Please let summoner keep raise

Yet again, blue mage already solved a problem in the normal game.
Res tax = everyone can Res it's just a long ass CD so you won't be able to mass res.
Healers get a damage rotation and a healing rotation.
Aggro management is a thing.

Keep the rez, adjust the heal. It's stupid that it doesn't scale with intelligence. And this is going on how many years? And the sad thing is SMN got a "new heal" but it's not even viable to use, since it's on a timer.

The best changes that the devs could make to address several balance issues among casters,
because the current state of casters is downright bad, would be to give an instant role action resurrection with a 5-minute cooldown to all caster.

They could allow Red Mage to keep its chain rez ability as it’s part of the job, and Summoner could recover its resurrection faster when using Phoenix, for example, resetting the cooldown to 0.
Why give it to everyone?
Let me explain.

First, this would make all casters reliable during progression phases.
Second, they could reduce the DPS disparity between the so-called "pure" and "support" categories because currently, the difference is around 10%,
which is just huge—especially considering that the Pictomancer has quite a few support options, so that category essentially doesn't exist.

If they really want to emphasize the support aspect, they need to add real support spells and not just a raid buff that increases RDPS because, as of today, almost every job has one, even those with relatively high DPS.

Instead, they should add more synergy, like in the Stormblood era—for example, options to give a portion of your mana to a healer, an effect that allows the group to move faster for x seconds,
or an effect that lets melee DPS ignore positionals and attack from a further distance for x seconds.

In short, they can innovate to strengthen the so-called support jobs, because currently, most so-called support jobs only boost RDPS, but many jobs, even the most powerful ones, sometimes have that effect.
Meanwhile, others, like Machinist, who don’t have anything, have strangely low DPS.

So, if they want to recategorize support casters, they need to completely rework them, and the same goes for physical ranged DPS.


And if they make the mistake of removing the resurrection ability from Summoner and slightly increasing its DPS, they won’t solve the problem because it would push three casters out of the progression phase.
Red Mage would become the only "Prog Mage," and since resurrection is a powerful ability, it would suffer a 10% damage penalty because, for some unknown reason,
the devs believe that resurrection alone justifies such a significant DPS difference between jobs in the same role.


There are currently three major inconsistencies disrupting the balance among casters.
The first is resurrection, the second is Summoner, which has 99.9% mobility and doesn’t seem to fit within the caster category,
and the third is the colossal difference in firepower between the pure damage and resurrection categories.

Please keep it healers are useless I would prefer to help people then rely on narcissist to do the job if a dps upsets them.

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Originally Posted by remiff

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Having raise as a role action that gets modified by job-specific traits is an interesting idea. If I recall historically, the main objection was that raise doesn't really fit with the traditional Black Magic spell list, as far as the series is concerned.

I think the workaround to this is to implement a neutral role action, like a Phoenix Down action with a set recast (or perhaps add additional recast time based off of how many times the action was used by the party.) If equal access to raise is available in every raid comp, then you don't have to penalise players from bringing them.

Support actions that help a teammate gain additional DPS is an interesting concept. The range extension was one that I hadn't considered. Raidwide movement tools are another. I think if you have more unique variants of support actions, you're again less likely to have a specific 'support category' that is underpowered at DPS.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I think the workaround to this is to implement a neutral role action, like a Phoenix Down action with a set recast (or perhaps add additional recast time based off of how many times the action was used by the party.) If equal access to raise is available in every raid comp, then you don't have to penalise players from bringing them.

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Oh that'd be interesting in general. But for Phoenix Down in particular:

* Summoner has an instant case "Phoenix Flame" version that also puts a buff on the raised person that will make them unable to die the next time they would do so within 30 seconds, while also continuously healing them for a lot of health during this time. It recharges only every 2 minutes, when Phoenix is summoned (this assumed the absolutely inane current Solar Bahamut stuff is resolved first, but that needs to be done anyways so let's assume Bahamut and Phoenix cycle properly again), this recharge skill in fact replaces the current healing buff of Phoenix.
* Pictomancers have to paint a Phoenix Down (slow cast) then use it (instant, short range). Can freely by used, but triggers or refreshes the CD on Starry Muse if used, so it's for absolutely emergencies (as the job has no rezz right now, I figured it needs a lot of restrictions).
* Black Mage can cast a 240s CD 10000 mana costing 2,5s casting rezz extended-range (50-60, you never have to move for it) but it only lights up after Fire III. Meaning you'd "abort" your fire phase right after starting it to do this. Same as above, no rezz right now, so lots of restrictions.
* Red Mage basically keeps what it has right now, as it's the unique sales pitch of the job.

Where is this obsession with adding massive limitations or huge cool-downs to Raise abilities coming from? All that does is make the game way more difficult for casuals who will literally have no way to recover from a mistake anymore. Which, given FFXIV’s ‘so easy your dog can play’ design, feels unnecessary. Like, look at all the posts about ‘bad healers’: are we seriously going to trust them and them alone with whether or not the party succeeds?

I mean it’s not like removing Raise is going to make Summoner/Red Mage dps suddenly skyrocket. It’d stay the exact same because the raise only half the reason they’re at the bottom . The other reason is the fact they’re both strongly considered two of the easiest jobs in the game, Summoner especially. Unless they fundamentally change how the job’s entire rotation works to be more complex and convoluted it’s going to be sitting at the bottom of the dps pile anyway with or without Raise.

As for Black Mage, that has its own problems, but I highly doubt anyone in their right mind is going to reject a (properly balanced) Black Mage because ‘we might need Raise so we’ll just take the de-facto weakest dps in the game instead’?

Why do people complain about homogenisation then constantly come to the forums demanding job homogenisation lol? Is it really the end of the world is certain jobs are good at certain things? What difference does it make if Black Mage can’t Raise assuming it’s dps is balanced at a proportionate level? Current job design is a direct result of them constantly removing those things, so I’d prefer if they like, stopped, lol.

