Please stop removing Damage Over Time effects from every job, add more complexity

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

I think everybody would agree that they just need to add an "early detonate" button like with MCH and Automaton Queen, where you can end Queen early if you need to, with the remaining damage loaded into a final attack so you don't lose any potency. Something like that would help deal with bursting down boss adds to prevent a wipe too, since the DoTs are no longer a liability due to time constraints, you can just detonate them for the burst.

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There would be no reason to ever not press that button. At this point might as well just make every DoT a direct damage abiliy. Detonating Wildfire/Queen early is a DPS loss and you should never actually plan for it.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

The whole notion that DoTs should be removed from the game because raid bosses "jump" is just silly. Raid bosses jump on a script. Anyone that raids knows exactly when that is going to happen. If the boss will jump before the DoT will be more effective than some other GCD - simply don't reapply the DoT. That's like saying we should remove Battle Litany because a DRG might use it on CD before the boss jumps. Or... just hold it until it makes sense to use it. Just like DoTs.

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To be fair, the job's damage would still suffer accordingly, simply because its filler attacks are that much weaker because its DoTs are that much stronger -- in the same sense that combo openers are weak so that combo finishers can be strong.

In single-target combat, assuming initial balance, if your mod(n) [where n is the number of seconds/GCDs for your DoT/combo cycle] fits the fight timings better than other jobs fit theirs, your job lucks out / "wins". Same as it does for the larger CDs.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

I think everybody would agree that they just need to add an "early detonate" button like with MCH and Automaton Queen, where you can end Queen early if you need to, with the remaining damage loaded into a final attack so you don't lose any potency. Something like that would help deal with bursting down boss adds to prevent a wipe too, since the DoTs are no longer a liability due to time constraints, you can just detonate them for the burst.

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That'd simply either

• be a dps-loss, as it is on Wildfire/Queen,
  
  or
  
  
• turn DoTs each into two-step combos.

I just wonder what goring blades going to do now instead?
It can't just give you "holy spirit" unless royal authority is removed? I feel like they're likely going to replace it with a 10% damage buff similar to warriors, Likely remove FOF and rename it as the damage buff you get from Goring, they might make royal authority give you one holy spirit instead of atonement (atonement looks likely to be removed thinking about it...). It seems pretty weird that you're also getting magic outside or req? Idk if/how that will also effect your req window

I personally don't think the DOT matters in the long run I liked old PLD's rotation but I can understand why they're doing it, I'm just confused what PLD's rotation is going to look like now...? I'm really confused what they're going to do with it.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

I just wonder what goring blades going to do now instead?
It can't just give you "holy spirit" unless royal authority is removed? I feel like they're likely going to replace it with a 10% damage buff similar to warriors, Likely remove FOF and rename it as the damage buff you get from Goring, they might make royal authority give you one holy spirit instead of atonement (atonement looks likely to be removed thinking about it...). It seems pretty weird that you're also getting magic outside or req? Idk if/how that will also effect your req window

I personally don't think the DOT matters in the long run I liked old PLD's rotation but I can understand why they're doing it, I'm just confused what PLD's rotation is going to look like now...? I'm really confused what they're going to do with it.

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Goring>HS costs MP, RA>Atonement regenerates MP, job done probably. Assuming I'm anywhere close to the mark for their new design, the answer to 'Why would you want to RA' is 'to generate MP to use Goring>HS'. It also fixes the 63s loop dilemma, by giving PLD two 4step (10s) combos to build a 60s loop off of. Assuming Req stays as it is, the 4 HS > Conf > Blades is 8GCDs, or 20s (thanks to skillspeed not working), but I think they'll change that. Instead, I expect Req is deleted, or reworked to a hard hitting GCD. My money's on GCD, because then it can upgrade at 80 into Confiteor. No longer using 4 HS in a row, we'd have 5 Goring/RA combos to build the rotation with, then the 4 step combo of Confiteor (a standalone 60s CD), Blade of Faith/Truth/The other one, and that's the last 10s combo, to round out to 60s. It'd also mean, assuming 3rd GCD raidbuffs, we'd go Fast, Riot, (raidbuff start) Goring, HS, Confiteor, BladeBladeBlade, Fast, Riot (raidbuff end here or before riot, depends on skillspeed), meaning we very easily get our hard hits like the HS and the full blade combo inside raidbuffs. As it is now, if we used Req on the exact same frame the raidbuffs go out, we'd miss the last Blade because Skillspeed doesn't help with the spells, and animation lock would screw us.

