Growing tired of this Stigma

SAM and BLM whole shtick is about sheer potency, so i am guessing well see SAM potency go up as a "fix". That said at what point does it go up "enough" to warrant the loss of a utility? I personally like the design choice for BLM and SAM but as long as ppl meta everything, anything shy of like 50% damage buffs will probably keep resulting in them being benched for progress and "forgotten" after said progress. (maybe in the spirit of keeping with them being pure damage dealers they could do something with that, as in a debuff they add to a mob based off their relative damage to the rest of the group? Would go with the idea that they are a battering ram too, ie the group carries them so they can break things down)

Sam and BLM work so long as their damage is higher than alternative jobs. It just so happens that if you look at FFlogs 90th%+ parses on EVERY sigmascape savage party, BLM and SAM are the highest. So what's the problem?

Like i said earlier, I have NEVER been excluded from anything because I was BLM or SAM, so i have a hard time believing there are people out there they'll kick you from a party because of that.

But I have an EASY time believing, OP just didn't do enough damage to justify his/her spot, and got kicked for that. Which, I mean... Can you blame them? You'd kick a healer for not healing.

So nobody is saying the real reason now? Guess I'll have to do it.

In a public setting most Samurai mains are a weeb stick wielding hindrance. Sure SAM CAN deal insane amounts of damage but how many actual SAM players can tap into it? Not many, and those that can are picked up by statics and don't need to go into PF. Which leaves us with the wannabe DPS player that thinks he's hot (cuz SAM) and will die over and over and over to optimize uptime while being caught up by a WAR or PLD that know what they're doing. SAM just attracted this type of bad player and the whole class suffers for it.

If you talk about utility out of a group that wants to get Savage down, you are a fool. Most PF players forget their utility even exists, let alone know when to use it and others, when to expect it to cash in on it. I seen NIN use TA when nobody had burst, RDM wasting Embolden and other atrocities. Sadly those aren't an exception but the norm. The only thing that happens somewhat reliably, is the tank getting Shadewalker on pull. Rest of the fight, you never see it.

tl;dr : Average players are bad and makes a class hard to perform on look bad.

My, how cynnical. I don't think Samurai attracts any more or less "bad players" than any other class. But i do think that if you're going to play BLM or SAM you have GOT to be on point with your parse. You're not like dragoon or red mage that can hide behind utility. You've GOT to produce results..

Otherwise.. you should consider playing something else. =/

Think the issue is with SAM and BLM having to be wielded right by not just the player of said job, but the group. In a close nit, or static group, I would go so far as to say it is a overall damage lost to not have one or the other. that said most PUGs form up around the idea of worse case scenarios, and the truth is once a group starts to flounder around the chance the first to get axed is the SAM or BLM is pretty high.

This is partly from lemming mindsets around the meta, but even in a more intelligent manner could just be from a group seeking a few more utilities to add into survival. That said, design wise i still feel SAM and BLM is a solid design.....so this ones a toughie XD

Personally i am at best a half ass SAM :P But i tend to do stuff when i actually bother to do it with LS members or friends though so the actual "being removed" thing is something i really can't comment on though XD

Based on personal experience all of last tier number running, SAM & BLM seemed to have a disproportionately high amount of bad players. So did BRD but at least they had refresh.

A job utility adds around ~600 rdps so for Yoshis whole high damage thing to work, SAM & BLM need to be significantly higher than they are now. & MNK's rng schtick lets it outdps both of them, sometimes by broken amounts.

I don't understand why they won't fix unbalanced classes. Look what they did to SMN, it went from garbage to almost meta, even after nerfs.

"Q5: Do you have any plans to buff support abilities for jobs that didn’t receive any update in Patch 4.2, such as samurai and red mage?

A5: We have no plans to make any adjustment to red mage at this time. Since we buffed monk, players are asking for some type of buff for samurai, so we’re thinking of making adjustments that will push their DPS to match their job concept."

This was from the recent letter. Their meant to have higher dps then the other melee jobs so they're going to be adjusted to fix that. Don't expect anything grandiose or huge, just a small potency increase here and there to set them past monk in dps.

