Shadowbringers RDM Wishlist

[Shurrikhan]

Exactly why we should allow more sources of our damage to be affected by Spell Speed -- because ultimately even if you don't slot in Materia specifically for Spell Speed, you're going to end up with a base amount from gearing at any given item level, which would otherwise drag you down.
A DoT wouldn't be enough on its own, obviously, but it could be a start. Also affecting our weapon skills and perhaps (indirectly, like our weapon skills currently) even affecting our cooldown timers would be able to add to this, until our stat parity is comparable to other casters.

But, wouldn't it still make more sense to just fix spell speed itself than making a horrible stat only a tiny bit less horrible compared to others in arbitrary ways, at potential cost of gameplay, to one particular job? We're on the brink of allegedly "significant combat changes to the game" as is.

[Archwizard]

But, wouldn't it still make more sense to just fix spell speed itself than making a horrible stat only a tiny bit less horrible compared to others in arbitrary ways, at potential cost of gameplay, to one particular job? We're on the brink of allegedly "significant combat changes to the game" as is.

... and how do you propose that? Adjusting the %-value-per-point directly for everyone -- healers and casters alike -- to address its worth to a couple instant-spamming casters? Spell speed is a straightforward stat that's a staple to most video games, and I would argue if the concern is that only BLMs stand around enough to get full mileage from it, it's not the stat's fault but the design of the casters themselves for not being able to receive of it.
Like, let's say you're right and they adjust the weight of the stat. Will a 10% value per-point increase address any of the issues you're naming? 20%? 30+? Unless it makes it some godly overpowered stat, probably not, because you're arguing the issue is in the mechanical design ("less movement the faster your GCD rolls", bearing in mind that more accurately, you're getting more casts in the same allotted amount of time the faster your GCD rolls and can more easily clip movement phases) and not the amount of speed provided itself.
I mean hell, if it didn't affect the GCD it would be garbage for anyone with instants.
Mechanical issues need mechanical fixes. At the very least there needs to be some meeting partway within the design space of the class itself.

To be honest, "at potential cost of gameplay" in this context sounds like an awful lot of doomsaying on surprisingly little to go off of.

[Shurrikhan]

... and how do you propose that?

Merge Skill/Spell Speed into just Speed, make mock-GCDs (like the fixed-GCD Meditation and the Enchanted melee chain) into actual half-GCDs, and have the damage of any oGCDs not already proportionate to Attack Speed (i.e. all but gauge skills) scale with Skill/Spell Speed.

There. The stat now gives 90%+ of the weight of Crit, the current lategame dominant stat. Voila.

[Archwizard]

I personally don't see them adding tons of complexity.

As a WoW Refugee, I've seen plenty of examples of classes where DoTs were not only substantial portions of damage, but sources of (or markers for) additional mechanics like procs, debuffs, resources, or conditional detonations.
... and BLM's Thundercloud, while simplistic, completely blew many of those out of the water. Were they to add a DoT, I'd have complete faith in the devs' ability to make it interesting.

"Complex"? Perhaps not, but nobody said a spell needed to complicate a rotation to add a shred more depth to it.

I'd rather avoid any DoTs being added for the sake of a DoT. If the DoT provided a unique mechanic somehow (beyond "Hey it generates mana too!"), I might be on board with it.

I agree that any DoTs hypothetically added to RDM should add mechanics to the class, particularly since unlike SMN, our design isn't based largely on DoT upkeep.

Although I've heard the argument against "DoTs for the sake of a DoT" more than once. Perhaps I'm thinking too literally here, but if such a proposal was purely made with the intent of giving us a DoT just to have something to upkeep, we'd probably be hearing things like "instant cast," "a cooldown matching its duration", possibly even some mention of being oGCD and adding nothing beyond being a damage skill. Yet I've still heard suggestions that attempted to add new interconnected mechanics be silenced with the same argument.

Bear in mind, I'm not arguing here that "RDMs absolutely need a DoT and they have to add one." I'm just saying that I don't see the value in dismissing such suggestions offhand.

Merge Skill/Spell Speed into just Speed, make mock-GCDs (like the fixed-GCD Meditation and the Enchanted melee chain) into actual half-GCDs, and have the damage of any oGCDs not already proportionate to Attack Speed (i.e. all but gauge skills) scale with Skill/Spell Speed.

