I want more ground-targeting.

I hope casters can have more ground-targeting spells, or perhaps have a separate caster class that revolves around such spells. I find a class with different ground-targeting spells, each with its own cast timer and delay mechanic, more satisfying to play in PvE and PvP. I understand too many ground-targeting spells can make dungeon mobbing too easy and perhaps create a gap between PC and console player bases. I am curious what the community thinks about this.

Shadowflare i miss you come back to me baby garudas slipstream suck TT

No. I don't need more spells that is almost impossible to use with controller.

You mean stuff like Salted Earth, Asylum, Sacred Soil, etc.? Big ol' nope for me. I find it a pain to place down ground AoEs just because there's no smart cast or range lock. If we could easily place an AoE without having to click, and if we could lock the mouse to the maximum distance of the spell when trying to place the AoE then sure, it'd actually be convenient to do so and I wouldn't mind. But we don't have those and I just find it annoying to place ground target AoEs quickly or at max distance..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shahi

No. I don't need more spells that is almost impossible to use with controller.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Beddict

You mean stuff like Salted Earth, Asylum, Sacred Soil, etc.? Big ol' nope for me. I find it a pain to place down ground AoEs just because there's no smart cast or range lock. If we could easily place an AoE without having to click, and if we could lock the mouse to the maximum distance of the spell when trying to place the AoE then sure, it'd actually be convenient to do so and I wouldn't mind. But we don't have those and I just find it annoying to place ground target AoEs quickly or at max distance..

---

It's like you read my mind.
I'm in total agreement.

A lot of those moves also defy this game's rigid macros.
Like, DRK's Salted Earth you could macro it to be centered on a target, but what if you're in a duty and need to drop it in the middle of a group of pulls, not on the boss?
For something like NIN's dash it's great on controller because you can just click where you wanna go, but when I macro it to just make the dash max range I find I jump from one AoE to another, or off the edge, or w/e.

Less ground targeting moves please.

Double weaving Salted Earth is already enough of a pain in the ass. The less ground targeted skills, the better.

If they added smart targeting I wouldn't mind more. As is now? No thanks, that shit is a pain in the ass.

My controller is crying thinking about this

If it's like Doton, absolutely no problem.

In fact, I hope we get Geomancer as a caster dps with exactly this.

Gimme My Bishop turret back! For aoe I don’t mind or make it spawn near you for better control.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ItMe

Like, DRK's Salted Earth you could macro it to be centered on a target, but what if you're in a duty and need to drop it in the middle of a group of pulls, not on the boss?

---

You can macro it to drop on your location instead of your current target. Though that opens up the possibility of misclicking it and dropping the salt far away from the boss. Macroing it to target an enemy also runs into issues when that enemies is a boss like the Idol of Darkness—the boss's center is off-stage, and so the game thinks you're trying to place Salted Earth at an invalid location.

It's a really annoying ability, honestly.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

You can macro it to drop on your location instead of your current target. Though that opens up the possibility of misclicking it and dropping the salt far away from the boss. Macroing it to target an enemy also runs into issues when that enemies is a boss like the Idol of Darkness—the boss's center is off-stage, and so the game thinks you're trying to place Salted Earth at an invalid location.

It's a really annoying ability, honestly.

---

Can you macro it to yourself instead?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

You can macro it to drop on your location instead of your current target. Though that opens up the possibility of misclicking it and dropping the salt far away from the boss. Macroing it to target an enemy also runs into issues when that enemies is a boss like the Idol of Darkness—the boss's center is off-stage, and so the game thinks you're trying to place Salted Earth at an invalid location.

It's a really annoying ability, honestly.

---

The Idol of Darkness issue is actually why I swapped over to using a <me> macro for Salted Earth, stupid thing kept erroring out when I tried to use it in my standard double-weave opener. Sure, the macro had a fail-safe line that pulled up the ground targeting circle just in case, but it was such a colossal pain to try and drop the AoE while also working Plunge into the double-weave and it usually caused me to clip my GCD and lose a Blood Weapon. So yeah, swapped to <me>, works better I find. Not the best because there's the issue you mentioned of course, but here's hoping I never fat-finger and screw up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Miminming

Can you macro it to yourself instead?

---

That's what I said, yeah. The macro would look something like this:

/merror off
/action "Salted Earth" <me>
/micon "Salted Earth"

This disables macro errors, so you won't get error messages spammed at you if you click the button multiple times. It then attempts to place Salted Earth directly at your own feet. This happens immediately upon clicking the button. Finally, the last line just changes the macro's icon to Salted Earth's.

As a warning: This macro will immediately attempt to drop Salted Earth at your feet, so if you push it while still locked into another animation then nothing will happen, and if you push it too late then you'll be locked into the animation for it and clip into your next global cooldown.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

That's what I said, yeah. The macro would look something like this:

---

I just use /action "Salted Earth" <t>

And when I want to cast it on myself I just target myself with pressing down on the D-Pad.


