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

[Renathras]

Surely you can see the source of the confusion here? It is a bit of an annoyance that SCH has only one source of OGCD barrier, but you said 'no OGCD heals' and that's what I assumed the topic to be about. If you'd said OGCD barriers I'd be like 'yeh it'd be good if they did something about that'

Sorry for the confusion, then. Note I was replying to the following:

^just on this point here renrathras had a short argument with me on reddit that he didn’t like classifying consolation as an oGCD because you have to account for a delay in summoning seraph

Consolation does do healing, but being mentioned in specific (and not Lustrate or Indom, etc) was the clue. But I can see your misunderstanding.

I think the point does stand, though, that we often get these weird conversations where people are brought into them in the middle and make a judgement based on incomplete information. But let's table that for the time being anyway:

Yes, I agree with you it'd be nice if SCH had an oGCD heal that didn't require a "combo" effect to get there...like literally every other Healer. Note this isn't an argument for homogenization, this is an aesthetic/identity argument - SCH is the barrier Healer, the archetype for which the concept was pioneered and developed in FFXIV, and which nAST and SGE both drew (and AST's Neutral Sect still does). Yet, it doesn't have a direct oGCD barrier heal, and is alone among the Healers in not having one. Just seems...odd. Like thematically and mechanically odd.

[ForsakenRoe]

Yes, I agree with you it'd be nice if SCH had an oGCD heal that didn't require a "combo" effect to get there...like literally every other Healer. Note this isn't an argument for homogenization, this is an aesthetic/identity argument

If anything, I think it'd have been better to just give SCH more and more Mitigative effects (% based things), and have SGE have way more of a focus on actual 'barriers', as with Holos and Panhaima, so that the two feel very distinct from one another. Of course, this runs into the issue where after a certain threshold of damage dealt, it's more EHP to have a % mit than a barrier (see comparison charts between TBN and 'any other tank 25s'), and the over-reliance by SE recently on 'lets add a bleed to this raidwide to 'pressure the healers' (translators note: actually means 'get them to use Lilybell for something')' means that SGE would likely struggle more vs certain damage profiles. Or maybe not, cos of Panhaima, idk. Plus, barriers directly counteract the 'job' of the cohealer. if you put up enough % mits, you still have 'some damage' that gets through. Put up enough different stacking barriers and you cause the damage to be 0'd out, and then the WHM/AST is sat there like 'oh guess I don't need to heal this one either, Glare time still'

Change Fey Blessing to be a OGCD barrier, job done. It's already learned at 76, the level SGE gets Holos, so screw it, they've already homogenized the two 96% of the way, might as well just go all in at this point. It'd at least make Blessing a bit more interesting than 'remote detonated Indom'

[Shurrikhan]

And I've not pretended that foresight would be worthless or unfeasible. I was LITERALLY using it as an example of how a stacking DoT ALLOWS FORESIGHT.

It doesn't. Foresight was already fully "allowed" and rewarded from the start. All your change does is allow for a lack of foresight to not to go punished -- which is effectively the same thing, given balance, as foresight not being rewarded.

That a means of optimization is not sufficiently easy for you, in particular, to consistently see those rewards... does not mean they aren't there nor that they aren't applicable to an average player, let alone those more engaged with and invested in the game's combat.

A stacking DoT, on the other hand, carries even less risk-reward than a 60s DoT like Higanbana. It just replaces the filler attack with the DoT up until the point you'd overcap. Rather than making space for a given GCD at that particular point in time, your only question is whether you have less than 60-duration time left on your stackable DoT, which isn't even a novel complicator; it's the literal base of "Is my DoT already up?" if not stackable. You've removed the actual pressure point entirely, while offering nothing in return that even the most basic DoT management didn't already have.

Of the components of difficulty a basic DoT would normally house, you've watered one down (don't overcap) to as little as a fifth its former frequency, and entirely removed the other (make room to be able to reapply it at this exact moment).

You've added no complexity to the mechanic's consequent gameplay, and you've removed almost all of the consequent gameplay complexity and room for optimization from the actions surrounding it.

If anything, I think it'd have been better to just give SCH more and more Mitigative effects (% based things), and have SGE have way more of a focus on actual 'barriers', as with Holos and Panhaima, so that the two feel very distinct from one another.

I could go for that. If we just go off the namesake of Galvanize, it sounds more like a (Magic) Defense buff --perhaps diminished by its consequent damage nullification (like a protective coating being shed as it binds with the air to prevent the core material from rusting, etc.) so that it can have higher highs without being OP-- than a flat barrier effect.

As you said, though, it does cause some scaling issues, much like 2.0 PLD vs. WAR. Flat potency scales only with gear, while direct % mitigation scales only with content. In balance, this would give SCH a leg up early on and SGE a leg up by BiS.

Of course, there is a middle ground: variable defensive stat augmentations (+ <Healing Magic Power x %Determination> Defense & Magic Defense, with a chance to Crit for X% more stat added) scale with both content (because it gives % mitigation) and gear (because gear increases that %).

