Its ffxiv combat really so slow and boring?

[HyoMinPark]

it will happen anyways. Do you really think we're going to be able to add 5-10 more abilities next expansion to our current setups, on top of the expanded role slots? We're back to HW in which you can talk about practice all you like, that didn't overcome the skill floor issue. If they add any more abilities, stuff is going to need to be taken away, and combos can be pruned to a 1-1-2/3/4 with no issue.

See, I’m of the mind that they don’t need to add more skills in 5.0. Or that they could simply do upgrades to existing skills to make them more powerful (a la how BRD’s DoTs got upgraded in SB). Or give traits to make jobs more interesting, or give them a different mechanic. We don’t need “5-10 more abilities”.

Or they could prune the actual useless abilities, which they should have done prior to 4.0 (Repelling Shot, Blank Shot, One-Ilm Punch, to name a few—how these are still in this game boggles my mind). Throw the CC skills in there too, if they aren’t going to make them relevant outside of niche scenarios (I’d rather see them be made relevant, but I don’t think that will happen).

With regards to the controller talk, building up muscle memory helps a lot with regards to swapping hotbars, toggling the extended cross (or W-cross), etc.. If you don’t practice the muscle memory, of course you will struggle. As it stands now, though, neither DRG nor BRD (two jobs you’ve mentioned in this thread) have trouble with button space on a controller.


As for your comments earlier about BRD....

Would people really miss the three main bard songs as they are now though? They make the class tremendously reliant on RNG, and having three different effects only matters due to troubador, all three are just dps increases otherwise. You can easily spend a third of the timer with no real dps increase from a song at all. I feel like they could just revert mages ballad to an always on effect, get make refulgent arrow similar to pitch perfect, make the songs their troubador effects, and little would be lost. IDK if bard is a good example because the class in my opinion is needlessly complex.

I would not want to see the removal of songs/consolidation into just “1 song”. I disagree about removing complexity and simplifying everything simply “because”—the different songs give you different things you have to do in order to optimize your rotation, and I think that’s a good thing. Rather than just mindlessly spamming a boring and empty rotation. Why is having something a bit complex such a bad thing?



I would also like for the developers to at least have an expansion where they don’t completely overhaul my job and force me to relearn how it actually plays. They would be foolish to do much more than small QoL changes to BRD, because it’s pretty much unanimously agreed that the job is perfect now.

[Darrcyphfeid]

See, I’m of the mind that they don’t need to add more skills in 5.0. Or that they could simply do upgrades to existing skills to make them more powerful (a la how BRD’s DoTs got upgraded in SB). Or give traits to make jobs more interesting, or give them a different mechanic. We don’t need “5-10 more abilities”.

More traits and mutations/evolutions of current skills is definitely what they should do, but it's also how they should have handled SB's release instead of chopping up what was already there.

Passives for out-of-combat things like movement would also be a decent idea for showing the progression of the character over time; NIN already does something like this, but they stopped at that for whatever reason.

I do expect things like Heavy Thrust to be on the chopping block since they've already nearly removed them, though. With the [Damage Type] resistance down skills/effects and things like Protect probably not far behind given community demands and interview topics.

[RiyahArp]

Why is having something a bit complex such a bad thing?

I don't know if it's good complexity though. The three main songs do the same thing in different ways, and they don't work all that well. The bloodletter proc idea isn't really designed to work in short 30 sec spans, especially when you need multiple procs to get full effect. Plus they added a second proc with refulgent, plus troubador, plus all the support abilities. I feel like they punished ranged physical in order to balance out the mobility gains by making them overcomplicated messes.

See, I’m of the mind that they don’t need to add more skills in 5.0. Or that they could simply do upgrades to existing skills to make them more powerful (a la how BRD’s DoTs got upgraded in SB). Or give traits to make jobs more interesting, or give them a different mechanic. We don’t need “5-10 more abilities”.

Yeah, I don't think getting 50 more potency or 15 seconds extra duration on a DOT will cut it. Part of why people raged about WHM is that it played the same, with durations modified or little bonus effects added. If the game was more robust a merit system might work, but all we can do is get more damage, more duration, etc. I don't want to grind five million exp for a trait that lets my demolish last 60 seconds now.


...to be honest though, this is all on Yoshi, and we need a public test server so we can actually give feedback on which way 5.0 is going. If we had a test server, people could then test and vote on it, maybe even talk directly to GMS. They can't keep throwing stuff at us and hoping it sticks now.

