DPS jobs lacking utility?

[Rymi64]

technically all the physical dps have a slow with arms length and all the physical ranged have a heavy and bind.

[Shurrikhan]

I mean you could make the same argument for WoW, if half the dps players never use their dispel abilities even though it can benefit them then should they remove an entire mechanic from the game because of that?

Logically, no.

But, historically, in XIV? That does seem to be the logic.

Heck, all it'd take is a forth of players not using a given tool to warrant removing any and all related mechanics. Unless it's a Quick Time Event, of course. Because those are "fun" even if we don't understand how.

(Granted, there was only one dispel-enemy-buff effect, Monk's One-Ilm Punch, and it only saw use on a couple bosses and some key mobs before it was turned into a stun that neither respected nor incurred Diminishing Returns and was then removed. ...Well, that and it caused its own brand of counterplay in PvP that made otherwise bloat skills like Protect actually seem useful, if only for slowing how quickly a Monk could rip your damage CDs off you.)

[Recon1o6]

Logically, no.

But, historically, in XIV? That does seem to be the logic.

Heck, all it'd take is a forth of players not using a given tool to warrant removing any and all related mechanics. Unless it's a Quick Time Event, of course. Because those are "fun" even if we don't understand how.

(Granted, there was only one dispel-enemy-buff effect, Monk's One-Ilm Punch, and it only saw use on a couple bosses and some key mobs before it was turned into a stun that neither respected nor incurred Diminishing Returns and was then removed. ...Well, that and it caused its own brand of counterplay in PvP that made otherwise bloat skills like Protect actually seem useful, if only for slowing how quickly a Monk could rip your damage CDs off you.)

sadly, they don't apply that logic equally either. The idea of underused mechanics is you make them MORE useful not less and improve the gameplay.
Plus SE has a habit of deleting stuff players do that they don't like. Otherwise they'd have removed more heals from healers and give us dps actions and utility. *sigh*

how many players do you know that use feint and addle? Players used a lot of cc in early arr. I remember feint being on my hotbar for ifrit as a drg. That slow was a massive help for eruptions and radiant plume back in the days of poor ping.

Regarding dps utility, really each one needs a position on the scale of "personal damage" and "raid damage" however, outside of damage, there is plenty more utility that should be used that was cut over the years. Crowd control, status effects, dispels etc
But its no good having these effects when enemies and bosses just ignore them and/or the opportunity cost is too high like one ilm punch was. If players can't use the tools, then of course they are going to ignore them.
There's got to be a balance and its one that's worth the trouble to find

[AnotherPerson]

Technically speaking, all physical melee DPS do have 'utility', it's just some has more than others depending whether they're selfish DPS (utility focused on themselves to put less pressure on the party) or a DPS that supports the party.

Arms Length = Slow enemies when hit / cannot be knocked back.
Feint = Physical Damage down on enemy.
Low Blow = Stun.
Second Wind = Self Heal.
Bloodbath = Lifesteal.

Most of the time, people just don't use arms length or Low Blow for regular content since people expect the tanks to get aggro first. You actually do get usage out of Low Blow since you can stun most enemies from casting (which can lead to a very strong skip in Castrum when the 3 stuns are timed perfectly), but it's not usable against most end bosses. Actually, most people just use arms length for the preventative knockback later on instead. Arms length and Bloodbath can prevent a wipe if the DPS can do good AoE burst damage in a dungeon pull because you'd be able to act as a temporary tank with the amount of sustain you get from the two skills. Not necessarily utility for the party, but utility to survive a wipe while the healer is busy raising the tank.

Each individual DPS's utility in their toolkit:
Ninjas giving trick attack (damage up towards a target). A bind on an enemy (which is rarely used since bind is pretty much garbage).
MNK giving Brotherhood (Party damage buff and self buff).
DRG giving Dragon sight to one ally, Battle Litany (party crit support skill)
SAM - Selfish DPS, all support goes to doing more DPS, unless they use Merciful eyes.

All physical ranged DPS have:
Arms Length = slow enemies when hit / cannot be knocked back..
Head Graze = Interrupt
Foot Graze = Bind enemy
Leg Graze = Apply Heavy on enemy.
Peloton = Out of Combat Movement speed up.
Second Wind = Personal Heal.

Physical ranged DPS have a lot of utility, it's just not all are applicable for most content. Most of the time, people are pulling multiple enemies and a Bind isn't as useful unless you're doing something like Min ILV coils and you need that bind to help kite an enemy since your healer slightly lagging behind in healing output. Naturally, people just don't use them for that reason since it's faster to just kill the enemies in one go as the effects are very minimal. Instead, physical ranged DPS usually have their own support utility in their own toolkits.
Dancers have a dance partner who they can superbuff in damage, as well as an AoE buff in Technical Finish.
Bards have their music to give a partywide support buff, an Esuna (Warden's Paean), and a healing support skill (Nature's Minne).
Machinist is a selfish DPS so their utility is just to support their own damage (reassemble). All physical ranged supports do have a party-wide damage mitigation tool though.

All magical DPS have:
Addle - Magic damage down on enemy.
Swiftcast - next spell is instant cast.
Lucid Dreaming - Restores MP to self over time.
Surecast - Unable to interrupt cast from most attacks/cannot be knocked back

Then the magical DPS also have their own niches:
Black mages have a secondary CC skill in the form of AoE Sleep. However, they don't need to use it for the most part since damage wakes the enemies up, and they're all about giving as much damage to the group as possible. It's a more niche usage that doesn't pop up anymore... unless your tank dies and you have to sleep the adds so the healer can raise. Note the DPS who continues to attack will break the sleep so... use at your own discretion. They have manaward for personal shield utility.

