So how is everyone feeling about Occult Crescent now that it’s been a few days?

[Connor]

Likewise. Also that bolded quote are one of the replies I've seen from that time so I think we were seeing the same occurrence that day.



I'd also like to be the bearer of worse news here that the boost only affects mobs that you kill. FATE and CE rewards aren't included lol.

I actually wondered this exact thing when writing it, my day is ruined, ruined I say!

[Supersnow845]

The phantom jobs seem to fall into 4 broad categories

1) internal loop of sorts that impacts how you play the wider job-> oracle, beserker and monk
2) random dumping of semi interesting CD’s that works really well on some jobs but not others-> geo, time mage
3) forked fodder-> ranger, thief, chemist
4) this class does nothing interesting-> bard, knight, canoneer, samurai

Of them only really those in category 1 work with 2 being job based (like geo works well if you are the MT and time mage works well on casters or PLD but terribly on melee). 3 and 4 are just a mess of wasted potential that are a slog to level

Phantom jobs really either need to go more towards oracle and have their own internal loops you play around your rotation or go more towards being what lost actions did in Bozja but right now in the overworld at least 7 jobs are basically useless which is pretty bad

[Guimu]

tbh I wish we had more room to cook builds. The jobs themselves are fine, but I miss the actions that enabled tank to become glass cannons or stuff like that. You do damage but you die faster, you know. Here it feels too safe and there's nothing really crazy going on, although I kinda enjoy the stupid of cannoneer paladin with a 10 gcd ranged combo in burst LOL.

I think the jobs are well balanced for forked tower and its fun to play as those jobs (thieves have their little moment with the large room, rangers can destroy traps safely, geomancer... you know how it goes) but the problem rn is getting in the tower which is killing my interest.

tbh I'm in the edge about resubbing or not (my sub expires in 2 days) because I really want to do fork tower, but farming fates and CEs drain my patience XD

[AvoSturmfaust]

The phantom jobs seem to fall into 4 broad categories

1) internal loop of sorts that impacts how you play the wider job-> oracle, beserker and monk
2) random dumping of semi interesting CD’s that works really well on some jobs but not others-> geo, time mage
3) forked fodder-> ranger, thief, chemist
4) this class does nothing interesting-> bard, knight, canoneer, samurai

Of them only really those in category 1 work with 2 being job based (like geo works well if you are the MT and time mage works well on casters or PLD but terribly on melee). 3 and 4 are just a mess of wasted potential that are a slog to level

so i wouldnt call them fully useless

Phantom jobs really either need to go more towards oracle and have their own internal loops you play around your rotation or go more towards being what lost actions did in Bozja but right now in the overworld at least 7 jobs are basically useless which is pretty bad

It pretty much depends what you play, as example Canoneer since the Dmg and CD works together with Vipers DMG and SPeedbuff we are talking here about additional Skills which does the same Damage as our Ouruboros

[fulminating]

It pretty much depends what you play, as example Canoneer since the Dmg and CD works together with Vipers DMG and SPeedbuff we are talking here about additional Skills which does the same Damage as our Ouruboros

I think you might have slightly missed the point being made - yes it is good that they interact with the damage and speed boosts, but it’s a far cry from past field zones. For example lost blood rage warrior, where the gauge-based dash and cooldown reduction synergised giving a 30s wind up into a sustained inner release if you burnt a second blood rage, or even something as simple as reassembled/inner release lost slash (800 potency, tripled if it crits). More about being able to actively compensate for/take advantage of the actions than passively.

[Jaltaer]

I think you might have slightly missed the point being made - yes it is good that they interact with the damage and speed boosts, but it’s a far cry from past field zones. For example lost blood rage warrior, where the gauge-based dash and cooldown reduction synergised giving a 30s wind up into a sustained inner release if you burnt a second blood rage, or even something as simple as reassembled/inner release lost slash (800 potency, tripled if it crits). More about being able to actively compensate for/take advantage of the actions than passively.

Even Eureka/BA has some fun shenanigans you can get up to - Double Edge chaining is wild once you get a feel for it, certain jobs can do so much damage with their first attack under the right setup that you can end up ripping aggro from the MT. And we'd be here all day talking about the wild stuff you can do in Bozja/DRS - Mimic + Excellence (one person brings EX and everyone else uses Mimic to get a 25 weight huge damage buff for nearly free), BLM doing astronomical damage with Flare Star + Font of Magic, my beloved Seraph Strike Profane WHM...

You can do a handful of funny things with Phantom Jobs but it's just not the same, you're still ultimately locked into playing your base job the way its primarily intended, and as already commented there are more than a few jobs that may as well be useless on certain roles. And while I get why you can't hot-swap jobs in the middle of combat... being able to do that with logos plates and lost actions were what gave way to being able to do so many fun things in Eureka and Bozja with them.

Also in regards to FT - I will full admit that I've not gone in yet, but I wanted to quote a post I made in another thread with what I think is an issue is has that's as bad as the entry system - the way it handles the raise restriction.

