Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

[Mr. Idiot]

Decided to take the bait and actually am doing this current tier savage raid in PF hell after I stopped doing it in Stormblood's O5S-O8S tier. Finished up P5S earlier this morning.
It's an alright fight. Some hiccups like double dash charge and 4x cell explosions with scooting over to safe zones but most people figure that one out easily. It's really just agreeing on which duo's soak poison puddles that can cause grievances, and especially the teeth-hopping mechanic where you have to dodge it's jumps while at the end soaking all puddles except one on purpose so the boss won't kill/wipe the group. Getting hit by it is a death sentence and more than 1 add alive also is, but besides that, decent fight.

 

[Zilortha]

Decided to take the bait and actually am doing this current tier savage raid in PF hell after I stopped doing it in Stormblood's O5S-O8S tier. Finished up P5S earlier this morning.
It's an alright fight. Some hiccups like double dash charge and 4x cell explosions with scooting over to safe zones but most people figure that one out easily. It's really just agreeing on which duo's soak poison puddles that can cause grievances, and especially the teeth-hopping mechanic where you have to dodge it's jumps while at the end soaking all puddles except one on purpose so the boss won't kill/wipe the group. Getting hit by it is a death sentence and more than 1 add alive also is, but besides that, decent fight.

Spoiler

Yeah devour seems to be the wall for that fight. It's not too bad though. Most everything up to that point is pretty straightforward. Seems easier than P1S was tbh, but I'm excited for the other fights. I'm having fun, but I can't imagine pfing them.

 

[Zilortha]

It sounds to me like PF has come full circle because this was exactly the case for stuff like Ravana and Thordan back in the day. Both fights are almost entirely timelined out with next to no unexpected mechanics and almost perfect consistency, especially in Ravana's case, and yet randos still managed to eat shit left and right.

Pretty much. She has a few mechanics that she does in random order, but she'll always do all of the mechanics. Other than that? It's all so straightforward and it's all timelined out in a way that you should basically always know what's happening or that a permutation of a thing is happening. But pf can't seem to manage it with any real level of consistency.

I've been in prog parties that cleared in less than 20m, and I've been in cleared-only farm groups that couldn't even get halfway into the fight in hours. It's crazy.

Edit: sorry for the dblpost

 

[WhoBusTank69]

It's interesting how FF14 has simultaneously introduced and encouraged me to enjoy multiple hotbars and micromanaging Ctrl+ and Shift+ presses while also making me hate how many abilities you get. Don't get me wrong, I prefer WHM to generic healybot 1-button combo but hell if I'm going to remember to hit CTRL + = when some retard goes AFK during the half-second instadeath circle that nobody else fails at, or deciding whether or not I should prioritize my revives or Benediction OR Presence of Mind since my boomer hands aren't sure if they can keep up with the tank who forgot to upgrade his gear.

It's exciting but ticks me off.

 

[Fcret]

So I've decided to give EX4 a try. That fight is a fucking nightmare for healers.

The fight has damage coming at you very regularly, with phase 2 and 4 in particular being extremely fast paced, and with plenty of mechanics that snowball out of control if people are down.

Seen enrage at about 5%, but getting a PF group has been tricky. A lot of them don't have that consistency that's needed to beat the fight. The type of consistency where you don't keep hitting your allies with protean waves because you forgot to move.

Yeah, I called it. They're retuning fight design to require consistent healing output in response to people complaining about healers not having enough to do. This is probably going to be the last expansion of the green DPS meta. I fully expect we're going to see some major changes to the role in 7.0.

Just this expansion we've had P4S, the entirety of DSR, the spicy DoT soaks of P5S, and now EX4. We're now seeing a lot of fights that not only require consistent healing but also attentive spot healing. And even in normal content we're getting a lot more doom mechanics that require active healer intervention to cleanse.

 

[Zilortha]

Yeah, I called it. They're retuning fight design to require consistent healing output in response to people complaining about healers not having enough to do. This is probably going to be the last expansion of the green DPS meta. I fully expect we're going to see some major changes to the role in 7.0.

Just this expansion we've had P4S, the entirety of DSR, the spicy DoT soaks of P5S, and now EX4. We're now seeing a lot of fights that not only require consistent healing but also attentive spot healing. And even in normal content we're getting a lot more doom mechanics that require active healer intervention to cleanse.

Tbh I prefer it so far. I was never a fan of the 12111111112 style of gameplay, and I don't feel like many other healers were either.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

Tbh I prefer it so far. I was never a fan of the 12111111112 style of gameplay, and I don't feel like many other healers were either.

I like the idea of juggling between healing and dealing damage, but not like FF14's approach. I'll take the Warhammer MMO's attempts with some of its healer concept designs any day.

In a way, their falling back to making healers primarily just heal strikes me as giving up on trying to thread the needle into something unique, and settling for the tried, true route. I just wish there were alternatives on the market that were willing to experiment more, since just about everything has set its sights on simplifying and homogenizing everything.

 

[Zilortha]

I like the idea of juggling between healing and dealing damage, but not like FF14's approach. I'll take the Warhammer MMO's attempts with some of its healer concept designs any day.

In a way, their falling back to making healers primarily just heal strikes me as giving up on trying to thread the needle into something unique, and settling for the tried, true route. I just wish there were alternatives on the market that were willing to experiment more, since just about everything has set its sights on simplifying and homogenizing everything.

The problem with their previous attempt is that there wasn't really any balance or variety there, and it really didn't feel unique. You would press the same button over and over, and then press another button on a timeline. It wasn't fun or interactive, or even difficult. And sure, it's still kinda that way, but at least with more frequent dps going out, the game requires that you use more of your heals and you can't get by with the bare minimum while dpsing. Or at least I can't yet lol. Who knows how it'll turn out as people acclimate more. But I'm hopeful they'll keep moving in this direction.

If anything I feel like their current approach this patch is more a step toward less homogenization, feels more engaging, and asks you to explore your toolkit more. Before healers were basically green dps with heals you have to push on a timeline (in contrast to tanks basically being blue dps with mitigation they have to push on a timeline). Basically every job was just a worse dps class. The timeline will never not be a thing, but now at least we feel less like 1-button dps jobs, and more like actual healers. It might be a move to the traditional design space, but why fix what wasn't broken?

I realize this is all very subjective, but I'm not sure how unique you can make traditional mmo healing. I haven't played Warhammer so I can't speak on their system at all, but if I had to choose between the majority healing/minority dps when able and majority dps/minority healing when you absolutely have to? I'll take the former because it at least feels like I'm playing the job I signed up for. But I guess it really comes down to personal preference.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

I haven't played Warhammer so I can't speak on their system at all, but if I had to choose between the majority healing/minority dps when able and majority dps/minority healing when you absolutely have to?

So in practice, the system didn't entirely work because the game itself was a rushed mess - but the concepts were cool. There were two factions (because WoW), and each had three different healers - they were mirrors of each other, with some minor variations. There were three different types of healers - a fairly basic one, a melee one, and a ebb and flow one.

Spoiler: warhammerspergen

If I remember correctly, the basic ones were the chaos zealot and the dwarven rune priest: they had access to generically powerful heals and a lot of buffs and debuffs, and most of the challenge of the class was properly timing windows to stack buffs or debuffs.

The melee variation had extremely powerful heals, but unlocked access to them by using aggressive attacks and needed to stay in the fray of melee. I think this was the War-priest and the disciple of kaine, both buffing themselves to be sturdy in melee and the disciple being a little more offense-oriented.

Lastly, the ebb and flow ones were the high priest and the shaman, who had mechanics whereby their healing abilities juiced up their damage abilities, and their damage abilities juiced up their healing abilities. Think of suggested fixes to freecure - like stapling it onto glare or stone or something, and that's a similar idea. They actually had the least utility, if I remember, because they could concentrate so much on just damage and just healing.

In the end, the FF healing classes are all variations on the same handful of healing skills, with their differences primarily found in the oGCD abilities and utility that they bring along. Which is generally fine, since that's verymuch what the tanks are, but it does make me yearn for a competitor really willing to step outside of convention and experiment. I'm longing for the untamed-00s of MMO-RPG design, basically.

Moving them towards dealing less damage, to me, suggests that WHM especially will need some help, since AST's low personal damage offset its party damage buffing, SCH's enormous toolkit of utility and the crit buff make it still probably the best healer, and SGE still has plenty of incentive to provide damage to the party.

 

[Zilortha]

So in practice, the system didn't entirely work because the game itself was a rushed mess - but the concepts were cool. There were two factions (because WoW), and each had three different healers - they were mirrors of each other, with some minor variations. There were three different types of healers - a fairly basic one, a melee one, and a ebb and flow one.

Spoiler: warhammerspergen

If I remember correctly, the basic ones were the chaos zealot and the dwarven rune priest: they had access to generically powerful heals and a lot of buffs and debuffs, and most of the challenge of the class was properly timing windows to stack buffs or debuffs.

The melee variation had extremely powerful heals, but unlocked access to them by using aggressive attacks and needed to stay in the fray of melee. I think this was the War-priest and the disciple of kaine, both buffing themselves to be sturdy in melee and the disciple being a little more offense-oriented.

Lastly, the ebb and flow ones were the high priest and the shaman, who had mechanics whereby their healing abilities juiced up their damage abilities, and their damage abilities juiced up their healing abilities. Think of suggested fixes to freecure - like stapling it onto glare or stone or something, and that's a similar idea. They actually had the least utility, if I remember, because they could concentrate so much on just damage and just healing.

In the end, the FF healing classes are all variations on the same handful of healing skills, with their differences primarily found in the oGCD abilities and utility that they bring along. Which is generally fine, since that's verymuch what the tanks are, but it does make me yearn for a competitor really willing to step outside of convention and experiment. I'm longing for the untamed-00s of MMO-RPG design, basically.

Moving them towards dealing less damage, to me, suggests that WHM especially will need some help, since AST's low personal damage offset its party damage buffing, SCH's enormous toolkit of utility and the crit buff make it still probably the best healer, and SGE still has plenty of incentive to provide damage to the party.

That's true I suppose. I wish they'd play more into the healer niches. WHM w/pure healing (which is probably fine rn tbh lol), AST w/ buffs and HoTs, SCH w/ shielding and "totem" healing, and SGE w/ damage = healing. Some of the jobs focuses are fine now but could use a bit more fine tuning I guess. I just don't think every job has to have mirrored skills (or very similar ones) to be viable, but I'm sure it makes it much easier to balance.

I don't think this tier's change is massive, but I think it's the first step in the right direction away from spamming 11111111. I'm hoping they make more changes in the future that make each healer more unique. But I won't hold my breath either.

 

[CharcoalChkn]

SCH w/ shielding and "totem" healing

Honestly, when I started playing SCH I was really hoping for something similar to Cata Disc Priest, that shit was fun as someone who loathes healers. I think it had a good balance of true healing/mitigation with damage cycles.

 

[Scuttle]

Cleared EX4 and that fight is fun as fuck. Haven't been feeling the EX trials in Endwalker at all but 6.2 feels like the team have been given an influx of fresh ideas.

I'm not sure, however, which fucking remedial thought it was a good idea to promote Island Sanctuary as this completely insular experience and then introduce a 'Permit Shop' at Rank 10 which locks landmark designs behind expensive materials acquired from outside the island. It's very clear that shop is going to see some serious use in future patches, so ultimately if you want to decorate your island you still somehow have to play the undercutter's game on the MB.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

I just don't think every job has to have mirrored skills (or very similar ones) to be viable, but I'm sure it makes it much easier to balance.

It's tricky because of the way that they're built. I draw comparisons here to WoW, where between Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm, all of the healers were pretty badly homogenized. Previously, paladins were the single-target kings but had almost no multi-target healing, priests were the only ones with preventative healing and were extremely well-rounded, druids were the masters of heal over time effects but had fairly weak raw heals, and shaman were the masters of AoE healing. Each also brought their own unique utility in the form of buffs, mana management, and sometimes even multi-tasking damage. In Cata, each was changed to have an expansive, fast heal, a cheap filler heal, and a slow, expensive, powerful heal. They retained some of their unique flavors, but paladins were being given way more AoEs, druids were given better raw heals, etc. etc.

In FF14, so many of the healers right now play somewhat similarly - your oGCD single-target heal, your oGCD AoE heal, sometimes with flavors - scholar's single-target can be effectively spammed, but relies on aetherflow stacks; sage's has a damage prevention debuff; astro's does more the lower the target's health is, etc. But all of your healers functionally have to be prepared to heal all of the types of mechanics in the game, and worse have to be prepared to do it when played by a drooling retard. It's a similar issue with why the tanks are so samey, and their 'niches' don't really matter all that much as does the damage they put out. It's the double-sided sword that everything is viable and balanced enough, which is a rarity, but it also means that if you sniff around and swap between jobs that aren't DPS jobs, you notice they are... awfully similar. Gunbreaker, whose 'thing' was supposed to be that it shit out damage but pushed more buttons and was squishier, now pushes less buttons than DRK's hectic opener and feels a hell of a lot tankier than paladins, whose niche is ??? split damage types that don't matter in 95% of fights

If they rework healers for the next expansion, I only pray they also rework the tanks.

 

[Zilortha]

It's tricky because of the way that they're built. I draw comparisons here to WoW, where between Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm, all of the healers were pretty badly homogenized. Previously, paladins were the single-target kings but had almost no multi-target healing, priests were the only ones with preventative healing and were extremely well-rounded, druids were the masters of heal over time effects but had fairly weak raw heals, and shaman were the masters of AoE healing. Each also brought their own unique utility in the form of buffs, mana management, and sometimes even multi-tasking damage. In Cata, each was changed to have an expansive, fast heal, a cheap filler heal, and a slow, expensive, powerful heal. They retained some of their unique flavors, but paladins were being given way more AoEs, druids were given better raw heals, etc. etc.

In FF14, so many of the healers right now play somewhat similarly - your oGCD single-target heal, your oGCD AoE heal, sometimes with flavors - scholar's single-target can be effectively spammed, but relies on aetherflow stacks; sage's has a damage prevention debuff; astro's does more the lower the target's health is, etc. But all of your healers functionally have to be prepared to heal all of the types of mechanics in the game, and worse have to be prepared to do it when played by a drooling retard. It's a similar issue with why the tanks are so samey, and their 'niches' don't really matter all that much as does the damage they put out. It's the double-sided sword that everything is viable and balanced enough, which is a rarity, but it also means that if you sniff around and swap between jobs that aren't DPS jobs, you notice they are... awfully similar. Gunbreaker, whose 'thing' was supposed to be that it shit out damage but pushed more buttons and was squishier, now pushes less buttons than DRK's hectic opener and feels a hell of a lot tankier than paladins, whose niche is ??? split damage types that don't matter in 95% of fights

If they rework healers for the next expansion, I only pray they also rework the tanks.

I think that's a fair request. Tanks have been victims of the homogeny as much as healers, but I think it's more detrimental to healers gameplay as things are currently (or it has been) since we only have one actual dps button. So unless we're being forced to heal like crazy, the jobs are just ultra boring and we have little to do (aside from AST I guess, since they have the cards to fill the void a little).

I don't know if the real answer is going back to that WoW style healing where each class's niche is that specialized (at least not in XIV), but I think we need a little more specialization where jobs have a chance to shine in their job space. And like you said, I think the jobs need to have things rebalanced in a way to emphasize those niches, and maybe shifting things around a bit to reduce jobs intruding on others design space. The problem is that a lot of the players losing abilities would be salty.

 

[Gravemind]

There is a very simple reasoning for the oversimplification of classes and homogeny and it all boils down to the fact that most of the game's playerbase is too retarded to even do the bare minimum of their role.

