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Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward |OT2| RIP Bowmage 2015-2017.
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Stone Ocean
Member
Healers won't show the same mercy
cultureculture
Member
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/5xrv3u/more_information_from_korean_live_letter/
Some nice stuff and odd stuff about job actions here:
- Shadowskin and Rampart to be unified as a single cross-role skill for tanks (RIP Inner Beast?)
- Thunder spells to be combined and get stronger with levels
- Enochian to be a permanent buff, but still with ways to increase your DPS despite this (I'm going to assume 'remember to refresh Astral Fire and cast Blizzard IV like before')
- some stuff for PLD/MNK enemy debuffs if you haven't upgraded those to DRK/SAM already
Some nice stuff and odd stuff about job actions here:
- Shadowskin and Rampart to be unified as a single cross-role skill for tanks (RIP Inner Beast?)
- Thunder spells to be combined and get stronger with levels
- Enochian to be a permanent buff, but still with ways to increase your DPS despite this (I'm going to assume 'remember to refresh Astral Fire and cast Blizzard IV like before')
- some stuff for PLD/MNK enemy debuffs if you haven't upgraded those to DRK/SAM already
cartoon_soldier
Member
So, early access is only available for store orders not online orders?
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/stormblood/product/#ce
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/stormblood/product/#ce
You went and got 5 of those bloody things?
No RIP Inner Beast.
Inner Beast is integral to the job/The WARs story.
Most likely RIP Foresight though.
The Last Wizard
Member
I should level my healer and tank classes🤔
There's no way Foresight isn't getting reworked, it only gets stronger as defense value goes up, 0 thought went into that cooldown.
Blending Rampart and Shadow skin into one skill is weird, they're already functionally equivalent in recast and effect.
Enochian is whatever it just means they're scrapping this rotation and gonna come up with another one, might as well just remove it but that would require to do something about HW quests and that's effort.
Doing something about WAR OT isn't necessary, they need to do something about PLD and DRK OT instead
Overall everything sounds like they don't wanna commit to any large reworks of anything which is bad
No, the only challenge to fishing is to figure out how can each fish be caught, after trailblazers figure this out you just need to catch it.
It doesn't get interesting, it just gets obnoxious (like getting a correct weather sequence at the right time and praying hard cap on catch chance doesn't screw you over).
Blending Rampart and Shadow skin into one skill is weird, they're already functionally equivalent in recast and effect.
Enochian is whatever it just means they're scrapping this rotation and gonna come up with another one, might as well just remove it but that would require to do something about HW quests and that's effort.
Doing something about WAR OT isn't necessary, they need to do something about PLD and DRK OT instead
Overall everything sounds like they don't wanna commit to any large reworks of anything which is bad
No, the only challenge to fishing is to figure out how can each fish be caught, after trailblazers figure this out you just need to catch it.
It doesn't get interesting, it just gets obnoxious (like getting a correct weather sequence at the right time and praying hard cap on catch chance doesn't screw you over).
Geez that's lame. I guess I'll just leave it at 15 then for now.
Ragingnight
Member
Outside the bard bow and light I did them all spey casually with just doing duty roulette daily.
It's really not hard to get them if you are efficient with your lore.
I basically did my beast tribe, did ct on level 50+ character for exp spend lore on umbrite and never sat on capped leves.
Edit
There no way certain classes don't get nerfed or rework in sb. Sch, war, ast, pld, brd, mch in particular. So I'm kind of excited to see what happens
They can still revert Inner Beast back to what it was before 2.1. This would actually make me happy, I'd love it if WAR would lean even more towards self-healing, as it's a design space that currently isn't being occupied.
I'm a bit concerned with Yoshida repeatedly saying "we're removing useless skills but don't worry, the number of skills at 70 will be the same as 60". To me this translates into: "your hotbars won't be any less bloated at 70, but now every button will be useful so there's no escaping reality by playing MNK/BLM".
