4.1 and us dps

What changes are looking forward to/ hoping for? Some classes need tweaks, some need major overhauls. What do you think?

1 melee, 2 caster and 1 p. ranged meta. :P

Seriously though. Less clunk on SMN and a bit of magical DPS synergy so we get rid of PF unnecessarily locking out SMN or casters all together from their random "Kill" parties.

I'm not really unhappy with any of them, but if they can do a really good job with smoothing over summoner 'clunkiness' that will be exciting. I don't expect a revamp this deep but rewriting the pet controls and responsiveness from the ground up would be a big deal for them.

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Originally Posted by Phoenicia

1 melee, 2 caster and 1 p. ranged meta. :P

Seriously though. Less clunk on SMN and a bit of magical DPS synergy so we get rid of PF unnecessarily locking out SMN or casters all together from their random "Kill" parties.

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I do not think ppl do that because casters are that far behind. MCH/BRD just boost whole party damage output so ppl can get better personal dps in fflogs. PPl just only care about their own personal fflogs performance and that combination offer best possible chance for it.

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Originally Posted by Sunako

I do not think ppl do that because casters are that far behind. MCH/BRD just boost whole party damage output so ppl can get better personal dps in fflogs. PPl just only care about their own personal fflogs performance and that combination offer best possible chance for it.

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I know why it exists. I was half joking about the first line.

My gripe is the random PF that can't even make the combined buff work well enough to give that boost. I mean it's a random "kill" group, not "fflogs run" or a static trying to optimize runs for orange parses (which are attainable without that optimal setup).

I think at some point weaponskill combos will be one button to reduce button bloat.

What I'm looking forward to: Some QoL changes for MCH and SMN to make gameplay... tolerable... I get that numbers wise they're in a great place but that doesn't change how you need top tier performance to perform... effectively worse then classes like SAM, BLM and MNK

What I'm not looking forward to: Any change to MNK. I'm so happy with MNK as it is now that any nerf/skill change will scare me quite a lot, even if they change RoF. I'd be OK with a Tornado Kick rework though

I expect a lot of QoL for SMN over the next few patches. My current expectation is removing the Aetherflow lockouts, and reducing the potency of Ruin II down to 80. Later I expect Bahamut to be fixed so it no longer procs Wyrm Wave on oGCDs, with Wyrm Wave's potency buffed and cast time nerfed.

Summoner used to be my main DPS class, so I realy hope SE shows some love to the Summoners.

WELP as *cough* RDM, hoping SCH gets looked at, I would really appreciate it if 2 things happen (YES SCH IS A DPS DUH GOSH GUYS.):

1. Miasma II's MP cost is reduced. [PLease for the love of Eos] The MP cost should be about 150% cost of broil. 175% tops. Blizzard II was 133% the cost of Broil for reference. THIS IS MOSTLY WHAT I WANT CHANGED.
2. Miasma II is based on location of target, not around SCH (like Gravity.) [This seamlessly replaces the function of both Blizzard II and Aero for aoe and single target DPS. Its SCH's Version of Aero 3. WHM would spam Aero 3 if they didn't have god Tier Holy to spam.]

One lim punch should be blunt resistance down AOE though so we can have one full AOE combo.

what i wish?(because i expect no changes at all for mnk) what they remove the slowdown of riddle of fire of mnk at the exchange of a lower dmg boost, and what they change brotherhood too to fit all kind of attacks(spells included) to give back chakra at a maibe slight lower chance to get them

SMN: Sustain. Number 1, with a bullet. Would also like to improve pet responsiveness and just cleaning up some of the lockouts. I like the idea of rotations built on certain lockouts, but right now it's more cumbersome than anything.

MCH: We've already gone through 3 seperate gameplay changes since Stormblood hit, and we do not need another. Mostly just some quality of life changes like the Overheat lockout decreased, and maybe some potency increases on the heated shots.

RDM: Slightly decrease the cooldown on Acceleration.

That's all I have opinions on. Bard and Samurai are in a really good place, and I'm leveling monk and dragoon so I can't comment on them.

I want a complete overhaul of Monk's kit to remove the huge number of useless trash actions Monk has.

Naturally, since this should have happened at 4.0 and since most every aspect of Stormblood has led me to believe the devs care less about Monk than any job, this probably isn't going to happen.

