Job balancing?

[Sicycre]

Hello everyone,

I'd like to inform you that adjustments will be made to two-handed weapons soon!

I appreciate the feedback you guys are giving and encourage you to keep giving us your thoughts.

[OmnysValefor]

I sincerely hope that that you took more from this thread than "2h need buffs", which they do.

Melee survivability and babysitting required is still a huge huge concern, regardless of weapon wielded and job played.

[Eradius]

Its a step in the right direction I guess.

[detlef]

/cough BRD

But also thanks for reassessing 2-handers.

[Dale]

A balanced party like PLD, WHM, GEO, SCH, SCH or BLM, BLM?

The pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. Two to three (edit: said one to two) melee, including the tank can SC faster than 2 SCH but the baggage melee bring far outweighs this benefit.

And some melee can solo SC pretty darn fast if they can wear offense-oriented gear and have proper support.

That's the other thing mages don't really need. They don't terribly need Geo-Haste.

I was mostly commenting on your point that all you need is enough melee (or DPS generally) to create skill chains. Adding any more than that can start to cause more problems than it alleviates.

That's probably true. But I believe that's as intended because it creates an inventive for support jobs. If all anyone has to do is load up on DPS jobs to kill quicker, then that is what they would likely do. I've seen that tragic scenario play out on multiple MMORPGs, where support jobs slowly go extinct in favor of DPS jobs. And I would hate to see that happen on this game. It's one of the few MMORPGs on the market today that still have a vibrant support role available for players.

As to your Mage > Melee argument, I am sure that is true in many cases. But so long as a melee can get the job done I don't really have a problem with it.

Survivability is definitely an issue. But it seems SE is finally starting to realize this with their recent ambuscade offerings. It only took them over a decade to start to address it.

[Dale]

Well I believe you are saying the same thing here--regarding balance vs making jobs more useful in certain kinds of content... although i would caution "certain kinds of content" seems to lean towards job exclusivity in that there could be made the argument that, depending on the job, it may not be useful because of the type of content being introduced/attempted by the person playing the job.

I think the OP position of job balancing seems to stem from avoiding this type of distinction, so that regardless of the job, all jobs can enjoy all content equally... I don't think this should be viewed as an unrealistic objective.

I summed up my position this way:

I agree all jobs should be useful in all content. I do not agree that all jobs should be equally useful in all content.

I'm with you on most of your comments. Where you lose me is when you suggest that regardless of the job, all jobs should be able to enjoy all content equally. Because I like that certain jobs excel in different content encounters.

[Olor]

The problem is right now that melee jobs don't excel more in *any* content. I can't think of a single event where a DRG or a WAR or a DRK is desirable over other options. I am fine with each job not being *equally* good in all content but the content design needs to be varied enough that all jobs get an opportunity to shine.

[Ulth]

/cough BRD

But also thanks for reassessing 2-handers.

Maybe they could add a song that removes Amnesia since they don't want to give whm Amnesina. It kind of makes sense even since songs usually can trigger memories in people anyway. Buffs won't even be that hard to adjust, they know how the formula for how scaling songs with combined skill works, just up the cap from where it is now, (some where in the 500's, who cares you cap it with just rank c in singing and string) and make it 900 like geo. Then just a little more to help with keeping melee alive, finally give brd massacre elegy to really slow down the casting time of mobs, make Pining Nocturne stack with addle, and add some sort of debuff effect to Foe Requiem like dia and bio have, because as it is now 8 damage a tick for Foe Requiem 7 is nothing.

[OmnysValefor]

I was mostly commenting on your point that all you need is enough melee (or DPS generally) to create skill chains. Adding any more than that can start to cause more problems than it alleviates.

That's probably true. But I believe that's as intended because it creates an inventive for support jobs. If all anyone has to do is load up on DPS jobs to kill quicker, then that is what they would likely do. I've seen that tragic scenario play out on multiple MMORPGs, where support jobs slowly go extinct in favor of DPS jobs. And I would hate to see that happen on this game. It's one of the few MMORPGs on the market today that still have a vibrant support role available for players.

As to your Mage > Melee argument, I am sure that is true in many cases. But so long as a melee can get the job done I don't really have a problem with it.

Survivability is definitely an issue. But it seems SE is finally starting to realize this with their recent ambuscade offerings. It only took them over a decade to start to address it.

You're mixing and matching support (brd, cor, rdm, geo--geo mostly; and I'm excluding healers because they're necessary) with mage DD. You'll have a far-easier time killing anything in this game with mages than with melee.

I don't remember Support ever going extinct in this game. More haste, more atk/-def on NM targets is always a good thing. Yeah, you can so-far outgear something that you "attack-cap" but in those cases you're usually fighting something that strategy isn't needed, because you outgear it so far.

The design of support in this game is that the supporting player does more for the other members of the party than another melee/nuking job would and I think XI has usually done well at making that happen, especially on content where accuracy is an issue.

You just don't see GEOs using precision/torpor (acc+/eva-) because you don't invite melee.

[OmnysValefor]

Maybe they could add a song that removes Amnesia since they don't want to give whm Amnesina. It kind of makes sense even since songs usually can trigger memories in people anyway. Buffs won't even be that hard to adjust, they know how the formula for how scaling songs with combined skill works, just up the cap from where it is now, (some where in the 500's, who cares you cap it with just rank c in singing and string) and make it 900 like geo. Then just a little more to help with keeping melee alive, finally give brd massacre elegy to really slow down the casting time of mobs, make Pining Nocturne stack with addle, and add some sort of debuff effect to Foe Requiem like dia and bio have, because as it is now 8 damage a tick for Foe Requiem 7 is nothing.

You know what would be neat? And I'm not saying this would fix bard, but it would be neat. I'm also not saying bard doesn't need something along the lines of vex/attune or at least fend (mdb+)

A song that reduces the duration of all debuffs. Unlike Vex/Attune, which increases your magic evasion and greatly reduces your chance of taking full damage/getting hit with an enfeeble, this song would guaranteed reduce the duration of enfeebles.

A song that reduces the potency of debuffs could also be cool but then SE would just make debuffs more potent so that the song didn't trivialize fights--even though vex/attune does just that.