I don't care if they deal damage, give us back the old gap closers.

As said in the title, the new gap closers stink in different ways. Shadowstride looks fine, but Plunge was much cooler. Winged Glide takes so long to act out of and replaced a jump, further obscuring what makes Dragoon unique. And I've heard nothing but negatives for Gunbreaker's new gap closer. Stop homogenizing, make jobs more unique to play.

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Originally Posted by Timultt

As said in the title, the new gap closers stink in different ways. Shadowstride looks fine, but Plunge was much cooler. Winged Glide takes so long to act out of and replaced a jump, further obscuring what makes Dragoon unique. And I've heard nothing but negatives for Gunbreaker's new gap closer. Stop homogenizing, make jobs more unique to play.

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Yoshi-P did say slowly into either DT or in 8.0 they will be making jobs more unique. they removed the damage from the gap closers on those jobs to make hte rotations more manageable

Yes to job uniqueness :)

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Originally Posted by Mercury_Grey

Yoshi-P did say slowly into either DT or in 8.0 they will be making jobs more unique. they removed the damage from the gap closers on those jobs to make hte rotations more manageable

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Honestly when I see it I'll believe it... "We're going to make you feel special again" while shaving the job like shrinkflation.... "Guys we took one step forward" ignore the three steps backwards.

I agree that the new gap closers are bad. They should revert Dragoon and Dark Knight's gap close animations back to how they were. They are a part of the identity of these two jobs. How can they change these, yet keep Shield Bash?

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Originally Posted by Mercury_Grey

Yoshi-P did say slowly into either DT or in 8.0 they will be making jobs more unique. they removed the damage from the gap closers on those jobs to make hte rotations more manageable

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That will be in 8.0. He issued a clarification to say that the article saying it would be earlier was a mistranslation. He said he did not want to mislead everyone - he wants to give people time to get used to the new style of battle mechanics through this expansion, then adjust jobs in the next expansion.

Imho, a good solution to reduce the oGCD spam during burst windows would have been to put the regular damaging gapclosers on the GCD with the same potency as the normal ranged attack. That gives them an opportunity cost, prevents them from being used in burst phases, and does not remove the coolness factor.

Onslaught for Warrior, back in Shadowbringers, was absolutely king. It was almost always available (10s CD oGCD), yet using it incorrectly (ie on cooldown) was a net damage loss for you, as it did cost 20 Beast Gauge. So you had to chose how and when to use it, and with the 10s CD, it barely added bulk in your burst phase. That's the kinda deal they should emulate, and I think putting the damaging gapclosers on the GCD would be the solution here.

Devs should take a look at how they maintain PvP jobs and make adjustments to allow jobs to be far more individually expressive like that.

Balancing to the point of destroying the identity of your job classes isn't going to make them more appealing to new players. It'll ironically alienate them over time.

And certain types of hardcore players are always going to go about playing harder content using meta strategies. Same goes for turbo casuals complaining about certain jobs being to hard for them to handle. Better to ignore both of these niche groups within each party in general and do a better job of sifting through complaints and suggestions and picking up on those that actually would be a net positive for the overall player experience.

Overall, yes, bring back the damage gap closers. But, if some people don't want damage gap closers on their job for whatever reason, then there should be an option to switch to a non-damaging type while circumventing the damage that attacking gap closer would have offered to another skill/ability within the job classes repertoire.

They should make it so if you use your ranged attack it turns the boring gap closers into the fun ones. Like if you use Lightning Shot, it gives you a short buff that turns Trajectory into Rough Divide.

Gap closers could have a range requirement, like Monks Shoulder Tackle had in ARR. Then it would be a dps loss to walk away from the boss just to use the gap closer.

I like the magical teleeport of shadow stride. Real issue is that the game has no class customization be it purely visual or mechanical, so whenever a change happens people who liked one version are out of luck.

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Originally Posted by Tint

Gap closers could have a range requirement, like Monks Shoulder Tackle had in ARR. Then it would be a dps loss to walk away from the boss just to use the gap closer.

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Would this not be functionally the same as removing damage from gap closers?

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Originally Posted by Buttobi

Would this not be functionally the same as removing damage from gap closers?

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Kind of. You will get compensated for the downtime if you use your gap closer. But the gap closer will not be a damage gain.

But the main goal is to keep the old animation anyway.

I mean let's be real, was there any reason for them to even replace the entire animation? Did they even give one? I feel like they arbitrarily removed the animations even though the old ones were fine, for tanks at least.

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Originally Posted by Timultt

Stop homogenizing, make jobs more unique to play.

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8.0 Copium.