I'm a bit concerned with Yoshida repeatedly saying "we're removing useless skills but don't worry, the number of skills at 70 will be the same as 60". To me this translates into: "your hotbars won't be any less bloated at 70, but now every button will be useful so there's no escaping reality by playing MNK/BLM".
cultureculture
Member
It was a joke, but it does throw up an interesting question. If Rampart/Shadowskin is becoming a single cross-role skill, will it be available to WAR or will cross-role skills still be somehow limited to specific jobs?
If you give this skill to WAR, then you have Inner Beast (6s 20% damage reduction effectively on demand) + General Tank 20% Damage Reduction Cooldown. In terms of what we currently have, this is a pretty major advantage.
So I do wonder whether Inner Beast is going to get an adjustment, or if the other tanks will get a new cooldown intended to even out this significant advantage - limiting the cross-role skill pool to specific jobs makes the decision to combine Rampart/Shadowskin seem like quite an odd and unnecessary one, unless this is somehow tied in to some other kind of gameplay change.
I don't see Foresight going, since it is useful when paired with other skills, but I can see it being merged with something like Awareness.
cultureculture
Member
But then it'll be short a skill after they take Fracture away from WAR and put it on arcanist where it belongs.
Stone Ocean
Member
My only concern from that info is that it sounds like they're mostly ok with healer balance? Here's hoping AST and SCH still get the nerfs they deserve.
A big BRD rework was already confirmed so there's that. Plus who knows how healers will work if accuracy gets nuked.
Johnlenham
Member
Entered the MGP lottery and got 3rd place, a nice 12k MGP then I went and won another 10k on the scratch cards haha.
Now ive got like 70k. Not really sure whats worth buying with em though.
Also about to put in my codes so i can finally access the market/retainers/pvp(?) etc etc
Now ive got like 70k. Not really sure whats worth buying with em though.
Also about to put in my codes so i can finally access the market/retainers/pvp(?) etc etc
After putzing around in the HW zones, I'm starting to realize how all of these maps were designed with flying in mind and they're a nightmare to traverse on the ground. Was trying to do some hunts in Dravian Forelands and I could not find a way to where the mobs I needed were, I kept running into walls. Coerthas wasn't much better but I usually was able to find my way eventually. That said, sea of clouds and chocobo forest are amazing looking areas. I'm at the point where I just need to run Steel Vigil for the last aether current in Coerthas and the msq is sending me to chocobo forest. It seems a lvl 50 mob in HW is much stronger than a lvl 50 mob in N Than. My kill speed has gone way done and I'm still using a Novus weapon since it's still higher weep dmg than the ilvl 135 items I could equip
I'm not sure if I'm playing machinist right yet either. I get the main 1-2-3 attack but I'm never sure when to do things like reload, I'm assuming the answer is whenever it's up. And wildfire and rapid fire having the same cool down means they should always be used together? Did 30-38 solely in PotD and stuff dies too fast in there to get a feel for it, plus I never use lead shot in it.
I'm not sure if I'm playing machinist right yet either. I get the main 1-2-3 attack but I'm never sure when to do things like reload, I'm assuming the answer is whenever it's up. And wildfire and rapid fire having the same cool down means they should always be used together? Did 30-38 solely in PotD and stuff dies too fast in there to get a feel for it, plus I never use lead shot in it.
If we're strictly talking about healer toolkit balance, it is mostly fine as is. WHM is still a really strong healer, it's the silly Balance (the card) buff coupled with Creator's encounter design where nothing really matters that pushed it out of favor. AST and WHM were well-balanced in Midas already before the huge Balance buff, but that raid had actual damage that needed to be healed, you couldn't take a boss from 25% to 0% with 2 dead healers. WHM and AST had their own benefits with no clear winner most of the time. And I feel like AST and SCH are now mostly balanced as shield healers. Once against, they each have their benefits and this is a good thing.
They need to either dial Balance back (preferably, as it understandably made fflogs addicts unhappy), or they need to give WHM something to compensate (but that's more power creep and it is not something this game needs). Hopefully they differentiate the healers more though because they play too similarly and it's boring.
I do think WHM needs some kind of mitigation shield thing and a Virus equivalent. Diurnal AST getting the Collective shield and Disable is kind of a thing. It all revolves around fight tuning but that all WHM has is stoneskin, and HW did away with good stoneskin entirely, is kind of a problem.
