Battle Adjustments (05/28/2008)

[Mugmug]

I hope the Paladin update is as good as it sounds

[ronin sparthos]

Or kill the same old shit faster/more easily.

Touche, though the excuses about shit being too evasive, too defensively oriented and/or too much HP goes out the window with these buffs.

2min Feints? You can wipe a mobs eva in a blink.
Longer duration Angon? There goes the mobs defenses

[Izzy]

The 28 Mjollnir WHM across all servers need to get together and petition for increased club skill!!!

It's been a while since I've bitched about that Q_Q.

[Mabubeezareel]

I don't know why people think differently but a DRK equivalent of Aggressor is pretty amazing for non-relic (and even those with relic), as in most situations you're not going to be capped on acc. And well it's just a fact that if you're not capped, then adding accuracy helps a lot. It doesn't matter if you're normally at 80% or 90% before it.

5:00 Deep Breathing will be pretty goddamn awesome.

Fixed. And that's if you forgo any merits in Strafe and Empathy.

Personally I'll recap Angon and put the remaining points in Strafe, so:
Angon 5/5
Strafe 3/3
Empathy 2/2

Any reason for capping Angon?

Honestly I can't think of a single situation for me where anything I Angon will live for almost 2 minutes, much less even like 30 seconds. I left it at 2/3 for that reason (which is probably where it will stay). At best I might throw in one more for just the full 1 minute, but past that seems silly. Might be good on like Cerb or Khim, but yeah I'm not usually DRG there so I guess it just applies for me.

Not that the other options are all too good though anyway... But I'll probably end up going like 3/5 Angon, 5/5 Empathy, and I guess 2/5 Deep Breathing.

The extra duration from going 5/5 Angon is more useful for a career DRG like myself instead of a part-timer. While the extra 30s duration is mostly wasted on zerg fights, it still comes in very handy for any fight that lasts greater than, well, 1 minute. Cerb, Khim, JoL, soloing, etc. are all good examples of getting full use of going 5/5 with it. Plus, it allows you to have fulltime defense down with just 2 DRGs instead of 3.

I'll likely be going 5/5 Deep Breathing as well, though I'd be interested to learn what would produce better damage over time - unresisted 360+ breaths every 5 minutes, or added damage from lower resist rates on Strafe. I tend to use /mage more than /melee, so Strafe is mainly wasted for me as is, but I'll get great use out of the 5:00 recast on Deep Breathing. Empathy has always seemed like nothing more than a toy to me, so I never bothered with it and probably won't now.

[Solarus]

This is relevant to my interests. 75 Mnk and Pld and currently levelling Brd

The Kick ability could go many different ways. The way I originally assumed (and it was hinted at in the past I believe) was a "Kick stance" similar to Counterstance, but it could still just be a 2/3 minute buff like Focus/Dodge. If it's a full 5 min recast/duration then it's really hard to say how good it'll be. I guess it'd be the sort of thing that would work well for HNM melee (for all that anyone actually melees HNM now outside of WS only), but maybe less so for merits. It'll be interesting to see what SE does with it, but I can't see them making it the sort of thing that would result in a net damage bonus if used full time. Unlike Counterstance where a massive defense drop means you have a reason to not use it full time, it won't matter if your delay is increased if the damage/TP bonus makes up for it.

Also, I don't want to fulltime Hades Sainti and Dune Boots

As for the Paladin buff - Blood tanking will never be viable again on HNMs, unless you buff every Paladin to Aegis levels. No matter how much damage you can reduce, it's still not as good as blinking away almost all damage. There are of course still plenty of useful applications for Pld/War anyway, and I do welcome any buffs. I generally find myself on Pld/Nin almost all of the time just out of habit now, and it'd be nice to make Pld/War the absolute best choice for anything outside of major HNM again. It'll be interesting to see just how big a buff this new spell is though -

Tiamat scores a critical hit!
Solarus takes 200 points of damage.
Solarus's spikes deal 100 points of damage to Tiamat.

It'd also be interesting to see how well (if?) this stacks with the COR roll too.