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Originally Posted by AcaciaTyrannia

Sam and BLM work so long as their damage is higher than alternative jobs. It just so happens that if you look at FFlogs 90th%+ parses on EVERY sigmascape savage party, BLM and SAM are the highest. So what's the problem?

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The problem lies with jobs that offer utility straight-up out-damaging the selfish jobs, or being right on their tail. There is an O6S parse where an orange-tier BLM only outDPS’d an orange-tier SMN by 200, and the BLM had 13 Balances. The SMN had 7~8 Balances. That’s a problem, when you take two consistent, high-level players, and the “selfish DPS” only pulls ahead by 200 DPS with double the amount of padding.

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Originally Posted by AcaciaTyrannia

Sam and BLM work so long as their damage is higher than alternative jobs. It just so happens that if you look at FFlogs 90th%+ parses on EVERY sigmascape savage party, BLM and SAM are the highest. So what's the problem?

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Those are personal damage calculations. Dragoon has lower personal DPS but provides upwards over 600+ rDPS; more if you run both Bard and Machinist. The argument lies that utility buffs wind up contributing more overall damage than selfish jobs can produce. And this isn't even accounting for support utility like Refresh.

Well they'd have to buff Samurai and Black Mage by a lot in order for them to become viable to bring to optimized kill runs but that also means they'll be broken in non savage and ex content

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

The problem lies with jobs that offer utility straight-up out-damaging the selfish jobs, or being right on their tail. There is an O6S parse where an orange-tier BLM only outDPS’d an orange-tier SMN by 200, and the BLM had 13 Balances. The SMN had 7~8 Balances. That’s a problem, when you take two consistent, high-level players, and the “selfish DPS” only pulls ahead by 200 DPS with double the amount of padding.

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Who cares though all these meta essays you keep writing throughout this thread are completely irrelevant outside of less then 5% of the community.

The problem is with the rest of the community who thinks they are part of that 5% rather then the jobs themselves

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Those are personal damage calculations. Dragoon has lower personal DPS but provides upwards over 600+ rDPS; more if you run both Bard and Machinist. The argument lies that utility buffs wind up contributing more overall damage than selfish jobs can produce. And this isn't even accounting for support utility like Refresh.

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A samurai and a black mage should be more than 600 DPS above a dragoon. I did take rDPS into account hun. Summoner and monk are the only kinks in that logic. They both offer strong utility and damage output close to the 'Pure' damage dealers. But, what can we do about it. shrug.

I just play what I like and play it as optimally as I can. Works well for me. I never get kicked out of things.

There really shouldn't be a stigma since playing a sub-optimal job is probably not going to be the thing that makes a run fail. People need to focus on playing their jobs well, learning the battle mechanics and working well together as a group. Like.. doesn't every fight have enough leeway that you don't need the meta party composition to be done before enrage? Well I can't blame people for trying to make things easier and go meta but hopefully there are enough people who don't care about that for you to still form your own PF and fill it. There will always be some mathematically superior jobs no matter how tight the balancing gets and some people will always look to exclude the lower ones even if the difference between them is less than 1%.

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Originally Posted by NephthysVasudan

You obviously don't know how to read if that's what you think.
White Mages certainly appreciate manashifting when they run low on Mana when burning cool-downs.
You obviously didn't think about this.

Oh and what's next? That white mage sucks because I had to manashift? Yeah.....cute excuse. It's called teamwork....help the party out.
Everything in this game is not savage related either.

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Your point makes zero sense because you are trying to preach about unique JOB utility and talking about a ROLE action that can be used by multiple jobs. The amount of mana restored from MS is completely negligible and next to completely useless aside from very rare and unique situations. You can't put MS on the level of something like battle litany, chain stratagem, balance, and Trick Attack where those are leaps and bounds better than some useless role ability. Seriously can't believe you are trying to pass MS off as any kind of decent utility, because it's not.

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Originally Posted by Rita1989

Who cares though all these meta essays you keep writing throughout this thread are completely irrelevant outside of less then 5% of the community.

