Job balance/the meta/I'm bad at titles and very tired

[MoroMurasaki]

I found myself involved in a rather heated discussion on discord earlier about job balancing, the meta and how those things should function going forward.

I'm of the opinion that, while the meta may not matter much in practice, it informs choices that a lot of people make that probably have bigger problems to solve in their groups than meta job usage. Whether or not it's actually important when it comes to clearing most content it gets treated as if it is far more often than it should.

Virtually any serious group will have a BRD in it. Nearly all will also have a WAR. NIN, DRG and SCH are also fairly consistent and have been for a very long time. Other jobs may come and go but these 5 form the core of many groups and the value of their buffs to each other and their parties can't be understated. Even in casual groups like mine you can see the impacts of utilities like Trick, Disembowel and Chain Stratagem to name a few.

I'm of the opinion that SE should break the mold. It's a long time coming. I think some fresh air would make raiding more interesting. At its core my argument is this but this does mean that one of the things I'm interested in is potential (reasonable) nerfs to any of these jobs.

I don't think just continuous buffing of underused jobs is going to balance things out, at that point you just put us in a place where we're even more overpowered compared to the content we're doing. That isn't what I want. I'm not trying to make everything easier, I just want more variety. I also don't think it's fair or realistic to do complete overhauls each expansion.

I won't go into every detail of my conversation on discord because I'm interested in having a different one here but I will say the one stance I have absolutely no time for is the idea that any job ‘deserves’ a meta spot or that the idea of people really liking a specific job means it should be buffed or avoid nerfs. That is a recipe for a feedback loop where people flock to a popular job and it's popularity keeps it relevant so that more people can flock to it. This is an awful way to balance.

So… how do you feel? Should SE look at job balance more closely? Is it alright that the same few jobs have remained so relevant for so long? Do you think it's okay to balance around popularity? Is there a way to break the meta without nerfing any of the jobs involved while also avoiding power creep?

I'm fairly certain this will be a salt mine by the time I come back to it but I just want to add the disclaimer that my group uses literally all 5 of the mentioned jobs and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. I mained SCH in HW. While I'm not much of a tank or melee person if I had to WAR and NIN would be my choices from their respective categories because they're fun.

I don't have a grudge against any of these jobs but I just think the idea of changing something so integral and longstanding is interesting. If you're here to talk about how much you hate WAR or something make your own thread. This isn't for trashing anyone.

[Gin_Gray]

Removing debuffs like slashing/piercings and reworking the potency’s into the classes would open up things a bit.

[Duskane]

Removing debuffs like slashing/piercings and reworking the potency’s into the classes would open up things a bit.

I really doubt removing these will help class variety,
since how crit orientated classes are right now,
Monk,Bard,Dragoon all either fueled by crit or pump out crit buffs or other good utility like brotherhood,Dragon sight,foe Requiem,range dps role skills and troubadour
then Ast just pumps out Crit buffs and SCH shields are so good when they crit and also gives another crit buff

even if Party finder can not pull off "meta comp" as a real group
you would still see a lot of to MNK/NIN,Drg,Brd/mch,[Caster] locked groups

its kinda worrying considering how much Classes like Ast and Sch bring like what can WHM and a new healer even do to compete
but we will have to see at 5.0

[Gun-Cat]

The only way you will ever find a balance is by making every class in each role completely the same. Every DPS offering the same things, having the same potencies and having the same utilities, same for healer and tanks. If you have it any other way there will be differences and if those are there you will have a optimal composition that defines the meta. Personally, my statics never had the optimal comp and we cleared things fine, the whole meta discussion is blown vastly out of proportions.

I'd rather have it like this and see classes being distinct in playstyle and what they offer than my class choice being only a visual difference.

[Ruf]

I think you are missunderestimating & disregarding way too many scenarios & possibiltys, I do not believe in meta at all, to me there is knowledge & skills & parsers are excluded & if anything, in the end I do agree that without rebalancing classes on a large scale, more jobs need better tools , but that in no way mean that in their current state most jobs if not all cant be a better performer than others on any class with several fights depending on whos playing. Mainly one battle is better for one job than the other while this will be reversed in a different fight (that the other job will be better for it), theres handicaps everywhere & that doesnt belong to jobs balance IMO but mostly depend on battles design.

[JunseiKei]

The Korean Q&A hinted at the FFXIV team taking a look at the DRG/BRD/MCH synergy being very strong and thinking about making changes to it.

Right now, I'm under the impression that there's not enough different syngeries between the jobs to make any possible composition of jobs equally strong. Example: MNK is the only job that benefits from blunt vulnerability, but benefits from crit while offering things that only benefit physical attackers. RDM's utility only benefits physical attackers as well, but the optimal time to pop it for others does little to benefit the job with the buff. If you're not running a party composition that stacks buffs to ike out the most out of all, or every job, it shows.

