COMBAT NEEDS FIXING

[zonderbunny]

O_o lvl 58 vs a lvl 60 A rank....not sure what you expected. Blunt arrow on bard can stop the giant aoe and maybe head graze (not 100% sure on that one) from machinist. Not that either of those were really going to help loads with just your lonesome going up against Mirka. If you weren't familiar with hunts before that try to think of it as a lesson learned. If you find a mob like that again try giving a shout and/or try finding a good hunt linkshell.

As far as combat needing an overhaul it is working as intended and isn't really in need of fixing imho.

[Fernosaur]

Yes let's make all kinds of damage unavoidable so that tanks and healers aren't needed ever. Surely this will be a great decision after 3 years of keeping the trinity system!

[Vanitas]

-this isn't Gw2 intensifies-
LUL lv58 squishy bard vs lv60 A rank
10/10 complaint.

[Vidu]

Just to add a quick anekdote: I once helped a level 20-something arcanist with the B-rank in western LN - they were new, didnt know what kind of mob that was but wanted to kill it because it looked cute... I made a careful and safe retreat afterwards, hoping they wouldnt consider my character or me helping cute...

[Kaethra]

I picked Bard and Machinist so I could move in combat.

The kiting playstyle was never really used outside of Everquest and GuildWars 2. In some cases you can kite mobs to avoid specials in FFXIV. But mobs have this pesky long range autoattack that will whittle you down over time. As others said, the trinity reigns supreme. Trying to kite in open world will likely cause mobs to leash if you go too far.

In EQ, you can kite mobs over.. well the entire zone if you wish. Bards are king at that. Followed by Druids and Wizards, and then Rangers get stupidly good at it after getting Vinelash Cascade to AoE root in a 100ft (that is NOT an exaggeration) line in front of them.

Alternatively you can spec your Chocobo to tank for you. You might have mixed results with that.

[Settiesama]

The kiting playstyle was never really used outside of Everquest and GuildWars 2.

FFXI as well had a very strong kiting playstyle which allowed a lot of jobs to solo things they shouldn't of been able to, especially when they found a bit of environment to limit the mobs movement. Rdm was the kiting king in the older days

[Pintsized]

I've come from Gw2 where the combat is great and using my skills right I can survive any fight and not feel so completely helpless as in some fights in this game.

GW2 is a good game, I like it a lot for its soloability, but it's an easier game to play when it comes to boss fights than FFXIV or some others, due in part to the lack of the 'trinity' in the original design (and only partially changed in HoT) as others have mentioned, in GW2 all classes can do everything battle-wise they only differ in how they do it which is far from the case in FFXIV etc.

[MagiusNecros]

Unfortunately lots of boss class enemies require you to form parties of players and gang up on them. You never can actually become a solo unit like you can in other games.

Game is held back by the trinity.

[Zojha]

[...] due in part to the lack of the 'trinity' in the original design [...]

I really wish people would stop propagating that lie. It's getting tiresome.

The trinity has nothing to do with difficulty. The vast majority of difficulty in games is achieved not by tank&spank, but rather via mechanics, which are attacks that completely ignore that there's a tank that's supposed to focus all attacks on him and instead attack the entire group regardless of the tank. All mechanics that make DPS do something - Stack, Spread, Divebombs, telegraphed/vector based attacks, add priority, voltage, hiding behind pillars, gaze attacks, tethers, puddle/add positioning, soaking orbs and all their various deviations... none of these mechanics need the trinity, because they all function perfectly fine in any non-trinity game if you remove the arbitrary damage you get even when you do them the right way. And they are what make fights challenging.

Conversely, all mechanics that require a tank or healer to function are mechanics that nobody except the tanks and healers interact with, they're self-contained and exist only so that people don't eschew tanks/healers. Tank busters, raid wide AoEs and pretty much every large chunk of unavoidable damage is in this group. These mechanics are primarily gear checks, with some of them (like prey) having a timing component.

The trinity has nothing to do with how easy or hard a game is. Combat design decides that.

[Martin_Arcainess]

I know how you feel.

I tried soloing T13 as MIN and each time I get to the P3 Just before Tetra flare my MIN dies to Terra Flare Each and every single time! This games combat is broken beyond repair that not even a LV60 craft class can fix it.