Can "Skillchain + Magic Burst" style become appealing in exp party?

[ItazuraNhomango]

Currently, there is trend for "TP spam" exp parties, where every frontline fighter and physical ranged weapon user simply use his weaponskill (WS) individually instead of combining them to form skillchain (SC) and open opportunity for magic burst (MB). This is so common and effective now that the skillchain + magic burst system, which requires higher player skill and knowledge as well as party cooperation, is rarely used in pick-up groups anymore.

While the game should allow for multiple ways of gaining experience points, it is a shame losing this aspect of cooperative play.

Will S-E encourage the return of skillchain + magic burst? To be more specific, will S-E adjust battle mechanism, monsters, and more to make the trade off's between "TP spam" and "SC+MB" styles more balanced?

One style should not be overwhelmingly preferably compared to another; parties should be made to consider the decision carefully--both TP spam and SC+MB should have considerable pro's and con's to them, and both should be workable with the right party setups.

Since TP spam is decidedly easier and requires less cooperative play skills, the game should reward SC+MB with significantly better damage output by comparison, taking into account of "excess" TP some members may have while waiting on skillchain partners.

To that end, I'd like to propose investigation into the follow measures:

1. Make the skillchain effect (Distortion, Fusion, etc.) more damaging; consider adding both weaponskill's damage together in calculating the maximum damage. Also, make equipment to increase skillchain effect's accuracy and/or damage available and widely so at low levels to entice parties to start using SC's as early as possible.

2. If Trick Attack is used to close a SC, assign the enmity from SC effect's damage AND all magic bursts' damage to the trick partner. Besides a safety incentive to use MB's, this has the side effect of encouraging the use of Trick Attack--more party cooperative play.

3. Increase the bonus to magic damage and accuracy during the MB window. Maybe even add duration and potency to enfeebling type magic/song/ninjutsu used during the window.

4. Shorten the time allowed to continue chains at higher levels when killing T and VT monsters, to highlight the advantage of SC+MB for parties for its spike damage output. (The time constraint should remain at old values for solo players, and gradually tighten as number of players in party goes up.)

5. Increase and re-balance the difficulty of the monsters popular for exp parties, especially in ToAU area, where exp bonus is available from Sanction. (Different monsters should be toughed differently, of course, to add variety. Higher HP, more defense, multi-hit AoE attacks, status effects, smarter mob behavior, etc.--lot's of combinations are possible) Again, this is to highlight the advantage of higher damage from SC+MB.

6. Lower the damage potential from weaponskills, especially the mult-hit ones. (Nothing too drastic, as this will create an uproar--just a slight tilt to make SC more appealing.) Perhaps a 5% decrease to Attack rating for each successive "swing"? (e.g. For Rampage, the five strikes would be at 100%, 95%, 90%, 85%, and 80% of the player's Attack rating at the time the WS is used.)

The rule of thumb should be that the lowered damaged should be noticeable without being crippling, and any damage lost should be more than by the damage from SC effects.



Many small adjustments on different aspects of the game is preferable over a drastic change in any single area, and they should be applied over time and readjusted with community feedback.

[Karinya]

Re: Can "Skillchain + Magic Burst" style become appealing in exp party?

I don't know if you know this, but Rampage in particular is bugged: it has fTP of 0.5, but the fTP only applies to the first hit; the other hits don't include the fTP term. So it's nearly twice as strong as it should be.

Penta has the same bug; its fTP of 0.75 also only applies to the first of 5 hits. Its fTP varies with TP though (unlike Rampage, which has a crit modifier based on TP), so at higher amounts of TP it does *less* damage than it should because of the same bug.

This explains why they sometimes outperform higher level WS for the same weapon (and in Rampage's case, can even outperform WS from two-handed weapons like Great Axe), and also why they see so little gain from TP above 100 and therefore people are strongly disposed to prefer three WS at 100% to two at 150%.

