectable damage and you'd have fixed summoner for the better.

[layoneil]

[quote=Spider-Dan]

Why is summoner one of the only jobs -still- that cannot function correctly without a subjob?

NIN is even more useless without a SJ, and yet that doesn't seem to bother anyone.[/quote:2qutfnsl]

because nobody actually plays without a SJ.

and voking doesn't stop NINs from using Ninjutsu and beating up stuff with Katanas, while spamming cures cut directly into the same MP pool SMNs would use for more bloodpacts.

[Kenji]

Pheonix is pretty much gone where Bahamut and Odin have gone in terms of ever being summonable, off the table. Alexander is still arguable since they left that portal inside whats left of his robot form open as maybe a reason to later add him if they so please. Carbuncle could have been given a simple R1 ages ago, since hes a light-based avatar. Some healing pacts on top of what summoner has wouldnt be too crazy, raise, an erase and some single target cures for good measure. (Maybe some cures with bonus effects on top of them) Mainly fixing perp costs would help alot, but some more healing pacts would help a summoner in parties where cure III isnt gonna cut it.

Blood Pact: Rage - Your DD pacts, 1min timer
Blood Pact: Ward - Your support pacts, 1min timer
Blood Pact: Soothe - Your healing pacts, all on seperate timers.

Soothe seems to sound better than Revitalize, so I like that. Though I'm not so sure about Healing pacts all on seperate timers. Perhaps Blood Pact: Soothe has a 30 seconds cooldown? -BP gear can drop it to almost 15 seconds. Even a 1 min timer wouldn't be so bad, as a real whm doesn't use curaga more than once a minute. Let /whm handle status cures and single target cures, if a SMN is playing healer. With reduced perp cost, a SMN could leave Carb, Garuda, or Levi out to melee, using Healing Ruby II, Whispering Wind, or Spring Water as needed, while adding damage. A SMN would be a less powerful healer than others, but make up for it with AoE buffs, damage, and hate-free curagas.

A Raise for Carby would be nice.

Think having Blood Pact: Cripple is too much, to handle the non-damaging debuffs?

[Spider-Dan]

[quote=layoneil]

Why is summoner one of the only jobs -still- that cannot function correctly without a subjob?

NIN is even more useless without a SJ, and yet that doesn't seem to bother anyone.

because nobody actually plays without a SJ.

and voking doesn't stop NINs from using Ninjutsu and beating up stuff with Katanas, while spamming cures cut directly into the same MP pool SMNs would use for more bloodpacts.[/quote:2r0d1b02]
Casting Stun/Sleep/Bind cuts into NIN's katana time (that is, when they aren't just wielding a staff anyway), yet again, no one cares.

There are plenty of legitimate gripes to make about SMN; "I only gets to use one subjobs" is not one of them.

[Gilthas]

Best way to improve SMN:

Delete the blood pact system.

Have all summon abilities (not just healing ones) have its own MP/recast timer comparible to spells from all the other mages. Et voila, finally a reason to keep your summon around. It would need some tweaking around for sure (give avatars more spells at least, give SMNs equipment that affects avatar stats), but I think the basics are much better than the current retarded system.

[FinalJustice]

There are plenty of legitimate gripes to make about SMN; "I only gets to use one subjobs" is not one of them.

Its "legetimate gripes" being what directly keep its main job lacking so much that it fully relies on its SJ to FUNCTION in normal settings however, is one.

[Kenji]

Yeah, it's not so much that /whm is the problem. It's the SMN/ part. Even if SMN were fully functional on it's own, incorporating every idea people have put forth so that it was so far OP... we'd still sub whm because there's nothing better. SCH almost looks decent; if it had some enfeebles, we might use it from time to time. I suppose /RDM is decent too. Not sure if /BLU would be any good or not, but guessing not.

[isladar]

I approve of Isladar's quote, for Mawggles, and because I call it Make You Sushi.

Also, landing on someone with a punch, Mnk/Drg, I did that at 30 when the latent earrings were new.

/p FLYING BURNING DRAGON JUMP KICK GO!
/ja "Jump" <stnpc>

And I approve of Max's approval of my quote 'cause he's all WAR/SAMbreooowwwwrrr and like secretly we all know that's fucking awesome and also there's a handshake that is also secret.

That macro is made of win and jalapeño poppers because it has flying, burning, AND go in it.

[layoneil]

Casting Stun/Sleep/Bind cuts into NIN's katana time (that is, when they aren't just wielding a staff anyway), yet again, no one cares.

how many hours per day do all the NINs on your server spend doing that? what would a NIN being doing on a mob like that if not doing that?

also the purpose of doing all of those things is to enhance something else NINs do well, which is to cast Ninjutsu (even if it's only one spell).

how does casting cures enhance summoning?

There are plenty of legitimate gripes to make about SMN; "I only gets to use one subjobs" is not one of them.

that wasn't the complaint, the complaint is SMN BPs are so slow and MP inefficient in certain situations that the optimal use of their natural MP pool is to not use them.

