For those who main/semi-main a DPS (e.g. DNC, RDM) but like Healers...

[Shurrikhan]

Again: ...no.

That's...not correct at all.

One case requires you to think ahead and adjust your action. The other just screws you.

Your singular example in which the loss from DoT damage would not be your fault (you'd have no way to min-max any better) would require that...

• damage is utterly unpredictable but significant enough to need IMMEDIATE healing in that very GCD but not so immediately as to be unable to complete a GCD heal at the precise moment your DoT would need to be refreshed, AND
• one would necessarily have no oGCD healing left (and that this somehow be at no fault of one's own because it would be a net gain to use a burst heal at this exact moment rather than saving even a bankable oGCD charge for this moment while instead using a HoT earlier), AND
• it'd be a net gain to delay the DoT reapplication but somehow not a net gain to have rushed or delayed the DoT by any moment at any reapplication across the entire earlier fight...

Short of those absurd number of conditions, yes, you had opportunity to think ahead and adjust your actions, and failing to do so was what screwed you, not the nature of the mechanic. Short of that, the problem isn't that the DoT functions as an actual DoT, but that you needed to play better.

Your argument is that the foresight is "knowing not to have used an oGCD so you have one available", but that's nonsense because we have so many oGCDs

Mate, that is literally a requirement for your bizarre hypothetical (I screwed up my DoT uptime, but it cannot in any way be my fault) to make any sense, or else you'd just use the oGCD and DoT as before. Without that, there is no inherent issue, and the solution would instead just be to get better at the game.

On the other hand, stacking Dia allows foresight, since it allows you to adjust when you refresh Dia based on your FORESIGHT of the fight ahead.

...How are you possibly arriving at this conclusion?

Using the earlier example of original Aero II's 12s duration, it'd mean that you basically have 5 charges of a Ruin II analog per minute per target... after which you can still use it, but at diminishing returns until the total duration falls back to 48 seconds or less.

That's effectively just outright removing the costs of mobility. Not a compromise. Not a "greater ppm per minute if I let the DoT fall off here because I'll need the DoT for mobility 2 GCDs later anyways, and then again 10 seconds after I'd have used it for that". But simply outright free. That's not a reward for foresight. That's removing the need for foresight.


We do not need what would amount to a lossless mobile attack (the likes of Broil X-damage Ruin IIs), let alone at the cost of rewarding foresight.

And literally none of that changes the fact that a DoT that can stack to 60 requires no LESS foresight and does not allow opportunities for MORE foresight which can be rewarded.

It requires far less foresight -- as in VIRTUALLY ZERO.

How many times per minute must you make room for an effect to be reapplied at a particular GCD or else face ramping soft consequence with a 12s DoT, thereby rewarding you for good play and punishing you for producing less than the best amount of potency possible? 5 times per minute.
With a 30s DoT? 2 times per minute.
With a 60s DoT? 1 time per minute.
With a DoT you're allowed to stack n number of times? 0 times per minute.

You've removed the core element of available optimization.

How much ppm within a given minute depends on minimizing potency lost to movement, and what means does one have to combat that? When a WHM using their DoT exactly on elapse despite having a movement requirement coming up shortly for which they have no Lilies they can afford to spend right to good effect right then would be punished for that mismanagement... quite a bit. When there is zero punishment for early reapplication until having maxed out one's soft charges per minute, far less.

Your "DoT duration stacks to 60s" idea will have have gutted the number of actions and considerations that are entwined in DoT management, gutted the reward for foresight and proper management, and generally made a shallow husk of a mechanic that would otherwise have solid potential in a context with more frequent priority conflicts (e.g., more GCD healing required, etc.).

[Renathras]

Short of those absurd number of conditions, yes, you had opportunity to think ahead and adjust your actions, and failing to do so was what screwed you, not the nature of the mechanic. Short of that, the problem isn't that the DoT functions as an actual DoT, but that you needed to play better.

And literally none of that changes the fact that a DoT that can stack to 60 has no LESS opportunities for foresight being rewarded and does not disallow opportunities for MORE foresight in general.

That is, at WORST, this is a comparable level of complexity that requires a comparable amount of foresight - no less, no more.

On the other hand, at best, the stacking DoT has a higher level of reward for foresight and higher level of complexity, reward for good play/foresight, punishment for bad play/lack of foresight.

