FFXIV Job Design Feedback

[RyuDragnier]

It undeniably would feel better, and more impactful at the least. Living Shadow as it is is just press and forget, and the 50 gauge cost doesn't amount to much. While the idea of summoning him is cool on paper, it feels ultimately hollow because there's no interaction with Living Shadow and the rest of the kit.

It's the same reason why Shadowbringer is a pretty bad capstone ability. Yes, it does a lot of damage, but it isn't linked to anything else in the kit. It doesn't cost Darkside, MP, or Blood, and there's no special requirement for being able to access it, it's just there to press.

[Mikey_R]

It's the same reason why Shadowbringer ... there's no special requirement for being able to access it, it's just there to press.

Technically, you need to be under Darkside to use it, so technically, there is a special requirement. However, I know this is being pedantic and in theory you will have Darkside up 100% of the time anyway, making this requirement a null point.

[Zairava]

Technically, you need to be under Darkside to use it, so technically, there is a special requirement. However, I know this is being pedantic and in theory you will have Darkside up 100% of the time anyway, making this requirement a null point.

Which is the exact reason, I feel, it should cost Darkside rather than just merely requiring Darkside to be active

[Renathras]

So... Heavensward?

More like SB. No Cleric Stance. HW having Cleric Stance makes it a different animal.

It's the same reason why Shadowbringer is a pretty bad capstone ability. Yes, it does a lot of damage, but it isn't linked to anything else in the kit. It doesn't cost Darkside, MP, or Blood, and there's no special requirement for being able to access it, it's just there to press.

It's like that one NIN ability where your shadow attacks (based on if you use a single target ability, ranged ability, or AOE ability), but it's really just a "press and then do what you'd be doing anyway" button.

[ForsakenRoe]

More like SB. No Cleric Stance. HW having Cleric Stance makes it a different animal.

SB added Earthly Star, I think that's the point where 'you can erase so many GCDs from your healing' got really out of control. Before that, your OGCD suite was very limited, WHM had Asylum and Assize (but Assize only did the damage half cos haha cleric), SCH had Soil (with no regen), Indom, Whispering Dawn (which could be roused). AST had what, bubble that you had to channel for the full duration? CU didn't heal it extended buffs, Star Horoscope etc didn't exist yet, if anything it was about reducing GCDs by 'using some, and extending their effects to prevent needing to cast another to reapply'

The best comparison would be 'HW, if damage skills scaled from mind as in SB', but that didn't exist

GNB stuff

They really ought to change DoubleDown to 2 hits of 600p instead of one of 1200p, shouldn't they

[ForsakenRoe]

Would Living Shadow feel better and function well if Frey was designed to imitate the GCDs you use, perhaps up to 5 hits or so? I know a big complaint with Living Shadow as well as the Automaton Queen is that they feel like glorified DoTs, so I am curious if making Frey's action usage dependent on your own would resolve that.

I guess then the issue is that it's possible to 'do it wrong' and we know how that's anathema to the design they're going for. Look at WOW for a similar thing, Blood DK has 'Dancing Rune Weapon', summons a floating sword that copies your abilities. Any modifier that applies to your abilities, applies to the sword too. If you Death Strike to heal yourself, it Death Strikes and heals ITself. If you Heartstrike, it Heartstrikes. If you're stood in your Death and Decay (Salted Earth), both your and the DRW's Heartstrikes cleave. If you use Marrowrend to generate 3 Boneshield charges, it does too, giving you a total of 6. And I'm pretty sure that if you have any talent that says 'autoattacks have a chance to...' then it considers the DRW's autos as separate rolls at that chance, such as the 'instantly resets Death and Decay's CD and removes it's rune cost' proc

So the way I'd implement it as a 'best of both' compromise, is that if you use an attack GCD or OGCD, it copies it animationwise. Have the first thing it does be Plunge to get into range still, but after that, it copies you directly. You Abyssal Drain, it does too. You spam Stalwart Soul 6 times in a row like a bot, it does too. If any move you use has a secondary effect, it triggers twice. Souleater's heal, Syphonstrike's MP restore, the tiny MP restore caused by Delirium, AD's heal, all twice. HOWEVER, the base potency of the skill that is being copied is instead locked to a flat value. It doesn't matter if your GCDs under Living Shadow are 8 Hard Slashes or the full optimized rotation with resource pooling etc, the damage from LS will be the same. Damage from YOU might be different, but from LS it's the same. If that's too much skill-based variance still, have it only count GCDs

[Crater]

Would Living Shadow feel better and function well if Frey was designed to imitate the GCDs you use, perhaps up to 5 hits or so? I know a big complaint with Living Shadow as well as the Automaton Queen is that they feel like glorified DoTs, so I am curious if making Frey's action usage dependent on your own would resolve that.

