The OFFICIAL "Wings of the Goddess" at TGS 2007 Thread! DANCER AND RELEASE DATE!

[Feba]

Re: The OFFICIAL "Wings of the Goddess" at TGS 2007 Thread! DANCER AND RELEASE DATE!

while PLD will simply outshine all others with it's superior abilities.

won't work.

Either it will be as it is now, where everything else is considered an MP sink, or PLD will be cast aside for jobs that are tanks AND pump out more damage.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: The OFFICIAL "Wings of the Goddess" at TGS 2007 Thread! DANCER AND RELEASE DATE!

I will agree that we basically have two kinds of tanking right now, blood tanking and blink tanking, which is exactly why I think we could use another tank job. The game could use another perspective on damage mitigation. I don't really have a pet idea on how to do it, but I feel there are definately other ways to do it that haven't been explored. What if, for example, there was a job that mitigated damage magically like a rdm does with stoneskin and phalanx, with cost-effective self-defensive spells staggered throughout their levels and the hate tools to make use of them? I think some people have suggested that geomancer would be a flavorful fit for the position.

You missed my point on the matter. What I mean is, there are only two types of Tanking in the game. EVERY JOB IN THE GAME can do one or the other. How well they do it is an entirely different matter.

Although I do agree there need to be new ways of Tanking found out, I just don't think it possible. Magically reducing damage, as you said, is still technically Blood Tanking. If Geomancer has it, as you say, it will still be in direct competition with Paladin. Sad thing is is if it handled well and is seen through to the end, it may end up being even more effective than Paladin.

. . . I've think I have some possible ways of Tanking that are niether Blood nor Blink: Bind Tanking and Balloon Tanking, though I don't think either could work in FFXI, and I could be wrong on both.

Bind Tanking, in theory, forces the mob to stay at a distance away from you, while keeping its attention focused on you, somehow. This could be a variation of Blink Tanking, though. DoT could also only be accomplished through Nuking and Ranged Attack.

Balloon Tanking, also in theory, sends endlessly replaceable objects, or, "balloons," to Tank for you. Being a minor object, or a "Balloon," they'd obviously "pop" very easily, so they, in theory, need to either be sent en masse (impossible with FFXI), or the delay to replacing the "balloon" would be short enough for the monster to not cause any problems, faster than instantanious even, or they could hinder the monster's ability to attack while the they are replaced. Not only that, but the new "balloon" would have to gain hate very fast as well.

I don't think either would work in FFXI, though. Even if they did, that would still only mean a maximum of four Tank jobs in that game, since people will be wanting "the best of the best." And this is still assuming niether Bind nor Balloon count as either Blood or Blink.

[Taskmage]

Re: The OFFICIAL "Wings of the Goddess" at TGS 2007 Thread! DANCER AND RELEASE DATE!

won't work.
Either it will be as it is now, where everything else is considered an MP sink, or PLD will be cast aside for jobs that are tanks AND pump out more damage.

Truth. If any melee can effectively tank, but pld tanks better while not doing as much damage, the next thing we'll see is 4 wars, a brd and a rdm being the preferred party while pld gets left out in the cold. Oh, wait ...

[Yellow Mage]

Re: The OFFICIAL "Wings of the Goddess" at TGS 2007 Thread! DANCER AND RELEASE DATE!

So it's a contradiction?

Yes, it is. He stated Summoners are "suited for healing," when, in fact, it was just /WHM.

[Illuen]

Re: The OFFICIAL "Wings of the Goddess" at TGS 2007 Thread! DANCER AND RELEASE DATE!

Yes, it is. He stated Summoners are "suited for healing," when, in fact, it was just /WHM.

It isn't just /WHM, otherwise any job could be main healer with /WHM. SMN has a naturally gigantic MP pool and Auto-Refresh which helps with the replenishment of that pool, in addition to the large amounts of enmity - gear that most mages get that allows SMN to heal effectively. I honestly think, at this point in the game, the biggest hurdle that any healing job has is self sufficiency. "Can we heal continuously without having to rest for prolonged periods of time". White Mage's problem is that they have no way to do so, short of relying on BRD, COR or RDM. If a Chemist job was released as many have suggested, casting spells with reagents ala NIN, then I could easily see it become the premier healing job simply through the virtue that they would not have to rest mid battle. If they had the needed items, they could heal until the cows come home, and then heal up the cows, and parties would stick to them like white on rice.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: The OFFICIAL "Wings of the Goddess" at TGS 2007 Thread! DANCER AND RELEASE DATE!

