Re-balancing jobs in FFXI

[Seish]

After playing the game for quite a while, I am very disappointing to see that Blu, Sch, and Pup are getting all the love in the updates. Many of the other jobs are left in the dust--perhaps too much. My worry is that this possible issue, to me at least, may not be addressed. And while I have never personally posted on here, I worry also that my opinion may not be taken seriously.

I hope that the readers of this would take my message under consideration before posting. I feel that it is constructive and I feel that the discussion would flush out some of the ideas people have in the way that the current jobs are balanced.

[Vae]

You've got to understand, that at no point, ever, in FFXI history, has anything even remotely resembled "balance". Now, grain of salt, that's partially due to player mentality. But, there has always and will always be a best current job, which BLU is doing DISGUSTINGLY well at being by the way lol.

Sch *needs* immanence taken away, but at this point, there really isn't a point. Pup DESERVES it's time to shine, it's never had the spotlight, and I'm happy automation's finally gets all the love (for those that know how to use it).

The only way there is ever going to be what people want, is static damage.

(Btw whoever changed my main job on this site from THF to BLU, I hope you die in a fire.)

[Catmato]

(Btw whoever changed my main job on this site from THF to BLU, I hope you die in a fire.)

I know this is off-topic, but that's probably due to the closing of the Linkshell Community.

[Urthdigger]

You've got to understand, that at no point, ever, in FFXI history, has anything even remotely resembled "balance". Now, grain of salt, that's partially due to player mentality. But, there has always and will always be a best current job, which BLU is doing DISGUSTINGLY well at being by the way lol.

Sch *needs* immanence taken away, but at this point, there really isn't a point. Pup DESERVES it's time to shine, it's never had the spotlight, and I'm happy automation's finally gets all the love (for those that know how to use it).

The only way there is ever going to be what people want, is static damage.

(Btw whoever changed my main job on this site from THF to BLU, I hope you die in a fire.)

There's always been inbalance, but I don't feel it's ever been as bad as it is now.

[Vae]

oh, yeah, obviously, the balance has never been this far off, this is literally batshit crazy.

[Selindrile]

While I tend to agree that the balance is very strongly off, Blu wouldn't even make the top5 for me, Geo > Blm > Sch > Run > Pld > Blu, in terms of group strength and desirability, at least in the circles I run in.

Blu is better than other non-tank melee at the moment, yes, but that is only due to their ability to cap haste without further support. If it didn't require a Geo buff slot to cap haste on other melees, Dnc, Sam and perhaps even War or Thf would possibly come out ahead, and other jobs would be far closer.

[Nyarlko]

While I tend to agree that the balance is very strongly off, Blu wouldn't even make the top5 for me, Geo > Blm > Sch > Run > Pld > Blu, in terms of group strength and desirability, at least in the circles I run in.

Blu is better than other non-tank melee at the moment, yes, but that is only due to their ability to cap haste without further support. If it didn't require a Geo buff slot to cap haste on other melees, Dnc, Sam and perhaps even War or Thf would possibly come out ahead, and other jobs would be far closer.

You forgot to include the fact that BLU can effectively replicate the job traits of any other job (sometimes better than the signature jobs themselves), has more available survival tools, and CDC seems to hit a lot harder than most other WS. All of those do add to the desirability factor of BLU > other jobs as well.
Can't really complain that the two dedicated "tank" jobs are in demand ^^;; Kinda' need them to do anything that requires a group to begin with. GEO demand is mainly due to pure numbers and the effective need for unique effects like Vex/Attunement. Tweaking certain rolls (like Runist's Roll) for COR, increasing the landing rate for debuff spells for RDM (like Paralyze), and doing a complete overhaul of BRD, so that directly comparable numbers are closer could help loosen the current stranglehold that GEO has on the support slot.

---------------
Personally, it really REALLY rubs me the wrong way that PUP is getting buff after buff after buff, but for some silly reason, devs have dug their heels in on not revising the BST JA nerf. BST has to actually hit buttons to get our pets to do anything, PUP is set/forget for the most part.. Reward should be long range (12-15y should be fine,) Ready midrange (9-10y should be enough that I can at least still command my pet who is on the far side of a "large" target.) That would still leave us w/ the shortest command range of the pet jobs while still stuck inside AOE range for most things, which seems to be where SE wants us -_-;;


If you want to talk about imbalanced jobs tho, take a good look at BRD... T_T

[Oddwaffle]

I agree on Bst range. I find it is exceedingly annoying that I can not move to the other side of a normal monster and use my abilities. What was SE thinking? Is this what they indented? Bst have to stick so close to their pet that they can't even position around the target?

Why do Bst need to stay close to their pet but not Smn?

[Afania]

Dnc, Sam and perhaps even War or Thf would possibly come out ahead, and other jobs would be far closer.

Unless we have fully updated spreadsheet or something that can accurately calculate DD job DPS we can't really know that tbh. DPS hierarchy atm is just words of mouth from whoever plays elite DPS claiming their DPS outparse BLU from their personal experience, while not considering extra DPS from extra DD bubbles and light SC.

[Shyles]

Unless we have fully updated spreadsheet or something that can accurately calculate DD job DPS we can't really know that tbh. DPS hierarchy atm is just words of mouth from whoever plays elite DPS claiming their DPS outparse BLU from their personal experience, while not considering extra DPS from extra DD bubbles and light SC.

Really, I think the distinction between BLU and other DD is as Selendrile and Nyarlko said. Apart from self-capping magic haste, their collection of useful self-buffs are unequaled, and their jp gifts and spells literally let them cherry pick the best of almost every job. Blu was built to be a self-serving job, and it's because they are the most independent DD is why they're so good.

But if we're talking about pure damage output many other jobs can probably outperform BLU on head-to-head parses assuming delay reduction and accuracy is capped and monster weaknesses aren't a factor. In WS spam situations, Well-geared Empy Warriors and Dark Knights have been absolute wrecking balls lately. In self-SC situations, Dancer is practically worth two DDs by themselves. Unfortunately though, it takes a lot more than high damage to get by in today's metagame as a DD..

