Opinions for Job Adjustments

[The Q]

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.

It already seems to "work" on mobs. Remember XP'ing on crabs or crawlers when they pop defense boost and if you don't have a way to dispel it you're all "FFffffffuuuuuckkkkk!" because you're hitting for a LOT less?

Then you boost your defense and you're all "FFffffffffuuuuuuuuckkkkk!" because it doesn't do a god damn thing.

[ronin sparthos]

Maybe if shit like parry,guard and to a lesser extent evasion actually proc'd and skilled up in exp that people could actually rely on that.

[Spider-Dan]

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.

So basically, you want to take the single, highly-situational and specific offensive benefit of /NIN, arbitrarily distribute it to the few jobs that would actually desire DW, then nerf the defensive reasons everyone else would want the SJ for. Put simply, you want to completely remove any reason to use /NIN.

I don't see how you could possibly suggest this as a way to increase subjob variety with a straight face. This would be the hamfisted action of a obsessive vendetta against /NIN, nothing more.

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."

Then what possible reason would you have to nerf Utsusemi? If /NIN is purely a defensive SJ and adds no offensive benefit whatsoever, and people still choose it, then what is the problem? If there's a sliding scale between "completely offensive, no defense" and "completely defensive, no offense," and /NIN is placed solidly at the defensive end of that scale, you have nothing left to complain about, period. The only legitimate complaint to be made is that /NIN is a little too good at both, and like I said, the only job that's really true for is WAR.

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.

Again, rather than nerfing /NIN, why not improve the existing SJs? Here, let me give you an example:

Players in this game are obsessed with accuracy.
RNG is supposed to be the most accurate job in the game.
Yet subbing RNG adds a mediocre accuracy advantage over subbing SAM/DRG/DNC/MNK and is one of the least popular SJs in the game.

If Sharpshot gave ACC/RACC+10-15% and had 3min duration, /RNG would become insanely popular overnight.

[Nirokun!]

i love /nin for my blu my suppa tells me so

[LeifofKujata]

I'm with Nirokun!, my blu benefits from dual-wield AND utsusemi. But no where to the extent of jobs that get both with berserk: WAR NIN. Not sure why people hate on /nin so much when they pay for a spell, it better be worth it.

[Kenji]

I'm with Nirokun!, my blu benefits from dual-wield AND utsusemi. But no where to the extent of jobs that get both with berserk: WAR NIN. Not sure why people hate on /nin so much when they pay for a spell, it better be worth it.

The issue is one of other players being forced to level /nin if they want to remain competitive. Many players don't want to spend any money on shihei, as they have enough expenses to deal with. No one is currently forced to level Ranger if they don't want to spend money on arrows to remain competitive. In short, other SJ's need to be just as attractive as /NIN, so that people don't complain if you sub something else. This means nerfing of /nin, buffing of other SJ's, or a bit of both.

[Araius]

Not to turn this into a BLU thread, but BLU's who go BLU/NIN over BLU/THF for everything make me want to stab cute things in the face. BLU's don't need TP to do damaging/potential SC abilities, /THF significantly boots damage of said abilities, lolswords...yeah I can't say I've ever understood the obsession. Obviously there are exceptions, especially fighting stuff with bad AoE where /NIN will keep you from being an MP-sink, but for the things I do...I go /THF if at all possible. If /THF gave any sort of feasible defensive bonus to keep from gettign obliterated (lolEvasionBonus) I'd be on it full-time

That said, the same does not apply for most DD jobs, as they require TP. /SAM has potential, the changes they've made to it thus far have been nice...if they could continue the boosts to /SAM without making SAM main a ridiculously broken beast, that would be nice. Also, DNC was meant to be a good melee sub, so maybe we'll see significant boosts to the feasibility of /DNC.

[Spider-Dan]

The issue is one of other players being forced to level /nin if they want to remain competitive.

No, it is not. As I just said, the only job that gets a drastic offensive boost from /NIN is WAR, and that objection was essentially solved by /SAM and 2h update (especially if you don't own a Ridill).

No, the real issue is:

Many players don't want to spend any money on shihei, as they have enough expenses to deal with. No one is currently forced to level Ranger if they don't want to spend money on arrows to remain competitive. In short, other SJ's need to be just as attractive as /NIN, so that people don't complain if you sub something else.

The only time people complain about someone not subbing NIN is when the damage that you aren't mitigating through shadows affects the success of the task at hand (exp/hr, winning the instance, extra downtime slowing down the run, etc.). Complaining about buying shihei (which saves MP) is no different than complaining about buying food; the amount of sympathy you can expect is non-existent. For the price of 2-3 stacks of food, you can absorb between 2000 and 3500 attacks (feel free to convert that into MP saved).

If shihei is breaking your bank, then it's highly unlikely that you are a player that cares anything at all about performance anyway. Shihei is freaking dirt cheap compared to practically any other consumable on the market.

[Nirokun!]

