So about Summoner...

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Originally Posted by Zyneste

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This is actually why I believe SMN has gotten to the top. I'm not sure if people realize how bad it was for SMN in ARR. Any fight that lasted longer than...I think like 3 mins? The SMN would run out of MP (There was no Lucid back then). There were literally dozen party finders of "LF DPS No SMN Allowed" for CoB. Because they spent 2 years as the worst DPS in the game, I feel like SE just over tunes them just to be on the safe side - and then goes back and nerf if needed.

Also, I know they don't "balance" around how hard a class is to play anymore, it used to be hard classes did more DPS due to them being harder to play, but SMN was branded as the hardest class to play in SB (There was a poll and it is the general consensus). So if the Hardest Job in the game is doing the same DPS as one of the easiest (RDM) then why bother with SMN?

Read the most of it. What started the feud is how the topic starts. The title and first posts make it a rant against SMN. It was uncalled for, and some people here are in a defensive stance only because of that.

Can't really disagree with the facts exposed by Dual or Zerathor : it is above BLM (except on "dummy" fights) and RDM. But this is not a problem with SMN, because SMN is where it SHOULD be : competitive with OTHER classes. Finally a caster is making it, so we should be looking at how would we bring BLM and RDM in a similar spot, ant it took awfully long before the discussion actually went there. ANd on that part I agree with most of Megguido interventions.

Some people talk about the past : I agree it's relevant to how you feel toward a class and it's balance, a sense of justice that most demons except death are finally gone (I was a SMN in ARR and HS too), but someone said balance should focus on how things are now and they are right.

Things are : SMN is more OP than other casters BUT in line with meta classes, so what we need is more cutting edge on the two left behind casters.
- RDM pay Verraise WAY too much (although powerful, this tool has an expiration date : the moment your team starts rocking it. The low personal DPS remains however)
- BLM lack specific utility, or damage, but they have a tendancy to be heavy handed on damage buff/nerf and take time to correct it, so a bit puzzled on what would be best.

Plus, I agree selfish DPS just won't do it in a game where mutual buffing synergy windows are everything and FFlogs is the alpha and omega of IG identity (also see : "I'm a bard and not going without a DRG")

Just my 2 cents, far from being a top tier player but I think I can understand the stakes behind

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Originally Posted by Megguido

Sounds like DRK "mains" that complain WAR is doing everything better than DRK.

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Probably because WAR does everything better than DRK, as does PLD

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Originally Posted by Megguido

Cause, yeah, progression is definitely not a big part of raiding. /s

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It's only a part of raiding, and RDM goes from useful to *nearly* useless in the transition, where other jobs still remain competitive barring "selfish DPS", because the only two things that matter in this game are your damage and your ability to make other people do more damage. The apex of the argument is that RDM stays almost exclusively as an ultra-casual training-wheels job for its lifespan when everybody else has traded theirs in by 60 at the latest, so while everyone is pulling stunts on their mountain bikes RDM is still stuck doing circles on flat pavement, and the reason for this is because its only utility is foam-padding when people are still learning the fight.

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Originally Posted by Megguido

If you don't want to destroy your DPS when raising as a SMN, you have to keep Swiftcast and use it when you're either not in DWT or in Bahamut phase.

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You are correct that SMN has a greater opportunity cost for resurrecting people than RDM, but if you're slamming out resurrections like RDM is capable of you probably aren't terribly concerned with your output at that point. Furthermore, the usefulness of swiftcast on SMN is fairly exaggerated, because while it's certainly handy to use and very easy to turn into a DPS gain, SMN only really needs it to resummon their pet and for resurrection, and the former is not nearly as big of a deal with the insane reduction in cast time it got.


Please understand, however, that the criticism for RDM in this regard is not an attempt to downsize what it can already do, but to expand what it yet cannot do. I am of the opinion that every job should have some justification for being brought along to every fight, even if some jobs are more suited for it than others.

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

Probably because WAR does everything better than DRK, as does PLD


It's only a part of raiding, and RDM goes from useful to *nearly* useless in the transition [...] .

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From personnal experience, we spent way more time on progression than on "farming" (cause yes, killing 4 bosses once a week can hardly be called "farming"). We spent 3 hours a day, 3 days a week on progression, and about 3 hours once a week on actually taking down O5S to O8S. The progression is a part of raiding, but it's far from being a small one.

That's not the appropriate topic, but it really looks like people are underestimating DRK's defensive kit. But hey, I'm not against another buff on my main job :^). 30% damage reduction on a 60s cooldown isn't enough, pls SE.

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

Please understand, however, that the criticism for RDM in this regard is not an attempt to downsize what it can already do, but to expand what it yet cannot do. I am of the opinion that every job should have some justification for being brought along to every fight, even if some jobs are more suited for it than others.

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That's a good point, and it is exactly what makes balancing jobs hard. Because balancing jobs around a single content can be very dangerous. Even if SE succeeds to make every job and every composition doing nearly the same level of damage for (e.g.) UwU, what if some jobs get completely out of control in lower level or lower skill content ? It would also be an issue if RDM is doing nearly twice the damage of a MNK at lvl 50, as a consequence of lvl 70 buffs to make it on-par with SMN.

Though I'm severely biased on the matter, since SMN is my main DPS job. Though it could be doing less damage than a RDM, I would be playing SMN nonetheless.
From my point of view RDM is kinda badly designed. Easy-to-play jobs are cool and all, but having nearly half of your offensive GCD spells being copies of each other... I expected more about white and black mana than just press black button if gauge is white, press white button if gauge is black (I know there's more intricacies about RDM, but a good part of its gameplay is aroud that).

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Originally Posted by Megguido

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Progression is most definitely a part of raiding, and certainly an important part, but again, I'm merely stating that RDM is outright useless outside of it regardless of how good it is in progression. Unfortunately, no small part of this is precisely because it's so good in progression, and another part of the problem is that it's competing against jobs with universally desired utility as opposed to situational utility.