With this, downtime from boss (eg High Concept) would actually be completely fine, as PLD would keep regenerating it's 'gauge' while other tanks are left crying cos they cant hit the boss. This would mean, because of regen, you might swap a 60s loop from 3 Goring>HS combos / 2 RA>Atone combos, to FOUR Goring>HS / 1 RA>Atone. My main question is whether Divine Might procs work like Raiju (use it right away or lose it, essentially a forced 4 step combo), or can be used whenever (or even stacked), as if they can be stacked and saved, it'd mean we're just gonna still use eg 3 Holy Spirits inside raidbuffs, then Confiteor/Blades, which will definitely not look like 3 Fell Cleaves, then Primal Rend, then 2 Inner Chaos no sir

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

To be fair, the job's damage would still suffer accordingly, simply because its filler attacks are that much weaker because its DoTs are that much stronger -- in the same sense that combo openers are weak so that combo finishers can be strong.

In single-target combat, assuming initial balance, if your mod(n) [where n is the number of seconds/GCDs for your DoT/combo cycle] fits the fight timings better than other jobs fit theirs, your job lucks out / "wins". Same as it does for the larger CDs.

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Consider that SE reads comments like yours and this is why we have 2 minute burst windows and moving towards homogeneity across all roles. Imagine that one job has a slight advantage over another job in an RPG! Wild concept, that is. Maybe the MCH's 3rd Drill comes up just before the BRD's best usage of Iron Jaws, but the boss jumps and eats about 30s of that DoT. Maybe for that one battle, don't go as BRD if the DPS loss is enough to make the difference between clearing it or not.

Nearly every other RPG we play, there are advantages and disadvantages to certain spells, weapons, characters, etc. The notion that this MMORPG should be any different is silly.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

Consider that SE reads comments like yours and this is why we have 2 minute burst windows and moving towards homogeneity across all roles. Imagine that one job has a slight advantage over another job in an RPG! Wild concept, that is. Maybe the MCH's 3rd Drill comes up just before the BRD's best usage of Iron Jaws, but the boss jumps and eats about 30s of that DoT. Maybe for that one battle, don't go as BRD if the DPS loss is enough to make the difference between clearing it or not.

Nearly every other RPG we play, there are advantages and disadvantages to certain spells, weapons, characters, etc. The notion that this MMORPG should be any different is silly.

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???

None of what you quoted was a perceived negative about job diversity. I advocate ad (others') nauseum for job diversity.

I'm just pointing out the reality of it. Which jobs are advantaged in a particular single-target fight comes down to how well their damage cycles fit the content; DoTs play no significant part in that unless the devs choose specifically to screw them over by nullifying those DoTs on certain events. We should stop pretending, given that DoTs for expansions continued ticking just fine even while the boss had "jumped" away (or was otherwise untargetable or immune to further direct damage), that boss jumps would be the reason behind the removal of DoTs.

Similarly, your strategy of "just use your filler instead of your soft CD (that you're balanced around using on CD / keeping up at all times)" is no solution; it still retains an entirely needless imbalance over an arbitrary mechanic setting. The devs just need to not purposely screw over DoTs (e.g., by just not actively having jumps immunize or purge already applied afflictions). That's it.

