Should they swap the effects of bole and arrow

I know I’m late to the party on this one but I just picked up AST to level it for the first time since heavensward. First thing I noticed is they have massively simplified the card system. Ok, sure, whatever, that’s the direction this game is going in lately. But what I can’t get over is the choices they’ve made for the effects of these 2 cards…

The ARROW is for MELEE DPS?! While the bole (used to be the card you’d give to tanks) is a card for casters?!

Balance and spear for melee makes sense, ewer and spire for ranged makes sense. But arrow and bole feel really backwards to me.

Nono, this is Meleewalker. The mnemonic I use is the cards that used to increase damage go to the melees, and the niche cards you'd hope were useful but likely weren't go on the casters. Just like Endwalker! ;)

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

I know I’m late to the party on this one but I just picked up AST to level it for the first time since heavensward. First thing I noticed is they have massively simplified the card system. Ok, sure, whatever, that’s the direction this game is going in lately. But what I can’t get over is the choices they’ve made for the effects of these 2 cards…

The ARROW is for MELEE DPS?! While the bole (used to be the card you’d give to tanks) is a card for casters?!

Balance and spear for melee makes sense, ewer and spire for ranged makes sense. But arrow and bole feel really backwards to me.

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Honestly, I don't even look at the colors. I think of the objects.

Spears, Arrows, and Balances (scales) are physical things.

Ewer (magic water), Bole (magic tree), and Spire (mystic tower) are more magical things.

It's not perfect...but it works. Balance is the only kind of weird one, but Spears and Arrows are physical weapons. Granted, it seems ARROW would go to the Ranged Physical class, but the game/Devs/whatever have basically decided Ranged Physical and Casters are the same thing in the era of Meleewalker, anyway, so I guess that's that.

I still think it's weird that Spire is not with the melee. It was originally a melee card after all due to its TP restoring properties. So making it the melee card makes more sense. Then we have Spear - Spire - Balance for melee, Arrow - Ewer - Bole for ranged.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Nono, this is Meleewalker. The mnemonic I use is the cards that used to increase damage go to the melees, and the niche cards you'd hope were useful but likely weren't go on the casters. Just like Endwalker! ;)

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Wouldn’t the split then be

Melee: balance
Ranged: everything else?

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

I still think it's weird that Spire is not with the melee. It was originally a melee card after all due to its TP restoring properties. So making it the melee card makes more sense. Then we have Spear - Spire - Balance for melee, Arrow - Ewer - Bole for ranged.

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I guess the way I see it is, restoring MP and TP used to be the job of the phys ranged dps, so the cards that used to do that job would be the ranged cards but I can see your split working too. Though I still can’t get on board with the bole as a ranged card, it always used to go to the tanks, it was the mitigation card.

Though to be fair, if we apply the logic of where the card used to go, arrow always went to the MNK or NIN so it would be a melee card, but it just sounds ridiculous that an arrow would not be a card used on a ranged dps…

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Nono, this is Meleewalker. The mnemonic I use is the cards that used to increase damage go to the melees, and the niche cards you'd hope were useful but likely weren't go on the casters. Just like Endwalker! ;)

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I like your salt and snark. It goes so well with my morning coffee and never fails to put a smile on my face.
(Spire should be a Healer card)

Same for me. I have the old good cards in my head and they go too the meele dps and the old shit cards go too the ranges. Or cards that increase dmg and then the rest.

I don't even pay attention to what the cards are anymore - it's either a blue card (melee) or a purple card (caster dps). I miss the old system . . . I really hope they do something special with the re-work but I have a nasty feeling it'll be dumbed-down even more (what does this card do? Increases dps by 5%! For who? Anyone! And this card? Same! And this one? Same! Then what's the point in having different cards? Erm, pleasing to the eye?)

They just made the old "DPS increasing" Cards into melee cards, and the old "support" cards into ranged ones.

Maybe they opted to separate them this way to make it easier for Astros of Old to adapt to the new and highly complex and fun card system xD.

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Originally Posted by Casti_EL

I don't even pay attention to what the cards are anymore - it's either a blue card (melee) or a purple card (caster dps). I miss the old system . . . I really hope they do something special with the re-work but I have a nasty feeling it'll be dumbed-down even more (what does this card do? Increases dps by 5%! For who? Anyone! And this card? Same! And this one? Same! Then what's the point in having different cards? Erm, pleasing to the eye?)

