Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood

[Deleted]

About this whole subjective and objective thing regarding "fun" and every ability being objectively fun to use.
I find cleric stance fun. (I mean it)
There, it just became subjective.

[Faroth]

You're more than welcome to post any and everything I've suggested wherever. More discussion is always good, especially if it's in a place it might garner developer attention. Though the reason he's reluctant to remove it is because at the end of the day Healers still need a way to level that isn't painfully slow.

While you're at it, suggest a better name for it too. Cleric stance sounds more like something you'd want to be in for healing rather than damage. "Wizard Stance" perhaps? I'd also get behind "Super Mega Ultra Amazing Butt Kicking Stance" too, FYI .

Well, Clerics were plate wearing healers that carried a mace in EverQuest.

And I don't think I've ever posted on the official forums. I use a physical authenticator, so I never think of it when I'm home!

[Wrecktangle]

Unpopular thought: Healers should do decent DPS without cleric stance (obviously lower than a pure damage dealer) and cleric stance should just not be a thing.

They're already trading time spent otherwise healing for damage. if it means that healer damage is somewhat nerfed to account for being able to juggle damage and healing seamlessly, I don't think that's a major issue. It doesn't impact the skill ceiling much, and does a lot to raise the skill floor (and remove a manditory cross-class skill for sch and ast)

Not an unpopular thought at all. It's been tossed around a lot.

An automatic toggle would be pointless. It is asking the game to play itself for you. The only way it would feasibly work with the same mechanics as today would be after entering cleric stance by casting a damaging ability, you will be debuffed for 5 seconds with a heal reduction debuff. Aside from that, spells like assize serve 2 purposes, dps and healing. Which would that toggle to?

Cleric stance is an active choice and used skillfully can be a major asset to the group. The only change I would ask for is on top of the 5 second cooldown when ENTERING cleric stance, there should be a 5 second cool-down upon exiting it to prevent the toggle off and back on scenario every healer has seen at least once in their career. Lag can be a bitch.

What? It's not asking the game to play it for you. It's making a mechanic more fluid and organic. Instead of having to click a stupid spell that functionally does nothing except switch stances, your spells would do it on your own and you'd be left with merely the decision making aspect (THE ONLY good thing about CS), but not the associated clunk.

The obvious solution to spells like assize is that they'd always do their expected damage/healing regardless of of stance. That makes the skill more valuable too, which is a good thing IMO. I see nothing wrong with a singular spell (or two) ignoring that mantra.

No one is doubting the skillful use of CS. That's never been a point of contention. There is clear value in that. What we were discussing was ways to improve the usage of it. Make it more fluid and less punishing and more fun.

Leave Cleric Stance alone.

Also, I don't want a delay to reenter Cleric Stance. In any instance where I've made that specific mistake, it was purely because I wasn't paying attention. Inconveniencing myself to save myself from sporadic and usually trivial mistakes is a bad trade.

Cleric stance sucks, it needs improvements, now is a good time since they're messing with all that shit now.

About this whole subjective and objective thing regarding "fun" and every ability being objectively fun to use.
I find cleric stance fun. (I mean it)
There, it just became subjective.

No one said that it needs to be objectively fun (not even sure I understand what that means). What we're saying is that while its true fun is subjective there are instances where something is overwhelmingly void of fun. CS is one such example. You never get any smiles on your face when pushing CS. Sure you may enjoy the feeling that you get from utilizing it correctly, but that can be maintained while improving on the button push piece.

In order for you to actually contribute to this discussion, why not tell us EXACTLY what you find fun about pushing the cleric stance button.

[Gibblewink]

Cleric stance is the active choice of not just doing damage, but MORE damage at the potential risk of having crap healing if you activate it at the wrong moment. The decision-making for some is fun on it's own and raises the skill cap a bit. Cleric stance being on or off has a significant effect on your performance and that makes the choice of using it significant.
It's like being glued in place as you wind up an LB3: You can risk eating an aoe and wasting it against getting it off and killng the target before an annoying mechanic goes off.