Not to turn this into a BLU thread, but BLU's who go BLU/NIN over BLU/THF for everything make me want to stab cute things in the face. BLU's don't need TP to do damaging/potential SC abilities, /THF significantly boots damage of said abilities, lolswords...yeah I can't say I've ever understood the obsession. Obviously there are exceptions, especially fighting stuff with bad AoE where /NIN will keep you from being an MP-sink, but for the things I do...I go /THF if at all possible. If /THF gave any sort of feasible defensive bonus to keep from gettign obliterated (lolEvasionBonus) I'd be on it full-time.

who ever said blu/nin to everything?

i like using my 297 sword skill to plinky-plink away things, its fun (blu is my only melee job, and the LS doesnt like me using hexastrike on whm PPP)

[Max™]

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.

Adjust mob Dmg, or adjust player def/vit only wouldn't be too hard.

Could always just make Defender apply some -Dmg%.

Also: I dislike Utsu, because War eva sucks, and any time when you get too much hate on you, it's hell keeping shadows up/getting them up after a flurry/AoE while under fire and Ni is down.

Basically it's praying I parry, the mob hits me at just the right time during cast to not interrupt (which is pretty rough with some mobs that attack two or three times during an ichi cast), or for some strange reason, the mob fails to hit me.

I always kind of O.o when I get missed/evade a WS. Go go 225 Eva!

/Sam fails sometimes and leaves you naked for 29 seconds, but overall it is pretty comparable to a war trying to blinktank with our faileva.

[XxSlusherxx]

what are you tanking on Warrior without haste and Ellegy?

[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.

Adjust mob Dmg, or adjust player def/vit only wouldn't be too hard.

Could always just make Defender apply some -Dmg%.

Also: I dislike Utsu, because War eva sucks, and any time when you get too much hate on you, it's hell keeping shadows up/getting them up after a flurry/AoE while under fire and Ni is down.

Basically it's praying I parry, the mob hits me at just the right time during cast to not interrupt (which is pretty rough with some mobs that attack two or three times during an ichi cast), or for some strange reason, the mob fails to hit me.

I always kind of O.o when I get missed/evade a WS. Go go 225 Eva!

/Sam fails sometimes and leaves you naked for 29 seconds, but overall it is pretty comparable to a war trying to blinktank with our faileva.

I like Utsusemi specifically because WAR evasion is garbage.

[Max™]

what are you tanking on Warrior without haste and Ellegy?

Haidate line keeps getting bigger, I didn't do a lot of sky during the RMT controlling everything and Ulli period, so I'm at 14% haste. +30% from marches/haste still doesn't help when I cast Ni, eat a flurry, and am praying I can get Ichi up between swings, because one DD got tickled just before I Wsed, and the other killed the last mob, so I'm tanking til it dies.

Whereas /Sam, mob Flurries and I laugh, and find that is the rare situation where I am stuck looking at a 20 second timer on TE while getting beat on, as opposed to taking maybe a hit before popping TE again.

Before I had the swift belt/dusk feet it was even sadder, nevermind the levels before Ni where I basically hoped there was a Blu to head butt for me.

Maybe it's just me, but I never found trying to get Ichi up while a mob double attacks at me to be a fun experience, and Ni isn't always up.

I do like what my crap eva does for my parrying though, 160 without leveling a "pure" tank job isn't bad.

[Xanthe]

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.

It already seems to "work" on mobs. Remember XP'ing on crabs or crawlers when they pop defense boost and if you don't have a way to dispel it you're all "FFffffffuuuuuckkkkk!" because you're hitting for a LOT less?

Then you boost your defense and you're all "FFffffffffuuuuuuuuckkkkk!" because it doesn't do a god damn thing.

Explanation: The reason defense seems to do more for mobs than players is the level correction function. For every level the mob is higher than you, your attack/mob defense ratio takes a 0.05 (0.025 ranged) hit. You could be fighting a level 81 crawler (theoretically) and have attack twice its defense, but your ratio would still only be 1.7. Now that crawler uses Cocoon (Defense +50% on BLU, maybe more for Crawlers since BLU spells tend to be gimped versions?) and all of a sudden you're at a 1.0 ratio (+50% DEF makes the uncorrected ratio 1.3, and the cRatio becomes ~1.0). There's the reason for your piddly damage on those buffed crawlers. cRatio works in reverse for mobs though and they get a bonus to their attack/defense ratio for each level higher they are than you (we get the same bonus on TW-DC mobs), so when you pop Defender (or Cocoon if we want to make an accurate comparison) the damage reduction is much less noticeable. Additionally, I believe that mobs may have higher pDIF and cRatio caps than players, though I might be wrong on that count.

So yeah, I think it was probably already mentioned before, but defense/VIT isn't the problem, it's the level-corrected ratio that's causing the disparity of the effectiveness of mob defense vs player defense.

[Max™]

The Flamingo scores a critical hit! Maxaru takes 193 points of damage.
/p Decent challenge my ass.

[Shassira]

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.

It already seems to "work" on mobs. Remember XP'ing on crabs or crawlers when they pop defense boost and if you don't have a way to dispel it you're all "FFffffffuuuuuckkkkk!" because you're hitting for a LOT less?

