New 2-hour Abilities

[Andreah]

To the Dev Team:

I kinda like the general direction where you're going with DNC's new two-hour, but I'm hesitant on a few things. Flourishes, as you know, are shared between three different categories. If this new two-hour resets all Flourish recasts, it'll only be genuinely useful for three different Flourishes at that moment. It sounds a little iffy in a sense it'd be pretty useful already, but you have to keep in mind what those decisions are between.

The first category is the choice been weight, a weaker provoke, and stun, which wouldn't benefit too much from an instant recast reset except in a one-use crisis where you'd need to Stun in that moment. In my experience, the recast on Violent Flourish is so low it's never been an issue that DNC can't already take to the face as it is. Anything beyond that usually can't be reliably stunned without preparation, or are immune to stun altogether, and in a situation where an instant stun would be worth it, I don't know if I'd want to sacrifice the ability to use my Waltzes with a minimal recast timer and no TP cost for two hours just to do so.

The third is the decision between forced criticals on the first strike of your main hand, a one-time forced double attack, or a one-time forced triple attack. The recast timers on those are rather long, and none of them would be genuinely nice to stack together, because even if you had Climactic Flourish to Tertiary, you'd still only get a guaranteed critical on the first hit of the three strikes. In Abyssea, with the right Atmas, Striking and Tertiary are usually unnecessary, since I almost always swing in multiples on my main hand.

Those two categories I mentioned above are the only two I can see gaining minimal to no benefit from the proposed two-hour. The second category, however, can gain a minor amount of benefit on one part; the zero cost of Finishing Moves in order to act. The ability to use Reverse Flourish to regain TP without consuming all of your Finishing Moves is inviting, especially with the idea of tacking Building Flourish on the front of that. Wild Flourish hasn't been useful for a long time to me, since it not only can't do a Lv.3 skillchain closure (like SAM's, which hurt my feelings a bit since I thought WF made DNC unique when it came to skillchains), but the recast time it incurs is the same as Reverse Flourish and I can simply self-skillchain with Reverse Flourish to make Darkness on my own and do more damage in the same amount of time.

Now with all that taken into consideration, it's time I looked at the zero cost to Finishing Moves. This idea is enticing when it comes to Reverse Flourish, but in all honesty, by the time I can re-use any of the categories, my Finishing Moves are already capped. Presto and No Foot Rise even without full merits can make me Building Flourish to Reverse Flourish in the exact same amount of time. With a Terpsichore, this two-hour is rendered completely ineffective in regards to this, as a full set of five Finishing Moves is ten seconds and 10% TP away.

To wrap this up, I think the idea you're looking for is great. It's on the right track, but it's not doing much except pointing out what a Dancer can already do if they put their heart into it. If you have the time to test it, I'd try taking a closer step towards what Trance accomplishes. If you were to cut the recast down of all Flourishes to... maybe... five seconds? Better yet, to try to balance it out, put all Flourish categories on a shared timer, one singular timer, and have a five-second cooldown or something similar. I just wouldn't go over ten seconds. If you did that and maybe reduced the cost of Flourishes to one Finishing Move instead of zero, it'd push the Dancer to have to continually work for it if they're using it to its maximum potential, and it wouldn't be broken.

The only Flourishes a Dancer would really look into using this for during practical everyday use is for Building and Reverse in order to weaponskill more. If you make sure the delay is long enough that they can't self-skillchain with Reverse Flourish to Reverse Flourish, it wouldn't come near SAM's original two-hour, but it'd stand its ground next to Trance as a decent, functional two-hour to use in both a planned situation and in a desperate one. I apologize if this post is a little too lengthy for your already busy schedules, but I thought it'd be important to break down the functionality of what you were proposing and what Dancer already can accomplish.

[Merton9999]

Boo, none of these sound interesting.

Effectiveness will all be in the numbers, which we'll have to wait for. My disappointment is that the effects don't sound that creative. I was hoping to see more fun moves like Embrava and Kaustra.

It seems almost everyone agrees already, but I really can't see choosing SCH's new 2-hour over Tabula Rasa ... ever. What's the reason for any of these sharing the same timer as current 2-hours? Balance is a boring answer. If the enmity redirection thing remains, please make it potent and long enough that SCH doesn't get stuck with another pretty name like Modus Veritas, Adloquium, or Animus Augeo that doesn't actually do anything people care about. I know other jobs have the same problem, but I don't care about them

[Tamarsamar]

Yeah, I think RDMs can complain just a little bit now.

What was initially posted was already (relatively) bad, and the correction just made it ever-so-slightly worse.

