Damage "taxes" deserve serious reconsideration

In more danger of being hit? By what? The plethora of point blank AOEs that barely exist and have huge telegraph windows? The ones that don't matter anymore because the new Costco-sized hitboxes and the bargepole-length distance melee can hit from trivialize them? Who's actually in more danger of dying? The melee who barely have to move anywhere? For whom all group strategies are based around maintaining their uptime at the cost of the casters running all around the place and -actually- losing uptime? The melee who have higher base HP and defense for their "greater risk", but the casters actually die more often in early progression because their squishier HP and lower defense gets them one-shot more often by unavoidable room-wide AOEs, which unlike these mythical melee-risking dodgeable AOEs, actually happen every 30-60 seconds in difficult content?

All of the "disadvantages" melees have are fake weaknesses that the game never actually punishes them for having. Meanwhile casters actually lose uptime because running all the way across an arena and back again is a reasonably common mechanic, and since hitboxes are the size of a galaxy melee lose absolutely nothing for it.

Sorry, are those people who keep saying "oh melee has more risks" from 2.0 or something?
What point-blank AoE? What downtime? What melee risks?
This game always one-shots everyone regardless of your distance. Most people die from raid-wide damage or targeted mechanics, which apply to everyone.
Plus ranged jobs can't stay all the way out anyway. Everyone basically stays close together behind the boss when there're no mechanics, if you have any proper raiding experience.

"Oh but I'm close to the enemy so I should be rewarded," says a melee hitting a boss with an unmissable gigantic hitbox that spans more than half of the arena.

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Originally Posted by Keichi

Snip.

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Well melee needs to be balanced around current savage and ultimate raid content, not old content.

As things are right now melee players are being coddled by lack of forced downtime because of melee friendly mechanics, lack of needed positionals (If you think doing 2 positionals is hard, I don't even know what to say) and huge boss hitboxes making this tier the most melee-friendly raid tier I've ever seen.

Their damage is supposed to be high not because of the role choice, but because of the inherent risk of both forced downtime (For melee jobs only) and mechanics that endanger only people who are close to the boss. Neither seems to be present this tier

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Originally Posted by Flashy

I also find it "lolsy" when people use rDPS as the only metric of performance. I think we need to look at both rDPS and aDPS to get a better idea of a job

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It is weird to use a job's total raid contribution as one of the primary methods to judge how its doing compared to other jobs, huh.

Aikaal posted the explanation too; aDPS only filters out single target padding, it doesn't filter other jobs' damage buffs. My embolden is counted into the Samurai's aDPS, so it's not really the Samurai's DPS. Hence rDPS, which filters all other damage buffs out and counts the damage you gave others in; even "aDPS jobs" whatever that means, have a more accurate description of the damage THEY bring to raid from their rDPS.

rDPS is not necessarily a good metric to view your OWN performance on, that's where aDPS and nDPS come in. But when talking about general job balance? I think rDPS outweighs the other metrics completely.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

rDPS is not necessarily a good metric to view your OWN performance on, that's where aDPS and nDPS come in. But when talking about general job balance? I think rDPS outweighs the other metrics completely.

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I believe this is correct. This is a teamgame, rDPS measures your job contribution to the whole group.
Yes, your rDPS can be quite different between what is shown on the graph and what you achieve, party composition and skill level of the group can vary.

It's simply great to understand your job possible value.
FFLogs using it as a ranking is what induces many players in errors.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

rDPS is not necessarily a good metric to view your OWN performance on, that's where aDPS and nDPS come in. But when talking about general job balance? I think rDPS outweighs the other metrics completely.

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The three of them have to be used as a tool of analysis.

Balacing only around rDPS means that if the top jobs are the "selfish" ones such as SAM or BLM, then they are good for every piece of content in any comp.

For these jobs, rDPS = nDPS. Their rDPS will be the exact same (ignoring variance) whether their group has no buffs or optimized buffs. They're also not punished in this metric if they don't align their cooldowns within buffs as only aDPS tracks that although partially (single target buffs have to be manually checked through rDPS).

Therefore, if only rDPS is considered for balance, then these jobs are the best in every single scenario on top of getting the highest benefits out of buffs.

aDPS also depends on composition, so while it is a relevant metric to look at, it can vary a lot in a similar way that rDPS does for buffing jobs.

The metric that will tell you the individual performance of a person without taking other people from the party into account is nDPS.

Jobs that are strong in the nDPS/aDPS department should be lower in the rDPS department and vice versa, because the higher the percentile, the more damage players will squeeze out of buffs and so the more they will feed into others' rDPS. For example, since SAM is the job that benefits the most from buffs, it should be higher in aDPS than BLM, but lower in nDPS since the latter does not benefit as much from them (though it still does).

Balance seems to be made around the average player, not the very top (95+ or more).

You can see this when checking more accessible fights (i. e. those cleared by many people of different skill) such as P5S. MCH is the top ranged/caster job in the rDPS charts in the overall percentile and until the 80th because it doesn't rely on others for its damage and actually overtakes some melee jobs (NIN and DRG, so the ones with the lowest personal damage) in both aDPS and nDPS until higher percentiles. In fact, MCH's nDPS is still higher than DRG's in the 90th percentile.