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Originally Posted by Connor

Why do people complain about homogenisation then constantly come to the forums demanding job homogenisation lol? Is it really the end of the world is certain jobs are good at certain things? What difference does it make if Black Mage can’t Raise assuming it’s dps is balanced at a proportionate level? Current job design is a direct result of them constantly removing those things, so I’d prefer if they like, stopped, lol.

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That wasn't my intention at all tbh, as given by the examples above I enjoy the thought of highly unique and restricted different approaches to the same problem.

Now, should all casters be able to rezz in whatever capacity in the first place? No clue, but seeing how spammable rezzes are anyways it hardly matters if we add more of them. FFXIV as a game did decide to make unlimited in-combat rezzing a thing. But whether this means it's okay for an entire (non-healer) role to have rezzes, that's not something I'd want to look at in the context, that's a separate problem altogether.

But once that's accepted, I like it when each approach is wildly different. And now of course you could say "But why not give everyone a spammable rezz, that's just going to make people fail to do it", by that token we could give everyone tank EHP too, because DPS jobs would otherwise fail at surviving raid bosses attacking them. That's not a good slippery slope to step onto!

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Originally Posted by Carighan

snip for characters

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Having abilities like Raise with heavy restrictions seems counter to the point of the ability to me personally.

Like, take Warden’s Paean. Esuna on a 45s cool-down. The requirement for Esuna is so rare, and even then when it does become an emergency and someone actually needs it, you have to pray to god nobody else gets another debuff or you’re completely out of luck (assuming healer has somehow inexplicably vanished from existence lol). As a result, most people just completely ignore to the point that I genuinely believe at least 70% of Bards literally do not that the ability even exists.

If you ask me though, all they need to do is made it a GCD, with or without Mp cost or cast or w/e. Then it can actually be used in an emergency to support when necessary; otherwise it’s functionally redundant. Removable debuffs are either such an emergency you need to get them immediately, or so unthreatening they might as well not exist (healers adjust lol).

Raise is the exact same to me. Either it’s needed in an emergency or it’s not really necessary (healer can do it, enemy at 1% HP, w/e). I feel like adding restrictions to it like a cool-down just defeat the purpose of it being there in the first place. I mean, I hate that Lux Solaris is tied to Solar Bahamut too. And sure, they’ve literally designed every encounter to always have an aoe come out at the 120s counter, but it’s still infuriating to me to have a heal ability that has both a huge cool-down and a limited window in which it’s used. Either let us use it when we need it or turn it into something actually valuable outside of no-healer runs lol.

Unfortunately for us, regarding your second point, that’s literally how they balance job design right now lol. Gnash thing from Viper being a salient example. They removed it from existence purely on the basis that someone might forget to apply it and lower their dps. And I mean, while it’s not tank eHP, doesn’t every dps job have at least one defensive ability along with Bloodbath, Arm’s Length and Second Wind precisely for ‘if they get something they’re not supposed to?’. The devs’ approach to most feedback ends up being ‘homogenise class design then remove anything that might cause variations in skill’. I guess I’m just worried they might get ideas lol

I’d just hate to see Raise removed/restricted from casters purely because ‘that’s for the healers’ or some other weird developer justification they’ll give. Extending it to other jobs I’m personally neutral on, though I do feel like Raise on Black Mage would be (ironically) a paradox lol. And that’s not considering other forms of raise that have a cool-down i.e Phoenix Down items. But for the spell itself I feel like it’d be better if they keep it the way it is for every job that has it

Raise intrinsically has limitations built into it, as the spell has an MP cost attached. Even if you're a RDM in casual content, you will quickly bottom out if you're trying to chain raise your party (see: Bozja raise achievements). If you want to standardise Raise across the role as a spell, you'll run into balance issues because of significant differences around how BLM and PCT's MP management works relative to the raise casters.

If you were introducing Phoenix Down as a ranged role action, then you would need some other equivalent limitation in place of the MP cost. That may mean giving the action charges and a recast (and this could be scaled relative to content difficulty). I don't think that it's a problem, because more jobs would be raise capable on average, which in turn means that you would have more consistent access to it. If anything, you'd probably need to have some form of mandatory cast time with a charge system to keep it from being too easy to get players back up.

Just as an aside, I'd also like to see Second Wind replaced with a similar standardised Potion action available to all roles. Give players a fixed number of starting charges, and let lt refill on a recast timer. You could even trait it to upgrade in potency with higher levels (Hi-potion/X-potion).

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Originally Posted by Connor

Raise is the exact same to me. Either it’s needed in an emergency or it’s not really necessary (healer can do it, enemy at 1% HP, w/e). I feel like adding restrictions to it like a cool-down just defeat the purpose of it being there in the first place. I mean, I hate that Lux Solaris is tied to Solar Bahamut too. And sure, they’ve literally designed every encounter to always have an aoe come out at the 120s counter, but it’s still infuriating to me to have a heal ability that has both a huge cool-down and a limited window in which it’s used. Either let us use it when we need it or turn it into something actually valuable outside of no-healer runs lol.

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Personally I like the rez, and feel having 2 casters that can rez and 2 that can’t is perfectly balanced. (Although some of the ideas I’ve seen for having all 4 casters have rezzes are really interesting! lol) The only way I could be happy with having a bunch of restrictions on the rez is if I’m getting something else to make up for it. Like more damage, another cool spell, more gem summons!

And Lux is frustrating like you said… if you have good healers, it’s not really needed for that first raidwide and ends up just being a waste, or you have an actual need for it even a few seconds later and it’s gone. It’s activated during Solar, but it should stay at least until the next Demi phase for more flexibility.

I doubt that raise can continue to exist in its current state. Not only are you splitting a subrole into two separate DPS tiers, but it turns jobs with raise into progression-only jobs. The ease with which you can swap out SMN for PCT means that you are encouraged to run at least one raise caster (if not two) to unravel fight mechanics, and then discard it for a PCT when you actually need to meet a DPS check with no additional loss in utility.

Increasing the availability of raise removes the need for two separate DPS tiers within Magical Ranged. You can prog and clear on the job that you actually enjoy playing, rather than feeling compelled to switch.

