Removal of Positionals

[Kazimere]

I don't particularly find taking a step left or right for 20 more potency fun. That's just me though. Having said that. I remember when combos would be broken if you didn't hit your positional, just to name one example. There are many more examples. Those things attached to the positional made it better. Why? Because if you messed up, or if a mechanic forced you to not get things, you had to adjust on the fly. THAT was solid mechanics that made being a melee actually involved. Now, we're just trying to keep the positional requirements more for nostalgia it seems.

I don't know if they're going to do away with them at this point. If they do keep them though, it'd be nice if they actually mattered and would meaningfully impact things for hitting or not hitting them.

[UkcsAlias]

I don't particularly find taking a step left or right for 20 more potency fun.

Well, in this case a potency percentage increase shows a bit more context on how useful it is. But the problem is that value is rather difficult to obtain. But usualy the gap is higher on lower base potencies (40 added on 100), while still being the same to some strong abilities (40 added on 360 is the same bonus). Idealy you want to stack all values over a timespan (for example 10000 potency), and then have the (potential) bonus value next to (for example 1500). That way you get a decent average percentage value. And logicaly we can expect players to hit about 80% of those reliably.
(this is also how you get a valid value to decide the ranged tax as this becomes comparible).

For the most dedicated players its all about getting that extra 20% of reliability that was missing. And its what defines the skill. Skill is often about these minimal optimizations. Note that missed potency by mechanics is not relevant on the job (as regardless of skill, its guaranteed missed potency). That value is just to again balance the ranged tax.

I don't know if they're going to do away with them at this point. If they do keep them though, it'd be nice if they actually mattered and would meaningfully impact things for hitting or not hitting them.

I think they deliberately dont do that to at least keep them playable well enough. The more they add, the more the skillcurve becomes, which can be undesired as they then would also need to figure out similar curves for the ranged dps and mages. The ranged dps tax might then have to be made more extreme and even include mages, which would bring greater class unbalance. Its an undesired effect when they still havent made something that adds more to those roles capabilties of showing skill.

Personaly im glad the balance is done like that, it gives something to aim for to become better, while not instantly being a major hazard for beginners.

[Aco505]

Positionals add a layer of complexity to melee jobs. We could debate on how good or bad it is, but it's there.

They could be compared to slidecasting windows, even if their effects are different.

Despite what some people are claiming here, you do require to be skillful when hitting positionals in a variety of environments. The comments I'm reading tell me that some simply don't play melee jobs enough to notice this. Removing True North because it makes them inconsequential?

Please, go and do P5S or any ultimate and try to hit every positional as DRG, because as ZiraZ has said, the goal is to hit them all, not that they're hard to hit individually.

Now, I could be biased because DRG is the "positional job" with 50% of our GCDs being one so there could be an argument that the other melee jobs should be more positional heavy but at the same time, not all of them need to be similar.

As a DRG main, I say no to removing positionals and instead making them more accessible for my job (e. g. allow WT and FnC to be pressed in any order) since we keep having to do them at all times no matter the point in our rotation unlike other melees; and possibly give more to the other melee jobs if they so desire it.

But at the same time, even if it stayed like this, I'd be fine with it.

Finally, the claim that you're just stuck in one place and moving a bit to the left or right is funny to me. What do you think you will do when there's no positionals? You are definitely not going to be dancing around the arena when no mechanics are going on. Positionals at least keep you awake and give you extra layers of consideration while performing your rotation. And most importantly, they are fun. Greeding and figuring out positionals in a new encounter is always an extra optimization step.

[Payadopa]

Removing positionals would be another nail in the coffin for the game in terms of fun gameplay. I play melees because I enjoy using my brain in a way. I actually have to think on when to use True North effectively so I have it out of CD when I need it again. And in savage doing your positionals correctly absolutely matters. Take that away and we loose yet again another aspect that's different. We already don't have fun gear, elements, TP and MP management, aggro, job synergy and buffs that go beyond DPS up or damage down.

