A question for the BLU peeps

[Dualgunner]

But there is still a build time between those phases, you need to go through 2 DWT phases in order to reach Bahamut. There's always a period of time in between each (such as Aetherflow CD)

So? DWT is, itself, a burst phase, and it's one that at points in the rotation you move from one burst phase into another in Bahamut. This is not a model RDM can follow, nor is it one BLM can. BLM, as well, has no "buildup phase" excusing, perhaps, the opening and any time they screw up their rotation; it's burst, cooldown, burst, cooldown, burst. Not a model SMN can follow nor one RDM can follow.

RDM itself has a buildup phase, but only because it needs to actively generate the resources needed for its burst: every GCD is needed to build Mana to use the combo. It has a burst phase in its melee combo, but it has no cooldown phase--it just goes straight back to its buildup phase. Unless you're going to talk about Embolden, in which case we're then talking about party alignment buff windows.

SMN is Burst-Build-Burst-Burst-Build
BLM is Build-Burst-Cooldown-Burst-Cooldown-Burst-Cooldown-Burst
RDM is Build-Burst-Build-Burst-Build-Burst-Build

[Bourne_Endeavor]

They do? All caster jobs have 3 phases of management: The build phase where you begin to ramp up your damage to prepare for phase 2: the burst phase when you unleash your nukes in a small window untill durations are up and you enter Phase 3: Cooldown phase, the point where your CDs are used and your hard hitting spells will be weaker while you wait to repeat the process. Visually the jobs all seem different but mechanically they are all the same in the name of "balance" and since you literally have only two types of damage there's really nothing special about each job other than aesthetics.

This is the equivalent of saying all the melee DPS play exactly the same because they all do damage. Or that BRD/MCH are identical because they both have a burst ability despite both functioning widely different. Just because every job ultimately reaches the same ending, doesn't mean the journey there is identical.

[Elerus]

This is the equivalent of saying all the melee DPS play exactly the same because they all do damage. Or that BRD/MCH are identical because they both have a burst ability despite both functioning widely different. Just because every job ultimately reaches the same ending, doesn't mean the journey there is identical.

Precisely, and it's not like Blue Mage as it is right now will not have an "optimal rotation". I don't care if there's 48 skills or 480 give it a few weeks and there will be a Reddit post telling you exactly what skills to slot in Masked Carnival, when to use them, and in what order for an optimal clear. WoW did this with their reworked talent trees with each talent tier offering 3 different choices. It took all of like a week for people to sim the optimal choice for every spec - and that was factoring in multiple end-game content selections (raids, dungeons, PvP, and open world) BLU will be cakewalk by comparison.

[Izanagi_Fiaresu]

Precisely, and it's not like Blue Mage as it is right now will not have an "optimal rotation". I don't care if there's 48 skills or 480 give it a few weeks and there will be a Reddit post telling you exactly what skills to slot in Masked Carnival, when to use them, and in what order for an optimal clear. WoW did this with their reworked talent trees with each talent tier offering 3 different choices. It took all of like a week for people to sim the optimal choice for every spec - and that was factoring in multiple end-game content selections (raids, dungeons, PvP, and open world) BLU will be cakewalk by comparison.

When WoW had the broad talent trees people still used cookie cutter specs. So no way to get around the communities in games and the meta. Look at raiding in FFXIV every static comp? Has a ninja and a bard, a paladin, a sch, white mage, dragoon and warrior. Leaving that last slot for a red mage for the rez's.

So to avoid BLU being a victim of that and gimping other groups they implemented it the best way they could/

[jon041065]

When WoW had the broad talent trees people still used cookie cutter specs. So no way to get around the communities in games and the meta. Look at raiding in FFXIV every static comp? Has a ninja and a bard, a paladin, a sch, white mage, dragoon and warrior. Leaving that last slot for a red mage for the rez's.

So to avoid BLU being a victim of that and gimping other groups they implemented it the best way they could/

Every static comp? The last two statics I was in didn't have a nin, drg, or sch.

So the 5.0 jobs and all future jobs should be in a limited state because they might not be part of the meta? That is asinine. We should be pushing SE to loosen up the meta and make statics have to choose between jobs that don't offer the same thing but are still worth having. Like if you didn't have ninja as an option for your group that's okay because you have a monk or samurai and neither choice makes your static ''weaker''.

Statics are, by definition, not using matchmaking. So, whatever the meta is or wether you decide to follow it or not, you have all the time to talk about it beforehand and not end up with an unexpected setup once in the duty.
So, yes, give us more "limited" features like talent trees for every job or gear bonuses only available in premades and let the players be creative.

We have agreed on some things over the last couple of days but this notion that people in matchmaking have to be protected from x,y, and z is not one of them. If you got someone using the wrong talent or wrong gear bonus wouldn't be that different from "ice mages" and melee not doing positionals. It would still be a case of "can't be bothered" and people can deal with it or leave. And now you will probably quote that previous statement and say that it's why limited jobs are a good idea and the circle will keep on going!

[Reynhart]

We should be pushing SE to loosen up the meta and make statics have to choose between jobs that don't offer the same thing but are still worth having.

Statics are, by definition, not using matchmaking. So, whatever the meta is or wether you decide to follow it or not, you have all the time to talk about it beforehand and not end up with an unexpected setup once in the duty.
So, yes, give us more "limited" features like talent trees for every job or gear bonuses only available in premades and let the players be creative.

[Reinha]

BLU add more opportunities for drama.

Every job and game play option adds opportunities for drama, but not having them risks boredom.

Problem is that, for now, nothing points out to skills having a required level to use. So, basically, a synced lvl 40 BLU could use a skill that required lvl50 to learn. So, there could be a huge difference between two BLU of the same synced lvl depending on their real level.

