Possible alteration to Cleric Stance

[JackFross]

Sorry, I was referring to its value within what I had proposed earlier, not as it currently is.

Ah, that's my bad, I should have paid more attention.

All I really have to add, though, is that Accuracy caps will never be optional for anyone who can miss. If you have even a slight chance to miss the boss due to a certain situation or position or anything, you are playing sub-optimally. You should never be relying on one skill to be used for a marginal gain in stats. Even a gain of 60 secondary stats is ~10 points of main stat, which is less than 1/3 of the (borderline-negligible) gains we get from Attribute Points.

/// And general concerns

I don't disagree with all the people parroting the same shit that's been tread in this thread again and again.

Accuracy isn't interesting or varied, but it's right now the only thing that makes gearing up anything more than braindead. I hate to repeat myself, so I won't. I explained this earlier.

As it stands, Accuracy is the only thing that makes gearing up interesting, challenging, and fun. If you remove that stat from the game, everything just becomes boring. You just slap on the highest dps piece and you're good, because, at the end of the day, this game is all about how much damage you can do to the target. Unless these secondaries are some fourth, fifth, or sixth way of boosting damage dealt in a meaningful way, they'll be widely ignored for the crit/det options.

And I have yet to see a single person propose how this statement is anything other than accurate. The only thought that goes into gearing up is "how will I maximize [favored stat] while meeting Accuracy?" - if you remove Accuracy without doing anything else, that statement becomes "I will maximize [favored stat!]"

So, like, if people wanna sit here and keep saying "get rid of accuracy" or "here's a way to make accuracy not matter" - provide me with some sort of example of what they could implement instead to actually keep choices of gear. Despite what everyone says about Accuracy limiting options, it is actually the reason that options exist in the first place. The main reason to choose one piece over another of equivalent item level is the accuracy on the two items. Sure, it results in one "best in slot" set that is definitively better on paper than any other set you could conceive, but uh, so what? What sorts of stats would you add where this would not be the case?

Or is the issue simply just that Accuracy is a poor choice for this, because it gimps Healers for no reason at all? (which is a fair criticism, and the very first post I made in this thread has me saying that all they need to do is put a 5% accuracy boost on Cleric Stance and they're golden)

[Shurrikhan]

And I have yet to see a single person propose how this statement is anything other than accurate. The only thought that goes into gearing up is "how will I maximize [favored stat] while meeting Accuracy?" - if you remove Accuracy without doing anything else, that statement becomes "I will maximize [favored stat!]"

So, like, if people wanna sit here and keep saying "get rid of accuracy" or "here's a way to make accuracy not matter" - provide me with some sort of example of what they could implement instead to actually keep choices of gear. Despite what everyone says about Accuracy limiting options, it is actually the reason that options exist in the first place. The main reason to choose one piece over another of equivalent item level is the accuracy on the two items. Sure, it results in one "best in slot" set that is definitively better on paper than any other set you could conceive, but uh, so what? What sorts of stats would you add where this would not be the case?

Or is the issue simply just that Accuracy is a poor choice for this, because it gimps Healers for no reason at all? (which is a fair criticism, and the very first post I made in this thread has me saying that all they need to do is put a 5% accuracy boost on Cleric Stance and they're golden)

This certainly isn't as solid an answer as you were hoping for, and it will largely be reiteration, but temporary (early/late game - low stats, high stats) weight-scaling imbalance between stats could go a fair way into interesting gearing or meaningful stat choice IF the secondary stats are abundant enough to actually reach very high amounts prior to the end of a given expansion, and if each stat can still be useful in both at low and high amounts.

For instance, in ARR critical strike was the preferred stat even by allegedly Det-high classes, to a point. Or, from the opposite perspective, even among Crit-high classes, Crit eventually gave way to Det and/or Speed. Even Bards' critical strike contribution tapered drastically enough that if Det had been even more of an intensely ideal for AAs, it would have been preferred over the holy River of Blood secondary stat at a certain point (though we never quite reached it). Skill Speed already has the complexity of having a few different usable plateaus, but some of these take drastic amounts of Skill Speed to reach, and the stat itself fairs poorly until it's gradually reducing the global by a greater and greater percent of the remainder (at which point its contribution is crippled by animation speed oversights, and partly by TP drain). In other words it had a linear value stat, a de-exponential relative value stat, and an exponential relative value stat. Though less obvious than missed attacks, that is a balance around which to build one's gear, each with equal or greater complexity than gearing for proper (least excess) accuracy. Some of the largest wasted opportunities we have now lie simply in Crit's "fix" and Speed's lack thereof.

