Please stop removing Damage Over Time effects from every job, add more complexity

[Derio]

Because DOTS are sustained damage and sustained damage does not fit well in the 2 minute burst meta. So instead of having jobs that have DOTS or rely on Dots for 10% or more of their overal damage it is much easier to get rid of them. Plus for large scale content such as 24 mans or exporation content. A boss can only have 72 debuffs/dots applied. This helps lower the chance of hitting that cap.

[Shurrikhan]

Because DOTS are sustained damage and sustained damage does not fit well in the 2 minute burst meta.

DoT damage is snapshotted in XIV. The 2-minute bursts of raid-buffs could last all of 2 GCDs and DoTs lasting for 15 GCDs could still take full advantage of them.

[Guntank81]

DOT mechanics have been a longstanding feature in many games, but they can often be problematic for balance and gameplay. In Final Fantasy XIV, the Paladin job's DOT abilities were not intended to function as true DOTs, but rather as a source of additional damage. This can be compared to the Edge of Shadow ability used by the Dark Knight job. While the Paladin rotation can be enjoyable, it can feel awkward to have to sacrifice one of the Requiescat stacks in order to use the Confetti ability. Overall, it is my belief that DOT mechanics do not align well with the current mechanics and gameplay of Final Fantasy XIV, and their removal should not be seen as a way to make the game easier, but further improve the flow of the game.

[Shurrikhan]

DOT mechanics have been a longstanding feature in many games, but they can often be problematic for balance and gameplay. In Final Fantasy XIV, the Paladin job's DOT abilities were not intended to function as true DOTs, but rather as a source of additional damage.

No, they were intended to do what they do, damage... over time, which is all it takes to make something a "true DoT".

This can be compared to the Edge of Shadow ability used by the Dark Knight job.

One is effectively a multi-charge oGCD with solely instant damage. The other is a GCD that takes 21 seconds to deal its full damage. What point is there in comparing them beyond that they deal damage (and, contrastingly, with different required TTKs).

While the Paladin rotation can be enjoyable, it can feel awkward to have to sacrifice one of the Requiescat stacks in order to use the Confetti ability.

It's already limited by MP requirements, and adding an extra cast of Spirit would only make the larger rotation even more awkward.

Overall, it is my belief that DOT mechanics do not align well with the current mechanics and gameplay of Final Fantasy XIV, and their removal should not be seen as a way to make the game easier, but further improve the flow of the game.

Okay, but... in what instances have their removal (A) not made the affected job easier and/or (B) made the "flow of the game" better for the average player (e.g., not to just those who specifically dislike DoTs)?

[ForsakenRoe]

Okay, but... in what instances have their removal (A) not made the affected job easier and/or (B) made the "flow of the game" better for the average player (e.g., not to just those who specifically dislike DoTs)?

Personally wasn't a massive fan of Fracture on WAR, but that's mostly cos of it's weird potency balancing/TP cost ratio that made it 'not really worth it unless it's replacing a Heavy Swing at the end of a Berserk' which was, y'know, very specific conditions

Then they removed it in SB and we got 4.0 WAR which was... kinda jank cos of the halving gauge on stance swap. Then they fixed that in 4.05 and it was the best tank design we've had (subjective). Then in 4.1 they changed SIO to be 'actually useful' because they're allergic to having any debuff that can be esuna'd as a raid mechanic (when was the last time, E8S?) and it was THE best tank design (subjective). I'd personally say WAR was more complex in 4.0 than it was in 3.5

I do kinda miss stuff like Scourge, Phlebotomize, Shadow Fang (the original one), Touch of Death, Lead Shot. All the people saying 'oh they have to remove it because of alliance raid bosses', the debuff cap is 60, you see 30 and 30 are just not displayed. to cap out, you'd need everyone to place TWO debuffs each and even then that'd get you to 48. So you'd actually need some to place a THIRD debuff, like Trick Attack or something. Most classes had one DOT, not two back then too. The only place it's ever really come up as 'wow this is actually a problem' was BA and Delubrum, and that's cos we have 48/56 people in those, with special actions like Lost Flare Star in the mix. Besides that, if 'oh the debuff cap' is such a problem, RPR just got added with a maintanence debuff to press every 30s. It could have just, not been added and every potency has the +10% baked in, but no, apparently after hearing the applause from players after they finally killed Heavy Thrust on DRG, they said 'We'll fkin do it again' and put it back, with a new name and animation. One step forward, two steps back and all that

As for Confetti, I see two solutions they take: one, they change Confetti from 'ends Req' to 'Req gives Confetti Ready', same as how Primal Rend works, and they change Req to give 4 stacks instead of 5 to keep the number of Holy Spirits the same. Or they reduce it to 3 to fix the 63s loop to be closer to 60 (and coincidentally make PLD a 'press 60s CD, then press 'hard hit' three times in a row' tank like DRK/WAR). Alternatively, option two, Confetti is changed to an OGCD, and is a trait upgrade to Req, making it the trigger for the Holy Spirit Spam instead of the ender. This would make the 4 Holy Spirits +3 Blades a total of 7 GCDs, which would fit more easily into a 20s raidbuff window than our current 8 GCDs.