Dps wise I don't see SMN needing help, but less piano key playing and smoothing out the flow of abilities will help a lot. I am not keeping high hopes though. I am a pessimist. If something good happens I am more happy because od it.

I really, really want a lot of changes on the MCH.
I was main MCH during all HW, but now, I've to say it's worst job I've ever played on the game...
Hard to play, makes me a headache everytime I play it, for a little dps boost compared to the BRD - and we don't have a lot of Support compared to the BRD...
I just don't enjoy to play it anymore.

Oh, and I'm affraid for the SAM: he's powerfull, but exactly as the MNK was during HW, and we all know what happened to the MNK at the end of HW...

I want to look at MNK and feel like there's a point to level past 62. I normally gravitate to playing the Monk of any game that I can but this one is seriously failing to hold any interest.

For DRG, I would like to see that an accidental press of BotD during LofD would not kill it. I would like to see the animation delay of Nastrond fixed. The number of times I have pressed it facing the target then see activate in a different direction because I am moving for a positional is just wrong.

I'm mostly just hoping that Rook Overdrive stops destroying the turret and just deactivates it for the 30 seconds. Quite often I miss the debuff falling off and I don't have my turret deployed for awhile.

Personally, I'd just like to see MCH heat per shot go back up to 10. Shorter barrel lockout after OH would be nice, but just having 10 heat per shot would be enough to make me happy with the job.

I just want the "meta" to be variable so people in pf can start accepting casters / samurai / monks. The old dragoon, ninja, bard/mch is still king :(

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Originally Posted by SkyHorizon

I just want the "meta" to be variable so people in pf can start accepting casters / samurai / monks. The old dragoon, ninja, bard/mch is still king :(

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No, it's not. Not anywhere near as clearly as HW, anyway. It's the best comp for people's personal numbers, so it is therefore popular. Groups with SMNs have done very well, and there's been some solid results with BLM and MNK. The kinds of players / groups that are both willing and able to speedrun competitively are fairly limited, so you have to be wary of small sample size theater, and it's not safe to assume that all of them are fully testing out every comp. I don't think anyone is really seriously trying Samurai at all, for instance, because muhdeeps, and also because Monk seems likely to just outclass them in that kind of slot anyway.

BRD, NIN and DRG are already considered "required" to be optimal and MCH is currently first for every fight alongside DRG/NIN/BRD. So yes, the same meta from creator has returned. At least casters can pretend to compete with MCH for the 4th slot, very few groups are willing to run triple melee so rip SAM/MNK.

The meta could have been different too but the 4.05 and 4.06 buffs put an end to that. Instead of nerfing BRD they'll likely buff MCH in 4.1 which will be a repeat of HW lol.

NIN really needs to be nerfed too imo.

The meta from 3.5 entailed 50 out of the top 50 clears using the same exact comp. That is nowhere near the case right now, and you really really cannot ignore the small sample size dynamics.

What a group runs has a lot to do with what really good players they know, what jobs those players are good at, what they have geared, how much the members of the group care about personal parses versus just speed, how much patience they have for experimenting etc. etc. To pretend that the standings on fflogs are the result of some kind of perfect and thorough scientific experiment is silly.

Also Bard / Machinist balance is pretty fine. To whatever extent Bard might be ahead (it really is close at the top end), that'd be very particularly dependent on having both DRG and SCH - the removal of one or both of which begins to tilt things in MCH's favor.

So long as Bard is going to be tied so tightly to crit, and skills like Chain and Litany are going to exist, the only sensible answer to balancing vs. Machinist is to let Bard be better with all such buffs available, Machinist be better without any of them, and then in between is in between. The fact that SCH and DRG are two of the four plainly overpowered jobs right now is a separate concern.

If I were SE, I would take away / rework Shadewalker and Energy Drain (from SCH only) somehow, and probably also nerf TA a little bit (8%? 5% for 15s?). I'd double Verraise's MP cost while giving RDM a piercing debuff on Impact to end DRG's monopoly on it (buff Nastrond to partially compensate), and buff BLM / SAM by a little bit (these are tricky) and RDM damage output by a lot. On top of the forthcoming SMN QoL things of course.

Which is to say that I agree that job balance isn't in a great place right now - but, we should have a sense of scale here. It's not nearly as absurdly bad as it was in Creator. It's probably in the best spot it's been in since maybe 3.1, AST woes notwithstanding.

