Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

[admx9]

Re: Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

Ranged Attack Adjustments
- Ranged attack enmity
Less enmity will be incurred the further away you are from the target of your ranged attacks.

This is not an ability.

[Ziero]

Re: Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

I'm pretty sure the benefits of Camoflage will cross over, given that its under sub level. This will give the enmity sensitive CORs and SAMs a little something. I could actually see this being somewhat helpful to COR/DNC especially, since use of that sub sometimes nets a bit more enmity. Making my Slug Shots lower on enmity should ease things up in a PT where light cures are needed.

Omg seems to be talking about the ability. Unless I'm wrong, in which case the wording is a bit misleading.

[admx9]

Re: Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

I agree.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

...errr, how is a Rng ability going to help Cor/Dnc?

I got my wires crossed, I was going to say something about COR/RNG and slug shot spam and then I got excited about some Persona 3 Portable news on Destructoid, then forgot what the hell I was talking about. Persona 3, yay. Ranger, yay.

[ShadowHolyFlyingDragon]

Re: Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

It's very sweet of SE to provide these updates to RNG. Aww hug

Be that as it may, aren't there a couple of other jobs that have gotten the shaft and need way more attention other than RNG at the current, present time? I mean, these additions to RNG are cosmetic, at best. Why would you touch up and make pretty one of your little kids who is already looking good and has friends, but then completely ignore the smelly, fugly ass cross-eyed kid with the buckteeth and greasy long hair? That sounds abusive.

It's JOB ABUSE and stuff..... or um, .... SE's catering to a select group because of under the table earmarks... a conspiracy I tell you. Someone call Michael Moore GDI. Make a movie and call it, "FFXI JOBS: Who do you 'really' work for?"

/makeafunny

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

Fugly, cross-eyed kid can suffer a little while longer.

On BST and SMN, I will say it is time for some new pets. While it won't fix everything for those jobs it is actually rather overdue, particularly considering BST hasn't seen new jugs in just as long as SMN hasn't seen new avatars, meaning the CoP days. I just hope they don't unload both avatars in one go and they have functions that will remain exclusive to SMN.

BST has some holes in jug families. I know they'd probably throw another vermin jug at us anyway and I'll gladly take a Ladybug if they do, but I'd like to see the jug selection round out with an amorph like the slug mobs and colibri. And whatever those rabbit broths are that they've been sitting on in the DATs.

I wouldn't say the RNG update is cosmetic. It streamlines a few minor issues and adds some new utility, RNG didn't need more than that and I appreciate the small boost to the job. It might not have been urgent to add them, but still nice they considered RNG.

[Malacite]

Re: Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

I just hope they don't unload both avatars in one go and they have functions that will remain exclusive to SMN.

I'm pretty sure giving them both was their intent? I want the new toys right away! :D

For BST, what's been even more annoying than the lack of Jugs is the lack of new charmable mobs. God forbid they introduce a handful of mobs that con EM to a 75 BST at places like Nyzul Isle bird camp.


Getting back to jugs though, we need more uncapped pets that don't require extremely expensive or obscure ingredients to synth (hi2u CoP jugs...). An H.Q. Scorpion & Slime jug would just make my day, especially the slime.

[Lmnop]

Re: Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

RNG play is too demanding of out-of-game knowledge for performance that struggles to keep up with Samurai. It was easy for them to implement slight changes* and shoot them out as opposed to the year-long process they've dedicated to SMN fixes (unless you believe, as I very well may, that they've just been telling us there are SMN changes coming down the pipe and now that it's time they're like "shit make something up").

For a job like RNG that isn't exactly spectacular at the moment but also has no real negative connotation (they're no DRG of ye olde), slight adjustments are absolutely wonderful.

*The lowered enmity is an interesting new schtick to shove onto RNG. Granted, this makes 2/3 piercing DDs have a focus on enmity avoidance and the 3rd's focus is enmity control... but it does give a feasible reason to keep a RNG around when they can do higher damage before turning the mob and fucking up melee WSs, tank positions (I HATE YOU, IXION), and generally marching AoE-loving NMs into the mages (DID I MENTION I HATE YOU, IXION?). The whole "RNG far away makes less enmity" plays well with the whole "RNG trick bitch = bad" mentality for the levels where that could still exist.

Yes, I didn't address COR. We all know they do decent damage. We also know it's not really their reason for being in a party. But yeah yeah, it'll be great for them, too.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

RNG play is too demanding of out-of-game knowledge for performance that struggles to keep up with Samurai. It was easy for them to implement slight changes* and shoot them out as opposed to the year-long process they've dedicated to SMN fixes (unless you believe, as I very well may, that they've just been telling us there are SMN changes coming down the pipe and now that it's time they're like "shit make something up").