If extra TP actually affect the weaponskill's performance, people would be less likely to feel that they were giving up damage by waiting 10 seconds for their partner to reach 100% TP.

This won't prevent the lazy or merely stupid players from failing to MB or understand why it is useful, but the main problem is not the players who can't MB, but that it doesn't provide enough benefit even to the ones that can.


The other problem with SC+MB is that common exp targets have so little HP and such low defense and evasion that they die before you're finished. The primary fix for that, IMO, is new exp tables (66+, 71+ and 75; taking into account that most level 75 parties have at least some merited members and therefore effectively have the strength of a level 76, 77 or even 78.) Most mobs that are currently rated VT to 75 really ought to only be T, based on their difficulty. For the exceptionally weak TAU monster families (colibris and imps), maybe even EM. But a level 75+merit party is still using the same exp table as a level 61 party, even though it's not even close to accurately measuring the threat level of monsters of a given relative level; and imps and colibris in particular are assigned levels that are noticeably out of line with their stats (or vice versa).

The higher level monsters a party is fighting, the more attractive SC+MB is. If level 75 parties got better exp from higher level monsters than lower level ones, then at least some of them would go fight those higher level monsters where team play is more effective (not just SC, but also keeping hate on a tank, etc.)


No matter what SE does, the TP burn vs. the traditional party will be a zero-sum game to some extent, because both party setups want a RDM, BRD or COR and two of those jobs are ultra-rare. If the last added support job didn't fix this, it's a good bet adding more support jobs in a future expansion won't fix it either - there are just more players who only want to do damage and nothing else than players who want to play another role, or even want to level several jobs with different roles. So when one party setup becomes more attractive to support jobs than another, the jobs that do well in that setup get more parties and the jobs that don't fit get left on the bench in Al Zahbi. Perfectly balancing exp rates, if it's even possible, would still mean fewer TP burns and more DDs left lfp (at the same time as more traditional parties and fewer tanks, THF, WHM and BLM left lfp).

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Can "Skillchain + Magic Burst" style become appealing in exp party?

I don't know if you know this, but Rampage in particular is bugged: it has fTP of 0.5, but the fTP only applies to the first hit; the other hits don't include the fTP term. So it's nearly twice as strong as it should be.

I realized you've mentioned this recently in another thread, but I don't want to get locked into "Let's ultra-nerf Rampage!"

If there is some combination of smaller adjustments to increase the appeal of SC+MB, I rather do that than focus exclusively on the one thing I know will cause a huge player revolt. >_>;

No matter what SE does, the TP burn vs. the traditional party will be a zero-sum game to some extent, because both party setups want a RDM, BRD or COR and two of those jobs are ultra-rare. If the last added support job didn't fix this, it's a good bet adding more support jobs in a future expansion won't fix it either - there are just more players who only want to do damage and nothing else than players who want to play another role, or even want to level several jobs with different roles. So when one party setup becomes more attractive to support jobs than another, the jobs that do well in that setup get more parties and the jobs that don't fit get left on the bench in Al Zahbi. Perfectly balancing exp rates, if it's even possible, would still mean fewer TP burns and more DDs left lfp (at the same time as more traditional parties and fewer tanks, THF, WHM and BLM left lfp).

Unbalance of DD to support/tanking is a legitimate concern, whether viewed as job balancing, game design, or player bias caused problem--but it belongs in a separate thread.

[Armando]

Re: Can "Skillchain + Magic Burst" style become appealing in exp party?