The problem is with the rest of the community who thinks they are part of that 5% rather then the jobs themselves

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Apparently the people who argue with me care. /shrug

My “essays” seem pretty relevant, because there is a reason why the meta has been the meta since Creator, and why jobs like BLM and SAM will continue to fall short compared to meta jobs unless SE actually makes them selfish DPS that spit out a crapton of personal DPS over any job that offers utility. BLM is better than it was a patch ago, but it still isn’t competitive enough to kill the NIN/DRG/BRD/MCH meta. SAM isn’t in a good state right now because the devs don’t seem to see the need to actually make it a selfish DPS—MNKs are doing more damage overall over a SAM, and offer utility.

And maybe it only applies to the very top-end of content, but if there was nothing to complain about, there wouldn’t be threads every other day on here or on reddit complaining about it.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

there are 2 heal slots in a raid group and 3 healers so there will always be 1 non meta healer

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Which one need a healing buff?

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Originally Posted by Selova

Seriously can't believe you are trying to pass MS off as any kind of decent utility, because it's not.

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Not to beat the really dead horse (seriously more of a horse-flavored puddle at this point) but also RDM and SMN not only have access to manashift but use it better than BLM can without interrupting their DPS as much.

You did a great job, just thought this needed repeating.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Evidently not, hun.

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I envy this mic drop moment ;-;

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Originally Posted by AcaciaTyrannia

A samurai and a black mage should be more than 600 DPS above a dragoon. I did take rDPS into account hun. Summoner and monk are the only kinks in that logic. They both offer strong utility and damage output close to the 'Pure' damage dealers. But, what can we do about it. shrug.

I just play what I like and play it as optimally as I can. Works well for me. I never get kicked out of things.

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Evidently not, hun. Otherwise you wouldn't have cited FFlog top parses because it strictly lists personal DPS not rDPS. ;)

http://xivrdps.herokuapp.com/encount...r84bBjLdHx7Z/6
http://xivrdps.herokuapp.com/encount...XxK6wP3CDW8G/7

Here's an actual example of rDPS. The highest ranked SAM only managed 106 DPS above a 99% Ninja. And notice the substantial discrepancy between the Bards? Had an equally skilled DRG been slotted into the second group over SAM, they would have done more rDPS. The whole reason SAM needs a buff is it doesn't contribute enough to offset what DRG or NIN bring. Black Mage, on the other hand, is much closer now, coincidentally after the devs finally buffed it.

Good for you? This isn't a debate about preferences or viability as everything can clear. You're trying to claim SAM brings enough DPS to offset DRG when that simply isn't true. If it were, DRG wouldn't be meta.

Why are so many people hating on mana shift? I love mana shift T_T

This coming from someone who rarely ever tries savage/EX because of the rampant toxicity in the community: If they think they can't clear the content with a certain class, its probably not worth joining their party in the first place.

The problem with the current META is that it has BEEN the META for over 3 years now. I think its about time DRG, NIN, and BRD/MCH lost their time in the spotlight, no?

At least with the healers and tanks, they have somewhat rotated which was the better set.

I just hope we don't see the META crowd complaining about SAM having higher DPS after its buffed.

"It has no utility and the damage isn't high enough so we don't need it." Will inevitably turn into "SAM is too strong now, my utility isn't good enough, thanks SE, why you do this."

And then to those people I will say, "But I thought META only mattered at the top 5%, and that any job is viable and you should just play what you like." :D

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

The problem with the current META is that it has BEEN the META for over 3 years now. I think its about time DRG, NIN, and BRD/MCH lost their time in the spotlight, no?

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What do you want them to do with MCH and BRD? They’re utility based jobs with decent damage (comparing to the top DPS jobs), of course they’re going to be coveted by the large majority. In 4.0 we saw a lot of utility given to all jobs, which evened out the playing field. Dragoon got even better utility, Monk has Brotherhood, Red Mage has Embolden, etc etc. The main problem is the non-meta jobs don’t bring enough for the group, and thus get excluded.

