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Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward |OT2| RIP Bowmage 2015-2017.

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ebil

Member
Since people have been talking about Dancer/Bladedancer for a potential new healer does anyone think that it could work as a melee based class?

Can you think of melee healers from other MMO's that might give some insight as to how they would implement that in FFXIV?
I've talked about it before, but FF11's Dancer is the closest thing there is to a melee healer in that game. In FF11, you start from 0 TP and build them up by auto-attacking. Dancers typically dual wield daggers and they build up TP at a relatively fast pace. Dancers can spend their TP into Waltzes (heals and dispels), Jigs (movement speed and stealth buffs), Steps (various debuffs), and Sambas (debuffs on your target that grant attacking party members Drain, Aspir or Haste buffs). They also build up stacks that they can spend into Finishing Moves. I think it could decently translate to FF14, it's a super fun job.

WoW also kind of tried to turn Holy paladin into a melee healer recently by giving it a passive proximity bonus (the closer you are to the target you're healing, the more you heal them) and a frontal cone AOE heal but it's more of a melee range healer (when you don't talent into making your proximity buff/debuff irrelevant) than a full blown melee healer, really.
 
I picture Dancer in this game as a sort of DPS/Support healer with some combos that could heal up nearby allies and some OGCDs like Indomitability
 

aceface

Member
Still waiting for Chemist. I want to whip potions at people's heads.
Also I'm publically asking GAF to revive help night and help me clear Sophia ex tonight. Help a lala out.
 
I've talked about it before, but FF11's Dancer is the closest thing there is to a melee healer in that game. In FF11, you start from 0 TP and build them up by auto-attacking. Dancers typically dual wield daggers and they build up TP at a relatively fast pace. Dancers can spend their TP into Waltzes (heals and dispels), Jigs (movement speed and stealth buffs), Steps (various debuffs), and Sambas (debuffs on your target that grant attacking party members Drain, Aspir or Haste buffs). They also build up stacks that they can spend into Finishing Moves. I think it could decently translate to FF14, it's a super fun job.

WoW also kind of tried to turn Holy paladin into a melee healer recently by giving it a passive proximity bonus (the closer you are to the target you're healing, the more you heal them) and a frontal cone AOE heal but it's more of a melee range healer (when you don't talent into making your proximity buff/debuff irrelevant) than a full blown melee healer, really.

That sounds really interesting actually. A healer that builds up TP with attacking and uses it for a variety of different healing/support abilities.

Kind of reminds me of the Black Mage in that they don't use their main resource the way that other classes do.
 

Ogawa-san

Member
Since people have been talking about Dancer/Bladedancer for a potential new healer does anyone think that it could work as a melee based class?

Can you think of melee healers from other MMO's that might give some insight as to how they would implement that in FFXIV?
Blizzard gave up trying to make "fistweaving" (aka. melee mistweavers) work, and I can't blame them.
 

Apoptomon

Member
My computer is being heaps weird today. Like major lag, but in combat there's text flying all over the screen but no proc'd/combo'd skill icons or buff icons ( hollow frames with no icon texture), nor skill animations playing until they all play at once a minute later. o_O
 

Squishy3

Member
My computer is being heaps weird today. Like major lag, but in combat there's text flying all over the screen but no proc'd/combo'd skill icons or buff icons ( hollow frames with no icon texture), nor skill animations playing until they all play at once a minute later. o_O
That's called welcome to what Comcast users have been experiencing during primetime.
 

Ogawa-san

Member
What do you mean? They took out the melee from them?
They took out healing done from melee attacks. You can still go punch a boss for mana and damage, but healing is done with normal spells. And it's not like before where meleeing was the best way to generate mana and resources (chi), and melee isn't the only way to deal decent damage either.
 

Squishy3

Member
got to 20% on a9s. time to stumble into a raid finder clear like i did for sophia ex


thought about sneaking my way into korra's weekly clear party but that'd be a dick thing to do. dps slots are full now anyway
 

Ogawa-san

Member
I missed most of ARR's raids, so I went to clear the main bosses in coil to see what the story is about.

