The state of SAM, BLM, and MNK is disappointing. "Selfish" isn't viable in this game.

The selfish designs are fine but you know what's the problem? The devs were cowardly in implementing it.

Monk's in a damn good spot, hitting third or fourth place in terms of personal DPS on top of Brotherhood synergizing well with other DPS, and Samurai has always been in a good spot since the start since they can apply boatloads of buffs to themselves (making them hit harder, better, faster stronger than when they start a battle) and even boost a tank using Yukikaze... which is already something they use because they need the Sen for sacrificing for Kenki, getting Higanbana or building up to Midare.

Black Mage's flaws start to show when you compare its personal damage and its utter lack of raid DPS contribution. We don't want to see BLM go the way of Monk, still viable, perhaps even better than before, but no longer pleasant to play and I feel that giving them raid support would only hurt their identity as the mage that casts the spells that makes the peoples fall down. The only solution that wouldn't see them go away and wouldn't cause Monk 2: Electric Boogaloo would be to boost their damage to make up for their lack of a contribution.

As I said in the BLM thread the cleanest way to offer raid utility to BLM is adding a magic vulnerabillity debuff (sort of like slashing/piercing/blunt res down) to B4 possibly.
This way you could offer a raid synergy passively enough to still be considered a pure dps (SAM does have slashing for example)

It's true probably won't be enough but that's honestly is a broader problem

MNK falls in the category of acceptable. It is still not preferable. It can be argued as to why they're an okay spot in the party, because Brotherhood offers the bare minimum support that's held to value in the game, while also holding their own in the damage department. Mantra isn't entirely useless either, but like RDM, that support loses value when things are going smoothly like they should be. In the end, people will put up with MNK, which is hardly much better than SAM, and BLM's position.

SAM can look competent at a glance, but when you focus the lens, it's obvious they're flawed. For one, slashing is not 'support' SAM offers the party, because it's not unique to SAM. Piercing is only on DRG, so if it's not in your party, there's no chance your Physical Ranged will have it. NIN offers slashing, and they're a shoe-in for most serious parties. WAR offers it, and there's a good chance you'll have one over a DRK. So even if you drop a SAM, you have at least two other (extremely enticing) sources for Slashing damage that will also benefit your party in other ways like TA, and enmity help. SAM's personal contribution is also trumped by SMN across the board right now. Even IF DPS was the only thing all BLM and SAM cared about, which I don't think is the case, SMN is killing them on that basis alone.

BLM is probably in the worst position. They straight up have not even one argument going for them. No matter if it's a PF party, or a raid group composition, they can never ever be in a position where they can argue being helpful, like SAM at least can in the unlikely "No NIN/WAR" scenario. No raise like the other casters, no buffs or debuffs, just pure damage.

Personal contribution has never been prioritized over team/raid contribution in this game. The closest it's gotten, has been in 2.0 where there was heavy imbalance, no LB penalties, and very little choice between DPS in the first place. That's not the game we're playing anymore though. And like someone else said very succinctly, they just need to apply the design focus of 'synergy' on all Jobs, or scrap it and work on another way to bolster teamwork entirely.

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Originally Posted by ManuelBravo

To single out SAM, BLM, and MNK is inaccurate. While at times some roles seem to give more of an advantage they players skill is a major factor. Call me selfish if you like, but some of us like to go in, get it done, and move on.

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There is no moment in an endgame scenario BLM excels at something. SAM have but a few. MNK actually has good qualities meanwhile.

Jobs are picked for their qualities, and when they stand out they're more wanted. The "meta" will always be a comp of 8 that won't change unless buffs/nerfs happen. MNK is an actual well rounded job but what DRG and NIN offer are just too good. And SAM has nothing to compete with it. Yet some jobs out of the meta will be desired or accepted for traits. At the momen SAM and BLM don't offer the trait that the devs keep saying they do, which should be pure raw damage. The only moment BLM and SAM excel in damage is if the rest of the party has no idea what to do with their buffs and the player in question knows how to play his class. Which is a situation no one wants to be haha. Actually the game balancement was better before the buffs started being thrown at jobs.