Your solution doesn't solve a lot of issues regarding matchmaking with Blue Mages (skill balance, absence of a rotation, BLU not using the "optimal" skills, number of skills depending on the level sync, etc.).

Those balance problems are a result of the assumption that BLU would take their outdoor skill set in party content. That assumption was not made by me, so I'm not going to put in the effort to solve the balance issues. I suggested earlier in the thread that BLU would not use their outdoor skill set in party content, but would instead have a job gauge and a rotation. Below is the context of my latest responses. I merely pointed out that, if it's not about balance but missing skills, requirements to enter an instance a thing.

I think everyone is missing the main point. Its not about balance. Its about the fact you can't guarantee a BLU will have the skills they need to do content in this holy trinity system. So the BLU could gimp groups.

How will you guarantee that I have exactly the 24 skills that the rest of the party want between the 49 I'm free to choose from ?

All of that development time and resources invested into "making it work" for what purpose in the end? Being able to do your roulettes to farm Poetics, or do Sastasha with randoms "for fun".
Great.

Well, you're not wrong. IMO bringing BLU to DF would be a waste if it stayed level 50 so raising the level cap should definitely be the first priority.

[Reynhart]

Every job and game play option adds opportunities for drama, but not having them risks boredom.

Sure, but for me, drama is more likely to happen with strangers, so you can offer more options for people who group outside of a duty. At one point, someone was surprised when someone else said something like "limited jobs makes the game more social". Even though BLU itself doesn't really do this, having to create a premade if you want to have access to jobs at full power (If we imagine that talents trees could be a future limited feature) means that you'll likely talk more with party members instead of simply queuing alone, posting a {Hello} at the start, {Congratulations} at the end (At best), then leave the duty.

If you got someone using the wrong talent or wrong gear bonus wouldn't be that different from "ice mages" and melee not doing positionals.

When you have 49 spells (and even more in the future) to choose from, you can't sum it up by "They're playing wrong". If jobs could only equip half of their skills, you'd have tank chastized for choosing or not choosing their tank stance depending on if the run went well or if something went wrong, probably by the same person both times. As for bonuses, you also have the "difficulty" of obtaining them. Would it be reasonable to expect everyone having a completed relic, a final Deep Dungeon weapon or upgraded tome weapon in every random duties, considering their bonus might be better ? Would it be reasonable to demand a BLU having a skill learned from a lvl70 instance during a lvl50/60 roulette ?

[Fyce]

Those balance problems are a result of the assumption that BLU would take their outdoor skill set in party content. That assumption was not made by me, so I'm not going to put in the effort to solve the balance issues. I suggested earlier in the thread that BLU would not use their outdoor skill set in party content, but would instead have a job gauge and a rotation. Below is the context of my latest responses. I merely pointed out that, if it's not about balance but missing skills, requirements to enter an instance a thing.

So, you suggested a solution for an issue that was raised, but refuse to address the problems that your solution would create. I'm simply saying that the very vague solution you gave is full of holes and issues if applied in the way you -very vaguely- described it. If you are not ready or willing to speak about your suggestion and what it implies, then don't suggest it in the first place. No matter if the initial assumption was made by you or not. If you thought that this assumption was not correct (ie, that BLU shouldn't have the same set of skills inside and outside of group instances), you should've say that instead of trying to provide such a faulty and incomplete "solution".

We are speaking about complex game design issues and potentially heavy ressources investments. It's something that requires a lot of thoughts and work. A simple line saying "just lock BLU out of content until it unlock every skill" is very far from being enough. So, again, if you don't want to dive into it, don't comment on it without expecting people to call you on what issues your solution raises.

Well, you're not wrong. IMO bringing BLU to DF would be a waste if it stayed level 50 so raising the level cap should definitely be the first priority.

Raising the level cap is one thing. Figuring out a way for Blue Mage to be fitting in the trinity mold and be balanced for regular group play is another. And again, it's something that requires a lot more work that a sentence or two thrown in a forum.

[jon041065]

When you have 49 spells (and even more in the future) to choose from, you can't sum it up by "They're playing wrong". If jobs could only equip half of their skills, you'd have tank chastized for choosing or not choosing their tank stance depending on if the run went well or if something went wrong, probably by the same person both times. As for bonuses, you also have the "difficulty" of obtaining them. Would it be reasonable to expect everyone having a completed relic, a final Deep Dungeon weapon or upgraded tome weapon in every random duties, considering their bonus might be better ? Would it be reasonable to demand a BLU having a skill learned from a lvl70 instance during a lvl50/60 roulette ?

I've asked you in the past if you were under the assumption that you would be unable to change spells once inside an instance and you said yes but we don't know if you can or not yet. Also, I've never said to just leave blu as it is and lift the restrictions. That's why I've been saying it will take probably to 6.0 for SE to make blu work in the full game. They already have most of Shadowbringers planned out (inlcuding the blu content) so IF they did listen to the backlash, adding what we are asking for would most likely have to be part of the following expansion.

I'm pretty sure that we talked about set bonuses in another thread and I said I don't think they would go for them in the full game and then linked you to an onion knight thread where I made a post about how I can see them added in a strictly solo setting.

People can expect what they want in matchmaking but will seldom get that and either they accept it or drop from the group. If they harass the player without X, then that player should report them for a possible ToS violation.

Your final sentence is again assuming there won't be a hard level requirement to learn spells and we don't know that yet. Even if there isn't a hard level requirement the job quests could give us traits to make it possible to learn more spells. So in your example, that blu might not even have the ability to learn that level 70 spell yet. We don't know enough yet about how spell learning works.