List of rarely used abilities for the benefit of SE

[Tyrial]

- Circle of Scorn, while not rarely used it just has no purpose, no enmity+, nor is it spamable.

You're kidding, right? Scorn is up for just about EVERY pull in a speed run making it one of the most ideal opening moves to grab quick aggro with aside from flash. It's free off-GCD damage which definitely DOES increase your enmity regardless of if it has an enmity generation bonus trait tied to it or not AND doesn't interrupt your combo.

Who cares if it can't be spammed when it's only down for 10 seconds after the DoT effect wears off.

[Ryihito]

Only if you don't know how to use it.

How do you use it? Is it worth it for a Bard?

[Luxx]

How do you use it? Is it worth it for a Bard?

Ehh....Kinda but not really...
5% HP recovery is always handy. It's not a huge buff, but it still helps.
Depends on your composition. Monks of course, will be better at it since they get Mantra +
which increases by 20%. So it's okay...I'd be happy if you used it in some really big AoE fights.
Every little bit helps is how I see it. c:

[Insidious]

snip

Yeah I know, but from throwing it up and not having it up, there does appear to be damage reduced. /boggle

[jars]

tri-disaster is the worst spell in the game. I have used it once ever, on the level 50 quest.

[peaches]

Gonna disagree with most of the examples you give.

Freeze - Gives Umbral Ice III, Binds all targets in the radius around where its cast. An AoE heavy might be better but it has utility purposes. And if you're gonna go after a pointless spell, Tri-disaster does almost everything Freeze does but is a lot more useless in PvE than Freeze is.

Thunder I - When combined with Scathe during the Umbral Ice part of BLM rotation gives a higher potency than Thunder II, which is a way to boost your DPS in fights with lots of movement like Titan Ex due to the shorter cast times of thunder I and insta-cast of scathe.

Lethargy - larger problem of most debuffs being useless in anything harder than Ifrit/Garuda HM.

Some good points. I know Freeze isn't supposed to be a damaging skill but it's utility is almost useless as it is. I feel that at least needs a re-work. TBH I forgot about Tri-Disaster, I never use it (I also don't really play SMN)

What do you mean about Thunder 1? Just the fact that it has a shorter cast time means you're more likely to get the cast off before needing to move, equaling more DPS than if you tried to cast Thunder 2 and failed because of movement?

I don't even like that there's 3 thunders in the first place. It's the same spell. It should just be thunder and two passives to up the duration. Having thunder II as my hard cast and thunder III as my proc button is already bloat. I don't want a reason to use thunder I.

Very good point about the multitude of Thunder spells, it would be much easier to remove two of them than add additional effects to them. Talk about redundancy. They could easily incorporate this into the Magick and Mend traits, and I know it would free up some space on my hotbar, and they could possibly replace them with new abilities (very unlikely to ever happen though before an expansion).

I find it strange that you call this a list of "rarely used abilities", and then admit that you use Bane all the time. Bane is an incredibly strong AoE. For the cost of 3 GCDs and 1 Aetherflow stack, you're getting 91.67 potency per GCD of AoE damage with no animation time requirements. Removing the target limit would basically render the BLM AoE advantage nonexistent. SMN has amazing ST damage, amazing utility, and you want to turn them into undisputed AoE powerhouses on top of that (Shadow Flare adds an extra 20.83 pot/GCD so that a SMN and SCH both could be throwing out 112.5 pot/GCD of AoE damage for a pittance of cast time). Bane is basically an 800 potency AoE (8 ticks from Bio 2 and Miasma, 6 ticks from Bio) that you can only use once every 24 seconds (if you do it after a Contagion, potency becomes 1350 every 35 seconds); Shadow Flare is a 250 potency AoE that you can use once every 30 seconds. Garuda adds an extra 90 potency every 30 seconds and 250 potency every 600 seconds (discounting Rouse for 1.4x mod and Enkindle for ~1.35x mod for a total ~1.9x modifier).

Flare is a 455 potency attack that you can get 2 casts off in quick succession every 3-5 minutes (Convert's CD, Ether CD) but, other than that, once every 20 seconds or so (gotta naturally regen enough to get a Blizz or Blizz III cast off after the successive Flare followed by a Fire III to power up the Flare and then Flare). For any fight that lasts longer than 30 seconds, you'd basically be giving SMN identical (or damned near close) AoE capability as a BLM.