[Shassira]

[quote=Spider-Dan][quote=layoneil]

Why is summoner one of the only jobs -still- that cannot function correctly without a subjob?

NIN is even more useless without a SJ, and yet that doesn't seem to bother anyone.

because nobody actually plays without a SJ.

and voking doesn't stop NINs from using Ninjutsu and beating up stuff with Katanas, while spamming cures cut directly into the same MP pool SMNs would use for more bloodpacts.[/quote:3iy5phwl]
Casting Stun/Sleep/Bind cuts into NIN's katana time (that is, when they aren't just wielding a staff anyway), yet again, no one cares.

There are plenty of legitimate gripes to make about SMN; "I only gets to use one subjobs" is not one of them.[/quote:3iy5phwl]

The complain clearly shouldn't be that you can't use other SJs but that the SJ defines the job and without, such job makes no sense.

I'm pretty sure no one in their sane mind would complain about SMN being a healer, the problem is SMN is a healer only due to the /whm, having almost no really useful tools from the avatars themselves. There's a couple ones, but once the SJ is removed, SMN is no longer able to perform as a healer; it's basicly a main job supporting a sub job... which is totaly absurd.
On top of that, if you apply another SJ to SMN, you don't really make the job excell in any other area either. /war doesn't help you become a decent DD (your avatars aren't affected and your character DD is laughable at best), /blm doesn't make you a magical DD because your avatars are, again, not affected, etc.
This problem is not exclussive to SMN ofcourse and it really affects all the pet jobs (PUP, BST, SMN and DRG being on a second row here).

In the case of SMN, the Blood Pacts themselves should be doing the healing and not the SJ spells. SJ should be for that, support your current job mindset, not make your job. 1 minute timer on highly expensive pacts which are mutualy exclusive is absolutely ridiculous for the current state of the game, even when you reduce it to as low as 43 seconds. If on top of that you add the casting time that pulling out an avatar like leviathan requires, it becomes even more silly; ofcourse, you can leave him out, but for quite a big price. You really even pay for Carbuncle, since he'll eat your native auto refresh anyway no matter how much you lower your perpetuation cost.

The only delay SMN should have from spaming its defensive and healing BPs should be when changing avatars and on individual recasts. Damaging BPs can be capped and cripled like they are today and it will still be fine as damage will be just an added perk of the job. This game could use a decent new healer and SMN could use a complete facelift instead of just more flashy and wasted avatars with 1 useful BP that in the end just means we'll stop using other BPs that once were useful due to the shared timer.

Ofcourse, this will never happen as it needs a total revamp of a job and SE is most likely too busy to worry about a mature game that's about to hit the grave.

EDIT: Oh, i forgot to add that the concept of a front line healer didn't come with DNC! It came with SMN! I'll dare anyone try to heal and support with your avatars by keeping your own self out of AoE range. Enjoy the frustration when you see that amazing AoE range from the engaged avatar not hitting your whole front line party

[Tomino]

Alexander is still arguable since they left that portal inside whats left of his robot form open

actually,
SPOILER**




in the end, Luzaf walks toward the "portal" formed next to the iron colossus to speak with Odin.
also, Windurst reports the newfound energy pattern to be a gate toward the realm of avatars, not simply Alexander. could still be different in the JP version tho.

in FF XI lore, Alexander is an avatar spirit that inhabits those he consider worth, preferably inhanimated it seems. also, by how the fight against him goes, i'd dare to say he's quite a "dominant personality" and focused on giving judgement and crash the sinners. in ToAU end at least Odin shows some compassion and mercy granting Luzaf one last wish.

[ronin sparthos]

in the end, Luzaf walks toward the "portal" formed next to the iron colossus to speak with Odin.
also, Windurst reports the newfound energy pattern to be a gate toward the realm of avatars, not simply Alexander. could still be different in the JP version tho.

in FF XI lore, Alexander is an avatar spirit that inhabits those he consider worth, preferably inhanimated it seems. also, by how the fight against him goes, i'd dare to say he's quite a "dominant personality" and focused on giving judgement and crash the sinners. in ToAU end at least Odin shows some compassion and mercy granting Luzaf one last wish.

This is mainly why i say its 'arguable' that Alexander could become the next summon because on one hand, a portal to the realm of the avatars has been left open which could allow us to speak to Alexanders conscious and kick his 'dominating' ass into helping our cause (Hey, after you kick Bahamuts ass in B2 he starts to see things our way.) but on the other hand now Luzaf is on the 'other side' with Odin pehaps he may 'join the cause'. Its a tossup between the two but its hard to say which path SE will take for it.

...or they could do something epic and have people choose one and only one, but thats not like SE. Was it ever cleared up why exactly Razfahd died? That scene was always sorta confusing, common sense tells me its because we bashed up the Alexander prototype but you kicked Raubahns ass 3x and he didnt die and the way the Alexander went down was more like we broke the machine and less the machine exploded.

