New Job Concept: Riskbreaker

[Grimoire-M]

Thing is I'm trying to break the mold, not fit it. Skillspeed shouldnt be that bad.
Spellspeed works for BLM, so this coukd be the physical class that Skillspeed works for.
With thr job being based around its own Crit generation, it does make Crit less effrctive to meld. A good player would spend a good portion of their time at maximum Crit without melding any, so the benefit of melding it drops right off. Direct Hit therefore would be their main focus, and after that, theyd have the room to fit and afford Skillspeed. With faster attacks, theyd hit those Risk stacks more often and more reliably, indirectly raising their Crit via Speed.

While I agree that we should try to encourage using all stats, your proposed crit changes do not fit with how the game works currently. You have to pre-suppose that there is an artificial cap of 50% assigned to it to make this come close to working at all, and it still doesn't solve the problem of crit damage still being worth it. If you have to assume that SE's staff would make that kind of core mechanical change in the first place (even if it's tame compared to some of the suggestions people put up) then the better option is to simply assume it can't be done and implement something better based on what has been done before.

As for the values and potencies, it suits the identity of hammers (and axes) from XII. Yes they're heavy weapons that deal a lot of damage, but they also have more random damage that can result in weaker attacks than other weapons, its about averaging that out. Hence the low base potencies, crossed with a reliable almost 50% average Crit rate.

I'm sorry, but the fact that most meaningful content where you're using your kit to the fullest can take 8-10 minutes means the game will naturally average out the variance. Time is the biggest factor in getting the required sample size to ensure each member of a raid was able to contribute. All you're accomplishing by nerfing the potencies to compensate for that crit rate and adding lots of low cooldown oGCDs is making every hit feel less powerful but over all make the class more busy, which suits a light armor, speedy class more. Look at Warrior's Inner Release window. That's how a heavy weapon DPS class should feel at times. And Warrior does reward skill speed within that window to a certain degree, just to squeeze out one extra Fell Cleave.

On that note, you've created a dragoon-like GCD rotation that's honestly more limiting than it should be (especially regarding AoE) with no real payoffs yet, which is something I'd look at. I'd start with removing the DoT ability and think of something more creative to replace it. That's one of the main limiters of skill speed when it comes to melee classes compared to BLM. BLM can throw its only DoT out when it wants to. Combo classes have to avoid clipping, whether it's their GCD or DoTs. Better to scrap the one DoT and work from there.

You could cap the defence penalty and remove the defensive skills, but again, that wouldn't reflect the nature of a Riskbreaker from VS.
Having to balance your DPS versus your defence would be part of the jobs function, its gimmick, like RDMs magic-melee cycle, or Ninjas ninjutsu. A high Crit rate alone wouldnt be interesting enough.
Besides, other DPS jobs have plenty of defensive skills already. For example, NIN has Shadeshift, Smokescreen and its own emnity dump skill.
This concept only really has three defensive skills too, the other two are more resource management.

The problem is they're superfluous. You wouldn't need the defensive skills in the first place without that debuff present. Flavor should not come at the expense of function. And for what it's worth, Samurai and Monk are the only DPS classes with multiple personal defensive cooldowns present on their kit rather than simply getting them from role actions, and each pair of abilities are already linked to one another on those two classes specifically in order to pair it down. Aggro management tools don't mitigate damage on you as much as they enable tanks to go ham at the moment. They're not actual mitigation in practice. Forced movement abilities can be used to maintain dps uptime by allowing the player to take risks, including those disengages on SAM/DRG. And the various defensive buffs/debuffs that affect allies or enemies are not personal by nature of what they target. They're party utility, and the majority of that is on the role action list too currently.

If you want some suggestions for how to make skill speed feel better within a kit, make more oGCD weaponskills styled after Empyreal Arrow so they benefit from skill speed. Similarly, Machinist's Ammunition mechanic could be fleshed out to accomplish something similar to a DoT effect. You could also use GCDs that are on stack-based timers, meaning you can only use them once every X weaponskills, but not tie them down to a combo. Buffs already kind of do this, but they have timers on them. It makes sense for the risk stacks, but outside of a few proper cooldowns I'd just experiment with non-combo rotations and see if something more fluid emerges.