Question, given that I'm still somewhat new to the game.
How many other classes actually use both Spells and Weaponskills in their rotation, and would actually receive benefit from the merger of Skill and Spell Speed?
Because to my knowledge it's just RDMs and maybe two spells for PLD (the damage of one of which is affected by weapon delay anyway), which if I'm not mistaken, would mean you're discussing reprogramming an entire stat system and changing input values on who knows how many pieces of equipment... just to avoid changing some input values on a couple of our abilities, which would have to be rebalanced anyway...?

Simultaneously, while I concur that your suggestion would address the issue of the stat's value, my concern with "scale damage with Skill/Spell Speed" is largely that barring a few 'unique' cases (including the PLD spell I already mentioned, or breakpoints), increasing a Speed-oriented stat should affect... well... speed?

[Kabooa]

How many other classes actually use both Spells and Weaponskills in their rotation, and would actually receive benefit from the merger of Skill and Spell Speed??

Red Mage
Dark Knight (Unleash, Unmend, Abyssal Drain)
Paladin
Bard

The cross over isn't extensive, but it makes zero sense to have skill speed and spellspeed be functionally the same but two different stats.

I doubt Dancer and Gunbreaker will be added to that last, but you never know.

[Shurrikhan]

Question, given that I'm still somewhat new to the game.
How many other classes actually use both Spells and Weaponskills in their rotation, and would actually receive benefit from the merger of Skill and Spell Speed?
Because to my knowledge it's just RDMs and maybe two spells for PLD (the damage of one of which is affected by weapon delay anyway), which if I'm not mistaken, would mean you're discussing reprogramming an entire stat system and changing input values on who knows how many pieces of equipment... just to avoid changing some input values on a couple of our abilities, which would have to be rebalanced anyway...?

Simultaneously, while I concur that your suggestion would address the issue of the stat's value, my concern with "scale damage with Skill/Spell Speed" is largely that barring a few 'unique' cases (including the PLD spell I already mentioned, or breakpoints), increasing a Speed-oriented stat should affect... well... speed?

There are four jobs that do, but honestly that isn't even that significant, except perhaps to Paladin. Using scaled GCDs instead of a fixed 1.5 second GCD regardless of Attack Speed, likewise, only affects three jobs. The main question there is, why not? There's no reason for Spell Speed and Skill Speed to be separate stats. There's no reason MCH, NIN, and MNK should receive zero benefit of Attack Speed on certain skills or under certain effects. It is less complex for Skill Speed and Spell Speed to simply be Speed, rather than each affecting only one type of skill, and we already know from the current Spell/Skill split that we can apply Attack Speed scalars to specific skills, allowing half-GCDs that actually can scale with Attack Speed, rather than the fixed 1.5-second ones.

The precedent for Skill Speed affecting more than just GCD speed has been set since mid-ARR when we did the exact same thing to DoT damage. Back then the discussion was whether to increase tick speed or increase tick damage. The devs called the prior impossible, and thus we have <Increases attack rate and increases periodic damage.> Later, auto-attack was changed from rate to damage probably as a sidelong nerf to NIN and PLD in preparation for SB, thus giving us <Increases GCD rate and increases auto-attack and periodic damage>. It's far from a one-stat-one-effect deal as is.

Leaving abilities unaffected means that either Speed must be balanced around high %oGCD jobs, which would make it ridiculously strong in the hands of low-oGCD% jobs, or left viable for low %oGCD jobs and nearly worthless for everyone else. There is no other way to balance Speed across jobs than to give it an ability component.

However, unlike DoTs, increasing the rate, rather than damage, of abilities, has actual potential harm in addition to its greater complexity, namely desync with other abilities and with raid (de)buffs. Thus, damage is all that's left. Thus: <Increases attack rate and ability and periodic damage> is your smoothest possible outcome (giving back AA rate in exchange for AA damage), and would scarcely be any more "needlessly complex/muddled" than Crit's "Increases chance to deal a critical hit and increases the damage modifier of critical hits." Both would at that point just be sensible, and, apart from their more exponential nature, quite balanced.