It wouldn't really change much. There isn't really a meaningful difference between Living Shadow attacking on its own every x seconds and attacking when you use a GCD, which is something that also happens every x seconds.
The problem with Living Shadow is that the properties that make it feel bad to use are the exact same properties that make it such an effective and (within the context of the overall FFXIV 5.0+ combat system) well-designed.

The main reason that it feels bad is because of the summoning delay when the skill is used. The 7-8 seconds between pressing the Living Shadow button and Esteem making its first attack makes the effect of the skill feel completely disconnected from the player's actions. But, at the same time, the ability to precast the skill is a part of why DRK is so good at dealing damage during a burst. As it stands, you typically have between 10 and 12 oGCD "slots" under buffs: 4-5 of which are taken up by Edge of Shadow, 2 are taken by Shadowbringer, 2 are taken by Plunge, 1 is used by Carve and Spit, sometimes you need to fit Salt and Darkness (and even Salted Earth) in there, and frequently you also need to fit some mitigation. If Living Shadow were made into an immediate buff, in the service of making the skill feel more impactful, the actual quality and design of the class would suffer, because one of those oGCD slots would be permanently occupied.

The busyness of DRK's burst is good - being an oGCD-heavy class is a vital part of DRK's mechanical identity and has been an important part of the class in every iteration of it (save maybe Shadowbringers) - so trying to remove oGCDs to make room for other oGCDs would be a bad idea. The pre-casted nature of Living Shadow should therefore stay, even if it makes the skill feel bad to use.


The second-biggest reason that it feels bad to use is that despite Living Shadow's exceptionally high overall potency, its damage is split up into six mid-sized damage instances. The actual power of the skill is basically on par with a Gunbreaker being able to use Double Down twice, at the same time, as an oGCD that still allows them to spend their GCD on Gnashing Fang or Burst Strike - but because it's comprised of five 350 potency attacks and one 500 potency attack, there's no "Wow, look how big that number is!" effect that you get with Double Down, Inner Chaos, Primal Rend, etc.

But again, that's a key element of why the skill is as effective and well-designed as it is. When your 2250 potency attack is split up into six different hits, each of those hits rolls for Critical and Direct Hits independently, which tends to normalize the skill's damage to your actual CH/DH stats (and doesn't require any auto-Crit/DH effects, which also generally feel bad). The consistency that DRK achieves by landing many medium-potency hits instead of a small number of high-potency hits stands out in stark contrast to something like Gunbreaker's effectiveness varying wildly depending on whether Double Down lands DCH or not, which is very important when you start dealing with short DPS phases like the ones you see in Ultimates. (For the same reason, it is hugely important that Shadowbringer is 2 charges of a 600 potency oGCD, instead of a single charge of a 1200 potency oGCD or two 1000 potency GCDs or whatever.)

Things that are well-designed feel bad to use.
Things that feel good to use are poorly-designed.

This is just an unavoidable consequence of the current state of FFXIV's combat system. At least in this case, I don't think the problem can be tackled by making changes to a single skill, or even overhauling an entire job, in a vacuum. Fixing these sorts of things would require a pretty significant overhaul to the entire design of FFXIV combat, at least on the scale of how the game changed between Stormblood and Shadowbringers.

[RitsukoSonoda]

What if they brought TP back but instead of linking every physical skill to it like they did before they use it like they did in FFXI where it accumulated from attacking and then could be spent on skills that would be usable when TP hit 100% but offer additional scaling or bonus effects based on how far past 100% TP was at when used to a cap of 300% TP? Could add a bit to those solo button skills that get pressed every time they're off cooldown.

[Amenara]

What if they brought TP back but instead of linking every physical skill to it like they did before they use it like they did in FFXI where it accumulated from attacking and then could be spent on skills that would be usable when TP hit 100% but offer additional scaling or bonus effects based on how far past 100% TP was at when used to a cap of 300% TP?

I love FF11 but I'd rather keep the TP system they have there as it works with everything they have built on in their combat system. You can look at our version of FF11 TP as the limit break bar...

[RitsukoSonoda]

I love FF11 but I'd rather keep the TP system they have there as it works with everything they have built on in their combat system. You can look at our version of FF11 TP as the limit break bar...

Not really. You didn't constantly lose your TP in FFXI to a random nub with an obsession to mash every button they can find.