"Selfish" DPS is wholly viable for a given point of balance. The problem is that there can only be point of balance so long as raid-benefiting tools scale infinitely (whether +10% damage over duration for 2 players, or 8). Below that party count, party-independent classes will be superior. Beyond it, party-dependent classes will be superior.

Of course, this will further depend on how much higher the throughput potential of that one player making the choice between a party-dependent or -independent (or simply less dependent) class is than his or her other party members, but so long as there's nothing to average out or standardize the damage gains from raid bonus tools, there will consistently be such a tipping point.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Below that party count, party-independent classes will be superior. Beyond it, party-dependent classes will be superior.

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Which is why party-independent Jobs aren't valued as much as Jobs that have something to offer to the party. Any 'meaningful' (opinions and all) content in the game is balanced around 8-people parties, and it's been that way for years. The developers themselves talk about how they look at Savage (and now Ultimate) to make their decisions on what needs changed, so there's really no question about it.

Which is why it's strange that they went in to 4.0 with BLM the way it is, and introducing a Job (SAM) that has the same design flaw in common. Their decision to do so is even more mind boggling when you realize they're clearly aware of the value some of these other Jobs bring. They acknowledged as much with the change to Disembowel, yet now we're almost back to double phys-ranged that prevailed so much during mid-late HW. Yet NIN has been post-god-tier relevant since ARR. I'm not saying it could never be viable in the game, but with the design philosophy they apply to the majority of the Jobs, and the way this game works currently, it isn't likely. Plus, even if they were balanced against their lacking characteristics properly, I don't think the community at large would be accepting of it. When SB launched, and people thought SAM was about 5% higher in personal contribution than the next best DPS (putting it about 15% higher than the lowest contributing DPS), they were livid.

It's just too tight a line to walk, and frankly, it's not worth it just to be unique in spite of the party.

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Originally Posted by Nominous

Which is why party-independent Jobs aren't valued as much as Jobs that have something to offer to the party. Any 'meaningful' (opinions and all) content in the game is balanced around 8-people parties, and it's been that way for years. The developers themselves talk about how they look at Savage (and now Ultimate) to make their decisions on what needs changed, so there's really no question about it.

Which is why it's strange that they went in to 4.0 with BLM the way it is, and introducing a Job (SAM) that has the same design flaw in common. Their decision to do so is even more mind boggling when you realize they're clearly aware of the value some of these other Jobs bring. They acknowledged as much with the change to Disembowel, yet now we're almost back to double phys-ranged that prevailed so much during mid-late HW. Yet NIN has been post-god-tier relevant since ARR. I'm not saying it could never be viable in the game, but with the design philosophy they apply to the majority of the Jobs, and the way this game works currently, it isn't likely. Plus, even if they were balanced against their lacking characteristics properly, I don't think the community at large would be accepting of it. When SB launched, and people thought SAM was about 5% higher in personal contribution than the next best DPS (putting it about 15% higher than the lowest contributing DPS), they were livid.

It's just too tight a line to walk, and frankly, it's not worth it just to be unique in spite of the party.

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(Sadly, perception will always be a sword without a handle (often even with a flat, somehow), and I don't think the first few weeks out (usually undue) outcry should be anywhere near a primary concern for balance. There has to be a point where an outcry over higher personal dps cannot be taken seriously from the same voice or crowd bewailing lower rDPS for that same job.)

This imbalance by design leaves two possible solutions: give every job a somehow equal portion of party-dependent rDPS contribution, or rework the way raid bonus effects work.

Personally, I'd prefer the latter, thereby reducing the increasing party dependence over party size of supportive jobs and evening out their contribution so they don't feel undertuned when solo or in light parties. Essentially, it's then just spreading out the resource, and should inflate at most by the same rate other tools deflate (similar to how Smokescreen can solve all opening enmity issues in a 4-man, but becomes almost irrelevant in an 8-man unless the other DPS have additional enmity-reductive tools such as Lucid Dream).