[HyoMinPark]

I don't know if it's good complexity though.

Considering BRD is the most popular job by far, it means that not a lot of people share your complaints. The complexity the job has is not nearly as complex as you seem to think.

The three main songs do the same thing in different ways, and they don't work all that well.

Sounds to me like you don’t know how to work the songs; I have no problems with getting any of the mechanics to work as they are intended.

The bloodletter proc idea isn't really designed to work in short 30 sec spans, especially when you need multiple procs to get full effect.

If you know how to manage your procs and EA timings when you force one, you don’t have issues utilitizing the River of Blood mechanic in Mage’s Ballad despite the shorter duration.

Plus they added a second proc with refulgent,

The only change they could make is turning a Straighter Shot proc into Refulgent; you will never use the former over the latter.

plus troubador, plus all the support abilities.

Troubadour can be difficult to optimize around, but you can manipulate your song rotation to an extent to have it land where you would direly need the appropriate mitigation. As for the support abilities, BRD is a support job. It’s supposed to have support abilites; that is its identity and always has been.

I feel like they punished ranged physical in order to balance out the mobility gains by making them overcomplicated messes.

The only thing we’re punished by is our reliance on Piercing. That has nothing to do with our rotation. Again, not everything needs to be braindead/mindlessly simple “just because”. Learn the job, and you don’t have problems—coming from someone who used to spam Straight Shot and never use DoTs when they started playing, and turned that behavior completely around within a couple months after being told it was wrong.

DoTs

Uhm... DoT potency adds up over time. The amount of damage BRDs get from DoTs alone is more than you would think. I’d suggest looking at some data to see just how much damage they do over time.

15 more seconds of the base potency adds 275 on Stormbite, and 225 on Caustic Bite. That brings the total potency to 825 for SB, and 675 for CB. That is ridiculously potent; as it stands now, IJ is already our strongest skill with 1100 total potency: 100 for base, and 1000 for DoTs. Adding 50 more potency to 30-second DoTs. would move SB to 105 potency for 10 ticks (1,050 total potency) and 95 potency for 10 ticks (950 potency total). That is substantially more damage overall.

Math is your friend.

Well, I'm definitely an outlier. Which is why I would like options. BRD feels absolutely awful to play for me. I don't like redundant abilities. BRD has too many things that all accomplish the same thing.

If by the last statement you mean damage, that applies to literally every job in this game. Elaboration would be appreciated.


EDIT: Nevermind, the forum lied to me and said I had no posts, but then posted my response to the elaboration anyways. Okay.

[RiyahArp]

Considering BRD is the most popular job by far, it means that not a lot of people share your complaints.

Are they? I don't think anyone has done a census for them in a while though. using sea on my server for level 70s has slightly more rdm and whm than bard. I don't see them as often as I used to, honestly.

Sounds to me like you don’t know how to work the songs; I have no problems with getting any of the mechanics to work as they are intended.

They are reliant on crits, "working as intended" is always going to have chance, the problem is bloodletter procs are ok if you don't get a lot of them for 20 seconds and a bunch after, but for the songs not so much.

If you know how to manage your procs and EA timings when you force one, you don’t have issues utilitizing the River of Blood mechanic in Mage’s Ballad despite the shorter duration.

Ah no, what I meant was they don't work so hot if you need 3 procs or 4 procs within a certain amount of time. You get the four procs early, great. You get them 20 sec in, not so good. Mages is ok ,the other two songs though lose a lot when you can't.

Uhm... DoT potency adds up over time. The amount of damage BRDs get from DoTs alone is more than you would think. I’d suggest looking at some data to see just how much damage they do over time.

You miss the point, just raw potency increases is not enough. Not everyone grinds just so they can get 50 more potency or what have you on an ability, they need more than that. The weapon is cool, or the ability looks great, or it changes how you play or gives more options.

An expansion with tiny changes and potency changes won't really help, any more than the tiny potency changes they do with Feast get people into the mode. Like FFXI when they did merits added abilities, not solely potency increases. They added those too, but weren't grinding millions of exp for them alone. Again, if the game were a bit more robust it'd be ok, but since everything boils down to damage, straight potency or minor buffs will have less impact save for the min max crowd.

[MomomiMomi]

They would be foolish to do much more than small QoL changes to BRD, because it’s pretty much unanimously agreed that the job is perfect now.

