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Actually once your at cap 92 is the same effect as 46. And under no circumstances should people be basing their acc on 2hr buffs, thats a guaranteed wsy to screw something up and stall damage. Murphys law and all.

What I atated was that dispel isn't a big issue. Don't stretch people's words to extremes.

On another note. I actually do lots of content with BRDs, virtually every melee setup includes one. This person also has Idris GEO but we already have one of those. For groups including non-blu melees BRD is like crack, especially now with Honor March. BRDs are also the ideal candidates to assist the healer in removing status debuffs as they are usually /WHM. Really versatile support position.

What hurts BRD is that it's practically worthless in a pet or burst setup which is what 90% of you use to anything difficult.

That's great and all but where does that leave pugs ( Prolly around 90% of the groups people play with who aren't lucky enough to know a group of decked out friends/are a girl in RL/ credit card warriors etc) Reason people go Burst/Pet is because chance of failure is low and most people don't have the gear to fight said battles the melee method. Heck the amount of brds what have the gear to even make the setups work/ know how to use brd/ have it geared is at a all time low. Infact a brd I know who has 4songs/99gal doesn't want Honor march because he thinks it sucks. (I tried explaining it. stopped trying) not mention they are still bards who don't know what a dummy song is....... Lets not even talk about Pug Melees....

YOU might not have these issue since your around the 10% of the server who knows what they are doing - but what about the people who aren't so lucky?

Game is like 15 years old, if people don't know what they are doing not sure what to tell you

The overwhelming majority of XI players have little or no idea what they're doing, and that's unlikely to ever change. The game's mechanics are relatively complicated and opaque for a MMO, and most players are unwilling to properly educate themselves.

Nonetheless, it's foolish to try and balance around said ignorance despite its relevance to the larger portion of the game's community. Uneducated players (and even a shocking number of supposedly more informed players) are fickle and prone to following fads, sometimes going so far as to pull them from thin air (and vigorously express and defend their beliefs at every opportunity) without any sort of supporting evidence. Their adoption and subsequent rejection of said fads also tends to lag behind balance changes rather significantly, especially in the current environment where knowledge propagates slowly and largely depends on a small handful of players that are willing to put in the time to advance our understanding of the game. Attempting to chase these trends and balance around them is a fool's errand that's as likely to do harm as good, especially as the game progresses towards a more balanced state.

Currently, Bard mostly "sucks" because you need REA to really be able to keep up. It's by far the job with the highest starting standards. Hopefully these changes can make Bard plenty viable pre-Honor March, and make a REMA bard close to a mainstay in a party.

HM being 1200, and a counterpart mage song would have gone miles.

Not only are the reqs too high, Bard's prep mechanic is ridiculous considering they can be dispelled and unevenly.
(One by loses march, the next loses minuet)

Lastly, the threnodiea appear, in practice to be weaker than focus or languor, considering those are universal and generally irresistible.

No, your choice of wording is irresistible :)

Not asking the developer to make content around people who don't do research - but to balance things out so we can take different strategies to fights-


Brd changes will be welcome but the real culprit is the monster scaling on Escha/resji NMs that make people cut throat on party slots.

Take your group of players. Go thru, gearing everyone up using whatever strategy works easiest/fastest for your group. Then, on round 2 or 3,you'll be ready to attempt things melee style. Shells doing Kirin/Kouryu,WoC,etc melee didn't all start out that way- many started out with a burst strat, got better gear THRU that strat, and then were able to try in a more direct fashion.

Don't think it's always about bought wins, boobies,and buddies.

Notice that shanks/cursed gear went up to 1500 points again.

Another bad login campaign :|

At least bring back the seal kupons for empy gear...

Yeah, pretty lackluster. Been hoping to see some more trusts that I do not have since returning to the game like Amchuchu, but alas.

You don't need Idris GEO's and HM BRD's to beat most content with Melee setups. You will probably struggle on T4 HELM's though, those are just giant ***. Most content can be done with a 3~4 song BRD for the melee's since the BRD is capping haste and giving them a combination of attack / accuracy or even Schertzo (if it's that strategy). Of course having better is obviously better, but having the weaker versions just means you take longer to kill the NM and most are killable in a fraction of the allotted time.

I can't get stable people to stay after we gear them up. after around a week after they are geared they either lose focus or take a break only to come back needing a crash course on whats new. Ive geared up a ton of friends just to watch them quit...


trying but the main issue is people lose moral after a wipe and just fizzle out and play something else or pay someone for the clear/gear and be happy fighting selkit, for a friend thats gonna quit in 3 days - 100x times.

Sorry, but that again falls into the "10% of the server who knows what it's doing" thing.

I've tried to explain mechanics until I get metaphorically blue in the face, but if people are idiots or stubborn and refuse to listen, it's no good. It doesn't matter how good your gear is: I was just in an Ambuscade Vol. 1 Difficult fight where we kept wiping because the PLD, with a 99 Aegis and Souveran +1 pieces, could not keep enmity.

I would do a Roll, JUST a single Phantom Roll, and it would pull every Imp off the PLD. Doing a 1CE 80VE action should not do that. The PLD refused to do anything but stand there and use provoke. Wasn't even trying to cure themself, wasn't using any enmity-management JAs other than provoke. It was so bad I wanted to log out and rethink my life.

There are tons of things in this game that are doable in lots of different ways if you are well geared, not doing it with idiots, not doing it with stubborn people, or some combination of the three.

Unfortunately, getting a group of six people together who are all three of those things is somewhat difficult for a lot of people. And, again, one of the biggest faults that I see with most people posting on this site is they fail to remember they're in the small percentage of the population who knows what they are doing, is well geared, and has a group of similar people to do things with who, if they don't understand the game mechanics, at least will listen to people who do.

