Damage gap closer should vanish

[Carighan]

Yeah and so many things have no purpose. Like the AoE versions of single-target skills I mention before, now you might say "But hold on, plenty games have separate AoE skills equivalent to single skills, and they both serve a purpose", and yes, that's correct. But there's an important second part in that sentence, and they both serve a purpose. As FFXIV doesn't use mezzes as CC any more (or CC at all if we're being honest), single-target skills also automatically dealing some AoE damage and removing the separate AoE skill has no downside. It just frees up hotbar at 0 cost. Other games have mesmerize effects and hence the player has a need to have single target skills to not wake targets up even in AoE situations, sure.

[Kabooa]

Yeah and so many things have no purpose. Like the AoE versions of single-target skills I mention before, now you might say "But hold on, plenty games have separate AoE skills equivalent to single skills, and they both serve a purpose", and yes, that's correct. But there's an important second part in that sentence, and they both serve a purpose. As FFXIV doesn't use mezzes as CC any more (or CC at all if we're being honest), single-target skills also automatically dealing some AoE damage and removing the separate AoE skill has no downside. It just frees up hotbar at 0 cost. Other games have mesmerize effects and hence the player has a need to have single target skills to not wake targets up even in AoE situations, sure.

There's also the matter of there being staggered cooldowns, where sometimes your best single target line is your AoE combo because your Single finishers are on cooldown.

Likewise, sometimes the best AoE damage is the single line because the AoE finisher is on cooldown.

There shouldn't be only single and only aoe skills, there should be skills you use in both but prefer over the other when both are available.

[Shurrikhan]

Late/necro, but... jesus...

My Point was that every little bit of damage counts, so not using your dashes for damage can make a difference.

Using your dashes for the actual dashing nets you around 300+ potency in conserved uptime each, while spending it in raid buffs vs. outside of raidbuffs would have net you under 50 potency per 2 minutes each.

You have two charges.

The mobility IS the largest advantage whenever there is a need for it. The damage is a fall-back that provides some portion of the potency over a given fight that the gap-closer would have by actually gap-closing, allowing you more similar apm and flair from those skills regardless of how much or little mobility is actually needed, and tightening balancing across jobs (since the value of those skills would otherwise be wholly situational).

Yes, removing damage from gap-closers means you turn them into, in effect, an easier version of a 30s CD Arm's Length/Surecast, simply removing a KB mechanic for free, etc., but not ever job needs to have the specific advantage of being able to have 4 gap-closers available across every 2 minutes with complete freedom. There are other commensurate advantages available, and removing the reward for fight knowledge (or, without it, for wise gambles) from every job just makes the game that much more homogenous and, worse, that much less engaging.

These were sensibly replaced with non-damaging abilities because it's ridiculous to combine utility with damage.

This is like saying it's ridiculous to combine a buff with a damaging ability.

So long as a fight is ended through damage dealt, there is no utility that does not indirectly increase damage done within X time.

Gap-closing does exactly that.

[AvoSturmfaust]

SAM's Gyoten is a gauge spender that's usually used in tandem with Yaten for disengagement scenarios. You use Shinten, Sanei, and Zanshin instead in the 2min burst. Ikishouten gives you 50 gauge, the cost of Gyoten/Yaten are minimal, and you gain gauge quickly enough that it's just not a problem there.

It's not so much the gap closer that's the problem and more the fact that charge actions don't mesh well at all with the 2 minute meta.

EDIT: What I'm trying to say, is that both SAM and ShB WAR's gap closers work while still having damage because they're not used for the burst, and they do it by being gauge spenders that shares the resource with a burst tool.

thats not fully true, you actually use your gap close in your burst as samurai, because it has the same potency per kenki value then shinten has, so if you have spare 10 kenki and buffs are still up you will use the gap closer for dmg or if you wanna manipulate your kenki for your burst, there are many examples to use it as dmg tool and in your burst

[Connor]

*Laughs in no-potency Repelling Shot*
*Launches self off edge of arena*

The only damage gap closer I have experience with is RDM’s. I like having to consider when best to leverage while also weighting up things like upcoming mechanics, raid buffs, charges, etc etc.

