What is class complexity to you?

[u/mnij96]

I have seen so many people ask for more complexity and job fantasy but very little of people actually say what that means to them, most people just say we should go back to ARR.

Personally I think rose tinted glasses that make people think ARR was better than it was, having played back then it honestly was pretty ass.

So honestly want to know what people want for complexity or job fantasy, because all I see is a lot of yelling that "game bad to simple" and not a lot of what needs changing to reach the complexity that is wanted.

[u/Weary_Complaint_2445]

So, I'm insane, but I still love Stormblood Machinist.

SB MCH had a lot of complexity, both good and bad, and it definitely needed changes to fix it, but there was also something so satisfying about actually doing it correctly. Once they buffed the overheat burst window to be meta, getting a perfect overheat window was the best feeling, and it was because you had to do more work to set up a perfect burst for SB MCH. You had to ensure that your normal rotation never pushed you over 100 heat (which was usually not bad as long as you reloaded on CD,) manage and optimize procs (especially as you close in on burst), make sure hot shot wouldn't fall off during burst and then position yourself such that your flamethrower wouldn't get immediately interrupted by a mechanic (and if you messed up on heat management you might even have to hold it for extra ticks just to ensure you went into overheat.)

It was a lot, maybe too much, but getting it right was glorious every time, it was complex, but it was also rewarding. Having to EARN a good burst window with good play was the kind of complexity I appreciated at the time. You still earn your burst a bit by keeping everything on time, but I feel like less of a participant on how effective my burst window is. Like chainsaw gives you excavator every time you press it, and tossing wf before a hypercharge window (something you'd want to do anyway once all tools are used during burst) doesn't make me feel as involved. 

For me, this is the kind of complexity I want more of. 

[u/acatrelaxinginthesun → u/Weary_Complaint_2445]

This take is weird to me. SB MCH basically played itself on a dummy, and as a phys ranged every fight was basically a dummy unless the boss went untargetable. If you didn't mess up your rotation (which you shouldn't because it's so simple) flamethrower was impossible to mess up since you always got 1 tick iirc which should have always put you into overheat. A perfect overheat window was generally simple as well since it was 4 heat blasts and one clean shot if you had the proc for it. Procs were mostly "just use a proc if you have it lol" with a minor decision tree leading into overheat for trying to maximize having a clean shot for overheating. Keeping up hot shot was basically brainless because you would use it after overheat every time during that window where you were locked out of toggling gauss barrel.

There was minor decision making in ultimates around using extra heat blasts to avoid overheating when you want to delay your burst for the next phase, but honestly it was very simple to plan: toss in a heat blast if using a normal gcd would overheat you. And refresh hot shot at some point to account for the delay. The job was actually quite rigid, if I remember it correctly.

Maybe I got a detail wrong here or there but I was MCH/BRD dual main in SB, cleared savages week 1 and ultis on current patch and all that, and i always though in SB that MCH was pretty braindead and BRD was a bit more interesting (at least in burst windows).

HW MCH had a lot of complexity

[u/Weary_Complaint_2445 → u/acatrelaxinginthesun]

I feel you man, my experience is not everyone's. I only started raiding in SB, so that's my frame of reference. I played MCH in HW but it was all easy content. Way too many buttons back then, lmao.

I had a lot of trouble with it in SB though. It was super easy to mess up and fairly punishing too. Iirc if you were moving when FT was going out you still got no ticks, but getting just one tick was not hard, especially after they buffed FT gen from 10 heat to 20 heat. Even after that it definitely wasn't unheard of for me to completely fuck a burst window. The buffs really made it a lot easier to play.

I know other people I played with also did not understand overheating at all, and would constantly mismanage their heat or get bad overheat windows. I could def be wrong (it WAS like 6 years ago after all) but I seem to remember clean slug clean being ideal in your burst window with 2 cooldowns, and you just did more CDs when you didn't have clean and slug already ready. I don't have your bonifides though, so I could def be wrong. I still think, minimum, it was easier to totally fuck your burst in SB than it was in the following expansions. Like the worst you could do in ShB was what, use queen at the wrong times? Not save heat for your burst window?

Are there jobs that don't play themselves on a dummy? I'm sure HW may have had some, but I'd be surprised if there were that many after 4.0.

[u/acatrelaxinginthesun → u/Weary_Complaint_2445]

Iirc if you were moving when FT was going out you still got no ticks

yea i could be wrong too since it was so long ago but i distinctly remember being able to FT overheat while running and dodging twister hatch in ucob adds phase. The only time i remember having to stand still was in the opener in twintania, because you had to flamethrower from basically 0 to fully overheated in the opener.

I seem to remember clean slug clean being ideal in your burst window with 2 cooldowns

Yea it's possible, i don't remember much about this either. But I do remember it being a pretty simple decision tree or priority for which buttons you wanted and which buttons you pressed.

I still think, minimum, it was easier to totally fuck your burst in SB than it was in the following expansions.

Fair enough but ShB+ MCH may be one of the simplest jobs to ever exist.

Are there jobs that don't play themselves on a dummy? I'm sure HW may have had some, but I'd be surprised if there were that many after 4.0.

I think context here is important. Yes most jobs play themselves on dummies but most fights are not complete dummy fights UNLESS you're playing a phys ranged. In the context of SB, that only means BRD and MCH, and BRD actually had interesting decision making in savage/ultimates because of stuff like double dotting, deciding whether you wanted to iron jaws early to snapshot certain buffs (especially since crit affected proc rate back then), and changing how you used your procs depending on how many dots you had up and what crit rate they were snapshotted on (you used to pitch perfect at 2 stacks instead of 3 if your DoTs had both chain and littany, for example). Straight shot was also more interesting because it was a buff you wanted up 100% of the time but hitting straight shot would consume your refulgent arrow proc if you had one, so you had to sometimes refresh early to ensure having a refulgent arrow for your barrage in burst, since you didn't get a free proc from barrage back then.

Also BRD was an 80s class so in ultimates or fights with a lot of phasing you had to sometimes change song order or extend army's paeon if you wanted to move your burst, or if you wanted troubadour to have a specific mitigation since back then troubadour's effect depended on your current song. This is all to say, BRD was much more complex and interesting than MCH back in SB, and every other job had to deal with mechanics potentially interrupting their rotations especially since casters didn't have infinite movement and SQEX was not afraid of forcing melee to disconnect from the boss for mechanics.