BRD/MCH having their own piercing?

This has been something i have been questioning since the launch of Stormblood. Yoshi had said that all jobs would have a spot in a raid environment, and that is true, but BRD and MCH can't do 100% without a DRG to supply the piercing debuff. I may just be going crazy, but this hasn't left my thoughts. Giving BRD/MCH their own piercing debuff would get rid of the need of a DRG being next to required for a BRD/MCH to basically max out their dps.

Thoughts and opinions on this matter? Is piercing fine as it is? Or would you like to see this change added?

At this point I am just curious as to what other people think. Especially so that each role does have quite an importance in a raid group and MNK now being a viable option over a DRG.

They should get rid of piercing (and other weapon type debuffs), but DRG would need a significant buff to rebalance their rdps contribution and most ranged players would cry that their dps went down by 400.

Nah it's nice to have some synergy options.
We should have more combinations and more options for pairing, rather than less.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

Nah it's nice to have some synergy options.
We should have more combinations and more options for pairing, rather than less.

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If the goal is to have the greatest variety of combinations, then no rigid synergy is definitely the way to go. Synergy dependencies cause some classes to be less valuable if the synergy is not present. To remain competitive, the players are then forced to choose between very few rigid meta compositions to make the most of the synergies. I think it would be much healthier for the game if all classes were equally desirable regardless of other party members.

I remember reading someone saying that the piercing debuff is utility, which means that for brd/mch it's just extra damage. Basically, instead of brd/mch wanting a group with a drg, it should be the other way around because, without a brd/mch, drg becomes less useful. The more I think about it, the more I like this way of looking at it.

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Originally Posted by HoodRat

I remember reading someone saying that the piercing debuff is utility, which means that for brd/mch it's just extra damage. Basically, instead of brd/mch wanting a group with a drg, it should be the other way around because, without a brd/mch, drg becomes less useful. The more I think about it, the more I like this way of looking at it.

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Exactly. This is the reason they can't just give piercing to BRD/MCH without nerfing them, they would become way too powerful and eat a significant portion of DRGs' raid dps.

It's a terrible design and a unique cross-class dependency.

Blunt buff? Mnk self-delivers it.

Slashing buff? Nin/war/sam all bring it so it's very rare not to have it. Worst case you have drk/pld and no nin/sam, but that's way easier to fix.

Honestly though, I've seen this discussed a lot on jp official too and argued for it a lot and there's been no response to my knowledge.

Team synergies(like trick attack which is not limited to a specific damage type) are good. But class-to-class synergies are shitty and should just go away

If they wanted to slowly nudge Dragoon's Disembowel to not be such a powerful class-to-class synergy, they could transition it into just being a flat physical vulnerability debuff, but slightly weaker. It'd allow more varieties of classes to benefit from it (including Samurai and Monks) and technically raise Dragoon's contribution as well.

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Originally Posted by Sylv

Giving BRD/MCH their own piercing debuff would get rid of the need of a DRG being next to required for a BRD/MCH to basically max out their dps.

Thoughts and opinions on this matter? Is piercing fine as it is? Or would you like to see this change added?

At this point I am just curious as to what other people think. Especially so that each role does have quite an importance in a raid group and MNK now being a viable option over a DRG.

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actually i kinda don’t get the point... every cls need synergy for maximum dps why should range cls be special in this point? : 0

Bard and Machinist are strong enough as it is, for jobs supposedly ‘support-based’ there’s a lot of desire to increase their dps. Ranged physical should naturally be at the bottom of the dps chain, it wouldn’t make sense otherwise. As a Bard you already get highly competitive damage, more utility than any other job, no cast times at all, an extremely simplistic rotation, almost infinite uptime, no resources to manage, barely need to manage MP or TP.

Giving them the ability to increase their own dps on demand would completely break them. Unless you want to see cast times come back (which I would love, but I know nobody else wants to see it)

I'm definitely not a fan of weapon type synergies mainly because, realistically, we don't have THAT many options for dps compared to most games (and I mean this in a way that a lot of other games, while having fewer classes, may have more specs or customization within the class. we literally have none. BRD/ MCH would be like MM/BM hunter in WoW and BLM would be like Fire Mage, etc) that's kinda why I don't understand why people cry out for more tanks/healers as much as they do when we have nearly the number of them as most other games.

we drastically leave out caster classes from the synergy, or really any synergy. Summoners are just good with a useful rez. RDM's are pretty mediocre besides when you are barely starting to progress at the beginning of a new patch and BLM's are pretty give or take. If you need a range dps with damage, I guess you can bring them, just to fill a slot. If it weren't for that, There's no reason to not just take MCH/BRD as the range for "max synergy".