That is probably an intentional design choice.

The problem is that it all stacks together, which is why you have such strong compositions, or at least that strong core that you mentioned. If they are really interested in breaking these compositions, all they'd really need to do is make it so certain buffs cannot stack or offer harsher diminishing returns.

That being said, I don't think highly of meta-composition. It's overrated, the content isn't designed where it's really that important, aside from Ultimate. It only matters in parsing.

[Aomine1992]

I do think MCH can be a valuable replacement for BRD but the fact is BRD is played alot more then MCH and MCH still has some issues that could be addressed but probably won't until the new expansion...

The tanks are another thing but just like healers they WAR and SCH are wayyy to focused on, where is their counterparts get gutted and left until there is time to fix them, I think next expansion they need to focus alot more of all the jobs working together in some way.

DPS jobs can't just have this pure DPS thing because it's obviously still not completely excepted, especially when they arnt performing that well. No one wants a SAM doing like 500 less DPS then a DRG doing more and providing buffs at the same time, SE made some mistakes in this area but they can recover I believe with some actual time investment on jobs.

[Eisenhower]

It feels like I've had similar discussions with my static before.

The super-condensed variant I end up championing is that effects with 100% uptime such as Protect and damage type debuffs shouldn't exist as is since they translate into just shifting baseline numbers (i.e. if we always take 10% less damage, then what's the point?). Instead, they should be cross-class actions that any relevant role can slot in for coordinated use akin to Trick Attack - or alternatively be cross-class traits to circumvent the need for certain jobs (e.g. BRDs needing DRG). But to be fair the latter option just loops back to the whole 100% uptime scenario (which I ultimately dislike).

I personally don't mind certain jobs being more useful in certain fights, but for it to be a good system the advantageous jobs need to rotate between fights and tiers (with better gear and UI support for job-swapping). It's understandable that some players commit hard to a single job. That's fair. It just seems like a waste to have a game where a player can be anything, yet not leverage that in encounter design.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

The thing is, there exists no secret formula to balance meta because there will always be one. Let's say come 5.0, the devs get everything relevantly spot on; Machinist has a full overhaul that is both enjoyable and powerful. Taking it over Bard is a perfectly viable choice. Likewise, the same occurs with Monk over Dragoon and Dark Knight over Warrior. Mathematically, however, Bard, Dragoon and Warrior all come out slightly ahead in overall rDPS. Therefore, all three remain meta despite being perfectly balanced against their respective counterparts. Should they all be nerfed to artificially enforce a new meta? Now we're breaking up balance simply to punish jobs because they were "too good for too long." At this point it becomes a change for change's sake and little else. It also brings about a childish form of pettiness: "My favourite job suffered. Now yours has to." All that breeds is animosity between players. No reasonable Paladin wanted either Warrior or Dark Knight nerfed into the ground just so they could be meta again. In fact, you often saw Warriors and Dark Knights suggesting Paladin should block magic.

As for potential power creep. Content scales. You could hypothetically buff Machinist into the moon. Unless it did more than Black Mage or Samurai, Alphascape wouldn't suddenly become any easier. Speaking of, both those jobs are a testament the devs actually can continuously buff jobs to a point where they become balanced. That doesn't mean they shouldn't look at possible tweaks; Piercing, Slashing and Blunt all come to mind. But the solution to say, Bard vs. Machinist, should be scaling Machinist's pDPS higher come 5.0 while focusing more on utility for Bard. If the latter remains meta, it shouldn't make a difference provided both are equally viable and enjoyable. Forcing Machinist into the meta range slot because Bard's been meta for four years isn't balance. It's favoritism.

[Magic-Mal]

It won't ever matter or change anything at any point in time. Simply because unless absolutely every DPS job does the exact same amount of DPS, every tank does the exact same amount of DPS, and every healer does the exact same amount of DPS, the comp that does the most DPS will become the meta. That's really all a meta group is... the group that does the mathematically highest DPS. I remember in HW when it was still DRK/WAR/SCH/AST/DRG/NIN/BRD/MCH because the all-physical comp was just too good at the time.

You can nerf NIN and DRG but if the balance people say "Oh hey! Bringing a SAM and MCH makes the group do more damage now over a NIN and DRG!" that will be the birth of the new meta. That's all it takes. Jobs will simply be replaced. Just like how in HW, DRK was super meta until PLD got "fixed" and now nobody wants to DRK. Meanwhile, you better not forget to have a WAR.