Live Letter from the Producer (5/21/15)Follow

Learning now from the hands-on reviews that the new bard song takes 3 seconds to cast, and will boost damage from all skill abilities by 25%. Plus while the song plays you will get access to a powerful charged attack and a buff that automatically recasts your active dots on the target.

So, assuming you have 130, decked out in BiS, and you practically do 500 dps. 3 seconds to cast the spell means you lose 1500 damage. Assuming you pick right back up to speed afterwards, a 25% boost is equal to 125 extra damage per second (i.e. 500*0.25). Soooo, you would need to stay still for 12 seconds after casting the song (1500/125=12), doing max dps in order to just make up for the 3 seconds you were casting the spell. So I am assuming that the instant dot renewal will allow more heavy shots / bloodletters to go off, but that might only make up for abotu 6 seconds you have to stand still to break even (that's a guess).

So the usefulness of the song all hovers on that powerful charge attack (think its Empyrial something or other) and how much DPS that will deal.

Another thing about that song, it does NOT deactivate upon movement. So if you do need to sidestep something, you can go right back to "casting."

Also, as I said before, this could be great during phase changes. You could time it so those 3 seconds of downtime happen when the mob is invulnerable anyway. I can think of instances in just about every fight where you could cast this with no loss to DPS. You could also cast it before starting the fight, and just go in with it active.

I have a feeling mastering this song is what will separate good bards from great bards.

Edited, May 27th 2015 1:25pm by Thayos

It sounds like they're doing something about that in HW.

There's been talk of:
- entering a duty with a premade group of fewer people than technically required.
- entering a duty solo with a chocobo. (dollars to donuts I still can't be in a normal queue with my chocobo out though... grumble grumble)
- entering a duty and being sync'd to the lowest allowable item level for the duty, so as to experience the content at its most challenging point.

I've heard from various sources that all of these are slated for HW, though the exact timeframe for implementation was never definite.

Please look forward to it?

Another reason why that translator would be better suited translating for something else... Bahyone (sp?) confirmed the movement aspect on the official boards. So, that completely changes how I view the song. So, it doesn't use mp, and I can move while it is up, and it gives me 25% to my attacks, and i get access to two extra attacks, and the downsides are that we have no autoattacks and all of our attacks now have a cast bar.

I can't decide at the moment which stance is going to be better. Depends on that cast bar and how much that special attack is going to do. Barrage is my burst, losing barrage during the song is going to be devastating.


Edited, May 28th 2015 10:34am by Valkayree

Easier in XIV than in XI, where in XIV everyone has a shot at the loot, in XI often times you would be donating time to help gear the colleagues. So in XIV it is a bit easier to find willing participants.

So are you agreeing with more disagreeing with me?
If I wanted to do a dungeon with two SMN could I do it?

I think that's one of the biggest reasons why true strategy is such a non-factor in XIV.

Most endgame XIV battles lean heavily on enrage timers and DPS checks (which are followed by insta-death mechanics), and they're tuned so that you've got to be almost perfect in order to clear these hurdles. In XI, enrage factors and life-or-death DPS checks weren't as prevalent, and also kiting was a much more feasible battle tactic. Enfeebling also played a big role in XI, and it's trivialized in XIV.

In XIV, about the only real strategy differences are whether to main tank vs. single tank something, but single-tanking isn't really a strategy for winning as much as it's a strategy for faster farms.

That said, more recent battles in XIV have evolved enough to be more interesting and less maddening than earlier scripted monstrosities such as Titan Ex. But still, these battles are less about on-the-fly skill and more just about memorization. I have enough fun in game to keep playing anyway though.

I agree. Once you get to the top tier gear-wise, you can skip mechanics and succeed. With that said, there are some times where 2 tanks are needed even with 130 gear (T10 when hallowing a charge if OT is vulnerable, T11 for secondary head , T12 revelation, T13 ankh morn), and times where you need two tanks to keep adds away from one another so they don't get buffed (i.e. T10, T11).

So you need to be able to have the required amount of people needed to run the desired mechanics too.

Edited, May 24th 2015 4:23am by Belcrono [/quote]
I think most people who don't like summoner right now are the one's in the same boat with you. They see summons as a colossal entity rather than a fairy type creature that summons are now.

[/quote]

SMN is one job I don't play, I levelled it and if its needed I will. In XI it was almost perfectly done.

If there was one thing I didn't like about the Job Classes SMN would be my top 3. Then again instead of whining about it all day I simply don't play that job. :)

Edited, May 29th 2015 4:17am by Lonix

They could incorporate more Summons in the form of powerful high cooldown abilities. Summon Doomtrain does some massive aoe ability with a 4 min CD, Summon Ramuh grants a party buff on a 10 min CD, etc.

Edited, May 29th 2015 4:47am by BrokenFox

Maat says hi.

Took me forever to convince an LS friend that beating Maat on MNK wasn't about boosting VIT and DEF to survive his attacks, it was about killing him so fast he didn't get to them.

Well, no one is perfect.