Damage gap closer should vanish

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Originally Posted by ExiaKuromonji

These gap closers haven't really mattered much at all in EW or DT. They'd be way more useful in older content which is ironic since PLD and WAR don't get these till Stormblood levels.

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Speaks a lot about the shift in encounter and battle design past HW doesn't it? When everything is about DDR and damage, and people whine as soon as they miss a single GCD in a fight because they chose to play melee but can't stand living with what comes with it, well everything starts looking like a nail when you only have a hammer to design things.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

Sure, but let's not pretend encounter- and class-design should needlessly mix its flaws.

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Yes, the encounter design is probably the bulk of the problem with this. But if they're not going to go back to pre ShB (or even pre Eden's Promise) raid design which is where these gap closers mattered most, then this doesn't matter. If they aren't going to design jobs around the encounter design then it's just bad job design.

I disagree and think that Gap Closers should have damage BUT! It should be proximity-based damage, which we funnily already have in the game with Warp Strike from the FFXV Event. Now ofc the Difference of Warp Strike and the Tank's Gap Closers are that Warp Strike is a GCD and the Gap Closers are OCD but I'd rather take a Reward for using a Situational Skill correctly then to just have stuff removed.. I also miss DRK's Lunge.

With Proximity-based damage, they also could punish Gap Closer usage at Melee range.
Which I hope this Thread is asking for.

Using gap closers from melee range if you would otherwise have the opportunity to save uptime within their recast time is already punished by not saving that uptime, the difference of which generally dwarfs the damage bonus of using the extra charge under raid buffs and, especially before ranged attack buffs on melee, would usually even dwarf even the full damage of the gap-closer itself.

There is no need for their damage to increase with distance. Their damage contribution already does that in a far more meaningful way.

Unless you'd simply like a lower apm and fewer offensive buttons to press, if you feel that damaging gap-closers are too often being used from melee range without even a consideration of whether they should be saved, that's a problem with encounter design, not the gap closer having damage. Give gaps to close and the gap-closer will see use as such. Otherwise, it will simply be a rotational button you hit like any other with merely the option of increasing cognitive load beyond what a button each, separately, for direct damage and for gap-closing would do, as you could be forced to consider when the next gap would come and how significant it would be (and whether holding for that would cost a use overall, whether using it for damage now would desync you from a more significant gap later, etc).

There is also the alternative solution having them like old MNK's shoulder tackle which had a minimum range of activation, which was something like 10 or 15y. Not something you'd use as part of a burst or rotation unless mechanics actually require you to do so.
This of course doesn't apply to jobs that already have other resource consideration baked behind their gap closers, like gauge consumption (suboptimal in a vacuum comparatively to other gauge consuming damage tools).

Unless referring to maybe 1.x, I can't recall Shoulder Tackle ever having a minimum range despite my maining Monk from ARR onward. As far as the wiki notes and my own footage from ARR/HW/Stormblood/Shadowbringers shows, it was added, its recast time reduced from 90s to 30s, was given 2 charges in exchange for its stun, and was then removed in favor of Thunderclap. That's it.

Moreover, locking gap-closers out of use for 50-75% of their max range (Shoulder Tackle was only 20y max) just means lost leverage-ability in knockback-counters.

(Granted, I guess we already have our "opt out of mechanics" button almost as often as they come up via Arm's Length, but... do we really need to give up even more ground or skill-expression?)

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Tl;dr: (Thread long; due [for] resolving):
There is no need or reason to remove damage from gap-closers or to give them a minimum range (especially a substantial one) unless one specifically wants...

• (A) to not have to think in advance about what gaps they might have to close AND
• (B) either want a higher button-cost to number of offensive actions (since that'd have rendered one situational and replaced it with a far more generic "hit-on-CD" and far more thoughtless "use only when specifically prompted by a gap formed" ability) OR fewer offensive actions.

Wiki history doesn't show anything about it so it's possibly the mandela effect or something just missing. I do however remember something in that vein, and perhaps it was a different skill I don't know.

Edit:

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

It's not in the version history, patch notes, nor in my own Monk main gameplay from 2.0 or 2.1. It was even a "problem" in the likes of Ifrit hard, iirc, as it (like Spineshatter Dive and Leg Sweep), would be of rotational use from melee range but carried a short stun, preventing later preventions of Eruption. As mechanical changes tend to be noted in the patch notes while text fixes might not be, I suspect this may be a case of the latter.

Edit: It appears to be a brief-lived change around August 2014, maybe? In my early ARR footage, it was a 90s CD too valuable to keep up then then-super-short GL and I didn't mouse over it so I can't tell, and by any of my later footage (including in HW), I'm using it from melee range.

It was definitely a thing when I played through HW. I didn't play through ARR so I cannot tell. Perhaps added later.
Not very much relevant anyway.