They must be balanced for all content. Not only the high end, hard content. So, my points are arcurrate.
People are doing normal stuff to. And has hard times in it to. Balancing mean, that the class need to be usefull in most content. Not necressary in everyone (heared, that blm was bad in 6.1, because of many movement in the content)

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Originally Posted by Keichi

They must be balanced for all content. Not only the high end, hard content. So, my points are arcurrate.
People are doing normal stuff to. And has hard times in it to. Balancing mean, that the class need to be usefull in most content. Not necressary in everyone (heared, that blm was bad in 6.1, because of many movement in the content)

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Melee are even easier to play in normal mode content than they are in high end hard content. Melee currently has a huge damage advantage for no reason. The combat system has received numerous changes to cancel out their so-called "weaknesses" while maintaining their strengths. Meanwhile, fights are just as movement-heavy as ever. Casters and Ranged, except for Black Mage, are currently taxed for no reason. Melee are just as easy if not easier to play than ranged classes, and they get a damage advantage because....sometimes maybe an AOE might go off and they might need to disengage except oho not really; they can now swing their weapons 10 yalms from an enemy's hitbox and still hit them. By this point you might as well give melee a bunch of anime laser blast animations for their weaponskills and consider them ranged DPS.

What exactly is *harder* about playing a melee? Having zero cast times? Being able to move freely? Having incredibly forgiving mechanics that basically never require you to disengage from the enemy? Being able to continuously swing while on the move, just like a ranged DPS? In a game where mechanics require you to move? Always having a safe spot designated just for you right next to every single boss, for every mechanic? Melee IS useful in every bit of content. Because they do hilariously more damage than everyone else, have more health, have more defense, because they're "harder to play" in a fantasy combat system that isn't FF14's.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Melee are even easier to play in normal mode content than they are in high end hard content. Melee currently has a huge damage advantage for no reason. The combat system has received numerous changes to cancel out their so-called "weaknesses" while maintaining their strengths. Meanwhile, fights are just as movement-heavy as ever. Casters and Ranged, except for Black Mage, are currently taxed for no reason. Melee are just as easy if not easier to play than ranged classes, and they get a damage advantage because....sometimes maybe an AOE might go off and they might need to disengage except oho not really; they can now swing their weapons 10 yalms from an enemy's hitbox and still hit them. By this point you might as well give melee a bunch of anime laser blast animations for their weaponskills and consider them ranged DPS.

What exactly is *harder* about playing a melee? Having zero cast times? Being able to move freely? Having incredibly forgiving mechanics that basically never require you to disengage from the enemy? Being able to continuously swing while on the move, just like a ranged DPS? In a game where mechanics require you to move? Always having a safe spot designated just for you right next to every single boss, for every mechanic? Melee IS useful in every bit of content. Because they do hilariously more damage than everyone else, have more health, have more defense, because they're "harder to play" in a fantasy combat system that isn't FF14's.

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Don’t even bother they will just reply with some inane statement about how melee have to be close so therefore they are harder

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Originally Posted by TakumiHarada

"Oh but I'm close to the enemy so I should be rewarded," says a melee hitting a boss with an unmissable gigantic hitbox that spans more than half of the arena.

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Fun fact getting far from the boss is not a reward.
It will results in healers getting conniptions.

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Originally Posted by Keichi

They must be balanced for all content. Not only the high end, hard content. So, my points are arcurrate.
People are doing normal stuff to. And has hard times in it to. Balancing mean, that the class need to be usefull in most content. Not necressary in everyone (heared, that blm was bad in 6.1, because of many movement in the content)

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Man.
Are you even aware about how SMN just breaks the game balance at lv70?
Are you aware that GNB in Deep dungeon is basically a DPS with extra HP and survivability?

There's no point balancing for casual content as you could complete it with auto attack only or with 24 healers or 24 warriors.
Casual content is not meant to be balanced as players don't give a crap about gear or optimization.

Again you talk about the world when you only know your city.
No one acknowledges your argument, everyone is against it. You can't claim it stands because you feel like it.

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Originally Posted by Aco505

The three of them have to be used as a tool of analysis.

Balacing only around rDPS means that if the top jobs are the "selfish" ones such as SAM or BLM, then they are good for every piece of content in any comp.

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Balancing around rDPS means the only variable is non-DPS support, such as Curing Waltz.

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For these jobs, rDPS = nDPS. Their rDPS will be the exact same (ignoring variance) whether their group has no buffs or optimized buffs. They're also not punished in this metric if they don't align their cooldowns within buffs as only aDPS tracks that although partially (single target buffs have to be manually checked through rDPS).

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Yes it's true, for these jobs rDPS does = nDPS. This doesn't change that their rDPS is the total raid damage contribution they offered.

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Therefore, if only rDPS is considered for balance, then these jobs are the best in every single scenario on top of getting the highest benefits out of buffs.

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That's not true at all. Your premise is flawed based on the idea that rDPS is not a job's total raid contribution, when it by definition is. Just because their rDPS = their nDPS doesn't change anything, it just means that they themselves don't bring raid buffs that would modify their own personal damage.

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aDPS also depends on composition, so while it is a relevant metric to look at, it can vary a lot in a similar way that rDPS does for buffing jobs.

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The metric that will tell you the individual performance of a person without taking other people from the party into account is nDPS.

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Yes. This is why I mentioned that for gauging your own personal ability, nDPS/aDPS are better gauges than rDPS. For general balance, however, rDPS is superior as it goes into aggregated data points.

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Jobs that are strong in the nDPS/aDPS department should be lower in the rDPS department and vice versa, because the higher the percentile, the more damage players will squeeze out of buffs and so the more they will feed into others' rDPS. For example, since SAM is the job that benefits the most from buffs, it should be higher in aDPS than BLM, but lower in nDPS since the latter does not benefit as much from them (though it still does).

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This isn't true at all. First of all it's a blatant misunderstanding of what r, a, and nDPS are; second, these are FFLogs measurements, not Square Enix measurements. In general, all jobs' rDPS should be within a few percent of each other bar whatever "taxes" are deemed necessary on an entire role. Where their a and nDPS will fall is a metric of flavor and personal skill in comparison to others of the same job.

I'm not saying rDPS is a perfect metric, but it's the best for inter-job comparisons while nDPS and aDPS are more or less better for intra-job comparison.

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Balance seems to be made around the average player, not the very top (95+ or more).

