I think one of the biggest issues with FFXIV’s current combat design is that the game has become too centered around one idea: keep your GCD rolling at all times.
Of course, maintaining GCD uptime matters. I am not saying players should randomly stop pressing buttons. The problem is that the entire design philosophy seems to revolve around making sure almost nothing interferes with the GCD.
Tank mitigations? oGCD.
Important healer tools? Mostly oGCD.
Buffs? oGCD.
Utility? oGCD.
A lot of meaningful actions now happen between GCDs instead of being part of the actual rhythm of the job.
The result is that the GCD becomes a train that never stops, while everything else is squeezed in between.
This creates several problems.
First, it reduces the weight of decision-making. When most important tools are oGCDs, the player often does not give up anything meaningful by using them. You simply press the button between two GCDs and continue your rotation. That can feel smooth, but it can also make mitigation, healing, and utility feel like external cooldown management rather than a deep part of the combat system.
Second, it makes jobs feel more similar. If the core rule is always “press your GCD on cooldown and weave everything else between it,” then the difference between jobs becomes less structural and more cosmetic. Skills may look different, but many of them end up serving the same practical purpose: an oGCD button that does not disturb the main loop.
Third, it creates a strange problem for healers. Healing is supposed to be part of the role’s identity, but the game often teaches healers that using GCD heals is a mistake unless absolutely necessary, because it costs damage. As a result, healer gameplay becomes less about naturally balancing healing and damage, and more about avoiding GCD healing as much as possible.
Tanks also suffer from this design. Mitigation is usually handled through oGCDs that are pressed at specific moments without really affecting the job’s rhythm. This makes defensive gameplay feel somewhat detached from the core combat loop, instead of being a stronger part of the tank’s identity.
To be clear, I am not saying oGCDs are bad. They are important. They make the game feel responsive, fast, and clean.
The problem is when oGCD becomes the default answer to almost every design issue.
If every important action has to be oGCD just so the GCD is never interrupted, then the game loses some of its tension, trade-offs, and decision-making.
In my opinion, FFXIV needs to rethink its relationship with GCD uptime. Not every meaningful action should be designed around preserving the GCD at all costs. Sometimes, real trade-offs between damage, healing, mitigation, movement, and timing are what make a job feel deeper and more engaging.
Good optimization should not only mean:
“Never stop the GCD.”
It should also mean:
When do I keep going?
When do I delay?
When do I sacrifice damage for safety?
When is breaking the rhythm actually the correct decision?
Right now, FFXIV often removes those questions by turning most important tools into oGCDs so the train never stops. That makes combat cleaner and easier to execute, but it can also make it feel flatter, safer, and less ambitious.
FFXIV’s Combat Has Become Too Obsessed With GCD Uptime
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05-27-2026, 04:17 PMBabyYodaFFXIV’s Combat Has Become Too Obsessed With GCD Uptime
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05-27-2026, 05:36 PMArrius
Having tank mitigations/emergency healing being tied to a global cooldown sounds like not a good idea, as we got a slow one and being unable to respond in a timely matter when a sudden situation demands immediate action.
And all this sounds more like giving tanks and healers a harder time while the DPS, yet again, are mostly unaffected by it. -
05-27-2026, 06:23 PMReimmi
I imagine this will be much less of an issue in evolved mode
Hopefully anyway -
05-27-2026, 08:11 PMBabyYodaI understand the concern, and I agree that emergency mitigation or emergency healing should not feel slow or unresponsive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arrius
But that is not really what I am asking for.
My point is not “turn every tank defensive or healer tool into a normal GCD and make the role clunky.” That would obviously be bad.
What I am asking is: why can’t some core tank or healer actions be designed as part of the job’s GCD rhythm in a way that feels natural and unique?
A good example is Dancer.
Standard Step and Technical Step are tied to the GCD structure, but they do not feel like they ruin the gameplay. They temporarily change the rhythm of the job, create a different gameplay moment, and still feel like part of Dancer’s identity. You are not just pressing your usual combo while weaving everything else. The job itself changes pace for a moment, and that is part of what makes it distinct.
So why can’t tanks and healers have more of that kind of design?