Also, DRK's defensive kit is only a portion of its issues. The main problem is that it has to work harder to do the kinds of things that come to warrior and paladin near-effortlessly, and in many cases it's still inferior due to conflicting or outright bad design. Dark Arts spam, stance-locked abilities/effects, a complete lack of burst, and living dead being nearly useless at best are all glaring issues with its toolkit, without even getting into its bizarre MP misalignment and completely gutted kit. It's not nearly as dramatic as the list would imply, but they are major issues that need to be addressed regardless.

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

Progression is most definitely a part of raiding, and certainly an important part, but again, I'm merely stating that RDM is outright useless outside of it regardless of how good it is in progression. [...]

Also, DRK's defensive kit is only a portion of its issues. The main problem is that it has to work harder to do the kinds of things that come to warrior and paladin near-effortlessly, and in many cases it's still inferior due to conflicting or outright bad design. Dark Arts spam, stance-locked abilities/effects, a complete lack of burst, and living dead being nearly useless at best are all glaring issues with its toolkit, without even getting into its bizarre MP misalignment and completely gutted kit. It's not nearly as dramatic as the list would imply, but they are major issues that need to be addressed regardless.

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Now that's some hyperboles.

RDM is great in progression and with "not-top-level-players". Because you can prog and clear O8S while being somewhat a casual player. Then, when you clear the content consistently, RDM doesn't become "useless", it becomes "not optimal".

On DRK side (lulz), the main issue IMO is people complaining its too easy to play because of the 1-2-3 spam meme, but can't play it properly because it's actually more complicated than that. Dark Arts is only spammed in the opener, overall it's about 6 DA a minute. SMN is using like 20 Ruin spells a minute and is far from being broken. If you mindlessly spam DA, then you'll eventually run out of MP, and you're doing things wrong anyway.

This argument "but I have to press more buttons to do the same thing than XXX" is really terrible imo. Someone on this topic already mentionned that SE doesn't balance jobs on their difficulty. If I'd want a tank job than press only two buttons to do damage, I'd be a WAR main. DRK is the only high-cpm fast-paced tank, please don't dumb it down to WAR's level. If I follow your reasoning, how come RDM should have as much damage as SMN while being easier to play and less buttons to push, and no pets to manage ?

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a complete lack of burst

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I played both PLD and DRK this tier, and PLD's DPS is streamlined as much as DRK's. I must say that WAR's burst is so great, noodle mode for 80s after unleashing your IR. DRK can actually manage its own "burst" windows, pooling ressources for Trick Attacks for example. It's not because you don't have a "10s +50% dmg buff" that you don't have any burst.

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and living dead being nearly useless

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First consider that both WAR and DRK need healing after their invuln. It's just that WAR doesn't require 100% HP back. You won't leave WAR at 20% HP after Holmgang cause it will die after the next auto.
Second, LD is longer, and its duration only starts when dropping to 1 HP, not when you actually push the button.
Third, we definitely live in a world where Lustrate, Exogitation, Essential Dignity, Benediction are a thing. If two healers cannot bring 65k HP back in 9 full seconds, there's an issue with said healers, not Living Dead.

Overall, learn more, play smarter, and you'll see that DRK's kit isn't as gutted as you think it is.

Also, sorry for being out of topic.

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Originally Posted by Megguido

Now that's some hyperboles.

RDM is great in progression and with "not-top-level-players". Because you can prog and clear O8S while being somewhat a casual player. Then, when you clear the content consistently, RDM doesn't become "useless", it becomes "not optimal".

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"Not optimal" in this case meaning contributing the least DPS to the raid compared to any other job except for *maybe* samurai and having nothing else to offer because its two pieces of utility are a really crappy damage buff and a safety net. While useless is a hyperbole, calling it "not optimal" is just being pedantic when it offers nothing to the group that isn't done significantly better by other jobs.

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Originally Posted by Megguido

If I follow your reasoning, how come RDM should have as much damage as SMN while being easier to play and less buttons to push, and no pets to manage ?

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That's an excellent question, the answer to which is "it shouldn't". When it boils right down to it, RDM and SAM both require a lowered skill floor and a raised skill ceiling, a necessity to them being able to perform at the potential they need to stay competitive with other jobs.


On the sidebar of the sidebar:

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Originally Posted by Megguido

On DRK side (lulz), the main issue IMO is people complaining its too easy to play because of the 1-2-3 spam meme, but can't play it properly because it's actually more complicated than that.

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DRK was more complicated than that, back a few patches ago when TBN had a 5 second duration; the reason it was complicated was because you were praying to catch two auto-attacks within its duration to pop it, otherwise you just wasted resources on nothing. Compare this to HW's Dark Knight, which was yet even more complex. It had to be much more conscious of its resources, had a much higher APM without resorting to constantly forced double-weaves, and generally had more things to manage at once in terms of DoTs, Procs, and debuffs. Now the only complexity in playing DRK is having enough MP to use TBN, not capping on resources, and staying in engagement rage, all being things that apply generically to literally every melee job. It's funny that you harp on mindlessly spamming Dark Arts, because that is precisely the optimal way to play the job.

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Originally Posted by Megguido

DRK is the only high-cpm fast-paced tank, please don't dumb it down to WAR's level.[...] I played both PLD and DRK this tier, and PLD's DPS is streamlined as much as DRK's. DRK can actually manage its own "burst" windows, pooling ressources for Trick Attacks for example. It's not because you don't have a "10s +50% dmg buff" that you don't have any burst.

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All three tanks are equally easy to play, and anyone trying to claim which is the hardest by this point is like winning a competition for who can eat the most crayons. Fundamentally, DRK's burst is inferior because it stretches out the damage increase over a longer period of time, where PLD and WAR are able to concentrate their damage for key moments (trick attack, buffs). I like blood weapon, because who *doesn't* like going fast? Unfortunately, many fights don't like this type of burst, and most raid buffs don't either.