You can see this when checking more accessible fights (i. e. those cleared by many people of different skill) such as P5S. MCH is the top ranged/caster job in the rDPS charts in the overall percentile and until the 80th because it doesn't rely on others for its damage and actually overtakes some melee jobs (NIN and DRG, so the ones with the lowest personal damage) in both aDPS and nDPS until higher percentiles. In fact, MCH's nDPS is still higher than DRG's in the 90th percentile.

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Yeah, MCH's median and upper quartile surpass RDM's, BRD's, SMN's, and DNC's as of 9/20/22. Talking about who balance is decided on is a bit tangential to the topic of how taxes should be approached in balance.

But again, nDPS is a measure of a job against itself. It's purely meant to be a gauge of how well one performed their own rotation in a vacuum, hence why it excludes all buffs including one's own buffs on other players. It doesn't MATTER how its nDPS is doing vs other job's nDPS.

I wonder how the 4 player Criterion dungeons are going to go considering just how bad the balance is in the 8 player content. Will the issues ranged and casters are having be exacerbated when there are half the amount of people present? Watch the devs just go and nerf the hp of all the mobs in the Criterion dungeons before that goes live.

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Originally Posted by Keichi

They must be balanced for all content. Not only the high end, hard content. So, my points are arcurrate.
People are doing normal stuff to. And has hard times in it to. Balancing mean, that the class need to be usefull in most content. Not necressary in everyone (heared, that blm was bad in 6.1, because of many movement in the content)

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So it's valid because you said so?

You know why content cannot and never will be balanced around normal content?
Because normal content does not and cannot require any form of specific party comps outside of 1/1/2, 1/2/5 or 2/2/4. Ever. Which means, you can end up with 4 melees in your normal raid. Or with 4 DNCs. You don't know what you'll get. Balance is out of the window the moment comps are completely random and can include as many double classes/ subroles as slots allow.
And because it's story content and as such is easy enough to clear all content by only grabbing aggro and then doing the /beesknees as a tank, by only spamming Cure I as a healer and by only doing auto attacks as a dps.
The game also evolves and all classes underwent numerous class changes throughout the years.
Do you remember Largesse? Eye for an Eye? Feather Step? Blood for Blood and old MDEF/ PDEF values? Old combo potencies? No? Many skills got scraped and given back at a much later levels so old content already plays completely differently from when it was released thanks to class changes, stat squish and now even reworks to make them Duty Support-suitable.

Do you know what would happen if you would suddenly balance healers around WHM not having Largesse in Stone Vigil anymore? Or a melee having to disengage for one GCD on that one boss in that one dungeon that someone runs maybe 1-3 time during leveling?
The content where balance actually matters, where you have enrages, where you need the 1% buff, where LB generation speed matters, where optimization, gear and uptime matters, would be pretty much unplayable.

If content A doesn't push anything at all but content B does.
Tell me, with all your logical conclusions, which content should have precedence for balance considerations? Should balance be made for content A, which does not push anything and can be completed with auto attacking? Or content B, that pushes toolkits, has enrages, needs coordination etc?

You need a better argument than "I say they must balance for all content so my point is accurate".
You're talking about things you have no experience with, you're just making wild guesses and compare a MMO with single-players, apply your arbitrary class/ role fantasies without even checking how the reality in this game looks like.

You know when the last time was when the DRG floortank meme was accurate and how it even came up?
When Blood for Blood increased the DRG's damage taken while also having by far the lowest magical defense. Try living through an unavoidable magical raidwide with 25% increased damage taken and the lowest magical defense of all classes. That is a risk that deserves higher dps as a reward if executed well. Not drooling over your keyboard and still outdpsing every other non-melee barring BLM while being packed in cotton wool and have hitboxes the size of an Earthly Star.

Oh, thanks for the clarification on Embolden and aDPS. I'm actually not that great with these. I just know overall rDPS is the best metric to evaluate.

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Originally Posted by Keichi

Because this is simply my opinion (and there are multtiple threads with the exact same content).

Meele have much more risk of beeing hit. Be it this thunder cats, who create close aoe. This plants with the close up spore attacks. Cerberus, who has aoe in his front and his back. This big mouthed plant enemy. The first boss of the new 90er ini (and many of the mob).
Than, are there the positonals (even, when they are reduced), that is relevant for max dmg. And not that easy to hit each time. And the phases by bosses, where you can not go near them, because of aoe.
Ranged classes need some drawbacks in combaring to meele, to be balanced. Esspecial the physicaly ones, who can attack the whole time, while running around. Otherwise, would whe have practicly only ranged classes and practicly no meele (i see in most cases more ranged classes as meele classes, in normal raids).

Maybe it is not the cases in the current savage stuff. But, it is the case in older content, story, the 90er ini and probally again in future content.

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I'm sorry but I swapped from RDM to SMN because it p8s door was too risky for me as a caster. There was significant more risk for me on this fight than any melee DPS. The fight designs have changed to favor melee DPS so the tax shouldn't be applied anymore.

The way FFLogs does it is a bit weird yeah. But weird in the "I can't think of a better way to do it so this will do" way. The way I think of it is aDPS specifically filters solo padding like dance partner and card dumping so you can't pad one person's parse like back in the day with pDPS. nDPS is a bit novel compared to a and r, and was selected specifically as a "here's how I did compared to others of the same job" type of metric.

So people cried because uPtImE and now that circles are bigger they cry about maH dEePs as ranged. SE should just stop catering to number slaves. There is no winning. Only the removal of interesting abilities because someone did a spreadsheet. I don't think XIV can afford to become more boring in terms of job design. lol

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

So people cried because uPtImE and now that circles are bigger they cry about maH dEePs as ranged. SE should just stop catering to number slaves. There is no winning. Only the removal of interesting abilities because someone did a spreadsheet. I don't think XIV can afford to become more boring in terms of job design. lol

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The ranged tax is a topic that exists since Shadowbringer.
Is it wrong that we want to feel that our jobs are valuable?