Heck, there's a lot of fights you don't -really- need a range since they force you to party stack quite often and not really given an option to be at a distance. I've been saying it for awhile that we need slashing/piercing etc to be removed because it causes more or less stigma and people try to make a group with good synergy.

I actually like job synergies as long as they are kept in check, if we only have debuffs that increase all damage taken skills become boring and a lot of jobs will have a lot of copy-paste skills which I don't like. We just have to have a lot of them and not restrict it like "this job only goes with this job" but more like "this job is better if it goes with one of these jobs" I actually would really like if some jobs would have elemental specific debuff (like lowering target's fire resistance). So yeah dragoon might be a little too good with machinist and bard right now, especially with bard since battle litany is a godsend.

Solution: Give DRK a piercing debuff

personally I like job synergy so I would prefer to see SAM get piercing debuff. Yukikaze alone makes it 'lore' sense already.

It’d be neat if machinist applied a piercing debuff via their turrets.

So why is no one bringing up the real issue here. Only Monk has the blunt damage debuff, how are our poor casters, besides RDM supposed to deal good damage, lol

You'd think, as "support" DPS, that it would be the BRD/MCH applying the piercing (and other) debuffs for the "real" DPS.

This doesn't solve the biggest underlying problem. Casters still get the shaft in this change. By eliminating piercing all together it eliminates the need to have a DRG with a MCH/BRD. MCH/BRD and DRG could all get potency or other utility buffs to help boost it. Another way this could occur is instead of applying Piercing to the target it gets applied to the DRG itself.

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Originally Posted by Connor

Giving them the ability to increase their own dps on demand would completely break them. Unless you want to see cast times come back (which I would love, but I know nobody else wants to see it)

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Huh? How is giving them something that already exists going to break their dps? Like, it makes no difference if a DRG puts up piercing or it's the BRD/MCH.. Same effect.

If they really wanted to make every class viable then you'd simply have to get rid of all the debuffs; slashing, piercing, blunt, vulnerability, etc. and just establish a new baseline for damage. If not then there will always be jobs that synergize with certain jobs (or the raid comp) better than others (leading to job exclusion)

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Huh? How is giving them something that already exists going to break their dps? Like, it makes no difference if a DRG puts up piercing or it's the BRD/MCH.. Same effect.

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It matters from balance perspective. You have to think in terms of how much dps a class is bringing into the party. DRG doing piercing means that each Ranged class in the party adds up to the amount of dps provided by the DRG. If Ranged classes could provide their own piercing debuff, that would mean that their personal dps would go up by 5% even without DRGs, so while DRGs' personal dps would be unaffected, their total provided dps would go down by 5-10%. DRG would become a dead class and nobody would want them.

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Originally Posted by Kitfox

It matters from balance perspective. You have to think in terms of how much dps a class is bringing into the party. DRG doing piercing means that each Ranged class in the party adds up to the amount of dps provided by the DRG. If Ranged classes could provide their own piercing debuff, that would mean that their personal dps would go up by 5% even without DRGs, so while DRGs' personal dps would be unaffected, their total provided dps would go down by 5-10%. DRG would become a dead class and nobody would want them.

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Hardly. They have Litany and Sight to provide raid buffs, which is still better than what SAM/MNK bring right now. Their DPS would be adjusted to compensate and I'm sure BRD/MCH potencies would be changed too. No way SE would make that kind of change without adjusting the numbers.

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Originally Posted by Eloah

So why is no one bringing up the real issue here. Only Monk has the blunt damage debuff, how are our poor casters, besides RDM supposed to deal good damage, lol

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Wait, why "besides RDM"? Are you implying that RDM, the weakest caster with mediocre/weak support, is in any way strong? It's in some cases weaker than bard and gives less party support.

