2hr Abilites (Yes Please!)? or (No Thanks!)?

[Abriael]

2hrs were what actually defined certain jobs especially playing into certain tactics, e.g:

PLD's invincible
COR's wildcard
BRD's Soulvoice
DRK's Blood Weapon
SMN's Astral Flow (especially Odin/Alexander.)

and so on.

You can't make class uniqueness in a FF type of MMO without some kind trump card ability that can't be spammed. Even the "useless" ones had a use and were only seen as useless because people didn't understand how to put it into play, e.g PUP's overdrive.

Funny part? quite a few people I see posting here against 2hr abilities are also the ones that continue complaining that classes aren't defined enough. How droll...

[Akumu]

LOL at anyone attempting to say 2hr abilities are useless. Some are too disgustingly powerful in a way.

Most were useless... Please post some vids of all the 2hrs being used in a grand tactic(and not just for the hell of it)... I'm not up to going down the entire list stating why most were useless for something on a 2hr cd. Most 2hrs didn't give you an ace up your sleeve because it made little difference in a bind. If anything it made a cool way to make a last stand while your party ran to safety.

Maybe it was just the server(s) you were on because for me and the 2 I played on most of the 2hrs made little difference.
Most also weren't used to defeat some NM or any other serious threat through some pre-planning tactic.

MOST(not all) were and still are useless besides brief fun every 2hrs.

edit: I'm not against a "2hr" like ability but I am against an ability thats on a 2hr cd. 1hr at most should be the highest any ability goes. It should also be worth the wait.

[Verecund]

IMO 2hr. abilities should be fun and somewhat meaningful, but not necessarily a definite make-or-break thing for all boss fights.

[Sojiro]

Funny part? quite a few people I see posting here against 2hr abilities are also the ones that continue complaining that classes aren't defined enough. How droll...

Even if all the current classes had one ability tied to them that was on a ridiculous 2hour cooldown the clases would still not seem unique. I don't see what the point of a 2hour ability is. Most of the time it went unused and the person who linked that tvtrope (which I had seen before ) nailed it on the head. Yes to class uniqueness...but class uniqueness doesn't need ridiculous cooldowns.

[Abriael]

Even if all the current classes had one ability tied to them that was on a ridiculous 2hour cooldown the clases would still not seem unique.

You seem to think, for some weird reason, that 2 hour abilities would be the *only* thing added to make classes more unique. Titular and characterizing abilities to be used in an emergency situation would definitely *contribute* to class uniqueness and characterization. The fact that they aren't a be all do all solution by themselves doesn't change that.

Also, ridiculous cooldowns? They are emergency abilities. There's nothing ridiculous in two hours. You're not really supposed to have an emergency more often than that.

[kukurumei]

Most were useless... Please post some vids of all the 2hrs being used in a grand tactic(and not just for the hell of it)... I'm not up to going down the entire list stating why most were useless for something on a 2hr cd. Most 2hrs didn't give you an ace up your sleeve because it made little difference in a bind. If anything it made a cool way to make a last stand while your party ran to safety.

Maybe it was just the server(s) you were on because for me and the 2 I played on most of the 2hrs made little difference.
Most also weren't used to defeat some NM or any other serious threat through some pre-planning tactic.

MOST(not all) were and still are useless besides brief fun every 2hrs.

edit: I'm not against a "2hr" like ability but I am against an ability thats on a 2hr cd. 1hr at most should be the highest any ability goes. It should also be worth the wait.

It's more of a what was decent instead of what was cheap.

About 70% of the Maat fights revolved around 2hr abilities. About 50% of the CoP relied on 2hr one point or another. Most Zigart fights were also first relied on 2hrs. Most BC's were walked in expecting to have a 2hr in your sleeves.

It's the opposite of what wasn't cheap.

BRD- considered cheap
PLD -always an ace in the hole
RDM - always an ace in a hole
COR - next to godly if used correctly
SMN- almost a key tactic in soloing summons or generally BCs definitely cheap
SAM - The most youtubed
BLM - Come on it was good before now now they have mana wall...
SCH - manafront and chainspelling...certainly cheap
DNC - Basically like SAM. massive damage

WHM - After they fixed the enmity full HP for entire party all around decent and something you want in a tough fight.
BLU - A little like ES a little like Mightly strike. It wasn't useless but then BLUs were already powerful. Useful for low acc skillls like 1000needle and useful for unlocking limits like drain kiss. Still cheap.

