Selfish DPS Balance

After talking to some friends/FC mates, we had a somewhat reasonable idea to increase the viability of selfish DPS jobs like SAM, BLM, maybe MCH is they decide to make it the selfish DPS of the ranged DPS jobs.

We thought rather than just making them High Damage, low-to-no utility, make it so they can benefit more from other Job Utilities.

an Example would be something like:

keep SAM's current Potency but give it a trait that allows it to deal even more damage to targets with Slash Debuff and Vulnerablity, and/or maybe give it a trait that allows for it to benefit even more from Physical and Damage up buffs like Brotherhood and Dragon sight

Not sure this is the best example, maybe not even a good solution but I thought it was an interesting enough concept bring up

general idea should be that Selfish jobs benefit even more from party utility than other party memebers

So basically,
In a meta comp = High Damage - No utility
In a non meta comp = Lower damage - No utility

How does it fix the issue?

I brought this up on on another post a few months ago (can't remember if it was Reddit or forums) and I love the idea. It doesn't break solo content and it helps fill the gap of dps because the more other utility you have the more powerful the selfish class becomes. Hopefully enough to make up for no utility. So obviously I support this! But on the other hand there are classes with more utility than others so having those classes (nin brd drg) would still be meta so it doesn't really seem to fix much or it would be hard to balance so I can see why this wouldn't work :/

I would Say introduce support role and change jobs that ideally are supposed to yield higher raid roles to those jobs. So RDM, BRD, NIN. Kinda like how AST is for healers. there is a threshold of cards ast must spread before it's more viable than whm do to the large dps disparity between them.

High Dps No Offensive Utility : SAM/BLM
-Occasional defensive utility in the vain of Mantra

MiD DPS Low Utiliy: SMN/MNK/DRG/MCH
- Dps utility like Brotherhood and has a cooldow that isn't very reliable when buff stacking. so say (90) secs or
- incredibly weak in gain but more more synergy options like Devotion which still lines up with all buffs but for a 2% gain

*i'd also try limiting the utility for this tier to prevent powerful synergies amongest themselves
Support(LOW) Dps, HIGH utility (RDM/NIN/BRD)
- Most frequent and recurring utility (Trick attack) with high syngery with other dps but possibly mediocre synergy with each other.

Alternatively just get rid of disembowel and buffs that make jobs overwhelming strong for little reason. The fact that drg gives it's biggest contributions by it's 3rd gcd is kinda crazy

Ideally you'd tune them around having 1 support dps, 1 High dps and 2 Mid dps. this high dps would probably have to be tuned very strong to prevent 2 mid/ 2 support dps from over taking them.

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Originally Posted by Shamox

So basically,
In a meta comp = High Damage - No utility
In a non meta comp = Lower damage - No utility

How does it fix the issue?

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Theoretically:

who do you want to hit a NIN's Trick attack Vulnerability; a SAM or BLM who could passively deal 20-30% or even 50% more damage on to the target with vulnerability on top of the vulnerability's normal debuff, or any other DPS

who should an AST give a Balance buff to; a SAM or BLM who has a trait that stacks a moderate-to large (30-50%) Potency boost when given any non-user Potency buff from another party member, or any other DPS

both of these "parties" are parties of two, no other jobs there, its the NIN/AST with one other DPS

the idea for selfish shouldn't be "it doesn't help," it should be "all take, no give"
of course, this is all theory talk

This was discussed a while back when SAM first came out and just about any time they had some adjsutment. Overall they can be power houses and do benefit from certain support attacks like NIN. However I've only seen a few players that can actually use SAM or any other job properly. MNK, DRG, RDM, even MCH have very good DPS if they know their job properly. SAM is only a bit ahead depending on gear and such.

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Originally Posted by Wayfinder3

I would Say introduce support role and change jobs that ideally are supposed to yield higher raid dps to those jobs. So RDM, BRD, NIN. Kinda like how AST is for healers. there is a threshold of cards ast must spread before it's more viable than whm do to the large dps disparity between them.
High Dps No Offensive Utility : SAM/BLM
MiD DPS Low Utiliy: SMN/MNK/DRG/MCH
*i'd also try limiting the utility for this tier to prevent powerful synergies amongest themselves
Support(LOW) Dps, HIGH utility (RDM/NIN/BRD)

Ideally you'd tune them around having 1 support dps, 1 High dps and 2 Mid dps. this high dps would probably have to be tuned very strong to prevent 2 mid/ 2 support dps from over taking them.

