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They're great in PotD, HoH and Eureka, but only the specialized potions usable only in those zones, and only because those potions are light years ahead of any regular potion.
I use more potions in 10 minutes of eureka than I've used since ARR launched in the open world.
They have saved me at least 100 times during my time on this game. No they are not overpowered but they can be very useful in dire situations.
Since SE scrapped the cross class abilities and thus Cure cannot be given to other classes in low level content while soloing potions are still useful (and they actually got a slight buff with SB to compensate - the cooldown for using potions is far less (about 20 seconds now) than the several minutes it used to be and their potency is slightly higher). But yeah with high level content they're useless, which I guess is the point (as they're presuming you either have a party with a healer or your chocobo out healing you).
One place I find potions rather invaluable is solo class duties (if I'm not on a healing class), as often it's the only way to stay alive, usually.
A potion buff would be neat. Perhaps they can apply some sort of restrictions on them to prevent the issue of even more items needing to be considered in hardcore content (if potions are actually good then a lot of content that's meant to be hard needs them).
Say then the basic tier of FF favorites we all know and love, potion, x-potion, etc, have a drastic % potency increase. Though they cannot be used in current ex/savage content.
Of course there can and still will be potions to be used in those harder tuned fights (potions that add damage for example).
So some of the classic common FF potions would work really well for FATEs, deep dungeons, generic dungeons/MSQ, and treasure chests. Yet the content that demands to be "hard" will be not allowed to use them (well the ones that are used frequently would still be but that's a separate group of potions I'm not talking about).
Random thoughts on perhaps buffs:
Bringing back (sort of) the medicated debuff, each potion adds a different amount of medication and reaching X (5?) prevents you from being affected by potions until the debuff falls off (reset/beginning/end of instance and arrival to sanctuary). The value could change based on content I suppose, like 8 man raids (normal) allow up to 2 medications while current, MSQ trials 3, normal dungeons 5, etc.
Deep dungeons could have a higher count, also changing floors in deep dungeons could reset the medication counter. A new Eureka might need a better balance but to be honest the whole medication system could be ignored for our current Eureka lol (more balanced concept might be after each monster kill and magia board rotation medication drops down a few notches).
Similar structure for Ether (differing % probably but similar).
- Potion: Restores 25%, short cooldown, 1 medication
- Hi-potion: Restores 50%, short cooldown, 1 - 2 medication (chance to be either 1 or 2)
- Mega-Potion: Restores 50% to self and 25% to all nearby party members, long cooldown, 2 - 3 medication to self
- X-Potion: Restores all HP, long cooldown, 3 medication
- Max-Potion: Restores all hp to self and 50% to all nearby party members, long cooldown, 4 medication to self
- Super-Potion: Restores 75% hp to self, medium cooldown, 2 - 3 medication
- Elixir: Restores all hp and mp, 5 medication (capped).
- Hi-Elixir: Restores all hp and mp, 3 - 4 medication (shortly below cap).
The X medication numbers just sort of plucked from the air lol, need tweaks for balance XD.
As random two asides on consumable potions I think Phoenix Down should either stack, be non-consumable, and or remove sickness on living and revive knockout without sickness (out of combat only of course). At least personally I don't see anything wrong with letting players revive each other when out of combat and feel the Phoenix Down is very restrictive for all that it does and does not do (of course it shouldn't work in the middle of a trial/fight where that's exclusively the domain of abilities). That and be able to make Remedy out of the other status-affliction removing potions might be neat (eye Drops + Echo + etc etc = Remedy, all in one).
I get why they're not keen on buffing potions, since it would turn into "content probably needs to design around them".. so perhaps they can just make then a huge QoL in content that it wouldn't really mess things up (non-current ex/savage) and just restrict the location/# of times in a session while not designing content around their existence.
i think they are fine way they are
good in HoH,Potd and Eureka as some said
were decent in PVP
a way to de-synth them as Alch would be nice just so there is a little extra use to them
they are great in level 50-60 content, especially if you do mentor roulette and actually don't ragequit extreme bosses, it's like a extra tank cooldown.
I find them useful if weak.
I really like the ideas some of you came up with! Personally, I feel like with a few little adjustments those ideas could possibly help fix the "uselessness" problem with healing potions. :D
Though I have to agree with the few that mentioned it that currently healing potions are really only useful when your below level 60 and PotD, HoH, and Eureka as I've personally been saved a number of times during when I participated in any of those latter events or when I was still fresh faced to the game and starting out/playing my low level alts.