March 2024 Version Update

Originally the jobs were based on classic FFI and FFIII jobs. This turned out not to work so well and things were changed a bit. Then RoTZ came out and added more jobs, that eventually needed even more tweaking. Repeat until today where it's the most "balanced" as it's ever been. Unfortunately we have like two events to really play at.

It's been done before, Abyssea. The exact same conditions you are talking about and they managed to continue just fine with Voidwatch onward. Also the new master trial shows they can still put things together that are challenging for most players. They have a lot of mechanics and systems to play with and I don't see them being as limited as you think.

Yeah but with no staff, are their effective limitations much different?

We all know they can do lots, but they clearly don't have the bodies to do anything quickly anymore. Redo limbus or campaign to be current end game? No problem, give them 2+ years.

Well if it's a full expansion they would have the resources. Right now they don't but we were just talking hypothetical and it would be passible.

https://we-are-vanadiel.finalfantasyxi.com/post/?id=783
Aagh Altana-cursed TEASES!

Not me.
With a weapon like Nagi or Fudo Masamune C the enmity generation would be insane.
But that's not the thing.
On a theoretical level is *** awesome.
On a practical level though, where would you use it?

I already said I'm sure there's gotta be something where it would make a huge difference but I can't really think about anything atm alas =/

I've been saying this for a while, agree 100%. The situations where you want the NIN to both sacrifice damage and have hate on something are probably countable on an amputee's hands. Biggest benefit I can think of (and I can't even come up with an example of it off the top of my head) would be cheesing something w/ Migawari. Thing is very much overhyped and I believe Diamond Aspis and Miracle Cheer have far more practical value than Yagyu Darkblade. I'd even go so far as to say Onion Sword is more valuable if you're serious about DNC. If someone could come up with a few more reasons other than "makes Crystal Paradise a bit easier" I'd be all for a reason to care about the thing but honestly it's hard to fathom it being a gamechanger. All the things that need to be true for Darkblade to slap:

-The NIN is the tank on at least one enemy
-Your party is within 10' of you (for an extended period of time if not the entire fight, and if you want the quoted benefit of "capping your CE and VE in 12 casts" that includes your entire backline)
-The NIN's damage is inconsequential and losing your offhand, and potentially also your mainhand, doesn't matter
-The additional enmity is imperative to establishing or holding hate

Additional considerations but not as necessary, however I'd argue these are the major reasons you'd want a NIN tank to begin with so maybe they should be mandatory too:

-The enemy doesn't spam shadow wiping abilities and autoattacks
-Shadows make a meaningful difference to damage taken and are worth constant reapplication
-As an extension, 3 shadows make a meaningful difference to damage taken for people who aren't the main target i.e. the enemy uses primarily AoE physical attacks that are absorbed by 1-3 shadows; remember Darkblade only provides 3 shadows with Utsusemi: San, so Ichi and Ni are even less effective

And most importantly:

-The utility of AoE Shadows or the enmity spike outweigh the utility of a PLD (AoE heals, if subjob is available they can completely replace a WHM in some cases) or a RUN (Valiance, One For All, Odyllic Subterfuge, Rayke, Gambit)
-The utility of AoE Shadows or the enmity spike outweigh the general ease of use and superior sturdiness of a PLD or RUN




Now again, how many fights in this game tick even most of those boxes? In a practical sense, how often do you actually believe you'd be using this weapon? It's one thing to say "I want this because it'd be fun for me to play with and in solo situations it can make my life easier", that's super valid. But in a party or endgame scenario? I haven't even been able to sell it to myself so you're going to have to work hard to sell the opinion to me that it actually means *** all in more than one or two possible scenarios (the only one I can think of being Crystal Paradise). Maybe something that wipes hate often but how many of those will NIN be an effective replacement for another tank or simply another stronger DD?







To justify my own choices:

-Diamond Aspis isn't end all be all either however extending the effect of buffs like Sentinel, Fealty, Saboteur, Killer Instinct (if it works with Ready moves that's nutty but I don't think it does), and Warcry (on self) is already more valuable and universal than the applications of the Darkblade. This is an oft overlooked thing as well and I myself haven't done any theorycrafting on it mostly because I don't know exactly how it works, but extending skillchain duration could situationally be useful.

