The BLM Problem

[Legal Fish]

Re: The BLM Problem

It's important to note, pre 30. Even in youth, I would never be as dumb to say /WAR isn't better over 30.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: The BLM Problem

I don't like the idea of upping a lot of mob's defense. What some of you are asking for is to make AU a bunch of crabs. No thanks I've been through that. Even crabs w/out defense buffs are irritating.

I'm not asking they be made into crabs, I'm asking that mob defense be reflected by a more realistic level. Imps and Jnun should con way lower than they do and not give the EXP they do now. Same with Puks and Colibri. Player's need to be encouraged to fight harder mobs

I don't see people singling out Lamia, Qutrub, Porggo, Shades, Flayers, Puddings. Skellies or Trolls and that's because they're hard and have really nasty tricks up their sleeves. Yet, they have the same repop time as most ToA mobs, making the camps a bit more intense. Halvung and the Reef are mostly fine (save for Reef's imps and Jnun).

Its mostly just mobs in Mamool Ja staging point, Caedarva Mire, Wajoam Woodlands and the Thickets that I find questionable and in need of adjustment.

[Lmnop]

Re: The BLM Problem

What would the effect be if they upped the levels of some of those mobs? Like took a few camps and made the pops pop 2-4 levels higher than they do now (with all stats increased accordingly, of course)? They would still be burn-able, but for higher exp/kill and the parties would have to worry about danger for once. And since it would lower kill speed a bit (probably only by around 15%), it'd hopefully encourage inviting some jobs that excel at burst damage.

In the meantime, I hate how good BRD is at crowd-control. Everyone wants them just for the uber buffs, giving them unlimited sleep potential for pulling is just rediculous. smn + rdm backline could provide similar support, but no effective way to always have 2-3 mobs in queue. Not that I'd like to see them nerfed, I'd rather see a more effective means for THF to pull. I would hate to see some BCNM battles become nigh-impossible due to a horde lullaby nerf.

With Smn finally given an effective party role(s), and RNG made do-able, and 2-handed melee made fit for burn parties (if only people would be smart enough to realzie it), one can only rationalize that some push for blm will come next.

[Icemage]

Re: The BLM Problem

What would the effect be if they upped the levels of some of those mobs? Like took a few camps and made the pops pop 2-4 levels higher than they do now (with all stats increased accordingly, of course)? They would still be burn-able, but for higher exp/kill and the parties would have to worry about danger for once. And since it would lower kill speed a bit (probably only by around 15%), it'd hopefully encourage inviting some jobs that excel at burst damage.

One of two things would happen:

(1) They'd still be laughably easy and all you'd do is increase the XP/hour.

(2) They aren't easy any more and the camp becomes unusable.

I suspect the first would happen, rather than the second, unless the level change was extreme (+3 or more levels), and it affects camps like Colibri and regular Puks not at all other than changing the level range where they become optimal.

Changing the levels of the enemies is not a solution; like the MP-return suggestion posted by Legal Fish, it doesn't do anything except pay lip service to the real problems of overly fast spawn times and overly easy enemies for their level.


Icemage

[Dyvid]

Re: The BLM Problem

Well I think I'm done replying to this post. From the posted and comments I read it's clear most of the people don't really understand the problem and don't understand why tp burns don't want them.

A BLM's damage on ToAU XP Mobs doesn't not justify the time it take to recover mp. On old 75 xp mobs it was easy cause the melee would SC and the BLM would cast an MB to finish it off. Times have changed and the mobs die faster so a BLM's MB isn't needed anymore because it's just over kill. I just hope SE has a good plan for BLM @ 75.

[Lmnop]

Re: The BLM Problem

Hmmm The only exp parties my sister joined as either her whm or her brd were burn parties in sky for a couple of months. So yeah, that was pre-ToAU. Let's not pretend that there were loads of IT mobs that people liked to exp on end-game before. Burn parties just got better/easier, and people are trying to do it at lower levels (I haven't had a party ask for skillchains since umm level 58 but that was before CoP). drk/thf had a place in the world for exactly 5 levels (66-71) and thus, those were the levels that having BLM would be truely nice.

