Question: Ambidexterity?

Is this ability crap or am I understand it wrong? Its description is as follows:

Quote:

---

Focus on your off hand, halving the stamina cost of your next action

---

Now If this abilities only use is to "halve" the next action's stamina cost, then its useless because it itself uses up almost half the stamina bar. If it has another use, someone explain it to me please I haven't grasped it yet.

I've been told it halves the cost of your offhand actions for a duration of time or something, but not just your next action.

depends how long it lasts, i dont have the skill. but if it lasts awhile you can basically use it at the start of fights, before you engage, I would say use it for expensive skills, but there are only a few skills that use more than half the stamina. Sounds like it either needs an adjustment, or they had a plan for some fairly expensive skills later.

well if the above is true, that would explain it

Well I'm assuming by the wording of it that its only effective for the next action you take so it lasts only until you initiate the next action. I will try it soon I haven't got around to it but it just seems useless to me in its current state.

It's pretty useless considering it takes so much stamina to use in the first place.

It has a long enough duration to get like 3 or 4 shield skills in and you technically come out of it saving stamina (I think) but it's a pretty bad skill.

More then likely its a skill they put in in anticipation of dual wielding.

Its like 95% of abilities and spells in this game, garbage. It's not properly balanced, like everything else.
Hopefully, whatever this new battle system is, makes it obvious to everyone how incredibly unbalanced the game seriously is.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Keftenk

Hopefully, whatever this new battle system is, makes it obvious to everyone how incredibly unbalanced the game seriously is.

---

Don't you mean hopefully the new battle system offers better balancing? Surely that's what you meant.

Oh, that'd be great, but I'm assuming the battle system is just a UI and player interaction/involvement change; i.e. auto attack.

They really haven't said much about what the new battle system is going to be like, but I get the impression that balancing isn't apart of it (in terms of skills, spells, abilities, etc.). Hopefully it is though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Keftenk

Oh, that'd be great, but I'm assuming the battle system is just a UI and player interaction/involvement change; i.e. auto attack.

They really haven't said much about what the new battle system is going to be like, but I get the impression that balancing isn't apart of it (in terms of skills, spells, abilities, etc.). Hopefully it is though.

---

Considering the last bit of info we got from the devs about auto attack implementation, I'd assume it's gonna be pretty substantial in the areas of balancing. I'm not going to get overly optimistic, however, due to the track record...

Quote:

---

Hello adventurers of FFXIV! This is battle lead Akihiko Matsui.

I would like to take this moment to explain the current plans we have in place.

First off, once the future battle balance and battle system adjustments take place, we feel that the implementation of auto-attack is quite necessary. Please embrace this as just one of the many necessary revamps needed to create more interesting and strategy rich battles as well as solve the tediousness of having to spam a button.

With this said, I do not feel that the implementation of auto-attack will solve everything. In other threads there have been many topics coming up about what is going to happen to the stamina gauge and claim system, how classes should have unique qualities and stats, what’s going to happen with monsters, raid dungeons, equipment, etc. I have looked over all of the great number of elements and at the current stage feel that without implementing auto-attack that the future battle system would be impossible.

Compared to the FFXI auto-attack system, we are thinking about making the auto-attack system for FFXIV have a shorter attack delay. (This has been a heated debate on the forum, and having been lead of FFXI please forgive me for bringing it up as a point of comparison. There is no "better" or "worse" system.)

The objective here is not to lower the battle difficulty. The main objective here, when thinking about battles rich in strategy, pace, and exhilaration, is instead of having to time regular attacks, we will be preparing situations that require proper timing of abilities, magic, and weapon skills. Following this, weaker enemies are a different story, but we will make sure it’s balanced so you can’t win a fight just by using auto-attack.

Due to the fact we still have a lot of elements that need to be tested and looked into, it is difficult for me to tell you any more info in great detail, but if you give me some time I will do my best to share the information with you. Thank you!