As far as I know, buffs and balancing never removed interesting mechanics from jobs.

Its not the "number slaves" that are making the jobs simpler. Its the casuals that SE desperately want to stay on the game and worry that anything requiring a pulse would scare them away.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

Your premise is flawed based on the idea that rDPS is not a job's total raid contribution

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That's not what I have said in my post. The point here is that the damage of "selfish" jobs depends entirely on their performance whereas the damage of any job with a damage buff depends on their performance and the other players in the party.

rDPS and aDPS/nDPS rely on each other. Synergy jobs need the other jobs to capitalize on their buffs. The stronger a specific job is at a particular thing (e. g. 2-min burst windows), the more they will provide. This is why NIN, for instance, is one of the best DNC partner, because despite the fact that their personal damage is lower than other jobs like MNK, their 2-min burst is stronger than the latter but their filler is weaker.

Therefore, if you put "selfish" jobs or jobs with stronger personal damage at the top of rDPS, they will always be the best jobs in most cases because their damage depends entirely on themselves, not others. The weaker a group is, the more a buffing job will be negatively affected and vice versa.

This is why the MCH example is relevant, because it is better than the other two p.ranged and non-BLM casters until a specific point in which buffs/comps are more optimized.

Even if the theoretical difference between all jobs was like 1-2%, synergistic jobs will always struggle to keep up unless we're talking about the 95th+ percentiles or, in other words, more optimized environments.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

Yes. This is why I mentioned that for gauging your own personal ability, nDPS/aDPS are better gauges than rDPS

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The three of them need to be taken into account or otherwise you can end up with unbalanced jobs. MNK right now is very high in nDPS compared to the other melees and top in rDPS, just like at the beginning of the expansion. Whether this is their right spot or not is SE's decision, but ideally if their nDPS is that high, then their rDPS should be lower.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

rDPS is superior as it goes into aggregated data points.

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All three metrics work in the same way, they just include buffs or take them out as necessary.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

it's a blatant misunderstanding of what r, a, and nDPS are

all jobs' rDPS should be within a few percent of each other

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I'm not entirely sure you understand my point or if you know what these metrics actually represent. Ideally jobs should be close to one another in rDPS and nDPS, with their order from top to bottom changing depending on where their focus is (personal or buffing), but in a general scenario you will never have absolute balance like this because overall is not the same as 75th, 95th or 99th percentile and the devs choose to balance around a specific group of players.

Take the 1-2% difference I mentioned above. What's the point of reference? If we choose the top percentiles, then synergistic jobs suffer until they reach the necessary requirements to actually be within the accepted number.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

these are FFLogs measurements, not Square Enix measurements

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We cannot know the way SE measures job performance so the only tool we have available to us to discuss the game's balance is the FFLogs website. You yourself are using their metrics so bringing this up is contradictory and strange.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

Talking about who balance is decided on is a bit tangential to the topic of how taxes should be approached in balance.

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Not tangential at all. Some of those taxes are based on SE's idea of how useful they are. In weaker groups, people will die more and so rezzes are more important than in stronger groups where people die less.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

So it's valid because you said so?

You know why content cannot and never will be balanced around normal content?
Because normal content does not and cannot require any form of specific party comps outside of 1/1/2, 1/2/5 or 2/2/4. .

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That you dont need specifics classes for the content is balance. When you need specific things, than you excluded something and people will only choice the best Option (and no matter what it is, it will allways be a best option, even, when it is only 0,00001% difference).

And nope, this skills say nothing to me. I started in shb (ok, the first time was in hw, but i dont remember anything from it, except, that mch had many random proccing skills), and focused only on blm, summoner/sch and dancer. The other classes came only, when i was unable to play casters anymore (to many skills i had to watch with lvl 75). And i dont cared much about classes, i didnt played (i even forgot, what kaiten was). So, i can not say anything about the skill part. Because i dont know, what you mean (i only know the names of the blm skills).

Whe have simply other things whe value and focusing, for what balance is needed. For me, is the whole enrage things bs. Why punishing Player for beeing a little to slow? That isnt necressary, to make content harder. The whole extra aoe and mechanics are enough. Why even the need of extra pushing and coordination? That work rarely with randoms and exclude the player, who dont have groups.

It is true, that i dont have much experience with savage. The only two i was doing was zodiak and Hydaelin. And only Hydaelin had i understanded (the Rotation by zodiak is to much for me). But, i simply dont like, how you guys speak about the devs (they are working good, not perfect, but good). And, i simply think, that you guys gives savage to much importance. Balancing for the masses and normal content is more important (has bad experience from wow, where they balanced pve content, because of pvp stuff).

And drg became floor tank because of to many failed jumps (at last, how i noticed it^^).

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

So people cried because uPtImE and now that circles are bigger they cry about maH dEePs as ranged. SE should just stop catering to number slaves. There is no winning. Only the removal of interesting abilities because someone did a spreadsheet. I don't think XIV can afford to become more boring in terms of job design. lol

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Only real way they could get away from that is removing the damage logs to make it harder for software to read them, but that would piss a whole lot of people off and the dev team knows it. Its why dps programs are such a grey area. They don't want it being openly used in game, but they know that without it end gamers would love their minds over it.

If you keep saying that things are facts because you say so while at the same time having no or next to no experience with the things you're talking about, you're really not worth having a discussion with. You don't even try to understand what people are saying while presenting your opinion as facts when people much more experienced than you gave several good arguments you ignored completely.

