Status of the Balance of Defense-centered Jobs

[PTT]

Re: Status of the Balance of Defense-centered Jobs

After partying in Caedarva Mire in one of those "The next monster is there while the monster your fighting's @ 75 percent health" parties, I have rethought my position.

In this party was a Bluemage/Ninja, and boy howdy, he was good at what he did. He would do nice damage, and solo light skillchains every time Chain Affinity was up. Even with, I think I counted, +24 Enmity (Full Adaman Set, Macahuitl+1 sword, Warwolf Belt, Koenig Shield, I had trouble keeping hate off of the Bluemage (and both of us off of the Nuke-Happy, Magic-Bursting BLMs with Burst II and Flare II).

The reason for this is simply that Paladins are not built for speed kills. If a normal Paladin uses 2 JAs (Shield Bash + Warcry, Sentinel + Rampart, Defender, etc) per enemy, by the 3rd enemy, he's run out of JAs for the next 2-3 minutes. If everyone else is focused on killing speedily, then 'waiting until the 2nd provoke' is an idea thrown right out the window. It's fight fight fight, no resting, all the time. While I felt the burn of maxing out my potential, the BLU/NIN was happily casting Utsusemi, and doing a fantastic job of DDing and SChaining.

So, in conclusion, perhaps all we need are JA timer reductions, or... just a little something. Perhaps that "Enmity Loss Down while using Sentinel" merit ability isn't such a bad thing after all.

[Macht]

Re: Status of the Balance of Defense-centered Jobs

After partying in Caedarva Mire in one of those "The next monster is there while the monster your fighting's @ 75 percent health" parties, I have rethought my position.

In this party was a Bluemage/Ninja, and boy howdy, he was good at what he did. He would do nice damage, and solo light skillchains every time Chain Affinity was up. Even with, I think I counted, +24 Enmity (Full Adaman Set, Macahuitl+1 sword, Warwolf Belt, Koenig Shield, I had trouble keeping hate off of the Bluemage (and both of us off of the Nuke-Happy, Magic-Bursting BLMs with Burst II and Flare II).

The reason for this is simply that Paladins are not built for speed kills. If a normal Paladin uses 2 JAs (Shield Bash + Warcry, Sentinel + Rampart, Defender, etc) per enemy, by the 3rd enemy, he's run out of JAs for the next 2-3 minutes. If everyone else is focused on killing speedily, then 'waiting until the 2nd provoke' is an idea thrown right out the window. It's fight fight fight, no resting, all the time. While I felt the burn of maxing out my potential, the BLU/NIN was happily casting Utsusemi, and doing a fantastic job of DDing and SChaining.

So, in conclusion, perhaps all we need are JA timer reductions, or... just a little something. Perhaps that "Enmity Loss Down while using Sentinel" merit ability isn't such a bad thing after all.

Talked about all Job abilities, what about Flash? I thought that was a huge hate spike spell. In combo with Chilvary it should help keep up your MP to drum that out as well for keeping hate.

[Legal Fish]

Re: Status of the Balance of Defense-centered Jobs

A non-nerfing fix would be adding an area where monsters are IT++(500 per kill in a 6 person party), but not IT++ in strength and health. Have them attack very fast and, here is the key, take triple or quadtriple SC and MB damage. Use strong single target, go through shadows weaponskills. Have using Shield be unusually effective against its attacks. Such a monster could only be tanked by a well-equiped PLD with a WHM, with BLM or two, and at least two SCing melee. That would be the only situation that would have potential to give PLD, WHM, SAM, maybe DRG, and BLM(which don't need it, we can solo 6k an hour, manaburn 10K~+) a situation where they would be better off not meleeburning.

Another fix would to give PLD a strong offensive JA.

[TenchiHawkwing]

Re: Status of the Balance of Defense-centered Jobs

The only thing is, the team at Square-Enix sees the PLD job as working as intended(the fan-fest statements were PR, I can assure you of that, with all the NIN vs PLD stuff that was going on[even more then than now] they had to say something!) and I'd say it's pretty close. Unfortunately the play-style of us, the players, is what keeps PLD from shining.

Unfortunately, the niche role of Light DD/Back-up cure/support isn't enough for us. PLD can currently(and other than RDM is the only job that can...) pull that off moderately well 37+, quite well 50+, and very well 70+... the playerbase doesn't see it though(Took awhile for NIN/WAR tanking to catch on, the same could be said of SAM/RNG, as well as the up-and-coming endgame DRG subjob for heavy DDs[i.e. WAR/DRG, MNK/DRG, etc).