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Keftenk

Its like 95% of abilities and spells in this game, garbage. It's not properly balanced, like everything else.
Hopefully, whatever this new battle system is, makes it obvious to everyone how incredibly unbalanced the game seriously is.

---

theres nothing imbalanced about 1 skill that you can choose to use or not, gladiator is already plenty useful even if that skill isnt great. Every class has skills that most people dont want to use, playstyles differ I see no job that even has 10% of its skills being useless

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Physic

theres nothing imbalanced about 1 skill that you can choose to use or not, gladiator is already plenty useful even if that skill isnt great. Every class has skills that most people dont want to use, playstyles differ I see no job that even has 10% of its skills being useless

---

I wasn't trying to mean that because you don't use a level 10 skill at 50 that it's useless. I was trying to get at that majority of the skills that should be used, aren't. Don't get me wrong though, some are, some are overly used or highly relied upon.

Imbalanced means many different things, the skill could be great, but the stamina cost could be retarded. For instance, most of Gladiator tanking abilities eat up 40% of the stamina bar for a very undesired outcome or result.

Yep. There are oodles of skills that are completely worthless because they don't need to be used in battle, ever and are a complete waste of stamina.

They need to:

1. Make those skills even remotely useful at all (Ambidexterity, Far Shot, Barbaric Yawp, Discerning Eye, etc)

2. Increase the length of time it stays active

3. Reduce the stamina cost

4. Reduce the AP cost

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rentahamster

Yep. There are oodles of skills that are completely worthless because they don't need to be used in battle, ever and are a complete waste of stamina.

They need to:

1. Make those skills even remotely useful at all (Ambidexterity, Far Shot, Barbaric Yawp, Discerning Eye, etc)

2. Increase the length of time it stays active

3. Reduce the stamina cost

4. Reduce the AP cost

---

discerning eye is actually really great for a pug who is tanking, i dont know what you are talking about. Its the only buff to damage that lasts overtime and you can take advantage of pugs ability to dish out a lot of attacks in a small timeframe.

just because you dont use it, doesnt mean it isnt useful.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Physic

discerning eye is actually really great for a pug who is tanking, i dont know what you are talking about. Its the only buff to damage that lasts overtime and you can take advantage of pugs ability to dish out a lot of attacks in a small timeframe.

just because you dont use it, doesnt mean it isnt useful.

---

Discerning Eye is a skill that boosts your attack power based on how much damage you take. Pugilist is a tank that relies on evasion to bypass all damage given. There's a conflict of interest there.

It costs 3 AP points which are better spent on better skills, it takes up too much stamina to use, and what damage boost you do get isn't all that great anyway.

Im really interested in how the stats actually going into effect will change battles, as well as whether or not the UI will be completely different once again.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rentahamster

Discerning Eye is a skill that boosts your attack power based on how much damage you take. Pugilist is a tank that relies on evasion to bypass all damage given. There's a conflict of interest there.

It costs 3 AP points which are better spent on better skills, it takes up too much stamina to use, and what damage boost you do get isn't all that great anyway.

---

it lasts for some a decent amount of time, and evasion tanking, you still get hit, just not as much. Also there are times when you go hard with damage. Tanking isnt always about taking no damage, sometimes its about turning the mages cures into dps. popping discerning right before a big weaponskill/spell hits, then unloading a heavy strike flurry flurry flurry flurry (till your time is almost up) raging ferocity victimize is oh so sweet.

and there arent too many better uses of AP, what would you put in its place thats better?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Physic

Tanking isnt always about taking no damage, sometimes its about turning the mages cures into dps.

---

Damage mitigation and keeping hate are the main duties of a pure tank. Instead of "turning mages cures into dps", it's much more practical to mitigate the damage to begin with to allow the mages to spend the time and MP on dots and buffs and debuffs instead of cure bombing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Physic

and there arent too many better uses of AP, what would you put in its place thats better?

