|
|
Post by kablizzy on Apr 23, 2013 18:27:42 GMT -6
Aim| Ability | Description | Range | Effect | Speed | JP | Overdraw
| Calculate your next plan of attack.
Success: 100% (Hit Rate)
System: Inflicts 150% damage. Cannot target-follow?
| As Weapon
| -
| 60
| 0?
| Take Aim
| The archer takes time to pinpoint his target.
Success: 100% (Hit Rate)
System: Inflicts 65% damage, Ignores enemy P-EV.
| As Weapon | 1 | N/A | 250 | | Snap Shot | Strike swiftly without hesitation.
Success: 80% (Hit Rate)
System: Inflicts 80% damage. If successful, CT resets at 15.
| As Weapon | 1 | N/A | 250 | Blackout
| Plunge the foe into darkness.
Success: 75% (Hit Rate) 50% (Blind)
System: Inflicts 60% damage. 50% chance to Add: Blind.
| As Weapon | 1 | N/A | 300 | | Pestilent Shot | Poison-tipped arrows plunge into the archer's enemies.
Success: 80% (Hit Rate) 50% (Poison)
System: Inflicts 80% damage. 50% chance to Add: Poison. | As Weapon | 1 | N/A | 400 | | Barrage | Fire off four arrows quickly in succession.
Success: 75% (Hit Rate)
System: Inflicts 35% damage per hit. Four attacks, spread randomly amongst targets,
| As Weapon | 2 | N/A | 400 | Quelling Strike
| Try to slow the enemy's advance.
Success: 50% (Hit Rate) 10% (Slow)
System: Attack command. If successful, enemy loses 15 CT. 10% chance to inflict Slow.
| As Weapon | 1 | N/A | 450 | | Snipe | The Archer lets loose a shot to the winds.
Success: 90% (Hit Rate)
System: May only be used with a bow. 65% damage. | As Weapon +3 | 1 | N/A | 600 | | Flaming Arrow | Set afire the arrow before sending it off.
Success: 75% (Hit Rate), 10% (Burning)
Element: Fire
System: Inflicts 125% damage.
| As Weapon | 1 | N/A | 600 | Pierce
| Use an advanced arrow with a wider, sharper tip.
Success: 85% (Hit Rate), 30% (Critical Hit)
System: Inflicts 100% damage. Higher critical hit rate than normal.
| As Weapon
| 1
| N/A
| 650
|
Reaction| Name | Description | JP | | Concealment | 33% chance to avoid an area of effect attack.
| 300 | | Arrow Guard | Chance to dodge ranged attacks. | 300 | |
| Name | Description | JP | | Equip Bows | Equip longbows, crossbows regardless of Job. | 250 | High Ground
| 1.2x damage when at an elevation higher than your target.
| 400 | | Concentration | Decreases enemy P-EV by 5%.
| 450 | |
Movement| Name | Description | JP | | Agility | Increase Jump and Move both by 1 | 600 |
Okay, few notes on what I did. - Death Sickle is canonical, but I'm not married to the name, we can rename that if need be.
- Scavenger added to movement.
- Provisionally added Hawkeye / Concentrate to Support.
- Changed Equip Bows to both Long and Crossbows, lemme know how this sits with you guys.
- Removed Arm / Leg aim in favor of Machinist.
- Threw Speed Save back in 'cause I like it, and it's a cool expensive ability.
- Also threw in both Concealment and Archer's Bane, 'cause I like reaction abilities, no matter how narrow.
- Changed Flaming Arrow and Pierce damage.
- Changed damage formula to xAttack, we had two different ways of putting it, so I standardized it.
- Added Snipe, 'cause that shit is cool.
- Merged a few abilities with Barrage, 'cause that shit is wicked cool. Loved Schwer's version so, I made it that.
- Kept Quelling strike since Leg / Arm aim are gone, I think that's a decent trade-off with Death Sickle and Poison-arrow-thingy still in.
- Provisionally added Seal Evil on the concept that Necromancers will either not be undead or will have Immune: Petrify.
- Changed a few JP prices, 6200 total. But beyond that, we should be good. Lemme know what ya'll think!
|
|
Schwerpunkt
Power Gamer
Who would ever want to be king?
Posts: 422
|
Post by Schwerpunkt on Apr 23, 2013 19:33:38 GMT -6
I dislike most of that. Especially the elemental shots, which make this less a POJ and more of a HOJ.
