Just got wheeling thrust.... Can someone explain the point of it to me?

[Duelle]

"Complexity for the sake of complexity is bad". What are mechanics? Those things that make fights hard. Sure, SE could design a raid or trail or dungeon where all you do is stand there and whack away for 10 mins until it's dead. No mechanics. No random debuffs. No tank swaps. Hell no aoe or tank busters. Sound like fun? Not really.

That's a huge stretch of logic. Complexity in encounters is an entirely different beast from complexity in gameplay. Encounter mechanics affect everyone and depending on how they're presented can still be fun while still not really directly affecting gameplay. Even if you don't like a specific encounter mechanic, you only see it in one spot in the game and move on. Gameplay complexity is a lot trickier, since you're stuck with it forever unlike mechanics in an encounter that may be unfavorable to your job. That and you HAVE to be the type of person that likes that sort of thing. If you aren't, you're SOL.

It's only complex as you allow it to be. If you don't want to hit positionals, then don't. If you want to be high end damage contributor, then you'll hit them. It's not complexity for complexity's sake, it's complexity to do high-end damage which mostly every job shares.

This is a flawed premise. You don't have the "option" of not hitting positionals because your damage is balanced around them. The only way such an option would exist would be for the DPS discrepancy between a DRG not hitting positionals and a DRG hitting positionals being something like 5%. And if that were the case you'd have people complaining that they don't feel recognized and special enough for hitting positionals or something like that.

As far as BotD, its implementation is very much complexity for its own sake. I just think the fact they implemented it as a timer is tacky to say the least. The fact it only interacts with jumps and it only matters because of F&C/WT/Geirskogul makes it seem rather inelegant. It's a good concept but it would have been implemented better. Imagine if BotD had been implemented as a sort of super meter that filled up when you combo'd attacks, with F&C and WT as simply closers to Full Thrust and Chaos Thrust, respectively (thus not requiring BotD). Once the meter fills up, all actions performed (weapon skills, damage abilities like jump, off-GCD abilities and buffs like Spirit Surge) would drain on the meter with Geirskogul consuming the most out of all skills until the meter bottoms out (drained by actions rather than over time). In exchange, BotD mode would increase jump potencies by 15% and damage dealt by weapon skills by 5% (these numbers are placeholders).

On the side of benefits, you wouldn't have to worry about BotD dropping during phase transitions. You'd also set up future skills that could share a cooldown with Geirskogul with their own effects (maybe a single-target ultra jump that you'd gain during 4.0). DRG would still stand out as the only melee job with 4-step combos. Lastly, the RNG guessing game (which was not something everyone was going to like) wouldn't be there, and instead would be replaced by a rigid rotation while in BotD mode. Not sure if that would be better than what you have here, though.

[RiceisNice]

As far as BotD, its implementation is very much complexity for its own sake. I just think the fact they implemented it as a timer is tacky to say the least.

The matter of fact is, this is a bit tricky to handle because this is a new expansion that's supposed to expand on the characters. It'd be an incredibly lazy design if it was straight up another buff with no interaction to their skillset outside of a damage increase; it doesn't change or evolve a DRG plays in 2.0. Some work out (enochian, aethertrial, BotD), while others don't carelessness expand on the class but fill in their short comings (meditation), and others try to but fail on it (WM, paladin's damage).

The fact it only interacts with jumps and it only matters because of F&C/WT/Geirskogul makes it seem rather inelegant.

Regardless of how it interacts, their overall dps would have to be balanced around it. And honestly, boosting their jump damage by a significant amount would be much better than increasing all damage dealt by 3~5% (to keep it in line with dps balance), and you don't want it to simply be another heavy thrust.

Imagine if BotD had been implemented as a sort of super meter that filled up when you combo'd attacks, with F&C and WT as simply closers to Full Thrust and Chaos Thrust

You mean like warrior wrath stacks, esp when they are fully capable as any other dps class through deliverance and abandon stacks, making it even more of a redundant comparison between two jobs.

On the side of benefits, you wouldn't have to worry about BotD dropping during phase transitions. You'd also set up future skills that could share a cooldown with Geirskogul with their own effects (maybe a single-target ultra jump that you'd gain during 4.0). DRG would still stand out as the only melee job with 4-step combos. Lastly, the RNG guessing game (which was not something everyone was going to like) wouldn't be there, and instead would be replaced by a rigid rotation while in BotD mode. Not sure if that would be better than what you have here, though.

Honestly speaking, whether it's 3 or 4 combo hit doesn't mean much because that's literally just an extra button to press. The RNG guessing game isn't even that bad considering MCH have it (to a stronger degree no less outside of reload) and the fact that it practically dictates what attack you can and can't use (both WT and FnC are blacked out until you get the buff for one oir the other, and only that one gets highlighted) so there's absolutely no possibility for you to "hit the wrong skill" and mess up your rotation.

