DEV REQUEST: PLEASE do not add cast bars to Samurai

[Kitfox]

All bard attack skills have a cast time with minuet on, with the exception of bloodletter , sidewinder, straighter shot proc, and misery's end. Either I don't see what you're talking about as an issue or I've gotten used to it and does not click to me as being an issue.

Empyreal Arrow.

On topic: I find it weird to want an animation lock instead of a cast bar. You would rather be locked in place and die, than have an option to cancel the lock and move out of the way? Really?

[Malzian]

All bard attack skills have a cast time with minuet on, with the exception of bloodletter , sidewinder, straighter shot proc, and misery's end. Either I don't see what you're talking about as an issue or I've gotten used to it and does not click to me as being an issue.

To dissect this... Firstly oGCD means "off Global Cooldown", which is a skill you can use when one of your normal GCD (Global Cooldown, of course) skills are unavailable.

What can happen here is, say you have a Global Cooldown of 1.5 seconds (I picked this as a random example, let's not argue over the ACTUAL lengths of GCDs). If you have an oGCD skill that takes 1.6 seconds of animation lock, your GCD skill will have been available for 0.1 seconds before you can actually press it. This means you have have that 0.1 seconds "clipped off" from your active GCD time. Now this usually isn't a problem as, with this, it takes 15 activations for you to lose a single GCD skill.

Where the problem comes in its that is a skill takes 1.8 or 1.9 seconds to finish, you lose 0.3 to 0.4 seconds on your GCDs every time. At that rate you lose a whole GCD skill every 4 or 5 activations. If the time is even more excessive, you can lose a whole or more GCD every time you activate it. Thankfully we don't have skills that are to that extreme right now, but the activating time for Samurai is looking like it could take up at least one or more GCDs which, depending on the potency of the skills attack can be either a minor or a major DPS loss.

[RaijinSupreme]

I honestly think its going to happen. While I personally wouldn't mind it, since it will only be either that one or two moves (max hopefully), I can see while it will bother some people.

I am just tired of stack managing. I would much rather have a cast bar that has to be timed perfectly in order to execute a very powerful move without opening yourself to danger. Having another combo, stack building or form upkeep job would just be so bleh.

Side note: I would also like a move like MCH's Rapid Fire for SAM. constant slashes ending with an instant version of the cast bar move would be amazeballs! lol

[RaijinSupreme]

Any reason why?

Cast bars make skills feel like magic and not really like attacks to me so I rather animation lock.

Because it would suck that I executed a move that took 3 seconds to happen without being able to move at the EXACT moment an AOE from the enemy was cast at the same spot that Im standing. It would just be another DRG Jump, and I am praying the dev team learned their lesson about this already.

and besides, standing still for 3 seconds while you wait for a move to go off is just like casting something, just without the actual bar. At least with the bar, you have to option to cancel it. You won't have that option with an animation lock.

[Arutan]

So hum, where did you see cast bar on melee jobs?

[DarkSlayerGrimm]

What if all the new 60-70 abilities for all classes adds a cast bar move to them and all 4.0 bosses and trash have nothing but AOE attacks

[Aerowaffle]

So hum, where did you see cast bar on melee jobs?

I see this as an argument why SAM might actually have a cast bar. Different Jobs needs different mechanics. Making SAM a cast bar style melee class that forces you to be extremely careful about the mechanics while outputting the optimal burst rotation would set it apart from the other melee classes.

I kinda like the idea of a cast time, not to actually throw out an ability, but to "ready" it. Then it becomes an instant cast burst at your leisure for the next X seconds.

Have an ability that sheaths your blade, allowing you to use the draw technique bursts again. To allow these bursts during the thick of combat, have a long CD ability or a stacking mechanic that would allow you to sheath your blade instantly so that you can use the burst again despite being in combat the entire time.

That's just my idea of what would be cool though. I am excited about what sort of mechanics SAM and Red mage SE have designed.

[Shougun]

I can see them adding a cast bar to the SAM's "charge and release skill", like the one shown in the video, but I doubt any other skills would have it. Personally I'd rather have a cast bar than an animation lock for that - at least you can move and cancel the skill rather than die due to animation lock.

From the trailer the skill seems to have a longer animation than any of DRG's jumps. We'll have to wait and see what they do with it, but I wouldn't complain about having one skill with a cast time, as long as the other skills do not.

I think this will be the case too, worse case being animation locked.. so I want the cast bar too (just for that charge up attack at least, keep everything else normal melee style).

Casting bar > animation lock ;_;

Yes please cast bars..

[Alacran]

The animation lock/cast bar will help make you look cool as you soak damage with your bath robe to ready your epic action strike pose. Completely necessary for true Ronin immersion.

[Cabalabob]

All bard attack skills have a cast time with minuet on, with the exception of bloodletter , sidewinder, straighter shot proc, and misery's end. Either I don't see what you're talking about as an issue or I've gotten used to it and does not click to me as being an issue.

the BRD rotation has 2 main issues that the MCH rotation doesn't. And you touched on both of them.

1. No reliable way to mitigate the cast time.
MCH has a 2 part combo that does not require cast times if it procs and ammo to force a proc, as well as rapid fire. So when MCHs off global cooldown skills (oGCD) are available, such as gauss round, ricochet, blank and head graze, or it's buffs, it can force procs to mitigate the cast time, allowing it to fit 2 oGCDs into its global cooldown (GCD) without still being animation locked when the GCD is finished.

BRD can't do this, the only way it can mitigate the cast time is straight shot procs, which it can't force, making it unreliable, so when BRDs oGCDs are ready it can't force procs to fit them in, you can't plan a straight shot proc to be ready for your oGCDs, so you can only plan to fit 1 oGCD into your GCD before the GCD is finished. Due to cast times taking up about half your GCD.

So the primary issue here is, you can't use an oGCD while casting and you can't prevent the casts as BRD.

2. Random proc oGCD.
A large portion of BRDs damage comes from bloodletter procs. And due to issue 1, you will miss a LOT of bloodletter procs, if it comes off cooldown while you're casting you can't press it, and before you finish your cast it could very well proc again, wasting the previous proc you couldn't hit. Losing you damage. This combined with the fact you could have other oGCDs waiting to be used like blunt arrow, sidewinder or a buff, means even more damage is going to be lost as you have to hit that bloodletter and don't have time to use another oGCD before the GCD is finished.

Essentially BRDs random proc kit does not sit well with cast times which require planning. A problem MCH doesn't have because MCHs entire rotation can be planned out ahead of time with no variation outside of filler damage between burst phases.

BLM had a similar issue with thundercloud before it was buffed where there was only one specific point where you could fit it in without it being a damage loss, but since it was a random proc it was very unlikely it would be up during that specific point.

TL;DR random procs don't mix well with the planning required for cast times.