I spent the last hour wiping in unsynced T9... Every mechanic will instakill you and/or the group if done even half-right.

I'm surprised there was a raiding scene left for Gordias to kill. God damn.
 

Kenai

Member
As mentioned, Dancer from 11 was a sort of healer (though class balance in that game was usually an afterthought so it only worked sometimes), along with Holy Pally and Mistweaver Monk from WoW. I am fairly familiar with all 3 (mained MWer for all of MoP and Dancer was one of my 75 before I quit 11 back in WotG).

I have yet to see it end up working for any stretch of time.

I said a long time ago that i thought the FF11 version of Dancer redesigned for 14's gameplay could probably work, but I mean a full on resign a la Bard or Summoner or Ninja, which only vaguely resemble their FF11 counterparts outside some aesthetics.

Melee healing, or DPSing to heal in general, is an incredibly tricky beast. If you make the healing while DPSing too good, then that extra DPS usually means 'traditional" healing goes by the wayside. But make it too inconsequential and most aren't going to bother, especially in a game like this where accuracy in raiding is a big concern, and this game is similar to most MMO's in that there are a lot of added dangers to being in melee range of a boss.

I am very skeptical of SE designing a healing class that would be providing more "active" DPS than a SCH in Cleric stance, or more "passive" DPS than AST buffs. I can understand the appeal of it, but with the way the current healers can pop Cleric and go DPS mode, it'd definitely need more than that as a hook.

I'd probably level a Dancer class in a heartbeat though, no matter what role it was (and possibly main it if it was a healing class).
 

Squishy3

Member
I missed most of ARR's raids, so I went to clear the main bosses in coil to see what the story is about.

I spent the last hour wiping in unsynced T9... Every mechanic will instakill you and/or the group if done even half-right.

I'm surprised there was a raiding scene left for Gordias to kill. God damn.
Gordias Savage ended up tuned extremely high compared to Gordias normal and Ravana Extreme. (which Ravana was the actual midcore difficulty content, Gordias normal was pretty faceroll at the time too.)

T9 is just mechanically complex, but to give an example of something that's probably about the same level of difficulty now would be Thordan Extreme when it was first released, although it has way more mechanics than T9 has.

The other thing is Coil participation/clears were low and that's why Alexander normal and Savage is even a thing even though I don't think they ever officially released Coil numbers. There wasn't a raid scene really for Coil to kill, while Heavensward brought in a load of players and then they hit A3S and statics started dying and people started transferring to other servers in an attempt to get clears. This is why Raid Finder now exists and soon cross-server PF.


On a side note, talking about Raid Finder, since I stumbled into a Sophia clear party via it, it'd be really nice if you could requeue up with the same group and each member could select if they want to stay to farm and if people decline it just tries to find new people. This'd make things like bird/weapon farming for the EX primals viable via Raid Finder... oh who am I kidding Raid Finder is going to be even deader than it already is on non-JP servers when cross-server PF comes out.
 
Plus T9 was the last fight on the tier, it being difficult was expected and fair. Gordias did a number on the raiding scene because people couldn't even get to Manipulator
 

ebil

Member
Plus T9 was the last fight on the tier, it being difficult was expected and fair. Gordias did a number on the raiding scene because people couldn't even get to Manipulator
And even when we did, Manipulator was such a terrible, unexciting fight it was not very motivating. Had it not dropped a mount I'm sure the clear rate would have been even lower than it already was.
 

IvorB

Member
I missed most of ARR's raids, so I went to clear the main bosses in coil to see what the story is about.

I spent the last hour wiping in unsynced T9... Every mechanic will instakill you and/or the group if done even half-right.

I'm surprised there was a raiding scene left for Gordias to kill. God damn.

Yeah Nael still owns parties, even unsynched. It's amazing.
 