Drk is still by far the "hardest" tank to master.., balancing the MP (even for a tank stance swap)

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

That's an excellent question, the answer to which is "it shouldn't". When it boils right down to it, RDM and SAM both require a lowered skill floor and a raised skill ceiling, a necessity to them being able to perform at the potential they need to stay competitive with other jobs.

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Sorry for being blunt, but that's a horrible perspective. Jobs should be balanced, period. Let's go through the reasons why:


1) People generally pick jobs for playstyle and aesthetics. Speedrun groups pick for utility, mobility, and total DPS. Difficulty isn't generally close to the biggest factor as to what job is picked. Ultimately, the IDEAL goal of balance should be to make it so that every job is equally desired in groups. Having a job where you cannot perform at the same level as everybody else by design, even if you were godlike, is LITERALLY the opposite of that. Many people wouldn't even bother investing in a job that won't be able to perform at the top level or feel "punished" for doing so, and people who love the job from previous FFs and/or love the gameplay will rightfully feel bitter for being arbitrarily chosen to suck. There are only losers with this philosophy.


2) Difficulty is hard to measure accurately. Unless a straight 1-to-1 comparison, which is nearly impossible because jobs have different combinations of mechanics by design, it's nearly impossible to quantify or even estimate unless you do something like compare DPS versus percentile using FFLogs. And the thing is that even those estimates can be skewed by certain design choices. Low percentile WARs have higher DPS than low percentile DRKs, IIRC; this is largely because WAR is centered around small periods of burst and thus isn't punished nearly as hard by not optimizing uptime. Does this mean that WAR is easier than DRK? No, not necessarily. Maybe one has a higher skill floor and a lower skill ceiling. Which job deserves higher DPS? If one deserves higher DPS accordingly, how MUCH more DPS does it deserve? Since we can't quantify difficulty, it's not like we can say "This job is X easier, so it should do Y less DPS."


3) Difficulty is contextual. Is melee or caster easier? Well, that depends on the mechanics of the fight, doesn't it? Are we talking about progression or farm? As a designer, when you sit around and make a job, you don't change potencies, utilities, or mobilities on a fight-by-fight basis. People generally don't switch around jobs between fights in a static, in part due to comfort and in part due to focusing on gearing one job at a time.

Also, I want to focus more on this "being good for progression only is okay" line, because that's bullcrap. Is WAR and SCH only good in progression or farm? What's that, you say? They're good at both? But that can't be! We CLEARLY want some jobs to suck half the time, while the rest suck the other half of the time. Isn't that F-U-N?!

Everybody loves being "viable" (i.e. a liability, but able to be carried in the right comp), don't you know? SAM/BLM/RDM are "viable" and therefore don't have a right to complain. We should make sure our WAR and SCH overlords are working 24/7 to keep them in line and tell them how great they have it. Ungrateful jerks. I mean, both WAR and SCH couldn't shut up in early SB when they were "viable", but it's okay when they do it because they're clearly special. /s


4) Difficulty is subjective. Is DRG or MNK easier? I don't know, do you suck more at dealing with timers or positionals? How well can you tank a floor? I mean, do I get to have higher potencies at RDM than everybody else because I'm miraculously shit at it but surprisingly click well with SMN? No, I didn't think so.

Seriously, SMN is right about where it needs to be; maybe a LITTLE high, but it's hard to say because SE tends to enforce/encourage bringing a caster LB and SMN is simply the best caster right now, so it's often coming regardless. SAM/BLK/RDM need slight buffs to be desired. Just raise SAM/BLK DPS by about 4-6% (most "utilities" people actually care about have a DPS value anyways), buff RDM DPS slightly (and fix embolden to not be so...weird), and the problem is solved. No, it's not "complicated". That's usually just a weasel word people like to use to avoid having to defend an opinion. No, they don't even necessarily need more utility or mobility, although that's another avenue to fix things (albeit more work and riskier, two things SE doesn't like). Their total DPS contribution is too low compared to everybody else, and everybody knows it. JUST. FIX. IT.

I think you may have misinterpreted my stance on this issue, which is pretty understandable given that my replies are wordy in an already super wordy topic, but to clarify on a few of them:

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Originally Posted by Wilbow

Difficulty isn't generally close to the biggest factor as to what job is picked. Ultimately, the IDEAL goal of balance should be to make it so that every job is equally desired in groups. Having a job where you cannot perform at the same level as everybody else by design, even if you were godlike, is LITERALLY the opposite of that.

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Difficulty isn't a primary factor, and it probably isn't even a secondary factor, but when I say difficulty I should probably be using the term "skill ceiling", because that's really what I mean. A job should feel perfectly fine to play under normal conditions, but there needs to be room for people to feel like they're getting better if you ask me. Part of this argument, is that in order for Red Mage (and SAM) to be perform at the same level as other jobs, they're going to need a higher skill ceiling; it's hardly reasonable to let two jobs perform at the same level when one requires an absurd level of optimization to do what it does while the other one can roll its face on the keyboard to blow fat DPS out. It's an issue both with SAM and RDM, where they don't perform nearly as well as they should on the top end of the spectrum, while simultaneously rewarding bad (frankly, abysmal) gameplay due to their overly simplistic and forgiving designs. I understand that there are players who don't ever touch harder content like savage, and that's more than okay, but accommodating players who aren't as skilled or dedicated should be the job of the content and not the content of the job.

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Originally Posted by Wilbow

Since we can't quantify difficulty, it's not like we can say "This job is X easier, so it should do Y less DPS."

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Difficulty is, well, difficult to quantify, but a bit of common sense goes a long way when judging overall difficulty. DRK vs. WAR is a bit of a wash because they really aren't far off now in terms of gameplay since they made WAR much more unga bunga with 4.2, even if the changes were necessary to eliminate a lot of dumbness in the job. I think a more apt comparison would be BLM vs. SAM; Black Mage has a much higher skill ceiling and a much, MUCH lower skill floor than Samurai, combined with the fact that it benefits less from some raid buffs than Samurai due to its nature as a caster, and I'd say it should be doing a solid chunk more DPS at the higher ends.

