Job balancing?

[OmnysValefor]

I'm the same way Urth, and I don't blame you.

If I see a guy on a job that I could tell was once well-geared, and he's returned to make it glorious again, I'll tell him the hard truth. It's not a coincidence that you don't see SAMs and BRDs and WARs around.

To the newbie players who want to make their sparks-thieves glorious, I'll tell them the truth too. Not only is the job not really desirable and not usually relevant (th frequently doesn't matter/has little effect), you're competing with a lot of better thfs than you for one spot.

I don't like the current meta but it's better to tell a guy than watch him get rawhide, get herc, get all the JSE he needs, build a mandau and then realize noone wants him most of the time, and if they do, it's frequently to tag and try to stay alive. Noone cares about your epeen Rudra's.

It's better to tell people that up-front.

I know dozens of people that stick to one job or one job type (say melee) and want in on everything and don't care how they're hurting the strategy. They blame other players for trying to be practical. If you want me to help you get gear for your warrior, help me do it on blm or sch or geo. Why should the load be on your friends to carry a job that is a hinderance? You need to put some effort in to.

Your fresh warrior isn't going to help the party kill the IG ironside any quicker/easier (harder, in fact due to hp-scaling), and is in-fact only costing a spot that would be better filled by an appropriate job, and usually even a trust on the appropriate job (sad as that is).

I'm bothered by the design of endgame-overall, but I don't feel guilty for having to lay these facts out for players. It's not the fault of players.

[Ketaru]

Just to be clear, I don't think RDM is in a terrible place in the game right now. It still does have a lot going for it. For the most part, in current content, I do think it can be fit in to make a worthwhile contribution (albeit likely not optimal) to any content. That is certainly more than a lot of other jobs can say.

The fact it's a hybrid also means it is more capable at soloing content, which is no small facet of the game right now. For example, unlike many other jobs, it can work effectively with a greater variety of trusts and is not burdened with having to fit in a trust with Refresh, like Koru-Moru or Arciela.

I'm just looking at the claims that the game is becoming increasingly centralized with respect to what jobs are viable, and its just curious to me that it's always the same ones being mentioned: BLU BLM BST PLD GEO COR, yet for some reason, it's simply a given a fact that your party will have WHM for some reason. Maybe we ought to entertain the possibility that other jobs could use a little buff to healing if we find ourselves always wanting a WHM that badly?

I will say as a side note though, because this subject has come up as of late, that peoples' bloodlust to see BLU nerfed is making me nervous. One of the things that has actually made RDM melee rather adequate these days is the fact it has Chant du Cygne. Same goes for PLD. It would be nerf to these two jobs for no reason if they wrecklessly nerf CDC just to bring BLU down a notch

[Hercule]

SE, maybe you could try the boost you did in 75 era (before nerfing it after like only 1 week)

So, this was that:

Two Hands weapon = 2 hands = 2X the bonus from DEX and STR (Accuracy, Attack) than One hand Weapons

[OmnysValefor]

Just because main healing used to be unpleasant (bear a lot of this was against mobs where debuff removal was mostly unnecessary) doesn't change the fact that one job has this unquestioned seat at the table. That's job imbalance. Thing is, I don't think WHM is overpowered at all. I think we're all just glad that at least one job out there is capable of meeting the challenge of healing against some of the new endgame content. But similar to the discussions about whether BLU is overpowered or not, it might be time to think about improving the healing chops of other jobs, like RDM, SCH, DNC, maybe even WHM as a subjob. If more jobs were better healers, it would be one step in making things better for other jobs as well, such as meleers who are invited less because of the risk involved with using them.

Glad I stumbled onto this, rather than restating it later in the thread.

I've said similar things about BLU before.

People that look at BLU and get upset think it's CDC that make it powerful. It's not CDC. If the paladin could reliably self-skillchain against single-target mobs, people wouldn't even want a melee.

It's Accuracy Bonus, allowing the BLU a stronger accuracy boost while wearing more defensive gear.

It's Dual Wield, allowing the BLU to sub whatever is appropriate to the fight. Sometimes, NIN is the most appropriate, sometimes RDM is, sometimes RUN is.

It's spells like Saline Coat (+magic defense bonus) which mitigates the magic damage the blu takes, and barrier tusk which provides some additional PDT.

It's sometimes self heals. When your hp goes read, casting a cure whether the whm is casting or not may be what saves you.

Double Attack, Triple Attack, Attack Bonus, Magic Accuracy Bonus, all of things are just icing on the cake.

In this skillchain environement, people don't care how much the ws's and sc bonus are (really, have you seen how much scholars typically do?), all they care about is that the melee doing them can hit the boss and survive the boss.

Scholars are preferable because they're not exposed to the danger that most melee, including blu, are.

I'll say it til I'm blu in the face.

- - -

It's is funny how we don't want top tanks nerfed, we want lesser tanks buffed. We don't want WHMs curagas nerfed, we want lesser healers buffed but the reason you're not inviting my drk must absolutely be that BLU exists (in fairness: I don't have a drk, I have a modestly geared blu that goes to modest content).

[Shyles]

I have been playing BLU close to about 8 years or so. BLU is pretty over powered. I'm not going to lie at all. I mean, I really, really love my BLU. I think one JP category for the Trait Bonus should have been sufficient, but we got a second one. That second one...man..what can I say...its like giving the crack addict more crack..bad analogy, but whatever. I'm just saying there is a job imbalance and sitting in Jeuno watching shout after shout calling BLU as the only DD is heartbreaking for a game I love so much...there is just hardly any diversity now.