Forked Tower has the same rez restriction debuff as BA and DRS, but with the caveat that you can only be raised three times throughout the entire instance. If you die a fourth time, you have to release and delevel, which means spending time releveling and then waiting for the weather before you can go back in and try again.
There are also literally only two ways to raise - Chemist, and healer LB3. (There's also currently a bug where if someone uses healer LB3 while you have a pending raise from a chemist... you lose two stacks)
In comparison, BA has three ways to raise (healer LB3, spirit of the remembered/reraise, and sacrifice), while DRS has four (healer LB3, 2 kinds of reraise, sacrifice, and arise) - and in both cases, the only limit on how many raises you can get just depends on how many plates/actions people brought.

Literally the only other raise restricted duties in the game are Criterion and Savage Criterion... and I would argue that FT is worse than both of them when it comes to progging. Criterion gives everyone a single raise they can use on anyone (so you could in theory have 3 out of 4 raises used on the same person), but it's replenished every time you clear a boss or trash pack. Meanwhile Savage Criterion doesn't let you raise at all... but if you die and wipe, you just end up at the start of the instance again immediately to try again. You also technically can "practice" the mechs through regular Criterion, since the only changes in Savage beyond the raise restriction are more HP and fewer telegraphs.

That combined with the time that will need to be spent releveling and waiting, and I genuinely don't think they could have made a less puggable/blind prog friendly raid if they tried. Even just a change as small as "each time you clear a boss/duty objective, your rez restriction stacks get replenished" similar to what Criterion has could go a long way to making it feel more accessible than it is now... assuming you can get inside the damn place, of course.

[Jaltaer]

Also, I'll chime in with some of the issues I have with OC itself.

Market destruction aside, I do really like the concept of the treasure chests. It gives it an actual feel of exploration and discovery. Less so now that everyone has mapped out all the fixed spawn points and figured out optimal routes to check each location, but it's still cool. But you basically have to choose between doing fates/CEs, or said exploration - if you're en route to a fate and notice a chest nearby you'll have to go back for it later because you have to be part of the initial sprint to even get a single hit in or you'll miss out entirely because the HP scaling is such unbelievably godawful garbage.

And, of course, once a CE ends, you better have pressed that return button and confirmed it as soon as combat ends, because a fate just popped and everyone is already using return to teleport over and start the zerg rush. Stayed behind to raise people? Needed to be raised? Hesitated for half a second to teleport? Needed to refresh your buffs at the stone? Welp, the fate's dead now because the asinine system of "it scales to people in the immediate area vs the entire instance or even something like 'based on the number of people at the CE that just ended'" guaranteed it was made of tissue paper. There's literally no reason why they need the dynamic scaling fates currently have when everything is basically queued to pop one at a time, one after another - just base it on the number of participants in the last one, like normal overworld fates do! (I think that's how they work at least...)

My other, arguably biggest complaint is that Knowledge Level feels completely pointless beyond permitting FT entry* and spawning, and "well now mobs 1 level below your current KL won't aggro onto you" (because mobs at the same level still will...). In Eureka your Elemental level raising actually did make you stronger, you could go back to the start of an area after hitting its level cap and one-shot the enemies there; and while your rank in Bozja didn't directly affect your damage, it did determine what fragments you could appraise, so indirectly there was a power growth.
Meanwhile in OC, your KL literally affects.. tower entry/spawn, aggro and. seemingly nothing else. Neither quest progression or aetheryte unlocks are tied to it (to be clear I'm not necessarily complaining about that but it was something that made the storyline feel like it wasn't over in 30 minutes), there's no loot gated behind higher ranks - and it doesn't make you any stronger, either! Rank up to KL 20, and then go back to fight a rank 5 mob... it'll probably take the same amount of time if you haven't upgraded your gear or mastered any jobs. It's like if you got to level 20 in Anemos and still had to spend a minute and a half fighting the lv1 enemies at the start of the area. Mobs at higher ranks will still probably one-shot you like they did at rank 1. It really just feels like it was added in because they did the phantom job leveling and mastery ranks, but then decided "oh we should give it some sort of overarching level system too" and then just. made that system do more or less nothing.

*which ties in to something I noticed someone else mention, the entire design of OC is to funnel and push you towards running FT... but then they gave it one of the least puggable/prog friendly designs in the game. It would make a lot more sense if, as far too many people have mentioned, both the difficulty and entry were like CLL - but as-is, it's like if you had to complete BA to move on from Anemos.

[Supersnow845]

It pretty much depends what you play, as example Canoneer since the Dmg and CD works together with Vipers DMG and SPeedbuff we are talking here about additional Skills which does the same Damage as our Ouruboros

I don’t really mean slight synergy on damage buffs I mean at its core canoneer as a skill doesnt actually do anything unique, its just some nukes on CD

Nothing on canoneer changes how you engage with the wide mr job in a fulfilling way

[Astronema]

I think the two kind of feed into one another.

Many players were gritting their teeth from DT launch to 7.2 having a lousy time, telling themselves they'd only keep going if Cosmic Explo and/or Occult Crescent were good.

They're not, of course.

Now those same players are confronted with the reality that the content requirements they set to keep playing have not been met.

And breaking up is hard to do.

Doobie doobie doo.

Expect friction.

the game is in a death spiral now.

[SeriousPan]

Getting real god damn sick of not getting the Berserk or Ranger job to drop from CE's. Meanwhile my friend tries it for the first time yesterday and gets both on his first run in each. Gimme a break.

Forked Towers design philosophy is all over the place on how they want it to be partied up compared to how difficult it is that I have to imagine the people designing it had never met a raider in FFXIV before.