GA Only! kthxbai....

[Ruffyreborn]

I do agree, its really dumb to KICK someone after invite because you dont have GA leveled... But I see no problem with you not getting invites because of it.

Just go back in time 2 weeks, and slap drk, sam or drg over your war and try that on for size

 

[DarkMagnus]

Why do I have the feeling this wouldn't be the same case if they were dual wielding swords (not ridill)?

What wouldn't be the same case? They wanted him/her to use a gaxe.

 

[Sneakypants]

For all the "job balancing" adjustments introduced over the years, this one is a fuck up. A bump to damage and accuracy would have been welcome of course, but something that completely changes things over night, things that people have worked hard to achieve for 4 years, to the point that even the most pimped dual wielders can easily be outdone...That's disgraceful. I'm all for 2 handed weapons getting a bump, and seeing people merit with jobs besides WAR MNK NIN. That's good for diversity and balance. SE just fucked that all up.


Good job with the balancing that they always say they strive to maintain though, right?
GG


We can talk about tables turning, but it's beyond that. All the 2 handed jobs were fine before, if played correctly. They could have used a bump...A nudge. People were too closed minded about leveling/meriting with diverse selections of jobs before. This change has not balanced anything. It will "force" closed-minded people into inviting the same few jobs to merit - only it's a different same few jobs than before.


I'm not trying to rant too much, since I do think a bump was well deserved and I am enjoying it myself, but there certainly needs to be some adjustments. (I should not be taking my E rated polearm skill on level 72 PLD, with no grip/strap, with Defender up, and 150 polearm skill, busting off 1k Penta Thrusts on crabs. Or hitting them, with Defender up, and with them having their DEF+ active, with NQ hits for 100-150, critting for 200-300. Makes zero sense.)

I'd like to see SE shoot for a middle of the road adjustment. Something in between how things were before this update, and the way things are currently. I think that will allow for a slightly more open to diverse job selections than we are currently seeing. As THF main, I have always been part of the "lolunwanted" jobs, and in that regard I couldn't care less. I've always done my own thing. But for job balancing's sake, that SE has always patted themselves on the back for, I'd like to see some reasonable changes made. Not a nasty nerf, but something reasonable.

 

[hellstorm]

People have always expected drks to have both g.swd and scythe ready to go at all levels. Rangers usually(?) have archery and marksmanship both ready to go. Some sams have g.kt and archery both available (and sometimes polearm but that's lol). Wars have always ridden rampage's ass like it's the neighborhood whore, now they too finally are expected to have more than one weapon skilled up, deal. Though honestly, are self-respecting war would've had it skilled or at least worked on it during their freetime anyway.

this I would agree with, even pre-update gaxe was better in sky. (unless cannoning)

Anyone find it funny.. hes bitching bout Great Axe wielders... yet in his sig he's carrying a Great Axe?

not really if not mistaken that the relic great axe. Plus just because someone has both gaxe and axe merited does not mean they want to use gaxe all the time.

GA for me beats dual-weilding with Ridill...and I have 0 DA merits. This was tested with the exact same sub. Don't tell me its not much difference, because it is.
Subbing thf is stupid. /SAM if you want the big numbers, /NIN as always for survivability and fluidity.

If WAR could /war they should do that.

Until this new update comes out to somewhat fix what was done, people should be looking for GA wars, and yes, I'd probably kick someone who didn't have it leveled. I would have done this pre-update anyway though. Even after the 'fix', if you don't have GA available, be ready to be sitting on the sidelines asking for coach to put you in.

1st off you use a fortitude axe which a lot of war do not have unless the have sea(before you ask yes I have sea and yes I have fort. axe). Which your going to reply if you don't have sea then you should be sitting on side lines to merit also. Am I right? Next Im sure you have alot of str gear to take advance of the 1str>1atk glich/buff. Which again most war do not have. As for ridill war it has always been question if ridill was better then axe/axe. Also when you say tested what was your parameters, was you parseing yourself with both weapons or competing with another war. Did you attempt this several times and on different types of mobs? What type food was you using? What was you gear in both cases? Did you have a control?

