Shouts in JeunoFollow

Ok something that needs to be put to rest in this eternal Hardcore vs Casual debate.

Casuals win, every time, always. It's an economic choice, 95% of the population pays more maintenance fees then 5% does. If the 95% vote with the wallet and walk away, the game shuts down and the 5% have nothing to do. If the 5% vote with their wallet and walk away, absolutely nothing happens to the game and if anything it gets better for the casuals. All MMO's need casual players to drive their success, they don't need hardcore players (they form as a natural skill cap is created). It only seems like hard-cores are more important because their the vocal minority, their the crowd who actually care enough to go and spend their free time posting on game boards, their basically over represented.

Lets take a common content, Rex. This is something that casual players are barred from fighting, the groups that do Rex carefully choose their memberships and by now are almost entirety exclusive, thus no more /sh's in jeuno. This content is poor content because it creates a false barrier to entry for the 95% of the player population. Lets remove the hard-cores entirety and watch what happens. Content is released, no one can defeat it (hardcores don't exist), eventually developer tweaks content down so that more players (the casuals) can defeat the content. Eventually they do and the world continues spinning.

So while "barancing" their game between these two groups, they should ~always~ bias in favor of the majority of their player base who happens to have both limited play time and limited desire to be "hardcore". Content doesn't need to be brain dead easy, but it rarely is in FFXI. The end game events should not all be constant gear checks and DPS races, especially if that gear happens to come from those events.

Plus who the hell would the hard-cores condescend to if the casual players didn't exist? You seriously want to put that many people with solar system sized ego's into the same game with each other and not have some common group they can belittle? It would turn into Eve .... and trust me you haven't even the remotest idea of hard-core until you've seen that place.

Ig isn't hard, if people are struggling with him then their not procing / food / temps or have a bad strategy going in. The worst thing is that doom ability and now with blenmot's rings that's not even an issue. Rex / Morta / Bismark / Provenance / Kalastrax (due to this cheap stance) are the ones that are basically impossible for any casual player to do.

The fault with your about statement is that you assumed R/M/E was "the best" for all DD's, their not, FAR from it. There are five super DD jobs right now, MNK, WAR, DRG, SAM, DRG, out of those five only MNK and WAR get epically amazing Emps, and even then it's not that weapon but the weapon skill that is amazing. SAM / DRG / DRK all get better merit WS then their R/M/E provide, with Mythics being basically non-existent and ridiculously rare, we can safely remove them from the selection. This leaves Relics and Emps vs the OaT (DRG / DRK) and TP Bonus (SAM) magians. The OaT for DRK / DRG pretty much crush's their Emp, crush's as completely obliterates, for SAM it's a big question of "it depends" with voidwatch being slightly in favor of a Masa with latitude and moonshade. In either case the difference between a TP Bonus Shoha SAM and a Masa SAM is in the single digits.

So the argument of "you need R/M/E or you'll fail" just fell to only two jobs needing R/E and the rest would be better off or mostly the same with a different option. There is even an argument for an OaT GAXE WAR spamming Upheaval though UF is far better due to how amazing it is.

Or to put it a different way, on my DRK/WAR with a Jingang GSWD I've shot past Masa SAM's and Ukko WAR's on Morta and on Provenance Watcher. They weren't procing just going ballz out. Thus the argument of "Relic and Emp ONRY!!!" immediately falls apart when applied to actual in-game conditions.

What you really need is good players who know how to manage their JA's, Temp Items and Macro sets while keeping situational awareness. There is no way to measure that in game so we've fallen back to the old school "if they got a super weapon then they must be good right" method of doing things. It's not working, I've seen too many groups that were /sh with "R/M/E DD's" where I was parsing 30% or more damage on my SAM or DRK, and neither have "R/M/E". That isn't a good thing, I should never be parsing that high of a percentage, it means the other DD's are slacking big time yet they passed the "R/M/E DD onry" test to get it. And on the really hard fights you absolutely need good BLM's (stunners) more then good DD's. Kala is defeatable with a group of a average DD's if your BLMs (or stunners) are able to keep it from using that Stance move. You can have a set of godly DD's, but if that move isn't stunned then your damage immediately goes down the toilet. That applies to PW too, if even one of your stunners can't get their act together then it's gonna start getting fetters our which obliterates your DD's damage capacity. Temps start wearing, buffs start wearing and things rapidly go downhill fast. Morta is just a cluster f*ck of a DPS race, pop it, proc it and hope you can kill it before it decides to start eating it's babies back to back. Bismark is just an annoying **** but otherwise just like Morta, pop proc and rape it before the game cheats and it kills you.

