SE and the Dragoons

[Balodoth]

Interesting idea, Macht. I have to say I'm fascinated by the idea of getting a 2-hour effect after losing your 2-hour ability. One thing I wanted to point out is that I don't want DRG to be just as powerful without the wyvern as with, just for DRG to be closer to that level. I also want to remind you that you are usually in one of two situations with your wyvern's lifespan. You have no problem keeping it alive, or it dies nearly immediately. And that's the idea behind a toggle ability. I know my random thought wasn't balanced (although I feel it's closer than some things mentioned in this thread), but it was designed to encourage use of the wyvern. The ability helped it stay alive longer, so when summoned you would get more out of it, split your hate, breath attacks, etc. But if the wyvern died anyway, you could still function, you just would have a harder time managing hate, would lose the damage from breath attacks, etc.

The main thing my idea lacked was something to encourage summoning the wyvern as soon as the timer was up. Of course that could be done and fix another problem at the same time. Hate may be split between you and your wyvern, but having damage come from two sources means giving the monster more TP. Having the ability drain HP and TP not only rectifies the situation but makes the wyvern a valuable asset that the entire party can appreciate. And notice that giving a portion of the monster's TP to the wyvern isn't going to make a huge difference in damage output or run the risk of doing something that should belong to SAM. You know, this is arguably balanced. It doesn't increase the damage done when the wyvern is out, it only increases its lifespan and lowers damage taken, and then only randomly. The only time it does increase damage is when damage from the wyvern is unavailable, meaning the increase only serves to generate a portion of the missing damage while providing new issues with hate and other basic things.

I wanted to point out there is another way to go with the Dismiss issue. A few people like the idea of partial waits for near full health dismissals, which is a good option. Waiting 1% of the timer for a wyvern dismissed at 99% health makes sense. Another option would be to give a brief period of invincibility to the wyvern whenever Spirit Link is used. If S-E makes the HP we lose more directly proportional to the HP the wyvern gains, they could in turn include a period of time where any damage the wyvern takes--magical, physical, AoE, status effect or otherwise--is nullified or perhaps transferred to us. A period of 10 or so seconds would then allow us to check the wyvern's health and dismiss if needed. Protecting your wyvern would enforce the buddy system and provide a couple other benefits. It could be used to protect the wyvern from a particularly severe attack. If the DRG takes the damage, Spirit Link could effectively become another hate modifier ability.

Lastly, This may seem ironic to mention this now, but I feel the need to repeat this: Making a suggestion is the quickest way to ensure it never happens. S-E is not going to do something exactly like we have it written in the forum. They want it to be original, and there could be possible legal ramifications of copying an idea off the internet. (For which purposes, if S-E ever likes/wants my ideas I'll gladly waive personal rights to those ideas as S-E's intellectual property.) So let's keep the discussion focused on clarifying DRG's issues and basics directions to take to resolve them, not specific solutions themselves.

[fuz]

I think you're being paranoid, or superstitious about being jinxed. Specific solutions are good too, since they lay the groundwork for more ideas. Even bad ideas can be good for inspiration--the only bad part is reading through all the ideas people come up with and not having your head explode. Besides, we do need a means of actually fixing drg’s weak areas, so I’m perfectly willing to stir the pot as some say.

We also have no physical (and legally sustainable) evidence that the ideas are ours, and ours alone to copyright. A virtual post with a date that can be changed with no traces, isn't exactly proof. Though it would be nice if S-E could give credit to the person with the idea, plagiarism is rampant and proof non-existent in digital media, so it’s not likely they can name a single individual.

As far as some more thoughts of mine, I think the recall timer based on remaining wyvern HP is a good idea. However it still stands that if a wyvern dies outright, we still have 2 hours where a drg is operating on a reduced or ineffective level. These aren’t just occasional situations like the minimal penalty of a rng being unable to efficiently fight bone mobs, but on several arenas--some very important in the case of bcnms and hnms.

I’m also concerned at the lack of attention paid the drg/mage combination, since it relies even more heavily on the wyvern to be present at all times. Most of my posts about reducing the 2hr timer to an extraordinarily short duration are in support of this job/sub combination. Frankly the wyvern needs to be revive-able within a short time, even if the drg himself is KO-ed alongside.

My new and more radical solution, which is a further twist on old ideas, (including the reduced recall) is to have the wyvern available at all times with recall, on a 1min recast regardless of HP, and 5min after it dies. This makes more sense than only having the wyvern come back only when it has 100% hp. It will regen 4%HP/10sec went sent away, and come back, even with less than full HP. AF and other special effects will not operate with the wyvern dismissed. Effects like poison will not be removed and will continue to plage the wyvern until it is spirit linked or the status wears off. It takes a little over 4 min to regen all HP from 1HP. Spirit link will still be available for a quicker heal. (Not sure if it should overrun and give the wyvern a stoneskin esque buffer of free HP, but it could be nice--or overpowered.)

