Job balancing?

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Originally Posted by lufia22

Reading this thread makes me want to quit. I just came back to the game, but it's not very encouraging to see all these interesting jobs to play and yet most of them are useless.

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I was BST75 in 2004, I solo'd every single xp, nobody would invite BST for xp parties, nobody would invite BST for events. Other players would MPK me while I was xping, by following me, waiting until I was Pet-swapping and they would voke the new pet, leaving me defenceless and dead. They weren't even doing it because I was killing their xp mobs, they just hated Beastmasters.

In 2006 I levelled PUP on solo, duo, and occasionally (very rarely) was able to form xp parties as PUP leader. When I asked parties if I could bring my PUP they laughed at me and told me to level a different job. When I formed parties as PUP leader, people would join the party, then realise I was going to stay on my PUP, and they would leave the party in disgust.

So job balance is a new cause really. In the past, it was just a known fact that you would be soloing BLM against weak mobs, or in BLM only manaburns. Players have always decided what the optimum party should look like, and if you don't fit their worldview, you're gonna solo/duo it. People even got angry if you even dared to ask about your Bst, Pup, Blm joining their party. And this was like 10 years ago.

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Why do you guys continue to play if the job balance really is this abysmal?

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So read what I wrote above. Prejudice against specific jobs has been going on since forever. So the question is "why did you ever play FFXI" not why are you still playing it today. Nothing has changed in terms of optimum-build parties, excluded jobs, jobs that get laughed at. It is only that some of the previously hated jobs are now popular, and vice versa.

I play FFXI for the same reasons I always did. I love Vana'diel, it is far more interesting to me than Earth is. I love too many things about the world of Vana'diel to list here. I love the FFXI Menu structures, I love the Game Engine itself, and the battle mechanics. I love my Automaton. I love fishing. I love Requiescat and Upheaval weaponskills, they way they look and feel. I love millions of things about FFXI which is why I still play it.

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Originally Posted by lufia22

Reading this thread makes me want to quit. I just came back to the game, but it's not very encouraging to see all these interesting jobs to play and yet most of them are useless.

Why do you guys continue to play if the job balance really is this abysmal?

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They aren't precisely useless, they just aren't good for the top of the line content. You can solo a lot of battlefields/missions on them, for example, or do some lower end group content (skirmish etc)

I am not currently ready for most endgame regardless - and I mostly solo stuff, so it's moot for me.

I play because the game is enjoyable, even if it needs balance.

If I did get there - BLU is one of my main/fave jobs so if I did feel confident/competent enough to play more with others I would actually have a place in content.

I just think balancing things better would improve the lives of other players.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

I was BST75 in 2004, I solo'd every single xp, nobody would invite BST for xp parties, nobody would invite BST for events. Other players would MPK me while I was xping, by following me, waiting until I was Pet-swapping and they would voke the new pet, leaving me defenceless and dead. They weren't even doing it because I was killing their xp mobs, they just hated Beastmasters. [snip].

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You listed a bunch of old leveling group problems, but has end-game always been so limited in the job spectrum? For me, it's one thing for a job to be 10% worse than the rest, but it's another to exclude and entire archetype. That's just egregious and I can't fathom what the developers were thinking.

my linkshell uses thfs wars and even a rdm and we do well on Reisenjima nms.. that said the biggest issue we run into with new ls people is people trying to skip steps in gear progression

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Originally Posted by lufia22

Reading this thread makes me want to quit. I just came back to the game, but it's not very encouraging to see all these interesting jobs to play and yet most of them are useless.

Why do you guys continue to play if the job balance really is this abysmal?

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I had to reply to this... I've been an avid subscriber since 2004; I main PUP and just recently finished my vereth III 119 h2h weapon, (so happy)... I digress.

