Ability Names that sorta make no sense, and what names do...

So with the recent changes to the battle system and the new changes with 4.05 I've noticed that some skills that we get have names that just makes us go, "Huh?, why is it called that why not..." So what are some names that you feel don't match the skill as best as they could, and what would make more sense.

To clarify, I am not asking you what you think the name should be called, like the Japanese name is "This" so why isn't the English one. I am asking you to give an ability, whose name doesn't make sense for what it does, and give us a better name to fit the skill. For instance, an ability that increases attack power should not be called Pacification, a better name would be Enrage; something like that.

For me I noticed these Skills when the new patch hit, and the other before but didn't pay it any mind. AST got new skills to remove their Arcanum, Undraw, and now Empty Road and Undraw Spread. And while the word undraw is "real" its not used often with cards. So why is the skill not called Discard? I mean the reason they cnanged the name from Shuffle to Redraw was because of shuffles meaning.

Undraw - Discard
Undraw Spread - Discard Spread

Anyone else have any other skills with names they feel don't match that well?

I still don't know wtf an apocatostasis is supposed to be, let alone the old debuff it used to give when it wore off which was even less pronouncable.

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Originally Posted by Core1019

I still don't know wtf an apocatostasis is supposed to be, let alone the old debuff it used to give when it wore off which was even less pronouncable.

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"Apocatastasis" apparently refers, in a general way, to returning something to its "original," or perhaps its "primordial" state. It is super archaic and mostly appears in works that were originally in Greek. It might have been better off as an AST skill as it's often used in reference to returning the body or soul to its natural state (i.e. curing sickness) and also has some astrological uses. It was also sometimes used to refer to military movements and city affairs. It shows up in various religious concepts, as well, but I don't have the energy right now to parse through all that. So there's a little snippet of the Wikipedia article for you, heavily paraphrased.

I don't recall the name of the debuff, or I'd have looked that up, too, haha.

Bard's Mage's Ballad has nothing to do with mages anymore. It doesn't restore or drain MP, do anything to caster or healer damage or output, and doesn't even decrease magic vulnerability when used with Troubadour. Wanderers Minuet does that instead. Honestly, they kept the old name just so they wouldn't have to come up with a new one.

Personally, I think they ought to just swap the Troubadour effects so Mage's Ballad gives the 10% magic vulnerability decrease. That way, it would least have something to do with magic...

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Originally Posted by Eloah

Undraw - Discard
Undraw Spread - Discard Spread

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Added for people that use controllers can be able to remove unwanted buffs. Beforehand, it required a macro to use or a very roundabout way to click it off. It's a QoL change for them. I personally miss just clicking the buff off my bar with my mouse. I gained two button bloats for it because of gauge.

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Originally Posted by Nestmile

"Apocatastasis" apparently refers, in a general way, to returning something to its "original," or perhaps its "primordial" state. It is super archaic and mostly appears in works that were originally in Greek. It might have been better off as an AST skill as it's often used in reference to returning the body or soul to its natural state (i.e. curing sickness) and also has some astrological uses. It was also sometimes used to refer to military movements and city affairs. It shows up in various religious concepts, as well, but I don't have the energy right now to parse through all that. So there's a little snippet of the Wikipedia article for you, heavily paraphrased.

I don't recall the name of the debuff, or I'd have looked that up, too, haha.

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This guy. Final Fantasy is riddled with archaic terms. Seriously, if you don't understand a term or phrase, throw it into Google. Chances are, you're going to be brought to a page that will have the term "archaic" in there somewhere.

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Originally Posted by sarehptar

Bard's Mage's Ballad has nothing to do with mages anymore. It doesn't restore or drain MP, do anything to caster or healer damage or output, and doesn't even decrease magic vulnerability when used with Troubadour. Wanderers Minuet does that instead. Honestly, they kept the old name just so they wouldn't have to come up with a new one.

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Welcome to relics of changing a class to make it flow better, but wanting to keep skill names (especially in the case of job quests). It does, at least, give everyone a critical hit rate up buff, though.

I find Cleric Stance a bit awkward. It's now a role skill so the cleric reference is lost, and it's not a stance any more. Though at least the new version is less confusing to new players (every new CNJ I met would at first be confused about whether they should use it to heal, based on its name and the D&D interpretation of a cleric being different to the mundane version).

I personally find Deliverance and Defiance a bit confusing too. Their meanings are too similar to clearly show which is which from the names alone... and the words themselves are similar lengths with similar endings and beginnings. I recognise the buff icons just fine but the names of the abilities themselves tell me nothing.