I hardly believe that an attitude is required to be a hardcore player.

So any person with a positive attitude, regardless of play time, gear, effort, and/or standards, is a casual player?
What happens when one of your "hardcore" players acknowledges someone with a positive attitude as one of the "cool kids"? Do they instantly become an ******* a hardcore player even if they want to be considered casual?

Are these are the only players out there that consider themselves hardcore? I really doubt it. All I see is a loud community. Obviously, the ones that speak the loudest receive all the attention.

In my opinion, the difference between 'hardcore' and 'casual' boils down to how much time you're willing to dedicate to playing the game. If you're putting in several hours in a session, perhaps several times a week (or even every day), whether you're working towards that Empyrean, Relic or Mythic weapon or not, you're effectively a 'hardcore' player. Those are the players who have invested a lot of time into trying to get the best items the game has to offer.

The casual players are ones who'll log in for a few moments to get a task or two done and then take a break. They're the type who want gear enough to get by, want to experience as much of the content as possible, but either don't have the time to dedicate or don't really feel the need to press themselves to be 'the best', just as long as they can perform their tasks adequately.

Incidentally, I consider myself to be a casual player. I don't have the time to spend, nor the inclination to work my schedule around trying to obtain certain items (read: logging in at specific hours of the day for weather effects or [Element]day), but I'd like enough gear to do my job adequately and the quests completed that enable me to work towards it.

Agreed. If there are fights that can't possibly be won without legendary class weapons, then yeah the difficulty is skewed too high for those fights unless they are some post-endgame ultimate boss specifically designed and advertised as a hardcores only challenge. Bismarck and Rex are not that. They're plopped in the middle of everything else with no indication that they're for hardcores only until after a wipe and wasting of time, stones, and other resources.

Requiring a certain level of gear to be competitive I have no issue with, but requiring emps/relics/mythics is a step too far. People here can poo poo the difficulty or lack thereof all they want, but to act as if someone is not serious about their job if they don't have one is utterly preposterous. For SE to create ordinary content with these in mind is just design failure. Have some special fights somewhere for the hardcore folks to test their mettle on, but don't just plop them in the same place as content intended for all. It's confusing and leads to the ill feelings we're seeing here.

And you know what this comes from someone who has a 90 Empyrean now (thanks to all my friends!) and who has been helping and is glad to help her friends obtain them as well. I still don't think content should be geared around those who have them. The vast majority of content should be accessible to the vast majority of players. Right now, the most recently released content seems to cater to the vast minority instead. Should they have stuff to do? Of course! There should be a percentage of the game set aside for them, and it's not like they can't do all the "normal" content as well. I think at some point though, the hardcores do need to accept that the game isn't going to always be able to keep up with them. That's just the drawback of being exceptional. You get it done faster and better than everyone else and you'll get bored quicker. There's only so much that can be done about that.

The fact that you didn't notice that he put DRG in there twice, an obvious typo, yet wrote that much of a rant about it, has made me severely question your self-confidence about being a DRK.

Out of curiosity, what is the activation rate on OaT lance and great sword? I took a look at the weapons and from an untrained eye they look like they have similar potential to an empyrean. Can someone enlighten me as to how the breakdown favors the OaT weapons so heavily? This isn't a troll either. I'm legitimately curious as to why the weapons differ so much.

I thought this would be the case. In that case forgive me if I'm being ignorant, but I still don't understand why the OaT lance and polearm are so powerful that they "crush" their empyrean counterparts. You summed up my problem understanding this which boils down to these two points

-----OaT weapons have a similar DoT as the empyrean weapons (lower base damage but should proc two attacks about half the time, and empyrean aftermath is ODD 30% at 100% tp for 30 seconds. 40% activation at 200% tp for 30 seconds, and 50% activation at 300% to for 90 seconds)
-----OaT weapons build tp a lot faster than their empyrean counterparts, but even if you're using the merit weaponskill their base damage is lower so the weaponskill damage will be cut down accordingly.

