How is Class Balance in 1.20?

Just curious what everyone's been noticing as far as class balance goes. I haven't gotten a chance to dabble too much into it yet, while I know tons have played, so I'm curious.


Has ARC gotten back on the "cool" train?

Are PUG's wind and fire fists effective?

How does GLA feel now that it's absorbed the Sentinel class?

Will LNC still be the king DD of Ifrit or will other classes now be viable options? (I know you could do Ifrit without LNC, but it wasn't particularly "preferred" among the community.)



Please contribute! :)

Day 1 impression with GLA:
Pros:
* Crowd control is much, much, MUCH easier. So many different ways to get enmity.
* Gladiator damage is now acceptable thanks to the combo system.
* Because of Marauder getting nerfed, this indirectly buffed Gladiator. No longer are Gladiators overshadowed by their zerg-rush AoE brethren.

Cons:
* Blocking still sucks. My blockrate is still crap and I'm level 50 with a Vintage Kite Shield testing my blockrate against monsters several lowers below me. I still haven't been able to parry with my shield up. Square said they'd address this stuff at some point - I hope that stuff gets addressed soon.
* Sentinel skills are very meh. No Deflection. Aegis boon only works for the next hit and cannot be used to blocking incoming weapon skills. Outmaneuver doesn't last as long as in 1.19 and still has problems proccing because of the crappy blockrate.

So they addressed a few points Gladiators had (enmity control, damage, being made worthless due to MRD being OP) but they still haven't addressed some prime concerns (crappy blockrate, inability to parry).

You could say I'm pleased it's going in the right direction, but still kinda meh because one of our primary concerns still hasn't been taken care of. I'd say it's kinda like a 70% positive and 30% negative sorta ratio for me. Gladiator's actually fun to play again!

All damage has been reduced by about 30% for all DDs other than archer. The cooldown timers are killer, and from personal experience fighting ifrit, doing combos are near impossible against it when theres a 40% chance he is going to break your combo with a weaponskill of his own.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Req

All damage has been reduced by about 30% for all DDs other than archer.

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Sounds like they're toning things down to make room for Jobs now. Then BRD will be less of a DPS while rest of the DD jobs get ahead again.

ARC does shitloads of dmg, THM does dmg but MP runs out unbelievably fast. Really class balance is a total fail, it's even worse than last time.

PGL MRD and LNC are probably fairly close but positional requirements on combos are terrible
ARC is awesome again
THM is good burst but can't keep up with MP

PRETTY GOOD

So my ls and I set out to practice our new skills on the pieste NM, the fight lasted 5 mins > MRD did 12k > LNC 10k > Pug1 8k > pug 2 5k > thm 5k > conj1 5k in damage, CNJ2 ( me ) I was main heals so I focused on the group, no dding. I cant remember what the tank did.

In terms of healing I did 25k, and my MP was at full in the end. THM did not run out of MP. He managed it well. The boost of mp from 1.5k to 3.4k in full party is insane. From my time as CNJ all that I have left is putting more - enmity materia into my gear and I'm set.

at the moment archer dps is around 75-80.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lakefingers

ARC does shitloads of dmg, THM does dmg but MP runs out unbelievably fast. Really class balance is a total fail, it's even worse than last time.

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There are several MP regeneration actions that THM can use to prevent this. It's going to take me a while before I become accustomed to using them though lol.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I'm really excited to hear about GLA's enmity performance, but it's still crappy about the block rate. I tried it this morning, and I have to agree that the damage is significantly higher! The only thing I can think of is that Paladin in 1.21 will probably be much more "shield" based so that's probably why they didn't do anything to it in this patch. Switching to Paladin might increase block rate by a high percentage.

I've been noticing that some combos aren't proccing when used correctly. Has anyone else noticed this?

I've been playing the THM and the damage is great. Funny thing, people keep complaining about how they run out of mana. This only happens if you do combo, then a combo, then a combo. If you manage your mana, use your mana drain ability wisely, and refrain from constant combos your mana is fine. I will say, it is fun to constantly combo and have the huge numbers fly across the screen.

I can second that gladiator is much better now in terms of holding enmity. Went from 37 to 38 in a party of about 5 people fighting ants after the patch and I had no problems keeping the groups of enemies focused on me. Before, a few cures from the mages would rip the threat right off the secondary targets but now just rotating flash and provoke is enough to keep all the mobs on me.