Would it be that were the case.. It's easy to make these comparisons below CL 130, but it's rare to see melees other than BLU on CLs higher than that. The accuracy hurdles for many jobs are still pretty high. Even if the mob EVA nerf did help a bit, most melee jobs still have to sacrifice so many important stats just to hit the mob because groups are reluctant to bring more support jobs because of the HP scaling..

[Oddwaffle]

I agree. Blu is, atm, exceedingly strong in single party setup. Their strength lie in the fact that they can buff themselves to delay cap and still have high accuracy. They are also exceedingly strong at soloing because of such buffs. Most of all, Blu are less gear dependent when they want to max out their DD abilities. All other melee jobs can not buff themselves to anywhere near Blu's level even when they are maxing out on equipment. A Monk geared to the teeth with the best of the best equips will loose to a Blu with AH weapons and accessories.

A War with 100% Double Attack built and Empy can deal a monstrous amount of damage but he will always need that extra boost from support. Similarly, Sam, Drk and Drg will need extra boost from support jobs. Accuracy is always an issue with normal DD except Blu.

So, in a party of 6, 1 is Tank and the slot goes to healer then you are left with exactly 4 slots. You could have 3 DD and 1 support (1Geo) for mediocre damage, 2 DD and 2 support (Geo, Brd, Rdm) for much better damage or just 3Blu+1 support for devastating damage.

The whole thing stems from the fact that everyone can reach the delay cap. This makes the game extremely fast paced. A lot of traits and job abilities have become near useless or just plain detrimental. Martial Arts is the prime example. Monks are forced on the trait and have their TP reduced at delay cap because they can't take off the trait. By that extension: Dual Wield. The 'stance' abilities like Yonin or Counterstances benefits are marginal in some situations and detrimental in certain situations. Boost is detrimental in most cases while Dark Knight Spells are rarely used because they take up so much time to use and give minuscule benefits.

[Afania]

But if we're talking about pure damage output many other jobs can probably outperform BLU on head-to-head parses assuming delay reduction and accuracy is capped and monster weaknesses aren't a factor. In WS spam situations, Well-geared Empy Warriors and Dark Knights have been absolute wrecking balls lately. In self-SC situations, Dancer is practically worth two DDs by themselves. Unfortunately though, it takes a lot more than high damage to get by in today's metagame as a DD..


What I mean is that, there are always players pop left and right claiming their WAR or DRK outparses equally geared BLU. But I'm not sure if they consider the party setup as a whole.

Say for example, in a pt with reso DRK BLU COR GEO(haste/frailty) GEO(vex/attunement) WHM, assuming the DRK outparse equally geared BLU in this same party, doesn't the party DPS is greater than double BLU setup such as BLU BLU COR GEO(fury/frailty) GEO(vex/attunement) WHM.

And that's because the double BLU setup gains additional DD bubble(Fury) and their WS creates stronger SCs.

Unless we have spreadsheets that can precisely calculate the DPS we won't be able to find out. All we have is word of mouth from people who wins parse against equally geared BLU, but we don't know how much dps they lose from bubbles and SCs.

Also last time I checked, DRK still has lower acc than BLU when equally geared. So that's more DPS gain from losing acc buffs. And once again, without spreadsheet we can't really know whether the higher DPS from other DD make up the difference.

[Shyles]

Say for example, in a pt with reso DRK BLU COR GEO(haste/frailty) GEO(vex/attunement) WHM, assuming the DRK outparse equally geared BLU in this same party, doesn't the party DPS is greater than double BLU setup such as BLU BLU COR GEO(fury/frailty) GEO(vex/attunement) WHM.

Unless we have spreadsheets that can precisely calculate the DPS we won't be able to find out.

Spreadsheets are useful for planning gear sets, but that's about it. They've never been able to accurately estimate a job's true DPS since they can't simulate real time events like battle RNG, status effects, knock backs, and proper JA usage. They estimate damage based on formulas and a fixed number of weaponskill attempts. Also, I'm not sure new spreadsheets with updated Escha NM stats are ever going to be released, since many people just set the target to something they already cap against like soundsplitter bats. So they'll never be a precise estimation of real DPS.

Also, there isn't a "Full Party" DPS spreadsheet. The DPS spreadsheets are job specific. They won't tell you what party builds will yield the highest damage. The only way to determine that is by testing strategies in-game. For party DPS estimations, you would get far more information from an in-game parser like scoreboard than you would from a spreadsheet.

As far as melee-oriented Party DPS though, 3x BLU and 2x Geo is popular because.. well.. it does the job and it's easy to form. And geared BLUs are a dime a dozen. You would likely spend less time finding three available Blue Mages each with AG Almace and Sequence than even one of any other melee with comparable gear. But in the party example you gave, I think a well-geared DRK would absolutely crush a BLU. I will explain why:



Attack: Dark Knights can get absolutely absurd amounts of attack (I have seen over 3000 ATT with soul eater up!). They have much higher STR and attack than BLU, so they can easily cap attack without support. So Fury isn't as important for them. However, accuracy is harder to reach, so you could probably drop Fury for an Indi-Torpor or Precision instead.



Haste: As far as Delay Reduction, the DRK wouldn't need the GEO to haste them. With Apocalypse, a DRK can cap JA haste without Hasso, which is notable because that means they can reach 80% delay reduction with just a Haste II. With Caladbolg or Liberator, they can still reach 75%. So assuming the BLU diffusioned Might Guard (don't be selfish, BLUs), then the DRK can reach 75-80% with just a Haste I from the WHM, thereby eliminating the need for Indi-haste entirely. (It's worth noting that a Dancer can also cap with just Haste I, or by picking up an extra 10% DW in gear)



Absorb Spells: A Liberator DRK with Nether void can absorb up to +69 of any stat. That gives a lot of flexibility as it's a very potent buff AND debuff. That fixes the accuracy problem, since they can nethervoid Abs-AGI for -34 eva down, and then Absorb-ACC for about 54 acc.




So in the Party example you gave (DRK, BLU, COR, GEO, GEO, WHM), I think the DRK would surprise you. Also don't forget the corsair with Chaos Roll. You get an extra 9.7% attack bonus just for having the DRK in the party. However, I wonder if you'd get more damage out if dropping the offense GEO in favor of a RDM instead. A Liberator DRK and a RDM with capped enfeeble should provide close, if not more, EVA-down as an idris geo and would cap haste on the DRK. Also, between the DRK, BLU, and COR, you have 3 weapon types. So 3-steps with inundation should be a sizeable damage increase.

