Phantom Jobs are a step in the right direction but need iteration.

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Originally Posted by RaionKansen

Man people really have rose-tinted glasses with Eureka and Bozja.
None of the actions were interesting. It was just passives or buffs to do silly damage, which is pretty much what phantom jobs are. There were some niche actions in Eureka that you used to level grind, but that's it.

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I loved how you could stack buffs and win a duel in 5 seconds with Flare Star.

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Originally Posted by Arohk

I loved how you could stack buffs and win a duel in 5 seconds with Flare Star.

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Swift with Impetus absolutely one of my favorites. Whole party running manderville speeds

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Originally Posted by MitsukiKimura

Swift with Impetus absolutely one of my favorites. Whole party running manderville speeds

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I remember someone unintentionally grief the party by granting swift buff when people are trying to dodge aoe, overshot, and run into the death wall instead XD

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Originally Posted by Kozh

I remember someone unintentionally grief the party by granting swift buff when people are trying to dodge aoe, overshot, and run into the death wall instead XD

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As the kids are wont to say, "Skill Issue". But no yeah if your movement speed suddenly increases without warning it's absolutely understandable that it might kill you. This is probably why the speed boosts are limited to self and single target in the phantom jobs.

Personally I’d say Phantom Jobs are a complete leap in the wrong direction. Hugely limited, barely any interesting mechanics, abilities are all either useless spells (Slowga, Dispel) or eye-roll inducing 120s cooldowns. Because we totally needed more of those (sarcasm).

Personally I loved running all the support buffs in Eureka Bozja like Lost Protect / Lost Bravery / etc. Actual gcd spells that support the party? Sign me tf up. Crappy bland 120s cooldowns that add literally nothing to any job? No thanks Yoshi, got enough of those thanks. Stop trying to force me to like them lol. Though it’s just a shame the Lost Actions also have ridiculously long durations on support skills to make them as set-and-forget as possible. But at least I could use them when someone died lol.

Also I hate how useless some of the Phantom Jobs feels. Phantom Bard? Would anyone ever choose this job of their own volition? They massacred my boy! Time Mage might as well just be Comet and Quick - no idea why the other abilities exist. Is Dispel an entire ability dedicated solely to resolving a specific mechanic in Forked Tower? And then even if you do want to use a specific phantom job the mastery stuff means you’re basically nerfing yourself and holding your entire party back.

Our standard pve toolkits are entirely bleached, sterilised and clean. No variation, or decision making, or strategising, etc. Phantom Jobs could have added just a spark to the jobs, especially if those abilities have some kind of interaction with the existing kit. Instead, it’s just the standard PvE skill set condensed into a selectable preset

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Originally Posted by Connor

Also I hate how useless some of the Phantom Jobs feels. Phantom Bard? Would anyone ever choose this job of their own volition? They massacred my boy! Time Mage might as well just be Comet and Quick - no idea why the other abilities exist. Is Dispel an entire ability dedicated solely to resolving a specific mechanic in Forked Tower? And then even if you do want to use a specific phantom job the mastery stuff means you’re basically nerfing yourself and holding your entire party back.

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Yeah a lot of Phantom Jobs are specifically forked tower only like for your example dispel which in itself is a shame as outside of it a lot of them are pretty bland.

I would have just preferred that each job starts immediately with 2 actives (or skill replacements) and a toggle for a deeper bond (Knight sacrifices potency for mitigation and Enmity if a non-tank, or personal mitigation for shared/contributable mitigation if on tank already; Bard, for buff auras from normal actions; Monk, for greater self-buffs and passive gauge resource generation; etc).

Let the levels thereafter just buff and adapt those original skills in chosen ways, except on Freelancer, which just gets more skill slots (through which to use almost any other phantom job's unlocked skill) as it's leveled but can only use the base version of each skill unless sacrificing a slot to take on its upgrade.

Despite this, I do think it's closer to something decent than the item-bloated iterations of Logos/Lost actions, if only barely. Though I'd probably have preferred de-bloating Logos actions (no inventory consumption, no identifying from coffers, just looting spells directly to temporary currency highly limited consumable actions on one hand and, on the other, acquiring net-neutral Essences [just swaps this for that to allow for funny job-role combinations] that you can freely swap at sanctuaries) over doing something entirely new via Phantom jobs, especially if we don't see reiteration for gameplay interest in time for use in the new Deep Dungeon.

https://i.imgur.com/WYNT7pu.png

It's weird to think that for their planned updates it's the first zone, then just new phantom jobs, and then the second zone last.

