Should the Casting Timer be removed or reduced for better DPS output?

When I look at RDM, and BLM specifically that I can't help but wonder that they could probably do more damage in various duties, but having to stand still to cast is what is holding them back most of the time.

It seems rather problematic in the newer content as well (I've heard some complaints about BLM Rotations).

People like to crack jokes at BLM alot because their rotation gets ruined because how high speed the fights have been lately, and more different types of AOEs and such.


Now maybe I might be ignorant about all this because I'm not a Magical Main persay, but its just what I've heard lately since last year.

Maybe the long recast timer was a mistake for Magical DPS?


Or Alternatively

Let Magical Ranged DPS Cast while moving so that way they don't have to facetank everything and be able to handle AOEs better.

This would make BLM soooo boring.

It relies on managing its casts and movement tools to be fun, if not it would literally be a macro-able job.

The dps an experienced player can do would not go up with more mobility, since all the spells would have their potency reduced accordingly to compensate the fact that they are easier to cast. That's why bard or machinist have a lower dps output than most other jobs.

This would only change the performance of less experienced players, but some people would then complain about how the game is becoming more and more easy and for casuals XD

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Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

This would make BLM soooo boring.

It relies on managing its casts and movement tools to be fun, if not it would literally be a macro-able job.

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blm is already boring its almost 90% buffs with hardly any spell changes lol like hell the damn thing has more buffs than any tank or healer has to pop on cd for stuff

Casters can do some huge numbers and the trade-off for that is that their gameplay requires them to stand still for most of that time. This is true of every caster in every MMO.

Especially for BLM, the thing that makes the class interesting and hard to play is knowing when you can turret and when to save your Swiftcast/Triplecast.

The opposite side of the coin is Physical Ranged. They have lower overall DPS BECAUSE they are so mobile and don't have positionals. If their DPS were on-par with the other DPS they'd be absolutely broken, as would be casters if they weren't constrained by their cast times.

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Originally Posted by WhiteArchmage

Casters can do some huge numbers and the trade-off for that is that their gameplay requires them to stand still for most of that time. This is true of every caster in every MMO.

Especially for BLM, the thing that makes the class interesting and hard to play is knowing when you can turret and when to save your Swiftcast/Triplecast.

The opposite side of the coin is Physical Ranged. They have lower overall DPS BECAUSE they are so mobile and don't have positionals. If their DPS were on-par with the other DPS they'd be absolutely broken, as would be casters if they weren't constrained by their cast times.

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The 'casters do way more damage because of their planted gameplay' holds up right until you realize SMN has so much movement utility it may as well be a ranged DPS, while doing roughly the same level of damage as BLM (depending on fight.)

(Ruin 4 is stackable x 4, egi-assaults are instant GCDs x 4 on very short cooldown timers, Dreadwrym Trance gives you a short duration of instant cast Ruin 3 if it lines up with movement mechanics, Ditto for Phoenix Trance having all its GCD moves being instant, Swiftcast for one free movement cast every 60s, and Ruin 2 if you have literally none of the above.)

Faster cast time? Sure it would allow casters to more consistently get their spells off in high movement situations.

On the other hand, you'd still have to wait for the GCD to finish even if the spell does go off. That would make it feel like you have more downtime not casting anything no?

Plus once you learn slide casting the movement/casting issue is mitigated somewhat already.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

Or Alternatively

Let Magical Ranged DPS Cast while moving so that way they don't have to facetank everything and be able to handle AOEs better.

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So, basically, turn BLM/RDM into BRD/DNC/MCH, complete with a reduction in damage that is a distinctive part of that "moving" bit?

I mean you can move. Its called: slide casting. Essentially with the last half a second of casting time, you can move your character while still having the cast go off. In exchange for having very good DPS, you need to be more aware of the fight and its mechanics so you can properly place yourself in safety zones.

Essentially that is the risk/reward of being a caster.

I think that would reduce the feeling of diversity significantly.

I would however think a single job being able to cast and move or something would be acceptable, which would increase the diversity. On that I think they can add other concepts too like halting a cast midway for some job might not cancel the attack but just launch it off earlier (charge attacks), or channeling attacks, casts within casts (for example you might imagine bard had a channel spell that allowed them to move at the same time, and during that period of playing their instrument you could play 'sets' of music as casts within casts which would either help your team or mess with the enemy - of course this would make the ranger/archer theme part of bard weaker since currently you can use the job gauge for that concept lol, this would be making bard actually play a song :p), etc, things like that may add to the different feels to abilities and that would be good.

