Concerns about " Getting rid of unused and ineffective actions"

[Dzian]

There's a lot of useless skills that could be amazing skills with just a small tweak. surecast for example is absolutely useless. but if it was tweaked to allow you to cast the next spell uninterrupted while moving. it'd suddenly be an amazing spell and a great help for many blackmages, surecasting blizzard 4 for example to keep there enochain up even if they have to dodge mechanics.

All crowd control is useless by game design. shadowbind heavy freeze, sleep repose. a blm will never sleep anything instead they'll just fire 2 the whole lot till its dead, nothing hits hard enough to warrant sleeps or any form of crowd control and everything is simply rounded up and aoed down.

then you have skills that are used but totally innefective or not used for there intended purpose. pacifys, stuns, silences etc, the only thing these are ever used for 99% of the time is a small dps increase, so when you find mechanics you could stun you inevitably can't because the boss is immune because everyones been spamming stuns for the small dps boost.

silence is the same. think I can name 2 things of hand that silence has ever been usefull for. high voltage in very early coil days and requelling mist in the forgall fight in weeping city. again blunt arrow is only ever used as a dps increase 99% of the time.

then you have situations like paladins. where a good portion of its toolkit is basically useless in a remotely decent group. cover is one example, divine veil also. it's a pretty strong shield admittedly but it isn't really needed or usefull that often. if you pass a dps check before big aoe damage that damage is trivial. and divine veil is a joke, if you fail the dps check you wipe regardless of how many shields you can throw up.

so many skills are made useless simply from the way content is designed

[Shurrikhan]

There's a lot of useless skills that could be amazing skills with just a small tweak. Surecast for example is absolutely useless, but if it was tweaked to allow you to cast the next spell uninterrupted while moving. it'd suddenly be an amazing spell and a great help for many blackmages, surecasting blizzard 4 for example to keep there enochain up even if they have to dodge mechanics.

What seems difficult about something like this is that you're then blending two functions, which can then step into the domain of another ability (in this case, Swiftcast). You now have two skills the provide mobility. If you went the way of allowing BLMs to use Surecast to simply stand in a given AoE instead such as by taking reduced AoE damage or their cast's potency absorbing incoming damage during the cast itself, then you essentially have a second Manaward, functionally speaking. To be honest, one of the things that I think could go a long way is to simply allow for dual-casting or blended animations, e.g. being able to use Surecast during another cast (flame gathers around your staff while your hand, otherwise unused, forms the Surecast, Manaward, Manawall, next-spell Swiftcast, etc.). One of the main inhibitors of Surecast right now is the clipping it causes. Keep the animation, but kill the clipping, and its use may well be more attractive.

Without that change, or even alongside it, SE will just have to figure out what blends of functions they actually want to assign to n abilities.

All crowd control is useless by game design. shadowbind heavy freeze, sleep repose. a blm will never sleep anything instead they'll just fire 2 the whole lot till its dead, nothing hits hard enough to warrant sleeps or any form of crowd control and everything is simply rounded up and aoed down.

Just a quick question: would it be preferably to you that your AoEs hit slightly harder, and your CCs were far more applicable (less effective but still usable against enemies that would otherwise be immune), but most enemies hit substantially harder? Maybe throw some added active defenses, for non-tanks especially, into that mix as not to kill off all melee when a tank isn't present, but at that point you really are more dependent on coordination in order to go whole hog on your enemies. If playing in the current mass-pull style, tanks get to feel a bit more mitigation oriented and healers a bit more healing oriented as a side-effect.

Then you have skills that are used but totally ineffective or not used for their intended purpose. Pacifys, stuns, silences, etc, are ever used for 99% of the time is a small dps increase, so when you find mechanics you could stun you inevitably can't because the boss is immune because everyones been spamming stuns for the small dps boost.

Similar question: Would you prefer that stuns were balanced in such a way as to be more useful as ways to guarantee positionals, improve uptime of other skills, or reduce (tank) damage taken, etc., than as on-cooldown bonus damage?

Then you have situations like paladins, where a good portion of its toolkit is basically useless in a remotely decent group. Cover is one example, divine veil also. it's a pretty strong shield admittedly but it isn't really needed or useful that often. If you pass a dps check before big aoe damage that damage is trivial. And divine veil is a joke, if you fail the dps check you wipe regardless of how many shields you can throw up.

