Concerns about " Getting rid of unused and ineffective actions"

[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