Job Adjustments (Part 2)

As previously announced, the September version update will see the unveiling of a variety of new job abilities, traits, and spells. Besides these additions, existing job abilities will also see wide-ranging adjustments and refinements.

The following adjustments will be made to existing job abilities:

- The warrior ability "Restraint" will no longer prevent the user from dealing critical hits.

- The thief ability "Despoil" will have an increased success rate, and the status ailment inflicted upon the enemy will be displayed in the message log.

- The beastmaster ability "Call Beast" will receive four new jugs:
Curdled Plasma Broth / Goblin Bug Broth / Bubbling Carrion Broth / Chirping Grasshopper Broth

- The beastmaster ability "Reward" will have minimum level requirements placed on pet food as follows, and the healing effect will be increased accordingly for food of higher levels:
- Pet Food Alpha (Level 12)
- Pet Food Beta (Level 24)
- Pet Food Gamma (Level 36)
- Pet Food Delta (Level 48)
- Pet Food Epsilon (Level 60)
- Pet Food Zeta (Level 72)

- The bard songs "Chocobo Mazurka" and "Raptor Mazurka" will be effective in non-field areas.

- Elemental ninjutsu will receive a damage increase.

- The dragoon ability "Spirit Jump" will be affected by the "Jump Recast" merit point skill.

- The enhanced effect of the dragoon ability "Spirit Jump" when your wyvern is present will be increased further.

- Wyverns summoned with the dragoon ability "Call Wyvern" will be able to level up with experience gained in Abyssea.

- Summoners level 76 and above will see a decrease in the amount of MP required to sustain summoned avatars.

- The following blood pacts will have their effect duration lengthened commensurate with summoning magic skill, regardless of whether or not the skill has been increased to its maximum:
Shining Ruby / Glittering Ruby / Hastega / Crimson Howl / Frost Armor / Rolling Thunder / Lightning Armor / Ecliptic Growl / Ecliptic Howl / Noctoshield / Dream Shroud

- The maximum amount of MP drainable using the summoner ability "Elemental Siphon" will be increased.

- The maximum amount of MP restorable with the blue magic spell "Battery Charge" will be increased. This will be accomplished by reducing the rate of MP restoration slightly, but increasing the total duration of the spell effect.

- Your assigned set of blue magic will remain stored even after changing jobs.

- It will now be possible to accumulate TP and increase marksmanship skill using the corsair ability "Quick Draw."

- The duration of the corsair ability "Double Up" upon a roll of 11 will be reduced to five minutes.
*To compensate for this, enhancements to "Lucky 11" rolls are being planned for future updates, so please stay tuned!

- The puppetmaster ability "Deus Ex Automata" will be added.
- Deus Ex Automata (PUP Lv.5 / Ability Delay: 1 min.)
Calls forth your automaton in an unsound state.

- When level restriction results in a puppetmaster's automaton being deactivated in a state of full or nearly full health, the ability "Activate" will become immediately usable.

- The following items usable with the puppetmaster ability "Repair" will provide immediate HP restoration in addition to their existing Regen effect. Their purchase price will also be reduced.
Automaton Oil / Automaton Oil +1 / Automaton Oil +2

A number of things to note here, so going job by job...

Dragoon: All I have to say is, FUCK YEAH!~ Hopefully they make High Jump's merits work with Soul Jump right out of the gate too, but it is SE and they might just want to observe it. The "enhanced effect of Spirit Jump" being increased has my interest piqued a bit too. Right now, with wyvern present, you basically sacrifice your random VIT jump modifiers for 1.5x the TP you would normally get.

For me personally, I haven't noticed a huge difference in terms of damage between Jump and Spirit Jump. More often times than not, I'm between 250-400 on Spirit Jump. Jump was always about the same for me with a slightly higher floor and ceiling. Yes, that means I'm sacrificing some damage every minute and fifteen seconds, but if I'm getting to a WS faster, trust me, I'm overcoming that really easy.

Now they're talking about enhancing that effect further. I won't complain, but I will ask:

What's made them think it was really necessary?

As for the whole wyvern leveling up in abyssea thing, truthfully, I never noticed it didn't. On top of that, most of the stuff I'm fighting in Abyssea tends to wipe the wyvern out pretty quick anyway unless it's just an xp-fest.

Ninja: Elemental Ninjutsu getting a damage boost is something that's long overdue. Likely makes those Group 2 merits a lot more useful as well. If it's a 1% increase, then SE is just cockteasing the poor NINs. However, I don't think it'll be that minimal.

Summoner: Less MP consumption for keeping Avatars out post-76 is always a good thing. I believe this is directly aimed at either trying to extend the life of Avatar Favors or trying to get the SMNs to use their Avatars in melee situations more.

Increased MP from Elemental Siphon is never a bad thing.

The blood pacts blurb I'm not really sure I understand, so if I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. It looks like summoning skill effects the duration of those instead of the effect?

Corsair: Getting TP from Quickdraw = Awesome. The other part...wut?

Beastmaster: More pets each update seems to be the norm. The last batch of pets given to them were rather awesome and the names of these jugs seem to imply they're about to get stronger. Pet Vulture is about the only one I could guess with any certainty. The others seem to imply they're going to get a couple vermin pets and maybe a clot pet?

Not sure what to make of the food. Never really paid attention to their affects to begin with. Adding levels to it seems rather logical unless you used the strongest food early on while leveling BST. Increasing the food's effects as you level up can't be a bad thing and given the multiples of 12 they've gone by, is a new level 84 food coming soon?

Cooks start making some Zeta...I suspect there's going to be a spike in demand.

Warrior: Uh...what? Restraint will allow you to deal crit hits now? Wasn't the point of the JA to begin with the exact opposite? Oh well, if it's just a reduced chance to land crits while still building up WS power, no one will complain.

I still somehow get the feeling SE's fucked something about this up...

Thief: Anytime you add information, it's a good thing. Being able to see what Despoil actually does isn't going to be game breaking, but it's a nice touch. Increased success rate is never bad either.

Bard: Long time coming. Don't know why this song never worked indoors.

Blue Mage: That right there was probably the single biggest reason I never leveled BLU for a sub. I don't want to think about what spells I have to set every single time I change jobs. Despite Mazurka being in the game longer, this particular aspect felt like it was far more overdue than the aforementioned mazurka.

Puppetmaster: Meh, who gives a shit. That automaton's gonna die in about 2 hits anyway. :)

With the update looking like it's going to be Sept 8th and Labor Day in there before hand, I wonder if this is the last bit of update info we'll receive before the actual update. Hopefully not. I suspect there will be Abyssea adjustments (stone counter please...) that they'll announce prior to the update, but who knows. They may just reserve those notes until day of.