How Could We Make Meaningful Use of MP?

[Shurrikhan]

How could we meaningfully reincorporate MP, by that or any other name for a granular gauge to see use alongside HP, into each job? What functions or purposes should that gauge serve?

Parameters for the discussion:

Meaningful uses of MP

• Dark Knight MP usage, as MP must still be banked (when running raid buffs) and margins left for TBN.
• Thin Air, though less so as MP would already be very nearly a non-issue to WHM except in solo-healing against heavy raid damage, during death-swept trainwrecks, or combinations of the two.
• BLM.

Marginally meaningful uses of MP

• PLD's MP usage, as for the time being Clemency is situational and Holy Spirit a potency-efficiency loss outside of chained casts in Requiescat. The whole gauge could be effectively be reduced to a counter.
• Other healer's MP usage, as MP expenditure at least doubles down on punishing overhealing against raidwide damage? Maybe?

Insignificant uses of MP

• Current Caster use of MP outside of BLM. Merely acts as an available rez-count/meter, which is itself rather controversial and likely should be replaced with more consistent and integral pDPS costs with use (rather than a flat tax regardless of actual use, if the devs choose to balance around its maximal use in all cases).

Zero use of MP

• Everyone else.

[HumanNinjaToo]

IDK, I’ve played BLM and DRK, and while MP is not a hugely significant resource for those two jobs, it adds a level of depth in terms of resource management. I feel like that is significant. DRK, in my experience, is easy MP management as long as you’re not spamming spells. BLM, while having limitless MP if you have a perfect rotation, can be a bit trickier depending on movement and mechanics. I’m fine with that actually. In my experience MP has been meaningful.

[Shurrikhan]

In my experience MP has been meaningful.

And... to Monk, Dragoon, Samurai, Bard, Machinist, and Warrior?

The point of this thread is not whether MP is occasionally useful at present for some jobs. It's for suggestions on how to make it a meaningful mechanic for every job.

[Ardox]

And... to Monk, Dragoon, Samurai, Bard, Machinist, and Warrior?

The point of this thread is not whether MP is occasionally useful at present for some jobs. It's for suggestions on how to make it a meaningful mechanic for every job.

Why would you want to make it useful for every jobs? Gluing something together just for the sake of using the MP bar has no guarantee to make the jobs more interesting

[Kabooa]

Why would you want to make it useful for every jobs? Gluing something together just for the sake of using the MP bar has no guarantee to make the jobs more interesting

Every 5-step mechanic / 100 gauge currently being used could just be MP based.

That's Monk, Ninja, Warrior, Samurai, Bard, Machinist, Dancer. For the most part, it's just flavor.

[Shurrikhan]

Why would you want to make it useful for every jobs? Gluing something together just for the sake of using the MP bar has no guarantee to make the jobs more interesting

The question is how to do it in an interesting manner, or at least not leave the MP bar just sitting their as UI waste...

[Ardox]

Every 5-step mechanic / 100 gauge currently being used could just be MP based.

That's Monk, Ninja, Warrior, Samurai, Bard, Machinist, Dancer. For the most part, it's just flavor.

MP jauge refills overtime, all of those jauge don't. It would be using the MP jauge for the sake of using the UI. That proposition would be even more broken if there was still skills like mana shift or refresh around (or if they bring those skill back)

The question is how to do it in an interesting manner, or at least not leave the MP bar just sitting their as UI waste...

And my answer is: no need to. However, what you didn't say in your original post was that last part: «MP bar just sitting their as UI waste». See, Casters had an useless TP bar (barred way back when sprint used to drained TP) and, as far as I know, there was no people asking for TP based mechanics for casters. People would just ignore it. The simplest, logical, thing would be to change MP to TP for melee jobs (just like MP change to GP for gathering classes), but I'm glad TP is gone so I'm not advocating for it's return at all.

[HumanNinjaToo]

And... to Monk, Dragoon, Samurai, Bard, Machinist, and Warrior?

The point of this thread is not whether MP is occasionally useful at present for some jobs. It's for suggestions on how to make it a meaningful mechanic for every job.

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.

[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.