New 2 Hour AbilitiesFollow

Warrior - In certain situations where the mob has a certain damage resistance but you wouldn't want to swap to a different weapon, this has potential. However, at least right now, those kinds of mobs that are resistant to slashing damage (which is what we're most proficient at) aren't common, so Mighty Strikes is still better for the most part.

Monk - Has its uses in situations where the Monk is tanking, especially on mobs with high attack speed or have nasty additional effects to their normal melee swings.

White Mage - Depending on its potency (which I imagine would be high), this could be far more useful most of the time than Benediction.

Black Mage - Iffy on this. It'd be useful in situations where you use it at the start of the fight so you can deal a decent chunk of damage without generating that much hate, but if you popped Manafont and did the same amount of nuke damage, then used Douse, the result would be the same and you'd still have a large MP pool to work with after.

Red Mage - All depends on their potency. If the potency of the spells are drastic, this could be the new Embrava.

Thief - Better in a party situation than Perfect Dodge, but I think it's going to be a one-shot deal like Eagle Eye Shot rather than like a permanent Trick Attack for a certain period of time.

Paladin - Given the wording, I'm wondering if it reflects the damage that the shield blocked. Like in the matter of a Spike Flail, if the normal attack would have done 1000 damage if it hadn't been blocked, the damage that will be reflected back at the mob will be that 1000 minus however much damage the Paladin actually took.

Dark Knight - I could see this being far more useful than Blood Weapon in most situations.

Beastmaster - I don't think this will really have any use. Familiar's boost to your pet is going to do far more for you than this will, unless it acts like Spirit Surge and super buffs your Beastmaster with effects based on the pet absorbed.

Bard - Situational at best. If the Bard is in a mage burn situation or in a mage party, it'd be useful, but if it's in the melee party it'd probably do them far better to give the melee Soul Voiced songs instead.

Ranger - Far more useful than Eagle Eye Shot. Given how Eagle Eye Shot is, while accurate, little more than a very watered down free Weaponskill nowadays, this is a much better alternative.

Samurai - So basically a Perfect Dodge sort of ability with a Restraint-like effect, except based on special attacks evaded rather than damage dealt. This could have potential, but it'd be more in a situation of if the Samurai was the one holding hate at the time. If someone else is holding hate, Meikyo Shisui would be better.

Ninja - Better in most situations than Mijin Gakure, since it doesn't incapacitate the Ninja till he can raise up. Mijin would still have uses where the Ninja might be able to take out the mob with the damage, or needs to recover from weakness quickly, but in other situations, this might be the better option.

Dragoon - Unless the stat increase to the wyvern is huge, I don't see this being useful over Spirit Surge.

Summoner - In situations where you wouldn't need Perfect Defense, this is huge. Sure you'll still have to worry about MP and the delay between triggering the Bloodpact and the actual BP going off will slow you down some, this will still be a big boost to Smn's damage output.

Blue Mage - It has its uses. Find yourself near death but unable to get a Plenilune off? Just start spamming Bloodrake to take out the mob and heal yourself at the same time. I don't know about this one. I'd probably still use Azure Lore most of the time.

Corsair - Has its uses in situations where you won't need two-hours reset. Other than that, I think Wild Card would still be better.

Puppetmaster - Very situational uses. In most cases though Overdrive is going to do you far more just so you don't have to worry about overloads.

Dancer - This seems like a really nice, offensive two-hour, where Trance is better for those defensive situations. Depending on the situation, I think this would have more uses for Dancer than Trance would.

Scholar - Unless Red Mage's new two-hour makes it the new Embrava, I think Tabula Rasa + Embrava will still be the better option. It's hard to top the Haste, Regain, and Regen that a high-skill Scholar could give with Embrava, and given that instances of needing designated tanks are somewhat rare nowadays, this new one probably won't have many uses.

Edited, Jul 31st 2012 5:53pm by Vlorsutes

This is the Secret to PUP Zerg SpoilerSucks Still

It would still suck, just not as much. If this were the case, it basically gives us a quasi-useless 2 hour for our mage pets, the same way overdrive is our quasi-useless 2hour for melee pets.

