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

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

'Raid buffs'

Yes, there is a deeper conversation that can be had around raid buffs and their effects, I mainly wanted to set the environment that my Monk idea was based around and give a quick explanation as to why.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Aye, party-scaled potency. Though, this ultimately just punishes you for having fewer than 8 people...

How many people choose not to take Monk or Reaper into Criterion Savage Dungeons or say they are an issue? I do not know but I haven't heard of it being a major concern (though I could be wrong). Any other 4 man content this shouldn't be a concern.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Don't we have that through the flexibility of Reply of Wind and, to a lesser extent, Reply of Fire (best used right after Opo-opo)? Or, if allowing for overcap, through Meditation.

Heck, at the original 320 potency on TFC (528 effective potency), Meditation was doing 264 ppgcd while the likes of Piercing Talon was doing 132 and Throwing Dagger at 110, iirc. It was by far the strongest ranged (as in, not needing to be in melee) attack in the game with the added benefit of not even needing a target and therefore usable during boss jumps.
(The problem was simply the same Shoha / Meditate later faced. Overcap from in-combat RNG reducing the number of uses available during downtime.)

Admittedly, Fire was the one I struggled with in making a change that fit in what I wanted to achieve. I should be clear though, I was meant to say it was a ranged attack with a cooldown, so it cannot be spammed. I think that alone potentially changes the dynamic involved as you cannot just sit at range and spam the attack out, like you can with Piercing Talon etc. Meditation would then be similar to Viper's Writhing Snap, with the benefit that you can still Meditate even if the boss is untargetable.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Why not just let it go a step further with attack and movement speed?

Because increasing GCD speed just another way of increasing damage gains by making your attacks come out faster. It's the same dynamic as early ShB, what is better GL3 and FoF or GL4 with FoW.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Just a spitball, but... Let's say GL were returned (though maybe taking just 3-4 GCDs to ramp up instead of 7-9) and gave an effect or effect-set for each element: Damage from Fire, Attack Speed and Movement Speed from Wind, and Mitigation and Attack Power from damage personally nullified from Earth, up to 20% each (25% for the chosen one)?

:: To reduce the opportunity cost this would otherwise cost you from using Tornado Kick, those stances then might cause you to always retain the whole of that element's effect (e.g., in Fists of Wind, you'd rank up through +0/7/14/20% damage and mitigation, but always have +25% haste) or, say, gain half its maximum from the start (+13/17/21/25% haste).

Which you could do, but you create a situation, especially between FoF and FoW that will come out on top as mathematically better. So whilst it is a nice idea, I don't see it really working out.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Not direct feedback, but just some probes:

How would you feel if Blitz was just... an MP spender, that spent a % of remaining MP (with a certain minimum cost) for accordant damage that you could use whenever?

Then Monk would need a way to build up MP and it would effectively be a build and spend when full, unless damage is linearly proportional to the MP spent so that it doesn't matter. However, the bigger thing here is that by de-coupling it from Perfect Balance, you turn it into just another attack with no real meaning behind it.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Using the GL example from before... what if Riddle of Earth, Riddle of Wind, and Riddle of Fire were consolidated into one skill dependent on present stance. Each would double the effect of the chosen Fists of ~~ stance and shuffled a rank each of the other stances (Fire would be 35%/10%/10%, each with an added twist (e.g., Riddle of Fire could charge up its Chakra attacks, Riddle of Wind could create a wind-clone that would store your next action and allow you to later copy it as an oGCD, and Riddle of Earth would generate Attack Power based on damage nullified). If there were some way to entice rotation of at least Wind and Fire in flexibly-timed windows by which one can capitalize on or set up for the other, would that kind of Riddle of ~~ finally allow a RoF to be more appealing even as a %damage skill? Would that allow for, to your mind, a more interesting RoW?

The problem is, you are still creating windows where it is beneficial to put Perfect Balance, whether it is under FoF or FoW. Even if Perfect Balance lined up so that you were forced to use one in the 'less desirable' fist, you would still aim to put as many in the favourable one as possible. This is reminiscent of how it currently is, where you want to put 2 PBs inside the even RoF and keep 1 PB in the odd RoF. It goes against the entire framework of what I wanted to achieve with Monk.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

The latter sounds like it'd feel rather degenerative if in a context where Twin Snakes and Demolish durations were returned.

By this point, I was just spit balling ideas to try and make the PB window more interesting so that it wasn't just a simple all Opo, or all different. The Dancer-esque system would work with Fury, but another system might work better with the buffs. At this point, the post was turning into idle musings.

Originally Posted by Mikey_R

<Re:Tani feedback to Mikey_R Monk ideas>

Hiding feedback again in order not to cause excess scrolling time between original posts:

Just two points I want to focus on most:

Because increasing GCD speed just another way of increasing damage gains by making your attacks come out faster. It's the same dynamic as early ShB, what is better GL3 and FoF or GL4 with FoW.
+
[You could allow for a choice between Damage and Attack Speed], but you create a situation, especially between FoF and FoW that will come out on top as mathematically better. So whilst it is a nice idea, I don't see it really working out.

