How do you feel about MP?

[LeonKeyh]

As mentioned, MP is basically just there to limit rezzing and makes a small appearance whenever you are determining substats (i.e. determining how much Piety you want to slot).

It also "forces" people to use Lucid Dreaming otherwise problems come up typically.

[NobleWinter]

I like MP as a concept but it doesn't really function well at the moment. Healers, who have a priority to heal, shouldn't be worried about managing their MP to do so. It makes sense for MP to be a restriction on DPS classes that limits how many revives they can do but Healers should be the opposite in my opinion. A newly revived healer should still have all there healing at their disposal free of cost but lose access to MP needed for DPS. If they really wanna make healing approachable that would be the way to do it. Give each healer a unique DPS rotation with clear priorities and incentives to use their MP on spells with varying cost. Let each healer have a unique way to Regen MP as well. AST card draws, SCH Aetherflow and Energy Drain, Sage with Addersgall usage, and WHM with actual MP return on Lily Abilities. We could have really interesting DPS kits that utilize our MP in interesting ways adding the depth we are sorely missing while allowing causal healers to always be up to the task of keeping the party alive.

In my ideal world Lucid Dreaming wouldn't exist at all for healers.

[Vatom]

*There is nothing pass that wall stop searching for things*

*But maybe if…*

*Shhh… There is no war beyond the wall*

They will never make this game require intense skill or resource management ever again

Enjoy the illusions

[baklava151]

Better MP management would be a nice way to spice up healer gameplay, at least something more in-depth than hitting Lucid Dreaming every so often.

[Renathras]

If MP are the way they are now they can just as well remove them completely and give the jobs that need them another job gauge that functions similarly.

I think this is inadvertently hitting on the issue: At some point (SB for many, ShB for the rest), they chose to give every Job a Job Gauge/Mechanic. When they did, they effectively negated MP existing. Especially true for the healers, but pretty true for the rest.

WHM = Use Lily heals. If you're using a GCD that isn't a Lily heal and you have a Lily to spend, you're generally wrong. Lilies cost no MP. Tetra, Benison, Bendiction, Aquaveil, etc also cost no MP. Assize generates some MP.

SCH = Use Lily (Eos/Selene's true name) abilities (Fey Blessing/Whisper) or use Aetherflow heals. Unless you're using Spreadlo for some specific mechanic, you shouldn't be using GCD heals.

SGE = Use Kardia. Move Kardia to someone else. Keep using Kardia. Use Addesergall. Use other oGCDs. You only use the Eu-Prognosis/Diagnosis for very specific things or during downtime.

I don't play AST, but I figure it probably follows a similar thing to those. For healers, why bother with MP spending (except emergencies or damage dealing) when your oGCDs or Job GCDs (WHM Lilies) are so powerful you never need to use a GCD for the most part?

SMN I don't even know that MP exists, using summons. RDM I don't even know that MP exists, though this is because they buffed it in ShB (because they legit couldn't keep casting for a full fight). Melee and Ranged and WAR/GNB don't even use it.

[Renathras]

And yet we spend up to 7 buttons per job on what amounts to just fat-fingering traps or bloat like Lucid Dreaming.

This is a shockingly accurate statement. It still boggles my mind how people think non-choice rotation buttons that are, as you say, fat-fingering traps (or ABJECT <30 IQ grasshoppers trying to play on your keyboard traps) or "use on cooldown" buttons that just kinda fill up hotbars but don't have any actual meaning other than "being another button".

It's really interesting seeing PvP versions where they throw them all on one button and...nothing of value seems to be lost. When Gnashing Fang for GNB was made one button, I don't think it altered the skill floor/ceiling of the game substantially in any way (I can't remember any time I ever wiffed the combo before), and if anything it can actually be a SMIDGE easier to mess up now if you mix it with your other combo (which you have sitting on the third button for a hot minute during the opener until you finish Double Down + Gnashing Fang for higher buffed damage). In PvP, they even put MCH's tools all on one button and you simply cycle through them every 20 sec and the only thing that's different is that burst windows might work a smidge differently, but the general filler rotation doesn't seem like it'd be that different if PvE did the same thing.

I'm not saying take all those things away or make it mandatory (a toggle makes sense), but it is a bit odd when people talk about it as a matter of skill. Though I guess this could be argued for ANY system that requires using multiple buttons, like RDM's Dualcast. But at least with Dualcast, there's a choice (use a white or black magic spell) and a purpose to that choice (to build mana but keep it roughly in balance) that makes that have SOME point to it. Hitting 1-2-3 isn't really that mechanically different from 1-1-1, especially since so many Jobs are mixing with the 1-1-1 anyway, like PLD's entire Requiescat/Swordworks phase. GNB's 1-2-1-2-1-2 Gnashing Fang combo is, oddly, more engaging (and more fast paced). Though I guess it all comes down to what we consider "skill".

[Shurrikhan]

It's really interesting seeing PvP versions where they throw them all on one button and...nothing of value seems to be lost. When Gnashing Fang for GNB was made one button, I don't think it altered the skill floor/ceiling of the game substantially in any way (I can't remember any time I ever wiffed the combo before).

You actually literally couldn't whiff Gnashing Fang's combo, except by hitting a weaponskill outside its combo line, which has been unchanged in that consolidation. Like Wheeling Thrust and Fang and Claw, you could only hit those buttons when available.

Sadly, that is somehow considered the line in the sand for combo consolidation, as if Gnashing Fang could only be "sacrificed" because it was already 'crippled" by involving two fewer trap buttons.

Granted, there are also still people who'd swear up and down that Glare would be more fun if it just forced you to hit a different button each time in a three-step cycle for the exact same effect, as if they somehow don't likewise have the option of multi-binding it unless that choice is forced on everyone else as well (as per XIV's "combos" in general).


Now, I can definitely see the argument for favoring the tactile feel of hitting more buttons. There's the whole rhythm game element to hitting a different button each time, and it even makes it easier to keep track of where one is in a fight. I enjoy that. That's why I'd never care to force consolidation upon everyone. Even Gnashing Fang's consolidation should have been a choice, imo. But we shouldn't be denying others that choice over the weirdest of petty forms of pride (that "I can hit 2 after 1 more consistently than you can!").

Remove the trap element, so your choices are just to reset, switch, or continue a combo (as would be possible, too, for consolidated forms) for balance against those consolidated forms --and to stop disproportionately punishing just the dexterity-impaired or especially anxious players among us-- and give players the choice. They can slot the individual skills or they can slot the combo line (with no ugly PvP icon borders, please).

(For stuff like Jump -> Mirage Dive, likewise provide the choice so that players can ignore the built-in safety delay to immediately double-weave a Mirage Dive via the separate key if they so choose.)