[Lollerblades]

I can't really see the SCH 2hr being used much - only time I'd probably use it is if some idiot annoyed me ... I'd stand there and watch them die

[Unaisis]

Lol, they realized the possibility of RDM's new 2hr having some sort of use~ so they *Fixed* it~

[Chamaan]

Warrior two hour is not competitive with Mighty Strikes. The number of mobs that use Invincible or have shields that can be bypassed by non-ele damage AND are powerful/relevant at 99 enough to necessitate a two hour activation can be counted on one hand. And even then these effects can be gained by Monks using Formless Strikes, Darks using Twilight Scythe, and Cors using Quick Draw, without the use of their two hour abilities.

Please change it to 100% DA/TA activation with the Acc bonus or keep the faux-Formless Strikes and change the Acc bonus to a Weaponskill Damage bonus %.

[Calatilla]

I don't understand SCH`s new 2hr, since when did they have anything to do with hate, bar 1 spell? And completely stripping hate from the WHOLE party? THF would like to have a word with you.

As a THF i`d rather be able to redirect party hate to a single player than a second trick attack.
SE's vision for THF was hate management, then they broke the hate system and the abilities we have right now don't help manage any hate at all, so why if they`re going to add a 2hr like this do they give it to SCH?

[Daniel_Hatcher]

I don't understand SCH`s new 2hr, since when did they have anything to do with hate, bar 1 spell? And completely stripping hate from the WHOLE party? THF would like to have a word with you.

As a THF i`d rather be able to redirect party hate to a single player than a second trick attack.
SE's vision for THF was hate management, then they broke the hate system and the abilities we have right now don't help manage any hate at all, so why if they`re going to add a 2hr like this do they give it to SCH?

They're supposed to be battle-tacticians, it actually makes sense for SCH, it just wont be used when the first 2-hour is a damn sight better.

This is very on the mark what they wanted SCH to be.

PS. Technically they proved this with two spells for hate gain and reduction, and Libra.

This is NOT okay. This BLOWS. Are you kidding me?? What happens when the enemy runs out of TP to steal? This is just another completely useless ability given to DRKs. YAY. -.-

I must say that not ALL of the 2 Hours look useless.. But the majority looks REALLY bad.

PLEASE Square Enix PLEASE reconsider most of them. PLEASE

PLEASE

Unless you're fighting solo, you're going to be having a LOT of people attacking the enemy, enemy TP should NOT be a problem.

[Vandheer]

BST Absorbs the pet and recovers both HP and removes status ailments. Also, the player will receive a Reraise effect.

D: What the happened here Camate? This does't have anything to do with Beastmaster! Ok fine we do have a pet... but since when do Beastmasters eat their pets?

Looking back at the history of Beastmaster I am very curious as to the trail of thought SE had with the Beastmaster Job. 1-75 Beastmasters rely on Charming pets to exp, utilizing jugs when they have no other choice. Then come 75+ Charm is rendered useless and we are told Jug Pets are the new thing with no Charmable mobs in new content. Now SE expects Beastmaster to call up their pets (this does cost gil to do) then dispose of them to heal ourselves (of hp and status aliments) along with a reraise effect?

No were in Beastmasters history do Beastmasters rely on themselves instead of their pets. Beastmasters work alongside their pets, letting their pets take the majority of damage while the Beastmaster does what must be done. This is the one fact about Beastmaster that has remained consistent through all the twists and turns SE has thrown at the job. For laughs I'd love to hear how the current Job Overview of Beastmaster reads.

As for the idea of this new 2-hour, Beastmaster's wouldn't so much as touch this. Realistically, when are Beastmasters to use this? We can't use it to save ourselves in a tight spot once our pet dies because we need a pet to discard to use it. Additionally we can't use it to heal ourselves with our pet taking damage for us...

So someone please explain to me what happened here!

*The name and help text messages for each ability will be tentative when implemented to the test server. Also the effects and their values may be adjusted.

Camate, please tell the Devs that this new Beastmaster 2-hour is unacceptable. From neither a Beastmaster gameplay standpoint and a storyline standpoint does this 2-hour remotely make sense. In the bolded font just above you say "the effects may be adjusted" we need to see this --> "Absorbs the pet and recovers both HP and removes status ailments. Also, the player will receive a Reraise effect." completely removed and redone with a useful ability Beastmaster can utilize.

Apart from Beastmaster (which i stress because it is my main and favorite job within the game) there are many other 2-hours that I believe need to be taken back to the drawing board. BLM, RDM, BST, DRG being what I believe need the most attention and should be completely redone. Before questioning the other 2hours I'd like to know what the plans are for these jobs obtaining these 2-hours? If Merits what would Meriting these 2hours do to better them? Also will these 2-hours share a timer with the current 2-hours or will they be on a different 2-hour timer? Additionally can we get the duration time of each of these 2-hours as it is vital in discerning the effectiveness of most of these 2-hours.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

So SCH's will never be used among others then.