Job balancing?

[Hercule]

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

[Shyles]

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.

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.

[OmnysValefor]

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.

[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.

[Secondplanet]

"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.

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.

[Kensagaku]

"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.

I'm sorry, but while I am happy to see that other people are making attempts to be inclusive, you're an outlier, not a constant. In the majority of pickup groups, you won't see a melee because it's not the "safe" strategy. And in all honesty, on anything modestly reasonable, they're not 100% wrong, as sad as it is, and I say that as an AG Mythic DRG.

Let's just pick a few Reisenjima t2s; the Harpeia Strophadia spams AoE Sleep + unremovable Paralyze, AoE Silence and unremovable Plague, AoE Encumberance and Muddle (both unremovable), and high-damage AoE that can wipe out anyone not wearing proper DT gear, especially since the same mob can wipe buffs and it's risky to run your WHM in there to re-cast Shellra/Protectra. But this is one example, let's move to another; ol' Ironside. Every attack is AoE and comes with Bind, Stun, or Amnesia. Has moves like Arm Cannon (AoE damage + HP/MP down, meaning next attack may be your last), Seismic Impact (AoE damage + Slow/Terror), and Eradicator (AoE Weakness), all of which are easily avoided simply by being out of range, which is why people prefer this strategy.

And this isn't even getting to the harder content, where acc requirements become more and more strenuous for melee to keep up with, where you have to have many more support than mage strategies just to ensure they hit. And then when HP scaling comes into play, that means that all that extra support is a detriment that is going to drag you down in the end because they're adding more HP that you're not meeting by adding these extra people. This is why the idea of melee is undesirable; mobs do massive AoE damage and spam multiple enfeebles, their evasion is through the roof, and to even assure you have a fighting chance due to the disparity between mages standing safe and only needing macc on cast while you need to have all the acc in the world, you need extra support to buff up your accuracy along with the monster's HP.

Do I wish we could bring back more melee strategies? Of course. DRG is my favorite job by a long shot, and I'd love to see it in more content. I even AG'd my Ryunohige, so I definitely want to use it. Do I want to see more job inclusion? Definitely! I played BST and PUP and BLU back before they were bandwagoned (thankfully PUP not nearly as much) and enjoyed the chances I got included into a party, and loved it more when they were more accepted. But right now, in a system where mages are highly favored due to magic burst potential and safe positioning as opposed to melee buffing the enemy's HP by getting enough support to be viable on them, it's just not plausible.

[OmnysValefor]

It's baffling to me that people can't observe the lopsided nature to the synergy of effective strategies in endgame. I've explained it before, several times, but whatever.

Noone needed to "tell me" that GEO, being a gimpy blm with super buffs, works its best magic (lol) in a party with other elemental magic users, especially when another one of those jobs can create the skillchains that all 4 (counting RDM) of those jobs can work with.

You can bring melee and leave them buffless, or try to split buffs between the two, or bring two support jobs (two geomancers usually). You can have one geo riding vex/attune, or you can bring a third GEO. You can wait out their amnesia, inconveniently timed stuns, terrors, poorly timed paralyzes (or just slow-reacting WHMs). You can deal with the fact that sometimes they'll die and nothing could have saved them, and you can wait on their weakness. You can wait for the melee to struggle with what-frequently-feels like impossible-to-meet accuracy demands as well, especially in a lowman setting especially if you have a guy that doesn't have that many clears (which again, clears don't seem as vital to mages).

While you're waiting on these things, you can come to the forums and be mad at players like me for being honest, or you can admit that the imbalance is severely in favor of mages, on many fronts, and that maybe something needs to be done about it.

Here you go SecondPlanet, here's a few Darknesses. They work either way, hence the <>

Geirskogul <> Eclipse Bite
Geirskogul <> Mountain Buster
Impulse Drive <> Rush
Impulse Drive <> Spinning Dive
Stardiver <> Rush
Stardiver <> Spinning Dive

[Helldemon]

You can wait for the melee to struggle with what-frequently-feels like impossible-to-meet accuracy demands as well, especially in a lowman setting especially if you have a guy that doesn't have that many clears (which again, clears don't seem as vital to mages).

One of the NM's, I think in reisen needs 1900 acc to cap according to bg-wiki... That's what, possibly several hundred million spent in acc gear, job master, and 3 or maybe even 4 support jobs throwing acc buffs on one melee job just to have decent acc.

[Secondplanet]

Here you go SecondPlanet, here's a few Darknesses. They work either way, hence the <>

Thanks for the awesome list but my biggest issue is that we have the timing for light down its just darks timing for the weaponskill seems a little off for the animation cues i've often used.

[Ketaru]

It's baffling to me that people can't observe the lopsided nature to the synergy of effective strategies in endgame. I've explained it before, several times, but whatever.

It's from lack of clarity by what we mean by relevant content. When I'm talking about what ought to be considered the benchmark, I'm using examples a little higher, like Escha Zi'tah T3, Escha Ru'Aun T3, Reisenjima T2+, the third battle of Sinister Reign, just to name a few. Regular Ambuscade, even on Very Difficult, seems deliberately scaled compared to some to examples and are generally not what I'm talking about. In fact, I'd say Ambuscade is generally very lenient with respect to what jobs are viable.

Melee, for example, might be very viable against most T1 Escha mobs. But that seems like a bit of a weightless consideration when you consider that these are soloable by several jobs.