Pictomancer is absurd

[BokoToloko]

My guess is you keep hammer motifs up (60s CD) and two charges, near capping at three (40s CD), for the landscape phase (the 2 min burst phase, in other words). Then you will dump them all during the burst.

A pity I we can't use the weapon canvas spells on Limsa RPers, though.

[Mimilu]

A few things I didn't mention or noticed after rewatching the Pictomancer part of the Letter:
• Moogle Beam/Madeen are a separate button from the Using the Creature Motif button.
• Using the Hammer is a separate button from Using the Weapon Motif button (which has 2 charges).
• While under the effect of the Landscape buff, it looks like your Creature Motifs get upgrades.
• Landscape also seems to get a follow up attack button after use (separate from itself).
• They also have a straight-line AoE rainbow and flower beam spell. Yoshi-P used it pre-pull when showing off a potential opener.

[Taliriah]

It feels a lot like SMN with a different coat of paint. The creature motifs are used in a preset order that cycles and is independent from the two other damage rotations (hammer rotation and spell rotation) which you will use either on CD or when the damage buff is up (depending on how the various CDs are designed to line up), and that will boil down to a very monotone rotation with little player agency.

And also they have decided that you need to remember to prepare your canvas before pulling, similar to how currently ninjas have to perform the annoying step of casting huton and vanishing. Busywork between pulls isn't really fun imo.

[BokoToloko]

- The hammer canvas acts like an Inner Release, apparently, since all hits do direct crits.
- The landscape canvas oGCD gives a party buff, the field and a GCD cast (Star Prism) that deals heavy damage to the target (probably aoe). With the Landscape, you also get a free Substractive Palette, an AOE buff (probably an indicator similar to Ley Lines) and a 5-stack buff that's consumed with GCDs. Consuming the 5 stacks gives an instant cast of the rainbow flower line aoe.
- You get White Holy cast from non-substracted Pallete Aetherhue combos and the Rainbow Flower Field casts.

Other mechanical observations:
- Creating Motifs casts exceeds the gGCD, so it might be contraproducent to use the canvases right as they're loaded. since it might cause clipping issues. It's likely you're meant to load the motifs before you enter the burst phase (which is why YoshiP mentions he messed the opener, as he unloads a motif before the landscape and had to reload it again before using the landscape).
- Regarding the usage of the Hammer, it seems the burst window (20s) allows for Star Prism+Substractive Pallette combo+Instant Cast Flower Field+3 Bonks plus oGCD weaved. Yoshi-P delayed GCDs when he was using Moogle Stream despite it not incurring GCD. Might need some SpS to pull it off still.
- Given than the White Holy are stackable and instant cast, they're probably they can be used for weaving Canvases and Substracted Pallete when not under the Landscape buff or for movement. The normal Aetherhue combo casts might also allow a single oGCD too.


In terms of CDs, it doesn't feel anything closer to SMN, to be honest It feels closer to RDM or SAM. While it doesn't seem very complicated, it does get the agency SMN does not, as you can manage resources for both movement (White Holy and Hammer Combo) and stationary DPS (Substractive Pallette, loading Motifs on the canvases), whereas with SMN you just dump summons that are already very permitting with movement (even more now with reduced Swiftcast CD). The Hammer Combos seem also flexible to use outside of the opening and pot, as you need only one charge during burst phase.

Will add more observations as I find them.

[Naoki34]

Its looks like a magical girl job for me.

[Roda]

I'm having a hard time grasping the need for the monster parts collection ui element if we have no variation in how we acquire and construct the monsters?

Like it's clear that Pom + wings = moogle, and then the pom gets pushed out to do wings + claws + teeth = Madeen. But, like, it's all a scripted sequence of casts that just happen on their own? Since there's no active decision making in the setup, it feels like having a gauge to tell a melee where they are in their 123 combo?

Shame on me for initially interpreting the "building a creature" mechanic as a "mudracast some kind of chimera into existence" mechanic during the trailer :^)

[Taliriah]

I'm having a hard time grasping the need for the monster parts collection ui element if we have no variation in how we acquire and construct the monsters?

Like it's clear that Pom + wings = moogle, and then the pom gets pushed out to do wings + claws + teeth = Madeen. But, like, it's all a scripted sequence of casts that just happen on their own? Since there's no active decision making in the setup, it feels like having a gauge to tell a melee where they are in their 123 combo?

Shame on me for initially interpreting the "building a creature" mechanic as a "mudracast some kind of chimera into existence" mechanic during the trailer :^)

The ui seems designed to suggest more complexity to the job than there really is.

[Roda]

The ui seems designed to suggest more complexity to the job than there really is.

Which is kind of the opposite of what job gauges are supposed to do X_X

[BokoToloko]

I'm having a hard time grasping the need for the monster parts collection ui element if we have no variation in how we acquire and construct the monsters?

Like it's clear that Pom + wings = moogle, and then the pom gets pushed out to do wings + claws + teeth = Madeen. But, like, it's all a scripted sequence of casts that just happen on their own? Since there's no active decision making in the setup, it feels like having a gauge to tell a melee where they are in their 123 combo?

Shame on me for initially interpreting the "building a creature" mechanic as a "mudracast some kind of chimera into existence" mechanic during the trailer :^)

Yes and.... no.

It works in a weird way because you want to have a full creature (meaning two oGCDs out of a Motif) for every Landscape window but each charge out of three has 40s CD, so you're going through a full creature and half every 2 minutes. That means you have to use charges during the 2 minutes interval in order to have a full creature when the burst phase comes back while keeping the CD rolling.

Obviously that's not hard to track, but it is nonetheless necessary in order to manage the Creature Motifs accordingly.

[SweetPete]

Well I guess everyone clamoring for GEO has Pictomancer now since it has earth, wind, and water spells.

It has Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Ice, Thunder, Dark and Light magics. I am loving this! I was hoping it had access to every element.