So MCH basically breaks down into bite-sized chunks pretty easily.
Every 15 Seconds: Quick Reload
Every 30 seconds: Refresh Hot Shot and Lead Shot
Every 60 seconds: R,R,R: Reload, Reassemble, and Ricochet
Every 90 seconds: Rapid Fire, Hawk's Eye, Blood for Blood, and Wildfire
Every 120 seconds: Hypercharge
Every 180 seconds: Raging Strikes
Part of the reason the MCH opener is widely regarded as sort of crazy is that at the start of the fight, you have all of those things at once+potion and a couple of oGCD damage skills. It's a lot of buttons to get going.
Once you've started, though, it's a pretty set pattern. Every 30 seconds you refresh hot and lead. Every other Hot/Lead shot refresh, you have RRR up. Every third refresh you have your wildfire combo. Wildfires will alternate between a strong wildfire (because they overlap with RRR and Raging Strikes), and a weaker Midfire (because it happens in between RRR windows and Raging isn't up for another 90 seconds.) Individual fights will mess with this a little as you learn to hold things for boss jumps, etc, but by and large MCH skills all work well together because they're all on agreeable timers.
The only real thing to pay attention to with Ammo is that you don't want to waste it on Hot Shot or Lead Shot. Don't Quick Reload right before a refresh, and you'll probably want to hold it a couple of GCDs if it comes back up right as you need to refresh Hot and Lead Shot.
Lead Shot is also the strongest GCD a machinist has, assuming it's allowed to tick down, so it's good to get into the habit of using (always with Gauss Barrel on once you have it, and always make sure to get a lead shot out when your buffs are all up.)
So MCH basically breaks down into bite-sized chunks pretty easily.
Every 15 Seconds: Quick Reload
Every 30 seconds: Refresh Hot Shot and Lead Shot
Every 60 seconds: R,R,R: Reload, Reassemble, and Ricochet
Every 90 seconds: Rapid Fire, Hawk's Eye, Blood for Blood, and Wildfire
Every 120 seconds: Hypercharge
Every 180 seconds: Raging Strikes
Part of the reason the MCH opener is widely regarded as sort of crazy is that at the start of the fight, you have all of those things at once+potion and a couple of oGCD damage skills. It's a lot of buttons to get going.
Once you've started, though, it's a pretty set pattern. Every 30 seconds you refresh hot and lead. Every other Hot/Lead shot refresh, you have RRR up. Every third refresh you have your wildfire combo. Wildfires will alternate between a strong wildfire (because they overlap with RRR and Raging Strikes), and a weaker Midfire (because it happens in between RRR windows and Raging isn't up for another 90 seconds.) Individual fights will mess with this a little as you learn to hold things for boss jumps, etc, but by and large MCH skills all work well together because they're all on agreeable timers.
The only real thing to pay attention to with Ammo is that you don't want to waste it on Hot Shot or Lead Shot. Don't Quick Reload right before a refresh, and you'll probably want to hold it a couple of GCDs if it comes back up right as you need to refresh Hot and Lead Shot.
Lead Shot is also the strongest GCD a machinist has, assuming it's allowed to tick down, so it's good to get into the habit of using (always with Gauss Barrel on once you have it, and always make sure to get a lead shot out when your buffs are all up.)
VanillaCakeIsBurning
Member
Paladin 4.0 incoming.
Stone Ocean
Member
Giving WHM some mitigation would be nice. Maybe make Stoneskin 2 an OGCD with a sizeable CD? Or swap Asylum and Sacred Soil around so WHM gets the mitigation and SCH gets the regen.
In previous raids, you would use Collective and Disable as a substitute to Cure III when AST couldn't keep up, using mitigation to soften the blow. As I said, it is a byproduct of Creator's encounter design and tuning more than anything.
In reality, they could remove Virus from the game and make Disable a role skill and it would sort of even out the playing field.
cartoon_soldier
Member
I can't login today at all 
Connection with the server was lost
Some lobby connection error
Connection with the server was lost
Some lobby connection error
So they are going to make BLM play as braindead as level 50 BLM played. With Thunder, I use both Thunder 1 and Thunder 3 at level 60 so I wonder how that will work. Not really very impressed with this whole endeavour actually.