One of the biggest issues about the SC + MB system is that the bonus is not guaranteed. In fact, when you think about it, it's quite contradictory - Skillchains and Magic Bursts are more appealing for tougher enemies, but tougher enemies resist skillchains all the time, and on top of that, the skillchain closer won't pull out such big numbers on an IT mob as they would vs a VT. To top it all off, some TP is "lost" due to having to wait for your skillchain partner, which translates into lost potential damage and makes the margin of advantage that creating a Skillchain would have over using WS's at 100 TP quite small, and in some cases negative. This isn't surprising; the system was implemented very early in the game, even before the North American version was released, and has remain unchanged since then (save for the fact that Lv.3 Skillchains were introduced a bit later.) MANY things have changed since then, so it's logical that certain aspects of the game would need to be revised. A prime example is the EXP Chain system - the bonus for chains beyond #5 is the same, and the window of opportunity doesn't decrease further. This was never a problem at first, and it's easy to see how S-E wouldn't have anticipated that eventually players would be able to chain infinitely. A year or two back the concept of an infinite chain was nothing but a dream.

It's only logical for an IT mob to penalize the players' attack, hit rate, and magic accuracy. If they didn't, we'd still have the same problem with TP burn parties, but they'd be able to mow down IT mobs almost as quickly as they do VTs, for far more EXP. However, as it's been stated before, the SC + MB method requires more teamwork and coordination, and as such should be rewarded. The SC system, by nature, awards bonus damage which can be used to defeat stronger enemies. As I mentioned before, the way things are now fighting a tougher enemy literally gimps all players, but also gimps the Skillchain's potential. In my opinion, SC and MB damage should be nearly-guaranteed. This allows defeating IT enemies efficiently, but only those willing to coordinate will be able to "exploit" the system.

And let's be frank - at this stage in the game, there's no such thing as "too much EXP." S-E has clearly stated that they are not opposed to burn-style parties per se, and these are the parties that are currently getting record-breaking amounts of EXP per hour. If they didn't want players to gain EXP at the rate that TP burn parties currently go at, they would've done so by now. By that logic, it wouldn't do any harm to bring the traditional party model up to par with TP burns. In fact, it would in part help solve the problem of overcrowding, because the traditional parties would be getting the same EXP as a TP burn party, but for far less mobs, increasing the capacity of any given zone for holding multiple parties. If you made levelling in "Old World" zones at high levels appealing again as well, then the overcrowding problem would practically vanish.

But back to the point. I propose these changes:
- A drastic reduction in Skillchain damage resist rate against IT mobs. As long as you're not using improper elements for your target, you should be able to get full Skillchain damage with consistency. Not 100% of the time, but reasonable close.
- A tangible reward for using Skillchain elements the enemy is weak to aside from even lower resist rates. Even just an extra 10% damage would be nice.
- A sharper increase in damage for each successive Skillchain (particularly the second successive one.) It's bad enough that the Skillchain system is hardly used these days, but consecutive skillchains have always been rare and are almost unheard of now. Hell, most people don't know doing multiple skillchains results in more damage for each further skillchain unless you're talking about doing "three-man-Light/Dark." Like I said, people are already hardly willing to synchronize with just one partner; no one wants to have to synchronize with two. Going from two-way Light/Dark to three-way Light/Dark results in a 50% increase in damage to the Light/Dark Skillchain alone, and it's a very noticeable and substantial gain, but this isn't so for the lower level skillchains.
- Decreased resist rates on MBs, and slightly higher bonus damage. As it stands, DRKs and RDMs don't get that much out of MB'ing.
- Increased potency and duration on enfeebles. There's hardly any incentive to MB enfeebles.
- Better scaling of damage with TP for WS with Lv.2 properties. Most WS with Lv.2 SC properties are inferior to their predecessor. One could assume this was originally made this way to try not to overpower the Skillchain system, but things have changed. If the excess TP (from synchronizing with Skillchain partners) that goes into these particular WS was better rewarded, people would be more willing to use them, and in a way you help solve the issue of "Is slowing down our WS speed for the sake of making Skillchains really better than simply using our WS as soon as it's available without wasting TP?"

I don't pretend that my proposal is perfect or addresses ALL the issues, but I do think it addresses some important ones. It alone may not make the traditional party just as efficient as a TP burn one, but I believe it's a step in the right direction. I also don't pretend that all my ideas put together are necessarily balanced; it's the general idea that matters. The exact numbers don't matter as long as the end-result is a Skillchain + MB system that's efficient and desireable again.