So no, I don’t think Bard and Machinist need to change in anyway, however it’d be nice to see other jobs become more interchangeable.

Maybe it's because I haven't dipped my toe in the current Savage stuff yet, and have really only done Byakko Ex along with Sigma normal from this patch, but I've never been asked to leave or removed from any party I've been in because I was a BLM. I can say with confidence that for the majority of the time, I'm usually within the top 2 spots on my parser, and incidentally enough I'm usually fighting for top with my SAM friend. I don't know if that says something about the PUGs we've been in or about us, so take from that what you will. BLMs, at least from my knowledge, are seen near the top on FFLogs, so if someone is finding they're consistently being removed from groups or asked to leave, perhaps the problem isn't always with their class but their skill?

Again, I'm no where near perfect as a BLM and I find I take longer to learn fights than other classes because of the MANY limitations of my class, and I've not seriously looked for a static or really delved much into Savage this tier, so maybe that's limiting my scope of understanding here.

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Originally Posted by AxlStream

So nobody is saying the real reason now? Guess I'll have to do it.

In a public setting most Samurai mains are a weeb stick wielding hindrance. Sure SAM CAN deal insane amounts of damage but how many actual SAM players can tap into it? Not many, and those that can are picked up by statics and don't need to go into PF. Which leaves us with the wannabe DPS player that thinks he's hot (cuz SAM) and will die over and over and over to optimize uptime while being caught up by a WAR or PLD that know what they're doing. SAM just attracted this type of bad player and the whole class suffers for it.

If you talk about utility out of a group that wants to get Savage down, you are a fool. Most PF players forget their utility even exists, let alone know when to use it and others, when to expect it to cash in on it. I seen NIN use TA when nobody had burst, RDM wasting Embolden and other atrocities. Sadly those aren't an exception but the norm. The only thing that happens somewhat reliably, is the tank getting Shadewalker on pull. Rest of the fight, you never see it.

tl;dr : Average players are bad and makes a class hard to perform on look bad.

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That's not a real reason, let alone the real reason because that can apply to any job, even the ones the meta find mandatory.

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Originally Posted by AkashiXI

What do you want them to do with MCH and BRD? They’re utility based jobs with decent damage (comparing to the top DPS jobs), of course they’re going to be coveted by the large majority. In 4.0 we saw a lot of utility given to all jobs, which evened out the playing field. Dragoon got even better utility, Monk has Brotherhood, Red Mage has Embolden, etc etc. The main problem is the non-meta jobs don’t bring enough for the group, and thus get excluded.

So no, I don’t think Bard and Machinist need to change in anyway, however it’d be nice to see other jobs become more interchangeable.

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Just saying 4.0 furthered the obvious meta and made it stronger in no way you can sit there and say it evened the playing field at best it just exposed the balancing issues this game has had near the beginning. At stormblood's release smn/mch/mnk were in such a questionable spot makes you think about what their team even tests before releasing it. It shouldn't have taken around 5 months to finally fix some of the blatantly obvious issues mnk had and around 3 months to fix mch.

Well, if the devs (as they have described) test each job to make sure it's capable of clearing the hardest fights, and if they even provide stone/sea/sky to help you make sure that your skill rotation is good enough to pass the (sometimes irritating) DPS checks, then it would seem that the problem you describe doesn't derive from the jobs themselves, but rather from the party organizers.

If you want to play with players who are intent on finding or using the "optimal" party composition, then you might have to play multiple jobs because that composition will change from battle to battle and from patch to patch. Although I don't share that obsession, I do kind of like the idea of putting together a party where the skills synergize with each other.

Personally I kept playing BLM even when it was "underpowered" in certain patches, simply because... I have fun playing BLM!! I have also noticed that properly executing mechanics is usually the most important thing, because your DPS drops to zero when you're dead.

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Originally Posted by Avenger

If you want to play with players who are intent on finding or using the "optimal" party composition, then you might have to play multiple jobs because that composition will change from battle to battle and from patch to patch. Although I don't share that obsession, I do kind of like the idea of putting together a party where the skills synergize with each other.

