Please put more focus on end game class balance

[Camiie]

again like i said. you are all looking at this game wrong. this is why you are always unhappy and dont understand what S.E is doing.

You're right. I can't possibly comprehend the genius of treating entire jobs as though they are no more than highly situational pieces of gear. I can't comprehend the genius of taking a huge selling point of the game, the classic FF jobs that define the franchise, and reducing those jobs to useless window dressing. I can't comprehend the genius of disappointing longtime fans of the franchise who wanted to create their own character in the image of one of their favorites. I absolutely don't get it at all, so please explain to me the advantages of this brilliant strategy.

[AppropriateName5786]

You're right. I can't possibly comprehend the genius of treating entire jobs as though they are no more than highly situational pieces of gear. I can't comprehend the genius of taking a huge selling point of the game, the classic FF jobs that define the franchise, and reducing those jobs to useless window dressing. I can't comprehend the genius of disappointing longtime fans of the franchise who wanted to create their own character in the image of one of their favorites. I absolutely don't get it at all, so please explain to me the advantages of this brilliant strategy.

Your patience is commendable. I would have given up long ago with these people.

[Olor]

Signed. BST and BLU are my two favourite jobs. They have never been favoured outside of very niche things. I like and leveled bard too - but now I can't even use that either since the expectation is 3-4 songs or GTFO.

Glad to hear they are making a 3 song instrument that is easier to obtain than D.harp... cause would be nice if I could think about bothering with BRD again.

[Ritsuka]

I don't think Ochain and Aegis are overpowered.... they are "epic" weapons that do exactly what they were designed to do: mitigate physical and magical damage respectively.
This is perfectly in line with PLD, because PLD is the "classic" tank. A "classic" tank is one who mitigates damage, by taking 0 damage.
It's one of the 3 tank archetypes: classic, meat and blink. (classic = never damaged, meat = constant damage but constant healing, and blink = ... well... blinking the damage away.)

PLD is could also be considered a meat tank... but an ideally geared pld will be taking 0 dmg.
(even a non ideally geared one can do that too)

The problem specifically with RUN is twofold: (mind you this is with respect to RUN being an inverse PLD: major magic classic tanking, good-to-major phys tanking)
1) Greatsword.

Without shields... RUN's way to mitigate damage is purely by -DT gear and parry... for physical damage only anyways.... I think anyone who's actually played RUN can agree that it can tank magic damage ungodly well. (Though only for 1 element at a time... so... meh.)
-PDT caps at -50%, and Parry rate caps at 20%... meaning 80% of attacks on average will be unparried...
And RUN has no way to bypass this cap, as PLD does: Ochain's shield blocking and Burtang
However, this is very easy to be rectified.
And the key is RUN's fake-mythic...
Which not only have to be the equivalent to Burtang in terms of benefit... but also be the equivalent to Aegis and Ochain... at the same time.
Here is the current Burtang:

And here's the current shields:

Let's ignore the iLv stats and just focus on the augments.
RUN's fake mythic will need to have some amount of -PDT that is comparable to the -18% Burtang gives PLDs. I would vote for at least an even -20%... namely because RUN's -DT stats seem to... be 2/3rds the values PLDs get... Yet SE wants these two jobs to be interchangeable and equal? .... smh

• And while having it have a hard -DT that bypasses the cap would be better than just -PDT... It would never happen, but more importantly, RUN doesn't need the -MDT. It REALLY doesn't... NMs that would 1shot pretty much every job... even PLDs with Aegis... RUN laughs at... From my own experience... their super-ultra-mega-death moves... don't even break my SS... (again, single element tanking god = RUN)

• Enmity is nice and all... but Kaquljaan has taught me that MAB is a stat that MAJORLY boosts RUN's tanking ability... I would argue more so than +Enmity would because RUN doesn't maintain hate via cures and holding gained hate like a PLD does... it maintains hate from the constant additional hate massive damages from GSs give. So instead of a +enmity term, I would rather see a +MAB term... it doesn't even have to be very big either. Tunglmyrkvi agrees that it wouldn't even have to be greater than a piddly +10 thanks to the base damage a 119 GS would have.

• As stated in the previous bullet, RUN doesn't hold hate, it constantly generates more hate, so a buff like "reduce enmity loss from taking damage" is... just kinda meh on RUN... sure, it's helpful... kinda... but the sheer damage GSs afford RUN make it kinda... unnecessary. +enmity is better for RUN tanking than "reduces enmity loss from taking damage".