EDIT: A pic of me
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/...5331549061.jpg

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Originally Posted by Kitfox

It matters from balance perspective. You have to think in terms of how much dps a class is bringing into the party. DRG doing piercing means that each Ranged class in the party adds up to the amount of dps provided by the DRG. If Ranged classes could provide their own piercing debuff, that would mean that their personal dps would go up by 5% even without DRGs, so while DRGs' personal dps would be unaffected, their total provided dps would go down by 5-10%. DRG would become a dead class and nobody would want them.

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If they simply took piercing away or gave it to Bard/Machinist without tweaking Dragoon, yes. A simple solution to that is buff Dragoon's damage output to compensate or reduce Litany's recast time. It's certainly better than having two jobs utterly dependent on another for a good chunk of their damage.

The devs like to carry on about job viability and how players shouldn't lock out jobs because everything can clear but synergies like piercing only ensure statics will often favour recruiting a Dragoon over everything else if they run Bard and/or Machinist.

Taking piercing from Dragoon and giving it to bard and machinist sounds quite good.
It would further distinguish them as support jobs and dragoon as a selfish DPS, which would probably need a slight potency buff to compensate.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

Wait, why "besides RDM"? Are you implying that RDM, the weakest caster with mediocre/weak support, is in any way strong? It's in some cases weaker than bard and gives less party support.

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It's "besides RDM" because hitting enemies with your staff or book as a caster does blunt damage ;)

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Originally Posted by Jandor

It's "besides RDM" because hitting enemies with your staff or book as a caster does blunt damage ;)

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Oh. ...OH.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

That flew so far over my head I'm ashamed

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

Oh. ...OH.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

That flew so far over my head I'm ashamed

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Lol, I was gonna say. When I read your comment, I was like, wait are they for real.

FYI, for anyone else who may be confused, RDM deals slashing damage for their auto attacks.

Jobs that bring their own vulnerabilities have that factored into their final personal tallies. They are balanced around always having it.

Jobs that don't are not balanced around this notion. This is why Machinist and Bard seem so ridiculously out of tune.

But what's the point in a vulnerability debuff that only buffs yourself or jobs that don't need it? you may as well just remove the debuff and increase potencies at that point.

The point of those debuffs is to empower other jobs other than yourself. Not to empower yourself. It's to allow you to bring something useful to the group table as a DPS. Adding this to BRD removes part of DRG's utility attractiveness. BRD offers other group benefits besides this debuff.

Same reason BLM could come with a magic vulnerability debuff (in exchange for lower potencies), in order to be a more attractive group member and have some utility that is different to RDM or SMN.

Glass half empty.

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Originally Posted by Rathael

But what's the point in a vulnerability debuff that only buffs yourself or jobs that don't need it? you may as well just remove the debuff and increase potencies at that point.

The point of those debuffs is to empower other jobs other than yourself. Not to empower yourself. It's to allow you to bring something useful to the group table as a DPS. Adding this to BRD removes part of DRG's utility attractiveness. BRD offers other group benefits besides this debuff.

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Not necessarily true.
These debuffs aren't always able to be kept up perpetually. Having two jobs who can inflict and utilise a certain debuff increases the duration that debuff is active and effective, providing they coordinate.

Provide ARC and MCH with say a 10s debuff on a 30s cooldown that inflicts piercing, especially useful for MCHs burst window, and Dissembowl will still be benefit for when the debuff is on cooldown.
Now a DRG still benefits a MCH, but is not essential for it.

MCH yes, BRD no.

MCH’s support capabilities aren’t quite as strong as BRD’s right now, it’s a lot closer to DRG on that scale than BRD. I’m also of the mind that if all 3 piercing jobs can use it then what’s the point of any of them having it?

I’d say put 5% piercing damage on hot shot.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

MCH yes, BRD no.

MCH’s support capabilities aren’t quite as strong as BRD’s right now, it’s a lot closer to DRG on that scale than BRD. I’m also of the mind that if all 3 piercing jobs can use it then what’s the point of any of them having it?

I’d say put 10% piercing damage on hot shot.

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DRG has more utility and offers more rDPS contribution than a BRD does. Especially if you are running double physical ranged. Utility for DRG/BRD or DRG/MCH goes DRG > BRD > MCH. And in the case of DRG/BRD/MCH, DRG >>>>>> BRD > MCH.