This isn't even getting into what a SCH could do with it. SCH gets the exact same potency out of its AoEs as a SMN does. A WHM gets 200 potency every 3 seconds by chaincasting; with Cleric Stance up, that's only 220 potency. A SCH would completely blow away WHM in the only damage scenario in which a WHM actually has an advantage.

The target limit on Bane exists for a damned good reason. ACN/SMN/SCH would be broken as hell without it.

I really hope they don't leave any out, so I thought it'd be good to compile a list of abilities the community generally never uses, or even just abilities that you use all the time that need a slight rework.

I'm not saying Bane is a bad ability. It's amazing just for the fact that our AoE damage can essentially = our single target damage. But limiting it to 3 targets is a tad underwhelming. In groups of 4+ where Bane is of a somewhat more limited use. Yes it's great that our DoTs will be on a total of 4 targets, but against the other enemies we're essentially useless unless we re-cast all of our DoTs and Bane again, which takes 7.5s-ish, by which time the original DoTs will be close to falling off.

So they don't need to remove the cap but adding 1-2 extra targets would go a long long way.

And by the way, there is a way to spam Flare without relying on Convert or Ethers. After using Flare, use Transpose. Wait 2s after getting your first tick of MP back then start casting Flare. By the time it casts and your MP drains to 0 again, Umbral Ice will tick and give you enough MP to immediately cast Flare again in full Astral Fire 3. You can keep doing this infinitely, as Transpose comes off cooldown after the 2nd Flare.

Another wonderful case of you not knowing what you're talking about. Lustrate is a 25% heal to a single target. Sacred Soil is a 10% reduction in damage taken for 15s every 30s. On a PLD, you'll get ~2k hp out of a Lustrate. This means that, in order to be equivalent, SS needs to see 20k damage go out in those 15s. An attack that deals 3k to everyone in the group (basically any EX primal signature attack) is going to be 24k damage. Sacred Soil wins. In a mythflox speed run, you have to spam heal the tank since they're taking so much damage; spamming Embrace + Adloq amounts to ~3k hp every GCD; at 6 GCDs, that's 18k damage, which is very close (and damage never taken is better than damage healed, so I'd honestly argue that SS is better).

Sacred Soil is amazing. At 10%, it's more valuable than Lustrate for AoE healing purposes and nearly equal in consistent high damage ST scenarios. If you powered it up, you'd basically be turning Lustrate into a largely worthless ability.

Sacred Soil - lots of fights that 10% can make or break you and shouldn't be scoffed at (MegaFlare in T9, Allagan Field mitigation in T8, Mog Meteor before final phase of Mog Ex. etc.). Even in your own example, Titan Ex stomps cap @ 4 So that's 280 damage you're mitigating per player. In Titan HM, the stomps increase by 1 every rotation, there's tons of players who wiped @ a <10% Titan HM because its a fight of attrition and with first time players dying there isn't enough DPS. Sacred Soil's mitigation here is nothing to laugh at. Same reason it's better to save Virus post 2.1 for stomps than Mountain Busters in Titan IMO.

I know SS is useful, there's no denying that. And I do use it all the time, because at the very least, I usually have some Aetherflow stacks to blow and some reduction never hurts. I always use it before big hits, or large AoE damage. Yes I also always use it in Brayflox speedruns because it totally helps.

Also, yes it will prevent a ton of damage in an Ex primal's signature attack. But in general I'd use Rouse+Fey Illumination+Whispering Dawn, stacked with Medica 2, and a pre-succor to prevent some damage. With all that and no SS, all the damage would be healed up by HoTs anyways.

On something like Titan's Stomps yes it'll prevent a bunch of damage too especially in the later phases, since we're curing non stop (pretty much one cure every 2 stomps or so I think it work out to with the cast speeds), the amount prevented isn't much. The damage of those two stomps on Ex would be what, 1600 or so at 800 per stomp? (Honestly not quite sure, I don't watch the damage from it I just heal it). 10% would 160 damage be saved on those two stomps that went off before we cured, which would easily be overhealed anyways by Succor+Medica+Medica2's regen. In general on Titan Ex I try to save my Aetherflow for some Lustrates on the tanks because there's a ton of movement and spike damage, and for SS each time he jumps, just after Superbombs, or if the party isn't fully healed up before Stomps. I'll still use it sometimes on stomps even when everyone is full health just because, but it's unnecessary, like I said unless somebody is low health.