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The problem is that it really doesn't change from fight to fight or patch to patch. Bard has been meta since 2.0. NIN since it was added, same with MCH.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

The problem is that it really doesn't change from fight to fight or patch to patch. Bard has been meta since 2.0. NIN since it was added, same with MCH.

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I'm sorry... did you just say MCH has been meta since it was added? I'm confused because that's what I read except I know that isn't true. I'm not being sassy or mean I am legitimately asking since maybe you meant something else.

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Originally Posted by MoroMurasaki

I'm sorry... did you just say MCH has been meta since it was added? I'm confused because that's what I read except I know that isn't true. I'm not being sassy or mean I am legitimately asking since maybe you meant something else.

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AFAIK it has been. There were many saying NIN/DRG/BRD/MCH was meta throughout 3.0 and into 4.0

May have been later in 3.0 though. I stopped raiding during Gordias and didn't pick it back up until creator.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

AFAIK it has been. There were many saying NIN/DRG/BRD/MCH was meta throughout 3.0 and into 4.0

May have been later in 3.0 though. I stopped raiding during Gordias and didn't pick it back up until creator.

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Gordias and Midas depended on your comp, if you took BRD or MCH. If your comp was mostly physical, you took a MCH because Hypercharge buffed the physical jobs (and Hypercharging Rook Turret was better over Bishop, iirc). If you had casters (because BLM wasn't terrible for Gordias, and was still relatively good during Midas), you took BRD because Foe's was magical damage only.

BRD/MCH formed a truce in Creator, and that's when NIN/DRG/BRD/MCH became the DPS meta. NIN has been meta since its inception, and BRD/MCH were both buffed by DRG's Disembowel, and brought utility to the party, so they kicked out the casters then. So a little over a year ago, the DPS meta became what it is. It definitely wasn't meta through all of Heavensward because both BRD and MCH had lots of issues when 3.0 launched; BRD didn't become completely viable until 3.2 when they buffed it and fixed some of its issues, and MCH was worse off than BRD when 3.0 launched; I think it was fixed in 3.1.

Only job that was worse than MCH at 3.0 launch was AST. I remember one of my friends said people would straight up leave parties if there was an AST in it; that's how bad off they were.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

The problem is that it really doesn't change from fight to fight or patch to patch. Bard has been meta since 2.0. NIN since it was added, same with MCH.

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Hahahaha, no. Machinist was borderline trash upon release. Bard also saw a substantial decline throughout various portions of Heavensward. The whole reason Bard and Machinist became meta was due to the devs constantly needing to buff them until they pushed both beyond the casters. The only job to never once get benched from the meta has been Ninja.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

AFAIK it has been. There were many saying NIN/DRG/BRD/MCH was meta throughout 3.0 and into 4.0

May have been later in 3.0 though. I stopped raiding during Gordias and didn't pick it back up until creator.

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Probably people overextending 3.4. BLM basically slotted in until Creator, though SMN has a fair bit of popularity. BRD/MCH traded places with one another primarily based on which the devs buffed this patch, and if you ran a heavy physical or magical comp. Only after 3.4 did people start to work out how incredibly OP DRG/NIN/BRD/MCH were.

No MMO should have a pure dps class. Period. Honestly no class should be pure anything. Those classes need utility, as of right now they are just generic dps.

Its 2018 we have the technology it shouldn't be difficult to look at the data and buff pure dps classes to the point where they are doing the same as utility classes overall.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Only job that was worse than MCH at 3.0 launch was AST. I remember one of my friends said people would straight up leave parties if there was an AST in it; that's how bad off they were.

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I can add on to this with my experience since I immediately tried to main AST at 3.0 launch.

Basically I was forced to switch back to WHM by my static group even though I wanted to main AST.

Eventually I left that group, but no other groups would accept me as AST. Even by Midas people were still skeptical and most groups told me no, until I found one that let me play AST.