We had plenty of fights with jumps where this was never a problem, because the devs hadn't made it one. We don't need bloated solutions like early detonation; we just need the devs not to flip the "break DoTs, I guess?" switch.

I'm not really sure why you would want to use modular arithmetic to describe DoT truncation. Unless you just encountered it in an introductory number theory course and were really excited about the concept or something.

You probably could design a DoT focused job from the ground up that conforms to the 'rules' of job synergy. Time magic would be a great way to do it. Perhaps you freeze your DoTs so that they continue to tick without the timer changing, and then accelerate all the timers to do burst or deal with phase changes. I don't think that clipping is that much of a design problem with DoTs either, as you can simply design timers that can be extended twice in a row. It would be interesting if the focus wasn't on actually recasting DoTs, but rather utilizing a set of buffs to build up the momentum going into burst.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I'm not really sure why you would want to use modular arithmetic to describe DoT truncation. Unless you just encountered it in an introductory number theory course and were really excited about the concept or something.

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DoTs surpass filler damage after a number of seconds. If the jumps make it so you're losing the ability to get that DoT's number of seconds to redeem itself, it screws over the DoT user. Call it modular math or whatever else you like, but it's not as if it's anything advanced. It was just one of many spitball ways to approximate relative value.

The larger point, though, was merely that if a job is balanced around being able to use a given DoT every so often, and now there's a forced break in that that pace that reduces its uptime (or number of effective casts within a given total fight length), simply switching to a less screwed over alternative isn't about to bail out a DoT job. Just like having a jump occur right as your burst CDs or combo finisher (before the combo timers were so extended) would.

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You probably could design a DoT focused job from the ground up that conforms to the 'rules' of job synergy.

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Yeah, that'd be great. I'm not sure what 'rules' create anything as neat as your examples, but... I'd love to see that applied there and elsewhere.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

Consider that SE reads comments like yours and this is why we have 2 minute burst windows and moving towards homogeneity across all roles. Imagine that one job has a slight advantage over another job in an RPG! Wild concept, that is. Maybe the MCH's 3rd Drill comes up just before the BRD's best usage of Iron Jaws, but the boss jumps and eats about 30s of that DoT. Maybe for that one battle, don't go as BRD if the DPS loss is enough to make the difference between clearing it or not.

Nearly every other RPG we play, there are advantages and disadvantages to certain spells, weapons, characters, etc. The notion that this MMORPG should be any different is silly.

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already quit WoW and GW2 because of crap design like this, luckily the devs learned from ARR/HW that it only creates animosity and resentment in the community (which is what happens in the previously mentioned games)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

That'd simply either

• be a dps-loss, as it is on Wildfire/Queen,
  
  or
  
  
• turn DoTs each into two-step combos.

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Hey, I'm trying to come up with something that gives a reason for DoTs to still exist, because at this rate I won't be surprised if SE removes them from all jobs (other than BLU) permanently. Btw, said detonate button would likely be an oGCD with a hefty timer to avoid spam of it.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Hey, I'm trying to come up with something that gives a reason for DoTs to still exist, because at this rate I won't be surprised if SE removes them from all jobs (other than BLU) permanently. Btw, said detonate button would likely be an oGCD with a hefty timer to avoid spam of it.

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Ahh, gotcha. Yeah, that could be pretty cool then, akin to a damage-inclusive mobility skill, with some decision-making between leveraging situational and basic value. So long as it isn't able to be spammed (as per its being on a decent CD), it'd typically be saved for getting more DoT ticks in per raid buff cycle, but, you could also use it to avoid nullification on jumps. Nice.

I just, again, feel like the latter (saving one's DoTs against arbitrary encounter constraints above and beyond others jobs') shouldn't have been made an issue from the start. There's no need for boss jumps / transitions to nullify existing DoTs; they didn't before, and shouldn't now.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Hey, I'm trying to come up with something that gives a reason for DoTs to still exist, because at this rate I won't be surprised if SE removes them from all jobs (other than BLU) permanently. Btw, said detonate button would likely be an oGCD with a hefty timer to avoid spam of it.

