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I don't know, but for me, something reeks of lame with that whole thing they're doing with the shield.
Yeah, cause, you know, blocking an attack completely once in a blue moon by the sheer grace of God is better than blocking most of the damage more frequently. Would be a travesty if players actually get to use thier shield on XP mobs with any regularity.
I'll give it this... if it ends up being like Guard (blocks damage based on the skill), then most shield users are going to be grumbling untill their Shield skill catches up to thier level (which it will hopefully do with the increased activation). The way it's stated, the only thing we know for sure that will affect the damage reduction is the type of shield (whether they mean "buckler" or "kite" or "tower", or whether they split it up by Defense rating isn't clear), but this might be even better, since higer level characters would have better shields to match thier higher Shield skill. Of course, if the damage is reduced based on the model of the shield (buckler giving less, kite shield giving more), I bet the Hard Shield's price will skyrocket (and Sioux'll make me give it back so she can sell it >_>; ) since it's the only kite shield I know of (maybe a couple more) available to classes other than Pld/Drk (and this would give anyone but Paladins and Dark Knights the shaft, but what self respecting Dark Knight uses a shield for anything but farming?).
Actually, now that I think of it, what they might do is make bucklers kick in more frequently, but kites deflect more damage (so I guess bucklers would be better for skilling up, where as kites would be better for tanking). Might even out... gonna have to wait and see I guess.
So either way, there'll probably be some growing pains as people actually start to get levels in their Shield. But hey, at the end of the day, you still have Evasion and Parry to dodge/block all the damage, unless they do something similar there.
The new Merit-point based Job abilities seem like an interesting idea. Until they raise the level cap, I can sorta see this stuff being something of a novelty (although who knows, they may put some stuff in there for melees to be more effective in god battles and such, and for that matter, what the hell do I know about high level play?). I like this idea a lot... I almost wish this level of customization was available at lower levels so more job and equipment combos would be viable.
Whitemage Job ability... Will be fun to see what this is... I can't honestly see what they need, but then, I didn't see why Thieves needed Assassin till I bothered to check out what it did.
Samurai ability... hellsyeah. Congrats guys, and I hope whatever it is that you get, it does you all justice :D
[Edit]: Typolameeeeeeeeeoooooo
Edited, Mon Feb 14 10:13:59 2005 by GailC