Job Adjustments and Additions Part II (03/30/2009)

[Xno Kappa]

Not to mention Refueling in itself is a gimp version of the real thing. I love my BLU and all but why bother gimping myself and the party when I got a job like RDM that can Haste the party just fine.

[Ophannus]

RDM is more than a jack of all trades in FFXI because they actually have a niche. If they were truely jack of all trades they'd still have a C in enfeebling and enhancing and wouldnt have Cure IV protect4 or shell4. BLU does great damage with spells but just suffers from the lack of raw power than WAR,DRK,SAM,DRG bring to the table with incredible weapon skills. BLU could very well compete with those jobs for a little while by spamming their best spells but they quickly run out of mp.
The average BLU/NIN has 400-600 MP which quickly diminishes over a few rounds, i suppose that's why SE gave BLU low cost consumption spells with good damage for high efficiency but because merit parties are unforigiving in terms of down time BLU cannot rest thus relies on auto refresh traits and refresh from a rdm. SE could aid this by maybe making a 3 point spell Battery Charge that gives 60-80MP(Effected by Thunder Day/Weather) from Magic pots and make it a 3 minute recast.

[Nicostrato]

You will use Composure and you will love it.

Just wanted to say how I will be loving it:

1. Since I duo isnm/sky/zeni/etc with my wife who is usually on BLM, I will only be casting refresh 12 times in a 30 minute fight instead of the standard 24. I will cherish the 480 'bonus' mp from not having to recast the spell as much.

2. Bind and Gravity will probably go 100% or 50% unresisted when using Composure, therefore your mob will not build resist to Gravity (or Bind in the ISNM/Zeni cases) as quickly. Recast on Gravity is usually ignored since I do not solo on Gravity unless I need a clutch. When I do need Gravity (0/5 Wind merits of course), I will be able to ride it out for a bit longer. For Bind, If I can get less Binds, but have them be stronger (5/5 Ice), this will be easier to run down my double-recast on bind, but usually I can run and cast shadows in the mean time if anything. As your Bind tiers in resistance you double the time that it lasts anyways.

3. My recast on Ichi and Ni are already low enough that I could easily use them, but I will most likely add into my spellcast a rule that will cancel Composure (if allowed) before I cast Ni, allowing me to solo on Ichi with Composure until I really need to cancel it.


I've got other ideas but I think this is long enough for my first post as a BG LS Member for now.


Nicostrato (Bahamut) / Moooi (Remora) / Sublime (Gilgamesh)

[perdition]

The primary flaw in a Redmage engaging a mob and fighting it, is that the RDM will stop doing the things they do best effectively. If I engage a mob with the burden of a hasting, refreshing, curing, buffing, and debuffing there will be no point in me meleeing. I will be spending more time casting than hitting, if that is the case, my dot will be laughable, and my TP gain will be laughable also. The concept of the Redmage engaging the mob is reliant on another job essentially fulfilling the role of the rdm, while you play around and try and weaken the mob. Your DD will not be worth it in the end, your WS will not be worth it in the end, and your presence as a melee rdm will only slow the PT down.

I can see the JA being used in a tactical manner at endgame, maybe. As far as Exp pt's goes, it will not work out. If SE had allowed you to cast faster while in this melee stance, in exchange for recast timers, that would have worked like a charm.

[Ultimagi]

Did some quick math, for all you Haste/Refresh cycle Red Mages. Assume the following worst-case scenario:
Composure can't be removed, ignores all Haste and Fast Cast, and doubles duration and recast times.

Now, in a practical situation, you will be able to cast Haste 4 times, plus have 20 seconds to spare before Haste wears off the first person. Now consider Refresh. You Refresh yourself for 40 MP, and get back 300 over the course of 5 minutes. That's a net gain of 150 MP you didn't get without Composure. But, you usually have to Refresh others in your party too. Well, you have 40 seconds between each cast, so you can cast it 3 times, plus have 30 seconds to spare before Refresh wears off the first person. You will only have to include yourself in every second Refresh cycle.

Therefore, in this assumed situation, a Red Mage with full time Composure can maintain 4 Hastes as well as 4 Refreshes, if 1 Refresh is on the Red Mage himself or herself, and as a result will have 150 more MP to spare every 5 minutes.

Now, let's look at a more realistic scenario. Assume the following:
Composure can be removed, doubles duration and recast timers with consideration to Haste and Fast Cast.

