How Could We Make Meaningful Use of MP?

[Acidblood]

For most classes I feel like MP could act a 'soft cooldown', making some of their mechanics more flexible (similar to how MP is used by DRK), as for ideas:

Note 1: Numbers are for example purposes only and would of course need to be tested and balanced.
Note 2: I really dislike one-size-fits-all MP regain abilties like Lucid Dreaming; each job should have it's own method of MP regain.

WAR - Self Healing is tied to MP. Nascent Flash changed to cost 1500MP for activation and 800MP per second to maintain. WAR regains MP via Equilibrium (3000 MP), Maim (800 MP), and Vengeance (50 MP per 1% of HP damage taken).

GNB - 'Charged' Cartridge generation tied to MP. Bloodfest changed to ‘Charge’ existing Cartridges, costs 2000MP per Cartridge Changed, with a 6s cooldown. Charged Cartridges allow Cartridge spending abilities to be used off the global cooldown. GNB regains MP via GCD Burst Strike (1000MP), GCD Fated Circle (1000MP), and the Continuation combo (500MP per ability).

MNK - Brotherhood tied to MP. Brotherhood changed to cost 1000 MP for activation and 600 MP per second to maintain, 20s cooldown. MNK regains additional MP passively (not during Brotherhood), via Meditation (300 MP per use) and via Anatman (800 MP per tick).

DRG - Dragon Sight tied to MP. Dragon Sight changed to cost 800 MP for activation and 460 MP per second to maintain, 20s cooldown. DRK regains MP via Geirskogul (1200 MP) and Nastrond (800 MP).

NIN - Ninjutsu reworked and tied to MP. Ninjutsu cooldown reduced to 6s and each Ninjutsu would cost a certain amount of MP. Ninjutsu cost 0 MP under Ten Chi Jin. NIN regains MP via Mug, Assassinate and Kassatsu.

SAM - Special abilities tied to MP. Third Eye changed to cost 1000MP and cooldown of 5s. Meikyo Shisui changed to cost 4000 MP and cooldown of 20s. Tsubame-gaeshi changed to cost 6000MP with no cooldown. SAM regains MP via Hissatsu abilities; Kaiten makes the next Iaijustu restore 2000 MP; Gyoten and Yaten restore 500 MP each; Shinten, Kyuten and Seigan restore 1000 MP each; Guren and Senei restore 4000 MP each.

BRD – Song effects can be extended to party members, but cost MP to maintain. Song cooldowns reduced to 40s, with a 20s shard cooldown. Troubadour changed to apply current song effect to nearby party members, costs 1000 MP to activate and 600 MP per second to maintain, 8s cooldown on both activation and deactivation.
Song effects are:
Mages Ballard slowly restores MP (except to the BRD).
Army's Paeon reduces damage taken by 10% and slowly restores HP.
Wanderer's Minuet increases critical hit chance by 5%.
BRD regains MP via Refresh, which is changed to only work on the BRD. Battle Voice changed to also pause Troubadour MP usage, duration reduced to 12s.

MCH - Not sure... maybe Flamethrower could be given a potency worth using but cost MP to activate and maintain. MP regained via Gauss Round.

DNC - Also not sure (as I haven't played it) ... maybe tie dances to MP.

SMN - Honestly needs a complete rework, but basic attacks could be MP neutral (i.e. not cost any more than you naturally regen) with powerful summons that cost significant MP. MP regain would be via Aetherflow.

RDM - Basic attacks changed to be MP neutral (i.e. not cost any more than you naturally regen). Vercure is relatively expensive, as are large attacks like Verflare and Verholy (which would be decoupled from the melee combo). RDM regains MP via their Enchanted melee abilities.

I’m struggling to come up with a meaningful reason why any of those other jobs need to use MP to begin with, let alone how to incorporate MP costs into their kit. The ones I’ve played seem to function fine without MP; if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

The reason would be to add flexibility (increasing the skill floor and skill ceiling) compared to the current system, for example:
Under the current system of rigid cooldowns and durations if you pop a buff right before a phase transition you will probably end up wasting the whole thing... with the buff tied to MP you could cancel it, having only wasted a few seconds worth, and re-apply it once it is meaningful again. The skill ceiling would increase via timings, which would be more controllable, and with group co-ordination (e.g. one of the benefits of BRD would be to extend / increase the frequency of MP abilities for other party members).