New BRD JA is also very welcome, though I wish they'd had it when I was levelling Pld. Still, I don't plan on using it on Brd for anything other than Ballading Paladins, I don't care if every member in the party wants some different combination of March/Mad/Min.

And I'm already behind enough on merits as it is Time to grind.

[kayn]

Haven't read anything but the OP.

@Paladins. If you can't tap your foot or keep a beat in your head, all HNMs, when debuffed, attack at pretty much a standard 4 beat pace, 1 2 3 swing 1 2 3 swing, if you can't keep track of that, quit FFXI.

And then on top of that, if you can't 1 2 3 click 1 2 3 ni COUNT TO MOTHER FUCKING 3, please, quit this game.

Dumbing it down so the fucking crappy JP shells who tank everything in +2 shield skill with 4 Aegis per shell (it's the only way they get things done) can get by with continuing to never change gear for ANYTHING is retarded.

Learning to count your own shadows and pre-cast ichi should be in the motherfucking Paladin Job Quest, this update is bullshit, and I for one am PISSED about seeing every 'Joe AdamanSabatons' walk around with capped, or near capped shield rate.

There should be penalties for sucking, or being retarded. Wiping to a mob thusfar has been that penalty, if you make Paladins into walking invincible machines you take away the learning curve. Is it nice I can probably now have capped shield rate against AV? No, I don't fucking care, I had capped shield proc-rate before this update.

SE needs to stop fucking reading off of alla's 'HOW DO I GET ICHI UP I DONT GET IT?!!?!?!?' boards and tend to some matters of importance, I seriously will never see the justification for this, you don't even need haste gear, marches and haste spell will pretty much cap you ffs, you can tank in 5/5 valor or 5/5 adaman with buffs and get the same god-damn effect as long as you precast.

I'm pissed.

Pissed.

I think your ire is misdirected friend; SE themselves have said several times that they're trying to get Paladins away from the /NIN sub when they can help it, so they're buffing them in any way they can to help that (though so far they have yet to really address the fact that it's the damage intake that is the issue, not so much the threat output;; ).

I see where you're going and don't necessarily disagree, but be cool yo 8)

i lolled. somone needed to post it.
ppl just dont wipe anymore. so there is no penalty. even if you suck. i watched a pld get slammed every time khim swung at him a 4th time. ls still won cause the rdm/nin can count and hold hate better. last wipe i saw was when a ls tried to hold khim with 3 people and it took them over 10 minutes. i know SE wants plds to move away from /nin but unless there's something coming on par with the 2hand update for def/vit it just wont ever happen. (famous last words)
the spell is neat. i'm sure i'll use it in campain.
if it buffs me enough, i'll retire my af1+1 feet and not bother getting a boxer's. just use askar full time.
really though, i know this is gunna help the newbies a ton. which is great. i'm all for that kinda stuff. but for most(all) of us more dedicated players, i doubt these (pld) changes will have any significant effect. i wont bother w/ the new merits for a while. i'm quite happy w/ my 3 guardian, 2 chivary and 1 fealty. i'll take time to digest and analyze what's the best allocation for these new merits.

if anything, does this constitue as an aegis nerf?

[JigglyJam]

I have a feeling SE is going to scale merits. 3/3 Optimization will equal 5/5 Optimization as an example.

What do the other languages of the update details say?

[Raen Ryong]

[quote=Seigfried Of Pandy]

How can SE be so fucking stupid? SAM DOES NOT NEED MORE BUFFING.

Look, it's a really hard concept to grasp. The job is already overpowered, and when you add buffs to overpowered, guess what happens? Oh yeah, EVEN MORE OVERPOWERED. Challenging logic there, I know.

And wtf@the hugely unnecessary PLD boost. PLD is/was strong enough ALREADY. As Sath said, we don't need some retarded full valordins or adamandins coming along and tanking almost as well as proper paladins. Spoilers: Paladin was already strong ENOUGH.

Diabolic Eye isn't -that- exciting. We get an Aggressor which, in exp, reduces our survivability (use it vs mamools, and enjoy Firespit?) or in the other situation we may need acc, on HNM etc, it weakens Souleater -- the main component of our damage on those mobs. Desperate Blows 25%? Quite nice, but with the haste cap of 80%, not much of a boost at all. Compared to 25% Overwhelm this is disgusting.

