Thread: The Culling: Moving into 5.0

Originally Posted by Kabooa

Scholar and Summoner, in particular, I can see being a split focus revamp at some point in the future, as they both suffer by being tied to Arcanist as a base.

They used to, don't really see how it's an issue these days.

It's not so much an issue as it is job identity. Classes will eventually be phased out, so SCH and SMN will need to stop sharing certain skills and mechanics (Aetherflow). Personally, I think SCH should retain Aetherflow and all AF abilities and DoT spells and Summoner should be revamped like Bard was and made to focus less on their DoTs and Aetherflow and more on their flares and Summoning.

IIRC Yoshi said that if they were to do it, it wouldn't be done before 5.0, but they've never announced any concrete plan to do so.

Guess we'll find out soon enough.

Originally Posted by Sylvain

I think the introduction of Demi-Bahamut was the best thing that could happen to summoner, because it exactly feels like what, usually, summoner do in FF games.
Big thing comes down, wreck havoc and leave. I wish there would be more skills like that.

I was surprised we didn't see that sort of thing back in HW. I figured the answer to "where are the rest of the egis" was going to be more traditional summons. Painflare could just have easily been called Thunderspark and had a Ramuh animation. Tri-Disaster could have been some Leviathan move that had the same effect, etc. It feels like a missed opportunity.

Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

I was surprised we didn't see that sort of thing back in HW. I figured the answer to "where are the rest of the egis" was going to be more traditional summons. Painflare could just have easily been called Thunderspark and had a Ramuh animation. Tri-Disaster could have been some Leviathan move that had the same effect, etc. It feels like a missed opportunity.

beat me
But yeah that's actually some cool idea you just got there.

I think your last sentence perfectly sums up the SMN, "missed opportunities"

General:

• A second use of toggled actions, such as deactivation/reactivation of Grit, and shifted actions (wherein one action replaces another in slot) such as Inner Release and Unchained, cannot be queued prior to the first's animation. Presently, hitting the skill twice even nearly a full GCD before action pair can force both to go off in succession despite no signal between the first and second, causing frequent accidental doubling for those who hit keys multiply to mitigate the effects of packet loss. This should redress that.
• Conditions such as buffs, job gauge components, and TP or Mana costs required for action use are checked only upon skill activation, i.e. when the spell first starts casting. This should deal with such issues as Impact being made uncastable midway through its own cast.

BLM: Enochian subsumed into a trait, Between the Lines brought into Ley Lines. Fire IV and Blizzard IV slot-combined.

RDM: Jolt II and Impact slot-combined.

SMN: Summon Bahamut and Enkindle Bahamut slot-combined.

WAR: Deliverance and Defiance slot-combined. Swapping to Warrior activates Deliverance automatically.

PLD: Sword Oath and Shield Oath slot-combined. Swapping to Paladin activates Sword Oath automatically.

MCH: Gauss Barrel trimmed. Gun Heat reworked to take effect from a much earlier level, and with larger gameplay significance. Hot Shot reworked to solely increase heat. Barrel Stabilizer renamed to fit the new lack of Gauss Barrel. Cooldown moved to level 52. New level 62 action added. Hypercharge now works off mana, therefore benefiting equally in its sustainability from Refresh.

BRD: Straight Shot reworked. Wanderer's Minuet now replaces both Bloodletter and Rain of Death with Perfect Pitch and the similarly-functioning Dissonance, respectively. Refulgent Arrow reworked slightly and now slot-combined with Straight(er) Shot.

DRG: Changed to follow a geometric combo structure, of 2 or 3 choices available at each tier.

2-choice structure. Heavy Thrust trimmed. True Thrust and Impulse Drive available at first. From there both Vorpal Thrust and Disembowel are available, then Full Thrust and Chaos Thrust. Fang and Claw and Wheeling Thrust thereafter. Fang & Claw and Wheeling Thrust differentiated. Impulse Drive, True Thrust, and Vorpal Thrust differentiated. One therefore has two buttons and two choices at every stage in combo. Fang & Claw and Wheeling Thrust possibly differentiated, or simply allow for two different positional options.

3-choice structure. Alternatively, Fang & Claw and Wheeling Thrust alone are reworked. Fang & Claw and Wheeling Thrust differentiated and now usable at any point in combo, past activation. Thus one starts with the options of Heavy Thrust, Impulse Drive, and True Thrust, and thereafter resets (if Heavy Thrust) or moves on to continue down the given combo, or to insert F&C or WT.

In either case, you now have as many keys spent on combos as you do choices at any point within them, leaving no wasted keyspace.

Similar combo changes for the rest, but the above are most of the obvious sources for trimming the required keyspace without any loss to job complexity.

Originally Posted by Kabooa

Fundamentally, Stormblood has felt like a transitional period more than a standalone when it came to job mechanics. I honestly do see TP being phased out in 5.0 and the mechanics introduced so far being tweaked and expanded upon.

Scholar and Summoner, in particular, I can see being a split focus revamp at some point in the future, as they both suffer by being tied to Arcanist as a base.

There's not a single thing they can't differentiate between the two jobs at this point. They've already shown that actions and traits can both be trimmed or added from the Arcanist arsenal as it applies to one job or the other. Everything level 30 and before can be retroactively changed at this point. There's nothing left that hasn't shown precedence for manipulation. The only remaining fundamental change is to prevent duplicated experience gains across the two jobs. They remain as close as they are for convenience and because the devs haven't found anything they'd rather replace the skills in common with.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

snip

yeah there's only a few skill that remain shared, add a few skill rank upgrade and they're 100% different beside Aetherflux, Physick and Rez, which are skills I don't suspect to get new ranks.

But the exp share is an issue imo. There's no reason for someone leveling SMN or SCH to get the other job without even playing it. You can litterally be lv 70 SCH without even knowing what Adlo is. (Which is pretty much what happened to me at lv 60)


Gameplay wise, I consider that Aetherflux isn't adapted to SMN anymore, it doesn't bring anything. The mechanic doesn't feel interesting (but that's just me).
Unlike SCH, there's very little to no management of the Aetherflux with the SMN, at best you need to keep one stack for an eventual DoT split. Actually the place I manage those stacks the most is in dungeons. While I'm not expecting such a drastic change, if they were to separate the job I wish SMN would be the one being the Stand alone and get a new replacement mechanic.