Well, I'm definitely an outlier. Which is why I would like options. BRD feels absolutely awful to play for me. I don't like redundant abilities. BRD has too many things that all accomplish the same thing.

That said, a simple combo system would not make BRD fun to me. It would need more work than that.

If by the last statement you mean damage, that applies to literally every job in this game. Elaboration would be appreciated.

Stormbite, Caustic Bite, Iron Jaws.
Heavy Shot, Straight Shot (Straighter Shot).
All three songs. The mechanics changes the songs have could easily be removed from them, and they'd all be identical outside of Troubadour. I'd prefer actual complexity, making the songs themselves more interesting.


With conditionals (based on which buff you have, or which debuff is on the enemy), you could turn the first two sets into a single button each. Because of that, I consider them redundant. They do the same exact thing, only changing based on a condition. I see this as a false sense of complexity. It's complex only for the reason of being complex. It's not interesting complexity.

[HyoMinPark]

Stormbite, Caustic Bite, Iron Jaws.

The fun with DoTs comes from snapshoting buffs to increase their potency and the rate at which they give you procs. Not just applying them and leaving them on a boss.

Heavy Shot, Straight Shot (Straighter Shot).

With conditionals (based on which buff you have, or which debuff is on the enemy), you could turn the first two sets into a single button each. Because of that, I consider them redundant. They do the same exact thing, only changing based on a condition.

At level 70, you never use Straighter Shot over Refulgent Arrow, so it as part of your rotation is something you don’t really consider past level 54 actually (when you can Barrage EA).

In response to your comment about doing the same exact thing, they don’t function similarly—SS is a critical hit rate buff that you need to upkeep (reapply every 30 seconds) and that you always snapshot your DoTs under, and HS is your filler that procs RA for more damage. They don’t do the same thing functionally; they serve different purposes, not the same purpose.

The only argument you can really apply this to are the DoTs, but that would apply to all jobs that have more than 1 DoT—WHM, SMN, SCH. I don’t really see that as a reason to consolidate them though; you don’t save much by doing so.

All three songs. The mechanics changes the songs have could easily be removed from them, and they'd all be identical outside of Troubadour. I'd prefer actual complexity, making the songs themselves more interesting.

Of course everything is identical when you strip them of their mechanics that make them different.

The complexity with your songs lies within manipulating your DoTs with buff snapshoting and timing EA to force procs in your favor. Not just idly letting the procs happen. Minuet’s procs have different conditions in which you use 3-stack PPs versus 2-stack PPs; Mage’s is the old River of Blood trait, which you can manipulate in AOE situations to grant you more AOE firepower with Rain of Death using EA. The only song I agree is lackluster is Army’s Paeon, which don’t have a proc mechanic in the sense the other two do—it’s strictly a haste buff, and the gains are minuscule which is why BRDs clip it early to re-enter their burst phase.

I see this as a false sense of complexity. It's complex only for the reason of being complex. It's not interesting complexity.

Complexity lies within your DoT management and knowing when you need to actively manipulate songs for certain parts of a fight (in an optimized setting), not Straight Shot or Heavy Shot, naked DoTs, or a song rotation where you don’t actively try to manipulate RNG procs in your favor. You have to look at more than just a base rotation; everything seems basic when you just think about it in terms of the bare bones.

I’m fine with people thinking a job isn’t their cup of tea, but I still needed to tell you where the true complexity with the job lied. This isn’t considering watching out for party support, and Foe’s+Refresh management.

If we agree to disagree, that’s fine. But I don’t think BRD is a braindead job that lacks complexity—pulling off high amounts of damage on it is something where you definitely need deep knowledge of how to manipulate DoTs and procs in your favor. Sometimes RNG screws you over anyways, but I’ve always found it extremely fulfilling to pull off a powerful opener, or pull high numbers in a fight.

To each their own.

[MomomiMomi]

Of course everything is identical when you strip them of their mechanics that make them different.

The complexity with your songs lies within manipulating your DoTs with buff snapshoting and timing EA to force procs in your favor. Not just idly letting the procs happen. Minuet’s procs have different conditions in which you use 3-stack PPs versus 2-stack PPs; Mage’s is the old River of Blood trait, which you can manipulate in AOE situations to grant you more AOE firepower with Rain of Death using EA. The only song I agree is lackluster is Army’s Paeon, which don’t have a proc mechanic in the sense the other two do—it’s strictly a haste buff, and the gains are minuscule which is why BRDs clip it early to re-enter their burst phase.