Anytime I didn't understand a word or if I wasn't sure if it was real, I hit up google.

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Originally Posted by Serilda

I personally find Deliverance and Defiance a bit confusing too. Their meanings are too similar to clearly show which is which from the names alone... and the words themselves are similar lengths with similar endings and beginnings. I recognise the buff icons just fine but the names of the abilities themselves tell me nothing.

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I always thought they should be switched based on the meanings of the names. "Deliverance" feels more like a tank stance since it has that connotation of "rescue" (i.e. rescuing the party by taking all the attacks to the face), where as "Defiance" feels more DPS-y to me since the word itself has a more confrontational connotation. Or at least that's how they seem to me.

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Originally Posted by sarehptar

Bard's Mage's Ballad has nothing to do with mages anymore. It doesn't restore or drain MP, do anything to caster or healer damage or output, and doesn't even decrease magic vulnerability when used with Troubadour. Wanderers Minuet does that instead. Honestly, they kept the old name just so they wouldn't have to come up with a new one.

Personally, I think they ought to just swap the Troubadour effects so Mage's Ballad gives the 10% magic vulnerability decrease. That way, it would least have something to do with magic...

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This. BRD's songs are messed up!

Another one is Contagion, it didn't have perfect sense before but now that it applies magic vulnerability it's even worse. If they want to keep the name they could swap it with Bane:

Contagion: the spreading of disease by close contact.

Bane: a cause of great distress or annoyance.

Vacuum Wave by ExDeath. One would expect it to suck you in, but nup.

Riposte - a counter-attack --> used as an opening thrust
Zwerchhau - a high horizontal "hewing strike" made with the false edge of the blade, usually to intercept and defeat downward diagonal strikes --> used as a Zorro signature
Redoublement - returning a line of attack to its position from before it was displaced --> thrusts lots
Diversion - The act of drawing the attention and forces of an enemy from the point of the principal operation --> reduces enemy's attention on... you, the diverting player...

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Originally Posted by Nestmile

"Apocatastasis" apparently refers, in a general way, to returning something to its "original," or perhaps its "primordial" state. It is super archaic and mostly appears in works that were originally in Greek. It might have been better off as an AST skill as it's often used in reference to returning the body or soul to its natural state (i.e. curing sickness) and also has some astrological uses. It was also sometimes used to refer to military movements and city affairs. It shows up in various religious concepts, as well, but I don't have the energy right now to parse through all that.

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It probably comes from the original (pre 1.2) take on Thaumaturge, in which they were more like Oracles / Dark Priests.

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Originally Posted by Core1019

I still don't know wtf an apocatostasis is supposed to be, let alone the old debuff it used to give when it wore off which was even less pronouncable.

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Originally Posted by Nestmile

I don't recall the name of the debuff, or I'd have looked that up, too, haha.

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Ekpyrosis.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Riposte - a counter-attack --> used as an opening thrust
Zwerchhau - a high horizontal "hewing strike" made with the false edge of the blade, usually to intercept and defeat downward diagonal strikes --> used as a Zorro signature
Redoublement - returning a line of attack to its position from before it was displaced --> thrusts lots
Diversion - The act of drawing the attention and forces of an enemy from the point of the principal operation --> reduces enemy's attention on... you, the diverting player...

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Zwercchau should have been called Chant du Cygne, because it's exactly the same animation as the XI WS of that name. Also Impact should have been Death Blossom for the same reason. Unless those are coming later with the next level cap.

Any samurai class skill. /thread

(I know, i know, they're all Japanese sword techniques. But I can't for the life of me keep any of them straight)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Riposte - a counter-attack --> used as an opening thrust
Zwerchhau - a high horizontal "hewing strike" made with the false edge of the blade, usually to intercept and defeat downward diagonal strikes --> used as a Zorro signature
Redoublement - returning a line of attack to its position from before it was displaced --> thrusts lots
Diversion - The act of drawing the attention and forces of an enemy from the point of the principal operation --> reduces enemy's attention on... you, the diverting player...

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Wouldn't Redoublement be more or less correct? Corps-a-Corps starts with the rapier at the center of the body, it's moved to pointing down and right by the end of Zwerchhau, and Redoublement moves it back to the center.

Aeolian Edge: Straight damage. Aeolus is a Greek god of wind.
Ex-Dancing Edge: Reduced Slashing resistance.
Armor Crush: Extends Huton, a wind based Ninjutsu, timer.

Steel Peak: A shoulder tackle.
Shoulder Tackle: Extends a hand that you might interpret as something like a peak. Beak? Something that suits Steel Peak's icon.

?_?

