[Taskmage]

Originally Posted by BurningPanther

En1 calculations were changed about the same time as SCH grand update of win last year, to calculate Enhancing skill at time of casting, rather than per attack.

I thought it was always like this. I've always swapping in enhancing skill to cast and then swapped it back out and I'm pretty sure that worked.

[Callisto]

I don't think the merit applications will be that good simply because Mamools will be overly difficult to hit without catering party buffs to the melee RDM(which in every decent party would likely gimp XP, in the case it didn't you are probably in a terrible party), and Greater Colibri are just jerks about resisting magic damage, including Enspell damage.

Despite the part about needing to melee in Enhancing skill gear in order to get max damage being true, really that doesn't mean that's the way to go, even in normal TP gear the damage should outdo Enspell 1s assuming you have a reasonably high hit rate and are using Composure if you're single wielding.

I cap at 43 in my 300 skill set + Hollow, but 37 in my TP set(also including Hollow). The loss of 6/swing would likely be made up by the bum from 15% gear haste to 20% I'd see by sticking to my normal TP set. Doing 2 RvB runs rq then hoping to get a tad more testing in before Salvage, I also want to make sure that they didn't break Enspell 1s to make them also flux with your current Enhancing skill rather than your skill at the time of the cast.

[Aksannyi]

Originally Posted by Callisto

I also want to make sure that they didn't break Enspell 1s to make them also flux with your current Enhancing skill rather than your skill at the time of the cast.

Oh dear god that would fucking suck.

[MrMageo]

Ehhh, merit mobs aren't that hard to hit, and you should be fine against colibri if you have enblizzard II (enblizzard one sees about an 80% accuracy rate cast in 300 skill). Mamool offer about the same resaults. In my testing I did mamool and colibri and using enblizzard on colibri seems to get full effect (due to it being their weakness I would imagine.)

You shouldn't need any special buffs on mamool. The majority of them are easy enough to hit. The only ones you need to watch for are the NIN and THF's but all jobs have trouble hitting them without a madrigal or hunters. This is also gear dependant of course. But back when I played on the majority of mamool, I was looking at about 85% hit rate. If I had composure that is a 93% hit rate.

The most important thing with these is to see how the MACC is affected on them, with cast or without. You may lose only 6 damage from cap, but if you drop 20% in ACC your going from

43*.8 = 34.4
37*.6 = 22.2

22.2/34.4 = .64 or about a 36% reduction in DoT, at that point you would need about 30% haste to catch it up to the same. In which case it become obviously better to full time enspell ones regardless

23*.8 = 18.4

18.4/22.2 = .82 = 18% (no joyeuse)
18%/1.5 = .12 = 12% (joyeuse)
18%/2.5 = .07 = 7% (DW/Joy)

loss in DoT requiring about 15%-5% aditional haste to cover the DPS change. Which is a little more reasonable.

MACC is highly important here, and needs to be tested on mobs with a decent level. Because if it is the worst case scenario then Enspell II's are pretty trashy, because it would be hard to give up 6% haste. Although unless that 6% haste takes you over 50% haste it may be better to full time Duelists/Warlocks for the 25% ACC to enspells. Interesting stuff, until more numbers come in on higher end mobs it will be tough to determine. Although it may be possible to test it in ballista, with Barspells. With a WHM who has a decent MDB comparable to that of a colibri. I figure that colibri have a static -15 Resist to ICE (and a +15 resist to Wind) would be hard to copy that though and MDB doesn't really effect ACC.

To many questions not enough answers yet. I am happy to see 43 damage though. 48 with fencers 53 with Esword, 55 with Lyco. Alost warrants merriting out Enhancing and popping on Warlock tights/Duelists (lose Nash/dusk) to keep that 300 skill. Main Esword/Off Joy. GDI I need to have a few days off, 2 more months until I can acctually get my hands on the abilities and test them.

[Malacite]

What I find curious though is this;

Apparently it's perfectly fine for a DRK to Souleater + Bloodweapon on multi-hit weapons as well as Sambas and tier 1 enspells...

but not for Auspice or Tier 2 Enspells? Might I ask why? Seems extremely hypocritical on SE's part (If enspell II's worked on Joyeuse there'd be no bitching from anyone but apparently SE took issue with this. Would it really have pushed RDM that far over the edge? I don't think so but I could be wrong)

[Armando]

I don't know, Malacite. Could it be because a Kraken Club is goddamned hard to get compared to Enspells?

[Taskmage]

Hay guess what. If you have a kclub use a tier 1 enspell. They didn't take those away, you know.

[Raydeus]

See, this kinda of crap (Enspells tier II) is what makes me blast SE for their lack of judgement all the time.

Why not simply add something like:

Originally Posted by Squeenix

Spellblade*
Level 50 Job trait. (RDM)
Enhances added elemental sword damage and adds resistance reduction to opposite element to initial attacks.

(Damage enhancement +25% or +25dmg @300 skill)

Or something like that. It's sort of nice, it isn't broken and it's useful.

Heck, and if you want to go "wild" then how about +50% boost to added damage from initial attacks instead? (+30dmg @300 skill for the first attack!!)


I mean they can come up with something good like Composure**, but do such a sloppy job with Tier II enspells?



*Just to piss Mal off
**Given they don't nerf it in the next couple of weeks.

[MrMageo]

Because if it is possible to get 40 damage on enspells II, with an average of 40-60 damage (depending on gear/mob) RDM would be totally broken at merit levels. +8 from +enspell gear (fencers/hollow)

With ACC and Haste both being cappable (well not as /NIN need sentinel for the last 1%) and quite possibly and 80% land rate

With 2x Ballad/Haste

Justice/Joy
236+224 * .8 *.40 = 167 delay
Blau/Joy
178+224*.8*.40 = 128 delay
Joyeuse
224*.40 = 89 delay

Enspells 48*.8 = 38

J/J
Low end (40+38*1.50)+(40+38*1.50)/167*60*.95 = 81.91 DPS
High end (60+38*1.50)+(60+38*1.50)/167*60*.95 = 100.34 DPS

B/J
Lowend (40+38)+(40+38*1.50)/128*60*.95 = 86.35 DPS
Highend(60+38)+(60+38*1.50)/128*60*.95 = 109.10 DPS
(will be slightly lower due to damage difference on Blau but you get the Idea)

Joyesue
Lowend (40+38*1.5)/89*60*.95 = 74.93 DPS
Highend(60+38*1.5)/89*60*.95 = 94.14 DPS

That is why they don't proc on every hit. Just for a quick comparison

28*.8 = 22

(40+22*1.5)/89*60*.95 = 63.40
(60+22*1.5)/89*60*.95 = 84.53

63.40/74.93 = .84 (16% increase in damage)
84.53/94.14 = .89(11% increase in damage)

Now I don't know about other jobs, but to me that J/J with nearly 100 DPS is pretty broken. If you figure that in the time it takes a well hasted SAM to swing you have already dealt nearly 300 damage. which is well over double what they will do.
That is why they are not useable on every swing, because it breaks us as a job class.

[Malacite]

Originally Posted by Armando

I don't know, Malacite. Could it be because a Kraken Club is goddamned hard to get compared to Enspells?

Yeah and Apocalypse is also insanely hard to get but that didn't stop SE from nerfing the Haste Cap (Yes I'm aware of the Rune Chopper Influence)

Or how Arrowburns were bad but Manaburns and TP burns are OK?

[Karinya]

Originally Posted by Malacite

What I find curious though is this;

Apparently it's perfectly fine for a DRK to Souleater + Bloodweapon on multi-hit weapons as well as Sambas and tier 1 enspells...

but not for Auspice or Tier 2 Enspells? Might I ask why? Seems extremely hypocritical on SE's part (If enspell II's worked on Joyeuse there'd be no bitching from anyone but apparently SE took issue with this. Would it really have pushed RDM that far over the edge? I don't think so but I could be wrong)

Because they didn't have the balls to nerf Souleater even though everyone knows it's been hideously broken for years.

They absolutely, positively should have changed Souleater to work like enspell IIs and Auspice (and do more damage based on delay). No doubt about it... except for the fact that you could have heard the whining from Antarctica.

For that matter, if they cared more about game balance than about avoiding hate mail, they could have just nerfed kclub, ridill, joyeuse and other overpowered items to more reasonable levels long ago.

If I were emperor of balance, I'd nerf multihit weapons until other weapons were sometimes worth using instead, and I'd nerf multihit WS until other WS were sometimes worth using instead. (Next up: all multihit weapons return TP like multihit WS.) But I'm not, so those things stay overpowered.


All that being said... Yes, the new spells are designed for single wielding. Do you have a problem with that? Enhancing sword might not be a complete joke (although it probably still is, more deathblossoms = win).

(P.S. I get 38 with just relic hands and AF legs - don't have a merciful cape, and my enh torque doesn't give me any more damage. If swapping out two slots - and not even two particularly good slots - gimps your melee build, you had a lousy melee build.)

[Callisto]

Like I said earlier, epeening your Enspell damage is not the way to go in almost every case. Keep your melee gear, use Enspell IIs if single wielding, use Enspell 1s if Dual Wielding, both cases make more sense as Composure is less friendly with Utsusemi recasts anyways but is something that helps Enspell IIs a fair amount.

I don't see what the issue is really, they said they were going to add stronger enspells, and they did. It does more damage on it's own, and if you're dual wielding then you should be glad you have the option to use Tier 1s for less MP or to knock down resistances to help out with landing debuffs. On top of that Composure is a fantastic ability, if you have nothing but complaints for the new spells, then don't get them, and don't use them. I'm pretty happy with doing more than 150% the enspell damage I was doing since I don't typically /NIN when aiming to actually DD as melee, only when I'm tanking or soloing, in which case I'm probably using staves anyways so it doesn't even matter.

[MrMageo]

Ya I second that, kinda tired of people bitching because the didn't get an OMG 11111 update. Its not like RDM lost anything. We got what we needed a little kick in our melee ability, nothing to big, but enough to allow us to go to the gear haste cap and acc cap at the same time. Pretty full of win if you ask me. As the old adage goes, ya don't like it, don't use it.

Although just for an adendum, Id personally use Enspells II if I was /DNC or a DNC was in my group, sambas are to good to pass up (especially haste samba). 70% haste mmm mmm good.

[Callisto]

I would have liked another 10 Acc out of Composure but I have no complaints, though I'm still skeptical of getting a decent hitrate as RDM without a pretty solid amount of help, even with HQ sushi my Haste set leaves me 26 Acc short of capping on birds, and using something with a smaller Acc boost but some Attack+ like Marina Pizza+1 would probably be preferred, as even with Berserk up RDM would be barely breaking 400 without Chaos/Min, leaving me more around 45 Acc short of capping birds(around 73% hitrate without Hunter's/Mad, read also: garbage).

I don't think this is going to get RDM anywhere near being a viable TP burn melee, but it makes my soloing faster, and with luck the elemental resistance down effects will be noticeably potent.

[Aksannyi]

I've always found that RDM was perfect the way it is. I didn't feel we needed anything. New toys ... well ... cool. There are things I might change if I had the chance, but really, RDMs have it pretty damn good.