Not emergency buttons that must be instant. Those should stay responsive.
But core defensive, healing, or support actions could interact with the GCD in a more job-specific way, instead of everything being reduced to “keep your damage GCD rolling and weave all the important tools between it.”
For example, one tank could have a defensive GCD sequence that changes its rotation during mitigation windows. Another tank could convert defensive timing into stronger follow-up attacks. A healer could have healing actions that are not simply “lost damage,” but are built into the job’s damage/healing flow in a way that feels intentional.
The issue is not that oGCDs exist. oGCDs are necessary.
The issue is that FFXIV often treats oGCD as the default solution for almost every meaningful action, because the GCD must never be disturbed.
I think the game would be more interesting if some jobs had unique GCD-based mechanics that create identity and trade-offs, the same way Dancer’s dance steps create a distinct rhythm without making the job feel bad. -
05-27-2026, 08:20 PMJeeqbit
It's really players that created this design. They became obsessed with uptime due to having played other MMORPGs, and those players pressured other players to follow suit even if they wouldn't have prior to that pressure. As a result, SE was increasingly pressured to do things like: reduce healer casts to 1.5 seconds, make giant hitboxes, etc.
As for off-globals, I think the primary issue with them is that they don't cost MP, and they could simply solve the problem by making them do so. The difference between healing at level 50 and healing at level 100 is insane. Healing coils you run down your MP fast, but at 100, MP isn't really something to think about in comparison. A problem in 1.0 was supposedly that no matter how much you cast a cure, you didn't run out of MP, but when you take into account abilities, we reached a point where MP doesn't cross your mind a long time ago.
To an extent, it is the standard MMO design itself that causes this as well. The hotbar system with a short GCD. If it were like more traditional FF games with menus and super slow recast times like FF11, it would stop you really caring about it as much due to how slow the combat system is. When you have 6-10 seconds between attacking for example, you can not only think very tactically about what your next attack is, but also spend that time moving and doing mechanics that may be nowhere near the boss. -
05-27-2026, 09:06 PMForsakenRoeWe do have some actions on Tanks and Healers that are non-damage related, but GCD. Macrocosmos and Pneuma come to mind for Healers, but way back when in 2.X-4.X, WAR's Inner Beast had a mitigative component (which was actually hefty Lifesteal in 2.0 specifically), was a GCD, and cost 5 'stacks' (the functional equivalent of 50 Gauge nowadays). Even those feel kinda 'ough' though, like if I compare how it 'feels' to use Macrocosmos here, versus its estranged cousin Rewind in WOW, it's night and day how bad Macro feels by comparisonQuote:
Originally Posted by BabyYoda
As for the Dancer comparison, it could be argued that we used to have that stuff, back in HW/SB, as Tanks had alternate combos that applied Mitigative effects. For example, Storm's Path for WAR reduced the enemy's damage by 10% (and heals the WAR), while Storm's Eye boosted their own damage by 10% (and their Emnity combo, Butcher's Block, was the highest potency total of the three combos). DRK had Delerium as an alternate combo-ender to Souleater, which did more damage than Souleater and reduced the enemy's INT (aka, Magic Damage) by 10%, but Souleater did more damage than Delerium if you used Dark Arts to empower it. So you'd alternate between the two, Delerium to maintain the debuff and to regulate your MP, and Souleater to spend MP when you had enough spare (and the debuff wasn't going to fall off)
These debuffs were removed because... Not sure why, really. PLD's was kinda not-good (10% STR/Physical Damage reduction, most damage bosses did was Magical TBs and Magical Raidwides), but I don't think it was that. More likely they just couldn't be bothered with considering 'oh we need to increase the boss's damage output by 15%, because the Tanks will reduce it back down with their debuffs' on every piece of content. Could be a good way to differentiate the MTs and OTs in 8.0, though, bringing such a system back, and it'd explain why EG WAR is going to be considered an OT (IE it goes back to being able to reduce the enemy's damage by 10%, with 100% uptime) -
05-27-2026, 09:24 PMBabyYodaYes, this is much closer to what I mean.Quote:
Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe
I agree that simply making something a GCD does not automatically make it feel good. Macrocosmos and Pneuma are good examples of that. A GCD action still needs to feel like it belongs naturally in the job’s flow, otherwise it can just feel awkward or like a damage tax.
