New Sidewinder

[Iedarus]

I can understand Bard songs no longer being tied to DoTs anymore due to issues with downtime mechanics and that it just makes more sense, thematically, but why did they have to change Sidewinder so that it's just a bland ability to press off cooldown? As it stands now, the only reward for maintaining your DoTs properly is not losing DPS. There was no reason to change it. Even if the maximum damage was still only 300, that feeling of reward would still remain.

Given this direction, I am honestly afraid Bard's DoTs are gonna get taken away. Part of what made me love Bard was being rewarded for timing Iron Jaws correctly with empowered abilities. It really is a shame. All of the other changes to the job were incredible, and then there's this.

[Sauteed]

I was wondering the same thing but you know, coming at it from another angle it is kind of not slapping you in the face for being lazy and not iron jawing or letting a dot fade.

[Iedarus]

I was wondering the same thing but you know, coming at it from another angle it is kind of not slapping you in the face for being lazy and not iron jawing or letting a dot fade.

While it is more forgiving, the first instinct if you accidentally let a dot fade should be popping it right back on. The job doesn't have to be "SUPER ELITE 200 IQ PRO PLAYER" difficulty, but it needs to have some mean of tying its DOTs to its other abilities. As it stands now, it's an utterly isolated mechanic.

[Cetonis]

The healer DoTs are isolated too. My present expectation is that they'll fold both the DoTs into one and rework Iron Jaws. Possibly into something meant to make Army's Paeon less lame. Having a DoT in your priority system job is perfectly fine.

Sidewinder as just a damage button is also fine; plenty of jobs have them. I'd like for it to be sexier, like an auto CritDH or something, but there's nothing really wrong with it as is.

[Sauteed]

While it is more forgiving, the first instinct if you accidentally let a dot fade should be popping it right back on. The job doesn't have to be "SUPER ELITE 200 IQ PRO PLAYER" difficulty, but it needs to have some mean of tying its DOTs to its other abilities. As it stands now, it's an utterly isolated mechanic.

Well I'm just going by the average ffxiv player that I "assume" (ass out of myself cool, ok but let's be real), the dev team is catering to. Because, look at basically every single thing else.

[Iedarus]

The healer DoTs are isolated too. My present expectation is that they'll fold both the DoTs into one and rework Iron Jaws. Possibly into something meant to make Army's Paeon less lame. Having a DoT in your priority system job is perfectly fine.

Sidewinder as just a damage button is also fine; plenty of jobs have them. I'd like for it to be sexier, like an auto CritDH or something, but there's nothing really wrong with it as is.

I've already said my piece on how the devs should commit to SCH being dot focused while doing something cooler with the dots of the other healers. Alas, we're still spamming one button. At least AST and SGE help nullify the monotony and are actually pretty fun because of it.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't be upset by a change like this, but when most of the job's abilities revolved around dot management, We're kind of left with: "Go pew pew and wait for procs." While I still, of course, like the job, there seems to be a bit of a hole where some of the flavor used to be. All they really have to do is revert the Sidewinder change, and/or do something like increase the chances of proccing "straight shot ready" to the current value if heavy/burst shot is fired at an enemy with the dots on and I'll be a happy camper.