FFXIV Job Design Feedback

[Zairava]

I suppose I could ask this over on the tank forums, but it popped into my mind here. Now, I'm not really a tank player; I've only just leveled the tanks. I understand some of the complaints and issues surrounding tanks on a surface level, but not on an intimate level, so forgive me if this is not an effective solution to Living Shadow, but I'd like to ask for anyone with more intimate knowledge of the job.

Would Living Shadow feel better and function well if Frey was designed to imitate the GCDs you use, perhaps up to 5 hits or so? I know a big complaint with Living Shadow as well as the Automaton Queen is that they feel like glorified DoTs, so I am curious if making Frey's action usage dependent on your own would resolve that.

It undeniably would feel better, and more impactful at the least. Living Shadow as it is is just press and forget, and the 50 gauge cost doesn't amount to much. While the idea of summoning him is cool on paper, it feels ultimately hollow because there's no interaction with Living Shadow and the rest of the kit.

[RyuDragnier]

It undeniably would feel better, and more impactful at the least. Living Shadow as it is is just press and forget, and the 50 gauge cost doesn't amount to much. While the idea of summoning him is cool on paper, it feels ultimately hollow because there's no interaction with Living Shadow and the rest of the kit.

It's the same reason why Shadowbringer is a pretty bad capstone ability. Yes, it does a lot of damage, but it isn't linked to anything else in the kit. It doesn't cost Darkside, MP, or Blood, and there's no special requirement for being able to access it, it's just there to press.

[Mikey_R]

It's the same reason why Shadowbringer ... there's no special requirement for being able to access it, it's just there to press.

Technically, you need to be under Darkside to use it, so technically, there is a special requirement. However, I know this is being pedantic and in theory you will have Darkside up 100% of the time anyway, making this requirement a null point.

[Zairava]

Technically, you need to be under Darkside to use it, so technically, there is a special requirement. However, I know this is being pedantic and in theory you will have Darkside up 100% of the time anyway, making this requirement a null point.

Which is the exact reason, I feel, it should cost Darkside rather than just merely requiring Darkside to be active

[Renathras]

So... Heavensward?

More like SB. No Cleric Stance. HW having Cleric Stance makes it a different animal.

It's the same reason why Shadowbringer is a pretty bad capstone ability. Yes, it does a lot of damage, but it isn't linked to anything else in the kit. It doesn't cost Darkside, MP, or Blood, and there's no special requirement for being able to access it, it's just there to press.

It's like that one NIN ability where your shadow attacks (based on if you use a single target ability, ranged ability, or AOE ability), but it's really just a "press and then do what you'd be doing anyway" button.

[ForsakenRoe]

More like SB. No Cleric Stance. HW having Cleric Stance makes it a different animal.

SB added Earthly Star, I think that's the point where 'you can erase so many GCDs from your healing' got really out of control. Before that, your OGCD suite was very limited, WHM had Asylum and Assize (but Assize only did the damage half cos haha cleric), SCH had Soil (with no regen), Indom, Whispering Dawn (which could be roused). AST had what, bubble that you had to channel for the full duration? CU didn't heal it extended buffs, Star Horoscope etc didn't exist yet, if anything it was about reducing GCDs by 'using some, and extending their effects to prevent needing to cast another to reapply'

The best comparison would be 'HW, if damage skills scaled from mind as in SB', but that didn't exist

GNB stuff

They really ought to change DoubleDown to 2 hits of 600p instead of one of 1200p, shouldn't they

[ty_taurus]

They really ought to change DoubleDown to 2 hits of 600p instead of one of 1200p, shouldn't they

A lot of crit variance issues could be more effectively resolved through making attacks multi-hit rather than just making them auto crit/direct hit. It's another thing that just makes me anxious to see if they'll return to more dramatic combat changes in the next expansion rather than just doing shadowbringers 3.0. I am sincerely worried that if they don't do something to shake up the gameplay, it will have damaging repercussions on the game's longevity.

[Renathras]

SB added Earthly Star, I think that's the point where 'you can erase so many GCDs from your healing' got really out of control. Before that, your OGCD suite was very limited, WHM had Asylum and Assize (but Assize only did the damage half cos haha cleric), SCH had Soil (with no regen), Indom, Whispering Dawn (which could be roused). AST had what, bubble that you had to channel for the full duration? CU didn't heal it extended buffs, Star Horoscope etc didn't exist yet, if anything it was about reducing GCDs by 'using some, and extending their effects to prevent needing to cast another to reapply'

The best comparison would be 'HW, if damage skills scaled from mind as in SB', but that didn't exist

As I've told you before, don't play AST, don't like AST, never have. I'm talking WHM and SCH. WHM in SB still didn't have a ton of oGCDs (and the new ones sucked; Lilies weren't the only thing that sucked in SB, Plenary/Confession stacks were initially implemented horribly, and Benison only worked with Lilies which had to be generated by casting Cure 1/2s on people, and only had a chance of generating), and SCH didn't have a ton more than it had before. I'm trying to remember what they got in SB, I think it was Chain Strat (not a heal) and Dissipation (not a heal, and originally implemented so badly, people refused to use it)? Maybe Excog, but while useful, that's hardly completely upending the system.