[HumanNinjaToo]

The reason would be to add flexibility (increasing the skill floor and skill ceiling) compared to the current system, for example:
Under the current system of rigid cooldowns and durations if you pop a buff right before a phase transition you will probably end up wasting the whole thing... with the buff tied to MP you could cancel it, having only wasted a few seconds worth, and re-apply it once it is meaningful again. The skill ceiling would increase via timings, which would be more controllable, and with group co-ordination (e.g. one of the benefits of BRD would be to extend / increase the frequency of MP abilities for other party members).

Okay so to be clear, you are saying that using MP to cast certain buffs/debuffs would then give reason to reduce the cooldown of the skill? Because I am not seeing how giving some skills an MP cost would allow them to be cancellable, unless you just mean they could be recasted and therefore have their timer reset.

[Acidblood]

Okay so to be clear, you are saying that using MP to cast certain buffs/debuffs would then give reason to reduce the cooldown of the skill? Because I am not seeing how giving some skills an MP cost would allow them to be cancellable, unless you just mean they could be recasted and therefore have their timer reset.

The design of those abilities would to be altered so they could be toggled off (think SCH Aetherpact) ... the reduced cooldowns are to allow flexibility, as MP would now limit how often / for how long they could be used (i.e. their uptime). Note: Remaining cooldowns / activation costs are to prevent abuse (e.g. rapidly toggling the ability on and off to line up with individual big hits).

It might also worth thinking about making the songs last as long as you have MP rather than on a timer as they have been so far. Make it like Foe Requiem used to be as that was somewhat of an interesting way of doing it

That would be how Troubadour works... I didn't want to alter BRDs personal gameplay too much though, with the exception of making the song cooldowns shorter so the BRD has more choice about which song to play when, but still requiring some planning / fight knowledge.

[Shurrikhan]

Okay so to be clear, you are saying that using MP to cast certain buffs/debuffs would then give reason to reduce the cooldown of the skill? Because I am not seeing how giving some skills an MP cost would allow them to be cancellable, unless you just mean they could be recasted and therefore have their timer reset.

I would assume it'd be because the core ability or abilities (where mutually exclusive and/or alternated, such as through dynamic MP costs) would have MP drain costs, and that drain would end up cancelling the buff, such that you can refund the remainder of the buff, having effectively only wasted some portion of the initial activation cost.

[jrmswell]

BRD – Song effects can be extended to party members, but cost MP to maintain. Song cooldowns reduced to 40s, with a 20s shard cooldown. Troubadour changed to apply current song effect to nearby party members, costs 1000 MP to activate and 600 MP per second to maintain, 8s cooldown on both activation and deactivation.
Song effects are:
Mages Ballard slowly restores MP (except to the BRD).
Army's Paeon reduces damage taken by 10% and slowly restores HP.
Wanderer's Minuet increases critical hit chance by 5%.
BRD regains MP via Refresh, which is changed to only work on the BRD. Battle Voice changed to also pause Troubadour MP usage, duration reduced to 12s.

It might also worth thinking about making the songs last as long as you have MP rather than on a timer as they have been so far. Make it like Foe Requiem used to be as that was somewhat of an interesting way of doing it

[Shurrikhan]

It might also worth thinking about making the songs last as long as you have MP rather than on a timer as they have been so far. Make it like Foe Requiem used to be as that was somewhat of an interesting way of doing it

I'd suggested back when we first heard about the SB changes to come that they use increasing drain rates over use, which diminish back to the normal drain rate over time without use.

For instance, if I opened with Wanderer's Minuet, it'd start off depleting my MP more slowly than I gain it, but would rapidly decrease to a loss and a increasingly steep loss with further time, until it'd bottom out my MP after about a minute. So, I'd tend to swap around 30 seconds in, restoring MP at a decreasing rate over the first 15 seconds, then losing it at an ever-increasing speed again, until I'm forced to swap off again. So, by the time I finish my first song, the penalty on the first is gone. You maintain the rotation, but with an MP bar's worth of flexibility, allowing you to effectively bank duration and make more flexible use of downtime.