Final Fantasy XIV Hot Takes

[Rithy255]

Yoshi P is an idiot when it comes to healers and the same goes for the rest of the dev team, that's my hot take.

I feel like this is a ice cold take if im honest.
I'll even extend this to tanks, They all feel samey boring. In most content they added way more mitigation to tanks but didn't scale the baseline of tanks, also the rotations are very boring and continue to get worse every rework, I'm sure it won't be long before we tanks join the healers in the 3-4 damage buttons

I feel like they just need to either A: Focus on the DPS elements more on tank/healer jobs or B: Actually make those support elements fun and useful/interesting (which i doubt)

[Ritsuka-55]

I feel like this is a ice cold take if im honest.
I'll even extend this to tanks, They all feel samey boring. In most content they added way more mitigation to tanks but didn't scale the baseline of tanks, also the rotations are very boring and continue to get worse every rework, I'm sure it won't be long before we tanks join the healers in the 3-4 damage buttons

The thing is, realistically, the only tank worth playing is Warrior. Paladin is dull garbage, it always has been since release. Dark Knight is a squishy ass tank with the most boring animations and vfx you can find in the game and Gunbreaker is just for flexing your cool coat glam on limsa.


So, yeah, only Warrior remains.

[Gordita]

The thing is, realistically, the only tank worth playing is Warrior. Paladin is dull garbage, it always has been since release. Dark Knight is a squishy ass tank with the most boring animations and vfx you can find in the game and Gunbreaker is just for flexing your cool coat glam on limsa.


So, yeah, only Warrior remains.

Counterpoint , warrior is for people who can't tank effectively so they have to use game breaking self heals that have no business being part of a barbaric, viking style, axe wielding, basket case's skill kit.

[Anienai]

So, yeah, only Warrior remains.

This is always the correct answer.

Counterpoint , warrior is for people who can't tank effectively so they have to use game breaking self heals that have no business being part of a barbaric, viking style, axe wielding, basket case's skill kit.

I resemble that remark!

[Ritsuka-55]

Counterpoint , warrior is for people who can't tank effectively so they have to use game breaking self heals that have no business being part of a barbaric, viking style, axe wielding, basket case's skill kit.

Don't blame me, most people like fast and efficient, and the one that towers above all is Warrior, regardless of how you feel about it.

in any case, keep sending feedback, perhaps they change it someday lmao.

[Oizen]

Don't blame me, most people like fast and efficient, and the one that towers above all is Warrior, regardless of how you feel about it.

in any case, keep sending feedback, perhaps they change it someday lmao.

I'm not sure I'd ever call WAR fast. To me its kinda so abysmally slow that I lose track of time.
But as to playrates,
I view WAR as popular for the same reason SMN is popular. Its braindead easy, and overtuned for what it is.

All alternatives to WAR take more to execute on and have more engaging gameplay loops, but WAR offers the path of least resistance paired with the fact its abilities are absurdly forgiving and end up having more of a reward than the other jobs.

The amount of hoops DRK and GNB have to jump through just for there to be nothing to reward them is one of the biggest balance issues with tanks right now, especially when you see how many of WAR's skills read like modern Yugioh Cards with "Additional Effect" text.

I've just chalked it up to Developer favoritism at this point.

[Absurdity]

Don't blame me, most people like fast and efficient, and the one that towers above all is Warrior, regardless of how you feel about it.

Towers over all in how incredibly dull it is as a job maybe.

I've just chalked it up to Developer favoritism at this point.

If developer favoritism means your main job gets turned into the gameplay equivalent of watching paint dry then I'll gladly offer said favoritism to any other job.

[Oizen]

If developer favoritism means your main job gets turned into the gameplay equivalent of watching paint dry then I'll gladly offer said favoritism to any other job.

I'm just talking about from an Effort:Reward standpoint. SIO Overtime was never needed, Nascent Flash is insanely overtuned compared to its counterparts, Equilibrium is basically the baby do-over button, which of course needed Aurora stapled to it as an Additional Effect. And any sane developer would have just nerfed Holmgang rather than trying to design an entire raidtier around its existence. But again, thats the developer favoritism I'm talking about.

In terms of how boring tanks can be, WAR has it the worst by a mile.

Fuck other jobs complain when their rotations are boring at lower levels, like Reaper before enshroud is just miserable to play.
Well Pre-Enshroud Reaper is literally just doing WAR's endgame rotation.

[Absurdity]

I'm just talking about from an Effort:Reward standpoint. SIO Overtime was never needed, Nascent Flash is insanely overtuned compared to its counterparts, Equilibrium is basically the baby do-over button, which of course needed Aurora stapled to it as an Additional Effect. And any sane developer would have just nerfed Holmgang rather than trying to design an entire raidtier around its existence. But again, thats the developer favoritism I'm talking about.

Oh absolutely, not disagreeing there, there is no effort involved in doing anything on Warrior anymore. Not to say it was a difficult job in the first place, but you had at least some job mechanics that weren't completely on auto pilot.

SiO never needed the HoT, arguably even the 300 cure potency heal was overdoing it. Nascent got the component that actually required some kind of effort removed in EW, Equilibrium lost it's downsides with the botched "tank rework" in 5.0, and imo Holmgang should've never lost the effect that locks you in place which would've probably been a big enough nerf in today's world of constant mechanics spam.

[Vyrerus]

I'm just talking about from an Effort:Reward standpoint.

It wasn't always so. In days of yore, WAR had a really satisfying build/spend thing going for it while having most of their mitigation tied to a GCD that they had to trade DPS stance and Fell Cleave for, though as a result, their DPS/tank stance swap was oGCD with only a 10 second cooldown. Equilibrium also had to be used while in tank stance for it to be a heal in those days, if you did it in DPS stance, it restored 200TP (optimizations for it was to spam it at fight start in tank stance for enmity, hilariously). You had 3 different combos. One for slashing resistance down and your atk buff originally from Maim. One for Storm's Path's 10% atk penalty debuff to the monster. And one for damage/enmity (yes, when they removed enmity combos, they removed WAR's basic damage combo, which was the very satisfying Skull Sunder into Butcher's Block). Even had the situationally good 30 second DoT in Fracture.

Meanwhile, all of PLD and DRK's mits at that time were long lasting oGCDs, with their tank stances actually providing mitigation instead of HP. Way easier to play, even accounting for DRK's MP management requiring to never 0 out or lose their DPS (though DRK was quite punchy with like 9 oGCD attacks, making it feel like playing DRG but a tank instead).

Stormblood set a bad precedent for WAR, as it had been dubbed too OP in HW and they decided to give its stance swapping a severe penalty. Players were outraged, so the Devs took away the penalty. Players then began to complain about truly banal irritations with the job, saying it was too hard to get its entire burst off etc. So come SHB, they altered Inner Release, and pretty much introduced us to the dull, two combo, Storm's Path oriented WAR we have today.

God I miss Butcher's Block.