Is lucid dreaming good?

[Eloah]

It's an okay skill, but it depends on when it's being used, casual content, hard-core, low-level, high-level, it varies. For instance SCH use to have high MP costs since it had the best MP management, but because of the changes that were made, their MP management is the lowest now, especially at early levels, where Aetherflow use to be. So having Lucid Dreaming supplements that change. AST use to have MP issues, but with the recent card changes it's like they over tuned it. For the most part the skill is acceptable, but if you think about it, it can highlight a few alterations that SE could stand to change. Like what skills should be considered role actions, looking at you Sleep, and an introduction to role traits. Though I'm guessing having job specific traits are easier to code.

[Shougun]

We really need to stop having the mentality of "x ability is boring because we press it on cooldown, remove it" or we'll have no toolkit left.

Look at the forum posts we've had so far. Consolidate combos to 1 button. Things we press on cooldown are bad. Melee positionals are bad. Dps shouldn't have any utility because tanks/healers need stuff to do. Dps shouldn't have any self heal. Ogcd heals are bad. Gcd heals we don't use often are bad too. Remove role abilities they're boring.

They've gutted emnity management this expansion to make it easier and we just keep going, then next thing it's:

...."Enix why are classes so boring now wtf?"

Personally like the idea of combining certain things but only so much in that it means adding new things. Like sure you can collapse most combos down, but if it means pressing less interesting patterns on the keyboard with no gain then.. eh.. didn't seem like that needed to be done. But if you say make spells that clearly stack or are bound in a clear strict hierarchal order of operation relationship combine so then you can add more new interesting spells.. sounds like a good deal.

Also depends on if a job has a lot of buttons that they have to press all of them or if they have a lot of buttons and only press some of them. Like Paladin has a few situational skills that you'll not be pressing 24/7 (you don't clemency or cover on cooldown for example).

I guess ultimately it comes to 'feel'. Like you might be able to turn a job into 5 skills but that would probably feel really boring, to many at least. But a job with 30 buttons that could have a really cool new skill, please do combine some stuff then.

There is also perhaps that concept that some jobs should be a bit more complex and others a bit simpler so you have different jobs for different folks.

Like to me I don't think every melee needs a positional, there could be other cool things to do, but I certainly believe it makes an interesting mechanic that some melee should have to consider at least.

I don't think we're disagreeing, or at least it's not obvious to me that we would, but just wanted to expand on the idea that while we could make extremely condensed versions of every job in as few buttons as possible doesn't mean we should and more that the feeling of play and as well the variety of play styles might demand that some jobs are condensed and others maybe should be less condensed.

I know your point was more on "if on cooldown = bad" is not a good outlook, but just wanted to say sometimes condensing is good .

Also.. I wouldn't mind if role abilities take a hike and each job gets something more in line with their own identity. You might still very well have 'provoke' on each tank but that it might have a slight flare, animation, name, and general identity I find kind of cool. There are ways to add twists to the skill without making it so one tank's variant is garbage fire compared to another during the more demanding of balance sav / ex / ultimate content.

Sure every tank should have a CD for reducing damage but it would be nice if they're not all exactly the same lol. So to me I see role actions as being very easy to balance / set expectation.. but just seems to be the least exciting solution.

tl;dr- I'm all for condensing skills and removing role actions so long as new exciting mechanics and spells replace the new empty space.

[Veis_Alveare]

Sure every tank should have a CD for reducing damage but it would be nice if they're not all exactly the same lol. So to me I see role actions as being very easy to balance / set expectation.. but just seems to be the least exciting solution.

I think they've honestly done a fair bit here.

WAR stands out as a tank with it's above par regenerative mitigation, PLD has it's support knight fantasy (even if clemency is really not used, cover/intervention exist), DRK has TBN & Dark Mind to set it apart and GNB has a really decent mixture.

There are nuances that make some better than others at things at a high end (PLD's lack of inbuilt sustain on it's combos makes it worse at holding a boss) but there is usually give and take where the tank with a weakness gets a strength to help counter this (PLD has situationally the best immunity, amazing flexibility in it's ranged dps phase and works as an OT who only occasionally holds the boss).

I think if they develop these distinct flavors much more we'll wind up with two main tanks and two off tanks even more than what we see now, and then the complaints will just be "why are the main tanks so similar" and the like. Right now at least tanks as a whole still have some variety left kinda.

Now healers.... x_x

[Shougun]

I think they've honestly done a fair bit here.

