Melee DPS and MP

One thing that bugs me for melee dps is that none of the 4 of them make us of their MP bar. It's just this vestigial thing on your UI. And yet, at least three of the 4 could all easily use it instead of gaining a "unique" resource.

For Samurai and Ninja, it really just cleans up the UI a bit. For Monk, it would actually be a big QoL thing, too, as they have this really weird RNG aspect to their oGCD usage. For Dragoon, it could also represent a QoL buff in that, with my suggestion, you would have a bit less stress on managing so many oGCDs that all want to be used on cooldown, and it would give a touch more mobility as you would have a bit more freedom of when and how you use your Jumps/Dives.

The ideas:

Samurai

• Kenki becomes MP.
• Simply add two zeroes to the end of all Kenki values.
• Biggest hiccup here is that Samurai would then start fights at "100 Kenki". This can be addressed by either toning down some Potencies on his oGCDs, or upping the MP cost on a couple (Senei/Guren, maybe Shinten/Kyuten).
• Considering the passive MP gain is technically a dps boost, adjusting potencies is probably the best route for balancing Sam's output.

Ninja

• Ninki becomes MP.
• Simply add two zeroes to the end of all Ninki values.
• Passive MP generation is a dps boost, so:
• Adjust the potencies of Bhavacakra and Hellfrog Medium to balance Ninja dps output.

Monk

• Chakra just becomes MP. This even fits the lore of Chakra in game.
• Change The Forbidden Chakra and Enlightenment to cost 10k MP.
• Meditate grants 2k MP when used in combat, 10k MP when used outside of combat.
• The best part of this change: no more RNG on Chakra!
• Deep Meditation I gives 1k MP (50% of a chakra) on a crit. Deep Meditation II gives 1.4k MP (70% of a Chakra).
• Meditative Brotherhood from the Brotherhood ability gives 600 MP (30% of a Chakra) when your party member uses a weaponskill.
• The likelihood of overcapping MP is very high (ie a server tick gives you MP before you can press TFC or Enlightnment), but I feel this is offset by the fact that you also have passive MP gain, which would translate into "10% passive Chakra gain on server ticks."
• This isn't even a power bump, because Monk should be starting every fight with all 5 Chakra already open. Well, I guess the passive MP recovery is a power bump, but that's pretty small, and potencies can always be adjusted as needed.

Dragoon

• This is the hardest one to make use MP, but I think it would actually be a huge QoL boost--mostly because it takes away a little of the stress of managing so many oGCDs that have to be used on cooldown.
• Make Jump/High Jump, Spineshatter Dive, and Dragonfire Dive cost 5k MP each, all share a recast timer, and have a recast timer of 2.00s.
• Make the potencies between High Jump and Spineshatter Dive equal.
• Spineshatter Dive and Dragonfire Dive both grant Dive Ready, as well.
• The idea is you're no longer using Spineshatter Dive or Dragonfire Dive on cooldown, but as your "eye opener" depending on the situation:
• High Jump and Spineshatter for single target, and varies based whether you want to close the gap, or return to your position.
• Dragonfire Dive is for AoE situations.
• For MP generation, you can get MP on Vorpal Thrust (1000 MP), Wheeling Thrust (500 MP), and Fang and Claw (500 MP).
• A given rotation, which is 10 GCDs long, would give 4k MP. That, plus server ticks, is enough for 1 Jump/Dive per rotation.
• To prevent Dragoons from entering LotD immediately in a fight, increase the recast timer on Mirage Dive to 30s.
• As far as leveling goes, create two new abilities, Dive and Blasting Dive. These are gained when Spineshatter Dive and Dragonfire Dive would be gained, respectively.
• Dive would have the same potency as Jump. Blasting Dive would have a potency appropriate for its AoE nature, relative to the potencies of Jump and Dive.
• At 74, when Dragoon gains Jump Mastery, Dive and Blasting Dive upgrade to Spineshatter Dive and Dragonfire Dive, respectively, and maybe also have their animations sped up?
• Can adjust Jump/Dive potencies to balance dps output, or even MP generation to balance the rotation.
• And to also keep it inline, give Elusive Jump a 10s recast timer, but have it also cost 1000 MP.
• And just so Piercing Talon doesn't feel quite so lame on the hotbar, give it the Enpi treatment. Have it recover MP on use, and have Elusive Jump grant Dragon's Talon for 15s, which buffs the potency of your next Piercing Talon to ~320.