2. If Trick Attack is used to close a SC, assign the enmity from SC effect's damage AND all magic bursts' damage to the trick partner. Besides a safety incentive to use MB's, this has the side effect of encouraging the use of Trick Attack--more party cooperative play.

I REALLY like this idea.

Personally, I don't think multi-hit WS need to be nerfed. They suck a lot on higher level mobs. The way I see it, it's just that the Skillchain system is gimped, so the best choice then becomes fighting weaker enemies.

[tdh]

Re: Can "Skillchain + Magic Burst" style become appealing in exp party?

I'm in agreanace that something needs to happen to make a more "Traditional" party set up more attractive. TP Burns have started happening at Lv.55 because a lot of those people were people who had already done TP Burns at Lv.75 and fell into that rut.

I won't deny the advantages of TP Burns. I've yet to see a SC/MB party that could pull of Chain #30's and make 30k EXP in about 2hr:15min. But I still love those SC/MB parties and try to build them. Issue comes down to not being able to find the people required to build these parties.

WHM - None existent. For the census saying that WHM and WHM/BLM are the most popular job and job combination, I sure as hell can't find any WHMs at any level.
BLM - All off doing Manaburns since they were left behind for TP Burns
RDM - Well at Lv.75 I'm the RDM, but everybody knows the troubles of finding a Refresher.
BRD - PLDs & BRDs still have issues working together, and of course BRDs are off doing TP Burns.

If something could be done to convince the Burn player base to return to a more traditional set up the SC/MB party would see a revival. More MB damage, lower the resist rate on Skillchain Effects, make Traits proc at a higher rate during SC/MB. (i.e. Double Attack more if you're closing a Skillchain, Conserve MP proc more often and at a higher percentage during a MB, things like that.) Just something to get people more excited about how we used to do things.

I think if we just enhanced the damage from WS, a lotta jobs would join the SC/MB mentality right away. But let's look at Lv.3 Skillchains.

Mistral Axe - Are you kidding? I have Rampage!
Wheeling Thrust - Are you kidding? I have Penta Thrust!
Blade: Ten - Are you kidding? I have Blade: Jin!
Swift Blade - Are you kidding? I'm a Paladin!
Arching Arrow - C'mon!! Slugwinder!

So you've convinced a WAR to open Light with Mistral Axe which when I saw it being used in the mid 60's, would do an average of 300dmg. Rampage eats your Mistral Axe and your mob for breakfast.

Wheeling Thrust could use an adjustment. Wasn't Spinning Slash like this at one point? Change where Penta Thrust sits on the chart so DRGs can open or close for decent Skillchain damage.

Blade: Ten looks pretty sweet, but I've never seen it even remotely compare to Blade: Jin. I think some NINs have only ever used Blade: Ten once, and then went back to Jin.

Swift Blade looks sweet, but only PLDs can do it, and I think the biggest Swift Blade I've seen was 500dmg against a EP mob. Give this to BLU btw. A rated skill, and they can't do 2 man Lv.3 until Savage Blade. BST & WAR have access to Mistrel Axe, throw BLU a bone.

In Arching Arrow & whatever the Gun Lv.225~230 WS's defense, I only saw these AFTER the RngAtk nerf and before the semi-unnerf. But I was seriously unimpressed at the time with the damage. Opening it couldn't turn the mob for the DRK, closing it couldn't do enough damage to make it worthwhile. And we all know they'd rather be using Slugwinder.

I want the MB parties to come back into full force, but on the same note I don't want the TP Burns to go away either. IF something could be done to balance those two options out, it would please a lotta people. But it's a daunting task, and as of late only DRK gets S-E's attention.

[Vyuru]

Re: Can "Skillchain + Magic Burst" style become appealing in exp party?

Wheeling Thrust - Are you kidding? I have Penta Thrust!