The older tank examples are actually closer to the design direction I am talking about. Not necessarily bringing back permanent 100% uptime damage-down debuffs exactly as they were, because I understand why that can create balance problems for encounter design.
But the idea behind them is valuable: defensive or supportive identity being part of the job’s core rhythm, instead of every meaningful defensive action being detached as an oGCD cooldown.
My concern with 8.0 is that tanks might only get different DPS combos while their defensive kits remain mostly the same template: reduce damage, then add a small extra effect like a barrier, regen, shield, or bonus healing.
For Warrior, I would rather see it lean harder into raw endurance. For example: increased max HP, increased healing received, or even a delayed-damage mechanic where part of incoming damage is staggered over time instead of taken immediately.
For Gunbreaker, I think cartridges could interact with defense more directly. Spending cartridges to reduce incoming damage, convert pressure into mitigation, or empower defensive follow-ups would make its defensive gameplay feel more tied to the job’s identity.
These are just examples, not exact balance suggestions.
The main point is that tank identity should not only come from different damage rotations. It should also come from how each tank survives and responds to damage.
I do not want tanks to become clunky. I want their defensive gameplay to feel distinct. -
05-27-2026, 09:47 PMflowerfairy
It's not necessarily an obsession with Always Be Casting that's the problem. It's the obsession of damage uptime requirements.
Though, it wouldn't be fair to blame it on the players. High damage uptime is genuinely necessary to clear Extremes+, because of extremely strict hard enrages. This is the actual problem.
When the fight can only be cleared in an extremely strict timeframe with an extremely strict quota for damage, it's no wonder damage is prioritized over everything else.
I think strict hard enrages are why unique job identity may feel lacking. Every action a job makes has to count towards meeting that damage quota.
It's why there's an obsession with damage-neutral GCD heals. The decision making factor of "heal GCD vs. damage GCD" simply can't exist when one choice is so much more important than the other.
I also think it's the reason why the "enhanced" fight design still feels same-y, if only making movement-heavy mechanics even more obtuse.
When the hard enrage is that prevalent, there's really no room to challenge players on anything else except disrupting their damage rotations.
I think, if we want a job's GCD actions to truly feel unique and separated from damage, fights have to take a soft enrage approach.
The coils raid is a good example. The hard enrage still exists, but it's extremely lenient compared to current fights. You'll hardly ever see a hard enrage here.
Instead, the fights are centered around burning through the party's healing and mitigation resources. Saving your healer's MP and keeping the tank's mitigation cooldowns at a steady roll is paramount to clearing.
DPS checks still exist in coils. But instead of wiping the raid, they burn through the party's resources even harder.
This allows the tank and healers much more control and skill expression over the fight, and they won't have to feel bad about not constantly dealing damage.
I think with this kind of design, jobs won't feel obligated to bring nothing but damage. The choice of "recovery action VS damage action" is now a much more balanced decision.
We could also have unique utility skills separated from damage, such as restoring MP for the healers.
It's kind of funny, because the current fights like to pretend that soft-enrage mechanics still exist, such as Honey B Lovely getting damage stacks and Vamp Fatale's attack range increasing.
But they still follow the same exact formula of a strict timeline with a strict hard enrage for the last 7 years or so.
For one expansion, I'd like to see a return to a soft-enrage style raid. I think it would be fun :o -
05-27-2026, 10:03 PMLeCorbeaux
Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the GCD system in the first place. I'd very much prefer it if most actions had their own cooldown, most of your damage output would come from autoattacks and actions would mostly be about applying buffs, debuffs and movement, and you could interrupt non-instant actions by other actions as a rule. Some more action types would be nice as well; for example: A one-minute "fire breath" spell which applies a heavy movement debuff on the caster (you can only walk slowly while casting it), breaks when you lose LoS (or do any other action, or get stunned, and so on...), and besides doing autoattack-equivalent fire damage also adds a "burning" DoT and weakness to fire damage if you manage to finish casting it without interruptions.