I'll say it once last time: classes are and should be balanced around content where balance matters. And that is only Savage and Ultimate for PvE. Nothing else. It doesn't even matter in Extreme (which is NOT the same as Savage btw).
You can run 2x WAR, 2x AST and 4x DNC in any normal content and you'll be perfectly fine. Try the same in Savage and you'll get steamrolled.
Comp of any sort doesn't matter in normal content. Classes overwriting buffs doesn't matter. Considerably slower LB generation doesn't matter. Having no hard hitters to make good use of buffs doesn't matter. Amount of mitigation doesn't matter.
All of it does matter in Savage because this content pushes the toolkits. It's not about us thinking Savage is more important. It's the logical conclusion to what the devs do: create content where balance doesn't matter at all (normal) and content where it matters (savage/ ultimate).

Let's take an example.
You are a new player, you play through the story, have fun and level up the job that strike your fantasy the most: Machinist. You love mechs and having a fancy gun.
You don't level anything but that, just having bard around level 60 from doing ARR until you go to MCH, and once you're done with the story and have tried the normal raids, you think for yourself "I want to try the harder content, push my skill!" and nice, the new raid tier is coming up soon.
So you get the minimum gear for it, practice your rotation, meld your stuff and... no matter how much you try you always fail. With or without number tools, people would figure out sooner or later that groups of equal skill with a machinist would do worse than groups with something else, so in the end... you get cut out of that content for no fault of you own save from picking the wrong job. So either you level up another job you might not be as interrested in, or you give up on trying the high end content.

Especially when the devs say that for jobs like healers, you have to play savage to fully enjoy your role, that type of balancing just doesn't cut it. Sorry Ransu but that's the issue here, the balance doesn't affect normal content much, yeah, and that's why people don't talk about balance in normal, but balance in hard content.

By the way, another topic that do need attention for caster DPS mainly is that it's only a matter of time that RDM & SMN become invalid. Because BLM does much more DPS, strats are being designed specifically for BLM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ijy_gV5Upk

This is the prime example of optimization and why melees and black mage will always win. Black Mage is static on first dog. Gets full rotation and the mechanic is basically a target dummy.

So... who was saying that Black Mage was more difficult than RDM & SMN? You'd be right because it is technically true but just look at this mechanic specifically. Tanks are popping invulns while everybody go to their position but BLM. Melees have uptime and can use 1 stack of True North. This happens during a full burst window.

I'll be straight up with people. Who cares about raise if all you need is damage. Dying would make you hit enrage anyways. Who cares about Magick Barrier or Phoenix healing as you get more and more gear you just do not need these tools. Who cares about Embolden and Searing Light when Black Mage just deals superior DPS by a significant amount. Mind you that Black Mage still deals way less than Melee DPS but it is the one exception that dodges the ranged tax because it is "harder". I don't see anything hard on that clip.

Utility and flavorful quirks like these should not disappear however.

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Originally Posted by Kalaam

Let's take an example.
You are a new player, you play through the story, have fun and level up the job that strike your fantasy the most: Machinist. You love mechs and having a fancy gun.
You don't level anything but that, just having bard around level 60 from doing ARR until you go to MCH, and once you're done with the story and have tried the normal raids, you think for yourself "I want to try the harder content, push my skill!" and nice, the new raid tier is coming up soon.
So you get the minimum gear for it, practice your rotation, meld your stuff and... no matter how much you try you always fail. With or without number tools, people would figure out sooner or later that groups of equal skill with a machinist would do worse than groups with something else, so in the end... you get cut out of that content for no fault of you own save from picking the wrong job. So either you level up another job you might not be as interrested in, or you give up on trying the high end content.

Especially when the devs say that for jobs like healers, you have to play savage to fully enjoy your role, that type of balancing just doesn't cut it. Sorry Ransu but that's the issue here, the balance doesn't affect normal content much, yeah, and that's why people don't talk about balance in normal, but balance in hard content.

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In your example is the biggest error:
Using minimum gear. Who would even try to do savage with minimum gear?
That this doesnt work is clear as the day. It is logical, that you have hard time with the lowest Equipment. That is even the case in normal content.
I would complain the other player, would they kick out people. Only because of the class.
Yes, there are sometimes groups that didnt work. I had this groups to, by Zodiak and Hydaelin and normal pandaemonium. But, i never complained so much about other classes, only because of the class (most of my complains would be the thinking, that it will need more time). But, because of the gear. Instant of going week 1 into savage (or with the lowest ilvl), i would wait until i have around mid lvl (mean currently around 610-615).

Did whe question this on a other way.
I read the whole time only complainings to p8s. How are the statics for p5-7s, dragonsong ultima, the hair voidsent with 615 weapons and endsinger?
Are there this much problems to? Or are they all not important, because, they are not the last dungeon/ older content?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Keichi

In your example is the biggest error:
Using minimum gear. Who would even try to do savage with minimum gear?
That this doesnt work is clear as the day. It is logical, that you have hard time with the lowest Equipment. That is even the case in normal content.
I would complain the other player, would they kick out people. Only because of the class.
Yes, there are sometimes groups that didnt work. I had this groups to, by Zodiak and Hydaelin and normal pandaemonium. But, i never complained so much about other classes, only because of the class (most of my complains would be the thinking, that it will need more time). But, because of the gear. Instant of going week 1 into savage (or with the lowest ilvl), i would wait until i have around mid lvl (mean currently around 610-615).

Did whe question this on a other way.
I read the whole time only complainings to p8s. How are the statics for p5-7s, dragonsong ultima, the hair voidsent with 615 weapons and endsinger?
Are there this much problems to? Or are they all not important, because, they are not the last dungeon/ older content?