Well, from a dragoon standpoint, and I might very well be in the minority here, I would rather use Wheeling Thrust rather than Penta Thrust any day of the week unless I need to SC with Penta Thrust. I would rather use Skewer than Penta Thrust even.

The only time I have ever seen really impressive Penta Thrust numbers was a drg/war, with berserk up, +acc food, some kind of buff from Fenrir and another summon, and double +att songs from a bard on a low IT mob.

Taking into consideration that I rarely party with a bard, let alone a summoner due to none being available, the setups for Penta Thrust being more powerful are low.

- A sharper increase in damage for each successive Skillchain (particularly the second successive one.)

I would love this, while leveling samurai my party and I got off 5 successive Skillchains in one fight, it was incredible. Not only that, but when I tried drg/sam I had a mnk and sam in the party with me and we consistently did at least 2 linked SC, sometimes up to 3.

[Karinya]

Re: Can "Skillchain + Magic Burst" style become appealing in exp party?

Penta: 100-600 damage plus breath
Wheeling: 400-550 damage plus breath

Gee, that's a tough choice.

Wheeling doesn't need improvement IMO (at least at the levels right after you get it - I don't know how it does at 75). Its maximum damage may be no better than penta's or even as much as 10% lower, but it hits at or near that maximum far more consistently and practically never chokes up the way penta/rampage/guillo can (and slugwinder can outright miss).

At least, that's my impression on mobs that are a respectable level compared to me.


As much as I like Armando's ideas, I think he's reversing cause and effect. It's the *exp* chain system that pushes high level people to fight numerous weak mobs, not the skillchain system. (And the availability of camps packed with easy monsters that respawn very fast, of course.)

Then once they are fighting weak mobs (for the much higher exp/hr), skillchains aren't very useful and multihit WS spam is extremely powerful. The rest is just the usual phenomenon of people imitating at low to moderate levels tactics that are effective at high levels, without understanding why and in situations where it isn't appropriate.


I know I've harped on this before and some people are probably getting tired of seeing me say it, but the exp system needs to be revised for high level characters so that the rewards of fighting high VT-IT mobs are at least as good as the rewards of fighting low VT (and even high T) mobs (regardless of whether that's done by nerfing one, buffing the other or a combination of both to make them meet in the middle somewhere). Once that is done skillchains, the party setups that use them, and the jobs that fit better in those kinds of parties will make at least somewhat of a comeback even without the rest of Armando's suggestions (although I would like to see at least some of them implemented too.)

SE inadvertently (I think) sabotaged their own core game design by giving players too much incentive to set their sights low. Almost everything that has changed about battle tactics, party setups, etc. since TAU follows from this, IMO. The inflation in the power level of PCs, especially level 75 PCs through more and more generous merit limits, plays some role, but it's still possible to find monsters that can challenge a party of 75s if anyone actually wanted to do so. They don't, because it's not worth their while. Easy monsters offer more reward for less effort, and few players are going to refuse that.

[DakAttack]

Re: Can "Skillchain + Magic Burst" style become appealing in exp party?

Maybe they should just introduce abilities that enemies can use based on who's on their hate list. No Black Mages? Use some sort of defense up, and magic defense down ability. No melee? Use a magic defense up, and defense down ability. Perhaps it can be refined to depend more on who's topping the hate list so that people can use Rdms or Blus to toss a nuke in every few minutes to avoid the abilities.

Both? Raise both defenses up slightly.

If the abilities are severe enough we might see mixed parties once again.

It doesn't even need to be an ability, it can be a hidden scale that adjusts itself as the battle continues without the players ever knowing about it.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Can "Skillchain + Magic Burst" style become appealing in exp party?

Unbalance of DD to support/tanking is a legitimate concern, whether viewed as job balancing, game design, or player bias caused problem--but it belongs in a separate thread.