I think the only solution going forward is to completely standardise raise. Design it so that you will always have exactly two non-healer raises present in every group, with appropriate restrictions on use (if not gated by MP, as it is currently, then by recast or charges). Now it no longer needs to factor into DPS, and you can actually take advantage of the fact that there's 21 jobs and promote more varied comps.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Increasing the availability of raise removes the need for two separate DPS tiers within Magical Ranged. You can prog and clear on the job that you actually enjoy playing, rather than feeling compelled to switch.

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I mean, I’m not going to switch anyways, but I wouldn’t mind doing more damage!

Im definitely not opposed to the idea, but the issue on the table seems to be whether or not to remove it from the two that have it, not spread it to the whole role. Is this just a random thing that the devs are considering as they go about balancing with whatever they’re planning for 8.0 job changes? Or were there a lot of people that actually wanted it removed? I don’t remember hearing anything about it til Yoshi P made a comment about it in a LL. Supposedly they’re going to be leaning into job identity, so it honestly kinda confuses me that they would think of removing rez from SMN & RDM.

Anyway, if they remove the Summoner's resurrection ability, the Summoner will eventually become the Machinist of Final Fantasy 14, and it's not certain they will increase its DPS in return.
Look at the state of the Machinist over several expansions.

Moreover, only the Red Mage would remain the "prog mage" par excellence. Every job can be used in progression except those without a rez, and this situation is absolutely abnormal.

To fix this problem, they should simply minimize the DPS difference between Pure and Support jobs, and give a rez to everyone.
Why would it be an issue to restrict the rez? It's a powerful tool, and the developers consider it so powerful that balance will never be ideal as long as it exists in its current form.

So, the best solution would be to give it to everyone with restrictions for the Black Mage/Pictomancer and the Summoner, except for the Red Mage because it's the job's core concept.

Why should putting a cooldown on a powerful spell be problematic?
It wouldn't make the game harder and would allow all jobs to truly contribute in progression.

We just need better balance between "utility and firepower," and standardizing the rez is clearly the best solution, rather than removing it, leaving it to a single mage, and worsening the balance even further.

They should give a small cooldown or even some sacrifices for using the rez to the Black Mage and Pictomancer.

For the Summoner, a small cooldown that resets with each use of Phoenix, or perhaps a temporary effect, though I'm not too fond of temporary utility, especially when it's situational.

And no change for the redmage.

Can someone point me to where exactly Yoshi P said this in a LL?

Just let everyone use Phoenix Dawn.

And take out the weakened state from ress made by healers. Ress made by them should always be better than by other jobs.

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Originally Posted by SkeletonPsychic

Can someone point me to where exactly Yoshi P said this in a LL?

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https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...threads/498857

“On a different note, our overall focus for this update was a direct upgrade, so after many discussions within the Development team, we decided to keep Resurrection for Patch 7.0. But as we briefly mentioned earlier, the team is already discussing job mechanics for 8.0 onward and how to enhance each job’s identity, so whether Resurrection will remain a part of summoners’ job actions is still being debated.”

Reminder that they said the exact same thing before EW too.

Link

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We heavily debated over whether or not to keep Resurrection, and in the end, it has remained.

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They've just kicked the can down the road for another expansion and 2 years.

It's not going anywhere until 2026 at the earliest, so personally, I wouldn't waste any energy worrying about it this early. By doing so, I guarantee you're already putting in more effort thinking about the issue than they are.

I think this is the perfect time to provide feedback, actually. If you're making suggestions in the lead in to next expansion, all those design decisions will be locked in.

At the very least, it sounds like they're going to be reviewing jobs and levelling systems for 8.0, and it's in their interest to do so because the levelling system impacts new player retention. If you have a productive discussion about what you want to see happen with raise on Casters during their planning phase, it may have some bearing on their design decisions moving forward.

I feel that Summon should have Auto-Life connected to Phoenix instead of just a normal raise. The draw back being it's only one raise every time Phoenix comes up and increased MP cost. Wishing aside, I'm not against it if it gets something to compensate (Like another Egi??? :D). Also, I've yet to actually see any job get blacklisted. With that said I started in SHB but I've yet to see this actually happen in PF.

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Originally Posted by Connor

Yoshi-P: ‘we might make jobs more unique/individual in 8.0’

Community: ‘make all the casters the same by removing raise from Summoner and Red Mage!’

Yoshi-P: ?????

Be careful what you wish for.

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This a thousand times over. Casters are the last subrole with a meaningful distinction within each job (both in terms of gameplay and especially the utility they bring).
People lament the homogenization of jobs... but then make a fuss over the rez. Bringing or not a rez caster is a meaningful choice with pros and cons right now. No role has something comparable to this. We should cherish this.
Balance is messed up, but it's not hard to give RDM/SMN a 2/3% overall buff without changing how raises are distributed (SMN with the slower rez, RDM with chain rez, BLM and PCT with no rez, tho PCT has the aoe shield instead).

The problem comes down to how that distinction is valued. As an example, let's take a look at the difference in the upper quartile rDPS between the top performing and worst performing jobs on each subrole on a given fight:

• Tanks: 232.7
• Healers: 1175
• Melee: 560.8
• Physical Ranged: 649.7
• Magical Ranged: 2608

It's incredibly easy to say 'just give them 2%' when there's a 10% discrepancy within the Magical Ranged role. This isn't a utility vs. damage trade-off on a support role, either - the primary function of a DPS job is to do damage. You're taking on this loss simply for giving your team access to an extra raise - even if you never get a chance to use it!

With the advent of PCT bringing a significant amount of completely untaxed utility, you really have to question how these jobs are balanced. To add insult to injury, the shared gearing makes it common enough practice to prog on one job and clear on the other. Why should there be a continued subrole split between 'progression casters' and 'damage casters'?

There's also the question of where Physical Ranged DPS sits in all this. You could argue that DPS is balanced as if SMN and RDM are actually part of the Physical Ranged category instead of Magical Ranged category. If we did this, the numbers would be:

• Physical Ranged: 649.7
• Magical Ranged: 468.13

What this shows you is that half of the casters are balanced as if they're Physical Ranged jobs. Except they have access to raise, and Physical Ranged jobs don't.

