Savage raiding still needs work

[Colt47]

The savage raiding and class design are tightly coupled in this discussion. They actually did have animation based dodging back with original shiva and Ramuh. Problem was, graphics got flashy and you could have a hard time seeing what the boss was doing (And we still have that problem when doing Limit Breaks, to the point you really want to make sure you know where you are at in the fight when you fire them off).

The other issue, and I'm not going to beat around the bush with this: being a DPS in this game is a feels bad experience in Savage. To make them interesting to play, they have positionals on melee plus rotations and cooldowns to maintain, and out of all the jobs I swear melee dps die the most, followed by ranged dps who outside of dancer have to check their bars during combat to make sure they are hitting OGCDs on time, third by healers, and tanks being by far the easiest to play. I wouldn't advocate any change to the savage mode system unless they do something to make it easier for dps to keep their OGCD's firing on time and keeping rotations running. Even samurai being as simple as it is sometimes requires correction during the fight.

[Rilifane]

The savage raiding and class design are tightly coupled in this discussion. They actually did have animation based dodging back with original shiva and Ramuh. Problem was, graphics got flashy and you could have a hard time seeing what the boss was doing (And we still have that problem when doing Limit Breaks, to the point you really want to make sure you know where you are at in the fight when you fire them off).

The other issue, and I'm not going to beat around the bush with this: being a DPS in this game is a feels bad experience in Savage. To make them interesting to play, they have positionals on melee plus rotations and cooldowns to maintain, and out of all the jobs I swear melee dps die the most, followed by ranged dps who outside of dancer have to check their bars during combat to make sure they are hitting OGCDs on time, third by healers, and tanks being by far the easiest to play. I wouldn't advocate any change to the savage mode system unless they do something to make it easier for dps to keep their OGCD's firing on time and keeping rotations running. Even samurai being as simple as it is sometimes requires correction during the fight.

Hard disagree there.
You're not supposed to get uptime, positionals, oGCDs and timing right just like that. It's normal that, depending on your class, at first you're probably varying degrees of bad because you either tunneled on your hotbars and died or focused on mechanics and messed up the rotation.
DPS have a learning curve and that's a good thing. It's bad enough that tanks and healers got so dumbed down.
There are plenty of ways to keep everything going and get your rotation right while playing mechanics but figuring out the correct greed timing is obviously a matter of trial & error. But they are definitely there and it's not some forbidden magic, it's entirely possible without resorting to crazy uptime strats. Please leave the skill ceiling where it is.
Savage is accessible enough as it is and greed isn't even neccessary to clear. It's optional and for people who want to push their performance. If someone doesn't bother it's on them that playing DPS is a "bad experience".

[Colt47]

Hard disagree there.
You're not supposed to get uptime, positionals, oGCDs and timing right just like that. It's normal that, depending on your class, at first you're probably varying degrees of bad because you either tunneled on your hotbars and died or focused on mechanics and messed up the rotation.
DPS have a learning curve and that's a good thing. It's bad enough that tanks and healers got so dumbed down.
There are plenty of ways to keep everything going and get your rotation right while playing mechanics but figuring out the correct greed timing is obviously a matter of trial & error. But they are definitely there and it's not some forbidden magic, it's entirely possible without resorting to crazy uptime strats. Please leave the skill ceiling where it is.
Savage is accessible enough as it is and greed isn't even neccessary to clear. It's optional and for people who want to push their performance. If someone doesn't bother it's on them that playing DPS is a "bad experience".

A savage encounter shouldn't be about learning your job. The fact tanks are "dumbed down" is actually a good thing for savage because otherwise it would be an inaccessible trash heap that no one would do outside of a very small percent of people. They need way more learning assist technology and other improvements to make it easier to pick up. No idea why we are sitting around in this day and age still depending on the youtube community.

[Alaray]

A savage encounter shouldn't be about learning your job. The fact tanks are "dumbed down" is actually a good thing for savage because otherwise it would be an inaccessible trash heap that no one would do outside of a very small percent of people. They need way more learning assist technology and other improvements to make it easier to pick up. No idea why we are sitting around in this day and age still depending on the youtube community.

harder content generally teaches people to play better to clear the content. so... yeah it teaches you, and that's also like, the express purpose of the first turn lol

dumbing down every job to a 1 button rotation just makes playing them boring, where there's no ceiling to try and climb towards and no means of showcasing player ability. may as well play a mobile autobattler at that point

[Colt47]

harder content generally teaches people to play better to clear the content. so... yeah it teaches you, and that's also like, the express purpose of the first turn lol

dumbing down every job to a 1 button rotation just makes playing them boring, where there's no ceiling to try and climb towards and no means of showcasing player ability. may as well play a mobile autobattler at that point

No one is advocating for one button jobs. Just from the standpoint of designing a fight, in order to have so many controls like they do now, they have to create massive pauses between attacks just so people can look away from the action to manage their own job actions. Every single person does it and even on warrior, which is one of the simpler ones, people still have to do it. That's why DPS are the ones that die the most: because they have to juggle so much on their plate during those pauses that it goes over the time limit before the next attack pattern. If someone practices a lot they can mitigate it a bit, but even after months of using the same job it still happens.

