With all hint and leaks pointing towards the new jobs being Tank and Healer, and considering role distribution, I figure the job roles we still need to fill are Melee and Ranged.
This is based on 4Tanks/4Healers/4Melee/2Ranged/3Caster role distribution and a typical end-game party composition of 2Tanks/2Healers/2Melee/1Ranged/1Caster, resulting in a slot-job ratio of 2:1 for all roles, except casters which are 3:1, therefore melee can afford 2 new jobs and ranged can afford 1 without disrupting job competition too much. In addition, the armour types Maiming, Scouting and Aiming are the ones that can afford to be expanded upon.
So I thought I'd take a shot at a Maiming job concept, and work in Blunt damage to synergise with Monk while we're at it.
Riskbreaker
Weapon: Mace/Hammer, could be dual-wield or even one large heavy weapon.
Armour: Maiming
Source concept: a kind of fusion between Vagrant Story’s Riskbreaker, and FFXII’s Foebreaker.
Style/aesthetic: Starting armour is kinda basic like Ashley Riots, but with pauldrons and torn gladiator style cloth added to it. AF gear is more like Rosencrantz’s outfit, more armour, and a rusty orange-red colour scheme. Could be Thanvarian or if they ever expand into XIV’s version of Dalmasca, base it there.
Should appeal to: Vagrant Story/Ivalice fans. Those who enjoy the playstyle of DRG or MNK. Players who wished DRK was a DPS.
Features a combo system based around Risk stacks and body part targeting.
Kinda like Monk in the way that repeated attacks build up your stacks, basically every weapon combo adds 1 Risk stack for 10s. Unlike MNK however, each stack drops off individually, instead of new stacks resetting the timers on already present stacks. Successive stacks unlock special skills and increase your Crit chance but lower your defence. This is mitigated by defence boosting cooldowns.
Branching combo’s with skills that target different body parts with debuff effects.
A ‘Momentum’ job gauge that decreases over time whenever you’re not in combat and is spent on special cooldown 'Chain Skills', but can only be spent when you also have enough Risk stacks. All attacks give momentum (I’m thinking 3 per weaponskill/autoattack as per usual) but some skills give extra momentum.
1 Risk stack: +5% Crit -5% defence.
2 Risk stacks: +10% Crit -10% defence.
3 Risk stacks: +20% Crit -15% defence.
4 Risk stacks: +30% Crit -20% defence.
5 Risk stacks: +50% Crit -25% defence. (only obtainable by using Temper, as the 1st stack will have expired by the time you get to 5 otherwise. FYI 50% would be the hard cap on Crit, so melding Crit would be pointless)
Weaponskill combo chains: (all GCD)
1 > 2 > 3 (> 4) > 1 > 5 > 6 (> 7) With 4 and 7 being optional combo breakers, whereby 3 can combo into either 4 or 1, and 1 can combo into either 2 or 5. These would be the five combos you’d need to pull off in order to reach 5 Risk stacks. You should just be able to pull it off within 13-15s, which means use of Temper gets you those 5 stacks.
1: Risk Break - Basic weaponskill
2: Raging Ache - Blunt damage debuff
3: Venom Ram - Flank positional, body targeted, inflicts a DoT (+10 momentum)
4: Quickshock - Radial AoE (optional combo, 50% chance of triggering Enhanced Quickshock to maintain combo chain, otherwise back to 1)
5: Dulling Impact - Arm targeted, reduces physical damage dealt by target
6: Disabling Blow - Rear positional, Leg targeted, inflict bind/heavy (+10 momentum)
7: Demon Crush - High potency basic attack (combo breaker, optimally used after getting 5 Risk stacks)
These would all have relatively low potencies, as you’d benefit from a far higher Crit rate than any other class, your Chain skills would be the real damage dealers.
AoE capabilities are intentionally limited by an RNG proc that would usually limit you to 3 or 4 Risk stacks, because a 5 Risk stack Crit rate would be way OP if you could hit multiple targets with it every time, instead it’s a lucky bonus.
Defence Skills: (all oGCD)
Clearance – Removes all Risk stacks (kinda separate from the other defence skills, but removing stacks does increase your defence so…)
Reflect Damage – negates and reflects 10% of damage received back at attacker for 20s, removes 1 Risk stack.
Absorb Damage – absorbs 10% of damage received as HP for 20s, removes 1 Risk stack.
Impact Guard – prevents critical hits received for 30s, removes 1 Risk stack.
Instill – functions like Dark Arts to ‘prime’ the next skill you use, allows you to cast one of your defensive skills (except Clearance) on a party member and replaces ‘removes 1 Risk stack’ with ‘gain 10 momentum’. (basically allows you to turn your defensive skill into an offensive boost and party utility)
Chain Skills: (all oGCD magic damage)
Temper – 160 potency attack that extends the duration of any Risk stacks by 5s, costs 10 momentum, can only be used with at least 1 Risk stack.
Soul Sap – 240 potency attack that recovers 10% of damage dealt as MP/TP, 30 momentum, needs at least 2 Risk stacks.
Life Sap – 240 potency attack that recovers 10% of damage dealt as HP, 30 momentum, 3 Risk stacks.
Phantom Pain – 200 potency aoe attack, 10% less for 2nd target, 30% less for 3rd, etc. 50 momentum, 4 Risk stacks.
Crimson Pain – 280 potency attack that deals 10% HP damage to yourself, 50 momentum, 5 Risk stacks.
You should aim to have enough momentum to use three of those skills in a combo rotation, Temper, one of the Saps and one of the Pains.
These potencies may not look that impressive for a DPS, compared to say DRG or SAM, until you realise that you’ll usually have a 50% Crit rate…
Other skills: (all oGCD)
Sirocco – doubles your momentum gain and prevents momentum loss for 30s.