Point is... I've had many experiences as many have described wherein I'd join a party (end game) as a PUP only to be asked in /tell if I have something else... I haven't been turned down, within recent memory, probably because of my PUPs capabilities... after the event, I'd see folks breaking out their level 32 pup or 15 pup, and getting /tells about the job because they'd been so impressed with it's functionality. Many folks don't understand how a lot of jobs perceived to be useless in endgame, can effectively function in endgame activities and once witnessed, they become "believers" lol... so as much as this was a perspective of the past, it has changed some what now-a-days, but it all depends on the effectiveness of the job. I'm an end game pup, with almost 1000 job points invested, and my automaton is a beast, able to easily solo NMs in Reisenjima--it was a long road but well worth the trip. :)

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Originally Posted by zataz

my linkshell uses thfs wars and even a rdm and we do well on Reisenjima nms.. that said the biggest issue we run into with new ls people is people trying to skip steps in gear progression

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How do you justify to them spending all that time, gil, and copper vouchers on Yorcia gear, just to throw it away for zi'tah gear?

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Originally Posted by Catmato

How do you justify to them spending all that time, gil, and copper vouchers on Yorcia gear, just to throw it away for zi'tah gear?

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Quite easily. "If you can't hit the mob for more than 10 damage, assuming you can hit it at all, I'm not going to carry you into the next part." If all you do is carry people, they don't learn content strategies, and they don't improve. Yorcia teaches them self-reliability in soloing mobs and improving combat speed to ensure that they get enough puissance to keep monsters spawning, meaning that they learn ways to improve their gear and dps to speed through those mobs faster.

Additionally, not all cases have Zi'tah gear replacing Skirmish gear. Let's look at Taeon -> Rawhide. Taeon head vs. Rawhide head fully augmented leaves Rawhide with about 15 acc and 18 atk (before stat vomit) versus Taeon which can get up to 20 (total 30 accuracy) of each, as well as Triple Attack and extra STR/DEX to pull it ahead. Rawhide legs are mostly a casting-type piece, and as a result Taeon legs with melee augments is far, far better.

Let's look at Helios -> Psycloth next, with nuking in mind. Psycloth head? Not a hint of MAB, not even in the augments. Good Macc for debuffs, but certainly not a nuke piece like an INT+/MAB+/Occult Acumen Helios would be. Hands can go either way; better Macc, but far less MAB than modest Helios augments. Legs once more have no nuke value, and are an enfeebling piece (though if you're using Helios you're not doing much better here; Hagondes is the best for a good while), and the feet, again, lack in any form of nuking viability.

Zi'tah gear doesn't automatically invalidate older gear; as with many pieces of gear in FFXI, they serve different roles. Yorcia gear is fantastic for several jobs compared to their Zi'tah complements, and serves as a way to get into proper content without having someone hold your hand while you watch YouTube or something. It lets you start to participate when you get to Zi'tah, and in doing so, learn ways to improve upon your character. "Huh, I can't hit at this level content, how am I going to handle higher-level stuff?" You'll see people trying to figure out how to get past Vidala's leveling up by bringing along a nuker to spam wind and level her down, or going splat against Gestalt's Dread Spikes until they think to bring a dispeller. You'll see people take a few losses from Lydia until they bring a stunner, including going /DNC to stun her Bad Breath and proc her. Learning things like these can't be gained by simply having someone else do the fight while you flail about ineffectively or sit back with a video.

Additionally, gil is easy these days. >.> Make 600k+ a day doing Arrapago Remnants II once per day, at least on my server's Alexandrite costs. Throw in some other runs in BR2 and you can easily make more than a million for day even for a low-geared individual, so that there's no "spending all that gil." It's quite easy to get. Copper Vouchers... most people let them just sit. I can't think of the last time I made use of mine, I'm probably in the 100s from idly getting them and turning them in, so it's good they're being used for -something-. The only thing spent here that's really of value is time, and if you value time all that much, then I don't think grinding the high-end bosses for gear just to complain about nothing to do afterwards is much of a better investment.

