Job balancing?

[detlef]

MNK still owns Abyssea blue procs!

[OmnysValefor]

Name one thing, ONE THING, that MNK is good at. Something folks actually care about.

LOL.

Monk farms mata mata like nobody's business!

Great example with monk. Anything I could name would seem far-reaching. Old things that don't matter or that anything can do, but that was kinda my point. If you expand the scope from bosses to "things people do at level cap", then job balance is okay. RDM/NIN is still a strong soloer, Bard is still great in melee-oriented CP parties, SAM self-skillchains faster than anyone else.

But none of that matters. What matters is that a handful of jobs are desirable at content people want to go to.

It would even be more tolerable if it was one or two jobs that were undesirable and not 10~ (estimate). It's gone from oversight to they just aren't interested in changing the current state.

[Catmato]

Name one thing, ONE THING, that MNK is good at. Something folks actually care about.

Punchin' stuff.

[Urthdigger]

Great example with monk. Anything I could name would seem far-reaching. Old things that don't matter or that anything can do, but that was kinda my point. If you expand the scope from bosses to "things people do at level cap", then job balance is okay. RDM/NIN is still a strong soloer, Bard is still great in melee-oriented CP parties, SAM self-skillchains faster than anyone else.

When's the last time you've seen someone want melee even for a CP party? Even if you expand the scope from bosses to things people do at level cap, job balance is abysmal. They can't participate in any content that earns even semi-decent gear, they can't cp (which is basically like if a pre-99 job weren't allowed to xp), literally the only thing melee can do is putz their way through content that serves absolutely no purpose besides something to do when you're super bored.

A majority of the jobs in the game are in the same boat as Lucky Roll. That is not "okay."

[OmnysValefor]

When's the last time you've seen someone want melee even for a CP party? Even if you expand the scope from bosses to things people do at level cap, job balance is abysmal. They can't participate in any content that earns even semi-decent gear, they can't cp (which is basically like if a pre-99 job weren't allowed to xp), literally the only thing melee can do is putz their way through content that serves absolutely no purpose besides something to do when you're super bored.

A majority of the jobs in the game are in the same boat as Lucky Roll. That is not "okay."

Couple of things:

First, You seem to be taking my prior defense of 'job balance ("if we expand things to what people do at level-cap...") as a serious defense. It was not. It was facetious, and while factually true, a bit sarcastic.

Second, I usually invite one melee to CP, and I don't care what job it is as long as they have sufficient accuracy (easy with jse weapon and basic 119 gear, maybe food) and can fight into Light or Darkness. It might be a blu, sam, mnk. I don't honestly care. As I pointed out earlier in the thread, I've found that buffing one good nuker in a melee oriented CP party (acumen/malaise, or haste/malaise) increases the speed more than buffing the melee. Very very sad. Says nothing about the people playing the jobs and everything about the balance. There may be some OP melee (as far as numbers they can put out), but I've still yet to see a legit 99k CDC, especially reliably so. I know people that love to setup melee oriented CP parties, but to be honest: I hate those. They're slow, CP is boring (I've tried to eliminate the crab threat. I've killed thousands, but they keep coming.) So I generally decline to go.

Yeah, that's the truth about me: As much as I wish balance was better in this game, I refuse to struggle when there are more sensible methods.

One thing I've desired for a really long time is endgame activity that gave like a whole job point per kill! Crabs, which die in 15 seconds give this during campaign, why do bosses give a fraction. That's one thing I miss about abyssea: Experience points, and even gil (via cruor or good drops), became a by-product of end-game.

---

Edit: Melee need a lot of love in this game. They take all the risk, must put in all the effort, and suffer incomparably. People use mages because mages put out as-good, if not better damage, have less gearing-demands (sc'ing scholars, healing scholars, geomancers, white mages). I live within the confines of the current game design, it doesn't mean I like it.

And also, while I joked earlier in the thread about Matamata, I think that title would go to BLU lol.

[Stompa]

I'm posting this in response to the Jobmaster unfairness feels earlier in this thread. I think WAR Gifts should not have been tiers of "Fencer" bonuses, but tiers of "2-handed accuracy / wsacc / delay" bonuses.

WAR's primary weapon is Great Axe. Our Oboro JSE weapon is Great Axe, with the nice accuracy bonus. All of our primary RMEs are Great Axes.

WAR can not equip any RME swords, even though "Fencer" means a "swordfighter" in historical terms.

So I do wish that Jobmaster Gifts for WAR, had focused on 2-handed weapons.

With the Jobmaster "Fencer" bonuses, and the mad damage of Savage Blade, my WAR does a lot more damage with swords than with Great Axes. So if I joined a group on my Jobmaster WAR, they would not want me to use Great Axe, even though it is my job's primary weapon.

I have completed RME swords for my RDM, but can not equip them on my WAR. People say "oh use an axe!" but I don't want to use an axe, I want to use Great Axes, because they are WAR's primary weapon. If I had to use a sword, I would prefer to use my RME swords on my WAR, instead of Unity swords. Failing that, I just use my Great Axe, and get further rejected and isolated from group events!

Maybe one day, SE will go back on their "no more Jobpoints tiers after 2100!" and will add some more tiers / more gifts, and will add WAR Gifts for 2-handed weapons, instead of focusing all the WAR Gifts on 1-handed weapons.

[Olor]

I wish they would just take fencer out of the game and give WAR and BST something better. Or does PLD have it? I mean if PLD has it they can keep it but it is literally the MOST useless thing for WAR and BST

Wait, people want WAR to use swords now? For serious?

[detlef]

WAR's primary weapon is Great Axe. Our Oboro JSE weapon is Great Axe, with the nice accuracy bonus. All of our primary RMEs are Great Axes.

WAR can not equip any RME swords, even though "Fencer" means a "swordfighter" in historical terms.

Onion Sword says working as intended.

[OmnysValefor]

PLD doesn't get fencer. It's beyond silly that PLD and RDM don't get it (and I'm generally not a fan of melee RDM).

BST doesn't need it, you're usually dual-wielding or often swapping weapons (charmer's merlin)

WAR should get something that applies to all weapon types, even if it was only ws damage +10%. The theme of the class is proficiency in weapons.

[Ulth]

PLD doesn't get fencer. It's beyond silly that PLD and RDM don't get it (and I'm generally not a fan of melee RDM).

BST doesn't need it, you're usually dual-wielding or often swapping weapons (charmer's merlin)

WAR should get something that applies to all weapon types, even if it was only ws damage +10%. The theme of the class is proficiency in weapons.

Want to know something even more silly? Bards get fencer, and paladins don't.