Rphys: why slow walk casts (ala pvp) aren't a solution

[Pyitoechito]

I'm neutral on the discussion of ranged phys needing cast times or not, but it did give me a dangerous idea. What if all ranged phys had an oGCD stance toggle that functioned somewhat like old Gauss Barrel and Wanderer's Minuet. It increases damage output, but instead of adding cast times to all GCDs it simply caps movement speed in-combat (unless they receive a movement speed buff like Sprint or Expedience, which disables the movement penalty for the duration). It'd be like dancing around old cleric stance and wouldn't require any reworks to the jobs at present because it doesn't remove any weaving windows aside from turning the stance on/off. It wouldn't have to be as slow as walking speed, but it could be.

I'm not saying ranged phys needs anything like this. It's just an idea.

[RaZz0r]

The day they add cast times to phys range is the day I quit the game, the whole job identity is based around not having cast times I can tolerate it in a PVP setting but outside that hell naw

They can still make phys range jobs better without going back to the route of gun mage, MCH was changed away from it for a reason.

[mallleable]

I mean, yeah, walking casts would likely justify more firepower for the role, and that's what we want. It will be the difference between an instant 220 potency Burst Shot vs. a likely 300ish potency Powerful Shot with a walking cast. Balance aside, that extra damage will make spam feel a lot better knowing that your attacks are hitting harder. And the potency of other attacks would have to be adjusted in relation to the walking cast skills. And yeah, BRD, and MCH would have to undergo reworks to accommodate getting walking casts, but the reworks would be more akin to the NIN/DRG reworks.

Walking casts would still leave phys ranged more mobile than healers even when placed on filler skills like replacing Burst Shot with Powerful Shot, and replacing the Clean Shot combo with Blast Charge spam. And they would be given plenty of instant skills like they do magical ranged to handle the most intense movement situations. Like for MCH, they could increase the amount of heat you get from Blast Charge spam so you can always have a Hypercharge phase banked away which grants you 7.5 seconds of free movement. That's roughly the same amount of movement time Triplecast grants. The funny things is that DNC already has pseudo-caster mechanics with its dance steps which ask players to preform a series of zero damage steps to get access to high damage finisher. Finishing Move is basically Swiftcasted Standard Step.

To me, the walking cast mechanic has more in common with FPS mechanics than it does with spell casting. Yeah, they are similar, but the juice is different. Think of how when you play Hanzo from Overwatch, and when you ready a shot your movement speed is reduced until you let go of primary fire button. Or any other FPS where when you aim down sights, your movement, and FOV get reduced until you stop. Adding walking casts is less so about making phys ranged like casters, and more about making them more FPSy. The mechanic allows the phys ranged to be the 'FPS' role while while still affording 'weird' jobs like DNC to exist.

[Lyth]

People have the mindset that adding any form of cast to Physical Ranged will turn them back into the bowmages and gunmages of Heavensward. Yet even modern day Magical Ranged jobs don't have 'casts' on every action, and you often can choose where you want those casts to occur, such that they occur when movement isn't actually required anyways.

I think that players harbor some illusions about 'mobility'. Bosses spend long periods of time casting tells on their next mechanic sequence. Being able to run around randomly while the boss is hardcasting a new mechanic is irrelevant. It's great that you can get up, stretch your legs, and walk around when nothing is happening. But what really matters is bursts of movement. Smudge is real mobility. You press a button, you dash forward and gain sprint, and you can do this three times per minute.

I don't think having a single hardcast or two would create as much of an issue as people think it does, and every other role has them anyways. Oh no, you have to stand in one place to draw up a jetpack schematic, line up a sniper shot, or perform an aetheric drum solo on the boss' skull when the boss' castbar is charging up with the words 'Mechanic 3'. What matters is if you can dynamically work around where they occur. I think the 'walking cast' concept is really just a way of getting the players on board so that they realize that it was never a big deal to begin with.

I would just recommend adding in a couple of casts and/or walking casts, whatever you're comfortable with. Add in a couple of burst mobility tools similar to Smudge to compensate for the 'reduction in mobility'. And then equalize the dps. Stop treating Physical Ranged like a second-class subcategory of Ranged.