Although I've heard the argument against "DoTs for the sake of a DoT" more than once. Perhaps I'm thinking too literally here, but if such a proposal was purely made with the intent of giving us a DoT just to have something to upkeep, we'd probably be hearing things like "instant cast," "a cooldown matching its duration", possibly even some mention of being oGCD and adding nothing beyond being a damage skill. Yet I've still heard suggestions that attempted to add new interconnected mechanics be silenced with the same argument.

There are ways to make a DoT effective as a toolkit augmentation, but the means are badly limited so long as the margin of flexible GCDs between melee combos is so small. If I were to use a DoT on RDM, for instance, it would be a faint damage loss outside of AoE used in order to bank B/W mana. But this thread has yet to propose an example of using it to add flexibility or nuance, and nearly every DoT in this game (essentially, all but TC) -- at least in single-target combat -- works as if limited by those same warning signs you've mentioned, so expect people to expect the norm, which essentially means the worst. If and when that actual gameplay (beyond mere DoT maintenance) is given, well... the very quote you've quoted would suggest people would then be open to the idea, no?

[Archwizard]

Red Mage
Dark Knight (Unleash, Unmend, Abyssal Drain)
Paladin
Bard

I looked over the list of spells available to players and, unless I missed something, the only spells I found in the BRD's arsenal were their song cooldowns. Again, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, still learning.

The cross over isn't extensive, but it makes zero sense to have skill speed and spellspeed be functionally the same but two different stats.

I concur that it would have made zero sense to have skill and spell speed be the same but different... when they were implemented. I can understand perhaps if the two were intended to be programmed to have different weights (ie 100 Skill Speed being 10% attack speed affecting auto-attacks, versus 99 Spell Speed being 11% cast speed, as example numbers), to which I'm sure the counterargument is simply that the combined stat could be programmed with different weights on each side anyway.
Regardless, they permeate the game in their current state, which means that in order to combine the two now, the devs would have to take the time and resources to address every piece of gear that provides either one, materia, consumables, etc, as well as rebalance classes that would be directly affected. That's not even including rare cases of items that, for whatever godsforsaken reason, already provide both.
I highly doubt it's as simple as CTRL+F "speed" and copy-pasting down a text document.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that RDM, DRK and PLD have cross-type skills specifically meant to act as fixed GCDs. If the two stats were merged, the devs would most likely need to re-evaluate specifically those skills, and determine if they remain fixed GCDs or become affected by Speed. Regardless of their decisions on a case by case basis, the point is that they are being evaluated individually.

Versus, the devs skipping ahead and simply addressing those individual skills now, and leaving the separate tuning knobs in place. No taking the time to redo what I can only assume to be literal thousands of items.

Which do you think they would prefer?

But this thread has yet to propose an example of using it to add flexibility or nuance,

Most likely because nobody in this thread is actually working on the design of FFXIV, meaning that suggestions do not need to meet the scrutiny of other players, but of the dev team who ultimately decide what and how to balance and program skills. To get into specifics would only serve to invite pedantic in-fighting, on top of creating attachment and hype for ideas that we ultimately have no control over actually getting into the game.

For this reason, it's more productive to argue the broad merits of suggestions, not the specifics.

[Shurrikhan]

The devs would have to take the time and resources to address every piece of gear that provides either one, materia, consumables, etc, as well as rebalance classes that would be directly affected.

Except, they wouldn't have to. They could as easily leave it be for all but the next expansion, and it wouldn't be the first time. We already have lingering inconsistencies in stat designs over the different expansions. We have inconsistencies in relative stat pot values, in relative HP pot values, in relative food stats value. They could as easily change the name attached to either stat's tag and simply leave both Quicktongue and Quickarm in place, both as +Speed. It was not a big deal to trade "Accuracy" into "Direct Hit". It was not a big deal to change "Parry" into "Tenacity". These were specifically not done on a gear by gear basis. The tag had a name and an effect, and both were altered without having to touch the individual items.