I would like to know what data supports the OaT weapons over empyrean rather than simply being told they're better. I'm not saying they're NOT mind you, but from someone with no firsthand experience I'd like to know why. What events was this statement based off of and against what types of players. I would think that in voidwatch an empyrean should crush an OaT simply because voidwatch relies heavily on proccing the mob and refilling temp items, and that means dadeulous wings. An empyrean lance or great sword player participating in voidwatch can still merit the same weaponskills to level 5, so I would assume the tp wings would more than compensate for any offsets in OaT tp gain, and since D wings give 300% TP they enable a level 3 empyrean aftermath right from the start (ODD 50% activation rate for 90 seconds). On the flipside if we were looking at farming generics I would think the weapons should come out very close.

There is also quite a difference in power between the lvl 99 empyreans and the lvl 90 versions. I understand the 1500 metal plates is brutal, but if he was saying that the lvl 99 OaT crushes a lvl 90 empyrean counterpart then the statement revolves around a weapon nine levels higher than the other. I still don't think it would crush the empy as badly as he says, but logically a lvl 99 weapon typically has higher potential than a lvl 90 weapon because it's, well... nine levels higher.

Rhongomiant lvl 99 -- damage 159, delay 492
Rhongomiant lvl 90 -- damage 132, delay 492
OaT Sixgill lvl 99 -- Damage 119, delay 492
Stingray +2 (lvl 90) -- damage 105, delay 492

Caladbolg lvl 99 -- damage 132 delay 430
Caladbolg lvl 90 -- damage 120 delay 430
OaT Kauriraris lvl 99 -- damage 110, delay 456
Kalavejs +2 (lvl 90) -- damage 98, delay 456

And yes I understand that fSTR plays a part in base damage calculations, so high strength affects each weapon accordingly which does side with the OaT's DoT. Anyway, sorry for the length of this post. Again, if I'm not understanding something I just want some clarification. From what I can tell, the difference between a lvl 90 empy and a 99 OaT appears very similar, and the lvl 99 empyrean looks straight up better than the 99 OaT, even if it does mean vastly larger commitment to obtain.

Edited, May 15th 2012 8:59am by Melphina

It's pretty much a result of the new WS. Resolution and Stardriver are just plain better than their Empyrean counterparts. The Emp GS also makes it a bit harder to x-hit with its lower delay.





While my primary intent wasn't to introduce some kind of pecking order, the more prevalent issue was that a RDM opting to gear and sub for melee would never really be considered an acceptable choice, even if was super pimped RDM vs. Gimp WAR on /search. As a job meant to emphasize flexibility, the lack of that choice being present is a problem. Basically, what the community perceives in the loss from not backlining and subbing WHM or SCH is not made up for by light melee and presently questionable utility when just killing **** faster is usually the MO.

The fun part is attempting to address that usually gets met with fears of breaking balance with a side people reveling in RDM being knocked down a peg from the old days. I'm more of the mind to say the job wasn't as good as people hyped and some of the issues of yesteryear are finally being realized, but hey, see a few people cheese the AI and a few game mechanics, and everyone else in the job should suffer. More accurately, it's better to say RDM has grown very little while other jobs like WHM and BLU have grown substantially, respectively dwarfing the class a healer or hybrid. I hope I won't have to clarify on why BLM or SCH beats them as a nuker, the latter also being a superior healer between recent adjustments to both cures and regens.

Mechanics to better synergize the job's mixed aspects could be added to create a unique and desired class, but good luck getting some out of their old habits of thinking, including the "If you want to do X, play job Y..." mentality that covers the few I mentioned above.

Ok a few things...



Ok take the pants off your head. I listed DRG twice and meant DRK, it was obviously a type because I also mentioned Resolution + OaT GSWD being better then it's Emp counterpart.

To Mel



This is because Res and SD both have 100% WSC which is 66% more then a 60% WSC weapon skill would have. 100 * .85 = 85, 100 * .85 * 605 = 51, 85/51 = 66.6%. Their WSC is so large that the base DMG on the weapon itself becomes the minor component of the WS. The OaT weapons have a 45% proc rate @99 (I'm fairly positive their rates got raised at 95). There is even an argument for the OaT GAXE + Upheaval if someone doesn't have R/M/E.