So, we're going to get new jobs and be coming back to the most boring exploration zone? Unless they sneak in some updates to this zone that's going to be terrible.

I can't imagine they'd add any OP new jobs before the second zone, so it's just going to be more leveling stuff and then not ever using it.

A thing I appreciate about Phantom Jobs over Logos, and Lost actions is the lack of item consumption needed (save for a few specific job actions). I didn't really like have to burn through stuff when at camp after joining an instance.

However, like 9 out of 10 Phantom Job actions were incredibly safe, and I would like to see more interaction with the overworld/fates/CEs instead of just being useful in Forked Tower. I hope the next batch of Phantom Jobs get weirder.

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Originally Posted by JuicyHeals

Yeah a lot of Phantom Jobs are specifically forked tower only like for your example dispel which in itself is a shame as outside of it a lot of them are pretty bland.

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Not quite correct, Dispel can also remove the berserker's damage up (which is not a big enough threat to matter, really). So, still not good, but not Forked Tower Only.

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Originally Posted by mallleable

A thing I appreciate about Phantom Jobs over Logos, and Lost actions is the lack of item consumption needed (save for a few specific job actions). I didn't really like have to burn through stuff when at camp after joining an instance.

However, like 9 out of 10 Phantom Job actions were incredibly safe, and I would like to see more interaction with the overworld/fates/CEs instead of just being useful in Forked Tower. I hope the next batch of Phantom Jobs get weirder.

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Having to grind or buy consumables were the primary reason I didn't do as much Eureka or Bozja content as I'd have liked to. I do, strongly, agree that they should be willing to take some wild risks with phantom jobs, and do something actually interesting and potentially even unbalancing, because it's Side-Only content. They weren't afraid to do silly things with Pomanders, why is large scale group content less acceptable to do that in? Boss fights and group content harder to balance? All content in these areas has basically been a puzzle dance to begin with. Let players learn the encounters, and then snap them over the knee or just find silly ways to have fun with strange skills.

Tbh, consumables weren't that bad in my opinion. It was same as we farm gold nowadays. We just farm other stuff. But... Logograms being pricy also had its positive side. When you got them from bunny chest, you felt rewarded even without a rare drop. The pots now feel just bad, because outside of materia, there is not much stuff they can give you.

I wish the Phantom Jobs would interact with our kit. The only one is really swiftcast into comet on Phantom Time Mage. Sure, it'd be busted in some cases, but why not let us be? If FT is so damn difficult on purpose then let Machinists guarantee a crit with Cannoneer. The determination to be balanced sucks sometimes when we could make all of them a tiny bit busted and expand on it and make it fun.

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Originally Posted by SeriousPan

I wish the Phantom Jobs would interact with our kit. The only one is really swiftcast into comet on Phantom Time Mage. Sure, it'd be busted in some cases, but why not let us be? If FT is so damn difficult on purpose then let Machinists guarantee a crit with Cannoneer. The determination to be balanced sucks sometimes when we could make all of them a tiny bit busted and expand on it and make it fun.

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I don't think it's a concern with balance, ultimately, that prevents that. You can have a decently balanced set of interactions between each Job and Phantom Job such that each looks "broken" but is ultimately held in check due to all other choices also being "broken"-ly synergetic. See Heroes of the Storm in its heyday, for instance.

The real limiting factor is simply warrantable effort. What would make the degree of effort required for every Phantom Job to add something of competitive interest to every real Job worthwhile? We've seen by now that player satisfaction is a non-concern until it the final straw that withdraws retention (or perhaps even not until it would prevent one from coming back for major patch/new-expansion months).

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I don't think it's a concern with balance, ultimately, that prevents that. You can have a decently balanced set of interactions between each Job and Phantom Job such that each looks "broken" but is ultimately held in check due to all other choices also being "broken"-ly synergetic. See Heroes of the Storm in its heyday, for instance.

The real limiting factor is simply warrantable effort. What would make the degree of effort required for every Phantom Job to add something of competitive interest to every real Job worthwhile? We've seen by now that player satisfaction is a non-concern until it the final straw that withdraws retention (or perhaps even not until it would prevent one from coming back for major patch/new-expansion months).