(Also: Original Aero 2's original incarnation had a cast time...did it not?)

.

One thing I like about Solace/Rapture is that the timing is flexible. In your Aero 2 example (even if we say it was instant), that allows you 5 specific points per minute to move, which means if movement requirements is at a different time, you're out of luck. And modern encounter design requires this. For example, Gales in Ex6 or the whombo-combo in Ex5 doesn't tell you 12 seconds in advance what it's doing. You don't know in Gales 2, for example, if the party stacks or 2-man stacks will be coming first. And that whole mechanic requires a lot of motion anyway that doesn't really allow for cast times unless you enjoy playing chicken with the result of failure being a full party wiped run. By having a flexible resource like Lilies, you can decide to stock them for future mechanics like that, go into that mechanic with higher stacks, and expend them. This is rewarding foresight.

I think of PLD's Holy Spirit as similar, as you have this thing you can move around a lot based on mechanics, where blowing it after Royal EVERY time would be a bad habit as it limits your movement (more disengagement, but for this purpose, same general type of thing) options when you might actually need them.

SMN has a similar situation (though vastly pushed into the instant cast side) with the Primals. Imagine, for a moment, if Garuda's casts were all 1.5 sec cast + 1.5 sec GCD, meaning Titan was the only full movement option; this would likewise result in a rotation that rewards fight knowledge as proper Titan placement would allow full ABC uptime while improperly using Ifrit or Garuda at the wrong time would not and would require blowing resources like Swiftcast or just accepting a DPS loss and suboptimal play.

Once per 12 second metronome abilities don't help with that.

They don't reward foresight, because you can ONLY use it every 12 second. You cannot adjust how you use it in lieu of future mechanics. There's no foresight component to using them. You refresh them when the duration expires. IF a mechanic HAPPENS to coincide with that, you win! You get ~3 seconds of free movement between the prior cast finishing and the full 2.5 sec of the Instant's GCD. But what if the movement happens at 7 seconds from the last refresh? Or 4 seconds from the last refresh? When you CAN cast the DoT again, but it's very clearly a damage loss to do so.

How is that rewarding foresight?

It's...not.

On the other hand, independent instant cast abilities - like Solace and Rapture (recall they are not a damage loss) - can work for such things and reward foresight since you can pool them for those mechanics.

Likewise, a STACKING DoT (Dia stacking to 60 or "Aero 2" stacking to 24 or 36) would also allow you to pool refreshes to coincide with those mechanics. Like suppose old Aero 2 could stack to 36 seconds (3 stacks, so to speak). You could ride <12 up to that point of the fight specifically so that when you hit that mechanic, you get two instant casts you can use for extra mobility. If you were bad at this, and always kept it in the 25-36 range, then you'd be overcapping use it for a movement tool, a DPS gain over just not casting anything, but a DPS loss over keeping the timer <12 so you can get two (or even three if it drops to 24 during the mechanic) uses for that movement. Meaning high skill ceiling and rewarding of foresight.

Stacking DoTs, in effect, are another type of resource you can "pool" for future mechanics - meaning, they DO reward foresight. In fact, THEY do so while NON-stacking DoTs do NOT reward foresight.

This means a stacking DoT allows greater skill expression and rewards foresight of the fight and upcoming mechanics, and does so far more than a rigid DoT that CANNOT be stacked/extended.

.

Note: Thought so...

https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/A...sion%20History

4.0 is when Aero 2 became Instant (I think this was due to Aero being made to upgrade into Aero 2; Aero 1 originally did not have initial damage, only the ticks, and was instant cast, while Aero 2 had the initial damage as well as the DoT, but also had an initial cast time of 1.5-2 sec or...something? It wasn't Instant is all I remember...). This is also when the duration was changed from 12 to 18 seconds, so when Aero 2 was 12 seconds, it was not Instant cast. Once it became Instant cast, it also had an 18 second duration.

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I think the issue here is you're thinking of the ultra-newb version of "cast DoT twice, forget about it for 60 seconds". That's why your conclusion is incorrect, to my way of seeing things.

(That and, as you said in the GCD healing thread, you don't WANT damage neutral things. But then that is how skill expression and foresight rewarding is measured, so...)