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05-27-2026, 11:24 PMBabyYodaI agree with this, and I think it is probably close to the root cause.Quote:
Originally Posted by flowerfairy
Maybe the issue is not only “Always Be Casting” by itself, but the fact that so much of the game is built around strict damage uptime and hard enrage checks.
When every job is expected to contribute to a strict damage quota, any action that does not directly support that goal starts to feel like a mistake. This is especially noticeable with healers, where “GCD heal vs damage GCD” often stops being an interesting choice because the damage option is favored unless healing is absolutely required.
But I also think this mindset is already deeply embedded in the job design philosophy, especially for healers and tanks.
It sometimes feels like non-damage GCD actions for tanks or healers are treated as design issues because they interrupt the damage loop. As a result, most important utility, healing, and defensive tools are pushed into oGCDs so every role can maintain as much uptime as possible.
I do think some players contributed to this mindset by optimizing around “Always Be Casting” and complaining whenever utility, healing, or mitigation affects their uptime. But I do not think this is only a player-created problem. The developers have reinforced it through encounter design, job design, hard enrages, and the preference for damage-neutral utility.
That is why I think the issue is bigger than just GCD vs oGCD.
The real problem is that the game often treats anything that interrupts damage uptime as inherently bad design, even if that interruption could create meaningful trade-offs or stronger job identity.
I agree that a softer enrage approach could help. If fights challenged party resources, healer MP, tank mitigation planning, and recovery more directly, then tanks and healers could have more room for skill expression outside of pure damage uptime.
But another option could be to make some tank and healer GCD utility partially damage-neutral through job design.
Not by turning every healing or defensive tool into an oGCD, but by making those GCD actions interact with the job’s rotation.
For example, a healer GCD heal could generate a later damage follow-up, or a tank defensive GCD could create a counterattack, resource refund, or empowered action if timed correctly.
This way, recovery and mitigation would not always feel like pure damage losses, but they would still be part of the job’s rhythm instead of being detached from it.
For tanks and healers especially, I would like to see more identity built into how they heal, mitigate, recover, and respond to damage, instead of nearly every important tool being designed around preserving the damage GCD at all costs. -
05-27-2026, 11:28 PMArriusThey became mandatory during Alexander Savage raids onwards, so specific jobs were filtered out in favor for the debuffs. Just like the resistance debuffs some had as well (you wouldn't need a Samurai for the slash debuff, since a Warrior could do the same. And Monk was the only one who could debuff their own damage type which no other job was able to benefit from).Quote:
Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe
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05-28-2026, 03:01 AMRaionKansenKind of a weird thing to say when we just had a Savage tier that constantly makes players fight for their GCDs. The encounter design is constantly trying to interfere with your GCD.Quote:
Originally Posted by BabyYoda
oGCDs themselves actively interfere with your GCD and you have to space out when and where you choose to use them. Especially on Tanks and Healers.
BUT AS ALWAYS, leave it to someone that hasn't engaged with any of the actual higher end content to say something completely ignorant. -
05-28-2026, 03:12 AMAnkhiraIf people have to fight for their GCDs and structure everything around not dropping them, then that is the design philosophy OP is talking about. Mechanics trying to disrupt uptime doesn’t contradict the idea that job design revolves around maintaining it, it actually proves it.Quote:
Originally Posted by RaionKansen
You’re talking about encounter design in terms of mechanics that challenge uptime. Those two things can coexist, and in this case, they both have the same effect. Do mechanics while keeping your GCD rolling. Which, in turn, means, the entire "difficulty" in job design, is, as OP said, "Keep your GCD rolling at all times." -
05-28-2026, 03:26 AMBabyYodaI agree that high-end encounters do test your ability to maintain GCD uptime. Savage and Ultimate mechanics often force players to move, weave, mitigate, heal, and still keep their rotation going.Quote:
Originally Posted by RaionKansen
But I do not think that contradicts the original point. If anything, it supports it.
The issue is not that encounters never interfere with GCD uptime. The issue is that the entire combat structure still asks the same question most of the time: can you solve the mechanic while keeping your damage GCD rolling?
