Dps job design issues due to lack of utility.

[Ralph2449]

Coming from WoW i still believe FF14 is the better game overall, great story, great graphics, great IMMERSION, great animations, pretty fun dps gameplay but I finally found a design area that is lacking in comparison to WoW. (And doesnt have obvious disadvantages, such as you can complain about the lack of gameplay customization in FF14 but WoW by having customization has lead to an extremely toxic and degenerate metaslaving community so it makes sense they dont want to allow customization since they know metaslaves would ruin it)

The issue I found in FF14 DPS jobs is the serious lack of utility, yeah you might have 30 skills but 25 of them are mostly within your dps gameplay, which gameplay is definitely more involved than the very limited dps gameplay in WoW but that leaves very little space for single players to control situations with their utility, not only that but things like second wind are really weak and extremely limited so they wont make as big of a difference such as a huge defensive or a huge self heal, and the fact that each dps job has very very few utility skills in comparison.


Some examples to show what I mean by utility because I also include personal defensives and major self heals

-Venthyr mm hunter and I had: aoe root, threat redirection, 6s immunity, 20% DR for 6s, personal heal cd 30%+15% dot, single target slow, aoe trap slow, single target 60s cc, speed boost cd, enrage dispel, short range jump covenant ability, stealth detect flare and obviously interrupt.
-Necrolord shadow priest: Detect radius reduction, 4s silence, personal HP boost by 25% that also heals that amount+10%, CC undead, Covenant 40% shield on 2 min cd with 3s cast time, small absorb shield with low cd, mass magic dispel, magic dispel from enemies, disease dispel, aoe fear around you, threat removal from yourself, grip friendly, talented targeted stun, heal cd that heals based on damage


These are both DPS specs focused on dps, not some buffer type job like bard, more importantly most of their abilities are not about buffing others' dps, its about personal utility very often, yet each has more than 10 utility abilities that can be used to change how you do things in game, from solo content like Torghast to high m+ pushing past 15s.

Not only that but those make you often less reliant on others, dispelling yourself is far better than waiting for the healer to remember to do it and big self heal cds are extremely useful in cases like getting hit by a mechanic or the healer not being able to handle with the unavoidable aoe damage, things like defensives also become extremely valuable during high burst moments that allow healers more room to breathe, thinks like threat drop/redirection/speed boosts can even allow for some amount of kiting of bosses if the tank dies giving people enough time to brez the tank or others. You can do some crazy pulls thanks to aoe stuns, roots, slows that couldnt happen without all that combination of utility in often even a single job, this gives a lot of control to the a single dps player to affect an encounter and I am not even going to go into heavily coordinated groups, you can imagine what can happen since that utility allows you to do content far higher than what you would mathematically be able to do if all that utility as not available.

Meanwhile in FF14 you are quite literally at the mercy of tanks and healers because the only thing you have control over is dps, the design feels a little too choreographed not allowing much room for thought and change (Though thought is not something metaslaves care about since they just do what guides tell them blindly)

Ironically FF14 is the better game for metaslaves and the types who focus on dps and nothing else cuz losing gcd to utility is a """dps loss""" lmao

[Jin-]

I feel you. More the game ages more it turns in to this state

[Elissar]

Agree 100%, talents like Mists of Pandaria could be interesting.

[Roda]

+1 to this, and I personally wish we could have more "out there" type abilities that aren't immediately applicable to our designated role in a raid too.

What I'm talking about is I want some skills that are useful out of queued content and that make operating in the game-world more interesting and flavorful for our jobs. 'Cause as much as the story likes to say were here to help people, we're really not. We're just good about making things be no longer alive.

SMN summoning their partymates to them, DNC & BRD performances that give exp buffs (Bonus points if they do it together), astrologians reading fortunes and giving random utility buffs (Like + to dodge in open world or + to run/mount speed in open world, or + to gp regen). Little services that we can provide for eachother.


(Also, I just wanna say how much I miss my 16 interrupt build on esper in wildstar. That thing was nuts.)

[Adeacia]

Jobs used to have more utility than they do now. It caused certain jobs to be favored over others in content. The devs do not want this. They want each and every job not named Blue Mage to be viable in all the content. No one should pick one over the other due to utility.

[Shurrikhan]

Jobs used to have more utility than they do now. It caused certain jobs to be favored over others in content.

This (underlined above) is either errant or disingenuous. Remember, the OP is about DUNGEON-APPLICABLE utility, not merely skills by which to pass damage output from one member at no increase in gameplay depth. The favored jobs in 4-man content were favored for their burst AoE damage or AoE stuns, not any of the various other utilities like Disembowel or Slashing Resistance Down.