Sometimes having a cost is what makes a choice interesting. The cost just has to be balanced and it appears quite a few feel it is so for Cleric Stance.

[Deleted]

Not an unpopular thought at all. It's been tossed around a lot.



What? It's not asking the game to play it for you. It's making a mechanic more fluid and organic. Instead of having to click a stupid spell that functionally does nothing except switch stances, your spells would do it on your own and you'd be left with merely the decision making aspect (THE ONLY good thing about CS), but not the associated clunk.

The obvious solution to spells like assize is that they'd always do their expected damage/healing regardless of of stance. That makes the skill more valuable too, which is a good thing IMO. I see nothing wrong with a singular spell (or two) ignoring that mantra.

No one is doubting the skillful use of CS. That's never been a point of contention. There is clear value in that. What we were discussing was ways to improve the usage of it. Make it more fluid and less punishing and more fun.



Cleric stance sucks, it needs improvements, now is a good time since they're messing with all that shit now.



No one said that it needs to be objectively fun (not even sure I understand what that means). What we're saying is that while its true fun is subjective there are instances where something is overwhelmingly void of fun. CS is one such example. You never get any smiles on your face when pushing CS. Sure you may enjoy the feeling that you get from utilizing it correctly, but that can be maintained while improving on the button push piece.

In order for you to actually contribute to this discussion, why not tell us EXACTLY what you find fun about pushing the cleric stance button.

I like several things about it. I like the satisfaction of going full ham mode when I pop it and it means I m about to drop the deeps.
I like that it is punishing when used wrong and that it rewards extensive fight knowledge. And lastly I like that with it being essentially a gcd toggle it is balanced and does not give infinite dps power to healers.

[Kazgrel]

Outside of the possibility of them adding accuracy to Cleric Stance, I'd be surprised if they do anything to Cleric Stance going into Stormblood. Maybe in the coming weeks/months they'll shed some light on it (along with other changes).

[Aruhen]

Outside of the possibility of them adding accuracy to Cleric Stance, I'd be surprised if they do anything to Cleric Stance going into Stormblood. Maybe in the coming weeks/months they'll shed some light on it (along with other changes).

I thought they already mentioned in an interview somewhere that Cleric Stance wont be getting any changes in Stormblood?

[Wrecktangle]

Cleric stance is the active choice of not just doing damage, but MORE damage at the potential risk of having crap healing if you activate it at the wrong moment. The decision-making for some is fun on it's own and raises the skill cap a bit. Cleric stance being on or off has a significant effect on your performance and that makes the choice of using it significant.
It's like being glued in place as you wind up an LB3: You can risk eating an aoe and wasting it against getting it off and killng the target before an annoying mechanic goes off.

Sometimes having a cost is what makes a choice interesting. The cost just has to be balanced and it appears quite a few feel it is so for Cleric Stance.

Cleric stance CONCEPTUALLY IS fine. I've stated that several times. I think its mechanical implementation is lacking and has room for improvement. You can remove the mechanical limitations of it and keep the spirit and risk/reward alive.

On the topic of Limit Breaks. My honest opinion is that they could and should be improved too. I'm ok with the risk/reward of using an LB, but would have preferred them to be more useful and balanced across the roles. I would want them to be used more frequently in response to ongoing changes in the fight. I personally don't see a good reason for the root effect, but I can work around it easily. I'd rather the risk/reward of it be built into the encounter organically rather than mechanically (i.e. use of LB here means you can't use it there, etc. instead of have to use here because no risk of mechanic one shotting you).

1) DPS is slow to kill an add, use DPS LB to catch up.
2) Tank needs time to get topped off, healers can't keep up. Tank LB.
3) Healing requirements actually involved enough that using healer LB has value.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It provides a rather sensible trade off of healing for damage at the cost of a window of risk for the party and a slightly delay on your ability to respond to things past the window. It prevents healer from being good at both damage and healing simultaneously or having to be terrible at damage all the time.

Maybe I am not making myself clear? Conceptually I have 0 issue with CS. Mechanically CS is clunky to use. It requires a button push that actively does nothing. You have an unnecessary risk with ani-cancelling and messing it up. I'm ok with risk/reward.

