Game/Job balance suggestions

[CrAZYVIC]

This almost made me fall out of my chair laughing. You should get out of your mog house more.

Yeah you are right. The game its fine

Its fine Geo made obsolete RDM, BRD and COR for support
iTs fine people use BLM - SCH - GEO to kill content LV135 +
Its fine mele jobs get one shoted on -50% damage taken reduction gear on content LV135+
Its fine since Rudra's storm update the two-handers, Ranger, MNK are obsolete jobs
Its fine the people shout for BLU only no matter if you have a mythic WAR, SAM or DRK.

So i hope square enix delay this fix for two hander jobs 2 or 3 years. So we can go down of 30k players to 5k anyways FF14 have nearly 800k players so the future of FF11 can go to the hell right? np!

[Shyles]

If a Tizona/Almace AG BLU go serious, will trash out any DPS you put in front of him. well not even a BLU a Murgeis/Almace AG RDM can do the same. Not amount of Skills can compesate this. beat with 5.0 FTP vs 10/14 FTP at 1000%p Lol

This almost made me fall out of my chair laughing. You should get out of your mog house more.

All I can say is that I also don't agree with Crazy in regards to BLU. Just speaking from my perspective, I am a Dancer main and since the AG III update, I have yet to be out-damaged let alone "trashed out" by a BLU. Maybe I just haven't seen any truly good BLUs. The closest time was in an incursion run, and a mythic BLU was about even with me (CDC and PK ws spamga). I have, however been beaten in dps pretty handily by certain Ninjas, Dark Knights, and a Warriors. Those people were also very well geared and knew their jobs very well.

Also fTP isn't necessarily everything in terms of DPS balance. For example, if I am allowed to either self-skillchain, or close skillchains, then a Blue Mage falls way behind because Dancers can get 31% skillchain bonus without sacrificing WS gear, and can even cap SCB if they wanted to. CDC spam will cause problems if it doesn't play well with other SC properties in the party.

At this stage in the game, many melee jobs are capable of dealing very impressive damage with the right amount of dedication, proper gearing and homework. I will agree that Mythic BLUs are good, but they are not that far ahead other jobs anymore (if at all), and very few of the BLU population will actually make their mythic or empy. Honestly, you are more likely to find a 2100 JP BLU in Rawhide gear that only know how to spam CDC and interrupt skillchains..

So if we're going to compare melee damage balance, I think most melee jobs are in a good spot from what I've seen. The real imbalance though is between melee damage and magic damage. Things like enmity control, accuracy, AoE status effects, and damage taken, and immanence stealing our jobs. At least some of that is being addressed in the next update, so I'm happy.

[Urmom]

Curse (-hp) isn't happening,

This one actually might be done if the value isn't too high. It's been awhile since it's been worth using but the slug pet has a -10% hp move that worked on nms a fair amount

[Rydal]

I think this is the clash with RDM. It is a jack of all trades, but different RDMs want RDM to be a master of different aspects and some RDMs want to be a master of all aspects. RDM is a "master" of enfeebling aside from resists/immunities.

Is any other job a master of two aspects? As solid as PLD, BLU, WHM, SCH, GEO, BLM are, they're still average or worse at secondary roles. SCH being kind of the exception, maybe. BLU is an acceptable tank, but RUN and PLD do it better.

The problem with RDM being a debuffing "master" is that it actually isn't. Who can stand up to a WHM when it comes to healing? A try-hard SCH maybe but otherwise no one. Who can out nuke BLM? Try-hard RDM, GEO, SCH, BLU but again not really when it comes to magic bursting. PLD, RUN and PUP pretty much corner the tanking market, with both RUN and PUP being able to DD and magic burst with some success. Hell, even BLM can tank decently now with Mana Wall (I saw a BLM hold Tojil for at least 7 minutes before dying with minimal outside support). When was the last time anyone shouted for a RDM for debuffing? Most of the spells are either worthless in the endgame or can be used by any other job with equal success. RDM's bread and butter Paralyze II isn't even potent enough to affect high level NMs to the point that they'd be considered in a party slot over SCH or GEO. Distract and Frazzle II/III, Addle I/II and Inundation are all great debuffs (I wish they added more unique ones like this) but none warrant a dedicated slot in an Escha or Reisenjima party. Aside from those and Haste/Refresh II(and III), RDM's buffs/debuffs are pretty much covered by subbing the job or are obtained naturally from other jobs or gotten in other (better) ways.