I think its very relevant, if you do skew things in favor of SC/MB, we would go right back to the way things were pre-ToA. Dozens of DRGs and THFs LFP, level 75 a far-off dream for them. There's still competition now, but even when my RNG was still under the nerf, PTs were not hard to get because I still did high damage I was still breaking 1k on WS before October.

I think, for one, we're going to have to see how the changes to Signet pan out. As a BST who rests in the early portion of many fights, I can attest that the HP recovered and TP kept is a solid change. And when you look at jobs like PLD, DRK or BLU that require rest at times, this is a very good thing. And same goes for the RDM who might be allowed to melee or the DRG who wants to come with a mage sub.

The signet change could change the way we did things in the old zones. Even if people still heavily prefer ToA, the RoZ/CoP zones now have some leverage for certain classes. Even with the newer Thickets camp, a different PT setup is needed, NIN and WAR stink there, even with a BRD or COR, other jobs do much better.

Adding support classes wouldn't change much right now, SE gave us a support job that DDs and people didn't bite. Didn't matter whether COR was expensive or not, people want to be the super-uber DD. COR isn't that and its a gambler that spends lots of gil. Some people call that prohibitive, I call it job security.

[Taskmage]

Re: Can "Skillchain + Magic Burst" style become appealing in exp party?

Thank you Itazura for making this thread and phrasing it in as constructive and non-inflammatory way possible. Thank you to everyone else for the insightful and constructive input.

[Legal Fish]

Re: Can "Skillchain + Magic Burst" style become appealing in exp party?

I agree with your points. Let's review what you suggested.

1. Make the skillchain effect (Distortion, Fusion, etc.) more damaging; consider adding both weaponskill's damage together in calculating the maximum damage. Also, make equipment to increase skillchain effect's accuracy and/or damage available and widely so at low levels to entice parties to start using SC's as early as possible.

Equipment doesn't need to be made to increase it's accuracy, just a natural bonus is enough. Equipment to further increase damage is a fine idea though.

2. If Trick Attack is used to close a SC, assign the enmity from SC effect's damage AND all magic bursts' damage to the trick partner. Besides a safety incentive to use MB's, this has the side effect of encouraging the use of Trick Attack--more party cooperative play.

This is pretty potent, maybe even overpowered. The Skillchain damage being added with Trick Attack is enough, MB is over doing it.

3. Increase the bonus to magic damage and accuracy during the MB window. Maybe even add duration and potency to enfeebling type magic/song/ninjutsu used during the window.

Not really needed. There is gear for this already and the base bonus is quite strong. Damage is almost never the problem. This leaks into the HNM situation.

4. Shorten the time allowed to continue chains at higher levels when killing T and VT monsters, to highlight the advantage of SC+MB for parties for its spike damage output. (The time constraint should remain at old values for solo players, and gradually tighten as number of players in party goes up.)

Nerfing is bad. The way things work isn't too broken. If it isn't broken, don't fix it. This doesn't really help SCers.

5. Increase and re-balance the difficulty of the monsters popular for exp parties, especially in ToAU area, where exp bonus is available from Sanction. (Different monsters should be toughed differently, of course, to add variety. Higher HP, more defense, multi-hit AoE attacks, status effects, smarter mob behavior, etc.--lot's of combinations are possible) Again, this is to highlight the advantage of higher damage from SC+MB.

This might hurt some solo'ers and it doesn't really help SCers any. Like I said, nerfing is bad.

6. Lower the damage potential from weaponskills, especially the mult-hit ones. (Nothing too drastic, as this will create an uproar--just a slight tilt to make SC more appealing.) Perhaps a 5% decrease to Attack rating for each successive "swing"? (e.g. For Rampage, the five strikes would be at 100%, 95%, 90%, 85%, and 80% of the player's Attack rating at the time the WS is used.)

More nerfing... damn. Again, not needed and it doesn't help SCers any. If people wanted to use single-hit WSes, it would be because they want to, not because they have to. Giving an attack bonus to a single-hit weapon would have a more positive effect.
Okay, I see what you are trying to do here, but I think your method isn't that great. Your first problem is you kind of go against your own words.