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Agreed, and I doubt that they would go in the direction of adding complexity to the cards.

I am betting that they'll either remove them (which is actually a rumour that I heard, it may be baseless) or will look at what has been applied in PVP and see if can be applied in PVE as well - either becuase they receive positive feedback on it or because it is better to maintain going forwards.

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Originally Posted by Xelanar

They just made the old "DPS increasing" Cards into melee cards, and the old "support" cards into ranged ones.

Maybe they opted to separate them this way to make it easier for Astros of Old to adapt to the new and highly complex and fun card system xD.

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A possible way why they assigned the cards like this, yeah.

Alternatively is the elemental alignment of the card with the respective Heaven and the elemental chart of this game (at least with how I remember Eureka's elemental wheel)

Melee/Tank = Fire (Balance) -> Spear (ice) -> Arrow (Wind) -> cycle repeats
Ranged/Healer = Lightning (Spire) -> Water (Ewer) -> Earth (Bole) -> cycle repeats

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Originally Posted by Casti_EL

I don't even pay attention to what the cards are anymore - it's either a blue card (melee) or a purple card (caster dps). I miss the old system . . . I really hope they do something special with the re-work but I have a nasty feeling it'll be dumbed-down even more (what does this card do? Increases dps by 5%! For who? Anyone! And this card? Same! And this one? Same! Then what's the point in having different cards? Erm, pleasing to the eye?)

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They might go the PvP route and just make them AOE, get rid of the Seals, but they'll have to slightly alter them. Though they'd probably use the Bard song effects - one does minor damage increase, one does direct hit rate, one does crit rate - instead, since those would all be roughly equally viable. They'll then remove Redraw as well. But at least they'd all be useful then, I suppose...

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

I am betting that they'll either remove them (which is actually a rumour that I heard, it may be baseless)

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Considering that they will be adding more DPS jobs in the future, I'm going with this one. That way, they can put more of their development time and design focus around them, and we can settle for passive Astrodyne, on each healer, every 2 minutes.

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Originally Posted by MintnHoney

Considering that they will be adding more DPS jobs in the future, I'm going with this one. That way, they can put more of their development time and design focus around them, and we can settle for passive Astrodyne, on each healer, every 2 minutes.

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i physically recoiled in sheer disgust reading this, so congratulations on that.

hell, why stop at passive astrodyne? every healer gets divination! every healer gets afflatus misery with no strings attached (except WHM who still has to use their gauge)! everyone gets a bara fairy that flexes to heal everyone to full every 5 seconds! every healer gets a kardia, and if they so much as sneeze the tank gets 100% healed and given a 200% shield 5 times over!

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Originally Posted by Vinal211

i physically recoiled in sheer disgust reading this, so congratulations on that.

hell, why stop at passive astrodyne? every healer gets divination! every healer gets afflatus misery with no strings attached (except WHM who still has to use their gauge)! everyone gets a bara fairy that flexes to heal everyone to full every 5 seconds! every healer gets a kardia, and if they so much as sneeze the tank gets 100% healed and given a 200% shield 5 times over!

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and people will still say 'i don't want to play healer as it has too much responsibility and stress attached'

Blue border with + sparkles :: blue action costs :: physical actions

Purple border with o sparkles :: purple action costs :: magic actions

That's how I remember them. Nevermind that rangers use the magic cards.

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Originally Posted by Vinal211

i physically recoiled in sheer disgust reading this, so congratulations on that.

hell, why stop at passive astrodyne? every healer gets divination! every healer gets afflatus misery with no strings attached (except WHM who still has to use their gauge)! everyone gets a bara fairy that flexes to heal everyone to full every 5 seconds! every healer gets a kardia, and if they so much as sneeze the tank gets 100% healed and given a 200% shield 5 times over!

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I would hate to disturb your delicate stomach so [TRIGGER WARNING] there is at least one game that I have played in which the support class had a selection of buffs to pick from and then be active unless toggled off. That design allowed the class to be able to juggle healing and a selection of DPS skills which made it both fun and useful to any group, whether it had melee, ranged or needed extra help in heals.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

I would hate to disturb your delicate stomach so [TRIGGER WARNING] there is at least one game that I have played in which the support class had a selection of buffs to pick from and then be active unless toggled off. That design allowed the class to be able to juggle healing and a selection of DPS skills which made it both fun and useful to any group, whether it had melee, ranged or needed extra help in heals.

