Ok back to the topic.
Yesterday I had some lowman Abyssea NM killing action with Stealthkiller and his friends on BLU, and after yesterday's experience, I can't help but once again /rage when I saw thread like this. (And in case you misunderstand, Stealthkiller's pt is awesome)
http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/12549/magic-accuracy/
Basically, if you ask how to gear a BLU, or what weapon trial to do for BLU, NA community will tell you this:
Go for STR sword, stack STR everywhere until you're fking awesome. If your dmg is too low, you're gimp.
And if you ask JP community they'll tell you:
Macc sword is more beneficial for BLU. On higher lv NMs and some new NMs head butt stun proc rate gets resist very often, so using MACC sword helps a lot. BLU can't proc stun=gimp.
This demonstrates the fundamental difference between JP's play style and NA's play style. They're willing to sacrifice personal epeen and dmg output for the benefit of the whole pt. And since this game is made by JP, JP's way of playing seems to be more successful. Just my personal experience.
Oh and btw, the point of view of 14th post of the tread is invalid, you can't stun shit with 4.5 sec casting time blitzstrahl. You can't stun any mob WS and most spells because the casting time is fking long, not to mention it dries your MP pool if you're not in Abyssea. 17th post is somewhat valid, no test has been done to prove how effective MACC is when trying to proc stun. If there is any reason to stop me from making a MACC sword(planning to make one after STR and PDT- sword done.) It's probably because I'm not sure about how effective it is, not because it gimps the dmg.
Many NA player view a player good or gimp by their dmg output. However, can we really tell if a player is good or not by looking at their dmg output? Can someone's contribution to the pt be determined by their dmg output?
Once I did a T2 ZNM run with Sinister, and when I arrived I saw the pt half broken, many ppl died and they're kiting the mob and waited for pt to recover. I saw Sabre in red HP so I tossed him some heal, and he was very surprised that he was healed, because no other mage in the pt was healing him, and he was healed by a BLU, a job traditionally used as a DD. When I farm for gilz in abyssea with Orih and Nabasheen, Orih was also surprised that I was able to main heal and keep everyone alive on BLU. I wonder what kind of BLUs they usually pt with? Spammy spammy BLUs?
Once I asked Serafyn why he choose to merit Diffusion to 5/5? The recast time is so long even when you get it to 5/5. He replied because he can buff and help his pt more often, and his pt member is usually very happy when getting buffed. And he is well aware that putting merit in Diffusion will make his dmg output gimp. I actually agreed with his opinion a lot. If I'm looking for a BLU in certain lowman NM hunt event, I'd rather find a BLU with 5/5 diffusion with a sense of what to do for the benefit of the whole group instead of a BLU with 5/5 Enchainment and aim for highest dmg output.
Sometimes when I DD on COR ppl told me I'm very good at this job because I'm able to pull out decent dmg output on COR. However, how good a COR is can not be determined by it's dmg output. In order to perform good dmg output a lot of sacrifice needs to be done. Such as using 2~3 buffs instead of 4 so DD buffs stay on COR as long as possible. Use fire shots + fire staff(HQ) combo when shooting for even more dmg instead of Ice/earth shots which makes Para/slow stronger but less dmg. /DD instead of /mage and lose support abilities and such. However, give 4 buffs to the pt is better for the whole group, using ice/earth shot is better for the whole group, and /mage is better for the whole group, even just for the sake of Stoneskin when getting hit.
In the end, dmg output has nothing to do with how good a player is. Dmg output is just epeen, but doesn't make the event more successful. (none-relic)DRK/SAM can do more dmg than DRK/NIN, but they become a MP sponge if they don't know how to control hate properly. Besides dmg output, there is something that's more important in the pt. This cultural and playstyle difference between NA and JP is possibly why every NA abyssea pt I joined was full of death and not going too well in terms of EXP/hr and drops, and every JP ones I joined went well and gives decent EXP/AF3 drops.
