Concerns about " Getting rid of unused and ineffective actions"

[Morningstar1337]

You couldn't be more wrong. While I agree that BRD and MCH do not have a lot of options to regain their TP, the options they *do* have makes up for it and allows them to do more sustainable AoE DPS over a longer period of time than a BLM could (because state switching breaking up the AoE rotation for BLM's).

Wide Volley and Grenado Shot are an essential part of the BRD and MCH toolkit and are widely used to deal with large groups alongside their other AoE's (Bishop Autoturret and Flaming Arrow/Rain of Death). If they'd end up upping the damage, fine. If they remove it, I'd see very little reason to play BRD anymore, because then it would be massively outclassed by DRG and MNK.

Okay I concede with the TP regain thing, however that still dosn't excuse the fact that both classes have two AoEs with the exact same potency. The best case scenario would be that one of them in both Jobs gets a buff, but something about these two skills (or Spread Shot and Wide Volley) has got to change.

[Nezerius]

I personally never did that. I did things the old fashioned way, and experimented and figured it out. It's the kind of thing that people seem to be averse to these days.

You were in the minority with that mindset, as the majority of the playerbase did the exact thing that the person you quoted mentioned, mostly because there were plenty of talents that were just dumb, like the one that'd increase the duration of Eyes of the Beast in Vanilla WoW.
Besides, XIV never had that illusion of choice of that WoW had, before its talent trees got revamped. Based on that, are you sure this is the right game for you?

And besides, there were still those unique individuals who would spec into talents that others would say are not viable for high level raiding.

Those "unique" individuals who would spec the complete Survival hunter pre-1.7 so they could be a "melee hunter".
Yea, those usually got laughed back to the trainer to spec into something that wasn't shit.

It'd have been better if your thread didn't start off with your baseless worries that SE might remove fundamental abilitiies (fire I, etc), and also focused on the other two things that'll also affect the combat system in 4.0.

You can't just focus on the removal/adjustment of abilities without including the change to the cross-class system (becoming a role based thing), and the fact that 4.0 will bring in new abilities for every job.

[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.

[No2631]

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.

I don't know about you, but no BLM worth their salt would Swiftcast Flare if they knew there were mechanics that required them to move 60s within Swiftcasting Flare. For a BLM, Swiftcast is the tool you use to keep casting spells while handling mechanics, and it's also what you use to clutch Blizz IV after mechanics and finding you have 2s of Enochian left. It's definitely not "typically used to speed up long casts" when you're a BLM. I even Swiftcast Fire whenever necessary.


I do agree Surecast could use some improvement; absurd that one of our least used skills gets a trait to improve it (and it still remains bad). Consideration with your idea (make it allow casting during moving) is that current BLM skill expression is by maximising DPS uptime while minimising movement necessary. If you change Surecast to make it easier, you remove some of the BLM skill expression and homogenise their gameplay towards "turret" more.

The true "hardly worthwhile" spell BLM has is Freeze, which has a long cast time, unsatisfying damage, too few Umbral Ice stacks (it'd be better if it gave 3 for AoE purposes) and crowdcontrol attached that's inferior to Sleep in nearly all situations except PVP with resistances. I don't think I've ever had a serious situation as a BLM in which Sleep wasn't the strictly better alternative to applying crowdcontrol; less cast time, bigger range (5 yalms), longer CC duration that's functional even if the tank remains standing beside them. Outlier: speedrunning Wanderer's Palace HM where you can Freeze the mobs in place as you just skip them.

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Consideration re: strawmen is that you proposed SE would change things in x way and then highlight why x way would be bad, when there's no indication SE plans things like folding Fire 1/2/3(/4?) into one spell.

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EDIT: Also re: making encounters different to make the skill useful. Yeahno. While I liked how for Shiva EX I could Surecast past the dropping ice, I don't generally like the idea of changing encounters so that suddenly I have to use Surecast repeatedly for that one encounter where it fades into obscurity afterwards. Rather have Surecast changed to suddenly be useful in existing content than adjust new content to necessitate Surecast.

[Pondera]

I don't know about you, but no BLM worth their salt would Swiftcast Flare if they knew there were mechanics that required them to move 60s within Swiftcasting Flare. For a BLM, Swiftcast is the tool you use to keep casting spells while handling mechanics, and it's also what you use to clutch Blizz IV after mechanics and finding you have 2s of Enochian left. It's definitely not "typically used to speed up long casts" when you're a BLM. I even Swiftcast Fire whenever necessary

Been there on Bliz IV SO many times. Against bosses, I completely agree with you, and should probably use swiftcast in that fashion more often than I do. But against big trash pulls? Cleans them up 90% faster than the leading brand! Fire 2 till low, flare, convert and swift cast, flare, max-ether, flare once more with FEELING! I guarantee you, if there's anything left after that beyond smoldering ashes, natural selection has clearly done its job and maybe we should reconsider killing such a fine specimen

[No2631]

Been there on Bliz IV SO many times. Against bosses, I completely agree with you, and should probably use swiftcast in that fashion more often than I do. But against big trash pulls? Cleans them up 90% faster than the leading brand! Fire 2 till low, flare, convert and swift cast, flare, max-ether, flare once more with FEELING! I guarantee you, if there's anything left after that beyond smoldering ashes, natural selection has clearly done its job and maybe we should reconsider killing such a fine specimen

Yeah, okay, you can use Swiftcast in those situations. :P I usually don't even think much about not-boss content since it all ends up feeling like inbetween-bosses content. (I actually loved A2 and T4 for being "just mobs".)

[Atlaworks]

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one-ilm punch