Active
250 - Suppressing Shot -> 50% to hit, 0% damage, halves target's accuracy with ranged physical attacks for two turns.
250 - Accurate Shot -> 100% to hit, 70% damage.
250 - Snap Shot -> 75% damage, CT resets to 15 after use.
400 - Rapid Fire -> Shoot at a target three times. Each attack has 75% accuracy and, if it hits, it hits for 55% damage. This gives a 43% chance to do 165% damage, a 56% chance to do 110% damage, a 75% chance to do 55% damage, and a ridiculously low chance (like 2%) to simply not hit. This is especially good for weapons that have an on-hit effect (like Algus' little crossbow that added Blind).
400 - Flaming Arrow -> 80% regular damage, applies a fire dot that causes an additional 25% damage over two turns. If the target is afflicted by Oil, fire damage doubles. It's a combo attack, really.
400 - Yuanrang's Shot -> 80% damage, 75% chance to blind on hit.
600 - Flare -> Moderate AoE attack that causes no damage, but reduces the P-Ev of units in its effects by 100%. Persists for two turns.
600 - Snipe -> Increases weapon range by 3, reduces damage and accuracy by 15%.
600 - Groin Shot -> 50% accuracy. If successful, it afflicts Don't Move, Don't Act, or Silence.
Reaction
350 - Concealment -> 33% chance to avoid an area of effect attack.
350 - Tit-for-Tat -> Sends a feathery 'Thank You' note upon receiving any form of ranged damage (magical or physical).
350 - Cover -> 33% chance to avoid any ranged physical damage.
Support
350 - Equip Bows
250 - Gravity's My Bro -> Whenever you are at a higher elevation than your target, all direct damage increased by 20%.
250 - Ballistics Geek -> Can choose between direct (ie, flat trajectory) and indirect (ie, angled trajectory) fire with bows and crossbows as necessary.
Movement
350 - Agile Climber -> Jump increased by 3.
350 - Scavenger -> Automatically recover 5% of health and heal poison status effects upon ending your turn on a 'green' tile.
Total JP: 6,350. Useful to Archer Primary: 6,000 JP.
|
|
|
|
Post by kablizzy on Apr 24, 2013 0:30:13 GMT -6
Yeah, most of the Ranger stuff is just straight-up awful. I guess before I even make a suggestion, what are our thoughts on Ranger v. Archer? 'Cause that'll influence what direction I go.
|
|
Schwerpunkt
Power Gamer
Who would ever want to be king?
Posts: 422
|
Post by Schwerpunkt on Apr 24, 2013 0:51:29 GMT -6
Except when it comes to prestige stuff, we're keeping all the normal FFT naming conventions. Changing Archer to Ranger is inconsistent with that and will just lead to confusion.
Besides, trap-laying forest rangers sound cool until you realize you're basically playing Haldir.
|
|
|
|
Post by kablizzy on Apr 24, 2013 1:15:33 GMT -6
Hahaha, pretty much. Alright, then. I do like sticking to Final Fantasy naming conventions wherever possible. Also, Rangers are kinda pansies anyway. I think we have more than enough here to make a decent Archer build, especially after Ilium weighs in.
Suppressing Shot: Interesting. I can see archer firefights happening with this.
Accurate Shot: Love the mechanic, would like to stick with the "Aim" convention if possible.
Snap Shot: Exactly what I had in mind here too.
Rapid Shot: At first, I thought this was way too convoluted, but then realized that most of that is formula reminder text for us. Same thing with naming, and same thing with what I had in mind.
Flaming Arrow: Honestly the only one of the three elemental arrow shots that even makes sense, and it's not even necessarily a magical arrow, but an actual flaming arrow. Again, pretty much exactly what I had in mind here.
Yuanrang's Shot: Who's Yuanrang? Again, beyond naming, pretty simple stuff. Love it.
Flare: Not as keen on this. Perhaps because of the spell Flare? Ability's cool enough, though.
Snipe: Long shot to a T. Like Snipe better anyway.
Groin Shot: Bahahahahaha! Amazing. I love how this is Archer's Penultimate ability in your build.
Concealment / Cover - Both awesome.
Tit for Tat: Not a fan of this one, personally.
Jump + 3: I'd have a hard time getting behind this one, since Lancers should have a higher one, and I'm not sure how I feel about going above +3 for them. I'll ponder this one.
