Do we even need potency bumps with expansion abilities?

It sounds weird to say, on its face. You're getting stronger, you're going from Stone 2 to Stone 3, why shouldn't the spell do more damage? But we've been seeing issues with DPS metrics when crit and direct hit are interacting with abilities with exorbitant potency values, and potency can't keep increasing time and time again without having to be squished down later.

Tell the truth - when you went from Glare 1 to Glare 3, did you genuinely notice the 10 extra potency, or was it just the fancy animation that made you notice it? When Rage of Halone upgrades to Royal Authority, do you actually notice the potency bump?

I feel like most people don't. And, granted, bumping potency on filler abilities isn't the issue... it's the 1000+ potency big "finishers" critting or not critting that's causing problems. They're going around making them autocrit, but this creates problems of its own...
See, I don't think the majority of players actually care about or even really notice potency boosts or changes unless they're HUGE (like 200+) swings. 50 potency is a big difference on a parse, but it's not something you really notice in-game unless you're really looking for it.

Remember all the LOL WAR BLUE HEALER GREEN TANK HAHA UNGA BUNGA memes? That didn't happen because of EW - WAR was *already* the "green tank" in ShB - but Bloodwhetting has a *much* fancier and angrier animation than Nascent Flash does, and Primal Rend... well, honestly it's a pretty fucking badass move and people were right to be excited for it. But WAR didn't fundamentally change for the average player between ShB and EW, yet it went from a class that was played an average amount to a class that people were CONSTANTLY soiling themselves over in an attempt to spam memes harder than everyone else was.

Because it *LOOKED* and sounded cooler than it did before. It's not like PLD or GNB weren't just as ridiculous with the self-heal spamming... but they were less "cool" about it than WAR was.

So, to me, I'm not convinced we actually *need* to keep bumping potency in every damn expansion. DPS numbers will be higher than before simply from raw stats alone, without potency adjustments. And the less power creep we have in potency, the less it's going to fuck with MINE-running old content (and thus also require less effort for them to go back in and tinker with that old content to make sure it's still at an acceptable level.)

I think its for balancing the average damage output between GCD and oGCD/conditionals.

Your standard ability has a set potency per minute it can dish out, any new ability added to the kit, adds potency outside of your standard ppm. By increasing that basic ability, you can bring the 2 values closer together. Because of that, your effective peak damage is going to be lowered again so in generaly its going to behave the same acros expansions.

For example: In HW it might be 200/300 and in ShB could be 300/450. But the ratio remained 2/3, but maybe in SB it was 250/400 (5/8, because they wanted a higher focus on expanding the kit with extra buttons). Its a feature they can use for tweaking and comparing output without having to do actual measurements. Surely i simplified the effect here, but it shows how much tweaking this 'upgrading' part can provide. Instead of it permanently being the same, the constant improvement detaches any relationship to the previous expansion, as they can always finetune it.

It also give the player the feeling of getting stronger by just looking at the number

Depending on where they increase those potencies it creates other issues as well.

Take Fell Cleave for example, when it was introduced in Heavensward it had a potency of 500 which was huge at the time and, together with it's VFX, made the skill feel incredibly powerful.

Fast forward to 6.0 and they reduced Fell Cleave from 590 down to 460 potency only to slowly buff it back up to 490, but it still feels like a wet noodle. Storm's Path has a potency of 430 at this point, pretty much THE signature warrior skill is now only 60 potency higher than one of your basic spam fillers.


As for the 1000+ potency skills, they wouldn't necessarily be an issue if they weren't also tied to really long cooldowns that always makes them come up during buff windows. When you only have 1 chance to crit these abilities every 1 or 2 minutes during phases where you also deal 30+% more damage then crit variance suddenly has a much bigger impact on your overall performance.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Depending on where they increase those potencies it creates other issues as well.

Take Fell Cleave for example, when it was introduced in Heavensward it had a potency of 500 which was huge at the time and, together with it's VFX, made the skill feel incredibly powerful.

Fast forward to 6.0 and they reduced Fell Cleave from 590 down to 460 potency only to slowly buff it back up to 490, but it still feels like a wet noodle. Storm's Path has a potency of 430 at this point, pretty much THE signature warrior skill is now only 60 potency higher than one of your basic spam fillers.