If you're going to bother to have subroles, jobs within these subroles should offer relatively similar DPS. A degree of variation in both utility and damage is natural. Variation that puts you in a completely different subrole category is not.

The solution is this: standardise raise, restore subrole DPS parity. I'd go a step further and say standardise raise across all ranged jobs, and grant DPS parity to all ranged jobs, regardless of whether they have a physical or magical job aesthetic.

I'd take a raise taxed caster DPS over a mobility taxed rphys DPS any day.

The irony is that rphys are all protected within their own role bubble by the party bonus even if they are all shit, when SMN and RDM have to contend with BLM and PCT without the protection of their role party bonus because their direct challengers now are their own role. But rphys jobs still suck more than SMN and RDM by miles, especially BRD and MCH (DNC at least can justify having good heals like SMN and RDM).

It's sad how all those jobs are only surviving through artificial band aids like party bonus and whatnot, and the more casters they do add to the roster, the more cracks are going to show.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I'd take a raise taxed caster DPS over a mobility taxed rphys DPS any day.

The irony is that rphys are all protected within their own role bubble by the party bonus even if they are all shit, when SMN and RDM have to contend with BLM and PCT without the protection of their role party bonus because their direct challengers now are their own role. But rphys jobs still suck more than SMN and RDM by miles, especially BRD and MCH (DNC at least can justify having good heals like SMN and RDM).

It's sad how all those jobs are only surviving through artificial band aids like party bonus and whatnot, and the more casters they do add to the roster, the more cracks are going to show.

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The rezz casters are also “protected” by the fact that the damage casters can fill the 4th slot

Rather than it being 2/1/1 or 1/1/1/x they seem to be balancing it 2/2, 2 high damage dealers, 2 lower damage dealers where at least 1 higher damage dealer has to be melee and at least 1 lower damage dealer has to be a phys ranged

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

The rezz casters are also “protected” by the fact that the damage casters can fill the 4th slot

Rather than it being 2/1/1 or 1/1/1/x they seem to be balancing it 2/2, 2 high damage dealers, 2 lower damage dealers where at least 1 higher damage dealer has to be melee and at least 1 lower damage dealer has to be a phys ranged

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So redmage and Summoner are just a support jobs

Which I mentioned before that we have to create new role for dps jobs that are supports..
SMN, RDM, BRD,DNC all of them should have rezz and utility

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Originally Posted by BabyYoda

So redmage and Summoner are just a support jobs

Which I mentioned before that we have to create new role for dps jobs that are supports..
SMN, RDM, BRD,DNC all of them should have rezz and utility

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I mean, it could be a solution. Unfortunately any mention of ‘support jobs’ in FFXIV will get you lynched at light speed by the ‘bUt tHe EnCoUntEr dEsiGn BaLaNcInG ’ players looking for literally any reason to make everything more dps oriented

Not really sure why anyone would suggest that raise casters are 'protected'. If you look at the fastest clears, there are two fights where RDM and SMN have 0% representation. That's even worse than MCH. BLM isn't much better off, but at least there are a few dedicated fans that optimise on it purely for the sake of challenging themselves. Meanwhile PCT has a lock on the caster slot, with up to 98% representation in some cases. That's not a caster slot, it's a PCT slot. The caster role is a mess right now. And I say that as someone who remembers Stormblood tanking.

And this outcome is predictable. Because you're effectively trading off 10% of your damage output for that raise. RDM/SMN have a role to play in initial progression when you're trying to understand how a mechanic works, but outside of that you're going to prefer to replace them.

Now if you buffed SMN and RDM to PCT levels, something interesting happens. You wouldn't replace a melee slot, you would replace the Physical Ranged slot. Because the DPS difference that PCT provides makes up for the 1% inclusion bonus. All of these scenarios are bad.

Standardize access to raise on ranged jobs. Give them all DPS parity. Let players bring the ranged jobs that they like. Bring the player, not the job.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Not really sure why anyone would suggest that raise casters are 'protected'. If you look at the fastest clears, there are two fights where RDM and SMN have 0% representation. That's even worse than MCH. BLM isn't much better off, but at least there are a few dedicated fans that optimise on it purely for the sake of challenging themselves. Meanwhile PCT has a lock on the caster slot, with up to 98% representation in some cases. That's not a caster slot, it's a PCT slot. The caster role is a mess right now. And I say that as someone who remembers Stormblood tanking.

And this outcome is predictable. Because you're effectively trading off 10% of your damage output for that raise. RDM/SMN have a role to play in initial progression when you're trying to understand how a mechanic works, but outside of that you're going to prefer to replace them.

Now if you buffed SMN and RDM to PCT levels, something interesting happens. You wouldn't replace a melee slot, you would replace the Physical Ranged slot. Because the DPS difference that PCT provides makes up for the 1% inclusion bonus. All of these scenarios are bad.

Standardize access to raise on ranged jobs. Give them all DPS parity. Let players bring the ranged jobs that they like. Bring the player, not the job.

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I mean, short of doing as mentioned above and splitting the ranged into ‘pure damage’ and ‘support’ as actual sub roles (which wouldn’t be possible because game design etc lol), wouldn't this also go back to the thing of having the ranged role merged? Then some kind of role skill Raise could go in there and suddenly the amount of jobs with that utility triples, meaning there’d be more flexibility in party comp since you’re not having to consider reserving a spot specifically for RDM/SMN. Also if more jobs can assist with recovery it gives developers more license to have involved / challenging healing mechanics.

Only issue there would be how role skills work; would phys ranged get Swiftcast and Lucid? Casters with Head Graze? I still kinda love the image of a Summoner whacking someone with their book so hard they’re stunned into silence lol. I don’t think we’ve had two groups of jobs with different role skills within the same category, so idk how that would work.

Still, in a world where dreams come true I do think it’d make more sense to just split ranged into ‘support’ and ‘damage’. I mean, wouldn’t it be much better for MCH if it was being balanced against Black Mage and Pictomancer over Bard and Dancer? Or Bard and Dancer actually being balanced against what Red Mage/Summoner have instead of just being ‘automatic raid buff machine with less damage’ lol.