[Duelle]

Regardless of how it interacts, their overall dps would have to be balanced around it. And honestly, boosting their jump damage by a significant amount would be much better than increasing all damage dealt by 3~5% (to keep it in line with dps balance), and you don't want it to simply be another heavy thrust.

This is a fair point, and I'll keep it in mind.

You mean like warrior wrath stacks, esp when they are fully capable as any other dps class through deliverance and abandon stacks, making it even more of a redundant comparison between two jobs.

This comparison would hold if my suggestion worked like wrath, except it doesn't. Once Wrath V is achieved your next move consumes everything. Assuming my BotD bar had 100 units with every action performed once the bar is filled consuming 5/10 points and Geirskogul consuming 15/20 points until it bottoms out, it'd make it more like Wildfire rather than Wrath (since you'd have to perform certain actions to maximize DPS within the number of "moves" the bar would allow you to perform). Of course you could add further modifiers like F&C/WT refunding some of the bar while still leading to the inevitable conclusion of the bar bottoming out (this does create lapses in DPS since your DPS would go up while in BotD and drop back to ARR levels outside of it).

I'll admit the idea was partly inspired by the super meters in Melty Blood in combination with an idea I had for Darkness that didn't pan out.

Honestly speaking, whether it's 3 or 4 combo hit doesn't mean much because that's literally just an extra button to press.

This is where we get subjective. A job having 4-step combos at least to me would make it different from its counterparts, and I wouldn't call it an extra button to push because there's a direct result to you pushing the button on its own (stabbing things for damage). It's not like Dark Arts that does nothing by itself and has to be used in conjunction with other things to have actual worth.

[RiceisNice]

This comparison would hold if my suggestion worked like wrath, except it doesn't. Once Wrath V is achieved your next move consumes everything. Assuming my BotD bar had 100 units with every action performed once the bar is filled consuming 5/10 points and Geirskogul consuming 15/20 points until it bottoms out, it'd make it more like Wildfire rather than Wrath (since you'd have to perform certain actions to maximize DPS within the number of "moves" the bar would allow you to perform). Of course you could add further modifiers like F&C/WT refunding some of the bar while still leading to the inevitable conclusion of the bar bottoming out (this does create lapses in DPS since your DPS would go up while in BotD and drop back to ARR levels outside of it).

This is more or less how BotD already functions, only on a smaller scale with WT/FnC boosting the duration and Gerkisoul depleting it. A fourth combo extension enables another thing, 200+ potency attacks before you need to hit the basic 150 potency one. It's not necessarily something you want the class to have access to at all times, unless their overall numbers were tuned around it (which either means the 4th less does a noticeable amount less than the third hit, or losing out the secondary buffs from BotD such as the damage boost to jumps).


And even then, it's still in the same concept of wrath, regardless of how much of what gets consumed and whether or not you get persistent buffs for having the bar active. The difference needs to come from it's application (activating and maintaining vs generating and consuming)

This is where we get subjective. A job having 4-step combos at least to me would make it different from its counterparts, and I wouldn't call it an extra button to push because there's a direct result to you pushing the button on its own (stabbing things for damage). It's not like Dark Arts that does nothing by itself and has to be used in conjunction with other things to have actual worth.

Having played all classes to level 50, a 4th hit in the combo is nothing worth writing home to, at least for the context of evolving a job for the expansion. We can leave it being a subjective thing, but it's still just an extra button to push without any additive effects attached to it (that's what I meant in my context of just an extra button to hit). That's more on something you'd get on the leveling process, not expanding the job.

Even something like Dark Arts is a unique perk to DRK where they can use up their resources to add an additional property to their next applicable skill (which honestly, I thought they'd do that sort of thing with MCH ammo instead of having it only applicable to two skills in their entire kit)

[whiskeybravo]

This is a flawed premise. You don't have the "option" of not hitting positionals because your damage is balanced around them. The only way such an option would exist would be for the DPS discrepancy between a DRG not hitting positionals and a DRG hitting positionals being something like 5%.

Huh? You absolutely have the option. Didn't say anything about it being optimal, and that's kind of the point. If RNG positionals are too complicated, too cumbersome, use up too much space on hotbars, etc. then don't hit them, pretty simple. Doesn't mean you're going to have a spot in a serious raiding group. Even besides that, if you think something FC/WT is cumbersome or complicated, or whatever, I highly doubt you'd last long in savage anyways. If you just want to run dungeons and trials with friends, aren't a serious raider, then who is forcing you to hit them? Not SE.. Not anybody..