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Originally Posted by Catmato

How do you justify to them spending all that time, gil, and copper vouchers on Yorcia gear, just to throw it away for zi'tah gear?

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If Skirmish gear is a necessary stepping stone for you then the newest Records of Eminence quests are practically handing it to you. No need to waste time and gil hoping for perfect augments with stones when you know it'll be replaced soon. Between that and reforged Artifact/Relic/Empyrean gear it's not hard at all to begin the climb up the ladder.

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Originally Posted by zataz

my linkshell uses thfs wars and even a rdm and we do well on Reisenjima nms.. that said the biggest issue we run into with new ls people is people trying to skip steps in gear progression

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On the other side of the same coin: Some of the vorseals are hard to get without help if you can't use your own powerful job to brute-force through (SCH, SMN, GEO, BLU particularly).

I agree that a lot of people want to skip tiers and tiers of gear, but some servers (I'm on one) never see pug groups going for vorseal clears, so without ls help (not saying your ls doesn't help), it can be difficult.

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Originally Posted by Kensagaku

Quite easily. "If you can't hit the mob for more than 10 damage, assuming you can hit it at all, I'm not going to carry you into the next part." If all you do is carry people, they don't learn content strategies, and they don't improve. Yorcia teaches them self-reliability in soloing mobs and improving combat speed to ensure that they get enough puissance to keep monsters spawning, meaning that they learn ways to improve their gear and dps to speed through those mobs faster.

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Agreed.

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Let's look at Helios -> Psycloth next, with nuking in mind. Psycloth head? Not a hint of MAB, not even in the augments. Good Macc for debuffs, but certainly not a nuke piece like an INT+/MAB+/Occult Acumen Helios would be. Hands can go either way; better Macc, but far less MAB than modest Helios augments. Legs once more have no nuke value, and are an enfeebling piece (though if you're using Helios you're not doing much better here; Hagondes is the best for a good while), and the feet, again, lack in any form of nuking viability.

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Wholeheartedly agreed. A friend came back and I was helping him gear his BLM so I actually took a close look at Psycloth and yeah. BLM got the shaft from Zi'tah.

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Zi'tah gear doesn't automatically invalidate older gear; as with many pieces of gear in FFXI, they serve different roles. Yorcia gear is fantastic for several jobs compared to their Zi'tah complements, and serves as a way to get into proper content without having someone hold your hand while you watch YouTube or something. It lets you start to participate when you get to Zi'tah, and in doing so, learn ways to improve upon your character. "Huh, I can't hit at this level content, how am I going to handle higher-level stuff?" You'll see people trying to figure out how to get past Vidala's leveling up by bringing along a nuker to spam wind and level her down, or going splat against Gestalt's Dread Spikes until they think to bring a dispeller. You'll see people take a few losses from Lydia until they bring a stunner, including going /DNC to stun her Bad Breath and proc her. Learning things like these can't be gained by simply having someone else do the fight while you flail about ineffectively or sit back with a video.

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My only complaint with Skirmish is the extreme tendency of stones to augment towards the low useless side. Rei augmenting isn't very different but it's easier to get decent/good augments, easier to spam the augmenting process, and easier to farm stones.

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Originally Posted by Diavolo

If Skirmish gear is a necessary stepping stone for you then the newest Records of Eminence quests are practically handing it to you.

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Is that from the new Intermediate Tutorial RoE quests?

Ok, so nobody seems to be asking:

Why is WHM's status as the premium healer so sacred that nobody seems to question its ubiquity in parties? It seems to be this big issue with people that jobs like BST, SCH, GEO, and BLU have become staples to parties. If a RDM or SCH, WHM's closest relatives, were tasked with healing damage and status in some of the hardest battles these days, they simply couldn't compare.

