On the Removal of Positionals

[Taranok]

BLM has to choose between triple cast in burst phase and using it for movement, along with Swiftcast. They lose damage in one area to gain it somewhere else. It is the same with True North, optimal usage of the skill where you might lose out here, but get a bigger benefit there. So, should BLM lose access to Triplecast and Swiftcast and make everything instant cast?

It's funny you mention BLM, because it's not like there's literally any fights in EW or DT where cast bars are ignored by boss mechanics.

Meanwhile, EX1 pretends positionals don't exist. Or p10s, arc4 has an entirely new mechanic for removing its positionals to boot. Man, it'd be nice if bosses just straight up removed cast bars from casters, the devs already want to turn turret casters into unlimited phys ranged.

Positionals harm the game because it artificially limits what the devs can do in terms of boss design, all to make sure melee DPS can nail back and side positionals reliably while working true north in every so-often to deal with it otherwise. You can replicate this gameplay by making melee-only mechanics that have specific safe spot carveouts that ranged can ignore. And you can do this while making the bosses more mobile and kinetic so those gap closers are used more often.

But this desire to push turret casters into phys ranged is removing gameplay that can only be replicated by hard-rooting the players, something no one enjoys outside of opt into. So please continue the false-analogy of pretending positionals are remotely in the same category. I would love to see things like triplecast removed if it meant fight design took into consideration classes like BLM that want to spend 80 or 90% of their time standing still, and leveraged mechanics knowledge and prepositioning as the skill check of turret casters, like it was in the past.

[Mikey_R]

You can replicate this gameplay by making melee-only mechanics that have specific safe spot carveouts that ranged can ignore. And you can do this while making the bosses more mobile and kinetic so those gap closers are used more often.

The fact you say this shows you don't understand why we like positionals. We don't want to be force into a specific spot, we want to find and make those spots ourselves.



Also, on the topic of 'forced DPS loss', you do not know that. It is only a guaranteed DPS loss if they assume you are going to be hitting 100% of your positionals. You don't know how many they account for when designing for DPS, so the statement is just false.

However, I done some very rough maths. Based off of Monk's 112 string, I took the average of the 6 GCDs based on usage per form (Leaping Opo/Dragon Kick 1:1, Rising Dragon/Twin Snakes 1:1, Pouncing Coeurl/Demolish 2:1), found an average per GCD, took the potency per positional, took it's average per GCD (remembering it is every 3 GCDs) and made a table for total potency over a 10 minute fight.

I then accounted for the % of positionals hit and compared that to the % of positionals assumed to hit (or intended to hit as by SE). Assuming SE wants an 80% positional hit rate, buy hitting 100% of your positionals, you gain 0.89% potency, at the other extreme, if you successfully miss them all, it is a -3.57% potency difference. The range between 70% and 90% goes between -0.45% - 0.45% potency difference. I do think it is worth noting that FFXIV's damage variance is ±5% as a reference. This maths was also tipped into the positional's favour, so real world differences will be even smaller (at least for Monk, though similar results would likely come from the other melee).

So, we have a very small damage difference, that makes no difference as to whether you hit them or not, they do not affect fight design and people find them fun to hit, even with negligible gains. Again, the only ones who want them gone are the ones who feel bad for missing them and/or making them out to be a massive deal breaker in your damage output. It is all subjective feelings with nothing objective behind it, and yes, it is subjective on our side as well. However, should we really take this away from those that enjoy them?

I also have not heard anyone who is against comment on having a range of positional requirements in the melee role. If you had 1 or 2 melee jobs that had no positionals, would you care that the rest had them?