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only jobs that lost their dots so far have been summoner and paladin. BLM, SAM, BRD and the 4 healers are all still there and the devs have said nothing about removing those

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Originally Posted by Melethron123

only jobs that lost their dots so far have been summoner and paladin. BLM, SAM, BRD and the 4 healers are all still there and the devs have said nothing about removing those

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Even if bard technically still has it's DoTs they could just as easily be removed and nothing would change.

They already got reduced from being an integral part of how you dealt damage to just another source of proccing "Straight Shot Ready", something that is already covered by Heavy/Burst Shot. You could simply increase the proc chance on Burst Shot and remove the DoTs entirely, which isn't really that unlikely for 7.0

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Even if bard technically still has it's DoTs they could just as easily be removed and nothing would change.

They already got reduced from being an integral part of how you dealt damage to just another source of proccing "Straight Shot Ready", something that is already covered by Heavy/Burst Shot. You could simply increase the proc chance on Burst Shot and remove the DoTs entirely, which isn't really that unlikely for 7.0

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any job could have its dots removed and potencies of other skills increased to compensate

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Originally Posted by Melethron123

only jobs that lost their dots so far have been summoner and paladin. BLM, SAM, BRD and the 4 healers are all still there and the devs have said nothing about removing those

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NIN lost it's DoT going into EW and jobs like WHM or SCH got all their DoTs except one removed going into ShB, so way more than SMN and PLD have lost their DoTs

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Originally Posted by Melethron123

any job could have its dots removed and potencies of other skills increased to compensate

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For a lot of jobs you could indeed just remove them and compensate said jobs for it in other ways.

For GnB it is simply another damage source and, more importantly, a skill to create additional weave windows, this function could absolutely be fulfilled by a weaponskill that isn't a DoT. On BLM it's basically just an additional movement tool, sure it deals high damage as well but that role can be fulfilled by basically anything, so the only remaining important part is the proc that allows you to reposition without losing damage. On bard it has no interaction anymore with your primary mechanic, the songs, and just serves as another source for Refulgent Arrows.

SAM was a slightly different case, at least in ShB when I last played it. Higanbana was a sort of "anchor" for your rotation that you could orientate yourself around to determine your next action, especially when any downtime was involved. But no idea if that is even still the case in Endwalker.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

NIN lost it's DoT going into EW and jobs like WHM or SCH got all their DoTs except one removed going into ShB, so way more than SMN and PLD have lost their DoTs

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NIN didn't have a dot to keep up. notice how i didn't use GNB as an example of jobs that kept their dots for the same reason

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Originally Posted by Melethron123

only jobs that lost their dots so far have been summoner and paladin. BLM, SAM, BRD and the 4 healers are all still there and the devs have said nothing about removing those

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Just by the time Endwalker was released, not counting actions taken from outside the job's own kit (though we likely should count them), more than half of all jobs have lost DoTs over the years:

• JOB: DoTs lost (portion of total DoTs possessed)
• WAR: 1 (100%)
• DRK: 1 (50%, if including Salted Earth)
• WHM: 2 (67%)
• SCH: 3 (75%)
• AST: 1 (50%)
• SMN: 3-5 (75%-80%, depending on whether one counts pet DoT, let alone the pet AAs as a DoT)
• BRD: 1 (33%)
• MCH: 1 (100%)
• MNK: 1 (50%, though Fracture was requisite, so this probably should be considered 2 and 67%)
• NIN: 2 (100%)
• DRG: 1 (50%)

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Originally Posted by Melethron123

NIN didn't have a dot to keep up. notice how i didn't use GNB as an example of jobs that kept their dots for the same reason

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It did. It had two, in fact, Mutilate (a lone GCD that broke combos) and Shadowfang (a 2nd-step combo finisher). The first DoT was removed in Stormblood, and the second DoT was in 5.1 (not even 5.0).

