Fairy Gauge….

[Aravell]

You know, I actually referenced this concept before somewhere and specified that it could also have a tool that converts Aetherflow into Faerie gauge specifically to retain that aspect of choice--that you have the ability to change a damage resource into more healing for such situations, and the response I got from someone was "What's the point of having them be separate resources then if I can just convert one to the other?" And that was the end of that conversation.

Seeing you mentioned conversion made me have an idea. What if they returned Eos and Selene as separate fairies with a twist?

When Eos is out, you're granted the buff "Offensive Tactics", all your Aetherflow actions will be offensive while all of Eos' fairy gauge skills are healing/defensive.
When Selene is out, you're granted the buff "Preservation Tactics", all your Aetherflow actions will be the healing and defensive stuff we have now while all of Selene's fairy gauge skills will be offensive.
They can add an OGCD action called "Aspect Shift" or something which swaps between fairies.

This preserves the tactical aspect of SCH by making both gauges multipurpose while also making both fairies have a use as you'd want to swap between them as their abilities come up for maximum effect.

[ty_taurus]

Seeing you mentioned conversion made me have an idea. What if they returned Eos and Selene as separate fairies with a twist?

When Eos is out, you're granted the buff "Offensive Tactics", all your Aetherflow actions will be offensive while all of Eos' fairy gauge skills are healing/defensive.
When Selene is out, you're granted the buff "Preservation Tactics", all your Aetherflow actions will be the healing and defensive stuff we have now while all of Selene's fairy gauge skills will be offensive.
They can add an OGCD action called "Aspect Shift" or something which swaps between fairies.

This preserves the tactical aspect of SCH by making both gauges multipurpose while also making both fairies have a use as you'd want to swap between them as their abilities come up for maximum effect.

The problem is either your Eos Aetherflow DPS abilities will be stronger, or your Selene Fearie Gauge DPS actions will be stronger. Whichever faerie wins is the right answer, and the other is the wrong answer. It's basically more steps involved with Summoner's old pets from Stormblood and earlier, where there was just a right pet and a wrong pet. If you aren't soloing with Titan, do you want Garuda or Garuda but worse? Only in this case the question is whether or not you need the healing from the better faerie. For example, if it's determined that Eos is the stronger of the two, then the question is if you need her Faerie Gauge healing, or if you could just swap to Selene and burn that gauge on DPS. In that sense you might end up with two DPS gauges where you avoid the healing unless absolutely necessary.

[Aravell]

The problem is either your Eos Aetherflow DPS abilities will be stronger, or your Selene Fearie Gauge DPS actions will be stronger. Whichever faerie wins is the right answer, and the other is the wrong answer. It's basically more steps involved with Summoner's old pets from Stormblood and earlier, where there was just a right pet and a wrong pet. If you aren't soloing with Titan, do you want Garuda or Garuda but worse? Only in this case the question is whether or not you need the healing from the better faerie. For example, if it's determined that Eos is the stronger of the two, then the question is if you need her Faerie Gauge healing, or if you could just swap to Selene and burn that gauge on DPS. In that sense you might end up with two DPS gauges where you avoid the healing unless absolutely necessary.

I don't think jobs should be designed around the right answer and the wrong answer, if everyone is meant to arrive at the right answer, you just get bland and unimaginative jobs and no one wants that. I've always said that jobs shouldn't be as they are now with only one right answer and everything else is wrong, I want jobs to be designed in a way that you have multiple answers and they're varying degrees of right, so there's no wrong answer but every answer comes with varying degrees of loss, optimisation would become mitigating losses as much as possible instead of finding the one correct answer and doing the same thing over and over for eternity.

The point of my example is that both fairies bring different benefits with varying cooldowns, there will also be a button to swap between them and it's OGCD. Not swapping between them is a dps loss because both gauges are multipurpose, but it's not a wrong answer as you can use only one fairy for the entire time and still clear content, it's just an answer that comes with a bigger loss than another answer.

[ty_taurus]

I don't think jobs should be designed around the right answer and the wrong answer, if everyone is meant to arrive at the right answer, you just get bland and unimaginative jobs and no one wants that. I've always said that jobs shouldn't be as they are now with only one right answer and everything else is wrong, I want jobs to be designed in a way that you have multiple answers and they're varying degrees of right, so there's no wrong answer but every answer comes with varying degrees of loss, optimisation would become mitigating losses as much as possible instead of finding the one correct answer and doing the same thing over and over for eternity.

The point of my example is that both fairies bring different benefits with varying cooldowns, there will also be a button to swap between them and it's OGCD. Not swapping between them is a dps loss because both gauges are multipurpose, but it's not a wrong answer as you can use only one fairy for the entire time and still clear content, it's just an answer that comes with a bigger loss than another answer.

I would love for that to happen. But I think it would require a very significant change in XIV's combat system in order to achieve that.

If the goal is to create a situation where the optimal route is to use your DPS aetherflow, then swap over to the other faerie to use your DPS faerie gauge, then I think having the two gauges as they are currently would be odd. Why wouldn't you, in that case, have a single gauge in that example that simply "Flips." Spending gauge on one half generates gauge on the other half? I'll do a mock up...

Wouldn't something like this make more sense?



The same would be true in reverse, and the cycle repeats itself. We'd cut the faerie gauge entirely at that point. You'd have unique DPS options with Eos' charges and different ones for Selene's, but either could be spent on the same healing options, like Lustrate/Indom or whatever you had in mind, so you can always opt to sacrifice damage for healing as needed, but it feels like that would be a much cleaner interpretation of your concept.

[Aravell]

Wouldn't something like this make more sense?

While that would indeed be cleaner and look less convoluted, the main aim of this thread is to make the fairy gauge useful, which is what I based my suggestion on.

I like your idea too though, like using one aspect strengthens the other aspect. Maybe in your system, they can make Dissipation grant max stacks of both fairy aether and then the opposite fairy gets resummoned after Dissipation ends. Could be an interesting concept if just deleting the fairy gauge is an option.

[ty_taurus]

While that would indeed be cleaner and look less convoluted, the main aim of this thread is to make the fairy gauge useful, which is what I based my suggestion on.

I like your idea too though, like using one aspect strengthens the other aspect. Maybe in your system, they can make Dissipation grant max stacks of both fairy aether and then the opposite fairy gets resummoned after Dissipation ends. Could be an interesting concept if just deleting the fairy gauge is an option.

You could do something like each use of these faerie actions adds 10 to the Faerie gauge, and when it hits 120, you get to Summon Seraph. I say 120 because that would result in Summon Seraph after every 4 Summon Eos/Selenes rather than every 3.3 Eos/Selenes. But that does make the faerie gauge still very one dimensional.

Or maybe you can spend some gauge to access a weaker Seraph action prematurely. Like maybe you can use a free instant raise that costs faerie gauge, offsetting your Summon Seraph phase but allowing you to more rapidly pick up a struggling party.