Evolution Of Final Fantasy 14 Combat Each Expansion

https://i.imgur.com/N4RMnnv.png

Didn’t darkness damage remain as enrage damage into ShB

Otherwise I still say SB was the peak of game design

Don't we still have "unique" damage? That is not magical nor physical? How is it different from darkness?

HW > SHB > ARR > SB > EW > DT

My favorite combat era was arr and hw and stormblood.

There were never "sub jobs". FFXIV has never had them. FF11 or FFTactics had sub jobs in the sense you have access to abilities from a second Job. FFXIV had "cross-class", which was NOT sub jobs. Cross-class honestly had more in common with the 15 level Talents in WoW where there's basically a set of "right" choices and everything else was an "illusion of choice". Then they just removed the choice with the second iteration of the Role actions. The first iteration was basically the cross-class system that just didn't require leveling THM to 30 to get Swiftcast on a healer, but you could only pick 5. But again, illusion of choice, most Jobs had one set of "correct" 5. So then they went with the ShB version where you just had them all.

[To be super clear on this: PLD having CNJ as a "sub Job" didn't mean it had all the low to mid level CNJ abilities. It didn't have Cure 2, for example. It meant it had a random smattering of abilities. This was true of all Jobs and classes and cross-class abilities. In some cases, the cross-class abilities were just kind of random. Blizzard 2 was cross class but not Blizzard 1, and it didn't give Umbral Ice - if it HAD, it would have been super useful to other Casters/Healers as a MP management tool...but it wasn't. Contrast FF11 where you have access to all abilities of your sub-Job up to half your level, meaning if your main Job was level 50, you'd have access to ALL abilities of the sub-Job up to and including level 25. THAT is what a sub-Job system looks like.]

I liked the flavor of cross-class, but let's be real, having an out-of-combat-only Raise on PLD was kind of cool, but almost NEVER useful outside of PotD. And when it WOULD have been useful (Eureka), it was removed just before that content came out. Being able to pick CNJ's Raise on PLD but not have CNJ's Trait that allowed use in combat means if PLD today could pick out-of-combat-only Raise, no raiding PLD would because what use is it in any of the Pandaemonium fights where you're never out of combat?

Healers do not have "1 button dps". That's hyperbole and people need to stop doing it. "But it's effectively-" "Oh, so it's not actually then, now is it?" People use too much hyperbole to overstate their cases and they need to stop. If you actually have a case - and there absolutely is one for healer damage rotation simplification - then don't hyperbolize it to where people have something to challenge you on. Let the argument stand on "Healers have a simplistic rotation consisting of generally about 5 damage buttons that don't really have an interesting or engaging combat flow during periods where GCD healing (exception: Lilies) isn't needed." THAT is a good argument and an accurate statement of the situation.

The Tank subforum has a thread on old threat/agro management, and the majority position seems to be that it was stupid and they don't want it back: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...e-want-it-back

Large Scale Raiding...what do you mean by this? If you mean BA/DR, that was introduced in SB, not ShB, with Eureka. And there was kind of a (sorta bad) prototype of that with original Diadem in HW.

The accuracy removal seems to have been something almost everyone liked. The persistent downside to today is that crit giving both crit chance AND crit potency boost has made it too powerful a stat vs all other stats.

Belts were removed in 2.0 in reality. They were just invisible stat sticks from 2.0 until they were eventually removed in EW. See: https://youtu.be/0TXcMPA39Xc?t=452

HW raids almost killed raiding (and according to some people like Happy, almost killed the game a second time), and Cleric Stance...has to be the single most rose-tinted glasses ability in MMO history. It was SUCH a bad, clunky, janky ability and it truly boggles the mind why anyone would like it as a role-wide mechanic, much less why people would pine over it endlessly. Other than WHM, SB healers were better in every way for having had Cleric removed; WHM was made "not sucky" again in ShB when they made a Lily system that actually worked (the SB WHM was the single worst iteration of healer Job at any point in FFXIV's history) and fixed its MP issues that had been an issue since HW.

"Darkness damage" wasn't some kind of amazing system, and is still used for Ultimates or "true damage" now. And it was never "darkness damage", I don't think. I believe that was a community name for it, but not an official or lore one.