FYI what we are talking about isn't the job actions or even the number of actions, but developing patterns that can be learned and followed without removing ones sight from the action on the screen. Some jobs like Machinist are pretty decent, but compare Paladin to Gunbreaker and you can easily see some problems.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

No one is advocating for one button jobs. Just from the standpoint of designing a fight, in order to have so many controls like they do now, they have to create massive pauses between attacks just so people can look away from the action to manage their own job actions. Every single person does it and even on warrior, which is one of the simpler ones, people still have to do it. That's why DPS are the ones that die the most: because they have to juggle so much on their plate during those pauses that it goes over the time limit before the next attack pattern. If someone practices a lot they can mitigate it a bit, but even after months of using the same job it still happens.

Considering so many burst windows happen during mechanics which require thought, if you're still having to look away from the action to manage your job actions, you need to practice more. Managing your job actions regardless of what's going on is a skill you have to learn in savage. In E9-12s, I know exactly which mechanics my deliriums are coming up on, which mechanics Blood Weapon is coming up on, without ever having to look at my hotbars. I have timelines memorized so I know when to start saving MP for burst window Edge of Shadow spam.

I'm also not sure what you mean by 'massive pauses' either. Very rarely is the boss doing nothing; most of the 'pauses' are mechanics which the healers & tanks have to deal with. (Tank busters & raidbusters). Almost every boss in a savage tier rarely goes longer than 1 auto before they start queueing up some other castbar.

[Rilifane]

Considering so many burst windows happen during mechanics which require thought, if you're still having to look away from the action to manage your job actions, you need to practice more. Managing your job actions regardless of what's going on is a skill you have to learn in savage. In E9-12s, I know exactly which mechanics my deliriums are coming up on, which mechanics Blood Weapon is coming up on, without ever having to look at my hotbars. I have timelines memorized so I know when to start saving MP for burst window Edge of Shadow spam.

Or design their UI better. There is a reason we can freely place and scale almost every UI element.
If someone needs to watch their timers, they're probably insecure on a class in that fight even if they can play it perfectly on a dummy. For some classes I had a gigantic 200% scaled "NOTICE ME SENPAI!" hotbar specifically for a handful of skills I tended to lose track of in a savage fight somewhere where I absolutely can't miss them. Even players with a lot of practice on their class can get insecure about timings and distracted by something else, that's normal but there are workarounds to make it easier while getting familiar with the fight itself.
People just need to use them until they're comfortable enough in a fight to get by without crutches.

But if it's something as basic as the 1-2-3 combo they frequently mess up then they definitely need to spent some quality time with a dummy before trying again. Ex is a step up from DF because ignoring mechanics is suddenly punishing and people need to learn to respect them more than they probably did in DF. Savage is a step up because mechanics happen much more frequently than in Ex. Doing all that while playing your rotation mostly correctly is the challenge of endgame raiding, not just standing at the right spot at the right time.
Otherwise we might aswell play it on a dance pad without something to hit.

[Colt47]

Considering so many burst windows happen during mechanics which require thought, if you're still having to look away from the action to manage your job actions, you need to practice more. Managing your job actions regardless of what's going on is a skill you have to learn in savage. In E9-12s, I know exactly which mechanics my deliriums are coming up on, which mechanics Blood Weapon is coming up on, without ever having to look at my hotbars. I have timelines memorized so I know when to start saving MP for burst window Edge of Shadow spam.

I'm also not sure what you mean by 'massive pauses' either. Very rarely is the boss doing nothing; most of the 'pauses' are mechanics which the healers & tanks have to deal with. (Tank busters & raidbusters). Almost every boss in a savage tier rarely goes longer than 1 auto before they start queueing up some other castbar.

pretty much every encounter in savage are built with pauses in the patterns, because in order to maximize damage to make the enrage timer you have to push damage output, and that requires rotation work on damage dealers as well other jobs. If those windows didn't exist you'd never be able to use a lot of abilities properly and even melee dps would have trouble doing positionals as they keep having to weave constantly. Pauses are where the boss has a cast timer, like when on E11S Thanjeet is charging Elemental Break, or when you fight a boss and it just finishes a mechanic like in e10s after doing shadows. Yes, you are going to have to move to accomodate the mechanic, but that also is intentionally there to create a window where a damage dealer can perform rotation.

So this is kind of where the misunderstanding happens in these conversations. You are saying that it is about memorizing the jobs rotation, and that is true. However, the rotations on most jobs are still a touch complicated without having some means to review the bar. Even when you think you are not reviewing the bar, you are reviewing the bar. Even as a warrior main I end up doing it to make sure my rotation is on course sometimes or a cooldown is up. The thing is, There are a LOT of buttons, and unfortunately we are not perfect when it comes to memory. However, we do find convenient ways to shortcut the limitation through organization. Maybe buttons 1-6 are super easy to memorize so you put the most heavily used on those, with the next set on 7-12.

