Adjustments of the Job Persuasion!

Per usual, SE saved the best update news for last.

Well maybe not so much usual depending on how you like the news they deliver, but at the very least, they delivered what I perceive to be the best news of the update today and something that's been anticipated for a while.

Job adjustments!

With the amount of data they just dumped on us, one has to suspect most of the FFXI community is in a bit of a state of shock. A lot of this is stuff that I wouldn't have anticipated until at least the 2nd level cap increase scheduled for the Sept. update. So this means that the Sept. update will be completely lackluster aside from new spells being added or this is simply a sign of just how refocused SE is on the endgame aspect of FFXI.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time going over all of the job adjustments in detail. Instead, I'm just going to go over how I think the adjustments will impact the jobs I actually have leveled.

Dragoon

On paper, my favorite job looks like it got the most significant boost out of any of the job adjustments. A quick run down:

Spirit Jump: Delivers a short jumping attack on a targeted enemy which suppresses enmity. Effect enhanced when wyvern is present. (Lv.77 Ability)

Conserve TP: Occasionally reduces TP consumption on weaponskills. (Lv.45 Trait)

Spirit Link: When dragoons use the "Spirit Link" ability, half of their wyvern's TP will be transferred to them.(Existed already, Lv.25 Ability)

Sekkanoki: The level requirement for the samurai ability "Sekkanoki" will be reduced from 60 to 40.

Dragoon was already a monster to begin with thanks to SE's decision to change the gear group from light armor to heavy armor, the additions of Hasso and Seigan, and to the 2H weapon update from years ago. A DRG/SAM with a decent gear set up mixing in at least some Askar could spam WS with the best of them and dish out a good chunk of damage to boot.

Meditate combined with the Jumps TP means you essentially have a free weapon skill. Zanshin combined with a DRG's innate accuracy bonus means a DRG isn't missing much. The ability to shed hate via High Jump and Super Jump means that DRGs are often times the last melee standing in various battles, not to mention what that actually does for conserving your support staff's MP pool. Bottom line is, DRG as it is, isn't typically going to win the damage spike trophy, but it's going to be up there consistently.

Now that appears to change. Keep in mind, a lot of this depends on how SE implements this stuff. If Spirit Jump, for example, offers no TP return, then a lot of this is just moot. However, if Spirit Jump gives same TP return as Jump and High Jump, well this means if all timers are up for me and the jumps connect, then I'm pulling down 51 TP from my jumps alone. Couple this with the potential to conserve TP after using a WS, the ability to limit yourself to only using 100TP every 5 minutes and the ability to yanking a little bit of TP off your wyvern and well...you get the idea.

That's what is on paper though. Conserve TP is still a bit of an enigma from what I can gather. I haven't found any solid proof on how often it actually kicks in. Obviously, any extra TP you have left over is a good thing, but if it's only got something like a 2.5% chance of kicking in and you can save a max of 10TP...yeah not something to get overly excited about.

The Spirit Link modification is a little bit of a surprise to me. The biggest problem with that is the wyvern doesn't have TP all that often. A lot of people don't realize that a DRG's wyvern uses it's TP when it uses a healing breath or an offensive/elemental breath. So there aren't a great deal of situations where your wyvern is just sitting on a humongous pile of TP. It's most practical melee/party use is if you're stuck at something like 87TP and are about to miss a SC waiting for that next swing. It's solo use will be a lot more practical as the time between healing breaths in most cases is far greater than the time between your WS in any situation. It's still limited to only being used every 3 mins, but in a zerg situation, every little bit of TP helps...

...as long as the DRG remembers to use Spirit Link now before they use Spirit Surge...

Spirit Jump, potential TP gain aside, perplexes me a bit. Why did DRG need another jump that suppresses it's enmity when we already have one that sheds 50-60% and one that sheds 99%? I'm not complaining, it just doesn't seem all that logical. Realistically, DRG didn't actually need another Jump ability. Shit, as a fully merited DRG/SAM, I've got a JA list a mile long already. Jump, High Jump, Super Jump, Call Wyvern, Spirit Surge, Spirit Link, Hasso, Seigan, Angon, Deep Breathing, Meditate, Ancient Circle, and Warding Circle.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the fact that I've got another means of dishing out damage and gaining TP, I just think the effect is a little ill-conceived. It's on a 90 second timer, which likely means it will shed something like 15% of your enmity without your wyvern out and 30% with.

As a side note, it's also going to f**k up my timers. Jump and High Jump timers are max merited. So out of the gate, I have a 75 second jump, a 90 second jump and a 150 second jump. Wasn't too hard to remember that I could use High Jump every other time I used Jump. Spirit Jump just doesn't line up all that well from a timer standpoint, but that could be beneficial depending if you somehow managed to pull hate right after using Super Jump...

Sekkanoki is what I'm most excited about though. There are a number of times where I'm well over 100TP waiting for someone to fire a WS I can chain with or waiting for a move to stun with Leg Sweep. This JA is obviously not just limited to DRG, but with the ability of DRG to gain TP, I'd say this is the one job that would benefit the most from it.

Paladin

What can I really say here? PLD has become SE's prodigal son and NIN has become more of the red-headed, bastard, step-child.

Divine Emblem: Enhances the accuracy of your next divine magic spell and increases enmity.(Lv.78 Ability)

Crit. Defense Bonus: Improves Defense against critical hits.(Lv.79 Trait)

Shield Defense Bonus: Reduces damage taken when blocking an attack with a shield.(Lv77 Trait)

Shell IV/Phalanx: Self-explanatory (Lv.80 and Lv 77 spells respectively)

I'm the first to admit that I'm not an expert tank. It's only been recently that I've spent a ton of time on the job thanks to the various events Obsidian is expanding in to. My take on these may not be as thorough as someone with a lot more tanking experience.