[Afania]

Spreadsheets are useful for planning gear sets, but that's about it. They've never been able to accurately estimate a job's true DPS since they can't simulate real time events like battle RNG, status effects, knock backs, and proper JA usage. They estimate damage based on formulas and a fixed number of weaponskill attempts. Also, I'm not sure new spreadsheets with updated Escha NM stats are ever going to be released, since many people just set the target to something they already cap against like soundsplitter bats. So they'll never be a precise estimation of real DPS.


I believe battle RNG is part of math and spreadsheet calculation. It calculates average DPS with battle RNG considered. For example, a BLU can win a parse because all 5 CDC that he did in a fight crit on every single hit, but in the long run his WS avg would still match math/spreadsheet results.

Status effects/knock backs affects all jobs equally, I don't think it's one advantage that a job has over another when having DPS hierarchy discussions.

My opinion is that it's still the most accurate tool that we can have when having DPS hierarchy discussions. Otherwise DPS hierarchy discussions will turn into personal experience arguments, with every player claiming their DPS is the best by selling their job strength, with nothing to prove it except "I outparsed X and Y DD" or "This job has X and Y so it must be good".



Also, there isn't a "Full Party" DPS spreadsheet. The DPS spreadsheets are job specific. They won't tell you what party builds will yield the highest damage. The only way to determine that is by testing strategies in-game. For party DPS estimations, you would get far more information from an in-game parser like scoreboard than you would from a spreadsheet.


Yes but as long as you can obtain the individual DPS, you can proceed to calculate SC DPS by plugging in the WS avg numbers. You can obtain the info such as WS avg(which can be used to calculate SC dmg), WS cycle time and such, which can help people estimate party DPS more accurately.

I don't disregard in game parser's relevancy when having DPS hierarchy discussion. But the information of in game parser is only relevant if:

1) The parse has been done multiple times, to eliminate random factors in battle as much as possible.

2) You are parsing against someone in same level of gears. No point claiming X DPS > Y DPS if X DPS outgears Y in the same parse.

3) (Most importantly) Having parse information from both setup using various DPS.

No.3 is probably the hardest. Those who pop on the forum and claim their DPS isn't bad, probably have parsed multiple times against equally geared LSmate or friends, to get the result that allows them to confidently claim their DPS job > BLU. But how can these people obtain the party DPS parse result from a completely different DPS setup? Say if you have an elite geared WAR and outparse elite BLU in same pt every single run, how can you possibly know if 2x elite BLU do less damage unless you also play BLU and obtained the party DPS parse result?

Either way, my point stands. From what I've seen and read from every single DPS hierarchy discussion, most of them are just words of mouth from people with experience winning parse.





Attack: Dark Knights can get absolutely absurd amounts of attack (I have seen over 3000 ATT with soul eater up!). They have much higher STR and attack than BLU, so they can easily cap attack without support. So Fury isn't as important for them. However, accuracy is harder to reach, so you could probably drop Fury for an Indi-Torpor or Precision instead.



Haste: As far as Delay Reduction, the DRK wouldn't need the GEO to haste them. With Apocalypse, a DRK can cap JA haste without Hasso, which is notable because that means they can reach 80% delay reduction with just a Haste II. With Caladbolg or Liberator, they can still reach 75%. So assuming the BLU diffusioned Might Guard (don't be selfish, BLUs), then the DRK can reach 75-80% with just a Haste I from the WHM, thereby eliminating the need for Indi-haste entirely. (It's worth noting that a Dancer can also cap with just Haste I, or by picking up an extra 10% DW in gear)



Absorb Spells: A Liberator DRK with Nether void can absorb up to +69 of any stat. That gives a lot of flexibility as it's a very potent buff AND debuff. That fixes the accuracy problem, since they can nethervoid Abs-AGI for -34 eva down, and then Absorb-ACC for about 54 acc.




So in the Party example you gave (DRK, BLU, COR, GEO, GEO, WHM), I think the DRK would surprise you. Also don't forget the corsair with Chaos Roll. You get an extra 9.7% attack bonus just for having the DRK in the party. However, I wonder if you'd get more damage out if dropping the offense GEO in favor of a RDM instead. A Liberator DRK and a RDM with capped enfeeble should provide close, if not more, EVA-down as an idris geo and would cap haste on the DRK. Also, between the DRK, BLU, and COR, you have 3 weapon types. So 3-steps with inundation should be a sizeable damage increase.

This above example is exactly what I was talking about when it comes ppl try to sell a job's strength but not looking at party DPS from a more objective POV. If you look at BLU's strength, BLU doesn't under perform in situations that you listed when DRK shines.

For example, I can counter your argument about DRK with:

1) Your argument with attack: You argued that DRK excel because of high attack, I can counter with BLU equally excel because they don't need as much attack buffs. Their WS crit(thus their WS avg high even at low pdif), and they have def- spell plus extra spell for attack boost, thus not needing Fury as much. They can drop precision for fury and still hit, or they can drop Fury for another bubble and you won't see their DPS suffer as much with def-/attack+ spells and massive crit.


2) Your argument with haste: Completely moot because 1 BLU can't fulltime MG and in your argument you still rely on BLU to do MG, thus after MG drop DRK aren't keeping haste cap anymore.

2 BLU can full time MG is exactly the reason why people prefer 2x BLU over anything else. Changing 1 melee to none BLU DPS means your haste will drop at one point.

Haste2 doesn't exist in standard melee DD setup, which is Meleex2 COR GEO GEO WHM. If you change any of the above job to RDM for haste 2 it's often less than ideal. Change 2nd GEO to RDM you lose vex/attunement. Change WHM to RDM you lose aoe stat boost, strong bar spell, cure skin and strong aoe cures. If losing better healer resulting DDs need to play more defensively that's also DPS lose.

You pretty much try to sell haste as a strength of DRK, when this is one of the strongest strength BLU has and I don't see many other job can compete with BLU in haste category.