I value Lustrate much more than I do SS. Sometimes SS will prevent enough damage so you have to Succor one time less, but in general it rarely prevents wipes. Lustrate totally prevents wipes, all the time. A lot of fights have a lot of movement. Sometimes neither healer can get a cast off in time. Sometimes I'm busy healing one person while I assume the other healer is getting the tank but he doesn't, so out comes Lustrate to save the day when the tank is at 1/4 health. This can easily happen multiple times in a run of anything. Not to mention its usefulness in allowing you to DPS. Stoneskin+Adlo lets you start DPSing, and if the tank drops to half health or so a Lustrate keeps him up long enough to finish DPSing and switch out of Cleric's.

But like I said above, I haven't tackled the Second Coils yet so I don't know how SS performs there. I DO know that it was useful without a question even in Turns 1-5, but I don't think it would be unreasonable to ask for a buff, even to 15%. Even if it doesn't get a buff there, not a big deal, I can totally live with it and will continue using it. But the chance for a free Succor is patheric.

Plus the fact that it seems people rarely stack in SS, so the damage prevention is usually only ever on about 3-4 people...

Also, I have no idea why you would be using Energy Drain unless you simply want the extra damage. Energy Drain provides a whopping 130-150 mp. Lustrate is an off-GCD heal for ~2k. Physick, on its own, will heal for roughly 1k per cast and costs as much as you're getting out of Energy Drain. Swapping to Cleric Stance will double the mp restored, but, even then, you're still just breaking even (but still consuming the GCD). If you are using Energy Drain for the mp, you're doing it wrong. Lustrate is more cost effective because it heals twice as much for the same cost (and doesn't consume the GCD to do so). The only thing that Energy Drain is good for is a tiny bit of damage (which you'd actually get more out of using the GCD that Lustrate isn't consuming by throwing out a Bio).

If you want to talk about an ability that needs to be buffed, you should be talking about Energy Drain.

Are you absolutely sure that Cleric's Stance gives you more MP back? I swear I've tried it with and without Cleric's, and still always get back ~150MP. I've never really spent much time to test it but after reading people say Cleric's maker it better thought I'd try it out. I'll have to try it again. But going off my experiences and the description, I don't think it does:

http://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Arcanist

"Additional Effect: If under the effect of Aetherflow, absorbs 50% of damage dealt as HP and restores MP.'

So I think it would restore more HP in Cleric's but always the same MP.

But if you think Energy Drain has no use in restoring MP then I have to disagree completely. There are plenty of times where there isn't much damage going out, yet because I know I can restore so much MP I don't mind burning through some by abusing Adlo a bit now and then. When I need to restore MP I'll Stoneskin and Adlo the tank, giving me some time to use Energy Drain, Aetherflow, and restore a bit of MP over time.

Using Aetherflow restores ~980 MP for me. Energy Drain restore ~150. If you have 3 stacks of Aetherflow, and your Aetherflow CD is up, that's 450MP from Energy Drain, and almost 1000 from Aetherflow. Add some MP regen over time throughout the entire process and before I have to cure again, I've restored about 2000 MP. I can literally go from half MP or less to full, or nearly full, and I can do this every minute. Also you say that Physick costs about the same amount of MP as Energy Drain restore - so what? We don't need to Physick. I manually spam Embrace constantly, and as a result I can literally sit back and do nothing with my own MP for a long time. So while I'm restoring my MP I can manually cure with Eos.

I know it's a low level example, but in Trial Roulette I've been getting a lot of Titan HM. I usually end up solo healing it, and I always make a good attempt at reviving people. I literally use resurrection 10-15 times in that fight sometimes while solo healing. If someone has died 3 times I don't bother to rez them anymore because of weakness. I don't mind doing this, and am still able to cure the tank and the remaining party from Stomps because I spam heal the tank while saving my Aether stacks for Energy Drain.

But, to each their own. Everyone has their own healing style and this works great for me. I adapt as needed and can heal without much MP consumption when I need to, and save my Aether for SS if I know there's a lot of times it's going to be needed in a fight (like T5, the farthest I've beaten in Coils). But generally since I usually Party Finder my Ex groups, I don't trust the other healer simply because I don't know them, and I heal like I'm solo healing, eating my MP because I know it usually doesn't matter for me.

I'll agree that the duration is way too short and the CD way too long, but you're dramatically underestimating the amount it reduces cast times by. It's a roughly 20% reduction in cast time (2.5 sec cast down to 2 sec cast), which is *huge* (basically translates into 1 extra cast during its 10 sec duration). Bringing it down to 1 min CD would be way too strong (Divine Seal is already pretty insane), but bringing it down to 180 sec or increasing the duration to 15-20 seconds would probably be acceptable. 5 mins for 10 seconds is just nuts.