The odd man outs at cheap but not so much BC:
Ninja : death warping, but also good for baiting, or saving PTs
Thf : To Run away is so like them
DRG : It's life as a drg, the 2h timer needs to be there.
RNG : decent at lower level, though it's ben tweaked a few times.
Warrior : yea the lower end of 2hrs

2hr is a good timer for them. It ensures no one ever attempts to rely on it, only make a risky bet on it. That's the way cheat abilities should be.

10minutes: Coffee break
1/2hr means a round
1hr : Possible, but still kinda short
2hr : Most people consider it a session. So it's the right limit instead of 24hrs.

2hr was very strategic. They wanted to make it a "one day" or some super long time like FF14's levequests but then ran into a problem of casual vs hardcore. No one expects to wait 2hrs, but they also have it their when they go "adventuring".

They probably considered a session of "adventuring" about 2-3hrs on average. Which still holds relatively true even today.

[Issachar]

*snip*

Finally someone that knows what they're talking about! Perfectly summed this whole debacle up.

[Sojiro]

You seem to think, for some weird reason, that 2 hour abilities would be the *only* thing added to make classes more unique. Titular and characterizing abilities to be used in an emergency situation would definitely *contribute* to class uniqueness and characterization. The fact that they aren't a be all do all solution by themselves doesn't change that.

Also, ridiculous cooldowns? They are emergency abilities. There's nothing ridiculous in two hours. You're not really supposed to have an emergency more often than that.

Funny part? quite a few people I see posting here against 2hr abilities are also the ones that continue complaining that classes aren't defined enough. How droll...

To me that second quoted part makes it seem that unless they have a 2hr ability the classes aren't unique, and we're so droll for thinking otherwise. Once again all for class uniqueness, don't need 2 hour cooldowns to achieve that. Emergency "oh shit" buttons can be put on half hour to an hour timers as well. Imo anything longer than 30 minutes is too long.

[gifthorse]

That's good, since no 2 hour ability has ever been an automatic win button. Ain't that great?

I think in order to justify a 2 hour cooldown, the ability itself would have to be very amazing. This in turn leads to tactics being skewered for difficult boss fights due to people beginning to rely on 2 Hour Abilities to win the fights.

Basically everyone will just end up saving their 2 hours for endgame boss fights.

While 2 Hour abilities are a nice concept and I appreciate that they lend themselves favourably to job uniqueness, the fact that they detrimentally effect tactics in the long run makes them something I'd rather not see.

[Abriael]

To me that second quoted part makes it seem that unless they have a 2hr ability the classes aren't unique, and we're so droll for thinking otherwise. Once again all for class uniqueness, don't need 2 hour cooldowns to achieve that. Emergency "oh shit" buttons can be put on half hour to an hour timers as well. Imo anything longer than 30 minutes is too long.

Again, Characterizing 2 hours ability would sure *contribute* to class uniqueness, so whining about the lack of uniqueness and then antagonizing something that contributes to that is quite droll.

The high cooldown actually contributes to class uniqueness as well. Why? For balancing reasons, the higher the cooldown, the more powerful and cool the abilities can be. The more powerful, the more characterizing potential they have.

Anyway, now that you've stopped bitching, I hope we can have a discussion. I think in order to justify a 2 hour cooldown, the ability itself would have to be very amazing. This in turn leads to tactics being skewered for difficult boss fights due to people beginning to rely on 2 Hour Abilities to win the fights.

Basically everyone will just end up saving their 2 hours for endgame boss fights.

While 2 Hour abilities are a nice concept and I appreciate that they lend themselves favourably to job uniqueness, the fact that they detrimentally effect tactics in the long run makes them something I'd rather not see.

Amazing != gamewinning. There was no 2 hour ability in FFXI that was "gamewinning"mwhile there were quite a few that were definitely amazing and cool. The only problem is that not all of them were.

Also, the fact that the abilities have such a long cooldown actually *contributes* to tactics, since the simple choice on when and how to use them is part of the tactical aspect of a fight. I've seen so many people in FFXI wasting their 2 hours regularly at the wrong time, that it's quite easy to appreciate how tactical their use can be.

Also "for endgame bosses" is quite generic. The fight against an endgame boss doesn't last half a minute, if they're challenging enough, there are plenty critical moments in which one or multiple 2 hour abilities may be useful. Ergo, chosing when to actually use them and when to save them and just try and get by with ordinary abilities is in itself a tactical choice.

A 2 hours is nothing else than a smartbomb. Smartbombs have always been, in gaming, a quite tactical tool.