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

[Syzygian]

Hmm. What i gather from the above is that you should aim to kill the dummy while meeting the acc cap and without food/pots. I.E. if you clear a dummy in the nick of time with a low acc build and food/pots, you're fudging the numbers.

Folks using sss as a yardstick for their ability or a propective apllicant to their static's ability to clear content should probably keep that in mind.

[Blitzace]

Are these "tests" even accurate? Honestly just did Bis ex for fun as PLD w/ shield oath, had 20 seconds left.
With Sword Oath i had 1 minute 5 seconds left.

Now i'm not saying it is, but for a PLD that is I209? i would expect to have a bit more time left than 20 seconds in my tank stance. And i'm sure i could improve the time but just a quick peek makes me already wonder. How accurate is this dummy.


I know my DMG is well beyond the needed DMG of bis ex lol, Makes me wonder. are these made for MT or OT. Cause honestly, even in MT i deal more DMG than most people i've had in my bis ex parties >.>(Pugs lol)
Do not have parser so can't really give concrete numbers on my PLD after patch i know i was able of pulling 1k+ on my PLD when i went full dmg rotation though.

[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.

[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.

[Fernosaur]

You guys are totally missing the point of SSS. It's not meant as a hardcore measurement for the damage you HAVE to deal in the actual fight while doing mechanics. It has a minimum that is slightly above what you should be contributing, since in the actual instance you're not only gonna be buffed by food and potions, but also by party bonuses and party buffs (balance, foe's, etc). If you people want to practice the mechanics, go into the actual fight. The dummies are just there to be a gear + rotation checks for DPS, and in the case of tanks and healers, just a fun little challenge. It's obvious that tanks will need to be 100% in tank stance to beat them, and also that healers won't need to worry about healing while hitting the dummy. I dunno what is the consideration for the Dummies' HP for Tanks and Healers, but they're not meant to be an actual "practice" for these two roles. Yoshida said it himself when he announced it -_-

If you go with a healer class, you'll see that clearing the Savage 4 dummy and upwards at IL 200 is super hard. It's just a test to the limits the job's DPS can have and to test how much you can optimize the job's tools for damage.

Once again, if you want to practice the content, do the actual goddamn content.

I kind of agree with the part about accuracy, but then again, I think the checks (at least for tanks and healers) are already so tight that the amount of RNG that came from accuracy, specially in the case of healers, would make the dummies impossible to beat on a constant basis.

[Kallera]

I think you are missing the point.

If the simulation of the requirement for high level content is "just a fun little challenge" that isn't related to the fight or the basic mechanics employed by either the boss or the player, it has no point at all. Surely Tanks and healers need to learn just like dps do.

[SpookyGhost]

Not saying it's the best thing ever or anything, but the purpose of SSS is to go beat up the dummy until you can kill it, meaning that you can go into the instance confident that if you do execute the mechanics that you'll be able to beat the enrage. I think not including pots and food into the equation kinda skews everything, but I assume all the dummies are over the mark for the actual fight to compensate for various things. You're not meant to practice mechanics outside as that would lead to groups requiring a pass of that SSS to qualify, because of the availability of understanding all the mechanics outside of the fight. It's just, conceptually, not a good idea and I think I can understand why they didn't implement it that way.

[Kallera]

What tactics we are using to defeat the dummy is different than even the standard tactics we are using to survive the content. They are two different fights, and are more likely to create a meaningless false confidence.