[Seraphor]

While I agree that we should try to encourage using all stats, your proposed crit changes do not fit with how the game works currently. You have to pre-suppose that there is an artificial cap of 50% assigned to it to make this come close to working at all, and it still doesn't solve the problem of crit damage still being worth it. If you have to assume that SE's staff would make that kind of core mechanical change in the first place (even if it's tame compared to some of the suggestions people put up) then the better option is to simply assume it can't be done and implement something better based on what has been done before.

Pretty much every other title in the franchise has a hard cap of 50% crit except for some limited abilities that guarantee a crit, I'd be surprised if this wasn't ALREADY in FFXIV. Basically more than 50% crit is too OP and defeats the purpose of critical hits in the first place.
And if I am pre-supposing this is a change that's made... what's the problem with that exactly?

I'm sorry, but the fact that most meaningful content where you're using your kit to the fullest can take 8-10 minutes means the game will naturally average out the variance. Time is the biggest factor in getting the required sample size to ensure each member of a raid was able to contribute.

Exactly...

All you're accomplishing by nerfing the potencies to compensate for that crit rate and adding lots of low cooldown oGCDs is making every hit feel less powerful

Disagree, you'll hit crits more often, making you feel more powerful.

but over all make the class more busy

...how?
The idea is that you're hitting hard and fast, haphazardly swinging your hammer/mace around, building up momentum that makes your attacks hit harder, you're not doing acrobatics.
The weaponskills might be a bit quicker with higher SkS, but there's not that much to weave besides the Chain skills, which you'd perhaps weave 3 per 6-weaponskill-combo, so certainly no double weaving.
Meanwhile you have DRK, which is most certainly a slow, heavy job, and you're constantly double weaving with Dark Arts and such.

On that note, you've created a dragoon-like GCD rotation that's honestly more limiting than it should be (especially regarding AoE) with no real payoffs yet, which is something I'd look at. I'd start with removing the DoT ability and think of something more creative to replace it. That's one of the main limiters of skill speed when it comes to melee classes compared to BLM. BLM can throw its only DoT out when it wants to. Combo classes have to avoid clipping, whether it's their GCD or DoTs. Better to scrap the one DoT and work from there.

Thank you, this is something constructive that I could think about.

The problem is they're superfluous. You wouldn't need the defensive skills in the first place without that debuff present. Flavor should not come at the expense of function. And for what it's worth, Samurai and Monk are the only DPS classes with multiple personal defensive cooldowns present on their kit rather than simply getting them from role actions, and each pair of abilities are already linked to one another on those two classes specifically in order to pair it down.

And the problem with adding another DPS with defensive cooldowns is...?
I would revise the skills to make the two purely defensive skills exclusive, so that they can't be stacked. One is then not so different to DRGs, and the other is essentially a DPS Eye-for-an-Eye, and both can be used on party members in order to boost own DPS via gained job gauge resource.
Meanwhile MNK has it's own 10% damage reduction, plus a party-wide Convalescence. I don't see the problem...

If you want some suggestions for how to make skill speed feel better within a kit, make more oGCD weaponskills styled after Empyreal Arrow so they benefit from skill speed. Similarly, Machinist's Ammunition mechanic could be fleshed out to accomplish something similar to a DoT effect. You could also use GCDs that are on stack-based timers, meaning you can only use them once every X weaponskills, but not tie them down to a combo. Buffs already kind of do this, but they have timers on them. It makes sense for the risk stacks, but outside of a few proper cooldowns I'd just experiment with non-combo rotations and see if something more fluid emerges.

Again thanks for some constructive feedback, however this sounds like it's starting to go in a direction I don't intend for this job and which I don't think would fit into the Riskbreaker/Foebreaker identity.

[Grimoire-M]

Pretty much every other title in the franchise has a hard cap of 50% crit except for some limited abilities that guarantee a crit, I'd be surprised if this wasn't ALREADY in FFXIV. Basically more than 50% crit is too OP and defeats the purpose of critical hits in the first place.
And if I am pre-supposing this is a change that's made... what's the problem with that exactly?

