Opinions for Job Adjustments

[neochaos]

THF primarily does its best damage by way of SATA, which is what people tend not to make use of much anymore D: THFs could prob sub war or drk, whatever they wanted if they were able to do TA more in situations outside of HNMs.

[The Q]

In Final Fantasy 5 and Final Fantasy Tactics you could equip 2 shields :D

And Final Fantasy 3. Also, every job can dual wield in FF3.

[dawdr]

THF primarily does its best damage by way of SATA, which is what people tend not to make use of much anymore D: THFs could prob sub war or drk, whatever they wanted if they were able to do TA more in situations outside of HNMs.

What? Thieves use Sneak Attack and Trick Attack more often (or at least they should) than they did back in the day, because we've stopped waiting to stack. If the timer is up or TP is at 100 you use it. I easily average around 1,000 between solo'd Sneak and Trick Attacks on birds, 800 range on normal mobs, and I don't have to stand around waiting for the stars of the Grimlap system to align for this to happen.

If there comes a time where stacking is our only hope, I'm hunting you down.

[Lucavi]

So ninjas and paladins would drop the second katana or shield to have sentinel or blink up full time ?

No, I was being sarcastic -- SE will never introduce anything to get people away from /nin that actually succeeds in getting people away from nin. This makes people like Spider-Dan very, very happy.

Arguably hes talking about jobs like THF/WAR or THF/DRK that could use some form of damage mitigation when subbing damage dealing jobs over the 'life-conservation' /NIN.

Yes, because the primary argument against those single-handed jobs that aren't using a shield and don't naturally have access to dual-wield subbing a sub that ISN'T ninja is the fact that they'll take too much damage if they pull hate. By giving them either an ability (exclusive to the job, which SE will never do), or a grip or strap that provides some sort of damage mitigation that isn't nearly as broken as utsu (which SE will never do), you could finally peel the icy grip of utsusemi out of the cold, unyielding hands of some of the playerbase.

Of course, none of this will ever happen, and did I mention that this will never happen? Not in this game, at least.

[Kenji]

Okay, we've pretty much hammered why people sub NIN. Now let's steer the direction a bit to a slightly different avenue, and not focus so much on tanking.

Speaking from the jobs you have experience in, if survivability wasn't as much of a concern (ie, didn't need utsu because of better tanking adjustments or your own job being adjusted), would you still sub something else? Would you *like* to sub something else, like DRK or DRG? Should other SJ's be adjusted to make them more attractive?

Perhaps if we can come to some consensus on what SJ's should be viable, and the changes needed to make that happen. Speaking to some of the low level players, I know quite a few have expressed discontent at learning they will have to level ninja and spend a bunch of money on shihei. To put it another way, how would it feel if everyone were forced to level RNG as at least a SJ, and spam arrows/bolts to be competitive from a DPS standpoint? ie, your current job's damage output is pretty poor, and /RNG with Arrows/bullets were the only thing that allowed your main job to contribute.

Personally, I'd like to level BLU without having to use NIN as a SJ, for example. /THF, I could live with. /WHM is fine, since I like leveling mages. /WAR and /PLD could be interesting tanking options. As could /BLM if you wanted to go a nuking route. There are many possibly SJ's, but most aren't acceptable for one reason or another.

[The Q]

I usually just use /thf on BLU anyways. There was a time when I would ask parties beforehand which sub and it was unanimously ninja. Now I just set my sub to thf while seeking and come as that no questions asked.

[Amok]

I always thought /brd should be viable, because I get off on the thought of having all melee casting songs on eachother making the sum of all the songs stronger than any subjob. I guess the same goes for /cor.

[BRP]

Most damage mitigation issues are fixed along with fixes to VIT/Def.

[Spider-Dan]

No, I was being sarcastic -- SE will never introduce anything to get people away from /nin that actually succeeds in getting people away from nin. This makes people like Spider-Dan very, very happy.

...which is why I complained so loudly about Hasso/Seigan, right?

I have no objection whatsoever to improving other SJs to compete with /NIN, as they did with /SAM. However, I will not endorse any change designed to nerf /NIN so the masses can go right back to /WAR. That accomplishes nothing at all to increase subjob variety; the only benefit would be to placate those who believe that /WAR is somehow intrinsically a More Appropriate subjob than /NIN, which is absurd.