3) Your argument with chaos roll: The chaos roll potency number's off, you lose roughly 5% attack without DRK because COR has 50% of chance to proc job point bonus with relic hat. In most content if you absolutely want 5% more bonus you can drop mage for trust Zeid to force proc job bonus, chaos roll the DD then invite the mage back.

Either way, chaos roll bonus isn't exclusive to DRK and there are ways to reduce the impact of losing the job.

4) Last but not least, your question of "you wonder if you get more dmg out if you drop GEO for RDM instead" is exactly the reason why I think spreadsheet is appropriate to answer all the DPS questions. Because you never know unless you calculate with math.


I'm not here to claim DRK is absolutely a better choice than BLU and vice versa, I'm just pointing out flaws in such discussions. Everytime when I see DPS hierarchy discussions, none of the opinions from people involves math, spreadsheet result nor even party DPS parse result from multiple runs with various setups with detailed info on food/buffs/gears.

All I ever see is people who plays X and Y DPS pop on the forum, try to sell the strength of their DPS because their DPS can do X and Y, then proceed to claim their DPS > BLU because they won parse a few times. With no math, no spreadsheet numbers, nor even detailed info on food/buffs/gear sets in that parse. It's not convincing.

[Afania]

Anyways, tl;dr to above wall of text.

I feel that a lot of people who claim their DPS > BLU because people have this biased opinion toward bandwagoning. They see every PUG ask for BLU only, they see majority of BLU doesn't parse high, so they proceed to claim BLU aren't as strong as people think without spreadsheet nor math results.

Back in 2014/delve era when MNK was the bandwagon DD, I spreadsheeted every DPS such as SAM, MNK, BLU, THF to get the rough idea of where MNK stands in DPS hierarchy before pop on the forum and ask for a nerf. I got the result of THF and BLU being incredibly close to MNK and other DPS outperforms MNK, thus I got the conclusion that there's no need to nerf MNK and became the anti-MNK nerf supporter. Because spreadsheet numbers are way more accurate than people popping on the forum claiming one job is good or bad based on personal experience or eyeballing.

In 2016 DPS is a lot more complicated than 2014. Instead of spamming 1 single best WS with equal buffs, every job now has access to multiple useful WS. Every DD now benefits from different DD buffs and ideally should be using different DD buffs(DRK needs more acc buffs but less attack buffs, BLU doesn't need haste buffs and list goes on). And SC plays a big part in terms of DPS.

DPS calculation in 2016 is a lot more complicated that I wouldn't just pop on the forum and claim X DPS for sure can outparse Y without maths to support the claim. It's really hard to tell whether a DPS is good or not with just eyeballed result and few parses.

[Vae]

Here's the long and short of it:

BLU has ALL up sides, and no downsides, it's OP, end of discussion.

Should it be nerfed, of course, every job I like has been hit with a nerf bat, blu should be hit too. or we could go the intelligent route, and revoke ALL the crappy nerfs from years ago. Apoc haste, ukko/smite crit, rudras, range distance, misers roll, tp return on ws, embrava, alexander PD, etc.

And probably shouldve removed immanence like 2 years ago, just sayin.

[Shyles]

Haste2 doesn't exist in standard melee DD setup, which is Meleex2 COR GEO GEO WHM. If you change any of the above job to RDM for haste 2 it's often less than ideal. Change 2nd GEO to RDM you lose vex/attunement. Change WHM to RDM you lose aoe stat boost, strong bar spell, cure skin and strong aoe cures. If losing better healer resulting DDs need to play more defensively that's also DPS lose.

If we're not allowed to break from a "standard melee DD setup", then I suppose were not allowed to assume changing it would yield better results for other DD compositions. If you want to use mixed DD though, then Red Mage would perfectly capable of taking the place of the "fury/haste" geo since that's the expendable one, not the defensive geo, nor the whm. My point was that between the DRK and RDM, you could make up much of the difference from losing that GEO while at the same time allowing for Haste II and Inundation and other debuffs.


All I ever see is people who plays X and Y DPS pop on the forum, try to sell the strength of their DPS because their DPS can do X and Y, then proceed to claim their DPS > BLU because they won parse a few times. With no math, no spreadsheet numbers, nor even detailed info on food/buffs/gear sets in that parse. It's not convincing.

I wasn't making the point that DRK was "better" than BLU, except in terms of raw damage output using the party composition you gave. You suggested that DRK,BLU,COR,GEO,GEO,WHM would be more detrimental than 2x BLUs, and I'm suggesting that it would probably be the opposite with some adjustments. I'm not an anti-BLU person by any means and I'm certainly not trying to "sell" DRK as some DD god. But I'm not going to crown BLU for their damage when plenty of other jobs are capable of outperforming them.



I feel that a lot of people who claim their DPS > BLU because people have this biased opinion toward bandwagoning. They see every PUG ask for BLU only, they see majority of BLU doesn't parse high, so they proceed to claim BLU aren't as strong as people think without spreadsheet nor math results.

The same thing can be said about people who are biased toward BLU > Everything.

[Afania]

If we're not allowed to break from a "standard melee DD setup", then I suppose were not allowed to assume changing it would yield better results for other DD compositions. If you want to use mixed DD though, then Red Mage would perfectly capable of taking the place of the "fury/haste" geo since that's the expendable one, not the defensive geo, nor the whm. My point was that between the DRK and RDM, you could make up much of the difference from losing that GEO while at the same time allowing for Haste II and Inundation and other debuffs.

I wasn't making the point that DRK was "better" than BLU, except in terms of raw damage output using the party composition you gave. You suggested that DRK,BLU,COR,GEO,GEO,WHM would be more detrimental than 2x BLUs, and I'm suggesting that it would probably be the opposite with some adjustments.

If you think my entire point was to suggest BLU+BLU > DRK + BLU then you misunderstood. My entire point was "I asked for proof from those who states none BLU DPS > BLU and made the statement as an universal fact. "

I didn't make one single statement of BLU + BLU > DRK + BLU nor vice versa because I don't have proof, I only questioned people how can they be so sure when they made such statement as it's an universal fact.

Again, if you think DRK+ BLU > BLU+ BLU, then the only way to validate your point is to present parse result(of different setup with equally geared people) OR spreadsheet result. Without numbers and math, it's just not possible to know.