And 10% piercing on Hot Shot?! 10% piercing on Hot Shot would just solidify DRG/BRD/MCH even further. Disembowel only gives 5%. Give MCH 10%, and both the DRG and BRD will cling to them even tighter than BRD/MCH cling to DRG right now. Say good-bye to any casters trying to worm their way into the meta (and to MNK trying to be meta for the first time in...well, ever).

Piercing needs to just be removed entirely from the game, and DRG’s potencies buffed to compensate for it. What’s the point of slashing when all DPS jobs that benefit from it can apply it (and WAR can as well)? Same for Blunt, who only benefits MNK, and MNK applies it themselves. All the resistance down debuffs are redundant.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

MCH yes, BRD no.

MCH’s support capabilities aren’t quite as strong as BRD’s right now, it’s a lot closer to DRG on that scale than BRD. I’m also of the mind that if all 3 piercing jobs can use it then what’s the point of any of them having it?

I’d say put 10% piercing damage on hot shot.

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You do this and MCH instantly becomes mandatory at the midcore level and beyond. Furthermore, DRG loses all relevance since Litany alone cannot push them ahead of Monk's personal DPS and Brotherhood. Casters, meanwhile, may as well just be deleted. We're taking a loss well beyond a 1,000 rDPS simply because someone chose to play Red Mage.

PLD/WAR/NIN/MNK/BRD/MCH is now a lock with only DRG having a chance of cracking through.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

DRG has more utility and offers more rDPS contribution than a BRD does. Especially if you are running double physical ranged. Utility for DRG/BRD or DRG/MCH goes DRG > BRD > MCH. And in the case of DRG/BRD/MCH, DRG >>>>>> BRD > MCH.

And 10% piercing on Hot Shot?! 10% piercing on Hot Shot would just solidify DRG/BRD/MCH even further. Disembowel only gives 5%. Give MCH 10%, and both the DRG and BRD will cling to them even tighter than BRD/MCH cling to DRG right now. Say good-bye to any casters trying to worm their way into the meta (and to MNK trying to be meta for the first time in...well, ever).

Piercing needs to just be removed entirely from the game, and DRG’s potencies buffed to compensate for it. What’s the point of slashing when all DPS jobs that benefit from it can apply it (and WAR can as well)? Same for Blunt, who only benefits MNK, and MNK applies it themselves. All the resistance down debuffs are redundant.

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I meant 5%, I don’t play DRG, I just figured it was a 10% buff like the slashing buff. I’ll change that.

As for support I’d say BRD is ahead of DRG. DRG has battle litany and dragon’s eye which are powerful yes but they’re also on fairly long cooldowns outside of those all it offers is the piercing buff. BRD on the other hand has basically constant 2% crit buff to the party and can put up foe requiem whenever it’s needed, while also having battle voice for direct hit buff on the same CD as litany and some defensive tools like troubadour, warden’s paean and nature’s minne. MCH on the other hand has hypercharge and dismantle and that’s it, sure you can give them the role skills but you’d have to give those to BRD as well.

When looking to the whole package yes, BRD has more, if you look to dps only, disembowel alone makes DRG above BRD with double ranged if I remember correctly.
That said removing piercing won't really change much, it will probably mean that triple melee becomes the norm, caster will still be a suboptimal choice, which is the real problem, the lack of magical buffs, until that gets resolved changing anything of the actual game just shifts wich physical dmg is more used

Dragon sight is less than 100 rdps, litany is around 200-300 . Disembowel is 300 per ranged dps. If you have 2 then it becomes 600 raid dps easily. thats about as much as bards entire kit alone

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

I meant 5%, I don’t play DRG, I just figured it was a 10% buff like the slashing buff. I’ll change that.

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Disembowel used to be 10% back in Heavensward, but it was nerfed in what I believe was a hope to kill the double-ranged meta. That didn’t work, though. It’s still the preferred meta of choice.

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As for support I’d say BRD is ahead of DRG. DRG has battle litany and dragon’s eye which are powerful yes but they’re also on fairly long cooldowns outside of those all it offers is the piercing buff. BRD on the other hand has basically constant 2% crit buff to the party and can put up foe requiem whenever it’s needed, while also having battle voice for direct hit buff on the same CD as litany and some defensive tools like troubadour, warden’s paean and nature’s minne. MCH on the other hand has hypercharge and dismantle and that’s it, sure you can give them the role skills but you’d have to give those to BRD as well.

