Global Countdown Timer - My big concern for the future on FFXIV.

[Hulan]

If you removed cool downs there would still be rotations. Combos are instantly grouped together. Then you have your buffs, ou will always use them with the skills that they are best suited for (mostly). If you removd cool downs it would just allow players to spam there best combo ovr and over again.

Not if you are limited by resource, which is my point. I agree completely that with a system like this (or anything even close), there will always be rotations. Without cooldowns - and limited resources - though, each step along the way has to be used at it's optimal time. Cooldowns, in a way, remove a choice from the players, that being "when".

I'll grant, for that to be true, a few other things have to fall into place as well. For instance, battles need to be complex enough that "when" doesn't always boil down to "as soon as possible". That can be arranged though, something as simple as a boss that has an ability the turns him invincible for a few seconds at a time would do the trick.

It's not like there haven't been classes that had to deal with this already. BLMs as I understand it (I'll admit, not one of the jobs I leveled in FFXIV [though I was a career BLM in FFXI]), has pay attention to hate, MP, and mob position. All of those factor into his/her decision on when to cast a spell, none of which usually line up with the Cooldown. In that way, BLM might as well not have cooldowns, since it rarely effects what spell they cast when. Though that's just an example.

[syntaxlies]

Not if you are limited by resource, which is my point. I agree completely that with a system like this (or anything even close), there will always be rotations. Without cooldowns - and limited resources - though, each step along the way has to be used at it's optimal time. Cooldowns, in a way, remove a choice from the players, that being "when".

I'll grant, for that to be true, a few other things have to fall into place as well. For instance, battles need to be complex enough that "when" doesn't always boil down to "as soon as possible". That can be arranged though, something as simple as a boss that has an ability the turns him invincible for a few seconds at a time would do the trick.

It's not like there haven't been classes that had to deal with this already. BLMs as I understand it (I'll admit, not one of the jobs I leveled in FFXIV [though I was a career BLM in FFXI]), has pay attention to hate, MP, and mob position. All of those factor into his/her decision on when to cast a spell, none of which usually line up with the Cooldown. In that way, BLM might as well not have cooldowns, since it rarely effects what spell they cast when. Though that's just an example.

I play blm a lot and I was always waiting on cool downs. Blm had 2 hat reduction skills which made it a non issue. You always had to make a decision to waste mp and use a less potent spell or wait for cool down.

[Hulan]

I play blm a lot and I was always waiting on cool downs. Blm had 2 hat reduction skills which made it a non issue. You always had to make a decision to waste mp and use a less potent spell or wait for cool down.

Fair enough, I have to admit, most of the things I hear about BLM are colored through the lens of my own experiences in FFXI as BLM (pre-abyssea).