Scavenger: Good enough for me.
A few that I particularly like that you didn't include in your build: Beso Toxico, while I dislike the name slightly, I like the concept. Seems like the epitome of archer. Trick Shot, because it's something you don't see every day - ignoring an R-ability. Also, we can have it do less damage in exchange for the concept. Critical Shot and Cupid aren't necessary, I just liked the ideas enough to include them. Charge, I wanted to keep if we can do it right. I like the Archer to retain the ability to charge if they want, and instead of making it a variable purchase, we can make it just a single ability that they buy once, and have the ability variable. Skybolt was awesome, although I think we can ship that off to a Prestige Class pretty easily. Peep / Scan was probably the one I wanted to keep most, since it seemed like an Archer-y thing to have. Poach is more of a concept, not necessarily something I want Archer to have, but I also recall poaching a ton of stuff in FFT, and enjoying it. Something I want to explore for the game.
I do want to keep Speed Save and Arrow Guard in the running as well, 'cause they're really the only things we'd keep from FFT. Resist Poison was also nifty, but narrow, so I dunno there. I would also want to keep Concentrate in consideration, but I'm concerned about its interactions with other weapons / skills. Thoughts?
I'll wait for Ilium to add his thoughts before editing out the chaff from the first post.
|
|
Schwerpunkt
Power Gamer
Who would ever want to be king?
Posts: 422
|
Post by Schwerpunkt on Apr 24, 2013 2:21:18 GMT -6
Yuanrang is Xiahou Dun's zi. He gets shot in the eye and (according to the hyper-fictionalized Sanguo Yanyi) can't throw it away, so he eats it, then he chased down and brutally murders the guy who shot him. So it's a joke name.
We have a Flare ability? I didn't know that. Feel free to swap it out for a poison arrow attack. Pestilent Shot, maybe.
Jump gets a +3 because Jump +1 is anemic and movement abilities need to be really worthwhile here. Maybe make it a +2 instead, but Jump +1 just doesn't hack it for a class that benefits from getting high.
Trick Shot sounds nice in theory, but very few reaction abilities apply to archers. You're basically sacrificing a potentially useful Support slot to counter... what, exactly? Speed Save and Arrow Guard, both of which I cut? I mean, it's useful if you're shooting a Knight at point blank range, but if that's the case... you deserve to get a crit-knockback into a river of lava. I just don't see how Trick Shot is useful to us.
Critical Shot is nice, but it seems kind of lazy to me. It also defeats the purpose of Aim; by the time you scale Aim up enough to match crit damage (which is, what, 150% damage?), it's become insanely slow. So unless Critical Shot came with a huge accuracy penalty (like, >35%), it would probably just be spammed relentlessly. It's what I'd do, at any rate.
Cupid I kind of like, but Charm is a fiendishly powerful status effect. I'd rather most basic classes don't even have access to it.
Concentrate would need to be cut entirely because of how ridiculously unbalanced it could become. Basically, if we opt to include Concentrate, we can never lower accuracy in favor of increasing damage again. For any class. I was planning on giving the Berserker some -accuracy%, +damage% abilities (like the initial Knight draft I made), which would just translate as free damage spikes if he could equip Concentrate. And imagine how out of control things would get if Ninja could be guaranteed to hit with both attacks every single time. Basically, Concentrate skews our balance and makes it very easy for high-risk, high-reward classes to turn into death dealing ubermensch.
Peep/Scan doesn't really interest me that much. WotD has live battles; I don't think we're going to do that (and, if we do, it'll be pretty limited stuff). That's where it's most useful. Otherwise it's just sinking a turn to figure out if a goblin is weak to Ice or something. And, when you get right down to it, you can probably just look most of that information up. Monster class vulnerabilities are going to be public -- and I'm betting item class vulnerabilities (like the ones that come with things like Flame Shield) will be too.
Poach, if it's in the game, shouldn't really be an Archer skill. It should probably come from a 'Generic' skill pool (along with things like crafting).
Arrow Guard I don't like because HoI didn't have terribly many archers that I can recall (I remember, in ~20 levels, never fighting a single one). It's very classic FFT Archer, so I can see including it (especially if we cut Tit-for-Tat), but I'm not a huge fan of including something just because it's in FFT.