Polearm
DMG: 110 Delay: 501

Great Sword
DMG: 104 Delay: 480

At 200 STR they each get +170 DMG from their WSC. Suddenly a 30 lower base DMG doesn't look like much when your talking 170 from WSC and another 15~20 from fSTR. These weapons also proc their add attacks like crazy, both DRG and DRK do not have native DA and only get some from /WAR and various gear, thus the impact from DA is lessened.

In short, the OaT weapons completely beat the Emps for GSWD and PLM because of how often they proc which allows for more spamming of those two weapon skills. Torcleaver / CT both fall behind Res / SD for damage. Emps get beat in DPS, WS rate and WS strength (for their special WS) when compared to the OaT counterparts (GSWD / PLM) especially when you considering that getting an emp to 95 and 99 is ridiculously expensive. HMP is 110K now, that's 165M just for the 95. The 99 items are about 400~500K each for another 27M. The 99 OaT weapons are ... riftsand @5K and mirrors at 15~20K, basically dirt cheap. Thus you got a weapon that is more difficult to obtain, more expensive to upgrade and puts out less damage then someone that is easier to obtain and cheaper to upgrade.

Finally on ODD, ODD works for MNK, BLU, NIN, THF and other jobs that rely on melee hits for their damage source. For SAM / DRK / DRG and even WAR to an extent, ODD is by far the lowest contributor to your damage. SAM is looking at 90/10 ~ 85/15 WS/Melee split, DRK and DRG are at 70/30 along with WAR. This is why both DRG and DRK are better off going /WAR to fast paced zerg-it-now fights then /SAM, the burst damage on their weapon skills for that first 3min is more important then Hasso / Medi / sTP. These jobs are all about pumping out as many high powered WS's as possible.

-Edit-

Just saw this,


Yes there is, it's been gone over already. For every time a hit brings you over TP there is just as many times as it will bring you right at 100 TP. Most will have 5-hit builds, this includes one "hit" from your WS then 4 melee hits remaining. You can have two OaT procs happen back to back (and at 45% that happens often) which brings you to a "3-hit", you can also have no hits happen which then your at a regular 4-hit. There is a 20.25% chance of having back to back procs without counting DA (which only raise's that number). There is a 21.6% chance of having no procs in the first three swings, again without factoring DA (which lowers that number). Ultimately once you put in DA the chance of you having no procs ends up less then having back to back procs thus the weapon on average lowers your "to hit" by at least one swing. This gets even crazier once you consider Misers + Discipline, it basically turns into WS -> swing swing -> WS -> swing swing -> WS. DRK rides SE during the first 60s, those OaT's count for SE hits, another reason why Res (5~6hit) kicks Torcleavers (1~2 hit) butt. DRG's jumps can proc OaT hits for additional TP, this lets a DRG do WS -> Jump -> Swing -> WS -> Swing Jump -> WS - swing swing > WS, with liberal use of Dusty Wings in the mix.

Moten's got a nice spreadsheet you can look up and it lays it out nicely. OaT + WS Spam is the way to go with DRG and DRK, SAM is slightly different boat though and WAR's Ukkos' is Jesus OMG good.

Edited, May 16th 2012 12:06am by saevellakshmi

Edited, May 21st 2012 6:53am by saevellakshmi

I agree I really want to try out a Ruinator build sometime. People tend to forget about it because it's Axe and the only people who "do" axe are BSTs.

Ruinator
4 hit (5 from DW)
1.0 fTP (copy ftp) so 1.2 per hit, 6.0 fTP total
100% STR WSC, same scaling as above.
With 200 STR your talking 170 DMG from WSC and another 14~16 from fSTR to go with the 76 DMG axe (Gibbous Axe is what I have).

Vs a monster with 120 VIT (16 fSTR (capped)) I get
262 base Damage
1572 if pDiff is 1.0
3144 if pDiff is 2.0 (capped 1H)
3301 if pDiff is 2.0 and get lucky on random 1.05.

This is without counting DA's. Also Ruinator has a 37.5% attack bonus on all hits, that's the same bonus that Shoha gets.

Ukko's would still be better, but would be fun to make people go O.o anyway.