Lackluster Mechanics and/or Leveling: Dark Arts, RDM AoE, Aetherpact

[Seraphor]

"AST:
Lightspeed trait, it's just plain useless."

Er... not anymore.

[Fytayn]

I'd like Blizzard 4 to do something other than generate Umbral Hearts, maybe like a 10%,15s magic vuln on the target or something. Remove the damage buff from Enochian to compensate and turn that into a trait. [ . . . ]

I'd also want some use out of Freeze [ . . . ] maybe make it an upgrade from the largely useless Blizzard 2. Traiting Between the Lines so that it and Leylines share a button, similar to how Fell Cleave/Inner Beast work.

So drop any interesting gameplay and challenge? Rolling the Enoch damage bonus into BlizzIV makes it super boring. If you mean the Enoch damage is a trait and BlizzIV gives that debuff uh, no, super OP.

Agreed that BlizzII and Freeze need to be reworked together; I like the idea of an upgrade like ThunderI->III/II->IV but it needs to work within AoE rather than parallel.

Any Enoch changes are a problem because design wants it available for emergency refresh (mentioned by devs)

[Sylvain]

.
I'm... honestly not sure how to take this. Like. You do realize most personal buffs are around the 30s/24s mark anyway, right? What does this point even mean?

Not to sound like an butt, but this is called nuance. If you could just hurl Fire IVs all day, it'd be the same exact thing as pre-HW Black Mage, and be a braindead job. Do we REALLY want this?

They are, but most of them don't require you to stand still for the said duration.
Also, most buff have a 60sec CD which aligns with other buff. Ley Line doesn't.
I'd rather have it on a 60sec cd with a shorter duration.

Regarding FireI, it's more of a visual issue than a gameplay one.

"AST:
Lightspeed trait, it's just plain useless."

Er... not anymore.

Personally I still think it is.

LightSpeed doesn't increase your dps, it makes you save mana and allow higher mobility.
Now you can either use it on CD and save most of your mana on MaleficIII or keep it for an heavy AoE phase and cut in half your spending on Helios
If you do it while you're spamming MaleficIII (like most of the time), you'll save up to 1500mana. Which is the mana you'd save from casting 2 AoE heal.

Prior to 4.3, LightSpeed had 150s cd, so you could reduce its cd by up to 30sec by casting essential dignity on cd. Dropping it to 120s the baseline cd for 4.3
With a baseline cd of 120 you can proc your trait at most twice. So Lightspeed will end up with a 100sec cd.

Now, I'm not saying Lightspeed is a bad cd in 4.3, far from that. But unlike SCH with the Etherflow cd reduction trait, we don't especially need to have Lightspeed always on cd. It's not a Draw, it's not Sleeve, it's a mp management cd. So to get the most out it, it must be used at the right time.

Using both Lightspeed and Essential Dignity on CD is hardly a good thing unless you master the encounter to the point these skill become irrelevant.
Therefor, anyone on progression keeping their cd for utilitary purpose will have a very small benefit of this trait.

So this is why I think this trait is plain bad
15sec on Eatherflow is good, it's the bread and butter of SCH most powerful skills
Lilies don't require CD to proc and affect plenty of skills (I'm not saying the really good, just that it's not entirely useless)
20sec on a mana saver if you spam one of your few abilities is plain bad. The problem isn't that we can reduce lightspeed cd, it's the way we achieve this. Lilies has the same issue, it's not like lilies are totally bad, it's that the way you get them isn't especially good.

[SpeckledBurd]

Machinist in general, you get the core skill of the kit at 38 but because of the action rework you aren’t going to have enough oGCDs to make using it have any oomph. Between level 40 and 52 you receive no skills worth a damn in single target, so all you’re doing is the basic RNG combo. The skill you get at 52 introduces the job gauge but you have no way to interface with it till level 64 despite overheating at the proper time being critical to properly Wildfiring (Imagine if Bard didn’t get pitch perfect till level 64 and couldn’t use any other songs unless they started with Wanderer’s, that’s how asinine this is). Then once you get to max level, your reward is one of the strictest most ping dependent rotations in the game.

If you ever wonder why there’s so few machinists, it’s probably the leveling experience. The job is the most miserable in that regard of any in the game.

[Sylvain]

If you ever wonder why there’s so few machinists, it’s probably the leveling experience. The job is the most miserable in that regard of any in the game.

I couldn't agree more

[Remedi]

about lightspeed will it really save mp now? Considering how now you can use it as a dps cd during movment to continue casting while relocating

[Sylvain]

Well it all depends what you value more, à few more malefic or 3~4k mana (assuming you use it on expensive spell)

If the fight is on farm more malefic wouldn't hurt, but if your still learning the fight and have to use instant rez almost every min, more malefic will hardly help you save the day

[EllieShadeflare]

They are, but most of them don't require you to stand still for the said duration.
Also, most buff have a 60sec CD which aligns with other buff. Ley Line doesn't.
I'd rather have it on a 60sec cd with a shorter duration.

A 60s cooldown would be wonderful, but YOU WOULD BREAK BLACK MAGE WITH A SHORTER DURATION TO LEYLINES. You will break their openers in half because we need that casting speed to get out our full 8-Fire IV opener, and to properly align our Fouls. Messing with this is a bad idea.

So what if you can't move out of our Ley Lines right? You can STILL DODGE OR USE MANAWARD. If you're targetted by an AoE, and you neither Manaward or dodge, that's on you. Between the Lines and Aetherial Manipulation are your friends in this regard, especially with the removal of slidecasting and the buff to our teleports' animation locks.

[Rongway]

Not sure what they'd do with [Enochian button] (since Foul needs to be a separate button since it's designed to be able to be used even outside of Enochian if you proc it)

The Enochian button should become Blizzard IV. While we're at it, Leylines button should become Between the Lines.

[Shurrikhan]

Machinist in general...

If you ever wonder why there’s so few machinists, it’s probably the leveling experience. The job is the most miserable in that regard of any in the game.

I feel like DRK could give it a run for it's misery money, but yeah, leveling those two were far more painful than any of the others. (Save maybe AST, but only because my internet likes to auto-spend Draw off a single button press queued a second earlier.)