Need Feedback from the Black Mage Community!Follow

The Puppetmaster forums has a nice little discussion going regarding a recent 1UP interview with one of the FFXI Developers.

Here's the quote.



Based on the above quote, I had come up with a theory: The reward for completing the next mini-expansion "A Shantotto Ascension" will be Job Specific augmentable weapons.

Knowing SquareEnix and their love of time sinks, I think there will be 20 weapons in all for each job currently available in FFXI. In order to obtain another JSE weapon, you must restart the Shantotto scenario and upon completion, choose a different weapon as your reward.

So, what I would like from the Black Mage community is....what kind of BASE stats would you like on a JSE BLM Staff weapon (prior to the two augments added on)

Here's what I have in mind currently.

Warlock's Staff
DMG: 32, Delay: 380
INT +10, Magic Accuracy +10, Magic Attack Bonus +10
Adds "Refresh" effect
Lv. 72 BLM

Any/All feedback and suggestions will be fully appreciated. Once I finish posting in every job forum (yes, doing this for all jobs) and once I get enough feedback from everyone, I will make a final post in the FFXI Feedback Forum in the hopes of the SquareEnix Community noticing it and taking it into consideration for implementation.

Thank you, Black Mages!

well let's see, the staff would need something like this

Base Stats: Dmg:whatever Delay:whocares INT+10 MND+10

Augumented with: Potency +15%, Macc+10-15.

Otherwise, it won't beat Elemental Staves, and be useless.

The ideal weapon would have to be something that could be used in a certain situation. They just can't keep releasing gear that supersedes the previous. Your OP stated an example with refresh in it. That could work and would be added to every BLMs gobbiebag. Players (most?) will want a "Be-all End-all" staff but that's not gonna happen...

My guess something mediocrely situational.

hmmm... is mediocrely a word ?_?


Honestly I'd settle with a Shantotto doll furnishing >_>

Edited, May 29th 2009 10:24am by Shigo

I didnt see refresh in there first time i looked. But this is correct.

Scythe will never beat Mekki Shakki for lolmeleeblm, sorry. Retribution > Vorpal Scythe.

What... the flying fuck? Are you playing the same game as the rest of us, where some of the best gear in the game is 5+ years old and most new stuff gets passed over?

They need to release new gear that completely obsoletes the old stuff.

I've worked hard to acquire all of my HQ elemental staves. I'd rather not have SE add a "free" staff that displaces all of them, sending their value into the crapper. If it required work similar to upgrading a relic or mythic weapon, I'd be ok with it.

They'll never release better damage options than HQ Staves.
They should (though in the form of endgame drop, not an easy to get mission completion thing), but they won't.

On the other hand, there's a (very) slight chance they'll give us situational weapons that are actually useful.

Something like:

DMG: whocarescanbe1 Delay: whocarescanbe999
MP+20 INT+15 MND+15 hMP+15-20 "Drain" and "Aspir" potency+30% Magic Accuracy+40 "Magic Attack Bonus"-50toappeasetheidiotsitdoesntchangeathing
Lvwhocaresidsay73 BLM/whocaresaslongasSCHcantequip

Can't nuke in it (couldn't even without the MAB-50, but don't tell the idiots), but it is fucking useful for Drain, Aspir, resting, Stoneskin and all enfeebles.

I would be happy with a reward that allows us to trade all 6 (or 8) NQ or HQ elemental staves to an NPC to get a Prism Staff/Prism Staff +1 in return. The prism staff should roll all the bonuses of the staves (both melee and magic)into one staff. This would be more convenient than carrying around all the staves and it would provide a damage boost to non-ice spells since every spell would benefit from the +10 elemental skill and the +4/+5 INT on the ice staff.

Trading in all the staves would preserve the value of elemental staves as long as the new Prism Staff is sellable. Requiring all staves to be traded in would also insure that this quest is moderately costly to justify the power of a Prism Staff. Also, I don't think a Prism Staff would be too powerful of an upgrade.

I think it would be smart to make this BLM exclusive to give us a boost in nuking power over the other jobs which has been rapidly shrinking since SCH was adjusted and elemental skill gear became easier for them to acquire.

If that is true, then they could just change the listed stats to +10/15% Magic Potency, +10/15% Macc, +4/+5 Int and +10 Ele skill for the new staff and drop all the other stats.

It may seem contrived to make the new staff conditional on having the prior 8 staves, but I suggest this because I think SE really doesn't want to make the set of old staves obsolete. Black Mages have never been given a weapon that supercedes the elemental staves since they were first created many years ago. Not even the BLM relic and mythic weapons (which take incredible amounts of resources and time to get) come close to the effectiveness of the elemental staves. Thus, it is obvious that SE isvery loathe to give us a weapon that replaces the elemental staves. I think its because they don't want to obsolete a set of staves that take a lot of resources to acquire for the average player (HQ staves), and they are very afraid of overpowering mages (which is stupid since most melee jobs have been given large boosts in power since the days of magic burst parties).

A "prism staff" would address these concerns by keeping the old elemental staves relevant, while giving only a moderate boost to BLM damage.

It's 20/30.

Edited, Jun 10th 2009 7:53pm by ThePsychoticOne

I think they need to start doing this, because the fact that they haven't is one of the big reasons why this game is stagnating. If there's little to no room for top-tier players to better themselves, why would they keep playing?

Just look at mythic weapons overall, including the effort required to get one versus relic weapons, and try to tell me that they do not suffer from a severe "effort vs. reward" problem.

The fact that neither yesteryear's relic or today's mythic beats some olde level 51 AH staves in overall offensive caster effectiveness speaks milestones.