Resist Poison is terrible. In addition to being a fairly low-damage ability (how many times did you just maul Barich in spite of his mass-poison?), we have other damage-over-time effects like bleeds and, when we start talking about shadow magic, probably curses too. Scavenger gives de facto poison immunity (within reason; it'll tick once, which isn't at all significant) if you're in a 'green' region.
And Speed Save, while I do like the ability in theory, is just one of those things that can be horribly broken. Imagine if a Dark Knight (or any prestige Knight, really) got it. It'd be obscene.
|
|
|
|
Post by kablizzy on Apr 24, 2013 8:59:41 GMT -6
Exquisite on all points. I'll respond in detail as I get home from work this evening.
|
|
|
|
Post by Ilium on Apr 24, 2013 16:50:29 GMT -6
Aim| Ability | Description | Range | Effect | Speed | JP | Focus
| Calculate your next plan of attack.
Success: 100%
System: +50% Damage on next attack. Resets after next turn.
| -
| -
| N/A
| 100
| Take Aim
| The archer takes time to pinpoint his target.
Success: 100%
System: 65% Damage, 100% Accuracy. Disregard evade.
| 0 | 1 | N/A | 150 | | Barrage | Fire off two arrows quickly in succession.
Success: 75%
System: 55% Damage, can target two adjacent tiles in weapon range.
| 0 | 1 | N/A | 200 | | Snapshot | Strike swiftly without hesitation.
Success: 75%
System: Attack command. If successful, CT resets at 15.
| 0 | 1 | N/A | 250 | Leg Aim
| Attack the foe's leg and try to ground him.
Success: 75% (Hit Rate) 50% (Immobilize)
System: Attack command. 50% chance to Immobilize target.
| 0 | 1 | N/A | 300 | Arm Aim
| Attack the foe's arm and try to handicap him.
Success: 75% (Hit Rate) 50% (Disable)
System: Attack command. 50% chance to Disable target.
| 0 | 1 | N/A | 300 | | Cupid | Shoot an arrow dabbed in a magick love potion.
Success: 75% (Hit Rate) 50% (Charm)
System: Attack command. 50% chance to Charm target.
| 0 | 1 | N/A | 300 | Quelling Strike
| Try to slow the enemy's advance.
Success: 50% (Hit Rate) 10% (Slow)
System: Attack command. If successful, enemy loses 15 CT. 10% chance to inflict Slow.
| 0 | 1 | N/A | 450 | Marker
| Send a flare floating over your opponents.
Success: 100%
System: AoE status effect. -50% P-Ev to all units in range. Lasts two turns.
| 0
| 1
| N/A
| 500
| Death Sickle
| Strike an artery or major organ.
Success: 50% (Hit Rate) 25% (Doom)
System: 25% Damage, 25% chance of inflicting Doom.
| 0 | 1 | N/A | 600 | Flaming Arrow
| Set afire the arrow before sending it off.
Success: 75%
Element: Fire
System: 1.5x Attack command. If target is affected by Oil, 2x damage.
| 0
| 1
| N/A
| 650
| Piercing Arrow
| Use an advanced arrow with a wider, sharper tip.
Success: 85%
System: 1.5x Attack Command. Higher critical hit rate than normal.
| 0
| 1
| N/A
| 700
|
Reaction| Name | Description | JP | Archer's Bane
| Completely avoid all ranged attacks. Magics attacks do not apply.
| 500 | |
| Name | Description | JP | | Equip Longbows | Equip longbows, regardless of Job. | 250 | High Ground
| 1.2x damage when at an elevation higher than your target.
| 250 | |
Movement| Name | Description | JP | | Agility | Increase Jump and Move both by 1 | 500 |
6000 JP (kablizzy you apply whatever JP split up you want, multiples of 50 are just easier to punch into my calculator.  ) So this is what I like from what we have discussed. Compared to Knight, this class was easy to write up. There are plenty of archer skills available now that weren't there at the beginning of v2, so we have a wide variety of skills to choose from. Tell me what you like or dislike about success rate and damage modifiers, etc.. This skillset is really chain heavy, and under the right circumstances this Archer can cause alot of damage in one turn.I also tried to keep to Final Fantasy tradition with creating a class that is status effect-heavy. Two skills that I am not so hot on are Cupid and Piercing Arrow, those would not be hard to replace. Jump +3, let's save that for Lancer discussion. Agility in its place is an all around buff that is not too powerful. Completely avoid all physical attacks from units wielding a Bow or Greatbow.
|
|
Schwerpunkt
Power Gamer
Who would ever want to be king?