WAR stands out as a tank with it's above par regenerative mitigation, PLD has it's support knight fantasy (even if clemency is really not used, cover/intervention exist), DRK has TBN & Dark Mind to set it apart and GNB has a really decent mixture.

There are nuances that make some better than others at things at a high end (PLD's lack of inbuilt sustain on it's combos makes it worse at holding a boss) but there is usually give and take where the tank with a weakness gets a strength to help counter this (PLD has situationally the best immunity, amazing flexibility in it's ranged dps phase and works as an OT who only occasionally holds the boss).

I think if they develop these distinct flavors much more we'll wind up with two main tanks and two off tanks even more than what we see now, and then the complaints will just be "why are the main tanks so similar" and the like. Right now at least tanks as a whole still have some variety left kinda.

Now healers.... x_x

Certainly everything in moderation . I want to stress I was talking about role actions though, like not "sentinel vs vengeance" but like Rampart. The tanks are in a pretty nice spot in where you can play any tank you want yet they have a different vibe from each other in terms of play.

On role actions though- Rampart is the exact same name, animation, and stats for all tanks. Sentinel and Vengeance while preeeeettttyyyy similar still differ in some ways (obviously vengeance being better here, but those differences add flare to each job while not being 'unbalance-able'). Other skills like that differ sometimes more (like clemency vs aurora vs nascent flash). I would prefer that all the role actions get parsed into their jobs, even if they end up being preeettttyy similar. That's all.

So like lets say Low Blow, the stun for each tank, rather Paladin just keeps Shield Bash (with some changes for balance), Dark Knight gets Low Blow, Warrior gets Threatening Shout, and Gun Breaker gets Sundog (or something lol). Each stun while roughly offering some similar concepts would have their own twists, sometimes that'd just be name and animation other times it would be more. Like for each you could imagine twists that make them similar in the pinch scenarios that demand closer balance yet in a general aspect have their own sort of flare (like the tank's cures vs the tank's dashes, etc).

Even in the most bland case scenario we're talking tank's ranged attacks (Shield Toss vs Tomahawk vs Unmend vs Lightning Shot). Would you honestly prefer that all the tanks have the same ranged attack (via a role action)? I think most would say no. Even though it's pretty much literally the same spell cross the tanks, it's at least better that the spell fits the job "better". But you could likely imagine some light 'seasoning' to the ranged moves that doesn't do too much beyond some flavor (perhaps some nice niche cases, but designed in such ways that those cases don't destroy the important balance of end game content).

I understand role actions come from the whole ex system we used to have of cross class skills but at this point I find the role system to be the appendage that just lowers identity and being a transparently budget friendly solution to balance (don't have to make new skills). In the truest form of the cross system it was like having a sub job, pretty cool but very hard to balance. At this point it's non-optional sharing, role system is just the low development cost abilities SE gets to hand out. Maybe somewhere in there is the argument that "if it's not called provoke for all jobs you wont know to provoke" but that sounds a bit sad lol- might as well say all tank stances should be called the same else tanks wont know to turn it on to tank. At the point a tank doesn't know to turn on their tank stance because it wasn't called Iron Will on their Warrior I think they were a lost cause to playing their job right anyways. . . . XD.

So to be clear I don't support removing role actions because I just want less things I get to do, no.. I am for removing them so jobs can get spells that better fit their identities, even if it's just very superficial thematics, and in the lucky opportunities that they can add flare to each skill then even better (so a the superifical gain would be ranged tank attacks, meanwhile the more different examples would be like tank dashes or cures).

[Kewitt]

All depend on whether you want your healers to add to the DPS numbers..

[Seraphor]

Actually no. Lucid Dreaming restores gradually up to 3500 MP, Manafont restores 3000 MP instantly. Ergo, they serve different roles. Removing one in favor of the other also means that the devs have to go back and rework Black Mage so as to accommodate the fact that a job skill is now a role skill by giving the Black Mage a new job skill that also relates to Black Mage's MP. OR the alternative being Black Mage just doesn't get a level 30 Job skill if the devs don't want to actually fix the void that is created in this manner.

The better alternative would be to simply buff the potency of Lucid Dreaming so it gradually restores more MP.

Black Mage doesn't use Lucid Dreaming at all, it's a dead skill. That's why they have Manafont.
If they axed Lucid Dreaming and made Manafont a role skill, then BLM wouldn't change at all, except they'd regard it as making room for a new skill, which it's bound to get in the next expansion.