Divine Emblem seems kind of pointless. How often does a PLD actually use Divine Magic outside of Flash? Not very often. This leads me to believe that this JA was specifically designed for Flash. I guess it depends on what type of enmity it actually adds to flash (if SE decided to go fancy and basically put provoke hate on flash...), but having this ability every 10 minutes just doesn't seem worth it to me. I think this is SE's acknowledgment of PLD/NIN not having very many ways of pulling hate currently. It still doesn't have very many ways of pulling hate though.

Guessing that PLD will get provoke at some point very soon...

Crit. Defense Bonus jury is out on this one until more testing is done. 1-2% reduction = worthless. 5%+ = awesome.

Shield Defense Bonus is probably the 2nd most useful thing to come out of these notes for PLD. Max shield skill already gave a nice reduction in damage and this is only furthered.

Shell IV was obviously coming. Phalanx...not so much. RDMs everywhere are crying now about their Phalanx II merits being a complete waste since they seem to think dumping them on a PLD is the only logical use for it. (There are some that would argue Phalanx II is useless anyway and really became that way once SCH could use Accession and sub RDM...) Personally, it's a welcome change. Now I don't have a reason to sub RDM aside from Haste maybe. PLD/SCH anyone?

Dark Knight

It's pretty obvious SE's focus for DRK was to get them to use their MP a little more. It looks like they just might succeed...

Nether Void: Increases the absorption of your next dark magic spell. (Lv.78 Ability)

Occult Acumen: Grants bonus TP when dealing damage with elemental or dark magic.(Lv.45 Trait)

Aspir II: Self-Explanatory (Lv.78 Spell)

T3 nukes: Self-Explanatory (Lv.76+ spells, Stone and Water for starters)

Nether Void is probably going to be used most commonly before Absorb-TP, Absorb-STR, Absorb-DEX, Drains and Aspirs. That is, if SE actually allows it's use to be extended to the Drains and Aspirs. DRKs can rejoice though. Now they have something to use in tandem with Dark Seal that can potentially absorb copious amounts of whatever they cast...

Occult Acumen baffles me a little. You get TP if you deal damage with elemental or dark magic? Is that what that translates to? I may need a little help understanding exactly what this does, but it seems like they're trying to give DRK the ability to get TP by casting nukes...

Aspir II will probably follow in the same footsteps as Drain II. A more powerful version of the original that potentially increases the max MP cap for any amount of MP you drain over the top of your own. More MP, even if it's temporary, would likely help out given the fact that DRKs are about to get T3 nukes.

T3 nukes surprised me a little bit. I figured SE would likely just add a lot more DRK specific spells along the lines of something like Absorb-STR II as opposed to giving them the ability to nuke. While they still may do that, DRK subbing RDM potentially just became a soloing beast. W.Body just got a lot more popular...

White Mage

If PLD is SE's prodigal son to NIN's red-headed bastard step-child, then WHM is SE's darling to RDM's pimply sibling. Shit, could they possibly buff WHM anymore than they already have? The last round of WHM job adjustments pretty much blew any other mage job out of the water in the healing role. While other jobs like RDM and SCH can still fulfill the role, they can't do it like a WHM can now and SE just opened that gap up a little wider.

Divine Benison: Quickens spellcasting for status ailment recovery magic. Grants a bonus to enmity reduction (Lv.50 Trait)

Protect/Shell V: Self-explanatory. (Lv.76 spell)

Baramnesra: Self-explanatory. (Lv.78 Spell)

Cure VI: Self-explanatory. (Lv.80 Spell)

I'm sure all the WHMs will love having the ability to cast status removal spells faster and the loss of enmity while spamming Esuna and whatnot in the heat of battle will definitely help, but...was it really necessary?

Protect and Shell V have just become #1 and #2 respectively on the most useless WHM spell list if they don't have the potency of a merited Protectra or Shellra V. And if they do...hooboy...pissed off WHMs everywhere.

Baramnesra is a nice little addition. Probably won't amount to much of anything, but it's still nice they seem to acknowledge EVERYONE F**KING HATES AMNESIA. GIVE US A SPELL TO ACTUALLY REMOVE IT.

Cure VI will be interesting to see how it plays out. Cures 1-4 all had a progressively higher level of enmity associated with it and Cure V essentially has the same enmity as cure 3. Did they continue the hate progression of Cure 1-4 or did they just equate the enmity associated with it to something like Cure 4. MP will likely be an issue with this spell as well. I suspect this is meant more to use while subbing RDM and using Convert than anything else.

Conclusion

I mentioned to Old Man earlier that if this year is indeed FFXI's "last hurrah" in regards to significant updates, then SE is dropping update nukes everywhere. I believe that, while most of these things are limited to just being on paper, DRG, DNC and DRK are the top 3 most affected jobs by this update. All of the other jobs typically got stuff that just follows normal progression or gives them a one off that doesn't really affect their playstyle all that much.

MNK will be one to watch out for given they can now guarantee a counter every minute (if you utilize MNK tanks). RNG picking up a forced double damage JA along with Conserve TP and the new True Shot trait will also be another one to watch for. COR may become more of a soloing force now that they have a movement speed roll that has virtually no cast time. I'm also curious to see how Libra is going to be utilized. Will the information provided show enmity levels for party members or just as it relates to the SCH itself?

Either way, a lot of new and fun stuff coming up this Monday. For the first time in a while, I'm really excited about an update. I just hope SE doesn't pull the rug out from under us as they have done a few times in the past.