The endangered DPS MP gauge

[Valence]

Over time, we have lost the TP gauge for certain reasons, and the MP gauge is used by less and less jobs today.

The only cases where it can still feel required or impactful in the current battle system are:

- Raise tax when raising too much (healers and RDM/SMN).
- Loosely related: overhealing with GCD when things go very wrong (healers).
- Black Mage core rotation.

Magical hybrid tanks aren't and haven't been constrained by MP since Stormblood. Bard and Machinist are not using their MP for raid buffs since Shadowbringers and Stormblood respectively. SMN hasn't been focused on MP management since Stormblood.

Healer and caster rotations haven't been truly MP negative since forever.

I am genuinely curious as to what SE intends for the MP gauge, now that it seems to be slowly and surely being supplanted by various job gauges? Does it still feel warranted in the current game system? Perhaps for healers, but what about DPS jobs? It just sits there, doing nothing?

[Taranok]

Honestly, if they got rid of MP, I wouldn't mind. MP only has a place in 1 world: Where running out of MP not only matters, but can happen if you're inefficient with your resources.

This gameplay literally cannot exist in FFXIV. Even death only matters for healers because you lose most of your other resources as well (in addition to them being weakened.)

Sometimes I wish FFXIV could bring in WoW's triage meta, where healers have, what I believe to be, the best healer gameplay you can get. Where you have to make decisions every GCD about whether to damage, to heal. The power of the heal, if you should AoE or single target, fast or slow heals. Hell, their oGCDs in the past, both cost mana and have a cooldown making it inefficient to spam them for every tiny thing. I feel this gameplay better encapsulates healer gameplay at its core and, also, makes mana a resource that has to truly be managed.

[Valence]

I'm sorry but I'm not sure to follow (I never played WoW)? What is the difference with what we have? Spamming heals in XIV is a surefire way to run out of MP as well. Even more so as one wants to keep DPSing and having to burn GCDs for healing is inefficient. Do you mean maybe that the pervasiveness of oGCD heals are a problem?

Either way, I'm more concerned about DPS classes with this post, since it's in the DPS section. Healers are a different can of worms imo.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

HP and MP are main staple stats within the FF franchise, TP was not. TP got removed because it served two purposes:

1.) Limit physical job AOE usage (where Casters weren't limited)
2.) Limit Sprint usage (when it cost your whole TP)

If TP was a mechanic where you spend TP like you spend Wrath, Blackblood, Aetherflow etc. (which it was in 4.x PvP lol) then TP wouldn't have been axed. But it was just a passive limiter which existed for resource maintenance for the sake of it. It also made Skillspeed infinitely worse than it needed to be.

MP serves as a limiter to Healers and SMN/RDM for Raise as well as limitting spell/GCD healing. It also is used for Paladins and fundamentally serves as a Clemency limiter. Black Mage and Dark Knight use MP as a fundamental resource for combat, one more than the other.

So no, they shouldn't get rid of MP, what they should do is two things:

1.) Make MP more integral on SMN and RDM. Bring back high MP cost spells that have MP cost lowered under certain buffs (like Ruin III did) or balance it with further MP generators (BLM lite kinda).
2.) let us split HP from MP like we can split buffs from debuffs and let us hide MP when we desire so.

[Silverquick]

Actually SMN hasn't been constrained by MP since HW, and even then it was only because Ruin 3 cost 1000mp outside of Dreadwyrm Trance.
And in reality it still wasn't really, unless you combined it with a LOT or ressing, which even throughout the Editions I don't think I've done much Ressing with SMN.

RDM though I've done a ton of it, and its the only time I've ever run out of MP on any job other than BLM. Most jobs haven't been constrained by MP since ARR when the amount of HP really was limited due to level.

Still the only job I've ever played where MP came into play repeatedly was BLM.

[Valence]

HP and MP are main staple stats within the FF franchise, TP was not. TP got removed because it served two purposes:

1.) Limit physical job AOE usage (where Casters weren't limited)

Casters were as limited by MP for AoE than physical jobs were limited for AoE by TP. Holy costed, for example, 1600 MP back then, and in a battle system where MP regened a lot slower. They ran out of resources as fast, except for BLM for obvious reasons.

MP serves as a limiter to Healers and SMN/RDM for Raise as well as limitting spell/GCD healing. It also is used for Paladins and fundamentally serves as a Clemency limiter. Black Mage and Dark Knight use MP as a fundamental resource for combat, one more than the other.

Point taken for clemency, if just niche, and for DRK where it indeed acts a bit like for BLM as a limiter for how much you can use.

Also my point was for DPS jobs primarily, where MP concerns less and less jobs (essentially RDM and SMN at best, and just for raises).

So no, they shouldn't get rid of MP, what they should do is two things:

1.) Make MP more integral on SMN and RDM. Bring back high MP cost spells that have MP cost lowered under certain buffs (like Ruin III did) or balance it with further MP generators (BLM lite kinda).
2.) let us split HP from MP like we can split buffs from debuffs and let us hide MP when we desire so.

I apologize if the point behind my post wasn't clear, but I'm actually complaining about the lack of use for our MP as DPS classes, and not just mages. Having that useless gauge is ridiculous, or idk, just axe it I guess as it would make it clearer that it's useless, but it would be sad.