• And now we come to the shield's part in this GS. It's actually not the stats from Aegis and Ochain that need to be equivalently realized in RUN's fake mythic... it's their hidden effect: increases block rate, not applied to the 65% block rate cap. While Aegis' hidden buff is less substantial than Ochain's is (iirc) it's still there. And the RUN mythic would need a similar damage mitigating hidden effect on it... however... this effect would have to be MASSIVE compared to the rate increase from even Ochain... and this is because the Parry cap is 20%. Shields can block 65% of your attacks, but you can only parry 20% of your attacks. Either they need to give RUN a JT that lets it increase the parry rate to 65%, just wholesale increase the parry cap (never happen), or have RUN's fake mythic's hidden parry buff (as that is RUN's shield skill) be the equivalent to Ochain's +35% buff: in other words, +80% parry rate, bypasses cap. (IMO, the best route would be JT boost to 65% and then +35% like Ochain on the fake mythic)

• I know I said the stats on the shields aren't relevant/needed... but I kinda lied... sorta. "convert damage to MP"... SO GOOD for PLD... and SO GOOD for RUN too. It would not be bad if the fake mythic came with that ability in lieu of "reduces enmity loss from taking damage"... in fact, RUN kinda loves that effect far more than PLD ever will... which brings us to:

2) Refresh

Now I know what most people are thinking "RUN already has refresh?" and it does indeed....
But anyone who's ever used any body piece that isn't RUN's RF1... knows how much RUN hemorrhages MP.
If it weren't for things like Ethereal Earring and Flume Belt... RUN wouldn't be able to function at all.... and even then, those are more a bandaid rather than a real serviceable thing.

RUN needs its auto-refresh.
Just as PLD does.... and speaking of PLD, let's look at the two reasons why PLDs have little to no MP problems while RUN has 0 MP all the time:

1. Auto-Refresh JT: The current state of RUN at 99 is what PLD is before lv35. The MOMENT a PLD hits 35, all their MP issues fly out the window until the reach 75... and even then, it just becomes something that has to be thought about slightly... And once at 75, it ceases to be a problem because:
2. Chivalry: This merit ability alone could make PLD not need refresh gear. Shield Mastery + Ochain + Chivalry = infinite MP. And then you have 1MP/tic happening all the while on top of all that. And you don't even need Ochain for it either, it just makes PLD's MP even LESS of an issue.

It's really shocking how much RUN needs that 2MP/tic from the RF1 body piece... and I feel that it could even get by with 1MP/tic too... the 2MP is just more of a good thing.

And the reason for why RUN eats away it's MP like crazy is because of how it mitigates damage: through the constant reapplication of various enhancing magics.
That 22mp adds up VERY quickly.

And while I see what they did with Vivacious Pulse... It's very clear, at least to me, that it's intended to be the equivalent to PLD's Chivalry...
But... it requires dark runes to restore MP....
And as we all know... RUN tanks a single element of magic... meaning: if you're not fighting a light enemy where dark runes will reduce its light damage to nothing... you no longer have the ability to restore your MP. At least not without loosing your magical damage protection... as well as the demand to change all your runes... not once, but twice...
just to restore a little MP....
As a famous black woman once said:
So basically.... Vivacious Pulse is much like any RUN JSE that has -PDT... "it's like PLD's ability/gear... just at 2/3 the usefulness/worth/value/goodness."

If they adjust what I have outlined here... Then RUN really can be interchangeable (mostly) with PLD, as is their constant refrain telling us that that's their wish.

Make the fake mythic have abilities in line with what I said here... (what I would do is: -20%PDT, overcap; +10~15MAB; "enhances rune enhancement effect"; hidden:+35~80% overcap parry rate... the rune enchantment effect lets you hold 1 more rune... cause mythics do that sort of thing... and it might ease up on the need to change all three runes to dark to get some mp back.)
And make the empyrean body have both 1-2MP/tic refresh AND at least -8%PDT... Why does PLD's relic body clock out 9% of all damage... but RUN's fake relic body only nulls 6%? These are not equal things... if anything RUN's gear should have MORE -PDT than PLD's on account of PLD's gear all has much higher DEF... plus shields.

EDIT: Oops. Forgot to point out, "bluh bluh bluh I don't want to have to make a mythic to be good bluh bluh bluh"... well if the fake relic set is any indication... RUN's fake mythic is gonna be so easily obtained... it could hardly be called "mythic".

Rune hasn't even been out a year yet its still pretty new and nobody knows what it can truely do yet. Give it more time it be one year tho sometime this month tho ^^

[Ravenmore]

its difficult yes, but its not impossible. I agree with the OP some things need nerfing and some things need to go away:

Things that need to go away:
- BRD COR rotations, make it so buffs wear instantly off when going out of PT
- Pets takeing insane amounts of damage, I can understand their concern of makeing Pet Jobs too OP with this, being able to solo things: simple fix, transfer half of pets enmity allways to the master, for every action/dmg the pet does. But let the pet survive seriously...
- Allow Pets to recieve buffs
- Give RDM and SCH cure V, allow Temper, Gain and barspells to be cast on other PT members, make Adloqium of SCH more potent scaleing with enhancing skill to 5 Regain/Tic, up RDMs magic skill grades a bit, give RDM a unique Fastcast spell that enhances FastCast. There 3 Healer with different buffs and specialities to offer.
- Reduce bloodpacts recast maximum to 15 sec, while makeing so that pet damage/enmity is transfered half over to SMN. More dynamic and damaging job
- up magic damage to be even more competetiv then melee damage
- Remove JA delay
- Nerf Aegis , ESPECIALLY AEGIS
- Equalize BRD COR GEO: Give COR and GEOS haste rolls/geospells and a scherzo roll/geospell, have luopans not die fast, make indispells castable to other PT members, make luopans able to follow PT members.