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To be fair lost actions hit that balance much better. Not every action was a win but every job has at least 2-3 actions that do have a massive impact on how you perform and change the way you play

It would be unrealistic to expect every lost action to have its own meta niche application but phantom actions basically substitute this with “if a tank you get a big nuke occasionally, if you are any other role kick rocks”

I don't know, if you actually compare Phantom Jobs to lost actions, they are worse in every way except for a few minor things.

Pros:

• Neat interactions in the forked tower
• Non-consumable

Cons:

• Not customizable or flexible. You pick one job and thats it, no mix and match, no synergizing abilities...
• Only minorly changes gameplay. They only have one or two actions per job you actually use and sometimes none.
• Weak compared to lost actions. The way you could combine these to make nutty builds was insane and so fun. Still to this day I can do more damage in Bozja AS A TANK than I can as in any DT content.
• Outside of forked tower, there are only a few ones that are actually useful. Why would anyone play monk?

Looks to me like this was a major step in the wrong direction.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

I don't know, if you actually compare Phantom Jobs to lost actions, they are worse in every way except for a few minor things.

Pros:

• Neat interactions in the forked tower
• Non-consumable

Cons:

• Not customizable or flexible. You pick one job and thats it, no mix and match, no synergizing abilities...
• Only minorly changes gameplay. They only have one or two actions per job you actually use and sometimes none.
• Weak compared to lost actions. The way you could combine these to make nutty builds was insane and so fun. Still to this day I can do more damage in Bozja AS A TANK than I can as in any DT content.
• Outside of forked tower, there are only a few ones that are actually useful. Why would anyone play monk?

Looks to me like this was a major step in the wrong direction.

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Funnily enough monk is actually one of the most broadly useful jobs. That’s flat 27% buff that’s not conditional (like say needing to get hit on geo to make bell stacks) combined with the fact that each hit of phantom kick is like 150 potency in phantom actions means overall it increases your damage more than just about any other phantom job (more if you luck into parrying a raidwide)

It’s funny that it’s basically equivalent to just equipping skirmisher but hey phantom actions are bad so what the hell

the selfheal on monk is pretty neat. but i guess most people are boring and play tank in oc so they dont need something like that

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Funnily enough monk is actually one of the most broadly useful jobs. That’s flat 27% buff that’s not conditional (like say needing to get hit on geo to make bell stacks) combined with the fact that each hit of phantom kick is like 150 potency in phantom actions means overall it increases your damage more than just about any other phantom job (more if you luck into parrying a raidwide)

It’s funny that it’s basically equivalent to just equipping skirmisher but hey phantom actions are bad so what the hell

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No

Not true because oracle and cannoneer just do more. a 27% buff is nothing compared to cannons, starfall, or sam. It's just straight up less damage. A 27% buff seems nice but when you find out oracle's one ability does as much as a two minute burst in one GCD, it doesnt sound so great anymore. And even if it is the equivalent of skirmisher, its skirmisher with nothing else. Pair skirmisher with a banner of power and lost excellence and you'll see what i mean.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

No

Not true because oracle and cannoneer just do more. a 27% buff is nothing compared to cannons, starfall, or sam. It's just straight up less damage. A 27% buff seems nice but when you find out oracle's one ability does as much as a two minute burst in one GCD, it doesnt sound so great anymore. And even if it is the equivalent of skirmisher, its skirmisher with nothing else. Pair skirmisher with a banner of power and lost excellence and you'll see what i mean.

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That’s why I specifically said also including phantom kick and counter stance giving it enough damage to make it “one of the most broadly useful jobs” and “more than just about any other job”

Oracle is dangerous (using cleanse is a loss compared to monk) and canonneer doing more damage is based on your chance of hitting counterstance and how much 27% helps you (like DPS vs healer)

It doesn’t do the most damage but like I said it’s one of the most broadly useful jobs because it can do some of the most damage, has sustain and is equally useful on any class. Which way it falls with canonneer is based on a variety of factors

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

And even if it is the equivalent of skirmisher, its skirmisher with nothing else. Pair skirmisher with a banner of power and lost excellence and you'll see what i mean.

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Are we honestly caring this much about raw output? We get tuned around it regardless...

Mightn't the main perk of a Monk, small though it is, be the self-heal, the counter-attack, and the gap-closer, with the damage bonus mostly just a minor means of further differentiation by flavoring itself after Monk's former ramp-up?

pMNK's Occult Counter should proc on any damage taken. Counterstance can still work the way it does and even return some damage taken when parrying.