This is a big frustration for me too and I agree about the BLU jp gifts. Though personally as a Dancer main, and seeing what good players can do with Warrior, Ninja, Dark Knight, Dragoon, I don't agree that Blue Mages over powered. In fact, it might even be accurate to say that they aren't the "top melee" job anymore. Most average blue mages aren't very impressive.

For comparison's sake (and a little shameless bragging), my Dancer is very strong. Since the 2100 JP update, I have never once been beaten on a parse by a Blue Mage, even though I'm still non-mythic, and don't have particularly amazing augments. I have, however, been beaten by ninjas and mythic DRKs. Yet, even for trivial things like CP parties, or Escha T1~T2 fights, the only melee anyone shouts for is blue mage. I have literally been turned down for a melee burn CP party because I wanted to come as Dancer instead of Blue mage…

The point is, many people simply accept that Blue Mage is "the strongest DD in the game", which is probably not true anymore. You are more likely to find a 2100 jp Blue Mage with mediocre gear, and only know how to spam CDC and interrupt skillchains, rather than a truly amazing Blue Mage. I would argue that the reason why BLUs are popular is because their job traits make the job much less gear dependent when compared to other melee jobs.

So I don't really think there is much of a balance issue when it comes to comparing damage output between BLU vs Other Melee. I think the real imbalance is between Melee and Magic jobs mainly due to NM damage output, enmity, and immanence. People will always chose the path of least resistance, and to put it plainly, a Scholar + Black mage can produce very high damage much more safely and with more forgiving gear requirements.

[Stompa]

I think it is wrong to say to new players that they can't play the main job they love.

For most normal mid-range players, especially today with the smaller worlds, the amount of time they spend in serious LS events and serious hardcore battles, is actually quite a small percentage of their game time.

For most people, including myself, we spend a lot of time on mid-range content, farming, soloing, just playing with friends in low-man mid-range events.

For these activities, we can play our favourite jobs. If you love playing a certain job, the modern game offers you the possibility of playing this job >90% of the time, if you are happy playing mid-range content, farming RME, just having fun with friends. Only occasionally do I need to dust off my non-favourite jobs to fit into a serious event.

This is quite different to the old game, where I spent my life pretty much on WHM, had a Nobles Tunic in my inventory for about six years, even though WHM is not my main job or my favourite job! In the old game, only <10% of my game time was on "favourite jobs" and most of my game time was on Utility jobs. So this is the complete opposite of today.

[Afania]

People that look at BLU and get upset think it's CDC that make it powerful. It's not CDC. If the paladin could reliably self-skillchain against single-target mobs, people wouldn't even want a melee.

Umm, PLD could already reliably self-skillchain against single-target mobs, in fact any melee job with enough buffs can. We still want a melee(BLU).

[OmnysValefor]

Yeah, if you load it up with support, the support that you're not getting in most mana-burn setups--and the paladin will usually be enfeebled by something.

Or you can bring something that doesn't need specific support to self-sc like BLU or DNC or SAM and others, and anything if you factor in aftermaths.

[Zeldar]

"If I see a guy on a job that I could tell was once well-geared, and he's returned to make it glorious again, I'll tell him the hard truth. It's not a coincidence that you don't see SAMs and BRDs and WARs around."
REALLY? My ls uses all 3 frequently and with much success.
"To the newbie players who want to make their sparks-thieves glorious, I'll tell them the truth too. Not only is the job not really desirable and not usually relevant"
REALLY? We also use THF quite frequently. The ones we use normally top the parse.
As you can see, the real problem isnt the balancing of the jobs, but the unwillingness of the player base to accept anything other than a set of strategies developed by other players. Every job has a use, with a very few lacking in the ability to greatly contribute (SMN being one). We dont use DRK, DRG or PUP either, but probably would if any of our members cared enough about them to pimp them out.

[Secondplanet]

"If I see a guy on a job that I could tell was once well-geared, and he's returned to make it glorious again, I'll tell him the hard truth. It's not a coincidence that you don't see SAMs and BRDs and WARs around."
REALLY? My ls uses all 3 frequently and with much success.
"To the newbie players who want to make their sparks-thieves glorious, I'll tell them the truth too. Not only is the job not really desirable and not usually relevant"
REALLY? We also use THF quite frequently. The ones we use normally top the parse.
As you can see, the real problem isnt the balancing of the jobs, but the unwillingness of the player base to accept anything other than a set of strategies developed by other players. Every job has a use, with a very few lacking in the ability to greatly contribute (SMN being one). We dont use DRK, DRG or PUP either, but probably would if any of our members cared enough about them to pimp them out.

THANK YOU

My wifey and I duo quite a bit as smn and drg and if we through a tank into the mix we can get quite a bit done, We're still working out the kinks on SC darkness but we got SC light down to an art and can often do about 4-5 in the first minute or two of the fight with no issue. Imagine what her and i can accomplish if we were in a real party with actual support for us doing this like a blm/sch/geo to magic burst it all the time?
But i agree that everyone reads how to play their job and how party set ups HAVE TO BE online and take it as the only way to get anything done in this game.