They took out healing done from melee attacks. You can still go punch a boss for mana and damage, but healing is done with normal spells. And it's not like before where meleeing was the best way to generate mana and resources (chi), and melee isn't the only way to deal decent damage either.

That's actually how I imagine Dancer would be. Directly attacking the enemy wouldn't heal anyone but would give you fuel or using different abilities like ebil mentioned they have the Waltzes, Steps, Jigs, etc although those could be modified for sure to fit FFXIV more if necessary.

As mentioned, Dancer from 11 was a sort of healer (though class balance in that game was usually an afterthought so it only worked sometimes), along with Holy Pally and Mistweaver Monk from WoW. I am fairly familiar with all 3 (mained MWer for all of MoP and Dancer was one of my 75 before I quit 11 back in WotG).

I have yet to see it end up working for any stretch of time.

I said a long time ago that i thought the FF11 version of Dancer redesigned for 14's gameplay could probably work, but I mean a full on resign a la Bard or Summoner or Ninja, which only vaguely resemble their FF11 counterparts outside some aesthetics.

Melee healing, or DPSing to heal in general, is an incredibly tricky beast. If you make the healing while DPSing too good, then that extra DPS usually means 'traditional" healing goes by the wayside. But make it too inconsequential and most aren't going to bother, especially in a game like this where accuracy in raiding is a big concern, and this game is similar to most MMO's in that there are a lot of added dangers to being in melee range of a boss.

I am very skeptical of SE designing a healing class that would be providing more "active" DPS than a SCH in Cleric stance, or more "passive" DPS than AST buffs. I can understand the appeal of it, but with the way the current healers can pop Cleric and go DPS mode, it'd definitely need more than that as a hook.

I'd probably level a Dancer class in a heartbeat though, no matter what role it was (and possibly main it if it was a healing class).

Wasn't Ninja a tank in FF11? I agree that they would probably change it heavily to make sure it works, I imagine that in regards to DPS you would have to split your resources between healing and damage, kind of like how White Mage can DPS but they must make sure that they do no over dps to the point that they run out of mana trying to healing all the damage that's going out (depending on the fight of course). I don't have any ideas regarding how that would work at the moment but I think SE could definitely do it since they naturally have more skilled people designing jobs that can account for a lot of different possibilities.

Yeah Nael still owns parties, even unsynched. It's amazing.

The only mechanics you have to watch out for in unsynced are the meteors and the heavensfall column thing that can kill people. If you can survive those you can burn down the boss before you have to deal with the fire/ice/lightning debuff stuff.

Meteors are definitely the hardest part though, but it's not too bad to learn them since you get to that part fairly early into the fight due to damage.
 
I was wondering how long the story generally takes to complete from post-2.0 content to 3.4? I'm close to finishing the the ARR story quests, and right now my playtime is almost 72 hours.
 
NIN wasn't meant to be a tank, people just used it as a tank lol

I hear FFXI was a little odd when it came to how classes performed. I don't think there's any chance of that happening in FFXIV though.

I was wondering how long the story generally takes to complete from post-2.0 content to 3.4? I'm close to finishing the the ARR story quests, and right now my playtime is almost 72 hours.

A long time. My guess is all of 3.0-3.4 might take as long? Not sure to be honest but there's a lot there.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
I was wondering how long the story generally takes to complete from post-2.0 content to 3.4? I'm close to finishing the the ARR story quests, and right now my playtime is almost 72 hours.

When I came back to the game in early June, I think I was about 2 updates worth of quests away from being able to start Heavensward content. Shiva and Snowcloak were the last dungeon/trials I did, and Keeper of the Lake was the first one when I came back.

I'd say it took about 2-3 weeks of pretty constant gameplay to get caught up. That did including doing a lot of side quests once I hit Heavensward to help level up.
 
I was wondering how long the story generally takes to complete from post-2.0 content to 3.4? I'm close to finishing the the ARR story quests, and right now my playtime is almost 72 hours.
Going by my experience I'd say around 170 hours. Between Heavensward and the Dragonsong War there's a good chunk of content.
 