The songs themselves being boring is the part that I don't like about them. They could keep the other parts but separate it from the buffs, and make the songs themselves more unique. The buffs themselves are redundant, and there's very little choice in using a song. As it is the only real choice is which to use first, and which to cut short (which is a given because it's simply inferior to the others). There's little reason in there even being the three songs.

All of that though is just part of why I don't think Bard is particularly fun, and not why I find it unfun. That has to do more with the DoTs, and the other abilities I mentioned. SS/HS/RA all do fill the same function. Outside of not letting SS fall off, you will never have a situation where you will have to decide between two of them. If SS isn't on, you would use SS. If SS is on and Straighter isn't, you would use HS. If Straighter is on and you're not level 70, SS. If you are level 70 and Straighter is on, RA.

Just like you don't like pressing 1-1-1 instead of 1-2-3, I don't like pressing 1-2-3 when I could instead press 1-1-1. I do not find them to be mechanically different, I don't find it any more engaging, and psychologically, I dislike the thought of using an inferior method when a superior method (in my opinion, of course) could be implemented. Every time I play BRD, the redundant abilities bug me and just put me off of the job.

Thus, I would like options. You play the current way, I'd like to play mine.

[Darrcyphfeid]

Then explain why they redesigned every job for PvP? They just copied it over in the past (more like left it untouched), but come SB, they completely revamped all of our abilities.

PvP and PvE actions were completely tied together and caused balancing issues (/extra work to manage), so when they started taking the hacksaw to PvE actions they just went ahead and separated PvP into its own thing. Which was also a bit shortsighted on Square's end since they apparently didn't think, while they were at it, to leave room so they could make adjustments for each mode of PvP individually. Some skills are weaker or stronger, or roles weaker or stronger (see: complaints about healers in Rival Wings), in the different gametypes and there's little or nothing they can do about it.

Which... feeds into the paranoia about how they would go about this on the PvE end, if we're being honest.

[SaitoHikari]

I am really not interested in retreading arguments that Hyo has already adequately covered, but I would like to say that Bard requires a different mentality than most in order to truly maximize what you can do. Easy to play, high skill ceiling based on reaction speed and a deep understanding of how the game mechanics work.

There's a reason why a lot of Bards are clamoring for changes so that they aren't essentially chained to the presence of a DRG in a party in order to even think about competing with other DPS of the same skill level. The essence of Bard -is- RNG, it is the one thing that has survived through all of the various Bard overhauls done every expansion thus far. Learning how to play Bard is essentially figuring out how to manipulate the RNG in your favor, like learning what other party members' buffs and debuffs do so that you can snapshot Iron Jaws to extend higher crit rate, or throwing your DoTs on multiple enemies in a dungeon setting to get Rain of Death to reset between every GCD during Mage's Ballad. BRD is also the one DPS job that is most reliant on party composition - hence the nasty ranged physical DPS meta that only exists because for some reason the devs simultaneously gave a party crit buff AND the only source of piercing debuff in the game to DRG.

Either way, to simplify the crit-related RNG on the BRD's end removes the only complexity the job has - and it can subsequently rocket Bard into broken tier. I mean, do recall what Bard was like back in ARR. Absurdly high damage from anywhere on the field when played properly for a fraction of the effort needed to play other jobs in comparison.

I should mention that due to the nature of BRD's proc resets, it is also the one job where you lose the most DPS by sitting on your procs. If you don't use Bloodletter/Rain of Death during Mage's Ballad before you get a crit proc again, you just straight up lost 100 x the amount of mobs/150 potency. Same case with Wanderer's Minuet, though it is a bit more complex there that has spawned many debates about whether or not it's better to use Pitch Perfect at 2 stacks or wait until 3 (and risk one lost 'overflow' stack if the DoT is a double crit).

Do also notice that Bard is quite support-heavy, though for some reason this is only really emphasized in the last 10 or so levels. At this point, I've learned to time my song rotations to an entire dungeon run, to the point where I will almost always have Army's Troubadour + Palisade ready for the tank during the most dangerous mass pulls, followed by a machine gun barrage of either Pitch Perfects or Rain of Deaths, and still have my openers ready when we reach each dungeon boss.