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Originally Posted by Ketaru

Ok, so nobody seems to be asking:

Why is WHM's status as the premium healer so sacred that nobody seems to question its ubiquity in parties? It seems to be this big issue with people that jobs like BST, SCH, GEO, and BLU have become staples to parties. If a RDM or SCH, WHM's closest relatives, were tasked with healing damage and status in some of the hardest battles these days, they simply couldn't compare.

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Mainly because I never want to be a main-healer as a RDM ever, ever again. ToAU burned that out of me permanently and while I'll help heal, I'll never acknowledge sole responsibility over it.

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Originally Posted by Ulth

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.

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I have to disagree with this statement, in my opinion Foe Requiem 7 is one of the best spells for brd IF you are RM(Relic, Mythic) Master brd.

From Job points 20x3 points of damage, that's an additional 60 points of dmg. Add in Gjallarhorn +4 thats 4 more points, for a total of 8+60+4 for 72dmg/tic. Then you factor in that song duration was applied to offensive songs. With Mythic, Gjallarhorn and other duration gear unresisted requiem 7 last over 5 minutes. This is one if not the longest DOT possible, which is very helpful in wipe situations where you don't want mob HP regening.

I thought most NM's were immune to req? Besides, Sch's can do 100 times that in DoT so <.<

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Originally Posted by Helldemon

I thought most NM's were immune to req? Besides, Sch's can do 100 times that in DoT so <.<

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Yep, Requiem and Poison spells are completely useless. Mobs have way too much HP for them to matter at all and SCH can DoT hundreds of times the amount.

I seem to remember there was some talk about adjusting the dmg of both, but like many other things it has been forgotten in time.

PS > And speaking of job adjustments, I wonder if Enspells 2 will ever be fixed. Not holding my breath at all, just curious.

Personally I'd really enjoy seeing Ready/Reward's range going back to what it was before. I enjoy meleeing as BST, but normally I do so by fighting multiple mobs at a time. Or at least, let us have a range so that when fighting larger foes we can stay behind them while pet tanks, and not side-to-side. It's kind of rediculous that Dragoon wyverns can do that, and they're a kind of pet that always follows the master no matter what.

I don't think the nerf changed the habits of any back-line BST. I still see them around. They still stand back while their pet fights if they feel like it. The only difference is that they're not using Ready nor Reward anymore.

The way I'm seeing it, the change to the range only made Ready/Reward some forgotten abilities like Charm and Tame.

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Originally Posted by Helldemon

I thought most NM's were immune to req? Besides, Sch's can do 100 times that in DoT so <.<

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They are not immune, you just need to have alot of MACC for it to land. When compared to SCH's helix yes it's not much, BUT the duration IS. I don't know of any DOT that is longer than a RM brd's requiem 7.

Like I said in my original post, it is handy in case you use a wipe strategy to prevent mob from regaining hp while you unweaken. IE in all escha mobs don't depop after all wipe and die if party remains in the instanced area.

Hello,

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Originally Posted by 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.

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I would just like to make a quick clarification that the development team has only begun to talk about the fact that we'd like to make adjustments to two-handed weapons, and the details have yet to be fleshed out. Once we make some progress on this we will be sure to share!

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

Mainly because I never want to be a main-healer as a RDM ever, ever again. ToAU burned that out of me permanently and while I'll help heal, I'll never acknowledge sole responsibility over it.

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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.

I've always wondered the same thing. There have been various time in this game's life where we've been able to get away with using melee tanks. People would cry about how they wanted to bring tanks back, but by tank they always meant PLD. Nowadays, RUN gives PLD a run for its money (plus NIN had a good run back in the day).

And while there were times where you used SCH or RDM (Neo-Nyzul and ToAU merit PTs readily come to mind), you'd almost never use those jobs to main heal something truly difficult. But somehow WHM always has a place at the table and nobody ever questions it.

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Originally Posted by Yoji_Fujito

Hello,



I would just like to make a quick clarification that the development team has only begun to talk about the fact that we'd like to make adjustments to two-handed weapons, and the details have yet to be fleshed out. Once we make some progress on this we will be sure to share!