This was super helpful, so the answer is pretty much to use stuff whenever it's up and the timers will work themselves out. I'm assuming for RRR I always use Reassemble with Ricochet? Right now I use reassemble before a clean shot proc.
I think part of my problem, is like you said, there's so much stuff to do as an opener and I'm not sure how to get it all in. Especially for a trash pull that doesn't might not seem necessary to pop every cool down every time. I probably just need more practice tho, it's silly to expect to have it mastered in 2 days
Stone Ocean
Member
From a rotation standpoint, BLM is just as braindead to play now as it was at 50, the only difference is that you need to map out an extra buff through a fight. Raising the skill floor won't make good BLMs worse, it'll just make bad BLMs less bad.
Thunder is simple, Thunder 1 will do the same damage as T3 so all it changes is which button you press for the proc.
BLM on a dummy is fascinating to me, because I always feel like I have to be forgetting skills and then suddenly it's 10 minutes later because OH YEAH blm never run out of resources.
The weirdness of stoneskin is largely that it lasts for so ridiculously long--the shield is pretty bad on return for GCD investment in combat now, but it edges towards a little OP if you can drop a 30 minute shield on everyone mid-combat. It just gets weird when things go sideways (greedy melee eating all the vulnerabilities) and everyone is tossing everything they have at a boss to mitigate some upcoming AOE damage--Path, Rend Mind, Virus, shields, etc--and the WHM's got nothing aside from precasting a heal.
I just feel like the combination of skills gives diurnal AST a leg up on WHM in any situation where raw healing throughput isn't a concern (which I'm expecting to be the situation in the next couple of tiers, given how happy they apparently are with how Creator turned out), while WHM doesn't really have a toolkit to do much beyond sheer heal power. If Creator party damage isn't the raid design go-forward it's less of a thing, but right now WHM is really good at a lot of things that in the long run are just kind of overkill while having nothing at all in the area of mitigation. SCH and Noct AST both have access to an AOE regen, so I'd like to see some kind of AOE mitigation option for WHM in the name of balance. Collective's regen is never going to replace medica 2/aspected helios, but it's nice that it's there.
You're doing it right--use it with proc'd clean shot, and if you can proc'd clean shot with an ammo for the bonus 20 potency (which should usually be your first Clean Shot after Reload, since Reassemble should come up in time.) It only works on GCDs, so Ricochet is out. RRR just gets listed like that because all the R skills come up at the same time, so it's convenient.
The full opener is kind of insane--so many buttons--but for the most part on trash you don't have to worry about it. Always use bishop on 2 or more enemies, and if you only have a couple of enemies up and they'll last for ~20 seconds, drop Lead Shot on each. In large packs, Grenado is more damage than Spread Shot but also much higher TP cost, so only use Grenado if you're pretty sure everything's going to die before you run out of TP.
I'm kind of stingy with cool downs on trash--I'll blow everything in dungeons if I know we're a couple minutes out from the boss, but will then sit on stuff so I can opener on dungeon bosses because there's no practical way to wildfire on trash. If you're going to full MCH opener on a dungeon boss, though, Quelling Strikes is kind of a must.
The weirdness of stoneskin is largely that it lasts for so ridiculously long--the shield is pretty bad on return for GCD investment in combat now, but it edges towards a little OP if you can drop a 30 minute shield on everyone mid-combat. It just gets weird when things go sideways (greedy melee eating all the vulnerabilities) and everyone is tossing everything they have at a boss to mitigate some upcoming AOE damage--Path, Rend Mind, Virus, shields, etc--and the WHM's got nothing aside from precasting a heal.
I just feel like the combination of skills gives diurnal AST a leg up on WHM in any situation where raw healing throughput isn't a concern (which I'm expecting to be the situation in the next couple of tiers, given how happy they apparently are with how Creator turned out), while WHM doesn't really have a toolkit to do much beyond sheer heal power. If Creator party damage isn't the raid design go-forward it's less of a thing, but right now WHM is really good at a lot of things that in the long run are just kind of overkill while having nothing at all in the area of mitigation. SCH and Noct AST both have access to an AOE regen, so I'd like to see some kind of AOE mitigation option for WHM in the name of balance. Collective's regen is never going to replace medica 2/aspected helios, but it's nice that it's there.
