Another expansion ignoring AoE access

[Floortank]

The order in which Jobs get their abilities hails back to a time when they thought the Jobs would be more diverse than they are. They built quests around earning these abilities and some of those quests would no longer make sense without them. Oops!

They should still make AOEs all come in at the same levels for every Job. Maybe it can differ by role, but not by Job. And DRK not getting the end of its AOE until 72 is ridiculous. They should change it in Endwalker but apparently they're not going to. It's just silly.

[Deveryn]

It's a minor inconvenience, but I don't think it's worth their time to go back and redo this experience. Some of the classes in question still need the time to learn to do their positionals and combos correctly.

[Tsukino]

This is but a smaller part of a much bigger problem with the way the game is designed around expansions.

Every time they increase the level cap and have to add new abilities to make those new levels feel cool, they have to reduce the number of actions learned throughout the existing levels. They also have new jobs that start 20 levels from the new cap and don't have to do any quests or any other leveling at those low levels, they just have to have vaguely evenly spaced-out levels attached to abilities for times when they're synced. All of these things make sense for them to prioritize, but that means that things like lower level dungeons or the leveling experience for jobs that do start at level 1 or 30 are kind of left by the wayside.

So yeah, some jobs don't have AoE abilities at lower levels and they feel super awkward to play, but there are also tons of other things that are missing that make other jobs awkward. Scholar faeries sync so badly they can heal whole runs, while the other healers have to hard-cast healing spells because they don't have instants yet. Speaking of healers, Astrologian doesn't get cards until 30, the entire unique feature of their job. And speaking of that, Dancer doesn't get Closed Position until all the way at 60! Summoners have a big awkward section where they can't use either of their demi summons despite their rotation being built entirely around them, Bard's DoTs don't line up correctly, Gunbreaker loses most of its cartridge abilities...the list goes on. So yeah, it would be nice if Dragoon had an AoE at low levels, but it's definitely not alone in being weird when leveling up for the first time or being synced down after 3-4 expansions worth of redistribution.

[Xiu_Ye]

I agree with all your criticism the AoE one is just one that seems very blatant, obvious, and easily fixable.

[hydralus]

Yeah it's a pretty noticeable difference not having AoEs.

Level 30 MCH with 6 mobs: 1080 potency per GCD
Level 30 DRG with 6 mobs: 390 (average) potency per GCD

[KageTokage]

I really don't think a lot of the role actions need to be learned as early as they are and think it would make sense to switch their position with one of the AoE skills instead at very least for melee DPS jobs.

[Reimmi]

Honestly i feel like this is part of the problem with some sprouts not using any AOE in later dungeons, if everyone unlocked it at 15 more people would naturally learn that aoe is good to use

[Packetdancer]

And DRK not getting the end of its AOE until 72 is ridiculous.

As infuriating as I found it that DRK didn't get the second part of its AoE rotation until 72, I was even more annoyed by the fact that MNK has the beginning of their AoE rotation at 26, the end of the AoE rotation at 30, and does not get the middle of the rotation until level 45. Yes, MNK's a weird case where by endgame you have three options for each part of the rotation -- i.e. Raptor, Coeurl, and Opo-Opo forms -- so it's not like you can't use a single-target ability in the middle of the AoE rotation. But it doesn't change the fact that it feels bad, and that you have to do that for fifteen levels.

[Deveryn]

Honestly i feel like this is part of the problem with some sprouts not using any AOE in later dungeons, if everyone unlocked it at 15 more people would naturally learn that aoe is good to use

When they gain access has little to do with it. They still have to read their tooltips and do the basic math of how it's better to have 3+ mobs get hit for 160 vs 1 for 300. I've seen casters get upset when people try to tell them AOE is better. I've seen a 60 gunbreaker use their single target rotation in dungeon pulls.

[Rongway]

How much aoe damage do we really do pre 40 though? I'd imagine the damage is barely noticable.

Against 4 targets:

• Lv18 RDM: 245 p/GCD dualcasting Jolt-Verslowspell or they can do 440 p/GCD dualcasting VerthunderII-Scatter (1.80x damage)
• Lv18 ARC/BRD: 184 p/GCD with Heavy Shot (including the 20% chance to do 20 more potency with Straight Shot) or they can do 600 p/GCD with Quick Nock (3.26x damage)
• Lv18 MCH: 220 p/GCD with SplitShot-SlugShot or they can do 720 p/GCD spamming Spread Shot (3.27x damage)
• Lv15 DNC: 275 p/GCD with Cascade-Fountain or 600 p/GCD spamming Windmill (2.18x)
• Lv15 GLA/PLD: 250 p/GCD with FastBlade-RiotBlade or 480 p/GCD spamming Total Eclipse (1.92x)
• Lv15 MRD/WAR: 260 p/GCD with HeavySwing-Maim or 520 p/GCD spamming Overpower (2.00x)
• Lv15 DRK: 250 p/GCD with HardSlash-SyphonStrike or 600 p/GCD spamming Unleash (2.40x)
• Lv15 GNB: 250 p/GCD with KeenEdge-BrutalShell or 600 p/GCD spamming Demon Slice (2.40x)

And these numbers are just on 4 targets, not full pull sizes. Of course as they gain more levels they get more components to their single target skillchains which increase their single target p/GCD, but they also get more tools to handle larger pulls, and then eventually additional AoE actions as well.

If other DDs had AoEs at these levels, it would be very noticeable.