Glad to see SE wants to buff SAM to the heavens even more. How very unpredictable.

What the fuck, they are raising the group 2 merit limit, which yes boosts every job including sam. Did you honestly expect SE to raise the group 2 limit for every job except SAM. Save your out of control whiny bitch fit for something worth freaking the fuck out for.[/quote:1uzcnqk1]

And every job has identical group 2 merits so gets boosted identically, am I right? Don't be so fucking stupid. Some jobs benefit more than others. SAM just happens to benefit hugely -- and didn't need any further benefit in the first place.

[Meian]

[quote=Raen Ryong][quote="Seigfried Of Pandy":wyynbks2]

How can SE be so fucking stupid? SAM DOES NOT NEED MORE BUFFING.

Look, it's a really hard concept to grasp. The job is already overpowered, and when you add buffs to overpowered, guess what happens? Oh yeah, EVEN MORE OVERPOWERED. Challenging logic there, I know.

And wtf@the hugely unnecessary PLD boost. PLD is/was strong enough ALREADY. As Sath said, we don't need some retarded full valordins or adamandins coming along and tanking almost as well as proper paladins. Spoilers: Paladin was already strong ENOUGH.

Diabolic Eye isn't -that- exciting. We get an Aggressor which, in exp, reduces our survivability (use it vs mamools, and enjoy Firespit?) or in the other situation we may need acc, on HNM etc, it weakens Souleater -- the main component of our damage on those mobs. Desperate Blows 25%? Quite nice, but with the haste cap of 80%, not much of a boost at all. Compared to 25% Overwhelm this is disgusting.

Glad to see SE wants to buff SAM to the heavens even more. How very unpredictable.

What the fuck, they are raising the group 2 merit limit, which yes boosts every job including sam. Did you honestly expect SE to raise the group 2 limit for every job except SAM. Save your out of control whiny bitch fit for something worth freaking the fuck out for.[/quote:wyynbks2]

And every job has identical group 2 merits so gets boosted identically, am I right? Don't be so fucking stupid. Some jobs benefit more than others. SAM just happens to benefit hugely -- and didn't need any further benefit in the first place.[/quote:wyynbks2]

5/5 Optimization! PUP tier 2 > Sam tier 2! mahah

Yea... is it just me or have I been noticing only DRKs complaining about SAM? Also, whats with the DRKs leveling SAM and the SAMs leveling DRK now on our server?

[Neosutra]

if anything, does this constitue as an aegis nerf?

More like Aegis buff. The damage reflected is based on what damage you -would have- taken, so Aegis will block the most and reflect the most damage.

FUCK YA AEGIS.

[kayn]

I don't know why people think differently but a DRK equivalent of Aggressor is pretty amazing for non-relic (and even those with relic), as in most situations you're not going to be capped on acc. And well it's just a fact that if you're not capped, then adding accuracy helps a lot. It doesn't matter if you're normally at 80% or 90% before it.

5:00 Deep Breathing will be pretty goddamn awesome.

Fixed. And that's if you forgo any merits in Strafe and Empathy.

Personally I'll recap Angon and put the remaining points in Strafe, so:
Angon 5/5
Strafe 3/3
Empathy 2/2

Any reason for capping Angon?

Honestly I can't think of a single situation for me where anything I Angon will live for almost 2 minutes, much less even like 30 seconds. I left it at 2/3 for that reason (which is probably where it will stay). At best I might throw in one more for just the full 1 minute, but past that seems silly. Might be good on like Cerb or Khim, but yeah I'm not usually DRG there so I guess it just applies for me.

Not that the other options are all too good though anyway... But I'll probably end up going like 3/5 Angon, 5/5 Empathy, and I guess 2/5 Deep Breathing.

The extra duration from going 5/5 Angon is more useful for a career DRG like myself instead of a part-timer. While the extra 30s duration is mostly wasted on zerg fights, it still comes in very handy for any fight that lasts greater than, well, 1 minute. Cerb, Khim, JoL, soloing, etc. are all good examples of getting full use of going 5/5 with it. Plus, it allows you to have fulltime defense down with just 2 DRGs instead of 3.