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The things I do kinda miss:

1) There was more world building leveling a second class to 15 to unlock another Job...but it wasn't a great system because it wasn't a true sub-Job system like FF11 has. Worse, you often had to level up unrelated Jobs. WHM, for example, was CNJ to 30 and ACN to 15, but you had to level THM up to 30-something to get Swiftcast and Surecast, despite THM not being connected to WHM and THM not having any good abilities for WHM other than Swiftcast and debateably Surecast. And on this topic, there was so much more world building IN GENERAL in ARR. Like we just don't have "Battle of Highbridge" or "Poor Maid's Folly" type FATEs anymore, and the world has suffered for it.

2) Raids being LESS SCRIPTED/SPECTACLES. They weren't "way harder", players were just way worse. It's like Vanilla WoW vs WoW Classic; the puzzle has been solved and players are far better in 2023 than they were in 2004, making most of the "hard" boss battles of that era seem like child's play now. The bigger thing is that fights weren't as heavily scripted. Random damage could happen to people, crits could happen on Tanks, bosses would autoattack while also casting other things, there wasn't a "right answer" to boss mechanics where you take little to no damage, failing a boss mechanic didn't slap you with...well...death. It wasn't pass-fail. The meta and parsing hadn't developed to the point of damage >>> all, either, allowing for more interesting mechanics. Could you imagine the Alex fight where people had to pilot the gobwalkers or turn into monkeys to punt the bombs going over well in this modern environment. SAM: "I don't want to pilot it! MY PARSE!!" AST: "Well, it needs to be done around the 2 min window, so obviously I can't do it or you'll miss out on all my buffs!" etc.

3) Debatably TP (and MP management), since this made Jobs have to adjust rotation in response to resources and made Jobs that had TP/MP refresh utility for other party members actually useful utility. Now, Jobs are just "here's the optimal rotation, do it at all times" because there isn't any limiting factor that has to be accounted for.

4) 2 min meta has also really boxed in Jobs to the point every Job just about is a builder-spender on either a 1 or 2 min rotation. BLM is, at present, the only Job that hasn't been conformed to this system. It also highly limits new Job additions, as GNB, DNC, RPR, and SGE all had to conform to this system now, and we can see how samey they are as a result.

5) Ranged physical using the healer LBs. Because that actually fits the theming of them being support DPS well and was just kind of cool.

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Most of the changes and additions have been either better in part or better in whole. Though I think SCH as a peculiar example was better off in SB or even ShB. Changing Broil to 1.5 sec cast makes Ruin 2 kind of...pointless, and has mussed with the Job's overall balance and flow, though the pet AI improvements and responsiveness have been definite boosts. They should take those changes and merge them with something half-way between SB and ShB. Anyone who says WHM was better in SB than ShB is bloody insane, and anyone who likes or wants Cleric Stance should be cursed to play 1.0 forever. :p

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Originally Posted by Mithron

HW > SHB > ARR > SB > EW > DT

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Agreed, Dawntrail sucks. That's the only expansion so far that's had NO combat whatsoever. What a decline for a beloved game system.

Pretty sure "Devolution" would be the more appropriate word, at least for recent expansions.

SB was fun. I was hoping when they changes stuff for SHB to the start of good foundation due remove a lot of jank of older expansion. OH BOY, I was wrong they made EW a SHB 2.0 with less flavor than even SHB himself. The gameplay is at it's worst, even hell ARR is better than EW for fun factor. I play 2.0 to 6.0. I let you know I quit tanking due how the game didn't bring nothing for my role to play with in EW.

More like devolution.

Edit: Damn, looks like somebody beat me to it.

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

Pretty sure "Devolution" would be the more appropriate word, at least for recent expansions.

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Originally Posted by Naraka

https://i.imgur.com/N4RMnnv.png

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"Sub jobs" is an overstatement, and was not added in HW, so it wouldn't really belong under a description of changes from ARR to HW; it simply remained exactly as is.

"RNG became casters" is likewise an overstatement. BLM depended less on RNG in HW than in ARR, while Bard depended more and both it and MCH were far more dependent on RNG than were any caster.

Nor was "Darkness" damage removed. It just only had a community name before, and now we have its present form.

Not all jobs became easier in going from Stormblood to Shadowbringers. Samurai did not; Ninja did not until 5.1. Monk more "got jankier" than "was simplified" until very late in the expansion (GL's removal, etc.). BLM and SMN were largely unaffected. The big hit was mostly just to healers, tanks, MCH, and kind of arguably BRD.

But, on the whole, this would seems a fair enough description, especially if the title were more simply/neutrally "arc" or the like.