While the game should allow for multiple ways of gaining experience points, it is a shame losing this aspect of cooperative play.

Exactly. Neither TP-burns or the use of SC-partys should be favored.
And despite what people say about, performing a SC isn't rocket science. It isn't some tactical masterpiece as some make it out to be. I mean, if SC were as half as complex people say they are, I wouldn't have done Distortion 98% of the time when I was leveling 50-70, 3 years ago. I think people want to become reverse-elitist, so they make up points like "Well, just because you use the most effective method of exp gaining doesn't mean you're smart!". I mean that has to stop really.

Anyway, back to the point. Your final problem is that you shake up the game quiet a bit. When changing things, they should be as small as possible. If you make a big change... you can cause a lot of people to be upset and even go too far and get a negative effect. Think of the Ranger Nerf. Sure, SCs being encouraged in the end-game isn't a bad thing at all, but don't go too far with it.
Okay, I guess I should tell you what I think SE should do. And I guess I'll tell you why.

There are three characteristics of a good party:

-Strength. What they can put down.

-Endurance. How long they can put stuff down without stopping.

-Speed. How much they can put down in a certain time.

Most of the time, Speed and Strength are practically the same.

Melee Burns are all about killing stuff fast, without stopping. SCs have Strength, that's for sure. And maybe they also have speed. But they usually lack Endurance. Tanks = MP Drain. MBing = MP Drain. Which leads me to my next point.

A boost to the SC set up must mean a boost to Black Mage. Black Mages don't need a damage boost, they need a Conserve MP boost.
Alright, time for me to get to the point.

Magic Bursts get a hefty Conserve MP bonus
Quite simple. The Conserve MP formula is n/16*spell cost = new spell cost. n is a random number in the range of 8 and 15. That means your spell can be up to half as cheap or 15/16 as cheap. With the BLM trait, its 25% proc and +1% for each point added from equipment.

Now, if 100% of the time, MBs were effected by a Conserve MP effect(BLM or not), that made n something like "4 to 12", BLMs would really feel it. That means MBs will always be cheaper to cast, somewhere between 25% to 75% cheaper. A MB'd Burst II could go as cheap as 71 MP. That's a little more than a Fire II.

Now that would get people back to MBing. If he got lucky, under this change, he will have three "free" MBs. If those MBs were Burst IIs, that BLM just saved 861 MP. No Refresh is going to give you that. That BLM will spend less time resting and more time doing damage. Just like a melee would in a melee burn.

Bursting AMs at level 50~ may also become an option again. Hey, I have no problem with that. I used to do it, but it was proven that it wasn't worth the effort. With this change, that could... uh, change.

Skillchain Resist Rate Dropped
The biggest problems that effect Renkei is that sometimes you'll get a full damage WS, sometimes you'll get 10 damage. There needs to be more consistency. I don't think I need to get into math in to this one... but if ITs almost never resisted, then people would use it more. It is as simple as that. Sure, maybe some HNMs will still resist, especially those resistant to magic, but exp mobs? Should be unheard of unless its something that BLM don't go near.

Monsters
Most important, SC Parties need camps in ToAU that fit around them. Just one or two monster types would be enough. I think I can name two monsters that came very close to fitting what a SC party needs, but sadly failed in the end. I'm thinking of Merit Parties for below.

Qutrub.

They are monsters with a huge amount of HP, but take triple melee damage and double magic damage. Ideally, this should be awesome for a SC group... (closing WS * 3) * 2 = SC x6. If SCs and MBs were just a tad bit more potent...

Changes:
-They take x3 Magic damage as well.
-Somewhere in Caedarva Mire, there is one or two camps of 10 of these guys that are easy to pull and con IT. Despite being IT, one SC+MB should be enough to kill them or put them under 15% HP. Make these camps close to a Staging Point.