Posts: 422
|
Post by Schwerpunkt on Apr 24, 2013 18:07:16 GMT -6
I have to say that I really don't like that list.
Archer's Bane sounds good, but it's dreadful. Think about it: we have one pure archer class and a mediator that might get the gun. If you really want to stretch it, we'll have a class who can use books (probably Oracle or something). Under best-case scenarios, three classes -- two of which were pretty uncommon on HoIv2 -- will fall under the purview of Archer's Bane. If you're not fighting those classes with those weapons, it's useless. If you are fighting them, you're now overpowered because they literally cannot hit you unless your Brave is terrible or the RNG hates you.
Contrast that to reactions like Counter, which can theoretically apply to anyone, who that weird magic reaction where you cast spells back at people who cast spells at you. Those make sense because they cover a wide number of classes. Archer's Bane doesn't. It makes you more or less immune to archers and that's about it. I don't like the notion of a reaction skill making you immune to another class. Which is why, when we get around to it, we're probably not going to see Innocent again.
Beyond that, no basic class should ever be able to inflict Doom or Death. Even assuming you miss 50% of the time, you're still applying Doom with every other shot. Doom has always been a huge pain in the ass to get rid of (to the point it's usually easier to let them die and revive them). I do not like the idea of a basic class basically getting to sit around and slap people with death sentences. Think about it: if the archer could hit Orlandeau from far enough away (and then run like hell), he could actually kill TG Cid. As an Archer.
Don't Move and Don't Act aren't much better. I included them, but the chance to hit was 50% -- at which point the chance to apply either of those (or Silence) was 33% of that. Basically, you have a 16.5% chance of applying Don't Move, Don't Act, or Silence with Groin Shot. That makes it considerably more difficult to spam and lock someone down (which is exactly what my Mustadio did whenever I was fighting someone I couldn't immediately kill and who wasn't immune to him). And since this stuff persists over multiple turns, odds are very good that a single archer can basically stunlock multiple characters with these abilities.
Cupid I don't like because Charm is an inherently powerful ability. In addition to basically getting free damage on the guy (because the other team will have to whack him to break it), the guy has a good chance of attacking his own team. I'm just not a fan of that. Besides, it's kind of silly -- you shoot a guy with an arrow and so he turns around to bludgeon his buddy to death with a shield?
It's important to remember that it's not just what these classes can do taken in a vacuum -- it's what they can do when paired up with other classes. I honestly cannot see anything killing an Archer/Ninja who stays way back and spams Death Sickle. I just don't see it happening.
I like Agility a lot (much more than Jump +3, in fact) and I like how Snap Shot (which should be two words for consistency) requires you actually hit to get the CT bonus. And I think Focus is a good (free) skill. I also like Marker (although I think Flare is a cooler name). High Ground is also a much better name than Gravity's My Bro. But there's a lot in that list that I think will become hugely problematic when taken alongside other classes.
I really think my proposed skill list is a much better way to balance the Archer with everything else we'll have floating around.