Why people advocate for more stuff being removed is a mystery to me. I don't want to play an MMO where I am this self-sufficient tank/healer/DPS hybrid with lots of deeps, a one button rotation that can raise and attack from afar without a care in the world.

But that's exactly what the game is turning into more and more because some people can't pick the correct job to play for them so they bicker till a job they don't like is as bland as the others. Unless it's BLM of course. lol

[dspguy]

instead of removing positionals, i think making it so that bosses don't randomly turn around when attacking party members other than tanks or whoever has the aggro would be better.

I always felt that positionals were a reasonable tradeoff for not having cast times (ranged physical DPS excluded). With this latest expansion, it seems that bosses do a lot more "dash to the center, turn a direction, do some telegraph). When I played a melee in previous expansions, these were few and far between and we could account for it in our rotations. It just seems it happens all the damn time.

I may have earlier defended positionals, in part, because they toned them down (most jobs only have positionals on finishers as you noted). However, with all this "jumping around" that bosses do, I wouldn't be sad to see positionals go.

[Deo14]

Why people advocate for more stuff being removed is a mystery to me. I don't want to play an MMO where I am this self-sufficient tank/healer/DPS hybrid with lots of deeps, a one button rotation that can raise and attack from afar without a care in the world.

Common thing I've heard from these people is that if they remove it, they will give us something better. What that is I have no idea, if it's better fight design, then SE should rethink their philosophy, since they shouldn't limit themselves because of positionals, just like they don't limit themselves because of casting uptime. EX3 is prime example of fight not giving a fuck about casting uptime (fight sucks but not because of casting uptime) and EX4 is example of a fight not giving a fuck about your positionals, yet it's still great fight and chasing better positional% makes it even more fun for melee.

But of course, this is all assuming that if they remove positionals, they will actually either give us something else or work on better fight designs, and I doubt either will happen.

[Ransu]

I already stated that True North is one of the reasons why positionals seem pointless and that it should be more restrictive. With that, it also means you shouldn't necessarily be able to hit all positionals.

No, this is a terrible take. If positionals are about "skill" and then you remove the ability to hit all positionals during a fight you now create a system of frustration for a player because no matter how good they are they will hit a dps loss with zero ways to mitigate it.

In what ways does it limit fight design? What is it about bosses that have a full ring that means you couldn't have positionals be relevant in them? Considering what we have had in the past, I see no reason why it would limit fight design.

Limited or removal of true north would force boss designs to be more static. The reason why P2S for example is a circle is because of how you have to position yourself around the stage for mechanics and how often the boss jumps around. DRG for example, would be impossible to hit all their positionals in that fight which is WHY they made it a full circle target to remove positional requirements and it made for an interesting boss fight. I'd rather have that than the static design where a boss barely moves to account for positionals.

Now, for a fun take, does anyone expect to be able to keep a caster GCD rolling full time and lose no damage? No. Every time you clip the GCD, or have to move where you cannot cast, or even use a GCD on a weaker action (Reprise/Scathe), it is all potential damage loss. This is generally seen as accepted, however, if a melee misses a positional, suddenly, people start complaining. Hot take, you shouldn't necessarily hit every positional, in the same way casters won't necessarily be optimal in their GCDs. So why is it one is more accepted than the other?

I can't speak for the other casters as I don't mess with them in end game, but yes as a BLM I fully expect you to keep your GCD's rolling and not clip GCD's. There are enough tools/instant casts available for when you need to move. The only fight where I wanted to pull my hair out this tier was P7S with the running back and forth to bait circles, but its still 100% doable to always have something casting.

The only reason scathe is on my hotbar is to troll my raid leader so he sees that single scathe at the very end of the fight where I throw it out at 1% for the luls. Otherwise, if you're actually using scathe for mobility you're playing BLM wrong as you shouldn't even be wasting a slot for that skill.