-Miracle Cheer also isn't end all be all however there are more practical applications for extra minutes of slightly weaker Soul Voice (still much stronger than standard, non-soul voice songs btw) than for a NIN being able to spike their enmity like ye olde tank BLU. Particularly valuable for multiboxers running the BRD for their group or, since it is also a point for Yagyu, "solo" play. Would benefit in Segments, could see using it for Aeonic boss gauntlet, Dynamis, Sortie, I'd argue that for some Gaol NMs who don't just Dispel every 5 seconds, having longer (in fact guaranteed full time SV), stronger than normal songs would be more beneficial than having stronger, shorter songs. Keep in mind, "weaker" is not a condemnation, it's +1 song worth of potency for at least 3 extra minutes of Soul Voice. Also, and this is a niche thing but something that can be useful especially on fights where you want to land a Lullaby or Threnody on a resistant mob: you would be able to save your Troubadour Nightingale specifically for debuffs or even for reapplying songs to someone who eats ***. Another ancillary benefit to this is simply that the less time the BRD spends reapplying songs, the more time they have to contribute damage, healing, etc.



tl;dr Yagyu isn't bad but I think some people very much overvalue its effectiveness, not only as a weapon in general but even compared to a couple of the other Bonanza weapons. Overall though none of the Bonanza weapons are strong enough to warrant being so rare and out of reach. Something as simple as monthly nomad Bonanza would help fix this since 1 in 500 is only as bad as it is because we only get to try like 3 times a year.

Donno, short of a full overhaul im not sure how much more we can push. unlike in aby times or even more recent, adoulin era, we're rubbing against the wall as far as player potential, DTs capped, DT IIs are nearly or capped too, tp/ws are busted in dmg due to all the wsd/ma/haste/stp available in sets along with very powerful buffs/debuffs, with some 2 step sc hitting capped dmg, bursts are capped, just not much higher to go imo which devalues alot of the appeal of newer content

Gear doesn't necessarily have to provide a complete vertical replacement to be rewarding. That said outside of adding entirely new gear they could add new systems to enhance existing gear (again). Empyrean +3 gear didn't complwtely replace Odyssey gear and yet a majority of those pieces were still valuable and rewarding to upgrade. I think if we're talking small scale expansion (the only remotely reasonable thing to talk about at this point) it becomes even easier (not talking in terms of resources or time needed to make it, juat conceptually) to just make it some sort of crucible for existing gear. There are also some effects that could still be tapped like Break Damage Limit but ***is already stupid as it is and if they didn't do that with Primes I don't see them doing it elsewhere. There's also still plenty of ways to enhance job abilities, job traits, etc that they can come up with for some.unique gear ideas.

The Megamithran Moogle Forge of Gha Naboh created to further enhance Nyame Armor......!

(Inb4 someone tries to be cute and say I just wrote a thesis on why something needs to be a vertical upgrade over something else to be rewarding: I'm not gonna sit here and explain why an item you get by killing an NM 20 times isn't comparable to something that 98/100 people will never see in their lives).

Most I really see is them continuing to push up the relative Macc/Meva differential between players and new content as well as attack and defense differences. Basically, values that are meant to be compared against each other can be pushed essentially infinitely (to my knowledge) even if it undermines older content. Which would sort of be the point of a new power ceiling, I suppose. It is also new content for the sake of it instead of new content to expand potential wider, which is the WoW/XIV model of content and not something I think jives as well with XI's model or playerbase.

They also seem to have set themselves a sort of hard power cap with REMA (and Primes) such that no weapon that takes less effort to get than at least one of those can be more useful than all of them. I'm aware that there are things like most Relics not having aged well at all or a good amount of mage REMA not being all that useful historically (with plenty of exceptions of course), but under that design constraint all future weapons either have to hover around Odyssey weapons or be as grindy as Primes or grindier. At best they'd probably do a sort of Ergon-esque process for new jobs and an obscene grind to push old REMA to either the new ilevel or i119 stage IV or V.

New jobs is the space I'd be most confident in, actually. I think there are a few design niches in XI that aren't explored much yet. Chemist actually fits into one of those. My vision for Chemist would be a sort of NIN of healers, as in consumable/ammunition based casting or JA focused healing and cleanses instead of MP-based. Though with how reforged Empryean already gave WHM essentially infinite MP I'm not sure how broadly useful that concept would be, it is at least a concept that's not too explored without introducing something completely new like GEO buffs/debuffs. Sort of like how RUN was able to fill in a niche of a magic/elemental-wheel focused tank. Because the game absolutely does not need and can't handle a new unique set of buffs/debuffs with BRD, COR, GEO, RDM, and SCH all running around already, particularly the first three. Else they'd just repeat GEO where it's busted as hell for the first while until content explicitly nerfs it by 75% just because.

Maybe there's room for another ranged attack focused job with just RNG and COR (and sort of SAM) really in that space? That one's harder since ranged attacks feel like the last-class citizen in XI's underlying design. Melee rounds feel like the first-class citizens with spells and JAs below that and ranged attacks just being a manual action every shot was certainly a choice they made in 2002.

I just Compare it to Save the Queen III, which is also single job. Cure Potency II +20%, Enmity +10, and some silly Cover mechanic that would require people to play differently to get the benefit out of that will be largely ignored. Yagyu as no +Enmity, nothing that makes it attractive for damage, but can generate more threat if your party is in range and give them some shadows.

