Lets talk about caster balance

Can we talk about the fact that caster is the only role that is divided into progression jobs (red mage and summoner) and speed jobs (black mage).

The other DPS jobs are all balanced around their damage + their party DPS boosting utility. You are either high personal damage with little to no party DPS boosting utility, lower personal damage with higher party DPS boosting utility, or something in between.

This creates this weird balance where a black mage is superior to red mage and summoner when you don’t need rez. You’re more likely to meet DPS checks with an equally skilled black mage than you are with a summoner or red mage.

With melee, you’ve got a job like SAM with extremely high personal damage, with no damage utility. NIN has lower personal damage, but can make up for that damage by boosting the party damage.

I think the dev team either needs to take another look at rez on red mage and summoner. That or add another high DPS low utility caster so that we have another option outside of black mage.

Obviously we need another speed job then.

Yeah, I really hate the balance in the casters right now. With smn being reworked to be on about same level as rdm it feels like we don't have an in-between caster between blm and rdm... I still stand by my statement that smn is right now a worst rdm since both pretty much beings the same thing to a party but one is much better in most of the things they bring. I love to have a 4th caster closer to blm but maybe has some utility in a buff or something. No rez tho I do not want another rez caster... In fact, I also like to see the caster rez nerfed in someway. I know this expac is the first time I just don't want to play a caster. I hate blm(for a lot of reasons), rdm is just so meh, and my beloved smn has been gutted to the point I just don't enjoy it anymore. Love to have at least one more choice in the caster role. I've seen a lot of talk from people who want another melee to share gear with nin but I feel the game really doesn't need another melee. The melee role is most likely the most well-balanced role in the game and I say the caster role is the worst.

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Originally Posted by MrJPtheAssassin

Yeah, I really hate the balance in the casters right now. With smn being reworked to be on about same level as rdm it feels like we don't have an in-between caster between blm and rdm... I still stand by my statement that smn is right now a worst rdm since both pretty much beings the same thing to a party but one is much better in most of the things they bring. I love to have a 4th caster closer to blm but maybe has some utility in a buff or something. No rez tho I do not want another rez caster... In fact, I also like to see the caster rez nerfed in someway. I know this expac is the first time I just don't want to play a caster. I hate blm(for a lot of reasons), rdm is just so meh, and my beloved smn has been gutted to the point I just don't enjoy it anymore. Love to have at least one more choice in the caster role. I've seen a lot of talk from people who want another melee to share gear with nin but I feel the game really doesn't need another melee. The melee role is most likely the most well-balanced role in the game and I say the caster role is the worst.

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I’m on the same page. I’ve been maiming summoner, but debating either switching to red mage or switching to another DPS.

This is my first expac not raiding in a static, so I’m pugging everything. Jobs like dancer and ninja depend more on how well the other party members perform.

This makes me consider trying out a job with more personal DPS like SAM.

All this said, I wish summoner would become the in between caster. Take away rez and increase our DPS.

Also hoping for a new caster for 7.0. Come on Geomancer!

RDM and SMN are the only DPS jobs where a situational utility is used to gauge how much DPS they should or shouldn’t do. Resurrection needs to either be:

1. Removed from SMN and RDM (leave the rezzing to the healers) or,

2. Leave it in RDM and SMN but give it a long cooldown of 60-120 seconds (thinking about it, Rekindle could be SMN’s rez instead of a useless situational regen) or,

3. Be made into a caster role action with a long cooldown. And before people start saying “but BLM has never rezzed in previous FFs!”, well, neither have they casted only fire, thunder, and ice spells. Neither have RDM casted flower and rose spells. Neither have SMN casted ruin spells. Some things are changed in MMOs for the sake of balance.

True caster balance will forever be unnatainable until something is done about resurrection, it’s way, way overdue. This is something very apparent and easy to see, whether this is something Yoshi-P sees and is just keeping it there because BLM is his main is something I've always asked myself.

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Originally Posted by Sequora

I’m on the same page. I’ve been maiming summoner, but debating either switching to red mage or switching to another DPS.

This is my first expac not raiding in a static, so I’m pugging everything. Jobs like dancer and ninja depend more on how well the other party members perform.

This makes me consider trying out a job with more personal DPS like SAM.

All this said, I wish summoner would become the in between caster. Take away rez and increase our DPS.

Also hoping for a new caster for 7.0. Come on Geomancer!

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Im thinking about trying sam in my static next tier since I cant play rpr. Funny thing about smn is the fact they thought about taking the rez away but chickened out of it. I would had love to see what a rezless smn would look like and do... Either way here hoping for 7.0 caster. I have no job in mind I like to see tho Geomancer would be pretty cool!