What I'd say you're looking at are flaw-specific outputs, which can be fine (albeit perhaps a bit overpowered in new settings as sort of a safety mechanics-learning job) if their relative cost onto the rest of the toolkit is low. Granted, I don't think the Paladin toolkit is actually limited to emergencies and team mistakes. Divine Veil is still a very real output even outside of emergencies; I'd argue its best uses are regularly scheduled, as to negate the need for a particular healer AoE, and it can save the raid from certain AoEs, such as all Almost Holy casts going off at once within minimal or no other shielding. Cover itself would seem useful only when a target who would otherwise die is marked for or in a zone for incoming physical damage—extremely niche—but is actually used primarily to cheese mechanics, such as on T13's Ahk Morn, A5, etc., as a strategy-bending gimmick. So they're both useful even when no mistakes are made, and actually have relatively little uptime to support the team when mistakes are frequent. But I have to ask, is something useful at all times even what you really want, especially if the cost for failure-specific outputs are low, when you're playing a more... thematically defender-type tank? I'd agree that these tools should see more use to bend strategies further and more frequently, but I'm not sure they need to be regular outputs.

So many skills are made useless simply from the way content is designed.

And this is where I blame the distinct metas wherein CCs and such go from fully applicable to suddenly useless. There should be a more analog range of effect here to allow for different strategies as enemy resistances increase, rather than merely creating two distinct rulesets wherein a number of previously useful skills go by the wayside.

[Dzian]

What seems difficult about something like this is that you're then blending two functions, which can then step into the domain of another ability (in this case, Swiftcast). You now have two skills the provide mobility. If you went the way of allowing BLMs to use Surecast to simply stand in a given AoE instead such as by taking reduced AoE damage or their cast's potency absorbing incoming damage during the cast itself, then you essentially have a second Manaward, functionally speaking.

Um That's a long way off what i had said. I said allowing surecast to let you cast the next spell uniterupted even while moving would turn it from a useless skill to ausefull one. as players could then sure cast bliazzard 4 to keep there enochain up even if they have to dodge mechanics. to be honest it'd be such a small change you wouldn't even have to change the abilities description. and it wouldn't be stepping on swiftcasts toes either as swiftcast is typicaly used to speed up long casts like ss2 and raises or flares. surecast wouldn't do that if it was changed as i suggested. it'd simply give you a bit of flexibility to move while casting a spell. small change that would be very usefull to many mages.

Just a quick question: would it be preferably to you that your AoEs hit slightly harder, and your CCs were far more applicable (less effective but still usable against enemies that would otherwise be immune), but most enemies hit substantially harder? Maybe throw some added active defenses, for non-tanks especially, into that mix as not to kill off all melee when a tank isn't present, but at that point you really are more dependent on coordination in order to go whole hog on your enemies.

I have to ask. How would making a players aoe's hit harder and making crowd control skills less effective than they currently are. help make them more usable. the only thing that would do is further promote the style of ignore crowd control and aoe everything. the problem with crowd control is it has zero value. making it less effective wouldn't do anything to change that. the game needs encounters where crowd control is viable. someone suggested sleeping party members that are confused or mind controlled as 1 example, another could be groups of enemies that are actually dangerous. a quick thought would be a horde of wasps for example. might be worht sleeping instead of aoeing it all down only to meet a dozen final stings all going off at once. there's probably millions of examples thatsj ust one i came up with on the fly writing this.

Similar question: Would you prefer that stuns were balanced in such a way as to be more useful as ways to guarantee positionals, improve uptime of other skills, or reduce (tank) damage taken, etc., than as on-cooldown bonus damage?

What i'd like to see is more encounters where these skills are actually needed and used for there intended purposes more than just a 6-8 dps increase. IF you look at forgall in weeping city if not silenced that mist attack can mess up your entire alliance. or in a4s if you don't stun the legs while they steam. or the even older ifrit where you could stun the eruptions so the mages dont have to move. high voltage in early coil. things like that are incredibly rare and makes things like stuns and silences almost worthless in most content and relegates them all to nothing more than a bit of extra dps.

In my view the reason so many skills are useless is because of the way the game is designed and all monsters are weak and easy to defeat and it's a problem that is connected to several other problems.
Why do tanks even when main tanking use dps stance so much? because nothing hits hard enough or is dangerous enough to warrant staying in tank stance.

Why are healers expected to dps so much? because nothing hits hard enough or is dangerous enough that it needs any significant healing.

Why is crowd control useless? because nothing hits hard enough or dangerous enough that a tank cant handle the extra damage, it's easier to aoe a couple of extra mobs than it is to sleep or control them.

It all comes down to game design. SKills that could be incredibly usefull and valuable are made redundant by the games very design

[Zojha]

What i'd like to see is more encounters where these skills are actually needed [...]

