Pictomancer should be the monk to black mage's samurai

Monk and samurai have always been close, but samurai consistently had slightly higher damage while monk brought lots of utility in the form of mantra and brotherhood. However a good monk with really good crit rng can compete with a samurai. Currently picto is defecating all over black mage in damage and utility when black mage was the historic rival of all top dps jobs like samurai. admittedly this expansion has been tough for samurai too regarding its performance against other more supportive melee. At least with melee there's some reason for it. dragoon and ninja both lost a lot of utility in dawntrail and endwalker. ninjas can't buff damage for the party every 60 seconds any more, dragoon can't tether to people for left eye buffs anymore, and reaper had it's regen utility nerfed hard shortly after being released. the whole melee role has become stronger and more selfish and created a more competitive environment for samurai. for casters theres a huge gap in utility and personal dps between each job. summoner and red mage can res people so those are on the low end of damage but still provide enough utility to be brought into comps that want it. black mage does not do enough damage to fairly compete with pictomancer and that is a design travesty. pictomancer does not deserve to be nerfed to the level of red mage or summoner because it will never be used over them if that happens but black mage can't stay where it is either. they need to not do dumb stuff like nerf enochian out of fear of black mage out dpsing picto. It's a selfish dps it by design is supposed to do that. god help me if a new phys ranged with utility comes out and does more personal damage than machinist. selfish jobs should be balanced around each other not their individual role. That is why jobs like black mage and machinist feel so weak.

1) damage buffs aren’t utility so for all intents and purposes if the only thing a job brings is a damage buff (like NIN or DRG) it’s a selfish DPS for the purposed of this protracted “selfish DPS must always be best” mindset

2) all this shows is the concept of selfish DPS needing to be the best DPS because if they aren’t they are the worst is just stupid and outdated

I will apologize for not differentiating utility like res, mitigation, etc. from raid buffs because you are correct. damage buffs are effectively a static mechanic in this games combat. I do fundamentally disagree with your second point only because from my perspective if there isn't a visual indicator that im helping my team deal more damage like a buff or debuff and my numbers are as low as buff jobs than how am i as a player supposed to experience dopamine for playing the job? Beyond that I can see you enjoy pictomancer like many of us. I hope this post doesn't come off as a suggestion to directly nerf pictomancer but rather that pictomancer exposes how unsatisfying jobs like machinist have become to play. I don't understannd why a job with no res, no raid buff can't atleast have the decency to let drill be remotlly as satisfying as standard step. it's just gonna mean double phys ranged will never be viable again. picto being a caster was so good for team comp diversity because it actually brings enough power to run double caster. machinist should be powerful enough to do this for players who like the freedom of movement. it can be weaker for balance but the margin is way to big.

I dunno, why?

Pictomancer is a very relaxed full-caster job. And I say this in a context of there basically being no full caster job anyways:

* Red Mage can move 50% of the time even during full casts, more due to the combos.
* Black Mage has ~30%-40% instant casts, can in fact run a near-full-DPS all-instants combo if needed.
* Summoner has four hardcasts in a while minute assuming you safe Swiftcast for emergency rezz, three casts otherwise.

Still, Picto is quite relaxed. It has no fixed rotation like other casters do (Summoner's ifrit-placement is the other exception I suppose). It has a movement tool that even completely randomly grants Sprint afterwards. It has a personal shield. It has a group shield. It does some minor support healing. It has as stationary buff, but unlike Black Mage the radius is super large so it barely confines you in the first place. It's rotational constraints are freeform-placed between other casts. It overflows in on-demand instant casts because it keeps a steady supply of them around (not like Red Mage where you don't want to overcap and hence usually only have one for movement purposes). Only these flexible motifs are slow to cast, everything else is comparatively quick. It genuinely likes downtime and getting out of combat between pulls, which other casters hate because it messes with their CD alignment. For Picto, it's free motif recharges!

The job is so player-friendly, you could genuinely argue Summoner is more difficult to play, at least that has to keep some CDs aligned to a rough degree. I'd say Picto is still more difficult, but not by a lot. There's little excuse for it dealing anywhere near top-end damage, more so because of the extra utility options it has to keep a Picto from dying and hence causing a wipe, something other jobs don't enjoy.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

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Have you played Pictomancer in a savage or higher fight? Because saying Summoner is arguably harder to play is ridiculous.

Also, your numbers of instant casts are off for BLM. After the despair change, a BLM doing top damage has around 60% of its rotation made up of instant casts. Meanwhile, a PCT has around 35% of its rotation made up of instant cast.