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Players already do this, plus changes/buffs/nerfs that just tweak numbers havenever really gone over well in MMOs as far as I'm aware

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Originally Posted by Rayo

Theoretically:

who do you want to hit a NIN's Trick attack Vulnerability; a SAM or BLM who could passively deal 20-30% or even 50% more damage on to the target with vulnerability on top of the vulnerability's normal debuff, or any other DPS

who should an AST give a Balance buff to; a SAM or BLM who has a trait that stacks a moderate-to large (30-50%) Potency boost when given any non-user Potency buff from another party member, or any other DPS

both of these "parties" are parties of two, no other jobs there, its the NIN/AST with one other DPS

the idea for selfish shouldn't be "it doesn't help," it should be "all take, no give"
of course, this is all theory talk

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Alternatively redesign the utility jobs to have low burst potential. bard's burst is kinda strong for the utility it offers. rdm and nin are more tame

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Originally Posted by Wayfinder3

Kinda like how AST is for healers. there is a threshold of cards ast must spread before it's more viable than whm do to the large dps disparity between them.

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This threshold is RNG doe which is pretty bad, the whole card system based on RNG is just bad.

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Originally Posted by Rayo

Theoretically:

who do you want to hit a NIN's Trick attack Vulnerability; a SAM or BLM who could passively deal 20-30% or even 50% more damage on to the target with vulnerability on top of the vulnerability's normal debuff, or any other DPS

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If there's a BRD or a MCH in your group, which is the case in any meta composition, DRG is actually better than NIN, so the answer is pretty obvious.

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Originally Posted by Rayo

who should an AST give a Balance buff to; a SAM or BLM who has a trait that stacks a moderate-to large (30-50%) Potency boost when given any non-user Potency buff from another party member, or any other DPS

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Making plans around an RNG buffs that most of the time is gonna be an AOE card anyway, yes.

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Originally Posted by Rayo

both of these "parties" are parties of two, no other jobs there, its the NIN/AST with one other DPS

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???

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Originally Posted by Rayo

the idea for selfish shouldn't be "it doesn't help," it should be "all take, no give"
of course, this is all theory talk

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You need to understand that as long as there is gonna be utility buffs, any selfish DPS is gonna suffer from not having some.
Your solution would either :
-Not make SAM strong enough while not giving it any advantage in a non meta comp (oh ye you gotta realize that a good grp with a meta comp and a bad grp with a meta comp are 2 distinct things, also, selfish DPSs really rise in low to medium skill groups)
-Or, it'd be so strong that it'd just take another job's place which would simply create another issue.

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Originally Posted by Wayfinder3

Alternatively redesign the utility jobs to have low burst potential. bard's burst is kinda strong for the utility it offers. rdm and nin are more tame

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Potentially, I've always been for rooting for the underdog (buffing weaker/unpopular stuff), over booing the better rival(nerfing popular/Stronger stuff). In a meta where synergy is key its better to add more synergy where there was little to none rather than take away synergy that is already there

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Originally Posted by Shamox

This threshold is RNG doe which is pretty bad, the whole card system based on RNG is just bad.




If there's a BRD or a MCH in your group, which is the case in any meta composition, DRG is actually better than NIN, so the answer is pretty obvious.



Making plans around an RNG buffs that most of the time is gonna be an AOE card anyway, yes.


???


You need to understand that as long as there is gonna be utility buffs, any selfish DPS is gonna suffer from not having some.
Your solution would either :
-Not make SAM strong enough while not giving it any advantage in a non meta comp (oh ye you gotta realize that a good grp with a meta comp and a bad grp with a meta comp are 2 distinct things, also, selfish DPSs really rise in low to medium skill groups)
-Or, it'd be so strong that it'd just take another job's place which would simply create another issue.

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so your answer to the example question of what to pair a job in a vacuum (as in no outside or alternative influences outside of the theoretical statement as to say that so-and-so is better) is to say people should bow to the meta. I never asked for whats best, I asked for whats better.

Instead you of saying something like "NIN and BRD" or whatever, you say that DRG is better than NIN totally ignoring the question.