It's just boring that if you want damage, pSAM is almost always the best option due to both power and ease of use. With the above change, pSAM would probably still be better but they'd at least be closer in power.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

I don't know, if you actually compare Phantom Jobs to lost actions, they are worse in every way except for a few minor things.

Pros:

• Neat interactions in the forked tower
• Non-consumable

Cons:

• Not customizable or flexible. You pick one job and thats it, no mix and match, no synergizing abilities...
• Only minorly changes gameplay. They only have one or two actions per job you actually use and sometimes none.
• Weak compared to lost actions. The way you could combine these to make nutty builds was insane and so fun. Still to this day I can do more damage in Bozja AS A TANK than I can as in any DT content.
• Outside of forked tower, there are only a few ones that are actually useful. Why would anyone play monk?

Looks to me like this was a major step in the wrong direction.

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I prefer to think of it as one step in the right direction and then several steps backward. It's important to be clear, to not discount the positives (the non consumable thing) along with the negatives (inflexibility, a clear fear to do anything wild with it). If the latter two are fixed, the system will be superior. I, personally, enjoy it more than the previous systems, but over the course of this thread I've come to see that those are serious issues for a lot of the people in here, and I want to acknowledge that.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Are we honestly caring this much about raw output? We get tuned around it regardless...

Mightn't the main perk of a Monk, small though it is, be the self-heal, the counter-attack, and the gap-closer, with the damage bonus mostly just a minor means of further differentiation by flavoring itself after Monk's former ramp-up?

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Getting tuned around it isn't entirely true. Bozja/Zadnor regular CEs are designed for 0/0/0 + no lost actions in mind, but allow you to be OP if you choose to be. And you can REALLY pump in those duties and I find it quite fun. DRS did expect more from you but only because its a savage version.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

Getting tuned around it isn't entirely true. Bozja/Zadnor regular CEs are designed for 0/0/0 + no lost actions in mind, but allow you to be OP if you choose to be. And you can REALLY pump in those duties and I find it quite fun. DRS did expect more from you but only because its a savage version.

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Which the devs seemed to have found to be an unintended result, guessing from our closest equivalent to normal Forked Tower.

My point, though, was that allowing people to "be OP" in the sense of just hitting a bloated consumable and passively dealing 40% more damage... means that if the content pieces aren't tuned around that, they'll just, in effect, get steamrolled instead.

Tbh, I don't understand why anyone would want that. It's just a hoop to jump through for basic output and/or a backwards optional difficulty modifier (don't do X to be allowed a challenge; do bloat step X to largely remove the preexisting challenge).

I'm all for interesting lost actions making a return, and would even like to see some of the role-swap capacity of certain Essences make a return, but I have zero interest in getting back the purely positive "output" of the other (or the excesses in) Essences.

At least lost actions provided relatively equal damage increases across the roles and relatively equal useful utility

Since phantom jobs are sequestered into neat little sets DPS often have to play sustain phantom jobs that don’t have a lot of utility or damage just to stay alive while tanks get the best of every world

It’s messy for anyone besides a tank to reliably play oracle, only the tanks can properly play berserker, monks sustain is on too long of a CD to help some jobs survive and geos sustain is both weather dependent and also its damage can only be reliably maintained by a tank

So DPS are forced onto jobs like knight, chemist or freelancer just to survive and they get no advantage out of those jobs

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

At least lost actions provided relatively equal damage increases across the roles and relatively equal useful utility

Since phantom jobs are sequestered into neat little sets DPS often have to play sustain phantom jobs that don’t have a lot of utility or damage just to stay alive while tanks get the best of every world

It’s messy for anyone besides a tank to reliably play oracle, only the tanks can properly play berserker, monks sustain is on too long of a CD to help some jobs survive and geos sustain is both weather dependent and also its damage can only be reliably maintained by a tank

So DPS are forced onto jobs like knight, chemist or freelancer just to survive and they get no advantage out of those jobs

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Yes, Tanks overwhelmingly getting more benefit out of phantom jobs due to long cooldowns or skills being based around taking damage is one of the big problems with occult crescent. Hopefully when the next set of phantom jobs come out, their will be more that favor dps and healers.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

At least lost actions provided relatively equal damage increases across the roles and relatively equal useful utility

Since phantom jobs are sequestered into neat little sets DPS often have to play sustain phantom jobs that don’t have a lot of utility or damage just to stay alive while tanks get the best of every world

It’s messy for anyone besides a tank to reliably play oracle, only the tanks can properly play berserker, monks sustain is on too long of a CD to help some jobs survive and geos sustain is both weather dependent and also its damage can only be reliably maintained by a tank

So DPS are forced onto jobs like knight, chemist or freelancer just to survive and they get no advantage out of those jobs

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Tbf, doesn't the lion's share of this just come down to tanks being OP in general?