Without spreadsheet/parse result, IMO there's no point to make the statement as universal fact, because it'll just turn into old DD hierarchy arguments, everyone claiming their DPS is top without proof, like what you did in previous posts.



The same thing can be said about people who are biased toward BLU > Everything.

The issue is that, again, without spreadsheet OR several parse data, it's not possible to know the party DPS hierarchy. So if we don't know the party DPS hierarchy, we can only see the defensive/haste strength BLU brings to the table.

You claim none BLU DPS > BLU in terms of pure DPS, but how much? Does none BLU DPS pt do 5% more DPS than BLU pt? Or does none BLU DPS pt do 20% more DPS than BLU pt? We don't know any of these numbers and we don't know any math, thus it's not possible to even discuss the party DPS hierarchy objectively. But what we do know is 1) BLU has a hell lot more defense, acc, shadows than most other jobs. 2) 2 BLU can cap haste full time without any haste support.

When we don't know about the real party DPS due to the lack of parse data nor spreadsheet result, we can only proceed to compare the job's strength that we can see, and BLU's haste/defensive strength is easily noticeable, while DPS hierarchy is not.....unless we have some sort of data to figure out party DPS of different DD combos.

Again, I'm not here to support one DPS over another in terms of DPS hierarchy. I'm only stating the importance of math that allows us to discuss about DPS hierarchy.

[Immortta]

I love how people are STILL complaining about BLU when all relevant end-game is done with GEO SCH BLM ??? Why not cry to nerf those jobs that are actually required for real content lol.

[Afania]

I love how people are STILL complaining about BLU when all relevant end-game is done with GEO SCH BLM ??? Why not cry to nerf those jobs that are actually required for real content lol.

There's like one person in this entire discussion mentioned the word nerf. Career BLU out there needs to chill.

Exactly how do you want to "Nerf" BLM anyways? Make it get hit by aoe like BSTs? It's used in endgame content because it's the only job that can nuke. By comparison it's not OP when comparing with jobs in the same class because it has no one else to compare with.

[Vae]

There's like one person in this entire discussion mentioned the word nerf. Career BLU out there needs to chill.

Exactly how do you want to "Nerf" BLM anyways? Make it get hit by aoe like BSTs? It's used in endgame content because it's the only job that can nuke. By comparison it's not OP when comparing with jobs in the same class because it has no one else to compare with.

Well, BLM is pretty much unkillable, (mana wall), untargetable (Mburst creates essentially 0 enmity), has no mp issues (mrkyr gives 1000 mp), death and other bursts do (99,999 damage). Debuffs never affect BLM.

It's not rocket science to see that's imbalanced. I mean jeez...

It's gotten a little better on the middle end with evasion change, but faaaaaar from balance. Topend is still nothing but death bursts.

Geo's undispellable buffs, and unresistable debuffs, means ALL mobs are based on having a GEO, that's kinda unfair.

SCH is the (was the) only way skillchains are being made.

All bullshit and opinions aside, you can see there's a pretty obvious flaw in the design.

[Shyles]

You're putting waaaaaaay too much stock into spreadsheeting. Like I said before, a spreadsheet is NOT a reliable indicator of DPS. They're best used for planning gearsets. There are too many factors that they don't take into account. You're not going to find things like skillchain damage or skillchain bonuses on them for example. They're not going to show how certain jobs or party comps are stronger with or without Inundation. They're not going to show whether a job is self-skillchaining or not. They're also not going to have accurate enemy stat values for endgame content on them like VIT or AGI, so you can throw pDIF out the window. They're also not going to show whether someone is maximizing their JA and spell usage, or just using them whenever and potentially wasting auto-attack rounds.

If you want useful spreadsheets, you're have to update it yourself by adding in the items you use to the equipment lists, then just use the spreadsheet to compare the damage potentials of your new gear augments. If you're waiting on someone out there to update every single spreadsheet to your satisfaction before you acknowledge "proof" of the possibility that another job could beat a BLU in damage output, then you're going to be waiting a looooooong time.

Or you could just make your observations by what you see in-game parses like everyone else. Either way though, when someone on a forum says "my <insert job> out-damages a blue mage all the time" that is just as much proof as it is when someone else says "No, <insert job> cannot out-damage a BLU". You don't have to write someone off as making unproven claims either way because it's all theoretical until you see it yourself. The proof is in the pudding. If you want parse screenshots, you can find plenty of them in the job forums at FFXIAH.

[Shyles]

Sorry Vae, I got caught up in the BLU discussion but I wanted to say I agree with you. Physical DD vs. Magic DD is the real problem. I've been pretty vocal about Immanence. The problem is, I'm not really sure what would fix it, if it could be fixed at this point.

When it comes down to melee damage discussion, we're really talking about content lvl 135 and below. Outside of a few less conventional LS strategies or specific NM characteristics like AAGK, it's nearly impractical to use melee for CL 140+ when it's far simpler to just use Immanence comps. The only melee jobs I've ever seen or heard of used in the 140+ range were either BLU, DNC, or NIN probably because of the accuracy requirements alone.

What I would love is for accuracy to just be super de-emphasized. Like a flat acc requirement for content 119+ so that melee players could worry more about gearing for damage instead of hit rate. Like a flat 1100~1200 acc cap lol. Or what about giving melee a 100% hit rate like elemental spells, but make accuracy and evasion functions of damage? Magic damage never misses, so if a scholar can still skillchain with a floored 0 damage spell, why can't anyone else?

I don't know. I just think they need to do something drastic, because things are drastically imbalanced between melee and magic right now.

[Vashkoda]

It's been brought up before, but the overall reason no one brings melee to CL 140+ fights is because they need support in terms of acc, att, AND damage reduction. BLU can self-buff and heal and set acc/att traits, so they don't need as much help. And that means they don't need babysitting, and that means you can get away with bringing fewer players. And bringing fewer players is the only way you can keep the NMs from becoming too strong to beat (not to mention the incentive to keep the number of people lotting on pool drops low).