SCH is an interesting job. It masters healing (both directly through targeted cures and indirectly through Regen 5 which WHM can't do). It masters damage dealing with magic. It's buffing is on par with RDM minus a few unique spells on both sides (Regain, Regen, Enmity and AoE support on SCH, Refresh, Haste, a few stat debuffs on RDM). It's Dark magic is up there with BLM and GEO (Aspir III, best user of Stun). They don't need to melee because they can skillchain with JAs (ridiculous). SCH single-handedly outjobs most other jobs and the gear it is on fully supports all of this. BLU can easily switch from nuking to melee effectively, tank decently, and also heal and support to a decent degree (Mighty Guard is absolutely ridiculously good and there are spells like Diamondhide and White Wind). How is it that these jobs can perform well in multiple roles, sometimes outperforming jobs more suited to those roles, but RDM has to multi task with inferior, non-unique options. Basically, why bring RDM when SCH can do all that and more? BLU can do the same while also out DDing RDM and providing unique supports.

Neat ideas, but SE would make the bosses immune to the best ones. They know how absurdly OP Amnesia is, they're not going to let players cast it on any remotely worthwhile boss. Curse (-hp) isn't happening, curse (gravity) might happen but there's little point and curse (zombie) might happen but the usage for that is highly highly situational and the best bosses for it would be immune to the effect.

How would Silence II even work?

I was just throwing out ideas that made sense and that already exist in-game. Idk what Silence II would do really... Maybe Disease would be good too. But as long as they don't make all the NMs completely immune to the debuffs, they'd be exceedingly helpful. Stymie+Saboteur Amnesia? Stop could be a new way to Stun bosses. RDM gets access to debuffs that are almost never resisted (Dia, Bio, Inundation), how about a DoT spell that depletes enemy TP? An Addle-like spell that works on physical/TP attacks- reducing accuracy and making charge times for TP moves longer (and thus, easier to stun/stop/run away from).

As for buffing RDM in the buff/debuff department, attention in that regard should go to Bard first.

RDM and BRD have completely different buffs and debuffs. Songs and magic spells are not mutually exclusive.

I feel like RDM is as good as it ever was (well, close) except that bosses are immune/highly resistant to debuffs or the debuffs just aren't needed. Who cares if you can silence/paralyze Thundaga V when it's only going to hit the PLD and only going to hit him for less than 100 anyway.

Exactly my point. If debuffs aren't needed, then RDM isn't needed. Yes, RDM can nuke, heal, support, but other jobs can do that better, almost to the point that they will refuse to bring a RDM in place of say a WHM or BLM or GEO in most fights. If RDM got debuffs/buffs that help kill a dangerous NM faster or stops TP moves effectively or makes dangerous, unavoidable moves/spells more manageable, then they'd be seen in parties more than a backup healer or a wtf r u doing?! frontliner that has to outgear everyone else to do so.

Hell, give me Reflect and Dualcast, maybe Poison III and IV, fix Stymie, and give us more gear options and I'll shut up.

[Hyrist]

Poison's not going to matter, and how are you going to implement Reflect, most any spell that matters for anything would be AoE anyways, and on the NMs that matter, most of that magic damage is TP moves that reflect wouldn't affect.

Dualcast is a pointless cooldown unless you're trying to squeeze more damage into a skillchain window, and we already have both Spontaneity and Chainspell for these things, so giving us ANOTHER version of pretty much the same concept (more casting in the same window of time) likely isn't going to happen.

Most jobs can't do the Heal, Nuke, Support, Frontline stuff all at once, even Red Mage has troubles performing at its peak with all of them at a time, but Red Mage has some of the smoothest transitions to these because most if it is gear related. No switching form Dark Arts to Light arts to just cast cure. We can skillchain AND MB to joint effectiveness. (Though Nuking and Melee compete for main weapon support, damage wise.) This is often overlooked in usefullness but many habitual RDMs (The ones that overgear the group, as you so put it) tend to carve their own way into a party. And when one of these drops off, they're still serviceable in the other parts if they keep gearing. Personally it's that versatility that keeps RDM interesting for me.

What I keep hearing is that people want an easy way to placate an efficiency obsessed meta mentality and I honestly don't think there is one without making Red Mage utterly broken. You're asking to compete with unresistant debuffs, uninterruptible AoE buffs for both magic and melee selectively, Skillchains without TP feed and THE heaviest hitting Melees, Healers, and Nukers all at once - with a gimick - something that would be invaluable to every party every time.