You're doing it right--use it with proc'd clean shot, and if you can proc'd clean shot with an ammo for the bonus 20 potency (which should usually be your first Clean Shot after Reload, since Reassemble should come up in time.) It only works on GCDs, so Ricochet is out. RRR just gets listed like that because all the R skills come up at the same time, so it's convenient.
The full opener is kind of insane--so many buttons--but for the most part on trash you don't have to worry about it. Always use bishop on 2 or more enemies, and if you only have a couple of enemies up and they'll last for ~20 seconds, drop Lead Shot on each. In large packs, Grenado is more damage than Spread Shot but also much higher TP cost, so only use Grenado if you're pretty sure everything's going to die before you run out of TP.
I'm kind of stingy with cool downs on trash--I'll blow everything in dungeons if I know we're a couple minutes out from the boss, but will then sit on stuff so I can opener on dungeon bosses because there's no practical way to wildfire on trash. If you're going to full MCH opener on a dungeon boss, though, Quelling Strikes is kind of a must.
Stone Ocean
Member
It sounds like stuff like Virus and Disable will become role-wide as well so that's cool
Fracture for everyone, what a brave new world we live in.
Edit: To be more serious, it'll likely end with a lot of "homogenization tho!" cries but if they're going to keep trying to balance around the idea of take the person, not the job, then unique abilities strong enough to tip the scale are going to be the first things offered up wherever they can, especially if it doesn't really hit on any job identity sort of thing.
Edit: To be more serious, it'll likely end with a lot of "homogenization tho!" cries but if they're going to keep trying to balance around the idea of take the person, not the job, then unique abilities strong enough to tip the scale are going to be the first things offered up wherever they can, especially if it doesn't really hit on any job identity sort of thing.
Lunafreya Nox Fleuret
Member
Perma enochian? Sign me the hell up.
Stone Ocean
Member
Hydrophobic
Member
It's kind of crazy that every tank doesn't just have a taunt-like ability in their tree to start with. If one class has that ability, and it's cross-classable then it essentially becomes mandatory for every tank just in case doesn't it?
I say this knowing that the plan is to give every tank a taunt in the future.
I say this knowing that the plan is to give every tank a taunt in the future.
Played far too much this weekend but at least I got through Alexander. Also ran ACT while doing it and I know it's just Normal, but the number of people doing like 500 dps was kinda horrifying. Black mages tended to be the worst.
Wanted the Midan aiming set for glamour but with all these new games coming out, RIP to that thought. Back to the poncho life I go.
Back to Alexander--another nice, mostly self-contained story. And I'm getting pretty fond of Cid's crew. Hope Stormblood's MCH quests use them instead of elf whatshisface.
Wanted the Midan aiming set for glamour but with all these new games coming out, RIP to that thought. Back to the poncho life I go.
Back to Alexander--another nice, mostly self-contained story. And I'm getting pretty fond of Cid's crew. Hope Stormblood's MCH quests use them instead of elf whatshisface.
yaffi
Member
So, they're removing downranking? Awww.
cultureculture
Member
BLM is only as braindead as the content you use it in. It's generally boring in dungeons and stuff because you have a very stable, simple AOE rotation that you can just spam endlessly, and boring on stuff like the stone tablet mini-boss in Weeping City because you can literally just stand in one spot for the entire fight and expend zero effort doing your single-target rotation endlessly. And that's fine really. Big numbers are nice to look at and not everything has to be a challenge.
For more difficult content, BLM is more engaging because you have to plan, take risks, and take advantage of your abilities to overcome its limitations of being a turret job. I genuinely think that if the rotation were more difficult on top of these limitations, it'd make it more annoying than fun to actually play in that content, because most of the challenge and fun of the job comes from overcoming those limitations in the fights that require it.