In the video Xeno explains it a bit more iirc, should have linked that too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iTbWtxu_N4

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

"RNG became casters" is likewise an overstatement. BLM depended less on RNG in HW than in ARR, while Bard depended more and both it and MCH were far more dependent on RNG than were any caster.

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I might be misinterpreting you here, but OP meant "Ranged became casters" as in, both MCH and BRD had skills that gave them cast times, hence making them casters.

StB was interesting because it had both TP and job gauges. That was also when actions started getting removed and role actions replaced the cross class skills. Other things that come to mind/rechecking patch notes: added the indicator for curable status ailments, changed Weakness/BoD, several other stat changes (Piety affects max MP, Skill Speed also affects auto-attacks, Determination buffed, Critical Hit nerfed, Blocks/Parries buffed), HP/MP/TP get restored when entering an instance, MP/TP are restored after wiping, status ailments are removed when leaving an instance.

ShB changed the role action layout (mostly TP/enmity stuff), changed MP to 10000 and Piety accordingly, added action charges, and added interrupts.

EW increased combo timers and fewer things cancel them, and has the Determination buff. And more recently, the improved HUD cooldowns, party status timers, and party member font colors. Mostly QoL stuff though like it says up there.

Kissies for strummer~!

Stormblood should have been the point where the devs should have stopped simplifying the jobs, but at this point its beyond safe to say they'll end up having to learn the hard way as to why you do NOT make every job accessible to everyone!


How the hell does Warrior heal itself better than Dark Knight, for example? Warrior is a better Dark Knight than Dark Knight, lol!

My reaction to ShB going into EW combat evolution:

https://gifdb.com/images/high/tom-an...c3i1g48d5t.gif

I don’t know why anyone thinks WAR is remotely acceptable as a class

As Lucy pyre pointed out the devs are still terrified of benediction as a skill even though it’s been powercrept to hell and back then they decide to give WAR 4 benedictions on a 25 second CD in AOE situations and a fifth 3/4 benediction they can use whenever they want.

It also has by far the strongest AOE mitigation, the easiest rotation by far and also does the most damage

So it basically invalidates healers, presses 2 buttons to do more than GNB whos rotation is harder than half the DPS and somehow they still buff it every patch

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I don’t know why anyone thinks WAR is remotely acceptable as a class

As Lucy pyre pointed out the devs are still terrified of benediction as a skill even though it’s been powercrept to hell and back then they de ice to give WAR 4 benedictions on a 25 second CD in AOE situations and a fifth 3/4 benediction they can use whenever they want.

It also has by far the strongest AOE mitigation, the easiest rotation by far and also does the most damage

So it basically invalidates healers, presses 2 buttons to do more than GNB whos rotation is harder than half the DPS and somehow they still buff it every patch

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It's especially mind boggling that they have been giving Warrior even MORE healing in the EW patches. Like why in the heck does Shake it Out need a healing over time component?

Looking forward to 7.0 WAR where they overbuff Shake it Off even more and give it a 10% mit on top of everything else, Vengeance will keep its thorns effect for whatever reason, and Inner Release will somehow be simplified even further as they add a fourth Fell Cleave copy.

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

It's especially mind boggling that they have been giving Warrior even MORE healing in the EW patches. Like why in the heck does Shake it Out need a healing over time component?

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Nah fr, sometimes I think it can be favoritism between WAR and BLM.

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

I might be misinterpreting you here, but OP meant "Ranged became casters" as in, both MCH and BRD had skills that gave them cast times, hence making them casters.

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Ahhh, gotcha. Read it as an exaggerative turn on "Casters were (centered around) RNG (random number generation / chance)." Alas, same acronym.

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

It's especially mind boggling that they have been giving Warrior even MORE healing in the EW patches. Like why in the heck does Shake it Out need a healing over time component?

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I cannot even invent a justification for why shake needs a regen on it, it’s already better than percentage mitigation because shields don’t have diminishing returns

Now that jobs are more fleshed out I really don't see why Cross-skills couldn't come back in some form, as long as you kept it to utility moves or mobility I think it be a welcome change. This games severe hatred for player expression is whats making the combat become so dull.

Bozja is so interesting because Lost Actions and Essences allow for alternate playstyles that you can customize for the encounter, more mobiltiy for the fights that are more hectic.
Bring more sustain or mit if something hits hard, or go for some dumb strategy of combined actions that gives insane damage outputs, its probably the most interesting this game gets.

I wish the core game could capture even a fraction of this level of customization and freedom, instead we get a bunch of jobs that play almost the same all melding for Critical Hit, and Critical Hit 2.