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Originally Posted by Melethron123

only jobs that lost their dots so far have been summoner and paladin. BLM, SAM, BRD and the 4 healers are all still there and the devs have said nothing about removing those

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WAR lost a dot (Fracture). DRK lost a dot (Scourge). SCH lost multiple dots (Miasma, Miasma II, Shadow Flare). WHM lost a dot (Aero III was its own thing previously). MNK lost a dot (Touch of Death). DRG lost a dot (Phlebotomize). NIN lost 2 dots (Mutilate and Shadowfang).

You get the point. It's been so long in the making that it hasn't been noticed by anybody but those who have been here since HW.

DoTs serve one main function - they allow a very high potency attack to be placed within a rotation, but because the damage happens over a period you're discouraged from spamming it.

I never saw Goring Blade as "maintain this DoT", I actually saw the visual indicator of the DoT on the target as being a kind of anchor point as to where I was in my rotation. Wasnt needed, and Goring Blade could as well have been a 600 potency attack on a 25 second cooldown and it would serve the same purpose within the rotation, but DoTs are just a nice way of doing that.

Also DoTs have the somewhat interesting gameplay choice when multiple targets are involved or adds join fights at certain points, and you have to mentally calculate whether its worth applying the dot or if the target will die too soon. Not exactly complicated, but little mini choices like that all add up to make a job interesting.

I'm not married to the idea that a paladin needs a dot, I'm just a bit concerned that they run the risk of making the rotation feel a bit TOO over simplified. I don't like the current paladin rotation - I mained Paladin until Endwalker but then swapped to Warrior as a main, so I'm keen to see if Paladin's changes make it more fun and make me swap back. But whilst I understand that a lot of players just don't like the idea of DoTs, I saw Goring Blade as a fun skill that served multiple purposes and gave an interesting set of choices and feel to the job that just a single big instant hit would not have.

It's the subtle nuances and micro choices that make a class involving, however small - look at SAM and how the removal of one single skill turned the kenki management from something that required a small bit of thought but was easy, into something that is totally mindless and spammy. I don't know if Paladin NEEDS the dot, but I hope they replace it with a more interesting ability than just a Single Big Hit.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

WAR lost a dot (Fracture). DRK lost a dot (Scourge). SCH lost multiple dots (Miasma, Miasma II, Shadow Flare). WHM lost a dot (Aero III was its own thing previously). MNK lost a dot (Touch of Death). DRG lost a dot (Phlebotomize). NIN lost 2 dots (Mutilate and Shadowfang).

You get the point. It's been so long in the making that it hasn't been noticed by anybody but those who have been here since HW.

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that makes me even happier that they're removing dots. every job having to refresh a debuff every X seconds makes the game incredibly boring.

PS: MNK and DRG still have dots

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

DoTs serve one main function - they allow a very high potency attack to be placed within a rotation, but because the damage happens over a period you're discouraged from spamming it.

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This. They're soft-CDs, that also happen to interact interestingly with target count and involve the tracking of time-to-kill (or, next-uptime-span). In terms of mechanical depth, they manage a ton of interaction for how simple they, themselves, are.

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Originally Posted by Melethron123

that makes me even happier that they're removing dots. every job having to refresh a debuff every X seconds makes the game incredibly boring.

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Fair enough.

I'll just likely never understand how having something more, that conflicted with nothing and was about the least intrusive form of rotational anchor one could possibly have, could result in gameplay feeling less to anyone.

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PS: MNK and DRG still have dots

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Your point, though? If we removed main CDs from most jobs, I doubt anyone's reaction would be "Well, A and B still have them!" If whatever element of complexity was enjoyable to most players and has been removed, that some jobs still get to experience vestiges of it is not a satisfactory answer to "I preferred having more."

