Evolved Ranged Physical needs Foe Requiem back

This is the prime opportunity for CBU3 to break the 2min meta and promote their newer, more freeform evolved mode by reintroducing raid buffs that do not rely on any fixed recast or cooldown.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because players are extremely attached to party wide raid buffs that are part of the core identity of ranged physical jobs and have always been (even in spite of MCH being severed from those for no reason). Just remember the outcry when ShB decided to remove the passive damage buffs behind bard songs?

I do think this would be a huge mistake for the role to lose that part of its identity, which it has already been struggling with since the massive battle system changes in ShB.

On top of it, players still yearn for manners of skill expression, and being able with one's team to decide when to use raid buffs effectively and when to play within them is arguably good for the game.

We do not need raid buffs on every role, but having those on range physical jobs would help.

Therefore I propose to bring back Foe Requiem or similar damage buffs that are based on the user's MP pool, dropping over time while the "song" is active. This allows people to use it whenever they want, based on their own resources and not on any arbitrary timer constraining battle design.

One thing one would have to pay attention to however, is to have guardrails against an obvious meta that would form in just stacking rphys jobs and each of their raid damage buffs, but I do believe it's relatively trivial to do.

Damage buffs ain't comin' back.

That wouldn't work, we'd just be coordinating buffs again. It could only be sensible if it were personal-only buffs, since then there's no forced interaction.

Of course we could be coordinating buffs again, but without any fixed meta on arbitrary timers, that's the whole point??

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Originally Posted by Valence

Of course we could be coordinating buffs again, but without any fixed meta on arbitrary timers, that's the whole point??

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To maximize damage output? All classes will still have high DPS points in their cycle and low DPS points, so naturally any external buff will be optimized to maximize impact on high DPS portions.

So say someone will math out that for combination of DPS A+B+C+D, every ~2:45 all those classes will "match up" and have optional or near-optional DPC in their rotation for the next 15-30 seconds. Assuming you could have a variable-length buff based on available mana, that'd just mean that you are now meta'd to pool your mana and every 2:45, enable the buff and have it run as long as possible. Because that's just faster kills than just using it randomly whenever you're capping mana or something.

And so...?

That's exactly what Foe Requiem was doing in HW/SB. It could further be manipulated with additions like manashift, or a second rphys, but it didn't make those options meta either. Like I seriously fail to see the problem here. Or are you against skill expression and team coordination agency at all whatsoever?

Gonna be real, I don't think there is a single chance that damage buffs are getting entirely removed. Not a chance that bard, dancer and astro don't have a damage buff anymore. You people clearly misunderstood the "synergy actions" that devs talked about, they talked about damage buffs that were 2 minutes timer fixed, and we had way too many of them to the point it was at some point impossible to have a regular team without a single raidbuff since the only melee that didn't have one was samourai(now we can with viper + samourai). You people completely forgot the time where ninja had trick attack, dragoon had litany, astro had cards, ranged had their buffs and that was it, those buffs were absolutely not central to the game, people were happy to benefit from them but nothing was built around it, it might have been meta for min-maxxers but "regular" players didn't care about them.

I'm 99% sure that radiant finale will be a damage buff, it will very likely be a 5% damage buff but it could be something else, and it will be absolutely fine. Having a 60 sec flexible timer raid buff, and having only a small number of them will absolutely not keep the game in the same boring state that what we currently have. This buff will serve as a replacement for bard's "burst phase", since every job will probably have a powerful combo between 5 and 10 seconds long, bard has to have a skill that replaces this burst phase, and I don't think the wanderer minuet combo will be as powerful as other jobs' special combos.

To respond to the subject, like I said radiant finale will be a damage buff, I think it is easier for devs to balance a raidbuff by giving it the exact duration they want every minute than giving us a weird buff that would be mana dependant, so no I don't think we will get foe requiem back. Managing mana as a ranged would be too bizarre nowadays, we could get some shenanigans where people would use mana potions to optimize their damage buff, that would be way too weird, devs won't allow it.

they actually do clarify there will be damage buffs but supposedly in a way that won't force a burst meta like before, which afaik only really works with sustained buffs.