Wivre (these are new dinosaur looking guys that Mamool Ja ride)

When I first heard about these guys, I thought SE finally made a monster just for SCing and MBing... but wasn't the case. Here is some info about them: attacking from their front gives a huge defense bonus, they hardly turn and like dragons use their tail to fight, they have VERY low evasion, high defense, and finally have a lot of HP. So I'm thinking, "Alright, a monster where a tank is required and using SA is quite easy", but they are quite flawed. They give off a very potent Attack Down(like 60%+) and SCers don't get any bonuses against them. Also, none of them are IT.

Changes:
-5 more spawns added to their camp. (Currently 5, in an outside area)
-All turned into ITs. Their stats hardly change from this.
-Their attack down AoE only goes off if someone who isn't standing in front of them has hate.
-SCs and MBs do x2 damage.


Man, I'm too tired to be writing right now. If that came out as gibberish, my bad, I'll fix later.

[Karinya]

Re: Can "Skillchain + Magic Burst" style become appealing in exp party?

You repeat several times that "nerfing is bad", but when you buff players and buff players and buff players and never nerf anything, you get a game so easy it's boring. Nerfing players or buffing monsters is sometimes *necessary* to keep game balance from going out of whack. Balance isn't just about whether one player job is stronger than another, but whether players *as a group* are so strong that challenges become trivialized.

High level exp and merit has already reached this point (or even gone beyond it). New equipment, merits, spells and changes to jobs have made players so powerful, "VT" mobs practically don't even hit back before they die (and they die very very quickly). The power of players has been steadily increasing for over a year and the power of monsters has remained stagnant or even declined with the introduction of TAU and its colibris and imps.

I suppose it's up to SE if they want to keep most high level parties' exp rates in the 10-15k/hr range or not. Certainly I don't think that was ever intended, and I think it's part of the reason they keep expanding merits (because people cap them out very quickly with such ludicrously high exp rates), but if they're not going to make people go back to when 5k/hr was damn good and 8k was amazing, fine.

But at least they need to balance exp between different party setups, and reward people who are overcoming a challenge more than those who are only massacring the easiest mobs available. Some players are always going to seek, and find, the path of least resistance, but there shouldn't *be* any paths of THAT little resistance.

If anyone from SE is actually reading this thread: Please reverse the dumbing down the game has suffered in the last year, even if that means "nerfing" players in some respect and/or toughening up monsters.

[Toksyuryel]

Re: Can "Skillchain + Magic Burst" style become appealing in exp party?

I have an idea: how about every x number of merits spent, your effective level increases? It would not be accompanied by any stat increases nor will it instantaruly restore hp or mp, although it could allow new gear to be equiped and most importantaruly it will factor in to the relative strength calculation for determing XP. Will the xp/hr stay so good TP burning sea puks colibris and imps if the game says you are level 79?

Neither your xp buffer amount nor cap would change as a resultaru of this pseudo-level up, and your visible level will still change to 74 should you lose all your buffer (but you'll regain your full merited level upon leveling up again (could be interesting to see someone who is level 74 suddenly hitaru 80 ;D)

[Vyuru]

Re: Can "Skillchain + Magic Burst" style become appealing in exp party?

Well, I rather liked IfritnoItazura's ideas in her OP, and if I were to see any changes I'd rather see these. However LegalFish brings up a few interesting points.

In the case of Qutrubs, I'd just lower their max hp a bit to make it easier to kill them via SC/MB combo, as it stands they just have really low def and stuff but a ton of hp that more than makes up for it.

My other suggestion would be more Marid/Chigoe camps for the lvl 75 or so people. Those are really nice for a standard party.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Can "Skillchain + Magic Burst" style become appealing in exp party?

If we did get nerfs, the whole community would get outraged at this point, it would be worse than when it happened to RNG. I don't think any one job needs a nerf, I just think we need to mobs either toughend up or EXP/level reduced to reflect their actual difficulty.

Imps and Puks are not T nor are they really VT at merit level, they are Too Weak.