The only two things we don't already have our hands in is assisting the damage output of Mages, and a direct impact on the action of TP moves themselves. The idea of an 'Addle' for TP moves is actually good, regardless of whether or not stun resistance is increased for it. Because it will give players time to flee distance and/or equip damage down gear. However I would picture the scaling on that to be a pretty harsh as far as dMND demands go in order to make Red Mages work for the impact.

The other would be an unresistant 'Dia' for Mages, heck, make a 'Bio' that also conflicts with the first spell and we'll complete the set. Problem is, that will literally give us a tool for every situation. Will SE be ok with that? I don't think so - but if we are closing the net in our debuffs to make us invaluable, there's a clear answer.

[Rooj]

Poison's not going to matter

I disagree. Poison 2 does well over 100 per tick, which may not sound like much, but it casts instantly and doesn't feed the mob TP. A higher tier of this is very welcome.

RDM is mostly fine. The only real problem with it is that it can do too much, and the average player can't really handle all of that at once. Most people prefer simpler jobs with very specific and limited roles. With so few people playing RDM these days, many players don't even comprehend what a RDM can do in their party.

I have plenty of ideas for RDM, but none of it would ever be implemented. At this point it's better to expect modifications to existing mechanics and abilities, rather than new additions. Personally what I'd love to see is the removal of merit cap on job specific categories. Let us have it all. And then make Dia and Bio stack. I've read many complaints about how melees are being punished in a lot of end-game content at the moment, but I wonder if anyone has tried throwing defensive things out like Bio 3? Probably not, since no one has it merited.

[OmnysValefor]

The problem with RDM being a debuffing "master" is that it actually isn't.

Just because debuffs are irrelevant doesn't mean that RDM isn't the best debuffer for traditional debuffs. Dia III's 15% doesn't compare to Frailty's defense-down, and likewise for Bio III/Wilt's attack down and RDM offers nothing to really compare with Acumen/Malaise.

The irony actually is that the 15% effect of Dia/Bio III is right in line with a 900 skill GEO (without Dunna or Idris). Maybe a weapon, at least like Dunna, would be good for RDM.

That said, I'd still say RDM is the better debuffer, it's just that content really doesn't need them. If you have the free-spot, Frazzle III is nice, but not a necessity.

I mean, I've played PLD for years.. when it was at its highest and at its lowest. Durying late aby/voidwatch/early adoulin, when PLD couldn't hold hate, it was still probably the best tank in the game. That's kind of where RDM is. It's still the best debuffer, its debuffs just aren't needed.

SCH is an interesting job. It masters healing (both directly through targeted cures and indirectly through Regen 5 which WHM can't do).

I find that WHM is generally preferrable to SCH. Depending on the fight, we might have the SCH dip into light arts for a second and give us a potent Regen but SCH is well designed in that it can't flip back and forth throughout a fight effectively and performs subpar at the role that opposes the Arts its using (Dark Arts makes for a sucky healer, etc).

BLU cannot "easily" switch from melee to nuking effectively. There's a 1m cd on the switch and on hard content, you'll find missing the traits sucks. While not necessary, nuking effectively on blu means using different weapons than your melee weapons. Good blus make decisions, what spells and traits they need, which ones they'll sacrifice. I'll give you that BLU is in a better spot than any other melee right now. BLU magic also doesn't burst without Burst Affinity and runs into some m.acc issues on high content unless you're geared for it. BLU is not an incompetent nuker, but it's by no means competition for BLM, SCH, RDM or GEO. However, the hybrid elemental spells it gets are very nice for clearing adds and the job is quite tankable while clearing adds.

I have tanked on blu (nothing too serious) but as much of that is a good -DT set as it is anything else. There are some blu spells with great-enmity but these aren't spells that I usually have set. There's nothing that my blu has tanked that I didn't think a "real tank" wouldn't probably be better for.

I wouldn't mind SE giving RDM stances like Scholar or something akin to BLU spellsets/points (though that would require an absurd overhaul of the job, rendering the point moot) but a lot of players seem to want RDM to just be able to excel at many things or everything at no cost to performance. The current design of RDM means that, short of subjob, it's an /equipset away from excelling at a different role.

I was just throwing out ideas that made sense and that already exist in-game. Idk what Silence II would do really... Maybe Disease would be good too. But as long as they don't make all the NMs completely immune to the debuffs, they'd be exceedingly helpful. Stymie+Saboteur Amnesia? Stop could be a new way to Stun bosses. RDM gets access to debuffs that are almost never resisted (Dia, Bio, Inundation), how about a DoT spell that depletes enemy TP? An Addle-like spell that works on physical/TP attacks- reducing accuracy and making charge times for TP moves longer (and thus, easier to stun/stop/run away from).

