Brainstorming Fun: Alternatives to Rescue

[MiaShino]

First off, I definitely agree that Rescue hypothetically has a number of interesting uses.

Watching friends use it blows the mind at the times. It really really does! Any skill that can move self or players brings me happiness.

But Rescue is janky and unreliable, and the vast majority of interesting uses are thus impractical. Outside of the aforementioned "grab your co-healer and bring them to safety while they're in LB3 animation lock", I almost never see Rescue used in savage or extremes. (I won't say I don't see it at all, but it's extremely rare.)

Have been watching some groups doing current tier and Dragonsong and almost never see it. I did count many many times it could have been used though. I wish to say this has more to do with not thinking about it or being unwilling to risk messing with the other player. Same same for the last extreme. Sooooo many times Ferro could have done some stuffs with few clever Rescues. Juuuuuust in the recent vod there were three times the Ninja (think it was the Ninja) failed to get into position after the two tethers and Ferro could have easily done drive by Rescue to put them in the correct position.

Buff/debuff-based 'zip to this spot' code actually also already exists in the game; it was a fairly key element in phase 2 of E12S last tier

I almost forgot to remember that! Can just retroactively put this as Four; annnnd nope nope cannot imagine it would be difficult to repurpose. Well.. it should not be at the least.

As someone who raids savage, I would argue that if the alternative is "you died" (thus 90 seconds of rez weakness), the 30 seconds of damage down is, while not ideal, still the preferable option. And without that damage down -- with no downside to the ability -- you turn Conditional Salvation into functionally "Holmgang, but the healer can put it on anyone."

Aye, agreed. It must have some "drawback" to balancing it. Am not much of the fan of harsh negative re-enforcement because it always feedback loops into "Guess I will avoid this at all costs and reluctantly use it if I must". I do not much care for how raising works in FF14 land either for this reason but that is whooooole other can of worms. 40% damage down is rough though especially if it happens during buff windows. Youch! Perhaps a vuln up on the target instead or excog like effect so it cannot be used to cheese one shot mechanics? Boy is game design not fun huh!

Which is interesting, I won't lie, but two healers able to functionally apply Holmgang to any party member... that strikes me as having a reasonably high chance of very quickly becoming a thing predominantly used for Large Cheesing where mechanics are concerned.

Mmhmm! Heck yeah it would be. Am already thinking of ways I could cheese things with it. Tank invuln is already incredibly powerful especially Holmgang with the shorter cooldown. Can already see the healer takes mechanic and 40% damage down strats because welp, our damage output is less so less total detriment to party deeps.

(And I personally would prefer not to encourage more things like the P1S "braindead" tank damage down strat for Intemperance. Why is this a thing.)

My uncle is one of the extended family mmo veterans and as he places it; "If they can find ways to ignore mechanics they will every time."

That one's easy enough to fix: if the buff is triggered and slingshots the player, grant them 5 seconds of Transcendent, as though they'd just been rezzed. (Transcendent being the temporary invulnerability to all damage you have immediately after rez.) This would let them still be brought safely to the healer's side even across the bad, and give the healer a moment's breathing space to heal them up again as well.

Am more concerned with the way movement skills work in FF14. All of them even jumps are only accelerated direct line movement. Sooo dragoon cannot backflip over ledges, they will plummet like ten thousand pounds of sadness. Square should really fix this anyway and allow certain movement skills to circumvent falling into pits like Swtor did. Hmmm now that am mentioning this.. if Rescue pulled you over holes or failed to pull full distance if the player would fall that would resolve massive point of contention.

(Hell, even if nothing else about Rescue changes, I'd argue that giving them Transcendent for the duration of the Rescue-slide would do wonders for reducing people's annoyance with it, since at least you wouldn't be dragging them through death zones and potentially killing them regardless.)

Movement skills have some of the wonkiest fricken snapshotting probably due to low server tickrate. Target of Rescue is moving significantly faster then they would normally be allowed to move. Server only snapshots every 300ms (best of the luck timing that in the mind!). If they are passing over mechanic during the 300ms window they will be snapshot in the mechanic and die upon arrival (I rescued a corpse again.. yay). Temperence would be amazing addition to Rescue. Have seen friends mastering this and it is something. Do not ask a Mia how because I am not big brained enough for that!