That's it. That's the long and short of it. You can discuss the intricacies and theorycraft ways to make things more interesting until the cows come home, but, outside of content where the healers HAVE to do more than be 1 button DPS that sometimes makes sure the party doesn't involuntarily die to raidwide, you most likely will not see them change these classes in any fundamental ways to add (or return) layers of complication to their basic gameplay. Because most of the mouthbreathers playing this MMO can't even be assed to press one single button when they should. Or move into positions when they should.

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

In FF14, so many of the healers right now play somewhat similarly - your oGCD single-target heal, your oGCD AoE heal, sometimes with flavors - scholar's single-target can be effectively spammed, but relies on aetherflow stacks; sage's has a damage prevention debuff; astro's does more the lower the target's health is, etc. But all of your healers functionally have to be prepared to heal all of the types of mechanics in the game, and worse have to be prepared to do it when played by a drooling retard. It's a similar issue with why the tanks are so samey, and their 'niches' don't really matter all that much as does the damage they put out. It's the double-sided sword that everything is viable and balanced enough, which is a rarity, but it also means that if you sniff around and swap between jobs that aren't DPS jobs, you notice they are... awfully similar. Gunbreaker, whose 'thing' was supposed to be that it shit out damage but pushed more buttons and was squishier, now pushes less buttons than DRK's hectic opener and feels a hell of a lot tankier than paladins, whose niche is ??? split damage types that don't matter in 95% of fights

GNB's thing imo was more that Gnashing Fang was one of the few janky not super free flow mechanics left in this game because you must press everything in order which can be annoying and cumbersome in an good or bad way depending on your tastes. It made GNB feel more intense and demanding because you MUST press it all in proper sequence to not miss your window. DRK to my rememberance had the same amount of ogcds or more in its opener and it had a 2 minute burst window and now a 3 minute one due to how Bloodfest worked in ShB.

GNB got a lot more weaving in this expansion if anything due to 3 cartridges and hypervelocity allowing you to slam so much bullshit in your opener, but it still isn't enough to catch up to the big wambo combo Drk gets because of EoS spam and they even removed Abyssal Drain too.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

GNB's thing imo was more that Gnashing Fang was one of the few janky not super free flow mechanics left in this game because you must press everything in order which can be annoying and cumbersome in an good or bad way depending on your tastes.

All that was annoying about it was button bloat. Now that they scraped it together into one, it's a cakewalk. And you could get around the button bloat with a little creativity, anyways.

Like, GNB may arguably have more to do overall in a 2 minute frame, but it's pretty simple to do the fang combos as appropriate. Bloodfest having its CD changed dumbs it down even more. DRK only has more going on in its opener combo, but that's still a lot more intense than anything GNB gets up to. And in neither case is it really particularly difficult, if you just whack on a dummy for a half hour practicing.

Tanks have been victims of the homogeny as much as healers, but I think it's more detrimental to healers gameplay as things are currently (or it has been) since we only have one actual dps button.

Oh, yeah. Healing's boring as fuck. Tanking is also pretty boring. They're both stupidly simple and on-rails, and DPS is the only role that's really engaging - I like playing around with nonstandard BLM rotations quite a bit. Yet whereas if you want to play DPS, you can choose between the braindead simplicity of DNC/Reaper or something complicated like Monk/Nin, Tanks and Healers are pretty one-speed.
Yes, DRK is a hell of a lot harder than WAR, but that's more because WAR is stupidly easy and none of them are really that complex. Same thing with healers - AST probably has the most going on owing to card management and having to target people, but it really isn't that complicated. It would be nice if those roles had a job that was genuinely challenging and rewarding in addition to wholly-straightforward ones. But, as established, people are somehow too retarded to play fucking warrior, so.

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

All that was annoying about it was button bloat. Now that they scraped it together into one, it's a cakewalk. And you could get around the button bloat with a little creativity, anyways.

Like, GNB may arguably have more to do overall in a 2 minute frame, but it's pretty simple to do the fang combos as appropriate. Bloodfest having its CD changed dumbs it down even more. DRK only has more going on in its opener combo, but that's still a lot more intense than anything GNB gets up to. And in neither case is it really particularly difficult, if you just whack on a dummy for a half hour practicing.

How does Bloodfest's change dumb down anything? You pressed it on CD the vast majority of the time when it was a 3 minute CD, their was pretty much no world where you didn't unga bunga press it unless the boss cucked you or you cucked yourself by not using your cartridges properly. If anything it always aligning with Double Down and No Mercy makes the job more busy and difficult if you consider multiple double and single weaving during your dps CD a sign of difficulty. Alignment syncing doesn't mean shit because you press everything on CD in this game if it is a DPS increase unless the boss is going to jump away, and for 99% of shit 3 min CD > 2 min CD makes the job more busy. If new Riddle of Wind on Monk aligned with the job properly, it would not make the job more dumbed down because you pretty much just press Riddle of Wind on CD

Gnashing Fang isn't annoying because of button bloat, it is annoying because trying to position bosses around while Gnashing Fang is up is a mess if you're trying to move quickly and efficiently. Especially if No Mercy windows are up and no other tank really needs to deal with this (especially War/Pld). This is why this combo got a range increase recently. If you tried to mix max your movement GNB was a clown fiesta especially post EW due to Hypervelocity as in ShB burst strike didn't have continuation back then, I felt that issue every once awhile when I used GNB during Bozja while in my No Mercy windows. Although to be honest that was the most fun part about the class and tryharding tanking (outside of autismo TBN min maxing that almost no one does). Alignment syncing doesn't mean shit because you press everything on CD in this game if it is a DPS increase unless the boss is going to jump away, and for 99% of shit 2 min CD vs 3 min CD either makes the job more busy.

Dummy dps is always brainless, it is when the boss can actually do something to disrupt you that it becomes even remotely a problem and GNB being a tank who controls the boss made them have a somewhat unique challenge to min max their class. If we're talking just standard shit, then pretty every job is about as brainless besides ranged physical. GNB by its design is the most restrictive tank dps in the game atm due to Continuation not being like the common o gcd where you can delay it if you can't afford to weave it in right away, this was something that this game got rid of steadily around SB but it exists on GNB for what I can presume is a class fantasy choice as Continuation is a reference to Squall's gunblade trigger mechanic.

I remember counting the openers at one point and full opener GNB is not as ogcd heavy as full opener DRK, but now GNB always full openers every 2 minutes while Drk can't do a full reopener until the 6 minute mark due to Salted Earth. Tanks are fucking weird, War/Pld barely double weave in their opener while Drk/Gnb double weave all the time.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

How does Bloodfest's change dumb down anything? You pressed it on CD the vast majority of the time when it was a 3 minute CD

You go from once in a blue moon delaying pressing it again due to an upcoming phase change and then realigning it with your window, to always by default popping it in the middle of a window.

Gnashing Fang isn't annoying because of button bloat, it is annoying because trying to position bosses around while Gnashing Fang is up is a mess if you're trying to move quickly and efficiently.

I mean, I definitely feel that, but especially since the balance-recommended combo opener emphasizes the fact that you can interrupt the fang combo to do some other GCD abilities, it's really just a matter of planning ahead when possible. DRK also has the movement issue with Edge during its opener, except that you can choose to shoot out Flood to keep everything rolling if the shitty pathing of the boss hasn't caught up to your movement.
In both cases, it's less an issue of the classes being janky per se and more the way that enemies in this game move and respond with server ticks still being ass.

War/Pld barely double weave in their opener while Drk/Gnb double weave all the time.

They just don't have enough non-defensive oGCDs to be able to do it any often. Warrior has what, upheaval, bunga, and the gap closer? Paladin has two thirty-second oGCDs you can throw into the same window unless you're using a tincture, then its gap closer and buffs.

 

[YachieKicchou]

I love questing and lifeskills in the games, but I absolutely hate instanced PvE. Is there 'endgame' stuff to do in FFXIV once you hit max level that isn't just farming dungeons/raids? I'm making my way through the trial currently.