Addendum: There are far too many people who require, say, an Idris GEO, because they need that as a crutch because they can't/won't do anything different, because that's how you "have to do it" because it's all that works for them because they won't do anything different because it's all that works for them, etc, etc.

Moral of the story - 10% of the server enjoys all the new endgame content - 90% of the server is stuck gearing people who are gonna quit in a month/grind ambuscade/watch youtube vids of people clearing content.

I'm not going to deny these people exist, because absolutely they do, but I think you're grossly exaggerating here. I did an Omen run last night with my static, but a pug tank, we cleared it with like 37min to spare? Then I had an extra KI so I pugged a tank, healer and geo (who wasn't even master, as he had to inform me). It was nearly as smooth, and we even got the Thinker this run.

Now, I've also gotten SMN's who wanted to melee Omen bosses, so I know special people exist, but I don't think the population is quite as bad as you make it sound.

If they can read the log, pay attention, and actually see what party members say and react to it they already beat over half the population in skill and ability anyway. You'd be surprised just how hard it is to get even people with lots of game knowledge and great gear to do that sometimes. It reminds me of this interview process I heard about once where like 500 people showed up and the only thing they were asked was to write their first and last name and address on the top line of the paper and underline it, the papers were collected and that was it, that was the test. Only 80 or so people even got past that part.

Omen isn't as difficult as let's say WoC/Kirin - t4 resji (heck some have issues with t3)... Plus you didn't have to count for the DPS being a pug... luxury of being on a more populated server... You checking their gear before you entered/asked if they done this... etc

I am truly sorry for the "homeless" people that are experiencing the same struggles you are. Because you're right, the lineage of this game is grind and Precious few get that any more. Every group is gonna wipe 6 times in one night their first time against Schah, It's the groups that can stick together thru bad nights that have success. Just an example, fill in your own personal favorite.

But two questions-first, what can SE really do about people who flake on you, or are idiots? Nothing really, outside of making solo games. Changing game mechanics to help those who can't succeed using the current mechanics...I don't see that working.

And second question- should SE change game mechanics because some cannot succeed under the current model, when the fault for their failure is not lack of tools, but rather, improper usage of what SE has given us to work with? Your example of the decked out PLD who didn't know how to hold hate on multiple targets is perfect- the gear didn't matter, and someone with less gear but more knowledge would have been successful. So should there really be changes made to accommodate that?

Im thinking you are missing the point. They are geared people out there that have zero idea how to use the gear they have. Ive seen afterglow blus use almace in main hand with tizona on off... its happens. The main issue on hand is the monster scaling.

After we wipe xxx t3-4 NM
Returning player I just geared: Why don't you bring 18 people to XXX fight? wouldn't that make it easier?

Me: it would scale and become even harder

Returning Player: That's Stupid. *plays overwatch and doesn't sign in for two months*

The simple fact about 18-man Aeonic farming is that even if you have 6 ***players you can still hide them by putting them on jobs that are less crucial to success such as COR for buffs, SMN for Mew, or as BLM for an extra Death. As long as you have a strong "core" nothing should be out of reach. By core I mean tanks healers geos schs 3+ blms. If someone is so shitty they are doing less than 5% of the damage on a dps job then certainly they shouldn't have and won't be invited again.

When dealing with pug groups/players its also expected that you are going to wipe multiple times before a clear, same thing happens in 14 and pretty much every MMO. Going with pugs is just gambling for a win, but its better than staring at a spinning moogle.

The HP scaling is indeed too harsh, going from 6 to 18 should double not triple a NM's HM and going under 6 should have no effect at all. That would be a far better gradient.

As for flaking players, that is not SE's fault nor anyone else's. Practically all the information about game mechanics is available on FFXIAH or BG. Lots of players here will freely discuss events and give answers to questions about fighting NM's and clearing content. There is absolutely no reason for someone not to know a fight a few weeks after it's been out.

The HP scaling should definitely be tweaked a little, but their reservations could be that if they adjust it too low, the game then becomes just tossing bodies at NMs. It's bad enough a few can be zombie'd back into a clear.

This is also 100% just an issue with flaky or casual players. Saevel is correct in saying all info is readily available. Too many players make the "I play for fun, this isn't a job" excuse and expect things to get explained with some sort of Cliff notes version during pre-pop. Wins don't happen this way.

For every 1 casual player that does do research there are probably 20 that go in blind. Hence current win rates.

Yeah that's why I figured the baseline at 6 with it going up to 2x at 18. Makes a nice slop that you can't just throw more bodies at it, but neither does it punish you for bringing extra people. A perfect example would be a group of 6 going to kill / farm T2 Reisen NMs and a friend wants to come along. That would make the group 7 which is very bad because whomever is in that second party won't be getting supported but will be adding HP. We've had situations happen where a few extra people want to come along for T3's and we need to figure out how to stuff them in without making the fight unreasonably difficult. Then you got those people who say dumb stuff like "well I just solo this on SCH/BST/ect with my mule" without realizing their only able to do that because they are exploiting the HP being half at 3 people vs 6 or 1/6th of what an 18 man is.

It looks like this (Tojil's HP)

6 man = 400,000 HP
12 man = 800,000 HP
18 man = 1,200,000 HP

and
3 man "solo" = 200,000 HP

On higher level stuff the difference becomes more extreme. It's created this situation where high end players often would rather bring a bunch of mules to clear stuff and sell the drops instead of forming guilds for it. HP scaling is the primary reason mercing has taken over the markets of big servers.

Quoted for truth, happens too many times. I often have to remind morons that alliance strats are completely different from low man strats and always need to be approached from a different point of view.