Overall Battle System Adjustments For The Future

It would seem the goal is to make it so people can't completely ignore defense - DRK/WAR stacking LR and Zerk and such, with like 86 defense, should get smacked harder than someone who's not actively lowering their defense (like a mage who just sits around 300 because they are wearing actual mage gear).

I thought the idea was to bring turtle PLDs back and make them semi useful?

Don't need defense adjustments for that, if you change the enmity mechanics. (Though if they want turtling to work again, it wouldn't hurt).

looks like 1 handed relics are gonna own again

If a 1H job has twice as much attack as the target's defense, currently it will not benefit from increasing its attack further because this Ratio is capped to 2. For 2H jobs, the ratio is capped at 2.25.
Example: Level 99 Crab has 500 Defense. 1H John has 1000 Attack. John's damage is not going to change at all when he uses Berserk and has 1250 Attack because he's attack capped.
Example: Level 99 Crab has 500 Defense. 2H Joe has 1000 Attack. Joe's damage will increase when he uses Berserk and has 1250 attack because he moves from 2.0 Ratio to 2.5 Ratio (which is then capped to 2.25).

This difference matters more when fighting high level enemies because or something called "level correction." Level correction penalizes you 0.05 Ratio for every level the monster is above you.
Example: Level 119 Crab still has 500 Defense. 1H John still has 1000 Attack, which gives him 2.0 Ratio. This ratio is then level corrected down to 1. ( -(119-99)*0.05 = -1 )
Example: Level 119 Crab still has 500 Defense. 2H Joe has Berserk up, so he's at 1250 Attack, which gives him his capped 2.25 Ratio. This ratio is then level corrected down to 1.25.

When fighting level 99 crab, 2.25/2 = 2H weapons have 12.5% more Ratio
When fighting level 119 crab, 1.25/1 = 2H weapons have 25% more Ratio

Ratio is proportional to the damage you do, so the difference between 1H and 2H weapons in high buff situations was magnified by level correction. This is one of the reasons that 2H weapons were preferred for highly buffed zergs.


The elimination of this difference could have a major impact on how we do events, but it is very unlikely that 1H weapons will suddenly become exclusively preferred to 2H weapons.

Here is the relevant page on bgwiki: http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/PDIF
You'll mostly want to read the top to understand how these changes are going to work.








Possible implications of the change:
* Pet damage will likely be hit with the monster vs. player nerf, which means that they won't do as much damage against low level enemies (like Dynamis EPs) as they used to.
* 1H DDs can expect up to about a 20-25% increase in their DPS in highly buffed situations.
* It's not easy/possible to say what kind of impact these changes will have on job abilities like Berserk and Counterstance. If they severely affect Berserk, then it is possible that the Ratio cap changes for 1H DDs will actually be somewhat irrelevant because we won't be able to sub WAR and use Berserk.
* It is possible that players will begin to value methods of decreasing monster Defense (Dia II/III, Box Step, Tachi: Ageha - if patched -, Angon, etc.) after the patch, because they don't come with a corresponding increase in monster->player damage.
* 1H WSs with attack bonuses (like Mandalic Stab, Blade Shun, Tornado Kick, Ascetic's Fury, or Ruinator) will be more useful as a result of this change in situations where you're near but not at the new Ratio cap.

One of your crab examples has 200 defense.

Non-DNC 1h users are still going to face more accuracy issues than two-handers, but yes, all that extra attack won't hurt.

Yes, yes, that's all fine and good, but isn't the counterpoint to the native attack buff issue that DW jobs frequently get a lot more flexibility in their SJ choices? If every native DWer can just sub WAR anyway, what does it matter if they don't get it natively?

Moreover, if LR/Berserk end up being as dodgy propositions as SE clearly wants them to be, wouldn't DWers stand to lose a lot less by subbing NIN and being done with it than the 2Hers that lose so much by not subbing SAM? I guess Seigan isn't irrelevant, but that's not a great comfort in light of the AoE attacks that wipe melee groups.

Thinking the big winner here is NIN/WAR, which gets both shadows and the ability to use Berserk.

Bru.

Maybe. I'd actually put the big winner as DNC, which has fewer acc issues than other 1h users, and a native defense down ability.

