Is it too late to keep Battle Regimens in the game?

[Peregrine]

I really like them
They add a lot of power to a coordinated team, and the potential of adding more combos to that system is almost limitless. The more I use BR's the more I like them.

Attack->attack->magic attack, which can be done immediately, puts defense down and magic defense down on a mob. Then as a followup to that, attack->weaponskill->weaponskill->magic spell not only puts TP down on the mob so it's much easier, that combination is actually two battle regimens stitched together. The last portion of it does a ton of enhancing damage. A ton! More than you can do as a sum of the parts.

Unlike the skillchain system in XI that was doomed to be replaced by tpburns, Battle regimens are as powerful as a bard and hit as hard as a skillchain. Best part is that you can link any subregimen like TP down, defense down, magic defense down, and damage boosts together in a single regimen. It's really only limited to how coordinated your team can be.

What happens when the regimen weaponskill->weaponskill->magic spell->magic spell->weaponskill->weaponskill is used? Does it just keep boosting damage on top of boosted damage? I dunno. We haven't even fully tested BR's.

As much as they're misunderstood and were poorly balanced early in the game, and even now they could use a little better macro tweaking and streamlining...they're one of the best parts of the game right now, and their potential is too great to get rid of for something simpler and easier.

I fear Battle Regimens have already been cut, and I wish I'd made this topic sooner...

[Shiyo]

BR's are amazing, easy to use, and fun. You feel like you did a good job when you properly BR imo, the problem is that mobs are too weak to warrant ever BRing. Only NM's are BRed really, which is dumb -_-

Almost everything wrong with the combat system goes back to "This game is far too easy, wtf".

[Peregrine]

I did archer 1-20 today. Picked up a con at level 10, and a lancer at 17. Had a blast. Never did a regimen.
And I'm okay with that. I prefer TP burning for SP-gets and minor fights.
If Battle Regimens are things you only really pull out on epic fights, that's really a good role for them.

As the mobs get harder, Battle regimens end up making up more and mroe of your % damage to the point where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts spamming DPS rotations as fast as they can.

That's a big improvement on FFXI, and a big improvement on WoW's take on DPS rotations as the end-all be-all.

[EpicDaze]

I personally do not like the BR system.

I really don't like how there is no element of comunication or timing needed to preform them. It reminds me of the cooking machine informercial "Set it and forget it" Just like so many things that were introduced in FFXIV it is designed that players of all ages and skill levels (lack there of) can do and feel good about there play.

[REDace0]

I didn't know you could splice multiple BRs together. That's interesting and brings a lot more strategy to the system. I do think it needs to be expanded, but overall I like it.

[Xatsh]

Battle Regiments are incredibly good.

WS => WS => Nuke can almost drop or just destroy a normal sp mob in 1 regiment. around 700-1000dmg for the 2 WS added together and 900-1700dmg just for the single nuke alone. (you can drop 60-80% of a raptors HP with 1 regiment easy, can kill it in 1 regiment if you do Maim => doomspike => Victimize II => tier 2 nuke)

Combined with status effects of the regiment, that are fairly potent.

Can also do multiple regiments all at once.
attack => attack => ws => ws => nuke = Def Down + Tp Inhibit + WS dmg increase + Nuke Dmg increase

The whole issue is people think it is hard to do, or worthless. It really isn't. In a group of people who are use to it you can pop off a 5 stage regiment in less then 10secs. It is as simple as pressing {Shift} + {number key}, and you ready the regiment and stack the attack. Then you press {G} to fire them once everyone is set. It is crazy easy to do.

I place the blame 2 fold here.
1) Square not explaining exactly how regiments work
2) The playerbase being too lazy to figure it out. (Today's NA gamer declares it stupid and pointless if it takes longer then 2mins to figure out)

Square removing this would be a horrible horrible thing. What they need to do is make it where it does not stop you from normal attacking when you have a regiment readied so a slow person does not bring total DOT to a stop.

[Honz]

With auto attack being implemented in the future I don't see how BRs can stick around since normal attacks like heavy swing, heavy slash, spirit dart, etc. play a big role in executing a powerful BR.

[Peregrine]

You could leave light and heavy slash as simple /ac's when auto attack is implemented. They're no different than weaponskills, so whatever they do to ws's they can just do to them and keep them.

I love the idea of being able to continue damage and TP build while you're waiting on the BR to finish. Ancient magic was designed that way. A lot of our meleers are getting hamstringged by the regimens a bit because they're not acting. BR still does more damage than if they just used DPS rotations, but it'd be nice to maximize their TP and damage outside the regimen.