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My Jobmaster Warrior has four Fencer Gifts in the Jobpoints/Gifts progression line.

Warrior's primary weapon is Greataxe, Greataxe is Warrior's highest skill rank, Greataxe is WAR's Oboro JSE weapon, Greataxe is most of WAR's RME weapons etc.

This means that four of my main WAR Gifts (Fencer Bonus) are completely useless to me, they literally never give me any bonuses at all, because I am using Warrior's primary weapon ; the Greataxe.

So, please consider adding a duality to the Jobmaster Gifts, where it says "Fencer bonus" could you please add "Fencer Bonus (if using a 2-handed weapon this Gift will grant an Accuracy bonus instead of Fencer bonus.)"

This is an idea that was taken from someone on BG(I don't remember who and couldn't find the extensive list they made) but another thing that would help out melee, pet job and even mages is to combine/make new buffs for all the support jobs. Right now between melee, mage and pet's all support jobs have separate buffs for each type which forces exclusion. If you have a mage and a melee in one pt, it either takes to long or is to cumbersome and even sometimes not even possible to try and get all needed buffs on each character. All buffs need to be combined so an acc buff gives acc/macc to both players and pet's. Cor's crit roll needs to give crit and magic crit to players/pet's, etc. etc.

I think it comes down to RDM being a jack of all four roles (support, elemental, healing, melee) and being a master of little (besides enfeebling). Every RDM wants their job to be a master of a different aspect and some people want all aspects.

RDM would also require a bard-level overhaul in the healing department (which bard still needs) to be able to handle aoe spam.

I did a melee-setup Yilan with a (surprise!) RDM main healer. We won, because Yilan is easy, but I was doing a lot lot of curing on my PLD.

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Originally Posted by CrAZYVIC

Dedicated BLU mages, PLD and RDM have Mythic weapons, so they can Triple attack and Quadruple attack this weapon Skill using Mythic after math level 3.

Chant du Cygne Double attack its 12.25 - 50% of the times a BLU mage will be Double attacking this
Chant du Cygne Triple attack its 14.70 - 40% of time a Mythic BLU will be Triple attacking this
Chant du Cygne Quadruple attack its 17.15 - 20% of time mythic BLU can quadruple attack this

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50% of the time 40% of the time 20% of the time... something doesn't add up here... don't know exactly what you were using but I'd say the 20% "quad attack" is wrong.

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Originally Posted by Yoji_Fujito

Hello,



I would just like to make a quick clarification that the development team has only begun to talk about the fact that we'd like to make adjustments to two-handed weapons, and the details have yet to be fleshed out. Once we make some progress on this we will be sure to share!

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Forgive me Yoji_Fujito, but this has been an issue for sometime and the players can agree that this issue hasn't been given the priority it deserves. For the people that love to use DRG, WAR, DRK, SAM, and RUN at their favorite event and not being able to produce the damage output of their one-handed counterparts is truly unfair and unbalanced. My question is, why continue to delay this any further? Please make it a priority to have this fix by July version update. Thank you.

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. BLU has the ability to self heal for over 1.2k with the right gear, they have the ability to crowd control, they have the ability to dispel and erase move debuffs. We can hit the Haste Cap and maintain it for close to 9 minutes. Don't get me wrong, most of the BLUs I see are usually just whacking stuff with swords, but I just dislike seeing so many of us all the time...there is just hardly any diversity now.

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Originally Posted by Numquam

Don't get me wrong, most of the BLUs I see are usually just whacking stuff with swords, but I just dislike seeing so many of us all the time...there is just hardly any diversity now.

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This right here hits the nail on the head for why I hate the current state of the game. I've had people say that I might just be salty that I can't participate unless I level up X or Y. Well... that's partly it, but leveling up a new job isn't hard. No, what grinds my gears is simply that for a game with 22 jobs, you only ever see 7 or 8 used. It's not fair to say it's like those jobs don't exist: It'd be better off if they actually didn't. Having this whole sea of choice open before you and finding out your options are actually extremely limited... it's heartbreaking. There's all these cool themes, lore, abilities, possible strategies present within these multitude of jobs.