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BRD’s buffs will not outweigh DRG’s buffs if the DRG has double ranged, because they’ll get ~600 rDPS contribution from Disembowel for the BRD/MCH alone, and BRD’s individual tools will not touch ~600 rDPS. On average, BV offers 150~200 rDPS, with the Passive Crit ranging from 250~300; Foe’s changes depending on how often the BRD uses it, and I’ve seen as low as 150 to as high as 330. BRD’s individual utilities are only better than a DRG’s if the group is running triple-melee or there is a caster as the second ranged; Battle Voice actually doesn’t beat Litany if you look at rBuff contribution—only the Passive Crit buff beats it, and Foe’s if it is used optimally. When I speak of BRD’s contribution to a raid compared to DRG, I am speaking in terms of rBuffs (so this excludes Troubadour, Warden’s Paeon, and Nature’s Minne as they do not contribute to raid damage). I apologize if that was unclear.

MCH/BRD need less power, not more. If anything piercing should be removed, and drg should be compensated for it alone, and leave mch/brd alone. Between refresh, palisade, brd's crit buff troubador foe, and mch's dismantle and hyper charge, all while being part of the speed run meta comp for about 2 years now, they need nerfed and not buffed. Ranged physical should be support roles with all of their nonsense they bring for party utility, and utility shouldn't deserve that kind of personal damage they deal now, let alone that kind of damage without requiring a drg in their party.

Their nonsense has been gimping caster roles for far too long, outside of needing a rez in prog.

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Originally Posted by Zerathor

MCH/BRD need less power, not more. If anything piercing should be removed, and drg should be compensated for it alone, and leave mch/brd alone. Between refresh, palisade, brd's crit buff troubador foe, and mch's dismantle and hyper charge, all while being part of the speed run meta comp for about 2 years now, they need nerfed and not buffed. Ranged physical should be support roles with all of their nonsense they bring for party utility, and utility shouldn't deserve that kind of personal damage they deal now, let alone that kind of damage without requiring a drg in their party.

Their nonsense has been gimping caster roles for far too long, outside of needing a rez in prog.

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If piercing was removed, there would be no need to nerf BRD or MCH; they are meta because of piercing. Alone, they do not offer enough to take up both ranged spots in a party of the melee comp is NIN/MNK. A BRD's damage is already comparatively less than all other DPS, as they are at the bottom for most percentiles in most fights now; at 99th percentile, BRD comes in under RDM in terms of personal damage rankings. And even now groups sub out MCH for a SMN or BLM if the caster is a really good player. The top speed kill for God Kefka uses DRG/NIN/BRD/SMN.

BRD/MCH are meta because of piercing. The only argument you can make for one of them staying in a comp due to utility would be for BRD, because it offers so much more compared to a MCH--but it also ranks far lower than MCH in personal damage. If piercing were removed, the developers would not be buffing BRD/MCH; they'd have to buff DRG because DRG would die and MNK would become meta for the first time ever.

Your logic of BRD/MCH should be support because of what they offer can also apply to any of the meta DPS jobs; they're meta because of their support capabilities that buff the entire raid. And if you look at personal damage contribution, all four are beneath SMN and BLM.

The removal of piercing is the nerf I'm talking about. Mch/brd shouldn't be compensated for it going away though, only drg should get a flat 5% potency buff.

Certain fights REQUIRE their refresh to win, and their raid contribution dps is still greater than casters. Drg litany and eye still would keep it close to par with monk on rdps. This would open up the raid slots so certain jobs aren't flat out required to work and most of the jobs would have a near equal place, other than nin which would still have its guaranteed spot sadly.

It could open the option of missing some utility for maybe a slight damage gain, instead of the way it is currently where they get both the top damage contribution AND utility. It's entirely unfair and unbalanced.

Play a caster for one raid tier and maybe you'll start to comprehend a slight bit just how badly brd/mch have monopolized the ranged slots. From damage synergy, extra party defensives, and refresh being 10x more useful than mana shift. It's been busted since 3.3, and there hasn't been so much as a glimpse of it being fixed since. The only time it's even considered better to bring any caster is if a raise is needed for the group.