Thread: 3.3~ Job Feedback & Future Changes

Originally Posted by Nalien

Strikes me as making Bard and Machinist even more similar...

Though I guess if they actually adjusted Gauss Barrel such that it isn't a Wanderer's Minuet clone, that'd be less of an issue... I always figured Gauss Barrel and Gauss Round/Ricochet would be more interesting if it functioned as a second tier of Ammunition in some ways... Have Gauss Barrel lower attack speed, but attacks executed with Gauss Barrel build Gauss Charges, with Gauss Round/Ricochet dealing more damage with more Gauss Charges... They'd deal higher damage, perhaps have a higher recast to compensate and actually give time for other cooldowns to line up for Gauss Barrel... IDK, probably a silly concept... Maybe work the stacks similar to Monks Forbidden Chakra or something to make Gauss Barrel worthwhile right out the gate... I just really hate how they copies so much Bard for Machinist, and I already hated how Bard was handled... Not enough Songs...

As for Wide Volley... Would it be crazy to suggest it also inflict the piercing debuff? Dragoon and Bard would still have their existing synergy, 160TP for that debuff on a single target is steep... I'm not sure it would really be an option in a situation where you have no Dragoon on a single target, but in an AoE situation? That'd be amazing... Even if you have a Dragoon, since Disembowel probably isn't on everything full time...

Neither Wanderer's Minuet nor Gauss Barrel are remotely imaginative, but at the same time I wouldn't really have an issue with either if they only locked you into them for 3-4 GCDs, down from 5.x, where that remainder usually forces 6 GCDs anyways, so that stance-dancing could be far more prominent. That'd be the bare minimum gameplay-improving change for me.

[Gauss Barrel always seemed to me like it ought to have been a disc sort of accelerator / way-station thing (a bit like that huge Helix structure but thinner, flatter, and some millionth the size) that floats a ways in front of the gun and accelerates particles passing through it, with an animation for how it charges up some sort of surge or whatever during the GB cast time, and showily blasts the incoming shot out the other end. Each procced Shot carries that surge in the gun itself, so that the GB doesn't have to spend time producing it, and each weaponskill launched through the GB builds up charge that lasts through GB toggle and can be spent on Gauss Shot. (Ideally, I'd like to see differing uses for GS in and out of GB, or just have those charges each reduce the cooldown on GS, perhaps, to give it more SS usage.) More an aesthetic change than anything else though, while /gbarrel already works fine for removing our giant gun-mutes. Preferably I would have liked a lot more control of turret elements, which this would then fall in line with—Big Shot, imo, is what a fully buffed / Hypercharged Gauss Barrel's Gauss Shot should look like—but it seems SE prefers to use up those slots on Dismantle and Rend Mind 5% debuffs...]

Oddly enough, I'm fine with Quick Nock / Wide Volley as is in the same way I'm okay with Fell Cleave / Inner Beast or Fang & Claw / Whirling Thrust. Simply put, they should take up the same hotbar slot, where Wide Volley should be a trait increasing the TP cost and range, using an alternative animation, when over the maximum range of the original Quick Nock. The tooltip and ability name should swap with target range. Simple as that.

The alternative, imo, would be to give them effects that make you want to move in and out of range for procs, or improve the weaving in of DoTs. The first would be something like Wide Volley applying Field of Fire, which causes ranged attacks on the affected target to duplicate a portion of their damage as an AoE around the target, while Quick Nock applies Open Fire, which causes your next attack against the target to increase your attack speed by 25% for 3 seconds, consuming the charge of Open Fire—the idea being that you can then fire individual attacks into each enemy in rapid succession. Actually, that latter would work just fine for the DoT weaving bit too. Some alternative ideas might include balancing light Heavy and Slow stackable effects that do not affect DRs, or particular combos, such as sub-QN-range Heavy Shot into Quick Nock, or Repelling Shot into Quick Nock or QN > RS > WV, etc.