A large part too is the scaling factors and how much potency-over-time (as in total-potency * frequency, not necessarily a HoT/DoT) is available via phantom jobs, of course. But, were tanks less OP baseline, you could have enough sustain available through PJs to be significant to DPS without it being stupidly redundant for tanks.

IS there any point in running OC beyond getting the mount and weapon? I've got both, and haven't been back.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Tbf, doesn't the lion's share of this just come down to tanks being OP in general?

A large part too is the scaling factors and how much potency-over-time (as in total-potency * frequency, not necessarily a HoT/DoT) is available via phantom jobs, of course. But, were tanks less OP baseline, you could have enough sustain available through PJs to be significant to DPS without it being stupidly redundant for tanks.

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Well if they just balanced phantom jobs so that they didn’t do one or the other then it would be more fair even if in this situation the extra sustain on high DPS jobs would be stupidly excessive for the tanks but yes it’s also arguable that it could be fixed by making tanks not overpowered

Like using a super basic example (I’m not saying I support this change just using it to prove a point), if starfall worked more like moon flute where it caused massive damage and in exchange it cut your damage for the next 10 seconds by 20% then it doesn’t disadvantage any role besides tank using starfall. However you can also fix starfall in the other direction by simply making it as dangerous for tanks to use as the other 2 roles

Both are relevant, the tanks are too strong but the phantom jobs also punish other roles excessively for their high damage actions that could be solved outside of nerfing tanks (which they should do anyway)

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Originally Posted by SamSmoot

IS there any point in running OC beyond getting the mount and weapon? I've got both, and haven't been back.

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Achievements and completion.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Well if they just balanced phantom jobs so that they didn’t do one or the other then it would be more fair even if in this situation the extra sustain on high DPS jobs would be stupidly excessive for the tanks but yes it’s also arguable that it could be fixed by making tanks not overpowered

Like using a super basic example (I’m not saying I support this change just using it to prove a point), if starfall worked more like moon flute where it caused massive damage and in exchange it cut your damage for the next 10 seconds by 20% then it doesn’t disadvantage any role besides tank using starfall. However you can also fix starfall in the other direction by simply making it as dangerous for tanks to use as the other 2 roles

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Wouldn't this do the opposite? You have more to lose from the 20% damage loss as a DPS and, as DPS, less to gain from a single individual hit relative to your existing available potencies.

..Heck, Starfall already costs the party more healing to recover from if used by a tank than a non-tank, as it consumes 90% of the users max HP, and is subject to the tank's 20% Attack Power reduction affecting even "true"/unalterable potencies (i.e., those unaffected by buffs). The HP loss can't even be mitigated by Magic Defense or %DR -- only potency barriers (better in this case on non-tanks against %maxHP damage) or %HP barriers (ToB/TBN, equal on tanks and non-tanks against %maxHP damage).

Edit: Or so I had thought. I guess it's not quite so intuitive.

I guess my suggestion then, would just be to make it work as above:

• Do NOT scale Phantom Job potency with any buffs (passives like Maim and Mend, actives like Shifu, No Mercy, or raidbuffs, etc.).
• DO inherit or emulate the Attack Power loss tanks normally face (and Weakness / Brink of Death).
  
  And while we're at it...
  
  
• Don't let pJob actions break combos (as not everyone has them, imbalancing job synergy).
• Scale spammable pJob actions with innate haste (-15% GCD use = -17.6% damage, for the same overall DPS). This retains their flow but only faintly buffs potential utility rather than acting as, say, an indirect 17.6% DPS increase from them).
• And, on that note, do NOT be affected by (and do NOT consume) any single-use buffs like Life Surge. (Others will disagree with me on this, but an extra 500 potency per Phantom skill per 40s would in any tight content mean that only those jobs should be playing the pJobs with infrequent nukes.)

