Skillchains

[Teakwood]

This is probably the first time I've been dissapointed by a dev team response since the forums have opened. (Which, one has to admit, is a pretty good track record.) Leveling BLM to 75 in the "good" old days (good means terrible), the only thing that kept me focused on party play at all was coordinating the melees in the party, actually choosing a job to invite based on what skillchains could be made, and then magic bursting off of a skillchain and doing half the monster's health. When I got into endgame and the same story played out against sky gods, it kept me into the game even after BLM got shafted from ToAU (I hate soloing, effectively).

I wound up leveling Samurai as my first melee, although I never hit 75 with it, precisely because I loved coordinating my attacks with my party members' to form chains - I basically -still- fistpump a little bit every time I hear the delicious 'whoosh' of a Fusion chain. It's the crystallisation of the game's entire approach to battling - time your attacks, collaborate with your fellow party members, in order to perform something you couldn't do alone. (Let's pretend for the moment that you're not a Blue Mage, although the ability to self-renkei and then burst off of it is definitely one thing that drew me to the job.)

I've had my fingers crossed for a boost to skillchains in some fashion, and I've sighed a little every time one hasn't been forthcoming. There have been items and traits that boost SC damage and boost magic damage on a burst, yes, but the community will need a definite sign saying "you should use skillchains!" in order to break out of the TP-spam mentality of colibri burns and the ToAU era. There's really no reason, as has been mentioned, to use skillchains right now.

The correct answer to this is not to give up on skillchains and bursts as elements of the battle system! While I understand that certain suggestions (adding debuffs to skillchains, for example) would be brokenly powerful, and I appreciate the design difficulty of coming up with a solution that wouldn't force skillchain+burst use as the /only/ method of effectively fighting something (although this is, admittedly, the only part of sky god fighting I actually miss), and that also wouldn't cause the game to become much easier due to constant debilitating effects, I think this isn't enough.

Perhaps it could be made easier to successfully land a magic burst by extending the timing window after a SC lands? Even with the multifarious sources of fast cast currently given to Black Mage, it can be hard to land a burst on a SC even if you know it's coming if you're using a IV or V nuke. Additionally, perhaps after a magic burst has been successfully landed, it would -then- put a debuff on the mob corresponding to the magic burst. (For example, landing Blizzard V as a magic burst would, perhaps, paralyze the monster for a very short period of time, and then as an additional effect, cause the monster to become even weaker to Ice elemental attacks, extending the 'use' of the SC+MB past the brief period it was active.)

Essentially, you'd be boosting the effects of a successful magic burst in some way. This wouldn't unfairly advantage people who are able to spam TP moves (and really, who -can't-, given Abyssea at least?) to make many many skillchains, unless they had the spell power backing them up and working with them as a team to finish the collaboration. Moreover, it should be possible to balance this such that it is strong enough to encourage people to SC+MB on, say, moderately difficult NMs being low-manned, yet not so strong that it disadvantages parties with larger groups but somewhat less coordination.

Thanks for reading!

[MrButter]

Perhaps lowering relevant stats related to the SC's element, like Liquefaction reducing the target's STR

[Karbuncle]

Skillchain Damage is fine i think, They basically add 50% more Damage, or Double your damage when you do one, They're already a very powerful thing to have.

I think a great boost would be: (outside of my previous post)

Increase the window in which Skillchains can be performed. I think this'll help the "I don't wanna store TP for SC" thing. Increase the window for Skillchains to ~15 Seconds. This will allow more free-usage of Skillchains without people blowing WS-Phase DMG off by storing TP.

This would help a lot, Perhaps extend the "Magic Burst' window as well.

[Totema]

Aye, this a good idea. More incentives for setting up skillchains! Team synergy!

[Cream_Soda]

One thing to keep in mind is that players won't always get TP at the same rate, so the damage dealt by the MB is/SC is going to have to make up for the TP that is "lost" when someone has to hold it to wait for the other player to get their TP.

[Karbuncle]

One thing to keep in mind is that players won't always get TP at the same rate, so the damage dealt by the MB is/SC is going to have to make up for the TP that is "lost" when someone has to hold it to wait for the other player to get their TP.

Aye, This is why i suggested they increase the "Skillchain window" to about ~15 seconds. Definitely helps alleviate that problem a bit.

Maybe ~20. But the window is too small and as you pointed out, forces people to "Store TP", Generally Skillchain Damage won't make up for the Damage lost storing TP...

