List of rarely used abilities for the benefit of SE

[Yukiko]

I still miss Reports from SE Combat Design Team to tell us the idea behind all those skills and how it is ment to use them...

[Lemuria]

Some of the abilities listed by the OP are very useful (seriously, why are they on that list?) but you do have a point on some of them being utterly worthless. I'll chime in with my two cents.

Freeze / Blizzard II
Oh god did I ever lament the day when SE in their undoubtedly infinite wisdom decided to nerf our Blizzard II spell and instead buff Freeze to be only slightly less worthless than it already was. I couldn't honestly care any less that they made it cross-class. It was reduced to a useless waste of space then, and it's a useless waste of space now. Pitiful damage and a bind effect which, in case anyone wasn't paying attention in class, is worthless in 90% of every battle ever.

Bind *was* useful back in the day because being hit for small damage didn't unbind every target. Now it only takes a tiny scratch to break binds, making it the most pointless status in the game. Giving a useless skill to more classes doesn't magically make it any more worthwhile. It's still a junk skill, it's just spreading the misery around.

Freeze is basically the same as the original Blizzard II, only it costs more, takes longer to cast and is basically useless in almost every situation bar perhaps 2 unique circumstances. It has graced my hotbar for all of about a day, and now shares relegation alongside the nerfed Blizzard II.

Presence of Mind
Seriously, do I even need to say why this is a stupid skill? Let's start at the top: It has a cast time. It has a short duration. The speed boost is barely noticeable. The total time saved by using the skill is scarcely more than the time spent using the stupid skill to begin with. Lastly, it's entirely pointless to even use this skill unless whatever spell follows is practically SPAMMED for the whole 10 seconds its active. That's literally the only way to make it pay off.

If you need to rely on this skill to spam heals, you've already lost.

Apocatastasis
No self-cast. Stupid restrictions on reuse. Utterly negligible damage reduction. It's like putting a bandaid on a severed limb.

Cure III
Rarely used for the obvious reason that its incredibly tiny radius means it won't hit anyone but the target you aim it at on 90% of all fights. Barely worth casting at any other time, even with Overcure. Seriously, give us back the old Overcure. At least when it hit for criticals it meant something to use it instead of Cure II!

Ifrit-Egi
Once you get Garuda, Ifrit is pretty much a window-dressing. It's a sad fact that Ifrit simply doesn't have the skills to outclass Garuda in sheer DPS, and lacks the tank ability of Titan. This makes him easily the least used Egi of all, at least after the 15 levels it takes to upgrade. His signature move should be devastatingly more powerful than Garuda or Titan's, being the DPS of the bunch. I think I could even live with it being a single target ability if the damage meant it was worth using on a boss at least.

...those are just a few from the classes I've levelled. I can't say I've found a single useless skill on Paladin yet. Pretty much all of them are a staple to keep myself alive and, by extension the party.

[Billzey]

That's *why* it would make you broken. SMN already has good AoE DPS (Bane + Multi-DoTing + pet), the best utility amongst all DPS, and the best ST DPS as well. SMN doesn't need to get the best AoE DPS as well.

BRD has the best utility among all DPS. There are certain fights where you cannot win without songs. There isn't a single fight in the game that requires you to use SMN.

And SMN most certainly does not have the highest single target DPS (lol).

[Seryl199]

Bane seems quite alright as it is. Even if it did affect all mobs, what would you do while waiting for it to refresh? Spam your 80 potency nuke at a single target? Bane keeps summoners from being a face roll aoe dot class while still giving them a pretty respectable aoe capability.

Sacred soil also shouldn't be taken lightly. Damage mitigation isn't flashy, it's purely numerical and thus sometimes harder to appreciate. Although it may seem like just a few hundred damage points per player, you could be saving your whm from havin to cast another medica or blow divine seal. In protracted fights with higher raid damage, this is pretty relevant.

In terms of enmity from regen/medica II, this is mostly because players massively overheal, especially medica II. I see most players cast medica II, then top off the party to 90% or so. While I understand the need to keep your party out of ko range, if you're going to waste regen ticks, just chaincast medica until the party is topped. Medica II can tick for, depending on gear, an easy 1.5-2k hp, never mind putting divine seal on top of that. This means that players are over healing the entire party by around 1000 per member, and is a sure fire way to rain mobs upon your squishy white mage head. Instead, cast medica II, bring your party out of the danger zone, and let them tick to full, preferably under the protection of succor.

[ForteXX]

No WAR is ever going to take it though. It's only 170 potency, so it's a DPS loss for anyone but MNK (MNK has a low enough GCD that 170 actually translates into good damage), and the slow suffers from DR (not to mention that most stuff that you'd want to slow ends up being immune to it).

The only possible reason I could see for having it is if the devs plan on giving PGL a tank job at some point. If they did, it would likely be an evasion tank and you'd get a lot of mileage out of Haymaker.

I use it on my WAR, and within about 15s everything in the pull has been slowed by me. I've also found very little being immune to it (even most bosses can be hit by slow)

[bennettaj]

its weird no one is mentioning Surecast for blm. its practically useless imo. i never use it as blm. i use it more for my whm.

[Seryl199]

Cure III
Rarely used for the obvious reason that its incredibly tiny radius means it won't hit anyone but the target you aim it at on 90% of all fights. Barely worth casting at any other time, even with Overcure. Seriously, give us back the old Overcure. At least when it hit for criticals it meant something to use it instead of Cure II!

I find the best success with cure III by casting it on myself and positioning to hit who I want. This is because dps seem to scurry off with the most unfortunate timing, causing it to miss some of the intended targets. By targeting myself, I know I won't be moving and know exactly where the heal will land, especially relevant considering it's small radius.

[Insidious]

BLM: Apocatastasis /snip

I use this mainly on levi when people have a stack of elemental resistance debuff or if a fellow blm is in the group I throw it on them and they throw theirs on me. Ideally, I would like to see it apply to the entire group for the same duration, or like 20s. Or maybe offer it as a passive buff but reduce the % to 10-15% resistance. And yea, the game is a pain to tell if it's elemental or physical. Like dreadwash, it's a physical attack blms can negate.

[Shurrikhan]

I use it on my WAR, and within about 15s everything in the pull has been slowed by me. I've also found very little being immune to it (even most bosses can be hit by slow)

BB combo --> 210 avg potency, 63 avg tp cost, 290 potency's worth of enmity average, gives 13.3% of a free move per hit.
Unless you really need that slow, it's going to be dps, enmity, and possibly a mitigation loss (if getting IB a move sooner will allow you mitigate a large hit).

[AmyNeudaiz]

Swift Song
No real use out of combat, everyone has sprint. No combat use since it's unavailable. Suggested changes make it like fists of wind but drain MP for increased mobility for classes that can't use sprint in combat without gimping themselves. This way Bard can support physical damage DPS plus tanks and not just limit support to damage song for casters and MP song for healers. (Peon is valuable but too niche to be considered "proper" support for TP using classes)


Quick Knock
Little use. Only used off a free proc of rain of death minus 20 tp does not give enough incentive to use it short range and limited cone AoE. Bard has similar abilities that are superior. Not sure how to fix this one completely. Maybe lower TP further or increase damage and make into a line AoE with extended range.

Rain of Death
You get it late game and most hard mode and expert mode have low accuracy caps and its too costly to use in coil besides the fact that your party should be at acc cap for raiding anyways. The ability is only used for free procs from wide volley. RoD needs to have a different buff attached to it like increase party critical chance by a small amount. Increase TP cost or decrease damage and possibly remove wide volley proc and it becomes a good burst tool that's not too strong or spammable.