Whilst PCT's rotation is free form rather than rigid, it still has some things that it has to do every minute. It's main movement tools in the hammer skills and comet are also needed for its burst, meaning you don't want to use those whenever you please if you're still trying to optimize your DPS output. And if you go into your 2min burst without having spent 12s casting 2 creature motifs, 1 hammer motif and 1 starry sky motif and 1 Comet, your burst is gonna be severely neutered. You bring up RDM being confined to only 1 combo for movement purposes, but it's the same thing with the hammer skills on PCT. Since it has a 1min CD and you need to use one in your burst, you usually only have 1 hammer you can use purely for movement. Also, the reason why PCT's Starry Sky is larger than Ley Lines is because 1) PCT doesn't have 3s CD "teleport me to Ley Lines button 2) cannot move their Starry Sky like BLM can and 3) Doesn't only get a SpSpd boost from its stationary buff, it needs to be inside those lines for its 5 palette GCD to avoid losing out on Rainbow Drip.
Also, while it has gotten more rigid, BLM is still pretty free flowing and the 7.1 changes even reintroduced non standard lines. And I'd argue that RDM also doesn't really have a fixed rotation. Outside of burst, you're just trying to build gauge, avoid drifting Fleche/Contre Sixte and use Acceleration to not lose a Grand Impact, which while it has some constraint, is not a rigid rotation like most melee have.

And outside of the Star Prism heal, which is extremely constrained in its timing and use, and the ability to spread its shield, which does nothing for its own survivability, PCT doesn't have more options than BLM. While PCT has Smudge, BLM can use Aetherial manip/between the lines, and Mana ward is a stronger shield than Tempera Coat.

So saying that PCT "overflows" with on-demand instant cast is laughable when it's genuinely the caster with the least amount of them, as well as pretending it's uniquely free and flexible.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say PCT is the hardest job in the game, but acting like it's a free job that doesn't have to work for its damage output is an extreme exaggeration.

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Originally Posted by Reginald_Cain

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More on topic, while I have thought in the past that jobs could be balanced based on their non damage utility (for example, looking at melees, we'd have 1. DRG+VRP, 2. SAM+NIN, 3. RPR, 4. MNK), but my thinking has evolved since then because of how fights are currently designed in the game. Since it is possible to go into a fight with a VPR, SAM, BLM, MCH comp, fights cannot be designed to account for skills like Magick Barrier, Nature's Minne, Mantra or Lux Solaris. And with fights being as choreographed as they are and with how many tools healers have received, those extra utilities those class bring bring are basically just a small bonus, rather than something that is a decider on whether you take a job or not.

Because at the end of the day, damage is the only thing that matters. So if we did balance jobs so that selfish pure DPS jobs like VPR had the highest DPS output and MNK the weakest, then I feel MNK would be phased out of cutting edge prog groups. Because Mantra and Earth's Reply are not gonna outvalue whatever DPS differential it has with VPR, unless the difference is extremely small. In the same vein, people are not picking PCT for FRU because it has Smudge, Tempera Grassa and a heal on Star Prism, but because of it's sheer extreme damage output.

Like, we can see a version of this scheme of balance with the casters, since caster raising is the only non DPS utility that is weighed to be powerful enough to be taxed in Damage output, but there's been endless argument about where the right balance point is. Some people miss ShB era because RDM went from being competitive with melee jobs in damage to being always weaker and thus useless outside of prog settings, while some people think the ShB era was awful because it made BLM undesirable with RDM being so close to it in DPS output.

That said, totally agree that MCH deserves some buffs. Whilst it being as strong as melees could result in a new balance issue, it definitely deserves buffs so that they're at least competitive with BRD and DNC.

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Originally Posted by Sarantserel

Have you played Pictomancer in a savage or higher fight?

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The savages, yeah. Not done any ultimate yet. EXes of course, too, but you sounded like you skipped those in the discussion, only post-EX counts?

But yeah, I did not mean it is easier than Summoner. I worded it the way I meant it: You can see why people might argue it is. It's very freeform and as a result relaxed to play. It's resistant to timing mistakes, it trivially re-aligns, it enjoys downtime. Sure it has more casts than most other casters right now (TY for the correction on Black Mage, sheeeeeeesh that's insane), but it's still not what I'd call a "full caster" comparing other MMORPGs I've played where 90%-100% is what makes a "proper" caster, and usually with no sliding/weaving time.

Mind you none of its utility is on the level of 4xRezz from RDM (although Smudge like En Avant often means 1 less rezz needed :P ), but eh... the job isn't wanting for options to work around fight mechanics and survive "oh shit!" moments where you catch on too late to something. One of the easier jobs to handle that with in fact, again due to how freeform it is.