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Originally Posted by Wilbow

Also, I want to focus more on this "being good for progression only is okay" line, because that's bullcrap. Is WAR and SCH only good in progression or farm? What's that, you say? They're good at both? But that can't be! We CLEARLY want some jobs to suck half the time, while the rest suck the other half of the time. Isn't that F-U-N?!

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I agree wholeheartedly on this point, it's silly to think being good in prog and useless otherwise is a good thing, and Red Mage is the only job in the game right now with this dichotomy. Some jobs (PLD, WHM) are better at progression than other jobs due to their toolkits and straightforward playstyle, but they're still more than serviceable for farm even if they're not necessarily optimal (we're pretending DRK is in a much better spot than it actually is for the sake of argument right now).

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

Because being able to raise people isn't useful outside of initial progression and pubs, and players want their job to be viable at all times and not just when people are dropping like bricks in the water. Being able to spam raise is useful, but it comes at the expense of having a useful DPS kit in a game where, frankly, the only things that matter are damage output and your ability to better others' damage outputs.

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Well this isn't gonna happen. A raid comp in this game is only 8 players, meaning a max of 8 classes. Some classes WILL be left out and considered "sub optimal". People need to understand and accept this. They also need to accept that the design direction SE took with RDM is WHY it's damage has to be balanced where it is, and why it will be viewed as a "lets just take this for progression" job. I also think the rebalancing of savage content is another reason why this is viewed as an issue. If we had Midas difficulty with savage where most players would still be progressing, we wouldn't be having this argument because RDM would be "useful" for a significant time.

Regardless I still hold to the belief that if you're only doing savage content and you've been able to clear without any trouble, then you shouldn't be focused on how "useful" a dps kit is. Any class can clear savage content easily

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Originally Posted by xxPheNoMeNa

Well this isn't gonna happen. A raid comp in this game is only 8 players, meaning a max of 8 classes. Some classes WILL be left out and considered "sub optimal". People need to understand and accept this. They also need to accept that the design direction SE took with RDM is WHY it's damage has to be balanced where it is, and why it will be viewed as a "lets just take this for progression" job. I also think the rebalancing of savage content is another reason why this is viewed as an issue. If we had Midas difficulty with savage where most players would still be progressing, we wouldn't be having this argument because RDM would be "useful" for a significant time.

Regardless I still hold to the belief that if you're only doing savage content and you've been able to clear without any trouble, then why are you focused on how "useful" a dps kit is. Any class can clear savage content easily

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I can't even agree with a single sentence here.


> A group limit of 8 doesn't mean only 8 jobs can be balanced at a time. If jobs have balanced pros and cons, then different comps will be equally viable for a raid. It may be that different jobs play better with certain other jobs by how they cover each other's weaknesses, and that's fine. This is just common sense, imo.

> You can't sit there and say being good for progression only is okay when we have a handful of jobs that get to be good for prog and farm. It is especially apropos here considering that SMN was brought along just as much as RDM in Ultimate prog and will get to be considerably more useful in farm as well.

> As for the rest...rebalancing of savage has nothing to do with this. People want to feel like they aren't holding their group back with their job, that they aren't being carried by default because of their job crystal. Whether the content is on prog or on farm, it doesn't matter. And yes, we've seen this before. AST in early HW and WHM in late HW both suffered the exact same issue as RDM now (maybe a little worse), despite the fact that savage got gradually easier to prog as HW went along. It changed nothing. Nobody wants a comparative liability, in prog OR farm.

TL;DR: We don't have to accept imbalance as an inevitability and say nothing. If something is borked, it's better to point it out and hope they fix it rather than to say nothing and know that they won't.

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Originally Posted by Wilbow

> A group limit of 8 doesn't mean only 8 jobs can be balanced at a time. If jobs have balanced pros and cons, then different comps will be equally viable for a raid. It may be that different jobs play better with certain other jobs by how they cover each other's weaknesses, and that's fine. This is just common sense, imo.

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All comps are "viable" right now. If ANY caster has an argument for "viability" right now, it's Black Mage due to how punishing that class is if you don't know how to optimize movement. RDM has always been a viable class for raiding, it's inherently overpowered for progression and it falls off in farm. For optimization purposes, there will always be a "god comp" and this has been evidenced for years and it happens in every other MMO. You will never achieve "perfect balance" and it goes beyond just class balance numbers specifically. Raid design also plays a part in this (notice how strong Monk is in o5s/o6s but how it drops off in o7s and o8s).

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Originally Posted by Wilbow

> You can't sit there and say being good for progression only is okay when we have a handful of jobs that get to be good for prog and farm.

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Black Mage hasn't been considered "good" for anything in years, and I think many BLM players are fine with how the class is right now. They received a few good buffs and their damage output is good if played appropriately. The community as a whole still looks down upon it because "lul no utility". Again this community is too fixated on "god comps" and numbers when it doesn't apply to most of them.

This may also be an issue for those who decide to "one trick" a class rather than collectively play everything for their role. Those of us who play multiple casters won't see this as a problem because we know RDM is extremely good for one purpose and SMN another, and we'll play both to fulfill those purposes. The ones who only want to play RDM though feel this is unfair.

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Originally Posted by Wilbow

> As for the rest...rebalancing of savage has nothing to do with this. People want to feel like they aren't holding their group back with their job, that they aren't being carried by default because of their job crystal.

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Actually in a way it does, although it's rather a byproduct from it. Savage being rebalanced to be "easier" has allowed a lot more players to clear faster (or even clear at all), which only emphasizes this complaint of "RDM is useless after prog". Also I've personally never felt that my group "carries me" when playing RDM. Even when I am on the class, I'm among the highest DPS in my group (and these are all 99% players at their respective classes). Yes I can do more on SMN, but RDM is not so low that you're getting carried. If that's actually the case, that's a skill issue and not a class issue.

