Rescue needs to go away.

[Faafetai]

what it needs, personally, is to be done over from scratch programming wise and get rid of the ridiculous stickiness it has, half the time rescuing someone legitimately slows their movement down more than improves it

I would be in favor of this. It really does need to be fixed. When I say FIXED, Square if you are listening FIXED not REMOVED! I know they swapped the words in the dictionary but they need to be put back the other way so you can fix things like summoner pet ai instead of leaving the problems where the pet still throws their skills at one enemy and now you can't move the igi's you can move carbie, but he just poofs back to your side. It doesn't matter at 90. It works at 90, so its not a problem anymore. FIXED~

I am salty but I worry asking for a fix because fix usually means remove.

[Gemina]

That's news to me then! How do I not move whenever someone uses rescue on me then? Since, "not moving" is what I'm controlling my character to do at the time and moving my character would require someone having control over it.

You're being a pedant, and also being wrong about it. That's a dangerous combo.

A pedant? You're guilty of precisely what you're accusing me of, and creating an issue where one doesn't exist. You're comparing Rescue to hysteria, confusion, and stuns dude. You're reaching so far that you're spaghettifying what little argument you actually have, which was and still is getting butt hurt when healers yeet you from your ignorance that for some reason is like this warm little spot on the arena designated for you or something.

I can understand that argument, but trying to paint this picture that the big bad evil healers are out to rescue you, destroy your deeps, and even remove you from the battlefield entirely is ridiculous.

I can only imagine the anxiety you have while playing in constant grief mode worrying about if the healer is going to rescue you. I can definitely understand not having much fun in such a mental state. Sucks dude.

[Gemina]

News to me. It interrupts my cast and displaces me without my consent, with a net negative effect on me 95% of the time. Not unlike a debuff.

You're still doing the same thing.

Try again. I get it. You REALLY hate a healer moving you like a pawn on a chess board. I just wonder if you actually get that at this point.

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

No one is getting an aneurysm over a rescue but it's very evident that it doesn't feel good a majority of the time, and I find it ironic that some of yall go "but think of the poor well-meaning healer's experience! heartless psychopath!" when distaste towards rescue is expressed but the experience of the rescued person is "no big deal, go seek therapy, you have anger issue".

I mean, you and Krotoan certainly seem to be having a fit over it (not that I'm surprised about the latter, given their 'gameplay style'). Most people who start these stupid threads are also throwing fits over it enough to complain and stomp their feet on a forum trying to get it removed.

Maybe people are telling the anti-Rescue squad to chill out because y'all are going a little insane over what is very likely accidental or poorly timed uses of Rescue once every so many runs. I can count the number of actual troll uses of Rescue (that weren't my friends and I having a lark at each other's expense) on one hand - maybe two, if I stretch it. That's less than 10 counts of it across however many years its been since the skill was added to the game - and trust me, I run multiple types of content just about every day up until recently.

It really isn't as big a problem as people try to make it out to be. And even when it becomes a problem, abusive use of Rescue is reportable and will be actioned against. So again - quit screaming on a forum about it, and just use the provided tools in-game to deal with the rare instance of an actual troll vs. someone simply making poor use of the skill.

[Packetdancer]

That's news to me then! How do I not move whenever someone uses rescue on me then?

Treating this seriously for a moment rather than as a rhetorical question: KBI. Mechanically, Rescue is treated as a draw-in effect, so anything that prevents knockback or draw-in effects -- e.g. any knockback immunity ability, like Surecast or Arm's Length -- does actually prevent Rescue from being used on you for the duration. Or at least it did last time I checked. Admittedly, that's kind of irrelevant in any fight that really needs knockback immunity for specific mechanics, or if the Rescue comes entirely unexpectedly, but it does let you functionally say "Nope, no Rescue use during this spot, thanks."

Last time I lost my mind and willingly played Black Mage in anything (and it has been a while), I would actually pop Surecast to ensure I got those last moments of ley lines in the Bad in before using Aetherial Manipulation to safety, without the risk of a well-meaning healer Rescuing me to safety.

I admit I have no doubt this was at least mildly annoying to the healer, if any tried to do so during that brief window; as I've mentioned, Rescue is a pain-in-the-ass for the user as well, given how weird the timing on server processing of it is and so how early you have to drop things to hit Rescue if you are genuinely trying to save someone from death. Which is why I think a blanket switch disabling Rescue forever on a per-character basis would turn it into even more of a game of chance as to whether or not Rescue would work, to the point it would effectively gut the skill so thoroughly that no one would use it... at which point just removing it entirely in favor of something else actually useful would make more sense.

[Packetdancer]

I would be in favor of this. It really does need to be fixed. When I say FIXED, Square if you are listening FIXED not REMOVED!