You could preserve the existing role designations if you felt it was really important. As an example, Arm's Length is shared by Tanks, Melee, and Physical Ranged. You can easily do the same thing with a Phoenix Down action shared across Physical Ranged and Magical Ranged.

On the role actions front, I think all of the roles could benefit from a system-wide review. Even within Magical Ranged jobs, there's significant variation in terms of how individual jobs consume and generate MP, as well as their approaches to instant casts. That's one of the reasons why a Raise 'spell' likely wouldn't work as a role action, given BLM's MP generation system and access to Triplecast. You'd almost certainly need to find another means to limit its use, be it either a charge system, recasts, or both, which is why I suggested going the Phoenix Down action route. Healers can naturally continue with their existing Raises for more on-demand access.

You probably could come up with a common set of role actions for Ranged jobs, and find ways to give them more consistent value. Actions that are more specific like Lucid or Swiftcast could be incorporated into individual job toolkits as required, or alternatively, you could find ways to repurpose them with dual functionality.

The problem with creating 'support' and 'damage' subdivisions is because the primary function of any DPS is to deal damage, and it's difficult to trade-off utility vs. damage. Ideally, you should have relatively balanced DPS numbers across the category, and instead give jobs unique utility actions that don't have a clear comparison point. For example, instead of having a Petolon role action that can only be used outside of combat, could either DNC or BRD have a job specific action to speed up their teammates movements? Could SMN or RDM create a Warp portal between two points in the map for teammates to use? Could BLM share their Leylines for once (I know, I know, but I'm only asking). Balance mainly becomes an issue when one job's action is a clear upgrade of the other.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

You could preserve the existing role designations if you felt it was really important. As an example, Arm's Length is shared by Tanks, Melee, and Physical Ranged. You can easily do the same thing with a Phoenix Down action shared across Physical Ranged and Magical Ranged.

On the role actions front, I think all of the roles could benefit from a system-wide review. Even within Magical Ranged jobs, there's significant variation in terms of how individual jobs consume and generate MP, as well as their approaches to instant casts. That's one of the reasons why a Raise 'spell' likely wouldn't work as a role action, given BLM's MP generation system and access to Triplecast. You'd almost certainly need to find another means to limit its use, be it either a charge system, recasts, or both, which is why I suggested going the Phoenix Down action route. Healers can naturally continue with their existing Raises for more on-demand access.

You probably could come up with a common set of role actions for Ranged jobs, and find ways to give them more consistent value. Actions that are more specific like Lucid or Swiftcast could be incorporated into individual job toolkits as required, or alternatively, you could find ways to repurpose them with dual functionality.

The problem with creating 'support' and 'damage' subdivisions is because the primary function of any DPS is to deal damage, and it's difficult to trade-off utility vs. damage. Ideally, you should have relatively balanced DPS numbers across the category, and instead give jobs unique utility actions that don't have a clear comparison point. For example, instead of having a Petolon role action that can only be used outside of combat, could either DNC or BRD have a job specific action to speed up their teammates movements? Could SMN or RDM create a Warp portal between two points in the map for teammates to use? Could BLM share their Leylines for once (I know, I know, but I'm only asking). Balance mainly becomes an issue when one job's action is a clear upgrade of the other.

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Let's forget the balance for a second and understand the fantasy behind the jobs.

Summoner who can summon phenix
Redmage a mix between WHM and BLM having raise is part of the identity.

but what about BRD and DNC?
BRD a singer who support party providing utility and having raise will not ruin the fantasy
DNC have raise that is attached with the person that they dance with is so fit to the job identity.

but imagine if we have samurai raise people, systematically it will work but the game is RPG after all.. it is like forcing BLM to have raid buffs because of balance.

and again.. raise should be restricted in specific period of time like summoner can raise people while in phenix state.


it will work but fantasy wise I don't see that fitting

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Originally Posted by Lyth

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On the role actions front, I think all of the roles could benefit from a system-wide review. Even within Magical Ranged jobs, there's significant variation in terms of how individual jobs consume and generate MP, as well as their approaches to instant casts. That's one of the reasons why a Raise 'spell' likely wouldn't work as a role action, given BLM's MP generation system and access to Triplecast

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Role/role actions definitely do need some kind of review at some point. That said, even if it was exactly the same as it is now, would it really be that easy for them though? I mean, assuming a Black Mage had Raise in current design (not that I’d want to them to that’s too weird lol), if they were going to use Triplecast to Raise the party they’d need to use 3 GCDs to raise the first three party members, hit Triplecast again, cast one Raise, then they’d have to go into Ice Phase and cast a Blizzard IV to finish the final two raises (since ice phase doesn’t restore mp automatically I think?).

Which, if you were in ‘dps check content’ you’d probably be dangerously close to failing if your Black Mage spent 16s with doing 0 dps while they raised the entire party. Plus there’s things like whether they need to do a body check within that timeframe, avoiding mechanics, potential slaps from the boss if tanks are dead. If you weren’t in ‘dps check’ content then does it really matter if the Black Mage could accidentally do some weird super Raise when it would take so much time and effort?

I just still don’t see the point in ‘remove raise and make it a cool down’. I mean, there’s barely anything left in the game that isn’t a cool-down anymore lol. Do we really want more ? Plus there’s the whole debate of whether it’s really fair to put all that pressure on newer healers.

If Raise becomes essentially a healer exclusive outside of a 120s cool-down, doesn’t that just make it extremely punishing if the healer dies more than once? After their first death they’d essentially be locked out of continuing the fight and have to sit there eating dirt for however long the Raise cool-down is, which doesn’t seem very fair when DPS will always have a healer ready to insta-raise them thanks to Swiftcast’s cool-down. Though, actually getting a healer who will actually use Raise is it’s own issue lol; I’ve genuinely seen healers wipe the party because they wouldn’t hard cast a Raise (usually because other healer goes down lol). I’m all for giving healers more responsibility, especially in terms of healing, but I feel like dps being able to assist with Resurrection is something that should stay, preferably in the form it’s in now.