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oh trust me it was said mostly in jest, but that setup does sound pretty fun actually! though i do have to ask if there were other support classes with it and they all had their own identities as well.

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Originally Posted by Vinal211

oh trust me it was said mostly in jest, but that setup does sound pretty fun actually! though i do have to ask if there were other support classes with it and they all had their own identities as well.

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In the one game that I'm thinking of that was unique to that class, and it was a melee support class, which we don't have in FFXIV - using a staff for a weapon.

There were two other support classes, each with their own unique identities, one being was very close to a white mage, but imagine a white mage that had a skill tree , so if it wasn't in healing spec (as the only choice for FFXIV WHM), that class could also trade out for DPS skills at the cost of most of its healing skills- leaving it at about (when geared) at 75-80% of a DPS class.

The thinking around the time before they changed it was that bole, spire and ewer were the useless ones and the other 3 contributed to damage so they were useful. Since the community already grouped them this way it made sense to keep them divided this way. All the old useless cards went to the casters and the damage cards went to the melee. This does jack for new players though. All kind of a moot point as the card system will likely be completely reworked again in 7.0

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Originally Posted by Nobuyuki_Sanada

The thinking around the time before they changed it was that bole, spire and ewer were the useless ones and the other 3 contributed to damage so they were useful. Since the community already grouped them this way it made sense to keep them divided this way. All the old useless cards went to the casters and the damage cards went to the melee. This does jack for new players though. All kind of a moot point as the card system will likely be completely reworked again in 7.0

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Sad part is the old card system was more fun. Being able to throw away cards to buff the effects of the next one, having a card for every occasion, every single card being unique...it was way better than what we had now. Then again, I'm somebody who has been playing MMOs since the 90s and was always the healing support. Heals, buffs, CC from time to time...you know, a true support that we don't see much anymore these days in MMOs.

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Originally Posted by Nobuyuki_Sanada

The thinking around the time before they changed it was that bole, spire and ewer were the useless ones and the other 3 contributed to damage so they were useful. Since the community already grouped them this way it made sense to keep them divided this way. All the old useless cards went to the casters and the damage cards went to the melee. This does jack for new players though. All kind of a moot point as the card system will likely be completely reworked again in 7.0

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It's one thing that gets me. All changes to things ultimately stem from player beliefs and behaviors. People then complain about them, of course, but people often WEREN'T using the "interesting" other Cards. Part of that was the RNG nature of it (did you get a Bole when a Tankbuster was coming up or not?), but the two things that always come to mind to me in discussions like this are "Players will optimize the fun out of anything" and "Players are great at finding problems, but often very poor at proposing actually good solutions."

If people had consistently used the non-damage Cards, we'd probably still have them. But PLAYERS, not the Devs, decided damage >>> all (something players still hold to), leading to the nerfs. The Devs prize utility far higher than the players do, even now in the fewer cases it still exists. The only recent example of players actually flipping that script is MCH getting Dismantle back.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

It's one thing that gets me. All changes to things ultimately stem from player beliefs and behaviors. People then complain about them, of course, but people often WEREN'T using the "interesting" other Cards. Part of that was the RNG nature of it (did you get a Bole when a Tankbuster was coming up or not?), but the two things that always come to mind to me in discussions like this are "Players will optimize the fun out of anything" and "Players are great at finding problems, but often very poor at proposing actually good solutions."

If people had consistently used the non-damage Cards, we'd probably still have them. But PLAYERS, not the Devs, decided damage >>> all (something players still hold to), leading to the nerfs. The Devs prize utility far higher than the players do, even now in the fewer cases it still exists. The only recent example of players actually flipping that script is MCH getting Dismantle back.