Prostasia – Increases damage dealt by 10% for 10s.
Blood Sin – For 10s, if your HP dips below 30% you gain 30 Momentum and automatically have 5 Risk stacks. (kind of a last resort style skill, if you’re solo, and you don’t defeat your enemy immediately after this, you’re dead, but a great offensive boost in raids where you’re hit by massive AoE or something and can be healed back up)
You’d want to build around DHit, Det and SkS for this, as Crit would be wasted over a certain and fairly low threshold, as your Risk stacks would supercede it. AST’s Spear would also be pointless, instead favouring the Arrow.
Overall, this builds on the ‘risky’ nature of a Riskbreaker in Vagrant Story, somewhat like a Dark Knight, and the low potency/high Crit build reflects the somewhat ‘random’ damage of Hammers/Axes used by the Foebreaker in FFXII, plus their debuffing nature.
I think this would be really fun and rewarding to play. Maybe a pain for healers, but ideally no much more than DRG or BLM already are, and this would offset against its raid utility anyway.
New Job Concept: Riskbreaker
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11-29-2018, 09:53 PMSeraphorNew Job Concept: Riskbreaker
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11-30-2018, 01:02 AMMeta-Flare
I dig it! It is new, interesting, and has a unique gimmick. Building jobs in games is like one of my favorite things. We were talking about jobs in the healer thread, but I'll post my two jobs I made in here.
This is a DPS Beastmaster/tamer, though it probably wouldnt work since they want to make it a limited job (YUCK). http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...e-is-long-haha
This is my chemist idea - http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...st-as-a-healer -
11-30-2018, 01:05 AMAzle
Overall I like the concept, though that's a lot of defensive skills for a DPS job. I do like the idea of a job that builds around something besides stacking Crit.
I'd maybe make the stacks spendable on the chain skills instead of just unlocking them. Then you're building up the stacks and spending them, instead of just hitting 100% during a boss fight and leaving it there. It would also help to differentiate it from MNK. (This might have been your intent, it's not clear.)
You could also work in FFXII skill name references like "Shades of Black" and "Inquisitor". -
11-30-2018, 01:15 AMSeraphorI think without the defensive skills it'd be a paper tiger far worse than DRG or BLM because it actually loses defense, healers would hate it. The skill would be in balancing your offensive skills with the defenses you need to survive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Azle
If you don't need the defensive skills, you can turn them into party utility.
And it's really only 3 defensive skills. One of them is more resource management with a passive defense boost, or rather it negates your defense penalty. Another is a toggle that allows you to use the other three on party members while changing the resource/penalty for it.
Of the three actual defensive skills, one is a return damage so it's a DPS boost, the other two are minor single target mitigation, one of them is basically a non-tank Awareness, while the other is something DRG already has anyway.
You don't just get the stacks and sit on them, they each have a 10s duration, which means if you're not constantly attacking, you will lose the stacks quickly. Basically, if you stop attacking each stack will drop off every 2.5s, or whatever your GCD. It's more engaging than MNK in this sense, you can't just stop for a few seconds, unless you use the Sirocco skill.
The defensive skills already spend stacks, i think any more would be overkill, as you'd never actually get to 5 stacks long enough to use that higher crit rate.
Plus then there'd be nothing to differentiate risk stacks and momentum. They're similar and interact, but they're still meant to be two different resources used in different ways, one offensive, one utility/defensive.
I did try to think of FFXII terms I could use, but Inquisitor would basically be Soul Sap (Vagrant Story's name is actually Siphon Soul but that's too close to a DRK ability) and I'm not sure where Shades of Black would really fit, closes would be the Pain skills but it's not really black magic. -
11-30-2018, 02:06 AMJandorThose are types of gear, not roles. To be honest I find the value of maiming and scouting gear even existing rather questionable, nothing would really be lost by merging them with striking and aiming.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
The job itself seems pretty interesting though, assuming you'd like it adding to the game (however unlikely that might be) it might be worthwhile finding an existing FF job you can merge the mechanics with ;). -
11-30-2018, 02:11 AMSeraphorI explained that in the next paragraph...Quote:
Originally Posted by Jandor
Also for an existing FF job to merge it with... how about Riskbreaker from Vagrant Story or Foebreaker from FFXII? -
11-30-2018, 02:18 AMSeraphor
As for losing Maiming and Scouting gear.
IF they dont add any more melee jobs, then you might be right about Maiming gear. However having too many jobs sharing the same gear is going to make having multiple jobs with different builds very tricky to manage.
Same goes for Scouting if they dont add any more jobs that use Dex.
But as future melee and ranged jobs ARE likely, as I indicated in the OP, merging them would end up causing problems. They need to expand them instead. -
11-30-2018, 05:47 PMJandorThey could get around materia problem, link it to soul stone like your stat points were in HW, provide a materia board with gear simply increasing or decreasing it's slots and stat levels, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
As for STR/DEX/etc. jobs, well the different main stats are pointless, they're all copies of each other anyway. As such picking a job based on which main stat it will use also feels a tad pointless.
I'd be slightly surprised if STR/DEX/INT and MND survive (at least as they are) in to 5.0, but I guess we'll see on that.
Never played either, that's my bad for not doing proper checking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
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11-30-2018, 06:24 PMSeraphorI know they like to streamline things, but i doubt they'll dumb it down that much.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jandor
What is an RPG without stats? -
11-30-2018, 06:57 PMJandorThat's the thing though, we don't really have main stats anyway. If your main stat is DEX then all your gear will have the max amount of DEX it can have by default, if it isn't maxed out on DEX it's because it's for another role/job and it's locked so you can't wear it anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
There is no choice and ultimately no point, consolidating them would just be updating things to reflect how they actually are.
