Post pointless PvE abilities and how you'd make them relevant.

[HeavensSword]

Rain of Death should apply the disembowel debuff (does not stack with Disembowel).
Quick Nock spam shouldn't be the most efficient way for Bards to AoE (it is, currently). This would make the WV>RoD>QN combo viable again, and slightly help DRG and BRD AoE dps at the cost of more TP.

You'd be be taking the only utility DRG has and giving it to a job that will never lose its raid spot in the foreseeable future.

[Vallhallix]

Isn't that basically every class in the game? the only classes with extreme survivability lacking support are tanks. (perhaps good SCH/WHM too).

I ran wolves den endlessly with SMN/BLM sucessfully before frontlines came out. They were strong in Wolves den too. You understimate how bad most players in PvP are outside of premade. Oh yeah BRDs are rough if you don't get the jump on them. But like MNKs and NINs they're incredibly squishy. If you get atleast the tiniest advantage over them (getting a fire III out first and then casting Equanimity and manawall for good measure) you can ruin them swiftly. MNKs and NINs? their hits tickle and you can destroy them before they even make it to you if you're on point. WHM's have 1v1'd them. DRG is the the top melee in PvP because of their burst, and the only class besides tanks ofcourse I resort to to raging strikes + virus + phantom dart + lethargy run and scathe tactics if they get the jump. Infact I save all those c/ds just for them. DRGs jumping is the real caster destroyer. SMN is better though at handeling melee when they have the advantage.

[Viridiana]

You'd be be taking the only utility DRG has and giving it to a job that will never lose its raid spot in the foreseeable future.

Eh, it's impossible to keep rain of death up for long periods of time. The TP cost is just too high for it; you'd have to cut out other GCD attacks to make it work. On the opposite side, DRG isn't going to Disembowel every mob in an AOE pack.

[Dyne_Fellpool]

Eh, it's impossible to keep rain of death up for long periods of time. The TP cost is just too high for it; you'd have to cut out other GCD attacks to make it work. On the opposite side, DRG isn't going to Disembowel every mob in an AOE pack.

Exactly. Disembowel would not lose any significance because a bard could NOT keep Rain of Death up very long. It costs 180 TP and is only 100 Potency per target.
The change would only really affect AoE phases, where it would help DRGs since all the mobs they were AoE'ing would have the Disembowel debuff instead of just maybe 1.

[Skeith-Adeline]

snip

This thread is about PvE abilities. Every response so far has been about PvP, which has absolutely 0 purpose in this thread. I can't care how l33t you are in your PvP. Good for you. Freeze, is absolutely, purposeless in all PvE content. Please stay on subject lol

[Ultear_Milkovich]

I have a much more interesting concern with a BLM spell and would like to get Skeith\\'s opinion on this.

We already know that - as long as you have a decent SSP score - B3 T1 B is master race in terms of UI phase. See Puro\\'s if any doubt. Of course T3 is still used for Thundercloud proc. And with a SCH you can open with T3 at pull regardless of your PIE.

For baddies who have 480 SSP - they could just stick with B3 T3 since it benefits from low SSP setups (SSP weight dropping from 0.282 to 0.26 or lower with B3 T3). Nobody cares.

Then what is T2 good for? OK it provides an alternative, 2nd best UI phase rotation (B3 T2) but it requires 251 PIE and you re at risk to wait for like half of a tick. I tested it back in the days when SCOB released and never parsed better than T1 B.

IMHO T2 could be much better if revamped as - idk - an AOE spell like B2 or F2. We cant afford an almost useless spell just for people who prefer the 251 PIE UI phase.

Any idea?

[Ultear_Milkovich]

As a BLM who over stacks SSP (643 with food atm) i would like to see T2 made relevant again by some awesome AOE re design because i have absolutely no use of it.

Same with Freeze which i only use sometimes in PVE for the lolz. They could put a new binding spell in the next PVP panel and replace freeze by an "ice flare".

Last spell i rarely use now (in PVE) being Ice2 but as it is Xclass i can imagine they will keep it as a low profile spell in order to prevent make other jobs too OP with it. But i used to be a good spell in the past before the huge nerf it had (i think it was 2.1 or 2.2 when they removed thunder from the Xskills and put ice 2 instead)

[Zohnax]

Swap Axe Kick with One Ilm Punch. :> Unless Dispel will actually be something we can do to raid bosses, (or even most bosses), in the near expansion. Like Pacification! Although, I think that has slightly more use even than One Ilm Punch.

[Skeith-Adeline]

I could definitely see Thunder 2 having an AoE effect, but it'd force the individual thunder spells to have their own DoT application, similar to 'Miasma/Bio' and 'Miasma II/Bio II'. Perhaps having each spell overwrite each other would prevent issues, in theory. (Casting Thunder 2 while a Thunder spell is ticking, overwrites the Thunder DoT and applies a Thunder 2 DoT) I can also see it becoming pretty powerful, though Flare would probably overwrite its power anyways. Maybe limiting the amount of targets it could hit down to like, 3 enemies.

What I'd like to see from thunder spells, if I'm allowed it dream lol, is:

Thunder 1: Grants a 5% chance after each damage over time tick to cause the next Thunder, Thunder II, or Thunder III to add its full damage over time amount to its initial damage, have no cast time and cost no MP (Literal Thundercloud definition)
Thunder 2: Grants a 10% chance after each damage over time tick to burst, spreading Thunder damage over time to up to 3 nearby targets.
Thunder 3: (insert thundercloud definition). Combo: Thundercloud. Combo Effect: grants a 20% chance on successful hit to grant the user a Fulmination stack.

Burst: Deals Lightning damage with a potency of 300-500(throwing out numbers) to a target and enemies near it. Only available when under the effect of Fulmination. Additional Effect: Lightning Damage over Time. Potency: 35. Duration: 24 seconds.

That would give each thunder spell its own identity, allowing BLMs to have a little more spice into into different scenarios and keeps the randomness of the BLM class large enough to keep it from being OP.

[Rbstr]

I really like rain of death giving AOE disembowel.
Feint needs to be off-GCD (just so it's something you can do when soloing mobs w/o feeling like you're wasting a GCD) or do something else entirely.

On Thunder. I like having Burst in there but I wouldn't change it up too much. I think it's fine to have thunder 1 for hard-casting and t3 for the proc. Make Thunder 2 an AOE like the other *2 spells and have it apply a Miasma 2-ish potency DOT with minor damage that can still proc thundercloud. Then Burst then has prohibitively high mana cost and cast time and a moderate cooldown. It can burn the thundercloud proc like any other Thunder. You throw it on any enemy with thunder DOT on it. Causes them to explode dealing highish AOE damage damage and reapplying the weaker thunder DOT..
The idea is that on AOE you'll probably proc it and get to use it thanks to the Thunder2 being on everyone but you can't use it over and over for free since it's on a cooldown timer. Against single targets you'd use it on the thundercloud proc whenever it was up but t3 the rest of the time.

I don't know what to do with freeze. It'd be nice if it was good filler for an AOE umbral phase? Or even like a chance at easier recovery from Flare somehow.