[Lucavi]

NIN is even more useless without a SJ, and yet that doesn't seem to bother anyone.

Because ninjar makes their peepee's go boom boom.

[Jeryhn]

When it comes to SMN, Rage and Ward is more than enough. Give us another "category" of Bloodpacts and you'll just have summoners burning all their MP in an effort to make their subjob entirely useless.

Things I want to see on SMN as necessary job fixes:

- Why does my summoner only have an A- in summoning skill? Increase to A+ please.
- The use of Retreat should transfer the summoner's enmity to its avatar. This prevents cases where a summoner is unable to defend themselves because their dumb avatar keeps auto attacking.
- Dramatically increase the area of effect of Ward Bloodpacts. Like to match a COR with Luzaf's Ring, or at the very least a Bard with full String. For the love of Christ, please do this.
- Avatars should have appropriate job traits. Ifrit could do well with Attack Bonus, for instance.

Here's some more wishlist-y type stuff:

- Where is my motherfucking MP Chakra? Or better, perhaps a JA at high levels that converts an avatar's TP into MP for the summoner (this may be what SE already has planned).
- Avatars should have Enspells on their melee attacks, strength to be determined via Summoning skill (stronger than an RDM's Enspell). At lower levels this could be slightly overpowering however, so make the proc rate % equivalent to the summoner's level. Example: At level 10, Carbuncle's Enlight would proc 10% of the time; at 75, 75% proc rate on Enspells. This makes avatar melee attacking slightly more worthwhile while also giving the avatar more magical damage options. This also makes summoning skill worthwhile before it is capped.
- Avatars should absorb attacks of their own element, but how the SMN is rewarded for this action can be changed. Instead of simply healing the avatar, perhaps the damage can be reduced as it is currently, and whatever damage the avatar takes can be converted into MP for the summoner.

As far as new avatars go... I'm predicting lesser forms of Alexander and Odin.
As it stands, every single avatar that's been released is no where near the strength of their Prime form. I doubt the current storyline issues prevent them from becoming summonable avatars in the same way Bahamut (who refuses to be controlled by mortals) and Phoenix (who is now a reincarnated Selh'teus) are.

[Rocl]

Odin I can see, but I'm sorry the whole Alexander not having a real body any more kind of ruins the idea for me.

Razfahd was pretty much killed by Alexander from what I understood, Alexander possessed the machine and crushed him from the inside. Or, mayhaps, Alexander took control of Razfahd and simply drained him of all his life. (For instance, summoning requires immense concentration and willpower to control the avatars, which is why you lose MP) Since Razfahd called Alexander in his "prime" form, he probably died. Much like Karuha Baruha died from summoning Fenrir's primeform.

Looking back, I like the last idea better.

Summoners can always look back on the fact that they may have lost Alexander, but his death began the Crystal Era!

While I'm still on the story kick;

I imagine the rip into the avatar plane is a nifty way to explain the new magic they've promised us, or even more fights versus the avatars, and of course the all important tie-in mission. I am genuinely curious to if they're going to do a final mission requiring completion of CoP, RoZ, and ToAU- or if it'll require just ToAU and WoTG.

[Khamsin]

Maybe one of these days we'll get to visit the astral plane and see where the avatars hang out. I wonder if Terrestrials hang out some place different than the Celestials.

[Jeryhn]

The whole Alexander:Razfahd::Fenrir:Karuha-Baruha idea is pretty interesting.
I could see that kind of thing happening.

As far as a "body" for Alexander to inhabit... well, the Dark Rider is obviously a manifestation of Odin, but it seems to be a summoned avatar rather than Luzaf himself running around. Its feasible to say that from a storyline standpoint, Alexander could manifest as that golden castle form we saw an image of when Razfahd and Ghatsad were looking over the map of West Aht Urghan and the Alzadaal Ruins.

[Khamsin]

Alexander could manifest as that golden castle form we saw an image of when Razfahd and Ghatsad were looking over the map of West Aht Urghan and the Alzadaal Ruins.

Wasn't it a purple castle?

[Tempyst]

Has SE ever changed the weapon skill rating for any job ever?

7/02
WAR H2H reduced from C to D
RDM Dagger, Sword, Club raised
THF H2H, Sword raised (?!)
BRD Dagger, Sword, Club added
RNG Dagger, Sword added

2/03
BST Axe raised
PLD Axe, GAxe removed

4/03
MNK Staff raised
BLM Staff raised
RDM Marksmanship removed, Sword raised
PLD Throwing removed
BST Scythe added

12/03
BLM Club, Staff raised
DRK Axe, GAxe raised
BST Scythe raised
SMN Club, Staff raised
BRD Staff added
RNG Axe added

9/04
BLM Scythe added

Where are you finding this info? I'd love to hear more about the imbalanced tomfoolery that went on in the early releases of FFXI. If you could make a new thread about this kind of stuff I'd :nikkei: