[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[lawow74]

How does post Heavensward BLM play now ?

The QoL changes are good, not having to recast Enochian as long as you maintain stacks of Astral Fire/Umbral Ice is good. Having Umbral Hearts from Umbral Ice cut down on MP use means you can cast more kabooms, esp. once you get the trait that lets Flare be cast and not drain all your MP if you have any Umbral Hearts left. Combo that with Triplecast and the ability to convert HP to MP and you can AoE hard if you want to (Flare 1 consumes Umbral, Flare 2 consumes MP, convert HP to MP, Flare 3 consumes MP again). The 70 ability Foul is pretty sweet too.

Personally I wish it was a bit more streamlined to play like it does in PvP, but overall it works if you like that style of play.

[Granyala]

How does post Heavensward BLM play now ?

Quite good, although I still get pissed when Astral/Umbral drop off for a fraction of a second and Enochian is gone with it.
CD on Eno is down to 30s, so it isn't a big deal.

[Graeham]

Speaking of PvP, I really like that most combos there only take up one button. I hope they implement that in PvE as well - it'll help cut down on button bloat and give them more space to add more abilities over time.

[lawow74]

Speaking of PvP, I really like that most combos there only take up one button. I hope they implement that in PvE as well - it'll help cut down on button bloat and give them more space to add more abilities over time.

Prolly coming in 5.0, is my guess.

[Kazgrel]

How does post Heavensward BLM play now ?

It's what HW BLM should've been.

Maintaining Enochian is expotentially easier with how it was redone; coupled with the cd being cut down from 60 to 30 seconds and the fact you can "cheese" it by simply using Transpose, I only lose the buff if something weird happens (namely if I have a spell "hit" just as a mob goes invuln or jumps away).

It's still very much a turret, though, but it has received help in that regard with Between the Lines and Triplecast, not to mention the recent patch where Fire 4's base cast time was bumped down from 3 to 2.8 seconds; on the surface, that may sound trivial, but it makes performing a 6x Fire 4 cycle (when using Blizzard 4 for Umbral Hearts) much easier. Speaking of which...the improved Umbral Heart trait at 68 makes AoE way more fun since you get to drop more Flares. Oh, and then there's Foul, which is an absolute blast (literally and figuratively).

Despite the mobility and utility advantage that RDM has brought, I've been super happy sticking with BLM as my main dps job.

[Faroth]

It's why if I ever play DPS RDM I make sure it's my friend that's the tank because fuck if I don't die right at the start otherwise.

When I've tanked for my EX runs and I get 2 RDMs or 1 RDM/ 1 BLM, that's always when the two mages are most likely to open up with everything they got on different mobs. X3

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Speaking of PvP, I really like that most combos there only take up one button. I hope they implement that in PvE as well - it'll help cut down on button bloat and give them more space to add more abilities over time.

I actually find the PvP (corrected: )1, 1, > 2, 2 > 3, 3 on Samurai the absolute most boring thing I've ever played. I'd rather see more of the Ninjutsu mudra where x buttons in different orders result in different combos.

You take 5 buttons and you can actually have like 25 combos from just those buttons based on order if you wanted to be utterly insane.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
5, 4, 3, 2, 1
1, 3, 4, 5, 2
2, 3, 4, 5, 1
4, 5, 2, 3, 1

On and on an on.

Heck, even just 3 abilities that trigger different combo conclusions based on order gives a lot of options.

[Kazgrel]

Speaking of PvP, I really like that most combos there only take up one button. I hope they implement that in PvE as well - it'll help cut down on button bloat and give them more space to add more abilities over time.

Given how my ability bars on level 70 jobs have nearly as many buttons as they did at 60, that's likely the way they'll go about freeing up buttons further. I do wonder how they'll handle positional abilities for melee with that, though.

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When I've tanked for my EX runs and I get 2 RDMs or 1 RDM/ 1 BLM, that's always when the two mages are most likely to open up with everything they got on different mobs. X3

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I actually find the PvP 1, 1, 1 > 2, 2, 2 > 3, 3, 3 on Samurai the absolute most boring thing I've ever played. I'd rather see more of the Ninjutsu mudra where x buttons in different orders result in different combos.

You take 5 buttons and you can actually have like 25 combos from just those buttons based on order if you wanted to be utterly insane.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
5, 4, 3, 2, 1
1, 3, 4, 5, 2
2, 3, 4, 5, 1
4, 5, 2, 3, 1

On and on an on.

Heck, even just 3 abilities that trigger different combo conclusions based on order gives a lot of options.

5 button mudra combos? You madman!

It'd only lead to people bitching about how hitting all those different buttons to form one combo clips their gcd too much, among a host of other complaints.

I have not played SAM in pvp, though, so I was not aware it was that...bland. I've mostly been playing healers as of late in pvp, though, but I did spend my initial pvp experiences as BRD, which I'd say is a better example of how the pvp combos could work:

1 alternates Heavy/Straight Shot (as to why it simply isn't Heavy Shot, I don't recall)
2 is your 2 DoTs;
3 is Empyreal Arrow, (pretty sure I murdered that spelling)
4 is Bloodletter by default. However, activating Wanderer's Minuet switches this button to Pitch Perfect, which builds a stack each time you hit a target that has your DoTs on it. Once WM ends, the button reverts to Bloodletter...but wait, there's more! The WM button swaps to Army Paeon; this song changes BL into Barrage, which works largely the same as it does in PVE, only it's on a far shorter cd here and it's a big part of your burst.

That's pretty much pvp BRD in a nutshell, which I think keeps the essence of it's pve counterpart, but it's a lot more pared down. Would I want pve BRD narrowed down this much? No, not really, although BRD (in pve) is one of the bigger button bloat offenders at this point. But holy crap, once you get in a rhythm with it (pun intended), current BRD in pve is so much fun...

[Faroth]

5 button mudra combos? You madman!

Hehe, I'm not suggesting mudras go to 5, just the mudra concept of different orders lead to different combo finishers applied to standard job rotations.

And combo I described isn't the ONLY thing in PvP for Samurai, but that's how you get your 3 stacks to hit your strong combo (Midare Setsugekka), so you use it a lot.

I also made a mistake. It's 1,1 > 2, 2 > 3,3 I had an extra button press on each one in my previous post.

[Kazgrel]

Hehe, I'm not suggesting mudras go to 5, just the mudra concept of different orders lead to different combo finishers applied to standard job rotations.

And combo I described isn't the ONLY thing in PvP for Samurai, but that's how you get your 3 stacks to hit your strong combo (Midare Setsugekka), so you use it a lot.

I also made a mistake. It's 1,1 > 2, 2 > 3,3 I had an extra button press on each one in my previous post.

Ok, I follow you now. The tanks work in a loosely similar way for pvp. PLD has 2 combos, both starting with Fast Blade, so by default you'll see 1 and 2 both set to Fast Blade. Doesn't matter which one you hit, really; 1 will go from Fast to Savage Blade, while 2 would turn to Riot Blade. So if you hit 1 for Fast Blade, but decided you wanted to do the Riot > Royal Authority combo instead, you can go 1 > 2 > 2 and it'll work just fine. Same applies for 2 > 1 > 1.

Having such mix and match combo possiblities for GCD-based actions could be pretty cool. It would be a way they could (re)introduce some complexity to the combat without adding to button bloat.

[Granyala]

I actually find the PvP (corrected: )1, 1, > 2, 2 > 3, 3 on Samurai the absolute most boring thing I've ever played.

1 -> 2 -> 3 is just as lame and boring as 1 -> 1 -> 1. It only takes up more keybinds.
I rather have fewer abilities that are more powerful and more punishing if I mess up that a gazillion which individually do almost nothing.

[Faroth]

1 -> 2 -> 3 is just as lame and boring as 1 -> 1 -> 1. It only takes up more keybinds.
I rather have fewer abilities that are more powerful and more punishing if I mess up that a gazillion which individually do almost nothing.

Actually having different buttons to weave is more interseting than pushing the same button over and over ad infinitum to me. There's still some learning curve and chance for screwing up when you have to hit different buttons rather than just the same one.

But I hate mashing a single button on a controller 9 million times while others think action RPGs are the most superior RPG design ever invented, so I'm in the minority I suppose.


Regarding more keybinds, not the way I was talking about it isn't.
The mudra method means 3 keybinds = 9 available combos with 3 hotkeys.

[Granyala]

Maybe but I find the memorization really tiresome. Esp when there is a CD involved.
Not really a fan of how the Ninja mudras are done.