If there's any job that does some damage buff in some limited window of time I'm sure the spreadsheeting folks would figure out the best timing to maximize damage of the most jobs and rotations would start pooling resources around that window, while anyone that has trouble fitting in that window could end up being pushed out of the meta.

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Originally Posted by Karuya

Gonna be real, I don't think there is a single chance that damage buffs are getting entirely removed. Not a chance that bard, dancer and astro don't have a damage buff anymore.

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I'm 99% sure that radiant finale will be a damage buff, it will very likely be a 5% damage buff but it could be something else, and it will be absolutely fine. Having a 60 sec flexible timer raid buff, and having only a small number of them will absolutely not keep the game in the same boring state that what we currently have. This buff will serve as a replacement for bard's "burst phase", since every job will probably have a powerful combo between 5 and 10 seconds long, bard has to have a skill that replaces this burst phase, and I don't think the wanderer minuet combo will be as powerful as other jobs' special combos.

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Well, I hope most people are wrong or misinterpreted, and you're actually right.

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Originally Posted by Karuya

You people completely forgot the time where ninja had trick attack, dragoon had litany, astro had cards, ranged had their buffs and that was it, those buffs were absolutely not central to the game, people were happy to benefit from them but nothing was built around it, it might have been meta for min-maxxers but "regular" players didn't care about them.

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Trick Attack used to be the most meta centric and defining raid buff that ever graced this game. Everything revolved around it in the HW/SB era, so much that NIN, in combination with Shadewalker and the slashing debuff, was considered a must pick. It went far beyond than min maxers.
But like today, no casual or even extreme trial party gives a crap about lining up raid buffs. It's something that's always been savage+.

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Originally Posted by Karuya

I think it is easier for devs to balance a raidbuff by giving it the exact duration they want every minute than giving us a weird buff that would be mana dependant, so no I don't think we will get foe requiem back. Managing mana as a ranged would be too bizarre nowadays, we could get some shenanigans where people would use mana potions to optimize their damage buff, that would be way too weird, devs won't allow it.

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Definitely easier to do, and I also don't think we'll get something based on MP or resources back either, but I'm still asking anyway.

Why would managing mana be weird today when it wasn't before?
What's the problem with mana potions? That's literally what makes the game fun. That's what makes pulling out more flares fun on BLM as well, although they have unfortunately diluted the nuke aspect of flare on BLM those days.
Like what do you people have against fun? SE has an really bad tendency of removing anything that's fun like that, because it doesn't enter their design parameters. It's been the exact same story expansion after another.

SE should have the guts to bring back some of the fun in this game, actually, Foe Requiem or other things.

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

they actually do clarify there will be damage buffs but supposedly in a way that won't force a burst meta like before, which afaik only really works with sustained buffs.

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Yes, that's how I understood that, too. And that's easy to budget for, if as a Dancer you give someone else +5% damage, that just means the Dancer class must deal ~4.8% less damage and it's a wash, and so long as it's sustained it cannot create and meta issues.

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

If there's any job that does some damage buff in some limited window of time I'm sure the spreadsheeting folks would figure out the best timing to maximize damage of the most jobs and rotations would start pooling resources around that window, while anyone that has trouble fitting in that window could end up being pushed out of the meta.

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Yep. This right here is the problem, it happened in ARR, and got much worse in every expansion until SE felt compelled to force everyone into the 2 minute meta so jobs stopped being excluded.

If we have Foe Requiem (or The Balance or Technical Step) as a damage buff for the raid during a specific timing window, then any job who can line up their own buffs or cooldowns during it that window will become stronger than others. The meta might not be 2 minutes anymore, but an 80 second, or 45 second, or 72 second, or 90 second, or whatever-the-heck-second meta isn't any better. If some jobs don't fit that mold and are worse-off, then we'd actually somehow manage to make a worse version of the 2 minute meta.

You could argue this is a slippery slope fallacy but given the game's design has already been falling down that slope for a decade I think it's a justifiable concern.

