MCH buffs!

[Lastelli]

I dont know if it was mentioned already but were these buffs enough to bring MCH back on the board?

Yes. And maybe they were enough to bring the double ranged dps meta back, unfortunately.

[Fannah]

Why unfortunately? I don't see the problem if people can just play what they want to clear quickly, it didn't make the other slower^^'

[Fernosaur]

Why unfortunately? I don't see the problem if people can just play what they want to clear quickly, it didn't make the other slower^^'

Double physical ranged meta means that all three casters are gonna hit the bench for optimal comps.

Granted, that only really works for speedrunners. Anyone under the 90th percentile doesn't even have to care about this.

[KalinOrthos]

Double physical ranged meta means that all three casters are gonna hit the bench for optimal comps.

Granted, that only really works for speedrunners. Anyone under the 90th percentile doesn't even have to care about this.

'cept that a LOT of people look to what the absolute top raiders do as scripture, so we might end up seeing a lot of "no casters" in party finders. Hell, I saw one party finder still stuck in the previous meta of "no smn, no mch, no drg", so. I dunno. I hate meta-worship.

[Fannah]

Ah ok thx, so saying double physical range meta means actually 2 physical melee characters with them. Then maybe the problem is not coming from the range but from the "mandatory" 2 melee we don't even talk about as it's so obvious they are in it when we say "double physical range".

[Lastelli]

Ah ok thx, so saying double physical range meta means actually 2 physical melee characters with them. Then maybe the problem is not coming from the range but from the "mandatory" 2 melee we don't even talk about as it's so obvious they are in it when we say "double physical range".

The thing is we have 4 melee dps, 3 casters and 2 ranged physical dps. The 4 melee also have 3 different sets (maiming, slaying and scouting) while the 2 ranged share the same gear. Ideally it would be nice to have 2 melee that don't share the same left side, 1 ranged and 1 caster in the meta composition. When the two "support" ranged jobs are both in the optimal composition and no caster is included, something went terribly wrong in the balancing process.

[SlayerOmega]

Two ranged might be better for speed kills. But if your progressing then they'll be competing for gear. Which means all your caster gear is now hitting the floor or just not being used. Working on il is generally better for progression.

But yeah... for speed kills drg, nin and 2x ranged could possibly still take over.

[Fannah]

I don't see why it matters. Automatically there is only one optimal composition of 8 different classes. It makes still 1 Healer / 1 Tank / 5 dps left aside.

Technically, a range can be at melee if it's all about space management of the boss map.

Personnaly (really it's just me, I'm not sying others should think this way), I just don't care if I'm with 2 casters and 2 range supports as long as we clear the content (or even 3 casters, 1 range). I don't see why it has to be 2 melee + 1 caster + 1 range support to be called balanced. It's not what balance is about, they all are dps and just are asked to deal enough dmg (and some support skill from all of them) to help clearing the content. Who cares the way they do it, if it's said "physical/magical/melee/ranged/ally boost/direct dmg/indirect dmg/DoT". Sorry, it's really me, but I don't get the importance of it. It just looks like a message of what people are supposed to be lead to think "hitting with a sword is stronger than throwing meteor melting the enemy". All compositions should be enough to clear the content. That would be what balance is, imo.

Edit : In a way, I would understand we want to see at least 1 of each type. 1 range supp, 1 caster, 1 melee. Then another one. I don't get why we feel like we have to get that 4th dps as melee to say it's balanced.

[Fernosaur]

I don't see why it matters.

Depending on how you view the game and how involved you are with its raiding community, job balance can matter a lot for some people. Granted, this only really affects like 5% (probably less) of the player population, so it shouldn't really matter to you or me.

It matters a lot for some people because it sucks to know that your job is far from being optimal, and in some cases of more serious groups, playing the job you love might make you feel like you are a liability. Worst part is that if you feel like this, then it is probably true if you're tackling content at high-level play.

Also, another reason it sucks is that usually the "meta" knowledge starts trickling down into the more casual community, and it is these people that take it up like scripture and preach it like law. This is ultimately a really stupid thing to do, since most of these people don't even do high-end content nor are they skilled or experienced enough to do speedkills.

An example for the later: Before Stormblood was released but after the media tour had been made public, I ran across a bunch of people doing Dun Scaith that were arguing about kicking a WHM player because "WHM was the worst healer."

Now, this was technically true for high-end speedkills in raid, WHM was still 100% capable of clearing literally anything. It was also a very Duty-Finder friendly healer. Yet, people were still trying to kick someone for playing a perfectly capable job in a Duty Finder instance for which we were all grossly overgeared. This is the kind of problems that arise with an unbalanced meta.

Fortunately, the double-physical ranged comp never really trickled down that much into the casual community, and after the bad rep MCH and SMN got after SB's release, I don't think it will become popular any time soon.

'cept that a LOT of people look to what the absolute top raiders do as scripture, so we might end up seeing a lot of "no casters" in party finders. Hell, I saw one party finder still stuck in the previous meta of "no smn, no mch, no drg", so. I dunno. I hate meta-worship.

Yeah, same. Honestly if you see this kind of party for a duty you want in, you're better off just starting a new party yourself. Never involve yourself with a meta sheep lmao.