Beyond that, there are only two items in the game that would be problematic to this design. Aetherial (Pink) items already split between Skill Speed and Spell Speed based on the attached Discipline. That leaves only Relic Weapons with custom stats, which are now pursued or kept only as cosmetics, and while it is possible to end up with "+X Crit, +Y Speed, +Z Speed" and thereby allow for twice that maxima, what would it matter now? There's only potential speedbump we don't yet know they can deal with overnight, and that's collapsing a tag, rather than trading its name or effect. But it'd be completely hidden except when looking at the basis of a few glamours and on Quicktongue/Quickarm materia, which we also know we can replace easily, from as far back as 1.x and ARR, when materia made obsolete were automatically converted into Cracked Materia of the same grade. That was, by their own report, as simple if not simpler than "Find & Replace"; they specifically gave it as a point of comparison with harder replacements such as glamour targets, cross-server glamours (as per using glamours during PvP), or job-based glamours (which we'll likely never get). (By the way, changing gear name and stat maxima -- such as on pink gear, including the retouches on the range of Eureka gear stat RNG -- were given as similarly easy processes.)

Most likely because nobody in this thread is actually working on the design of FFXIV, meaning that suggestions do not need to meet the scrutiny of other players, but of the dev team who ultimately decide what and how to balance and program skills. To get into specifics would only serve to invite pedantic in-fighting, on top of creating attachment and hype for ideas that we ultimately have no control over actually getting into the game.

For this reason, it's more productive to argue the broad merits of suggestions, not the specifics.

Suggestions without any specifics are pointlessly vague. Potencies and durations, etc., may not be directly relevant, but the breakpoints and gameplay they would cause absolutely are. There is a point at which an implementation may meet the basics of a suggestion, yet do so in a way that accomplishes none of what you hope for, i.e...

"We want open world content with cool new progression systems, open world bosses, and gameplay that encourages--but doesn't force us--to move around the map as we face the its hostile elements. Plenty of exploration and secrets to discover! Oh, and actual elements (Fire, Earth, etc)!"

SE: "We're looking to add something along the lines of <above>." -> /cheers

- Alternatively-

SE: "<Eureka>" -> /forewarned feedback attempting to salvage months of underwhelming content creation before it further sullies SE's reputation.

Arguing specifics without also putting forth exactly what you hope to accomplish with something may be folly, since it denies SE or anyone here the ability to note the mistakes between your dream and your actual vision as to catch your blind spots and correct for them, but arguing without specifics altogether is no more than vague gesticulation. When one says "I want a strong leader", I can picture the best possible version and concur, but I don't actually have any way to know whether your vision follows mine or you're imagining a particular angry, fanciful, intolerant, and thick-mustached fascist. When you want some specific, rather than a perverse twisting thereof, it's good to be specific. Test your idea out on the water. Check its merits and demerits. It might not be your job, but very few of us would feel any use possible in being here if SE was already performing that job perfectly.

[Dralonis]

As a WoW Refugee, I've seen plenty of examples of classes where DoTs were not only substantial portions of damage, but sources of (or markers for) additional mechanics like procs, debuffs, resources, or conditional detonations.
... and BLM's Thundercloud, while simplistic, completely blew many of those out of the water. Were they to add a DoT, I'd have complete faith in the devs' ability to make it interesting.

"Complex"? Perhaps not, but nobody said a spell needed to complicate a rotation to add a shred more depth to it.

I think the main reason they haven't and probably won't is mostly because spell speed wouldn't scale well for us mostly with dual cast. Even if we had a dot, we still wouldn't want it as a stat and it wouldn't grow much more powerful, so why have it? Not every class needs to have proc stuff from dots. SMN have sorta kinda procs but only based on RUIN III / RUIN IV . MCH have procs but it's not from dots. BRD as well but both of those jobs are actually quite busy and they don't have casts. So, it's not really a big deal to have. Procs work a bit differently in this game than what you may expect in WoW because they aren't as instant. The game runs on server ticks so there's a delay. So, We currently don't really have a big reason that it's a big deal to have something proc dependent .


BLM feels sorta odd with their procs that you don't even want to cast it until you are at a certain part of your rotation since when you cast the procs, it uses the GCD so you can't cast for about 2 seconds,so you wait to cast thunder until you are in umbral ice. At that point, why not just have Thunder a OGCD that it's not based on the proc anyways? it would be good when moving. which BLM's definitely need help with by being far and large the least mobile mobile class. Maybe the proc would trigger an OGCD , it would just add some clunk to it that isn't needed to the mobile, fluid style of RDM.

I'm not saying it's impossible to incorporate and that it would be bad, just, why do that? We already have a few OGCD's and,more than any other casters, they could just add another, why have a reliance on a dot? what's the point? for something slightly dynamic? Eh. Makes it a bit harder on them to balance so they may not care for such a thing.