[edit: blue mage also seems like it wins big here]

BLU occurred to me right after I posted that, but I was looking at it more as DD jobs that are underperforming right now that will be a lot better off after this change. I was to understand BLU was doing okay, though yeah, DNC is looking good and certainly brings a lot more of its own utility to the table than NIN in an alliance situation.

In any case I want to see how the Sneak Attack bug works out. If it was indeed an intended stealth buff to /THF, I might finally make Twashtar for DNC.

EDIT: So, so much of this hinges on if and how SE makes good on its claim that enmity will be fixed in SoA. Beyond making PLD functional again, any job with a meaningful positional ability will benefit: THF, anybody with a reason to sub THF (provided SA is intended), HUGE for RNG, and for NIN, Innin becomes pretty crazy.

As long as EP don't get harder as a result of these changes. That was the one thing I was concerned about regarding this adjustment. It would be a real shame if EP became equivalent to DC in terms of difficulty, DC became EM, etc or something.

All this stuff sounds really great. Are we, as a community, agreed that this is a positive adjustment across the board? Byrth made mention of pets doing worse against EP but how will the pets do against higher level monsters? Will there be a little more equilibrium from damage on EP vs. damage on IT?

I'd guess that pets will see little to no improvement against high level enemies. I asked about it specifically on the official forums, but unless you're taking advantage of a lot of sources of Pet Attack this seems like a straight pet damage nerf to me (though it is doubtlessly not the intent).
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/29831-Overall-Battle-System-Adjustments-for-the-Future?p=395985&viewfull=1#post395985

That would be sad. Jokes aside, I think we'd all like to see BST and PUP get their day in the sun.

The issue with pets has been and will continue to be attack. Afaik they already ignore level correction or get a bonus toward it. (BST pets anyway, idk about wyverns and automatons)

I always used Beast Roll at the pet-burn Proto-Ultima!

Autos do not. They need the attachment to do that and it's only partial anyways.

Avatars don't ignore level correction either. I'm not certain BST pets do either.

I haven't got any other ideas as to why BST pets tend to hit mobs like DC dynamis mobs and VWNMs for semi-respectable damage. The former would be mostly explained by a positive LCF, while the latter would be explained by ignoring or at least mitigating most of negative LCF


At the very least I'd hazard a sizable wager that BST pets ignore level correction penalties

BST has its sunlight....PUP needs that one event where its like "WOMG I WANT A PUP IN THAR!"

Pup's pretty rad in salvage, but people are all "lolpup hurrrrrr durrrrrr". It's pretty sad. But just salvage isn't really enough imho. A single event that is fairly limited shouldn't be the only reason a job is around :(.

That's because alot of people give pup a bad name....by having ***gear and skill. Pup attracts that crowd mainly. :/

PUP is getting about a metric *** more out of the ratio adjustment than BST is (assuming H2H is included), does that count?

H2h is not included in this they already said. On a side note, I thought pets including Wyverns had some kind of bonus to level correction which was why at 75 my unbuffed Wyvern was rocking Kirin for 40-50 damage while 2handed DRKs and WARs were hitting for 0's unbuffed. AFAIK, pets almost never hit for 0's on high level NMs, it's like they ignore defense but are still subject to STR vs VIT checks or something. Even in Legion where those HNMs have like 900-1k+ defense or whatever, my Wyvern still; hits em for 50-65, there are times when I get fully dispelled and hit the same NMs with base ~650 attack for 0-30 damage but the Wyvern hits for 60. I wish people would figure out a way to calculate pet attack/pet DMG and overall pet damage calculation. We've been able to calculate and derive just about everything else except that.

Feel free to quote me the bit that says H2H definitely isn't getting the ratio adjustments

Oh I figured this already. I just don't think pups will "shine" as they put it. They are still "lolpup" to most. Hopefully this will change. Yes Proth, is it good enough. I'm pretty sure h2h will get just as much benefit as 1h's.

Even if PUP was the best thing ever it'd still be lolPUP. Have you seen the clothes that they wear?

That's lore related and only the AF3 :P. I love my circus gear, thank you!

Usukane+1 and Thaumas? They look just like MNKs!