[Kyreth]

Actually, it's that /NIN is the default defensive sub at 75 to the point of making any job capable of defending themselves virtually forever, given sufficent haste. That shouldn't be happening.

You could have a freaking SMN/NIN tank if you wanted to, if they could generate enough hate. We already managed BRD/NIN on HNM's, after all.

/NIN would be fine if it had great defense and didn't give great offense, or vice versa. As it manages both (hi2udualwield), something is broken. Heck, S-E already stated they were surprised players turned NIN into a tank job. Now we've turned /NIN into a tank job AND a DD of choice. Hasso/Seigan was installed in such a way so we'd NOT make SAM/NIN along with everything else.

Fix DEF/VIT, give NIN a gentle shove down. Cause the status quo involves shihei for the appreciable future.

[The Q]

It was said before, but I'll reiterate it: When BRD/NIN was tanking HNMs that was the smoking gun that something is terribly wrong. At 74-75 if it can hold hate it can tank with /NIN, and not lose any offensive prowess in the process.

[Lucavi]

I have no objection whatsoever to improving other SJs to compete with /NIN, as they did with /SAM. However, I will not endorse any change designed to nerf /NIN so the masses can go right back to /WAR. That accomplishes nothing at all to increase subjob variety; the only benefit would be to placate those who believe that /WAR is somehow intrinsically a More Appropriate subjob than /NIN, which is absurd.

Which is fine, but you're opening another can of worms that has plagued this game -- a distinct lack of abilities for many jobs in the game. Drg main has what, 3 usable job abilities until you hit 75? That's 3 different things you can do on a dragoon main to keep you occupied all the way to 75. Sure, if you sub a mage job, you get different things from your wyvern, but you, yourself, get to actively click all of 3 job abilities, and they aren't all that. Monk gets a few self-buffs here and there, a ranged attack, and some hp recovery -- shouldn't they have more martial arts moves that aren't tied directly into TP?

This game has such a limited amount of abilities for non-spellcasting jobs that subbing those jobs really doesn't give you jack shit outside of one or two novelty abilities. Sam pre-seigan gave you 60% tp every 3 minutes and a single attack block every 30 seconds -- that's it? /War gives you an attack buff, a defense buff, and an AOE attack buff, along with a hate-grabbing tool. Thief gives you a free crit every minute, a hate-transfer move with no attack boost, and the ability to run around like a chocobo for a short time. Steal is all but worthless.

On the flipside, you have WoW, which I personally think has -too- many abilities per class, but I'd rather have more than less. Mages can say they have a lot of abilities, but all they're getting is stronger repeats of what they already have, and that's fine, as its classic FF style, but c'mon: blm gets a 2hr and elemental seal? That's it?

People might have more of a diversity of subjob choice of other jobs actually had enough abilities and content within them to actually provide some variety when subbed. As it stands, the only real worthwhile subjob toys are stun with drk (a spell), voke, zerk, situational use of sneak and trick attack, and our damage mitigaters, utsu and seigan.

I feel the worst for bsts, though. You play a hunter in WoW and really realize all that could have been with beastmaster -- a true pet; one that you keep and give new strengths and abilities to -- the ability to use limited AI to set traps and pincer attacks with your pet -- a pet that can be set to be aggressive, defensive, or completely docile: there's almost no comparison between the two. Bst is so lacking that its silly -- hell, you can't even decide what move your pet does when you use sic -- it could be an AOE that wipes the alliance for all you know.

At 74-75 if it can hold hate it can tank with /NIN, and not lose any offensive prowess in the process.

I remember the day I volunteered to help out with a ODS on my drg, and the leader was so adamant that I just -had- to come /nin or I'd be a MP sponge. The fight is a fucking joke to do and he's insisting that I need to mitigate my damage. 3-7mp for 350 hp, over and over, and I'm supposed to be relying on fucking shadows to "save" me? I just kinda shook my head and proceeded to prove to him that /nin isn't the only thing in the planet for everything, but its that kind of ignorance that has spawned from everyone's man-crush on ninja that disillusions people.