I know the classes can work fine as they are, but this would clean up the UI a bit for Samurai, Ninja, and Monk, and act as a nice QoL boost for Monk, as well as (I think) a QoL boost for Dragoon.

I get wanting them to do something like this; it’s annoying having a bar stuck on your screen that has no relation to the job.

That said, MP really only seems to exist now to limit caster raise spam and for Black Mage’s mechanics (since the core is about moving between fire/ice for mp management). Ranged DPS have no use for MP in any way, Summoner only ever runs out of MP if it’s spamming Raise, and I believe the same applies to Red Mage. Black Mage has always had infinite MP.

Personally, I do like there being variety between a playstyle where you have to manage your MP, and ones where you manage job gauge resources instead. It could risk making jobs feel weird to play or restrictive if they had an MP cost for things like weaponskills.

Even in terms of healers, the vast majority (all) of your healing is done by oGCD instant abilities with no MP costs. Unless you’re going crazy with Raises, you’re never going to run out of MP unless you go out of your way to spam something expensive like Adloquium or Aspected Helios.

So even on jobs that do use MP, it’s management consists entirely of ‘use Lucid Dreaming off cooldown’. The entire mechanic may as well not be there (except for BLM) and in terms of how the jobs play very little - if anything - would actually change. I honestly can’t think of any situations as a healer where I’ve had to say ‘ok I should use Physick instead of Adloquium because it’s cheaper MP’, because the answer is always ‘use neither and just use Lustrate because it’s better for DPS’. And this applies to all three healers. ‘Why would I ever use [healing spell] when I can use [healing ability] instantly and for free’? The result is that healer jobs, where you’d expect some degree of MP management, can just ignore their MP bars and focus on maximising DPS output over any kind of efficiency management (choosing the right heal for the right time etc).

This applies less in extreme cases where a large amount of raises are needed, but I’ve honestly found that pretty rare outside of 24-man content in the first week or two after release

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Originally Posted by Connor

Lots of stuff

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You are correct here. When MP management is "done right", it's like MP doesn't even exist. Your class will generate the MP you need for your rotation. The only times MP does run out, it's because you have access to an "emergency spell" (Raise for SMN or RDM, Clemency for PLD) that you're forced to spam.

Even DRK: it can blow all its MP on Edge, sure, but it has a priority system as part of its rotation that has you always keeping enough MP for a TBN, and, periodically, you build up MP for burst damage phases. But it doesn't really have the ability to blow its MP on saving the team because TBN has a long enough recast timer. And successful TBN use means you still get your Edges. So, even though DRK seems like it "cares" about MP, there's never really a decision point for the class about blowing your MP on utility and sacrificing dps.

So really, especially for melee dps classes, using MP just changes the gauge they manage to a different one. I guess SE could also just remove the MP gauge from classes that don't use it, and accomplish almost the same thing. :)

Honestly the easiest solution to MP not fitting physical jobs is to rename it to AP for action points and voila everyone can use it alongside their unique resource.

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Originally Posted by Brightshadow

Honestly the easiest solution to MP not fitting physical jobs is to rename it to AP for action points and voila everyone can use it alongside their unique resource.

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Good idea, but I think "Tactical Points" aka "TP" sounds cooler... oh wait.

On a serious note, the reason jobs use resources other than MP is that it allows for different resource "characteristics". You've already brought up the problem of MP starting at full out of combat, but there's more issues, like passive regeneration and being affected by eathers. While these can be solved with special stances like in case of BLM and old DRK, it requires to add another button or mechanic to a job, just to do something that's already better accomplished with a separate resource.

Furthermore, you mention "screen clutter" likely referring to job gauges, but removing separate resource gauges goes directly against the reason for those gauges being implemented in the first place - to have a separate, more visible piece of UI to represent your job's mechanics.
If their look bothers you so much, you can use the simplified mode, which is more similar to regular HP/MP bars, as well as resize and move them around to wherever they don't interfere.

Is this a troll post? If so its 10 out of 10!!!

I agree that MP is a largely unused resource for most classes.

It matters a lot for healers (these healing spells are expensive, and even spamming our filler nuke costs more MP than we passively generate), which is why every healer has 2-3 MP management tools; it's a core mechanic for the BLM class, and a large part of the DRK toolkit too.
And that's pretty much it.

PLDs rarely need to watch their MP unless they need to spam Clemency, and SMN and RDM can just use Lucid every two minutes and get away with it.

Every other tank, melee and physical ranged never use their MP, as far as I can tell. So yeah, 5 classes who actually care about their MP bar, and 3 more who occasionally take a glance at it unless the situation demands it.