Players won't be happy if some jobs perform better or have an advantage in certain encounters :rolleyes:

I'm a big fan of 'meta'. Let job selection matter for World Race, Week 1 Savage again.

Usually, people asking for unique gameplay are also asking for jobs within the same role to output similar damage numbers. Which for me feels meh. Making jobs unique should also affect their skill ceiling and their damage output.

But I guess the vast majority of players want/prefer fun gameplay over rewarding gameplay. Combining both fun and rewarding seems to be mission impossible for most games.

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Originally Posted by Buttobi

I mean let's be real, was there any reason for them to even replace the entire animation? Did they even give one? I feel like they arbitrarily removed the animations even though the old ones were fine, for tanks at least.

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My guess is the devs felt it'd be weird if something like DRK somersaulting and cleaving the enemy with a giant weapon dealt zero damage. But tbh while it would feel strange, I'd still much rather have the old gapclosers than the lame, generic ice-skating shit they were replaced with.

Yeah I don't like Trajectory. I don't like the tinkling noise it makes. Give us back Rough Divide without damage. The animation and sound effect worked for Gunbreaker. It sucks we finally got all of Squall's Limit Breaks as some sort of ability and then we lost one.

The change to not have damage was great. The rotation is a lot better now. But all they needed to do was remove the damage from Rough Divide.

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Originally Posted by Buttobi

I mean let's be real, was there any reason for them to even replace the entire animation? Did they even give one? I feel like they arbitrarily removed the animations even though the old ones were fine, for tanks at least.

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GNB and DRG get to glide along the ground, though DRG gets a translucent dragon head that looks hideous. DRK just sort of teleports and makes a very gentle noise.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Yes to job uniqueness :)



Honestly when I see it I'll believe it... "We're going to make you feel special again" while shaving the job like shrinkflation.... "Guys we took one step forward" ignore the three steps backwards.

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I'd like to see it, but I don't see it happening. I see changes happening - and I see them saying "let's make the job unique" - but they've failed on this account for the better part of 9 years now. All they've done is simplify jobs and balance out DPS. There was a time when a well-skilled BLM was an invaluable member of a group because if a BLM could act like a turret, their DPS was phenomenal. Finding a player that could maximize "turret time" by knowing fights and slide stepping was huge. But, their fix was adding Triple Cast, making more spells insta-cast. Honestly, it makes the jobs more playable, but also makes them more homogenous. So many jobs play the same. It would be something else if they felt unique again - other than job specific LB3s...

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Originally Posted by Daralii

GNB and DRG get to glide along the ground, though DRG gets a translucent dragon head that looks hideous. DRK just sort of teleports and makes a very gentle noise.

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GNB already moved along the ground. There was zero reason to change the animation and sound effect.

I made a thread about this exact issue a couple months back and it sadly didn't get much traction. I hate trajectory so much. Please give me back the rough divide animation I don't care either about damage but those new animations are lazy and have got to go.

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Originally Posted by Yeol

Players won't be happy if some jobs perform better or have an advantage in certain encounters :rolleyes:

I'm a big fan of 'meta'. Let job selection matter for World Race, Week 1 Savage again.

Usually, people asking for unique gameplay are also asking for jobs within the same role to output similar damage numbers. Which for me feels meh. Making jobs unique should also affect their skill ceiling and their damage output.

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Honestly? I'd be fine with some jobs inherently doing more damage than others. A spear should do more damage than your bare fists, an axe more than a one-handed sword, et cetera.
I just want my jobs to not be the same as everything else. Dragoon is getting its identity muddied by removing Spineshatter and replacing it with a limp dash. It's to the point I'm only using Dragonfire Dive and removed Winged Glide from my hotbar entirely. I'll use Elusive Jump if I need to close a gap, thank you.

Genuinely the loss of Plunge makes me just not want to play DRK as much. It sounds trivial, but the reason I play and gravitate to certain jobs is because I simply like the look of how they fight. Good animations and sound effects are a HUGE reason people like certain jobs, but it's like the devs just don't see that. So they remove things but shift the potencies of attacks around so that the numbers balance out and then scratch their heads at why some players are upset. It's not about the balance and the numbers. A Dragoon who jumps less feels less like a dragoon, and so I don't want to play them as much anymore.

I don't play any of the classes I've been drawn to to do the most damage. I play them because there's just something about them that clicks with me and feels good to play, thought that's been getting slowly whittled away at over the years. I just don't care about being at the top of the damage charts or clearing week one or any of that. As long as the jobs can clear the content, that's good enough for me.