Presence of Mind - CD is probably still too long but it's far from useless and as ilvl goes up it's power will only increase. Right now in ~i90 levels of spell speed you can cast Esuna while moving at non sprint speeds with Presence of Mind up. While this is not game breaking, right now, in a few ilvl jumps you could likely cast Cures while moving which would be pretty powerful.

It's not useless, and while I don't really play WHM very often I try to use it any time there's a lot of healing needed and not much standing around. But the cooldown is just insane, and I think 10s isn't quite long enough. While yea a 1m CD is probably way too short, 2m would probably be perfect, along with increasing the duration to 15s.

Letting you cast Cures while moving eh? That would actually be very nice... and worthy of a 5m cooldown. I could actually see that being a viable alternative as a buff. As it is, WHMs have two options for healing while moving - Benediction which nobody wants to waste, and Regen which definitely isn't going to save somebody like a Lustrate could on the move. This could be a very powerful addition to the WHMs toolset, giving them a way to heal someone if they're at like half health, movement is needed and either Benediction is on CD or the situation doesn't quite call for it. Could easily end up being OP, but if it was just 10s on the 5m cooldown, as a Scholar I'd be okay with WHMs getting that buff.

The only reason people complain about Shield Oath being at 40 with Sword Oath at 30 is because WAR gets Defiance at 30. WAR gets Defiance at 30 for a damned good reason: everything else it gets is contingent upon having Defiance active. PLD has no such requirement, ergo you need to come up with a better reason than "just because".

For leveling purposes, Sword Oath is more useful because PLD has perfectly viable enmity generation from 30-40 and there isn't any practical survivability concern; increasing kill speed will do more to make you level faster than increasing enmity or reducing damage taken. If anything, PLD needs more help with damage at that point because WAR has a very explicit damage advantage.

Furthermore, the only things this would change would be PLD performance in 3-4 dungeons (Haukke, Bray, Qarn, and Cutter's, depending upon where you're measuring from). Unless the devs are reevaluating PLD completely, I don't really see a reason to go and do it.

I still think it needs to be done. You say Sword Oath is better for leveling purposes, but as a tank doing dungeons IS how they level. They have literally zero need to roam the world doing hunt logs or FATEs when they get insta-queue dungeons.

My only reason for suggesting this is because I have seen a lot of low level Paladins have trouble keeping hate off everybody. Arcanists/Summoners often can't use Bane because it steals Enmity too easily, same with BLM Fire 2. I know a good tank could do it, but to be quite honest most people who are new to tanking and are low level are not that good.

If Shield Oath wasn't a Paladin ability, I'd actually suggest that Gladiators should have access to it at a relatively low level. Their ability to hold Enmity in the starter dungeons is absolutely terrible, and this comes from having leveled a WAR to 50, and a Gladiator to 22 for Provoke. As a Marauder, two Overpowers at the start was enough to hold enmity long enough for me to use my combo twice cycling through enemies, then another Overpower or so depending on how the pull is going. On a Gladiator, using the same method with Flash just doesn't seem to work. It feels like you need to open with 2 Flashes, one combo, a Flash, another combo, another Flash. Annoying, tedious and boring (at least to me).



Thanks to everybody adding their thoughts to this, let's keep it up!

[Arkista]

How do you use it? Is it worth it for a Bard?

got it:

5% is still good for other classes to use, And yes its good for BRD. 5% isn't much but it could help. Good places I can think of would be like ADS (enrage), Speed Runs help your tank out, good to use if you are near some other ranged jobs. The 20% from MNK is great and I really use it a lot during Titan HM/EX as well as other stuff.

[AmyNeudaiz]

I also make frequent use of Mantra on both Mnk and Brd.

[Titor]

I agree with Tri-Disaster so much. The animation is AWESOME, but the potency and effect is useless to spam (with dim returns). I cross-classed Blizzard II and use that for all AOE situations since it has a higher potency. Since that is from THM 12 and you need that for SMN, any SMN will be able to have this spell which makes Tri-Disaster pointless completely.

[Ametrine]

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 use Cure III all the time in bosses. It's range is actually pretty decent, and is nearly as potent as Cure II. When you've got your tanks and melee DPS so gathered on the boss, you can pop a Cure III and hit most, sometimes all, of them. I also catch myself using it during the crazy heavy mob pulls in Bray speedruns.

It's just often easier to use Medica II, but I think the cost and speed of Cure III can make it superior here and there.