I really like the magic burst >> MP idea but as Vyuru pointed out, it'd save you like 30ish mp out of 300 or so spent. I have another idea... and I guess I'll go ahead and post it even though the thread's about Icemage's abilities and is thus a derailing: a job ability with a low recast or even a spell to boost your next spell (we don't see enough spell combos in this game). I know this doesn't solve the MP issue, but it would at least give them a unique party dynamic.

an ability so contingent on Magic Burst, whoever has hate would gain some rather small amount of tp. So basically, your MBing gives the PLD tank an ability to keep up with the other DDs. Nope, don't think that ability would help much. It'd either get exploited by 3-4 BLMs/party or it'd be so trivial that you'd be better off inviting another DD.

Anywho, I really like the idea of Magic Burst > Defense down but I don't think it's rational since MB kills. So I was thinking of things that would give tangible benefit for the coming fight. I'm also keen on the idea of creating a bond with your friendly neighborhood Paladin. There was the idea of the Skillchain added effects which would be interesting, and there was the idea of the MB buff-splash effect, which would likely solve the problem but would be too complicated to introduce and likely create all sorts of other exploits (Blms are now Brds... greeaaaat). Still really like the rest of Icemage's ideas.

[Aeni]

Re: The BLM Problem

I think what wtfbbq is asking for is that for certain ToAU mobs that are being TP burned to extinction now that their defense be made to what other mobs are.

For example...

Let's say at level 55, we have these Bats with 400 defense. These are RoZ bats.

Now we look at some of these monsters in ToAU. For example, a Colibri. These have 200 defense at level 55.

Do you see what the problem is? I certainly do. Raise those defense up to par (so in the example, it's no different from fighting a Bat in KRT or a pugil in CT) and it will nullify TP burn, since all melees are going to do then is kill 40% slower and give hella lot of TP in the process to the monster so it can spam nasty, nasty things.

[Vyuru]

Re: The BLM Problem

Or, instead... Have higher level marid/chigoe in other parts of the zones. This would not only encourage parties to invite blm to nuke the chigoe to death, it would also require a paladin tank in order to withstand both the chigoe and the marid.

Since the goal of a marid party is to keep the marid alive for as long as possible, and just kill the chigoe, certain jobs that supposedly don't deal "worthwhile" damage will be invited to them as well, since I would assume that a Rampage spamming war/nin would just be bad. This would hopefully net TP burn unfriendly jobs more invites.

[Aeni]

Re: The BLM Problem

Since the goal of a marid party is to keep the marid alive for as long as possible, and just kill the chigoe, certain jobs that supposedly don't deal "worthwhile" damage will be invited to them as well, since I would assume that a Rampage spamming war/nin would just be bad. This would hopefully net TP burn unfriendly jobs more invites.

I seriously doubt SE's designers had that thought in mind with Marids and Chigoes. Rather than introduce complex "custom" encounters to suit every possible job combinations, it would be better to simply keep the way things have always been before. Namely, normalizing monster difficulties in every zone, including ToAU.

[Vyuru]

Re: The BLM Problem

I seriously doubt SE's designers had that thought in mind with Marids and Chigoes.

True, but that is what the players have done. This mob combo seems to be more geared for a pld tank and a blm in the party, I don't think it would be that hard for SE to sprinkle some higher level marids around the zones to create some new exp sites for higher level parties.

[Aeni]

Re: The BLM Problem

True, but that is what the players have done. This mob combo seems to be more geared for a pld tank and a blm in the party, I don't think it would be that hard for SE to sprinkle some higher level marids around the zones to create some new exp sites for higher level parties.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for your idea and it sounds good (on paper) but if you remember that one recent interview featuring Berticus (sp) from BlueGarters and where he interviewed one of the developers or PR or something and that person was quoted saying something to the degree that "it exists?" for some problem that had existed for the entire life span of this game.

It already shook my faith in SE with regards to whether or not they even understand their own game they develop for (i.e., do they even play the game and I'm not even talking about giving them some level 80 character that they never bothered to level legitimately either)

[Vyuru]

Re: The BLM Problem

Ahh, I see. I do have to agree with you, I really doubt SE has anyone who plays the game and starts from scratch.