And anyone who thinks "well a meta would develop and you wouldn't be allowed to bring what you want!" is part of the problem of how we got here.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I cannot even invent a justification for why shake needs a regen on it, it’s already better than percentage mitigation because shields don’t have diminishing returns

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Tbf, they kinda do, at least to same effect as %mitigation does. Percentile mitigation's "diminishing returns" still have unreduced additive increases to eHP, they just don't synergistically produce a product greater than their sum. But, neither do shields.

The main issue is that flat increases synergize with scalars and vice versa, while neither synergizes with itself.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

presses 2 buttons to do more than GNB whos rotation is harder than half the DPS

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I'm curious, which two buttons - no more - does WAR press to outdamage GNB? Are you talking AOE or single target?

I do agree WAR is OP right now, but this is another example of that hyperbole defeating your own arguments.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

I'm curious, which two buttons - no more - does WAR press to outdamage GNB? Are you talking AOE or single target?

I do agree WAR is OP right now, but this is another example of that hyperbole defeating your own arguments.

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It doesn't defeat any argument, everyone with common sense understands he simply meant that WAR is laughably easy compared to GNB. Nothing more or nothing less.

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Originally Posted by Deo14

It doesn't defeat any argument, everyone with common sense understands he simply meant that WAR is laughably easy compared to GNB. Nothing more or nothing less.

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It does tend to become self-defeating, though. When you describe things absurdly, it makes rational people take you less seriously and as someone not interested in an honest, productive discussion. The person just comes off in a case like this as bitter.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

It does tend to become self-defeating, though. When you describe things absurdly, it makes rational people take you less seriously and as someone not interested in an honest, productive discussion.

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There's no such thing as a productive discussion on a forum that the devs are purposely ignoring, it's all just pointless quibbling or back-patting each other or spitballing ideas that will never be seen by anyone with power to make changes.

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The person just comes off in a case like this as bitter.

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How dare someone be bitter from being ignored and having the things he enjoys slowly lobotomized away.

On the one hand, I can see why people take issue with blatant exaggerations in regards to classes etc. It doesn’t really help the argument at the end of the day.

On the other hand, a lot of the situations we find ourself in literally are absurd lol. Role responsibilities are a commonly cited example lol (we have 3 roles, 1 is dps, 1 is dps, and 1 is…dps lol). Especially if they’ve been playing for a while (i.e starting 2.0 etc), it’s hard not to become negative when you see the same mistakes repeated over, and over, and over…and over lol (even when the entire playerbase warned them they were making a mistake)

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Originally Posted by Deo14

It doesn't defeat any argument, everyone with common sense understands he simply meant that WAR is laughably easy compared to GNB. Nothing more or nothing less.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

It does tend to become self-defeating, though. When you describe things absurdly, it makes rational people take you less seriously and as someone not interested in an honest, productive discussion. The person just comes off in a case like this as bitter.

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Yup.

This is why I say all the time not to be hyperbolic. WHY say "two buttons" when it's seven? If it's NOT two, why say two? Either you think two makes your case stronger than seven (and, let's be real, THAT IS why people do this), or it's irrelevant to the point you shouldn't have mentioned it in the first place.

Yes, if your argument is based on 2 buttons being able to out-DPS 9, it's relevant when it's actually 7 and not 2. That DOES defeat his argument. "laughably easy" is a subjective measure. Legitimately, until just recently when I played it a lot more, I found GNB easier than WAR. I still find it comparable. Maybe I'm wired differently, but GNB I don't find terribly difficult to play and I like how most of it meshes together well.

If you mean an argument, make the argument you mean. If you don't mean something, or something isn't relevant to your argument, then don't put it in as part of your argument. It invites people to challenge it. AT BEST, if it wasn't a keystone of your argument, it leads to a distraction. AT WORST, if it was a keystone of your argument, now you have to try and shift the goalposts and do other intellectually dishonest things to salvage your overstated initial argument.

All of which could be avoided by just not being hyperbolic in the first place.

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EDIT: To lay it out:

WAR: Heavy Swing, Maim, Storm's Path, Storm's Eye, Infuriate, Onslaught, Upheaval, Inner Release, Primal Rend
GNB: Keen Edge, Brutal Shell, Solid Barrel, Gnashing Fang, Continuation, Burst Strike, Rough Divide, Bow Shock, Sonic Break, Blasting Zone, Double Down, No Mercy, Bloodfest

WAR total: 9
GNB total: 13

Is WAR generally easier for most people? Yes.

