Item Usage In Combat

[Trace101]

Hey all,

I was just curious as to how often others are using in-combat items. Are you finding a solid use for them? Often times I weigh the option of using an item against the simple loss of potential damage that I could of instead had, if I didn't use said item. Now, granted, I don't exactly know how strong numbers correlate from text to in-game damage, but it never feels worth it to use any weapon-enhancing item. The prospect of simple hitting outweighs the general good the item could provide.

I have found myself occasionally using armor increasing items in combat, but it's rare and few in-between.

What about you guys? I'm hoping to gain some insight on the topic! :]

 

[AceofSpades]

I play white mage and I almost never use items. Maybe the occasional resolve heal but otherwise my skills are more effective.

 

[VerySexyGrammar]

Practically never.

Buff items aren't worth it, they give respectable enough buffs that I might have considered using them on occasion, but they suffer from the same issues as stances: you want to use them early in the fight, but that's when all your abilities are off cooldown and you need to disable enemies ASAP, the worst time to "stun" yourself for a turn. It's already a tough enough choice that I'd lean against using them, if you factor the cost and hassle of acquiring (money or grinding) and carrying (inventory space) them, I'd much rather just ignore their existence.

The vast majority of healing items are so pathetically weak that using them in combat is pointless; enemies will do five times more damage than you will heal in a turn, so it's better to attack instead. The exception is "healing nukes" like Wyldsap or Tears and it's OK to keep a stack of each if you don't need the inventory space, otherwise healing items are not realistically usable in battle.

Leananstones are very decent if you have Cunning and Willpower, dealing Storm damage to all enemies and Staggering them. But they cost a significant amount of money and only stack to 9. Even if you decided to build a Cunning character (uses Leananstones and powers like Acid Flask), the cost of buying and holding 72 of these before long dungeon runs is simply not realistic. You're never going to go all-in, and if you don't go all-in you're back to virtually never using any. Plus they don't scale super well (maximum +6 damage per level) so they'd eventually just become too weak anyway. This is not sustainable.

These items are nice for flavor, but ultimately far too weak VS their cost to bother with them.

 

[Savin]

FWIW item effects/usage is a thing we're looking at for next year's rebalance.

 

[Kesil]

Rarely. I did find offensive ones of use to endure Rindo and Kazuo's puppet gauntlet attack.

 

[WolframL]

I keep a stock of items in my accessible inventory for mostly out of combat use and the occasional dungeon bypass (like in the Abyssal Depths) but Remedies can be quite handy mid-battle especially when dealing with Komari's Kitsunetsuki, and my glass cannon Warrior will sometimes chug a Steadfast Tonic for longer fights.

 

[wery12345]

Yeah right now until the rebalance you really only need winterstem/vulnerary/remedy/sap/tears, and your basically set for life.

 

[Burnerbro]

FWIW item effects/usage is a thing we're looking at for next year's rebalance.

As a suggestion, why not try separating the item use from the regular action economy? Something like giving the Champ one 'inventory' action per turn on top of the regular action that can be used for anything else? That way their cost and availability would be left as the main limiting factor, allowing the players that have difficulty with a particular encounter to better prepare for it and overcome it without dropping the difficulty, overleveling or drastically changing their party comp.


It might also help with curbing the exploits that currently exist as a result of unlimited weapon and armor swapping in combat.

 

[YEsManKablaam]

for like item usage I feel like something from Trials of Mana would work here. Have a smaller like amount of items you can use in battle out of your normal pool. like say 3 at most out of the 9 for the fight. Or like only champ uses items (I don't have companions on control but i am guessing they can use items??) and 1 per turn (without using the turn up), or both. Right now yeah they aren't quite up to par but good to know they are going to get looked at.

 

[Solitary Traveler]

Making item effect magnitude subject to player stats will go a long way towards redressing this issue. As it is, static effects aren't worth the opportunity cost for properly geared characters with the right abilities.

Edit: I mean attack/spell power/penetration in addition to STR/CUN/WIL etc.