2 minute meta: Rework or Remove?

[Connor]

I implied no such thing. Heck, I said literally the opposite of that conclusion (that easily cancelled cast times are less likely to get people killed than a self-Heavy during casting that can't be easily cancelled via movement).

Even before accounting at all for slide-casting, a 2.5s cast with 50% mobility will have/cost the same %mobility as a 1.25s cast (and a 2.5s cast with 40% mobility the same as a 1.5s, etc., etc.), but the latter at least allows you to bail out at any moment without having to reach for the cancel key that comes awkwardly to most players (because of their being used to using movement itself to cancel casts).

And even without considering that HW cast times came with a spammable alternative that'd nonetheless do 73.3% of normal spam potency, HW cast times allowed for identical average mobility to a 40% mobility GCD (or ~60% mobility once considering ability to slide-cast), all while being more responsive. And if you want parity with 50% mobility, specifically (as per the example I quoted), just reduce the cast time to 50% of a GCD. With 40% mobility? 40% of a GCD (1s base, with almost as little as .5s actual time one must stay planted given slide-casting). It's that simple.


What does any of that have to do with mobility? Physical Ranged already have literally limitless mobility.

I misunderstood and thought the ‘harder to cancel heavy’ was referring to Powerful Shot for some reason. Which I mean, it can be a pain in the ass to cancel, because it goes out so fast (and then hits the Samurai that just used the skill that inflicts Kuzushi lol)

The last point was that the suggestions probably wouldn’t change much of anything overall (i.e powerful shot appears somewhere on pve bard), which inevitably leads to the question ‘why change it at all?’, which is the invisible unasked question I was trying to answer.

And I mean, personally I think unlimited mobility is overrated anyway. The devs shouldn’t worry so much about ‘can phys ranged still jump and run around in a circle while attacking?’. Then they make it worse by being like ‘we made it so you can run 100% of the time so you have to be worse than Summoner who can only run a measly 95% of the time’ (actual numbers may vary).

I just feel like they can be more inventive about phys ranged in general, rather than just making everything the same ‘hit this button until a glowing proc appears but you can still run in a circle’ style. Like Bard (or Machinist idk did anyone like Gauss Barrel lol?) having some charged skills or Dancers leveraging En Avant for positioning. The devs insistence on never touching their limitless mobility is only hurting the jobs long-term. While Dancer is already mostly there as an actually satisfying phys ranged, then there’s also no telling how it could turn out for Dawntrail lol. ‘Proc are now automatic and replace their respective skills’, ‘aoes now enemy based’ ‘Improvisation deleted because it made you stand still (or well, it’s supposed lol, but snapshotting exists)’, etc.

Ultimately I think the ‘2-min meta’ feels egregious on phys ranged because outside of that limitless mobility we’re not really allowed much else lol (unless melee/casters can already do it). If support was more involved there’d at least be that, but then it runs into the question of ‘how can support ever be engaging in a 2-min meta setup?’