Took me a bit to find this again:http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/f...threads/324160

It deals with names used ingame and their meaning.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Wouldn't Redoublement be more or less correct? Corps-a-Corps starts with the rapier at the center of the body, it's moved to pointing down and right by the end of Zwerchhau, and Redoublement moves it back to the center.

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I've only ever seen the term used to describe a return from a displacement caused by the opponent. But I've never seen or heard of someone purposely leaving center line by such a large margin as they'd need to double back, let alone to attempt to cleave someone's thighs with a "foil" (an edge-less, ball-tipped training sword).

Trying to use logic in an FF game in 2017 smh

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Originally Posted by RyuujinZERO

Any samurai class skill. /thread

(I know, i know, they're all Japanese sword techniques. But I can't for the life of me keep any of them straight)

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I think they're a bit unfair on non-JP players. It's easy to remember which move gives which effect in Japanese as the skill names contain the characters snow/moon/flower like the job gauge. In English it's considerably less obvious, so I think non-Japanese-speaking samurai players are extra impressive.

Elixir Field.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

stuff

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I just had to stop after getting to your post... I think this thread is lost on you. Sorry.

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Originally Posted by Neri

Vacuum Wave by ExDeath. One would expect it to suck you in, but nup.

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Ever play Street Fighter? Shinku Hadouken means Vacuum Wave Fist. In this case, Vacuum isn't referring to a suction but rather it means emptiness/void, i.e vacuum of space.

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Originally Posted by Serilda

I think they're a bit unfair on non-JP players. It's easy to remember which move gives which effect in Japanese as the skill names contain the characters snow/moon/flower like the job gauge. In English it's considerably less obvious, so I think non-Japanese-speaking samurai players are extra impressive.

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Same with every other non SAM or non NIN skill in Japanese. They're all loan words.

Ninja combos.

In 3.x for example dancing edge was a slashing resistance.

Armour crush was a Huton buff.

Always felt they should be flipped. Makes much more sense for example if armour crush did the slashing resistance. (Break bosses armour now he takes more damage kinda thing)

And dancing edge was the huton buff because it keeps the ninja dance going.

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Originally Posted by Waliel

Aeolian Edge: Straight damage. Aeolus is a Greek god of wind

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Thematically then aeolian edge should be the huton buff as hasty style things have always been aspected to wind

It's almost like the names are right but on the wrong skills.

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Originally Posted by Serilda

snip

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It actually isnt all difficult if you know what the words for flower, snow, and moon, and the different readings. The names for the Sens are actually alternate readings.

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Originally Posted by Eloah

It actually isnt all difficult if you know what the words for flower, snow, and moon, and the different readings. The names for the Sens are actually alternate readings.

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Yes, I know, that was the point of my post. If you know those words and you're playing the English version you're in a tiny minority. The foreign words for most skills are just flavour; for samurai they're actually part of the job design. It's very beautiful though.

Armor crush is probably the biggest one for me. Gives a extra 30 seconds to huton but the name implies it should instead provide a debuff to the enemy.

This is a serious problem for me. ; ;

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Diversion - The act of drawing the attention and forces of an enemy from the point of the principal operation --> reduces enemy's attention on... you, the diverting player...

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Your aggro is taking a diversion from going less to you, more to the target of target.

i do admit that many skills just don't feel "good" or make sense at all for me and I've played many rpgs and mmorpgs before...and yet I can't for the life of me remember nearly any skills about my warrior or any other class.
I mean what the heck is a Butcher's Block? Why isn't deliverance simply called "Berserk Stance" and Defiance "Battle Stance" or just something more keen to a tank? Why Equilibrium isn't called Second Wind (as in, an actual "second wind" and not the trash we used to have from monks)?

To be fair though Warrior has it pretty nicely and "most" of their skills do make sense but I can't say the same for my paladin for instance: Requiescat literally means "Rest" but it's a relatively weak skill that increases your spell and healing damage...so what's with that? Also, Holy spirit is a damaging ability? Intervention and Cover feel swapped and Passage to arms ehm.....how about Testudo (The tortoise Formation used in the roman empire).

I would stay here all day nitpicking these but I wish I could remember them much more easily: just because they are archaic terms it doesn't mean they're better or cooler.

Simplicity is the key to brilliance afterall.

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Originally Posted by RyuujinZERO

Any samurai class skill. /thread

(I know, i know, they're all Japanese sword techniques. But I can't for the life of me keep any of them straight)

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I just wish my char would shout midare SETSUGEKKKKAAAAA all anime like while charging/releasing it -.-

I'm surprised no one said Tetragammaton.