RDM and SMN are only about 5% behind BLM, everything here is overblown. There's also plenty, plenty of content outside of savage/ultimate fights where having the option to res is a massive quality of life boon, and having a res hasn't stopped SMN from being neck and neck with BLM in the past.

I don't think they balance around utility, otherwise, Machinist would have sat comfortably ahead of Bard and Dancer now and back in ShB rather than being dead last in dps. They probably balance around around their own average internal metrics (parsing data probably skews towards higher skilled players that care about dps) and because P.Ranged and RDM/SMN are easier to play, they end up averaging a lot higher than normal than the parsing data we have access to.

Ideally, there's a smoother dps curve rather than this weird 3% divide starting at RPR to RDM. 3% dps variance from top to bottom is what I'd like, but 5% really isn't that bad to balance around.

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Originally Posted by Namir

RDM and SMN are the only DPS jobs where a situational utility is used to gauge how much DPS they should or shouldn’t do. Resurrection needs to either be:

1. Removed from SMN and RDM (leave the rezzing to the healers) or,

2. Leave it in RDM and SMN but give it a long cooldown of 60-120 seconds (thinking about it, Rekindle could be SMN’s rez instead of a useless situational regen) or,

3. Be made into a caster role action with a long cooldown. And before people start saying “but BLM has never rezzed in previous FFs!”, well, neither have they casted only fire, thunder, and ice spells. Neither have RDM casted flower and rose spells. Neither have SMN casted ruin spells. Some things are changed in MMOs for the sake of balance.

True caster balance will forever be unnatainable until something is done about resurrection, it’s way, way overdue. This is something very apparent and easy to see, whether this is something Yoshi-P sees and is just keeping it there because BLM is his main is something I've always asked myself.

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The first is just a bad idea. As all it advocates for is pruning and homogenizing the game.

The second might be fine for a summoner as they mostly just use swiftcast for their ruby or emerald phase anyway, but actively punishes any red mages who are actually very adept at using their dualcast to raise their teammates.

The third is option 2, but gives utility to the black mage and saddles black mages with the same responsibility as summoner or red mage. Said responsibility is that if a wipe can be avoided, a black mage would be expected to not be selfish with their swiftcast or triplecast for their normal rotation. Also the justification for option 3, is too hyperbolic.

In addition, blue mage which is also by default a dps job that can pivot into a healer or tanking role, is given another raise if option 3. Which also invalidates the need to get Angel Whisper, which requires completing 30 floors of the carnival to get. Which also in turn reduces the importance of the Carnival.

Advocating for any of the three is just gonna result in a worse feeling gameplay experience.

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Originally Posted by Whalaqee

The first is just a bad idea. As all it advocates for is pruning and homogenizing the game.

The second might be fine for a summoner as they mostly just use swiftcast for their ruby or emerald phase anyway, but actively punishes any red mages who are actually very adept at using their dualcast to raise their teammates.

The third is option 2, but gives utility to the black mage and saddles black mages with the same responsibility as summoner or red mage. Said responsibility is that if a wipe can be avoided, a black mage would be expected to not be selfish with their swiftcast or triplecast for their normal rotation. Also the justification for option 3, is too hyperbolic.

In addition, blue mage which is also by default a dps job that can pivot into a healer or tanking role, is given another raise if option 3. Which also invalidates the need to get Angel Whisper, which requires completing 30 floors of the carnival to get. Which also in turn reduces the importance of the Carnival.

Advocating for any of the three is just gonna result in a worse feeling gameplay experience.

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Question...Why are you even including BLU is this discussion? Blu is a limited job that never will be a full job so why would we even care about how giving a rez role action affects them? Last time I check you can't do normal at level content with blu and they are never really included in the whole balancing discussion so why even bring them up? The reason why some of us want a change to the caster rez is that it does cause balancing issue in the caster role. It encourages groups to deny one of the three casters a spot depending one where the group is in a fight. I have seen groups deny blm because they want the all mightly thrid rez and I've seen rdm and smn be deny in clear/speedrun parties bc the rez doesnt have value outside prog. The rez is always been an issue among the caster even making rdm into a meme(rezz mage) job doing SB.

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Originally Posted by Whalaqee

The first is just a bad idea. As all it advocates for is pruning and homogenizing the game.

The second might be fine for a summoner as they mostly just use swiftcast for their ruby or emerald phase anyway, but actively punishes any red mages who are actually very adept at using their dualcast to raise their teammates.

