Ailments, the bad guys and you

One thing I feel like we are limited to when it comes to fighting mobs and bosses is dealing with status effects. All one can really do is land dots and Vulnerability on high level enemies. Its all well and good, damaging and dealing more damage, but I really wish there was more variety.

We got abilities that are supposed to inflict "Sleep" or "Bind" yet in higher level fights they do nothing but occupy space in your hotbar. Enemies got no problem hitting you with paralysis, silence, petrification, etc. They however are immune to it. I understand something like Alexander or Omega not being affected but not a bloody squirrel. Mobs can always get hit by these effects and build immunity like when one tries to stun constantly.

I don't know, would having such options make fights easier? Or perhaps more tedious?

I used to like when Bind actually wasn't resisted by average trash in dungeons for the rare case where the tank died and you're trying to slow down the damage and pick off what's left of the group without wiping. Very minor and random but it gave the skill some use.... but they took that away at some point and I honestly didn't understand why.

I like the idea of it being incorporated into mechanics though. If not with bosses then at least with trash. As you say, the skills are underutilised and it would be a small way to bring a little diversity into the fights.

Bind, Sleep (repose), Slow.

All things that used to work and now don't for "reasons".

IMHO if it has a cast bar, it should be able to be silenced or show something that definitively says "can't stop this". A shield or something.

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Originally Posted by Alsbet

Mobs can always get hit by these effects and build immunity like when one tries to stun constantly.

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We do get immunity to debuff's like stun and sleep in PVP.

And there is food that give Resistance to ailments.

Red Drop
Blue Drop
Clear Drop
Purple Drop
White Drop
Black Drop
Yellow drop
Green Drop

I'll be succinct...there are several mobs in-game that give all sorts of ailments but the one that absolutely gets on my nerves till tomorrow are the Morbols. I would actually pay to have thmi not interact with my character. True story.

Even in other Final Fantasy games, their Bad Breath is just... *(smirks)*

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Originally Posted by Alsbet

We got abilities that are supposed to inflict "Sleep" or "Bind" yet in higher level fights they do nothing but occupy space in your hotbar.

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These are solo abilities, and can be useful in solo duties when they are meant to be used.

Not everything has to be useful in every situation. SMNs have a tank pet, but they should never be using it in a proper party and would generally be better off just killing things faster with a DD pet when soloing after a certain level. Likewise, BLMs have Sleep, but they should never be using it in a proper party and would generally be better off just killing things faster with fire when soloing after a certain level. But in certain duties, it can be helpful to sleep a group in order to focus on single mobs for safety.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

These are solo abilities, and can be useful in solo duties when they are meant to be used.

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Well I'd say this isn't entirely true. Look at Tri-Bind for example, it previously was underused as the Bind effect generally didn't work on higher level mobs (in duties) whilst the damage it inflicted didn't justify the MP cost so usage was seldom to say the least. However after it was readjusted during DWT it found new life, so one action suddenly wasn't useless anymore so it's definitely not impossible to give the likes of Tether, Sleep, Repose etc some kind of boon under certain conditions.

I do find it a little odd how XIV has opted to mostly faze out the use of crowd control effects when other MMOs like WoW tend to regularly see use of them even in their raid encounters.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I do find it a little odd how XIV has opted to mostly faze out the use of crowd control effects when other MMOs like WoW tend to regularly see use of them even in their raid encounters.

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It was one of several choices by the devs so as not to compel specific party compositions for each fight. If a raid boss can be dealt with by putting it to sleep, people won't want to do that fight unless there's a a WHM or a BLM in the party.

I was thinking more that generalized effects like snares/silence/stuns that are widely available thanks to role actions could be utilized more in raids.

The last time I recall them being needed was for the succubus in the Forgall fight and stuns also could be used to prevent some of Diablos' abilities from going off as long as his shield wasn't active.

I think CC immunity is a necessary evil for bosses to make players actually do the encounter. Being able to stun say.. Construct 8’s math mechanic would be pretty silly. Most of the newer encounters have mechanics that are integreal to the fight itself to a point where being able to choose to ignore any of them would make it way too easy. That I can understand. What I don’t understand is why trash mobs (especially dungeons) in particular have to be CC immune too when stun (Holy comes to mind) is a thing that still works. I mean, you’re going to have to clear out all the enemies to proceed further anyway. o.o

There was an add in Omega 2.3 Savage whose cast could be interrupted.

I sure love doing Labyrinth of the Ancients and being able to stun bosses, only to go to literally any post-50 content and seeing nothing happen.

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Originally Posted by Lilseph

What I don’t understand is why trash mobs (especially dungeons) in particular have to be CC immune too when stun (Holy comes to mind) is a thing that still works. I mean, you’re going to have to clear out all the enemies to proceed further anyway. o.o

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I can't speak to the devs' decisions regarding trash mobs' immunities, but I think making mobs succeptible to bind, heavy, and sleep would have trivial benefit.