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I said it was in the case of a new tier coming up, at first when you attempt it you'll have minimal gear. For which the content is intended to be doable.
Even if you can clear it weeks or months later with better gear, it is still an issue. For a marginal amount of people, true. But let's say you want to participate in races, trying to get a week 1 clear and such, there will be jobs deemed unable to do it, or too much of a liability. Essentially "non serious jobs for high end content"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kalaam

Let's take an example.
You are a new player, you play through the story, have fun and level up the job that strike your fantasy the most: Machinist. You love mechs and having a fancy gun.
You don't level anything but that, just having bard around level 60 from doing ARR until you go to MCH, and once you're done with the story and have tried the normal raids, you think for yourself "I want to try the harder content, push my skill!" and nice, the new raid tier is coming up soon.
So you get the minimum gear for it, practice your rotation, meld your stuff and... no matter how much you try you always fail. With or without number tools, people would figure out sooner or later that groups of equal skill with a machinist would do worse than groups with something else, so in the end... you get cut out of that content for no fault of you own save from picking the wrong job. So either you level up another job you might not be as interrested in, or you give up on trying the high end content.

Especially when the devs say that for jobs like healers, you have to play savage to fully enjoy your role, that type of balancing just doesn't cut it. Sorry Ransu but that's the issue here, the balance doesn't affect normal content much, yeah, and that's why people don't talk about balance in normal, but balance in hard content.

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To complete the question:

Yes, a class would need a buff, if he is by equal circumstances much lower, than similary other classes.

But, the question would be:
- how much lower is he? In wich contenx is he lower?

- how much differently is it to similary classes (ranger to ranger, meele to meele and so on)

- is the class a Support typ, that justify his lower Performance?

As i saw, is the difference between mch and the meele only 10%. It is true, that it is visibly lower. But is it even meaningfull lower? 10% did look much for me. And maybe other. Additionaly is it worth to discuss, if ranger should have lower dps (at last in my opinion, yes).
Than, how you see the data for support classes and Main classes.
The Programm that you guys use count the buff data to the one, who gave the buff. Other programms in other mmo (at last in my days in wow) counted buff dmg to the one, who did the dmg. And not the one, who gave the buff.

And at last would be the question:
Would the people even noticing, who is the weakest of all?
One reason, why FF dont have officaly dmg counter is, to not have this kind of discussions, about to low dmg.
And, if the lower dmg problem solved, when the people use high end ilvl? In the actually case, around 620 equipment?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Keichi

Additionaly is it worth to discuss, if ranger should have lower dps (at last in my opinion, yes)

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And ranged classes should have lower damage because...........?

Don't tell me it's because "they have downtime" or "it's more dangerous", because that's not true in FF14.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Keichi

In your example is the biggest error:
Using minimum gear. Who would even try to do savage with minimum gear?

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Every world racing week 1 clear groups are using the minimum item level which is crafted gear released at the time raid tier.
Min ilvl + whatever drop you get from the previous fights all that you can have. Only 1 or 2 members of a team get any gear during week 1; while the other 6 players are still at the minimum.

Savage adjacent: all Ultimate and Unreal fights are ilvl protected by the level sync and functionally done at minimum ilvl.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

And ranged classes should have lower damage because...........?

Don't tell me it's because "they have downtime" or "it's more dangerous", because that's not true in FF14.

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https://twitter.com/FFXIVMomo/status...81812792250370

This is a good post that explains why MCH is the way it is and why it likely will never match melee.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aikaal

By the way, another topic that do need attention for caster DPS mainly is that it's only a matter of time that RDM & SMN become invalid. Because BLM does much more DPS, strats are being designed specifically for BLM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ijy_gV5Upk

This is the prime example of optimization and why melees and black mage will always win. Black Mage is static on first dog. Gets full rotation and the mechanic is basically a target dummy.

So... who was saying that Black Mage was more difficult than RDM & SMN? You'd be right because it is technically true but just look at this mechanic specifically. Tanks are popping invulns while everybody go to their position but BLM. Melees have uptime and can use 1 stack of True North. This happens during a full burst window.

I'll be straight up with people. Who cares about raise if all you need is damage. Dying would make you hit enrage anyways. Who cares about Magick Barrier or Phoenix healing as you get more and more gear you just do not need these tools. Who cares about Embolden and Searing Light when Black Mage just deals superior DPS by a significant amount. Mind you that Black Mage still deals way less than Melee DPS but it is the one exception that dodges the ranged tax because it is "harder". I don't see anything hard on that clip.

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Problem: dmg is not all that matter.
People will fail mechanics. Healer can be going down. It is allways good to have additionaly resser.
I even complained, why the blm dont have this skill. Or even better:

Why didnt they make phönix feather usable in fights (and buyable), so, that everyone can ress others. Like in Eso.
It is allways a pain, when the healer are done and you dont have anyone who can raise them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

And ranged classes should have lower damage because...........?

Don't tell me it's because "they have downtime" or "it's more dangerous", because that's not true in FF14.

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Like i sayed, simply because they are ranger (uptime is not even the Main factor, it is the safer spot). Why going into meele, when you can do the same dmg from a safer spot or are able to kite enemy and attack at the same time (ok, that is not happen in savage, but can be situation in normal dungeon)?

One example, why it is safer for beeing in distance, and from not so long ago.
Phoenix from pandaemonium 3.
He use at the beginning a big close up aoe attack (that you can easily not seeing coming, so often it hits the meele). Meele can not use strong attack in the time, where they have to wait for the attack. And, can take heavy dmg, if they are hit of the attack.

In older content exist similary cases. Yes, it exist cases where the ranger can be trapped to (like the palace with this green small enemys). Or by Zodiak. But it is more rare for this situation.
And only because whe havent this kind of tricks in this 4 savage dungeon, doesnt it mean, that they are not coming back again.

