[dev1289] Job Adjustments

[detlef]

BST was not the issue here. BST was fine for years. BST did not change. The content changed, and then BST became a problem. Ergo, it is the content's fault, or, more directly, the community.

You sure BST didn't change? Didn't SE change the way Ready worked? What about Run Wild, that's fairly recent isn't it? Did BST always have pets that did strong magical AoE attacks or a powerful evasion down effect? Stout Servant didn't exist at the 75 cap. Isn't Unleash super powerful?

Look, I obviously am no BST expert but they've been steadily building BST up for awhile including some radical improvements that make the job very powerful. The job has evolved quite a bit without grabbing the limelight until recently. Nobody cared when you were just attacking with CC but the pets have gotten much stronger and varied.

With that said, blaming the content is reasonable too because it's made BST look much more attractive compared to melee jobs.

[machini]

You sure BST didn't change? Didn't SE change the way Ready worked? What about Run Wild, that's fairly recent isn't it? Did BST always have pets that did strong magical AoE attacks or a powerful evasion down effect? Stout Servant didn't exist at the 75 cap. Isn't Unleash super powerful?

Look, I obviously am no BST expert but they've been steadily building BST up for awhile including some radical improvements that make the job very powerful. The job has evolved quite a bit without grabbing the limelight until recently. Nobody cared when you were just attacking with CC but the pets have gotten much stronger and varied.

With that said, blaming the content is reasonable too because it's made BST look much more attractive compared to melee jobs.

There are people who have complained directly to me that it's unfair that a DNC can outdamage them, despite there being several hundred million gil between how much I have spent on gear compared to them.

No job has remained the same since release. And BST did not change from what it was then to what it is now overnight. What did happen, more or less overnight, was people suddenly started demanding BST spam for absolutely everything and anything. Which is the fault of the community, for being unable or unwilling to do other things, and the fault of the content, for making pet spam the most attractive option by far for most people due to massive AoE.

When you can get someone who can do self double darkness reliably, and repeatedly, back to back to back to back as long as they are not stunned, paralyzed, petrified, terrored, or dead (which are all things that will screw BST pets over, too), with their ATT buffed through the roof so that they're at capped ATT/DEF ratio, they are going to do an absolute shit ton of damage. More than a single BST pet will do. The BSTs, however, only need 1 buffer and no healer, or needed no healer, whereas you'd need 2-4 non-DDs in the other party, depending on exact composition. An RDM/WHM and a GEO/WHM, if the two have decent cure potency and fast cast, can suffice in a lot of situations. In situations where they can't the BST pets are generally going to be just as screwed. Now throw in 3-4 Dual Wield DDs, all at attack speed cap, spamming hard-hitting WSes back to back to back, specifically WSes that will chain with each other just in case the timing is works out through the spam, and you're going to get some pretty massive damage.

Sometimes more DDs doesn't actually translate into more damage (but still adds more people the mob might want to kill before attacking the healer/WHM), because massive amounts of damage can be done via skillchains. Evisceration -> Shark Bite -> Pyrrhic Kleos/Rudra's Storm(/Mordant Rime, I guess) -> Evisceration -> Rudra's Storm can do an awful lot of damage from the skillchain damage, which can sometimes be more damage than multiple people just spamming WSes, or even trying to chain together, depending on exactly how much skillchain bonus the person or persons executing those WSes have.

One can make an argument that BST was too safe compared to other jobs, although I think it's a particularly weak argument, given the whole "either the pet or the master is functional, and the pet being function often means the master is in non-item level gear and no -DT gear", but the same argument goes for an A/O PLD in reforge AF/Relic/Empy, with a WHM standing by. No one complains that the PLD, with 100s of millions of gil in gear, with a person supporting them is too survivable, but people were levying the same charge against a BST with someone supporting them. One requires a WHM, the other a COR, but I've seen several PLDs who, except for the need to have paralysis and petrify removed for them, don't actually need a WHM to keep them alive. And, again, paralysis and petrify are things that completely screw over a BST, too.

An awful lot of this 'problem' seems to be a very vocal minority of people who are composed of the following two groups: People who have no idea how BST works, how much money is involved in getting it well geared, and are upset that BSTs do better than them; and certain people who constantly complain when anyone does better than their already strong-to-OP pet (as in favorite) job.

There are a very few people who are actually reasonable in saying that, yes, something should be done to rectify this situation, but that that 'something' should not be 'alter BST so that it becomes unviable in much of the content.'