You've clearly stated earlier that Summoners are "suited for the role" of Healer, but, really, nothing really backs this up from the Summoner standpoint with the exception of Garuda's Healing Wind thing and Leviathan's Spring Water. Why do Summoners seem suited to heal? Because they have MP, and can sub White Mage! By that broken logic, you can pose a Black Mage as a healer!

This clearly contradicts your position on tanking jobs. You claim neither Paladin nor Ninja would be very good Tanks without /WAR, ergo, Warrior deserves the Tanking credit.

Let's go further and see your statement about Warrior's clearly intentional design: if intentional designs truly prevailed, Ninjas would be another Damage Dealer (as per my "thesis" ), and they'd switch places with Warriors. But, as I stated earlier on in this post, there are only two types of Tanking, and players only accept the best of the best of each.

Also by your logic, every job you've listed should be able to heal well, even without /WHM. In reality, /WHM is all Summoners have! How does that make Summoner itself a healer? It doesn't. In it's current state, it's a broken job, which can only get by with /WHM.

What else could SMN sub?

They could sub /COR for a boost to pet accuracy/attack in both physical and magical form, but that means they'd only use MP to summon, which is a waste considering you could also support allies with /WHM.

SMN is one of the few jobs where you can't use a subjob to enhance the function of the main job, but instead use the main job as a means to facilitate a use for /WHM. Its backwards, yes, but how can it be otherwise?

So you see, your argument toward my "hypocrisy" on tanking won't work. WAR gives PLD and NIN the most basic abilities they need to tank. That means WAR pushes those jobs forward on its own merits. SMN can only reach back, look around and find WHM and WHM puts nothing toward summoning gods except a little bit of extra MP. But that MP does help them aid PTs in another way.

Most subjobs supplement the main job and not the other way around and SMN is one of the exceptions. I've come to question COR/WARs recently for this exact reason. WAR gives CORs something that's difficult for them to gain through gear and almost impractical to gain through meat - attack. But what is COR main's greatest deficiency from the start?

Accuracy. B rating in gun is hard to overcome on its own. RNG and NIN are your best natural choices with which to address that matter. Option B is going with a mage subjob and playing to COR's potential for full support. Again, this gives COR something it didn't have before - MP - and can allow them to fufill a different role. NIN can supplement COR's pulling abilities as well, allowing them to avoid damage while doing so, in addition to gaining more accuracy from dual wield.

But COR/WAR? That would mean I'm using the main job to make up for the deficiencies /WAR has imposed on me. I lose the +22 Ranged Accuracy /RNG would have given me by default, in addition to roughly 7.5 accuracy from latent gear. Some would have me believe that sushi can make up for that, yet they claim at the same time that /RNG and meat doesn't work as well.

All things considered COR/WAR + Sushi and COR/RNG + Meat are actually on even ground in terms of accuracy. But if I was COR/RNG + Sushi, I wouldn't have to bank on Hunter's Roll, which is exactly what a COR/WAR does. So COR has to use a main job function to make up for /WAR - Hunter's Roll. This could often be at the expense of the other party member's needs, which is why I object to it.

Because when all is said and done, I'm invited to support the PT, not supplement my own accuracy or damage. I'm simply not invited to pump out epeen numbers. I'll allowed the luxury of DD most of the time, but I go with what the PT needs and cover my accuracy needs myself or just willingly forgo DD entirely and pull with /NIN or full support on /WHM.

Now before you go pointing at COR/WHM and say that's backwards and that I'm using Evoker's Roll to benefit from WHM, remember. I couldn't have had /WHM's MP without subbing it and when I go /WHM there's not much intention for it other than full support or soloing. Also, subbing WHM and using evoker's wouldn't just be for myself only. So WHM evolves my role in a new direction that exactly the same as why a BRD would sub it and it doesn't take away from the mage's needs.

Unless SE devises a new job that can help SMN's push their abilities with avatars via subjob, I don't see it getting much better that /WHM and fringe subs like /BRD or /COR. Its backwards and, yes, that sucks, but its there's no easy answer to a better sub than /WHM.

Just the way it is.

SE could stand to make buffing as SMN less awkward by enhancing thier AoE range, in addition to giving SMN some more buff variety. There is an eventual payoff in terms of power, so I don't know how I feel about scaling up the damage. MP conservation is an issue that could stand to be addressed as well, though.

