Stone, Sky, Sea and Me – What does this mean for tanks?

[Zhexos]

Greetings,

I'd like to take a moment to answer some of the questions we have received in regards to Stone, Sky, Sea.

Q: Do the accuracy requirements for actual content apply to the Stone, Sky, Sea challenges?

A: Accuracy is not taken into account for these challenges, so all your attacks will land.

Q: Are food and potions taken into consideration?

A: No.

Q: For tanks, are these dummies set on the basis that we are fighting in our tanking stance or our offensive stance?

A: Stone, Sky, Sea was created as challenge content, and for this reason, the values are set based on tanks using their offensive stance.

Q: Even after completing the Stone, Sky, Sea challenge, the timer continues to run. Would it be possible to stop the timer, or display the completion time somewhere?

A: We'll consider if we can make it easier for players to visually see their completion time.

Q: Why aren't there any mechanics for these challenges?

A: Yoshida made the following comments regarding why Stone, Sky, Sea challenges during an interview as to why there are no mechanics:

• If players aren't able to put all their effort into a challenge without any mechanics, they will most likely do worse in the actual content which includes mechanics.
• Once players are able to put all their effort into Stone, Sky, Sea, they will have more confidence to challenge the actual content.

Stone, Sky, Sea has been prepared as a training ground for players to test their skill rotations and learn through trial and error.

[Kuwagami]

A: We'll consider if we can make it easier for players to visually see their completion time.

Wouldn't you be able to just put a completion time like there is in unsynched content ? (would actually be neat even out of unsynch content, in a general maner)

[Mayoyama]

A: Yoshida made the following comments regarding why Stone, Sky, Sea challenges during an interview as to why there are no mechanics:

• If players aren't able to put all their effort into a challenge without any mechanics, they will most likely do worse in the actual content which includes mechanics.
• Once players are able to put all their effort into Stone, Sky, Sea, they will have more confidence to challenge the actual content.

I, and many others I know, would feel MORE confident if we could practice on these dummies if they had a couple mechanics. I personally thought that was going to be the whole point of it (I'm pretty sure the cut-scene when you unlock it even asks what you think about a dummy that could fight back). I can just as easily go hit a dummy in my house to practice my regular rotation but without doing a lot of content on a class such as BLM (and negatively impacting the group I am with), there's little other way I can improve "actual" DPS, which is being able to deal damage WHILE dealing with the mechanics.

Ideas that I have for additional modes for SSS include:

• Additional mode in which you need to kill the dummy, but with a couple of mechanics found in the fight
• Additional mode where a dummy will use random mechanics from a number of fights (fun and challenging and improves people's ability to deal with mechanics on the fly - aka titan with more rng)
• Additional mode where random adds will appear and also need to be killed (will assist people in practicing target swapping, like in a fight such as ravana)
• A healing mode whereby you need to keep your target healed for a set amount of time
• A healing mode where you need to keep a target healed while also dealing dps (and dealing with mechanics)

I have more but those are the ones I feel would be most useful

[UBERHAXED]

I, and many others I know, would feel MORE confident if we could practice on these dummies if they had a couple mechanics. I personally thought that was going to be the whole point of it (I'm pretty sure the cut-scene when you unlock it even asks what you think about a dummy that could fight back). I can just as easily go hit a dummy in my house to practice my regular rotation but without doing a lot of content on a class such as BLM (and negatively impacting the group I am with), there's little other way I can improve "actual" DPS, which is being able to deal damage WHILE dealing with the mechanics.