Also as an aside (on topic of spell use) hopefully SE looks at smart casting from MOBA games (LoL, HotS, DotA)- so we could have cool things like if you tap a spell it just hits your target but if you held it you could manually target and at release it fires off (meaning no multiple key presses but you get more options and streamlined experience at the same time).

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Originally Posted by Shougun

I think that would reduce the feeling of diversity significantly.

I would however think a single job being able to cast and move or something would be acceptable, which would increase the diversity. On that I think they can add other concepts too like halting a cast midway for some job might not cancel the attack but just launch it off earlier (charge attacks), or channeling attacks, casts within casts (for example you might imagine bard had a channel spell that allowed them to move at the same time, and during that period of playing their instrument you could play 'sets' of music as casts within casts which would either help your team or mess with the enemy - of course this would make the ranger/archer theme part of bard weaker since currently you can use the job gauge for that concept lol, this would be making bard actually play a song :p), etc, things like that may add to the different feels to abilities and that would be good.

Also as an aside (on topic of spell use) hopefully SE looks at smart casting from MOBA games (LoL, HotS, DotA)- so we could have cool things like if you tap a spell it just hits your target but if you held it you could manually target and at release it fires off (meaning no multiple key presses but you get more options and streamlined experience at the same time).

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yeah i liked the idea of spell charging, or at least for BRD being able to hold a charge for a stronger shot, while losing any auto attack that would have gone off, cause like you're holding the charge. Think the complaint was that it would be terrible if implemented too much for kb/m players

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Originally Posted by ADVSS

yeah i liked the idea of spell charging, or at least for BRD being able to hold a charge for a stronger shot, while losing any auto attack that would have gone off, cause like you're holding the charge. Think the complaint was that it would be terrible if implemented too much for kb/m players

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Yeah- I think the bard mage meme would have gone down with the public a lot easier if bard had been charge based instead, so the mobility wasn't entirely ruined like it was with bard mage meme lol. Also it would have meant bard could deal more damage, like before they were pretty high on the damage list but since they've insane mobility SE has seen it fit to move them down a few pegs and give a little bit of support instead.

If they had charge based systems in place you might be able to have some of those ranger vibes with high damage shots, and then the machine gun archer theme when you need intense mobility (at a slight cost to damage, but not so harsh as it was before).

Charge attacks may have also allowed some sort of unique singing weave mechanic where you get to weave in songs in-between and during your heavy shots. Like picking verses to sing while you fly your Apex Arrow.

Although I would caution any drastic change in gameplay pacing to any pre-existing job lol.

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Originally Posted by MariaArvana

The 'casters do way more damage because of their planted gameplay' holds up right until you realize SMN has so much movement utility it may as well be a ranged DPS, while doing roughly the same level of damage as BLM (depending on fight.)

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You made me remember why SMN's Tri disaster got nerfed by half its potency, too strong even for casters with its uptime.

I think all the caster jobs kinda deserve their high DPS due to their different gameplay styles. On one end, SMN offers the fast paced rapid attacker playstyle. On the other end, BLM offers the turret playstyle, and RDM offers a bit of both, but not so heavily skewed to one side.

SMN has the most free mobility of the casters, but many players can't even do the SMN rotation properly while moving because of all the buttons it has compared to other caster jobs (APM being a skill cap that bars bad SMN with good SMN), much less optimize it. While SMN has the most mobility while casting due to instant GCDs, they are also the most demanding caster having to weave a lot in their GCD, which messes up most people since they can't continue their rotation while dodging multiple mechanics. It's like one of those skill caps that require the player to either be able to multitask continuously or develop muscle memory to their rotation to make it easier. If the SMN continually messes up the weave rotation while trying to dodge mechanics, it drops a SMN's DPS by a good margin over the course of the encounter.

In terms of basic rotation, while the BLM rotation evolves the most compared to all jobs, it also has a very intuitive yet slower rotation which revolves around staying in Fire Phase as often as possible. Due to having to stay in place often for full duration GCD casts, it gives the player a lot more room to observe and look around in the encounter while waiting for their GCD to complete (similar to how ShB healers are currently work while repeatedly casting their nuke). However, because all their damage tools are on the GCD, it's also true that this job requires less APM and gives a player a lot more time to focus on how & where to reposition themselves midcast, giving a black mage this unique playstyle to cast as much as possible while minimizing unnecessary movement. This is also why it's very easy for a black mage who stops casting to move around often will lose a lot of DPS. It's essentially the same problem as a SMN who messes up their oGCDs or their rotation while moving that they lose DPS, except for BLM it's because they moved too much that they sacrificed DPS. BLM can get very mobile with good use of Aetherial Manipulation, Triplecast, Swiftcast, Sharpcast proc, and 2 Xenoglossy.

