Skill/Spell Speed Should be Removed from Gear

[Themarvin]

Skill Speed and Spell Speed should probably be merged because jobs such as Paladin and Dark Knight have some spells and don't always benefit from the extra speed.

But I don't see a good reason to actually remove it.

I believe PLD/DRK and other Physical DPS/Tank spells is based upon Skill speed and not spell speed, it may sound odd, but it would had made little sense for the devs to make a job 'relieable' on a class off stat.

[hydralus]

I'd prefer if they got rid of crit/direct hit. Why should damage output have a luck variable? It's so strange. "Well it evens out in a long fight" okay sure why not just make it a general damage output increase, then. What, for 'gameplay depth'? There's no depth to either hitting a higher number or not based on an unseen force. At least with skill/spellspeed changes you could actually see some alterations to some rotations.

[Eorzean_username]

I'd prefer if they got rid of crit/direct hit. Why should damage output have a luck variable? It's so strange. "Well it evens out in a long fight" okay sure why not just make it a general damage output increase, then. What, for 'gameplay depth'? There's no depth to either hitting a higher number or not based on an unseen force. At least with skill/spellspeed changes you could actually see some alterations to some rotations.

It's to provide variance in psychological feedback, and somewhat of an RPG "staple".

The human brain will pick up on it pretty quickly if all your numbers are hitting for the same amount over and over again, and it begins to feel conspicuously "artificial" and "gamey". Same reason there's the artficially-induced 5% damage variance even on non-critical attacks.

That's not to say that FFXIV has ever been a breathtaking simulation of reality, but the "staticness" of lacking crit spikes tends to make numerically-based combat feel more stale and uninteresting; generally, people who aren't parsing and competing with logging tend to have "fun" seeing their numbers randomly get "lucky" and bigger, because it satisfies something similar to the same complex that causes people to engage with other forms of gambling — the promise that sometimes, something more rewarding and exciting happens, if you just keep doing the same thing, and/or execute this-or-that sequence correctly.

At the end of the day, XIV is an extraordinarily simplistic combat system; it doesn't even include most of the modifying factors that RPGs traditionally have, like hit chance, enemy avoidance / armor mitigation / resistances, elemental weaknesses, etc etc. So, the substat systems serve to provide some remaining illusion of variability and "unpredictability" to the combat experience, especially for more casual players who aren't mapping out Savage timelines down to the GCD.

You could strip all of it away, and just put all gear upgrades down to mainstat alone, but the "hit rhythm" of your numerical pop-up feedback would begin to feel extraordinarily predictable and "flat".

Now, whether that's actually "bad" in a game where the "absolute repeatability" of its choreographed combat has become somewhat of its "design identity"... that's up to each individual, I guess. But it is the reason why RNG stuff like Crit/DHit continue to linger around stubbornly.

[Thurmnmurmn]

It would be cool if we could save our materia to glamour plates instead of to the actual gear. That way we could have the same gear but different materia depending on the job.

[hydralus]

It's to provide variance in psychological feedback, and somewhat of an RPG "staple".

Yeah what you said makes a lot of sense. It's probably one of few ways they can instill variance with their by-the-numbers boss fights yet it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Sorta like games like Star Rail and Genshin Impact where for a long time it was just all about stacking as much crit/crit damage as possible. And for a lot of characters it's still like that.

[Shurrikhan]

I'd prefer if they got rid of crit/direct hit. Why should damage output have a luck variable?

I like it so long as it makes a difference on more than just the total damage dealt, but doesn't --directly or otherwise-- gate too many nor too significant of the rhythmic markers in our rotations. Take MNK, for instance. The crit gives some added APM. Because it has no margining, it also invites a bit of gambling: Do I hold for another GCD for RoF, which will increase TFC's value by 15%, risking waste of the 18% chance risk of 20% of TFC's value when overcapping? The best answer to that problem is pretty clear (hold it, unless you'd usually end said RoF phase 1 Chakra short of getting the last TFC in under that buff), but it invites a bit of foresight and dynamism because of that RNG. You're working with different timings and layers of potency contribution, improving the complexity of the math problem so that the optimization of your rotation elements is that bit more integrated with each other.

Direct Hit, on the other hand? I'd happily purge it from the game (and perhaps Tenacity and Piety, too, from among the secondary stats), merge SkS and SpS, have MP ticks scale with GCD speed, bring back more crit procs and ways to leverage them across most or all jobs, and then enjoy the inherently increased amount of Det, Crit, and Speed, with the latter two being thereby capable of more impact on gameplay.

[Luizgazen]

I believe PLD/DRK and other Physical DPS/Tank spells is based upon Skill speed and not spell speed, it may sound odd, but it would had made little sense for the devs to make a job 'relieable' on a class off stat.

PLD\DRK spells ARE linked to SPS instead of SKS, and yes it is really stupid and people have been complaining since forever.

[TomsYoungerBro]

That's only because people didn't yet parse the adjustments. Dark Knight shifted to 2.5 as their default BiS midway through 6.1 and even Gunbreaker shifted over now, though there's more of a debatable on preference between fast and slow Gunbreaker.

That is actually not true. The gear was still more beneficial at 2.45 during the asphodelos tier due to the crit/sks head/boots > the det/ten head and ten/det boots. The change to 2.5 came in 6.2 because of the gear setup