I definitely would not want that for core class abilities.

[Kazgrel]

What Faroth is pitching is something they could absolutely go to in the future, in order to prevent button bloat. That would then invite the possible problem of having too many different combos of buttons to hit. It wouldn't be NIN Mudras per se where it's "hit a combination of these 3 buttons, then hit button 4 to actually do something", though. Basically, a middle ground between what we have in pve now and what we have with pvp. Wouldn't wanted it as pared down as pvp is, but they'll have to do something to prevent further button bloat else it's HW all over again.

[Faroth]

Yeah, it's not really hugely different from now.

Example: two tank combos:
1, 2, 3 = three attacks in a threat combo
1, 4, 5 = three attacks in a damage combo

I'm saying that could become
1, 2, 3 = three attacks for a threat combo
3, 2, 1 = three attacks for a damage combo

You could also have a different order of 3 attacks apply a debuff.

So we've got 3 buttons, three abilities. But the order changes the end result.

It could be implemented as we've seen elsewhere with pushing a button changes the button to a new ability. You just have 3 base buttons and when you push one, they'll change to others so you can weave different combos from a small number of hotkeys. You'd also be able to get abilities without button bloat, but also without feeling like leveling rewards no new skills.

I'm just not a fan of the combos being "1 key changes 5 times and you press the same button over and over and over and that's the entirety of combat" designs.

Technically if you had the right timing, you just control moving and have one of those water dipping birds hit your hot key and you never have to bother with combat at all.

[Kazgrel]

4.1 preview page is up. Also a MSQ preview and dungeon preview.

Haven't had time to delve into them just yet...

[Faroth]

I'm so anxious about getting a house in Shirogane.

[Kazgrel]

I'm so anxious about getting a house in Shirogane.

Good luck with that. No, really.

I'm almost tempted to take the day off work just to run around in the wards and soak up the rage induced tears. Maybe even fuck with people by running up to the plot signs as if I'm about to buy them, even though I'm not. I know, I'm a terrible human being.

[Faroth]

Hmmm... as a mod, can I change user names... "EbilKazela"

[Granyala]

"Adventurer squadrons".

Ugh God, not Garrison mission tables again. What is it with people and their facebook games? >.<

Raid looks interesting though. Guess we get to kick the ass of a theater crew in simulated battle or sth like that.

[Katchii]

Yeah, it's not really hugely different from now.

Example: two tank combos:
1, 2, 3 = three attacks in a threat combo
1, 4, 5 = three attacks in a damage combo

I'm saying that could become
1, 2, 3 = three attacks for a threat combo
3, 2, 1 = three attacks for a damage combo

You could also have a different order of 3 attacks apply a debuff.

So we've got 3 buttons, three abilities. But the order changes the end result.

It could be implemented as we've seen elsewhere with pushing a button changes the button to a new ability. You just have 3 base buttons and when you push one, they'll change to others so you can weave different combos from a small number of hotkeys. You'd also be able to get abilities without button bloat, but also without feeling like leveling rewards no new skills.

I'm just not a fan of the combos being "1 key changes 5 times and you press the same button over and over and over and that's the entirety of combat" designs.

Technically if you had the right timing, you just control moving and have one of those water dipping birds hit your hot key and you never have to bother with combat at all.

What you're talking about sounds almost identical to the Warden class in Lord of the Rings Online and its Gambit system. The idea is that they have core abilities they attack with and each ability corresponds to a different color, and each attack fills up a bar, in the order you perform the attack. Attacks are Red, Green or Yellow, with red being associated with straight damage, green being associated with defense and yellow being a potency increase or buffing type modifier and as you gain levels the bar grows from 3 to 5 spaces maximum and Gambit abilities require a minimum of 2. Like FFXIV Ninjas, after performing your core attacks you press another button that then activates the bar and executes the ability that corresponds to the combination currently in the bar. So the core game play of the Warden is to use the appropriate base attacks in the right sequence to activate the right Gambit ability to maximize your performance, as the Warden can be played as a Melee Tank, a Melee DPS or a Ranged DPS ON THE FLY depending on which abilities you use and which Gambits you favor/ prioritize.

Here's a wiki page with the abilities listed

I loved that gameplay because it was so flexible and made soloing so rewarding. It's very similar to a Samurai and Ninja combination, but not quite.