Hey remember SC > MB? Make it required.

[raps1355]

Until we change the fact that 3 100 tp weaponskills do more than a 300tp one, people will not hold tp for sc.

[saevel]

Until we change the fact that 3 100 tp weaponskills do more than a 300tp one, people will not hold tp for sc.

This is the biggest reason we don't use SC's. The timing on it is simply too strict, go to early and it doesn't count, go to late and it doesn't count. Nuke too early and it won't count, nuke too late and it won't count. It's simply more efficient to ignore the entire concept and just hit things as hard as possible.

There is a TV Trope exactly for this,

Awesome but Impractical

[hiko]

Until we change the fact that 3 100 tp weaponskills do more than a 300tp one, people will not hold tp for sc.

because when you want to SC you have to hold to 300TP?

[Arcon]

because when you want to SC you have to hold to 300TP?

No, but you have to hold, and the more you hold the more damage you waste.

But that's not the only problem SC faces. Not only would one person have to hold, but all persons involved in the battle, which is a lot to ask and will never happen unless the window opening for SC execution is lowered as well.

[ManaKing]

SC lost practicality when Alliance based play became the norm. The only way to make it relevant for Alliances is to artificially increase the significance of it or to make it better designed.

If SCs are required for proc systems or drops or clearing content, then that would be a way you could make them significant but not actually more relevant to game. I don't like proc systems. They feel like a cop out. Instead of fixing the already very broken hate system, they distracted us with spamming random JAs, spells, and WSs for no actual purpose.

If they wanted to make it better designed, then they could do a number of things to make it relevant for game play. SC damage is largely useless against terrible things that have extreme amounts of magic resistance. That really should be addressed in some way. They don't have to make it so SCs do obscene amounts of damage, but it is ridiculous that you can do Light on something for 1/8 of the closing WS damage. That's just bad and makes people see the obvious weakness in an otherwise fun system.

They could adjust it so that you could toggle SCing on a party level or an alliance level. That way, you put all your corresponding WSs in different parties so they don't cross the streams.

[saevel]

SC lost practicality when Alliance based play became the norm.

SC's lost practicality LONG before Abyssea. They were dieing near the end of COP and going into ToAU. Nobody SC'd after level 70 when everything turned into spampage on deco's in sky or vs demons or vs cockatrices and tigers.

Sky NM was SC based for awhile, but then shells figured they could kill NM's much faster if they just blasted the NM with two PLD's in a pseudo-zerg.

[Rustic]

SC's lost practicality LONG before Abyssea. They were dieing near the end of COP and going into ToAU. Nobody SC'd after level 70 when everything turned into spampage on deco's in sky or vs demons or vs cockatrices and tigers.

Sky NM was SC based for awhile, but then shells figured they could kill NM's much faster if they just blasted the NM with two PLD's in a pseudo-zerg.

That was the start, and it should have been the warning signs- much like the exp system now, the combat system has significant flaws that it's "marquee feature" of SC/MB is generally ignored in favor of spamming DPS...because spamming DPS is more effective and efficient.

[Horadrim]

Only if the disagree is about the term lazy as people did not get lazier, they got too impatient to use them.

To be honest, as much as I liked them, the incentive was minimal -- if they want people to do SC+MB they need to greatly increase the bonus damage received for the chain and intensify the effects of bursts. Maybe have them generate positive buffs that can stack over time based on the number of skill chains done within a decent window of time (15 minutes?) and decay over time. Then pair that with decent bonus damage and people would start doing them a lot more.

Right now there's no real reason to coordinate that much aside from nostalgia.

That was the start, and it should have been the warning signs- much like the exp system now, the combat system has significant flaws that it's "marquee feature" of SC/MB is generally ignored in favor of spamming DPS...because spamming DPS is more effective and efficient.

SC's were moving out of the door before CoP even came out. They were honestly barely used even when I was first learning them back in 2003 -- it was mostly the Japanese players perpetuating their use and even when they came up the additional damage in areas like Yhoator Jungle and the like was "meh" worthy. They just seemed new and excited because most NA's were still learning the game back then.

[saevel]

Well we could make them "required" by having the NM do a 9,999 damage aoe move if you WS and it doesn't form a SC.

There problem "fixed" .........

[Rustic]

Well we could make them "required" by having the NM do a 9,999 damage aoe move if you WS and it doesn't form a SC.

There problem "fixed" .........

Murdering the entire area for a whiffed SC is a mite overkill.

Making it harder if you spam WS's to kill the mob, however? I got no problems with that. SC/MB being back in the picture as an anti-zerg measure works by me, since it helps to neutralize the typical DPS race most big content has become.