All main stats are at the moment is a minor newbie trap, where a fresh level 70 dexterity user might end up doing something like melding intelligence to their gear thinking it improves their magic attacks.
Sub stats are where the choice exists, to some degree anyway.
Edit: anyway, I don't want to hijack your thread with this, it's a pet peeve of mine and to be fair I should probably stop bringing it up in every thread where I see main stats and gearsets mentioned ;). -
11-30-2018, 10:01 PMSeraphor
I get that it's probably unecessary, however it does give flavour, and removing it at this point is probably equally as pointless as having it there in the first place. It would also take a load of effort to go back through everything and change every single item, and then you still have the issues I mentioned, having one armour set for X number of jobs, only now, it will be EVERY job.
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11-30-2018, 10:12 PMJandorWell, I mean the split would be: 3/3/3/3/3. Tank, Healer and then heavy armor, medium armor and light armor DPS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
Assuming the leaks and hints are right, it'll most likely go to 4/4/3/3/3 in 5.0.
The only issue really IMHO is materia is currently linked to gear rather than job, but that could be solved by having materia melds be job specific.
I'd like materia altering even if nothing else changes to be honest, sharing melds across a role is already a bit awkward in some cases. -
12-01-2018, 12:14 AMSeraphorI think such an overhaul of Materia is incredibly unlikely. It's intrinsically tied to various quests and functions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jandor
Crafter classes are linked to melding materia to equipment, countless quests require it, and its integral to the concept if Materia itself.
They'd be more likely to introduce sonething entire different like Magicite. -
12-01-2018, 12:25 AMJandorI'm not really asking for an overhaul as such. If I'm wearing "chest piece of fending" on Paladin and I meld a bunch of stuff to it, when I equip the same "chest piece of fending" to Dark Knight or Warrior (or Gunblade maybe) it should be empty.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
It could theoretically be just a gameplay thing that is never touched upon, but if it does require an explanation none of the current stuff has to be re-written, just add some lore fluff on top.
Like as our job stone becomes more powerful (at say level 70+) it's power and the large amount of aether we've imbued it with causes materia kept in its vicinity to bind to it, rendering that same materia inert and functionally not present (i.e slots reopen) when it's near a different job stone. -
12-01-2018, 01:06 AMSeraphorExcept the materia data is held on the item itself, not the job crystal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jandor
It's the same reason we got lumped with the glamour dresser instead of something more like WoW. If they can't fix it for that, they're not likely to fix it for materia either. -
12-01-2018, 01:43 AMJandorAppearance data is held on the item itself too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
Appearance data can also be held in glamour plates.
Stands to reason that a similar system can work for materia too then. Materia loadouts, created at the Materia melder NPC and applied in a similar manner to glamour plates. -
12-01-2018, 01:53 AMSeraphorHmm... good point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jandor
You may have just convinced me on this. Materia loadouts could be acheivable. Although melding materia is a gil sink and comes with a failure rate above a certain threshold. Would "Materia Plates" work if you had to pay gil to apply them and they could fail to apply?
I suppose you could just increase the costs of creating the plate in the first place. You'd probably have to make materia rarer too.
Still, I wouldnt really want them to merge all equipment types. Would be too much homogenisation. -
12-01-2018, 03:31 AMJandorI suppose the simplest solution might be to have 'Materia plates' as an actual item. Buy or make one, have it snapshot your equipped gear, then open it up and meld to it as if it was just normal gear.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
When applying the plate, if the gear you're wearing and the snapshot on the plate are the same the materia will apply, if they're not it will fail.
If you want to update a slot on the plate you have to attempt to retrieve the materia, change the item in the slot, then re-meld it. Essentially the same as you do with actual gear.
At first glance that seems a pretty fair way of doing them to me.
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As for homogenisation, we'll have to agree to disagree I think.
The way I see it, in 5.0 we're likely get a tank and it's likely wearing fending, that means we'll have 4 tanks using 1 set of gear, and 4 melee DPS split over 3 sets of gear. For me as a mainly tank sort of guy wanting to dabble in all the tanks it's great, but if I was more a melee DPS sort of person having to get 3 gearsets while fighting tome caps and loot restrictions would annoy the hell out of me. -
12-01-2018, 10:21 AMGrimoire-M
This isn't WoW. Main stats help to divide gear into cohesive groups the same way they do in WoW and act as flavor on top of that. It's aesthetic mechanical design. They do serve a purpose in being able to differentiate between stat reduction and damage type reduction as well, though we have yet to see SE exploit that in a raid (specifically referring to players getting debuffed here, not Addle/Feint/Virus) as far as I'm aware. Leave it at that.
As for the concept, I like the idea of trying to maintain Risk stacks in this manner, but I don't think Crit Rate is entirely appropriate. You're still going to stack Crit alongside this because of the damage modifier. Even if you force a cap on the rate. Maybe not as a main stat, but as a secondary for sure. Skill Speed and Determination are that bad.