But I have seen Rescue used very, very rarely to correct positioning in high-end content, because there's rarely time. Are you going to run to the person's spot, Rescue them there, then move back to your own spot? Rescue is not reliable enough -- or fast enough -- to run to the right spot for a position-based mechanic, Rescue, then run back to where you need to be in the vast majority of cases.

Was going to mention the Icarus + Rescue to change places but you got it. That trick gives me the happy chemicals. Maahhh.. the more I think about that the more I miss my Sorcerer. Just.. just look at this skill; https://torcommunity.com/database/ab...a6/phase+walk/

This is an ability healers have. Healers! Properly timed you could cheese mechanics with this by being in two places at once but it took fair degree of skill.

(Disclaimer: I will admit there are exceptions. I had one run of P4S in PF not long ago where a DPS had been disoriented by rez and happened to be standing in my orb spot, and was clearly tunnel-visioning as they did not seem to notice both of us were there. So I ran to theirs. If I had stayed there, we both would've been popping the wrong orbs and would die, but since they were specifically out of position in my spot I was able to use sage's Rescue + Icarus trick to switch our spots in time. However, I'd argue this -- and almost any situation where you use Rescue to correct positioning in savage, save for rescuing your co-healer from LB3 animation lock -- is an edge case.)

Yup yup! Perhaps I am the strange one but I live for these moments and know I am not alone in this. Fricken love watching friends/family find these rare instances where they can make a skill shine. As stated previously I still feel these moments are more rare because others are generally pre-positioning in higher end content and on average (pffff) more skilled players. Or are not thinking about it. Follow the dance > go to your waymark > return to set position > etc can become monotonous. The mind is filled with doing the set routine so without even realizing you stop thinking about ways to improvise.

And if someone is dead for the mechanic, that often also causes it to fail. Someone's dead and can't soak a tower? Welp, that's a massive raidwide. One of the healers is down? Now it's time for the fun guessing game of "who gets the other stack marker".

Aye Akh Morn says hello! That is other rant shall not get into but am not a fan of the way Square designs more "difficult" encounters. Too much "we wipe now" not enough "this is bad but I can recover". Would love to see them lean more into what Swtor did well. Did you know you can cloak the whole party and walk past entire flashpoints (dungeons) in there? Tis neat! Or rescue skip by platforming onto various objects? Or reduce certain mechanics by using optimal movement tech? Could go on and on and on..

The number of situations in which someone being repositioned would be worse than someone being dead for the mechanic is, I suspect, not a large one. (Though I'll admit it is also a non-zero value.

This has caused more thinking to occur. Would it be too powerful if your skill allowed you to cancel the yeet part by pressing the button a second time? That would probably neutralize many issues and I could have said this at the beginning of my post and saved much of the typing. Ohhh well. Too late now!

But if we were going to replace Rescue, I think Conditional Salvation wouldn't be a bad option as one possibility. And I don't think the issues you mention having with it are ones that are insurmountable.

Certainly not! Hmm. Actually would not mind just fricken having this skill as healer going with my last conditional for "Pls add more unique buttons for the healers!". Could say umm how about Fairy lands on target and saves them for the Scholar one. Sage deploys their Nouliths. White Mage remembers the forgotten art of water manipulation (think creating a wave then woooooshing the target). Astro had time manipulation magic so pretty darn easy to explain how they could do it. Still lore friendly too! Mia approves.

If this thread does anything it demonstrates why game development is done by teams (usually) and not individuals quite well indeed.

Shall stick with what I said at end of other wall of words and letters. Do not feel replacing Rescue is the correct answer even with a skill that is almost as good without giving us something extra in return. Perhaps your Conditional Salvation skill could be one of those additional skills.

TL;DR - You can take my Rescue but give every healer three unique skills in return. Brownies are tasty but would have appreciated it if you did not take my cookies away.