Save the Queen PLD can just use it as a midcast swap for Curing and sit in Burtgang the rest of the time. PLD can easily replace healers already on fights that don't require -NAs but overkill cure would make it even easier. You're going to drop TP, but there is not a lot of places where PLD TP is make or break that I can think of off hand.

NIN can also just midcast Yagyu. They generate TP fast enough that it's only going to be noticeable if you need to maintain an Aftermath(unlikely). The only event I'm coming up with where I'd want it used it segment farming. I assume NIN can pull like a standard tank in an evasion setup without issue. BRD sleeps. NIN spams shadows. Everyone gets a couple of shadows and when mobs wake up, they go to the NIN. NIN gets to savage blade things like everyone else. Your tank is now a DPS. You can full clear segments just like other groups can that don't have a Bonanza Weapon. Not a massive benefit, it doesn't propel NIN into godhood.

It's no Hebo Spear, but it's also not a Diamond Aspis either.

Save the Queen is particularly funny because unless you aren't using Majesty it actually barely does anything. You only get 5% cure potency from it lmao

Lol is the cap really 25% for cure potency II? better not let those WHMs get out of hand. We might go back to abyssea HP pools one day...wtf

Cap is 30% but Majesty already gives 25

While this is true, how many PLD are casting their cures in 50% Cure potency I?

Ignoring the fact that capping SIRD and Cure Pot is relatively trivial for PLD, if the bar is Cure Potency 1 then StQ is even worse especially if you're primarily curing yourself because Sanus Ensis and Divinity exist and don't cost a once in a lifetime weapon ticket

Every single one of them, it is that easy to cap it. You can get cure potency +35% in just the belt slot.

I wouldn't call it trivial to cap, you either need to tank your defensive stats or increase the cost of your cures by 25%.

Not saying STQ is amazing, I mean Moralltach has 25% cure potency for god's sake, just pointing out that it's not 5% cure potency, it's 25% because it stacks with potency I.

edit: probably? I assume it works like PDT/PDT II Subtle Blow/Subtle Blow II, but it's hard to imagine scenarios where you have 35+ CP II but no cure potency I

I think they might have been more appealing when they added them, but yea, it seems bizarre to me they put the effort into adding them when only a handful of people will get to use them. Particularly if you consider the effort it would've taken to add new mechanics like AoE Utsusemi, which probably wasn't difficult but wasn't just cut/paste and edit either.

IMO in this age they should bump them to Rank 2 and Rank 3 should include the option to select a Phase 4 or 5 Prime or other full REMA like they did in years past. I think this would be more interesting to the few people who win outside of just novelties.

Is there any actual data on how Fast Blade II w/ Onion Sword III on DNC works out? That's always been the most appealing to me giving DNC a slashing option, but would it actually be viable?

"Tank your defensive stats" isn't really true. You lose 2% PDT in a fully capped SIRD Potency set or, for the cost of higher cost cures, you lose a bit of MEva while capping PDT, Cure Potency, and SIRD. Sroda Belt is too good not to use not sure why it'd be excluded here.

Edit: martel actually showed me a pre-sroda set that caps all 3 without the belt for a bit of a meva loss so there's that

Im not gonna defend Yagyu, because I don't really care, because it's a waste of time to even try to come up with use cases for thing I might never get. I will start thinking about it, when I will have Rank 1 winning kupon in the inventory. I would most likely still pick Onion Sword III then anyway (other options I will consider would be Diamond Aspis and Mog Kupon AW-Kupo)

Interested to see the 48% PDT capped SIRD capped potency set, because the guide's set has 16% PDT.

I generally agree with what you said in your post but quoting this part specifically


I'd be all for sacrificing a bit of potency for 15 mins fixed duration (and potentially ~18 mins SV).
My main issue with Miracle Cheer is the fact it doesn't affect Aria of Passion and Honor March.
Now Aria of Passion I guess you could question it since it's not exactly used everywhere, but Honor March? It's pretty much a fixed song in almost every content where you bring a BRD.
Having 3-4 songs with the benefits of Miracle Cheer and then having a single song using normal BRD stuff would be extremely annoying, if you ask me. Partially defeats all the benefits that Miracle Cheer would bring in so, I dunno, I'm kinda torn on this.

There's a better cure set than that even in the Paladin Community Guide (which still isn't the best)



This is Martel's old set from before Sroda. Caps PDT, Cure Potency, Cure pot received, and SIRD. He also says there's 2 more sets on his AH profile and those don't use +2 earring (even then thats a difference of 1% cure potency) so go check those for the easy to build one's. He also brings up something that I thought about but forgot to type into words: swapping weapons for Cure potency is already stupid and not worth doing for a variety of reasons including dropping PDT/Enmity from Burtgang, losing TP for atonement, etc.