Hoping evolved Radiant Finale is a soup of different buff effects that synergize with BRD's other songs like it could be a mitigation + heal amp + another movement speed that stacks with Paeon, and the heal amp could pair with Ballad or Minuet's barrier.

I hated foes requiem so much as a tank. It was so annoying holding aggro in dungeons back when paladin was in its stormblood incarnation and I had a bard. If it comes back removed the pointless aggro Gen part. Id rather songs got buffs back before foes. Evercold bard is kind of a shell of what made bard great. The stormblood bard action id want back is old troubadour. This new evolved bard having no buffs feels so wrong to me even though I get why they deleted buffs.

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Originally Posted by Powercow

Yep. This right here is the problem, it happened in ARR, and got much worse in every expansion until SE felt compelled to force everyone into the 2 minute meta so jobs stopped being excluded.

If we have Foe Requiem (or The Balance or Technical Step) as a damage buff for the raid during a specific timing window, then any job who can line up their own buffs or cooldowns during it that window will become stronger than others. The meta might not be 2 minutes anymore, but an 80 second, or 45 second, or 72 second, or 90 second, or whatever-the-heck-second meta isn't any better. If some jobs don't fit that mold and are worse-off, then we'd actually somehow manage to make a worse version of the 2 minute meta.

You could argue this is a slippery slope fallacy but given the game's design has already been falling down that slope for a decade I think it's a justifiable concern.

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This is literally why I think people do not understand Foe Requiem, and perhaps explains so many of the replies in this thread.

Foe Requiem was based on MP consumption and could be turned on or off relatively at will. It's essentially the raid buff version of the freeform model that evolved is trying to emulate for individual rotations. The only cap of the skill is the total MP cap, otherwise it can be moved around freely and used in accordance to when jobs of the party composition decide to use their bursts, which if I'm supposed to believe the concept behind Evolved, is going to be a thing: nothing strictly on 2min cd, or 60s, or 40s, or whatever.

The idea that it would bring a meta is born from a misconception around it because Foe used to generally happen at specific times back in HW/SB (something like Opener > 2m > 3m > etc, forgot the exact meta) since it was adjusting to other raid buffs that were all on 60s, 90s, 120s or 180s timers. Without those to stack over, Foe would be the most freeform raid buff you can think of.

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Originally Posted by Reginald_Cain

I hated foes requiem so much as a tank. It was so annoying holding aggro in dungeons back when paladin was in its stormblood incarnation and I had a bard. If it comes back removed the pointless aggro Gen part. Id rather songs got buffs back before foes. Evercold bard is kind of a shell of what made bard great. The stormblood bard action id want back is old troubadour. This new evolved bard having no buffs feels so wrong to me even though I get why they deleted buffs.

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That is because it was actually a room wide enemy debuff which aggroed them.
The solution is pretty trivial and it can be moved to be a party wide buff instead.
It doesn't even have to be "Foe Requiem", it can be Radiant Finale for all I care.

I meant that the spreadsheet folks would find the general best timings to turn it on and the other jobs would be pressured to adjust to it anyways.

Like I believe all the known evolved jobs so far have most of their resources come full circle around every 60s, so I'd think BRD would often get the most out of Foe Requiem by activating it around every 60s (or multiple of it depending on the mp cost) and everyone would start pooling their cooldowns around that.

There is more flexibility to them but unless a fight forces a job to spend some stuff (like Vengeful Jump for the positional or gap closer) there isn't much reason to not try to keep it consistent, and in the cases it does force it I think we're more likely to get complaints about that job having to spend the resource outside the "usual" window rather than BRDs not adjusting. "Damaging Gap Closers should be removed" posts ranting about their 0.1% enrages on their late patch clear parties and whatnot. Should the devs be caving to those complaints? imo, no, but that sure is what they've been doing.

Also any job that has a stronger burst will still benefit more from it than any sustained damage job like how BLM vs PCT was.

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Originally Posted by Valence

This is literally why I think people do not understand Foe Requiem, and perhaps explains so many of the replies in this thread.

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Oh no they understand it fine. That's why it'd be a problem.