The only content not immune to any of that was dungeons, and no, it was not preferred. Your original standard speedrun comp in dungeons with decent mass-pull opportunities was Bard, Black Mage, White Mage, and Paladin, which would almost utterly forgo such utility, outside of WHM's AoE stun via Holy. And even that hardly made a difference. Apart from WHM, it certainly didn't cause jobs to be favored for their utility. And Holy's damage was nerfed quickly enough to mostly "fix" that, regardless, eventually putting SCH and AST at higher max value in dungeon runs, even if at more effort required.

Yes, there were 4x SMN or 3x SMN + Healer groups that could survive off Egi swaps on bosses and DoTing down Heavied enemies before they could max out DRs, but they were the rarity.

___________________

On the broader topic:

Ralph, I agree that we are currently short on utility, but even more than that content runs short on pertinence for utility. At present, there's no reason for it because it's all face-roll anyways, and any attempt to add complexity without the tuning to make it relevant would just be waste. That state which damn near occludes all possibilities for more means/styles of engagement should not be considered acceptable, certainly, but we'd need to first look at what interactions we want to actually engage in during our day to day dungeon runs. Do they, by popular opinion, have to remain braindead hallway sprints? If not, utility is a lucrative area for development. But that's a big if.

Moreover, I'd advise caution in seemingly obligatory and free utility (e.g. oGCD and at no meaningful resource cost). If, for instance, a DPS has an oGCD cleanse and Healers have only Esuna (on the GCD), it's not so much that you're lightening the healer's load; it is YOUR load now, as you're the one with the lowest opportunity cost by which to deal with it. At that point, there's no sense of interaction, but merely more buttons to press for a very meh impact. Compare that to the CC sequences in WoW and how conditional they can be due to additional complexity in mob packs, and the difference in likely satisfaction should be painfully clear.

[Adeacia]

This (underlined above) is either errant or disingenuous. The favored jobs were favored for their burst AoE damage or AoE stuns, not any of the various other utilities.

DRG and BRD anyone? DRG had a piercing debuff, which BRD could use for a damage boost. The piercing debuff was removed for that very reason. The BRD songs were changed for the same reason, every raid group wanted a BRD. I know, I was that BRD once.

[Liam_Harper]

To be honest, I get why they do it this way, it's safe and it works. No talents, customization, tier sets, trinkets, self-sufficiency and so on makes it far easier to balance. You can see why they keep it plain, from a developer perspective because people are still happy and there's no risk. It's the same with gear, it's always the same system of tome, crafted and loot drops with the same stats that don't have much impact but part of me finds it refreshing after WoW's infinite grinds for artifact powers and such, RNG mythic+ weekly chests, rng legendaries, titanforges and all the other treadmills they've had over the recent years.

That said, I also can't help wishing they took some risks sometimes. There were times in WoW where it was a legitimate choice to talent for dps tank or extra tanky tank. Or where you could solo a 10+ man soak mechanic as tank with the right combination of talents, glyphs and abilities. Or times in MoP where BiS would make your class feel completely different and an absolute powerhouse. That was just fun.

There must be a middle ground here. Even if they took tentative steps or experimented with it more in content like Bozja, surely there are ways they can spice it up a little without causing too many issues.

[Puremallace]

If you watch the race to world first you would understand why the below will never happen here.

"The issue I found in FF14 DPS jobs is the serious lack of utility, yeah you might have 30 skills but 25 of them are mostly within your dps gameplay, which gameplay is definitely more involved than the very limited dps gameplay in WoW but that leaves very little space for single players to control situations with their utility, not only that but things like second wind are really weak and extremely limited so they wont make as big of a difference such as a huge defensive or a huge self heal, and the fact that each dps job has very very few utility skills in comparison."

Limit was using hunter shells to cheese mechanics on Mythic Sylvannas last phase. Also a majority of the things you listed with hunters has been buffed and nerfed going on years now. Machinist has slows but they do not really server a purpose.

Also people commenting in this thread seem to have forgotten the MASSIVE raid wide buffs Dragoons bring?? Ninja trick attack? Multiple rez's that dps classes have!??!?!?! Raid encounters in FF14 are not designed like WoW so the abilities are going to function differently.

Also in pvp every single ability you listed with hunter would GUARANTEED be removed as it would be extremely overpowered in locking down players in Feast. WoW's entire Arena system is a cc fest or burst fest depending on the season with nerfs/buffs.

[Deceptus]

In the 8 years I've been playing this game I've rarely seen the DPS use the utility they've been given. Why should they be given more if they don't use what they have?