Blood Weapon needs changed

[Dein]

I'm posting this thread to try to make sure this feedback on Blood Weapon is visible for the dev team and also hopefully give people a place to post their own feedback as well.

Simply put, Blood Weapon is in desperate need of a rework as its current design has a ton of issues both with the skill itself and how it interacts with DRK's toolkit.

--Issues--
1) Blood Weapon doesn't actually last a full 10 seconds. The buff and tooltip may claim it does but the effect wears off around 9.5 seconds.

- This is a major pain point for Blood Weapon. The fact that the buff from Blood Weapon wears off early makes reliably getting 5 hits in difficult at best for players with lower latency. The timing on this buff is so unforgiving that any amount of delay on hitting your attacks for whatever reason (be it from lag, hesitation on the player's end, or not enough skillspeed) will often wind up with that 5th hit not benefitting from Blood Weapon at all.

2) DRK's toolkit in AoE situations is comprised of mostly spells which lock the GCD in at 2.5 seconds.

- This issue ties somewhat into the points brought up with the first issue. Getting 5 hits under Blood Weapon using DRK's AoE combo is currently impossible due to Unleash and Stalwart Soul locking the GCD in at 2.5 seconds. As it currently stands, you have to purposely prepare yourself for Blood Weapon in AoE situations by reaching 100 blood and prepping Stalwart Soul so you can get 3 spenders off, which are weaponskills, combined with Stalwart and Unleash if you want to get the most out of Blood Weapon in AoE.

Both of these issues tie together to make Blood Weapon just feel needlessly punishing. The MP and Blood gained per GCD action under Blood Weapon point to the design decision that players should aim to get 5 full hits in whenever they use the skill so they can gain 3000 MP and 50 Blood. So, when you fail to get 5 hits in it feels bad which leads to the skill feeling more punishing than rewarding.

Blood Weapon doesn't have to be like this though. If the skill was simply changed to have 5 stacks that were consumed each time the player used a GCD weaponskill or spell with a 15 second duration, the problems that currently plague Blood Weapon would be fixed.

[ItMe]

I'm posting this thread to try to make sure this feedback on Blood Weapon is visible for the dev team and also hopefully give people a place to post their own feedback as well.

The devs have said that they don't look at short threads for feedback, but look at long threads with robust conversation.
Instead of starting a new thread, if you want your feedback to be visible to the dev team please consider adding it and your ideas to existing threads like the Dark Knight Megathread.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...athread/page50

[ArthurATDayne]

I suggested this in the Dark Knight Megathread and I'll suggest it again...

Suggestion: Level 90 Shadowbringer= Upgrades Blood Weapon to Shadowbringer, 2 Charges of Line or AOE attack OGCD, 60 seconds CD, usable under effect of darkside or mana < 3000. Each use of Shadowbringer Restores 25-50 Blood/1500-3000 Mana.

1. Feels like a huge upgrade DONE
2. Feels like my hardwork and patience getting to 90 paid off DONE
3. I can regenerate Blood/Mana and blow up enemies, Satisfying! DONE
4. Interacts with and benefits my whole kit, part of my rotation in a meaningful way DONE
5. No need to keybind a new skill, no need to change my hotbars. DONE
6. No need to Mash that Keyboard 3-5 times to get your blood/mana back before durations etc run out DONE

[ItMe]

I suggested this in the Dark Knight Megathread and I'll suggest it again...

No, please, if we are going to launch into a larger conversation let's please do that in the Megathread, in a space where the conversation can be constructive and bolster an already started thread, instead of having a lovely back and forth that goes for a few pages before the thread peters out and dies in vain.

We joke here about how the devs only listen to the Japanese players, well... their forums are all about the long form threads. It's here in the English forums where someone makes a new thread for every idea after the devs excitedly said if we want their attention we need many conversations with many voices in one thread, in one place.

I implore you to move this budding discussion to an existing vehicle for it.
Please use the megathread.

[ArthurATDayne]

No, please, if we are going to launch into a larger conversation let's please do that in the Megathread, in a space where the conversation can be constructive and bolster an already started thread, instead of having a lovely back and forth that goes for a few pages before the thread peters out and dies in vain.

We joke here about how the devs only listen to the Japanese players, well... their forums are all about the long form threads. It's here in the English forums where someone makes a new thread for every idea after the devs excitedly said if we want their attention we need many conversations with many voices in one thread, in one place.

I implore you to move this budding discussion to an existing vehicle for it.
Please use the megathread.

No worries buddy I'm already back there :P

[Derio]

People who participated in the media tour gave their feedback on blood weapon and Living dead. All we can do now is hope between now and Nov 19 that they actually do something.