[Jalonis]

Solo skillchaining is still the only real TP efficient way to do skillchains.

[Soundwave]

I feel that this should of been happening during the time people were making serious attempts with the one that rhymes with Absolute Virture....

[Alhanelem]

I think the bonus applied for multi-weaponskill chains should be increased (e.g. when 3 or more WS are used in a skillchain.

That said- The resistance change is a subtle one but it makes sense and would certainly be a welcome improvement.

[Yinnyth]

The problem with skillchains goes much deeper than skillchains simply not producing much damage. Hell, skillchains can produce MASSIVE damage currently under the right circumstances, but those circumstances are so few and far between that the overbearing tactic is simply to burn TP everytime you hit 100 no matter what. The problems include:

1). At the higher levels of gameplay, TP gain is enormous. Double march, haste, SAM roll, and various pieces of store TP gear, and if you even attempt to coordinate a SC, everyone's TP will be capped at 300 long before they know the other players are paying attention and ready for the skillchain and magic burst. Proposed fix: Increase the maximum TP, force more powerful weaponskills to require a higher starting TP, and/or vastly increase the effect that higher TP has on weaponskills.

2). Skillchains are only as powerful as the weaponskill which closes the skillchain, which means it's really only worth doing a skillchain if you can close the skillchain with a powerful weaponskill. Powerful weaponskills are few and far between- there are always dominant WSs for each weapon which blow the other WSs out of the water in terms of damage. This puts ridiculous restrictions on your ability to create useful skillchains (except for extremely higher levels of gameplay where everyone in your party has an empyrean weapon which, for the most part, all have strong WSs that are really easy to SC with). When deciding on skillchains, the conversation usually turns to "Ok, this is our most powerful weaponskill, so we'll close with it, and you have to use a weak, gimpy weaponskill to open the skillchain." Eventually people just figured out they could all do more damage by using their most powerful weaponskills and ignoring skillchains. Proposed solution: Revisit all the underused weaponskills and make them more closely match the damage potential of that one weaponskill everyone with that weapon just tends to spam. Furthermore, add more higher level doppelganger weaponskills which are stronger than their lower level versions but keep the same skillchain properties. Wasp sting >> viper bite >> miasmic stab, for example.

3). Magic bursts are nearly worthless. First of all, unless the creature outright dies from the magic burst, you're building enormous hate on your most delicate party members. Second, the damage gained from setting up a magic burst is negligible, especially considering the amount of refresh that mages are capable of achieving now. It's simply better for everyone to spam all willy nilly. Proposed fix: Remove the "damage growth" from magic bursting on longer skillchains and set a fixed bonus to magic burst damage of 150%. Furthermore, reduce the enmity generated via magic burst damage.

4). Skillchains can be, and too frequently are resisted. That's ridiculous and there's really nothing the player can do to decrease the chances of their skillchain getting pwnt by random chance. Proposed fix: It's my opinion that skillchains-- and elemental weaponskills for that matter-- should have a magic accuracy based on the players skill with the weapon, and the attribute modifiers of the weaponskill. This means you could improve the magic accuracy of a skillchain ending in dancing edge by equipping more CHR equipment, and you could increase the magic accuracy of red lotus blade by increasing your sword skill or equipping more STR or INT gear.

5). Recent NMs are capable of absorbing damage at various periods of time, Glavoid being one of the worst skillchain killers. Not only does he simply absorb skillchain damage while he's casting, but he casts frequently and randomly, he increases the damage of anything he absorbs beyond its normal damage potential, he gains a stoneskin effect proportional to any healing he receives, and his Disgorge damage is supposedly increased by any absorbed damage. For these reasons, skillchains are a big taboo on Glavoid and many other NMs under most circumstances. Proposed fix: Make skillchain damage impossible to absorb except for special cases such as perhaps Shinryu.

Other thoughts:

-Add more tactical benefits to skillchains and magic bursts, such as adding newer, more powerful spells/JAs which can inflict devastatingly strong status effects but but have a 0% chance of working unless bursted on the appropriate skillchain (doom, terror, plague, mute, amnesia, stop, charm, curse, demi, stun II).

-Increase the potency of debuffs which land as a magic burst. For example, double the attribute penalty of elemental debuffs (burn, shock, etc) and absorb spells when they land as a magic burst.

-COSMIC ELUCIDATION