That design direction creates a very narrow space for job design.
For example, healers are heavily pushed toward oGCD healing because a GCD heal competes directly with a damage GCD. Tanks are also pushed toward oGCD mitigation because defensive decisions are expected to happen without interrupting the damage loop.
That may be efficient, but it also makes many jobs feel structurally similar. Different animations, different gauges, different names, but the same basic rule underneath: keep the GCD rolling and fit everything else around it.
This is why I think real job diversity becomes very difficult under this model. If every important non-damage action has to avoid disrupting the damage GCD, then healing, mitigation, and utility all get compressed into similar oGCD systems.
So the problem is not simply “uptime exists.” Uptime should matter. The problem is when uptime becomes such a dominant rule that it limits how differently jobs can actually play. -
05-28-2026, 05:35 AMRaionKansenOP specifically says "The problem is that the entire design philosophy seems to revolve around making sure almost nothing interferes with the GCD."Quote:
Originally Posted by Ankhira
It is not the same.
Lets go though their additional points together:
1) "reduces decision making...": Any kind of optimization is going to reduce your decision making. There's always going to be a best order to do things in. That's just gaming in general.
1a) "it can an also make mitigation, healing, and utility feel like external cooldown management rather than a deep part of the combat system.": This is word salad. Cooldown management is a deep part of the combat system. Just because there's an optimal way to do your actions in sequence doesn't mean that it becomes "external"
2) "Second, it makes jobs feel more similar.": Jobs do feel similar, but there's no real way to change this unless they make jobs with incredibly fast or slow GCDs. They tried to make Tendo Setsukegga a long cast at the start of Dawntrail and people freaked out. If there was any time to experiment though, it will be with the Reborn/Evolved mode split. You cannot escape the GCD system in a tab target MMORPG. It's the most fundamental element of the genre.
3) "Third, it creates a strange problem for healers...": This is and isn't true. You want to refine unnecessary GCD healing over time, but if you dont GCD heal at all on prog in high end content you're legitimately trolling. Most players that do Savage/Ultimate will actively avoid grouping with greedy "parsebro" healers who just refuse to GCD heal. Especially on the first couple weeks of a fresh Savage tier when raidwides will wipe the party if healers don't play a bit safe. There's a good chance they reduce the number of oGCDs healers have in Evercold, but we'll have to see more evolved jobs.
3a) "Tanks also suffer from this design...." No... They don't. If you need to mit under a burst window you pop your mits in advance. Sometimes you pop things early anyways so that you can have your mits ready for a future mechanic. All of this also doesn't propose any kind of alternative. You would either have to apply mits to their already existing GCDs or give them new GCD cooldowns which actively interrupt your rotation just to use mitigation unless they also give those abilities high potencies, which would then result in players wanting to use them regardless of whether or not a tank buster is going to happen just for DPS min-maxing. (The tank would be trolling by being this greedy, but I don't know why we'd choose to actively add another layer of greed to the game)
"Keep your GCD rolling" is the system we've signed up for in a tab target MMORPG. There's literally no other game in the genre that detracts from this because there's no real way to. Even if you speed up or slow down GCDs, the same rules still apply. -
05-28-2026, 05:51 AMAzurarok
Always Be Casting in of itself is fine imo, I find more issue in them removing most thinking involved for juggling dps with basically anything else, like lossless healing or damageless gapclosers, 1.5s glare/broil and oGCD healing, removing shared gauge resources, enmity combos, the 2min meta, dot removal, rng removal, etc.
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05-28-2026, 06:26 AMStarrya
I think it's worth pointing out that, "I want there to be more GCDs that do things other than damage and are important to press." is not the same as, "I want it to not matter as much if my GCD stops rolling." Even if there were a bunch of GCDs that did stuff that wasn't damage, and you needed to press them, keeping those GCDs rolling would still be the optimal play. Creating puzzles around how to maintain uptime while doing whatever turbo-macarena the fight is asking of you IS the game design. The only way to make it so rolling the GCD wouldn't be optimal would be to basically remove filler.