The third is option 2, but gives utility to the black mage and saddles black mages with the same responsibility as summoner or red mage. Said responsibility is that if a wipe can be avoided, a black mage would be expected to not be selfish with their swiftcast or triplecast for their normal rotation. Also the justification for option 3, is too hyperbolic.

In addition, blue mage which is also by default a dps job that can pivot into a healer or tanking role, is given another raise if option 3. Which also invalidates the need to get Angel Whisper, which requires completing 30 floors of the carnival to get. Which also in turn reduces the importance of the Carnival.

Advocating for any of the three is just gonna result in a worse feeling gameplay experience.

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The first option is not homogenizing the game. Resurrection is not, or should not be a defining feature of SMN and RDM, both damage dealers, especially if that causes imbalance within the caster role, which it currently does. No other role has to deal with this. Not to mention that they can be given another utility in place of resurrection that is actually used in any situation instead of only specific ones, getting rid of any homogenization concerns. Resurrection is a problem when it comes to caster balance, and even Yoshi-P has stated it.

Second, yes, that is actually the point, RDM would not be able to chain cast rezzes anymore in exchange for greater caster balance. Also, not the point I want to focus on, but RDMs casting a rez every other spell is not that hard and doesn’t require any skill.

Third, exactly as you say, yes, the responsibility should be shared equally amongst all casters or none at all. Making it the responsibility of 2 out of the 3 casters has introduced an imbalance between them. Regarding BLU, it’s a different beast entirely so it doesn’t matter. Also, I’m sure it’s not that hard to not make it accessible to BLU.

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Originally Posted by Namir

The first option is not homogenizing the game. Resurrection is not, or should not be a defining feature of SMN and RDM, both damage dealers, especially if that causes imbalance within the caster role, which it currently does. No other role has to deal with this. Not to mention that they can be given another utility in place of resurrection that is actually used in any situation instead of only specific ones, getting rid of any homogenization concerns. Resurrection is a problem when it comes to caster balance, and even Yoshi-P has stated it.

Second, yes, that is actually the point, RDM would not be able to chain cast rezzes anymore in exchange for greater caster balance. Also, not the point I want to focus on, but RDMs casting a rez every other spell is not that hard and doesn’t require any skill.

Third, exactly as you say, yes, the responsibility should be shared equally amongst all casters or none at all. Making it the responsibility of 2 out of the 3 casters has introduced an imbalance between them. Regarding BLU, it’s a different beast entirely so it doesn’t matter. Also, I’m sure it’s not that hard to not make it accessible to BLU.

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The first option homogenizes the game. You are strictly advocating that no dps should have a rez. This means you are asking the devs to limit what tools they can add to a future job during the design process.

Secondly, go play black mage if you want a caster job without raising capabilities.

It does matter for blue, because your flawed idea would have given them a 1 or 2 minute cooldown raise, which invalidates the work to get their 5 minute raise. You and JPAssassin are also hysterical by the way, yea blue mage a limited job, but if it became a real job like lots of people want, then you shot yourself in the foot as you now have a job with Angel's Whisper, Transfusion, and now Raise Dead. That is a job with three resurrection abilities, which in turn invalidates both summoner and red mage as why would you ever bring a summoner or red mage if a blue mage is just better for progression?

Pruning abilities is always a road that leads to a bad gameplay experience for the players. You are delusional if you think otherwise.

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Originally Posted by Whalaqee

The first option homogenizes the game. You are strictly advocating that no dps should have a rez. This means you are asking the devs to limit what tools they can add to a future job during the design process.

Secondly, go play black mage if you want a caster job without raising capabilities.

It does matter for blue, because your flawed idea would have given them a 1 or 2 minute cooldown raise, which invalidates the work to get their 5 minute raise. You and JPAssassin are also hysterical by the way, yea blue mage a limited job, but if it became a real job like lots of people want, then you shot yourself in the foot as you now have a job with Angel's Whisper, Transfusion, and now Raise Dead. That is a job with three resurrection abilities, which in turn invalidates both summoner and red mage as why would you ever bring a summoner or red mage if a blue mage is just better for progression?

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You are hysterical if you think they ever going to make blu a full job. Not going to happen, my man, it's going to always be side-content that they may update once or twice an expac. So keep living that dream world where blu be able to run normal at-level content with others.

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Originally Posted by Whalaqee

The first option homogenizes the game. You are strictly advocating that no dps should have a rez. This means you are asking the devs to limit what tools they can add to a future job during the design process.

Secondly, go play black mage if you want a caster job without raising capabilities.