Heavy is not a useful CC outside of very specific mechanics where mobs are scripted to move from point A to point B and must be killed before reaching their destination (Dreadknights in T5, slimes in Amon fight). In a trash encounter, there should be a tank, who won't care about heavy; and if a mob is chasing after a healer or a DD, the correct course of action is to kill it quickly in place or run to the tank, not to kite the mob. So heavy would be useless on trash.

Bind and Sleep break on hit, which make them particularly useless if anyone is a DoTter or an AoEer, which is literally everyone after the 40s, and most people as early as the 20s. If you find yourself in a dungeon trash encounter where you think you would benefit from being able to sleep the pack, then either the party is pulling too big for the current combination of tank's and healer's gear and skill, or the party needs to make more effective use of DoTs and AoEs.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I do find it a little odd how XIV has opted to mostly faze out the use of crowd control effects when other MMOs like WoW tend to regularly see use of them even in their raid encounters.

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Sadly, it's mostly to accommodate lesser skilled players who can't handle much in the way of complexity. Which I find somewhat ironic considering the mechanics they come up with for Savage and Ultimate. Why not incorporate CC into the equation too?

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Originally Posted by Lilseph

I think CC immunity is a necessary evil for bosses to make players actually do the encounter. Being able to stun say.. Construct 8’s math mechanic would be pretty silly. Most of the newer encounters have mechanics that are integreal to the fight itself to a point where being able to choose to ignore any of them would make it way too easy. That I can understand. What I don’t understand is why trash mobs (especially dungeons) in particular have to be CC immune too when stun (Holy comes to mind) is a thing that still works. I mean, you’re going to have to clear out all the enemies to proceed further anyway. o.o

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In theory, yes. But they could always design it so those mechanics are simply delayed. One thing I hoped from when we were skipping things back in HW was come SB, if you phased a mechanic early, it'd simply come back later. This adds a neat layer of control on the players as you'd decide when you want to deal with the mechanic. That being said, stuns and whatnot could interrupt only certain moves but not major mechanics. It'd just be nice to see them utilized more. I legit only ever put Leg Sweep on my bar when I tried solo-ing Anemos on a DPS. Otherwise, it doesn't deserve a slot. Even now, with full access to all ten role actions, I don't even have it selected. There isn't any purpose.

While understandable that player and dev preferences may lead away from usage of CC abilities these days, I'd still love to see a job that could apply paralysis.

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Originally Posted by Kazrah

While understandable that player and dev preferences may lead away from usage of CC abilities these days, I'd still love to see a job that could apply paralysis.

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Paralysis could be marginally interesting. Of course it wouldn't ever interrupt any real mechanics (anything that affects the arena or must be handled in a specific way) but it could be made into a damage mitigation tool by canceling a moderate percentage of auto-attacks and having a small chance to interrupt vanilla tank/raid busters.

Maybe it's just my imagination, but I also get the impression that the melee dps limit break is doing less and less % damage to the bosses in the latest content. To the point that I don't even notice that the boss has even been hit by a 3-bar limit break. It's starting to feel like each individual player has less influence in a boss fight by each patch.

Paralysis is really dumb. I recall using a paralysis potion on an enemy when they were still able to suffer it, and nothing happened. And yet when I get hit with it, it's the worst thing ever, causing me to get stunned every two seconds or something ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Archchancellor

We do get immunity to debuff's like stun and sleep in PVP.

And there is food that give Resistance to ailments.

Red Drop
Blue Drop
Clear Drop
Purple Drop
White Drop
Black Drop
Yellow drop
Green Drop

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Uh, the irony...

these items are no longer obtainale, the recipes were removed from the game, so you can't craft them anymore.

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Originally Posted by Edax

Maybe it's just my imagination, but I also get the impression that the melee dps limit break is doing less and less % damage to the bosses in the latest content. To the point that I don't even notice that the boss has even been hit by a 3-bar limit break. It's starting to feel like each individual player has less influence in a boss fight by each patch.

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If anything, I'd guess that the boss HP scaling is higher then the LB damage scaling.

I did notice that it's only taking off 1% or occasionally 2% HP on the Alphascape bosses whereas it was removing 3% on the Deltascape bosses pretty regularly.

So after enjoying Wildstar for regrettably the final time, it dawned on me that a system they use could be done in this game: Interrupt Armor.

For those who never played Wildstar, interrupt armor is basically a stacked buff on bosses and elite mobs that prevents it from being crowd controlled, BUT using a crowd control ability like a stun removes one application of that interrupt armor, and removing all of it would mean that it could be prone to stuns and other forms of crowd control. Some fights would require stripping away a whole stack of interrupt armor to prevent a major attack much like the seizure-inducing barrier generating for Omega's ultimate attack in O11 (at least in normal).