Why do Raid Buffs even exist?

Putting aside the 120s recast most of these buffs have been shoehorned into for the sake of making it "fair", I think there is also a distinction that needs to be made between "good" and "bad" raid buffs. The difference between good and bad isn't how strong they are, but rather how they affect the job that actually uses them.

Good buffs that affect the user additionally:
- Brotherhood: funnels bonus Chakra to MNK when party acts, more FC uses
- Arcane Circle: grants bloodsown stacks to RPR for every party member attacking + enables Plentiful Harvest
- Technical Finish: grants a lot of Esprit from party members acting, more Saber Dances
- BRD songs (not Battle Voice): grants minor buffs to everyone, but is a mechanic for the job itself
- Dragonsight: while not very unique, it requires making a choice of who gets the most value out of it.
- Chain Stratagem: it is a debuff, meaning in 2-target boss fights there is decision making
- AST cards: see Dragonsight
- Mug: is also a +40 Ninki gain, but I suppose is one of the least interesting ones

Bad buffs that just give +x% <something> and nothing else:
- Battle Litany
- Battle Voice
- Embolden
- whatever Summoner has
- Divination

So yeah... we got some issues with raid buffs. Forced 2min alignment and some of them are just "might as well not exist and be part of the user's DPS output".

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Originally Posted by Mithron

I think we can keep party buffs like Trick Attack (Mug) and Embolden, perhaps even on 2 minute cooldowns, as they've been in the game honestly since HW and SB without feeling annoying.

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I started when late/post ShB was current. I figure that as long as even one party member has a raid buff, then the question inevitably becomes, "How does everyone dump as much potency as they can under the buff?" Which, if the raid buff is on a 2min cooldown, is the 2min meta.

Are you saying that somehow wasn't the case back in HW and SB? Or something else?

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

I started when late/post ShB was current. I figure that as long as even one party member has a raid buff, then the question inevitably becomes, "How does everyone dump as much potency as they can under the buff?" Which, if the raid buff is on a 2min cooldown, is the 2min meta.

Are you saying that somehow wasn't the case back in HW and SB? Or something else?

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Trick Attack was on a 60 second cooldown, but every job was more uniquely designed with some buttons being 90s or even other weird timers like 80s so things didn't always line up perfectly and if you tried to force it, it ended up being a DPS loss. A lot of people still wanted NIN for Trick, but they only exasperated the problem by redesigning every job to play exactly the same under the 120s window. Now everyone lines up every 120s, whereas before only a handful of jobs did.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

Trick Attack was on a 60 second cooldown, but every job was more uniquely designed with some buttons being 90s or even other weird timers like 80s so things didn't always line up perfectly and if you tried to force it, it ended up being a DPS loss. A lot of people still wanted NIN for Trick, but they only exasperated the problem by redesigning every job to play exactly the same under the 120s window. Now everyone lines up every 120s, whereas before only a handful of jobs did.

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I legit miss 80s cycles on Bard and Dark Knight or other non-standard things like Foe's Requiem.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

I dislike how every melee has some lazy "x%" raid buff on a 2minute window it feels pretty uninspired lol

Bard & Dancer do raid buffs really good, while having a "burst raid buff" they also have a consistent buff for their party member(s), I actually like how those jobs are.

RDM/SMN I like how smn's is longer and that, but again Those raid buffs don't really exist to serve any unique purpose.

I think a big problem with current design is that it effects "good groups" and optimization, Idm some raid buff optimisations between good groups, good groups should be rewarded for good play/communication, I feel like 2minute raid buffs, make raid buffs really boring.

>How to "fix" Raid buffs.
>Revert a lot of the raid buff timer changes, Trick should be on 60 seconds, brotherhood 90, ect. Make raid buffs unique, maybe some ones that last longer or something as well. Make em a pain (sometimes a loss) to perfectly synch.

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This. I'm pretty "scorched earth" in my opinion that raid buffs simply shouldn't exist, but we all have to be realistic and willing to compromise. Much of the problem isn't so much that they are a thing, but that they are all synched up. When they were spread out before, it didn't have so much of a drastic impact on whether or not a job was bursty or sustain. And with that in mind, a lot more people are arguing for the reversion of the game back to the Shadowbringers format, so hopefully there is a chance it will happen.

Going back to ShB gameplay would be better than what we have now, sure, and it would get rid of the 2 minute meta- but the format is still largely flawed as EW is just an extension of it and is still terrible when it came to job design.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

- AST cards: see Dragonsight

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Would be cool, if AST cards had 3 pairs based on roles, rather than melee/ranged of today. 2 cards for dpsers, 2 for healers, 2 for tanks... It would open to more unique thinking while you use it and would not have bad cards for 4 man groups when you can potentially not match the dpsers of the team (2 melee or 2 ranged). Plus it would let tanks and healers themselves also have the strategic windows outside of the 2min bursts, since they do have resourced stuff to use there.

You keep calling it the 2 min Meta...

It's not a meta.

A meta emerges organically by the playerbase through experimentation, strategy crafting and so on.

This is a dev design decision. Not a meta.

Get rid of 2 min burst windows. It’s not fun and kills the game. I want jobs unique again. Every job is like the same now. It’s so boring. We need that flare back. That zazz! Who cares if savage raiders have a specific meta.

They are such a small community anyway. Let them have it. Bring back the fun for the jobs. This mess we have now is so bad and not fun.

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Originally Posted by Spigg

This. I'm pretty "scorched earth" in my opinion that raid buffs simply shouldn't exist, but we all have to be realistic and willing to compromise. Much of the problem isn't so much that they are a thing, but that they are all synched up. When they were spread out before, it didn't have so much of a drastic impact on whether or not a job was bursty or sustain. And with that in mind, a lot more people are arguing for the reversion of the game back to the Shadowbringers format, so hopefully there is a chance it will happen.

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I like raid buffs, but at the same time they create a lot of issues I rather we have no raid buffs then the 2 minute homogenization we got rn, certainly when it's making jobs like PLD just awful.

I think stuff like single target buffs (dragon sight, dance partner, Cards)or something very consistent raid buffs like Bards songs are perfectly fine, its when you have raid buffs that have no actual thought towards them you just click it every 2 minutes and forget about it.

I Feel like EW had some good changes, I generally enjoy EW PLD compared to SHB PLD, feels really complete and fun, likely because they only "improved" on the SHB version (Subject to change lol 6.3), I think the general direction they took with a lot of jobs and putting even more of a focus on burst windows is the real issue, raid buffs obviously complement a meta where you're only going to fit stuff under "2 Minutes!" Instead of allowing a mix between "sustained" jobs and "burst" jobs, this aswell as the "simplify" approach in general really starts to feel bad, making every job the same.

I dunno, I like raid buffs I don't think every job needs a pure damage dealer, but at the same time i wouldn't really miss it if they just removed most Raid buffs at this point, at least it would allow for more creative rotation design and more flexible jobs.