Should the Casting Timer be removed or reduced for better DPS output?

[ADVSS]

I think that would reduce the feeling of diversity significantly.

I would however think a single job being able to cast and move or something would be acceptable, which would increase the diversity. On that I think they can add other concepts too like halting a cast midway for some job might not cancel the attack but just launch it off earlier (charge attacks), or channeling attacks, casts within casts (for example you might imagine bard had a channel spell that allowed them to move at the same time, and during that period of playing their instrument you could play 'sets' of music as casts within casts which would either help your team or mess with the enemy - of course this would make the ranger/archer theme part of bard weaker since currently you can use the job gauge for that concept lol, this would be making bard actually play a song ), etc, things like that may add to the different feels to abilities and that would be good.

Also as an aside (on topic of spell use) hopefully SE looks at smart casting from MOBA games (LoL, HotS, DotA)- so we could have cool things like if you tap a spell it just hits your target but if you held it you could manually target and at release it fires off (meaning no multiple key presses but you get more options and streamlined experience at the same time).

yeah i liked the idea of spell charging, or at least for BRD being able to hold a charge for a stronger shot, while losing any auto attack that would have gone off, cause like you're holding the charge. Think the complaint was that it would be terrible if implemented too much for kb/m players

[Shougun]

yeah i liked the idea of spell charging, or at least for BRD being able to hold a charge for a stronger shot, while losing any auto attack that would have gone off, cause like you're holding the charge. Think the complaint was that it would be terrible if implemented too much for kb/m players

Yeah- I think the bard mage meme would have gone down with the public a lot easier if bard had been charge based instead, so the mobility wasn't entirely ruined like it was with bard mage meme lol. Also it would have meant bard could deal more damage, like before they were pretty high on the damage list but since they've insane mobility SE has seen it fit to move them down a few pegs and give a little bit of support instead.

If they had charge based systems in place you might be able to have some of those ranger vibes with high damage shots, and then the machine gun archer theme when you need intense mobility (at a slight cost to damage, but not so harsh as it was before).

Charge attacks may have also allowed some sort of unique singing weave mechanic where you get to weave in songs in-between and during your heavy shots. Like picking verses to sing while you fly your Apex Arrow.

Although I would caution any drastic change in gameplay pacing to any pre-existing job lol.

[AnotherPerson]

The 'casters do way more damage because of their planted gameplay' holds up right until you realize SMN has so much movement utility it may as well be a ranged DPS, while doing roughly the same level of damage as BLM (depending on fight.)

You made me remember why SMN's Tri disaster got nerfed by half its potency, too strong even for casters with its uptime.

I think all the caster jobs kinda deserve their high DPS due to their different gameplay styles. On one end, SMN offers the fast paced rapid attacker playstyle. On the other end, BLM offers the turret playstyle, and RDM offers a bit of both, but not so heavily skewed to one side.

SMN has the most free mobility of the casters, but many players can't even do the SMN rotation properly while moving because of all the buttons it has compared to other caster jobs (APM being a skill cap that bars bad SMN with good SMN), much less optimize it. While SMN has the most mobility while casting due to instant GCDs, they are also the most demanding caster having to weave a lot in their GCD, which messes up most people since they can't continue their rotation while dodging multiple mechanics. It's like one of those skill caps that require the player to either be able to multitask continuously or develop muscle memory to their rotation to make it easier. If the SMN continually messes up the weave rotation while trying to dodge mechanics, it drops a SMN's DPS by a good margin over the course of the encounter.