Your idea that CS prevents healers from being good at both damage and healing simultaneously is flawed. By making a decision to press a heal spell you are doing 0 damage therefore they aren't good at dealing damage and healing simultaneously. CS doesn't change this in any way. If CS has a cooldown of like 15s or something I could see where you are going, but that'd be ridiculous. With such a short impact window its basically just a hassle, not a fun to push button.

I like several things about it. I like the satisfaction of going full ham mode when I pop it and it means I m about to drop the deeps.
I like that it is punishing when used wrong and that it rewards extensive fight knowledge. And lastly I like that with it being essentially a gcd toggle it is balanced and does not give infinite dps power to healers.

1) The satisfaction of succeeding with the mechanic is irrelevant. I explained that previously. That can be maintained easily while improving the mechanical implementation.

2) It can still be punishing and can still reward extensive fight knowledge without requiring a non-eventful button press. So your point here is also irrelevant.

3) Infinite DPS power? Let's say hypothetically CS didn't exist. Healers still wouldn't have infinite DPS power because they have to heal. That is a cost (opportunity). So is MP (resource). So in essence, the problem that you believe that exists, doesn't, and even if it did CS wouldn't be a factor in that equation anyway.

Can you identify a single issue with the current proposed solution of making CS an organic mechanic or a single reason why you would prefer the toggle method?

CS would activate automatically whenever you cast a spell. So say you cast Cure 3. For the next 4s (or whatever current CS is I can't remember) if you cast a DPS spell it does reduced effectiveness. Vice versa true as well.

[Faroth]

I thought they already mentioned in an interview somewhere that Cleric Stance wont be getting any changes in Stormblood?

It was the PAX Q&A, Yoshida says he doesn't like Cleric stance (hates it), but doesn't see them changing it and promised they aren't taking it away. He then reminded healers that their job focus was to heal, not DPS, because if they don't heal everyone will die. X3

Which, as he said in an answer to another question, may be why Doma and Ala Mhigo fell to Garlemald - no tanks and healers. So please, go heal and tank to liberate our new friends! *snicker*

[The Casualty]

I like cleric stance. To me it's like stance dancing as a warrior to meet a current demand. I don't want that option to be automatic. It already flows nicely. The only thing I could suggest is putting it on a cooldown after activation and deactivation, like Warrior stances so you don't double tap it by accident.

[Kazgrel]

Given the option of keeping things as-is, more or less, or having them simply remove CS outright and not tweak damage numbers/scaling for healers (so they basically lose the ability to chip in meaningful dps in pve content)...no, just no. Once I got the swing of going back and forth between healing and dpsing when I could, it made me wonder how I dealt with healing in wow at all (where I spent 80-90% of the time looking at raid frames playing whack-a-mole). Not that I wouldn't at least toss out a flame shock every so often...

I believe the word clunky is being used to describe CS because of how at times you will swear up and down you hit the button to activate/deactivate it, yet nothing happened, so you find yourself having thrown out heals or damage that wasn't worth a shit. Simply having some sort of visual indicator outside of the buff button you see, such as an aura around your character, would be nice. It took me some time to warm to CS because I wasn't aware that I could hit the button right before a spell was done in order to get it to switch as soon as the spell I was casting had cast.

[Binaris]

Outside of the possibility of them adding accuracy to Cleric Stance, I'd be surprised if they do anything to Cleric Stance going into Stormblood. Maybe in the coming weeks/months they'll shed some light on it (along with other changes).

This is a change i could get behind. Kind of sucks having to outfit your entire set of gear with accuracy 12 materia plus food just to get hit cap. seems.... Sloppy!

[Wrecktangle]

"Clunky." LMAO

What a silly thing to say. It's not clunky. "Clunky" is when an ability fights against all of your other abilities, which Cleric Stance doesn't do, aside from the one way in which it's meant to. It does not mean that you personally don't like it and using it in the manner you have done is exactly why Blizzard developers basically told WoW players to fuck right off with the word as meaningless tripe.