However if it dies, the wyvern will only be available with 25% max of normal hp if summoned immediately after death. As the 2hr timer counts down, the wyvern’s HP will eventually rise with it, in 25% increments. So there is an incentive to keep the bugger alive, but it won’t be totally damming if it dies often. Obviously, it’s much better to have the wyvern dismissed to regen for a bit, than to have it die.

Since wyvern hp as a quantity (not a percent) affects its breaths, melee attacks (not sure), and survivability, I think it’s a decent countermeasure to keep it balanced. But, I would change the healing breath attacks to perform based on the percent of current HP, so that they can be 100% effective even on a weakened max HP. The obvious reason it to allow a drg/mage to continue to perform--albeit, with more caution. The wyvern would likely have to be dismissed most of the time and only recalled when a cure/status breath is needed.

So the 2hr still maintains its ‘2-hour’ likeness and semblance compared to other jobs, but the penalty of loss is softened to a more palatable quantity to give a drg some badly needed freedom.

Combine it with my thoughts on revised jumps and manual attack breaths, drg becomes a much more involving job. Could be good, or bad, but it will allow those with some more micomanagement ability to seperate themselves from others.

[Balodoth]

My random thought for the day: DRG needs a new ability at level 60. They just gave THF, WHM, and SAM something new. Let's do that for DRG too.

[Gekoman]

Originally posted by Balodoth
My random thought for the day: DRG needs a new ability at level 60. They just gave THF, WHM, and SAM something new. Let's do that for DRG too.

Stun Jump to protect our wyverns! (even if its a little)

[DakAttack]

At stun to High Jump and we'll have an AE dodging ability that will make us just as useful as Drk.

[Macht]

Hmm, the idea you put Fuz is intresting. Sounds like it may need a little more adjustment. However programming wise I'm not to sure if it'll be as possible, I don't mean that they couldn't do it. What I mean is if they'd really be willing to spend the time to make so many changes.

I'm already quite sure that their programming is extreemly modular and each module develops produces the effects for each spell and ability (You can see this relation with the changes made to Utsusemi and the side-effects of it also effecting the SAMs Third Eye).

I'm not to sure about the recall idea working like that. It sounds very involving game wise but it sounds even more complex and more riddled with possible problems to arise programming wise. Also the idea of the Wyvern being immediatly resummonable but at a 25% health penalty in the conditions you said might be a little to overpowering still. Aside from that I don't see how it enforces the buddy system with the Wyvern and DRG, it seems to make it where the DRG won't care to much about the Wyvern.

In fact with being able to resummon at 25% kind of encourages the Wyvern's death to 0 out hate on it again. I mean why would it matter then if the Wyvern dies I can resummon it again at 25% health and 0 hate on the monster I'm fighting. It also kind of adds another nail to a DRG wanting to use Spirit Link.

As the comment about an idea wanting to be original. Well SE wasn't being to original when they added mannequines, that was an actual suggestion sent to them. As far as ideas, you have no claim to them unless you've copyrighted it and placed a patent on it. Otherwise any ideas you state are open for anyone to take and use, I know this as a fact with my family an invention my grandfather came up with he has blueprints and everything to it's design but he never actually got a patent or copyrighted it so it was stolen from him.

Without a patent or copyright any ideas are free for grabs. Then the first person to actually copyright it gains authority over the idea regardless if it was actually their idea or not.

[DakAttack]

I don't know about you Macht, but when I'm in a party with tons of AE I don't want my Wyvern to die, but at the same time I know it's going to be impossible to keep chains up without it dieing.


Life Link - Ressurect your Wyvern for a 50% penalty to your life.


This way the healer will have something to heal instead of watching me waste my TP. I don't see any way this can be abused as it takes a toll on you for the Wyvern like Spirit Link.

[Macht]

Originally posted by Impaction
I don't know about you Macht, but when I'm in a party with tons of AE I don't want my Wyvern to die, but at the same time I know it's going to be impossible to keep chains up without it dieing.


Life Link - Ressurect your Wyvern for a 50% penalty to your life.


This way the healer will have something to heal instead of watching me waste my TP. I don't see any way this can be abused as it takes a toll on you for the Wyvern like Spirit Link.

I agree I wouldn't want it to die either, if I can get the wyvern back without waiting the 2hrs again then I'd be up for it. The tricky part though is making sure it still enforces the partnership between Wyvern and DRG and not be something were the player isn't taking any active effort to keep his Wyvern alive.

Life Link is intresting but it might conflict with the Spirit Link. Instead of ideas of bringing back the Wyvern what about something that balanced were you can prevent it from death. Something were you can activate it and when the wyvern reaches that 1HP it keeps the wyvern alive at an expense to the DRG in some way for each negative damage that the wyvern would of recieved.

Not really sure on what kind of penalty doing a double damage to the DRG sounds way to debilitating that it would make the effect useless, but not sure what sort of adjustment wouldn't make it to overpowering. If it was to only give the DRG 25% extra damage then the problems spawn if the DRG purposely tries to get his wyvern to tank, then what the DRG looses only 25% of the damage the wyvern should of taken?