DoTs can be a lot of fun, but you definitely don't need one on every job. I'm sure that there are plenty of people who don't particularly miss the scintillating gameplay of Fracture. There are also plenty of other maintenance effects in game that play out similarly.

The real question to ask is what does the maintenance effect do for your gameplay? If you take Death's Design for example, it's functionally no different from all the single target 'DoT' effects that we've seen through the ages. But the debuff timer actually ends up being a critically important part of your burst setup. If it's just a mandatory button press every 30 seconds for the sake of 'having a DoT', that's neither interesting nor challenging, and I'd rather the hotbar space be used in more innovative ways.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The real question to ask is what does the maintenance effect do for your gameplay? If you take Death's Design for example, it's functionally no different from all the single target 'DoT' effects that we've seen through the ages.

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Kind of, but... at that point all buffs would be "functionally" DoTs.

Because Death's Design prefers its AoE form at just two targets or more, it doesn't really grant any cleave-related gameplay, though, and because it stacks up to twice its application duration, as per Warrior's Surging Tempest or Ninja's Huton (despite also being applied via a non-combo-breaking lone GCD), it doesn't significantly anchor rotation or generate any new noticeable choices or opportunity costs.

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If it's just a mandatory button press every 30 seconds for the sake of 'having a DoT', that's neither interesting nor challenging, and I'd rather the hotbar space be used in more innovative ways.

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Agreed.

DoTs ought to offer new decision-making. Warrior's Fracture, for instance, had that, but in a worst of ways (only worth using in rare conditions), while Monk's Fracture could use it also to enter different rotations, modulate (could speed up rotational matching by any number of GCDs, thanks to Fracture and Touch of Death) to sync macrorotation, or as a soft-CD by which to ignore positionals -- altogether an incredible amount of utility for such a seemingly simply tool because of having enough surrounding tools and purposes.

Well no. Death's Design is critical to RPR's rotation. Enshroud has a 15 second recast and Arcane Circle only lasts for 20 seconds. To get a second Enshroud off under Arcane Circle, it has to be activated 5 seconds earlier (i.e. about 2 GCDs). Those 'dummy GCDs' have to come from either Shadow of Death or Harvest Moon. To get two dummy GCDs out of Shadow of Death without overcapping on Death's Design, you need to have about 9 seconds left on Death's Design when you enter your two minute burst phase. This means that you have to deliberately let the timer tick down in preparation for your burst. If you took that setup away, the debuff is just fluff.

In AoE, Death's Design has the added feature that it gives you gauge on mob death, which is a neat effect in itself.

I think that it's relatively easy for the dev team to come out and say 'behold, a 30 second GCD-based DoT' on every job. Part of the playerbase would struggle with it, but I think a sizeable portion of raiding players would manage it as automatically as breathing. The interesting part comes out of the interaction with other actions. Can I refresh all my DoTs with a single action (Iron Jaws)? Can I spread them to another target (Bane)? Can I freeze the timers on them? Can I consume them for burst? I think if you can't answer the question around 'why is this mechanic here on this job?' then you're better off without it.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Your point, though? If we removed main CDs from most jobs, I doubt anyone's reaction would be "Well, A and B still have them!" If whatever element of complexity was enjoyable to most players and has been removed, that some jobs still get to experience vestiges of it is not a satisfactory answer to "I preferred having more."

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i'm willing to bet that DRG has a much more busy rotation now than it did in HW

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Originally Posted by Melethron123

i'm willing to bet that DRG has a much more busy rotation now than it did in HW

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Less busy, actually. Back in HW you had flank and rear positionals you had to do, else you lost a LOT of potency, and Fang and Claw and Wheeling Thrust were completely random on which one you would get, so you were constantly having to prepare to move. Plus Heavy Thrust was still a thing and you had to get a flank positional to get that sweet damage buff from it. And that's not getting into certain other hells DRG had to deal with back in the day...