WHM and SCH didn't have a significant increase in healing oGCD power and number in SB over HW. ShB and EW both added more and/or added charges to existing ones and/or added new effects (Soil's regen) to make them more powerful.

ShB WHM didn't really, either (they just made Lilies not suck).

So no, SB would be the best comparison point overall for Healers. Cleric Stance instantly makes HW different. Now, if we could have a HW kit set with the ShB Healer damage kits? I suppose that could be what you're going for. But that would be weird. I feel like SB was better for SCH and probably AST, while ShB/EW are both better for WHM. But that's more because of how bad SB WHM was.

A lot of crit variance issues could be more effectively resolved through making attacks multi-hit rather than just making them auto crit/direct hit. It's another thing that just makes me anxious to see if they'll return to more dramatic combat changes in the next expansion rather than just doing shadowbringers 3.0. I am sincerely worried that if they don't do something to shake up the gameplay, it will have damaging repercussions on the game's longevity.

Agreed.

It's like Omnislash vs some single ability that scales better and hits 9999 sooner, but only hits once.

[ForsakenRoe]

As I've told you before, don't play AST, don't like AST, never have. I'm talking WHM and SCH.

Yes, but the point is, the move from HW AST where you didn't have 'free massive healing every 60s because of Star' to SB AST where you did, combined with WHM being dumpster because Lilies were absolute dog, meant that WHM was kicked to the curb and AST/SCH was locked in as the dominant meta, both because AST cards = more damage, and because the extra OGCD healing AST had compared to WHM meant spending less GCDs on heals. It doesn't matter if you played AST or not. Dissipation was the level 60 skill for SCH, in SB they got Chain, Excog, Fey Union, and Quickened Aetherflow. Union/Excog was big for reducing how much GCD tank-babysitting was required, and Quickened Aetherflow allowed for more uses of OGCD healing stuff like Excog or Indom. Saying 'it didn't get much more healing going into SB' is laughable. WHM is the one that got 'not much more', getting just Benison, Thin Air (admittedly this helped a bit with their MP issues at the time), and losing half of it's kit to the crossrole system like Divine S(t)eal. Oh and it got Plenary, but you had to Cure1/2 people to place stacks on them, and Plenary consumed the stacks to heal for a frankly insultingly low amount

But yeh, I remember seeing a video from Momo and his cohealer at the time about how they got O12S down to 4 healing GCDs as AST SCH. Absolutely no way would they have been able to get even below double digits if one of them was on WHM. So yeh, I hold that HW was more accurate to the idea of 'heal mainly via GCD, supplement with OGCD'. Cleric Stance's effect in that era has nothing to do with the damage profile of the fights. You could take it off your bar and you'd still have to 'heal mainly via GCD, supplement with OGCD'

A lot of crit variance issues could be more effectively resolved through making attacks multi-hit rather than just making them auto crit/direct hit. It's another thing that just makes me anxious to see if they'll return to more dramatic combat changes in the next expansion rather than just doing shadowbringers 3.0. I am sincerely worried that if they don't do something to shake up the gameplay, it will have damaging repercussions on the game's longevity.

I saw a vid from a guy who makes not-so-TOS compliant things, but this one was just using video editing software: 'damage segmentation'. Basically, rather than just doing 'big number' for Drill, it'd show a smaller number, getting bigger and bigger in quick pulses until it hits 'the real damage number' as a big hit. Or Bootshine being 4 smaller numbers that add up to one bigger one. We already have Dream Within a Dream hitting as 'three hits of 200p', or some BLU skills like Matra Magic being 8 hits of 50p, why can't we use that more for things? Carve and Spit has an almost identical tooltip to DWAD but is one single damage instance instead of the implied 3hit combo. Or, imagine how much cooler it'd feel if every 'swing' of the Gnashing Fang combo was a 'hit', so rather than 6 numbers it's more like 16. Faster strikes would feel better as multiple smaller numbers from a job aesthetic standpoint too I think. Monk being a job that hits with '5 damage instances' per GCD would fit way better with it's aesthetic, Phantom rush being multiple small hits then a massive one for the final slam, etc.

And the best part is, if the 'multi hit skills' like Higanbana or the lower GCDs have this segmentation effect, then the actual 'single strikes' like Senei being one MASSIVE number, feel even more MASSIVE. The Senei in that video looks meaty because it's a single hit that blows up for 90k