But that is just making things artificially useful via content design. In a similar vein, you could make Cover and Healer LB3 (more) useful by making a mechanic that kills all targets except the Paladin and his covered target - after everyone but the two are killed, the LB bar instantly fills fully. Obvious solution to the fight: Cover the healer and healer LB3 afterwards. Suddenly, cover and healer LB3 become extremely useful, mandatory even! But that's entirely artificial.

[Morningstar1337]

But that is just making things artificially useful via content design. In a similar vein, you could make Cover and Healer LB3 (more) useful by making a mechanic that kills all targets except the Paladin and his covered target - after everyone but the two are killed, the LB bar instantly fills fully. Obvious solution to the fight: Cover the healer and healer LB3 afterwards. Suddenly, cover and healer LB3 become extremely useful, mandatory even! But that's entirely artificial.

You mean like with Bahamut an Alexander and the Tank LB?

[Shurrikhan]

snip

I think you've taken the mere fact that what I said was in reply to you as indicator that I in some way disagreed with each part I quoted. That is not the case.

Um That's a long way off what i had said. I said allowing surecast to let you cast the next spell uniterupted even while moving would turn it from a useless skill to a usefull one. as players could then sure cast blizzard 4 to keep there enochain up even if they have to dodge mechanics. to be honest it'd be such a small change you wouldn't even have to change the abilities description. and it wouldn't be stepping on swiftcasts toes either as swiftcast is typicaly used to speed up long casts like ss2 and raises or flares. surecast wouldn't do that if it was changed as i suggested. it'd simply give you a bit of flexibility to move while casting a spell. small change that would be very usefull to many mages.

Right. So, you made a Surecast give the ability to cast on the move, which is also a significant part of using Swiftcast (in addition to saving total cast time and moving the effect from the tail of the cast to the front, with the GCD wait behind it instead). That is, unless there's a disclaimer I missed, such as needing to have progressed x% through the cast already before moving. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, only that it is partially redundant and that it would, as you said, be a fairly powerful to the BLM toolkit, and that deciding the allotments for such functions into particular abilities can be a hard part of design, or especially rebalancing.

I have to ask. How would making a players aoe's hit harder and making crowd control skills less effective than they currently are. help make them more usable. the only thing that would do is further promote the style of ignore crowd control and aoe everything. the problem with crowd control is it has zero value. making it less effective wouldn't do anything to change that. the game needs encounters where crowd control is viable. someone suggested sleeping party members that are confused or mind controlled as 1 example, another could be groups of enemies that are actually dangerous. a quick thought would be a horde of wasps for example. might be worht sleeping instead of aoeing it all down only to meet a dozen final stings all going off at once. there's probably millions of examples thatsj ust one i came up with on the fly writing this.

For clarity:

Just a quick question: would it be preferable to you that your AoEs hit slightly harder, and your CCs were far more applicable (less effective but still usable against enemies that would otherwise be immune), but most enemies hit substantially harder?

What I suggested was a CC buff, including making CC always applicable to some extent even on enemies that are currently 100% immune to them now. And the effect, I would imagine, would be the opposite. Because enemies strike harder, CC becomes more important, and the risk of mass-AoEing is greatly increased, at which point there is no need for such diminishing damage returns as on Flare and Holy, allowing you to bring them back up to their original state to reward skillful gameplay that can manage a mass pull without dying (which probably comes down in large part to well-timed AoE CCs, which cost dps uptime).

Similar question: Would you prefer that stuns were balanced in such a way as to be more useful as ways to guarantee positionals, improve uptime of other skills, or reduce (tank) damage taken, etc., than as on-cooldown bonus damage?

What i'd like to see is more encounters where these skills are actually needed and used for there intended purposes more than just a 6-8 dps increase. IF you look at forgall in weeping city if not silenced that mist attack can mess up your entire alliance. or in a4s if you don't stun the legs while they steam. or the even older ifrit where you could stun the eruptions so the mages dont have to move. high voltage in early coil. things like that are incredibly rare and makes things like stuns and silences almost worthless in most content and relegates them all to nothing more than a bit of extra dps.

In my view the reason so many skills are useless is because of the way the game is designed and all monsters are weak and easy to defeat and it's a problem that is connected to several other problems.
Why do tanks even when main tanking use dps stance so much? because nothing hits hard enough or is dangerous enough to warrant staying in tank stance.

Why are healers expected to dps so much? because nothing hits hard enough or is dangerous enough that it needs any significant healing.

Why is crowd control useless? because nothing hits hard enough or dangerous enough that a tank cant handle the extra damage, it's easier to aoe a couple of extra mobs than it is to sleep or control them.

It all comes down to game design. SKills that could be incredibly usefull and valuable are made redundant by the games very design

Generally agreed, but only insofar as it doesn't become a mandatory gimmick.