[Balodoth]

Soooooo. . . you become a stoneskin to your wyvern? A damage sink?

Sort of a cool idea. How would you make it something the party wants you to do? I don't see the WHM being all too happy curing you. Although I could see it being useful in solo situations with a mage sub. Another option would be a temporary dismissal where your wyvern goes away and returns after a set period of time, likely dependant on how much HP it has. If the ability were used with high health, the wyvern would return shortly because you are using the ability to protect it from further damage. If used when near death, you obviously aren't protecting it well and are just attempting to avoid the 2-hour timer, you'll have to wait longer. In fact, you could extend the idea like Jump/High/Super where you have Dismiss, the temporary one, and the one where it goes away and doesn't return until it's HP regens. As an idea, perhaps you could call the abilities Refuge and Recuperate?

I'm still of the persuasion that S-E should exploit DRG's subjob flexibility. For instance, if the subjob has MP, DRG should get a bonus. It doesn't throw game balance out the window, it just means resting a little less often. And if the wyvern is supposed to react to your actions, as opposed to being controlled like a pet, why doesn't it do something interesting when I use my subjob abilities? If you want parties to appreciate what we bring to the table, let's make the wyvern more active than attacks, breaths, and Super Climb. When I use Berserk, Sneak Attack, or Divine Seal, let's interrupt what the wyvern is doing so it can do something interesting and useful. But notice it's dependant on the subjob, not when I Jump, High Jump, Spirit Link, etc.

[Lmnop]

it's too far into the game to do it but..... what if the wyvern wasn't a target? AoEs don't target it, and something beating on it takes your hp instead. I dunno, I gotta go >.<

[Balodoth]

Something like an "Ambient Defense Bonus" that lowers the damage taken from AoE noticeably? It wouldn't keep it from taking damage, especially if directly targeted, but it would help it live longer.

One other thing I was thinking of is that they wyvern is able to use its breaths whether or not it has over 100% TP. So there's no reason we can't sacrifice some of its TP to regenerate health. The only problem is that we must do the same. Perhaps some change along the lines of the wyvern slowly regenerating HP as TP lowers whenever the wyvern is out of attack mode. Then in between fights it would gain a tad bit of health, all of it if there's a long enough pause. But it would go only so long as there is TP to back it up, so it requires us to fight to fuel the ability.

[lionx]

I still really think that a TP Absorb move that is able to be used lets the Wyvern use a breath attack to your liking depending on your sub. I actually would like to call that Lancet and it would suck TP out of the mob like leech's TP Drainkiss or something like that, and therefore you are able to use a breath if you have the right sub. Make it unresistable or something like that...it might help the HNM Scene because you are able to suck TP out of mobs and then use a breath..say every 2 minutes or something? Make it a really high level ability and that the DRG doesnt have to be in orange HP to be able to use the breath attack. If not, the TP Transfer from DRG to Wyvern to use a breath might help...

Maybe even AoE Heal..>_>; i dont know..

[DakAttack]

Re: SE and the Dragoons

Why doesn't the Wyvern have a two-hour ability? Dragoon's is Call Wyvern, and at the command of the Dragoon the Wyvern can unleash it's own two-hour ability. Maybe a light or dark breath? I always feel useless in a pinch when everybody can use their two-hour but me.

I know somebody mentioned a sub-job specific two-hour ability. That wouldn't be bad at all. Wyvern Mighty Strikes, or Wyvern Benediction, or Wyvern Meikyo Suishi, or even Wyvern Mijin Gakure if you're weird. It sounds like a splendid, no, make that grand idea!

[lionx]

Re: SE and the Dragoons

Wouldnt it be overpowered in that sense then? As cool as it is...maybe we can gimp it so its half as powerful as the real 2hrs? That and if i see a Hundred fists from the Wyvern he might end up tanking..O_o;; Or what about Perfect Dodge? Thats useless even vs AoE. Same in Invincible(course that means the wyvern is tanking...O_o I dunno how that works out). How would a BST 2hr work out then, or BLM or RDM? But EES Wyvern is...wewt o_o;a I dunno...seems only certain 2hrs would be useful...

[Balodoth]

Re: SE and the Dragoons

That actually sounds like fun, Impaction. Of course they would have to make a few alterations to allow the wyvern to use your sub's 2-hr. I think it goes without saying that it wouldn't be as powerful as the real 2-hr, but even a 50% return on your base HP for Wyvern Benediction is awesome. My question is, what about Manafont? What about Chain Spell? Soul Voice? Familiar, Astral Flow, or Meikyo Shisui?

They would have to be adapted, and, as in as many cases as possible rely on your actions. For instance, manafont would likely have the wyvern use a breath to restore a percentage of the MP you use during that timeframe. Soul Voice could be fixed if the wyvern sings a song that compliments yours (making DRG the first job outside BRD to stack two songs), then when it uses it's cry (what we'll call a wyvern song), it's as powerful as if you had sung it. I really don't care to figure them all out. Go have fun.