[Valence]

More mobile than healers? No. Hard disagree on this, for the reasons I explained in the OP. Again: no easy cast cancel unless you go all the way to press escape, then move normally. This is extra cumbersome and usually way too late when you need to move. Walking casts are a big trap in pvp for this specific reason and I don't see how it would somehow be different in pve. No slide casting either so you'll eat the full 1.5s casts or even a little more due to server delays. And the mobility reduction doesn't make it better than no moving at all or barely, because it will never be enough to move for mechanics anyway. Walking casts are more cumbersome to deal with than actual casts and they don't bring any noticeable gain. In pvp i'll take casters fillers ten times over the rphys walk casts as well, because they don't screw you hard if you get caught while casting like walking casts actually do. This is not a FPS and does not work like a FPS, and while it may work for Hanzo in FPS, it doesn't here. I also don't want to play a FPS but a RPG MMO.

I also don't want to have more hypercharge, please no. It's carpal tunnel inducing enough as it is currently playing this job...

Steps on DNC don't ask you to cast anything. If your idea is to place it behind a cast time, then it would be similar to put cast times behind nukes like MCH tools or BRD's Soul Gauge moves. Which is essentially like SAM already does for melee, and this has never been included into the total damage output of the job out of the pretense that "SAM is a caster and lacks mobility", and I have yet to see anyone arguing that SAM should get more damage than other melees either due to it.

People have the mindset that adding any form of cast to Physical Ranged will turn them back into the bowmages and gunmages of Heavensward. Yet even modern day Magical Ranged jobs don't have 'casts' on every action, and you often can choose where you want those casts to occur, such that they occur when movement isn't actually required anyways.

I think that players harbor some illusions about 'mobility'. Bosses spend long periods of time casting tells on their next mechanic sequence. Being able to run around randomly while the boss is hardcasting a new mechanic is irrelevant. It's great that you can get up, stretch your legs, and walk around when nothing is happening. But what really matters is bursts of movement. Smudge is real mobility. You press a button, you dash forward and gain sprint, and you can do this three times per minute.

I don't think having a single hardcast or two would create as much of an issue as people think it does, and every other role has them anyways. Oh no, you have to stand in one place to draw up a jetpack schematic, line up a sniper shot, or perform an aetheric drum solo on the boss' skull when the boss' castbar is charging up with the words 'Mechanic 3'. What matters is if you can dynamically work around where they occur. I think the 'walking cast' concept is really just a way of getting the players on board so that they realize that it was never a big deal to begin with.

I would just recommend adding in a couple of casts and/or walking casts, whatever you're comfortable with. Add in a couple of burst mobility tools similar to Smudge to compensate for the 'reduction in mobility'. And then equalize the dps. Stop treating Physical Ranged like a second-class subcategory of Ranged.

Counterpoint: stop treating rphys like a caster and make it its own role. Casters would be mad if they were told that they should be like rphys, so why should rphys be like casters? Casters are already mad about SMN for that specific reason. If your idea is that every rphys should aim to become a SMN, then no, thank you.

If as you say it changes nothing on mobility, then see my point above on SAM. You're essentially trying to shoehorn something that brings no additional constraint or challenge to justify a damage up. I don't mind the idea of having cast times behind those specific bit hitters though, but what does it bring exactly? Like for SAM, it would be on a case by case basis feel. SAM cast times don't bring any additional challenge, they do bring a feel for iajutsu moves. I'm open to this on rphys actually if it brings that kind of hard hitting feel on specific moves, but it will never bring anything else in the mobility department.

[mallleable]

More mobile than healers? No. Hard disagree on this, for the reasons I explained in the OP. Again: no easy cast cancel unless you go all the way to press escape, then move normally. This is extra cumbersome and usually way too late when you need to move. Walking casts are a big trap in pvp for this specific reason and I don't see how it would somehow be different in pve. No slide casting either so you'll eat the full 1.5s casts or even a little more due to server delays. And the mobility reduction doesn't make it better than no moving at all or barely, because it will never be enough to move for mechanics anyway. Walking casts are more cumbersome to deal with than actual casts and they don't bring any noticeable gain. In pvp i'll take casters fillers ten times over the rphys walk casts as well, because they don't screw you hard if you get caught while casting like walking casts actually do. This is not a FPS and does not work like a FPS, and while it may work for Hanzo in FPS, it doesn't here. I also don't want to play a FPS but a RPG MMO.

I also don't want to have more hypercharge, please no. It's carpal tunnel inducing enough as it is currently playing this job...

