Mercy Stroke additional effect

Hi, I'm here to question the logic of Mercy Stroke's "If delivered as killing blow, up to 20% of your maximum HP will be restored" additional effect.

The potency of the attack is not exceptional in any way, which means it literally has to be executed when your enemy has like <200 HP remaining.
Random lv 49-50 fodder enemy has ~2700 HP, which means Mercy Stroke needs to be executed precisely at <1% of enemy HP remaining to gain the benefit of the effect. And if you misjudge, you need to wait 40s as Marauder/Warrior or 90s as other class/job to try again.
Players are not able to know exact HP of enemies or even their %HP. This means there is no way to strategically use this ability. Another restraining condition is that it can be only used when enemy HP is below 20%. I call it bad game design.

The ability in this current form would be fine for turn based game where you can sit back, look at enemy HP, calculate/approximate how much damage Mercy Stroke will do, choose to either use Mercy Stroke or another ability/abilities that will not kill the enemy and make Mercy Stroke usable in the next round. If anyone remembers FFX battle system, this ability would fit in there just fine.
But not in action game with real time battles and you attacking enemies along other 3 (party), 7 (full party), 23 (alliance) or 50+ (FATE, any open world enemy) players. The level of coordination required is just unacceptable.

Here are several options how this should be handled:
- change additional effect to always occur
- if changing it so that effect always occurs is not possible due to game balance, make it so that there is ~30% chance the additional effect will execute
- if the above is not possible, change it so that you place a debuff on enemy for 15-30s and will regain the HP if enemy dies within 15-30s of using the ability
- change the additional effect to something else, something useful and strategically executable (an additional Damage over time on enemy, a brief Heal over time on player, 5-10% chance to instantly kill the enemy if damage of Mercy Stroke was not enough to kill it).

I'm actually a big fan of the 5-10% chance to instantly kill enemy if Mercy Stroke damage is not enough to kill it. Would fit so well with ability name. But would definitely not work on any bosses, which makes me sad panda http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i...lies/frown.png

Anyways, what you think? Is Mercy Stroke currently useful beyond extra 200 potency damage? Do you ever delay/plan use of it to regain HP?

Yours will get a little better as you get better gear, mine can normally hit for 400-600ish or so, but in group type situations for me the healing effect isn't very noticeable even when I do get it, because I have a dedicated healer on me. Solo however, it's pretty easy to time to finish something off for a nice little heal.

its really a use it if you can, if you get in good groups that know how the skill works they will intentionally leave mobs with 1-5% hp left so you can mercy stroke it. Its there as a utility skill, use it when its possible, at least there is no "reduces X stat for X seconds"

It's off gcd so I combo it in if healer has me covered well. Otherwise I just use it when the bars empty, you hit an miss but if you pay attention you can hit more than you miss

interresting topic. For me personally I can't live without mercy strokes. im ilvl 90 monk and if it crits it hits for 820+ and in raids such as coil you don't need to kill anything with it, because its off your CD. so you can pop it inbetween skills. That makes the 200 potency really strong. it's the highest potency a monk has snap punch being 180 and true strike 190 (if im not mistaken).

The healing is nice and an extra bonus, but not needed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zirael_Foxfire

- if the above is not possible, change it so that you place a debuff on enemy for 15-30s and will regain the HP if enemy dies within 15-30s of using the ability

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Best Idea Ever.

Yes good points about mercy stroke OP
I personally, as a war, use it as an off GCD free attack which helps with damage and doesn't take time since u can pop it between combos etc, also when I'm pacified post berserk use. I never use it for its healing effect, even when I'm fighting multiple weaker mobs at low health it's healing isn't something life saving or worth noting to be honest, especially since it obviously has a cool down period.
I personally would like to see it provide a self heal of the same ammount of damage dealt and shorten its cooldown period a bit

As WAR, I tend to use it to break gaols. Lots of use for it. Rarely does anyone use it for the healing factor, but I tend to get it in to do that more often than not. Giggity.