Ideas that I have for additional modes for SSS include:

• Additional mode in which you need to kill the dummy, but with a couple of mechanics found in the fight
• Additional mode where a dummy will use random mechanics from a number of fights (fun and challenging and improves people's ability to deal with mechanics on the fly - aka titan with more rng)
• Additional mode where random adds will appear and also need to be killed (will assist people in practicing target swapping, like in a fight such as ravana)
• A healing mode whereby you need to keep your target healed for a set amount of time
• A healing mode where you need to keep a target healed while also dealing dps (and dealing with mechanics)

I have more but those are the ones I feel would be most useful

Why don't you just actually do content? The purpose of these dummies are solely to gauge if you have enough dps to clear the fight for console (and pc) players without using an actual meter. What your asking for is something we can get in another mode. Did you try out the new training they have for beginners? Did you try doing guildhests? Both of these are meant to prepare the player in terms of mechanics and party play. These have a purpose for players doing higher level challenging content so it's assumed that there's no need to add the basics in there (killing adds, healing a target, healing while dps... really?). In fact they already have mode where you can practice the mechanics of the new raid tier. It's the story mode version! Anything else and you might as well do the real thing.

[Mayoyama]

Why don't you just actually do content? The purpose of these dummies are solely to gauge if you have enough dps to clear the fight for console (and pc) players without using an actual meter. What your asking for is something we can get in another mode. Did you try out the new training they have for beginners? Did you try doing guildhests? Both of these are meant to prepare the player in terms of mechanics and party play.

My reasons for asking for these modes are more to do with deep-seeded community problems such as people expecting you to be perfect the moment you step into a fight and then will kick you for not living up to their standards, or trying to find content that bridges the gap between "too easy" (most roulette content) and "would like to improve on".

There is a huge difference between being able to whack at a dummy for 3 min and actually maintaining similar DPS while dealing with mechanics (blm is a good example of this), and let's be honest that the community in general is not very forgiving to those lacking in experience. Therefore, if I can have somewhere I can practice and improve my skills as a player on my own, without impacting negatively on another group or dealing with snobbery/elitism, why is this a bad thing?

EDIT: BTW, to answer your question: Hall of the novice and guildhests, while good for beginner players, are a little too basic for intermediate players wanting to improve

[Kallera]

Greetings,

I'd like to take a moment to answer some of the questions we have received in regards to Stone, Sky, Sea....

A: Yoshida made the following comments regarding why Stone, Sky, Sea challenges during an interview as to why there are no mechanics:

• If players aren't able to put all their effort into a challenge without any mechanics, they will most likely do worse in the actual content which includes mechanics.
• Once players are able to put all their effort into Stone, Sky, Sea, they will have more confidence to challenge the actual content.

Stone, Sky, Sea has been prepared as a training ground for players to test their skill rotations and learn through trial and error.

Except for tanks and healers this not an accurate assessment of the skill and technique they would be using. Congratulations, you, bereft of any incoming damage and mitigation skills, can burn down a rock using abilities that may not be relevant to the fight.

What does that even mean for me? It is not accurate of my dps, since that can change assuming on whether or not I can(or should) stance dance, it is not accurate of what to do for incoming damage, which is a basic concern for tanks and healers. This is not a function of fight mechanics, this is a basic gameplay priority for the role. If you want to refine a DPS role's rotation to its utmost this is perfect, but it falls short of providing similar refinement for the other roles. This leaves tanks and healers with an irrelevant tool for the content we are trying to prepare for as well.

Furthermore, accuracy should be factor with regards to the dummy, as it is such a vital stat in being able to participate. Insufficient accuracy results in a player that may as well be dead, as they cannot function properly or perform combinations in the content.

[Kotori_Southburd]

It's a combination of an attack dummy, parser and dps check
put on your old gear. Can you kill the BisEx dummy with i170 gear?
No? well.. there's room for improvement than.

Can't kill that A7S dummy with your current gear?
Well. than forget about mechanics.
Work on other improving other things first, before attempting your world's first clear

[EZ5902]

Found this useless for healers tbh

[Sarcatica]

Found this useless for me tbh

fixed for you :>

Healers that are good need to do dps especially in Savage. You don't clear it doing 0 dps now.

[SpookyGhost]

fixed for you :>

Healers that are good need to do dps especially in Savage. You don't clear it doing 0 dps now.

Unless you're SCH, you never have the chance to sit there and smash on the boss for 3 minutes. Specific conditions must be met for WHM/AST to DPS and those will change from fight to fight, which is impossible to replicate on a normal training dummy. So yeah, doesn't really work for WHM/AST.