Now, that's by no means a reason to remove accuracy. And if Accuracy were reduced as a percent of the total, the amounts saved (how little excess Accuracy one can have) would be that much less satisfying. I agree with you in that. I simply thought it expendible even so, IF, and only if, the other stats were at least balanced as to provide additional equilibrium to balance one's gearing around, noticeably, even now. That's why I included a few ways to fix the oversights on Skill Speed in my reply. (I didn't mean to ignore your post; I found it relevant to what you were asking.) It's also why I dislike what's been done with Critical Strike, in pairing the actual chance growth with increased crit bonus. The oversights to the first, and the overpowered fix to the second reduce the ideal gearing points we can aim for apart from finely cut accuracy. Crit even reduces the decision making on virtually every class to "how do I get the most Crit with the least of my shittiest stat", by being the highest weighted at any amount (after necessary speed plateaus).

(Granted, that find-the-Crit style gearing may be an equally enjoyable task to some; you have the "good" stat, and the "bad" stat(s), and maybe a mediocre one, too, and you want to maximize the "good"; the distinction is certainly stronger than if each stat were equally good, albeit with different ideal proportions and uses. I guess this too may come down to personal preferences.)

(To be honest, I could go either way on whether there is a noticeable best stat at a given level in other stats (whether each has a preferred relative amount to balance around), but at the very least I'd like to see each balanced against the others. Looking up a stat weight for my job is not interesting--all the less so when those stat weights are less dynamic. But at least having the choice of whether I want to go for an extended rotation or not (for indistinguishable outputs, or almost indistinguishable outputs correlatable with their required skill to perform), to have so many Bloodletters it's difficult to get every oGCD in before Internal Release ends or not, would feel damn good, given how little other avenues of customization there are. I like plateau-matching, but I also like the general freedom to customize.)

>> On topic: With all things as they are, I too would be quite happy with just a bonus 5% accuracy on Cleric Stance as well, if only because that'd at least leave them a few melds left to choose something else for coming into later Midas-S floors.

[HPDelron]

... provide me with some ...implement ..choices of gear.

Regardless of one's stance on accuracy this is an interesting question. At the most basic the issue is that all stats more or less boil down to output (HPS/DPS). Say, in addition to the current effect DET looked like this:

Determination: Increases the size of Area of Effect abilities.
SCH Trait: Determination increases the duration of Galvanize effects.
WHM Trait: Determination has double the normal effect on Tetragrammaton.
AST Trait: Chance when you use Royal Road to finish the cool down on Draw & Redraw increases with determination.

With similar treatments for other stats. Some already have this, like the crit and Adloquium interaction. Which isn't to say this exact example is what they should go for. Just that on a conceptual level the way one way to get stat variety is making them more just things that are plugged into a HPs formula.

[Shurrikhan]

At the most basic the issue is that all stats more or less boil down to output (HPS/DPS). Say, in addition to the current effect DET looked like this:

Determination: Increases the size of Area of Effect abilities.
SCH Trait: Determination increases the duration of Galvanize effects.
WHM Trait: Determination has double the normal effect on Tetragrammaton.
AST Trait: Chance when you use Royal Road to finish the cool down on Draw & Redraw increases with determination.

...on a conceptual level the way one way to get stat variety is making them more just things that are plugged into a HPs formula.

So something like gearing for utility/burst/saving stats vs. general output stats? If any of these stats are going to be one's they'd have already preferred, it's not really going to add anything to the table, decision-wise, even if their outputs may become that much more noticeable.

/Imagining if several CDs all scaled with Spell Speed, for instance.

[HPDelron]

So.../Imagining ..for instance.

Not exactly. My post was just a conceptual example.When stats only contribute to throughput there is a mathematically correct and solvable "answer" to gearing.

The first step would be to make all output stats roughly equal. No matter what you stack things are tuned so that it's as close to possible to parity. Then, secondary effects:

DET - Increases the size of your AoEs & range of spells.
SPEED - Increases movement rate.
CRIT - Increases proc rates.

Now, gearing isn't primarily about what makes you do the most healing or damage, but about the secondary aspects. This includes consistency vs burst (det vs healing) like you outlined but also the rather incomparable:

Do I want det to make movement more forgiving for the party? Speed to make dodging easier, or Critical to get more out of my utility? (again these are conceptual examples not concrete suggestions. These actual benefits could be unbalanced poo.)

[Shurrikhan]

Not exactly. My post was just a conceptual example.When stats only contribute to throughput there is a mathematically correct and solvable "answer" to gearing.

