Pictomancer is insanely overtuned and needs to be fixed before savage drops.

After reading all the talk, my takeaway is that PCT isn't so much horribly overtuned but rather its absurd amount of burst gives it an extremely high top end to its damage with good crit/DH RNG and it also benefits hugely from forced downtime where the boss is untargetable/invincible.

It sounds like it just epitomizes why the two minute meta is problematic and unfortunately DT kinda exasperated it across the board by giving everybody more bloated high potency CDs to fit into the burst windows. it makes me a touch worried about how well-tuned the DPS checks for Archadion savage are going to be.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

PCT isn't so much horribly overtuned but rather its absurd amount of burst gives it an extremely high top end to its damage with good crit/DH RNG and it also benefits hugely from forced downtime where the boss is untargetable/invincible.

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Somehow, stormblood summoner returned.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

After reading all the talk, my takeaway is that PCT isn't so much horribly overtuned but rather its absurd amount of burst gives it an extremely high top end to its damage with good crit/DH RNG and it also benefits hugely from forced downtime where the boss is untargetable/invincible.

It sounds like it just epitomizes why the two minute meta is problematic and unfortunately DT kinda exasperated it across the board by giving everybody more bloated high potency CDs to fit into the burst windows. it makes me a touch worried about how well-tuned the DPS checks for Archadion savage are going to be.

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If we take Pandemonium as an example...
First tier has little downtime except the add phase but everyone can hold and build their resources. Most likely the job would be fine.
Second tier would be fine until P8SP2 where PCT would have enough time to paint like a madman during the downtime, cut their ear and send it to their girlfriend.
Third tier would be most likely fine? There's one big downtime in P12SP1 as far as I remember and P9S is generous on the DPS check.

I don't want to talk about ultimates, if we have body checks and mechanics that requires nobody to die, PCT will most likely end up being a standard.

I think it comes down to what is the potential solution to this. PCT is competing for first (whether you believe that’s a good decision or not) so in a fight with the level of downtime of the EW ultimates is going to push PCT so far ahead given the potency in the muses that it would be probably universally agreed to be too strong.

But how do we fix this?

With the potency of the muses as they are if they scaled PCT’s damage to be competitive with first assuming EW ultimate downtime then it would be absolute trash in a full uptime fight, if you made muses require a target (like say bloodfest) you’d run into the same problems GNB has where downtime seriously messes it up because if you burst immediately after coming out of downtime PCT is going to suffer hard because it needs to paint before it can burst

If they continue their current design of full uptime savage downtime ultimate I’m not sure how PCT can be balanced

Yeah.. it's definitely overtuned, I agree.

Shame, too. I know the developers have a rather firm stance that they'd rather buff classes to meet, rather than to nerf an overbearing class, but I think they have little choice, but to do both.

Black Mage is in dire need of some potency increases, and frankly a few gameplay tweaks in general would be welcome, but in no universe should Pictomancer be completely dominating Black Mage in damage. I'm fine with Pictomancer being a close second in the overall DPS rankings among casters seeing as how they bring less utility than Red Mage or Summoner, but even Red Mage and Summoner really need a few potency adjustments to be viable choices at all outside of progression.

Ideally I'd like to see Pictomancer's potencies see a slight nerf across the board.
Black Mage get some major increases in potency across the board, the penalty for having to switch from Astral to Umbral stance dropping your Astral Soul stacks removed, and possibly a return of Ice Paradox replacing one of the Thunderhead procs.
Red Mage and Summoner should probably see some slight potency increases, too, but not too much.

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Originally Posted by Tsurayu

Yeah.. it's definitely overtuned, I agree.

Shame, too. I know the developers have a rather firm stance that they'd rather buff classes to meet, rather than to nerf an overbearing class, but I think they have little choice, but to do both.

Black Mage is in dire need of some potency increases, and frankly a few gameplay tweaks in general would be welcome, but in no universe should Pictomancer be completely dominating Black Mage in damage. I'm fine with Pictomancer being a close second in the overall DPS rankings among casters seeing as how they bring less utility than Red Mage or Summoner, but even Red Mage and Summoner really need a few potency adjustments to be viable choices at all outside of progression.