I think a better approach would be to flatline the defence penalty to 10% regardless of how many you have and similarly crunch the crit rate boost, starting at 10% at 1 stack, then growing by 5% per each additional stack, up to a maximum of 30% at 5 stacks, letting you stack more on top of that from gear. That would be more fair and give you room to incorporate more into the rotation. You mention that this would be a mace/hammer user, but the way this feels (as far as I can tell) is a lot of little hits, very much like Bard, which ill suits a heavy weapon user. I think by making this reduction you can make more room for hard hitting abilities and pull away from the defensive kit a bit as well. -
12-01-2018, 01:34 PMShurrikhanWhile I too question the current value of Scouting and Maiming as distinct sets, I'd argue that the armor classes, rather than pure roles, should be the more aesthetic- and gameplay-defining element, and are ultimately of higher value as categories than direct roles. Simply put, Maiming, Striking, and Scouting, if done well, provide a much more real analog to styles of combat. To give an extreme example, I'd rather have a Maiming, Striking, or Scouting tank, or have a Fending DPS, than trim Maiming or Scouting. I hate that at present Fending plays less into any actual style of combat and instead just feels like "outlier: all tanks get shoved here", just as Healing and Casting, which are essentially identical in aesthetic and functionality in most cases, are always split. I'd rather just see Fending (not tanks only), Maiming, Striking, Scouting, Casting (all your traditional caster robes), Binding (your less mobility-hampering 'spellfencer' kinds of caster outfits), with no Role attachments. That's not a change I'd want to see until every armor class would thereby have access to two roles, but that's a more appropriate division of armor classes (by class, and the style of combat each allows, rather than by arbitrary role classification) imo. (Hell, I'd love to return to all primary stats being used to some point by each job, with combinations of primary stats granting our secondaries in player-chosen allotments, and, say, Monk being free to pick from Maiming, Scouting, or Striking where the stats on a given outfit are close enough together.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Jandor
Honestly, though, the whole issue of loot tables as they'd apply to these seems a... nonissue to me, easily correctable by dynamic loot tables as seen in other MMOs (e.g. loot of greater value to the present team has a higher chance to drop; loot of zero value to the present team has no chance to drop until the table has already been consumed from) and/or loot specialization (e.g. you go as one job of higher ilvl and set your loot to another of your job's to be weighed against its gearset).
Finally, either role-unique stats like Piety, Tenacity, and Direct Hit would have to go -- no loss, imo -- and/or materia "plates" or the like. -
12-01-2018, 08:01 PMSeraphorThing is I'm trying to break the mold, not fit it. Skillspeed shouldnt be that bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
Spellspeed works for BLM, so this coukd be the physical class that Skillspeed works for.
With thr job being based around its own Crit generation, it does make Crit less effrctive to meld. A good player would spend a good portion of their time at maximum Crit without melding any, so the benefit of melding it drops right off. Direct Hit therefore would be their main focus, and after that, theyd have the room to fit and afford Skillspeed. With faster attacks, theyd hit those Risk stacks more often and more reliably, indirectly raising their Crit via Speed.
As for the values and potencies, it suits the identity of hammers (and axes) from XII. Yes they're heavy weapons that deal a lot of damage, but they also have more random damage that can result in weaker attacks than other weapons, its about averaging that out. Hence the low base potencies, crossed with a reliable almost 50% average Crit rate.
You could cap the defence penalty and remove the defensive skills, but again, that wouldn't reflect the nature of a Riskbreaker from VS.
Having to balance your DPS versus your defence would be part of the jobs function, its gimmick, like RDMs magic-melee cycle, or Ninjas ninjutsu. A high Crit rate alone wouldnt be interesting enough.
Besides, other DPS jobs have plenty of defensive skills already. For example, NIN has Shadeshift, Smokescreen and its own emnity dump skill.
This concept only really has three defensive skills too, the other two are more resource management. -
12-03-2018, 09:20 PMGrimoire-MWhile I agree that we should try to encourage using all stats, your proposed crit changes do not fit with how the game works currently. You have to pre-suppose that there is an artificial cap of 50% assigned to it to make this come close to working at all, and it still doesn't solve the problem of crit damage still being worth it. If you have to assume that SE's staff would make that kind of core mechanical change in the first place (even if it's tame compared to some of the suggestions people put up) then the better option is to simply assume it can't be done and implement something better based on what has been done before.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
I'm sorry, but the fact that most meaningful content where you're using your kit to the fullest can take 8-10 minutes means the game will naturally average out the variance. Time is the biggest factor in getting the required sample size to ensure each member of a raid was able to contribute. All you're accomplishing by nerfing the potencies to compensate for that crit rate and adding lots of low cooldown oGCDs is making every hit feel less powerful but over all make the class more busy, which suits a light armor, speedy class more. Look at Warrior's Inner Release window. That's how a heavy weapon DPS class should feel at times. And Warrior does reward skill speed within that window to a certain degree, just to squeeze out one extra Fell Cleave.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
On that note, you've created a dragoon-like GCD rotation that's honestly more limiting than it should be (especially regarding AoE) with no real payoffs yet, which is something I'd look at. I'd start with removing the DoT ability and think of something more creative to replace it. That's one of the main limiters of skill speed when it comes to melee classes compared to BLM. BLM can throw its only DoT out when it wants to. Combo classes have to avoid clipping, whether it's their GCD or DoTs. Better to scrap the one DoT and work from there.
The problem is they're superfluous. You wouldn't need the defensive skills in the first place without that debuff present. Flavor should not come at the expense of function. And for what it's worth, Samurai and Monk are the only DPS classes with multiple personal defensive cooldowns present on their kit rather than simply getting them from role actions, and each pair of abilities are already linked to one another on those two classes specifically in order to pair it down. Aggro management tools don't mitigate damage on you as much as they enable tanks to go ham at the moment. They're not actual mitigation in practice. Forced movement abilities can be used to maintain dps uptime by allowing the player to take risks, including those disengages on SAM/DRG. And the various defensive buffs/debuffs that affect allies or enemies are not personal by nature of what they target. They're party utility, and the majority of that is on the role action list too currently.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
If you want some suggestions for how to make skill speed feel better within a kit, make more oGCD weaponskills styled after Empyreal Arrow so they benefit from skill speed. Similarly, Machinist's Ammunition mechanic could be fleshed out to accomplish something similar to a DoT effect. You could also use GCDs that are on stack-based timers, meaning you can only use them once every X weaponskills, but not tie them down to a combo. Buffs already kind of do this, but they have timers on them. It makes sense for the risk stacks, but outside of a few proper cooldowns I'd just experiment with non-combo rotations and see if something more fluid emerges. -
12-03-2018, 10:30 PMSeraphorPretty much every other title in the franchise has a hard cap of 50% crit except for some limited abilities that guarantee a crit, I'd be surprised if this wasn't ALREADY in FFXIV. Basically more than 50% crit is too OP and defeats the purpose of critical hits in the first place.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
And if I am pre-supposing this is a change that's made... what's the problem with that exactly?