Now, the Red Mage can cast Refresh on himself or herself, as well as Haste, and take off Composure. Maintain up to 5 other Hastes and 5 other Refreshes as per normal, even with 1 Refresh and Haste every 5 minutes having a recast of 20 seconds instead of 10.

The end result being that the Red Mage can now maintain Haste and Refresh on the entire party, and still gain 150 additional MP every 5 minutes.

But what if you don't want to cancel Composure? You can still maintain 6 Hastes and 6 Refreshes even with a recast time of 20 seconds, and you still gain the full 150 MP every 5 minutes from the double duration Refresh on yourself.

Still pessimistic? Let's say durations don't double. It doesn't matter, because any duration increase gives you, the Red Mage, more MP than you would have had without it, at, in the worst case scenario, only the restriction of limiting yourself to 4 Hastes and 4 Refreshes. More probably, you will not be restricted, but we shall see the day of the update!

Edit: I forgot to include the MP saved by not casting Refresh, so MP gained per cycle should be 190.

[Ultimagi]

hasting, refreshing, curing, buffing, and debuffing

Like I already said, in a merit party, you cast Haste 3 times, Refresh once or twice, and Cure III or IV, let's say 6 times per cycle. That's 30 seconds of casting total in 2 minutes and 30 seconds of fighting, and that's being generous.

there will be no point in me meleeing. I will be spending more time casting than hitting, if that is the case, my dot will be laughable, and my TP gain will be laughable also.

You're introducing damage to the party that didn't exist before, any amount of damage is better than the 0 damage you do by not meleeing. This is not to mention that Red Mage's main weapon does piercing damage, which Greater Colibri are weak to, and being able to open a battle with 2 level 2 skillchain properties, potentially doubling the weapon skill of the next melee use one.

[Vail]

if the duration is double you realisticly only get 40mp more every 5 minutes, cause you would be refreshing yourself anyways.

[Spider-Dan]

Maybe there's a bit of a disconnect here.

So I've been talking about Composure/Enspell2/Death Blossom as a new tool to allow you to debuff previously resistant mobs-that-matter (i.e. HNM). However, I am most certainly NOT talking about them being used as an excuse for exping RDMs to melee.

Debuff resistance in exp is simply a non-factor, so the -resistance/-MEva aspects of the aforementioned setup bring nothing to the table. If you are talking about Composure as an excuse for exp RDMs to melee, you are wasting everyone's time; some extra accuracy and a (possible) slight increase in MP efficiency doesn't really change anything substantial. If you believe that exping RDMs should be able to melee with Composure, you should already believe that exping RDMs should be able to melee now.

The most troublesome aspect of the Composure addition is that unique snowflake RDMs will try to use it as an excuse to melee in exp. It has great potential (combined with Death Blossom) as a tool vs. HNM, and it might be helpful when soloing, but it's virtually useless in exp.

[Raineer]

Did some quick math, for all you Haste/Refresh cycle Red Mages. Assume the following worst-case scenario:
Composure can't be removed, ignores all Haste and Fast Cast, and doubles duration and recast times.

Now, in a practical situation, you will be able to cast Haste 4 times, plus have 20 seconds to spare before Haste wears off the first person. Now consider Refresh. You Refresh yourself for 40 MP, and get back 300 over the course of 5 minutes. That's a net gain of 150 MP you didn't get without Composure. But, you usually have to Refresh others in your party too. Well, you have 40 seconds between each cast, so you can cast it 3 times, plus have 30 seconds to spare before Refresh wears off the first person. You will only have to include yourself in every second Refresh cycle.

Therefore, in this assumed situation, a Red Mage with full time Composure can maintain 4 Hastes as well as 4 Refreshes, if 1 Refresh is on the Red Mage himself or herself, and as a result will have 150 more MP to spare every 5 minutes.

Now, let's look at a more realistic scenario. Assume the following:
Composure can be removed, doubles duration and recast timers with consideration to Haste and Fast Cast.

Now, the Red Mage can cast Refresh on himself or herself, as well as Haste, and take off Composure. Maintain up to 5 other Hastes and 5 other Refreshes as per normal, even with 1 Refresh and Haste every 5 minutes having a recast of 20 seconds instead of 10.

