[dev1010] Job Adjustments (4/22/2011)Follow

To quell some of your concerns about the adjustments set to take place regarding VIT and critical hits, you'll be glad to know that this adjustment will only be for player characters and NOT monsters. Additionally, in regards to the note about "certain job traits will see their maximum level of effectiveness adjusted by equipment, magic, and/or job abilities" have no fear as no negative adjustments will be taking place. Instead the limits on these will be increased, making players even stronger.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/5969-dev1010-Job-Adjustments-VIT-Adjustment-and-THF?p=83082&viewfull=1#post83082

I don't know why RNG even complains about shooting for TP. They shouldn't be doing it. COR never does it after 56 when we get slug shot, because meleeing for tp then dropping a WS has always been better damage. Especially with ws's that ignore ranged calculations, like leaden salute/trueflight or Wildfire. And COR has lower skill, No acc bonuses, weaker weapons, and crappier gear, so I see no reason why RNG's don't all do it. I mean they get wildfire, too.

Edited, Apr 26th 2011 1:34am by louispv

I only ever pop Diabolic Eye for getting Sword/Club procs. I never saw the value in DE up/down sets because it tended to involve gear not worth carrying for any other purpose -- when I could instead use the space to carry more pizza. 1/5 is enough for utility in my playbook.

In a capped hate situation, Last Resort will have the mob facing you more often because you're poking it more often (this is still a nice advantage of a DRK+THF DD pairing). 5/5 Desperate Blows will allow you to curtail stray hits with Seigan/Third Eye on capped JA haste, and you can put Hasso back up for the minute downtime if it so pleases you.

Muted Soul may be useful for /DRG actually. Dumping 30% of CE and VE is a very nice chunk from capped*, so throwing Souleater for a good stint and not worrying about getting your face bitten off -- or, perhaps worse, your Souleater output lessened by a stray hit -- is going to make a relatively safe outlet for the JA. With three Muted Soul merits, the 3000 CE dumped by High Jump on a level 95 mob is about 3500 damage**. Combine this with the reduction in HP loss with the new trait and Souleater with a multihit just got freakin' manageable... for about ten seconds anyway.

*With multihit scythe, it takes me almost the full 30 seconds of SE+LR+BW to reach hate cap, just to show where I'm coming from with this. This is mostly because CE/VE multiplier is based on the mob's level and keeps going down as they get higher.

**3000 CE, divided by 1.25xDamage CE generation on level 95 mob, divided by 0.70 'Muted Soul active' enmity generation. This only goes up to 4800 damage with full MS merits, so I'll keep my 1/5 DS 1/5 DE merits.

And if the Bale+2 set bonus ever gets bumped up to a decent proc rate I'll rock the whole set with Wyvern Earring.

Optimal multihit atma are Ultimate/Cosmos/Apocalypse. The 15% TA takes a fair bit of bite out of losing 5-hit, but right now for me getting Ultimate is the hard part.

Edited, Apr 26th 2011 1:01am by Raelix

I was DRK before it went mainstream.


I don't really care much for Seigan simply because I like getting hit and seeing my Apocalypse cure me. I was always told it Restored 25% of your Catastrophe damage, it was really shocking when I learned I could drain 25-100% of the damage. Really hope they add some more upgrades this update as they've been heading in the right direction with the last one.

Still don't know what atma to use. Thinking Apocalypse/Alpha/???. 25% TA is awesome for Apocalypse and can boost Catastrophe's average damage a bit. Need to pick a third though. Someone said Kirin may be good for the 40 AGI/INT for Catastrophe, but idk.

I just tested the theory that rng=war in survivability. I asked a LS member to tell me a mob that they recently tanked on war. He said he just tank gangly gean in aby konschtat. I went out on war/sam with my wife on whm. I used no job abilities of any sort and just attacked and ws'd. I killed it with little issue. I then changed to rng/sam to do the same thing. It took me a few pops to claim it but I did. The wife ran out of mp with the mob at 62% and we both died.
Edit: iPhone autocorrect fail.

Edited, Apr 26th 2011 9:06am by spcwill

I love ranger.
Let me correct that.

I love the idea of ranger.

When I first started, way back at NA release, ZAM (though I suppose accepted shorthand for it was "Alla" then) was abuzz with how the job was insanely expensive, but *awesome*.

And if you were really badass, you'd get this extra advanced job called ninja and sub that, using even more tools , gil and consumables.

But you'd be even more effing great.

So that's what I was going to do. I started as a white mage because that would get me lvl 30 (and advanced job acces) the fastest.
Hell, I even went with Mithra because way back when, we thought race mattered and mithra were best for ranger.
Now, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I got all my spells, whitebox gear and morion earrings (big deal back then!) and.. fell in love with a supporting role.

Ranger always kept it's special place in my heart though, and I always figured I'd level it after capping first job.

I never did.

Real life happened, mandatory ffxi breaks took place and when I returned for real, ranger was a broken job, a mere shadow of it's former shell.
The cost associated with it remained, the advantage of lolomgdamage had dissapeared.
I did level it -in bursts, when I tired of other things- and even camped Eastern Shadow on occasion, when I felt like it, telling myself as soon as that bow dropped I'd take ranger all the way.
Because, again, dropping 3 million on a bow and equally much on ammo for a job that was sub-par with other DD's just wasn't something I felt comfortable doing, special spot in my heart or no.