While they do function differently (the whole reason why BLM can't use it) the end result is pretty much the same, for other jobs, the difference is just when you use it.
You want to use Lucid Dreaming when you get to about 50% MP, give or take, basically so that you don't waste the MP by being too high, and you don't risk running out before you've recovered enough by being too low. Manafont as an instant on-demand MP boost instead of a regen would simply change your decision into "use it at low MP" instead of "use it at medium MP".

[ADVSS]

Certainly everything in moderation . I want to stress I was talking about role actions though, like not "sentinel vs vengeance" but like Rampart. The tanks are in a pretty nice spot in where you can play any tank you want yet they have a different vibe from each other in terms of play.

On role actions though- Rampart is the exact same name, animation, and stats for all tanks. Sentinel and Vengeance while preeeeettttyyyy similar still differ in some ways (obviously vengeance being better here, but those differences add flare to each job while not being 'unbalance-able'). Other skills like that differ sometimes more (like clemency vs aurora vs nascent flash). I would prefer that all the role actions get parsed into their jobs, even if they end up being preeettttyy similar. That's all.

So like lets say Low Blow, the stun for each tank, rather Paladin just keeps Shield Bash (with some changes for balance), Dark Knight gets Low Blow, Warrior gets Threatening Shout, and Gun Breaker gets Sundog (or something lol). Each stun while roughly offering some similar concepts would have their own twists, sometimes that'd just be name and animation other times it would be more. Like for each you could imagine twists that make them similar in the pinch scenarios that demand closer balance yet in a general aspect have their own sort of flare (like the tank's cures vs the tank's dashes, etc).

We had exactly this in HW. I honestly dont know why rampart was put in, except for WAR since foresight was their skill, and arguably worse. Shadowskin for drk was basically rampart but looked and sounded cooler. Low blow (drks stun at launch)had a chance to refill on a parry, warrior had brutal swing, and paladin had a gcd stun, and not 2 stuns like they do now, for whatever reason outside oGCD timing is way better for a stun than a gcd in the middle of a combo but they could just make shield bash like low blow and no need for a cross role skill at all. Provoke is literally the only skill they needed to give tanks initially, which forced them to make gld their secondary class for the job. Arms length is pretty good though, it could stay definitely as only pld had bulwark and neither tank had anything like that barring WAR holmgang.

TL;DR - I got no idea why they did what they did for many(not all) cross role skills. They often contradict themselves, by just making more work for themselves For instance, renaming Shield Oath to Iron Will, when they didnt change other tanks stances names or sound effects, while basically making them what they are(removing the damage penalty)

Edit: Correction, Iron Will was the knockback skill, Bulwark just gave a high shield block rate.

[MOZZYSTAR]

Not sure if others mentioned, but Lucid Dreaming also helps shake off enmity. I don't know if there's any other other skill that lessens enmity for healer/mage classes (though maybe that doesn't matter withtanks being able to get and hold aggro easier now).

[Veis_Alveare]

You want to use Lucid Dreaming when you get to about 50% MP, give or take, basically so that you don't waste the MP by being too high, and you don't risk running out before you've recovered enough by being too low. Manafont as an instant on-demand MP boost instead of a regen would simply change your decision into "use it at low MP" instead of "use it at medium MP".

As a healer you should be using lucid around 70-80% then on CD after. You'll lose some of the restored mp but it's literally just better to keep it rolling - especially if (on WHM specifically) this lines up with your dot refresh for the sake of weaving.

Not sure if others mentioned, but Lucid Dreaming also helps shake off enmity. I don't know if there's any other other skill that lessens enmity for healer/mage classes (though maybe that doesn't matter withtanks being able to get and hold aggro easier now).

It hasn't since ShB started.

[Limonia]

Healers without MP wouldn't really work, or you could spam Raise or AoE heals endlessly. That's something that should be limited I think. So it's fine on healers, because they need something to be able to heal if they have to raise others a lot or get raised themselves and oGCD heals are on CD.

For caster DPS, I would either give them the same treatment as other DPS by removing MP for them, and make raising need some other kind of resource maybe.
Or I would at least remove Lucid Dreaming from them and make BLM's Manafont their new MP CD, because Lucid Dreaming is useless on BLM anyway.

Generally, I would remove MP from the jobs that don't use any, and for those that use it I would like the MP bar to be able to be placed separately from the HP bar as well.