Your "hot take" on the positionals is still a garbage take.

Wouldn't that apply for nearly every basic increase to apm?

• Kaiten? I just don't really see the benefit of it. It wasn't difficult to maintain and it didn't really add anything imo. If it stays, it stays, if they doesn't then it doesn't and nothing really changes if it goes.
• Shinten? I just don't really see the benefit of it. It wasn't difficult to maintain and it didn't really add anything imo. If it stays, it stays, if they doesn't then it doesn't and nothing really changes if it goes.
• The Forbidden Chakra / Enlightenment? I just don't really see the benefit of them. They're not difficult to maintain and they don't really add anything imo. If they stay, they stay, if they don't then they don't and nothing really changes if they go.
• Edge/Flood of Shadow? I just don't really see the benefit of them. They're not difficult to maintain and they don't really add anything imo. If they stay, they stay, if they don't then they don't and nothing really changes if they go.

Except kaiten had a direct impact in your resource management and rotation loop management. Stepping 1inch to the left or right to hit a positional isn't even close to the same kind of engagement.

Shinten spam sucks and I wouldn't really miss it.

I don't play the other jobs with those skills mentioned in end game so I won't comment on them.

-What do you think you will do when there's no positionals? You are definitely not going to be dancing around the arena when no mechanics are going on.

-Positionals at least keep you awake and give you extra layers of consideration while performing your rotation.

-The same thing I do now... Stand in one spot and move 1inch to the left or right of the ring because you don't need to be fully at the flank or rear for positionals to count. Literally nothing changes other than the fact I no longer need to pointless move 1inch to the left or right of a circle and then pop true north during mechanics.

-If you need positionals to keep you awake then there are bigger problems at play with combat engagement and boss designs.

[Aco505]

-The same thing I do now... Stand in one spot and move 1inch to the left or right of the ring because you don't need to be fully at the flank or rear for positionals to count. Literally nothing changes other than the fact I no longer need to pointless move 1inch to the left or right of a circle and then pop true north during mechanics.

-If you need positionals to keep you awake then there are bigger problems at play with combat engagement and boss designs.

This kind of comment tells me you don't play melee often or in a variety of high end duties. Yes, this could work for a boss like P6S that is mostly stationary and pretty much a target dummy. It doesn't work in a boss like P5S that is constantly moving or rotating or in any ultimate, especially if the tanks are not doing their positioning job properly. Is it as simple as standing and moving an inch or two during, for instance, the first phase of TOP where you can easily miss positionals even if you play very well?

The argument of moving a tiny bit could also be used for slidecasting windows, or literally anything that involves moving the minimum amount of distance such as dodging an AoE for a mechanic. Might as well just remove these?

Talking about the positioning of positionals by using just dummy fights that provide no challenge is hardly an argument. If the issue is that they're not impactful enough, then make them be a 5% dps loss if you miss them all instead of 3%. Or 10% if you really fancy it. The point is to hit them because they are a dps gain and so it's right to strive to get them all.

And yes, play DRG and then play RPR and tell me which of the two keeps you more awake between cooldowns or burst windows in regards to positioning. You have to continuously keep positionals into account for the former.

The point is not that they're the most engaging thing in the world, but that they add to the overall gameplay and feel of melee jobs.

[Ransu]

What? P5S was stupid easy to hit all your positionals lmao.

Timing slide casts 100% takes more skill than doing a positional.

I've been a melee main since ARR starting with DRG and moving to SAM in SB. I didn't start playing BLM till this tier.

I don't need positionals to "keep me awake." I'm too busying doing callouts for the fight and maintaining my rotation for the two minute windows. Positionals are practically sub conscientious at this point.

[Akava]

Put me down as a positional supporter. There's nothing you could replace it with that would require all melee to care about their physical location on any boss fight. The number of wipes caused by melee trying to push their limits and sneak in that extra positional are countless and I wouldn't have it any other way.