[Spider-Dan]

Actually, it's that /NIN is the default defensive sub at 75 to the point of making any job capable of defending themselves virtually forever, given sufficent haste. That shouldn't be happening.

You could have a freaking SMN/NIN tank if you wanted to, if they could generate enough hate.

Then why aren't DRK/NIN's tanking just as often as NIN/DRK (or at least PLD/NIN)?

Generally speaking, you can mitigate damage, or you can generate hate, but you can't do both... and the jobs that can do both don't really even need /NIN to begin with.

We already managed BRD/NIN on HNM's, after all.

This was not a problem with Utsusemi. This was directly due to a broken song (Mazurka) that has since been fixed. Where are all the BRD/NINs today?

/NIN would be fine if it had great defense and didn't give great offense, or vice versa. As it manages both (hi2udualwield), something is broken.

...the hell are you talking about?

There are 4 jobs that get an offensive boost even worth mentioning from /NIN: BLU, RNG, THF, WAR. BLU gets the majority of their damage from spells; DW is nothing special. One offhand dagger/axe is hardly "great offense" for RNG, especially compared to 'zerk. For THF, DW only matches 'zerk in merits (and then only at the very top level); for the rest of the game (and any endgame activity), you're unmistakably trading off offense for defense. The only job that gets a major offensive boost from /NIN is WAR, and more than anything else, that's because WAR comes standard with 'zerk.

Let me reemphasize this point: it is no coincidence that the two jobs that benefit the most from DW are also the two jobs that can use Berserk while dual-wielding. The argument that /NIN must be nerfed because of its awesome combination of offense and defense would hold more weight if a sizable chunk of /NINers logged on at any given moment were not receiving no offensive benefit whatsoever from it.

[Oulanbator]

Then why aren't DRK/NIN's tanking just as often as NIN/DRK (or at least PLD/NIN)?

The main reason is Ninjas can relatively easy equip -40% dmg reduction, and Plds have shield block, high defense, and self cures.
So nin/drk or pld/nin tanking have more room for mistakes than drk/nin tanking.

Otherwise, Drks could be dealing good damage, while Ninjas and Plds woudn't do damage on mobs that require nin/drk or pld/nin tanks.


Brd/nins were able to generate tons of hate, and to equip a lot of physical dmg reduction and also magical damage reduction.
That's why some brds became tanks.

[Nyuneko]

Honestly, this just seems like /NIN haters are not listening to anything a /NIN lovers are saying and the vice versa... for several pages.

But a question 1st, any of the /NIN haters played any of the job they talked about that get such a massive advantage from /NIN?

It is just like Spider-Dan put it(I play MNK and THF), that the only job that get a massive DD boost at all time is WAR; if SE has any brain left in them, and fix the DEF/VIT to a working level, I will never sub NIN to MNK unless I need to tank(you can ask any MNK/NIN, I would bet that 99% would tell you they love WAR sub), I will still sub NIN to THF however, as I don't want to DD in a Thief Knife(owait, THF DD?), and I did camp my Sirocco Kukri, so I do want to use it a bit more... In any case, in the end, if a good DEF/VIT update comes that actually make tanking without shadows viable, I'd say 9/10 of the "OMFG-DW-SO-POWERFUL" jobs will change to a real powerful sub, so the only one left that would sub NIN would be: RNG, for survival, because dual wield helps them more than berzerk, right??? THF, who like me, dislike the fact that we would have to DD with only a Thief Knife in events; WAR, but since I know nothing about WAR, I would guess Ridill/Axe combo or whatever they do now? And lastly, the oh-so-broken PLD/NIN, but honestly, who cares, they won't get any more offensive subbing WAR, DRK, SAM or whatever, they are there to tank, and the less damage they take, the easier your mages are, and the more likely you are going to win whatever you are fighting. As said, removing shadows will not increase the difficulty, it increases the mages' workload, which has nothing to do with challenge but more frustration and macro spam.

If they really want to make NMs challenging, then the NM should react differently to different tactic we do: example would be making the NM do something that would interrupt a zerg if being zerged, or countering magic when manaburn(reflect 50% damage back to the nuker?).

