Exceed Your Limits: Level Cap to Be Lifted! (06/11/2010)

[Not Kuno]

is /SCH even any good at this point in the game? if not, what will make it any good to use after the update.. manifestation cannot simply be that great to take away from /whm and /rdm's benefits.

For what job? For campaign you can sub whatever the fuck you want (sch isn't too bad since it does have RR at least). For BLM it is kind of a shitty sub since you have 0 dmg mitigation. But hey some people will run the math and say bring extra whms or something unrealistic etc etc.

[Draylo]

Eh I bet the drain effect from Drain2 that gives max HP will just overwrite itself instead of stack lol.

[Alkar]

Or simply Drain II will not work with Manifestation.
Raise is an healing magic spell yet it doesn't work with Accession.

[NynJa]

Well, it remains to be seen how much easier the mobs are with an extra 5 levels.

By 99, casting on multiple mobs and having them all rush at you will surely be desirable.

5 Levels is actually pretty significant, not just from higher stats/skill, level correction has a huge impact on everything.

[Not Kuno]

Or simply Drain II will not work with Manifestation.
Raise is an healing magic spell yet it doesn't work with Accession.

True but Drain 1 works just fine as is.

[Tsuko_Asura]

This I'm not entirely sure about. I have both WHM and RDM and have used both for merits and I'd actually say that they're somewhat equal if you gear and play right. Granted my RDM has things not every RDM would have: A complete fast cast set, Dalm/D.Chapeau, etc. And shit will only get better once I finish off my Teiwaz.

The only thing that makes WHM come close is the availability of a SCH subjob due to the MP savings over time. An RDM can't really utilize a SCH sub in merits right now because of lack of Erase, but when the level cap reaches 80, RDM will be able to utilize that subjob to an even greater effect than WHM could hope to reach.

RDM affords me the opportunity to be more lazy I guess, and that's only because I can ride Composure for my own Haste/Fresh/Skin so I don't have to rest as much. The only thing that WHM really has above RDM is the ability to throw a big cure at the start of a fight with no hate (if even necessary) and to let your melees fight wivres without any of that Attack Down nonsense if you run out of birds, really.

Sorry, but just because you don't know how to utilize Mystic Boon, doesn't mean RDM touches WHM's capacity for merit-healing.

[Shenrien]

Or simply Drain II will not work with Manifestation.
Raise is an healing magic spell yet it doesn't work with Accession.

Drain and Aspir work, don't see why Drain II wouldn't
Healing magic afaik is not enhanced by Accession, only enhancing magic is (refresh, haste, protect, shell)

[Darkmagi]

Honestly if I didn't rune chopper war I'd much rather a good whm than a rdm at birds/wivres. Esuna really helps a lot on atk down and whm has no mp troubles if done right.

[Shenrien]

surprised no one mentioned Drain III and Aspir II and Sleep III and Sleepga III >_> and potential Reposga?

[Carraway]

I really think the arguments about who will and won't be able to get into level-up/merit parties after the update is an epic waste of time. This is a explicitly designated battle expansion with zero-to-very-little new zones added. I don't think it's any great leap of logic to say that the days of fighting over XP camps are going to be over.

I expect something like a MMM/Assault-style system, where you can simply enter an instanced zone of mobs that range from 80-83, 84-87, 88-91, etc. and chain until timeout. If we're lucky, they'll institute something similar even further down the scales, for those who now need to level from 37-49.

I would guess that Abyssea itself, accessible via the addons, will be instanced, but with caps being removed from CoP areas, it sounds like they are going to add experience camps to those areas. I'm also willing to bet that the main attraction for Abyssea will be gear and missions, not experience -- as was the case for the previous trio of addons.

So your options will be: sync to old camps, deal with MMM traffic, astralburn, or find new camps.

[Not Kuno]

Drain and Aspir work, don't see why Drain II wouldn't
Healing magic afaik is not enhanced by Accession, only enhancing magic is (refresh, haste, protect, shell)

Healing magic counts. You can aoe Cure4/-na spells/erase/etc.

[Ophannus]

It would be interesting but not surprising if NIN got a self-healing Ninjutsu with like a 30s-45s recast equivalent to a Cure IV similar to Healing Pill Ninjutsu from FFIV Afteryears. The .dats revealed a ninjutsu that translated in English to Life or something, so perhaps it's a cure, status heal, regen or reraise ninjutsu?

Also I wonder if they'll cap Drain1/Aspir1 or leave them uncapped relative to your skill. Drain 1 can already do 300+ with high Dark Skill, a 500 damage nuke that also heals you for 21 MP may seem a little broken.