They're not exactly the same, though, especially so long as you return timers to Disciplined Fist and Demolish, though there may, yes, be a best choice in each GCD.

Skills with high individual damage are best used under damage buffs. Everything else is best used under speed to increase the portion of uptime spent on stronger skills, because amping the weaker skills by 5% is not worth as much as getting through them 5.3% (actually quantized by durations, but this is just a spherical cow) faster and thereby increasing the portion of stronger skills that are then further amplified.

Like, if we want the stances to be choices at all, then we're going need to have...

1. branching paths that still ultimately (though in complicated fashion) have a best answer or
2. clear best answers across a 60- or 120-second period (due to Blitz, Disciplined, and Demolish line-ups), or
3. at minimum, preferred stances for each action (Wind for low-pppgcd [personal potency per gcd] skills, Fire for high potency-GCDs where oGCDs in gap are obviously included),
   or...
   
   
4. as before, Wind and Earth are dps losses used only as a last resort and rarely able to make any real difference to survivability or mobility anyways (unless you amp the hell out of them, risking making Earth OP overall, or redesign them to use a sort of granular resource)...
5. at which point, you might as well have Wind and Earth consume MP and remove Fire altogether, or
6. turn Fists of Fire into your granular Riddle of Fire phase -- perhaps only affecting beast skills or adding flat potency if worried about them being overly obligatory for oGCDs and/or Blitz or applying some other way to force stance-rotation, such as, idk, ramping drain costs from staying in a given stance too long.

Whatever the case, adding that allows for some small-gap skill-expression akin to Shadowbringers positionals for those who like a stick-shift feel that's less hamfisted and not nearly so wasteful as Shadowbringers' stances.

Then Monk would need a way to build up MP and it would effectively be a build and spend when full, unless damage is linearly proportional to the MP spent so that it doesn't matter. However, the bigger thing here is that by de-coupling it from Perfect Balance, you turn it into just another attack with no real meaning behind it.

Just a thought, not necessarily for the same exact context. Meanwhile, that MP generation could come from, in essence, standard rotation, such that you can have a rushed rotation creating burst phases and conserve phases between. Granted, the last thing we'd want is even more Opo-opo spam, so, it'd have to be for a different structure anyways. Hmm...

How many people choose not to take Monk or Reaper into Criterion Savage Dungeons or say they are an issue?

Not many. My point, though, was just that it's a raid-scaled skill that at best gets up to, well, flat potency damage that'd normally be the baseline, and is sort of the opposite of support thematically (everyone supports the Bard, instead of the Bard supporting others).

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Except in buffs' case, you'd start them at higher power before reducing the % per person beyond 4 people (down to the current values at the max of 8 players affected). Could still be better in 8-man, for flavor's sake; just reduce the penalty slightly for taking raid-buffers to Light Party content. (Yes, I'm aware that Mug and Chain Strategem would thereby need a retweak and/or attached hidden/dummy buff for regulation.)

I may be mis-remembering things, but isn't something like this in effect for V&C dungeons? Buffs being stronger for a 4 man situation so jobs like AST and BRD won't feel awkward?

Originally Posted by Valence

It is but from what I do remember the baked in gains attributed to buffers is way too weak to compete properly with selfish jobs in criterion.

Correct, the damage compensation is given to the whole party and thus buffers don't benefit as much as non-buffers, making non-buffers even better.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Barring that, it just means your rotation is externally affected instead, though, no? If even a single raid buff remains and there is no penalty otherwise for holding for up to 120s (no fight-specific vulnerability window for enemies or buff window for you or DPS check or %HP phase threshold, etc), you'll do it within that raidbuff.

Which is why I specifically stated in my original post that this Monk is in an environment without temporary damage raid buffs.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Moreover, let's say we do somehow remove all raidbuffs, all encounter-based variation of damage output, and all DPS checks so that one has no pressure to use a skill at any particular given time. Would that even be better gameplay anyways?

In a vacuum, who knows. Now, whilst I didn't specify this (at least, I don't think I did), it does have some interplay with encounter design. If you have 2 targets that you can potentially cleave with Masterful Blitzes, or even mob packs mid fight that it would be beneficial to have the more flexible window. Of course, other jobs will have more strict burst phases and this can lead to cases where, say, Dragoon and Black Mage's burst do not line up with the mob pack coming, but Monk and Dancer, being a bit more flexible, is more than enough, so Dragoon and Black mage can stay single target on the boss whilst Monk and Dancer take care of the adds. So it is a scenario where, rather than tying everything to the 2 minute rotation, we break things up and have the potential to split focus with different jobs handling different things based on their kit. It is about making the interaction between the job kit and the encounter more intertwined.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Would something like that work?

As I said, not a Ninja main, I just liked Dancing Edges animation. I will leave any potential changes to people who actually want to use Ninja.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Apart from a rare few mistaking DoTs for an identity (when the identity is instead usually, at best, just trading control/utility for raw throughput over time, assuming the DoT job exists in an MMO not plagued by decontextualized numbers-envy), I don't think anyone's suggested adding a DoT "just for the sake of adding a DoT".

Yeah, It was just clarification as, in the past, it seemed they wanted to add a DoT to every job just for the sake of it.