[Raydeus]

Re: The OFFICIAL "Wings of the Goddess" at TGS 2007 Thread! DANCER AND RELEASE DATE!

But COR/WAR? That would mean I'm using the main job to make up for the deficiencies /WAR has imposed on me. I lose the +22 Ranged Accuracy /RNG would have given me by default, in addition to roughly 7.5 accuracy from latent gear. Some would have me believe that sushi can make up for that, yet they claim at the same time that /RNG and meat doesn't work as well.

About this, shouldn't marksmanship's dmg rely on acc/dex (and +ranged att I guess) rather than on physical attack from things like meat? With a gun you have capped max damage to begin with, but the damage you actually inflict relies solely on your accuracy.

Then again I have no experience what so ever with ranged attacks, but this has always bugged me.

[Malacite]

Re: The OFFICIAL "Wings of the Goddess" at TGS 2007 Thread! DANCER AND RELEASE DATE!

won't work.

Either it will be as it is now, where everything else is considered an MP sink, or PLD will be cast aside for jobs that are tanks AND pump out more damage.

Not necessarily. There should be a large enough gap between PLD and the other jobs.

E.g, with decent armor a WAR would be taking 50-80 a hit (more with zerk obviously) while a PLD would be taking 15-20, and have the healing power to keep himself (or more fittingly for the job, others) alive.

It would all hinge on just how much SE scales it. I'm not suggesting that a WAR should be able to tank like a PLD does now with Berserk up. That would be absurd (and well, let's face it NIN already does this anyway) just that any heavy armor DD should be able to take hits a lot better, with PLD being the king laughing off attacks and keeping others alive.

[Armando]

Re: The OFFICIAL "Wings of the Goddess" at TGS 2007 Thread! DANCER AND RELEASE DATE!

But then DRK would be able to take hits!

Sorry, couldn't resist. It's true that in principle plate-wearing jobs should take less damage, but at this point you'd need to seriously re-think every piece of armor to adjust their damage mitigation relative to the next thing if you wanted to differentiate them by type. Let's face it, most endgame armors have pretty close Defense ratings regardless of whether it's a strip of leather running accross your forehead, a darksteel armet, or a tiara.

At best they could lower the damage floor on monster damage. It's not so much that the damage doesn't scale down well enough as it is the fact that mobs have a minimum PDIF that happens to be unreasonably high. The reason stupidly high defense doesn't help is because that minimum won't budge no matter what you do.

[Taskmage]

Re: The OFFICIAL "Wings of the Goddess" at TGS 2007 Thread! DANCER AND RELEASE DATE!

Wheee absurdly long post!

Regarding relative effectiveness of plds:

Let's say we have a warrior tanking with high defense and vit, using a great axe. Warriors have no damage mitigating abilities to speak of from their main job aside from defender, which as others have pointed out has a very small effect since defense has dimisnishing returns. So we'll say that the tanking efficiency of this hypothetical war is 0%; the whm's mp is doing 100% of the damage mitigation.

Paladins have essentially 3 things going for them in terms of damage mitigation: high shield skill, Sentinel, and Flash. According to Armando's shield data, a size 3 shield has an average total damage reduction of about 25% on high T mobs. Without data on VT mobs we'll ballpark the real number for exp mobs at 20%. Sentinel reduces damage by 90% for 30 seconds out of every 5 minutes, or 10% of the time, so assuming continuous fighting it reduces total damage recieved by 9%. Flash, when unresisted, essentially negates 3 of a mob's attacks every 45 seconds, so assuming the standard 4 second delay for mobs that's 12/45 attacks or ~27% total damage reduction. So for a pld with equal defense and vit to the war under continuous attack by a mob that makes maximum use of Flash and Sentinel, the pld is 47% more efficient than the war; the whm will need to negate only 53% of the damage the tank would have taken without those abilities.

calc

100% x (100% - 20%) x (100% - 9%) x (100% - 27%) = 53.14%

Please understand that this is a gross estimate meant purely for rhetorical purposes, and I understand that many things are not taken into account. Despite that, I hope I've shown how despite the effect of defense pld really is a significantly more effective tank than other blood tank options. The defense stat isn't the core of a paladin's defensive ability.

post

Let me list the ways that we mitigate damage:

1 -% damage: A percentage of the damage an attack would deal is negated. This includes shield blocking, Dread Spikes and Sentinel. The defense stat falls here as well, I suppose though it's not linear like other two.