This is another case of Guides being guidelines, not laws.



All the benefit is a bit hyperbolic no? Worse comes to worse you do forfeit the NiTro benefit that Miracle Cheer can provide but I'd still rather just resing 1 or 2 songs (Honor March/Aria) with Marcato and maybe NiTro if needed a few minutes after SV wears than have to resing all 5. Sure it isn't perfect but I still maintain it offers more benefits useful in many more places than Yagyu lol. If I ever win on one of my alts they're getting the horn 100%

Umm...SIRD?
Staunch 11%
Souveran 20%
Founder's 30%
Audumbla 10%
Merits 10%

81% = 102%? Am I failing to math something here?

20% on odyssean greaves

It for sure wont beat Prime dagger, but it's still very decent.

It'd round out DNC to be able to cover every damage type (could argue its magic damage is dogshit and niche since you still have to be able to melee the enemy to do it but it's there) which can be useful and enable it to contribute on fights like Kalunga and Mboze

as far as the actual (not really thread but current) topic

Diamond Aspis: Solid DPS gain in some cases, even if it's a really high opportunity cost macro piece. Straight benefit to have and will be used on the jobs with good JA for every event.

Onion Sword: Great for DNC, but also provides SC options for a bunch of other jobs. Melee COR being able to do fusion is potentially useful. For the recent talk about RDM using excalibur, Onion is likely going to be better than KOR.

Miracle Cheer: I get the argument, but I don't agree with it. If dispels are frequent enough to not be riding night/troub, 6 minutes is fine. If dispels aren't happening, you may as well ride N/T anyway and get fully potency songs. You can't cast honor or aria with it, so your songs are not *all* 15 minutes. Soul voice already lasts all run for odyssey bosses if you don't N/T off the bat, and cast again in last 30 secs anyway. ~3 extra minutes vs the potency loss for ~12 minutes is probably going to favor the 3 extra minutes, but not by much and only if you have use for 18 minutes of it.

Yagyu: It's not necessarily redefining how any content is done, but offhanding it is far from crippling your damage, so I don't really agree that it's useless. It provides an insane amount of damage mitigation for the cost, and passively keeping utsu up on your mages in a situation where everyone is grouped is great on it's own. There are a lot of mobs that aren't considered worth blinking because they are 2-3 shadows and frequent, but having just one DPS throwing san/ni on timer can block them for the entire party.

You can still mainhand Naegling and run savage, and it lightens the load on healer considerably for a wide variety of content, potentially removing the need for a WHM and allowing for a flexible setup with a melee RDM or DNC healing. It's likely going to be better for casual/fun groups than for tryhards with optimal setup, but the amount of value it provides to those kinds of groups is immense.

edit:
Wizard's rod is interesting too, at least until someone can properly test the MB damage component. If it's a % gain based on time since SC landed, as it appears.. and it's a unique term, which is unknown.. then it is likely a better MB club than bunzi before considering the occasional free casts. MB strats aren't that common, but BIS for 4 jobs is still interesting.

For that matter, if the elemental weapons have a particularly strong additional effect they may have more value than they initially appear to. The lack of data on a lot of these really influences their potential usability.

Want to clarify a few things so context of my post isn't lost.

So for the losing damage bit, that's specifically in situations where you're leaning on using the vaunted Enmity generation to tank and might be using nagi or su5 katana in the mainhand to further facilitate that. It is obvious and goes without saying that you can still DD with a yagyu darkblade which is why I said "losing your offhand, and potentially also your mainhand". Losing Hitaki or Kunimitsu is a sizeable damage loss.

Yes like I already mentioned if you're fighting something that fights predominantly with Utsu compatible attacks it would work to reduce dmg, but again how many of those are there? So many mobs these days have aoe autoattacks and tp moves that are predominantly magical, ignore shadows, or wipe shadows. Some things like Matamata I guess but even then his most dangerous moves are breaths and magic aoes. Nearly every naakual is predominantly magic aoes or attacks that take more than 3 or ignore shadows. Every sortie boss predominantly does attacks that ignore or wipe shadows, etc etc.

For this aspect of the weapon it isn't worthless (and no one said it's worthless, just that the utility and value is overstated) but the applicability of what you're peddling is questionable on the content where it'd have the most impact. I'd also note that utsusemi doesn't protect your mages from most status ailments, dispels, etc so that also limits the applicability beyond amount of damage that shadows can potentially nullify.

Again if you want to make the argument that it's a fun toy to *** around with far be it from me to tell you how to spend your time, but often the yapping surrounding Yagyu is praising it to the heavens when in reality it isn't that good and that's the point ppl like me and I believe Sechs are trying to make