Mages are the one mechanic players have chosen to abuse to bypass all that. But if you nerf mages, players will just pick the next best thing, be it rng, blu, bsts in dt gear, or whatever; you will always have a group of jobs left out in the cold. I think the crux of what people are currently complaining about is *just how hard* it is to try to compensate for bringing melee to these events, relative to how easy it is with mages. Yet the truth is that it doesn't matter what the devs end up doing to help the dd's, because they will ALWAYS need support. If they didn't, then all the support jobs would be out in the cold. If they made it so all the dds could survive anything the NMs dished out, then the tanks would be out of a job. The way the game is now, at least mage jobs, support jobs (granted, mostly cor and geo), healers and tanks still have a role. Yes, melee jobs got shafted. The unfortunate reality is that "someone has to".

The only way things will change is to alter the way these high level fights are set up to be a challenge. In other words, remove the time limits so melee dds can have their whiff fests and get reraised all day (sure, mages will roll their eyes at the inefficiency, but at least dds can feel semi-useful). Remove the NM boosts from bringing too many players (that way it doesn't matter if most of the alliance ends up being support to keep the few melee dds alive and buffed; again, inefficient, but at least melee jobs can participate). Of course, these changes come at the cost of removing the actual 'challenge' from end game content. Now it's no longer an accomplishment to get past these NMs, because if you can beat it with melee, you could probably have beat it even easier with mages; rather it becomes just 'something to do'. And that means more players will clear the highest content available and quit. And obviously, the devs don't like that.

Yet I think that's the only way to make melee jobs at least get to participate in HQ endgame again. Otherwise... I guess they'll always have ambuscade as a place to show off their RMEA's. :p

[Diavolo]

The only way things will change is to alter the way these high level fights are set up to be a challenge. In other words, remove the time limits so melee dds can have their whiff fests and get reraised all day (sure, mages will roll their eyes at the inefficiency, but at least dds can feel semi-useful). Remove the NM boosts from bringing too many players (that way it doesn't matter if most of the alliance ends up being support to keep the few melee dds alive and buffed; again, inefficient, but at least melee jobs can participate). Of course, these changes come at the cost of removing the actual 'challenge' from end game content. Now it's no longer an accomplishment to get past these NMs, because if you can beat it with melee, you could probably have beat it even easier with mages; rather it becomes just 'something to do'. And that means more players will clear the highest content available and quit. And obviously, the devs don't like that.

The bolded part plays an important role in any attempt to balance the end game scene. HP scaling had good intentions behind it, which was to make fights easier for smaller groups of players at a time where server populations had made it difficult for most to find help, but "The road to hell..." and all that. As I've said elsewhere, along with a host of other issues this one could have been fixed by server merges so the population numbers never got to this sorry state, but alas...

An Escha NM's stats stops scaling down at 3 players if I'm not mistaken, so the dev team saw fit to ensure these fights didn't become too easy, but they didn't extend that line of thinking when it came to scaling them up. They could create a hard cap at which point the NMs stop scaling up, something equivalent to where the NMs would be with 12 to 15 players maybe. That change by itself won't make things much easier for melee, but it would provide incentive for linkshells (and the odd pickup group) to aim high again and be open to a little more experimentation, to focus on bringing full alliances to fights again since it would be making things easier instead of more difficult.

There's really only Escha and Ambuscade left at end game, you might even throw Master Trials, UNM and HTBF in there if you're feeling generous. Given how much time Ambuscade and the other non-Escha events take from us every month, and how much more inviting they are to melee classes, maybe the dev team's view of it all in the grand scheme of things was the same many of us took during the 75 cap days: level a new job and make yourself more useful.

[Shyles]

but they didn't extend that line of thinking when it came to scaling them up.

I was always under the impression that the HP-scaling was balanced at 18-person alliances, then scaled down. At least that was how it was during Delve.

Has there ever been an official confirmation that they started balancing it based on 6-person parties instead?

[Vashkoda]

I was always under the impression that the HP-scaling was balanced at 18-person alliances, then scaled down. At least that was how it was during Delve.

Has there ever been an official confirmation that they started balancing it based on 6-person parties instead?

According to this post from Camate back in 2014, you're correct (bolded for relevant part):


Greetings!

The below Delve adjustment that took place in the February version update will also be applied to the new Delve content that will be implemented in the March version update. :)


The HP of NMs appearing in fractures now varies based on the number of party members.
The values remain the same for parties of eighteen players.


However, this was regarding delve, which was already beatable with 18 players, as long as they were decently geared and had at least some knowledge of winning strategies and NM weaknesses. Adjusting it to be beatable with 6 players was essentially just dumbing it down.

However, all high tier NMs added afterwards came with hp scaling in effect from the beginning. There was no trial period where alliances could try out the fight without penalties. They also came at a time when server populations were in decline and 6-man playstyle was the norm. Therefore, I can totally see them buffing all subsequent NMs with 6-man parties as the baseline, and scaling up from there.

[Afania]

You're putting waaaaaaay too much stock into spreadsheeting. Like I said before, a spreadsheet is NOT a reliable indicator of DPS. They're best used for planning gearsets. There are too many factors that they don't take into account. You're not going to find things like skillchain damage or skillchain bonuses on them for example.

I'm not sure you either don't read what I wrote or have this biased opinion toward FFXI DPS math.

Like what I wrote earlier, you can calculate SC dmg from spreadsheet manually, since they provide WS avg and WS cycle time. You don't need spreadsheet to hand you the result of every single facet of DPS calculation, the result of the number can be calculated with math.

The way to use spreadsheet, isn't just sit there wait for the sheet to hand out every information. Some of the calculation has to be done manually.

As much as you dismiss the legibility of FFXI DPS math, do you have alternative solution then? Since FFXI DPS math seems to be complete garbage to you that has no value in DPS discussions, how else do you want people to discuss DPS hierarchy?

Every single FFXI DPS discussion on forums has been based on math and theory craft for many, many years. None of the legit FFXI DPS discussion in community has ever based on real life factors such as stun/knockback/luck/player skill etc. I don't know what's the point to tell people "it's not legit to discuss DPS math with spreadsheet" when that's how the community discuss DPS for years.

If you have better alternative way to discuss DPS, please provide them. If not then math, spreadsheet and theorycraft is still the more reliable way to calculate DPS hierarchy.