Maybe I'm just in the wrong circles, but I don't recall any tanks I've ever raided with complaining about weaving gap closers during burst, and even if some did, this can be solved by
- Practice your rotation until its second nature and you can hit those buttons in your sleep
- Changing gap closers so that they can only be used X amount of space away from a boss, so it's now JUST a utility button for certain moments and not something to spam during burst as it would be a DPS loss to run away from the boss, while keeping the old damage and animations for the moments they are needed in a fight to jump back into position in between GCDs.
- Remove damage but keep the same animations because everyone likes them even if them not doing damage doesn't make logical sense, because there's already plenty of stuff in our wacky JRPG boss battles that doesn't make logical sense anyway, so what else is new?

I would like them back. But if they do they have to be unique and the non damage gap closer needs to stay because of utility.

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Originally Posted by Tint

Gap closers could have a range requirement, like Monks Shoulder Tackle had in ARR. Then it would be a dps loss to walk away from the boss just to use the gap closer.

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I would be okay with this, a big issue that I have with old gap closers is that them doing damage created an issue around them that the fact they have potency means they should be used for damage, I don't like the idea that you may be out of your utility move because the boss moved 5 seconds after your burst window so now you are SOL, utility should exist for utility, it's already scarce enough as a concept in this game as is, if there was a secondary system in place to prevent this, it'd be ideal.

That said, I am actually a big fan of Shadowstride, it feels much more thematically fitting in DRK than Plunge ever did, Pluge is just a leaping slash, and people act like it is vital to DRK's identity purely because it was there from the start, but to me, a magic-focusd darkness warrior using Darkness magic to enhance their speed momentarily feels great, even feels more refined, like a show of control and skill over darkness that they can use just enough to reach their target, rather than acting like a brute, it would be a shame for me to lose Shadowstride after it was given to me, I get that it sucks for people who liked Plunge more, but there is just no ideal way of handling this, either way a group will be deprived of the animation they like most.

Personally I prefer the good old Plunge. Due to how late the server responds, Shadowstride makes the game think I’m generating aggro from 20y even when I’m already up in the enemy’s face. What ends up happening is the other mob runs past me toward where I initiated Shadowstride. If they’re able to update my location to the server faster, then perhaps I’ll be at least indifferent to Shadowstride. Totally doubtful the dev can—or rather, willing to pull this off. It’s clear that whoever green lighted this button never plays anywhere but within their server’s back closet & pretend everybody else does the same.

Old damage component IMHO was just a bonus. I know, I know, every little damage adds up. I still personally prefer choices to use the button for damage or mobility vs today’s free mobility. If there’s anything good that Shadowstride addition did, it’s to make burst window less crowded. Then again, Plunge would’ve been the first in prio to drop if you need something else to weave in its place anyway.

At least PvP Plunge still exists… lol.

I miss Plunge a lot. I don't even really play DRK but the sound effect was excellent and the visual of the DRK jumping into a pack of enemies was unique amongst the tanks and fitting to the job. The new gap closer looks okay, DRK got off way better than GNB and DRK in that regard, but the silent teleport leaves a lot to be desired.

I personally cannot care less if the gap closers deal damage. It's a gap closer first and foremost. The gap closers could have the same potency as Flying Sardine or the same potency as Dragonfire Dive and I'd still use them as just that; gap closers. The problem is they replaced the damaging ones that had great animations with crappy dashes that do nothing but make me feel like I'm wasting time. Thunderclap works for monk. Aetherial Manipulation works for Black Mage. Plunge worked for Dark Knight, Spineshatter Dive worked for Dragoon. Winged Glide does not work for Dragoon. Jumps are integral to the job's identity. Shadowstride works for Dark Knight but it takes away from the identity of the job. Leaping into a horde of enemies was a great look for Dark Knight as a job. These changes don't work out for these jobs.

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

Genuinely the loss of Plunge makes me just not want to play DRK as much. It sounds trivial, but the reason I play and gravitate to certain jobs is because I simply like the look of how they fight. Good animations and sound effects are a HUGE reason people like certain jobs, but it's like the devs just don't see that. So they remove things but shift the potencies of attacks around so that the numbers balance out and then scratch their heads at why some players are upset. It's not about the balance and the numbers. A Dragoon who jumps less feels less like a dragoon, and so I don't want to play them as much anymore.

I don't play any of the classes I've been drawn to to do the most damage. I play them because there's just something about them that clicks with me and feels good to play, thought that's been getting slowly whittled away at over the years. I just don't care about being at the top of the damage charts or clearing week one or any of that. As long as the jobs can clear the content, that's good enough for me.