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Originally Posted by Wilbow

TL;DR: We don't have to accept imbalance as an inevitability and say nothing. If something is borked, it's better to point it out and hope they fix it rather than to say nothing and know that they won't.

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But the arguments people make regarding "imbalance" can be misguided. People just want to point at numbers and say "look our damage sucks, we need buffs" without understanding the full picture. There's a reason some of us say RDM is actually ok, because we know what the class is capable of doing at optimal levels of play and we still understand that while their raise utility is disregarded after prog, it's one of if not the most overpowered ability in the game DURING prog. If people want RDM buffs, then they would have to remove their raise utility to compensate, which at that point you just have a generic caster dps with a melee combo.

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Originally Posted by xxPheNoMeNa

Well this isn't gonna happen. A raid comp in this game is only 8 players, meaning a max of 8 classes. Some classes WILL be left out and considered "sub optimal".

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I don't think the term sub-optimal applies when you're blatantly outclassed in every aspect. Ninja, as one example, does very similar personal DPS while bringing tools that buff everyone else's damage as well as having insanely good enmity tools. Furthermore, the number of slots in a party is entirely irrelevant to making a job competitive (not meta, just competitive).

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They also need to accept that the design direction SE took with RDM is WHY it's damage has to be balanced where it is, and why it will be viewed as a "lets just take this for progression" job.

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You are wrong. Accepting something perceived as a flaw is not conducive to good design and customer retention, otherwise SE wouldn't bother with player feedback and they certainly wouldn't bother with balance patches. Clearly there is a portion of the playerbase who wants Red Mage to always be useful, rather than only being there to play res-bot and make newbie tank players want to kill themselves, and this portion of the playerbase has every right to desire that. Whether SE wants to act on their criticisms is their prerogative, but the players are in the right to want more out of the job.

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All comps are "viable" right now. If ANY caster has an argument for "viability" right now, it's Black Mage due to how punishing that class is if you don't know how to optimize movement. RDM has always been a viable class for raiding, it's inherently overpowered for progression and it falls off in farm. For optimization purposes, there will always be a "god comp" and this has been evidenced for years and it happens in every other MMO

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And again... just flat out wrong. Black Mage has a much better argument for viability because it offers strong personal DPS at the expense of being harder to play, but a good Black Mage is only "sub optimal" compared to a summoner, rather than just having no reason to be there like Red Mage. Nobody is saying Red Mage needs to be meta, what they (and I) want is for it to be "competitive", in effect a job that while sub optimal still offers a strong slot to the group that isn't infinitely better served by literally everything else.

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

You are wrong. Accepting something perceived as a flaw is not conducive to good design and customer retention, otherwise SE wouldn't bother with player feedback and they certainly wouldn't bother with balance patches. Clearly there is a portion of the playerbase who wants Red Mage to always be useful, rather than only being there to play res-bot and make newbie tank players want to kill themselves, and this portion of the playerbase has every right to desire that. Whether SE wants to act on their criticisms is their prerogative, but the players are in the right to want more out of the job.

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A few classes aren't "always useful". BLM isn't "useful" and I don't hear them complaining much since their buffs, WHM isn't always "useful" and many people considered the balance between healers to be pretty good until these last AST buffs that happened (despite the fact that WHM was only taken for prog).

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

You are wrong. Accepting something perceived as a flaw is not conducive to good design and customer retention, otherwise SE wouldn't bother with player feedback and they certainly wouldn't bother with balance patches. Clearly there is a portion of the playerbase who wants Red Mage to always be useful, rather than only being there to play res-bot and make newbie tank players want to kill themselves, and this portion of the playerbase has every right to desire that. Whether SE wants to act on their criticisms is their prerogative, but the players are in the right to want more out of the job.

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The class has a very niche design. Most casual players (the ones who don't even raid) seem to enjoy RDM from what I've personally witnessed and iirc was one of the more popular classes being played. Seems fine for player retention, it's only the small group in between that and those of us at the highest end that believe the sky is falling for the class. Even the best RDM players think the class is fine (and some argue it's still overpowered).

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

And again... just flat out wrong. Black Mage has a much better argument for viability because it offers strong personal DPS at the expense of being harder to play, but a good Black Mage is only "sub optimal" compared to a summoner, rather than just having no reason to be there like Red Mage.

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No that's not wrong at all lol. Black Mage isn't any where close to the viability of RDM in progression, even if you completely ignore the raise utility RDM brings. Outside of prog there's more viability sure, but it's also looked down upon by most because it's damage output isn't "enough". Good black mages actually can match the overall output that SMN brings, the issue is it's very difficult to do so and very few players are capable of playing the class at that level, and if you don't play it well then it will punish you far greater than SMN would (hence the glaring disparity that people always bring up).

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

Nobody is saying Red Mage needs to be meta, what they (and I) want is for it to be "competitive", in effect a job that while sub optimal still offers a strong slot to the group that isn't infinitely better served by literally everything else.

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And in what way is it not "competitive"? Because those of us who optimize at a bleeding edge say "SMN is better"? If I played the class right now and tried to speedrun with my static, I bet I could still compete to be the highest dps in my group. Do you or these other people understand the damage RDM "can" do when you have an optimal group comp with proper party buff usage? Sure there's definitely a disparity between RDM and SMN, I've always agreed to that, but people act like RDM is the lowest dps in the game and that's actually not the case.

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Originally Posted by xxPheNoMeNa

A few classes aren't "always useful". BLM isn't "useful" and I don't hear them complaining much since their buffs, WHM isn't always "useful" and many people considered the balance between healers to be pretty good until these last AST buffs that happened (despite the fact that WHM was only taken for prog).