 

[Silenus]

Good WAR's love GAxes; it's time to fall in love with them again

Gogogo WAR/MNK tanking Mandys in the Jungle with GAxes! wOOt!

 

[Phraust]

My only problem with any situations like this is flat out, The jobs should be unbalanced.

Going in contrast to what Sneaky said, certain jobs need to have certain merits based on thier functionality. Finding a middle road is a foul. Homogenization is the bane of all gameplay. There becomes a point to where you basically play a job soley on asthetics... Because all the jobs have the same potential.

In my opinion, SE should make stronger distinctions between the classes, and go back to thier roots, making areas with mobs that are conducive to certani party settups. However, that would have to rely on the players not being tools.

However...
Hell is other people.

No matter what, you will end up with a floating crema of expertise, and that's what settled at the top. Certain jobs had thier Field expertise. Like Sams were used in LS for Skillchains on HNM, Blms, were used to nuke those Skillchains, Thieves were used for soloing and TH in HNM, etc...

All the 'undesired' jobs were used for meriting. Monks and Wars got thier share. The only problem with this became, that Meriting became 80% of the game after a while. Mainly due to wear, and people having thier stuff, and Items being worth jack shit. But to make that arena open to all the other jobs for the sake of "fairness", it's Bullshit. Should there be a bump? A nudge? Sure. But what would be a logical way to do said bump?

Imo, you need to analyze the classes for thier merits and redesign areas to better suit them. I.E. Make areas were demons/imps/squids reside for Sam parties, to take advantage of thier job traits and Slashing bonuses; while not gimping the EXP. Make the spots pretty specific and rewardign to those job classes, while a detriment to others. Make "Ink Jet" and "Hecatomb Wave" really severe blind(Ink Jet already is) and make it require multiple Blindnas, like Mortal ray requires multiple Cursnas, and in the process make Sams' 'resist blind' trait really strong. The only job currently that has the proper model for thier effectiveness is monks.

So if SE really wants to make an "Adjustment" they should ajust the game dynamics smarter, not try to make all the jobs alike.

One of the things that woudl have made more sense, would be to make areas where mobs were weak to G.Axe "Crushing Damage", while making trolls weak to crushing, and increase the damage bonuses on GK, and Scythe, and Pole for Slashing/Piercing respectively. That way if you did trolls, yoru war would do better as a G.Axe user than a Ridillberk, and Bird camp would be better populated by Drgs than monks. Send the monks to populate now barren Bone camps, and reformulate the fauna around the shipwrecks to give Sams and Drks a place to play.

THAT would be an adjustment.

 

[Sneakypants]

So if SE really wants to make an "Adjustment" they should ajust the game dynamics smarter, not try to make all the jobs alike.

One of the things that woudl have made more sense, would be to make areas where mobs were weak to G.Axe "Crushing Damage", while making trolls weak to crushing, and increase the damage bonuses on GK, and Scythe, and Pole for Slashing/Piercing respectively. That way if you did trolls, yoru war would do better as a G.Axe user than a Ridillberk, and Bird camp would be better populated by Drgs than monks. Send the monks to populate now barren Bone camps, and reformulate the fauna around the shipwrecks to give Sams and Drks a place to play.

THAT would be an adjustment.

This is something like I had in mind.
All the jobs are already different, just by having unique abilities. Some balance is good, but I agree that in areas where the MOBs are weak to blunt/slashing/piercing or certain elements, it would be really cool to see that type of damage shine, or amplify the current dynamic as it seems you are saying.