Instead of saying something like "give MNK the Balance Buff as He deals the most damage" you answer that AST uses RNG and can AOE

so whats your solution; delete them, along with MNK, RDM, SMN, maybe NIN and give the remaining DPS better Utility. Or buff them to a point its better to take a party full of SAMs or BLMs. or Nerf everything. Oh, maybe we get rid of jobs entirely and just make it so all the Jobs are just; Tank, Caster, Ranged DPS, Melee DPS, Healer?

Ye thats not getting anywhere

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Originally Posted by Rayo

General idea should be that Selfish jobs benefit even more from party utility than other party memebers

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But they technically already do, the problem is that these selfish jobs don't really have skill-set synergy vs say, WAR and MNK (to a degree) who buff themselves to great extremes and outside of Slashing (WAR) and BH (MNK) and they give nothing back to the party.

Problem with SAM and BLM is they want to fix everything with potencies and it doesn't really bring much when the potency is like... 3% vs 5%+ rDPS the others can give. But they don't want to give them too much to avoid "SAM SAM BLM BLM" as the DPS comp.

MCH being treated as BRD with a different coat of paint doesn't help the job at all, shifting its damage type to blunt and increasing its potencies considerably would make a difference and shift it to a selfish job profile, but because the range factor role toolkit, it'd alienate a job like BLM/SMN since it would hit harder than them, have more mobility and utility.

At this point, the best way to go forward is removing the damage type buff/de-buffs, buffing the jobs that lose from this accordingly and limit them to Phys/Mag if they want to keep the debuff 'nuance" albeit non-stackable (obvs).

You can't just give SAM and BLM utility, they already do way too much damage when compared to other jobs. while you could keep buffing their numbers. How much do we have to do that before the meta revolves around them. MNK SMN who are essentially the more utility focused version are meta contenders but that doesn't mean that they are so strong you could carelessly buff BLM and SAM. Nerfs are an important part of maintaining balance and right now. MNK, MCH, and SMN are doing what they can to stay afloat. BRD and DRG need to be re-evaluated. NIN on the other hand is in a tough spot. it's pdps is so weak, you can't realistically touch it without breaking everything. even if you were to nerf trick and build it back into the kit. At that point it's another mnk

There's such a thing as selfish utility, aka taking but not giving.
BRD and MCH already have this with DRGs piercing debuff.

For example, Ley Lines could gain a trait that increases spellspeed even further if other party members stand in your Ley Lines.
Indirectly increasing the rDPS of any healer or caster who designs to stick with them.

SAM could get an overhaul of third eye, allowing any party member in range who scores a 'dodge' to activate the effect for the SAM as well.

Both of these suggestions increase the general synergy of a BLM or SAM, imploring other players to stack with and support the selfish DPS, but do so without simply buffing potencies, instead providing QoL enhancements that make them more effective at what they do an enable them to perform better.

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Originally Posted by Mahrze

. But they don't want to give them too much to avoid "SAM SAM BLM BLM" as the DPS comp.

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Well that wouldn't happen for 3 reason

1- Most group don't care about meta (otherwise you would never see anything that is not meta), yet all job that aren't meta have cleared everything, even god Kefka has been cleared in pf with nonmeta job. Meta is only for speedkill, dps check have been considerably nerf since HW and that 2% more dps doesn't matter anymore as long everyone play their job fine and don't die like twat

2- Double job would reduce/kill the availability of LB3 which can eventually make you loose even more rdps

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Originally Posted by Mahrze

MCH being treated as BRD with a different coat of paint doesn't help the job at all, shifting its damage type to blunt and increasing its potencies considerably would make a difference and shift it to a selfish job profile, but because the range factor role toolkit, it'd alienate a job like BLM/SMN since it would hit harder than them, have more mobility and utility..

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Well yes and no, the Range toolkit isn't exactly what makes the BRD the ultimate support
It's that + The song + The myriad of buffs they have (and especially the fact that manashift is a pile of garbage)
I mean the only useful thing they have is Refresh and Palissad
Half Refresh strength (AND greatly buff manashift) and that aspect just vanishes.

MCH could easily be turned into a selfish dps (and I personally think they should)
They don't need that many buffed (job related) to be removed

Remove Hypercharge and Dismantle and that's it you have a selfish dps job,

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Originally Posted by Mahrze

At this point, the best way to go forward is removing the damage type buff/de-buffs, buffing the jobs that lose from this accordingly and limit them to Phys/Mag if they want to keep the debuff 'nuance" albeit non-stackable (obvs)

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Well this has been proposed over and over and as much as many people still want to keep these debuff, I tend to see more people against the debuff than for.

