Thread: 8.0 DPS Job Rework Workshop/Megathread. Goals, Design Principles, and Mock-Ups.

Originally Posted by VentVanitas

i'm trying my best to make this post not read like it's barely concealed TK rotation agenda, but i don't necessarily want that to come back.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Would love to see how that plays out if you're up for a more in-detail mockup.

Playing with a more... extreme (possibly unhinged) version myself, largely as a prototype of a couple different rehauls of the combo system (a completely open one and a consolidated ones where each job has sort of its own geometric system of said consolidation).

Going to continue with this line of thought, though it's still rather rough for now.

So, again, broadly speaking the idea is to scrap combos as they are right now, including most things reminiscent of them (Monk's ORC rotations between Blitzes, RDM 6-step combo, etc.); if it gets its own button it should at least conditionally/situationally be an independently usable choice.

This can be done in either of two ways. In the first method, you provide roughly the same number of actions as now, but free them from their rigid strictures.

Monk would be probably the very simplest of the melee thereby changed, basically only requiring two steps to de-bloat the kit a bit, make it a bit less arbitrary / a bit more intuitive, and offer some further nuance:

1. Replace the form locks with Greased Lightning now increasing damage, crit chance, and attack speed by 20%... but only on Beast skills and with the caveat that those bonuses are halved if the same form has been used within the last 2 GCDs' time and is gone completely if used within the last GCD's time.
   
   This means that in order to maintain your maximum DPS, you still rotate the three forms, but you don't need Form Shift in order to do that, and downtime, Blitz itself, and SSS itself, now offer some further adjustability.
   
2. Increase the Beast Chakra maximums to 1|2|3 (while still giving only 1|1|2), as to allow for some further rotational variance, or, better yet, go back to Twin Snakes having a duration and Demolish being a DoT, but uniquely allow them to roll-over up to 3 seconds' of duration from early reapplication.

Such would basically put us at a just more polished version of Endwalker Monk. Not something I'd be fully satisfied by, but still a decent enough result.


The other route is to just build around consolidation from the start, but have each means of consolidation work differently:

For instance, DRG might loop per 3|4|5 steps (increasing with traits), and simply be able to mix-and-match how they see fit between their "Thrust" (ST direct), "Drive" (ST indirect), and "Surge" (AoE) paths, with reason to swap between paths often enough. E.g., Impulse Drive might afflict the enemy to take bonus damage per hit, diminishing over time or existing only until a total number of hits, which Sonic Thrust [hitting several times times for, say, 15 potency each] then exploits better than any other skill, while Full Thrust deals bonus potency based on the direct potency of the skill immediately before it (without setup, Lance Barrage does the most, but with setup, Disembowel or Sonic Thrust might do more).

Dark Knight might have 4 elements to choose from and finish its combo only once its used the same element twice, therefore having combos of 2-5 steps, with the longer the combo, the more vulnerable the DRK is between (and less able to maintain deliberate timely focuses towards specifically Blood, MP, HP, or barrier) but the harder he'll hit, with optimal DPS requiring aligning cycles of preparation so that eventually all buffs would, say, fall off simultaneously just after a 5-step spender and ideally just as the enemy dies.

Samurai might loop its ST path at the 2nd or 3rd step, AoE at the 2nd step, and ranged skill at the first (just augmenting and then spending a bonus), with each GCD still having the option to commit oneself more deeply to ST or AoE, and timing and average loop length being the main way to pick between Haste and Damage (adjusting for the situation and to perfect the timing on Tsubame-Gaeshi and Higanbana, both).

Gladiator/Paladin might split its kit practically in two (or, two-thirds and one-thirds) between sword and shield, giving it unparalleled access to snap-mitigation but not quite so endless of max damage nullification (due to resource expenditure). It'd desire to leverage its shield to maximize counterattack (MT) or thwarting/intervening (OT) potential by playing the two halves around each other, each on a separate-ish GCD.

Etc., etc., ultimately to the goal that each has plenty of skill variety and variety not just in effects but also in playflow despite still having high density.

For Monk itself, you'd essentially have 4 dynamic actions varied by Form and Stance (interrelated, but not quite the same), with each skill having aspects of both, kind of like the faces of a Rubics cube when shifting either or both among Form and Stance.

Will take a while to give a precise mock-up for that one, though. WIP. Will edit when done.