Actually the definition is that something is awkward/cumbersome/unresponsive/clumsy, etc.

So while the scenario you outlined is mostly certainly a clunky scenario, it is not the definition of the word.

Just because I don't like something doesn't mean its clunky. Not sure where you got that idea from.

Cleric Stance is clunky because is it awkward to use. It is awkward to use because you push a button and nothing happens. Pushing a button should result in something happening. You don't gain new skills. You don't gain any resource. You don't get any damage or healing from it. It merely swaps your stats. That is awkward for a button push to do.

Cleric Stance is clunky because it is unresponsive. You can frequently make mistakes getting in or out of it due to animation locks. Therefore (using your example) it is clearly fighting against your other abilities. I mean it literally is fighting against trying to press a different button so you can heal/dps.

[Binaris]

It is awkward to use because you push a button and nothing happens.

Wrong

Something does happen. Your Mind and INT stats swap. This is no different than any ability that increases a stat.

Cleric Stance is clunky because it is unresponsive.

Half Wrong. Animation locks affect all abilities in this game. Can it be annoying, yes. But it is not a cleric problem, that is simply how the game is. Could be worse, could be a bard trying to weave ogcds.

[The Casualty]

Cleric Stance is clunky because is it awkward to use. It is awkward to use because you push a button and nothing happens. Pushing a button should result in something happening. You don't gain new skills. You don't gain any resource. You don't get any damage or healing from it. It merely swaps your stats. That is awkward for a button push to do.

But that's exactly what Berserk, Raging Strikes, Blood for Blood, Fight or Flight, Darkside, Sword Oath, Shield Oath, Protect, Rampart, Sentinel, Shadow Skin, Shadow Wall, Fists of Earth, Fists of Fire, Kiss of the Viper, Foresight, Featherfoot, Huton, Kiss of the Wasp, etc... also in effect do.

They all provide a temporary % increase or decrease to stats. In essence, Cleric does the same. They could have worded it as a % increase to damage and % decrease to healing for all it matters. I'd argue that it is the only one out of all of those that while active changes playstyle and ability usage.

[Kazgrel]

This is a change i could get behind. Kind of sucks having to outfit your entire set of gear with accuracy 12 materia plus food just to get hit cap. seems.... Sloppy!

It's the one change I could advocate having, provided they aren't doing away with accuracy as a whole. Simply adding 5% accuracty to CS would be a band-aid to the "issue" of accuracy being an unfun stat. The removal of hit/expertise is one thing the recent WoW team has done that I agree with 100%.

Course, removing accuracy goes into the territory of "now what do we put on gear", because then dps gear basically becomes crit/det/ss (whether it's speed or spell). Could get even more bland were they to combine the effects of skill and spell speed into...hell, just call it speed. I'm holding onto a sliver of hope that they have some sort of new stat to introduce in the event of accuracy being removed.

Edit: Equally as unfun as that crit/det/ss on dps gear is how healers (who want to contribute dps) are pretty much forced to meld grade 5 accuracy materia from top to bottom...and even then, they still need some accuracy from their anima (or meld it there in the event they have A12S/Shire/Ex Primal weapon). As much as I'd love to stack some crit and spell speed up a bit, can't do that and risk missing 25% of my spells-ish (pulling that guesstimate out of my ass based on how many misses I would see in A1S when I had no accuracy melds).

[The Casualty]

It's the one change I could advocate having, provided they aren't doing away with accuracy as a whole. Simply adding 5% accuracty to CS would be a band-aid to the "issue" of accuracy being an unfun stat. The removal of hit/expertise is one thing the recent WoW team has done that I agree with 100%.

Course, removing accuracy goes into the territory of "now what do we put on gear", because then dps gear basically becomes crit/det/ss (whether it's speed or spell). Could get even more bland were they to combine the effects of skill and spell speed into...hell, just call it speed. I'm holding onto a sliver of hope that they have some sort of new stat to introduce in the event of accuracy being removed.