The first step would be to make all output stats roughly equal. No matter what you stack things are tuned so that it's as close to possible to parity. Then, secondary effects:

DET - Increases the size of your AoEs & range of spells.
SPEED - Increases movement rate.
CRIT - Increases proc rates.

Now, gearing isn't primarily about what makes you do the most healing or damage, but about the secondary aspects. This includes consistency vs burst (det vs healing) like you outlined but also the rather incomparable:

Do I want det to make movement more forgiving for the party? Speed to make dodging easier, or Critical to get more out of my utility? (again these are conceptual examples not concrete suggestions. These actual benefits could be unbalanced poo.)

Just as counter-example, though, fight per fight, even increased AoE range could potentially equate to increased throughput. Which is great. If not, you'd be playing around with that +/- 5% damage and barely rehealing people to survivable levels before a second AoE, for instance, to feel like your stats are significant. This allows for a bit more... creative meaningfulness. Sadly, unless these bonus effects have a way of varying situationally, they might still throw a given stat into the mud, especially once all three output secondaries are roughly equal. So many "leniency" contributors tend to end up contributing less than the purest output stats, after all, unless the content demands them, which might then end up feeling far worse.

Still trying to figure out how to do that, though. Effect adjustment per specific CDs/buffs, maybe?

[HPDelron]

Just as counter-example, though, fight per fight, even increased AoE ...

Still trying to figure out how to do that, though. Effect adjustment per specific CDs/buffs, maybe?

These inherently vary by the situation. An AoE/Range increase is not useful in a claustrophobic fight on top of a small platform it's very useful a frantic fight with lots of folks running in different directions.
People doing bleed-edge world firsts are always going go through this stuff with a finer-toothed comb than the rest of us and maybe even maintain multiple gear sets to always have all solutions on hand. Probably less so for the rest of us.

My examples could be crap, I'm not emotionally attached. Whatever the effects they should be easy to digest and feel substantively different in moment-to-moment gameplay. Sadly the extraordinarly small character limit on posts is making expressing myself difficult.

[Shurrikhan]

These inherently vary by the situation. An AoE/Range increase is not useful in a claustrophobic fight on top of a small platform it's very useful a frantic fight with lots of folks running in different directions.
People doing bleed-edge world firsts are always going go through this stuff with a finer-toothed comb than the rest of us and maybe even maintain multiple gear sets to always have all solutions on hand. Probably less so for the rest of us.

My examples could be crap, I'm not emotionally attached. Whatever the effects they should be easy to digest and feel substantively different in moment-to-moment gameplay. Sadly the extraordinarly small character limit on posts is making expressing myself difficult.

Oh, I get that. I just figured that it would be easier to balance stats around multiple or adjustable associated effects, as to make them more situational (in terms of emergencies, preparation, maximization, etc.) rather that something that might be easily niched by the arena or fight phasing itself. I realize that these ideas are just rough examples, and my feedback has been at least as rough, if not far more spit-balled. I tend to consider anything that doesn't vary based on what the team has actually done or has been affected by as niche, and only things that follow through as adaptation or situational adjustment. For whatever reason I think about anything before that as merely "prep". And with gear, I tend to prefer things that (by that ambiguous definition) have situational, rather than fixed, use.

By the way, you can edit the posts after to bypass this limit, as admittedly stupid a loop to jump through as that is.

[_slowpoke_]

And I have yet to see a single person propose how this statement is anything other than accurate.

You're entirely ignoring that basically everyone who wants Accuracy gone also wants a general stat overhaul (which is what I have explicitly said in my posts). Dropping Accuracy (and the ability to miss) right now without any other changes to the game would be obviously not well thought out. I don't know why people would assume that this makes sense, it's an obvious straw man argument. The earliest anything like this could reasonably happen is 4.0.

Despite what everyone says about Accuracy limiting options, it is actually the reason that options exist in the first place.

No, that's not how options work, I don't understand how you would even come to this conclusion. Accuracy forces you to use specific pieces of gear from our already very limited pool. Remove Accuracy from the equation, and you can suddenly freely choose which pieces of gear you want in whatever order you want, freely focus on your substat(s) of choice, and experiment a lot more with them - which is already what most healers do, and it doesn't make gearing less interesting. The ability to freely meld materia of our choice instead of being basically forced to meld Accuracy (thanks to the current hit cap situation) would even improve this further.

This is why I still vehemently disagree that Accuracy makes gearing up interesting, quite the contrary. It's an arbitrary and badly implemented limit to gearing choices. FFXIV is an almost exclusively vertical progression MMO by fundamental design (whether you like that or not), and a stat that prevents you from using new (and, sans Accuracy, better) items because it would put you under said arbitrary limit has no place in such a game.