4.0 abilities

[Ceasaria]

Where did they say all that. Source please?

No, it's my thought. I misspoke, sorry.

Just this is true "It was said, they would change the combat system at 4.0 (or 5.0)."

[Morningstar1337]

What I would suguess? Add more Hotbars :P (especially Vertical ones)

Apart from that and moving onto real solutions. I would like to see More traits added or got he XI route and just don't increase the Level cap.

[FinalWolf]

Please give warrior a trait to increase foresight.

[Shurrikhan]

There's always conditional effects.

The main thing is to give us, essentially, a contenting number of options, but that doesn't mean we need three and a half bars worth of abilities by which to do that. You can always instead trait an ability to function as another ability, or with a new bonus effect, when attacking from a certain position, when within another buff or debuff's window, or when following another particular skill, etc.

And then there's always specializations, or pick X of (greater) Y number of skills, that give sufficient freedom to craft your character as you'd like without overloading your bars.

As for what I feel new skills in general should aim for, I'd say the basic idea is to give more thematic instruments that allow you to make new innovations within your gameplay up to acquisition—in other words, small steps that can have potentially large impacts. Basically, you get more points of control that allow you to get a deeper feel for your own gameplay. They should augment one's options and cause the player to consider different ways to handle different (frequent) situations. They should NOT jarringly change gameplay.

Form Shift is a pretty good example of this. When we first get it, it basically feels like it at best gives us an extra 2 GCDs of GL uptime, if we should need it. Not the largest addition, for sure, but when we go back to synced content we sometimes wonder why we were ever okay with Monk gameplay prior to acquiring Form Shift. Wanderer's Minuet, on the other hand, is probably a notorious bad example, as it does not augment preexisting gameplay or even, due to its long lock-in time, feel like an additional tool. It is basically a new style of play, with jarring contrast, acquired over a single level, non-optimal for another 4 levels, and still non-optimal over much of your rotation at level cap. A more subtle failing, imo, would be something like Tornado Kick, which adds a niche advantage in the form of a QoL addition, allowing a Monk to pull off a bit more end-of-phase damage, but is a bit too weak to have any real in-combat usage, even at seemingly optimal moments (using Tornado Kick just before buff CDs fade and only after having refreshed all DoTs and having spent all oGCDs). The same can be said of Meditation's not scaling with its current GCD, or even Skill Speed, making it all the more punishing to use in combat under Greased Lightning or with high-SS gear, even though many SS plateaus provide only a half-GCD spare to perfectly reapply Demolish, Dragon Kick, or Twin Snakes, too little to Fracture more often or adjust rotation. What these both are now should basically be what they, and most ideal ability additions, should seem like — fine QoL bonuses that offer something more to do, without being too annoying in doing it, but after perfecting their usage they should also end up situationally viable in-combat options as well, as not to fall off the battle bars completely.

Battle Litany and (the revised) Warden's Paeon are a couple good examples of niche-makers that may or may not actually be that interesting in solo content, but do give a better feel for one's role in group interactions. Dragoon becomes a sort of strike leader, while Bard furthers its support options, finally through a responsive instant cast. Those are good as well, but not an ability type I'd personally like to rely on in design. It's awesome to be able to save party members from a potent bleed or be the one job who can actually deal with Berserk's pacification effectively (if Selene is mid-heal), but when too many abilities all end up being group-content-only, you end up with the disappointment of Smoke Screen and Shadewalker whenever you're in a group with no Monk and/or a tank who doesn't know how to edge his or her dps and enmity anyways.

[Furiea]

tank... only play PLD
healer... only WHM
DPS... only SMN

all the other jobs requires too much effort for me =p

[Shurrikhan]

I think it is time for them to start adding some flare back into already existing skills by introducing Traits that upgrade old skills.

For example, Tank Jobs could get a trait that adds a new additional effect for being in Tank stance such as Paladin gets Oath of Light each time they get hit which increase their chance to block with their shield and increase reduce damage from their shield block.

Warriors's Tank Stance passive can get an additional effect that each time they spend their Tank buff stack they will be given a new buff called "Inner Rage" which cause them to gain a small % of HP back from each hit they take.


For DPS

Dragoons can get a passive that adds special debuff or buff effect to their 1,2,3 skills such as each time they use their 123 skill they build up a special buff called "Dragon's Spirit" which increase their crit chance or ignore a certain amount of enemy's armor up to 5 stacks.

Ninja can get a passive that gives them a new effect for their 123 skill when they are in their poison stances being that each time they hit a enemy with 123 skills they build up a special DoT called "Blade Poison" with it becoming stronger the higher the stack number up to a stack of 5.