The balance is just as bad as it was in creator. The tier hasn't gone on long enough, you have to compare now to 3.4. There was plenty of variety around the same time in 3.4. Once we get into late 4.1 it'll likely be just as bad as 3.5 was. A lot of players haven't even bothered leveling MCH yet and are only now getting around to it because its become "meta" again. There are already 6 confirmed "meta" jobs (PLD, AST, SCH, NIN, DRG and BRD) and MCH/WAR will be added to that list soon enough.

The balance was better in 4.0 before the 4.05 (lol DRG buffs) and 4.06 buffs.

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Originally Posted by echo78

The balance was better in 4.0 before the 4.05 (lol DRG buffs) and 4.06 buffs.

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I disagree. Before the 4.05/4.06 buffs, MCH was trash-tier, and nobody wanted to play it—they all switched to BRD or another DPS because the job was just awful. The job was clunky, weak, and it was not pulling anywhere near the numbers BRD was at 4.0 release. SMN was also in a tricky spot; their damage is nothing to scoff at, but the job itself played very clunky (still does, really), and deaths are extremely punishing (still are). Now, MCH pulls slightly ahead of BRD in terms of damage unless BRD is catered to with DRG/SCH, because a BRD’s fullest potential is tied to Disembowel (as is MCH to an extent) and Chain Strategem/Litany (because BRD thrives on Crit). WAR was in a bad spot because of the stupid stance swap Beast Gauge penalty (which didn’t last that long), and even though it was nerfed quite a bit compared to it’s HW version, SB WAR is still really strong since they got rid of the stance penalty. Meanwhile, PLD was just raised to god-tier levels...

In addition, AST was still OP until they nerfed Balance, and SCH was struggling. WHM was god-tier in terms of damage and MP management, even though they aren’t part of the speed-kill meta that you’re referring to because they don’t bring any raid utility.

The speed-kill meta is almost the same as it was in Creator because of the synergy between DRG/BRD/MCH. NIN has been present in EVERY meta since the job was released in 2.x (can’t remember the exact patch) because of Trick Attack, and I don’t think the job itself has ever received any significant nerf since it’s inception. PLD/WAR are current tank meta for speed kill because DRK’s damage is just not up to par with PLD/WAR (which, PLD was not in the meta for Creator, it was DRK/WAR because PLD’s damage was the worst of all the tanks). Healer meta is SCH/AST because of their utility (Chain Strategem and AST’s Arcana), and because SCH’s Chain Strategem synergizes so well with BRD. If we want more balance, other jobs not present in the current meta need to be reworked to provide the synergy that DRG/BRD/MCH have, which will be difficult to do because you have 3 DPS there benefiting from a single debuff (piercing) and buffing one another (Foe’s/Song crit buffs from BRD, Hypercharge from MCH, and Litany from DRG); where as slashing has similar benefits (NIN/PLD/WAR and even DRK and SAM benefit), SAM has 0 raid utility outside of raw damage, and DRK’s damage is lacking; the only utility they bring is a spammable cooldown (TBN).

I was referring to how the meta was more open in 4.0. There was actual competition outside of PLD/AST/NIN/BRD, now there are 6 locked jobs instead of 4 :P

MCH should be at the bottom of DPS and BRD should be down there with it. "Support" DPS with a ton of utility that can run and jump around the stage while DPSing should not do as much DPS as the other DPS jobs. MCH is closing in on MNK in personal DPS atm, it has no business being above NIN/DRG/RDM.

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MCH is closing in on MNK in personal DPS atm

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You're forgetting to use some math here. MCH is an average of ~150 dps behind MNK. Hypercharge is worth ~350 raid dps, Brotherhood ~175-225 depending on comp. The two are super close, varies by fight to be specific, but in any case it's well within take-the-better-player range.

And if that's a tie? People are going to take the one that's better for their personal deeps. Which is, of course, Machinist. If you flipped the two, and Monk dealt a little less personally but had the better raid buff, we'd be in a triple melee "meta" instead. That's all that's going on here.

If Rushers swapped in one of the best Monks in the world for their MCH, and spent an equal amount of time optimizing and planning cooldowns and positioning, and spent an equal amount of time fishing for good RNG and high balance ratios and so on, there's no cause to believe that they'd do substantially worse on the whole.