But then, would removing damage from gap closers really make much of a different to how they’re used anyway? I’m not sure it would matter either way really. Or maybe I’m just using them wrong lol

[Shurrikhan]

But then, would removing damage from gap closers really make much of a different to how they’re used anyway? I’m not sure it would matter either way really. Or maybe I’m just using them wrong lol

It would, for most fights. If you have a 5 minute fight with 10 use cases for a gapcloser's mobility spaced 60 seconds apart for every 2 uses, then no-damage gapclosers would see 10 uses in that 5-minute fight. More typically, though, you get maybe 2 use cases, in which case it will have

• lost 80% of the apm it would otherwise have provided (down from 10 uses to 2),
• lost any cognitive load regarding what relevant mobility needs will occur within the next X (/ 2X) CDs' time vs. fall-back/direct damage maximization,
• if primarily CD-based, lost any cognitive load that would otherwise engage cost calculations on more than 15 seconds of total desync for the given gapcloser (such as from holding it) over the course of a fight,
• if primarily gauge-based, lost any cognitive load otherwise engaged through finer control of gauge spending and thereby optimization of gauge spending in a given window,
• etc.

Put simply, removing damage from gap-closers...

1. reduces the skill expression/floor/ceiling available for the affected job, making the game that bit easier for it
   —and—
2. makes a given job's damage very less by making mobility mechanics less important (which tends to be more balancing if everyone has obvious ways of making would-be mechanics into simple cues-and-response near-non-mechanics but more imbalancing when each job faces its own challenge[s]).

[Oizen]

#respectfullydisagree

I should add that I think all jobs have too many buttons for how insanely shallow their gameplay loop is. GW2 achieves far more interesting core gameplay with just 12-15 buttons. Hell I'd go as far as saying that most MOBAs achieve deeper gameplay with four buttons.

I could understand 20-25 buttons for jobs if that were actually relevant, but it's really not. Just on Dark Knight, consider that all the following abilities could be removed cleanly if the skills did full damage to the main target then reduced damage to extra ones:

* Unleash
* Stalwart Soul
* Quietus
* Flood of Darkness
* Abyssal Drain

That's 5 hotbar buttons freed up at not a single spit of depth lost. And in turn shows how absolutely irrelevant the existence of these skills even is, beyond some funky visuals (which I very much enjoy, don't get me wrong!).

You just listed aoes. Then every job has too many buttons? And its not even true

Unleash/Stalwart have a unique niche of gaining 600 MP and 20 Blood in two GCDs instead of 3, making it optimal to switch to this on any boss that is at .01% HP but doesn't die due to game mechanics to build gauge faster for next phases.
Likewise, Abyssal Drain has a niche of being a Ranged AOE pull on DRK. Its not available enough to ever justify this but it is a thing it uniquely does over Carve and Spit.

[Shurrikhan]

Likewise, Abyssal Drain has a niche of being a Ranged AOE pull on DRK. It's not available enough to ever justify this but it is a thing it uniquely does over Carve and Spit.

An "advantage" whose use is never justified is... not particularly worth mentioning. And in the spitball you quoted, one could as easily remove CnS instead of AD, Edge instead of Flood, etc., providing double damage to the main target instead of 50% AoE damage to everything else a la original Guren; the point was the button count, after all.

Unleash/Stalwart have a unique niche of gaining 600 MP and 20 Blood in two GCDs instead of 3, making it optimal to switch to this on any boss that is at .01% HP but doesn't die due to game mechanics to build gauge faster for next phases.

And in how many fights across the game is that? Are we getting at least a moment each in a fight each across the game per button? Two fights each?

Now, I'll agree with you both that we don't need to remove those keys and that it's definitely better to have that visual variety than not but... that's objectively weak use/nuance-density for our buttons.

[Azurarok]

Having single target and aoe counterparts look like bloat in most content but I like having the guarantee to not clip an extra mob when they're optional, like on the overworld or bozja/eureka, deep dungeons, or that one specific gimmick with the family of lizards in Sildih

[Carighan]

You just listed aoes. Then every job has too many buttons?

Yes. I did not think this would need mentioning, but yes. FFXIV is uniquely bloaty even comparing other MMOs, because of the amount of hotbar buttons for how little gameplay comes from them.

And its not even true

Unleash/Stalwart have a unique niche of gaining 600 MP and 20 Blood in two GCDs instead of 3, making it optimal to switch to this on any boss that is at .01% HP but doesn't die due to game mechanics to build gauge faster for next phases.
Likewise, Abyssal Drain has a niche of being a Ranged AOE pull on DRK. Its not available enough to ever justify this but it is a thing it uniquely does over Carve and Spit.

Great, it's thinking like this that keeps boatloads of rubbish hotbar bloat around because people desperately try to find an excuse for the simplicity and flatness of the underlying combat system in these "niche skills" and their "usage".

1. Remove all the bloat.
2. Rethink what the jobs are supposed to be.
3. Retool the entire combat system, it's bananas that we have 2644 jobs and they all use "static rotation" as their design paradigm.