Phoenix DownFollow

I received this item from a quest in Quarrymill recently (lv 47 I think). Its unique and cannot be used in battle. Does anyone know if this item can be used multiple times or if its a one time use and when this would be used since you cant use it in battle to save yourself?

And it can't be used in battle I believe... Not sure what SE is thinking with raise items not working in combat. They have the spell so restricted as to who can use it, and with weakness and and the cast time, the only time you would ever use a raise like ability in combat not as a whm is to raise your whm... But now the pressure is on the mages, since if they die it's a wipe. Where are any other player can die, and a party can usually continue (Depending on the situation).

Because it would be too Final Fantasy like if you can have multiple people raise you with items and the spells as a cross class skill. Much like it's Too Final Fantasy to have even a tiny reliance on using medicine throughout the battles, especially if low on MP...why boost your MP nicely by popping multiple hi-x ethers when you can pop one for a quarter of 1 cure cost and have a long cooldown afterwards?

The only thing SE was thinking: "This should be like other MMORPGs."

Actually, in that respect it's like XI. We didn't even have Phoenix downs in XI (well we did but they were a crafting material.) Ethers and Hi pots were so expensive at lower levels that no one ever bothered with them except in boss fights. Drink boosts for regen and refresh were a lot cheaper and more efficient. (Oh Yagudoh Drink, how amazing you were.)

Since everyone in XIV has auto regen and refresh and ethers/potions are cheap and plentiful, SE decided to limit it instead with the cooldown timer. I agree it's stupid long but I can see their reasoning.

But do you actually get why MMOs do this now? See, it wasn't always like this.

WoW originally didn't have a cooldown on potions. I know this because when I started, I had the damn things on IV drip. I leveled Alchemy and whatever the Botany/gather was for that to make my own. I literally could not die. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could kill me because all I needed to do was keep right on drinking.

And here's an example from the Beta of this game. I was on MRD, and had not leveled any healer classes. I came up on a quest that spawns diremites in succession. The first time it cause me totally offguard and I died. The next time. I killed each mob by beating it down to a sliver then using sprint and terrain to kite it in a circle, drank a Hi-Potion, and waited out the cooldown before killing the mob. Now if there was no cooldown, I could just get a stack of Hi-Pots and facetank like a pro.

It's called balance.

Edit:

And before you bring up any other FF where items didn't break it, remember that pretty much every other non-MMO FF, using items took a turn, so you had to choose to deal damage or use items, where in MMOs, you can pretty much burn an item relatively quickly and just keep on keeping on.

Edited, Oct 2nd 2013 12:19pm by Pawkeshup

I don't want to argue this long, because it will get rather ridiculous, but you're saying that 1 minute is too long, yet 30 seconds would be ok. Let's do some math. So at the current 1 minute, it's 360/minute you can restore. With it at 30 seconds, that jumps to 720, nearing 1k/minute restored. Now, how fast are you taking damage? Well, in the dungeons I've gone through so far, your HP does go down fairly quickly as a DD tanking, but we cannot take that as a norm. We need to look at the tank, who'd be the one IVing if allowed. So, most tanks are not taking nearly that much every minute unless we're on a boss, and then only if they are just standing and eating everything. Now keep in mind I am still low, but we need to look at why I'm using this as an example. You see, potions have no level.

Think on that a moment. Potions have no level. That means that I, as a level 1, can down an Elixir. Sure, it'd be a waste, but I can. Now, let's say I have a friend who's a level 50 Alchemist. He could ship me an inventory-load of potions. Let's say, for sake of argument, they are all elixirs. Now, let's drop that cooldown again, to the lowest you suggested, 15 seconds. I can now, near infinitely, restore 1440HP/minute. Is this balanced? A level one capable of healing themselves for that much every minute?

OK, so let's say that now items are forced to have level-checks. That would stop that abuse, huh? True, but that's extra programming, as well as testing, and it limits content growth. If you look, there's a level 70 recipe out there for X-Potions. How does the level check work then, Item level? How much will they restore? Will they need to be nerfed into uselessness?

You have to understand, the 1 minute was not arbitrary. Math was done on every situation. And keep in mind that you can crossclass a Cure spell if you are truly hurting for heals. I did that on my PUG while solo farming/exping just to give me added survivability and lower downtime. You can argue that there are better systems, but realistically, this is an old argument that already been hashed out a long time ago.

Just to play devil's advocate, I imagine some people would use sleeping/blind/silence potions to do dungeon runs with non-standard party setups (e.g. 3 DPS+1 healer) to help deal with trash. Once PVP comes out, they might see more use as well, even though they have to be used in melee range and are non-instant. Maybe there'll be a Chemist class/job eventually, allowing ranged items usage a la Tactics.