Like, it's already technically aimed against tanks, so long as there wouldn't be constant/unpredictable damage that 10% of tank HP could survive but 10% of a non-tanks' HP could not, no?

If we wanted it to be even more anti-tank, we could have it inflict Sundered (removing all Defense/Magic Defense or even all passive mitigation), further disproportionately affecting tanks, but... if/when you have to specifically stack things against tanks just to make it not OP for them... that's more an indicator that the baseline is too OP, I would think.

Not saying others aren't designed in a way that, in practice, overly favor tanks, but that one is already designed to be less desirable to tanks, while adding a %damage penalty would most hurt DPS, not tanks. If it's still problematically unbalanced in tanks' favor, the cause is probably more general.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Wouldn't this do the opposite? You have more to lose from the 20% damage loss as a DPS and, as DPS, less to gain from a single individual hit relative to your existing available potencies.

...Heck, Starfall already costs the party more healing to recover from if used by a tank than a non-tank, as it consumes 90% of the users max HP, and is subject to the tank's 20% Attack Power reduction affecting even "true"/unalterable potencies (i.e., those unaffected by buffs). The HP loss can't even be mitigated by Magic Defense or %DR -- only potency barriers (better in this case on non-tanks against %maxHP damage) or %HP barriers (ToB/TBN, equal on tanks and non-tanks against %maxHP damage).

Like, it's already technically aimed against tanks, so long as there wouldn't be constant/unpredictable damage that 10% of tank HP could survive but 10% of a non-tanks' HP could not, no?

If we wanted it to be even more anti-tank, we could have it inflict Sundered (removing all Defense/Magic Defense or even all passive mitigation), further disproportionately affecting tanks, but... if/when you have to specifically stack things against tanks just to make it not OP for them... that's more an indicator that the baseline is too OP, I would think.

Not saying others aren't designed in a way that, in practice, overly favor tanks, but that one is already designed to be less desirable to tanks, while adding a %damage penalty would most hurt DPS, not tanks. If it's still problematically unbalanced in tanks' favor, the cause is probably more general.

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WAR goes brrrrrrr ;)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

is subject to the tank's 20% Attack Power reduction affecting even "true"/unalterable potencies

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Phantom Actions are not affected by the negative tank modifier.

From the Field Op Enjoyers discord:

Phantom job skills are NOT affected by 'base action damage' (Maim and Mend 30% on caster/healer, Increased action damage 20% on p.range).
Phantom job skills are NOT scaled off of main stat, so Weakness, Brink of Death and Potions do NOT affect them. This also means that tanks avoid the ~.7x STR scaling modifier from Tank Mastery.
Phantom job actions CANNOT crit or direct hit. Determination should affect it*.
Enochian only affects Phantom job actions that deal magic damage.


Phantom actions are only affected by item level (700 being the max), the special attribute and any generic percentage damage increases like Phantom Mastery or Power Surge. Tanks get more value than most jobs from them precisely because of this, which is why for instance PLD (and GNB) are very good pSAM users, since they can get easy bell stacks and line up Iainuki and Zeninage with their strong personal buffs.

*I believe it's been proven that DET doesn't affect phantom actions.

This post contains the most accurate information regarding phantom actions.

Ahh, my bad. I should have checked for updates since early day 1 findings. I had remembered them as not scaling with passive buffs but had thought they didn't scale with active buffs either while still using a unique but normally modified main stat and therefore Attack Power value. Such would have nipped the problems above in the bud while putting tanks in a healthier place.

Alas, guess we've since found it's not quite so sensible/intuitive.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Ahh, my bad. I should have checked for updates since early day 1 findings. I had remembered them as not scaling with passive buffs but had thought they didn't scale with active buffs either while still using a unique but normally modified main stat and therefore Attack Power value. Such would have nipped the problems above in the bud while putting tanks in a healthier place.

Alas, guess we've since found it's not quite so sensible/intuitive.

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What bothers me about phantom actions is how they interact with some job mechanics but not others. They are affected by innate haste from jobs such as NIN, MNK or BLM yet they are not affected by Reassemble or Life Surge. This should've been a thing to make those abilities stand out in that regard as the only way to make them crit.

The fact that phantom actions break the combo, rotation or buffs of some jobs but not others is also quite an oversight that already happened in Bozja and the developers never bothered to fix.