Though now that I consider 60% instant casts on Black Mage, I honestly don't know where I'd want caster balance to be anymore. None of them sound like full casters at all, so naturally none of them ought to deal full caster damage.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

The savages, yeah. Not done any ultimate yet. EXes of course, too, but you sounded like you skipped those in the discussion, only post-EX counts?

But yeah, I did not mean it is easier than Summoner. I worded it the way I meant it: You can see why people might argue it is. It's very freeform and as a result relaxed to play. It's resistant to timing mistakes, it trivially re-aligns, it enjoys downtime. Sure it has more casts than most other casters right now (TY for the correction on Black Mage, sheeeeeeesh that's insane), but it's still not what I'd call a "full caster" comparing other MMORPGs I've played where 90%-100% is what makes a "proper" caster, and usually with no sliding/weaving time.

Mind you none of its utility is on the level of 4xRezz from RDM (although Smudge like En Avant often means 1 less rezz needed :P ), but eh... the job isn't wanting for options to work around fight mechanics and survive "oh shit!" moments where you catch on too late to something. One of the easier jobs to handle that with in fact, again due to how freeform it is.

Though now that I consider 60% instant casts on Black Mage, I honestly don't know where I'd want caster balance to be anymore. None of them sound like full casters at all, so naturally none of them ought to deal full caster damage.

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Difficulty is extremely subjective, even if you used it as a guide line. After some point it’s irrelevant.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

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I didn't mention EX since they're very similar to savage fights but usually more approachable. When I started doing savage, my friends would often try out jobs they were not as familiar with in EX fights for that reason. And usually, when people talk about balance, it's often centered around Savage and Ultimates since those are big raiding event for this game where we actually have world races and savage is the content people tend to point to for speed killing.

And I personally just disagree that Pictomancer is uniquely advantaged against timing mistakes. You forgot to paint your starry sky motif because you got overwhelmed by a mechanic or mistakes, your burst is now out of line by 4s for the rest of the fight. Yes, it doesn't have hard combos, meaning that going from a palette GCD to a hammer and back and to a comet doesn't break your combo, but again, considering the hammer and comets are the job's mobility tools, having them reset your paint would be really punishing compared to other casters.

Taking SMN, yes you are stuck to a rigid Demi Egi, 3 primal, Demi-Egi cycle, but considering most of the GCD in there don't have a cast, I don't see how SMN is punished harder for that beyond just not planning their Ifrit usage correctly, but then again, that's 2 GCD in a rotation otherwise completely free of movement constraint and even then, Ruby Rite has a faster cast speed than PCT's motif. Even for BLM, assuming you didn't blow through your triple cast and xenoglossy charges. You can just click triple cast and have 3 GCD of movement, then throw in Thunder and Fire 3 procs or Xenoglossy. Meanwhile PCT needs to have found the time to stand still for 3s to access their "triple cast" equivalent. RDM is probably the other caster that's more limited when it comes to continuous movement in that it needs to both have gauge saved and a moment to go in melee range for the first 3 hits. And even then, the addition of Grand Impact and Swiftcast's lowered CD help.

And regarding "proper" caster, a caster with 90% to 100% cast with no sliding and weaving would not be viable in the game with the current fight design. Fights require too much movement, at times even mid burst phase for a job with so little mobility to survive. The most egregious example of such a mechanic in the past few years probably being Inviolate Purgation in P7S, where BLM had to save all the triple cast, swift cast and xenoglossy it could to do that entire mechanic without dropping a cast or RDM had to use their combo, combined with acceleration, swiftcast and some very tight slidecasting to make that mechanic without dropping a cast. Meanwhile SMN, Phys ranged and melees had nothing as stressful to consider since the fight didn't even have positional being a wall boss with a gigantic hitbox.

And I dunno, for "oh shit moment, BLM has instant cast peppered through its core rotation on top of a floating triple cast charge that can be popped for emergencies. SMN literally only has 1 short moment in its rotation where it can actually get screwed by an unexpected event and RDM can use acceleration to quickly get access to two instant cast for repositioning. I will grant you that smudge is the most versatile gap closer among casters, although it has some pit falls compared to BLM's skating tools, as I can attest as someone that smudged to her death a few times.

Plus, as wayfinder mentioned, difficulty has a subjective aspect to it. I had a lot of trouble wrapping my head around SAM during ShB and saw it as way more difficult than DRG, my main at the time, but I also had SAM maining friends tell me they found DRG way harder to play than SAM.