I mean, yes. If they were going to make the smallest possible change to Rescue, removing the breathtaking amount of sheer unadulterated jank inherent in the ability would be an excellent start. Because I suspect the level of dislike the ability receives would be at least marginally less if there were not like a 40% chance it just kills the player anyway mid-transit.

A teleport doesn't even have to be "go from point A to B without processing anything in between"; Shukuchi won't get you over danger bacon or death pits (press F to pay respects to the ninja I saw try it in Dohn Mheg in a roulette a couple of weeks ago... sorry, buddy, just because Thancred can pull it off in a Trust run doesn't mean the game will let you do it), but if the death pit isn't a death pit yet, the near-instantaneous "zip" from A to B is sure as heck a lot less likely to be fatal, compared to the likelihood of Rescue having the nascent death pit the player is being yoinked across become an actual death pit mid-transit.

There are entirely alternative designs for a tool to serve Rescue's purpose, of course. My example of "Salvation Offered" / "Unsaved" in this thread being one.

Another I've suggested in the past is that Rescue puts a 5s temporary buff on the targeted player. If something happens that would've killed them in that 5s, they are instead reduced to 1hp (a'la Holmgang) and given a 2s Transcendent buff (the buff that gives temporary invulnerability when you're rezzed) to keep them alive a moment longer, and slingshotted to where the healer was standing when they used the ability.

It wouldn't help for scenarios where it was like "you're about to wipe the group by being there, you need to be here" -- nor would it allow intentional and agreed-upon Rescue cheese strategies, which are a thing, albeit not a common one -- but it would at least still solve the common Crystal Tower and Dohn Mheg scenarios. (And the "my co-healer is stuck in animation lock due to having just gotten the party up by LB3, let me pull them to safety so they don't die to a one-shot" scenario, for that matter.)

I do suspect it would need a tradeoff -- like a temporary but painful Weakness, Vuln, or Damage Down of some form -- to avoid Large Cheese scenarios for one-shots in savage ("Hey, look, an extra tank invuln! For ANYONE!"), but it would mean a healer is not thus forced to use 2400 MP and 8s to correct your mistake, and would presumably do away with the feeling that choice was being taken away. Because by its nature, if the buff was triggered by otherwise-fatal damage and slingshotted you to a new spot, the alternative had it not done so would be "you are on the floor, and thus your choice as to what to do next is removed regardless because none of your buttons will work until you are rezzed."

And if you had a plan for getting out of the damage in the first place, and excecuted it? Hey, you didn't die during that 5s, so no slingshot and no debuff!

Plus, while it doesn't solve all the scenarios Rescue does, that design solves some that Rescue doesn't. One tank's down, the other one doesn't have invuln off cooldown, and there's a tank swap mechanic coming up? You might be able to save the living tank (albeit with a debuff) long enough for the other to be rezzed and healed up to provoke.

(Also, no lie, it would be kind of hilarious in Zurvan or Aglaia during certain mechanics to watch the floor vanish from under someone and drop them to their death or a mechanic yeet them into space... only to trigger the buff and have them come flying back up to the arena and join the healer like someone pressed rewind on their personal timeline. You can just imagine some adventurer, standing there wide-eyed and breathing hard, having just bungeed up from dropping partway into some unfathomable void and being like "I have stared death in the face. I need a drink.")

So, I mean, Rescue isn't the only possible solution to the "let me save you so I'm not spending the rez" scenario from a game design standpoint. It's just the only one we have. And since it is the only tool for that situation at present, if the options people argue for are "just take it away" (with no proposed alternative) or "just make it so useless no one uses it anyway" (again, with no proposed replacement), healers who do actually use it for those intended scenarios are probably going to continue to balk.

Because, I mean, let's be honest... there's enough threads in this forum that demonstrate no job is ever happy when things get taken away and not replaced with something better. (Heck, half the time, we as players aren't happy when something is taken away even if it it is replaced with something that, on paper, is theoretically better.)

My one bit of advice for folks who really dislike Rescue and want it gone: if you want healers on your side in the argument for removing Rescue, rather than having them vehemently object to losing the sole tool to handle a given situation? Instead of arguing as to why Rescue is broken, present an alternative and an argument as to why it's better.

Because I promise you, healers aren't super fond of Rescue either, given the sheer amount of jank it has; we only cling to it because there are no other options for a number of scenarios.

[Pells]

I have been rescued out of something I couldn't get out of maybe 2 times.

I have been "rescued" when already safe and INTO AOE's, dropping platforms, and one kill mechanics more than I can count.


It's a nice idea, but I should have a say whether I want people to move me or not.

Knockback prevention will cause rescue to fail. Pop Arm's Length or Surecast.

[xxmiamorecadenza]

If I’m rescued. I just type a simple “Don’t Rescue me again. Thnx. ”

Easy fix.

[hynaku]

If a healer uses rescue on you and causes you to die from it. Then report them for harassment that fix it fast. That way they will quit miss using it.

[Renalt]

With all the arguments going on...I regret posting this.