Dps job design issues due to lack of utility.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

I think DPS have enough utility tbh. If you gave dps more heals or self mitigation I would be doing even less healing than I do now.. and thats no good for a healer to never be healing. It is a co-operative game, you will always be at the mercy of a healer or tank. If you do not like that you can play those jobs and be the reliable one. We have huge buffs from dps, rezzes and healing buffs etc. There is really plenty utility for each job, minus sam and blm but thats how they are.

If you added all those things you suggested it would take away a lot of difficulty from the raids.

[Shurrikhan]

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.

Look at the OP's examples of the utility they believe to be missing. Now look at 8-man content. There's not a single effect among them those bosses, or even adds, are not immune to.

The utility your describing are mere compositional restraints and ways to move numbers from one ACT bar to another -- nothing more. They have nothing in common with what the OP is referring to, save in that the devs are apparently more than willing to replace actual, gameplay-affecting utility with further non-gameplay number-spinning like composition buffs without enough flexibility or bankability for any agency beyond, at best, "Hey, guys, are we doing 4th GCD or 5th?"

[Shinxwildflower]

If you gave dps more heals or self mitigation I would be doing even less healing than I do now.. and thats no good for a healer to never be healing.

...I always took the idea of healing, in this game, is more DPSing then healing. Healing when folks are getting near death and not topping off. That's...a bit weird to hear, not gonna lie.

[Lunalepsy]

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

This game: uniqueness>homogeneity.

[Jin-]

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?

Because Square does not design the game like that where the utilities could be useful. ARR combat felt more varied and "RPG" compared to current one, which is still fun but bit stale and samey

[Katie_Kitty]

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.

Certain jobs are favored over others *now*. Take dancer and summoner, for example - Both clearly the most desired jobs in their role, and it's not even close. Given the choice between an amazing SMN and an amazing RDM, or an amazing DNC and an amazing BRD? the choice is obvious.

[Shinxwildflower]

This game: uniqueness>homogeneity.

To be fair, trying to force uniqueness into everything, namely classes, will leave some 'unique' classes being left holding the bag in some cases that it kind of make it hard to play. IE: Remember how monk played before the rework? Or Black mage being giving the short end of the stick in combat with heavy movement fights and Black mage dislike for such.

[LisSquid]

Dungeons and raids lack the mechanics that require dps to use utility. Even silence/stun is incredibly niche, and I don't think there are more than a handful of situations where you'd actually need to do this.

Unlike WoW, where mobs and encounters are designed around players having toolkits to deal with certain situations. FFXIV utility is all about increasing damage. So we only see utility jobs that increase damage. This will never change unless we see a dramatic change in direction in the encounter design department.

[DPZ2]

I'm going to have to disagree with the OP. Much of the so-called 'utility' he uses as examples from WoW might work wonders for that game, but that game is not this game, and encounters run differently.

Even in WoW, utility such as roots and slows does not really count in expansions through BFA [when I left]. Players ignore content to the extent that the traditional 'hunter' (a class I knew intimately for about 10 years) does not need them. CC that was essential in Sunken Temple and other such instances, has became a joke, since it's easier to burn the mobs down than to patiently wait for your CC-centric classes to do their thing. There was never anything dangerous enough to require such skills in the open world.

Yeah, it was nice to be able to switch 'flavors' for your class. It was more or less essential to be able to do so, given that you only played one class per character.

[Ralph2449]

Even in WoW, utility such as roots and slows does not really count in expansions through BFA [when I left]. Players ignore content to the extent that the traditional 'hunter' (a class I knew intimately for about 10 years) does not need them. CC that was essential in Sunken Temple and other such instances

Most low end content can be dpsed down without much useage of utility I agree, but that utility becomes very useful and important when you are pushing high m+ keys since you cant just brainlessly dps packs down often (Thanks to AoE cap/SL dungeon design) because the devs have included a ton of enemy spells and abilities in those encounters as well as many AoE effects and boss abilities that at some level you need good utility usage else you die cuz the healer cant keep up.
Utility becomes paramount then, and even in raids things like roots/slows/interrupts/grips/stuns for adds, defensives and self heals are incredibly useful which again means you dont have to depend on some silly healer for everything.

It is definitely true that FF14 is lacking in design in terms of encounters that can actually benefit form utility but that can be fixed if utility is actually added.