It is not even FF alone, where meele have to do more dmg. It has to be in all games, for fairness. A other option could be, that meele have to be more HP or defense as a exchange. Meele needs to have something in advangte over ranger and caster in games, for fairness. Otherwise wouldnt there be any real reason exist, to go into meele (it is simply my experience from differently games, that say, that meele need something in advangte over ranger, otherwise are ranger to superior in games).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Keichi

It is not even FF alone, where meele have to do more dmg. It has to be in all games, for fairness. A other option could be, that meele have to be more HP or defense as a exchange. Meele needs to have something in advangte over ranger and caster in games, for fairness. Otherwise wouldnt there be any real reason exist, to go into meele (it is simply my experience from differently games, that say, that meele need something in advangte over ranger, otherwise are ranger to superior in games).

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There's so many hot takes in this whole thread, but quick question, what's fair about a game that touts itself on balance where "any and all jobs are viable for any and all content" when folks are showing how that's not currently the case?

If ranged can't complete the content where others are, that's a failing on balance. Nor a matter of "wait for better gear". At that point, the content is no longer current and thus anything can clear it because it's been crept by the power curve.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Keichi

Problem: dmg is not all that matter.
People will fail mechanics. Healer can be going down. It is allways good to have additionaly resser.
I even complained, why the blm dont have this skill.

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Because at the end of the day damage is all that matter in this game. You don't defeat a boss by outlasting its attacks. You reduce its HP to 0 with damage before the timer runs out.
If both healers go down or really any player, 50% of the time in Savage and Ultimate it's a wipe. It does not matter if you have RDM and or SMN to help raise. Even if you managed to raise them, your SMN/RDM are doing less damage than they should and you may hit enrage instead. Extra raises does help in progging yes. But at the clear you certainly don't want anybody dying.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Keichi

Like i sayed, simply because they are ranger (uptime is not even the Main factor, it is the safer spot). Why going into meele, when you can do the same dmg from a safer spot or are able to kite enemy and attack at the same time (ok, that is not happen in savage, but can be situation in normal dungeon)?

One example, why it is safer for beeing in distance, and from not so long ago.
Phoenix from pandaemonium 3.
He use at the beginning a big close up aoe attack (that you can easily not seeing coming, so often it hits the meele). Meele can not use strong attack in the time, where they have to wait for the attack. And, can take heavy dmg, if they are hit of the attack.

In older content exist similary cases. Yes, it exist cases where the ranger can be trapped to (like the palace with this green small enemys). Or by Zodiak. But it is more rare for this situation.
And only because whe havent this kind of tricks in this 4 savage dungeon, doesnt it mean, that they are not coming back again.
.

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Because being far away really doesn't mean safe in this game. Also other people have explained why we should not take normal dungeon as metrics.
4-man Savage we will see. But that still doesn't discount the fact that in the current Savage tier, being ranged doesn't really have advantages over being melee.
What do you mean Phoinix? Experimental Fireplume? You absolutely see it coming and you just move to the edge, along with the tank and the boss. If anything it's the casters that are in danger because they would be casting stuff and thus may have to move later.

The reason to run melee? Melee LB does the most single target damage. That alone is already a reason. There might be a few Savage fights where using other LBs would be advantageous yes. But mostly it's always the melee LB that improve the team's damage the most. They also currently have more HP than rangeds and especially casters.

Hell, if you want to compare other games that much I'd say Elden Ring's magic is so good you can run pure magic builds. Gee I wonder why are there still players with melee builds? Isn't it always SAFER to attack from a distance? But of course we don't discuss Elden Ring balance here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Keichi

Problem: dmg is not all that matter.
People will fail mechanics. Healer can be going down. It is allways good to have additionaly resser.
I even complained, why the blm dont have this skill. Or even better:

Why didnt they make phönix feather usable in fights (and buyable), so, that everyone can ress others. Like in Eso.
It is allways a pain, when the healer are done and you dont have anyone who can raise them.

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A res is only good in getting you back and seeing further mechanics. You will and usually always will need a clean run with no death. I can tell you that I've have to do a grand total of 0 res in my clears. It's only good to see further.

Yeah, caster raise should be a role action with a CD on it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Keichi

Like i sayed, simply because they are ranger (uptime is not even the Main factor, it is the safer spot). Why going into meele, when you can do the same dmg from a safer spot or are able to kite enemy and attack at the same time (ok, that is not happen in savage, but can be situation in normal dungeon)?

One example, why it is safer for beeing in distance, and from not so long ago.
Phoenix from pandaemonium 3.
He use at the beginning a big close up aoe attack (that you can easily not seeing coming, so often it hits the meele). Meele can not use strong attack in the time, where they have to wait for the attack. And, can take heavy dmg, if they are hit of the attack.

In older content exist similary cases. Yes, it exist cases where the ranger can be trapped to (like the palace with this green small enemys). Or by Zodiak. But it is more rare for this situation.
And only because whe havent this kind of tricks in this 4 savage dungeon, doesnt it mean, that they are not coming back again.

It is not even FF alone, where meele have to do more dmg. It has to be in all games, for fairness. A other option could be, that meele have to be more HP or defense as a exchange. Meele needs to have something in advangte over ranger and caster in games, for fairness. Otherwise wouldnt there be any real reason exist, to go into meele (it is simply my experience from differently games, that say, that meele need something in advangte over ranger, otherwise are ranger to superior in games).

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Being ranged in this game isn't safer. Casters and ranged are dying more often to raidwides in early gear because they have less HP, and can't dodge unavoidable attacks. How is it "safer" to have lower HP and be constantly threatened by undodgeable attacks that will outright kill you more often because you have lower HP and lower defense?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ransu

https://twitter.com/FFXIVMomo/status...81812792250370

This is a good post that explains why MCH is the way it is and why it likely will never match melee.