It does matter for blue, because your flawed idea would have given them a 1 or 2 minute cooldown raise, which invalidates the work to get their 5 minute raise. You and JPAssassin are also hysterical by the way, yea blue mage a limited job, but if it became a real job like lots of people want, then you shot yourself in the foot as you now have a job with Angel's Whisper, Transfusion, and now Raise Dead. That is a job with three resurrection abilities, which in turn invalidates both summoner and red mage as why would you ever bring a summoner or red mage if a blue mage is just better for progression?

Pruning abilities is always a road that leads to a bad gameplay experience for the players. You are delusional if you think otherwise.

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This is why we need another caster. I like casters. I don’t like the playstyle of black mage. I don’t play red mage or summoner because of the rez utility. So what I’m left with is playing this me of two weaker casters or change roles, which I really don’t want to do.

Blue mage isn’t a real job. Let’s move on. The devs had made zero indication that there are any plans to change this. It is more likely that we’ll get another caster next expansion.

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Originally Posted by Whalaqee

The first option homogenizes the game. You are strictly advocating that no dps should have a rez. This means you are asking the devs to limit what tools they can add to a future job during the design process.

Secondly, go play black mage if you want a caster job without raising capabilities.

It does matter for blue, because your flawed idea would have given them a 1 or 2 minute cooldown raise, which invalidates the work to get their 5 minute raise. You and JPAssassin are also hysterical by the way, yea blue mage a limited job, but if it became a real job like lots of people want, then you shot yourself in the foot as you now have a job with Angel's Whisper, Transfusion, and now Raise Dead. That is a job with three resurrection abilities, which in turn invalidates both summoner and red mage as why would you ever bring a summoner or red mage if a blue mage is just better for progression?

Pruning abilities is always a road that leads to a bad gameplay experience for the players. You are delusional if you think otherwise.

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I’m not advocating that any DPS shouldn’t have a rez, I am fine with it staying, as you will see if you re-read my options, neither did I write that the developers can’t add a raise to future jobs. I am advocating that its current iteration leads to imbalance issues, forcing a full-time tax on two DPS jobs for a part-time utility and needs to change. You just don’t like the options I gave, which is totally fine, but a different argument altogether. You don’t have to agree with the options I gave, but surely you can agree that full-time tax for part-time utility is not fair? They can give RDM and SMN a different utility that is not situational and actually balanced if you are that worried about homogenization.

Regarding your advice I go play Black Mage if I want a caster without raising capabilities, thanks but I’ll pass, because I never said I want to play a caster without raising capabilities, or that I do for that matter. I am merely advocating that something needs to be changed in its current iteration so that the imbalance (imbalance which Yoshi-P himself has acknowledged) between casters can be fixed.

Regarding BLU, re-read my post where I said it doesn’t have to be a role action given to them (like many other things about BLU which are separate and differ from other jobs). Do you really think this is something that hard to code? Regarding the fat chance that BLU ever becomes a real job, their rez can be lowered in recast time, again, changing abilities is not that hard, its done all the time.

Also, let’s please keep the conversation civil and respect each other, not start calling each other names, etc.

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Originally Posted by Sequora

This is why we need another caster. I like casters. I don’t like the playstyle of black mage. I don’t play red mage or summoner because of the rez utility. So what I’m left with is playing this me of two weaker casters or change roles, which I really don’t want to do.

Blue mage isn’t a real job. Let’s move on. The devs had made zero indication that there are any plans to change this. It is more likely that we’ll get another caster next expansion.

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No the game needs another Melee DPS before even considering to add another Ranged DPS to the game. Currently its 5 Melee DPS to 7 Ranged DPS.

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Originally Posted by Sequora

Can we talk about the fact that caster is the only role that is divided into progression jobs (red mage and summoner) and speed jobs (black mage).

The other DPS jobs are all balanced around their damage + their party DPS boosting utility. You are either high personal damage with little to no party DPS boosting utility, lower personal damage with higher party DPS boosting utility, or something in between.

This creates this weird balance where a black mage is superior to red mage and summoner when you don’t need rez. You’re more likely to meet DPS checks with an equally skilled black mage than you are with a summoner or red mage.

With melee, you’ve got a job like SAM with extremely high personal damage, with no damage utility. NIN has lower personal damage, but can make up for that damage by boosting the party damage.

I think the dev team either needs to take another look at rez on red mage and summoner. That or add another high DPS low utility caster so that we have another option outside of black mage.

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Sage should have been a caster DPS since they are a more magic heavy version of Red Mage in the series. I remember it being a dps powerhouse in FFIV.

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Originally Posted by Inosaska

No the game needs another Melee DPS before even considering to add another Ranged DPS to the game. Currently its 5 Melee DPS to 7 Ranged DPS.