Seems more than a little odd as things exist today, taking your pimped THF to a weak-to-piercing camp, and having non-merited AH 2-handers keeping up or outperforming. (see: Lionsheart's example). Things like this require balance. Not mind numbing and plain vanilla flavored balance, but balance that doesn't pigeon hole the vast population of robots into the next bandwagon-or-bust jobs, and I'd wager we'll see that change eventually.

 

[Ruffyreborn]

Bone camps arent that bad, and are ideal for pld and/or whm parties. Do not many people know that Banish raises the reduced damage from undead?? Ive yet to see a WHM or PLD actually cast banish on undead while were fighting them, most likely because they dont know

 

[Zoltan]

People have always expected drks to have both g.swd and scythe ready to go at all levels. Rangers usually(?) have archery and marksmanship both ready to go. Some sams have g.kt and archery both available (and sometimes polearm but that's lol). Wars have always ridden rampage's ass like it's the neighborhood whore, now they too finally are expected to have more than one weapon skilled up, deal. Though honestly, are self-respecting war would've had it skilled or at least worked on it during their freetime anyway.

I agree with Rappa.

After all Great Axe IS the warrior's A+ skill. If you didn't skill boith then you're gimped. That's the way it is. Go skill it up. Don't expect sympathy from parties.

I always capped GA first, then would switch to Axe in XP parties. Some people objected, but now I get to laff at them.

There were times like in Mount Zhayolm on Magmatic Eruca where Spinning Axe + Mistral axe pwned. If leader demanded that I switch to Axe, I would switch. But it was quite rare.

On a good note, there are lots of people shouting in Whitegate for skillup parties 200+ now. If you're not at that level, try killing EP mobs or higher, you can skillup that way.

Good Luck.

 

[jamal]

this I would agree with, even pre-update gaxe was better in sky. (unless cannoning)

not really if not mistaken that the relic great axe. Plus just because someone has both gaxe and axe merited does not mean they want to use gaxe all the time.

1st off you use a fortitude axe which a lot of war do not have unless the have sea(before you ask yes I have sea and yes I have fort. axe). Which your going to reply if you don't have sea then you should be sitting on side lines to merit also. Am I right? Next Im sure you have alot of str gear to take advance of the 1str>1atk glich/buff. Which again most war do not have. As for ridill war it has always been question if ridill was better then axe/axe. Also when you say tested what was your parameters, was you parseing yourself with both weapons or competing with another war. Did you attempt this several times and on different types of mobs? What type food was you using? What was you gear in both cases? Did you have a control?

That has never been a question. Never.

As for the rest...Read the parse before you throw out bullshit questions, we did multiple tests on mobs without a weakness to certain weapons. I parsed my WAR using GA, and I parsed my WAR using Rid/jug. Its not written in stone yet, but its obvious that GA has a huge advantage. Mistra won the second parse without fortitude axe, and I first-voked the second parse and still kept up in damage while shadow casting, which in the Rid/Jug party, I had to do very little at all.
IFF the mobs had a longer life to them, then the increased DoT of Axe/Axe or Axe/Ridill would be closer, but with mobs dieing so quickly, any inherant advantage would be dissipated. Look at the DoT numbers for me against Phraust, he almost beat me there as well, because if the Ridill triple didn't kick in, the massiveness of the first couple of katana hits gave him more damage than my jug/ridill could muster in the 10 seconds the mob was alive.

 

[Ruffyreborn]

I agree with Rappa.

After all Great Axe IS the warrior's A+ skill. If you didn't skill boith then you're gimped. That's the way it is. Go skill it up. Don't expect sympathy from parties.

I always capped GA first, then would switch to Axe in XP parties. Some people objected, but now I get to laff at them.

There were times like in Mount Zhayolm on Magmatic Eruca where Spinning Axe + Mistral axe pwned. If leader demanded that I switch to Axe, I would switch. But it was quite rare.

On a good note, there are lots of people shouting in Whitegate for skillup parties 200+ now. If you're not at that level, try killing EP mobs or higher, you can skillup that way.

Good Luck.