I agree that accuracy needs to go, but I'm wary about the introduction of other stats. At the end of the day, we are looking at for most classes Crit/Det being king and everything else plays second fiddle (BLM and I think SMN being notable exceptions). Will the new stats break the mold of stack X and avoid everything else? If not then I'm not sure I'm interested. Now if we could get some materia that increased the damage of certain skills - that might be interesting provided it changes gameplay or ability priority.

[Kazgrel]

I agree that accuracy needs to go, but I'm wary about the introduction of other stats. At the end of the day, we are looking at for most classes Crit/Det being king and everything else plays second fiddle (BLM and I think SMN being notable exceptions). Will the new stats break the mold of stack X and avoid everything else? If not then I'm not sure I'm interested. Now if we could get some materia that increased the damage of certain skills - that might be interesting provided it changes gameplay or ability priority.

Reasonable concern, too, given how the mastery stat has fluctuated in WoW over the years for several classes/specs.

Materia are definitely an area where they could do something unique. Wrecktangle had posted that at one point, too, and it could very well be cool, but I wouldn't want it to turn into "meta gem 2.0" (thinking back to WoW where with all the various helm meta gems, only a couple would be in use for the most part).

[Wrecktangle]

In the context of video games, it means what I said. Realistically, it has been overused so much that "clunky" is just a meaningless buzzword that does little more than say, "I don't like this."

There's nothing awkward about Cleric Stance. I've literally never made a mistake about going into or out of Cleric Stance except as a product of my own lack of attention, which is my fault and something the game should punish me for. Your personal dislike for the ability is utterly irrelevant to whether or not it's fine, which it absolutely is.

I think you're just a tad bit too triggered to actually follow this conversation logically. That's evident because you keep going on about buzzwords and going on about my personal opinion instead of debating the content of the post. You did not define clunky. You explained an example of clunky. While I understand they are correlated they are not the same. I made that very clear in my previous post.

You literally say you never made a mistake, then say except when I make a mistake. Yep that happened.

Wrong

Something does happen. Your Mind and INT stats swap. This is no different than any ability that increases a stat.

Half Wrong. Animation locks affect all abilities in this game. Can it be annoying, yes. But it is not a cleric problem, that is simply how the game is. Could be worse, could be a bard trying to weave ogcds.

Yes something happens quietly behind the scenes that has absolutely no impact from you pushing the button. That's my entire point. There's 0 feedback from using the skill. That's also why half the time people can't even tell they're in CS or not in it.

While it is true that animation locks do plague everything, do you believe that a skill (that does nothing but swap stats) should be subjected to that? I don't. That's why I advocated solutions to fix that. Alternatively you could and should fix animation locks, but that's an entire other discussion.

But that's exactly what Berserk, Raging Strikes, Blood for Blood, Fight or Flight, Darkside, Sword Oath, Shield Oath, Protect, Rampart, Sentinel, Shadow Skin, Shadow Wall, Fists of Earth, Fists of Fire, Kiss of the Viper, Foresight, Featherfoot, Huton, Kiss of the Wasp, etc... also in effect do.

They all provide a temporary % increase or decrease to stats. In essence, Cleric does the same. They could have worded it as a % increase to damage and % decrease to healing for all it matters. I'd argue that it is the only one out of all of those that while active changes playstyle and ability usage.

I'm glad you mentioned all of those. A lot of those need touching up too IMHO. I was hoping we'd have finished the CS discussion by now so I could move onto those

[Faroth]

But that's exactly what Berserk, Raging Strikes, Blood for Blood, Fight or Flight, Darkside, Sword Oath, Shield Oath, Protect, Rampart, Sentinel, Shadow Skin, Shadow Wall, Fists of Earth, Fists of Fire, Kiss of the Viper, Foresight, Featherfoot, Huton, Kiss of the Wasp, etc... also in effect do.

Kind of have to agree with this. If cleric stance is clunky and needs to go, shouldn't all stance swaps and DPS cool down abilities? You're just pushing a button for stats, same as cleric stance. Only difference is cleric stance is persistant until you CHOOSE to turn it off again.