---

Foresight II, Twisting Vice, Featherfoot II, Sentinel, Diversion, Punishing Barbs, Invigorate II, Comrade in Arms II, Emulate, Keen Flurry, Cadence, Hawk's Eye, Still Precision, Siphon TP, Contagion, Line of Fire, Bloodletter, Skull Sunder II

^ those are all better skills. Some of those aren't that useful in certain situations, though, so if you have AP to spare and really want to, then fine, go ahead and equip Discerning Eye.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rentahamster

Damage mitigation and keeping hate are the main duties of a pure tank. Instead of "turning mages cures into dps", it's much more practical to mitigate the damage to begin with to allow the mages to spend the time and MP on dots and buffs and debuffs instead of cure bombing.



Foresight II, Twisting Vice, Featherfoot II, Sentinel, Diversion, Punishing Barbs, Invigorate II, Comrade in Arms II, Emulate, Keen Flurry, Cadence, Hawk's Eye, Still Precision, Siphon TP, Contagion, Line of Fire, Bloodletter, Skull Sunder II

^ those are all better skills. Some of those aren't that useful in certain situations, though, so if you have AP to spare and really want to, then fine, go ahead and equip Discerning Eye.

---

pug tank doesnt fill the same need as a glad tank, the focus isnt on perfect damage reduction, we get high hp, better use out of second wind and deal damage. Evasion tanking is nerver perfect and you cant evade spells.
foresight isnt too useful on pug, we get good parry, but better to spend that stamina on featherfoot which can trigger on evade skills, the cooldown is long on sub, and on parry skills to be useful, and those will be less effective on pugilist
sentinel is a shield skill
twisting vise i dont got
featherfoot is always there
diversion i dont got
barbs is ehhh useful i suppose
invig is there
comrade is someone elses job
emulate dont got
keen flurry is for punks who think they gonna miss a BR
hawk eye is there
still precision is very anti pugilist
siphon tp dont got it
skull sunder is there

i think it comes down to playstyle, you are a glad so you see it like a glad would.
for a pug, discerning eye is hot, we probably get more damage buff from it, and at the very least a faster timer. a lot of those skills on sub become situational due to the cool downs, others of them would require a high level in another job, and are still pretty situational, like emulate. i could use discerning every 1.5 minutes and get an attack boost for like 20 seconds, wheras all i get out of diversion is dodging 1 attack every, what 2 minutes on sub?

Pug is a dps tank, i do more damage than a glad, but i take more, faster fights with higher risk. as a pug versus an one of the NMs two of us duoing was able to kill almost as fast as 2 glads and some other job of a higher level, they may have been more mp effecient, but we were more dps and survived the fight. its a different style of play. (we were both melee btw, lancer and pug)

the game actually allows for very different set ups from person to person. playstyle to playstyle.

Just because you don't have certain abilities as main-class does not mean that damage mitigation shouldn't be one of your biggest concerns if you are main tank. To overlook key mitigation tools (like foresight) is silly. Both it and featherfoot will always proc before wearing off, on GLA, in full plate. You should have the same luck w/ those on pgl.

Some of this is excusable on the mid-range NMs, and to be honest, a bit of it on the bigger guys as well. But if you are trying to optimize your role within the group, let the DD do the damage, and give the mages room to breathe and do other tasks, instead of just healing yourself. Just like you said about Comrade, damage is someone else's job.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Physic

sentinel is a shield skill

---

It is actually a r36 GLA ability. Look it up, it's a nice one to have.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Physic

still precision is very anti pugilist

---

What?

BACK TO THE OP:

Due to the stamina cost, yeah, it isn't very useful. If you are using a shield with a very low wield rate and you don't have self-preservation, for some reason, you might be able to fit in enough abilities during its duration to make it worth it, but yeah...

I think it just wasn't balanced or is left over from when the design of GLA had dual-wield functionality.