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You're arguing a non-point however because "useful" is a nebulous non-statement toward overall job performance. Black Mage is useful, but it's outclassed and difficult to play, regardless its playerbase still has plenty of criticism about the job design and overall performance. White Mage is in a precarious position due to the low number of healers and even lower number of healer slots, but it was only marginally outclassed in higher end content prior to the latest patch, but this is a much more nuanced argument than the balance between DPS jobs which are more numerous both in available positions and in sheer volume of jobs.

Red Mage is useful in progression, but becomes entirely useless outside of it because its one piece of utility serves no purpose and it offers nothing outside of that.

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

Red Mage is useful in progression, but becomes entirely useless outside of it because its one piece of utility serves no purpose and it offers nothing outside of that.

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Useless for what though? Speedrunning? Sure it's not useful there because that dps disparity actually matters. But it's still a dps class that can still compete with other dps classes (non casters) in terms of personal damage and it has embolden which averages out to nearly 6% over its duration (actually in a way it can be argued to be "stronger" due to how it's diminishing effect works, as you'd be aligning the majority of your burst damage during it's 10%/8%/6% windows). I know it only affects physical damage to the rest of the party, but optimal raid comps are mostly physical anyways so you still get good value out of it if you align it properly

This perception of RDM being "useless" is just weird. And frankly, even if they did buff the class, unless it does become meta people will continue to have this perception of RDM only being a prog job

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Originally Posted by xxPheNoMeNa

This perception of RDM being "useless" is just weird. And frankly, even if they did buff the class, unless it does become meta people will continue to have this perception of RDM only being a prog job

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Of course people will still have the perception of it being a prog job, the important thing is that it would be a perception rather than something enforced by the actual job design, and part of that involves giving Red Mage something to offer that isn't spamming resurrection spells. Embolden is a complete joke, and the reason I didn't include it in the discussion is because it provides such a minimal increase in rdps even when used to its absolute best effect.

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Originally Posted by xxPheNoMeNa

I know it only affects physical damage to the rest of the party, but optimal raid comps are mostly physical anyways so you still get good value out of it if you align it properly

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This is the part that gets me.

It's a caster that you wouldn't want in magic based set ups if they ever existed since part of its damage is physical and it buffs Physical classes. By this same token, in strong physical set ups you still don't want it because there's better physical support / supported jobs as well.

Verraise is a pretty awful string to dangle why. Why not make them desirable, both to play and team up with, on other merits?

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

Of course people will still have the perception of it being a prog job, the important thing is that it would be a perception rather than something enforced by the actual job design, and part of that involves giving Red Mage something to offer that isn't spamming resurrection spells. .

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It's only a perception now. This isn't gordias, content is not tuned to the point where your composition REALLY matters. Any reason why RDM is not played right now is that perception. And buffing the class will honestly not change that, it will just "enforce" that RDM is THE class to take for prog because it will be even better and then will be disregarded afterwards because everyone circle jerks our speedrun meta.

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

Embolden is a complete joke, and the reason I didn't include it in the discussion is because it provides such a minimal increase in rdps even when used to its absolute best effect

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Embolden is easily 400-500 rDPS with proper alignment, which is comparable to pretty much every individual raid buff in the game aside from Trick Attack or the rng of Balance cards. Hypercharge, Brotherhood, Chain Strategem, Battle Litany, etc., Embolden offers about the same (or close to) rDPS as any one of these buffs. In what world is that a "complete joke"?

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

This is the part that gets me.
Verraise is a pretty awful string to dangle why. Why not make them desirable, both to play and team up with, on other merits?

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In what way should it be desirable though? It's already desirable for prog, for it to be "desirable" after that it would need to be strong enough to be meta or close to it (and making it that strong with it's verraise utility untouched would actually destroy the balance of casters). And if it's not strong enough to be meta (or in the position SMN is in right now), it won't ever be desirable after prog because the community as a whole will continue to believe that our level of optimization applies to them and they'll copy it (and this cycle will repeat).

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Originally Posted by xxPheNoMeNa

Embolden is easily 400-500 rDPS with proper alignment, which is comparable to pretty much every individual raid buff in the game aside from Trick Attack

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...And THERE YOU GO. RDM does NIN level pDPS while providing considerably less rDPS (trick is 600 DPS unoptimized, up to 900 DPS optimized). Never mind that NIN can use its enmity reduction tools alongside shirk to squeeze out even more DPS from the tanks by making them avoid using their emnity combos and generally makes content much less stressful to deal with.

I can do a similar analysis with BRD, or DRG, or MNK, or SMN, or BLK...

But muh verraise, right?

You're fighting a losing argument on this. The numbers aren't on your side. I'm sorry.

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Originally Posted by Wilbow

...And THERE YOU GO. RDM does NIN level pDPS while providing considerably less rDPS (trick is 600 DPS unoptimized, up to 900 DPS optimized). Never mind that NIN can use its enmity reduction tools alongside shirk to squeeze out even more DPS from the tanks by making them avoid using their emnity combos and generally makes content much less stressful to deal with.

But muh verraise, right?

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You can try to be cute and say "the numbers aren't on your side" but the problem here is those numbers don't matter to begin with (and I know what the numbers are for every class in this game). That DPS disparity literally means nothing because RDM is a niche DPS class with a quasi-healer element. You and the people arguing here just fail to see this. It's not really a losing argument when (what a news flash) RDM has still been unchanged for an entire year while these complaints have been ongoing for sometime. So when the next balance patch happens and RDM STILL doesn't see any changes, what will the argument be then?

So is your argument "X hasn't seen any changes, therefore it doesn't need any changes?"

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Originally Posted by xxPheNoMeNa

So when the next balance patch happens and RDM STILL doesn't see any changes, what will the argument be then?

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The same as they were last patch? That tends to happen when you don't fix something.

If you remember, RDM was one of the highest DPS a year ago. Most DPS have received noticeable buffs since then (practically all, really), and it's caused RDM to be shoved down to the bottom by proxy.

The lack of DPS wasn't an issue before. Now it is.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

So is your argument "X hasn't seen any changes, therefore it doesn't need any changes?"