I agree. As DRK, I had Scythe skilled up, and since it was my first actualy job to 75 so long ago, I ignorantly neglected GS. NP, I took time off to go skill it up, even though it took a few weeks.

On DRK, Ive skilled up so many weapons, either useful or useless, I still did it. I maxed my scythe, GS, sword and axe on drk alone. A few months ago, I began leveling GA on DRK as well.

At the moment, Im leveling Ninja, and along with Ninja I am leveling up GK. GK will be short lived, however, because katana are close to becoming a decent source of damage compared to what they were. But Im still leveling it.

Just stop bitching and complaining and go level you A+ weapons

 

[Mattaru]

My only problem with any situations like this is flat out, The jobs should be unbalanced.

Going in contrast to what Sneaky said, certain jobs need to have certain merits based on thier functionality. Finding a middle road is a foul. Homogenization is the bane of all gameplay. There becomes a point to where you basically play a job soley on asthetics... Because all the jobs have the same potential.

In my opinion, SE should make stronger distinctions between the classes, and go back to thier roots, making areas with mobs that are conducive to certani party settups. However, that would have to rely on the players not being tools.

However...
Hell is other people.

No matter what, you will end up with a floating crema of expertise, and that's what settled at the top. Certain jobs had thier Field expertise. Like Sams were used in LS for Skillchains on HNM, Blms, were used to nuke those Skillchains, Thieves were used for soloing and TH in HNM, etc...

All the 'undesired' jobs were used for meriting. Monks and Wars got thier share. The only problem with this became, that Meriting became 80% of the game after a while. Mainly due to wear, and people having thier stuff, and Items being worth jack shit. But to make that arena open to all the other jobs for the sake of "fairness", it's Bullshit. Should there be a bump? A nudge? Sure. But what would be a logical way to do said bump?

Imo, you need to analyze the classes for thier merits and redesign areas to better suit them. I.E. Make areas were demons/imps/squids reside for Sam parties, to take advantage of thier job traits and Slashing bonuses; while not gimping the EXP. Make the spots pretty specific and rewardign to those job classes, while a detriment to others. Make "Ink Jet" and "Hecatomb Wave" really severe blind(Ink Jet already is) and make it require multiple Blindnas, like Mortal ray requires multiple Cursnas, and in the process make Sams' 'resist blind' trait really strong. The only job currently that has the proper model for thier effectiveness is monks.

So if SE really wants to make an "Adjustment" they should ajust the game dynamics smarter, not try to make all the jobs alike.

One of the things that woudl have made more sense, would be to make areas where mobs were weak to G.Axe "Crushing Damage", while making trolls weak to crushing, and increase the damage bonuses on GK, and Scythe, and Pole for Slashing/Piercing respectively. That way if you did trolls, yoru war would do better as a G.Axe user than a Ridillberk, and Bird camp would be better populated by Drgs than monks. Send the monks to populate now barren Bone camps, and reformulate the fauna around the shipwrecks to give Sams and Drks a place to play.

THAT would be an adjustment.

I haven't played for awhile but I'm aware of whats been going on.

I couldn't agree more with Phraust and this coming from a BST who used to whine about job balance all the time.

This may seem like a ridiculous analogy but I think it holds weight. I think you can see the fact that their is differentiation between jobs in FFXI for the same reasons as in real life - division of labor. Different jobs are efficient at different things and in something such as endgame (ideally) is where the differentiation and efficiency at certain roles shines; this much like markets, imagine if everyone made the same three things but were titled 20 different ways. At that point the preference between jobs would boil down to as Phraust said aesthetics or some other fairly arbitrary distinction, and would be inefficient really to level any other job that did the same role.

The only arena in which SE needs to work on a balance would be multiple jobs actually having a role when they interact, in other words having a valuable purpose for said differentiation.