Maybe I'm just in the wrong circles, but I don't recall any tanks I've ever raided with complaining about weaving gap closers during burst, and even if some did, this can be solved by
- Practice your rotation until its second nature and you can hit those buttons in your sleep
- Changing gap closers so that they can only be used X amount of space away from a boss, so it's now JUST a utility button for certain moments and not something to spam during burst as it would be a DPS loss to run away from the boss, while keeping the old damage and animations for the moments they are needed in a fight to jump back into position in between GCDs.
- Remove damage but keep the same animations because everyone likes them even if them not doing damage doesn't make logical sense, because there's already plenty of stuff in our wacky JRPG boss battles that doesn't make logical sense anyway, so what else is new?

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"Game feel" is exceptionally important, doesn't sound trivial to me at all. It's difficult to describe but I think you can more easily example this by talking about games that just hit you with zen. Where the guns and movements feel perfect, or like how a souls game tends to have something that "makes sense" but souls copy cats feel clunky and your brain is constantly aware of the game.

Movement is a core element of feel, imo.

Also never had issue weaving my movement skills, so I was surprised it was removed. Like so what if regular Joe isn't doing it in low level content, and in high level content isn't that .. maybe a good thing that helps set someone apart? Alternatively at least think of the feel / visual and provide something better?

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Originally Posted by mewlynx

I miss Plunge a lot. I don't even really play DRK but the sound effect was excellent and the visual of the DRK jumping into a pack of enemies was unique amongst the tanks and fitting to the job. The new gap closer looks okay, DRK got off way better than GNB and DRK in that regard, but the silent teleport leaves a lot to be desired.

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Because this thread popped out a few times I couldn't help but passively think about some of the jobs, so taking the above theme lol here are some shower thought riffs:

Dark Knight - When enemies are at least 10 yalms away, shadowstride is Abyssal Plunge. Plunge shares timer with unmend (as in you CANNOT weave these two, its one or the other). Abyssal Plunge, new effect when this skill is the first ability YOU use on an enemy it ALSO deals AoE damage (nice shadow effect) with increased enmity (you can technically, quality, now pull with this..). Honestly, thinking buff the damage during first strike, and just unmend damage in other situations.

Thoughts: plunge is epic looking- leaping with a wave of darkness on impact sounds neat and the function of a high quality pull sounds nice.


Gun Breaker - Pulsar Surge. Rushes the target, VERY quickly, and explodes at the end (150 target, 50 to nearby but smaller AoE than Dark Knight), but also applies to self a debuff called re-stabilizing which temporarily absorbs UP TO x (150) OUTGOING potency (meaning it self balances itself for the purpose of the kit). Once either the debuff is consumed OR falls off, stabilized replaces it. During either of these de/buffs you can freely cast Pulsar Surge (which might now be called blinding orbit), that skill QUICKLY dashes you to the other side of any target within 10 yalms and applies a disorientation debuff in an AoE which causes monsters to ignore enmity generation from non-tanks for a few seconds (and increases your own). Insanely low cooldown during the 5-ish seconds the two de/buffs exists. To the point if you really wanted you could dash every second without challenge AND weave other skills in (oGCD, no disruption of other skills while using).

Thoughts: gun breaker feels, imo, rather lacking the mobility I personally imagine from a gunsword wielding job from a FF game. I imagine some silly slice and dice hyper mobility. This kind of adds to that. The enmity ignore is a tiny cherry but I imagine it might be neat if we ever get enmity management back, and primarily its just for feeling VERY mobile. If you use it on the same target you dash to their back side / vs their front side. Honestly would like to see ANOTHER movement, capable, skill added just to really give them that snappy movement vibe. Also key that the dashes don't interrupt other attacks, like you should be able to be orbiting AND using other skills at the same time without the game saying "wot? no wait in line" (easy to double weave by design, movement is an easy option if you want it).


Dragoon - stop destroying jumps, just stop lol. Honestly just make all the jumps mobility skills. If you want to return to location you press the jump skill anytime during the jump animation or a second-ish after landing (not any jump skill, specifically the one you used to jump with). All jumps leap you to location, all jumps can leap you back to cast point. If utility is a large concern, ALSO add a passive that once every 30 - 60 seconds any enemy you currently have engaged can be leapt to via a melee weaponskill (as in your 3 yalm weaponskill now has 20 yalm range and leaps you to the target).

Thoughts:.. Dragoon jumps please allow them to jump... its that simple >.<. This is another job I think that should be uncannily mobile. Added use could be by allowing the player to slightly modify landing / position WHILE in flight (akin to some games allow you to direct where you're falling, or perhaps how some of Demon Hunter's skills work in WoW). Also perhaps for potential skill play and "yes its a jump, you can jump into a bad thing" a passive like wind bristled scales which grants an % max hp shield for a few seconds after jumping.