2 -damage: The damage an attack would deal is reduced by a fixed number. Phalanx and Stoneskin do this with different limitations.

3 -% attacks: The number of attacks a mob lands in a given time period is reduced by a percentage. Slow, Elegy, Paralyze and Flash do this. Evasion goes here with the same caveat as defense.

4 -attacks: The number of attacks a mob lands in a given amount of time is reduced by a fixed number. Blink effects go here. For reference, ninjas with no recast modifiers can produce 17 shadows max every 90 seconds. "Balloon tanking" would essentially be a more flavorful version of the same thing.

The perception of blood tanking is that it focuses on the first category, and paladin is thought of as a specialist in blood tanking. I think this school of thought is flawed. As you can see, paladins major in type 1 mitigation but also significant type 3, while ninjas rely heavily on group 4 and give varying emphasis to type 3. Making a tank job that focuses on type 3 mitigation would be pointless since rdms and brds have that pretty much taken care of while not actually getting in harm's way. Group 2 on the other hand still has a lot of potential to grow, with even the strongest in that category (rdm) still having to rely on shadows to truely tank.

As an example of how this type of tanking could have its own distinct flavor, let's say we have three self-target versions of the spell Phalanx. Fakelanx I reduces damage by 30 and lasts 3 minutes, Fakelanx II reduces damage by 100 and lasts 30 seconds, and Fakelanx III reduces damage by 500 but only lasts 10 seconds. All have a recast of 3 minutes. Your puller brings an eruca and you want to ramp enmity quickly so you start with Fakelanx II to stop most of the normal melee damage. The mob uses Incinerate unusually early in the fight, prompting you to Fakelanx III to block most of the damage, but now you have to fall back on the weaker Fakelanx I to finish the fight, leaving you vulnerable to another Incinerate when it reaches 20% life. At least you didn't start the fight with Fakelanx I instead though, since that would have left you with no damage mitigation at all at the end of the fight. For endgame situations, a job with the Fakelanx spells probably would not be suited for sustained tanking but could take control of a Hundred Fisted dynamis monk as easily as a pld, and could shrug off heavy hitters like Citadel Buster and Fulmination in a way that no other job in the game so far is capable of.

[Tyros]

Re: The OFFICIAL "Wings of the Goddess" at TGS 2007 Thread! DANCER AND RELEASE DATE!

Wings of the Goddess official site updated, even though front page doesn't list it.

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/altana/index.html

New features include the TGS trailer in English, job info (Short blurb) and pics of dancer, and new mob pictures. There are two pages I can't get to yet, they just don't load.

[Raydeus]

Re: The OFFICIAL "Wings of the Goddess" at TGS 2007 Thread! DANCER AND RELEASE DATE!

While I'm of the idea that turtle tanking should have a much greater impact on dmg mitigation (and allow jobs like MNK to have a chance at tanking), something like a natural armor enhancement effect from a passive trait would help PLD (not loldefensebonus), without changing the way def/vit works right now.

(Edit > For instance a trait that would kinda ignore lvl difference up to 7 lvls higher than the PLD and/or lower the floor on enemy dmg so defense didn't have deminishing returns so early.)

I'd like to see PLD as a job where armor enhanced an already natural resistence to physical dmg.

And I'd really like to see armor types making a difference in dmg taken. For instance cloacks and other mage clothing could have an edge against magical dmg, while heavy armor could have an edge against blunt/slashing dmg or chainmail against piercing. And magical/enhanced armor/clothing (and other armor type combinations) having a greater impact than what the shallow def stat has right now.

Of course I don't expect this ever happening, but it would be nice.

[Cometgreen]

Re: The OFFICIAL "Wings of the Goddess" at TGS 2007 Thread! DANCER AND RELEASE DATE!

Well the trailer's hella explicit about Atomos. I wonder how the ugly blob is gonna fit into the rest of the established history, as the trailer suggests that someone out there is aware of him/her/it.

I'm really going to have to double time it on my missions. This trailer makes it look like the expansion is going to be referencing everything, from all three nations to RotZ and CoP.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: The OFFICIAL "Wings of the Goddess" at TGS 2007 Thread! DANCER AND RELEASE DATE!

Off-topic, but somebody's got a new sig, and it isn't me.

[Aksannyi]

Re: The OFFICIAL "Wings of the Goddess" at TGS 2007 Thread! DANCER AND RELEASE DATE!

Off-topic, but somebody's got a new sig, and it isn't me.

Ooh, you're right ... I like it. ^_^