As for ‘damage and support’ subdivisions, I don’t mean ‘literal support’ as in ‘does essentially no damage’. That ofc wouldn’t work in any capacity in ffxiv. I just mean essentially what we have now but with a clearer line down the middle for ‘what a supportive dps is’ and ‘what a selfish dps is’.
Like why in the world does Monk have an aoe heal? Who goes to a job known for punching people and dealing damage and says ‘wow I want to heal my party’ lol. The line between which jobs are ‘supportive’ and which are ‘selfish’ is razor thin at this point.

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Originally Posted by Tunda

DNC have raise that is attached with the person that they dance with is so fit to the job identity.

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I think that's a great case of good implementation of a raise for Dancer.

Something like Phoenix Step - 2 step action that shares a recast time with Standard Step, but at a slight reduced potency. It raises your Dancer Partner and removes the Brink of death debuff, or just the latter if the person is already rezzed by somebody else. I'd say 5 minute "no Dancer raise" debuff to the Dancer to prevent it to be applied multiple times, so it's something like once a fight, so it's not taxed like the other's rezzes due to how niche it would be.

Unless the DP is another rezzer, which is very unlikely, this turns out being more personal utility, because it's the best interest of the Dancer to have their partner back on their feet (and no brink of death debuff) ASAP.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

snip.

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Your solution veers deeply into the "make all jobs the same" mentality SE seems to be in love with. Even if people went on with this suggestion- that I fundamentally disagree with- then you pick the jobs with more burst for the multiplicative effects of raid buffs every time. What's the next step in this scenario, iron out the burst VS flat dps profiles of the jobs, as was suggested in another thread?

You're also exclusively looking at the fastest clears. Yes, if your goal is to kill a fight as fast as possible, with a given kill time in mind, and grind it out until crit rng aligns, then all that you're saying is true.
But this isn't how everyone plays the game- and even the people that go for speedkills/logs don't always play the game that way.
Having jobs that do less damage but are better for prog/consistency/disaster recovery isn't a bad thing in itself. Like, I reclear on the pf, and the rezzes come in clutch many times. If I just want to get my clears and my loot, it's not clearing 20 or 30s slower because I have a RDM instead of a PCT or a MNK or whatever that's gonna be a big deal, especially if both of my healers decide it's time to explode and the RDM saves the pull. Or, conversely, if I'm healing and three people drop before a body check like fusefield- with a SMN/RDM, we can salvage it, without it I just lost 6 minutes of my life.

This is ultimately a very myopic view of how the game should be played- balancing it so that the top 10 fastest kills on every time can more or less have every job be interchangeable will almost fundamentally necessitate this degree of homogenization we have now.

I'm not saying rezzes- and, for the matter, ranged movement (phys ranged and SMN, basically)- aren't overtaxed right now. Ofc they are, MCH VS VPR/PCT in rdps is like a 15% gap, which is obviously absurd. I don't know what the buff should be- maybe it should be half of that, and that MCH/DNC/BRD should maybe be ahead of the rez casters.
I'm saying that achieving what you're essentially proposing- all jobs being equally performant on a speedkill setting- is almost fundamentally incompatible with any meaningful diversity. Even if they all had the same ndps and a rez, you're just going to take the burstier jobs that abuse buffs better, unless some are significantly easier to perform with (though I'd argue that SMN and PCT are easier than BLM, which leaves BLM in a ditch again). Then you either standardize their damage profile or get rid of buffs. But then you need to factor downtime anyway, so you'll have to make them all either equally bursty or have a flat damage output curve. Your very suggestion has shades of this already.
Clearly there's another way, since melees have VPR and MNK in the same bag- the latter being a flat damage output with 0 utility and the latter a burstier job with even more utility than PCT- and it seems to somewhat work out. Let's lean into that direction more.

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

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This discussion is about homogenisation, yes. There's another term that we use to describe 'homogenising' the total DPS output of jobs (read: equalizing) across a given role. It's called job balance. Having some jobs that are only valuable in progression is a terrible design decision. Every job should provide value in progression. Every job should provide value in optimised clears. The current design promotes a different type of homogeneity, in which every group locks in PCT into the caster slot.

Healers aren't individually taxed for having access to raise. That's because it's a property of the role. Nobody looks at a healer raise and sees this as unique job flavour, either. If raise was standardised, then there is no longer any need for a raise tax. You can instead look to other forms of utility as a means of job diversity. We currently have job with a personal barrier, a raidwide barrier, a raidwide heal, and burst mobility, without any form of utility tax whatsoever. It's clear that the DPS discrepancy within Casters specifically is about raise and nothing else. So standardising raise as a role action frees up jobs to diversify their utility in other ways. By your own admission, we see variation in utility between melee jobs with a much tighter DPS balance than you see on ranged. Why else would there be such a large DPS discrepancy amongst ranged jobs?

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Originally Posted by Connor

I just still don’t see the point in ‘remove raise and make it a cool down’. I mean, there’s barely anything left in the game that isn’t a cool-down anymore lol. Do we really want more ? Plus there’s the whole debate of whether it’s really fair to put all that pressure on newer healers.

If Raise becomes essentially a healer exclusive outside of a 120s cool-down, doesn’t that just make it extremely punishing if the healer dies more than once?

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There are a couple of ways to implement Raise as a role action without tying in a MP cost. If I were designing a 'Phoenix Down' action, I would give the action a set number of charges that scale based off of fight difficulty (i.e. less charges on harder difficulty fights). Perhaps you could tie in a short mandatory cast that can't be made instant. You create the option of replenishing charges either on a fixed timer, or relative to pre-determined fight transitions that refresh uses, or relative to LB gauge generation. There's a lot of flexibility around how you could influence access to this.

