Wyvern TP expended from Remove Breath. Why?

First time posting around these parts, but been with the game on and off since Day One NA release, and maining DRG the entire time.

Something that has always sort of bugged me, now moreso than in the past, is how any breath related to the removing of a debuff on you or a party member, despite the fact that there is no calculation for effectiveness depending on the wyvern's TP, results in the wyvern losing all stored TP. As far as I know, that TP being used by the wyvern during the use of Remove Breath, whether it's 10% of 300%, has no influence on potency.

Obviously this is different for Restoring, Healing, and Smiting Breath, where TP is an important part of damage or healing calculations, but beyond the simple reason of "It's an ability, and any time a pet uses an ability it uses TP", why is it like this, especially when the TP has no real known effect on debuff removal potency?

The reason I ask is because as of late, I've been finding myself actually favoring /mage subbing more and more over, say, more traditional DRG subjobs even when in parties, or when in a damage dealer position. The reason for this is largely thanks to the recent changes to Spirit Link, and how its returning of around half of the wyvern's TP to your own TP is beyond awesome. With the un-merited cooldown timer for Spirit Link now at 1:30, I am consistently out-TP building melee-sub DRGs and other frontline jobs, so long as I am not forced to expend built up TP through a Restoring/Healing Breath. In a sense, Wyverns for mage sub DRGs have become like pocket TP tanks, letting me go as far as to fire off three WSes in succession (built up TP > WS > Accurate Jumps > WS > Spirit Link > WS).

So color me curious. Why does Remove Breath need to use the wyvern's TP, and is there any sort of possibility that this can be changed?

This sounds similar to how Diabolos looses TP on all his Blood Pact moves, even if it's not magical.

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Originally Posted by Badieh

This sounds similar to how Diabolos looses TP on all his Blood Pact moves, even if it's not magical.

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It seems to be a mechanics issue, the more I dig around FFXI Wikia. I saw that a lot of Summoner's Blood Pact skills and abilities, for example, will use a summon's TP even if it has absolutely no verified effect or boost or what have you on the ability itself.

Hopefully some sort of explanation can be given as for why that is the case, though, especially in relation to a Dragoon's wyvern. Like I mentioned in my post, the change to Spirit Link's cooldown time has made a wyvern having available TP even more powerful than ever when you're mage subbing, since without your wyvern blowing TP from WS-procced elemental breath, it just keeps building and building (Smite/Restore Breath use notwithstanding).

They just coded all pet actions like that to remove TP. I doubt its any really thoughtful reasoning as to why except that they could blanket code the whole thing for all pet special actions. (lazy programming)

Wish we got a JA that shares a timer with like Dismiss or something that lets us force the wyvern to not use any breaths but increases its accuracy and defense. Would allow us to use the wyvern as a flying TP battery using Spirit Link every 90 seconds for that extra 150 TP.

If you aren't afflicted with an ailment, your wyvern won't use the breath, so it won't lose it's TP. If you're /whm or /sch you can remove them yourself before ws. (Catch 22 if you're low HP though).

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Originally Posted by Babekeke

If you aren't afflicted with an ailment, your wyvern won't use the breath, so it won't lose it's TP. If you're /whm or /sch you can remove them yourself before ws. (Catch 22 if you're low HP though).

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True. And under normal, XP party-related circumstances that would be plenty enough to either cure yourself of a debuff, or get the healer in the party to do so (if they're a WHM or a SCH).

However I actually brought this up because when doing some recent seal runs, I realized how unreliable that can be thanks to the 'aura' effect many Abyssea NMs have. Sure, you can Blindna yourself, but it's a waste of time and MP if it's just going to pop right back up. And just as you use a weaponskill, no less. :(

This is actually why the 'save TP' merit enhancement to strafe sounds mildly appealing on the relic legs+2 augment. If you actually managed to swap it in properly with 5/5, then your wyvern would have 20 save TP and never go under 20TP unless you spirit link.

Its probably more trouble than its worth since the augmented legs probably have to be equiped whenever it does ANY breath which is a huge pain, but I thought it was a fun idea. Gurantees all your wyvern breaths are boosted with TP for more power and makes it a better TP batter. To bad those legs are lame and macroing them would be horibly inconvenient and not optimized for other DD actins :(

20 TP adds like 6-7 HP to Healing Breaths. Could macro or aftercast it though for WS when sub melee so it gets a head start on TP for your next Spirit Link TP steal.