Summoners have a resurrection action utility + Phoenix at lv 80 which applies a Heal over Time buff to allies 15 yalms in range, but you usually trigger this automatically in the rotation. They do have their own shield skill if they have to cast it to get an HP buffer if they have to spend some time hardcasting a ress to the dead healers. Other times, they can use swiftcast into a ress.
Red mages have Embolden - a DPS support utility to the party, a healing spell - Vercure, and have one of the strongest resurrections abilities - verraise, thanks to their dualcast trait.
For both summoners and red mages, Lucid Dreaming is there to help with MP from excessive raises.

So there is a good amount of utility, but a lot of it is centered around non-optimal situations. In an optimized environment, you generally won't need these extra utility skills as your healer can heal through the damage, unless you're doing Min ILV or high-end content (where every job has the responsibility to help mitigate incoming damage to survive the encounter).

[Anhra]

I don't see a Problem in certain Jobs not having any utility at all. Not only can this contribute towards creating a specific playstyle identity, it also gives room to create a certain synergy if, for example, the "no utility dps" gets paired up with another job, that does really bad dmg and maybe even dies quickly, but has utilities that can even up thr "weaknesses" the former has.

[Payadopa]

-snip-

Most of your examples are something I wouldn't call good utility. Stun almost never works, Second Wind and Bloodbath are pretty much the same thing only BB isn't useless, damage down abilities are just boring, and do you even remember the last time people used heavy and bind unironically or outside of Eureka/Bozja?

It's one thing if you prioritise balance over interesting design (or fun..), but saying we have good utility is not true.

And the same can be said about the fluff abilities that you press every 90 or so seconds that make your DPS go up by X%. Very shallow.

[AnotherPerson]

Most of your examples are something I wouldn't call good utility. Stun almost never works, Second Wind and Bloodbath are pretty much the same thing only BB isn't useless, damage down abilities are just boring, and do you even remember the last time people used heavy and bind unironically or outside of Eureka/Bozja?

It's one thing if you prioritise balance over interesting design (or fun..), but saying we have good utility is not true.

And the same can be said about the fluff abilities that you press every 90 or so seconds that make your DPS go up by X%. Very shallow.

What do you classify as good utility that doesn't break boss mechanics entirely and render them to a tank and spank?

Honestly curious, because from what I've seen in normal content, most people don't even use the good utility given to them (addle/feint) on bosses unless they feel like they're goanna die, and anything like Holmgang's original effect can interrupt a boss's cast by pulling them away changes the fight too much.

[Shurrikhan]

What do you classify as good utility that doesn't break boss mechanics entirely and render them to a tank and spank?

You realize a fight that does makes no use of utilities is the very same tank, spank, and DDR?

Honestly curious, because from what I've seen in normal content, most people don't even use the good utility given to them (addle/feint) on bosses unless they feel like they're goanna die

Because in most cases it has too little effect to even reduce healing requirements by a single GCD... If it's going to make literally no difference at present, but it could in the future, why would you put it on cooldown?

and anything like Holmgang's original effect can interrupt a boss's cast by pulling them away changes the fight too much.

Let's not base expectations towards any and every utility on a single oversight attached to a single outlier (which, btw, was still virtually never useful).

[AnotherPerson]

You realize a fight that does makes no use of utilities is the very same tank, spank, and DDR?


Because in most cases it has too little effect to even reduce healing requirements by a single GCD... If it's going to make literally no difference at present, but it could in the future, why would you put it on cooldown?

Which still doesn't change the question, what would be considered "good utility"?
Ultimately, all the non-essential utility in FFXIV is mainly for non-optimal situations or used for trash mobs and everyone calls those bad utility because they're never always needed or even used properly. Then what is considered good utility?

Players use utility if it's expected of them. If your PLD and BRD have to take turns silencing High Voltage and your BRD misses the silence, then everyone knows who is responsible. So you get it right. If you give everyone a silence, then it falls to the lower end of the dps spectrum (tanks and healers) to sort it out so that everyone else can tunnel on the boss. If missing the silence doesn't have consequences, then nobody will do it.

Actually, reverse the order of responsibility - most players don't even care about interrupts unless it's high end content where interrupting is a necessary mechanic to survive. For normal content, there's a lot of situations where people just expect the healers to heal through the failed interrupt mechanic first, and if it's a good healer, then they'll keep you alive through the failed interrupt. If not, then the blame goes on why the healer failed, before the blame goes to tanks and ranged DPS for missing the silence/stun (Dohn Mheg is a notable one where a lot of tanks don't even realize they can prevent the damage up buff on the adds, which ends up putting more pressure on the healer). Players use utility if they are necessary (aka if they wiped) since most situations aren't lethal enough to cause a wipe if you didn't use that utility.

[Marxam]

Which still doesn't change the question, what would be considered "good utility"?
Ultimately, all the non-essential utility in FFXIV is mainly for non-optimal situations or used for trash mobs and everyone calls those bad utility because they're never always needed or even used properly. Then what is considered good utility?

-"Good" utility is anything that restores your resources i.e. HP, MP, TP, job gauge. Things like equilibrium, lucid dreaming, goad, infuriate, etc. that immediately benefit you and is almost always a DPS increase because of ease-of-use and flexibility.

-"Non-essential" utility is anything that is tied to mechanics i.e. stuns, silence, slows, etc. These are situational and supplement DPS but doesn't inherently contribute to it because it is planned and predicted and tied to mechanics. Things like stunning Ifrit eruptions are good but mechanically redundant because it existing doesn't change the fact that you have to deal with it and only offers slight variability in a fight outcome. The same could be said for reprisal, addle etc.

Make note that non-essential utility is useful for extreme, savage, ultimates, and players who actually give a damn about how they play. Every other instanced content is merely there as an option.