Exactly...Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
Disagree, you'll hit crits more often, making you feel more powerful.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
...how?Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
The idea is that you're hitting hard and fast, haphazardly swinging your hammer/mace around, building up momentum that makes your attacks hit harder, you're not doing acrobatics.
The weaponskills might be a bit quicker with higher SkS, but there's not that much to weave besides the Chain skills, which you'd perhaps weave 3 per 6-weaponskill-combo, so certainly no double weaving.
Meanwhile you have DRK, which is most certainly a slow, heavy job, and you're constantly double weaving with Dark Arts and such.
Thank you, this is something constructive that I could think about.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
And the problem with adding another DPS with defensive cooldowns is...?Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
I would revise the skills to make the two purely defensive skills exclusive, so that they can't be stacked. One is then not so different to DRGs, and the other is essentially a DPS Eye-for-an-Eye, and both can be used on party members in order to boost own DPS via gained job gauge resource.
Meanwhile MNK has it's own 10% damage reduction, plus a party-wide Convalescence. I don't see the problem...
Again thanks for some constructive feedback, however this sounds like it's starting to go in a direction I don't intend for this job and which I don't think would fit into the Riskbreaker/Foebreaker identity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
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12-04-2018, 12:10 AMUrsa_Vonfiebryd
Yes to this. I'm glad someone else in the free world played Vagrant Story. The Riskbreaker system was so unique for the time.
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12-04-2018, 07:02 PMGrimoire-MYou're pre-supposing a change that makes all of the current crit-rate raid buffs nearly worthless at this current raid tier, and certainly discourages stacking them together. Of course I'm against it. It's a fundamental change to the game that requires more work to accommodate than the class itself is worth. I would honestly say that a better but muckier route would've been to bake proc-rate potency boosts into each ability instead if you want to double down on the variance aspect, but I still feel that misses the point of a heavy weapon class.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
I disagree on the fast part. And Crits don't make players feel more powerful, big numbers in general do. Like I said, you don't need to add weaker but more frequent hits in order to accomplish padding out variance. You get 24 GCDs per minute minimum assuming full uptime. The game's design does that for you already. That was my point. Hell, BLM already does the job of a hard hitting nuke that doesn't have a single oGCD they have to weave in their rotation except for mobility, and arguably they accomplish the concept you're shooting for already within the caster role. I'm not going to preclude a melee class from wanting to feel like Warrior or them, but I don't think you've hit that aspect with your current kit. By going for speed, you've missed the opportunity to add more meatiness to your rotation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
The goal theme of a heavy weapon melee class that focuses on critting in the first place is to see BIG numbers at a slower pace, not lots of little ones all the time. They should not feel like a Monk, or Bard, or Machinist. I've played Bard for two tiers, and played Summoner now and in Heavensward, and I can tell you they don't hit hard. They hit a LOT, yes, but not hard. I don't get a meaty, big hit feeling from most attacks on BRD, except the one time I've ever seen a Barraged Refulgent Arrow land a triple direct crit for 100k in aggregate, and that was still split across three consecutive hits between 30-36k that flashed up consecutively, making it feel rapid, not hard hitting. Akh Morn and Deathflare come close to half of that if the stars align, but they get pressed once every 30 seconds when averaged out. Fester used to be up there in burst during ARR but has since fallen out of favor. You use that three times relatively quickly in a minute, which is a lot, but each hit is still small. Fell Cleave, Fire IV, Foul, and Midare, on the other hand? Those hit hard by themselves, and when you direct crit on them, you notice it FAR more because of it, because you see their damage numbers individually, rather than it getting crowded in the noise of 3-4 other hits between each GCD.
The frequency you're pressing oGCDs overall in the first place and the amount of attention you have to pay to which you press next creates that busy feeling I described. You're basically spamming Temper twice every three hits with the current numbers unless you intentionally limit its cooldown because it's potency per momentum ratio is higher than everything else (something to fix, by the way), and you still have to track your momentum bar due to the staggered momentum costs even if you do limit it, resulting in the pain skills being spammed first (likely once every 3.5 GCDs if they were the real focus, depending on auto attacks), then the saps, if there's ever room.
It's funny you mention DRK because they actually avoid this issue due to the fact you know exactly when to press Dark Arts for filler and their lowest cooldown oGCD aside from it is Plunge at 30 seconds, only deviating in feel when you need TBN or want to DA Dark Passenger (meaning you just drop your next few DAs on Souleater if you need to), have Blood Weapon running, or have enough Blackblood to spend. And in regards to Blackblood, each of those abilities has a hefty 50 blood cost, and requires you to use the GCD to spend two of them while not disrupting your combos, which means you don't need to pay too much attention to them, provided you never let yourself cap. They have their busy moments for sure due to their staggered cooldowns, but they're not nearly as bad as any of the DPS classes at all, excepting maybe BLM and RDM.