I'll likely be going 5/5 Deep Breathing as well, though I'd be interested to learn what would produce better damage over time - unresisted 360+ breaths every 5 minutes, or added damage from lower resist rates on Strafe. I tend to use /mage more than /melee, so Strafe is mainly wasted for me as is, but I'll get great use out of the 5:00 recast on Deep Breathing. Empathy has always seemed like nothing more than a toy to me, so I never bothered with it and probably won't now.

Personally, I like the way these changes are going.
I've always complained about the lack of diversity in the alliance. Basically all i've ever seen was a tank party, a single thf, and either an army of blms or smns depending on the HNM. With these merit changes it, atleast, gives you incentive to have drgs, mnks, wars, & sams.
I still believe the purpose of mele being in the game is to get the useful jobs get to 75.

[arus2001]

[quote=Raen Ryong][quote="Seigfried Of Pandy":18c12bvj]

How can SE be so fucking stupid? SAM DOES NOT NEED MORE BUFFING.

Look, it's a really hard concept to grasp. The job is already overpowered, and when you add buffs to overpowered, guess what happens? Oh yeah, EVEN MORE OVERPOWERED. Challenging logic there, I know.

And wtf@the hugely unnecessary PLD boost. PLD is/was strong enough ALREADY. As Sath said, we don't need some retarded full valordins or adamandins coming along and tanking almost as well as proper paladins. Spoilers: Paladin was already strong ENOUGH.

Diabolic Eye isn't -that- exciting. We get an Aggressor which, in exp, reduces our survivability (use it vs mamools, and enjoy Firespit?) or in the other situation we may need acc, on HNM etc, it weakens Souleater -- the main component of our damage on those mobs. Desperate Blows 25%? Quite nice, but with the haste cap of 80%, not much of a boost at all. Compared to 25% Overwhelm this is disgusting.

Glad to see SE wants to buff SAM to the heavens even more. How very unpredictable.

What the fuck, they are raising the group 2 merit limit, which yes boosts every job including sam. Did you honestly expect SE to raise the group 2 limit for every job except SAM. Save your out of control whiny bitch fit for something worth freaking the fuck out for.[/quote:18c12bvj]

And every job has identical group 2 merits so gets boosted identically, am I right? Don't be so fucking stupid. Some jobs benefit more than others. SAM just happens to benefit hugely -- and didn't need any further benefit in the first place.[/quote:18c12bvj]

SAMs are only as good as their support, imo. Sometimes I deliberately WS from the side to avoid frontal mob WS or know I'd otherwise take hate and strain my healer. Now, if they had a reliable Third Eye's potency with Seigan up along with Hasso's boosts, then you could talk about overpowered.

Overall, I'm liking how these increases will bring a lot of merits into the realm of reasonable functionality. You won't wanna use Diabolic Eye when doing a SE zerg, no, but there's a lot more to the game than that for DRK as an example.

[RKenshin]

How can SE be so fucking stupid? SAM DOES NOT NEED MORE BUFFING.

Look, it's a really hard concept to grasp. The job is already overpowered, and when you add buffs to overpowered, guess what happens? Oh yeah, EVEN MORE OVERPOWERED. Challenging logic there, I know.

And wtf@the hugely unnecessary PLD boost. PLD is/was strong enough ALREADY. As Sath said, we don't need some retarded full valordins or adamandins coming along and tanking almost as well as proper paladins. Spoilers: Paladin was already strong ENOUGH.

Diabolic Eye isn't -that- exciting. We get an Aggressor which, in exp, reduces our survivability (use it vs mamools, and enjoy Firespit?) or in the other situation we may need acc, on HNM etc, it weakens Souleater -- the main component of our damage on those mobs. Desperate Blows 25%? Quite nice, but with the haste cap of 80%, not much of a boost at all. Compared to 25% Overwhelm this is disgusting.

Glad to see SE wants to buff SAM to the heavens even more. How very unpredictable.