The end result being that the Red Mage can now maintain Haste and Refresh on the entire party, and still gain 150 additional MP every 5 minutes.

But what if you don't want to cancel Composure? You can still maintain 6 Hastes and 6 Refreshes even with a recast time of 20 seconds, and you still gain the full 150 MP every 5 minutes from the double duration Refresh on yourself.

Still pessimistic? Let's say durations don't double. It doesn't matter, because any duration increase gives you, the Red Mage, more MP than you would have had without it, at, in the worst case scenario, only the restriction of limiting yourself to 4 Hastes and 4 Refreshes. More probably, you will not be restricted, but we shall see the day of the update!

Edit: I forgot to include the MP saved by not casting Refresh, so MP gained per cycle should be 190.

Are you seriously still posting in this thread?

I can see you've never been in a merit party with real DD's without utsusemi, math is all nice until you have to cure. You can say "if blahblahblah you're doing it wrong" all you want but until I can 6-box a merit party I lose control over some of the slots in the party.

That being said, RDM isn't hard and I'm just tired of your noise in the thread. BG needs fiters for posts.

[Jeryhn]

For those people saying that RDM should have to give up being a "better" main healer in exchange for something that actually improves the job (enfeebling magic, etc.), I should tell you that has less to do with RDM being a "good healer" and more to do with the fact that SE has chosen to place limits on healing magic. The fact that an RDM casts Cure IV to restore the same ~380HP that a WHM does has nothing to do with how RDM functions as a job at all.

RDM shouldn't have to give up anything to get something new. What should have been done is one of two of the following:

1) Composure should have been given a duration bonus to both enfeebling magic successfully landed on a mob, and enhancing magic landed on other players. This would justify the increases to recasting times on all magic.
2) A complimentary ability should have been added. For instance, Composure increases melee accuracy and enhancing magic cast on the self. A good complimentary ability would be one that focuses on the RDM's magic-casting role, which could reduce the recasts on all spells while increasing their magic accuracy at the cost of something (could be anything, let's say durations on enfeebling magic).

While I'm all for the "let's wait and see what Composure actually does" crowd, if SE had actually anticipated the playerbase's reaction to this update, and changed their plans accordingly, there'd be a lot less bitching about all of it.

[Ahlah]

Frankly I am surprised ppl are having difficulty figuring out the concept behind Composure.

RDM is already icredibly powerful. Adding spells/abilities to boost the accuracy of all magical attack and debuffs will only overpower the job. Let's assume Composure add signficant amout of melee accuracy, without recast penalty, it will make RDM tank more appealing and overpower solo RDM (ceremonial dagger + enspell). The last thing SE want to see is RDM replacing PLD as 2nd tank or solo RDM becoming more powerful than it already was.

From the limited information released by SE, it seems that RDM has gained a new role in HNM fight, in order to make it work you will need 2 RDM in tank party, the melee RDM who focuses on lowering HNM magic evasion with enspell/death blossom (and throw in emergency cure/buff if the situation calls for it). Without Composure's recast penalty, a highly skilled RDM will be able to pull off melee + debuff + haste/refresh cycle with the help of Murgleis. It make sense to force players to adopt a tank party of 2 tank + melee RDM + mage RDM + WHM (for Auspice) which require good coordination among the players as a small price for the benefit of enspell/death blossom, assuming the effect of enspell/DB is good enough to replace elemental seal in HNM fight.

[SenseiFF11]

Assuming you can click off Composure and don't want to make yourself useless as a debuffer.

Scenario A: The increased duration on buffs you cast on yourself makes them last longer than 5 minutes. Thus you 'have fun' by idling less but the accuracy bonus disappears when you actually have to rebuff the group. Bye RDM DPS. Yup, hitting like a wet kleenex sure is fun!

Scenario B: The increased duration on self-cast buffs makes them last less than 5-minutes, meaning you do even less DPS than scenario A. But gosh at least you're less idle right?

I believe you did a mistake thought, you'r not the only one, I believe many people on others forum aswell. The mistake is you assumed that after buffing yourself with composure on, and after canceling composure, you will still benefit the effect of composure?.... Nah I don't think so. I believe that if you cancel composure, your buff will go back to their normal duration, just like the campaign sanction: You can't go take a sanction, buff yourself, and go change your sanction, it won't work. But again like people said, let's wait and see before saying that this update is useless. But as for the composure effect, I'm pretty sure that as long as you keep Composure on, you benefit the effect.