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Should be noted, the only reason MCH got Dismantle back was because it couldn't justify having both 'less defensive utility than it's counterparts' AND 'less offensive utility than it's counterparts'. Since the devs want to keep it as the 'selfish dps option' of the physranged, it couldn't get back, eg, the old version of Hypercharge (with a new name) that gave a vuln up debuff on enemies. So, defensive it is. Whether we see MCH get more attention in the 6.4 savage is going to be interesting to see, but it definitely saw some more attention in TOP both due to it's lack of raidbuff (party less reliant on 2min windows), and it's lack of raidbuff (less chance of 'miss'ing your raidbuff due to buff cap)

As for 'use the bad cards', I think that's less a case of whether it happened or not, and more a case of perception. The 'top players' would reset runs if they didn't get the Balances they wanted, which gave the impression to the lower skill levels of players that 'Balance is the only useful card'. Was Spire useful? Not really, but it also wasn't as 'dead' as people make it out to be. It was 50% of the combo that made Balance the powerhouse it was, with Ewer also doing the same. If anything, Bole was the 'dead' card, but that doesn't mean that it had to be removed. It could have been retooled to have a damage reflect component, or be 'if something strikes the player with Bole on them, they get a debuff that makes them take more damage', or any number of things. Changing every card to be the same flat 'X% more damage' is the laziest solution imaginable. What part of 'manipulating fate' has every divining card have the same meaning? What card game has every card have the same value? Very fun playing Poker when every card is a King, I'm sure. Every round, a draw because everyone got a 5 of a kind. But at least nobody 'lost' and felt bad, right?

(any vitriolic tone directed at SE's laziness on the topic, not any player)

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

As for 'use the bad cards', I think that's less a case of whether it happened or not, and more a case of perception. The 'top players' would reset runs if they didn't get the Balances they wanted, which gave the impression to the lower skill levels of players that 'Balance is the only useful card'. Was Spire useful? Not really, but it also wasn't as 'dead' as people make it out to be. It was 50% of the combo that made Balance the powerhouse it was, with Ewer also doing the same. If anything, Bole was the 'dead' card, but that doesn't mean that it had to be removed. It could have been retooled to have a damage reflect component, or be 'if something strikes the player with Bole on them, they get a debuff that makes them take more damage', or any number of things. Changing every card to be the same flat 'X% more damage' is the laziest solution imaginable. What part of 'manipulating fate' has every divining card have the same meaning? What card game has every card have the same value? Very fun playing Poker when every card is a King, I'm sure. Every round, a draw because everyone got a 5 of a kind. But at least nobody 'lost' and felt bad, right?

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Yeah, fair.

Though I think we could argue MOST changes are based on that same type of thing. Perception of the top players/the meta probably isn't always true of reality, yet it IS a pretty concrete driver of change - for better or, often, for worse.

yeh, my point isnt that the top players were wrong, because in some ways they weren't wrong, it DID feel kinda bad to have a card that wasn't 'useful', as was the case with Bole a lot of times. It would come up at times you just, didnt need it. And for those top players, doing speedruns of the raid, those 'times we don't need Bole' were '100% of the time, because we're in BIS'. The point is that SE should have looked for ways to make the 'less desirable' cards like Spire or Bole, 'more desirable' rather than just saying 'oh the most desirable card is Balance, so lets make them ALL Balance, job done'

I stop ast in ew release and barely lvl it to 90 last sunday which was miserable and was all giddy to just focus my sage till 7.0 Half the time i forget to draw or if i do i just sling it on whatever person cause this new astrodyne system is a total garbage fest since you can now use divi without having to build seals. Making redraw now only one use and you draw a card that is either same seal or not base for that job is just finger aching experience lol and not worth it period. Please see dancer bard dragoon or monk or sm for better buffs lol

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Sad part is the old card system was more fun. Being able to throw away cards to buff the effects of the next one, having a card for every occasion, every single card being unique...it was way better than what we had now. Then again, I'm somebody who has been playing MMOs since the 90s and was always the healing support. Heals, buffs, CC from time to time...you know, a true support that we don't see much anymore these days in MMOs.

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Yep stormblood ast was the best but entitled raiders with the belief of oh ast only should play balance could be the major reason why cards has been garbage since sbh and ew.

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Originally Posted by IceBlueNinja

Yep stormblood ast was the best but entitled raiders with the belief of oh ast only should play balance could be the major reason why cards has been garbage since sbh and ew.

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Man I remember throwing the Spire on DPS who just rezzed to get their TP back, keeping an Ewer on hold for myself or the other healer, throwing an Arrow around at some random player to speed them up if I felt like causing CHAOS (usually the tanks though, it was nice sometimes on tanks), etc. The cards felt more like proper planning for situations instead of just being Oprah with damage buffs. "YOU GET A DAMAGE BUFF, AND YOU GET A DAMAGE BUFF! YOU ALL GET DAMAGE BUFFS!"