And yes more ground targeting stuff would be awful on controller. Plus a job wich is based around such skills would have a lot of fun with bad tanks who pull the enemies out of their skills >.>

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tint

And yes more ground targeting stuff would be awful on controller. Plus a job wich is based around such skills would have a lot of fun with bad tanks who pull the enemies out of their skills >.>

---

I feel this. Many people are predicting we'll get GEO in 6.0, but if it's as ground targeting focused as it was in FF11 I'll be giving it a hard pass :(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seraphor

If it's like Doton, absolutely no problem.

---

"Oh, we have reached a wall ! Time to put Doton right on the big pack of mobs to do awesome damage !"

3 seconds later : "Uuuuuuuhhhhhh Mr Tank why are you pulling all the mobs out of my Doton aoe ? Whyyyyyyyyyy ?"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jirah

Gimme My Bishop turret back!

---

"Oh, we have reached a wall ! Time to put the Bishop Turret right on the big pack of mobs to do awesome damage !"

3 seconds later : "Uuuuuuuhhhhhh Mr Tank why are you pulling all the mobs out of my Bishop Turret aoe ? Whyyyyyyyyyy ?"



I am not sure we need more ground-targeting XD

I'm not even controller player, and I wouldn't enjoy it. But, I think I might be a little weird with how I've mapped the major part of my rotation (for most any job) to the NUM pad. So, usually have two hands on the keyboard during battle, making ground targets a challenge. Salted Earth was never much of a problem, went with the <me> tactic, is a tank, things should usually be in range to be affected. Everything else was either too clunky to use, or resorting to <t> macro. Sometimes I can pre-position my mouse and drop it by tapping the confirm button mid rotation. But, remains not ideal.

That said, if some players can get some enjoyment and utility out of it? Sure, maybe?

I used to macro shadowflare to <target>. Super easy, no delay. I miss it. my dome of doom T_T

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tint

And yes more ground targeting stuff would be awful on controller. Plus a job wich is based around such skills would have a lot of fun with bad tanks who pull the enemies out of their skills >.>

---

This...

I can't tell you how many times I've dropped Doton only to have tanks pull the enemies out of it. I don't even bother trying to use it most times anymore since I just can't trust tanks. I can only imagine how much worse it would be for a job that exists solely on this... or if it's expanded more into other jobs, then you run into the issue of one DPS dropping a pool in one spot and another dropping it somewhere else, which we used to see when we had ground AOEs on ninja, bard, machinist, summoner, and dark knight.

So, if you mean more persistent environmental effects, then as long as they either A) automatically center under your target as Slipstream does or B) automatically center under you as Doton does, the only major objection I can see is "what if the tank moves the boss." Otherwise though it shouldn't be much of an issue; just center under an enemy target for caster/ranged/healer offensive skills, under yourself as a melee/tank, or under an ally for healing/defensive/supportive skills. (Maybe even play around with things like casting a persisting AoE effect that follows a pet, or your target, like putting Spikes on a tank or making explosive DoTs.)

Honestly, I macro abilities like Salted Earth or Earthly Star to behave like that anyway, and even did so with Freeze last expansion just for the tedium (although there's sadly no conditional for "target IF FRIENDLY" for effects like Asylum or Sacred Soil, so I do drop them in weird places under bosses on occasion). The time saved from not having to manually target makes up for the time lost to the macro itself.

If you mean more effects where you actually have to target the ground though? That would be hell on controller players. Even as a mouse and keyboard player, I find the frequent inconvenience of manual targeting outweighs the rare "convenience" of precasting on a spot.

For healers like soil, asylum, star, sure those are fine, cool mechanics.

For dps purposes, no thanks. Good riddance shadowflare. Looking forward to salted earth being removed next expansion.

AST will have "Undraw" removed and replaced with "Set" which allows you to place a drawn card face down on the field. It will then activate in 30 seconds or you can press "Set" again to use that card to affect all party members in range. Please look forward to it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shahi

No. I don't need more spells that is almost impossible to use with controller.

---

Ummmm....it was extremely easy to place aoes with a controller.

But I'm good with no ground base aoes. Tanks don't like to stay in them

Ground targeted aoes are a pain in the ass. DRK's one should be taken out.

I would like to have more ground AoEs if they would work like this: if you have something targeted, the spell is automatically placed on the target; if you don't have anything targeted, you get the target circle to place it freely.
Best if it were an optional feature, so that those who want to keep it like it's now can. But we wouldn't need the macros for it anymore, which would be a big plus to what we have now.

And I want less ground targeting.

Can we meet in the middle and keep it as it is?

If they auto-place like Slipstream does centred on your target, sure. For healers, since there's only one each anyway, I'd be fine leaving them as-is or having them auto-place centred on the ally targeted.

Like others have said, smart targetting/casting would be amazing. It's not just for offensive casters too - salted earth, star and shukuchi are absolutely horrible because of trying to weave in double clicks.