Red Mage is kinda a balance of the two. It has a lot of mobility with Dualcasting and Corps-a-Corps / Displacement /Manafication and it's rotation is very simple, but it also has specific requirements to placement since RDM's burst damage revolves around getting into melee range for the enchanted melee combo and before allowing RDM to move freely with 2 instant GCDs. Corps-a-corps and displacement are also pretty much required to be used at a certain point if RDM wants to maximize their DPS at the cost of their mobility, though manafication does essentially ensure they get to refresh their Corps-a-corps/ displacement so there are windows where they can hold onto them for movement rather than for DPS in addition to dualcasting. They also get a bit more utility than the other two with vercure and verraise, but their MP takes a huge hit if they plan on using it, so their DPS is pretty much balanced.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Yeah- I think the bard mage meme would have gone down with the public a lot easier if bard had been charge based instead, so the mobility wasn't entirely ruined like it was with bard mage meme lol. Also it would have meant bard could deal more damage, like before they were pretty high on the damage list but since they've insane mobility SE has seen it fit to move them down a few pegs and give a little bit of support instead.

If they had charge based systems in place you might be able to have some of those ranger vibes with high damage shots, and then the machine gun archer theme when you need intense mobility (at a slight cost to damage, but not so harsh as it was before).

Charge attacks may have also allowed some sort of unique singing weave mechanic where you get to weave in songs in-between and during your heavy shots. Like picking verses to sing while you fly your Apex Arrow.

Although I would caution any drastic change in gameplay pacing to any pre-existing job lol.

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Oh absolutely, SE is already made it very clear about all of that. Like you said, I think they would have a better chance at just making a new job with that sort of motif, especially now, than mess with any current jobs. For one, its just a headache to have to relearn a class if they change it too much, for two people may actually in fact love the gameplay of the job, and three more jobs with unique playstyles is just better than trying to bust up jobs that inherently function fairy well to begin with.

Last I checked they were called CASTERS and no it shouldn't be removed. You don't want to be a caster play a different role.

I am in favour of like a general increase in the game speed. GCDs brought down to 2 sec, ability animations scaling with sks/sps to reduce clipping, and spell casts made faster to go along with that to make FFXIV feel more exciting. That said, I don't think cast bars should go away.

May as well. So many expected mechanics of magic users came directly from p&p, where things like spell memorization/mana, casting times, and flimsy armor were all intended as the balance tradeoff for having a dude that could turn the monsters into tree stumps or just blow them all to hell. For a couple decades now in cRPGs and MMOs, we've lost the cannon but been forced to keep the glass. They realistically should remove MP entirely, and only keep casting times on a few particularly tactical spells like raises.

I'd think the devs would sooner make OGCDs usable during Casts then let SMN be the rule over the exception (then again SMN is an exception so who knows?). As other posters had mentioned the mobility comes usually a trade off in potency ensuring that Ranged DPS would not out-damage melee jobs

What am i reading right now . Thanks god the devs are not listening to the english forum

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

Last I checked they were called CASTERS and no it shouldn't be removed. You don't want to be a caster play a different role.

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actually the community calls them casters, the official page calls them magical dps lol

No they should not. End of thread

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Originally Posted by HeulGDarian

actually the community calls them casters, the official page calls them magical dps lol

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OTOH, their gear type is labeled "Casting", soo....:rolleyes:

I like the fact that spellcasters have a casting time, it would be hella boring if they were instant caster, FF is a traditional MMORPG not an Action MMORPG.
It also makes them kinda badass having to charge up all that mana to release a powerful spell.. IDk I dig it.

As a BLM main, I feel lucky if I can make it all the way through one rotation without having to move and reset everything, but that's the challenge and the fun of playing a caster. I'm still leveling and I'm only just nearing 70, but I really need to work on timing my Swiftcast/Triplecast or my Firestarter/Thundercloud proc to use while moving, it's my biggest faceplant atm knowing I could've casted while moving out of an AoE, but it just doesn't come intuitively yet. I think if cast time was removed, BLM would become stagnant.

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Originally Posted by Waterscape

What am i reading right now . Thanks god the devs are not listening to the english forum

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Didn't have to be rude.

As for the rest of the forum goers I appreciated everyone's views on it.