And discerning eye amuses me, considering that it appears to have once been a GLA ability (the icon has a sword, not a fist).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alderton

Just because you don't have certain abilities as main-class does not mean that damage mitigation shouldn't be one of your biggest concerns if you are main tank. To overlook key mitigation tools (like foresight) is silly. Both it and featherfoot will always proc before wearing off, on GLA, in full plate. You should have the same luck w/ those on pgl.

Some of this is excusable on the mid-range NMs, and to be honest, a bit of it on the bigger guys as well. But if you are trying to optimize your role within the group, let the DD do the damage, and give the mages room to breathe and do other tasks, instead of just healing yourself. Just like you said about Comrade, damage is someone else's job.



It is actually a r36 GLA ability. Look it up, it's a nice one to have.



What?

BACK TO THE OP:

Due to the stamina cost, yeah, it isn't very useful. If you are using a shield with a very low wield rate and you don't have self-preservation, for some reason, you might be able to fit in enough abilities during its duration to make it worth it, but yeah...

I think it just wasn't balanced or is left over from when the design of GLA had dual-wield functionality.

And discerning eye amuses me, considering that it appears to have once been a GLA ability (the icon has a sword, not a fist).

---

an increase to parry on a 45 second cooldown on pug, ill put it down to playstyle, id rather have an evade. its nice but not really that great a deal. featherfoot is really mostly worth it for the jarring strike honestly. Ending a fight sooner means you take less damage, thats another means of damage mitigation, and thats what pug was designed for, its why simian thrash is a dd skill that works best for tanks, and also why discerning eye makes sense. Pug has the ability to deal damage while tanking, and due to the nature of pugs fighting style discerning eye is a better buff in a lot of ways than raging strike, pug has the ability to throw a lot of attacks out, and can attack 5 times in quick sucession, you can never get your damage buff to flurry from ferocity or raging strike. you will rarely get to damage buff jarring strike, or simian thrash, but discerning eye allows you to redirect some of the damage you take with reactionary skills, and skills that occur later in a combo. i think it might be the only skill currently that does that.

Of course if you believe that a tank has no need of dps, then you will say its a crappy skill, or if you arent a reactionary class.

in one discerning eye, timed after an enemy WS i can get a buff to dmg for like 6 actions at least. far as im concerned thats a pretty good skill.

essentially pugs job isnt to be the pure tank, the only time it will beat a glad in terms of pure dmg mitigation is if the monster has particularly low accuracy. pug has to add damage to the equation, because thats what they bring to the table, it is part of their design, high risk blood tanking. its what makes it exciting.

and yeah sentinel seems like a decent skill from the description.
and i did notice it was a sword ability, i was thinking it may have come from fencer idealogies though, or possibly a dual weild glad set up.

I'm not saying PGL shouldn't be doing damage while tanking. What i'm saying is that, if you are fighting something that ACTUALLY hits hard, you should be taking every step you can to mitigate that damage.

And no one has ever suggested using Foresight over any other defensive ability, like Featherfoot. The suggestion was to use them in tandem.

On the bigger nms, such as Great Buffalo and Uraeus, the current system has their defense so high that your attacks are going to be doing next to nothing, even weapon skills. Discerning eye, on these mobs, you'll likely not notice a damage increase. You'll likely only see a minimal increase using any other attack bonus either, outside of BRs. Especially in those contexts, DE will not speed up the kill to a point where you are taking less damage overall than you would by parrying an additional attack every 40 seconds.

Again, yes, PGL shouldn't be complete turtles while tanking. But if that is their role in the group, they shouldn't overlook the tools that will help ensure their survival.

For the midlevel NMs, though, there is no need to play the defensive game at all.

I thought this was going to be about being able to hold 1h weapons in whatever hand you want to. Maybe I want my shield in my right and sword in left or opposite, not really a bid deal but would add some realism to it.

Its part of the greater issue of stamina.

There are two mechanics (cool downs and stamina) that should be their own systems, not merged into one.

It becomes increasingly obvious when using self buffs that consume stamina (and time)