 

[Arkangel]

People have always expected drks to have both g.swd and scythe ready to go at all levels. Rangers usually(?) have archery and marksmanship both ready to go. Some sams have g.kt and archery both available (and sometimes polearm but that's lol). Wars have always ridden rampage's ass like it's the neighborhood whore, now they too finally are expected to have more than one weapon skilled up, deal. Though honestly, are self-respecting war would've had it skilled or at least worked on it during their freetime anyway.

I also agree with rappa DD jobs are expected to be very versital in different ways, espesially warrior.
I remember at the begining warrior was expected to commonly take the position of 3 other jobs Tank puller and DD, but to see one of the most versital jobs in the game be redused to loldualwieldonlylol was a poor site now options for the warrior job have returned and there is someone complaining about it.

I bet before the update his a warior who was not dual weilding had joind his party he would have kicked him or asked him to dual wield

As a sam i have experienced the versiallity of my job change frequently but i had to adapt from war only to thf only to "can you come /rng to lolninsublol back to thf and now war

lesson of the day: adapt or die trying

 

[Arkangel]

no edit button: I bet before the update if a warrior who was not dual weilding had joind his party he would have kicked him or asked him to dual wield

 

[Ruffyreborn]

no edit button: I bet before the update if a warrior who was not dual wielding had joind his party he would have kicked him or asked him to dual wield

I bet him and almost ANYONE else would do that to a WAR.

On another note, does this mean WAR's will be using Rune Chopper, and RDM's will also be Refreshing the WARs?

I know its not a very damaging GA... But I like to play with it on DRK lol. 9% haste is really noticeable on it, and if you have a good haste build... Whoo.

 

[etchdog2000]

Im going to be honest, after picking up GA and droping a 1726 Raging rush at lvl 68 w/o MS, why the fuck would I NOT want to put those axes in Storage.

As or right this moment, why wouldnt people want people exclusively with GA.

 

[Tok]

i guess i can sell my manneater and woodville huh =/

 

[beeznuts]

no edit button: I bet before the update if a warrior who was not dual weilding had joind his party he would have kicked him or asked him to dual wield

This is what I meant regarding swords. Just now because 2xAxe was commonplace, it's a big deal now that it's not the optimal weapon, and people are picky in the same way. That's just how it goes.

I also agree that the only way to balance jobs is to unbalance them. Maybe along the lines of increasing mobs' resistances and weaknesses to weapon types...

 

[Davion]

That has never been a question. Never.

As for the rest...Read the parse before you throw out bullshit questions, we did multiple tests on mobs without a weakness to certain weapons. I parsed my WAR using GA, and I parsed my WAR using Rid/jug. Its not written in stone yet, but its obvious that GA has a huge advantage. Mistra won the second parse without fortitude axe, and I first-voked the second parse and still kept up in damage while shadow casting, which in the Rid/Jug party, I had to do very little at all.
IFF the mobs had a longer life to them, then the increased DoT of Axe/Axe or Axe/Ridill would be closer, but with mobs dieing so quickly, any inherant advantage would be dissipated. Look at the DoT numbers for me against Phraust, he almost beat me there as well, because if the Ridill triple didn't kick in, the massiveness of the first couple of katana hits gave him more damage than my jug/ridill could muster in the 10 seconds the mob was alive.

Unless I missed something being sleep deprived and overworked, where is the said parsing results you are referring to. Did you have something saved cause I wanna see cause I plan on lvling WAR up high soon.

 

[Ruffyreborn]

I also agree that the only way to balance jobs is to unbalance them. Maybe along the lines of increasing mobs' resistances and weaknesses to weapon types...

This could be a good idea, but slashing weapons would still get the bottom of the barrel unless there were actually camps full of hounds and doomed, or something.

Blunt and Piercing have the upper hand, still. I also dont know of any people that actually take advantage of a mobs weapon weakness purposely. I remember telling DRG's that they do 25% more damage to Colibri/birds than anyone else because theyre weak against piercing, and theyre like "oh I didnt know that."