In terms of basic rotation, while the BLM rotation evolves the most compared to all jobs, it also has a very intuitive yet slower rotation which revolves around staying in Fire Phase as often as possible. Due to having to stay in place often for full duration GCD casts, it gives the player a lot more room to observe and look around in the encounter while waiting for their GCD to complete (similar to how ShB healers are currently work while repeatedly casting their nuke). However, because all their damage tools are on the GCD, it's also true that this job requires less APM and gives a player a lot more time to focus on how & where to reposition themselves midcast, giving a black mage this unique playstyle to cast as much as possible while minimizing unnecessary movement. This is also why it's very easy for a black mage who stops casting to move around often will lose a lot of DPS. It's essentially the same problem as a SMN who messes up their oGCDs or their rotation while moving that they lose DPS, except for BLM it's because they moved too much that they sacrificed DPS. BLM can get very mobile with good use of Aetherial Manipulation, Triplecast, Swiftcast, Sharpcast proc, and 2 Xenoglossy.

Red Mage is kinda a balance of the two. It has a lot of mobility with Dualcasting and Corps-a-Corps / Displacement /Manafication and it's rotation is very simple, but it also has specific requirements to placement since RDM's burst damage revolves around getting into melee range for the enchanted melee combo and before allowing RDM to move freely with 2 instant GCDs. Corps-a-corps and displacement are also pretty much required to be used at a certain point if RDM wants to maximize their DPS at the cost of their mobility, though manafication does essentially ensure they get to refresh their Corps-a-corps/ displacement so there are windows where they can hold onto them for movement rather than for DPS in addition to dualcasting. They also get a bit more utility than the other two with vercure and verraise, but their MP takes a huge hit if they plan on using it, so their DPS is pretty much balanced.

[ADVSS]

Yeah- I think the bard mage meme would have gone down with the public a lot easier if bard had been charge based instead, so the mobility wasn't entirely ruined like it was with bard mage meme lol. Also it would have meant bard could deal more damage, like before they were pretty high on the damage list but since they've insane mobility SE has seen it fit to move them down a few pegs and give a little bit of support instead.

If they had charge based systems in place you might be able to have some of those ranger vibes with high damage shots, and then the machine gun archer theme when you need intense mobility (at a slight cost to damage, but not so harsh as it was before).

Charge attacks may have also allowed some sort of unique singing weave mechanic where you get to weave in songs in-between and during your heavy shots. Like picking verses to sing while you fly your Apex Arrow.

Although I would caution any drastic change in gameplay pacing to any pre-existing job lol.

Oh absolutely, SE is already made it very clear about all of that. Like you said, I think they would have a better chance at just making a new job with that sort of motif, especially now, than mess with any current jobs. For one, its just a headache to have to relearn a class if they change it too much, for two people may actually in fact love the gameplay of the job, and three more jobs with unique playstyles is just better than trying to bust up jobs that inherently function fairy well to begin with.

[LaylaTsarra]

Last I checked they were called CASTERS and no it shouldn't be removed. You don't want to be a caster play a different role.

[Esmoire]

I am in favour of like a general increase in the game speed. GCDs brought down to 2 sec, ability animations scaling with sks/sps to reduce clipping, and spell casts made faster to go along with that to make FFXIV feel more exciting. That said, I don't think cast bars should go away.

[Limecat]

May as well. So many expected mechanics of magic users came directly from p&p, where things like spell memorization/mana, casting times, and flimsy armor were all intended as the balance tradeoff for having a dude that could turn the monsters into tree stumps or just blow them all to hell. For a couple decades now in cRPGs and MMOs, we've lost the cannon but been forced to keep the glass. They realistically should remove MP entirely, and only keep casting times on a few particularly tactical spells like raises.

[Morningstar1337]

I'd think the devs would sooner make OGCDs usable during Casts then let SMN be the rule over the exception (then again SMN is an exception so who knows?). As other posters had mentioned the mobility comes usually a trade off in potency ensuring that Ranged DPS would not out-damage melee jobs

[Waterscape]

What am i reading right now . Thanks god the devs are not listening to the english forum

[HeulGDarian]

Last I checked they were called CASTERS and no it shouldn't be removed. You don't want to be a caster play a different role.

actually the community calls them casters, the official page calls them magical dps lol