If you want useful spreadsheets, you're have to update it yourself by adding in the items you use to the equipment lists, then just use the spreadsheet to compare the damage potentials of your new gear augments. If you're waiting on someone out there to update every single spreadsheet to your satisfaction before you acknowledge "proof" of the possibility that another job could beat a BLU in damage output, then you're going to be waiting a looooooong time.


You don't seem to understand, my entire argument of spreadsheet isn't "demanding" someone to update it. I only expressed disagreement toward people state X DPS > Y as an universal fact, while often not considering the party DPS.



Or you could just make your observations by what you see in-game parses like everyone else. Either way though, when someone on a forum says "my <insert job> out-damages a blue mage all the time" that is just as much proof as it is when someone else says "No, <insert job> cannot out-damage a BLU". You don't have to write someone off as making unproven claims either way because it's all theoretical until you see it yourself. The proof is in the pudding. If you want parse screenshots, you can find plenty of them in the job forums at FFXIAH.

I'm not dismissing people's opinion when they said they outparse BLU. My original point was every single "I outparse BLU" argument that I see didn't consider party DPS as a whole. Their DRK, or WAR, made the pt used slightly different buffs from double BLU setup to push their DPS closer to DPS ceiling, plus they didn't parse/post SC DPS.

I simply spotted logical fallacy in "I outparse BLU thus my DPS job > BLU"claim thus pointing it out.

[Afania]

death and other bursts do (99,999 damage). Debuffs never affect BLM.



I love how everyone and their mother keep yelling "death is OP because it does 99999 dmg" when in fact it does 99999 dmg every 36 sec needing someone else spending 20 sec to start a skill chain, and run out of gems after a few charges....V.S melee spams 25k WS every 5 sec and every WS SC with each other for additional DPS.

What's keeping people using melee on high end content isn't because death do 99999 dmg btw, it's because endgame content favors DPS that can DD outside of AoE, or DPS that doesn't need massive evasion buffs so BLM gets picked. It's not because BLM being some kind of god tier DPS. Melee has higher DPS ceiling because they WS way faster than BLM MB, BLM just needs less evasion buffs and doesn't get hit by AoE.

If you ever parse BLM's DPS instead of just eyeballing the MB dmg, or time certain NM kill speed with BLM setup v.s other jobs, you'd know that BLM DPS isn't on top. I have parsed WoC runs against BLMs, or timed certain NM kill speed such as Neak and pakecet using BLM setup v.s none BLM setup, BLM setup is pretty much always kill slower or parse lower, even if their gears are good enough to do 99999 dmg per MB.

[Vae]

It's got nothing to do with DPS.

It's that the system is currently broken. BLM, like BLU is ALL up sides, and no downsides.

Balance is not based upon DPS. Balance is based on risk:reward. positive:negative. BLM has no negatives. GEO has no negatives. BLU has no negatives. "all" melee have negatives.

BLM strats require literally zero effort. While melee zergs require *almost* zero effort, burst strats are broken easy.

[Afania]

It's got nothing to do with DPS.

It's that the system is currently broken. BLM, like BLU is ALL up sides, and no downsides.

Balance is not based upon DPS. Balance is based on risk:reward. positive:negative. BLM has no negatives. GEO has no negatives. BLU has no negatives. "all" melee have negatives.

BLM strats require literally zero effort. While melee zergs require *almost* zero effort, burst strats are broken easy.

There are 2 downside of BLM strat compare with melee strat though:

1) It's completely useless against NM with high magic evasion or magic shield. One of the T4 is aren't killed with BLM strat, there's a couple more lower tier NM that's more ideal to use physical dmg as well.

2) It has lower "DPS ceiling" than melees. Like I said melee has higher DPS ceiling when they are capped haste spamming WS that SC with each other.

BLU v.s other melee is more of an issue because BLU v.s other melee has way more upside than downside(defensively, at least), thus preventing other melee gets invite to party. BLM doesn't prevent any job gets party invite. Anytime the content is more ideal to use mage setup, BLM the only choice and there's nothing else to choose from, anytime the content is more ideal to use melee setup it'll never get picked.

[Nyarlko]

Here's an idea for NM scaling.. Make BRD not count. I have a massive pile of awesome bard gear that I never get to use because GEO totally (and COR to a lesser degree) outclasses BRD when it comes to both buffs and debuffs. Many players would choose to fill a party slot with a trust over a BRD at this point. So... make it so BRD counts as 0 towards group size ^^ Devs seem to think that BRD and GEO "fill different roles", so a change of this level would be required in order for us spoony ones to have a chance to see endgame play. RDM seems to be in a somewhat similar predicament, but is still able to visibly contribute more easily, so only (#of parties-1) RDM counts.

This may seem facetious, but should be easier to implement for the devs than doing the overhaul BRD needs desperately. As it stands, the only possible reason to bring a BRD over anything else is for those niche fights where light-based sleep/dispel are required AND you can't find a BLU with a decent m.acc set who's also willing to set 1-2 different spells than their normal kit. If they make the scaling see us as the non-player that most players seem to see as, so we don't make the fight harder by coming along, then maybe we'll have a chance to play too.
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Also, as an enthusiastic dualboxer, I've come to the conclusion from my own experience that with the current mob TP-gain model, it is almost always a bad idea to have more players actually hitting the target than the absolute minimal requirements. There are lots of T1 NMs in Escha-Zit'ah that I have zero issues dualboxing with Trusts and a leecher, but will have a hard time with if said leecher starts hitting the mob due to the increased TP-feed causing TP-move spam. More TP-moves used by the target = more MP going out of my healer in a shorter period of time = higher chance of something going wrong.

I believe that the root of all our melee v. mage issues on higher clvl fights is the excessive strain that putting more bodies into AOE range causes on the healers. This is not a L2WHM issue, this is back-to-back-to-back-to-etc TP move spam that can put out more damage than a BIS WHM will numerically be able to recover without taking solid agro from the tank. Let's not forget the overload of status debuffs that frequently come with those moves, which need to be -na'd/erased if it's not one of the increasingly common non-removable debuffs like amnesia or weakened..

With so many melee running around delay capped, and with that being expected by most of us, NMs get fed so much TP that it's possible to never see them take a single melee swing at the tank between moves now. The crazy accuracy requirements used to force most melee to give up on getting a party spot. Post-evasion-nerf, event organizers are just going to be forced to directly inform melee players that "using melee on this fight would be a liability and probably cause a wipe" even if their accuracy is high enough for the content.

