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

and blm dont profit near as much as other (physical) dps from other dps buffs'

If a DPS can do more DPS while offering little to no utility, then that means SE won't care.
DRK is the worst at total mitigation, max DPS, and party utility, and SE said "Its viable, so why would we care?"

So there's no hope for them.

It's really depressing to see how many people have no idea what they're talking about on this matter. To recap:

viability =/= balance
Claiming that "raw DPS" is balanced with DPS+utility is just false, utility IS DPS. Litany, stratagem, trick attack, battle voice, all of these ADD DPS to the group. Why have one person be strong when you can buff seven people and yourself?
"situational" jobs are frustrating (not all jobs need to excel at everything always, but the gap is large)
And perhaps the biggest reason that SAM MNK BLM are out of meta is they have no real two minute burst windows. Part of the reason that NIN BRD SMN MCH line up so well is because every two minutes comes the "burst window" that is chain stratagem + trick attack + hypercharge + foe requiem + devotion. Note: It is not because the classes themselves are stronger (although arguably they are, particularly SMN relative to BLM), but because the way they interact with each other is significantly stronger.

And most importantly, no one wants their main class shunned because it's just a bad choice. Not every job needs to excel at everything always, but the current state of things is ridiculous.

If you play Sam or BLM, you can find group for Omega or for Trials, but you are fucked if you are looking for Ultimate. Im sure that Ultimate can be beat with Samurai in party, but ppl dont want even try it...just Nin+DRG or maybe Nin+MNK...for BLM im not sure if you could clear Ultimate with BLM, probably you can, but im not sure.

I want to play Ultimate, so i can't play Samurai or BLM because its almost impossible to find a group open to Sam or BLM.

Does it mean that jobs are unbalanced?

NO, i think that its more about what job is better just for Ultimate.

But, its true that some jobs look really good for any situation, like Paladin or Ninja. Both jobs are really good in any situation and help a lot in Full Party content.

Fix those "mandatory" jobs its not hard, its just synergy issues, TA+Agro management is strong like hell and just Ninja can do it, and for Paladin, DPS+utility are insane compared with Warrior or Dark Knight. that kind of UNIQUE synergy should't exists, it shouldn't be UNIQUE. share it with other jobs.

But being honest, SE wont do anything about it, Samurai and BLM wont be able to replace NIN or SMN.

Current state of Samurai and BLM makes me feel pretty bad, but Im disappointed with SE because its not something new and like in the past, nothing will change until next expansión.

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Originally Posted by Greywolfamakir

If you play Sam or BLM, you can find group for Omega or for Trials, but you are fucked if you are looking for Ultimate. Im sure that Ultimate can be beat with Samurai in party, but ppl dont want even try it...just Nin+DRG or maybe Nin+MNK...for BLM im not sure if you could clear Ultimate with BLM, probably you can, but im not sure.

I want to play Ultimate, so i can't play Samurai or BLM because its almost impossible to find a group open to Sam or BLM.

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I would like to issue a challenge to hardcore raiders to beat Ultimate with a non meta comp. DRK, PLD, SAM, BLM, RDM, MNK, SCH, WHM and go to town. NA/EU players will say "it can't be done" but I bet there's some JP group out there going "hmmmmm". Prize is bragging rights and a lifetime supply of salt from reddit.

There is always going to be a meta comp, but the gap is too big to reconcile at the moment. That is the issue. It isn't that the content can't be done, it's that players feel awful playing something that they want to play because another job is so much better or more desired by teams.

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Originally Posted by Tracewood

I would like to issue a challenge to hardcore raiders to beat Ultimate with a non meta comp. DRK, PLD, SAM, BLM, RDM, MNK, SCH, WHM and go to town. NA/EU players will say "it can't be done" but I bet there's some JP group out there going "hmmmmm". Prize is bragging rights and a lifetime supply of salt from reddit.

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PLD and SCH are meta comp. AFAIK no group has beaten ult with AST WHM combo and PLD is much more useful than WAR in that fight. Not to mention groups have beaten it with RDM. But from experience I must admit even with meta comp the dps check on even the first boss is unbelievably unforgiving and with that comp youd probably need pots and/or absolutely perfect play to win.

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Originally Posted by Greywolfamakir

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You're mostly right. The issue is more on jobs that exist and are always good in any situation than jobs that are not good in multiple situations. Those jobs start feeling mandatory when no job can do anything better than them ever. And eventually makes jobs like BLM and SAM to never be good at anything. But sadly SE entered a policy of "never nerf" and the only nerfs that happened recently were on SB launch to adjust to new skills and battle revamp. But people cried because of those adjustments treating them as traight nerfs (SCH and DRG specially) and they got buffed into OP status again. That's why people are just generally crying everywhere on OF now. Because since HW that is what seems to get you overbuffed constantly even if the job in question is already in a good position.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

There is always going to be a meta comp, but the gap is too big to reconcile at the moment. That is the issue. It isn't that the content can't be done, it's that players feel awful playing something that they want to play because another job is so much better or more desired by teams.