My impression was that the whole point of experimenting with Raise design in Criterion/Criterion Savage was to try to develop novel solutions to the problem of non-healer raises. There are a lot of different directions they could go with this.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

The rezz casters are also “protected” by the fact that the damage casters can fill the 4th slot

Rather than it being 2/1/1 or 1/1/1/x they seem to be balancing it 2/2, 2 high damage dealers, 2 lower damage dealers where at least 1 higher damage dealer has to be melee and at least 1 lower damage dealer has to be a phys ranged

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Or you can just go BLM/PCT, which wasn't possible last expansion. But was possible with SMN/BLM in ShB, so it's not exactly new, it's just doing a comeback, that way you still have the possibility to do 3 high DPS with 3 ranged 1 melee. The fact that you can do this isn't bad in itself, the problem is more, where does it leave SMN and RDM? As raise bots exclusively.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Healers aren't individually taxed for having access to raise. That's because it's a property of the role. Nobody looks at a healer raise and sees this as unique job flavour, either. If raise was standardised, then there is no longer any need for a raise tax. You can instead look to other forms of utility as a means of job diversity. We currently have job with a personal barrier, a raidwide barrier, a raidwide heal, and burst mobility, without any form of utility tax whatsoever. It's clear that the DPS discrepancy within Casters specifically is about raise and nothing else. So standardising raise as a role action frees up jobs to diversify their utility in other ways. By your own admission, we see variation in utility between melee jobs with a much tighter DPS balance than you see on ranged. Why else would there be such a large DPS discrepancy amongst ranged jobs?

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Let's not compare healer balance to dps balance- healer balance has its own problems and challenges and I don't want to go off-topic more than we have already. Although, again, you touch on the problem yourself. Rezzing is a property of healers. Not of casters. That's why a caster having access to rez lends it a unique niche and identity. It's a reason to pick that caster, it's a consideration you need to have when deciding what comp you want to run with. Hypothetically, if Paladin still had its raise and it could be used in combat but dealt less damage, I could see a world where it would be very desirable for prog (imagine PLD using Hallowed Ground and rezzing a healer for a lb3 save). These decisions lead to different prog/raid dynamics and niche- but valuable- use cases. The game needs more of this, not less. Much like SMN having a heal that it can somewhat time (unlike PCT's worthless one, which you need to fire on your 2 mins and is minuscule), RDM having mitigation and PCT having a shield are all different pros with different use cases that might make one more desirable than the other in terms of utility. On an aside, I wish people stop bringing up the Starry heal up. It's a worthless 25k aoe heal that you have no control at all when you're going to use and really has no meaningful use in this raid tier. Tempera Coat, on the other hand, is actually very useful and decently powerful. It's very disingenuous to keep bringing up the PCT heal when its existence is irrelevant.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

This discussion is about homogenisation, yes. There's another term that we use to describe 'homogenising' the total DPS output of jobs (read: equalizing) across a given role. It's called job balance. Having some jobs that are only valuable in progression is a terrible design decision. Every job should provide value in progression. Every job should provide value in optimised clears. The current design promotes a different type of homogeneity, in which every group locks in PCT into the caster slot.

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My original comment was addressing your suggestion of giving ranged jobs raises left and right. I made a counterpoint that this is not the case in melee dps. MNK has by far the best utility suit of the melee (and, imho, of the whole dps role), and we don't seem to be wishing every melee dps job would copy/paste its tools (adding VPR as an example). Again, I already stated numerous times that the ranged balance is off and that SMN/BRD/DNC and especially RDM/MCH need a damage buff. I still don't know how big that buff should be, but they should be buffed. There's a difference between raising their numbers while keeping their superior utility at the cost of some (but not as much) damage and just copy-pasting their unique niches across the role.

I don't know why having some jobs be more valuable in a prog or pf setting when compared to farm or speedkilling is a problem, either. Every job obviously brings some value- more damage isn't useless (well... this tier it was, but that's an issue with the tier, not the jobs). The tradeoff between bringing a BLM for raw damage or a SMN for easy of use and a rez has been a thing for a while. Again, it's a meaningful decision with pros and cons. This will depend on your comp, on how good your players are, etc. I've progged with rez casters before for safety/comfort (my first dragonsong clear was on RDM), and I've done it with BLM for damage. It's a very different dynamic. This is, again, in my eyes, a good thing. I don't want 15 builder/spenders with different coats of paint.

There isn't any game of any genre with substantially differentiation between its classes/champions/etc that has achieved perfect balance without making every of those classes the same. It's impossible. This is also true for XIV. The point is to make the gap small- but noticeable- so there's a tradeoff. As a final aside, this is a funny discussion because I do think it's suspect MNK has the best support suite of any dps and leads the melee pack in rdps on the 70 thru 90 percentiles (or it did a few days ago), but obviously the gap is small enough it doesn't bother people. So, clearly, all we need to do is narrow the gap we have right now and each job should be able to preserve its utility niche. Again, we can just use the melee role as guide. The gap might need to be slightly bigger because a raise is definitely more powerful than even the mighty Mantra, but I doubt we'd be seeing this uproar if the difference between BLM/PCT and SMN/RDM was 7 or 8% rdps.

Is it really fair to mention healer balance when it’s literally the worst balanced of the 5 subroles. AST is 12% higher than SGE and 13% higher than WHM (2% above SCH). SCH is 10% above SGE and 11% than WHM in the middle of the first tier of an expansion when the buff healers always scale more strongly as the expansion goes on and healers can’t even hide behind rezz as utility or the bubble of the phys ranged 1%

They are just out and out the most unbalanced role in the game, they have DPS differences comparable to the casters but they don’t actually offer large utility differences like the casters do AND the higher damage dealers also give better utility when you get into the weeds. using them as a representation of what happens if you standardise powerful utility like raise is basically just an argument in opposition of said standardisation

There is no 'job-specific flavour' associated with raises, unless you're counting the different job icons. Let's take a look:

• Raise: Resurrects target to weakened state. 2400 MP, 30y.
• Resurrection: Resurrects target to weakened state. 2400 MP, 30y.
• Ascend: Resurrects target to weakened state. 2400 MP, 30y.
• Egeiro: Resurrects target to weakened state. 2400 MP, 30y.
• Verraise: Resurrects target to weakened state. 2400 MP, 30y.

