The New Embrava And PD

Job Ability Adjustments: Tabula Rasa & Perfect Defense

Hello!

Prior to reducing the recast time of the existing SP abilities and introducing new SP abilities, we believe that we must revise the effects of Tabula Rasa and Perfect Defense. The adjustment is planned to be introduced in this week's test server update, but we want to convey the changes ahead of that so that we can begin gathering your feedback.

*Perfect Defense
**Duration: The duration will be reduced from 90 seconds to 30 seconds +1 second for each 20 summoning magic skill. For example, at 600 summoning magic skill, the duration would be 60 seconds (30 + 30 seconds).
**Effect: No change

*Tabula Rasa
The effects of the white magic "Embrava" will be adjusted as follows:
**Duration: Reduced from 5 minutes to 90 seconds.
**Haste Effect: Reduced to 15% + 1% for each 20 enhancing skill. Maximum of +25% at 500 enhancing skill.
**Regain Effect: Changed to Refresh effect (the #/tick is the same as before, based on skill).

Since utilizing the above abilities has become mainstream in order to progress through certain battle content, we have planned to lower the difficulty of that content in accordance with this update.

*Nyzul Isle
**The required number of astraria to replace with the next higher floor equipment will be reduced from 25 to 5. The number in possession will be divided by 5 and rounded down. The premise that floor 100 will only be reached through a combination of great skill and luck does not change. Since the reliance on the effect of Embrava will be reduced, we will relieve this by reducing the number of required astraria for floors below.

*Legion
**Monster HP will be reduced by approximately 10%. All monsters will be included in this change. Since the progress as a whole will be faster but the support effects will be suppressed, we will maintain the 30 minute time limit, or keep it close.

*Einherjar
**Odin's HP (Odin's Chamber II) will be reduced by approximately 10~15%. Since the battle with Odin is more than with just the monster itself, Legion is slightly different, so we will reduce Odin's HP by slightly more.

We believe that Embrava and Perfect Defense have been used very significantly in other situations as well, such as with Provenance Watcher and Arch Dynamis Lord, but since these are very short battles, we want to see how the difficulty of these fights changes with the ability adjustments above before we make any adjustments to the fight difficulty.

These adjustments have been made in order to reduce performance of certain abilities that were too strong, with a reliance moreso now than ever on certain jobs and abilities in battle strategies. The purpose of the content adjustment along with these ability adjustments is to allow other strategies to be formed so that these events are not impossible. While reflecting on the adjustments in the test server this week, please recognize that balancing the adjustments will continue, and we would appreciate any comments you may have.

GG Embrava.

The PD change makes total sense.

As it works now, Alexander is as effective with a Summoning skill of 0 as it is with a Summoning skill of 500. This is very broken. It means summoners that have played summoner for years are having to compete with flavour of the month summoners who burnt theirs to 99 ASAP for PD and FFXIAH achievement points. With the change, those with a high summoning magic skill and those who take pride in their jobs will be highly sought after.

I for one am happy about this. My summoning is 498 with gear, because I actually give a ***about the job. Another two levels and my perfect defense will last 55 seconds. This means I'm much more likely to get invited to groups doing Legion than somebody who burnt theirs to 99 in a day and never touch it again, except to *** Alexander out to alliances.

I know I'm going to get trolled for this post, but ha *** ha. Take some pride in your damn jobs, people, and this 'nerf' wouldn't be an issue whatsoever. Kudos to the FFXI team for actually putting some emphasis on caring for your jobs. Summoner 99 with <100 Summoning skill is exactly the same as Perle BSTs.

Astraria? That's what they're going with?

RIP Neo-Nyzul Isle

Please note that the original post above, like many of the translated posts I have been making on the BG forums, is my translation of JP dev tracker post so it is not the "official" translation. Just wanted to clarify in case there are discrepancies when the official translation is posted. I would recommend that the OP is updated with this information (that it's an "unofficial" translation).

They are notoriously slow with their translation (and often fail to altogether) so I usually do my own translation ahead of time when I have the opportunity.

Aim for floor 80 folks lol.

Wow... The changes these 2 days are gonna make are insane.

Well in all honesty, hitting 80 w.o embrava isn't that bad. I remember being gimp at 99 when it first came out and we were hitting 60+ w.o embrava lol. It's just the whole 5 runs per piece that seems to suck haha.

Actually it's more likly the player base will either A) Develop strats that don't make use of PD or B) Develop strats that don't use PD for more than 30 seconds rather than worry about how much summoning magic their smn has.

FFXI team taking update notes from the Diablo 3 team.

Quote:

...but we want to convey the changes ahead of that so that we can begin gathering your feedback.

Where was this last update? =/

I think you're giving the player base entirely too much credit there. Since Alexander was added people have thrown perfect defense at anything remotely difficult. Has anyone ever killed AV without it?

A 1000 times at 99.


But they still murderred embrava, a smaller change would have sufficed.

Well yeah. But when Alexander was added they didn't. Which is entirely my point. If anything difficult is found, people just throw the easiest method they can at it to win. If it's a choice between experiment and die repeatedly to find a PD free strat or just use PD, I think the vast majority of people will go with the latter, no?

Why wouldn't you throw the easiest way to win at something that took a week to farm back in the day? It's there, use it.

Sh*t just got serious.

This is copy-paste from Slycer's unofficial translation on BG, btw:
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/112776-Dev-Tracker-Findings-Posts?p=5446814&viewfull=1#post5446814

You might want to consider citing and/or thanking the source next time.

*sigh*

So the guy that created Abyssea is killing all mechanisms that made non Abyssea events fun/winnable.

Guess we are supposed to live in Abyssea?

He understands that he created this problem? If it weren't for curor buffs and atmas the player base would not have become handicapped on how to play the game and have higher than necessary expectations on what an acceptable effort to loot ratio was?

Back in the day I don't ever remember needing PD for Faffhogg. Even though it took a couple of parties to take him down there were no real dangerous tp moves he could do. Well not after /blockaid was introduced. (lots of lulz before /blockaid)

Here is for hoping the regain to refresh was a mistranslation/mistype on SE's behalf. I would be fine if they lowered the tp/tick, adjust ADL and PW hp, or adjust the major FU tp moves those mobs have.

Either way we are entering a new chapter of ffxi. Less new gil being generated and the need to new strats for events that had tried and proved winnable strats.

Seems like casual and veterans took it in the shorts pretty hard.

I agree wholeheartedly to the embrava change murdering it... Regain -> Refresh WWHHHYYYYYYYYYYYY!?!?!?

at least the one random BLU will like that ermerzing skill based refresh/tic ._.'

Well so this is like SE saying lets kill this game and be done with it.

So when is the update that will apply these changes?


Assuming everyone doesn't go nuts and they change their minds...

Time for everybody to de-gear their scholars?
PD changes make sense.
Embrava was completely destroyed.

Consider this: you're a linkshell leader, and you have two dozen or so people entrusting you with their time and effort, in exchange for the phattest of lewts. Do you:

1) Make them try a trillion different tactics hoping THIS IS THE ONE, GUYS. FOR SURE THIS TIME

OR

2) Use a well-established method to guarantee they get the best return on their investment, and prove their faith in you was well placed, and getting people the stuff they need/want for the minimum amount of hassle

Some groups are fine with #1. If your shell likes to engage in the pursuit of science, then rock on, but don't for a second think that everyone is so inclined.

lol @ 10% reduction.

Did you misquote me or something? We said the same thing. Nobody is going to make PD free strategies because PD strategies work.

Although just to play devil's advocate, take your own advice and don't assume everyone only cares about drops either. Again, we said the same thing, but I know dozens of people who would rather try something new and fun out in this game where everything is the same and predictable.

I took your discussion with Egonn/sighing as "Why won't people experiment with PD-free strategies?" and answered that question. If I misinterpreted your angle, then I do apologize.

I agree entirely. When I ran a shell, we engaged in all sort of experiments (usually due to either manpower limitations or job configuration limitations). I fully understood that we were in the minority though, and the goal was always to find better ways to get said drops ;)

I think so. It was more, everyone uses PD because throwing PD at everything works. There is no denying that. Whether or not people should, meh, that's for another thread. I mean, as you said... If you can get a win and success, that's chiefly what these events are for.

But my original point was to refute Ina's claim that people would try and find a PD free strategy. That I just do not agree with, not when PD will still work for 60 seconds if used by a high skill summoner... Although, on that point, is it even possible to get to 600 skill?