[Spider-Dan]

I would guess that Abyssea itself, accessible via the addons, will be instanced, but with caps being removed from CoP areas, it sounds like they are going to add experience camps to those areas.

There may be a camp or two, but the primary motivator for the CoP uncap, as I see it, is finally bringing CoP in line with every other expansion re: time/effort to complete. This is to say nothing of the absurdity of U/O being far more difficult than Proto-U/O (which would have been the case without the cap removal).

I'm also willing to bet that the main attraction for Abyssea will be gear and missions, not experience -- as was the case for the previous trio of addons.

That seems unlikely, given that Abyssea has been specifically designated as a "battle expansion."

So your options will be: sync to old camps, deal with MMM traffic, astralburn, or find new camps.

It's worth pointing out that astralburn serves three, and only three, purposes:

1) leveling a job from low teens to low 20s
2) gaining merit points
3) leveling SMN

It's absolutely useless for everything else, notably including leveling non-SMN jobs (unless you can simply leech, but anything's "useful" when you receive a benefit for doing nothing).

[Tsuko_Asura]

I don't know a serious astral-burner who doesn't have the opportunity to actively leech.

[Jeryhn]

Sorry, but just because you don't know how to utilize Mystic Boon, doesn't mean RDM touches WHM's capacity for merit-healing.

I know of the DD/Mainheal Hybrid that some superserious WHMs utilize in merit parties just so they don't have to level RDM, but acquiring a bunch of melee gear for a mage job doesn't hold much interest for me.

Not to mention an RDM single-weilding a Joyeuse in a melee set vs. Colibri would probably put a melee WHM spamming Boons right in its place.

Let's not pretend that WHMs are some godsend to merit parties guy.

[jimbobsonofgod]

disregard :O

[Tsuko_Asura]

I know of the DD/Mainheal Hybrid that some superserious WHMs utilize in merit parties just so they don't have to level RDM, but acquiring a bunch of melee gear for a mage job doesn't hold much interest for me.

Not to mention an RDM single-weilding a Joyeuse in a melee set vs. Colibri would probably put a melee WHM spamming Boons right in its place.

Let's not pretend that WHMs are some godsend to merit parties guy.

Again, just because you choose to have it not pertain to you, doesn't make it any less true for everyone else.

And at what point did RDM get a WS that gives them back 100+ MP every 15 seconds? You seem to be missing the point of the meleeing.

[Alkar]

Drain and Aspir work, don't see why Drain II wouldn't
Healing magic afaik is not enhanced by Accession, only enhancing magic is (refresh, haste, protect, shell)

Well I'm sure you'll agree that Drain II is a bit different lol. Having Drain II work with Manifestation and even stack would be broken beyond belief.
Accession works with enchancing magic and healing magic, thus scholars can AoE -na spells, Erase and cures. Raise is still an exception and Drain II could be another.
Then again Manifestation>Aspir is broken too.

[Zag]

All the effort in the world won't help some jobs.

Very few PUPs, for instance, will ever get invites. And if I see one in a party, you can bet your sweet ass their party will be on the top of the "run these bitches out" list if they're monumentally stupid enough to head to any of the camps that actually support decent XP.

Most parties most PUPs make are going to suck equally no matter where they go, so they might as well go somewhere that they're not going to inconvenience anyone else (e.g. trolls).

And for the few PUPs who can hold their own... how likely is it that they'll really be joining a pickup party anyway?

Same for a few other jobs.

PUP is a very good job that can get damage bonuses on almost any mob. They got peircing, slashing, blunt and magic from the automations and pup Master combined. They can even bop cure 5's and maybe cure 6 in the future. If not, then SE should make them be able to solo effectively to 99 like BST or you can make BST+PUP parties and they can have their own camp in their own exclusive zone kind of like how Blms have their own camp in mount zhaylom, mnks have their own amp in king Ranperre tomb.

I'm hoping there will a bunch of new camps with mobs that are weak to blunt (a skele camp), peircing (a Bird camp), puddings (a magic camp), and slashing (cardians? camp) and a camp for Pet jobs that all the mobs are charmable in that zone. Something like atowa chasm.
Of course I am hoping for beastman mobs type camp which is for standard parties that want to SC and MB with no rest time needed like the other camps with the addition of self refresh, haste and convert with a bunch of DD jobs self skillchaining mobs lol.

If you are PUP or any other job man, don't worry. People are gonna get desperate and find any job that is seeking so they can lvl 80 asap anyways. Few months after that, people will get picky with a certain pt setup of course.

[Khajit]

um... you do realize that EVERY last person on the server is going to be lfp at once? That's plenty of reasons to be picky when normally you cant.