In this thread, I see most people argueing for ranger to be "on par" with the other DD's in survivability and damage.
I disagree.
I love the idea of the glass cannon archer that can dish it out, but can't take it.

An enmity shedding move, absolutely. It fits the theme of the job. It also seems the simplest "fix" without overhauling the entire enmity system.

Being on par with damage output?
Eff that.
I feel like ranger *should* outdamage other jobs. It's making sacrifices to that end.

It is and should remain a glass cannon. Solo / Low man content? Not ranger's forté. Not it's niche.
Cost. Highest in the game. You know this when signing up for it. Eff making ammo "cheaper".

In return for those two -major- handicaps, ranger should be allowed to outdamage other DD jobs. Not by a huge amount, but enough to make it worthwhile.
Finding that % of damage is the game developer's responsibility, but increasing damage dealt and offering an enmity douse so rangers can *deal* this damage are -in my opinion- the easiest ways to fix the job while staying close to it's archetype.

I hope to speak for those of you that actually are rangers when I say that what we want is to what we signed up to do.

To deal top tier damage at high cost.

Not to give a gimmicky treasure hunter boost.

And who knows, if that change rolls around..
I just might level ranger.

As simple as it sounds, I think that'd be the best solution. Making an enmity cap virtually unreachable would make PLD enmity generation tools actually worthwhile, so their lower DD potential would be compensated by the fact that, hey, the mob is concentrating its attacks on a single target that receives less damage! Sure, things should be carefully balanced so that a PLD would have to be played perfectly to not lose hate to good DDs, but if things ended decently adjusted, maybe PLDs could tank, and RNGs could deal good damage (but get punished if they got overzealous).

BTW I just thought of a ja that would be really nice for RNGs. Something like "shadow sniper": upon activation, RNG enmity generation is greatly reduced, but if the "sniper" is discovered (i.e., the RNG gets hate, even for a fraction of second), all the enmity previously reduced is added to the RNG enmity (or perhaps a fraction, like 50%). That way, RNGs could deal higher damage than other DDs without getting the mob, but would be harshly punished for getting overzealous. I think it fits the sniper/hunter theme a lot. Duration/recast would be 20 mins/10 mins, so they are allowed one mistake every 10 mins, if they actually survive the mob.

There's no greater joy for me on DRK than watching Third Eye eat Death Scissors, Deadly Hold, Vorpal Blade, Panserfaust...

Kirin is also good Magic Accuracy for consistent Endark damage, since Haste Samba will be devalued, and hitting both Cata mods with +40 stat on a single Atma is good but not crushingly awesome (math below).

Other atma to consider, not that I'm endorsing them as optimal or feel that you're not aware of them:

Atma of Dunes -- +20 STP and Enhances Drain/Aspir 20%, I don't figure you're having trouble 5-hitting Apoc, but definitely do so because all that Triple Attack is turning you a two-rounds-to-WS potential as long as you 5-hit.

Atma of the Griffon's Claw -- +10 skill and WS damage +20%.

Atma of the Kirin -- +40 on 40% mod is ~14 base damage for each stat. You have 140 base damage on Apoc alone, 163 with capped fSTR, so Kirin is, at best, 17.1% more Cata damage with capped fSTR (20% with zero fSTR).

So between Kirin and GC, take your pick between Magic Accuracy for Endark or +10 Scythe skill. Dunes is a different mechanic and superior if you aren't making 5-hit already. I doubt Dunes will increase HP return from Cata but it's worth a test.



10000 CE on a level 95 mob (/1.25) = 8000 damage. Maybe a few nukes or enfeebles in there, maybe a few more WS than you cite.

Sadly, you are eyeballing and exaggerating again.

Edited, Apr 26th 2011 12:35pm by Raelix

That's not a testament that RNG can't survive as well as WAR. That's a testament that your RNG can't kill it as efficiently as your WAR (maybe due in part to not being able to utilize the sweet spot?)

(Although, really, there's no reason why a properly set up WHM shouldn't have been able to keep you alive on both jobs...)

ftfy

Edited, Apr 26th 2011 9:12pm by Lobivopis

I did say due IN PART. Unless you're saying the sweet spot doesn't matter. I figured it did, based on all the ******** above about how RNG loses the sweet spot whenever it pulls hate.

I presume war has more HP? More loldefence from the heavy gears?

Also, atma choice probably has something to do with it too as you'd be using different atmas for war and rng.

Bolded the part that it seems you missed. And I picked /sam because I use it for both Rng and War. Since I wasn't going to use any spells or abilities /nin seems like a pointless choice.



A: I dont think you quite understand what survive means, so here is the definition for you.

When comparing 2 jobs in survivability, you have to put them in the same situation and see which one can survive the longest. You have to compare apples to apples. Killing something efficiently is the quintessential embodiment of survival. To kill your enemy before he kills you. If you want to live under the dilusion that placing a War and a Rng in the same situation under the same rules that they both are equal in thier ability to survive then go right ahead. I however, will remain in reality where in most any situation, a War has the ability to survive longer than a Rng if comparing apples for apples.