Again, neat ideas but considering that so much is immune/nearly immune to basic staple debuffs, I don't see SE giving more-worthwhile debuffs actual use. They also have to create content and a meta-balance that makes melee worth bringing and makes RDM worth taking. Unless the TP moves can kill the tank, a TP-plague wouldn't be considered necessary on a lot of bosses.

RDM and BRD have completely different buffs and debuffs. Songs and magic spells are not mutually exclusive.

Agreed, but I think BRD's buffs need some love before RDM's buff spells get some. People need a reason to bring Bard again.

[Hyrist]

On the subject of modifying existing mechanics. Tie Magical Defense down to Dia, and Magical Attack down to Bio (and their respective higher tiers). You can add the TP move delay to Addle itself or tack it onto Slow and give that old spell some love, no need to add onto the spell list when we have plenty of existing spells to work with.

Oh, and small correction.

Dia III's 15% doesn't compare to Frailty's defense-down

It doesn't need to. It stacks. Also stacks with Traditional defense down like Frightful Roar. Same thing with Bio and Attack down.

I find that people are too focused on what their one individual performances can be and less on what some stacked support can do for everyone involved. This leads to lapses in knowledge regarding these things.

[OmnysValefor]

On the subject of modifying existing mechanics. Tie Magical Defense down to Dia, and Magical Attack down to Bio (and their respective higher tiers). You can add the TP move delay to Addle itself or tack it onto Slow and give that old spell some love, no need to add onto the spell list when we have plenty of existing spells to work with.

Oh, and small correction.

It doesn't need to. It stacks. Also stacks with Traditional defense down like Frightful Roar. Same thing with Bio and Attack down.

I find that people are too focused on what their one individual performances can be and less on what some stacked support can do for everyone involved. This leads to lapses in knowledge regarding these things.

Yes, it does stack, but when you're comparing -15% defense down vs -30%, the choice is obvious (when you're considering one job or the other) and since Dia II is -10%, it's really a choice of -5% additional from an RDM or -30% from an NQ GEO since the geo, whms, or blms can provide Dia II.

Edit: And I get it, you'll come back and say RDM can simultaneously Frazzle, Distract, Dia, Bio, Paralyze and the list goes on but the combined potency of all those buffs is frequently not enough to outweigh what one or two (especially two) geos can do especially if melee aren't part of your strategy.

[Hyrist]

Yes, it does stack, but when you're comparing -15% defense down vs -30%, the choice is obvious (when you're considering one job or the other) and since Dia II is -10%, it's really a choice of -5% additional from an RDM or -30% from an NQ GEO since the geo, whms, or blms can provide Dia II.

Edit: And I get it, you'll come back and say RDM can simultaneously Frazzle, Distract, Dia, Bio, Paralyze and the list goes on but the combined potency of all those buffs is frequently not enough to outweigh what one or two (especially two) geos can do especially if melee aren't part of your strategy.

That's a problem with Geomancer, not Red Mage, who suffer zero penalties due to level scaling on their primary function. They, in fact, become MORE valuable as the monster difficulty goes up and have been due for a nerf in this regard since its inception. Though, you can't stack Geomancer buffs with themselves, you just try to add more Geomancers to stack different buffs/debuffs of high potency.

And as far as the 5% jump on Dia II to Dia III, that's an argument to boost Dia, but again, I corrected only that it stacks with Geomancer's. Not that it's a replacement. There is no OR, it's And. As far as getting Dia III buffed, I'm all for it.

As far as your other argument:
Put bluntly, you don't wait for two hours shouting for a BLM when you need another nuker, you invite the RDM that's geared for it. You don't wait four hours for your second Geomancer, you bring your Red Mage along. A well geared Red Mage is the ultimate 'filler' job when all you REALLY need, is a warm body.

And you keep overlooking Innundation, which becomes a more of a damage boost the longer your skillchains run, and the more powerful they are.

And for the Melee not being a part of your strategy, that's a gameplay issue, again, not a Red Mage issue. Stand Alone, Red Mage is in a very powerful place right now. It just happens to be in a spot outside the current meta. There's no real reason to gimick our way back into it. Just fix the problems plaguing the game as a whole, and dedicated Red Mages will find their way into groups, usually by association.