Little, in of themselves. The only problem I have with it is that you make it necessary by overdoing the penalty on the Risk debuffs. I don't even have a problem with the utility in of itself, but you could use some of those slots to add more DPS cooldowns, tune up their AoE, or add spike abilities the class is lacking, again playing into that heavy weapon theme of big, infrequent, inconsistent damage that is nonetheless powerful in aggregate. The utility is pretty weak numbers wise too. Riddle of Earth at least gives you more than 10% mitigation after the first hit you take. Mantra I'd classify as party utility, not personal, and I made that distinction for a reason, because I don't have a problem with party utility if it's usable when you want it to be used. That is not the case here. Instill results in you using the abilities it interacts with nearly on cooldown for the sake of your own DPS more than anything, giving you even more more double weaving for little payoff, except when you know a mechanic and/or a weak healer is going to get you killed and can use one of them in time to avoid it over dropping Risk with Clearance. It's frankly a better idea to make those abilities more powerful and not affect your Risk stacks or Momentum in any manner so you can make the consideration of what to use independent of what's optimal for your DPS, but if you're doing that, then why have such a high Risk penalty in the first place? Flavor. That's it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
I made the leap to lowering the penalty and bonus on Risk because it fixes both of these problems and gives you room to address the rest.
The main point there was the focus on avoiding the things that result in skill speed being a worse option as much as possible, and adding things that encourage stacking it instead. You certainly don't have to use oGCD weaponskills, an ammunition variant to replace a DoT, or a spike weaponskill like Midare that can only be used after X GCDs, but they fit in better with your stated goal of making skill speed good, hence the recommendation in the first place. I don't expect you to use them, but I do hope you consider why they fit in if that's your primary focus. But I don't believe it is, either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphor
I guess my main point is I feel the current kit doesn't really fit the traditional theme of what you're aiming for, nor does it fit with the current design paradigm SE has given us to work with. This is someone swinging a big 2-Handed Hammer or Mace in Heavy Armor absolutely recklessly. Which means they should have slower, heavier, wild swings, and while doing that they sometimes get to connect with a big, powerful hit that absolutely flattens their opponents. It wouldn't be out of place for some of their skills to have cast bars to suggest that wind up. Nothing you've put in there hits hard enough in order to achieve that, because you've pushed too hard on the 'high crit rate with a drawback' aspect of Risk and spent more time focusing on compensating for it. It needlessly limits your own concept currently. If you specifically narrowed in on 1-Handed Maces and were aiming for a lighter armored melee class, then it would be fine to have a lot of small hits and constantly float between 4-5 stacks like your current kit achieves, but that's another Striking gear class, not a Maiming one. It's certainly 'risky' in the sense it doesn't let you slow down and crits a lot, but it isn't as hard hitting as you've stated. Whether by slowing things down with more infrequent ability usage, consolidating the 'busy' moments with clearer periods of downtime, or tuning Risk down in order to allow for abilities that get to hit for massive damage and offer better utility, you need to address that. At the moment, this kit would play out more like a Monk or Machinist rather than Black Mage or Dragoon. The latter two classes and Samurai all have mechanics and potencies that are closer to the concept you're after, and so if you stick to a big hammer or mace I'd recommend adding more weight on your GCDs and tone down on how much you're doing between them in order to achieve that 'go big or go home' feeling. Or shift the aesthetics to striking class with a lighter blunt weapon. Right now, it's simply a mismatch. -
12-05-2018, 12:24 AMSeraphor
I do see where you’re coming from with small/quick hits and it feeling more like a light-armour class, so perhaps my initial thoughts of working in Skillspeed wouldn’t work out.
However I’m not keen on losing the Crit aspect of the concept, and in fact on looking more indepth into how Crit works in FFXIV, I don’t think this is a problem like you’re making it out to be.
As it currently stands, even with loads of Crit you’re only going to reach a max Crit rate of around 22% so a hard-cap of 50% Crit rate doesn’t seem very outlandish and not incompatible with anything currently in the game.
As for how that works with my proposed Risk stack values, lets say you did meld Crit, and assuming further progression in SB2 to round it up to 25% base crit rate:
1 Stack: 25% base crit + 5% stack crit = 30% total crit.
2 Stack: 25% base crit + 10% stack crit = 35% total crit.
3 Stack: 25% base crit + 20% stack crit = 45% total crit.
4 Stack: 25% base crit + 30% stack crit = 55% total crit.
5 Stack: 25% base crit + 50% stack crit = 75% total crit.
Vs someone who didn’t meld much Crit and had a base Crit rate of about 8%:
1 Stack: 8% base crit + 5% stack crit = 13% total crit.
5 Stack: 8% base crit + 50% stack crit = 58% total crit.
Without a hard cap, with such a high crit rate you’ll be hitting those crits so often that the low base potencies won’t be an issue, but of course your crits won’t deal quite as much damage as a crit from a DRG or a BLM.
With a hard cap, a crit melder is hitting that cap at 4 stacks, and being nearly there already at 3, which would make hitting those higher stacks detrimental due to only getting the defence debuff. The crit boost values could be lowered and still have the desired effect, perhaps as low as around 35% instead of 50% at 5 stacks would be ok. Therefore it’s not essential that you fully meld as much crit as possible, but some crit mixed with direct hit will still be beneficial.
In this case, base potencies could be increased a bit and you’d see those ‘bigger numbers’.