I see you're among the many that have swiftly forgotten that SMN has already had other update and tweaks within the last year. BST and RNG's last go was just before WotG came out. SMN has seen a pact adjustment and Spirit Siphon since then and saw another pact adjustment before WotG.

Let's stop the charade that SE has been doing nothing with SMN. Their updates have been every bit as incremental as BST, DRG and PUPs have seen over the years. And personally, I think PUP deserves a lot more than SMN does right now. SMN can totally get invites, they just solo out of spite.

Half of the summoners in this game won't be happy until SMN is the WTFPWN job of FFXI and the other half will just settle for avatars. I don't see much changing with SMN attitudes in this update. I think the SMNr update will be along the lines of what we've seen for RDM and WHM, only it will affect avatars in new ways. And SMNs won't be happy with it because its not WTFPWN, calling it now.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

On BST and SMN, I will say it is time for some new pets.

Of course you will. ADD: Oh, crap, I totally misread that. I thought it said "I will say when it is time for some new pets." Amazing how the exclusion of one word can change the entire meaning. <.<;

(unless you believe, as I very well may, that they've just been telling us there are SMN changes coming down the pipe and now that it's time they're like "shit make something up")

Two words and two more words joined by a hyphen: wood-burning stove avatar.

Speaking of Pet Food Alpha, have I mentioned how annoying it is when people who don't even have Summoner leveled get all excited over the whole new avatar hype? Granted, it is even more irritating when people who actually main the dang job also think that a shiny new avatar is the magical solution to all their problems, but still.

---------- Post added at 10:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:29 PM ----------

I see you're among the many that have swiftly forgotten that SMN has already had other update and tweaks within the last year. BST and RNG's last go was just before WotG came out. SMN has seen a pact adjustment and Spirit Siphon since then and saw another pact adjustment before WotG.

Let's stop the charade that SE has been doing nothing with SMN. Their updates have been every bit as incremental as BST, DRG and PUPs have seen over the years.

Yes, there have been very minor, incremental tweaks over the past year, to things that shouldn't have even been problems in the first place!

I'm not claiming to know everything or anything like that, but I do know that every Summoner screamed with joy when the Blood Pacts got another timer among them. Just saying.

About Elemental Siphon, though, it was a decent, unique idea. It at least didn't involve trying program around Summoner's problems rather than actually fixing them. Of course, the problem that they fixed was "Elemental Spirits were never used at all," and now they're on a similar call-dismiss basis to most of the avatars. Well, at least it's progress.

And personally, I think PUP deserves a lot more than SMN does right now. SMN can totally get invites, they just solo out of spite.

I'll agree that PUP deserves an update, but I still contend that SMN deserves an overhauling. Of course, it's only spiteful to your party to not relinquish the job you signed up to play to be some under-appreciated sub-par mana-battery healer solely from the spells and abilities of one of the only two support jobs available to you. Astral Burn parties hardly count, for obvious reasons; they are exceptions to the rule, if anything.

Half of the summoners in this game won't be happy until SMN is the WTFPWN job of FFXI and the other half will just settle for avatars. I don't see much changing with SMN attitudes in this update.

While I have no opinion on your predictions that follow these statements, I am depressed to say that this is the only part of your post I can find some agreement with.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

There's a reason for other jobs to get excited about new avatars. Challenging avatars grants various other jobs some nice items and gives those jobs incentive to help the SMN obtain an avatar. Even if they don't want a reward item, they still get a gil reward. We don't get excited about new avatars just because we're happy for you and think it will save the job.

BLUs want to do Ifrit at least once for his sword, RNGs and PLDs like some of the things Fenrir has. Diabolos has a nice torque. PUPs like Shiva's Claws. Other SMNs will want to do celestials over and over just for the quested ring. Others see it as free gil. Our motives for wanting avatars are not entirely altruistic to SMN.

Fenrir and Diabolos also just happen to have really fun fights, in which some of us enjoy the challenge of not having to burn it down.

Yes, there have been very minor, incremental tweaks over the past year, to things that shouldn't have even been problems in the first place!

What do you think RNG just got? What is the RNG attitude toward the update?

Not necessarily needed but appreciated all the same. That's the attitude going around.

SMN's attitude when they get the same treatment? "Vindictive bitch" sums it up quite nicely.

That's a rather stark contrast. SE apparently owes SMN everything when they've done far more damage to RNG and BST than they ever have SMN. SE has taken the time to bring RNG and BST back to form, why can't SMNs pick up on that and just be patient?

