Adding a Magic Dot Spec Class

[ICountFrom0]

I love the irony that Black Mage has arguably the single-best designed DoT in the entire game since probably around Stormblood/Shadowbringers and nobody is jealous about Thunder III/IV + Sharpcast interactions, even if it is effectively just one DoT and a multipurpose refresher.

But hey gotta make sure the next arbitrary DoT on a job is either on a 60s CD at duration shorter than 60s or be a GCD with 30s / 45s duration. Especially if you're a healer. /s

...for reference, reason why I am malding about durations so hard:
- Shadowflare 30s CD, 15s duration, couldn't be deployed along with Sacred Soil
- Bio II 30s, Bio I 18s, Miasma I 24s, Miasma II 12s (and AOE) for our dear Arcanist-likes
- Bane spread potentially resetting DoT timer on new target
- Aero II 18s, Aero III 24s + AOE (that 18s dot also made weaving a lot less shit when 1.5s cast time wasnt a thing yet)
- other DoT extensions like HW Summoner Contagion with Garuda-Egi
- Salted Earth being a 21s dome at 45s CD (about as irregular as it can get)

We had variety, we lost it in favour of "accessibility" or some shit. Thanks Shadowbringers/Endwalker.

I love that there was, sometimes, an entire tree of priorities that had to be juggled.
I want to see it again.

At THIS point in your rotation there are 3 spells coming off of timer, you reapply them in THIS order. You don't just recast as soon as the cast time is done. Yes, please, MORE.

[Raikai]

It's not that they hate pets, the problem is that they don't know how to code AI that work properly :s
the AI of the Egis were catastrophic, even the old fairies had the same problem.

even look at the old dungeons that were changed because the trusts weren't able to solve the most basic of mechanics.

This is why XIV (at least as it is today) will never have a true pet job in its main pve cast. And by true pet I mean an additional entity that requires micromanagement.

They could, however, make a 'faux-pet' job, making it animation based, like the RPR with the avatar, but honestly that's just a coat of paint that wouldn't probably even be customizable, which is another attractive of the 'pet class archetype'.

[ICountFrom0]

This is why XIV (at least as it is today) will never have a true pet job in its main pve cast. And by true pet I mean an additional entity that requires micromanagement.

They could, however, make a 'faux-pet' job, making it animation based, like the RPR with the avatar, but honestly that's just a coat of paint that wouldn't probably even be customizable, which is another attractive of the 'pet class archetype'.

I think beastmaster as a long range melee with false pets could work. You summon your pets like you'd cast your blue spells. Each one opperates like Gau or Umaru, simple battle scripts that run on automatic, maybe possibly able to have an agro table that watches what you attack.

I'm thinking it would be something like 3 "equiped" pets at any given time, instead of 20 blu spells at a time. But each one, has a number of possible actions in a rather simple script tree. Some might be in demand for doing only very few actions and have a high relability, others might do more actions, but have some very powerful ones in there, but do them less often as a trade off. Course, it's not REALLY the pet doing anything, it's all actually instant casts that you are doing automatically in the background.

[SieyaM]

Unless they fix the hard limit that mobs have on the number of effects that can be applied, DoT caster will not be a thing. It is a pretty high limit and it's hard to reach, but there are instances of it still being hit, and if you have a job whose DPS is entirely dependent on DoTs and they can't land them because the limit has been reached, then you have a useless job. This applies mostly to hunt mobs in the overworld, but even TOP I think ran into this problem with a few cases.

[tearagion]

Unless they fix the hard limit that mobs have on the number of effects that can be applied, DoT caster will not be a thing. It is a pretty high limit and it's hard to reach, but there are instances of it still being hit, and if you have a job whose DPS is entirely dependent on DoTs and they can't land them because the limit has been reached, then you have a useless job. This applies mostly to hunt mobs in the overworld, but even TOP I think ran into this problem with a few cases.

This has been addressed numerous times, DoT doesn't necessarily need to occupy a debuff slot. Slipstream is a DoT effect on the ground, no debuff. Flamethrower is a channelled DoT, no debuff. A single debuff slot can have some nuance added to it by buffing it (whether it's before like bristle on BLU, or a hypothetical new effect that upgrades it while it's on the enemy), or by extending it (old Contagion). Even all that aside, their design doesn't reflect this debuff slot concern considering DoTs that do not take advantage of a DoT's properties exist (Sonic Break, Circle of Scorn), and Reaper has an exclusively personal debuff that exists with theoretically 100% uptime when it could just as easily behave like Storm's Eye or Gekko.

[ForsakenRoe]

TOP's issue was not the boss limit of 60 effects, but the player's limit of 32. But SE kinda walks themselves into this problem, when they design things like Kerachole/Kerakeia, Holos/Holosakos, Physis/AutoPhysis, 3seal Astrodyne giving 3 buffs instead of one buff that has all 3 effects in one, everyone's 2min window being at 2min so you get like 3-4 different raidbuffs at once, etc

[SieyaM]

This has been addressed numerous times, DoT doesn't necessarily need to occupy a debuff slot. Slipstream is a DoT effect on the ground, no debuff. Flamethrower is a channelled DoT, no debuff. A single debuff slot can have some nuance added to it by buffing it (whether it's before like bristle on BLU, or a hypothetical new effect that upgrades it while it's on the enemy), or by extending it (old Contagion). Even all that aside, their design doesn't reflect this debuff slot concern considering DoTs that do not take advantage of a DoT's properties exist (Sonic Break, Circle of Scorn), and Reaper has an exclusively personal debuff that exists with theoretically 100% uptime when it could just as easily behave like Storm's Eye or Gekko.

While Slipstream doesn't take up a debuff slot, it does require mobs to remain in it's area of effect, and putting too many things like that on one job means it is especially prone to mob movement or tanks just not being able to keep a mob still. Even with Earthly Stars ridiculous range tanks are still running mobs out of its range in dungeons, but I suppose that doesn't matter in the end since jobs are designed for Savage only.

[tearagion]

While Slipstream doesn't take up a debuff slot, it does require mobs to remain in it's area of effect, and putting too many things like that on one job means it is especially prone to mob movement or tanks just not being able to keep a mob still. Even with Earthly Stars ridiculous range tanks are still running mobs out of its range in dungeons, but I suppose that doesn't matter in the end since jobs are designed for Savage only.

I fail to see how this sufficiently contests my point that the debuff limit is a bullshit excuse

[Raikai]

This has been addressed numerous times, DoT doesn't necessarily need to occupy a debuff slot. Slipstream is a DoT effect on the ground, no debuff. Flamethrower is a channelled DoT, no debuff. A single debuff slot can have some nuance added to it by buffing it (whether it's before like bristle on BLU, or a hypothetical new effect that upgrades it while it's on the enemy), or by extending it (old Contagion). Even all that aside, their design doesn't reflect this debuff slot concern considering DoTs that do not take advantage of a DoT's properties exist (Sonic Break, Circle of Scorn), and Reaper has an exclusively personal debuff that exists with theoretically 100% uptime when it could just as easily behave like Storm's Eye or Gekko.

Hm... what if the main gauge for the caster is a 'dot receptacle' that you power up by many buffs with upkeep times, and that receptacle redirects that damage through a single persistent kardia-esque dot?

This opens up for ideas like a puppetmaster caster, treating the puppet like a voodoo doll, and kind of bypasses that dot hindrance that the system has.

[ICountFrom0]

I'm liking the puppetmaster idea.

Merge all the debuffs into a single effect, we don't need a BA issue again.