Patch day today, so I haven't had a chance to test out the new AOE nerf, but as I mentioned, most AOEs nowadays are not merely damage to HP. Even if it's a 50% nerf, I'm not sure I would be welcome to 140+ events as a melee due to how much more MP and time the healer will have to use to keep me up and swinging, when I'm not lobotomized by Amnesia, Encumberment, Weakened, Doomed and/or Cursed.

This needs to be addressed. In the old days, this wasn't that big an issue since it was pretty darn unlikely to find a melee who could reach haste cap. Mob TP filled at rate that made it reasonable for healers to deal with, and melees had time to react by using items like Remedy. It most definitely is an issue now. Newer mobs also seem able to cast magic spells less often than in older content. It may not seem like much, but those few seconds of the mob being idle were frequently precious and could be used as recovery time.

Either change the formulas so that mobs gain less TP per hit received or add in a timer/cooldown on TP-move usage. Mobs use moves at lower levels of TP as their HP goes down, and combined with the lack of alternatives like casting spells, it results in move spam increasing as the fights progress.
There needs to be a bare minimum of 5sec between TP-moves so that at least one -na spell per party member (who is supposed to be in melee range) can be healed. A larger gap between moves would be welcome of course, but anything over 10sec would likely be too easily abuseable to be considered on most fights.

[Oddwaffle]

I agree with the TP feeding. There is a HUGE difference between a group consisting of 1 PLD + WHM + a Skill Chain SCH + a bunch of BLM vs a similar group with melee for better skill chain but more TP feed. The group with melee requires more healers, more support and most likely make the fight riskier because of TP spam. The Blm+Sch party will probably only cause 1 TP move after 1 single large barrage of magic nukes.

Reducing the TP spam from monsters and bosses have its own draw back: It makes Subtle Blows pretty much useless outside of some niche situations.

A lot of old mechanics were introduced to reduce abuse and 'improving' the old jobs are currently useless or detrimental but they are still considered beneficial by the developers. Those things get carried to the currently FFXI where a lot of things changed.

[Ketaru]

Reducing the TP spam from monsters and bosses have its own draw back: It makes Subtle Blows pretty much useless outside of some niche situations.


Was Subtle Blow ever a consideration though? In order to see the changes that people want in this game, it might be time to reconsider and let a niche job trait fade into obscurity, much like Shield Mastery for pretty much anyone other than PLD. It's a nice convenience when its effect is noticeable, but not enough for anybody to say, "This job has Subtle Blow and this other one doesn't. Let's pick the one with Subtle Blow."

[Nyarlko]

Was Subtle Blow ever a consideration though? In order to see the changes that people want in this game, it might be time to reconsider and let a niche job trait fade into obscurity, much like Shield Mastery for pretty much anyone other than PLD. It's a nice convenience when its effect is noticeable, but not enough for anybody to say, "This job has Subtle Blow and this other one doesn't. Let's pick the one with Subtle Blow."

Subtle Blow only makes a noticible difference if you have a ton of it. I believe it caps at 50% from gear as well? If you are capped, then you feed 1/2 as much TP to the mob, which actually sounds pretty good until you see that it just means that the feed from 2x delay capped melees has slowed down enough to allow 1-2 melee swings in between TP moves.. :/ In practice, it already is pretty useless in other words. And it should never be in a position to be so important that it becomes a factor in deciding group comps. In order for SB to be looked towards as a solution, it would have to be something drastic like an across-the-board SB+30% for players which is applied additively to SB from gear, but doesn't apply to cap. Even if we reduced our TP feed by 80%, I'm betting that TP move usage would still be much higher than what we were expected to deal with in 75cap days.

This issue falls squarely into the category of "System that used to work fine, hasn't kept up w/ the times." There are a lot of things that fall into this category that seem to have been ignored for a long time. TP gain formulas (for both monsters and players), acc/eva formulas, excessive AOE damage, Merit Point categories being primarily either required/pointless with no room open for actual choice.. BRD. ._.;; (Please fix bard. T_T I miss being able to compete for the support role party spot.)
All of these things have been stagnant for quite a few years at this point. Credit given to the current dev team for actively taking steps in recent months to start addressing the acc/eva and volume of AOE damage issues. I for one appreciate that steps are being taken to start fixing problems, and if baby steps are needed, it's understandable. I hope that the next issue you take a jab at is TP feed, because right now, it feels like a WHM w/ 100% quick cast wouldn't have time to cast 3x spells between TP moves if a full melee comp is used.

[Oddwaffle]

Was Subtle Blow ever a consideration though? In order to see the changes that people want in this game, it might be time to reconsider and let a niche job trait fade into obscurity, much like Shield Mastery for pretty much anyone other than PLD. It's a nice convenience when its effect is noticeable, but not enough for anybody to say, "This job has Subtle Blow and this other one doesn't. Let's pick the one with Subtle Blow."

Yet the developers seem convinced that the trait is so beneficial that they keep having them in mnk and nin gear. They even have ninja meriting subtle blow.

[Nyarlko]

I agree with the TP feeding. There is a HUGE difference between a group consisting of 1 PLD + WHM + a Skill Chain SCH + a bunch of BLM vs a similar group with melee for better skill chain but more TP feed. The group with melee requires more healers, more support and most likely make the fight riskier because of TP spam. The Blm+Sch party will probably only cause 1 TP move after 1 single large barrage of magic nukes.

Reducing the TP spam from monsters and bosses have its own draw back: It makes Subtle Blows pretty much useless outside of some niche situations.

A lot of old mechanics were introduced to reduce abuse and 'improving' the old jobs are currently useless or detrimental but they are still considered beneficial by the developers. Those things get carried to the currently FFXI where a lot of things changed.

Can't really consider merits for this discussion.. They are from 75cap days and the devs seem to be scared of messing with any of them causing balance problems at this point. :/ There are plenty of examples of merit categories that "should" be changed, but won't be.

Subtle Blow was once in a position where it was possible to be relevant, like many other JTs/JAs, but nowadays something like "making Subtle Blow worthless" should not be considered as a justification for postponing/preventing needed system changes.