But, but, there's no actual enemy armor (variance) in FFXIV! ("Armor penetration" would instead equate to +direct damage, as with any of the weapon type resistance down debuffs—where they fall from no effect to negative defense. But at least that might mean finally being able to let Chaos Thrust drop off for a couple GCDs, if only at the 4th and onward rotation, etc.)

The first thing I think of when I think of Ninja poisons—well, right after "things that probably could have just been passive damage increasing traits instead"—is universal MP usage. When it was first announced that NIN would be using two poison types, along with a blend of speedy physical attacks and powerful magics, I kinda expected that one would provide means of MP restore, additional magic damage, and/or self-buffing while the other one granted TP restore, additional physical DoT damage, and/or increased debuffing, each typing in a bit more into Assassinate. Admitedly, I'm kind of itching to see something like that in future expansions. It's right under "Mug stealing enemy items usable in combat by the next Mug cast, initially pacifying if used at the right time" on the wishlist, if that means anything...

[EdwinLi]

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Enemies still have Defense just like our characters.

Armor Penetration/Ignore in RPGs often have a much larger damage buff effect than a direct % damage increase buff on enemies with High Defense, such as bosses and the more sturdy monsters in dungeons.

It part of the reason why when a game offers a way to ignore a certain percent of enemies armor/defense that buff is often chosen over direct damage increase buffs.

For example,

if there is a 10% armor penetration/ignore on a enemy with 1000 armor then the enemy is only at 900 defense when attacking it. Then more on to a enemy with 2000 then that enemy is now at 1800 defense.

Direct damage buff is more set and the damage output is often weaker than armor penetration/ignore.

[Shurrikhan]

Enemies still have Defense just like our characters.

Armor Penetration/Ignore in RPGs often have a much larger damage buff effect than a direct % damage increase buff on enemies with High Defense, such as bosses and the more sturdy monsters in dungeons.

It part of the reason why when a game offers a way to ignore a certain percent of enemies armor/defense that buff is often chosen over direct damage increase buffs.

That's the thing though. At the same gear level, my 300 relative potency (factoring in buffs) attack does the same average damage to a wimpy AoE-burn trash mob or to a boss, unless that boss has a specific form decreasing damage taken, as far as I've seen. Dragon Kick and Twin Snakes, for instance, have identical effects on one's damage.

(Just went ahead and tested this for a few minutes to confirm I wasn't crazy, and every Bootshine and True Strike fell within the same range of damage from either a Dragon Kick alone or Twin Snakes alone, often even the exact same number. Jumped into a DF group for M4N, apologized for being a shitter for a minute in the name of science, and found the same.)

(Testing on multiple levels—53,55, 57, and 60—and mob types in each level has found the same average damage per potency so far.)
Pretty sure the main reason the debuff is preferred in ST group content, just as the self-buff is preferred when AoEing, is that you can adjust more damage with it. Additionally, different calculation layers (your own damage dealt modifiers and then the target's damage received modifiers) will stack multiplicatively (just as with buffs affecting different sources of damage).

(I'm fairly sure buffs affecting the same type, such as simply +%dmg or +%attack speed were confirmed to stack only additively instead.)

[Lemuria]

tank... only play PLD
healer... only WHM
DPS... only SMN

all the other jobs requires too much effort for me =p

Odd choice in Summoner, since that one arguably requires more effort than most other DPS jobs. You have to manage your pet, use Dreadwyrm reliably, keep your MP topped up (BLM has practically endless MP), maintain DoT's etc. Black Mage is basically bombarding mobs with the same two spells for the most part.

The big problem facing the developers is they've built themselves into a corner. Every job relies on using a certain set of skills in a pretty fixed rotation. That's why when they added skills in 3.0, they were mostly either related to previous skills, or they changed the rotation you would use.

Personally, I don't want to see either of those things. I want to see a merit point system where we can stick points into our EXISTING skills to improve them in some way. Letting White Mage regain their lost Stoneskin potency through these would be a good start, improving the HP recovered by Warrior could be another. There is a lot of scope for giving us more customization over our characters rather than playing the same damned way as everyone else.

There's no room for individuality in this game at the moment, so it's past time they made some room.

[Dumbledoremd]

Hello just wanted to discuss 4.0 60-70(?) Abilities and how they will be implemented -will there be new traits?
-my hotbars are starting to fill up >.>
-can there be selectable traits/abilities like for example i play as off tank and would like less dmg mitigation for more dps or as bard with less dmg outpuf but better songs for a more support role???

Thanks for reading ☺

They need too look at and fix the blm rotation enochian is hard to keep up on fights with alot of moving hopefully its removed in 4.0