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Originally Posted by Aco505

What bothers me about phantom actions is how they interact with some job mechanics but not others. They are affected by innate haste from jobs such as NIN, MNK or BLM yet they are not affected by Reassemble or Life Surge. This should've been a thing to make those abilities stand out in that regard as the only way to make them crit.

The fact that phantom actions break the combo, rotation or buffs of some jobs but not others is also quite an oversight that already happened in Bozja and the developers never bothered to fix.

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Honestly, I'm on the fence regarding whether Phantom Job actions be affectable by Life Surge / Reassemble, etc. (leaning towards preferring them not to be affected), just as I'd rather not have them be affected by Shifu, No Mercy, etc. It's less absurd than Power Surge is on spammables, but getting 500 potency more potency every 40 seconds (12.5 extra pps, about a 3% buff overall) is still a heck of an imbalance that ultimately reduces choice, as then MCH should always take infrequent nukes, MNK/SAM/NIN/VPR are pushed towards spammables, and only DRG is really allowed choice of either.

I'd be fine having only innate Haste remain, as not to break flow, but with proportionate potency nerfs. /shrug

While that might sound dull, again, my preference so long as pJobs are ostensibly to be used as any main job is to, well, continue letting them be usable on any job, while making the pJob actions themselves more interesting and "synergetic" not just in terms of who can add the most effective potency over time to an otherwise dull action.

While Im ambivalent towards most of the phantom jobs and rarely use most of their kits. The Chemist mixed with the Machinist job is really fun for me. I may be a mch main and can point out a lot of the flaws with the current iteration of it, adding in the healing capabilities of chemist makes it feel like a true support Job and the combo i find to be using the most.

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Originally Posted by SamSmoot

IS there any point in running OC beyond getting the mount and weapon? I've got both, and haven't been back.

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Uhhh... Having fun?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

a heck of an imbalance that ultimately reduces choice

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If different jobs work better with different specific phantom jobs or actions, then that's actually better than previous iterations. In Eureka and Bozja, you mostly had fixed loadouts when it came to dealing damage. Casters, tanks and healers had extra options with stuff like Flare Star, Irregular/Blood Rage or Seraph Strike but there were caveats as, for instance, the former was mostly for BLM since FS was clearly designed with them in mind due to the prohibitive MP cost.

I'd rather have different jobs be able to choose between several options than what we have now, in which most jobs should just go pSAM if they want damage after all relevant support roles are covered. Ironically, it is tanks (and to an extent BLM again) who get more options to play with: pSAM, pBerserker and pMNK. If some jobs lean more to a specific set of actions, that's good variety. Within the tanks, PLD/GNB prefer pSAM while WAR can work very well with pBerserker.

Letting the different job kits interact with actions differently is what makes it fun, considering that the point of this content is to go wild and do things that are not possible in the main content of the game. The issue lies in how some jobs benefit way more than others, which is most obvious with the caster DPS and especially in OC. BLM tends to be the best because of its synergy with Field Operation actions while elements like caster rezz become irrelevant within BA, DRS or the Forked Tower. Only SMN is comparable at level 70 and with some holster dump meme builds at 80 using (Deep) Ordained. Lost Slash was interesting in Bozja precisely because it allowed certain jobs (DRG, MCH and WAR before the IR change) to do something different, even if the end result was just buffing a big action, but so is Flare Star on a surface level before you get into how to manage it properly with stuff like Font of Magic. Or how you had to delay or take your rotation into account when doing Double Edge L in Eureka.

Essentially, the majority of players can just play what they want and the content will be cleared just fine but I see no issue with more synergies between specific job and phantom job combinations, particularly when traditionally it has usually been the "selfish" DPS jobs that benefited the most while the others often didn't have anything special going on for them.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

While that might sound dull, again, my preference so long as pJobs are ostensibly to be used as any main job is to, well, continue letting them be usable on any job

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You can use most if not all phantom job or Logos/Lost Actions on any job. Of course, inevitably some will be better with specific ones. pBerserker is clearly designed to be used by WAR/DRK but luckily anyone else can also make use of them with the help of an Oracle. Optimal doesn't always mean the most used or fun in any case, as stuff like Watcher (for permanent instant cast), Breathtaker (for quasi-permanent Potion and Ether kits) and Beast (for DPS sustain and survival) in Bozja was quite popular outside of DRS due to their powerful effects, even if it meant dealing less damage.