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This is all true, and is a microcosm of a phenomenon I've observed happening with games -in general- over the last ~10ish years. Fighters vs Mages if you want to boil it down to that. Once upon a time, Mages were more powerful but squishier. Fighters were weaker but tankier. That's a vast oversimplification, but you get the gist. Over time, that's changed. Mages have lost a lot of their utility and reality warping abilities. In many games they're just archers with sparkly attacks instead of arrows; all they do is deal damage. Meanwhile all of the weaknesses Fighters have are being stripped away, one by one, while not touching their strengths at all. In a lot of modern games, fighters have more HP, more defense, weapons that shoot laser beams at a distance, unlimited use of their abilities, deal more damage, and all of this often walking back to excuses for weaknesses they used to have. Meanwhile Mages are still squishier, can't wear heavy armor, often have heavy resource constraints, can't use all but the weakest of their powers infinitely, and trade all of this for maybe slightly stronger ranged attacks, also with excuses harking back to strengths they used to have.

If you want an example? Terraria. Melee builds have more defense because they "have to be close to things". Meanwhile the best weapon in the game is a....I hesitate to call it a "sword"....a massive AOE boomerang that ignores terrain, has infinite range, infinite piercing, requires no MP to use, has double the damage stat of the strongest magic weapon in the game, and is totally okay because "melee needed something good! And it doesn't matter because it's endgame".

In that same patch, the endgame mage armor got a nerf, because it was "too strong". The best mage weapon deals half the damage of this sword, doesn't ignore terrain, costs basically your entire MP bar to fire it for more than three seconds (and an accessory to auto-drink MP potions, which decreases your damage as a punishment for it), and have always had much lower defense.

I know the arguments for why Ranged classes are often weaker than melees, I just think there's a major double-standard where fighters get nothing but benefits for weaknesses they had twenty years ago, and mages get weaknesses because they had benefits twenty years ago.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Keichi

Like i sayed, simply because they are ranger (uptime is not even the Main factor, it is the safer spot). Why going into meele, when you can do the same dmg from a safer spot or are able to kite enemy and attack at the same time (ok, that is not happen in savage, but can be situation in normal dungeon)?

One example, why it is safer for beeing in distance, and from not so long ago.
Phoenix from pandaemonium 3.
He use at the beginning a big close up aoe attack (that you can easily not seeing coming, so often it hits the meele). Meele can not use strong attack in the time, where they have to wait for the attack. And, can take heavy dmg, if they are hit of the attack.

In older content exist similary cases. Yes, it exist cases where the ranger can be trapped to (like the palace with this green small enemys). Or by Zodiak. But it is more rare for this situation.
And only because whe havent this kind of tricks in this 4 savage dungeon, doesnt it mean, that they are not coming back again.

It is not even FF alone, where meele have to do more dmg. It has to be in all games, for fairness. A other option could be, that meele have to be more HP or defense as a exchange. Meele needs to have something in advangte over ranger and caster in games, for fairness. Otherwise wouldnt there be any real reason exist, to go into meele (it is simply my experience from differently games, that say, that meele need something in advangte over ranger, otherwise are ranger to superior in games).

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This is one of the worst takes in this thread. You seem to know nothing about this game.
For other action games like monster hunter, yes, because monsters keep doing point-blank attacks that only hit melees.
But in this game's relevant contents like DSR, 6.2 savage, EX, mechanics hit EVERYONE. Melees don't have a higher risk and your point is objectively and factually wrong.

In fact, melees even have a lower risk because of their self-shielding, self-healing, and higher base HP in the first place.
When people do difficult contents, in fact casters always die first because they have such a low base HP that they sometimes need extra shielding in earlier weeks.

And before you start talking about old contents, there're multiple posts here pointing out that devs obviously don't balance the game around old contents because some jobs are broken.
Literally no one except you cares about balancing the old contents.

I think I agree on all points.

The Ranged Tax has no place in a game encounter space where melee have 100% uptime (or near enough to not matter) and minimal positionals, which can even be dealt with with stuff like True North. Either boss hitboxes need to be a lot smaller, or Ranged damage needs to go up. This is especially true since Casters (less SMN, but definitely BLM and RDM) have at least some periods where they're stuck on the ground casting, and a lot of modern fights incorporate a lot of movement. Melee are able to dance all over the arena keeping uptime and making most positionals while Casters are having to blow through tools just to maintain ABC at a minimal level.

Utility definitely needs a reevaluation. Moreover, it punishes people who like a playstyle even if they don't like or use the utility. Some people like RDM's rotation, but they're punished with one of the lowest damage outputs even when doing content where Verraise isn't used or can't help (either super casual content or super hardcore content where no one is dying or it's a wipe anyway). While some utility can be weighted against damage, the gap is clearly too much right now.

Difficulty is especially problematic. While on paper, "work harder, benefit more" seems to make sense in a meritocracy world, the problem is some Jobs are DESIGNED to be easier to play. Moreover, what players like or find comfortable OR difficult is individual and subjective. I found old SMN easy to grasp and keep the rotation going, but consistently wiffed stuff on RDM, the supposedly easier Job, because the procs didn't necessarily register with my brain. Some people think low APM means a Job is easier, but BLM, widely regarded as one of the more challenging Jobs in the game, has one of the more simplistic core rotations. While I don't expect every Job will appeal to everyone, because what is highly difficult to one person might be easy to another (I'm a healer main and maintaining DoT uptime in ANY GAME is the most difficult thing to me for whatever reason - I have no idea why, but it is; so of course EVERY healer gets slapped with a DoT... <_< )

...because of how subjective it is, it shouldn't really be used as a key of measurement or balance. While having some Jobs regarded as having a higher skill ceiling existing and topping the pack is probably okay, the gap, again, should be far narrower than it is today. Having some easier Jobs isn't bad - not everything needs to be hyper hardcore or games die (SEE: Wildstar), but there are limits to what that "bonus" should be for the harder ones.

And above all: The gaps should never be large enough that some Jobs genuinely cannot contribute effectively to clearing content. I think we've seen what that leads to.