Rphys: why slow walk casts (ala pvp) aren't a solution

[Connor]

I think mechanical, and playstyle cross pollination that occurs in other roles, but not phys ranged is hurting the role. We should have some phys ranged with some cast times, we should have some phys ranged with melee phases.

We don’t have the cast times, but Dancer does have semi-melee mechanics already with its AoEs, so I don’t think it would be too much for them to expand on that maybe. Plus things like Curing Waltz and Improvisation having such small radius (radii? lol) that you generally need to be in melee ranged to get best use of out of them. Though, I imagine there’s also need more incentives for actually being at ranged otherwise they’d just sit in melee spots the whole fight and cause issues for actual melee lol.
But since it has En Avant for repositioning, and things like Sabre Dance / Last Dance to fall back on as ranged aoe options, I think Dancer already has the foundations for a theoretical faster, ‘no-cast times’ ranged that had to float between melee and ranged. Plus, Standard and Technical Step kind of are ‘pseudo-casts’ anyway.

Then like Bard in the middle with some casts on songs and maybe Machinists having walking casts? Or the other way around, even.

[Kazamaiya]

While i would like to see Mobile Casting be a thing for one of the Phys Ranged jobs, i don't see it being the big solution to all of its problems. I just think it would be nice to have because its fresh and new to a role that has felt dreadfully static for a very long time.
It could work well for one or two abilities, not unlike Reaper and Samurai, or it could work well for a filler-phase (Hello Army's Paeon) to just switch something up and potentially fix up a problem of being stale or lacking job identity.

If i had to assign it to one of the three we have, i would probably give it to Bard due to its job fantasy just barely existing. I see it replacing Burst Shot (Or Refulgent Arrow) during Army's Paeon only and as you get repertoire procs, the cast time lessens and lessens. Maybe some form of personal damage buff or hightened potency on the casted version to make up for the fact you cast.
Just something to change up the gameplay and give some variety to the job which has barely had any changes to its songs in the past 7 years.

I love Bard, but after having played it for 6 years, i'll admit it's just gotten a little stale to me and i kinda wanna see something new that actually changes something up.

Maybe that's why many are latching onto the idea of mobile casting, because its fresh and interesting to a Role which has felt static and unmoving since Shadowbringers.

[rewd]

We don’t have the cast times, but Dancer does have semi-melee mechanics already with its AoEs, so I don’t think it would be too much for them to expand on that maybe.

That's how ShB DNC worked before they decided to streamline it too. They would have to revert the job to a previous state and I don't see that happening.

[Valence]

Sorry but Bard has literally been a caster in a trench coat since its inception lol. I mean even back in 1.0 it could literally cast Cure and Thunder because the subclass requirements were CNJ/THM. Songs had cast times all the way until Heavensward (again not counting Stormblood Foe Requiem because that was probably a complete accident by devs lol), hell it even went through phases of getting literal caster skills in old PvP modes like when it had Mana Draw.

We don’t even bother keeping up the ‘archery’ pretence anymore lol, we’re shooting arrows made of wind, light and darkness at the enemy, or manifesting a pillar of light with our mind and conducting it into a devastating blast. It barely counts as ‘physical’ by this point anyway. And yes, every job uses ‘Aether’ thereby making them all ‘casters’, but that’s not true to the same extent as it is with Bards. No melee can literally poison an enemy by pointing at them, or cause an explosion with a click of their fingers, except maybe Ninja who literally have magic written into their lore (Mudra is casting but from the East lol). Again, outside of Ninja (where it’s literally their whole thing lol), we don’t see most other physical kobs waving their hands and around causing explosions or whatever the hell is going on with Apex (shooting music? lol).
That’s not to mention 50% of Bard’s identity is based on a literal caster. Bards in Final Fantasy tradition have always been mages, FFXIV is the singular exception. 50% of it is the Archer which is usually associated with multi-hit attacks (Barrage), but the other 50% of Bard is associated with casting songs to support the party and debuff enemies.