|
|
|
|
Post by Ilium on Apr 24, 2013 19:39:31 GMT -6
I have to say that I really don't like that list. Archer's Bane sounds good, but it's dreadful. Think about it: we have one pure archer class and a mediator that might get the gun. If you really want to stretch it, we'll have a class who can use books (probably Oracle or something). Under best-case scenarios, three classes -- two of which were pretty uncommon on HoIv2 -- will fall under the purview of Archer's Bane. If you're not fighting those classes with those weapons, it's useless. If you are fighting them, you're now overpowered because they literally cannot hit you unless your Brave is terrible or the RNG hates you. Contrast that to reactions like Counter, which can theoretically apply to anyone, who that weird magic reaction where you cast spells back at people who cast spells at you. Those make sense because they cover a wide number of classes. Archer's Bane doesn't. It makes you more or less immune to archers and that's about it. I don't like the notion of a reaction skill making you immune to another class. Which is why, when we get around to it, we're probably not going to see Innocent again. Well its usefulness would come in that it is immune to certain weapons, however small that number may be. I see your point though, and in its stead Cover might be more suitable. In the turn that you chose to use Death Sickle, you would have a 12.5% general chance of inflicting Doom. You would have a 50% general chance of inflicting 1/4 of the amount of normal damage you would have if you decided not to take this gamble. Then you would still theoretically have to deal with the targeted unit for three additional turns, if you were fortunate enough to get Doom off. The way you describe it sounds like every archer would just spam Death Sickle each round, banking on that 12% success rate, while also rendering his contributions to the team worthless as he would more than likely be missing each attack, which would only be for minimal damage in the first place. The problem is at 16.5% chance of inflicting the status effect that essentially makes the move useless in our combat environment. Who would even attempt that? No one would think to include those modifiers a that critically low success rate in their tactics. At 50% of 85%, your general chances of inflicting the status effect would be 42.5%. You could make an argument that this could be a bit high. However at 50% of 75% you have a 37.5% general chance of inflicting the target, which I believe is perfectly reasonable. Plus at this point both of those abilities are staples of the archer class throughout the FF games so I would like to keep these abilities. I'm not much of a fan of this ability either, I just included it as another status effect option. Beso Toxico could be inserted in its place, or Blackout. |
|
Schwerpunkt
Power Gamer
Who would ever want to be king?
Posts: 422
|
Post by Schwerpunkt on Apr 24, 2013 20:00:43 GMT -6
That's not how I read it. To me, it says you have 50% chance to hit, at which point you do 25% damage and apply Doom. With Doom proccing at around 12.5% of the time, it's not even worth using unless the enemy has a positively obscene amount of health. So, again, we return to the whole question of balance. Either Doom procs and it basically lets archers auto-win over enemies they shouldn't be able to kill or its rate is so crappy that they're better off spamming regular attacks under almost all conditions, at which point the ability becomes useless.
The entire point of the ability is that it has a 50% chance to inflict a status effect that can potentially lock the enemy down entirely. The element of RNG imposed by the fact that it can be three separate abilities (two of which are brutal against POJs and two of which are brutal against MOJs), any one of which may apply. And most importantly, it prevents you from spamming a single ability like Aim Leg and just cheesing someone.
Again, this all goes back to the fact that Archers should not be able to lock permanently lock characters down. That's why Groin Shot is such a low probability of getting a specific desired status effect. Archers should first and foremost be about damage, not crowd control.
And giving them these abilities means we now have to basically build the entire Machinist class from the ground up with all new abilities and skills (because "we have the same thing but better" doesn't fly).
Beso Toxico is a terrible name. But yeah, an attack that has a chance to apply poison or blind is a much better option.
|
|
|
|
Post by Ilium on Apr 24, 2013 20:33:48 GMT -6
Whoops! Yeah thats totally my mistake. I forgot to add 25% chance to the description when I copied it. Its supposed to follow the same formula as the other status modifier abilities, I have edited it now. Sorry! It would have a success rate of 50%, which then you would have a 25% chance of inflicting Doom, so in that round you would have a 12.5% general chance of getting Doom off.
Its whole usefulness would come from that exact scenario in which the archer and its party are fighting someone like TG Cid. If you are woefully undermatched in combat, which could certainly happen depending on RP circumstances, Death Sickle would serve as the trick shot to give party better odds. At 12.5% chance of inflicting Doom, its certainly not auto-win, nor would the wise player even want to attempt it more than once or twice per battle. There are other abilities available that the player might feel better for their individual skillset. Flaming Arrow in this skillset only costs 50 JP more.
Again, if someone is spamming an ability with a 37% success rate they are simply not being productive to the party. I can only imagine trolls ever doing that.
My experience in multiple Final Fantasy games is that forms of Disable and Immobilize, if not those abilities themselves, have been staples to the archer class. So yes, having a chance of locking characters down is an aspect of the Archer. Also the FF archer has traditionally included multiple status effect abilities on top of the two previously mentioned, so once again crowd control is an aspect of the archer. This build like I described has multiple chain damage options as well, making it a high power DPS option under good scenarios. And honestly I'm not worried about the machinist class right now, when we have so many of our base classes still to figure and balance.
|
|
Schwerpunkt
Power Gamer
Who would ever want to be king?
Posts: 422
|
Post by Schwerpunkt on Apr 24, 2013 20:47:49 GMT -6
The point isn't for the ability to be spammed. The point is for the ability to be there so that the Archer can potentially conduct some minor degree of CC. If it was supposed to be spammable, it'd do damage. By giving it a chance to apply an undesired (but potentially useful) status effect, you reward people who take chances rather than people who spam abilities that apply specific status effects.