[Septimus]

Frankly I am surprised ppl are having difficulty figuring out the concept behind Composure.

RDM is already icredibly powerful. Adding spells/abilities to boost the accuracy of all magical attack and debuffs will only overpower the job. Let's assume Composure add signficant amout of melee accuracy, without recast penalty, it will make RDM tank more appealing and overpower solo RDM (ceremonial dagger + enspell). The last thing SE want to see is RDM replacing PLD as 2nd tank or solo RDM becoming more powerful than it already was.

From the limited information released by SE, it seems that RDM has gained a new role in HNM fight, in order to make it work you will need 2 RDM in tank party, the melee RDM who focuses on lowering HNM magic evasion with enspell/death blossom (and throw in emergency cure/buff if the situation calls for it). Without Composure's recast penalty, a highly skilled RDM will be able to pull off melee + debuff + haste/refresh cycle with the help of Murgleis. It make sense to force players to adopt a tank party of 2 tank + melee RDM + mage RDM + WHM (for Auspice) which require good coordination among the players as a small price for the benefit of enspell/death blossom, assuming the effect of enspell/DB is good enough to replace elemental seal in HNM fight.

Giving Red Mages an ability that allows them to consistently enfeeble Shijin, Khim, Cerb, etc is not going to suddenly overpower Red Mages or make the fights easy. Red Mages will not suddenly gain the ability to solo Nidhogg in 5 minutes, they will not gain power auras and fly, they will not be able to send Tiamat out on the streets to turn tricks, it will not cause them to ride around on Dark Ixions. While something new would be nice (Plague, Petrify, Curse, Mini would be a hoot), I don't think that anyone is asking for abilities that will allow alliances to one-shot HNMs. I think that most of us just want to use what is supposed to be our A+ skill instead of only being there for our B+ skill that only effects one spell that we can actually cast on others. (You can't even say AoE bar-spells anymore since WHMs can break the 100 cap and get MDB traits to go along with them.)

And for all of the people saying how great the magic evasion reduction effect of Death Blossom is for HNMs, will that help more than replacing that DD RDM with another SMN, BLM, RNG, SAM, DRK, BLU, etc (all depending on what the fight requires) to make the fight shorter? This is a "big picture" question that people need to ask themselves.

[Izzy]

I challenge someone to find more than five of Ahlah's posts that don't start or end with some sort of passive-aggressive douchebag comment about how we are not understanding something so simple.

[Ahlah]

I think you completely underestimate the power of BD/enspell.

All TAU HNMs are designed to have high resistance against Elegy and RDM debuffs. Granted we still don't know the exact amount of evasion down effect enspell/DB will inflict on, if the effect is powerful enough to eliminate need for elemental seal, your party will no longer have to bring 2 BRD/BLM to land Elegy. BRD debuff gears are no longer worthless in TAU HNM fight. BRD can now land threnodies on HNM and RDM can put Slow/Blind/Paralyze without ES, which in turn help your tanks to keep shadow up.

In HNM fight which involved manaburn party, the benefit of magic evasion down should be obvious. Resistance is very common in Wyrm fight, the fact that DB can potentially open both light and dark skillchain further enhances elemental nukes. The beauty of enspell/DB is that they affect all magical attack and debuffs, all it takes is one melee RDM.

[Ahlah]

I challenge someone to find more than five of Ahlah's posts that don't start or end with some sort of passive-aggressive douchebag comment about how we are not understanding something so simple.

This is supposed to be advanced forum, everytime I post something slightly complicated it takes ages for ppl to figure out what I am trying to say.

90% of the RDM have never played solo or RDM tank, half of them know nothing about RDM game dynamics apart from refresh/haste cycle, and they get pissed because SE just added something which can potentially change the playstyle of endgame RDM instead of enspell with 40 additional damage that proc on multihit weapon so that they can bully some DC-EM mob with joytoy/justice sword.

[Septimus]

I think you completely underestimate the power of BD/enspell.

All TAU HNMs are designed to have high resistance against Elegy and RDM debuffs. Granted we still don't know the exact amount of evasion down effect enspell/DB will inflict on, if the effect is powerful enough to eliminate need for elemental seal, your party will no longer have to bring 2 BRD/BLM to land Elegy. BRD debuff gears are no longer worthless in TAU HNM fight. BRD can now land threnodies on HNM and RDM can put Slow/Blind/Paralyze without ES, which in turn help your tanks to keep shadow up.