As it is, unless you boot up the game and one of the True Jobs is the one that jumps out at you as the one that appeals to you, the game simply raises your hopes up only to dash them against the ground.

I've had people complain against me in the past for being rather harsh in telling newbies and returning players to give up on their dreams of leveling whatever job they mentioned. The way I see it, better they find out now and step into line early than to find out several months down the line.

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Originally Posted by Yoji_Fujito

Hello,



I would just like to make a quick clarification that the development team has only begun to talk about the fact that we'd like to make adjustments to two-handed weapons, and the details have yet to be fleshed out. Once we make some progress on this we will be sure to share!

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Dear devs,
http://s.quickmeme.com/img/5b/5befbb...79f88c6bfa.jpg

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Originally Posted by Ketaru

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.

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I don't beleive this is a problem with the mechanics as much as I used to.

I just saw Scholar pretty much main heal an Escha Zi'tah run's healing with just Regen and a spot cure.

This is a matter of desire behind role, and how healers are just plain uninviting, especially on classes, Like Red Mage, that are capable of other, more fun roles. White Mage is unquestionably the go-to for healers because that's ALL it is. It's a healer, everyone knows that it is more than the role and the specialty, it's White Mage's identity. You ask Scholar to heal and they're going to question about it being about the party being efficient enough - that's where the Mage Burns really clinch their argument.

Scholars are capable of taking a party healer role on themselves. Hybrids roles like Red Mage, Dancer, Blue Mage and Summoner can help alleviate the healing role (do we really count Puppetmaster and Bard?), but none of them want to. That's more the reason why White Mage has absolutely no contest when it comes to the role, and most players are ok that way. Sure, boosting certain Job's capabilities of doing so may help the performance gap. But it's not as large as it's being played out if all your Hybrids actually used the skills they have to split down the healing role. This is another problem that has as much of the burden for it on the community as it does the developers.

On the development end, less emphasis in wide severe AoE Damage is more the solution than buffing classes to stuff they won't do anyways better. The test of that will be prevalent when SMN's healing pacts get buffed, but rarely utilized to their fullest. It's that predictable.

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Originally Posted by Urthdigger

I've had people complain against me in the past for being rather harsh in telling newbies and returning players to give up on their dreams of leveling whatever job they mentioned. The way I see it, better they find out now and step into line early than to find out several months down the line.

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I'd say, respectfully. You are being harsh.

For the most part, you're wrong about the dream thing. Most of any REM can be soloed, and what's the epitome of endgame to a player's personal progression if not that? Escha is over-hyped for its randomness at the highest level of gears, and there is alternative progression pieces for most items. Yes, it's not Best in Slot but the more you push your gear, the easier it becomes to convince the friends you make down the line to let you in to do things. Speaking from experience.

I've got no problem telling people they're in for a hard road, so they go in with the right level of determination. Telling them to quit and 'fall in line'? No, that's just destructive. You'll lose people that way.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

I've got no problem telling people they're in for a hard road, so they go in with the right level of determination. Telling them to quit and 'fall in line'? No, that's just destructive. You'll lose people that way.

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In a way, I am simply telling people they're in for a hard road. I usually prefer that they oppose me and stride forward out of spite. If there is some way to utilize these jobs without waiting for SE to buff the living crap out of them, they'll be the ones to find it. Perhaps it's destructive, but I don't consider it a grave crime to lose people. Any who'd leave over my words would just as well leave when they finally start trying to party and hear the endless chorus of "Don't you have anything else?"

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.

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

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

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Originally Posted by Ketaru

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.

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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.

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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).

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Originally Posted by Numquam

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.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

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.

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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).

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.

"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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.