[2min Meta Discussion] Giving the burst window a new meaning
So, it was brought up in another thread that it didn't feel as bad when you missed a buff window before the 2min meta, since you could re-sync with your party at different windows instead of having to wait two whole minutes. It reminded me a little about Tera used to handle burst times (before they made a series of changes I won't get into)
This is how it worked:
Instead of players having full control of when burst happened, the boss would naturally go into an "Enraged" state when its HP reached a certain threshold, the first enrage typically happening around 90%. This was essentially a buff to its damage and skill speed, and a debuff to its defense. The party would do significantly more damage, but had to be careful not to greed or they could die more easily. Players had mostly two burst type skills, their main burst being on a shorter CD and a few skills being on a longer CD (these were expected to be held onto for the enraged period). Tanks also had a specific ability called Infuriate which would force the boss to go into its enraged window immediately.
How we could translate it to XIV:
Jobs would step away from being exclusively 2min burst and go more along the lines of having different timings for their "short CD burst" skills, all coming together to stack their longer CD skills. If you die, you can hold onto your longer CD skills to re-sync with your party, but do your smaller bursts in the meantime so you're not feeling like a complete deadweight while you wait lol
Bosses would go from having a fully scripted nature to being given a "toolkit" of their skills. Every time the boss goes into its burst window, mechanics would be added into this toolkit for it to use, or the mechanic would become more intricate every burst window (or do more damage, in the case it has reached its full difficulty). This would naturally make fights become harder as they progress; starting out easy and eventually leading to a soft enrage as the boss's mechanics become harder and harder to resolve or the damage becomes too much for the party to manage. People would naturally want to exploit the burst window as much as possible, but they have to decide how much spice they want to put into the fight.
Basically:
More burst = you have more chances to do more damage, but you gotta know your mechs or your death will be a bigger DPS loss. Parsers and people who like it difficult would most likely enjoy finding ways to cause as many burst windows as possible.
Less burst (just letting the boss do it naturally) = chances to do damage are there still and the fight progresses in difficulty naturally. Good for first timers, prog, struggling players to take it slow and learn an easier version of the mech and progress into harder steps at their own pace.
This would put the focus on the tanks to to be mindful of their party's needs and capabilities, adding burst windows as they can handle. More spice also means more pressure on the DPS to perform mechanics properly + use their mits, and healers to spend less time DPSing and more time preparing shields, mitigations and healing after the damage has happened. This would enforce the idea of the trinity more strictly.
"But tanks would just Infuriate at every chance they get, whether the rest of the party wants it or not!" This would be the equivalent of doing a wall to wall with a sprout healer that can't handle it yet. If you want to progress, tanks will have to understand that smaller pulls (in this case, less burst windows) are necessary to avoid a wipe, or they won't be able to progress. On the other hand, a party of experienced players could blitz through a fight they're familiar with or test their limits if they wanted to! No more sleeping through Sastasha.
The idea behind this is to put more power and choice into the player's hands and allow us to have a bit more control over what difficulty we'd like to engage in. If this was implemented properly, I'd imagine a middle ground becoming the standard for casual dungeons with the possibility to go more or less bursts depending on the party's needs, and for savage parties to begin sorting themselves into different burst amounts (prog would likely have natural burst cycles or standard infuriate, reclears most likely sitting at standard and parse parties going for as many bursts as they can possibly manage)
Aligning big buffs with your party would be important, but in the case people desync and the party is willing to communicate, the tank could keep tabs on it and Infuriate the boss as necessary to help everyone get back in the same page.
Party duties would go as follows:
Tanks: Aggro + Burst management + minor support towards other parts of the trinity (such as minor mitigations for the rest of the party and using their long CD buff to support damage output)
Healers: Mitigation + healing + minor support towards other parts of the trinity (such as minor damage output and using their long CD buff to support damage output)
DPS: Damage output + buff syncing + minor support towards other parts of the trinity (such as minor mitigations for the rest of the party and minor aggro management tools - like taking aggro away from healers, who would be too busy to manage their aggro and would rely mostly on tanks and secondarily on DPS)
Naturally, everyone would have to perform mechanics. Some directed at the party as a whole, some directed at a specific role.
What are your thoughts on this take? I know it's very out of the ordinary for XIV's comfortable scripted fights, but I think it could add a lot of customization and be generally along the lines of YoshiP's current "make content for all types of players" speech.
If you don't like this idea, what would your "ideal burst window" entail? Even if you think my take is trash, let's try to keep it civil please lol it's just a concept!