In HNM fight which involved manaburn party, the benefit of magic evasion down should be obvious. Resistance is very common in Wyrm fight, the fact that DB can potentially open both light and dark skillchain further enhances elemental nukes. The beauty of enspell/DB is that they affect all magical attack and debuffs, all it takes is one melee RDM.

Well, I am glad that you are not underestimating the power of tier II en-spells then.

It is simple party management. Will it make enough of a difference to replace a DD? For example: will a party set up of BRD RDM COR BLM BLM BLM be better than a set up of RDM COR BLM BLM BLM BLM- will the added support (ballads) allow the three BLMs to do more damage than 4 BLMs.

The whole thing about Death Blossom and tier II en-spells breaks down like this:

With the manaburn example- will adding a melee RDM to help lower reists have enough of an effect to offset the potential damage lost from another BLM? Or will the potential benefit from landing enfeebles justify not having two Bards to give the tanks full Ballad and March? This is the question that people are failing to ask- people are hoping that there will be a difference, but even if there is a difference will it be large enough to justify special party set-ups. If it does, that's fantastic, I have some great melee gear for my RDM thanks to my WAR and DRK. If it does not, there goes our shot at a RDM buff until 2014.

[Raineer]

This is supposed to be advanced forum, everytime I post something slightly complicated it takes ages for ppl to figure out what I am trying to say.

Good point Izzy, lol.

I understand RDM, and I understand how this update can be good if this was implemented right. We don't know, and that's the problem.

I still would have preferred an enfeebling adjustment...and that desire stems from WHM getting a massive boost to it's main duty. I was optimistic that we would see something which would do the same. When I first read the Composure notes I was thinking it was Magic Accuracy, and I was all for it. I understand the changes in this update have their place, I'd just prefer elsewhere.

Another hint, if you're going to take the time to post (and actually want people to take your points into consideration), don't talk down to people and don't be a douche. Regardless of what you think, "90% of the RDMs" who post in the Advanced Section aren't refresh/haste whores. We do know the job and what it can do. I've done it all on RDM, and I still would have preferred an enfeebling adjustment. I'll make good use of the changes in this update, depending on how they were implemented; I'm just not all that optimistic it will be as awesome as 2 posters in this thread think it will be.

[SenseiFF11]

I still would have preferred an enfeebling adjustment....

Sorry but the enspells II is not some kind of a enfeebling adjustment? And RDM have a A+ in enfeebling skills, what other kind of "enfeebling adjustments" you wanted SE to do? lowering the monsters resistance to enfeeb over time? This is not possible because it will completely go against their previous adjustments long ago where they decided to make mob resist enfeebling magic over time. Please explain me what kind of adjustment you wanted SE to do. The enspells II are an enfeebling adjustment, and you can see them as some kind of "staff-sword". I want you to explain me what kind of adjustment you wanted SE to do please, when RDM have A+ in enfeebling magic skills.

[Ahlah]

With the manaburn example- will adding a melee RDM to help lower reists have enough of an effect to offset the potential damage lost from another BLM? Or will the potential benefit from landing enfeebles justify not having two Bards to give the tanks full Ballad and March? This is the question that people are failing to ask- people are hoping that there will be a difference, but even if there is a difference will it be large enough to justify special party set-ups. If it does, that's fantastic, I have some great melee gear for my RDM thanks to my WAR and DRK. If it does not, there goes our shot at a RDM buff until 2014.

Ok I try to be nice here:
You should never put melee RDM in your BLM party, for it to work you will likely need Auspice effect from WHM because you don't want your melee RDM to feed crazy amount of TP to HNM. That's why the best spot to put your melee RDM is the tank party.

You also mention blm party of BLMx5+COR, COR can only play either wizard's or warlock's roll. Also you need COR for each BLM party. If you put a melee RDM in your tank party, COR can land Wizard's roll on BLM and the effect of enspell/DB boost ALL BLM's magic accuracy.

This is the part I was referring to. You obviously don't understand the impact of consistent elegy/RDM's debuff on tank party and the impact of magic evansion down effect on BLM's nuke in Wyrm's fight because you keep asking the same questions. Have you played tank jobs or BLM in those fight before? May be you should try.