1 Stack: 25% base crit + 4% stack crit = 29% total crit.
2 Stack: 25% base crit + 8% stack crit = 33% total crit.
3 Stack: 25% base crit + 16% stack crit = 41% total crit.
4 Stack: 25% base crit + 24% stack crit = 49% total crit.
5 Stack: 25% base crit + 36% stack crit = 61% total crit.
At this point I’m not sure having a hard cap on crit makes too much of a difference either way so I’m not too fussed about losing that idea, but with a cap you’ll be encouraged to mix in more Direct Hit (and therefor leave that room for crit buffs to have an effect) so I’d rather keep that idea and assume that a 25% base crit rate isn’t going to be the norm, but something more realistic around 15~20% would be.
I see your first suggestion was more in line with this anyway, so I apologise for overlooking that, as I wasn’t fully appreciative of the fact that melding crit could get you as high as a 22% crit rate. So your figures seemed like a larger ‘hit’ to the concept than they really were, and a hard-cap of 50% being rejected when I didn’t think we could get anywhere near that anyway seemed uncalled for. I still stick by “for all we know, there is already a hard cap of 50% crit rate” though.
The defence penalties could be reduced in line so a maximum of 20% at 5 stacks too, and there your issue of being overly reliant on defensive cooldowns is somewhat addressed. I could also remove the mitigation from Reflect damage, making it purely an offensive buff (you still receive full damage but also still reflect 10%) whereby its only defensive nature comes from removing a Risk stack. Increase the MP/TP cost of Instill so that you’re not throwing these buffs out to party members everytime they come off cooldown, and does that help address those issues?
I said your previous advice on the AoE stuff was constructive, and so I would separate the AoE skill from the combo so it could be used more freely. Without wanting to add a whole other AoE combo however, because button bloat, I can only think of giving it the RDM Scatter treatment. A 50% chance of it combo’ing with itself basically, still giving some Risk stack generation and high damage procs.
As for weaving cooldowns, and such. I haven’t listed cooldown figures, but they’d be prohibitive enough that you couldn’t pop a Temper every 3 weaponskills, or spam the Pain skills. I’ve not fully mapped it out to settle on exact figures, but 30s at the very least for Temper seems about right. This means that you will only actually hit 5 stacks for a maximum of 5s every 30s, you’ll spend most of your time at 4 stacks.
And because 5 stacks and 50 momentum wouldn’t be available as often as you think, placing the Pain skills on the GCD, much like Bloodspiller, would be viable. Then you have an indirect 30s cooldown on Crimson pain, and Phantom Pain becomes a valid AoE skill you can use every few GCDs instead if necessary.
This is what I always intended in practice, even if I hadn’t settled on the 30s figure, and I think it ticks the boxes you’ve suggested already.
I could also potentially bump Temper from 10 momentum to 20, but no higher as the intention is for a full 100 momentum to be enough to use three of those skills in a combo chain. -
12-05-2018, 10:44 AMUrsa_Vonfiebryd
There... is so much math in this post. I think some backstory to the Riskbreaker job itself might help further your cause, from a conceptual standpoint. Because you can skin a melee job any way you want really, but for the Vagrant Story aspect at least, well... There's an overall aesthetic trying to be achieved. I haven't played FF11 but I still occasionally boot up VS, so let me give you the layman's view on that.
In Vagrant Story, Riskbreaker is treated as a specialist job even though it's basically all you get. You get various skills (some from just doing the story and some from dungeoning) that you program to 3 of your controller buttons (I think one button was a cancel). Each successful skill strike adds to your Risk Gauge. Timing is important. Vagrant Story has a pseudo 'Style' system like DMC where successful combos/chains make it so you can use your flashy finishers, called Break Arts. These were different based on the weapon you were equipped with (there was one for bare-handed too, I believe) and also had different buffs/side-effects as well. The better your timing, the faster you could use your Break Arts, but conversely the more risk added to your gauge per strike. Why would this be bad? Well...
Here is how Risk works: the higher your Risk the higher your potential critical severity, but the lower your hit percentage. Like... REALLY LOW. With a full Risk Gauge you can expect 2% or lower for hit percentage but the hits you do land hit much much harder. Thus making Risk management your priority. Generally speaking anything higher than 75% Risk Gauge (maxed at 100) is pretty much unfeasible in a combat sense. Vagrant Story allowed you a full range of spells as well but these were not a part of the combo system, though they also affected your Risk Gauge. (Everything but items did, really).
So the OP is spot on with the Crit aspect of this job. Implementation would be fairly easy. Successful combos would fill your Risk Gauge, letting you use various finishers or Break Arts depending on how high the gauge (each Break Art would deplete the gauge depending on Risk cost). I don't see the Risk system translating over directly (like with the penalties) but it'd work a lot like other jobs with such a gauge (like Warrior and Ninja) so it wouldn't be too much of a learning curve. Break Arts should have various buffs or debuffs and having a full or partial Risk Gauge should like... buff your critical chance with a full one granting a buff to critical damage (but not enough to stay in that state--I'm thinking of doing duties in lower levels where finishers are often not available). Like maybe 1-50 Risk Gauge giving you a Crit chance buff and a 51-100 giving you a Crit damage buff (or however that works here now--it's changed around a bit since I last mucked around with it). There should be a few skills you can spend Risk/MP/TP on that do some magical damage. I'd personally like to see 'Banish' since that spell already exists in FF14 and was an awesome instant-death spell in Vagrant Story.