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Originally Posted by Melethron123

i'm willing to bet that DRG has a much more busy rotation now than it did in HW

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Less, actually (less positioning, less tracking, less decision-making).

But that's beside the point. Phlebotomize didn't prevent Lance Mastery II any more than Heavy Thrust did (which coexisted with our 5-step rotation).

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Plus Heavy Thrust was still a thing and you had to get a flank positional to get that sweet damage buff from it.

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Technically, that part, like Impulse Drive giving combo progress only on rear attack, was removed before Heavensward (replaced with only the damage bonus, and with ID's positional being moved to Chaos Thrust). But, those positionals were a far larger portion of potency than they are today.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Less busy, actually. Back in HW you had flank and rear positionals you had to do, else you lost a LOT of potency, and Fang and Claw and Wheeling Thrust were completely random on which one you would get, so you were constantly having to prepare to move. Plus Heavy Thrust was still a thing and you had to get a flank positional to get that sweet damage buff from it. And that's not getting into certain other hells DRG had to deal with back in the day...

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HW has less positionals over the 10 step GCD than SB and later, 40% for HW as opposed to 50% for SB onwards. You can say, yes, you lost more potency, but in regards to being busy, potency is irrelevant as you either go for the positional or you don't. You could argue with the addition of True North, that makes you more busy as it is something else consider whilst doing a fight.

Also, Heavy Thrust and Impulse Drive mandatory positionals were removed in 2.45:

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...cf56b933b99601

You still get the Heavy Thrust buff even from rear and Impulse Drive is now guaranteed to continue the combo, with the rear positional now being moved to Chaos Thrust for a potency increase.

As for which one is busier, I'm not going to comment, however, I don't think it is as cut and dry as you are making it out to be.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Less busy, actually. Back in HW you had flank and rear positionals you had to do, else you lost a LOT of potency, and Fang and Claw and Wheeling Thrust were completely random on which one you would get, so you were constantly having to prepare to move. Plus Heavy Thrust was still a thing and you had to get a flank positional to get that sweet damage buff from it. And that's not getting into certain other hells DRG had to deal with back in the day...

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so... they had the same skills but fewer OGCDs, AKA: less busy

People seem to be conflating busy with difficult or punishing, HW DRG wasn't busier, it was more punishing. Missing positionals led to a significant potency loss and rotational mistakes could easily end up with you dropping Blood of the Dragon, leading to an even higher dps loss.

Current Dark Knight is incredibly busy during burst phases, but that doesn't make it difficult just because you have to spam a lot of oGCDs.

'complexity is when many ogcd in burst window, the more ogcd the more complexity'

The issue is, back when scholar/whm etc. had many dots, you started fighting a boss in a raid or openworld scenario (eureka, BA etc.) and the dots didnt apply; it would show something like "Thunder III - No effect" as if the mob would be resisting it, simply because the maximum number of dots has been reached on that mob. Thus your damage didn't even contribute to killing that mob. Then they started removing dots over dots. Now it is basically helping them maintain a healthy level of debuff/dots so they can display enough other stuff on the screen.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

People seem to be conflating busy with difficult or punishing, HW DRG wasn't busier, it was more punishing. Missing positionals led to a significant potency loss and rotational mistakes could easily end up with you dropping Blood of the Dragon, leading to an even higher dps loss.

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That's not necessarily a conflation; the posts just claimed, as is very easily argued, that HW DRG happened to be both.

You had faintly higher oGCD density, slightly more decision-making, and couldn't so automate your positionals. The positionals could be just 20 potency bonuses each and, so long as most DRGs would opt to them, the way BotD worked then would still leave it a busier job due to a combination of apm and watching and leveraging one's remaining BotD duration and CD to spend towards Geirskogul keeping you more on your toes.