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No my argument is, plenty of us at the top of level have repeatedly said the class is fine, casual players enjoy the class too and the class has seen no real balance changes since release. A select portion of the community (im guessing midcore RDM players that are just upset their class isn't highly desired) has continuously complained about "the balance" of casters and crying for buffs and yet nothing has changed (and rightfully so).

When BLM had issues, notice how BLM players across pretty much all skill levels agreed that there were problems with the class and it prompted a change. Meanwhile with RDM there isn't a collective agreement about it (well, we agree that it has weak overall damage output but other people don't see the issue with that).

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Originally Posted by xxPheNoMeNa

You can try to be cute and say "the numbers aren't on your side" but the problem here is those numbers don't matter to begin with.

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Oh, well there we have it I guess, the numbers don't matter. So it wouldn't matter if Black Mage did as much damage as Ninja and nothing else changed, right? Naturally, because DPS numbers don't matter, it wouldn't be a big deal if Dragoon could deal the exact same personal DPS as Samurai.

Perhaps there's some sort of middle ground between 1% parsers and people who only log in to idle in Limsa where job balance can be important without necessarily requiring absolute parity.

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Originally Posted by xxPheNoMeNa

No my argument is, plenty of us at the top of level have repeatedly said the class is fine, casual players enjoy the class too and the class has seen no real balance changes since release.

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You could have just said "Yes, it is" or even "Yes, it's part of my argument." Considering the rest of the argument is an appeal to authority and popularity.

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When BLM had issues, notice how BLM players across pretty much all skill levels agreed that there were problems with the class and it prompted a change. Meanwhile with RDM there isn't a collective agreement about it (well, we agree that it has weak overall damage output but other people don't see the issue with that).

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What I suppose we midcore RDM are saying is, it's kind of funny how of all the jobs in the game, it's the fourth dps slot that's expected to be able to hotswap jobs on the fly while everyone else stays the job they main. No NIN is expected to be able to also perform at the top levels of MNK, like a top RDM would also be expected to perform as a top SMN. (or I mean, just main SMN at this point; you get the same levels of meaningful progression outside of the bleeding edge world firsters, who even still probably use SMN instead.)

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Originally Posted by Wilbow

The same as they were last patch? That tends to happen when you don't fix something.

If you remember, RDM was one of the highest DPS a year ago. Most DPS have received noticeable buffs since then (practically all, really), and it's caused RDM to be shoved down to the bottom by proxy.

The lack of DPS wasn't an issue before. Now it is.

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They were "higher" because other dps classes were undertuned and needed buffs. RDM was actually overpowered back then because of it too. And most of those dps changes occurred long ago, so this dps disparity has existed since at least the start of 4.1 (honestly even longer because DRG/MCH were already meta before that). So 9 months across two raid tiers AND two ultimate fights?

I don't care if people think verraise isn't "useful" after prog (also a dumb argument. Unless your group is capable of one shotting every fight every single week without deaths, which I'm willing to bet isn't the case, then that raise is useful. Only a very small percentage of us speedrun, that's the only place where that raise is ACTUALLY useless), it should be among the bottom in dps when you can raise an entire party and brings essentially a cure 1 on demand.

So cute how smn mains try and speak for the Red Mage community and always state Red Mage is fine when that is so completely false.
Also a majority of the RM community does not feel that it is fine but have been calling for changes to embolden along with damage buffs and other stuff for sometime now. SE is simply not listening but choose to make changes (even how minor it is) to every other job.

Also, Red Mage was not really overpowered it was a glitch in which they had fixed actually. And really it should be bottom dps? Smn and Bard both bring far better utility and are ahead in damage by a pretty significant amount. I have said what i wanted to say, i will not quote people to try and argue points when it is clear some do not have their facts straight or really know what they are talking about for the subject of this thread

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

Oh, well there we have it I guess, the numbers don't matter. So it wouldn't matter if Black Mage did as much damage as Ninja and nothing else changed, right? Naturally, because DPS numbers don't matter, it wouldn't be a big deal if Dragoon could deal the exact same personal DPS as Samurai.

Perhaps there's some sort of middle ground between 1% parsers and people who only log in to idle in Limsa where job balance can be important without necessarily requiring absolute parity.

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DPS numbers matter relative to what else the class brings to a party. When it comes to RDM, no the numbers don't matter. It's utility is already too strong. It may be niche and situational "where" that strength shows, but when it does it's disgusting.

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Originally Posted by xxPheNoMeNa

it should be among the bottom in dps when you can raise an entire party and brings essentially a cure 1 on demand.

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1) You cannot raise an entire party, mp pool won't support it. 2) Even if you could the party is done with that run anyway at that point unless you're all gods of recovery, and assuming you are, how'd the whole party die in the first place? Closest you can get is raising a healer and having them Healer LB3, but if that's your criteria, then Summoner can also raise a whole party.

I get you're exaggerating. Fine, you can raise maybe four times in quick succession, perhaps five or six if you have Lucid up at that time. I'll cede, that's most of the party. That's also 12 gcds of raising people that the RDM also has to survive. Then you're useless for a while because your resource pool is completely exhausted, and Lucid is burned already; whole party's resource pool is gone, aggro's in the dumps because of those five or six were the tanks, and by now everybody just wants to wipe and restart anyway.

And yay cure 1. I bet the healers are stoked that a DPS has a tier of spell they laugh about and pretend doesn't exist in lieu of cure 2/stone.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

What I suppose we midcore RDM are saying is, it's kind of funny how of all the jobs in the game, it's the fourth dps slot that's expected to be able to hotswap jobs on the fly while everyone else stays the job they main. No NIN is expected to be able to also perform at the top levels of MNK, like a top RDM would also be expected to perform as a top SMN. (or I mean, just main SMN at this point; you get the same levels of meaningful progression outside of the bleeding edge world firsters, who even still probably use SMN instead.)