I am sure the list would go on, thats what jumped my mind first

The no brd rotations would kill off 2 song brd totally. Right now you can get away with one 2 song brd in a alliance or even two of them if you have a good LS but take away the rotations the demand for the 4 song brds will increase. The rest of your post solves nothing as well or would make things worse for other jobs again not fixing the core issue.

[Tennotsukai]

Wow, a nerf I actually agree with...getting rid of brd rotations.

[Damane]

The no brd rotations would kill off 2 song brd totally. Right now you can get away with one 2 song brd in a alliance or even two of them if you have a good LS but take away the rotations the demand for the 4 song brds will increase. The rest of your post solves nothing as well or would make things worse for other jobs again not fixing the core issue.

brd/cor rotation nerf would actually fix more. 2 song bards allready dont get accepted, so the nerf wouldnt change anything at all, it actually would help people to think outside of the box and maybe incorporate other jobs in their setup. Because you know you can buff a ally indirectly by debuffing the mob with other jobs. Thf has feint, DNCs has steps, Angon etc. Blu debuffs, list goes on.

And you stated not why the rest of my post would make things worse. I would rather have some enmity as a pet job, but be able to keep my pet alive and buffed and thus makeing it possible to contribute to some harder fights stuff.

[Kincard]

Unfortunately, I think this is a total pipe-dream, partly because of the player base. If the jobs aren't exactly equal, there will be those who want only the best, no matter how small the difference. If one job does 10,000 dmg over the length of the fight, but another job does 9990 dmg, they won't want the weaker job. I mean, that 10 point difference might make the battle last a minute longer. Seems people only care about having the quickest, safest, and easiest path to a win and don't even want to try something different.

Yeah sadly some in the community take efficiency to the point of absurdity. And just as in a game of Telephone, the info that there is a slight DPS difference between jobs eventually morphs into that slightly weaker job becoming considered totally worthless under all conditions.

There is already an objective way of measuring job performance, and classes that are considered total crap (THF, DNC, NIN, list goes on) simple deal less damage, and it's not a case of "oh it's only slightly less, we'll clear the content anyway"- a perfectly geared NIN is literally dealing like 60% of the damage a MNK is putting out. There's simply no way to argue against such an absurd gap.

It's true there will always be people obsessed with efficiency, but that's pretty exhaustive. The majority of people playing XIV don't care if you take whatever mixture of MNK, BLM, DRG, SMN, or BRD because you'll still be able to clear the content with more or less the same effort- FYI, BRDs do something like 15% less damage than the melee jobs do in that game right now (under ideal conditions). If FFXI had a Duty Finder, you know the dungeon would be abandoned the instant someone zoned in and saw a NIN tank, a THF DPS, or a SMN as sole support.

[Ravenmore]

brd/cor rotation nerf would actually fix more. 2 song bards allready dont get accepted, so the nerf wouldnt change anything at all, it actually would help people to think outside of the box and maybe incorporate other jobs in their setup. Because you know you can buff a ally indirectly by debuffing the mob with other jobs. Thf has feint, DNCs has steps, Angon etc. Blu debuffs, list goes on.

And you stated not why the rest of my post would make things worse. I would rather have some enmity as a pet job, but be able to keep my pet alive and buffed and thus makeing it possible to contribute to some harder fights stuff.

Blu debuffs suck and never stick on anything worth casting them on trust me been playing blu for years and giving up traits for crappy debuffs that either mobs are flat out immune too or you need ES to land is not worth it, dnc doesn't add enough dmg to 6 man or 18 man content to take with how it is now and everything dnc main offers that a party would want /dnc (haste samba even the weaken sub version) gets same with it's debuffs. Angon is ok but on any fight that dds have to go /nin the drgs gets the short end of the stick and taking another mnk or nin main would be better. The main reason to take a thf is TH, before they messed with feint merits it used to be a really nice debuff you could keep up full time now its not as useful, again TH is the sole reason to take a thf. Really if debuffing was effective you would see more of it but you don't cause mobs are immune or highly resistant.

[Camiie]

There is already an objective way of measuring job performance, and classes that are considered total crap (THF, DNC, NIN, list goes on) simple deal less damage, and it's not a case of "oh it's only slightly less, we'll clear the content anyway"- a perfectly geared NIN is literally dealing like 60% of the damage a MNK is putting out. There's simply no way to argue against such an absurd gap.

What about the DD that aren't MNK? Some are not nearly as far behind it as THF DNC and NIN are, yet they may as well be. It's all or nothing with some people. Get the best or just don't go, even if winning without the best is entirely possible.

It's true there will always be people obsessed with efficiency, but that's pretty exhaustive. The majority of people playing XIV don't care if you take whatever mixture of MNK, BLM, DRG, SMN, or BRD because you'll still be able to clear the content with more or less the same effort- FYI, BRDs do something like 15% less damage than the melee jobs do in that game right now (under ideal conditions). If FFXI had a Duty Finder, you know the dungeon would be abandoned the instant someone zoned in and saw a NIN tank, a THF DPS, or a SMN as sole support.

And this is what needs to change.