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05-28-2026, 08:04 AMBabyYodaI think the disagreement here is mostly about definitions.Quote:
Originally Posted by RaionKansen
Nobody is saying GCD uptime should not matter, or that players should be rewarded for randomly stopping their rotation. GCD uptime is obviously a core part of FFXIV’s combat.
The issue is when almost every other part of combat has to be designed around not disturbing that damage GCD.
For example, yes, cooldown management exists. But the problem is that a lot of cooldowns do not feel deeply connected to job identity anymore. You can often see the same kind of skill repeated from one job to another with a different name, animation, or visual effect, but not a meaningfully different gameplay identity.
That is why I do not think “cooldown management exists” fully answers the criticism. The question is not whether cooldowns exist. The question is whether those cooldowns create a distinct combat identity for each job.
The same applies to job similarity. I do not think the only possible difference is “fast GCD vs slow GCD.” There are other trade-offs the game could explore, such as:
1. More damage now vs stronger utility later.
2. Personal DPS gain vs party safety.
3. Simpler uptime rotation vs higher-risk resource management.
Those kinds of trade-offs can create job identity without removing the GCD system.
For healers, yes, GCD healing is used during progression. Nobody serious is saying healers should refuse to GCD heal when the party needs it. But long term, the game itself teaches players to remove GCD healing as much as possible because the developers already gave healers stronger and more efficient oGCD tools.
So when people say “healers should GCD heal more,” the issue is that the game design itself often makes that feel unnecessary or inefficient. That is not only player greed. That is design by choice.
Tanks also do suffer from this design, just in a different way. Mitigation exists, but mitigation is often separated from the tank’s core rotation, core gameplay, and job fantasy. The defensive buttons are important, but they often do not express a unique identity strongly enough.
This is also why tank homogenization feels so obvious. A lot of tank mitigation tools are functionally very similar. They may have different names, animations, or minor differences, but they often do not create a truly different gameplay flavor between tanks.
And about greed: I actually think greed can be healthy when it creates real risk. If a player gets too greedy and causes a wipe, kills other players, or loses the run, then that is a meaningful trade-off. At that point, the answer is simple: get good.
The problem is not that greed exists. The problem is when the entire system is built so heavily around maintaining damage uptime that utility, healing, mitigation, and job identity are pushed outside the core gameplay loop.
I also agree that any major change will get criticism. That is normal. Players need time to adapt, and not every experiment will land perfectly. But criticism of change does not automatically mean the change is bad. Sometimes the game needs some discomfort before the system becomes healthier.
So I do not think the argument is “remove GCD uptime.” The argument is that uptime has become so dominant that healing, mitigation, utility, and even job identity are often forced to orbit around it instead of being deeply integrated into the combat system. -
05-28-2026, 08:12 AMBabyYodaI actually agree with this distinction.Quote:
Originally Posted by Starrya
Wanting more important non-damage GCDs is not the same as wanting GCD uptime to stop mattering. I do not think the goal should be to reward players for randomly letting their GCD sit idle.
Keeping the GCD rolling should still be optimal.
My issue is more about what the GCD is allowed to represent.
Right now, the combat system often treats the damage GCD as the “real” core gameplay, while healing, mitigation, and utility are pushed into oGCD cooldown management so they do not interfere with that loop.
So yes, even if we had more non-damage GCDs, players would still want to keep the GCD rolling. But the decision inside that rolling GCD could become more interesting.
For example, the question would not be:
“Do I stop pressing buttons or keep uptime?”
It would be:
“Which GCD is the correct one here, and what am I giving up by choosing it?”
That is the kind of trade-off I think the game lacks in many places.
For healers, this is very obvious. The game gives them many strong oGCD healing tools, so over time GCD healing becomes something you try to remove as much as possible. That is not just player greed. That is design by choice.
For tanks, mitigation exists, but it often feels separated from the tank’s core rotation and job identity. Many mitigation tools are functionally similar across tanks, just with different names, animations, or small differences. They are important buttons, but they do not always make each tank feel meaningfully different.
So I agree that “keep your GCD rolling” is part of the game. I am not arguing against that.