We have to be the main tank(which becomes obsolete in xp 73+). Why? Is it because we're not good at anything else? No... it's because we're percieved that way. The same was true of DRG, that's why it took them so long to touch the job, same for PLD with our recent upgrades. Honestly, I don't see too many changes being made soon. Unless it's a shift in the majority view on what a Paladin can and cannot do.


Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Paladin should not ever just straight up tank like we've been doing, we've already proven ourselves there... but why limit ourselves to just that?

Well, no, it's not us limiting ourselves totally, the rest of the community has to have the overall level of awareness raised, but we are partially to blame. All too often I've seen Paladins go into parties with half-ass DD gear and a NIN subjob(I'm not even talking end-game only) when they have a chance to show what we're made of... and fail. People's first impressions of a job combo are very important, if you do that and you're the first PLD/NIN anyone's ever seen, they're going to think PLD/NIN is a horrible combination(unless they know better). We've got to fix ourselves and the way we're percieved rather than waiting for Square-Enix to fix us.


tl;dr PLD doesn't suck... but those from the outside in think we do, let's show em what we're really made of.

A fix isn't entirely needed.(There is some work to be done though.)

[dirtyclown]

Re: Status of the Balance of Defense-centered Jobs

So basically we should wear the pretty girl equipment and try really hard to fit in like the stereotypical poser kid? :D

I'm interested in seeing where Shields can take us, since it seems to me like not alot of people think they're all that great. Have we as Paladins ever considered working with what we have currently? I could be wrong, but who knows.

[Maju]

Re: Status of the Balance of Defense-centered Jobs

tl;dr PLD doesn't suck... but those from the outside in think we do, let's show em what we're really made of.

Well, I don't know about this one.

You say we should be more flexible. Yes, we can be used for DD (which is fun) and we can be used for healing (which is less fun), but those are our secondary roles. Our relatively strongest aspect is tanking and anything else can be done better by a number of other jobs that focus on those aspects of the game. There is no reason at all to ever bring a PLD for any DD or healing role as long as there are other jobs to pick.

So we're primary tanks then I guess. I suppose it's ok that in some fights blink tanking has s slight edge and vice versa. It's simple tank balance. That's not currently happening, though.

I went with a couple LS mates to hunt one of the new NMs in Mamook (Zilla something). Well, we pulled the NM and it destroyed me in about 5 seconds after Invincible wore off. Then a small JP party with a NIN came and we allied up against it. The NIN took one hit during the entire fight and there was no kiting involved. No cures at all were needed to keep the NIN alive against a high level NM.

Sure, I was only a L71 PLD/RDM and the NIN was L75, but Zilla went right through my stoneskin in two hits, then hammer beaked me for 900 damage so I had to invincible. Then when invincible was gone it started pounding me for 300 damage a hit with a very fast attack speed. I was dead so fast it wasn't even funny. The NIN on the other hand completely owned this thing.

[TenchiHawkwing]

Re: Status of the Balance of Defense-centered Jobs

You both totally missed the point; I am not saying we should do DD/back-up tank onry.

Just that in the eyes of the other jobs "That's all Paladin is good for" which is totally wrong. There is much more we can do... you know why the invites drop off? Think about it for just a moment.

Also Maju, you're seperating DD and healing... PLD can do both at once. That's what makes it good. If we're doing one or the other, yes another job should be substituted in.

More than once I've partied with Ninjas 50+ throughout my leveling, and you know what...? It wasn't a bad thing at all, sometimes I would tank, sometimes not. Often times with NIN RDM BRD PLD DD DD things worked out rather well. I even went /NIN to a couple of xp groups. What I would often do is Flash when I know the NIN is about to recast Utsusemi... and if somehow (rare occurance) the NIN's shadows did end up dropping I could cover him with my own.(Something no other job can do). And I'd heal the NIN myself, saving the RDM the MP.

That party (and the converstation afterwards) changed 4 other people's views on how PLD and NIN can work together. They simply had not tried it before (The NIN was a former PLD, so he already knew). The masses don't know that our job CAN do anything other than main tank, so when they don't need one, they feel they don't need us.


Do you understand where I'm going with this yet? I love to tank, I really do. But I also realize that's not all we're good at. I also feel that we're actually best as tank support in xp rather than as a main tank in certain situations.

[Gentoo]

Re: Status of the Balance of Defense-centered Jobs

Wow ... This discussion goes seven pages, and is almost completely lucid all the way through. Impressive -- only on FFXIOnline.

Anywho...

I don't think anyone is arguing that Paladins aren't a versital job, TenchiHawkwing. Almost all jobs are more versital than what the majority of player base wants to investigate.

The point is that Ninja have unbalanced the game, and Maju's post does a pretty decent job of illustrating that. Head-to-head, no other job can match a Ninja's ability to tank, even jobs whose primary role is to tank.

Karyina really nailed the problem on the head way back on page one. Ninja's are unbalanced in that they completely bypass the embedded checks-n-balances that other jobs have regarding equipment and food. They can equip full attack gear, consume full attack food, and still mitigate all damage.

The Paladin equivalent, roughly, would be putting Invincible on a 30 second timer, and removing the enmity generation.

SE can twiddle with all the other jobs trying to make them more desirable, but in my eyes that just makes everything overpowered in the game.

Although the OP clearly didn't want this to turn into a Paladin versus Ninja discussion, it really has to come down to that. Utsusemi is the killer application in the game. Invariably it has reduced the subjob biosphere, and has lead to unbalanced parties becoming the norm.

The answer, I think, is not to keep increasing the abilities of other jobs, but to fix the problem SE created with Utsusemi -- as unpopular as that might be. I know such a nerf would screw the second character I play, the as I see it, it really is the only true solution.

[DakAttack]

Re: Status of the Balance of Defense-centered Jobs

Move Utsusemi: Ni to 38, and offer a few more benefits from Vitality.

I would think the more vitality you have the more effective Regen would be, thus mitigating a bit more damage.

[Shep]

Re: Status of the Balance of Defense-centered Jobs

me personally would like to see pld get some type of voke and have provoke be a WAR only JA. but that would piss off all ninjas.

once again, thats just me.

[Maju]

Re: Status of the Balance of Defense-centered Jobs

me personally would like to see pld get some type of voke and have provoke be a WAR only JA. but that would piss off all ninjas.

once again, thats just me.

Then every PLD in the universe would sub NIN and nothing would be solved. Blink tanking would still be the only way to go.

[Celeal]

Re: Status of the Balance of Defense-centered Jobs

How about change Utsusemi is such a way that:

If the ninja has 1 shadow, there is 1 out of 2 chance of hitting the ninja (assuming the ninja failed to evade the hit). For example:

You are trying to throw a stone at a ninja who has 1 shadow (clone), but you do not know which one is the real target. Your stone can only hit one target per throw. So the outcome is either you hit the ninja (you guess correct, or you are lucky) or you hit the shadow, assuming you do not missed the target (ninja failed to evade).

Continue with the logic:

If the ninja has 2 shadows, the chance of hitting the ninja is 1/3; the chance of hitting one of the shadows is 2/3.
If the ninja has 3 shadows, the chance of hitting the ninja is 1/4; the chnace of hitting one of the shadows is 3/4.
If the ninja has 4 shadows, the chance of hitting the ninja is 1/5; the chance of hitting one of the shadows is 4/5.

I think this idea fits the idea of Utsusemi.

[Gentoo]

Re: Status of the Balance of Defense-centered Jobs

This gets away from PTT's original question if SE feels, after the recent changes, that there is still an imbalance among the tanking jobs? However, this is the kind of solution I'd like to see, because it plays well with other existing mechanisms in the game.

SE has a pretty good track record of having alchemical equivalents to magic spells being more reliable and faster. In the case of Utsusemi, giving it a faster cast time, a 100% blockage rate in addition to having more shadows than Blink was overkill in my eyes.

Playing by SE's rules, bringing the alchemical blink (Utsusemi) in line with Blink has three possibilities: Increase the casting time, reduce the number of shadows, or reduce the success rate.

Increasing the casting time is an inelegant solution to me (personal feeling) because it breaks away from the notion that most (if not all) alchemy equivalents to magic are faster in application. None-the-less, Ninjutsu is a magic of sorts, so perhaps giving Utsusemi: Ichi a cast time of 6 seconds (like Blink) would be acceptable... Although Utsusemi: Ni fails to extend the consistency of existing mechanics because there's no Blink II.

Reducing the number of shadows is the most interesting to me, but quickly fails being consistent with existing mechanisms because, again, there's no Blink II to model Utsusemi: Ni off. That said, I'd like to see what the impacts of an Ichi with just two shadows, and a Ni with, say, three shadows would be.

That leaves reducing it's success rate, and this seems the solution that makes the most sense. I don't like eventually reducing Utsusemi down a 50% sucess rate --- this is going too far the other direction in my opinion.

Give Utsusemi a similar chance for blocking attacks as Blink.

At first blush seems to raise the value of jobs that rely on DEF and VIT. At this point, everyone has to choose a tank that will take damage. Damage reduction is accomplished by avoidance (the Ninja), or reduction (the Paladin).