I think they are doing an ok job, but at the same time there are things that kinda bug me...

But I will say that the chigoe spawning mobs and those shiny things that can take on other shapes/attack styles seem to be totally geared towards paladin tanks. I don't know what those things are called, but they can take on a spider shape and their sickle slash is supposed to ignore shadows.

I get the feeling that since alot of people complained that CoP promoted mage/ranger only strategies, I suspect that is why so much of ToAU seems to be so melee friendly. Maybe SE just went a bit overboard and didn't consider how attractive a 15%exp bonus is with weaker mobs. Just like SE didn't seem to think that so many people would flood Whitegate to use the AH there due to lower AH taxes.

To be honest, I wouldn't have thought of it. I'm just as happy in a standard party as I am in a TP burn, fine, one party I get 7k/hr with and the other I can get 12k/hr with, exp is exp.


Back on topic, what about creating new refresh gear for mages to wear? I think all of the current refresh gear gives 1mp/3s and is on the body armor slot only. Why not make some refresh earrings/rings that give maybe 2mp/3s and have the refresh effect stack?

This may create a problem for red mages, since everyone considers them to be mainly refresh monkeys, so I would say some tweaks to rdm would be needed as well, maybe some new funky enfeebles, kinda like Pain or Meltdown from FF8 (though dia is kinda like Meltdown, just not as strong)

I would also say up a red mage's healing traits a bit, give them regen II at the very least, and maybe upping their magic damage a little just to make them a little more competitive with black mages. And by that I'm thinking along the lines of, blm hit for more, and get resisted less, let rdm hit for less, but give them a trait or something so that they don't get resisted quite as much. Damage wise rdm seem fine, they just seem to get resisted alot more.

[Aeni]

Re: The BLM Problem

Back on topic, what about creating new refresh gear for mages to wear? I think all of the current refresh gear gives 1mp/3s and is on the body armor slot only. Why not make some refresh earrings/rings that give maybe 2mp/3s and have the refresh effect stack?.

Well, the problem is that the refresh effect isn't well documented through official sources. Some of it is only activated through some mysterious latent tripwire, while others vary in the degree of the bonus or in how they stack with each other (Perfect example of this is the mp regen of juice and the effect of the refresh spell)

Plus, they have to make sure they balance everything out. If they give out too much refresh, stacked with a relic horn (BRD relic weapon) and having a COR in party along with a RDM ... you could probably have BLMs that don't sit at all during HNM events, which could be a very bad thing.

[Eauijhkuu]

Re: The BLM Problem

High respawn rate and physically weak mobs have forced the /NIN sub down everyone's throat and made TP burn more popular than ever, increase spawn times and up DEF a bit and this would change things and pull BLM back in to the picture.

People are content to think this game is perfectly fine so long as they're getting thier 10K+/limit point per hour, but lets face it, level 75 shouldn't be "bonus time" or a vacation from real PT tactics. It should be just as much work to merit as it was to EXP. Skillchains and magic bursts should be happening, but as of now, they're not.

Maybe once SE decides to put some penalties in /NIN, kinda like they do with /THF, things will actually get back on track. I. E. Utsusemi as /NIN should probably work more like a Blink spell. Or. /NIN doesn't acquire Dual Wield +haste traits.

But we know that these nuances won't happen.

[Aeni]

Re: The BLM Problem

Maybe once SE decides to put some penalties in /NIN, kinda like they do with /THF, things will actually get back on track. I. E. Utsusemi as /NIN should probably work more like a Blink spell. Or. /NIN doesn't acquire Dual Wield +haste traits.

But we know that these nuances won't happen.

I hope they do that, because as a DRK/THF with a very useless SA (Only for WS, even if SA timer is up, it's not like a simple SATA does anything) I experience this penalty and I don't see SE changing that for me. Same goes when someone subs a RDM but still see enfeebling resists due to a piss-poor or no skill at all on main job ... by this same logic, NIN being subbed should be nerfed. This includes the dual wield traits.