Job-specific flavour occurs when you actually have significant variation in the implementation of an action. An example of this is tank invulns, which I would argue are even more powerful utility than raises. Every tank has access to invuln, but every invuln is implemented in significantly different ways. As a result, none of the tanks are taxed for having access to them. There are definitely balance issues that exist around this as well, as having a 3 minute variation in recasts across the role has a huge impact on how you tank fights. But it goes to show you that powerful actions can provide job-specific flavour without a DPS tax.

There's a false equivalence in comparing access raise on PLD with a raise on SMN/RDM because tanks also have access to invulns. That being said, if every tank had access to raise (and I'm definitely not recommending this), then there would be no DPS tax within the subrole around the effect. The only reason why the tax exists is to discourage teams from preferentially designing their comp to maximise their access to raises. But that creates the current scenario, where people have a progression comp which brings the raise casters, and a clearing comp which discards them.

If a raise action was available across a role, then it would incur no raise tax, because every comp would have access to the same amount of raises. SMN and RDM would benefit, because they would gain DPS parity. BRD/DNC/MCH would definitely benefit, if you included them, from both DPS parity and a raise. Even BLM/PCT would benefit. The only reason why anyone would ever want to argue against spreading this across the role is because they want to preserve the existing 10% DPS discrepancy that splits ranged jobs into an upper and lower tier of damage dealers. And that's what this conversation really about. Preserving the status quo. Preserving PCT's role dominance.

All forms of utility are worthless until they're not. Players will happily say that these raidwide benefits are 'useless', but the moment that someone recommends that those benefits be removed from them, they'll instantly switch gears to protest with 'that's homogenisation!!' If the dev team was willing to directly nerf Arcane Crest at the start of last expansion in response to player backlash around RPR, then I think it's very reasonable for the team to scrutinise the impact of Tempera Coat/Grassa, Smudge, and Star Prism's raidwide heal as well. That doesn't necessarily mean DPS nerfs, but at the very least it does mean that the rest of the ranged jobs deserve to not be penalised for potentially bringing a variety of support and utility effects of their own. There should not be an upper and lower tier of ranged jobs.

DPS parity is essential. This is the starting point. Having a job do significantly more DPS than another is not 'job flavour'. I want to see a level DPS playing field. Any utility actions that are considered to be 'too unbalanced' to be incorporated on a job-specific basis without a DPS penalty, like invulns and raises, should be shared across the role. You could theoretically have job-specific flavour in how those raise effects are implemented, similar to what we see with invulns, so long as they are shared across an entire role. Once you have established DPS parity, then you are free to be as creative as you like with the rest of your utility effects.

Yeah the healers have marginal variations in their raises, but not directly tied to the rezzes:

* White Mages will often cast theirs at 0 mana cost.
* Scholars due to their nature can have a not insignificant amount of healing continue to go out (in particular when Seraph is around).
* Astrologians can cast multiple rezzes 2,5s faster once out of Swiftcast due to Lightspeed.
* Sages can look very sad.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

DPS parity is essential. This is the starting point. Having a job do significantly more DPS than another is not 'job flavour'. I want to see a level DPS playing field.

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Though, keep in mind that the push for tighter and tighter balance is what steadily removes job flavour as more and more elements get judged not balance-able "enough" and removed whole (like actual pets, or variable buff timers other than 120s).

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Originally Posted by Lyth

There is no 'job-specific flavour' associated with raises, unless you're counting the different job icons.
(...)
There's a false equivalence in comparing access raise on PLD with a raise on SMN/RDM because tanks also have access to invulns. That being said, if every tank had access to raise (and I'm definitely not recommending this), then there would be no DPS tax within the subrole around the effect. The only reason why the tax exists is to discourage teams from preferentially designing their comp to maximise their access to raises. But that creates the current scenario, where people have a progression comp which brings the raise casters, and a clearing comp which discards them.

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Lyth, you usually make good points, but I really think you're being deliberately obtuse here. A job having rez and another not having it is a differentiating factor, even if the rez itself is exactly the same. You literally contradict your first point in the second half of your statement by (correctly) highlighting that a tank having access to it would cause a very different dynamic due to also having access to an invuln, even though the skill itself is exactly the same. This is already the case for RDM, due to Verraise interacting with Dualcast in a manner that allows it to get three/four people up faster than any other job in the game, healers included. This is job identity, it's a niche that only RDM fills right now, and it absolutely has cases where it makes a substantial difference.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

All forms of utility are worthless until they're not..

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Every world first for the last 4 or so years had a rez caster in the comp except TOP. This is absolute domination, which shows that this rez is not useless. These jobs are also completely serviceable on reclears (obviously, if they do enough damage to clear w1). So, really, this is only an issue when you look at killing a fight as fast as possible. This is absolutely something that top end statics thing of, but, for the majority of players, shaving 30s off a kill saves substantially less time than recovering a pull with RDM rez (which will save anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes).

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Preserving the status quo. Preserving PCT's role dominance.
(...)
DPS parity is essential. This is the starting point. Having a job do significantly more DPS than another is not 'job flavour'. I want to see a level DPS playing field. Any utility actions that are considered to be 'too unbalanced' to be incorporated on a job-specific basis without a DPS penalty, like invulns and raises, should be shared across the role. You could theoretically have job-specific flavour in how those raise effects are implemented, similar to what we see with invulns, so long as they are shared across an entire role. Once you have established DPS parity, then you are free to be as creative as you like with the rest of your utility effects.

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Does this logic of yours extend to melee then? If dps parity is such a priority, are you bothered by the absolute chasm between melee and the other roles? Of the top 5 in all dps metrics, 3 to 4 have been melee for 90% of the past 3 to 4 years (and none were physical ranged). Right now, on the 80th and 90th percentiles, VPR, DRG and MNK are top 5 in every fight in rdps (Honey Bee has BLM at 4th, otherwise it'd be top 4), and SAM and VPR dominate the adps category. I vaguely remember you arguing otherwise in the threads about ranged tax. In this world of yours, where we give a raise to every caster, are they now meant to be dumpstered by every melee, as is the case now except for PCT?
I don't even know why you keep bringing this point up- I've said that the bottom ranged jobs need buffs, and have been saying so for months. I also think that ranged mobility (pranged and SMN) and rezzes warrant a small tax.