Is it the players who prize damage above all else, or FFXIV's combat system/encounter design that renders all but damage (nearly) irrelevant? The fixation on damage, much like the job meta, is a path of least resistance the players discover, not one they invent.

Did they delete Fluid Aura because players weren't spamming this deeply interesting and useful ability on Ruby Weapon EX? Darn those sinister players, removing utility with their fixation on using useful abilities.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Is it the players who prize damage above all else, or FFXIV's combat system/encounter design that renders all but damage (nearly) irrelevant? The fixation on damage, much like the job meta, is a path of least resistance the players discover, not one they invent.

Did they delete Fluid Aura because players weren't spamming this deeply interesting and useful ability on Ruby Weapon EX? Darn those sinister players, removing utility with their fixation on using useful abilities.

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Gonna be honest, it's mostly the players fault. The original Pharos Sirius? Nerfed because people refused to run it because it was "too hard". Steps of Faith? Nerfed because people refused to use the mechanics. People even tried to get Nidhogg and Shinryu nerfed. They cried whenever anything wasn't useful for damage or was annoying because they'd spam something for damage (like Fluid Aura) that wasn't originally meant for it. So yeah, it IS the players fault.

It's still the devs that caved in which in turn encouraged this kind of behaviour whenever they did so again.
So a good part of this obsession with prioritizing damage above all, wanting everything to be handed neatly aligned on a silver platter, anything that doesn't work well for damage is considered clunk and needs to go as if it's a weakness instead of a class feature is on the devs. I wouldn't say all of it, there will always be people squawking for everything being nerfed or automatically aligned or without dps loss and spread misinformation to more players but still a large part.
Not to mention it's still the devs that put the insane restrictions on combat and comp that not make balance far more important; they designed themselves into a corner.
Fixed size of 8man for raids.
Practically fixed comps with 2/2/4 even in premades thanks to the dumb "needs 2 of this to soak it or you'll randomly die" mechanics.
Tight dps checks to prevent players from zombie'ing their way through to balance out unlimited combat resses.
Extreme predictability of all encounters.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

It's still the devs that caved in which in turn encouraged this kind of behaviour whenever they did so again.
So a good part of this obsession with prioritizing damage above all, wanting everything to be handed neatly aligned on a silver platter, anything that doesn't work well for damage is considered clunk and needs to go as if it's a weakness instead of a class feature is on the devs. I wouldn't say all of it, there will always be people squawking for everything being nerfed or automatically aligned or without dps loss and spread misinformation to more players but still a large part.
Not to mention it's still the devs that put the insane restrictions on combat and comp that not make balance far more important; they designed themselves into a corner.
Fixed size of 8man for raids.
Practically fixed comps with 2/2/4 even in premades thanks to the dumb "needs 2 of this to soak it or you'll randomly die" mechanics.
Tight dps checks to prevent players from zombie'ing their way through to balance out unlimited combat resses.
Extreme predictability of all encounters.

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Agreed there is always this party a b c and w.e situation where people want things change or keep the same. No one can just be satisfied. So yes the devs may not always do things well but its all cause of players majorily. Party a can love something and c does not. B may be 50 50 on not wanting change but does want it. Typically issue with this or any game oh dont get me started in asymmetrical games like dead by daylight survivor vs killer topics looool.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Man I remember throwing the Spire on DPS who just rezzed to get their TP back, keeping an Ewer on hold for myself or the other healer, throwing an Arrow around at some random player to speed them up if I felt like causing CHAOS (usually the tanks though, it was nice sometimes on tanks), etc. The cards felt more like proper planning for situations instead of just being Oprah with damage buffs. "YOU GET A DAMAGE BUFF, AND YOU GET A DAMAGE BUFF! YOU ALL GET DAMAGE BUFFS!"

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It felt so awarding blms love me to arrow them so they dont have to position or worry on wasting their ley lines hehehe. Bole on tank for trash pulls. Ewer i kept for me i died as i pop luci oh no but its ok i got ewer for mp restore. spear? oh god crit chance increase sams would dote you. Only spire became useless when tp was out but boy ninjas love ya for it

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Gonna be honest, it's mostly the players fault. The original Pharos Sirius? Nerfed because people refused to run it because it was "too hard". Steps of Faith? Nerfed because people refused to use the mechanics. People even tried to get Nidhogg and Shinryu nerfed. They cried whenever anything wasn't useful for damage or was annoying because they'd spam something for damage (like Fluid Aura) that wasn't originally meant for it. So yeah, it IS the players fault.