Then you boost your defense and you're all "FFffffffffuuuuuuuuckkkkk!" because it doesn't do a god damn thing.

Explanation: The reason defense seems to do more for mobs than players is the level correction function. For every level the mob is higher than you, your attack/mob defense ratio takes a 0.05 (0.025 ranged) hit. You could be fighting a level 81 crawler (theoretically) and have attack twice its defense, but your ratio would still only be 1.7. Now that crawler uses Cocoon (Defense +50% on BLU, maybe more for Crawlers since BLU spells tend to be gimped versions?) and all of a sudden you're at a 1.0 ratio (+50% DEF makes the uncorrected ratio 1.3, and the cRatio becomes ~1.0). There's the reason for your piddly damage on those buffed crawlers. cRatio works in reverse for mobs though and they get a bonus to their attack/defense ratio for each level higher they are than you (we get the same bonus on TW-DC mobs), so when you pop Defender (or Cocoon if we want to make an accurate comparison) the damage reduction is much less noticeable. Additionally, I believe that mobs may have higher pDIF and cRatio caps than players, though I might be wrong on that count.

So yeah, I think it was probably already mentioned before, but defense/VIT isn't the problem, it's the level-corrected ratio that's causing the disparity of the effectiveness of mob defense vs player defense.

Correct assumption, it's 100% defense boost on Cocoon for crawlers. Can be checked by using Voracious Trunk (and i assume Aura Steal too) on a crawler with defense boost, which effectively doubles your defense. As an added fun fact, Sharp Strike on scorpions is 100% attack boost ^^;

[fndragon]

Correct assumption, it's 100% defense boost on Cocoon for crawlers. Can be checked by using Voracious Trunk (and i assume Aura Steal too) on a crawler with defense boost, which effectively doubles your defense. As an added fun fact, Sharp Strike on scorpions is 100% attack boost ^^;

Voracious Trunk is just a fun spell to investigate enemy self-buffs. Beserk from Dhalmels is also a good one to take.

However, since the buffs can be literally stolen and compared to the Blue Magic version of the spell, it's pretty obvious that it's not level correction, but just a weaker version of the spell that's to blame for the gimpiness of Cocoon. (not that it's a bad spell, just compared to the native monster's version).

[Xanthe]

Correct assumption, it's 100% defense boost on Cocoon for crawlers. Can be checked by using Voracious Trunk (and i assume Aura Steal too) on a crawler with defense boost, which effectively doubles your defense. As an added fun fact, Sharp Strike on scorpions is 100% attack boost ^^;

I thought so. Change that Cocooned cRatio to 0.7 then.

However, since the buffs can be literally stolen and compared to the Blue Magic version of the spell, it's pretty obvious that it's not level correction, but just a weaker version of the spell that's to blame for the gimpiness of Cocoon. (not that it's a bad spell, just compared to the native monster's version).

I wasn't comparing versions of defense buffs per se, cocoon was just a good example of a defense buff. No matter what you do to reach it, your 2.0 pre-level corrected ratio will be less effective than a level 81 mob's 2.0 pre-level corrected ratio.

[Lucavi]

f Sharpshot gave ACC/RACC+10-15% and had 3min duration, /RNG would become insanely popular overnight.

Nice try, but no. It would be another "completely situational" subjob, and filed away into the list of "sometimes used" subs. With added accuracy comes more consistent damage, which eventually will pull hate. Then you're throwing out your "mp sponge" argument all over again.

You just don't get it. Its not so much about nerfing nin, its about explaining that no matter what you do to enhance the offensive power that a job could gain from a subjob (whichever subjob it is), without giving either that subjob a damage-mitigating ability, or changing the way we accrue damage when we're attacked physically, its going to go straight back to "/nin is the most non-situational sub that should be used more than any other sub", which wouldn't fix anything.

You want more accuracy? Buy accuracy gear, or eat sushi or +acc food.

You want to take less damage (or fuck it, NO damage), while not nerfing your damage into the ground? Uhh... sub /nin?

Until SE either doubles the mp regeneration rate of whms or grants bonuses for healing (like introducing crits for healing magic and returning a portion of the mp spent when the heal crits), to the point where recovering hp through healing isn't a fucking crime or a tragedy, you're not going to see any subjob variety, no matter how much SE buffs other subjobs. None of them can come close to matching the offensive boost (for some jobs) and defensive boosts (for all jobs) without pissing off the supporters of /nin.

Also, anyone who whines about the cost of shihei is foolish -- nobody should complain about having to pay a few cents to stay alive almost indefinitely.

[neochaos]

Um, totally kinda derailing the thread in the direction its at now, but I say

1. Take SCH out of FFXI
2. Give RDMs helix spells, and ebuillence (mab+)
3. Give WHMs accession and cure potency+ JA
4. Give BLMs the fastcast JA SCH has and weather spells


Get rid of one useless job, get 3 more efficient jobs ....


...good to know with the existence of SCH my grand theory is shot D: