Elemental Arrow Question

[Callisto]

Re: Elemental Arrow Question

What about snolls?

[Armando]

Re: Elemental Arrow Question

Cold gasses, duh.

[Karinya]

Re: Elemental Arrow Question

This is actually something I wish SE would change, since it's pretty much been the standard for every RPG (set by SE no less IIRC)

But getting full damage *is* the equivalent of bonus damage - the base damage level of nukes is just that high. Elemental Seal is like Sneak Attack for nukes, and a big nuke will compare favorably to SA+WS (let alone a SA'd normal swing). That's what makes BLM a burst damage dealer, the fact that nukes hit for a crapload if they're not resisted. (What limits them as a sustained DD is hate and MP cost. Burst DDs are disfavored by current merit setups, hence the decline of BLMs in merit, but high burst damage and excellent crowd control remains a very powerful combination in many other situations.)

Implementing FFX-style bonus damage would require a corresponding nerf to base nuke damage and would end up just like FFX - casting anything but the weakness element is a waste of MP. The system we have now has a more gradual tradeoff for using neutral elements (and they can also be made viable with ES or magic bursts), and it's only elements that the target is strong to that are a complete waste of time and MP.

Even day of the week and weather can affect your spell choice - precisely because different elements can be close enough in expected damage or damage/MP for those factors to tilt the balance. Such minor bonuses would never affect FFX casting decisions - use its weakness or GTFO. (Literally - it's hardly ever a good idea to use Lulu against things with no weak element.)

Sorry for the derail but this is one of my pet peeves in the game. SMN is the only job in the game (well not counting QD) that has elemental magical attacks that differ only in element and not damage.

This is actually not true - enspells are all the same strength, and so are AM2s IIRC. And so are the arrows we're discussing in this thread (well, within 2 different groups of 3.) But yeah, aside from those 4 other jobs and anyone in a party with a 40+ SCH/RDM, SMN is the only job to have that. >.>

It's annoying because it leads to older spells being neglected and eliminates one of the key reasons for inviting a BLM in the first place; exploiting elemental weaknesses. Or am I the only one who misses some spells being neutral, 1 or 2 doing 50~100% more damage/effect, and others being resisted or outright absorbed?

And you don't get that feeling when you land a full-damage Aero II on a bat in Garlaige?

The chance to resist a nuke lowers its average damage by an amount dependent on the resist rate. So a low resist rate gives you *nearly guaranteed* a lot of damage, as opposed to the *maybe* a lot of damage you get from a neutral element. Which is precisely why older spells aren't neglected by smart BLMs - aero II will average more damage on a (reasonable level) bat than fire II or blizzard II (even though its *max* damage is less) but is cheaper. I've seen BLMs that cast water spells on crabs and pugils or earth on cockatrices and mandragora just because it was the biggest spell they had at that level. The results are about what you'd expect if you're not an idiot - those BLMs were a total waste of a party slot.

[Malacite]

Re: Elemental Arrow Question

Plus, it would get in the way of multi-elemental Skillchains, variable or attacks with variable elements.

O rly? Then why is it puks don't absorb fragmentation and light chains despite having wind in it? Seems like SE is perfectly capable of adjusting special cases.


And as usual kar, you miss the point. Elemental weaknesses have been that way for a long time in RPGs, in fact it's pretty standard and I don't much care for the way FFXI broke away from it with the majority of elemental magic. You set a fixed MP and damage rate for each elemental spell and then modify those based on the target's elemental strengths. That way you don't run into "lolStone" and discard 4/6 elements simply because their base damage is so much lower.

I like having to know what enemy is weak to what, and it would make BLM's merits less clear cut and unique to the player instead of everyone just doing the same thing (Ice and Lightning 5/5)

[Armando]

Re: Elemental Arrow Question

O rly? Then why is it puks don't absorb fragmentation and light chains despite having wind in it? Seems like SE is perfectly capable of adjusting special cases.

Had a Nyzul enemy leader flan absorbing Darkness. They only absorb one element as far as I know. SE could adjust it otherwise, but that's at least once instance where it doesn't happen that way. Either way it's besides the point. Worms shouldn't absorb Stone IV just because they're strong to earth.

And as usual kar, you miss the point. Elemental weaknesses have been that way for a long time in RPGs, in fact it's pretty standard and I don't much care for the way FFXI broke away from it with the majority of elemental magic. You set a fixed MP and damage rate for each elemental spell and then modify those based on the target's elemental strengths. That way you don't run into "lolStone" and discard 4/6 elements simply because their base damage is so much lower.

You'll still discard 4/6 elements because the mob will be strong to them. Your system isn't any better.

[Malacite]

Re: Elemental Arrow Question

You'll still discard 4/6 elements because the mob will be strong to them. Your system isn't any better.

It's not the same thing though. I like having to know what elements to use and being rewarded or punished accordingly rather than just "Use Ice and Lightning for everything"

And it's worked just fine, online and offline for the last 20 years. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Elemental Arrow Question

Here he goes with the "make it more like other FFs" stuff again.