[Shurrikhan]

Personally wasn't a massive fan of Fracture on WAR, but that's mostly cos of it's weird potency balancing/TP cost ratio that made it 'not really worth it unless it's replacing a Heavy Swing at the end of a Berserk' which was, y'know, very specific conditions

Then they removed it in SB and we got 4.0 WAR which was... kinda jank cos of the halving gauge on stance swap. Then they fixed that in 4.05 and it was the best tank design we've had (subjective). Then in 4.1 they changed SIO to be 'actually useful' because they're allergic to having any debuff that can be esuna'd as a raid mechanic (when was the last time, E8S?) and it was THE best tank design (subjective). I'd personally say WAR was more complex in 4.0 than it was in 3.5.

Agreed, but that doesn't seem to have anything to do specifically with removing its DoT (a change made across the whole game, not just to WAR), and everything to do with Wrath stacks being increased to a maximum of 10 (2 spenders' worth) via the job gauge, other uses for that same resource being added (Onslaught, Upheaval), and Inner Release capitalizing upon it.

If you had 4.1 WAR with Fracture, it wouldn't be easier for having Fracture, etc., was my point (to Guntank81), nor does removing Fracture seem to have been required in order to allow for those other additions; there's nothing incompatible between the new job gauge and its surrounding skills and Fracture (on the contrary, the two would likely have been slightly synergetic).

All the people saying 'oh they have to remove it because of alliance raid bosses', the debuff cap is 60, you see 30 and 30 are just not displayed. to cap out, you'd need everyone to place TWO debuffs each and even then that'd get you to 48. So you'd actually need some to place a THIRD debuff, like Trick Attack or something. Most classes had one DOT, not two back then too.

In HW, the average was over 2 for dps, almost 3 for healers, and a bit over 1 for tanks, iirc.

Phlebotomize, Chaos Thrust; Mutilate, Shadowfang; Touch of Death, Demolish, and Fracture (more useful on Monk than Marauder); Thunder alone (different ranks didn't stack, just had different durations) for BLM, but Bio, Bio II, Miasma, and potentially Miasma 2 and Thunder atop the pet DoT for SMN; just Lead Shot for MCH, but Windbite, Venomous Bite, and Flaming Arrow (aura, might not have shown up on debuff list; I forget) for BRD; Aero I, II, and III for WHM, Combust I and II for AST; Bio, Bio II, Miasma, and potentially Miasma II and Aero for SCH; Goring Blade, Fracture, Scourge.

And then there were all the vulnerability debuffs from back then -- Slashing Resistance Down, Piercing Resistance Down, Blunt Resistance Down, Magical Damage Taken (Contagion), Physical Damage Taken, Vulnerability. And the status debuffs (Virus [now Addle], Intelligence Down, Strength Down.

And yet, we still seemed to have relatively few troubles with our debuffs actually falling off. If anything, we seem to have more frequent issues now in exceeding our player buff caps now than we seemed to have issues with exceeding the target debuff cap back then. /shrug

Alternatively, option two, Confetti is changed to an OGCD, and is a trait upgrade to Req, making it the trigger for the Holy Spirit Spam instead of the ender. This would make the 4 Holy Spirits +3 Blades a total of 7 GCDs, which would fit more easily into a 20s raidbuff window than our current 8 GCDs.

Sure, but then you have the job necessarily clipping its DoT once per minute in a fairly ugly fashion. I'd honestly rather just... merge SkS and SpS, and keep Holy Spirit weak enough that we don't mind skipping one if it comes down to that.

[Mikey_R]

The most annoying thing about the debuffs back then was, if it happened to land in the 30 not visible ones, you had no way to see it's duration, so you basically guessed when you had to refresh them.

[Shurrikhan]

The most annoying thing about the debuffs back then was, if it happened to land in the 30 not visible ones, you had no way to see it's duration, so you basically guessed when you had to refresh them.

Luckily PC players would have solutions for that by now. RIP consoles, though.

[dspguy]

The whole notion that DoTs should be removed from the game because raid bosses "jump" is just silly. Raid bosses jump on a script. Anyone that raids knows exactly when that is going to happen. If the boss will jump before the DoT will be more effective than some other GCD - simply don't reapply the DoT. That's like saying we should remove Battle Litany because a DRG might use it on CD before the boss jumps. Or... just hold it until it makes sense to use it. Just like DoTs.

[RyuDragnier]

The whole notion that DoTs should be removed from the game because raid bosses "jump" is just silly. Raid bosses jump on a script. Anyone that raids knows exactly when that is going to happen. If the boss will jump before the DoT will be more effective than some other GCD - simply don't reapply the DoT. That's like saying we should remove Battle Litany because a DRG might use it on CD before the boss jumps. Or... just hold it until it makes sense to use it. Just like DoTs.

I think everybody would agree that they just need to add an "early detonate" button like with MCH and Automaton Queen, where you can end Queen early if you need to, with the remaining damage loaded into a final attack so you don't lose any potency. Something like that would help deal with bursting down boss adds to prevent a wipe too, since the DoTs are no longer a liability due to time constraints, you can just detonate them for the burst.