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I mean that's been happening for a long time. Playing caster in the past, we were expected to play Bard or MCH (even in deltascape), nowadays that 4th slot hovers between MNK, SMN, and maybe MCH. If your argument is that ninjas or dragoons never have to flex or worry about flexing classes, then make your argument that you want NIN, DRG and BRD nerfed since that trinity has been overpowered for over 2 years now.

Also, who is being expected to play SMN at a top level? Most raiders aren't bleeding edge hardcore players, most of them will not care what class you play as long as you're good at it.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

1) You cannot raise an entire party, mp pool won't support it. 2) Even if you could the party is done with that run anyway at that point unless you're all gods of recovery, and assuming you are, how'd the whole party die in the first place? Closest you can get is raising a healer and having them Healer LB3, but if that's your criteria, then Summoner can also raise a whole party.

And yay cure 1. I bet the healers are stoked that a DPS has a tier of spell they laugh about and pretend doesn't exist in lieu of cure 2/stone.

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MP pool is ~14.4k, that alone is enough for 3 raises without any worry. Super-ethers can give you another 2300 MP (and they're useful for RDM, I actually used them during UWU prog). That's enough mp to easily sustain 4 raises, now factor in Lucid and the possibility of refresh, you can definitely get an entire party. Granted that statement wasn't made so much for realism as it was just showcasing how "strong" it can be. The fact that you can easily raise 3 people in quick succession (which is definitely a situation that can happen in a raid and is recoverable) is ridiculous. I've actually cleared on pulls like that.

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Originally Posted by Maero

So cute how smn mains try and speak for the Red Mage community and always state Red Mage is fine when that is so completely false.

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Top RDM players say the same thing that I am. I'm sure the best RDM players in the world have their facts straight, so why aren't they calling for the same changes? I also "mained" RDM last tier and am still required to play it for progression, so I understand the class and its disparity quite well too.

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Originally Posted by Maero

Also, Red Mage was not really overpowered

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No, the unbalanced glitch is not why RDM was overpowered. RDM was overpowered because it was actually among the highest DPS classes in the game at the start of Stormblood, before DRG, MCH, and others were fixed.

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Originally Posted by xxPheNoMeNa

They were "higher" because other dps classes were undertuned and needed buffs. RDM was actually overpowered back then because of it too. And most of those dps changes occurred long ago, so this dps disparity has existed since at least the start of 4.1 (honestly even longer because DRG/MCH were already meta before that).

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> Yes, RDM used to be overpowered at the start of SB. This was overcorrected pretty dramatically. They're as bad in the underperforming side now as they used to be in the overperforming side back then.

> Also, you act as if this long period of not making changes somehow justifies the neglect. SE has a track record of being too slow to adjust jobs that are clearly in need of it. See: DRG magic defense in 2.x, AST in early HW, WHM in late HW, DRK in SB, etc. This doesn't mean that there isn't an issue. I want to be in the universe you're in, where BLK and RDM mains haven't been critical of how SE has handled their job in SB.

Also, answer me this: If RDM is supposed to be SO GOOD AT PROG, why are SMN just as common in world firsts of the newest ultimate? And if you can be SMN and be just as good at prog, why would you ever bother investing in RDM? But you know, the ultimates just aren't HARD ENOUGH to make prog important enough for long enough, or something.

If you say so about the glitch, you always seem to like to be correct so i will leave it at that.
Some of the top Red Mage players may say it is fine but certainly not all of them.
You worried Red Mage if it gets buffs will be too close in dmg to your precious smn or something? The stupid arguement of Verraise is getting old.
If you would raise 3 or more members then chances are you will not meet the dps check anyhow
Then we have embolden, people are making it sounds far more OP then it actually is

And stating that Rm "It's utility is already too strong" clearly shows how wrong you are.

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Originally Posted by Wilbow

> want to be in the universe you're in, where BLK and RDM mains haven't been critical of how SE has handled their job in SB.

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BLM mains "had" an issue (well a few since SB release), and they've mostly been corrected. I think a lot of BLM mains are ok with where the class is right now. It's not desired because the community circle jerks this "lul no utility" meme but it's in a good place relative to SMN.

These "RDM issues" appear odd because some of you keep saying the issues are bad yet others at the highest level of play say there's not. Those same players acknowledge the dps disparity that exists too, but they understand that it's the cost of the utility RDM brings and they're ok with that. It's a weird class with a weird niche, but it's extremely strong for its purpose. The community is too fixated on damage output.

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Originally Posted by Maero

Some of the top Red Mage players may say it is fine but certainly not all of them.

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Which ones have asked for balance changes? Jump has repeatedly stated that the class shouldn't receive any buffs because of its utility and that people should stop expecting it to happen. Howard continues to say RDM is extremely overpowered.

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Originally Posted by Maero

You worried Red Mage if it gets buffs will be too close in dmg to your precious smn or something

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Not really, I'll play whatever becomes meta. I've always wanted BLM to be meta personally because I think it has the highest skill ceiling among casters.

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Originally Posted by Maero

If you would raise 3 or more members then chances are you will not meet the dps check anyhow

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Not true at all, top end groups can definitely recover pulls where multiple deaths happen. The only cases where this would really be true is golden phase or post suppression in Ultima (so ultimate content during the final phase of each fight). I've done it and seen it plenty of times.

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Originally Posted by Maero

And stating that Rm "It's utility is already too strong" clearly shows how wrong you are.

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Uh no. Anyone who does actual progression in this game would acknowledge how strong RDM's utility is. Beyond that it just doesn't matter.

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Originally Posted by xxPheNoMeNa

The community is too fixated on damage output.

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This is a game where healer and tank optimization means pushing as much damage out of them as possible. This is a game where the common meme is that healers and tanks are just blue and green DPS. This is a game where among healers, damage disparity is one of the biggest debates between them, because healing is so stupidly powerful in the game that even in the most taxing of situations you'll still have space to do more damage.

Yes, the community is fixated on damage output. The whole game is, too.