Is WAR 2 buttons? No.

Is GNB a lot more buttons than WAR? Meh...depends on the player. It's ~45% more than WAR (or WAR is 70% of, or 30% less than, GNB), but 45%, in this case, is "4". Is 4 buttons a lot of buttons? Considering every Healer has 4-6 damage buttons and people say all the time that's nothing, apparently not.

I'll also note the person didn't say how many GNB had to suggest a % difference that would be "too much", so the % argument isn't really relevant there.

Point is: IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HAVE THIS DISCUSSION, don't start it and then get annoyed when people go down that rabbit hole.

Devolution.
Combat has lost so much depth. And never had much in fact to begin with.

Like elements nearly didn't matter. And then were removed.

Balance is poison for fun.

I really don’t know why I apparently have to defend the use of hyperbole, it was exceedingly obvious what I meant by that comment and so it doesn’t detract from anything, as was pointed out it’s just another way of saying “much much easier”

Ren button counting means nothing when it comes to job difficulty, forgive me if I don’t fully trust how you “feel” on a job after previous incidents on the healer forums, WAR is universally considered by far the easiest tank, arguing on the necessity of hyperbole in a statement doesn’t change you know that’s exactly what that comment was meant to evoke

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Originally Posted by Alexandre_Noireau

Devolution.
Combat has lost so much depth. And never had much in fact to begin with.

Like elements nearly didn't matter. And then were removed.

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Tbf, unless we're talking about 1.x here, elements truly have never mattered; it just made it so --for one whole... patch-- Foe Requiem buffed only BLM and WHM, instead of affecting SMN or SCH.

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Balance is poison for fun.

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Yes and no. Targeting overly narrow parity (e.g., between ability X on Job A and the nearest analog on Job B) tends to constrain things so tightly that fun is often lost in the process, but balance itself does not degrade nor harm fun.

Heck, the ability to have fun amid difficult content typically relies largely on balance, else you end up replacing "Normal, Savage, Ultimate" with the likes of simply "SMN, RDM, BLM", where all but one job per role just functions as intentional self-sabotage / bonus challenge at best. Such works in a single-player game, but rarely in a multiplayer one, as the difficulty setting would then be a composite of each person's difficulty modifiers (7 out of 8 of whom each player has no control over).

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Boring

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I want a poison damage evasion tank Dragoon.

Now.

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Originally Posted by Alexandre_Noireau

I want a poison damage evasion tank Dragoon.

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Which will have all of... what... difference in gameplay?

Look, I agree with you that gameplay has devolved over recent expansions. I'll agree it never had much depth to begin with. I agree that it should be capable of more. But let's not pretend that a bizarre on-paper descriptor actually comes through in gameplay.

Having elements "matter" in 1.x just meant that you picked between 6 different identical actions each based on the enemy type, meaning that it took 12 buttons just to support the simple filler + single DoT gameplay that healers have now.

The extent of having elements "matter" at the very start of ARR just meant that Bard could not interact with SMN or SCH, meaning that in a quarter of all compositions, Foe Requiem was useless, and in three-quarters of composition it was half-useless.

Unless you specifically add mechanics to differentiate it, "poison" is just a DoT. Unless you specifically add mechanics to compliment it, "evasion" is just passive RNG-based mitigation.

"Differentiation" on paper does not necessarily, or even typically, cause difference in practice/gameplay.

Does the game still use Pierce, Blunt and Slashing damage types in the calculation?
Was there not some bosses who took more or less damage depending on the weapon type?

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Originally Posted by Naraka

Does the game still use Pierce, Blunt and Slashing damage types in the calculation?
Was there not some bosses who took more or less damage depending on the weapon type?

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No that’s been removed, everything only does physical or magical damage and aspected magical damage doesn’t actually have any sort of weaknesses or resistances

They still exist, they just don't come up very often (or at all in new encounters).

T2 has examples of resistance to all physical damage types, and BLM can for instance benefit from BLU's Condensed Libra.

If it's not expressly conveyed via a buff or debuff, there's probably no difference (unless we're talking BLU again, in the Carnivale enemies have elemental affinities).

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Originally Posted by Alexandre_Noireau

Devolution.
Combat has lost so much depth. And never had much in fact to begin with.

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Not disagreeing with you, but uh... there wasn't much depth there for it to lose. We've gone from the kiddie pool to splashing around in a puddle so shallow you can't even dip your toes in.

Does no one else see the typo in his graphic?