Also, just fyi, anyone who tries to defend the pup 2hour or calls it "good" will get jinteslapped.

I think this is what everyone's forgetting. SCH can aoe their embrava onto all three parties, that is what makes their 2HR so powerful. RDM on the other hand would have to single cast every single Haste. Now depending on duration you could get a few ppl or maybe a party or two at most. Most of RDM's buffs are self-target only and the better ones not aoe able, thus you couldn't super buff Temper / Gain-STR onto your party. If it's strong enough then you could toss out a powerful enspell / phalanx to your party, that would be about it though.

Then again, if it's potency on ALL buffs, it could turn the RDM themselves into monsters. At 3x potency imagine +75 STR +60 DA +90 Enspell +45% Haste (capping magic haste) -90+ damage reduction and so forth.

Edited, Jul 31st 2012 11:21pm by saevellakshmi

How is it worthless? The AI always begins to spam spells whenever Manafont gets used. I can't imagine a puppet chain-casting tier 5s to be a bad thing.

Edited, Aug 1st 2012 12:42am by Zafire

The RDM head casts tier IV nukes as well, actually. While each nuke won't be able to have the benefit of Icemaker, if you load up with both Loudspeakers, you could have +45 MAB just from those (+55 just by having the Mana Channeler equipped as well and no water maneuvers active) it still looks like it could be a decent source of damage. And you'll have just enough room to include a Power Cooler, which will cut mp cost by 50% so it can keep pumping out spells a bit longer. This may actually end up being a super-useful 2-Hour with the Stormwaker head.

Only if it actually negates the universal and spell category timers in addition to casting time, that is . . .

Yes. Though I can see it being useful in a low man "mega boss battle" situation. Something like a mission boss / BC type fight where your not going in with Rag DRK's with double BRD + COR + Embrava buffs. Really depends on the duration and enhancement of the buffs. If it's 3x duration 3x potency, then combined with RDM's duration bonus already we're looking at a 17.5 min super haste (or any 3min buff). Still knowing SE, it'll be a 60s duration 1.5x bonus 1.5x duration and not work with Haste.

So are these are additional two hours, augments to the current two hours, or replacements?

Then get over it after a week as usual. Also, none of these are that great and the fact they'll no doubt share timers..eh.



Of course SAM gets this ability and not someone like...any other Melee.

They dropped all the silly 15min+ recasts when 1/5 on merit abilities to 5min, don't see why 2-hours couldn't be dropped to one hour, making them a 'Daily' thing.

Hmm... I'm actually disappointed by some of the new 2hrs. Hear me out here.

White Mage
This one sounds awesome, until you realise its sharing the same recast timer as Benediction which not only REMOVES all major status ailments but also fully restores the entire party's HP. I'm just not sure where I'd find a use for it where Benediction isn't the more obvious and more beneficial choice, especially since I'd be left without my trademark superheal if things go badly south. There's also no information on duration, and you can bet your bottom dollar it won't be that long for a skill like that. Its usefulness hinges on how long the effect lasts, so I might change my tune when they're made available.

Black Mage
Um... Enmity Douse. Need I really say more? We have the means to completely erase our enmity (or at least reduce it to negligible levels) making this 2hr pretty useless compared to Manafont. You're still limited by recast timers and MP costs, even if enmity issues aren't a concern and there aren't many reasons why a BLM would be chain nuking in the first place.

Scholar
We have Embrava. Our 2hr is currently one of the strongest in the game, and I doubt many would give up unlimited strategems and unique spells for a one-shot enmity redirect. Honestly, this sounds like a skill that should've been given to Thief, though I actually rather like the one they got instead :)

I'll play with them on the test server so I can get a good feel for how well they work (or not) when they're available. so I'm reserving my judgement a little. That said, considering these skills are effectively 'competing' with our existing skills by being on the same recast, they need to at least match them for usefulness before I'll even give them a second glance.