The point on "No to /NIN!" is kinda lost the moment people pull out the gil issue, sure making gil isn't easy nowaday, but anyone, regardless of level should not have trouble supporting shihei supply, reason being that 1 stack of Shihei last several tens parties for most /NIN jobs unless you are a heavy DD(read: WAR) or you are a main NIN, but I thought we are talking about /NIN exclusively?

At the age where we lack any viable tank at EXP levels(the game has more than just Aery), removing more damage mitigation option is probably not a good choice, especially when the reason is "supplying my 75 with shihei is hard".

[Max™]

I wouldn't get any offensive benefit from /Nin, and would in fact hurt my damage a lot (bye 6 hit build, I <3 you but you gotta go nao) and would be saddified by doing it, so I don't. Gaxe War though, with Raging Rush, War doesn't have to /Nin for good damage anymore.

[Lucavi]

Let me reemphasize this point: it is no coincidence that the two jobs that benefit the most from DW are also the two jobs that can use Berserk while dual-wielding. The argument that /NIN must be nerfed because of its awesome combination of offense and defense would hold more weight if a sizable chunk of /NINers logged on at any given moment were not receiving no offensive benefit whatsoever from it.

Then do what WoW does -- eliminate dual wield as a subjob trait and instead introduce it as a trait that comes standard on a few jobs, like rouge (thf), hunter (ranger, maybe beastmaster), warrior (hi warrior and ninja). Much like call wyvern, however, this trait cannot be utilized when the job is subbed, regardless of when the job learns to dual wield. That way you can then upgrade the def/vit equations while downgrading utsusemi, and it wouldn't super-buff pld/nin tanking, which is already about as efficient as one could possibly hope for in a game. Super-fragile glass cannon like the rest of the jobs, but when shadows are down, you've got oshit sentinel, flash, and invincible.

But wait, I keep forgetting. This is FFXI, and its players are hardcore masochists that just hate the thought of anything being either streamlined, made more efficient, or improved upon for the "fear" of OMG FFXI IS NOW TOO EASY!1eleven

You seperate dual wield from utsusemi outside of ninja, who would just be lucky enough to have both, and you eliminate a large chunk of the ideology that "I'm here for the dual wield first, and the shadows second." You would then understand, Spider-Dan, that its not really all about the dual wield, even for jobs that could honestly use it like thf, and war -- its alllllllllllllll about the utsusemi.

You give a war access to dual-wield so he can use his precious botted mcgriddle, take away the /nin sub (and with it, utsusemi), but give him a freedom of choice in terms of subjobs, so that the ONLY benefit from subbing nin would now be essentially utsu, and that war is STILL going to dive straight to utsu. They'll say "well theres no other good subs out there that offer anything good! I can't use seigan dual-wielding!"

All that does is solidify both of my points:

1) FFXI is as addicted to blinking and shadows about as much as Britney Spears is addicted to crystal meth.
2) Even if FFXI could get off of its addiction, theres still not a whole lot of variety in the jobs to provide tons of variety in the subjobs.

God forbid WoW ever introduce subjobs -- you'd never run out of possible combinations, and you'd never have room to place all the icons on your screen.

[Septimus]

Has anyone fully considered the impact of a defense/VIT boost? How buffed would it make mobs who already have an advantage with defense/VIT?

Sure, someone is going to say something along the lines of "the boost would be just to players, not to mobs", but by now we should all know better.

[Nirokun!]

1) FFXI is as addicted to blinking and shadows about as much as Britney Spears is addicted to crystal meth.

FFXI players are addicted to showing off how their ingenuity works. No other game has a shadow-tanking system (afaik, i dont play other games :DDDD) that was invented via the player-base at the same time that a popular anime about a teenage orange ninja used similar ninjutsu as his prime strength.

I dont know why you care what other people use as a subjob anyways, nobody is stopping you from decreasing your level of efficiency in a PT. Just dont complain about everyone else wanting to sub something that helps them attack and defend, dont complain that the playerbase is a hair smarter than the war/mnks out there.

[BRP]

I'm pretty sure when people mean buff they mean treat players more like monsters are already treated.