All I want is the ability to remove the MP bar from jobs that don't utility it. That way I can fit the gauge next to my HP bar.

Holy cow, we’ve come full circle. When did the game get rid of TP? Was it last expansion? Now people want TP back? Holy balls, 10/10 troll post.

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Originally Posted by IntrovertAnt

Holy cow, we’ve come full circle. When did the game get rid of TP? Was it last expansion? Now people want TP back? Holy balls, 10/10 troll post.

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We don't want TP back necessarily what we want is MP converted to a universal resource similar to how octopath traveler has a universal resource AP for all jobs. Truth be told MP isn't a match for all jobs but something like TP/AP sure is.

There are a few problems I can see with this concept.

First off, it basically takes the build up of resources when it comes to openers and just gives everyone all of it right away. Think about starting every pull right now with full Ninki or Kenki and how much more you can do in those first burst windows than you could before. Additionally, it means any future burst windows have to be planned around server ticks of when your mana regenerates.

Additionally, there are a few skills in this game that are there to help build resources during jump phases. Think meditation on both samurai and monk. These skills become all but useless if your resources are automatically regenerating when a boss jumps with some jobs potentially getting back to full MP in longer transitions like we have in E1.

Rather than force MP to be useful, I wouldn't mind seeing melee jobs just be given a weakened form of Mana Shift as a role ability if we're doing anything at all.

I don’t need them to change MP at all really. I’d just like the option of removing the MP bar from the UI entirely so I can get it off the screen for jobs it’s not needed.

Making melee use MP would cause so many problems and potentially make SkS terrible across the board again like in the TP days. This is such a bad idea. Homogenization and simplification is BAD. Never would i want to see resources reduced in complexity, plus it breaks the aesthetic and balance of classes to tie them all to that same resource with differing effects. It's just a bad idea.

Removing it from the UI tho when not playing a class that utilizes it would be nice.

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Originally Posted by IntrovertAnt

Holy cow, we’ve come full circle. When did the game get rid of TP? Was it last expansion? Now people want TP back? Holy balls, 10/10 troll post.

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Yea, imagine that... Limitations lead to engaging game play. It's almost like that's a core game design concept...

I'd rather just use MP in the same way across all jobs, roughly speaking, or have it removed entirely for all but healers. It only even amounts to a Rez gauge for RDM and SMN, anyways.

Moving gauge resources to MP is effectively just removing MP, but then giving each a gauge resource an indistinct name.

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Originally Posted by Vendalwind

Making melee use MP would cause so many problems and potentially make SkS terrible across the board again like in the TP days. This is such a bad idea. Homogenization and simplification is BAD. Never would i want to see resources reduced in complexity, plus it breaks the aesthetic and balance of classes to tie them all to that same resource with differing effects. It's just a bad idea.

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MP expense in no way worsens SkS. Neither SkS nor SpS have any impact on MP generation, and non-Spell actions can have, and already have had, MP costs.

And tbf, the bulk of the suggested changes outside of those for DRG would in no way reduce complexity, and even that job's wouldn't have to do much of anything to its gameplay just to shuffle resources towards MP. That said, they would change fight dynamics in potentially undesireable ways -- such as SAM being able to fly into combat at near-full ramp-up, which every SAM would likely love but other jobs' would feel less amiably towards. I'm not about to defend the idea as a whole, but complexity, of all things, is not the issue there, apart from the one poorly rendered suggestion for its implementation.

just a random question but doesn't all the Jobs use Aether in some way shape or form in terms of lore?

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Originally Posted by Rayo

just a random question but doesn't all the Jobs use Aether in some way shape or form in terms of lore?

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They do. And depleting your aether completely can remove your body's ability to heal or maintain itself, making any long term depletion fatal, iirc.

Just sounds like the return of TP to me. I'd sooner push to have SE just remove the MP gauge for jobs that don't utilize it. Also considering that SE loves to slap CDs on abilities that already use another resource that limits its usage, I'd really not want them to have yet another gauge to do this with.

I look at the MP bar as a caster resource, though jobs like DRK do utilize it in a way that you describe. However, with ShB I feel DRK has its resources backwards where Edge/Flood should be on CD while abilities like Abyssal Drain and Unleash should use MP. TBH, I think the devs are a bit conflicted with how resources should be used, and/or are still figuring out how to properly implement the job gauges. No need to add to their confusion with TP and MP gauges for the melees.