[Rongway]

I don't really think it's something that needs to be removed. But if it ever were, here's how I would handle it for SMN and RDM:


SMN

Spell: Resurrection
Cast time: 8s
Recast time: 2.5s
Resurrects target to a weakened state.
※ The cast time of this action cannot be reduced by the effects of Spell Speed or Swiftcast.

Trait: Resurrection Mastery
Grants the effect of Phoenix's Favor after using Aethercharge.
Phoenix's Favor effect: Upgrades Resurrection to Rebirth.

Spell: Rebirth
Cast time: Instant
Recast time: 30s
Resurrects target to a weakened state.
Can only be used under the effect of Phoenix's Favor.

RDM

Spell: Verraise
Cast time: 10s
Recast time: 2.5s
Resurrects target to a weakened state.
※ The cast time of this action cannot be reduced by the effects of Spell Speed, Swiftcast, or Dualcast.

Trait: Verraise Mastery
Grants the effect of Chain Raise after successfully completing a combo with Enchanted Redoublement or after three successful consecutive uses of Enchanted Moulinet.
Maximum Stacks: 3
Chain Raise effect: Upgrades Verraise to Verraise II.

Spell: Verraise II
Cast time: 2.0s
Recast time: 2.5s
Resurrects target to a weakened state.
Can only be used under the effect of Chain Raise.
The cast time of this action is affected by Spell Speed, Swiftcast, and Dualcast as normal.

This would restrict SMN to a single instant raise per minute and RDM up to three instant raises which would then take about two minutes to replenish completely. It would still allow either job to slowcast raise when out of charges, and this is probably okay in most cases as it's just the rapid Dualcast raises that are of greatest concern.


BLM changes would be a bit more involved, however.


BLM

• Ice spells are always free.
• While not under the effect of Astral Fire: all spells are free.
• While under the effect of Astral Fire: Fire, Lightning, and Paradox spells cost Umbral Sparks.
• Firestarter and Thundercloud reduce the costs of their corresponding spells to 0.
• Umbral Hearts reduce the cost of Fire spells by half.
• Umbral Sparks replenish at a rate of 3 per Umbral Ice stack per tick, up to a maximum of 12.
• While not under the effect of either elemental aspect, Umbral Sparks replenish at a rate of 1 per tick.
• Manafont restores 4 Umbral Sparks.

Umbral Sparks costs of spells under the effect of Astral Fire:

• Fire: 2
• (High) Fire II: 3
• Fire III: 4
• Fire IV: 2
• Flare/Despair: All, minimum 1
• Flare with Umbral Heart: All but 1, minimum 1
• Thunder I/III: 1
• Thunder II/IV: 2
• Paradox: 2

This would leave BLM largely unchanged in functionality...but if the goal is to remove MP just to have things still work the same, why remove MP in the first place?

[Rithy255]

The only time I usually run out of MP is in like a dungeon and im keeping both dps alive (fast > riot). Other then that sometimes on rdm if im not careful with using my lucid dreaming and i have to rez a lot, I think MP is good to keep red mage from being able to spam rez so much, it's already really powerful.

I'd kind of like specifically on Paladin for clemency to become a high cost MP ability (3000-4000 depending on what works) but OGCD, so you could maximise your mp use but spamming it badly will lock you out of magic attacks (Obviously nerfing sustain especially magic combo, for the sake of healers actually having to heal, but that's another topic) With Dark Knight and Black mage MP a big part of their kit as well so I don't think they would ever get rid of MP, I actually wouldn't mind more MP management but I don't think it's a big issue.

I think MP has a lot of room to be explored with certain jobs (like my PLD "idea"), I also just think it still serves a purpose right now, so I don't see any "endangerment"

[Chasingstars]

Over time, we have lost the TP gauge for certain reasons, and the MP gauge is used by less and less jobs today.

The only cases where it can still feel required or impactful in the current battle system are:

- Raise tax when raising too much (healers and RDM/SMN).
- Loosely related: overhealing with GCD when things go very wrong (healers).
- Black Mage core rotation.

Magical hybrid tanks aren't and haven't been constrained by MP since Stormblood. Bard and Machinist are not using their MP for raid buffs since Shadowbringers and Stormblood respectively. SMN hasn't been focused on MP management since Stormblood.

Healer and caster rotations haven't been truly MP negative since forever.

I am genuinely curious as to what SE intends for the MP gauge, now that it seems to be slowly and surely being supplanted by various job gauges? Does it still feel warranted in the current game system? Perhaps for healers, but what about DPS jobs? It just sits there, doing nothing?

The only way I can even drain it fast enough as SMN or RDM is through a spellspeed build or doing multiple raises. And even then that is still fixed by lucid dreaming.

[VictorSpoils]

Wouldn't be against WAR, GNB, and the physical DPS jobs getting to spend their MP in some capacity instead of just having that gauge awkwardly sit there. Stuff like Aurora/Equilibrium/Earth's Reply could be given MP costs instead of long cooldowns. Or they could swap it out and bring TP back just for those jobs, though that would require repurposing it in some manner.