This is really nothing new: WOW had this going for ages before FFXIV ever existed. I think the Devs did great on simplifying the jobs in Shadowbringers as well to help make things easier on people. Just I don't feel the dps formula has really been hit quite yet, and also the job system in itself really wants players to have mastery over more than one job since PF groups often need different people at different times. The DPS that I think are pretty good right now are Rdm, Monk, and Sam, machinist is pretty fast paced as well and is probably okay (that job is more so misunderstood since the rotation is good, but very tight and easy to break.), Summoner is button heavy just by how it functions, I'd say ninja is the hardest to play right just because you can easily screw up on the jutsu without having practice (would say that job benefits the most from practice), Black mage does need help because it really doesn't handle movement that well despite having a lot of mobility.

[Alaray]

No one is advocating for one button jobs. Just from the standpoint of designing a fight, in order to have so many controls like they do now, they have to create massive pauses between attacks just so people can look away from the action to manage their own job actions. Every single person does it and even on warrior, which is one of the simpler ones, people still have to do it. That's why DPS are the ones that die the most: because they have to juggle so much on their plate during those pauses that it goes over the time limit before the next attack pattern. If someone practices a lot they can mitigate it a bit, but even after months of using the same job it still happens.

FYI what we are talking about isn't the job actions or even the number of actions, but developing patterns that can be learned and followed without removing ones sight from the action on the screen. Some jobs like Machinist are pretty decent, but compare Paladin to Gunbreaker and you can easily see some problems.

That's on the player, to be frank.

- The fight is scripted, it can be committed to memory, so it's best to be proactive about the fight and its mechanics instead of reacting to them (esp. with the baseline 200ms delay even if you have 0 ping).
- If you're staring at your hotbars while you play, it's a habit to try and find a way to ease out of. Which isn't easy, but it is part of improvement -- if you understand your job, how it lines up in the fight, what you're doing when and aware of what buttons you're pressing while watching the arena/team/boss it helps extensively with faster reaction times/awareness. Just being able to do that, back in StB, massively improved my consistency and further helped me to commit the fight timeline to memory so I wouldn't even really need to look at the boss or my bars, and could instead look at my team to see if everyone was in the right spot or if I'd need to do something weird so someone wouldn't die. It's a skill you learn, is my point (and might need to re-learn if you pick up a new job/role).
- Not everyone stares at their hotbars/not everyone dies because they were. Like, it happens yes, but I've seen WAY more DPS deaths due to DPS trying to squeeze out an extra GCD/dashing back into an AoE improperly/mistiming something/backflipping off the arena.
- Can you clear a fight staring at hotbars? Yes. Will you probably die? Yeah probs, maybe not if you otherwise got a grasp on the timings in the fight.

That said, I do have some memory issues (and I sometimes just blank out of my thoughts and have a momentary lapse of "where am I and what am I doing here, what is that") that are a hindrance to a degree, but I'm luckier in that they haven't been a massive hindrance and might just cost me 4 seconds of no gcd's or breaking and restarting my combo suddenly since my entire head did a "delete the last ten seconds". But I can see for like, people who *really* struggle with remembering and memory (though there are things like, Cactbot can help call out mechanics and, so long as you know what the mechanic does, you can stare at your bars and otherwise not have a firm grasp on the fight timeline and still maneuver).

And while I do have problems with memory, I'm also a bit doubly lucky in that there are some things that work for me to help remember how some stuff works (albeit my personal callouts to myself, I have been told, are "Weirdly convoluted and make no sense" which is why I do not do callouts for everyone else ). Which is more of a "if standard callouts aren't working for you to help remember the fight, or where your rotation currently is during a fight, try to make your own since that /can/ help"

If you can't keep up with the mechanics because you're not paying attention to them, due to tunneling on your hotbars, that's a player issue. That's not a fight design issue. Which, I want to say: isn't me trying to be a dick about it. I really like the pace of the savage fights (in fact I do wish they were faster -- P1 Titan Savage was FUN, P2 not really), and I just feel like... it's maybe not obvious that tunneling hotbars is a point of improvement (like, not doing a proper opener, or not mitigating incoming damage correctly, etc...) and should be treated as a point of improvement, vs. something that's purely on the game itself and not on the player at all.

Like I can get the frustration since I picked up healing this tier (as of like, a few weeks ago), and E11S is a lot faster paced compared to... a lot of turns, really, this expac. And I do a lot of "is draw up, do I need to redraw, is this a melee or ranged card, do I have CU up? CI up? CO? ED? ED2? Star timing good or bad? etc...) but while it can be a little frustrating here and there (Like, first time seeing... Holy Explosion > Burnished Glory > Protean > Light Parties I think my brain melted a little, but doing it more and getting used to that pace feels extremely satisfying once it's down and you're going from the "We're overhealing/Over mitigating x we can start to slowly chip stuff away from it now to spread tools out more + I can do more Malefic IV c:" and it's more of a "I need to play better and plan better" vs. "The fight is bad" )

[Colt47]

The thing is the tunneling issue happens a lot more in this game than others. Even on normal content people just flop over on certain jobs because they require way too much time to get to the point where the control patterns are normal. The reason I swapped to war is because I can focus on dealing with boss mechanics and not die to the hot bar wars