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Pretty much this.

Gap closers are used in Burst windows for extra DPS, not as movement tools, their pretty clearly designed intent. Players would go out of their way to avoid AST Cards that weren't Balance. Any Tank or Healer that is sufficiently different than the rest and does less damage is sidelined. The only non-damage utility that ISN'T actively sidelined by the playerbase is Verraise, and then only until they have the encounter down decently, at which point they'd rather the player swap to BLM or SMN because they...do more damage.

And the thing is: MAX DAMAGE ISN'T EVEN NEEDED.

Outside of EXTREMELY specific situations (week 1 clears, SOME, not even ALL, Ultimates), you can do considerably lower damage and clear stuff. "A gray clear is still a clear" is met with "Nuh-uh! You're just bad, lazy, and being carried! You don't even deserve to be allowed to do that content and are actively griefing other players!", even though most Savages can even be cleared with gray parsers or an overall average of low green in most cases.

It's absolutely the players, not the Devs.

EDIT:

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Originally Posted by IceBlueNinja

Agreed there is always this party a b c and w.e situation where people want things change or keep the same. No one can just be satisfied. So yes the devs may not always do things well but its all cause of players majorily. Party a can love something and c does not. B may be 50 50 on not wanting change but does want it. Typically issue with this or any game oh dont get me started in asymmetrical games like dead by daylight survivor vs killer topics looool.

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It's why game developers have four real choices:

1) Satisfy only one type of player. Make a niche game where you've cornered the market for those player types but no one else plays your game and it eventually folds.

2) Do the most watered down thing to try and please everyone. Please no one. Game will probably be marginally successful but...

3) Have the game with lots of types of class/Job and playstyle that appeal to a broad amount of people, but unlike (2), not where they are just "meh" on it, but actually like the ones geared towards them while avoiding the ones that don't suit them. The only way to please everyone that actually WORKS, but tends to be time and developer intensive and so most game studios don't want to do it. It's also harder to balance. The only people who don't like this are the ones that want (1) for just them, and want to turn games that aren't (1)s into (1)s at their benefit and everyone else's cost.

4) (2) but worse, try AND FAIL to please everyone.

This is oddly reminding me of whatsherface forum poster from ~5 years ago, who had a vehemently-argued, bizarre yet internally consistent take on healers: using heals in any way other than what the developers intended was "cheating". HoTs are for countering DoTs; their greater MP and GCD efficiency were things dirty powergamers invented to cheat their way into excess damage GCDs. oGCDs were for emergencies only, as God Intended(TM). Using them for their predictability and efficiency to free up damage GCDs was, again, cheating. This, she argued, was why FF14 dungeons were "properly" difficult; healing was stressful and spamming Cure was how you were "supposed" to play, and therefore if she argued that healing was hard, and a veteran raider said it was easy, she was correct because she wasn't "cheating".

She may have been a fantastically-executed troll, but the point remains. Developer intent doesn't survive contact with common sense. Blaming sensible decision-making for the gravitational pull of effective tactical choices is as useless as blaming the tides for rolling in. You design around it, or you throw up your hands at the gap closer YOU created with bonus damage attached and wonder aloud at the greasy nerds who DARED take your intended skill and utilized it for something they found effective and pretend as if the inexorable march toward efficient gameplay is someone's "fault".

I -cannot- believe you guys don't understand why people optimize things. Pattern matching and improving things is part and parcel of your genetic heritage. You just aren't personally invested in optimizing THIS thing.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Developer intent doesn't survive contact with common sense.

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The thing is, it very often ISN'T common sense.

In an average party, MCH produces better results than DNC or BRD, supposedly. That is, if you're in a green party with a blue MCH, your party DPS will be higher than a green party with a blue DNC. Yet people were legitimately not taking MCH to encounters and PF locking them out, even for stuff like P5S or Ex4, things you could clearly clear with a MCH.

It IS true that sometimes the Devs fumble and the playerbase is right. But the playerbase also often makes a massive deal about 0.5% damage output differences in content where crit variance can be 3-6% of their damage and they can clear the boss with 10% of the fight time left before Enrage. That's not common sense.

When it's common sense, that's fine. But it honestly isn't always, and I think we all know that.