What the hell is wrong with Melee?

[Olorin401]

Re: What the hell is wrong with Melee?

Jeuno wasn't nearly as powerful as a hub. It was just all we had.
It's what the playerbase wanted though, for better or worse. Prior to ToAU people would bitch at every opportunity how much of a time sink travel in FFXI was and how long it took to actually get anywhere to do anything.

And now people can get places faster than you can say "POS.EXE".

I actually have a theory on this now - SE made travel within the game that much easier because RMT were making money charging for teleports.

Only problem is that almost everyone else did too, and now all of us who used to make a living off it are screwed. At least prices have dropped to the point where I can make a decent living off the crystals I get from merit parties..

[WishMaster3K]

Re: What the hell is wrong with Melee?

Hey, BBQ. RDM Mobs are serious business.

The occasional Troll RDM that is in the middle of the PLD DRK RNG MNK Trolls is a joke.

But when EVERY pull needs at least 3-4 Dispels, it was just really annoying Throwing Dispel in between Haste, Refresh and Debuffs.

Keep in mind this is when we still debuffed mobs and there were still SCs and MBs that depended on the mob being naked for decent damage.

I fancy myself a good RDM, but even I was happy when we went to sky instead of "moon" for the weapons there.

[Omni]

Re: What the hell is wrong with Melee?

moon weapons are fuckin bitches. you havent experienced annoying until youve xp'd on moon weapons.

[Akashimo]

Re: What the hell is wrong with Melee?

moon weapons are fuckin bitches. you havent experienced annoying until youve xp'd on moon weapons.

In all seriousness, I find those the best exp for a RoZ area on thf.

[WishMaster3K]

Re: What the hell is wrong with Melee?

Those are the "THF Just Got Shark Bite doing 1k damage and closing an Unresisted Skillchain for equal Damage" areas.

Granted that Protect and Shell are off.

But yeah, the areas were truly annoying, but they were ok for what it's worth.

[Amele]

Re: What the hell is wrong with Melee?

~ There are a lot more melees playing BRD for melee merits before and during ToA, once they're done, you never see those BRDs again. The BRD populace is still in proportion to the RDM populace pre-ToA. BRD has only had a 1% growth over the last year and where do those "BRDs" go at endgame? That's right, they come as MNK, DRK, DRG, THF or w/e.
But at EXP levels? BRDs are just as rare as they ever were. BRDs are easier to find at merit levels, but that's about it.

must vary by server. (or by the times I level) I can't remember the last time I didn't have a party with a bard or cor while working on my sam.

they're rare still yes, they're not *as* rare anymore, at least on hades.

~ I question that merits have much to do with this, too. Before I earned my first merit on Kitten, I was once-shotting imps in mire as 73/74 RNG/WAR and having Sidewinder contests with highly merited SAM/RNGs. And that was still with Selene's Bow. These mobs go down with relative ease compared to the Deco Weps in sky.

uh? piercing damage bonus? blackmage mob (so crap hp?) imps are still ridiculous to fight if you try to fight one that's more than 7 levels ahead of you (80-81 in mire)

last I checked ranger could damn near oneshot all sorts of mobs with piercing bonus, this is hardly restricted to ToAU content.

as for merits, by level 60 you've got +12 attack +12 accuracy +4% crit +5 str (which is like wearing a free haub+1 with a claymore grip thrown in just for kicks) that's a *huge* boost.

You can point to the PLD mobs we fought before if you want, it doens't change the fact that these other mobs can stand to be a little tougher. SE plays far too closely to their established job rules and mob designs and they shouldn't have to when it comes to making monsters to fight.
After all the plain sadistic mobs SE threw at us in RoZ and CoP, ToA mobs are wimps by a wide margin and its not just because I have more merits now.

again. go to moon, go to first floor shrine, take a classic merit party - I think you'll be surprised how fast you mow things down.

heck, take a good mamool setup (probably need to be ls since it's a hike) and go to demons and see if it's much different; remember to take out the exp bonus for sanction when comparing xp/hr.

[Vyuru]

Re: What the hell is wrong with Melee?

when was the last time you were in KRT, and did you have a bard? (I haven't exped there since zilart days at that level - back when *everyone* was doing SC+MB and taking 1 minute+ per mob. )

I was there ages ago with my static: Drg, Thf, War, Pld, Blm, Whm. I really haven't leveled a job past 50 except for dragoon, although I have pulled out my lvl 45 rdm when friends really needed some form of refresh (dinged lvl 45 in a lvl 70+ Imp party, THAT made a few pullers stop in their tracks ) So while I haven't leveled another job past 50 I do have some *unofficial* lvl 50+ party experience.

I'd expect them to be the same, assuming you could pull the bats link free (one of the advantages of colibri but not really what people mean when they call them weak, since a good puller will be grabbing link free by this level anyway)

I went almost straight from exping off of bats to Lesser Colibri, and there is a huge difference in how tough they are.

Keep in mind too, my static aimed for mobs where we had a 8-10 level gap between us and the mobs, we started on bats/crabs around the lvl 53-54 range. Which is about the same range most people start on Lesser Colibri.

ToAU mobs ARE weaker than their CoP/RoZ counterparts, they have less hp/def, their TP attacks may or may not be as damaging as CoP/RoZ mobs, certainly they have more, *annoying* TP attacks, such as Puks, Colibri, and Imps, but truely dangerous? The only one I can think of is Incinerate from those fire crawlers, I've seen that one shot Paladins and Ninjas with full health, Barfire up the wazoo on watersday, regardless of mob hp, when I would expect it to deal less damage, I can think of no other attack I have seen in exp parties that had the potential to deal so much damage, not even fumbled goblin bombs.


I have also exp'd solo on both, and Blood Drain aside, and without food factored in, Colibri take more damage and on a per hit basis, not counting Blood Drain, Colibri would still go down faster than the Dire Bats.

there's a ton more bards around today than there were even a year ago; and alot of people are on their second job, with better gear

I swear, there are fewer bards LFG than there were a year ago. I normally see only 2 bards LFG, with maybe a corsair, maybe two corsairs if it's a good night. A year ago I could have found 5 or so bards, give or take a few. I'm sure it varies by server and time though.

Oh, and I am off to visit the Grandparents, so I won't be replying until mondayish.


EDIT:

I should add that I have been to both exp sites with a variety of party setups, with and without bards and the like.