Hell, its not really a small coincidence that BST got all these party-friendly changes prior to FoV's implementation. SE clearly knew there would he consequences to that update and that it could have decimated BST camps a second time. It still kinda did that, but it doesn't hurt so much when you have CoP, ToA and WotG areas that FoV doesn't show up in and countless dungeons players are scared shitless to enter on their own.

Also - Spirit Siphon. "Incremental" my ass, thats an update, clear as day. SMN is to WotG what DRK was to ToA. /end Shantotto

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

Ah. Well, just throw me in the altruist category. Even back when RDM was going six years without an update, I still said that the only job that should have gotten something good before us was SMN. And us RDMs got our update. Fun fact: SMN got an update, too, in April. But April was the WHM and RDM update, not the WHM, RDM, and SMN update. Off the top of my head all I can remember is that Hastega got a chance to overwrite spider web Slow, and then that made me remember that it apparently didn't overwrite any kind of Slow previously. I think there was also something about making Merited Blood Pacts usable.

Point is, I feel that the job is just that screwed up as it is, and am just enraged that people would think that something as simple as more, new avatars would fix it. Like I said earlier, the main SMNs that believed that were the most annoying of that crowd.

What do you think RNG just got? What is the RNG attitude toward the update?

Not necessarily needed but appreciated all the same. That's the attitude going around.

SMN's attitude when they get the same treatment? "Vindictive bitch" sums it up quite nicely.

That's a rather stark contrast.

Ther'e a rather stark difference in the examples you provided.

RNG is getting nice tweaks that it wasn't really in dire need of, and would have probably been better suited for one of S-E's "Job Adjustments Part II" posts. The point is, Ranger is still a very functional job, and you can attest for that yourself.

SMN, meanwhile, gets a small chunk of trying to program around the problems that could have very easily not existed from the word go. It was a fundamental error in design, a Mage that mostly doesn't cast Magic, and you all have seen me rant on that time and again. While they've weaved their way and made exceptions for most of these, there are still some particularly jarring faux pas that S-E has yet to deal with, such as the whole lolAmnesia issue, which you know that Dancers and Scholars (among other jobs) would be quite up in arms if Summoners were just given a "get out of Amnesia free" card.

All these SMN tweak fixes around incremental problems would have been entirely unnecessary, and in all likelihood dealt with as a whole a lot sooner, if S-E just admitted that they borked up the design badly and went to work on it. The difference between updating Ranger and updating Summoner is that Ranger does not need an overhauling in their very foundation that S-E is continually trying to worm their way out of. You say that S-E dealt more damage to Rangers and Beastmasters, but you're not paying attention to any of the damage that was dealt from the start. (And iirc BradyGames was the one that took the "highest parse" award for damage vs. Beastmasters.)



I had already indicated I was mildly impressed with Elemental Siphon; in my post, my intent was to separate it from the "typical" Summoner update of code-twisting.

[Clever Ninja]

Re: Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

SMN is actually not that great for getting into parties. With some work on my part in a leveling party(not merit), I can solo heal and haste a party of 6 on my RDM without a BRD, just a tank(usually NIN nowadays on Hades), 4 DD and myself. If the tank is shitty or the other DD grabbing hate is an issue, I just only haste the tank, cast Refresh on myself every 7.5 minutes and never really have a big problem unless there's a big WTF issue with the party. I Astral Burned my SMN from 27ish to 57 recently, I can seek on SMN and I'll get a Astral Burn invite before I get a regular xp party invite, and frankly when you can chose from THREE other jobs that can do the healing/support role better than SMN, it's no surprise.

Even ignoring this, fact is SMN has almost always needed to try and get invites as a healer due to its subjob, not due to its avatars. That in itself is a glaring design flaw. I've actually gotten 1 invite at East Ronfaure [s] to DD as a SMN, and I felt like a kind of gimp BLM, only reason I think I did decently well was cause I was timing BP's like Double Punch to Skillchain with people. Although SMN have some use in endgame at least over Beastmaster since the 70 physical BP's, and with the semi-recent changes to them, the 75 Magic BP's allow some nice hate free spike damage for the SMN. Still, it'd be nice if they just redid the entire system of avatars, cause it honestly doesn't work for any SMN that's below 70.

Unless of course the class was designed to carby kite bombs, in which case it's working as intended.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

RNG is getting nice tweaks that it wasn't really in dire need of, and would have probably been better suited for one of S-E's "Job Adjustments Part II" posts. The point is, Ranger is still a very functional job, and you can attest for that yourself.

Way to miss your own point.