Being realistic, this thread will just fall on deaf ears, just like the countless one before it to help out BLM and MNK but I've never been 1 for reality and prefer to live the fantasy.

Even though MNK is in a much better position than it has been in a long while, it's not exactly sought out for since the only Raid Utility it has are Mantra and Brotherhood, the former being redundant and the latter being only a melee buff. If if SE looked at the toolkit more closely and adjusted everything to better suit MNK's need instead of granting them more unnecessary maintenance skills, MNK could be in a much better spot overall.
Riddle of Earth could be a Raid wide damage mitigation, Purification could be an aggro dump and Brotherhood could be helpful to everyone; There's a lot of potential being squandered there.

The same goes for BLM if we're being honest. Manawall could easily be a group shield skill and while I know many BLM hate when people stand in their Ley Lines, if the SpS buff applied to others that did so, it might actually be a nice little boost for their utility as well. If SE wanted, they could make Scathe an oGCD that extended the duration/reduced the CD of Ley Lines while doing damage to further help out BLM's more neglected toolkit. I'm sure there are more ideas out there to help out BLM but I'll leave that to the more knowledgeable on the subject.

I've no clue what can help SAM honestly so I'll leave that one up to the more knowledgeable again.

The only reason it isn't viable is because they don't bring up enough dps compared to what other job bring.
The only reason people praise Ninja is because the 10% dps they bring over compensate their own lower dps.
If NIN personal damage would be so low that even taking into accout perfect use of that 10% from the raid, you'd end up with a lower raid dps than if you'd have taken a BLM/SAM, people would take BLM/SAM and complain that buff are useless if personal damage isn't there too.

The only thing which truly matters is raid dps. The fact that it is personal or not doesn't matter. The game doesn't care from which source the dps comes. You don't get extra points for having different source of dps.

Right now BLM/SAM don't bring enough raid dps. Granting them "utility" in the form of buff/debuff (like the famous idea of making umbral heart increase the damage taken by the target for a few seconds) is no different than raising BLM personal dps. If they do grant BLM some form of dps "utility" akin to the umbral heart thingy, the only thing that will truly matter is "how much dps does this buff grant to the raid". Nothing else.
If it's equal to half a trick attack, people will bring BLM because BLMdps+1/2 trick attack would bring more than RDM or SMN
If the buff is too weak then people wouldn't bring BLM because, overall, the dps gain isn't sufficient.
If they simply buff BLM potency to the point new BLM dps = Old BLM dps + trick attack contribution to a raid, then people would bring BLM because "ah my gawd it does so much damage no buff is strong enough to make a group not want a BLM"

People often compare BLM to SMN and their utility, the only true utility SMN has over BLM is the rez, the rest is damage and 2% aoe buff every2min can easily be compensated by boosting BLM damage by X%. Raise it enough no one will care about SMN aoe 2% dps. The only thing that will be looked at is "does this rez is worht the dps loss from bringing a SMN over a BLM or does the mechanic makes SMN so much more valuable than BLM (multi target boss, DoT could be very valuable, frequent long movement phase where DWS would make SMN gain mch more dps vs BLM)

And ultimately, SE should get rid off of all that buff crap. WoW struggled with that same shit over 3 xpac and after I-don-t-know-how-many-buff-revamp, they just ditched the whole system because it was the only way to make the game closer from their phylosophie "bring the player not the class". You don't bring the player if he doesn't play the class that bring mandatory buff, you bring the class that happened to be played by another player. At least FF14 buff are weak compared to what was in WoW, so the issue isn't as sever. We had the same with AST and that stupid balance. I play AST but I didnt cry when they nurfed that balance.... 10% aoe dps every 1min...

This is stupid. The devs balanced the selfish jobs fine. It's not their fault that players are moving the goalposts from "clear hard content" to "clear hard content as fast as possible to rank on an unoffical leaderboard."