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To be fair, it isn't just Fell Cleave being power crept but their insistence from 4.2 onward to make it something you mindlessly spam that turned Fell Cleave from this incredibly powerful feeling ability into a meme. On the whole, I really wish they would move away from that entirely. It's such a lazy gameplay design. At least Gunbreaker and Paladin have different animations despite pressing the same button. Well, Paladin sort of cheats since you spam Holy Spirit four times but still.

Nevertheless, no they really don't need to increase potencies. A big part of the balancing issues they've had stem from decided to add massive potencies skills. While they feel good for more casual players who like "big numba" it has created huge volatility, especially with how out of control Critical Hit has become. Not to mention, Direct Hit just being an awful stat. I'd much prefer they go back to the HW/SB potency numbers. Having almost half of Gunbreaker's damage come from two abilities is a little silly imo.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

To be fair, it isn't just Fell Cleave being power crept but their insistence from 4.2 onward to make it something you mindlessly spam that turned Fell Cleave from this incredibly powerful feeling ability into a meme. On the whole, I really wish they would move away from that entirely. It's such a lazy gameplay design. At least Gunbreaker and Paladin have different animations despite pressing the same button. Well, Paladin sort of cheats since you spam Holy Spirit four times but still.

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I completely agree, but I didn't want to start another rant about warrior's design.

I consider it absolutely unrewarding to play because Inner Release just gives you damage for free at this point, you could do nothing for 60 seconds and you would still get your welfare Fell Cleaves and Primal Rend, making those abilities feel completely underwhelming to use.


4.2 started this whole debacle but even back then you could still fail at utilizing IR correctly, you have to really try to achieve that now. But I guess this is the ultimate conclusion of that original rework, you mindlessly spam buttons and get rewarded with mindlessly spamming buttons some more.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

I completely agree, but I didn't want to start another rant about warrior's design.

I consider it absolutely unrewarding to play because Inner Release just gives you damage for free at this point, you could do nothing for 60 seconds and you would still get your welfare Fell Cleaves and Primal Rend, making those abilities feel completely underwhelming to use.


4.2 started this whole debacle but even back then you could still fail at utilizing IR correctly, you have to really try to achieve that now. But I guess this is the ultimate conclusion of that original rework, you mindlessly spam buttons and get rewarded with mindlessly spamming buttons some more.

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lets not pretend that ARR and HW warrior gameplay was any more complex, cycling through 3 combos (instead of 2) and doing a fell cleave when the button started glowing

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Originally Posted by Melethron123

lets not pretend that ARR and HW warrior gameplay was any more complex, cycling through 3 combos (instead of 2) and doing a fell cleave when the button started glowing

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Ehhh. That's a very simplified version of how Heavensward Warrior played.

The whole Wraith/Defiant stack system required you sacrifice defenses to feed into Fell Cleave. In other words, you actively needed to make a choice on using your defensive kit for offensive power with the inherent risk being whether that left you lacking CDs for potential busters. Early Stormblood Warrior dropped this in favor of a gauge system where IR simply cut the cost of your abilities in half. This meant it functioned similar to how Berserk does now. If you just activated IR without thinking, you could lose Fell Cleaves as you lacked enough gauge. Both are widely more complex in execution than present day Warrior. There were risk factors with huge drawbacks if you messed up. Compare that to now where the only consideration you give IR is whether you have Storm's Eye up.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Ehhh. That's a very simplified version of how Heavensward Warrior played.

The whole Wraith/Defiant stack system required you sacrifice defenses to feed into Fell Cleave. In other words, you actively needed to make a choice on using your defensive kit for offensive power with the inherent risk being whether that left you lacking CDs for potential busters. Early Stormblood Warrior dropped this in favor of a gauge system where IR simply cut the cost of your abilities in half. This meant it functioned similar to how Berserk does now. If you just activated IR without thinking, you could lose Fell Cleaves as you lacked enough gauge. Both are widely more complex in execution than present day Warrior. There were risk factors with huge drawbacks if you messed up. Compare that to now where the only consideration you give IR is whether you have Storm's Eye up.

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except the cause of most wipes was not meeting DPS checks, so you'd pretty much always use fell cleave as soon as it was ready

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Originally Posted by Gserpent

It sounds weird to say, on its face. You're getting stronger, you're going from Stone 2 to Stone 3, why shouldn't the spell do more damage? But we've been seeing issues with DPS metrics when crit and direct hit are interacting with abilities with exorbitant potency values, and potency can't keep increasing time and time again without having to be squished down later.