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Originally Posted by echo78

stuff

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NIN doesn't really need a nerf, just the big reason they get an automatic "must have" is Trick Attack. Without TA, NIN would be dead in the water.

SE needs to force groups to have alt setups. For MNK, increase Mantra potency and change brotherhood to affect ALL damage types. Would come in handy for newer groups who struggle with certain damage phases. SAM could use a slight buff... a stronger DoT. Or maybe have Kasha apply a Mag Def. Down or something.

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Originally Posted by Cetonis

No, it's not. Not anywhere near as clearly as HW, anyway. It's the best comp for people's personal numbers, so it is therefore popular. Groups with SMNs have done very well, and there's been some solid results with BLM and MNK. The kinds of players / groups that are both willing and able to speedrun competitively are fairly limited, so you have to be wary of small sample size theater, and it's not safe to assume that all of them are fully testing out every comp. I don't think anyone is really seriously trying Samurai at all, for instance, because muhdeeps, and also because Monk seems likely to just outclass them in that kind of slot anyway.

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This actually. Many speedkill groups started running a SMN for example after realizing how strong they got after the recent buff + their utility. Same thing with MCH. MNK is really strong right now, in my opinion the strongest dps in a physical comp and superior to SAM despite so many people doomsaying/crying at the boards.
Nin is actually replaceable with MCH/DRG/MNK in physical comps without really noticeable raid dps changes. The only dps job that isn't replaceable is BRD and if you are running BRD+MCH , DRG too.

Nin got already nerfed 2 times during SB , their personal dps is pretty low imo, the only reason they are (and were) brought is Trick Attack. I hope that they change that in the future...
They could nerf/change TA and give Nin actually something more focused on it's job identy which would be more exciting... I don't like how they turned the job to only "Trick Attack" for the grp. They made goad + several enmity tools role skills so that Nin's utility outside of TA isn't really relevant anymore.
Shadewalker is only useful at the pull and o4s to help with the enmity reset but outside of that, OT can now Shirk the MT on CD to hold enmity in offstance. Any Job has access to enmity tools now since 4.0...
Well Shadewalker still has atleast some uses but it's a mystery to me why they didn't remove/change Smoke Screen with SB, that skill is absolutely useless and an oversight in my opinion.

An other issue is the Raiton vs Fuma topic which is still stupid and they didn't care to fix it since the poison nerf back in ARR... They should have reverted the change and let Nin's Dripping Blades affect magic again and adjusted
numbers somewhere if necessary. I mean Nin's strongest abilities are Magic dmg, why do they get a + dmg trait that don't affect their core abilities? They even nerfed the trait further in SB making it not affecting Autoattacks...
TCJ even increased the clipping issue further for many people, it's a bad design for a job which is supposed to be "agile".

It would be nice if they add a way to manage/manipulate our ninki bar with actions (like SAM for example) , right now it feels like an unfinished idea which they added just for the sake of adding something new (AAs filling the bar). The fact that all 3 Ninki spenders have the same cost (80) seems a bit off.

I don't like how they started handing dmg utility to any job out like candy, synergies might be a nice thing but it promotes that certain comps get mandatory and creates one dimensional metas... For example that BRD/MCH are dependent on having a DRG etc...
I wish that they give all jobs some kind of Niche some day (with certain jobs beeing better on different situations) not plain + dmg for grp...

I'm looking forward to being sad about mnk and deciding to play a class that gets improvements like DRG.

I've been playing SMN again recently. It's not as bad as I remembered it to be but I still see the problems.

I'm still hoping that SMN becomes like the PvP version.
Ruin III being your main spell instead of Ruin (but not an instant cast) and upgrades to Ruin IV in Dreadwyrm Trance.
The biggest change I'd want would be Summon Bahamut costing 1 Dreadwyrm Aether instead of 2 while Akh Morn is only useable once for each duration. Potencies can be adjusted so it could work.

So far I heard Sustain is coming back which is okay I guess.

I'd want a BLM damage buff. SMNs before the 4.1 buffs are already doing as much and more damage than BLMs with combat raise / utility. I don't know in what world that makes sense. Similarly, I don't know why BLM isn't exactly on par with SAM for damage given the mindset that gave SAM its high damage ("selfish DPS" without party buffs) since BLM fits that exact role but with cast times.

It would be nice if they did something for how MNK feels to play. The damage output is fine. It's just how it feels to play and the 4.0 skills they added...