Steps on DNC don't ask you to cast anything. If your idea is to place it behind a cast time, then it would be similar to put cast times behind nukes like MCH tools or BRD's Soul Gauge moves. Which is essentially like SAM already does for melee, and this has never been included into the total damage output of the job out of the pretense that "SAM is a caster and lacks mobility", and I have yet to see anyone arguing that SAM should get more damage than other melees either due to it.

I did say dance steps are a pseudo caster mechanic. While you can still freely move around, they do ask you to intentionally take downtime in your rotation in exchange for high burst damage. The same logic applies to NIN Mudras as well. And yeah, not being able to cancel walking casts is a bit of a problem, but it's a mechanical problem, and not a job design problem, and so it could easily be developed. It's just a wrinkle that needs to be ironed out.

[Lyth]

I think the broader point is that Physical Ranged is being treated as directly inferior to Magical Ranged, despite offering a lot of the same considerations and utility tools.

Iaijutsu cast times on SAM are partially there for aesthetics, but they do add some decision making around how your burst interacts with mechanics. The same is true for Ten-Chi-Jin and Communio as well. You're still required to plan and think about where these actually go, which happens naturally as you optimize a fight. I don't want you to think that casts are meaningless nor miserable, because they can be surprisingly fun to plan for and optimize when executed well. I think a lot of PCT's popularity comes down to how flexible its cast system is and how you can optimize on the fly. The addition of a few situational casts (or walking casts) on to Physical Ranged won't ruin your day, but it will give you a talking point to discuss equivalency, which is ultimately what needs to happen.

By the way, the issue that you just raised about cancelling walking casts was already addressed previously. You just have the damage charge up when you hold down the action. When you release the button, the effect is released and you do damage in proportion to how long it was held for. If the cast completes, then the action goes off for the full damage. That's part of the reason why the Hanzo analogy works.

[Valence]

I think the broader point is that Physical Ranged is being treated as directly inferior to Magical Ranged, despite offering a lot of the same considerations and utility tools.

I do agree and i'd go further and say that people are extremely biased because they only do consider mobility and uptime when they talk about difficulty, yet some jobs like BLM have absolutely braindead rotations (unless you go non standard), but the only thing people retain is the mobility difficulty. Rphys needs more toolkit intricacies, not less. And unique ones at that, but I already did cover it earlier.

Iaijutsu cast times on SAM are partially there for aesthetics, but they do add some decision making around how your burst interacts with mechanics. The same is true for Ten-Chi-Jin and Communio as well.

TCJ is a way longer immobility and it's more akin to what Flamethrower used to be during the opener (5 ticks) in Stormblood, rooting you in place.

However I do think people are really lying to themselves if they actually think that iajutsu or communio casts are an actual hurdle, much like 1-2 tick FT never was in the past either.

I don't want you to think that casts are meaningless nor miserable, because they can be surprisingly fun to plan for and optimize when executed well. I think a lot of PCT's popularity comes down to how flexible its cast system is and how you can optimize on the fly.

I'm sure they can be for people, and PCT is probably the best designed job in the game currently, or one of the best. If anything, I do play PCT casually a lot and enjoy it. However, PCT is a caster, and rphys are not casters. I don't play rphys to cast or plan around casting uptime. I don't find this fun and that's not what I like about PCT either.

Again, casters mains can keep their casting times. Don't try and turn my role into a caster. It's called ranged physical, not caster. The day they turn the only remaining role that actually fits my playstyle into another, I quit pve altogether.

By the way, the issue that you just raised about cancelling walking casts was already addressed previously. You just have the damage charge up when you hold down the action. When you release the button, the effect is released and you do damage in proportion to how long it was held for. If the cast completes, then the action goes off for the full damage. That's part of the reason why the Hanzo analogy works.

And I already answered below.

[Ramiee]

Personally I'd like some of the abilities on machinist to be like this while I'd like bards burst shot to be like that this. For machinist I would love this on flamethrower and maybe on the normal combo but only with the PCT cast time being just over 1 second, it would make hypercharge being instant cast more impact imo.
For bard I'd just want the filler attacks to have a cast time but the procs to be instant cast. Even if machinist didn't change I'd love this on bard because it would feel like you're actually using a bow.

[Supersnow845]

I think the point being made is that phys ranged have no identity

“Lack of role identifying mechanics” isn’t an identity but it’s basically what Phys ranged have