Squishy3

Member
I was wondering how long the story generally takes to complete from post-2.0 content to 3.4? I'm close to finishing the the ARR story quests, and right now my playtime is almost 72 hours.
If you just beeline them it's probably somewhere between 20-30 hours? If you get distracted it's a lot more.

The alt I made that's barely into Heavensward is sitting at 108 hours. The big thing is you don't need to worry about getting the poetics Ironworks gear, it's nice to have but is by no means a necessity for getting into the expansion. The 2.1+ quests give you gear good enough for you to enter the final trial (Steps of Faith) before you enter Heavensward, so you don't even need to worry about gearing up for ARR endgame.
 

Thorgal

Member
Decided to do the HW Hildebrand quest line finally .


Hildy's mother ( julyan ) is starting to freak me out .

ffxiv_05102016_220754ctyug.png


even the WOD , profenisonal godslayer is having a "Nope" moment .

ffxiv_05102016_220824zjly3.png
 

Quote

Member
A bunch of the FC carried me through A9-A12. A11 and 12 are scary as a healer and I don't look forward attempting them in DF.

Decided to do the HW Hildebrand quest line finally .


Hildy's mother ( julyan ) is starting to freak me out .

even the WOD , profenisonal godslayer is having a "Nope" moment .

Whoa, this looks cool. I should get around to doing all the Hildebrand stuff.
 

Kenai

Member
I hear FFXI was a little odd when it came to how classes performed. I don't think there's any chance of that happening in FFXIV though.

Definitely weird. In a nutshell, the game devs back then decided what they wanted a class to do, and then made it do it, regardless of whether or not people found that desirable in group or at endgame or whatever. If they did, great! if not, oh well, maybe we will fix it in a few years (yes, years, yes, maybe).
 
Damn, locked out of a Minfilia quest, apparently I need to do some primal fights on hard. I went ahead and did a few but still need to unlock the Navel. I would have had no idea how to initiate the hard mode versions without looking it up. I saw that you do them naturally through a relic quest but I didn't even know about the relic quest lol.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Damn, locked out of a Minfilia quest, apparently I need to do some primal fights on hard. I went ahead and did a few but still need to unlock the Navel. I would have had no idea how to initiate the hard mode versions without looking it up. I saw that you do them naturally through a relic quest but I didn't even know about the relic quest lol.

Go to the Waking Sands. Various Scions should be mingling around and should have a variety of short quests to unlock the Hard Primal fights. Y'shtola should have Titan's.
 
Damn, locked out of a Minfilia quest, apparently I need to do some primal fights on hard. I went ahead and did a few but still need to unlock the Navel. I would have had no idea how to initiate the hard mode versions without looking it up. I saw that you do them naturally through a relic quest but I didn't even know about the relic quest lol.

Yeah, hang a left when you enter the Waking Sands and you'll find the quest givers.

The fights themselves are a slight bump in difficulty. Titan can certainly have Duty Finder shenanigans happen, though.
 

Squishy3

Member
maybe i should just make a act trigger for myself that is "MOVE AWAY AFTER ACID RAIN BECAUSE OF LAVA" for that part of the fight to drill it in hard.

seriously though it was fun running with you and maybe i'll actually end up completing a set of savage alex this tier.
 
If anyone is going to Fan Fest from SoCal and is willing to give me a ride (will chip in for gas) and maybe room in their hotel (will pay fair split), please message me. Can't drive up because my car needs maintenance before a long trip and can't get it into the shop in time. Otherwise will be watching on stream with the rest of you.
 

Eldren

Member
Not exactly the most relevant content any more but I finally cleared Nidhogg EX. My FC has been trying for a while but they had a member of the mostly casual static leave the FC so they invited me in their place, and a couple of days later we did it. Looking forward to never doing that again.


Plus bonus side-eye at Scylla

 
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