Last Abyssea - Attohwa run we wiped against Pallid Percy and someone said headbutt stun won't work. But I tried stun spammy spammy on Pallid Percy yesterday with Stealthkiller's group and it worked just fine. It works just fine all the way until the end. So stop just STR all the way then go D; when stun won't proc.
By the way, after yesterday's stun spammy spammy night I also found Blue magic skill seems to affect the proc rate way more than other stats when fighting higher lv NMs. I used to have very hard time landing stun when fighting abyssea NMs before I cap my skill lv. Yesterday my blue magic skill lv finally capped and the stun proc very often, now I feel like I'm pimp like a boss! If I can push my skill lv a bit higher, it'd proc even more, making NMs lose even more turns and reduce the number of members needed during NM hunt.
And since blue magic skill lv affects the proc rate a lot, I'd say this item is underrated.
Ah the image is a bit small, but it's
Symbios gloves
[Hands] All Races
DEF: 20 STR -4 DEX +4 AGI -4
Blue Magic Skill +5
Lv. 77 BLM / RDM / SMN / BLU
When this item was out, everyone was like oohh STR-4 on hands, inventory -1!
It dropped last time and no one bother to lot, like this glove is some kind of plague ><
No this item is underrated. Haste +3% on hand slot doesn't make a huge difference on recast time. And from my personal experience blue magic skill lv seems to outperform the MACC+ BLU can get on hands.
Oh and btw, I found BLU is actually easier to get EXP pt invite than COR now. Sometimes I can turn pt flag on whole night on COR and no invite :<, but once I switch to BLU I got invite fast D; Once I /anon(I forgot I was /anon) and sent a /tell to JP if I can join his abyssea pt, he straight ignored me like most of other JPs. 10 min later I run into him and when he found out I'm a BLU by checking me he sent me an invite right away. I guess that's probably because Azure light jobs are hard to find and many jobs can give perle/red light. I also found my LS asking me to come BLU for events more and more. And I'm so not used to such a big change :O
While I don't like to generalize, your perspective about NA vs JP play styles is similar to my experience. Some NA players will forgo defense and support in exchange for more damage (the best defense is a good offense mentality). JP players on the other hand tend to be more balanced for support. Neither strategy is better than the other but each has positive and negatives.
ReplyDeleteThis becomes most obvious with hybrid jobs such as RDM, BLU, SCH, COR, and DNC. As you mentioned, NAs and JPs tend to be at the extremes of attack and defense respectively, however the point of a hybrid job is its flexibility. Yes, SCH can nuke but be ready to heal when the party starts to crumble. I have had a COR (in Einherjar) refuse to do mage rolls because he didn't want to gimp his damage. So in his perspective, a mage without MP is ok as long as the COR's damage is at its peak. Rolls might be less flexible than songs, but one person's damage does not take precedence over a healer's MP who is keeping 5 other people alive and healthy.
Sometimes, we need to look at the perspective of others and formulate parties on a case by case basis. Damage alone won't always win a fight. I'm glad that you brought up this point. ^^
As for Einherjar, it depends on jobs of your LS. At lv 75 sometimes T3 can be a pain, with all the DDs dying from nasty AoE and such, then a mage with enough MP to keep DDs alive will do more dmg overall than a COR with DD buffs fulltime. At lv 85 now Einherjar is very easy, and our WHM has no problem keeping ppl alive, so it's probably ok to give more DD rolls and less MP buffs.(Sometimes I only give MP buffs when WHM's MP drop to 65% or less) But yeah, COR refuse to give MP roll for personal epeen is pretty selfish no doubt. Unless your pt is killing too slow and lack dmg output, giving mage roll to mage and keep everyone alive is more beneficial to the whole group.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's as simple as NA v JP either. I think that region by region or country by country, playstyles differ. I don't want to generalise because I have some awesome players from all over the place in my linkshell but I find it harder to get american players to work well together and participate as a team member rather than a solo star. As opposed to Canadian or UK players. I've had mixed results from the middle east players and in my experience most of the French are insane. :)
ReplyDelete