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Originally Posted by NovaLevossida

Similarly, I don't know why BLM isn't exactly on par with SAM for damage given the mindset that gave SAM its high damage ("selfish DPS" without party buffs) since BLM fits that exact role but with cast times.

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Because they're ranged. Why would you pick a SAM if you could get a BLM that does the same amount of damage, from anywhere and have two ways to dump their emnity (Aka more DPS uptimes for tanks)?

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Originally Posted by KirigiriKyouko

Because they're ranged.

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That's something I think was poorly implemented since HW. BLM is in my opinion the only range dps who has the justification to be above the melees except SAM single target dps wise since BLMs greatly suffer from mechanics if they have to move...but look where DRG/NIN are in the list... Nearly any range outdps them when it comes to personal single target dps.
You can mantain a high uptime as melee but you are often dependend of how your other partymember react (tanks etc) and have to put extra effort in doing it while ranges don't have to care about that. There are even some mechanics that don't really affect ranges usually circle AOEs around the boss for example o3s the Icecast / o4s thunder.
MCH+BRD can do everything while moving yet MCH get's another buff while most people were asking for gameplay changes after the 4.06 buffs, same thing with SMN.
They are already really strong number wise even without counting their Utility. RDM is also super mobile thanks to dualcast. SMNs egi still attacks (aslong not bahamut) + their dots and instant so they also don't suffer much except during Bahamut while moving.
Ranges also don't have to care about positionals therefore they aren't really as dependant on other player to do their thing.

In case of SMN they become god themselves when it comes to multitarget fights so why is a Job very strong in Single target and god in Aoe/cleave while beeing a somewhat mobile range and has great utility?
Where are the trade offs for that power?
Tbh I believe the only reason why we don't see/have seen much of job stacking is the LB rule they brought as "fix" back in HW.
I somewhat liked it when ranges had the support/aoe/less afford role while melees brought the high single target dps.
Many dps jobs do still have design issues while their numbers are fine/good.

Another issue is raidbuff stacking, the interaction between them is too strong.... instead of reducing/changing them, they started handing them like candy to more jobs, making the situation worse.
Raid utility shouldn't be dmg in my opinion, everything in the game is only focused around that.
Healers don't focus to heal/protect the grp, they now care more about dps.... tanks don't focus on taking as less dmg as possible while holding hate, they care more about dps...
The issue here I think is that we don't really have a "Tank" gameplay, they practically are melee dds with high defensives/CDs without positionals and healers aren't challenged enough in regular content where they have to keep healing.

I also think that tank dmg is way to high single target wise in this game... I mean in which other mmo do tanks do 80% of the DPS dmg in single target situations?

Ninja does not need nerfing. I'll tell you what it does need, focus. I like the way they are going with SB. Eliminate 2 other melee combos and add ninjutsu.

For 5.0, this is what needs to be done. Expand on the ninjutsu and Maybe get rid of stuff like juggulate to free some hotbar space. There are 2 ways they can focus on ninjutsu.

1. The obvious one, expand on Ninki abilities.

1.a New abilities could include the coveted clone jutsu which can be an aoe attack that has clones up to 7 clones do single target damage to their 7 different targets for 10 seconds. If there are less than seven targets, clones will start stacking on enemies to do more damage. i.e 1 target = 7 clones attacking it. Potency on each clone should thus be 90.

1.b clone jutsu either does what I said in 1.a or it is a stationary jutsu-don't move- and the clones appear around you to copy your mudra and execute ninjutsu causing an aoe version of your ninjutsu .(obviously can not be used with tenchijin.)
Ability works with the following ninjutsu.
- raiton: It'll look like those Aoe raitons from the Job quest
-suiton: New aoe animation for the jutsu.
- doton: slightly larger and placeable like SMN lvl 50 skill
-katon: more intense fire explosion. + burning debuff.
-Hyoton: binds all enemies in a large circle of ice. + frost debuff
-Huton: doubles the huton length from 70 to 140 seconds
- fuma: All clones throw the fuma shuriken for double potency aoe line

2. The 4th mudra. Now, this mudra does not add any new ninjutsu. It uses the ninki gauge and is on a 50 second cooldown. The 4th mudra does what 1.b describes, minus the clones. So your ninki fills, you use the mudra for your jutsu, say, raiton. So ten-> chi -> 4th mudra = aoe raiton.