You're pre-supposing a change that makes all of the current crit-rate raid buffs nearly worthless at this current raid tier, and certainly discourages stacking them together. Of course I'm against it. It's a fundamental change to the game that requires more work to accommodate than the class itself is worth. I would honestly say that a better but muckier route would've been to bake proc-rate potency boosts into each ability instead if you want to double down on the variance aspect, but I still feel that misses the point of a heavy weapon class.

Disagree, you'll hit crits more often, making you feel more powerful.
...how?

The idea is that you're hitting hard and fast, haphazardly swinging your hammer/mace around, building up momentum that makes your attacks hit harder, you're not doing acrobatics.
The weaponskills might be a bit quicker with higher SkS, but there's not that much to weave besides the Chain skills, which you'd perhaps weave 3 per 6-weaponskill-combo, so certainly no double weaving.
Meanwhile you have DRK, which is most certainly a slow, heavy job, and you're constantly double weaving with Dark Arts and such.

I disagree on the fast part. And Crits don't make players feel more powerful, big numbers in general do. Like I said, you don't need to add weaker but more frequent hits in order to accomplish padding out variance. You get 24 GCDs per minute minimum assuming full uptime. The game's design does that for you already. That was my point. Hell, BLM already does the job of a hard hitting nuke that doesn't have a single oGCD they have to weave in their rotation except for mobility, and arguably they accomplish the concept you're shooting for already within the caster role. I'm not going to preclude a melee class from wanting to feel like Warrior or them, but I don't think you've hit that aspect with your current kit. By going for speed, you've missed the opportunity to add more meatiness to your rotation.

The goal theme of a heavy weapon melee class that focuses on critting in the first place is to see BIG numbers at a slower pace, not lots of little ones all the time. They should not feel like a Monk, or Bard, or Machinist. I've played Bard for two tiers, and played Summoner now and in Heavensward, and I can tell you they don't hit hard. They hit a LOT, yes, but not hard. I don't get a meaty, big hit feeling from most attacks on BRD, except the one time I've ever seen a Barraged Refulgent Arrow land a triple direct crit for 100k in aggregate, and that was still split across three consecutive hits between 30-36k that flashed up consecutively, making it feel rapid, not hard hitting. Akh Morn and Deathflare come close to half of that if the stars align, but they get pressed once every 30 seconds when averaged out. Fester used to be up there in burst during ARR but has since fallen out of favor. You use that three times relatively quickly in a minute, which is a lot, but each hit is still small. Fell Cleave, Fire IV, Foul, and Midare, on the other hand? Those hit hard by themselves, and when you direct crit on them, you notice it FAR more because of it, because you see their damage numbers individually, rather than it getting crowded in the noise of 3-4 other hits between each GCD.

The frequency you're pressing oGCDs overall in the first place and the amount of attention you have to pay to which you press next creates that busy feeling I described. You're basically spamming Temper twice every three hits with the current numbers unless you intentionally limit its cooldown because it's potency per momentum ratio is higher than everything else (something to fix, by the way), and you still have to track your momentum bar due to the staggered momentum costs even if you do limit it, resulting in the pain skills being spammed first (likely once every 3.5 GCDs if they were the real focus, depending on auto attacks), then the saps, if there's ever room.

It's funny you mention DRK because they actually avoid this issue due to the fact you know exactly when to press Dark Arts for filler and their lowest cooldown oGCD aside from it is Plunge at 30 seconds, only deviating in feel when you need TBN or want to DA Dark Passenger (meaning you just drop your next few DAs on Souleater if you need to), have Blood Weapon running, or have enough Blackblood to spend. And in regards to Blackblood, each of those abilities has a hefty 50 blood cost, and requires you to use the GCD to spend two of them while not disrupting your combos, which means you don't need to pay too much attention to them, provided you never let yourself cap. They have their busy moments for sure due to their staggered cooldowns, but they're not nearly as bad as any of the DPS classes at all, excepting maybe BLM and RDM.