That was, btw, one of the suggestions to aid PLD/WAR parity before 2.1 (so long as it wasn't such a pathetic increase as that of Foresight, etc.)... before they decided to largely just homogenize towards PLD's design, reducing the value of tank gear for both, instead.

[Renathras]

It doesn't. Foresight was already fully "allowed" and rewarded from the start. All your change does is allow for a lack of foresight to not to go punished -- which is effectively the same thing, given balance, as foresight not being rewarded.

Again: ...no.

That's...not correct at all.

One case requires you to think ahead and adjust your action. The other just screws you. AT BEST, you use an oGCD and refresh Dia on time, but WE HAVE SO MANY of those, you always have one. There's no case you can use all your oGCDs unless you just decided to overheal literally everything prior to this point in the fight AND within the last 30 seconds since short GCDs are already up again by then even if you mucked them up.

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, it's like the argument Bill Gates cannot spend money faster than his interest accrues more. Unless you are rolling your face across your keyboard, you cannot consume all your oGCDs faster than you have more available. Meaning you always have some available. Meaning you don't need foresight of "looking ahead and saving one" for these situations because you're guaranteed to have one up anyway.

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.

It rewards people that know how the fight will go and move around their Dia refresh to times when they will need movement vs not to further optimize Glare casting. It's not MUCH, but it's a higher level of complexity and foresight than we have now, not less.

[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?)

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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.

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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...)

[Shurrikhan]

They don't reward foresight, because you can ONLY use it every 12 second.

By all means, show me where the DoT gets locked out just because it hasn't completed its duration yet.

When you reach Demolish's GCD on Monk, do you just... idle until its duration has ended, presumably because the Demolish skill is locked out?

No. You reapply the DoT when it is optimal to reapply the DoT. So long as the DoT almost uniquely holds additional features, though, that won't only be when the DoT ends, because the scope of the action's optimization is more than just that GCD, more than just that span of that DoT, and more than just maximizing ticks.

If I have, say, a 15s DoT that deals a fifth of its damage up front and have to move at 3 seconds, 15 seconds, 33 seconds, 35 seconds, 48, and 60 seconds into the fight, I'm not going to throw out my DoT instantly; I'm going to use it at 3, 15, 33, 48, and 60 seconds, even if that means sometimes applying it early or late, because that's how that skill contributes the most potency over that fight. Additionally, around the time of that 3rd application, I would be avoid healing so much that a HoT would go to waste, so that I could use my Regen / A. Benefic at that time.

DoTs. Are not. Inherently. Rigid. CDs.

And when they actually carry gameplay interest, ignoring the fight to use them as if they were instead rigid CDs would be a loss to throughput from lacking foresight. What you're referring to isn't a problem with status effects wanting to be reapplied at a certain time, but rather an issue of bad play.

Now, compare that to your version, wherein there's no reward for holding the DoT in the first place, no calculations to be done for the least loss in your DoT's potential bonus value per minute via ticks vs. uptime thereby retained. You will have replaced most of that min-maxing with, in effect, simply having 4 charges of a Ruin II-equivalent with damage greater than your filler attack, because you've made the timing not at all matter and made any of all of that 'mathing out' a best strategy almost completely irrelevant.

(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...)

As I said there, too... no, it's exactly the opposite.

Making everything damage-neutral (be it by allowing DoTs to be reapplied at any time without loss, or all GCD heals to be used without offensive opportunity cost, or probably any other of your related suggestions) is how you greatly reduce to utterly remove skill expression and the reward for foresight.

In your Aero 2 example... 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.

You'd face some loss, yes. Like everyone else. Like when using Ruin II or Reprisal or holding Thundercloud longer than would be optimal against a striking dummy. Which is FINE.

If you make complete damage-neutrality the norm, it not only creates a constrained environment via damaging assumptions that no fight should cost anyone damage, but also leaves no space for any sort of soft support via mobility features, no way for a caster occasionally standing in and being healed through a very mild AoE to ever be a net gain, etc. And that would cement or even worsen the current shallowness of relationships between roles and the (lack of) interactions in party play. Which would be a significant and unnecessary waste.

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.

Actually read the earlier response and you'd see that's not all I pointed out. While that would be true for a fight without mobility requirements, even in a fight without one, you'll have replaced more nuanced and entwined decision making with, in effect, charges of a mobility-GCD, in place of something originally more integral and broadly involved and with a consequently higher skill ceiling.

It'd still be better than an actual Ruin II-but-OP-af in practice, since its "CD" would be soft and could therefore be rushed and it has increased value from snapshotting (especially if at a short enough duration for that to be worthwhile), but you'd have still isolated the skill from its surroundings all to try to fill an imagined 'requirement' around which there was never a need to limit design around or preclude future nuance or interactions. That is, again, a waste.