I missed the section of the update where any part of it only applied to SAM? I suppose they should've said "all jobs get group 2 merits expanded, except SAM"? This isn't specifically a SAM buff, just like this isn't specifically a RDM buff or a DRG or DRK buff. All of the merit categories were expanded and while this is better for some than others, that has nothing to do with what this update was trying to accomplish. And you're being retarded if you think that 2 years ago SE could predict which job should get which category 2 merits to make them more balanced 2+ years later when they decide to expand category 2 merits. Hell if you even remember, SAM wasn't all that hot back before Overwhelm was thrown in.

And seriously if you under-appreciate how good the DRK merits are any further I think you'd be better off playing a different job. Or another game. 25% haste will almost always be in full use, unless you have relic and/or walk around with Ace's/Dusk+1/Speed Belt/HomamLeg/HomamFeet, haste song, hasso, and more than one march 100% of the time. In which case you're pretty damn spoiled, and do not by any stretch of the imagination represent your average DRK.

Same thing applies for essentially giving DRK ~5-7% higher accuracy for 3/5ths of the time, or basically improving the hit-rate by ~4% overall. Which is enough to make meat look all the more attractive... And if you think the HP is a problem then you need to put some common sense in action, play smart, and hey maybe even use that 'cancel JA' function. You know, like a WAR or /WAR might do if they get a lot of hate with Berserk on? This isn't a scientific breakthrough here, its common sense. Almost all jobs make sacrifices for more offensive JAs, and work around them. Whining about it is proven NOT to be a method of doing this.

[aurik]

For Cor, seems like 5 minute "Fold" recast is very hot as well. Always double-up on 6s and unlucky, fold away the busts!

I hate to state the obvious, but the merit expansion is much nicer to jobs which have fantastic JSM2 merit options than jobs with so-so merit options. War, for example, gets terrible options. So this doesn't really help them much. Mnk gets mediocre options so while in the long term I'll be recapping penance, it can wait.

It so happens that most jobs have something fairly significant to look forward to:

War -- terrible JSM2, tomahawk at 90s duration is nice for the custards in nyzul I suppose.
Mnk -- mediocre JSM2, but penance is definitely worth a few more points.
Thf -- 2 minute feint!
Rdm -- more slow2/phalanx2
Whm -- shell5 v5 will be pushing 30% magic reduction, and more devotion
Blm -- meh
Pld -- 10 minute chivalry, not sure the others make much of a difference
Drk -- DB 25% haste is hot, Diabolic Eye becomes a 20-accuracy agressor
Bst -- FERAL HOWL!
Brd -- Troub/Nightingale on 10 minute timers is worth getting.
Rng -- more Snapshot
Sam -- 5x Overwhelm
Nin -- more terrible merit options here
Drg -- all their options are good
Smn -- meh
Blu -- no idea
Cor -- 5 minute fold/snake eye is very nice
Pup -- 5 Optimization, then probably 1-1-3 on Ventriloquy/RR/Fine-Tuning!

[Kailee]

I don't know how Aura Steal merits work but, does this mean that Aura Steal = 100% absorb rate now, or what? If so... :D

[Mugmug]

SE should just make DEF/VIT do something, and gimp Utsusemi. Make it absorb 1 hit each or something, and this game would be much more fun. Just my two cents.

[Raen Ryong]

Granted there is a lot more to the game than that, but the issue is thus; on mobs you need the extra accuracy on, they're presumably very strong. Hence, taking hate with the HP reduction is very dangerous (Firespit?).

DRKs get so pissed off about SAMs cause every update SAM receives a boost and DRK a nerf (this time it's a comparative one).

[Starr]

SE a while ago: "We wanna get PLD using more subs than WAR"
SE now: "We wanna get PLDs away from using NIN sub only"

lol?


Needs moar combat merits to be perfect update.

[Hyan]

SE should just make DEF/VIT do something, and gimp Utsusemi. Make it absorb 1 hit each or something, and this game would be much more fun. Just my two cents.

I can imagine how the NIN forums at KI would look like for the next few weeks... o_o;

[SeraphusRagnarok]

Whats the point cost gonna be for group 2?

3,4,5,6,7?
3,4,5,5,5?
3,4,5,7,9?