And the problem with adding another DPS with defensive cooldowns is...?
I would revise the skills to make the two purely defensive skills exclusive, so that they can't be stacked. One is then not so different to DRGs, and the other is essentially a DPS Eye-for-an-Eye, and both can be used on party members in order to boost own DPS via gained job gauge resource.
Meanwhile MNK has it's own 10% damage reduction, plus a party-wide Convalescence. I don't see the problem...

Little, in of themselves. The only problem I have with it is that you make it necessary by overdoing the penalty on the Risk debuffs. I don't even have a problem with the utility in of itself, but you could use some of those slots to add more DPS cooldowns, tune up their AoE, or add spike abilities the class is lacking, again playing into that heavy weapon theme of big, infrequent, inconsistent damage that is nonetheless powerful in aggregate. The utility is pretty weak numbers wise too. Riddle of Earth at least gives you more than 10% mitigation after the first hit you take. Mantra I'd classify as party utility, not personal, and I made that distinction for a reason, because I don't have a problem with party utility if it's usable when you want it to be used. That is not the case here. Instill results in you using the abilities it interacts with nearly on cooldown for the sake of your own DPS more than anything, giving you even more more double weaving for little payoff, except when you know a mechanic and/or a weak healer is going to get you killed and can use one of them in time to avoid it over dropping Risk with Clearance. It's frankly a better idea to make those abilities more powerful and not affect your Risk stacks or Momentum in any manner so you can make the consideration of what to use independent of what's optimal for your DPS, but if you're doing that, then why have such a high Risk penalty in the first place? Flavor. That's it.

I made the leap to lowering the penalty and bonus on Risk because it fixes both of these problems and gives you room to address the rest.

Again thanks for some constructive feedback, however this sounds like it's starting to go in a direction I don't intend for this job and which I don't think would fit into the Riskbreaker/Foebreaker identity.

The main point there was the focus on avoiding the things that result in skill speed being a worse option as much as possible, and adding things that encourage stacking it instead. You certainly don't have to use oGCD weaponskills, an ammunition variant to replace a DoT, or a spike weaponskill like Midare that can only be used after X GCDs, but they fit in better with your stated goal of making skill speed good, hence the recommendation in the first place. I don't expect you to use them, but I do hope you consider why they fit in if that's your primary focus. But I don't believe it is, either.

I guess my main point is I feel the current kit doesn't really fit the traditional theme of what you're aiming for, nor does it fit with the current design paradigm SE has given us to work with. This is someone swinging a big 2-Handed Hammer or Mace in Heavy Armor absolutely recklessly. Which means they should have slower, heavier, wild swings, and while doing that they sometimes get to connect with a big, powerful hit that absolutely flattens their opponents. It wouldn't be out of place for some of their skills to have cast bars to suggest that wind up. Nothing you've put in there hits hard enough in order to achieve that, because you've pushed too hard on the 'high crit rate with a drawback' aspect of Risk and spent more time focusing on compensating for it. It needlessly limits your own concept currently. If you specifically narrowed in on 1-Handed Maces and were aiming for a lighter armored melee class, then it would be fine to have a lot of small hits and constantly float between 4-5 stacks like your current kit achieves, but that's another Striking gear class, not a Maiming one. It's certainly 'risky' in the sense it doesn't let you slow down and crits a lot, but it isn't as hard hitting as you've stated. Whether by slowing things down with more infrequent ability usage, consolidating the 'busy' moments with clearer periods of downtime, or tuning Risk down in order to allow for abilities that get to hit for massive damage and offer better utility, you need to address that. At the moment, this kit would play out more like a Monk or Machinist rather than Black Mage or Dragoon. The latter two classes and Samurai all have mechanics and potencies that are closer to the concept you're after, and so if you stick to a big hammer or mace I'd recommend adding more weight on your GCDs and tone down on how much you're doing between them in order to achieve that 'go big or go home' feeling. Or shift the aesthetics to striking class with a lighter blunt weapon. Right now, it's simply a mismatch.