Yeah, this fan fest cant come soon enough. There is a lot of speculation and very little info. And the fun part is they don't open beta like wow, a fair amount of info we wont know until we head into the expansion.
Swiftcast is a very good question. Another might be if they plan to keep the current healer meta where one heals and the sch simply dpses and shields for aoe busters.
I doubt it. XIV is a very streamlined game compared to say XI. I really don't see them adding a new job and then making it jump through extra hoops just to get its base abilities. Plus, it's not like monsters out in the world have a plethora of interesting abilities that would translate into good spells anway for a player, because of how the game is structured. You'd just mostly get a bunch generic aoe attacks. I'd be pretty shocked if they added blue mage and made you actually go out into the world and fight specific monsters to get spells.
They haven't been a thing since 2.0, to be a thing they need to be relevant. They were not added for new classes nor were they expanded to level 60. Instead of deleting the content they simply discontinued work on it. Hence, not a thing.
Personally, I want them back. I want them to refresh with a random list once complete to provide more options for leveling as well as an option for farming gc seals.
Btw something I quickly want to address seeing a lot of the discussion here because I feel like in 5 days a lot of you are going to be sorely disappointing due to false expectations.
Regarding the upcoming combat revamp: A lot of people here seem to think that SE is actually planning huge changes to the system and cannot wait to see what they are. They think this might mean a reduced gcd, a more action combat feel etc etc. Now I m not saying everybody thinks that but I ve seen a few posts that lean towards this idea. To those people I d like to remind that the core combat of FFXIV is not changing and will most likely not change anytime soon. It is meant to be a more tactical game that gives you more time between gcds to justify the ridiculous amount of off-gcds and the difficulty of reacting to some mechanics.
The combat revamp is mainly referring to 2 things:
1.) Changing the chaotic cross class system to make it friendlier to players that are entirely new to MMOs. For example a new player might want o play warrior but due to his inexperience with the genre he wont know to pick up provoke and awareness from gladiator whereas a veteran MMO player would look out of spells like that because they are baseline. Those spells will now be given to every tank at a set level.
2.) Reducing the button bloat and fixing the display for some skills. Reducing the button bloat is something that has to be done for some classes if SE wants to keep adding new spells. As for the visuals, they said they are working on a new "aura" display feature that will make things like blood of the dragon and enochian a little easier to keep track of in the midst of things.
Now personally other than those 2 things I do not see them changing anything else regarding the combat. So untill we have any further news try to contain your excitement because you might be disappointed over nothing :/
The core combat is very likely to stay exactly as it is.
1) If and when Blue Mage comes it will follow the existing design paradigm most likely. It will use the job quests to fill out the thematic flavor of get hit by ability get power. Weapon choice I couldn't say. You'd have to analyze all existing instances of the job. We've seen sword/shield, whip, fork, spear, dual curved swords, etc. It's easy to rule out certain ones (fork, spear, sword/shield). That's also under the assumption they don't hit us with something unexpected. PERSONALLY, I'd love for this class to be a medium armor tank, using a whip as its weapon and relying on enemy skills (learned from job quests) to empower self and weaken enemies.
2) Samurai. Could go either way honestly. Not sure where people have this idea about mace wielding Samurai's or anything or them as ranged? I'd expect a Nodachi wielding 2h sword that relies on martial mastery and sword spirits to fight. Ideally IMO following the FFT design.
3) Combat revamp definitely won't be anything huge (even if I want it to be). It'll likely consist of cross class changes/optimization and pruning among other changes (I'd posit WHM/PLD/AST seeing big changes honestly). That said, I'd love if it cleaned up the position tracking/animations (i.e. fix that fucking sliding shit when using abilities. It looks and feels ridiculous as a melee. I wouldn't be opposed to a shorter GCD, not to be spammy, but I think the whole 2.5s -> OGCD could be refined. Not sure how. I'd REALLY like to see the idea of people also having individual defensives and the idea of stuns/silences/snares, etc. being valuable, even required in a raiding/dungeon scenario (assuming dungeon difficulty actually existed lol).
4) The person in the video was not a dancer. It was a Monk. That's not to say we won't get/see Dancer. Yes she was defending and counter attacking, like any job/person would. She wasn't dancing...
5) Time Mage already exists. Stop asking for it/thinking its not out yet. We got the Astrologist. It literally looks, feels, and has time magic related abilities.
I dont think very many people are delusional enough to expect a full revamp to pace and style of combat with gcd reduction
I know many are HOPING for things such as a
1> doing something to fix clunky ass bards. adding cast bars to a class at 52 without doing something about all the off gcd abilities leaves the class still clunky to play. So much so that the optimal way becomes to stance dance the class
2> possible change to the healer meta. aka one healer and one dps with a fairy. though many are hoping to keep on dpsing im sure
3> various class balance changes, everyone wants something of course, though paladin weaknesses are impossible to deny. tp starving on long uninterrupted fights, lost thier defensive niche to drk who does more dps. personally wanna see them tie in paladin heals for group in a more meaningful way.
Swiftcast for healers (and all casters in general, both dps and healer) is nestled right up under Provoke in terms of importance to have, so I would be absolutely stunned if it were to be removed from them.
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You've no idea how I've wanted to see some pulls where being able to CC a mob or mobs would be the ideal way to handle them, but I don't expect that to ever happen, because BLM would quickly become FOTM for that very reason (and it would also make WHM the ideal healer for such content). Would also bring PLD into some spotlight due to it's ability to CC.
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1. Won't argue that at all. I went from liking BRD once I got it to 50 to having not played it since getting to 60. MCH was designed for the whole Gauss Barrel thing, and I maintain it was tacked onto BRD for the sake of "balance" or continuity or something. The backcast after using what were insta-cast dots (due to the animations) just kills BRD for me post-52.
2. Pretty sure you meant a healer that deals (usually overpowered "balance") cards and a dps with a fairy.
3. PLD still holds the defensive niche...but only for physical damage. I've encountered the TP issue described, though...not fun. Takes DRK a shitload longer to run into TP issues, and for WAR it's "lol equilibrium" barring going brain dead and spamming overpower.
I mean im not denying swiftcast plus rez is great and all but that's pretty much the only time I ever use it so it's not that importantSwiftcast for healers (and all casters in general, both dps and healer) is nestled right up under Provoke in terms of importance to have, so I would be absolutely stunned if it were to be removed from them.
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Paladins may have a physical defensive niche, it doesn't outweigh everything else that goes in the favor of drk, especially when the meta is dps hard, dps fast, dps is all that matters. I love my paladin, It sucks being told you aren't relevant.
My 3 mains: White mage, Paladin, Bard. Each replaced in the meta by the new classes. FML
Swiftcast Stoneskin 2
You can't stoneskin 2 in combat so again, nice to have, not really important. Hopefully they will give healers a shared aoe because only having blizzard 2 sucks
Pokemon FC: 4425-2708-3610
I received a day one ORAS demo code. I am a chosen one.