If SE wants to balance the game more and promote raid diversity (in the sens that you've less too good job synergy like DRG +RANGED), removed weapon type is a first, removing dmg type too (magic/physical), an issue with that is that if you have a SMN/RDM, you're stuck by having the buff only affect a part of the raid (highly reducing the player contribution)
A good example is RDM which makes the job less viable with other caster whereas the SMN either benefit from having a team of caster only of melee only OR range because you got to choose which debuff you apply.

It's not a bad idea, although these numbers definitely have to be a bit lower.

Unfortunately there's no real perfect answer to this problem, at the moment. Even taking damage types like pierce away will just open up a can of rebalancing worms for the devs because everything will come down to pure numbers, and even then that still won't solve some of the current issues. There's just too much overlap if you ask me. What REALLY needs to happen is that DPS job specialities need to be further defined and that'll take whole new abilities and a good amount of fundamental game mechanic rework, which we won't be likely even possibly seeing until the next expansion unfortunately.

That said, getting raid utility to get slightly higher burst from these "selfish dps" I don't think is a terrible idea. Still a bandaid fix but that's probably the best we can expect for now, that and just simply making the individual mechanics of the jobs in question feel a bit smoother I guess.

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Originally Posted by Kiyosuki

Unfortunately there's no real perfect answer to this problem, at the moment.

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In theory the only way to combat the current system would be to increase the minimum raid party size to include a slot for one of every class so people have the option to min/max without a restrictive meta comp.
Other than that it's just staying on the ever-turning wheel of class balance.

As a SAM, what I would like to see is "Merciful Eyes" proc for Third Eye become an AoE and increase Third Eye's CD. It doesn't really heal that much and Third Eye isn't really that useful (most things you either straight out survive or straight up die on anyways), but by having this as an AoE heal now it can very slightly alleviate pressure off the healers during room-spam attacks. It isn't boosting power, but it is providing utility in preserving maybe 1-2 casts or allowing the healer to throw out an offensive spell or whatever.

The last thing that SAM needs is anything that increases damage, or becoming reliant of anyone. It needs to have utility that is a luxury, but ultimately not a crutch. This would make Third Eye more useful and add more depth.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

There's such a thing as selfish utility, aka taking but not giving.
BRD and MCH already have this with DRGs piercing debuff.

For example, Ley Lines could gain a trait that increases spellspeed even further if other party members stand in your Ley Lines.
Indirectly increasing the rDPS of any healer or caster who designs to stick with them.

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Ley lines could also increase the Spellspeed (at a minor rate than the BLM) of anyone who teps there, incentivizing other casters to get near the BLM and futher incresing the pDPS of the healers.

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Originally Posted by miraidensetsu

Ley lines could also increase the Spellspeed (at a minor rate than the BLM) of anyone who teps there, incentivizing other casters to get near the BLM and futher incresing the pDPS of the healers.

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The problem with these kind of change is that it only grants rdps if you have the right comp. But because it can grant rdps, SE would end up beefing BLM to compensate.

This is a bit like dragoon, their personal dps is lower because they can provide 300 to 600 rdps just with disembowel.

Technically speaking, any buff that affect a specific amount of job does not promote raid diversity.

A ninja with trick attack fits into any group, a dragoon with disembowel fits in a group with a least one ranged. (not a hard requirement I give you that)

If you want to promote group diversity, removing weapon debuff is the first step.

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Originally Posted by Rayo

we had a somewhat reasonable idea to increase the viability of selfish DPS jobs like SAM, BLM, maybe MCH is they decide to make it the selfish DPS of the ranged DPS jobs.

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How is MCH supposed to be a selfish ranged DPS job? Hypercharge and Dismantle are actually very strong utilities.

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

How is MCH supposed to be a selfish ranged DPS job? Hypercharge and Dismantle are actually very strong utilities.

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I guess he implies that to make them selfish the idea is for those utility to go away

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

How is MCH supposed to be a selfish ranged DPS job? Hypercharge and Dismantle are actually very strong utilities.

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Yup, however I'd like MCH to be a selfish dps range job. With bard as the ultimate support for alternative, there is really no need to have all job within the same category to be support jobs.

With only 2 supportive skills, it wouldn't be hard to make the MCH the BLM of the range.