Ideally I'd like to see Pictomancer's potencies see a slight nerf across the board.
Black Mage get some major increases in potency across the board, the penalty for having to switch from Astral to Umbral stance dropping your Astral Soul stacks removed, and possibly a return of Ice Paradox replacing one of the Thunderhead procs.
Red Mage and Summoner should probably see some slight potency increases, too, but not too much.

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You can't fix BLM by simply tuning its numbers. The job is going to get eviscerated in high movement Savage fights because they stripped it of all the tools and flexibility it had to deal with it.
DT BLM is a more rigid, worse version of HW BLM. A HW job cannot survive DT encounter-design. Ofc the team didn't think about that, because, much like a stubborn goat, they don't plan at all and simply want to have their way regardless of what the players prefer/what the encounters need.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

It sounds like it just epitomizes why the two minute meta is problematic and unfortunately DT kinda exasperated it across the board by giving everybody more bloated high potency CDs to fit into the burst windows. it makes me a touch worried about how well-tuned the DPS checks for Archadion savage are going to be.

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You'd have thought they would've learned 2 min is hard to sustain long-term after the Abyssos disaster, but of course they took no lessons from that :)

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Originally Posted by remiff

A small 3% nerf should be enough for the Pictomancer, a 10% buff for the Black mage, and the Summoner and Red Mage should both receive a 5% buff.

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3% is huge. If you gave it a 3% nerf, it'd be under every melee except NIN on cdps lol

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Originally Posted by Tsurayu

Yeah.. it's definitely overtuned, I agree.

Shame, too. I know the developers have a rather firm stance that they'd rather buff classes to meet, rather than to nerf an overbearing class, but I think they have little choice, but to do both.

Black Mage is in dire need of some potency increases, and frankly a few gameplay tweaks in general would be welcome, but in no universe should Pictomancer be completely dominating Black Mage in damage. I'm fine with Pictomancer being a close second in the overall DPS rankings among casters seeing as how they bring less utility than Red Mage or Summoner, but even Red Mage and Summoner really need a few potency adjustments to be viable choices at all outside of progression.

Ideally I'd like to see Pictomancer's potencies see a slight nerf across the board.
Black Mage get some major increases in potency across the board, the penalty for having to switch from Astral to Umbral stance dropping your Astral Soul stacks removed, and possibly a return of Ice Paradox replacing one of the Thunderhead procs.
Red Mage and Summoner should probably see some slight potency increases, too, but not too much.

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A small 3% nerf should be enough for the Pictomancer, a 10% buff for the Black mage, and the Summoner and Red Mage should both receive a 5% buff.

I just hope they don't ruin the job and make it trash when or if they nerf it. They've ruined other jobs in the past, so I'm nervous. They're not very good at job balance IMO.

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Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

I just hope they don't ruin the job and make it trash when or if they nerf it. They've ruined other jobs in the past, so I'm nervous. They're not very good at job balance IMO.

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They won't ruin it since they won't change the gameplay, and I doubt they'll nerf it beyond 3%. Even if the nerf reaches 5%, the job would still be decent.

The issue is that it's not a good idea to nerf it too much; it's better to slightly reduce it and slightly buff the competitors that are too low.

No matter what happens, with its current mechanics, it is equivalent to the old summoner, making it an exceedingly versatile job.
It has high burst damage that benefits from downtime in fights, making it highly adaptive and difficult to balance.

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Originally Posted by remiff

They won't ruin it since they won't change the gameplay, and I doubt they'll nerf it beyond 3%. Even if the nerf reaches 5%, the job would still be decent.

The issue is that it's not a good idea to nerf it too much; it's better to slightly reduce it and slightly buff the competitors that are too low.

No matter what happens, with its current mechanics, it is equivalent to the old summoner, making it an exceedingly versatile job.
It has high burst damage that benefits from downtime in fights, making it highly adaptive and difficult to balance.

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Are you aware a 5% nerf would put it where BLM is right now in cdps? Like, people just throw random numbers. If you gave it a 1% nerf it'd be 5th, behind 4 melees (SAM, VPR, MNK and RPR). I still don't get why people think PCT can't compete for top 3 in cdps.
(looked at 70, 80 and 90% in the extremes, if you want to know where the number came from)