Final Fantasy games tend to reinvent the wheel and the system with each new game, you might choose to ignore this fact, but its there in every game since the very first sequel. Some things get carried over, some don't. If they based each FF game on the same systems, they would not be worth playing.

[Karinya]

Re: Elemental Arrow Question

I agree that there's too much stuff weak to ice, but that's not an argument for increasing weaknesses, it's an argument for rearranging them and/or adding new mob families that have different weaknesses. Strengthening existing weaknesses would just make ice even MORE dominant.

And btw, the main reason stone is lol is not its low levels, except for stone I, it's that hardly anything is weak to stone in the first place aside from lightning elementals. Even if you're at a level where your highest nuke is stone II, III or IV, you're often better off not using it in favor of something smaller but less likely to be resisted - often ice. Your proposal wouldn't change that.


I think there's a good argument that a lot of high level mobs have too little baseline resistance, making even a neutral element land almost all the time (and therefore you might as well cast your biggest spell that isn't actively resisted), combined with the fact that very few mobs have above average lightning resistance; but since BLM isn't particularly overpowered at the moment, I don't see an urgent need to nerf them in that respect. Also, there's a danger of hitting SCH with the same adjustment and making them unable to nuke effectively at all - the skill gap between them and BLM is pretty big at higher levels once gear is taken into account.


Unless you rewrite the whole resist equation to reduce the effect of elem skill and make it mainly determined by level and which element you're using - even without adding bonus damage for weak elements, this would sharpen the distinction between weak and neutral elements, nerf BLMs' ability to "just use the big spell" because they have 300+ skill, and improve SCH and RDM (and even DRK) nuking provided they choose their element carefully. But it's a radical revision that I doubt SE would even consider without a *really* compelling reason, and it might be difficult to get right even if they did try it. They could easily end up making *all* nuking as bad as the temporary gimpness of RNG.

Furthermore, since lots of things are weak to ice, this would still lead to ice being used a lot. Thunder would probably be used a little less though.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Elemental Arrow Question

They could easily end up making *all* nuking as bad as the temporary gimpness of RNG.

I don't consider over a year and a half "temporary," I call it SE not wanting to admit they fucked up really bad.

[Malacite]

Re: Elemental Arrow Question

So buying all 6 tier 4's only to use 2 of them 95% of the time is good implementation?

[Armando]

Re: Elemental Arrow Question

So buying all 6 tier 4's only to use 2 of them 95% of the time is good implementation?

You keep missing the point. That has nothing to do with the current damage system. It has everything to do with the dev team making too many mobs weak to those 2 elements, including most EXP mobs.

That's a problem that would still be present under the system you're proposing. Or do you really think it wouldn't boil down to Ice and Thunder when having a weakness means taking extra damage from those elements?

[Malacite]

Re: Elemental Arrow Question

You keep missing the point. That has nothing to do with the current damage system. It has everything to do with the dev team making too many mobs weak to those 2 elements, including most EXP mobs.

That's a good point, but even then the difference in base damage is quite substantial, especially with potency merits. I'm not jumping down SE's throat completely since this is still their first MMO, but it does seem like they really screwed up bad in a number of areas in ways we'll just have to live with (like DEF and VIT, the over all ridiculous strength of mobs, etc)

[Karinya]

Re: Elemental Arrow Question

DEF and VIT are fine; the problem is the thing you're not mentioning that's 100x better than DEF and VIT and has almost completely replaced them (even for PLDs in some endgame LSs). "Complete immunity to damage or GTFO" is not a paradigm that leads to balanced tanking, in this or any other game.

The overall strength of mobs that aren't imps or colibri is fine, too. Even match mobs are evenly matched - they can kill you if they get lucky, and if you win, it'll probably be close. (And that's assuming a good soloing SJ and gear setup for whatever your main job is - some jobs have a really hard time soloing with any setup.) EP-DC mobs aren't worth much exp, but if you reward soloing as much as grouping you get an antisocial playerbase like WoW's, so I'm glad they decided not to do that.

Monotonous elemental resists are boring, but strengthening the effect of weakness without redistributing weaknesses would make the problem worse, not better.

[Malacite]

Re: Elemental Arrow Question

The overall strength of mobs that aren't imps or colibri is fine, too.

Not really. I mean for NMs yeah, they're supposed to be hard. But the HP counts and stat bonuses are bit much at times. Largely it's the buffs though. Things like Rhino Guard and Cocoon that take what was a challenging but manageable fight to a death sentence unless you have dispel.

Now granted this isn't as big an issue as it used to be but it's still rather annoying.

[Armando]

Re: Elemental Arrow Question

Lower their HPs and break EXP parties.

Lower the strength of self-buffs and suddenly parties don't need Dispel.

This game is group-based first and foremost, there's a reason for both decisions. If you want to solo EXP and you think their HP counts are too much, tough cookies. Get a duo partner and make Level 3 SCs for awesome damage. If mobs with self-buffs are bringing you down then simply don't fight them. It's like saying "Mobs with evasion down screw over THF and NIN if they don't have Erase." Yeah, well, that's why they avoid mobs with Evasion Down.