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Larger potency values don't change the typical variance between runs. That depends instead on the portion of total potency being bottled up into infrequent abilities. Nor would potencies ever need to be squished down over these things; we already have a sufficient solution to keep the actual throughput down to less computationally intensive numbers (through what we've so far been calling "stat squishing").

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Tell the truth - when you went from Glare 1 to Glare 3, did you genuinely notice the 10 extra potency, or was it just the fancy animation that made you notice it? When Rage of Halone upgrades to Royal Authority, do you actually notice the potency bump?

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Unless it changes a breakpoint in internal balance (e.g., how much time it takes for a DoT GCD to exceed a filler GCD's damage or for an oGCD to change priority order if it somehow happens to come into competition for raid buff usage), I'll only notice the animation during gameplay. But it still makes no damn sense for one's "3rd tier" spell to deal the same effective potency as their first tier spell.

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Originally Posted by Melethron123

except the cause of most wipes was not meeting DPS checks, so you'd pretty much always use fell cleave as soon as it was ready

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I think you're underestimating just how powerful Inner Beast was back then, let alone the value of the Wrath stacks themselves. (Defiance didn't used to increase healing received, only max HP; the rest relied upon holding high Wrath.) At minimum, you wouldn't blow your Wrath/Abandon until you'd otherwise overcap stacks, therefore holding it over Heavy Swing and Fracture if it needed resetting, so "hit when it flashes" is definitely an understatement/skew.

so "use it to not overcap", which is exactly as complex as what we have today?

The actual potency numbers themselves don't have any meaning in isolation because the damage formula itself changes from expansion to expansion. It's been a while since I've looked at this, but I remember in Stormblood there was a job-specific multiplier in translating potency to damage, such that you couldn't really compare potencies precisely on two different jobs.

The reason for the numbered upgrades ('Stone 7') is to keep the gameplay feeling fresh in terms of animations. It usually means that there aren't any fresh ideas to be added (Healers) but we're starting to see it more on melee and tank jobs simply because some of these actions are over 10 years old. And when you go from Stone 6 to Stone 7, players expect potency to go up.

The main reason why the numbers change, however, is because most job nerfs happen during expansion transitions. If they reduce your potency values now, there will be a massive outcry on the forums. If they do it between expansions at a time when nobody knows what the potencies actually mean (because the damage formula has changed), then you can't complain really.

Ever notice how jobs only have an 'upward balance' where you only see buffs go out in response to player demand? All that gets reset and rebalanced between expansions.

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Originally Posted by Melethron123

so "use it to not overcap", which is exactly as complex as what we have today?

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I don't think anyone ever said it was any more complex? Only that it was no less so.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The actual potency numbers themselves don't have any meaning in isolation because the damage formula itself changes from expansion to expansion. It's been a while since I've looked at this, but I remember in Stormblood there was a job-specific multiplier in translating potency to damage, such that you couldn't really compare potencies precisely on two different jobs.

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Pretty sure it was just differences from weapon damage contribution between physical and caster weapon (physical potencies were worth less), and the consolidations in Shadowbringers removed them.

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Ever notice how jobs only have an 'upward balance' where you only see buffs go out in response to player demand? All that gets reset and rebalanced between expansions.

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This.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The actual potency numbers themselves don't have any meaning in isolation because the damage formula itself changes from expansion to expansion. It's been a while since I've looked at this, but I remember in Stormblood there was a job-specific multiplier in translating potency to damage, such that you couldn't really compare potencies precisely on two different jobs.

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This is very likely just removing a fixed value from the stats, with a treshold from which point on the full stats are taken. For example in EW, all the stats below 500 could be worth just 20%, and 500-1000 could be 50% (giving exactly 350 in stats at 1000).

And its a very common way to balance tiered content, and avoid excessive damage representations, because it works. It makes upgrades a lot more noticed without instantly having to increase based on percentages. And it looks better than showing a direct penalty. With 1 tier you can use a fixed value (like 30% total stat reductions), but with several tiers, it just becomes anoying to balance, and stats need meaningless and excessive values to counter this. Some games even just directly remove a certain value from the stats (for example a fixed value of 500 which then is for example the value added per tier).

It would obviously be nice if we could actualy see that this has happened, as it gives more insight and makes understanding such mechanics better. And indirectly could also tell people the importance of melding materia (a 5% increase, or 15% increase still can make quite the diffirence to players. especialy when they think melding is just too expensive with the tier 9/10 materia).