SMN got adjustments they "should have had years ago." You make light of what RNG just got, but these things also should have been there when these adjustments originally came. People said from the moment we had Velocity Shot that it should have a longer duration. When the "sweet spot" concept was invented, RNGs were saying SE should implement a means to measure that.

But we couldn't have said that were those ideas not implemented in the first place, nor could Summoners say anything about the last pact adjustment without Pacts being separated into Rage and Ward to start with. SE couldn't have known for sure that RNGs would want Velocity Shot on all the time until they saw what RNG were doing with it with the merit adjustm\nst. Since a lot of use aren't fortunate enough to have a KC or a Riddil for Slug spam, we put our merits in Snap Shot.

Each update SE gives RNG more Snapshot gear now. Gee, I wonder why? Could it be that jobs like BRD neglect buffing RNGs, even with Pianissimo? We can't benefit from Haste and BRDs won't give us attack buffs, and we really like attack, so we eat meat to make up for the BRD's fail.

And where does all that Snapshot and Attack get us? It gets us a lot of attention. What to do? Layer a new Enmity formula into the sweet spot scheme. Could we see gear with latents that reduce enmity further if I'm in the sweet spot? Perhaps. And what of Camouflage? Will the effect of that stack in the sweet spot?

When our Category 2s expanded to five points max, that changed things dramatically as well. Gone was all this focus on Flashy Shot. Since Velocity Shot and Snapshot merits boosted us up and Flashy was only good for zergs, we only upgrade it once now and put the rest into full Snapshot merits and four Recycle.

Stop acting like RNG is this simple, straight forward job design - you change one thing and all your updates following it are influnced. I already pointed out that Corsair and Samurai would be affected from adjustments to ranged attacks.

Why do you think SMN is such a nightmare to balance? Why do you think it has been treated like a support class? Mostly, because it CAN'T be what it was in the offline game because this is an online game. You make one step toward making SMN the WTFPWN job and all others will be abandoned. Each job needs a purpose, SE settled on SMN's purpose being a support class that does air strikes.

Stuff

Enough of this "Summoner's summon" circle jerk trash. Thieves steal. Where does that get them in FFXI? They couldn't build a whole job around pilfering so it was given the ability to manipulate Enmity and cause spike damage from behind. Dragoons Jump and jumping is all well and good, but shedding enmity doesn't make you a DD, they had to be given two accuracy bonus traits, subtle blow for their pets and a whole new formula with the two handers to keep up with dual wielders.

If all a SMN did was summon, why even have the job? There's always been the caveat to summoner - you pay for your power with frailty. SMN can viably use /RDM, /SCH and /WHM but you guys always like to use /WHM as your crutch argument, that its what defines you. Yet you cling to it shamelessly. You say healing is the WHM's job but the second you're without Curaga you crap your pants. /SCH addresses SMN's MP issues wonderfully, but no, we just keep ignoring that inconvenient truth because it doesn't give SMNs the WTFPWN they really want. They don't care if the support facets of their jobs or even avatar buffs get fixed at all.

[ShadowHolyFlyingDragon]

Re: Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

SMN is actually not that great for getting into parties. With some work on my part in a leveling party(not merit), I can solo heal and haste a party of 6 on my RDM without a BRD, just a tank(usually NIN nowadays on Hades), 4 DD and myself. If the tank is shitty or the other DD grabbing hate is an issue, I just only haste the tank, cast Refresh on myself every 7.5 minutes and never really have a big problem unless there's a big WTF issue with the party. I Astral Burned my SMN from 27ish to 57 recently, I can seek on SMN and I'll get a Astral Burn invite before I get a regular xp party invite, and frankly when you can chose from THREE other jobs that can do the healing/support role better than SMN, it's no surprise.

Even ignoring this, fact is SMN has almost always needed to try and get invites as a healer due to its subjob, not due to its avatars. That in itself is a glaring design flaw. I've actually gotten 1 invite at East Ronfaure [s] to DD as a SMN, and I felt like a kind of gimp BLM, only reason I think I did decently well was cause I was timing BP's like Double Punch to Skillchain with people. Although SMN have some use in endgame at least over Beastmaster since the 70 physical BP's, and with the semi-recent changes to them, the 75 Magic BP's allow some nice hate free spike damage for the SMN. Still, it'd be nice if they just redid the entire system of avatars, cause it honestly doesn't work for any SMN that's below 70.

Unless of course the class was designed to carby kite bombs, in which case it's working as intended.

Sounds like user-eror to me. lol SMN isn't broken. It's different; definitely not a RDM or BRD. If you think it's broken, go play those other jobs and feel e-peen like every other mindless DA. In the meantime, the truly informed SMN players will keep pluggin away doing what they do best.... pwn. kthxbai

We do want new toys tho...