I mean, Bard losing all traces of its ‘caster in trench coat’ was the exact reason I stopped playing it come Shadowbringers. I never started playing the job to be a super powered billion actions per second dps with a little bit of support, no cast times and a proc-based high damage rotation. If I did why wouldn’t I just play Machinist or Dancer who have never had that as an aspect of their identity? (I think everyone can agree on pretending Gauss Barrel never happened, though it was still pure physical anyway lol)

Obviously I’m not saying those aspects of Bard should be applied wholesale to Machinist/Dancer, but at the same time Bard has very much straddled the line between physical and caster for a decent amount of its lifespan, only moving away from such around Shadowbringers (where they also removed a ton of its support abilities). But I really don’t accept that liking those about Bard somehow means I’m ’not/never was’ one. I mean, isn’t that essentially just the ‘Sylvie Healer Logic’ by a different name? ‘If you want to dps as healer just go play a DPS! You’re not a true healer if you want to dps!’ Etc. ‘you’re not a real Bard if you like magic!’

I think you're conflating mage lore/flavor with caster mechanics. That BRD had some cast times on songs is at best akin to Samurai Iajutsu, which is not caster gameplay by any means. If anything, current SMN is a lore mage that mechanically plays like a rPhys and does everything a rPhys does: damage support, healing support, and dps. Which is very similar to the BRD you describe, and I'm totally okay with it! (but not okay at all with SMN not behaving like a mechanical caster of the caster dps role)

I think mechanical, and playstyle cross pollination that occurs in other roles, but not phys ranged is hurting the role. We should have some phys ranged with some cast times, we should have some phys ranged with melee phases.

Sure, as long as it doesn't go beyond Iajutsu models, or ShB DNC for melee skills. You'd get my thumbs up for it.

You know ironically on what skill walking casts would be fun? Flamethrower or any kind of channeled spell like that. There it has an actual purpose that makes sense design wise and isn't just there because we want cast times at all costs. Obviously would require to make FT actually good but that's another story.

[Connor]

I think you\\'re conflating mage lore/flavor with caster mechanics. That BRD had some cast times on songs is at best akin to Samurai Iajutsu, which is not caster gameplay by any means. If anything, current SMN is a lore mage that mechanically plays like a rPhys and does everything a rPhys does: damage support, healing support, and dps. Which is very similar to the BRD you describe, and I\\'m totally okay with it! (but not okay at all with SMN not behaving like a mechanical caster of the caster dps)

That’s really comparing apples and oranges though? Samurai has weaponskills with ‘charge times’ which is a pretty big difference from literal MP using spells which songs were for a long time. Not to mention Bard’s use of magic is literally written to their lore same as ninja. The songs themselves are irrelevant, it’s the desire and emotion behind them and that gives them power. Like literally any FFXIV spell in existence. And I mean, lore is a moot point because SE doesn’t care anymore, but it still exists lol.

I mean if you distill the gameplay of a ‘caster’ down to the basics, there’s use of actual spells (not weaponskills), Mp usage and management, caster management tools, mobility limitations from casting. Aside from management tools (in PvE anyway), Bard literally had all of those aspects. Moving the goalposts isn’t really going to change that either lol.

Again for a large amount of Bard’s lifespan there was a clear ‘straddling’ of the line between the two. Bard’s ’caster gameplay’ came from Mp management, use of literal spells, presence of literal caster skills in its toolkit at certain points in its expansion. Again, they could literally cast Cure and Thunder at one point; I don’t see Samurais doing that (because they didn’t exist in 1.0 lol). Not to mention to this day SE literally never explained why they decided to delete our Protect and Stoneskin spells. They were there during Early Access but they didn’t have the guts to keep them.

And honestly I feel like the Summoner comparison isnt as accurate as it seems. It has few cast times sure, but practically every attack is has uses MP, deals magic damage, is visually identifiable as clearly ‘magic’, deals literally no physical damage in any way. It still has Swiftcast, Lucid Dreaming, Surecast. It can run/jump while attacking, but so can Red Mages? I don’t understand how you can say ‘Summoner is a basically a phys ranged’ because it can move while attacking, but we don’t tar Red Mage and Pictomancer with the same brush despite them very clearly having a shitton of mobility options (Pictomancer can use the ogcd window after every spell to move plus Smudge so barely any real restriction outside of Subtractive Pallet). Not only that to then claim that but Bard having literal MP management, cast times and actual spell usage doesn’t make it close to casters in any way . That seems contradictory to me. Summoner is ‘basically’ a phys ranged because *check notes* it can move while it does an attack, but Bards literally casting actual spells, managing their MP and having to take a mobility/dps penalty to cast is absolutely nothing like casters whatsoever?