Not a better designed one. Not even necessarily a more difficult one. But a slightly busier one, independent of its being more punishing.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

'complexity is when many ogcd in burst window, the more ogcd the more complexity'

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wait until you hear about people who think refreshing dots is complex :)

Could not agree more with the Original poster. Summoner was my main dps class, I loved that it was complex and that you had to maintain the dots, then they reworked it and i never play it now. Now they are reworking paladin and removing it's dots as well. Very disappointed.

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Originally Posted by Melethron123

wait until you hear about people who think refreshing dots is complex :)

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No one has ever said this.

Though, as with any not innately synced buff or cooldown with a decent bit of context, making optimal choices and tracking additional considerations, yes, adds complexity.



A DoT/debuffing GCD is just a soft CD (much like any buffing GCD) with additional considerations based on target count.

It's certainly not going to be any less complex given the same contexts that would allow for a buff to be interesting (e.g., Twin Snakes at sufficient Skill Speed, rather than Disembowel; Stormblood SAM more so than Shadowbringers/Endwalker), as it's just taking something already capable of a fair bit of contextual nuance and simply adding another layer to work with.

Possibly the closest we've had to "complex application of DoTs" is BRD before they started increasing the duration of Caustic/Stormbite up to 45s. While reapplying wasn't complex, but you wanted to work backwards to time your DoTs so ideally you'd be refreshing Iron Jaws in that 2-0s window so you get the extra tick while also landing it on some sort of beneficial buff - whether it be a self-buff (RS) or a group buff (like chain). Or you'd have to do a fight long enough to figure out that since the boss jumps at a certain time, it might make sense to let IJ drop entirely since you wouldn't get enough ticks.

When there were less ticks per DoT, getting that last tick became more important. However, they dropped the potency of Caustic/Stormbite back in ShB (if I recall?). So while it is nice to get that last tick, the DPS loss is smaller. Of course, you'd rather land IJ a tick early than have to spend 1 extra GCD reapply both DoTs individually.

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Originally Posted by Melethron123

wait until you hear about people who think refreshing dots is complex :)

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wait until you hear about people saying that pressing buttons is complicated.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

Possibly the closest we've had to "complex application of DoTs" is BRD before they started increasing the duration of Caustic/Stormbite up to 45s. While reapplying wasn't complex, but you wanted to work backwards to time your DoTs so ideally you'd be refreshing Iron Jaws in that 2-0s window so you get the extra tick while also landing it on some sort of beneficial buff - whether it be a self-buff (RS) or a group buff (like chain). Or you'd have to do a fight long enough to figure out that since the boss jumps at a certain time, it might make sense to let IJ drop entirely since you wouldn't get enough ticks.

When there were less ticks per DoT, getting that last tick became more important. However, they dropped the potency of Caustic/Stormbite back in ShB (if I recall?). So while it is nice to get that last tick, the DPS loss is smaller. Of course, you'd rather land IJ a tick early than have to spend 1 extra GCD reapply both DoTs individually.

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I'd argue nearly the opposite, especially since moving past the 18s duration and having lost any notable crit synergy (Internal Release nerfs/removal) or more desireable conditions for reapplication (e.g., HW Wanderer's Minuet stance).

The opportunity cost Iron Jaws added to letting DoTs drop for even a moment made the timing that much less flexible, which ended up making opportunities to leverage Bard's DoTs interestingly all the fewer than, say, Lead Shot, Fracture, or Mutilate, and since it was an open action, the added punishment for letting either DoT drop didn't amount to anything, gameplay-wise. Apart from delaying for a single GCD more of Heavy Shot after Aimed Shot, one couldn't actually do anything with that idea of "working backward" from a desired moment of reapplication, and once at a 30s duration (now an absurd 45s), those durations synced up automatically anyways.

It was close to doing a decent bit well, but it shortchanged itself.

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However, they dropped the potency of Caustic/Stormbite back in ShB (if I recall?).

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They did indeed, bringing our sustained multi-DoT damage a fair bit closer to our single-target and deemphasizing the costs of trimming DoT ticks.