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And therein lines the problem. It shouldn't feel like a slap in the face if you sub out say, Ninja for Samurai even if Ninja remains better overall for speed kills. Right now, any party without a Dragoon just makes your physical ranged cry.

If you play without ninja, tanks cry because of enmity.
If you play without mch/bard healers cry without refresh.
If you play without drg physical ranged cry.

Rest 5 - 6 dps jobs compete from the last spot.

If you play without AST, everyone cries.
If you play without SCH the BRD cries.
If you play without WAR, the other tank cries.

This is mostly an issue of how the community percieves meta jobs and the ranking competition of our favorite website. People don't really wanna work out of their comfort zone or lose "points".

They are barely selfish, a sam only does like 500 more damage than drg and currently smn does more than blm, the idea of selfish dps can only work if they are actually wiling to do it, a nin brings like 1000 or 1500 dps to the entire party, sam and blm should do all of that rdps themselves, both should do 500-1000 more damage.
But like some of you said, people only care about their own damage, some groups still wouldn't want them.
The bads will cry nerfs but what do they know? Nerfing blm damage is one of the stupidest thing they have done tbh.

We just need to get through to SE to end the idea of "selfish DPS" completely. There is no such thing.

Stacking utilities/synergy is stronger and will always be stronger than "selfish DPS," and parties would rather all be fed than feed one person.

All jobs need to bring some kind of utility no matter how small, otherwise they WILL be overlooked.
Fight me.

Balancing selfish jobs is easier than balancing party utility. SE just seems afraid to give them damage.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

We just need to get through to SE to end the idea of "selfish DPS" completely. There is no such thing.

Stacking utilities/synergy is stronger and will always be stronger than "selfish DPS," and parties would rather all be fed than feed one person.

All jobs need to bring some kind of utility no matter how small, otherwise they WILL be overlooked.
Fight me.

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That is entirely arbitrary upon potency values. (Also, note that it is impossible to viably feed one DPS's throughput, and only one job (AST) is even capable of that.)

DPS itself is utility. Its group dependence (or independence) is irrelevant to that throughput.

The only issue is that one is scalar and the other flat, and thus undertuning will occur to one or the other based on party size and total alignable strength so long as the additive relative power of party-dependent job' rDPS tools are not effectively balanced by diminished relative power in other areas of their party-affecting toolkit. That's more a scaling issue in those toolkits specifically than it is a matter of "this exists; therefore, it must exist universally and uniformly."

If selfish ever gets numbers to be in par (to total contribution), the buff classes are automatically obsolete because they have dependencies.

The only utility is providing burst but you can get this regardless of being a buffing class or not with class design (see WAR)

I feel like the way they made buffs for slashing, piercing, and blunt damage and physical damage buffs in general is the core of the problem... they would have been better off incorporating elements into combat... i think the combat would be a bit more engaging than what we currently have... the synergy would be less class based and more flexible...

seeing how complet almost "perfect" a sam is (has an answer for everything and doest get punished as hard as other classes) and gets almost all group buffs as physical dps

blm with its heavy movement punishing playstyle and getting less buffs than a physical dps, should be doing way more dps than a sam in all fights, by a bigger margin than it does atm

I'm a bigger proponent of fixing BLM's mobility in various ways than I am just increasing its damage and making it continue to struggle hard with mechanics/movement. A pure damage fix doesn't really make the job any more desirable to play during progression.

The job certainly doesn't need to be a movement machine like SMN currently is, but if the Astral/Umbral timer alone was more forgiving (say, let Foul and Thunder also refresh the timer, and give Firestarter procs from Fire IV) then it would be A LOT less damage lost to having to deal with mechanics.

increasing the blm SS ny a large amount could help the blm mobility ... and ofc dps (just the foul timer would need a build up of ca. 25 sec instead of 30)

or like others mentioned, allow blm to save up more procs.. or like double the "proc keep" timer

but if just blm flat potency is increased by a large margin, even if blm dont get more mobility, the high potency could still compensate for movment dps lose

I have a veritable mountain of suggestions to help with BLM outside of flat potency (although at this point I'm tired or fighting about it so I'd happily just take the flat potency and call it a day, as well). Please refer to the other megathread ca. page 28 to view i.