The real problem with the meta is how much it's pushed despite 95% of the player base nowhere near the level of play where the meta really matters... anyone requiring meta comps for pugs is an idiot...

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Originally Posted by Okamimaru

The real problem with the meta is how much it's pushed despite 95% of the player base nowhere near the level of play where the meta really matters... anyone requiring meta comps for pugs is an idiot...

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I'd rather have a terrible nin or drg that does less damage than me and slightly buffs my dps with their poor cd timings than a terrible sam or blm that just does less damage than me.

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Originally Posted by HoodRat

I'd rather have a terrible nin or drg that does less damage than me and slightly buffs my dps with their poor cd timings than a terrible sam or blm that just does less damage than me.

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A terrible DRG or NIN won't be using his buffs at all... hence them being terrible... off timed buffs is a mediocre player...

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Originally Posted by Okamimaru

A terrible DRG or NIN won't be using his buffs at all... hence them being terrible... off timed buffs is a mediocre player...

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except dragoons most potent buff is a combo, unfortuantely they'll still be pretty valuable

This game has 9 damage dealers. The difference between the top (1st place) & bottom (9th place) dps is only 700. Which means that the higher you climb the list the lower the difference becomes among damage dealers. 700 dps difference is not much, and can easily be covered with raid buffs & much more. I would say that dealing 700 higher than the bottom dps is not what I expected from a pure damage dealer.
What I'd like to see is more diversity in damage, I don't want all damage dealers to be close in dps numbers.

At the moment, the jobs that gain most from raid buffs are actually the physical ranged. They bring big burst every 80s-60s. The rdps gain for them is still high even if you remove Disembowel from the calculation. When it should be about buffing your pure damage dealer. Sadly this will never happen until SE fixes the dps scale.

Fixing the dps scale includes all roles, not just damage dealers. It does not feel satisfying to me (As BRD) when I die or take damage down debuff to have a WAR pass me in dps. That is how close tanks dps is to the bottom dps. I want to feel like a damage dealer, I want feel satisfied by my damage.

I'd say make the difference between the bottom & top damage dealers much, much higher than 700. They should make it so that pure damage dealers are the ones that gain most from buffs and deal incredibly high numbers. Not like current meta where you select damage dealers from the middle/bottom of the list, and together they buff each other and gain more rdps than having a single pure dps that cannot match their buff gain or add much to rdps.

What we have now is way more flexible. Because all damage dealers dps numbers are relatively very close, and the boss HP is based on that. There is no damage dealer with insane high dps (Yet) that makes a difference in clearing content.
But flexible =/= balanced. If they want to keep dps numbers close to each-other, then they should remove pure dps idea from this game and rework SAM/BLM.

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Originally Posted by Yeol

But flexible =/= balanced. If they want to keep dps numbers close to each-other, then they should remove pure dps idea from this game and rework SAM/BLM.

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While the idea of pure dps or healer jobs is enticing to me I also agree with you on the fact that if they want to keep this number balance they need to remove the idea of pure altogether

It would be good if they made two kinds of synergies of meta-comp, to add diversity. The lack of job 'cheese' mechanics in raids is good for avoiding job stacking with DPS, however it does produce a cookie-cutter meta especially when it comes to speedkills.

For anyone reading, the current meta is as follows: PLD / WAR - AST / SCH - DRG / NIN - MCH / BRD (You might see a MNK / SMN within a speedkill comp as well). However, the biggest factor in all of this meta is the DRG piercing de-buff of 5% with disembowel. Perhaps, this de-buff needs to be removed and that would shake-up the meta.

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Originally Posted by miraidensetsu

Ley lines could also increase the Spellspeed (at a minor rate than the BLM) of anyone who teps there, incentivizing other casters to get near the BLM and futher incresing the pDPS of the healers.

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Something like this could be cool, but it would also mean many people baiting AoEs on your precious leylines and having to move out of them way more often :<

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Originally Posted by Izyla

Something like this could be cool, but it would also mean many people baiting AoEs on your precious leylines and having to move out of them way more often :<

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If they wanted to make a change like that, theres an easy workaround. A BLM setting down Ley Lines causes a proximity buff(range similar to a bards maybe?) to nearby party members. Focusing the aether in the ground to allow for our speed boost leaves more ambient aether in the air and gives the team a determination boost or something(magic damage/healing up?). They arent overlapping us for aoes, but we still give an advantage that the party can use. IF they wanted to go that way.