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Which one is the 7th? Bard, Dancer, Machinist, RDM, SMN, BLM. That makes 6. Archer isn’t a real job so not sure what you are saying is the 7th. You can’t count Blue Mage. It isn’t even a real class. It also has more than just ranged abilities.

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Originally Posted by Inosaska

No the game needs another Melee DPS before even considering to add another Ranged DPS to the game. Currently its 5 Melee DPS to 7 Ranged DPS.

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They dont conside m.range and p.range as the same role. If they did the 1% party buff would req 2 Ts, 2Hs, M, R but no in game you have to have 2T, 2H, M, P.R, and M.R. So no we dont have 6 ranged(btw blu doesnt count and I know for a fact you including that by saying 7. Blu is a limited job with no hope of being more so it DO NOt COUNT!) We have:
4 tanks
4 Healers
5 Melee
3!!! Caster
3 P.Range

That is how the game teats the roles. So just because you think caster and prange are the same does not mean the game and the devs does.

Honestly, I'm tired of this argument. I see this one and the blu one all the time to defend why we don't need a new caster. I don't understand why some people are so against a new caster that they rather do the mental gymnastics to say the game doesn't need a new caster. Why is the idea of ppl who enjoy casters getting a 4 option so threatening to some? Tank has 4 choices, Healers have 4 choices, p.range has 3 so they in the same boat as us, and melee has it the best right now with 5 choices and thier role is pretty balance. Also I don't understand why ppl include blu in any of these discussions since it's a limited job and even the devs treat it differently because its a limited job. You cant do current content as blu, I can't main blu in the current savage or the next ultimate so why do some try their best to include it in these types of discussions. This is one of the reasons why I wished blu has never added the game because it allows ppl like Inosaska to use it as ammo to justify why we don't need a new caster. Just so tiring and just doesn't make sense.

You’re both wrong, sort of. The fact that dps roles can’t be easily separated into just one classification system is by design, it gives them the leeway needed to release the jobs they want to, not the jobs they need to.
So sure, we have 5 melee and 6(7) ranged, but we also have 5 melee, 3 phys-ranged and 3(4) mag-ranged, additionally we also have 2 maiming, 2, striking, 1 scouting, 3 aiming and 3(4) casting. There’s justification there for either a scouting melee, a magical ranged, or even a physical ranged.

Personally, I think magical ranged is what we’re missing out on based on the last time we got one compared to the others, and as much as I credit the place of BLU as a limited job, it is decidedly not part of the main roster of jobs, so I don’t count it.

I think the next job we should get should be Geomancer (or a variant of it). Functionally should be between SMN and BLM, serving as our second non-rezzing/selfish caster, but still having some minor raid damage utility in place of personal dps. It would give us an eastern caster aesthetic, and bring us our much needed wind/water/earth spells. (I know SMN and RDM have wind/earth spells, but they’re part of their own paradigm, summoners always utilise all elements, while RDM always have weaker forms of black/white magic, therefore it’s the core wind/earth/water spells that are missing from our roster because they were allocated to WHM instead).
I’m envisioning some sort of stance rotation akin to BRD, with wind/water (feng/shui) phases instead of songs, which would make it different enough from BLM’s fire/ice rotation (time based not MP based) and SMN’s 3-element rotation. Earth element would be utilised as utility, filler and/or AoE skills, think Stoneskin equivalent, Doton equivalent or Quake as a Flare equivalent.
Perhaps the Geomancer aspect is played in terms of ground based AoE effects, that work similarly to larger party-wide leylines, giving any who stand in them a 1-2% damage increase, while your feng/shui stance determines your additional personal bonus for standing in your AoE.

As for rezzes, keep it as it is. There is no problem here, if you want a rez you can play a job with a rez, if you don't, you play BLM (another reason why we need another caster without a rez). RDM would be gutted without the ability to dualcast Verraise, and SMN isn't losing too much for having a rez that it most likely needs to hardcast anyway.
The 'rez tax' is not and should not be that significant. It is not as bad as some make it out to be, because RDM is only a few percent behind BLM and this likely isn't making a significant different in most fights other than week 1 savage clears. And it should not be a much as it is, because in order to utilise a rez, that caster needs to sacrifice some DPS anyway. Hardcasting a Resurrect will eat 8 seconds of no dps and throw your rotation off, while dualcasting Verraise only consumes 1 GCD but by consuming a dualcast proc as well you're setting yourself back 2 GCDs in some sense, especially if there's movement involved.

Trying to think about what other jobs they haven’t used that are magical from the FF. I suppose they could make up a new one like they did with gunbreaker.

Sage was also unique in everything but name.