Still, as I wrote this, I came to the realisation that you can say similar things about pretty much any job*, in that they're all pretty easy to play on a basic level and skate by, because it's the content that decides how difficult or engaging a job is. Really I just get annoyed when people jump on the 'BLM is braindead' bandwagon, including jaded veteran players who think everything is easy, when I know that I've played content where BLM actually is a lot of effort (even if it can be a lot of effort for other jobs too).
* Except for machinist, fuck all of those mystery buttons.
For more difficult content, BLM is more engaging because you have to plan, take risks, and take advantage of your abilities to overcome its limitations of being a turret job. I genuinely think that if the rotation were more difficult on top of these limitations, it'd make it more annoying than fun to actually play in that content, because most of the challenge and fun of the job comes from overcoming those limitations in the fights that require it.
Still, as I wrote this, I came to the realisation that you can say similar things about pretty much any job*, in that they're all pretty easy to play on a basic level and skate by, because it's the content that decides how difficult or engaging a job is. Really I just get annoyed when people jump on the 'BLM is braindead' bandwagon, including jaded veteran players who think everything is easy, when I know that I've played content where BLM actually is a lot of effort (even if it can be a lot of effort for other jobs too).
* Except for machinist, fuck all of those mystery buttons.
EndcatOmega
Unconfirmed Member
I know BLM takes a lot of effort because ours keeps having to move his leylines because we all keep trying to jump on top of it.
VanillaCakeIsBurning
Member
Every tank will have access to STR/INT/ALL down and slashing debuff.
I don't think I would even mind if they seriously did this. Being able to swap out moves depending on the enemy might be neat.
When I think of class/job identity, applying a -10% debuff to an enemy does not even register on the list so I don't think there's any danger of homogenizing things in a bad way. For the tanks their whole playstyles are not solely comprised of being able to apply a -10% debuff imo.
I don't think I would even mind if they seriously did this. Being able to swap out moves depending on the enemy might be neat.
When I think of class/job identity, applying a -10% debuff to an enemy does not even register on the list so I don't think there's any danger of homogenizing things in a bad way. For the tanks their whole playstyles are not solely comprised of being able to apply a -10% debuff imo.
I just assume that anything with long cast times in movement-heavy encounters requires patience & learning
I think WoW's response to this was to make casters more mobile with each expansion, wonder if Legion reversed this (and if XIV will follow that trend)
Stone Ocean
Member
I didn't say that as if I dislike BLM, quite the opposite. But rotations are not what make BLM complex to play, it's the fight mapping that does and it's a very interesting job in that sense.
BossDarkseid
Member
cultureculture
Member
Didn't specifically intend to call people out (would have quoted otherwise :V) - totally agreed with you on that anyway. I really like the way BLM is positioned right now in being easy to play but with room to be challenging.
Demoskinos
Member
2% wipe on AS11....uuugh. So close it hurts.
Edit: Also wanted to jump in on this BLM talk. So as a BLM myself I'd say a lot of the assements of BLM are pretty on point. BLM becomes the most fun and engaging when the fight forces you to move and makes you figure out how to adapt to it.
If I can just stand still uncontested I can face roll and get 2500dps easy. Having to plan leyline usage and figuring out how to keep Enochian up is the part that makes BLM fun. Cause one screwup in your rotation and your back to doing 2.0 rotations or even worse out of MP and have to wait for a tic to cast ice and get umbral. Also real talk...hitting people for 20k crits back to back is just chefs kiss worthy.
So good. I'll be interested to see how BLM transforms in 4.0
Edit: Also wanted to jump in on this BLM talk. So as a BLM myself I'd say a lot of the assements of BLM are pretty on point. BLM becomes the most fun and engaging when the fight forces you to move and makes you figure out how to adapt to it.
If I can just stand still uncontested I can face roll and get 2500dps easy. Having to plan leyline usage and figuring out how to keep Enochian up is the part that makes BLM fun. Cause one screwup in your rotation and your back to doing 2.0 rotations or even worse out of MP and have to wait for a tic to cast ice and get umbral. Also real talk...hitting people for 20k crits back to back is just chefs kiss worthy.
So good. I'll be interested to see how BLM transforms in 4.0
The Minstrel's Ballad version is even more incredible. It's my favorite Trial theme in the game.
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