Either Bard straddled the line between caster/physical as it did in the past like Summoner does now, or Summoner having similarities to phys ranged is literally ‘conflating mage lore and gameplay’ (mage lore doesn’t exactly stress the necessity of needing to ‘cast’ in the first place).

And as aforementioned, one Shadowbringers came they went out of their way to remove any possible trace of the gameplay/lore accurate Bard and replaced it with the messed up middle-ground dps monstrosity we have now. Which, funny enough, hasn’t turned out too well for Bard.

Not liking that Bard has hybrid caster roots from its inception is totally valid. Trying to pretend they literally only exist in people’s heads is just unfair. Compared to how Bard exists right now it doesn’t apply, but when you look at Bard’s lifespan over the course of the game there are very much lots of signs of it sitting on the line between ranged and caster essentially acting as a ‘caster in a trench coat’


Addendum for the inevitable: ‘if you want caster mechanics play caster ’ is literally only as valid as me saying ‘ if you want a pure physical ranged go play Dancer and Machinist ’. We already have two pure non-magical ranged, why do we have to continue ruining Bard by homogenising them into what Machinist/Dancer are. Again, that has worked out extremely poorly for Bards

[Valence]

I was talking about cast times, not MP management on spells and magic.

And I dont frankly consider 1.0 legitimate to be part of the current game model it's just a different game.

[Connor]

I was talking about cast times, not MP management on spells and magic.

And I dont frankly consider 1.0 legitimate to be part of the current game model it's just a different game.

I mean, it’s not part of this game any sort of tangible way in terms of gameplay or much of anything at this point.
But, I do think design concepts and ideas were mostly carried over from 1.0 to 2.0; Cleric Stance being the most famous example, as it was one of the strange holdovers from 1.0 they didn’t get around to fixing for whatever reason (probably couldn’t work out the stat system to make healer attacks scale with mind at that point or some other bizarre reasoning lol, or maybe the pure % damage up effect made them too strong lol). Then over time they started immediately on (mostly) walking back on the carry-overs

The gameplay itself naturally doesn’t translate (no matter how much I want it to lol) but the design concepts and ideas behind them can still be worth looking at and informing how to proceed with certain job designs/identities, in my opinion. Just because it came from 1.0 doesn’t mean it can’t applied to now in concept (with the necessary adjustments of course). That’s what I think anyway

[mallleable]

A kinda silly observation that I've made is that dexterity potions are purple, a mix of blue, and red -- a mix of intelligence pots used by magical ranged, and strength pots used by melees. Intelligent strength. So phys ranged being kind of venn diagrammed between melees, and magical ranged wouldn't be completely out of the question. And also for two expansions now, phys ranged, and melee AF gear has been lumped together as just 'physical DPS' gear.

[Ramiee]

Out of curiosity, how many of you all are actual rphys mains and how many of you are actually caster mains in a trenchcoat?

Bard was my main DPS from ARR to SB before moving onto caster because physrange lost their purpose being the TP guys.
Your idea of physrange I assume is instant cast free movement ranged, well that's not my idea it's physical ranged. It can have casts it can have no casts or a mixture of both, the archer archetype in most mmos have cast times and instant cast as a common design so if bard having casts doesn't really have an effect of me like that.
I don't mind if they stick to the current design or add PvP casts, the only casts I wouldn't want are standing still casts.

[Valence]

I don't care what other MMOs do. I care what XIV has done with it so far so that people do enjoy the role (and hated the HW casts with a passion). You're essentially asking to transform it so radically that I do question if you do really enjoy the role for what it is i you truly main it. I know it's been butchered over time and it needs help, but I'm immediately made suspicious of people trying to lump it within other roles. I'm sorry but that's creatively bankrupt.