I am arguing that the things we roll through the GCD could carry more identity, more cost, and more decision-making than just maintaining a damage loop while everything else sits outside it. -
05-28-2026, 08:20 AMMyllah_Lyte
I imagine this is a big motivation for Evolved mode's changes and the two-minute meta.
Always Be Casting isn't going away but the importance of lining up burst windows took it from optimization and an opportunity for skill expression to "you're griefing your party if you ever fall behind on your rotation" -
05-28-2026, 09:18 AMStarryaThe title of the thread made me think the first originally. I agree that these kinds of things would go a long way to make the game more interesting for me. For example, if Esuna had a cool down, and there was also something to use it on in virtually all content, it could instantly be more interesting. In this world, often the stuff you Esuna isn't instant death, but it requires two GCDs of healing to be worth getting rid of compared to using one more damage spell. Except for when it isn't. Sometimes a debuff that explodes when it expires goes on the tank who can just take the hit and you can ignore it at the price of them needing to mitigate it more, or you having to heal it with only a single GCD that costs less MP than Esuna does, and generates resources that Esuna doesn't. Other times, the cool down is an issue as multiple allies get a debuff, and you have to prioritize what to get rid of in what order, and who to get rid of it on. Suddenly, what each job brings to the table in a fight matters as maybe BRD can just cleanse itself with Warden's Paean, and SAM wants to take the hit because third eye is available.Quote:
Originally Posted by BabyYoda
We just took a single button that sees maybe half a dozen presses in an entire expansion, and turned it into a complex, layered decision that changes every time you walk back into the fight. The only thing we sacrifice is that in one of those expansions, all of those half-dozen presses were in TEA, and require Esuna to have no cool down. XD -
05-28-2026, 10:58 AMTurtledeluxe
TC have you reviewed Evolved mode? It does seem like baby steps in this direction with the tank counter for example. I suspect they'll be closely looking at how that works out in practice. It may not be ideal, every job won't be a home run, the counter might not even work out 100% as intended at first. That's ok. At least we see some awareness.
Of course, we need to see the actual encounters to fully assess your concerns. There's stuff they could do with the counter specifically, but I'm just not sure how far they are wiling to go, especially when the community has shouted them down into this direction of a specific style of MMO play, or whatever you want to call it. -
05-28-2026, 12:40 PMReynTime
To respond to some of the earlier comments I saw here...
Always-Be-Casting wasn't invented by players. It's ingrained in the combat design since 2.0. It's the foundation of the design change from 1.2X to 2.0. oGCDs became more dominant in the rotations since, but the waltz was there from the start. -
05-29-2026, 03:12 PMBru_TusDude 100% of your posts here are you shittalking others when your own tomestone isnt even impressive at allQuote:
Originally Posted by RaionKansen
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05-29-2026, 08:16 PMStilla119
A huge part of evolved mode is the rotation of combos on a single button. You have the combo opener, fillers, and closing skill. I would rather see the entire hot bar rotate. Turn evolved mode into a tumbling hot bar. Take hot bar 1, and create a cascading series of hot bars, call it a combo bar, . You open the combo bar with an opening skill. Hot bar 1 flips to combo bar 1. It's a clean hot bar where you can put anything on it. You can move the combo button to where you want it. When you hit the combo button again, the combo bar flips to combo bar 2. The hot bar flips every time you extend the combo. The combo bar closes back to hot bar 1, when you hit the closing skill. This places more emphasis on planning and building your hot bars around the combo bars. So if you like to place flanking and rear skills on certain buttons. You can accomplish that. This resolves managing a much larger skill deck.They can expand the combo actions, double the size of the skill deck, to have different openers, fillers, which lead to different closing skills. Because the filler skills and the closing skills only exist on the combo bar, it makes managing them very easy. So you could literally have skills which do massive damage, but If you move while the skill is charging. The combo breaks. But that is just one of the skill trees you have on your combo bar. You use it when the opportunity opens itself. They could bring in sub jobs, all the current jobs plus all the occult crescent jobs could be managed on a tumbling hot bar. This system makes building your combo bars a personal preference, where understanding your skill deck makes you a better player. They could actually build a skill tree. It doesn't have to be the default evolved mode. They can make it a toggle on advanced evolved mode.