So in my experience back then majority of groups on my server just locked AST out or refused to take it. I basically couldn't find a static that would accept AST for all of Gordias and only found one after they got buffed for Midas, yet that even took a bit of convincing the raid leader that I was sure I could play it well and heal well on it...which in the end I did prove as such.

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Originally Posted by XovanPrince

No MMO should have a pure dps class. Period. Honestly no class should be pure anything. Those classes need utility, as of right now they are just generic dps.

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Actually I disagree with this. If you have too much utility it just makes people get choosy even more. A few utility jobs and then some raw dps for utility jobs to support is honestly fine. If people are preferring utility jobs over raw dps jobs then that means the raw dps jobs are not performing well enough for the meta to consider them viable. Of course, using only utility jobs for maintained buff upkeep is also the main culprit here as to why the meta is ignoring raw dps jobs. For the meta to truly consider raw dps jobs, that raw dps would have to match what the party's dps averages out at with less buff upkeep as opposed to having more upkeep.

In short, the DPS meta is a fusterclucking mess right now. I don't even think it'll ever get fixed either. While I would say since I don't follow the meta and play casually it isn't my problem, nor anyone else's like me, but that isn't true on account of the reason this thread was made.

Until they fix my need as a bard to rely on dragoon’s I shall continue to avoid samurais like the plague. They offer nothing to a group which means when played poorly they’re just a bad DPS. At least a poorly played ninja or dragoon offers something in return

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Originally Posted by Enyalios

Until they fix my need as a bard to rely on dragoon’s I shall continue to avoid samurais like the plague. They offer nothing to a group which means when played poorly they’re just a bad DPS. At least a poorly played ninja or dragoon offers something in return

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Unless they use what they offer at the wrong time, or not at all.

Community mindset is inescapable even if they're wrong. I mean. Okay, yeah, great NIN, MNK, DRG - they all bring more raid dps to the party than a SAM. But all these numbers and utility....it's all in a vacuum. It all assumes that everyone is playing optimally. And if, to pull a random % out of an orifice, 75+% of players aren't even optimal, let alone above-average at these meta/utility jobs, or using said utility, or they die all the time to mechanics, well then what's the point? Are they still essential to your Byakko EX kill-for-friend group?

So-and-so job brings +5% raid dps to an average group, plays averagely. Amazing SAM player brings no extra raid dps, but MORE than makes up for the raid dps loss because they actually know what they're doing. I know who I'd prefer on my team. I know that's a super dumbed-down example, but my point is player skill is overwhelmingly the biggest factor in how valuable they are, not gear, not by what DPS class they're playing (having a NIN doesn't automatically shave minutes off a fight), and it's player skill in co-ordination that makes the meta what it is. For a sarcastically-worded PF group that excludes SAM and BLM slots - composition is generally meaningless. Maybe they feel cool for using what top raiders do, but they're not top raiders. They're probably average joes whose utility will not stop them scapegoating something else for their inevitable failure.

So you ignore them, and find sensible people. Are the DPS jobs out of balance? Do they need changing? Yes. Is it as drastic as everyone makes out? Not even close. I appreciate it's annoying having to endure under a stigma where you might be excluded now and then, but ask yourself if you're really likely to succeed in a group so narrow-minded in the first place. I mean come on, it's on the PF in the first place - if they were at a level where it mattered it wouldn't be on there.

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Originally Posted by Aeliott

<snip>

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Nice to see i'm not alone in this.....foolishness is rampant it seems.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Snip

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Not trying to start something here. I could just be ignorant of this topic.

So if a SAM pulls 6k raid DPS, and a Ninja pulls 6k raid DPS. Shouldn't that be fair?

They both achieved the same DPS amount. They just had different ways of getting there.

SAM got there by using personal DPS.

NIN got there by adding the amount of damage they provided to the group to their personal.

To me, I feel like...why should SAM be the highest DPS in the game period. Personal DPS, yes. But I feel like asking for SAM to be higher than Jobs that have their personal DPS added to their utility DPS is just asking for SAM to be the best in dps - period.

Is it not balanced if they both achieve the same goal, but have different ways of getting there?