2.x combat flaws

-Mechanics can be separated into two categories: mechanics that are ignored and mechanics that will instantly kill/wipe if ignored.

-No sense of urgency or importance of resource management.

-No sense of urgency or importance of threat management (save for white mages in the first few patches of 2.x)

-Tide of battle is too decisive. Many encounters rely on a "go, go, stop" feeling where there is no gradual sense of gaining/losing an advantage leading to a win or loss. Wipes are frequently "triggered" via missing a specific mechanic that leads to an almost immediate failure of the encounter.

-No feeling of customization. 30 points into one stat standard. Secondary stats feel irrelevant.

-Overused positional mechanics.

-No flexibility of limit break system. Each encounter is very suited towards one specific type of limit break.

Just my two cents.

I...actually agree with pretty much all of it. Concisely put, with no bias, straight points I can't really argue.

If resource management weren't important bards wouldn't ever been in end game fights though.

I main a white mage and I can tell you that if I don't use my heals correctly, my MP will be bone dry half way through a fight if not sooner. As for enmity management not being a 'factor'. I wish I could agree with you cuz when I play my Paladin I never had these issues but a lot of players lose hate on bosses and it's kinda annoying... like I use a Medica II and suddenly the boss is on me what? I can understand if I'm spam casting AoE spells over and over again but that's not the case here lol.

As for the limit breaks... there is a use for the tank LB in Ultima hard mode... lol. Healer LB3 has saved many a wipes. Though in a good serious party you really wouldn't need anything other than the DPS LB.

I agree with your other points however, especially the overused positional mechanics. I'm getting sick of "stack behind boss" fights.

Except the resource management (I am BRD :p ) I agree with you on all points.

Also they have already stated that we will get personal limit breaks later so I hope it will change the mechanics of LB a bit. Now tank and heal LB is just used when someone screw up drastically but the DPS LB seems to be only used intentionally as a part of tactics. I also hope that BRD gets some support LB instead of heal or dps LB. :)

All big issues, and agreed upon, except resource management. Right now, that's a big thing.

That being said, I do think that trial/raid fights are relatively well balanced, with quite a bit of challenge involved. I don't think it's necessarily that, that needs to be innovated upon, since they tend to do a decent job of thinking up new ways to keep things fresh (looking at Cerberus, and certain WoD fights).

I think the innovations really need to happen on the actual combat side of things. Mostly, just making combat feel a little more fluid and exciting.

-Make certain skills that look like they hit multiple times... actually deal damage in multiple hits.

-Make more interesting buffs/off-GCD's that actually define play-styles rather than just give you free damage boosts.

-Give us more ways to actively dodge AoE. Maybe give certain jobs the ability to counter certain moves (on an off GCD of course), etc etc. There's definitely options.

-More interesting secondary stats. An actual TP regen stat, or even a Critical Damage stat could be nice to add into the mix.
(The stat ecosystem right now doesn't work so well for non-caster jobs. Crit and Det are basically married to one another. You want higher Det because it effects so much on your character that you'd be stupid not to want it. Crit increases the damage you get through Det by gracious amounts, so you don't want to ignore that either. Skillspeed gets left in the dust, since it doesn't really relate well to Crit or Det. Of course, that's aside from obvious resource draining issues with skillspeed)

-More skills that push enemies away, or pull them to you.

-Job modifications that actually change the entire dynamic of your class (like NIN, or WAR).

Stuff like that could really pad the 2.0-2.5 GCD that we see on skills, making it feel like we're being more active than not.

mp management is mostly fine, but tp isn't...it goes down and you have a brd/ninja or you run out. There is no real management, or smart use, other than not aoe spamming.

I agree about the resource management. If you have a Bard in your party, you're okay. Take the bard out and all of the sudden, you get to think about it

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Originally Posted by Skeith-Adeline

I agree about the resource management. If you have a Bard in your party, you're okay. Take the bard out and all of the sudden, you get to think about it

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more like "think" the only kind of management is axing a small part of your rotation, its just there and we don't do anything more or less to manage it, other than having a class with a support skill help out maybe.

About the resource management, i main PLD and NIN, i have my own play-style as PLD, mitigating damage with constant stoneskin while keeping the hate and replenishing my MP, my MP and TP bars are in a constant dance in boss fights, a lot of people have told me how easy is to keep me alive in hard battles because of this, but the best part is the fun, i absolutely love the resource management i have to put on my PLD to keep my play-style, on the other hand, nina have 0 resource management, other than popping a random goad because we can't even see the TP of our party members.

So while some jobs can have complex resources management, others have none, even if it's not generalized, it's a valid issue.

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Originally Posted by Atmora

If resource management weren't important bards wouldn't ever been in end game fights though.

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That somewhat defeats the purpose of calling it 'resource management' though. The term implies that people would actually be 'managing' their TP drain, rather than just strapping an external bard battery to it. If this were the case, or if more expensive options, like AoE on a mere 3 targets in a long fight, were ever feasible, then Bards would indeed be a reinforcement or accelerant to an already 'managed' resource. As it stands, though, they are simply a necessary component to any 5+ minute fight with TP users.

Consider also: would they then be gone completely from the end game scene as soon as they go from 'necessary if you bring melee' to a 'melee dps boost'? Or, going further, do they necessarily have to fall well behind other classes (not that this is the case on multi-DoT trash too spread for Bane or burst needs at all) just because they have the option of chopping their own dps for raid benefit?

[For the record I'd have to say yes to the last; my only concern is that their single target dps falls significantly without multi-dotting, a situation in which they already do just fine, in a all-or-nothing sort of manner. BLM's Thundercloud could be called much the same, of course, but TCs' use is more of dot maintanence itself, as redundant procs would add little to single target dps (aside from the strong DD burst) compared to oGCD Bloodletter spams.]


Edit: the closest I've ever seen to 'TP management' is Monks either already in TP starvation with the bard dead trying to make the most out of fewer GCDs per buff/debuff period or cutting an ability from their rotation (replaced with a wait and/or slower rate of application) per buff/debuff period to stave off starvation because their Ramuh DF supplied neither Ninjas nor Bards. Of course, the same could be said of Dragoons or Ninjas; I just haven't seen that personally enough to comment.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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I was actually about to disagree with you, saying that smart tp usage is the difference between going tp dry as a monk 3 minutes into a fight rather than 4:20 on everything turn 8 and above, but then I realized its not smart tp usage, its smart invigorate usage

SE made the class system the wrong way. Classes in this game are equal to or greater then the Job but that's not how it's suppose to work. Classes are what player characters are Jobs are how they play. When players unlock Jobs it should unlock a talent tree that changes the dynamic of the class.