Let's Talk about The Meta - And How We Should Dismantle It from the Job(s) Up

Assuming the community doesn't drop the 'meta' after the developers have confirmed it does not exist...

Homogenization of buffs / debuffs is really the only answer at a job level. So, whatever buffs / debuffs say a ninja provides, every melee DPS provides it. Same for casters, ranged, tanks, and healers. This is an extreme—and on a personal level, undesirable solution—but it may be the only answer if the community still believes in the meta fiction.

HW also had tank damage scale off Vitality, so stacking the required HP heaped massive bonuses upon tank damage, apparently sending the wrong idea out that tank DPS was just that important, when in reality it was intended as a QoL aid. It was a gross imbalance, and some tanks are struggling around the fact that SE switched it back to STR.

Some would claim the fact healer damage now scaling off Mind with the rework of Cleric Stance acting as salt to the wound, but YMMV there since we still sit with low attack potencies.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

That’s not how it should be—if the developers want to continue with this idea of “selfish DPS jobs”, the selfish jobs should be significantly stronger than the “non-selfish”/utility jobs. The utility jobs are also desired because they benefit everyone in the group, where as the selfish jobs do not provide enough to offset the group benefit.

---

+1
something about characters

A couple weeks ago, I asked on reddit what it might be like if either every class got the appropriate blunt/piercing/slashing-damge effect or if no class had one, and this was the response:

Quote:

---

Nothing changes in a vacuum and it would depend on what other changes were made to each jobs' personal DPS. If all DPS jobs applied their own [damage type] Vuln Up and nothing else changed I suppose if you stacked damage types you could get more DPS by rotating or omitting the debuff on some of them, but that depends on how its tied into their rotation (SAM for example can't just omit their Slashing Down because a WAR is there because they need to use it for Sen anyway). I imagine the optimal comp would be mostly the same because of other buffs like Litany and Trick Attack and BRD and MCH's skills still adding up to more than what the more 'selfish' DPS put out. Maybe it makes DRG and physical ranged a bit less locked down but I think with the current numbers the only thing that would change is SMN and MNK become a bit more viable in place of MCH.

Really I don't see the point though in giving each DPS their own damage-type vuln, seems to me like removing all damage-type dependent buffs would have the same effect but without making stacking the same damage type feel wasteful or making rotations more composition-dependent. If everyone has a damage-type vuln there's no point in splitting the buffs up into damage types in the first place, just make it a damage-up self buff.

---

A meta composition would only really matter in the event you're gunning for a world first clear, or server first clears.

Everything else in any other combination is able to clear the content provided, just normally slower due to not being as great as other options. But the clear speed of content, again, doesn't really matter unless you're trying to be the first.

Doesn't necessarily excuse SE not to balance jobs and give them their roles and niches to fill, but a meta comp in this game isn't as gamebreaking since it normally just allows a slightly faster clear and, sometimes, slightly more margin for error.

But I'm not going to join a PF that'd specifically exclude classes because of meta reasoning. Odds are, if they're in PF, the gathered random people who have no outside-game synergy with each other are not going to be playing at the level where those differences actually matter, to be frank.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eli85

Homogenization of buffs / debuffs is really the only answer at a job level. So, whatever buffs / debuffs say a ninja provides, every melee DPS provides it. Same for casters, ranged, tanks, and healers. This is an extreme—and on a personal level, undesirable solution—but it may be the only answer if the community still believes in the meta fiction.

---

Or just remove enough of them so that they're not as big of an issue. Especially starting with the physical debuffs and modify boss resistances to compensate.

Breaking it down to roles, the tank damage change to STR wouldn't be so bad if the bizarre excuse of "health stacking" hadn't been brought up to explain why it was done, Direct Hit would probably be a lot better if it ONLY affected DPS jobs, and the cross-role system would only make sense if so many of the healer options weren't absolutely mandatory for 100% of the time.

Going further into jobs, Paladin and Warrior I think are fine, Dark Knight needs even more breathing room on TBN and just something done to make Dark Passenger not completely useless, Astrologian is more or less fine, White Mage could use more interaction with its periodic healing effects rather than Cure spells that players still don't use as often, Scholar needs to be handled by actual players rather than whatever nameless mathematicians SE hires, Samurai is fine, Dragoon could maybe afford to take a hit on Battle Litany, Ninja wouldn't be so bad if they cut the Trick Attack bonus to 3-5% while adding another five seconds to the duration and maybe set up Mudras so you can't hit the same one twice (to help alleviate latency issues), Monk just needs the elemental abilities removed due to them being both mechanically pointless and barely coherent to the job's core identity in the game and replaced with skills and abilities that could further expand the use of Chakra with maybe one cooldown to give a full three-stack of Greased Lightning, Bard seems relatively alright where it is, Machinist could maybe use a couple extra seconds of breathing room on Overheat, Black Mage could use either some extra damage somewhere or a magic version of Brotherhood, Summoner isn't too bad despite a handful of players realizing Tri-bind was useful at one point in time, and Red Mage could use a 20-50 potency nerf to everything so that every third and fifth person in the game won't main one.

Yeah, think that covers my take on it....