Sorry I'm not familiar with the Foebreaker class, but WE'VE DONE ALL THE WORK FOR YOU SE--lets do this. :D -
12-05-2018, 04:29 PMGrimoire-M
You also have to factor in that in certain spike windows with the right classes you can have up to 37% additional crit rate (15% Chain Stratagem for 15s on one target, Litany at 15% for 20s, 5% AST using Spread Spear over 20s, AoE, BRD passively giving 2% via songs, near 100% uptime, these are additive, not multiplicative) stacked on the whole party over a short but still substantial period of 15s, 52% if an AST caters to you specifically by giving you an enhanced Spear. This is admittedly only 15s, about 6-7 single target GCDs out of every six minutes, but this still happens twice per most fights, under potion timings no less, and these buffs still get used independently from one another in-between. That's the problem with a hard cap. Without the cap you're able to overcap crit rate with raid buffs in specific scenarios without factoring in gear at all, which is why I initially said to lower the rate to 30% at 5 stacks. It's still unreasonable as you've noted, but puts you on par with where you wanted Risk to be in power while still mostly working within the system we've got.
This is also why I find Bard particularly frustrating, to be quite honest, because they get to basically triple the length of these ridiculous windows for themselves thanks to DoT snapshotting and it plays heavily into their performance. Access to these buffs can make or breaks the classes that are that dependent on crit, which worries me about your concept (though really as long as you don't do what BRD does and extend the benefit of the window somehow, then it's fine). Yet this kind of synergy is also why there can't be a hard cap implemented in the game at all. Because most of it is intentional.
The alternative involves a juggling act between these raid buffs to ensure they never overlap while maximizing their individual benefits under what's attainable with gear, which SE does not want to enforce in their design. I get the idea that you might want a melee DPS that can crit so hard that they don't need these buffs, but SE does not like that approach to balancing classes. It's not good that this can be done and abused heavily on Bard specifically but SE would also not want your alternative, where it makes you weaker with certain classes instead. It would make these raid buffs needlessly frustrating to coordinate around for everyone and specifically provide nothing to your kit. It's essentially the Bard problem in reverse, an anti-synergy as opposed to a synergy. Thankfully, even though they were dumb enough to let Piercing and this sort of stacking exist for so long, they have gone on record to say that the former makes both of the ranged DPS too good and are starting to look at it, finally, so I hope that means they'll address it (and hopefully skill speed being garbage too) next expansion.
I think you could honestly accomplish a similar feeling to the current Risk concept with a built-in baseline proc rate tied to Risk specifically that randomly boosts the potencies of certain skills by 30-40% rather than relying on a stat that already exists. It feels clunky, but it would allow you to add traits to tune all of your kit around it based on level, and wouldn't affect gear priorities at all. You would still be able to create that hard hitting but inconsistent feeling and focus more on leaving more room for skill speed as a result too if you wanted.
I'm fine with the concept you have in mind for the momentum changes too. Just keep in mind that the most efficient option will almost always be to simply spam the highest potency per momentum ability or GCD during each 5 risk stack window as much as possible, regardless of what that is. A combo potency on the saps/chains could fix this if they're oGCD, but feels a little counter-intuitive putting a combo chain on an oGCD.
And really if you want to address the defence issue, just make it only apply to physical defence or more to it than magic defence. There was a time in ARR when DRG was simply kicked from raids due to not having enough of the latter on their gear. That, especially when combined with old BfB, lead to unavoidable one-shots even under stoneskin in some cases. It helped start the 'tank the floor' meme just as much as the old jump animation locks did. Last I recall it had something to do with the mitigation formula, making direct boosts to the both defence stats far weaker than they seemed and the penalties even stronger. Maiming gear had to be buffed on the mdef side to match Monk, but they still have higher physical defence built in compared to Striking gear, so it should work out fine at 20% there. -
12-05-2018, 05:58 PMSeraphor
Hmm.. so perhaps lower the crit rate of stacks a little more, change the defence penalty to just physical defence, and add an additional effect of "increases potency of critical hits by%"?
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12-05-2018, 06:07 PMSeraphor
"I'm fine with the concept you have in mind for the momentum changes too. Just keep in mind that the most efficient option will almost always be to simply spam the highest potency per momentum ability or GCD during each 5 risk stack window as much as possible, regardless of what that is. A combo potency on the saps/chains could fix this if they're oGCD, but feels a little counter-intuitive putting a combo chain on an oGCD."
I dont think this would actually be possible.
If you have 100 momentum at max, then you spend 20 on Temper, neccesary in order to get to 5 stacks, then you have roughly 7s give or take depending on where you hit it, to finish your combo and execute a Pain skill for 50 momentum.
You simply dont have enough momentum to spam it, and if you did manage to get the right combos in during that 7~9s to regain 4x3 momentum plus a bonus 10, to get you back up to 100, you wouldnt have enough time to actually execute 2x Crimson Pain skills before you dropped back to 4 stacks, if they were on the GCD.
Perhaps 2x Phantom Pains, or one of each, but as an AoE skill I'm not really against that. -
12-06-2018, 10:30 PMSeraphor
I believe I've come up with a new build that works a bit better.
It might seem overly complicated at first as it's modifying four different stats but it fulfils the idea of widing the gap between non-crit damage and crit damage as well as keeping the boosted crit rate vs defense penalty.
1 Risk Stack increases Crit rate by 4% and Crit potency by 4%, decreases physical defence by 4%.
2 Risk Stacks increases Crit by 8%, Crit potency by 8% and decreases physical defence by 8%.
3 Risk Stacks increases Crit by 12% and Crit potency by 10%, decreases physical defence by 10% and the potency of non-critical hits by 2%.
4 Risk Stacks increases Crit by 16% and Crit potency by 12%, decreases physical defence by 12% and the potency of non-critical hits by 4%.
5 Risk Stacks increases Crit by 24% and Crit potency by 16%, decreases physical defence by 16% and the potency of non-critical hits by 8%.
So at 3 stacks, the Crit rate peels away from the defense penalty, but this is substituted by a decrease in non-crit damage.
This way the base potencies don't need to be low, as they're artificially lowered with more Risk stacks.
There's also more room there for melding Crit and Crit buffs.