[ForsakenRoe]

Wouldn't a 'you can stack this DOT to 60s' still be... optimally, not useful for mobility purposes? You'd still want to, ideally, use it inside raidbuffs to snapshot, so if you ever were to use the DOT as a mobility tool in the 60s after raidbuffs went out, you snapshot the 'regular damage' onto it and that's bad

Also, don't you hate WAR's Surging Tempest buff Ren, this would play out exceptionally similar (just, on the boss instead of on the player)

[Supersnow845]

^basically a 60 second stacking DOT would achieve nothing, you would set up 60 seconds immediately inside the burst window and then (I honestly don’t know on situations like this if you have 30 seconds left of the buff amplified DOT then cast 30 more seconds onto it does it demote the buff dot, or just have two tiers of dots on the same countdown) if it was the former you’d just set it back to 60 the first GCD after it goes to zero (have fun with zero mobility weaves for a minute), if it was the latter you’d reset it each 30 seconds as normal

All it would do is the same as WAR, if you had planned to reset your dot in GCD 7 then suddenly needed to succor you could reset your DOT in GCD 8 instead with no loss to DOT uptime

But that’s just making DOT uptime easier for no trade off

[Renathras]

Also, don't you hate WAR's Surging Tempest buff Ren, this would play out exceptionally similar (just, on the boss instead of on the player)

I dislike it, but as I've said before, I prefer it to 30 sec DoTs. For one thing, the buff is on the player, so easier to track (they could/should make it part of the Job gauge, honestly). But the stacking makes it more flexible, meaning you can refresh it at different points based on preference, what the fight is doing, and so on.

As for the optimal use; I suppose that depends on how that mechanic works. I'm not sure in FFXIV if they inherit snapshotted application or not. It still would mean that 90 seconds out of every 120 it's more usefu-

And deja vu. I feel like I've typed that exact same thing her before. Have we had this conversation before? I feel like we've had this conversation before. This EXACT conversation before...

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Anyway, point is, AT ITS WORST, it has the same level of complexity and skill ceiling as right now. AT ITS BEST, it increases complexity, increases the skill ceiling, and at the same time lowers the skill floor in casual content. So it's literally what people all the time say they want here - higher skill ceiling but low skill floor for entry/casual players in casual content.

I kinda wonder, does BRD do this with Iron Jaws? I think it's the only Job that keeps DoT's riding like that since Twin Snakes effectively extends the duration. When you use Twin Snakes, does it snapshot a raidbuffed DoT pair down to your current buffs, or keep the higher buffed damage?

Not that this is relevant - they could program Dia to work whatever way - but I'm more just curious how that's handled since that's in the game code right now, effectively.

[EDIT: Just did some testing on my level 80 ungeared BRD. Stormbite without buffs did ~210 per tick, with Mages' did ~220, and when I waited for Mages' to fall off and refreshed it with Iron Jaws, went down to ~210. So it appears extending a DoT snapshots your present stats. This still means pooling Dia uses would work for 90 out of every 120 seconds, or 3/4ths of the time, and in the cases where it didn't work, it'd be no LESS useful/skill ceiling than the current incarnation. So again, AT ITS WORST, the stacking DoT idea is of equal skill and complexity to the current status quo.]

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Shurrikan - your desire for what you want the game to be (fewer/no damage neutral buttons, the community just sucking it up and adapting to a world where damage doesn't >>> all), but I'm working in the context of the game as we have it now, and I think your desired overall change is blinding you to defending - ironically - the status quo of an ability which is actually less complex, more dumbed down, and less rewarding of skill or allowing for foresight and skill expression.

I'll also ignore that you didn't address Aero 2 never working the way you remembered. It's fine, I screw stuff like that up all the time.

That said, for reference and you going 0-2 for abilities in this thread: Demolish's duration is equal to 3 full rotations of MNK's GCD cycle. It's why MNK has a 2:2:3 rotation cadence of Boot/Dragon alternating, Twin/True alternating, but Snap/Snap/Demolish in a 2:1 ratio. Because that matches Demolish's duration. You don't generally apply Demolish early/clip Demolish.

Besides, I even addressed this. I didn't say hypothetical-Aero 2 was locked out. I said refreshing it early when the duration cannot be extended is a damage loss and thus suboptimal.

I have no idea why Super is going along with you other than the usual "Whatever Ren says must be wrong".

By all means, show me where the DoT gets locked out just because it hasn't completed its duration yet.

"I'll take 'Arguments I didn't make' for $500, Alex."

When you CAN cast the DoT again, but it's very clearly a damage loss to do so.

Where did I say you couldn't? I was pointing out you could, but it's a worse outcome than literally not casting at all. While we COULD argue that "knowing when not to fight" is the highest of skills - presented by the great Sun Tsu him/themselves (if Sun was a composite of multiple historic figures, that is) - in a game where "ABC" is a rule that we want to encourage, having situations where what is optimal is literally to do nothing is probably not the ideal of "skill expression" to shoot for. I'm genuinely shocked that people here aren't taking my side on at least this point.

But I guess "disagree with Ren" is the rule here, even if it means literally supporting "pressing nothing at all is a skill expression gain".

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EDIT2: Wait, we HAVE had this...exact same...deja vu is real.

What did I say the last time? "'While" might have been more clear, or a comma before the 'when' instead of a new sentence." Something like that.