While I twirl this notion in my head, I begin to like it more and more, as it evens out the tanking abilities between Ninja and Paladin. However, I suspect that general populace will simply look at it as reason to no longer tank with Ninja because it's not the "uberest," which would be a shame.

How about change Utsusemi is such a way that:

If the ninja has 1 shadow, there is 1 out of 2 chance of hitting the ninja (assuming the ninja failed to evade the hit).
{snippage}
Continue with the logic:

If the ninja has 2 shadows, the chance of hitting the ninja is 1/3; the chance of hitting one of the shadows is 2/3.
If the ninja has 3 shadows, the chance of hitting the ninja is 1/4; the chnace of hitting one of the shadows is 3/4.
If the ninja has 4 shadows, the chance of hitting the ninja is 1/5; the chance of hitting one of the shadows is 4/5.

I think this idea fits the idea of Utsusemi.

[Macht]

Re: Status of the Balance of Defense-centered Jobs

Continue with the logic:

If the ninja has 2 shadows, the chance of hitting the ninja is 1/3; the chance of hitting one of the shadows is 2/3.
If the ninja has 3 shadows, the chance of hitting the ninja is 1/4; the chnace of hitting one of the shadows is 3/4.
If the ninja has 4 shadows, the chance of hitting the ninja is 1/5; the chance of hitting one of the shadows is 4/5.

I think this idea fits the idea of Utsusemi.

This is basically the logic that I've been putting forth over and over through this entire thread. The ones that do realize Utsusemi is overpowered do recognize this as a solution. The only part about this I state is that this condition should apply Sub job only, trying to change NIN Main and it's use of Utsusemi is sort of out of the question. SE has already recognized them as being Tanks and do support them as such, but however this ability should not be carrying over as well as it does to when it's a sub job. I mean taking 1 shadow off if it as a sub is a joke, it's potency is still far stronger and far more applicable then a SAMs "Third Eye" ability.

As well as being far stronger then a Mages Blink spell.

[csBahamut]

Re: Status of the Balance of Defense-centered Jobs

I think more would have to be done if shadows were made not 100% effective. There are 2 reasons for this. 1) Ask most NINs and they will tell you that they don't evade much at 75 unless they pile on the evasion gear. 2) NINs hold hate through damage. Having to use evasion or higher defense gear would kill their damage output, thus killing their current hate holding ability. Something like making Parry or Evasion more effective would be handy, or even a Job Ability that increases Evasion. For HNMs, I don't see there being a big problem unless Utsusemi's rate of success is severly lowered (bad idea). NINs can already lower damage taken on HNMs, and they have ways to hold hate that don't involve attacking. This change would just close the gab a bit more between the two, and require NINs to be effectively geared like PLDs have to be.

A better idea might be to make Utsusemi's rate of success dependant on Ninjitsu skill. Sort of like shield blocking.

Or, Utsusemi could have an additional effect in addition to shadows. Utsusemi would have a base success rate, like say 75% for Ichi (1 real out of 4 choices) and 80% for Ni (1 real out of 5 choices), which would not decrease as shadows were absorbed. In addition, an evasion bonus would be added based on Ninjitsu skill. This would help NINs rely on evading more than shadows (except for magic), while the use as a subjob would be weaker but not totally ruined.

Or there's another route. Revamp Utsusemi. Change it so that it lasts for a duration, and gives a HUGE boost to evasion based on Ninjitsu skill but shadows would not disappear (nor would you ahve shadows to count). For example: Casting times and recast times would stay the same (or at least the same length as the duration), certain AoE would still whipe shadows, and the duration would be like 1 minute for Ichi, and 1.5 mins for Ni (would need fine tuned). Ni would give a bigger evasion bonus than Ichi as well. San could possibly be added as well to help NINs tank those enimies that like to strip shadows a lot.

No matter how you look at it though, just doing a simple nerf to Utsusemi would be a BAD thing. Most of the simple ideas would pretty severly weaken blink tanking, as well as give NIN the nerf stigma that plagues every job that get's a radical change to the job's effectiveness. NIN, along with blink tanking and NIN subbing, is on a high horse right now. SE has to be very careful about how they make the changes so that the image of how effective NINs are is not thrown down like it was for DRGs and RNGs (which are really both very effective and powerful still, but people don't want to believe it because of the "nerf").

Proof of the imbalance, or over-dependance, of Utsusemi can be seen by doing a /sea all 75 NIN, and comparing the number of players to other jobs. There's as many NINs on my server as there are BLMs and RDMs (not combined). Jobs like PLD, DRG, DRK, are like half that or less.