The Archer in FFT is literally nothing but "sacrifice time, do more damage." That's the length and breadth of the entire character. Everything else -- most notably Speed Save -- exists to benefit other classes more. What you're doing is combining the Archer from FFTA with the Sniper (ie, Uber Archer) from the same game. The problem is that these classes are not interesting, they are not unique, and given the multiclass system, they will become incredibly broken.
The problem fundamentally lies with the fact that we're not just balancing Archer vis-a-vis Knight or Archer vis-a-vis Wizard. We're balancing Archer/Knight vis-a-vis Wizard/Priest in the context of a world where much weirder combinations, like Spellsword/Summoner, are entirely plausible.
The problem with your skills is that you continue to take the Archer in a vacuum, which will invariably result in the class becoming horrifically overpowered. Your draft lets the Archer do anything. If you're fighting a super-mob, apply Doom. If you're fighting multiple mobs, use Barrage. If you're fighting a high-mobility mob, apply Immobilize. If you're fighting a caster about to nuke your team, apply Disable. Everything about the class draft exists to control the other team, not inflict damage. The class's only weakness is that it's squishy, which you can mitigate by either taking a highly mobile secondary (Thief/Ninja), a tanky secondary (Knight, Samurai), or a class that enables you to do both (Lancer).
Think about this for a minute. If the Archer becomes the CC class, what on earth is the Oracle going to do? He exists solely to apply status effects; the Archer can do all of that more reliably, without spending mana, and he can probably do it from a much farther range. Why would anyone ever be an Oracle?
Archers should, first and foremost, be about doing damage. Your Archer, in the context of any party vs. party encounter, is going to be almost entirely built around CC. After all, why would you settle for shooting that guy for 30 damage when you can simply keep Disable up on two enemies at the same time?
|
|
|
|
Post by Ilium on Apr 24, 2013 21:20:27 GMT -6
The point isn't for the ability to be spammed. The point is for the ability to be there so that the Archer can potentially conduct some minor degree of CC. If it was supposed to be spammable, it'd do damage. By giving it a chance to apply an undesired (but potentially useful) status effect, you reward people who take chances rather than people who spam abilities that apply specific status effects. Sorry, you said "And most importantly, it prevents you from spamming a single ability like Aim Leg and just cheesing someone.", so I took it as you implying that someone would spam Aim Leg. The Archer in FFT is something we are trying to move away from. Its interesting that you would compare the archer in FFT to the other iterations of the class and say that they are boring. Also to say that basic abilities that are available to classes throughout Final Fantasy would somehow break our representation of the mechanics is not genuine. No, I'm not. In my template their are 6 status oriented abilities, and 6 damage oriented abilities. We could even do away with Cupid and include another damage ability to unbalance the skillset. I don't understand why you continue to imply that any of these status effects would be instantly applied in each scenario you described. You have a 12% chance of pulling off Doom. 37% of pulling off Disable, Immobilize, or Charm. I just don't see how these are high percentage actions. If you want true crowd control, better hope you're pulling along an Oracle, because you will only receive support-CC from this archer. Once again, I just don't see how a half-dozen 12% and 37% abilities are considered reliable. The Oracle will not be challenged by this Archer I envisioned this Archer getting a lot of use out of Focus + Piercing Arrow, providing him with 2x damage with a higher than average critical rate. Combine that with High Ground, or switch Piercing Arrow out with Flaming Arrow on a target inflicted with Oil. Early game, Focus + Take Aim for a higher than 100% damage rating at 100% accuracy. But if the player wishes to focus on status effect abilities at 12% and 37% chances of inflicting the status effect, well... Edit: If an ability has a Hit/Success rate of 75%, and 50% chance of inflicting a status effect, 50% of 75% of 100 is 37.5%. The ability has to hit/succeed for the chance of the status effect to even become a reality. If the arrow falls woefully short of its target, how would their still be a chance to Immobilize? |
|
Mordred
Role Player
Don't believe the Church and State.
Posts: 195
|
Post by Mordred on Apr 24, 2013 21:34:52 GMT -6
Devil's advocate: If the stat-inflicting abilities are so lousy, why are they in the game? >.>;
|
|
