Dogs and cats sleeping together...

Hubris exposed and laid bare. This is what the update yesterday did. It used to be that no matter what a DRK or SAM or DRG did to make themselves the best they could be, great gear, merits, food, etc. they could never get to what an average WAR/NIN could be. MNK, NIN and WAR/NIN were so dominant that the other jobs could not keep up. It appears now appears that this has been balanced. I need to do tests. Lots and lots of tests. But I like what they did.

In the past, an AH WAR/NIN/MNK could easily and greatly outdo even the most decked out SAM/DRG/DRK. There was nothing that the two-handed users could do to keep up because of the rate of TP gain. The balance, where speed could not be used to improve the rate of attack, was to increase the damage of the weapons, and this is just what they did.

This has of course set some people into a tizzy. They believe that they, for some reason besides choosing to level up one of the old uber jobs, deserved this feeling of righteous privilege over the masses. The social psychological implications are mind-boggling really. LOL In the end, they were equalized, and their privilege was "stripped" from them. In reality, they weren't really hurt at all. I do not weep for their loss, as I don't weep for my own. I accept and move on.

This new track that SE is following is generally much better than the nerfing they have done in the past. People have begged SE since the RNG nerf to stop nerfing jobs and just buff the rest of the jobs to make things equal. I think that some people are being a bit disingenuous when they say that they are upset by this when this is exactly what they have been asking for. For example, what would have been the reaction if, instead of buffing two-handed weapons, they nerfed dual-wield to make the jobs more even. It would have essentially had the same effect, but the outcry would have been heard on Mars. We asked for a two-handed weapon fix, we asked they do it through buffs. They listened.

Just from the parses I have seen so far, things are actually pretty well balanced. Ridill WARs are still king, and MNKs are still awesome. The difference is that everyone is much closer. I have heard the suggestion that people are now upset that an AH SAM/DRG/DRK can now keep closer with a decked MNK/NIN/WAR, but think about it in the opposite direction. For literally years now, decked two-handed users have watched as all their effort has shown to be for naught compared to an AH WAR/MNK/NIN.

Ultimately, good players should be rewarded irrelevent of the job. A great DRG with great gear should be just as capable as a great WAR with great gear. This update ultimately benefits what we all want rewarded the most: good players.

I am quite pleased.

Here is the rudimentary information I have so far. For two-handed weapon use:
* 1 STR = 1 Att
* 1 DEX = 1 Acc
* pDIF has been changed for all weapons. A cap of 2.0 is now applied to single handed weapons, and a cap of 3.0 now applies for two-handed weapons. It appears that they have changed the cap on Critical Hits too, but that is still unclear at this time.
* Several WS's have had base damage and stat modifiers adjusted, but the extent of which is still being tested.

This is all fine and good, but I don't really understand why they changed the DEX to Acc calculation just for two-handed weapons. This radically changes gear options. Now, instead of Kirin's Osode being off situational usage before this update it is now close to being on par with a Haubergeon. I thought that this change was a bit much, but we will see how it all works out in the future.

After the game was back up a couple of us spent a little time camping KA, with the rest of the server. LOL We did not get claim, it was claimed by a duo pair. While we were waiting around Omoi fished up a mob for me and I got to test the new damage caps for dual-wielded weapons. It was really kind of weird to see numbers completely consistent like that. It is definitely part of the consternation for many dual-wielders because it is now much easier for them to hit the damage cap, which means they will need to change some of their gear away from attack to STR I believe.

After that we went off to do some Assaults to help Borin get to Rank 5. It wasn't a normal run because we didn't even have enough people on for two parties, but it was quick and we got some decent points from it. After that I hopped on my SAM to test it out now. I did not get a Tachi: Gekko or Kasha to hit for less than 1k in damage, with or without buffs. Nothing radical or insane damage-wise but still very impressive. You can see the improvement in attack in this screenshot:

There is still a ton of information I need to learn about this update, so I am going to spend today working on that then report what I find tomorrow.

Have fun with the update.