Your Opinion on the Current State of Job Identity/Balance in 6.4?

Hey there everyone, I'm pretty new to the game (the forums too) and I've been hearing a lot of talk about FFXIV's Jobs like Summoner getting reworked, tanks getting nerfed, skills getting removed, healers getting homogenized and all that stuff.

However, everything I've heard on that front is a year+ old and a lot has happened since then, including some buffs; but I've heard nobody talk about it, so I figured I'd ask you.

What's your opinion on job identity right now? how's your main job doing? do you think Square is going in the right direction or do you still miss how your class(s) were in a past iteration of FFXIV? let me know :D

Never really cared for lots o buttons, especially if they can be brought down into one (like a lot of jobs could be)- personally am enjoying PvP kits more than normal kits (on average) due to identity and lack of button bloat feeling. I am aware some people like lots of abilities, I just don't personally need it. Partly I enjoy the PvP kits because each job feels different and brings something interesting to the table.

I actually quite enjoy SMN at level 90 and think it's my favorite "Summoner" of all the summoners. I think ARR's mechanics were very good, it just was a bad "summoner". Current Summoner before you get the special bloodpact aetherial rite whatchamecallits around level 86 is really simple though.. I feel they should bring that mechanic much earlier and do something with perhaps a new primal flavored skill that replaces physik (which is so useless it's not worth putting on your bar or remembering you have it).

Paladin is quite fun to play which I would have considered my main, but queue are like 5 mins for me even for old content on DD and so I've been enjoying catch up on SMN as I can go in blind and not ruin the party (I never go in blind as the tank, too much potential fun killing for others).

Before EW had suggested they go through each job and attempt to add as much non-savage/ultimate like flavor as possible (roleplay gameplay), mostly exploratory and fluff, to add some feeling of differences, but since EW and all jobs getting a more similar vibe.. feels like they can hopefully capture combat 'differences' in the next expansion. (The quick and dirty example is why does Dragoon take fall damage, or in zones with flying it would be logical if they could manipulate their jump to jump farther (by holding down the spacebar before and during 'flights')).

I play each job a bit, but not so repetitively that things are too painful when similar, but one that stood out to me as 'but y tho' was when each tank got essentially a Fel Cleave phase. We all became part warrior lol. More recently they made the dragoon jump no longer a jump, I'm sure it would have some balance implications for some content (if minor that's fine, imo) but I thought adding a % max hp shield and movement speed boost could have been a more fun way to give dragoon's the ability to manage they're actually jumping to a location.

Certainly there are still differences but it seems like there is a minimum of 2 steps forward to similarity for each 1 step of difference.

I would probably say the most concerned job, even though I don't main it, is healers- they do have to heal when content is brand new and people don't know / don't have good gear.. but it quickly becomes less important in a lot of content. Given what they get to do outside of healing is like 3 abilities... that's a bit unfortunate lol. My suggestion rather than having to change a bunch of systems on their head (impacting all the other roles) is to split the healers between offensive and defensive support actions and then add many skills to that effect with less healing skills (still can heal, still helpful when needed, but a lot of other things to do too). For example Scholar prior to losing all their attack skills and rotations and healing fairy power would be more in line with an offensive healer. Defensive support would still have damage too, it's just the theme / target. So players who like being a battle healer vs a team player. Astrologian being defensive, improving their card systems, etc.

Scholar:
https://i.redd.it/s5mw6156zq961.jpg

Game was at its peak in HW. Game is at its lowest point post 1.0 in EW.

Job balance and identity is the worst it's ever been.

Job design and job identity are steadily going downhill. Considering that there are no builds and jobs have only one way to play them, unlike other games where each job can have multiple distinct ways to play, then I would say balance is pretty bad too. SE just doesn't have any excuse to have bad balance, everything is predictable and there is minimal amount of variance, yet they still can't do it. All nuances are being removed, skill ceilings and skill floors are often few centimeters apart. Someone supposedly beat p12s with 5 deaths and DNC who forgot to DP, all of that in week 1. So what's the point of balance, when DPS check in current hardest content is so forgiving. Another lazy way to ensure that no job is discriminated because it's bad. What a lazy way of "solving" things.

Removing Kaiten was so incredibly out of touch, game has 4 job designers and it shows. Plenty of jobs just feel like unloved children.

Game is still good, but 6.X patches are kind of let down, and job design is just bad in all regards.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Never really cared for lots o buttons, especially if they can be brought down into one (like a lot of jobs could be)- personally am enjoying PvP kits more than normal kits (on average) due to identity and lack of button bloat feeling. I am aware some people like lots of abilities, I just don't personally need it. Partly I enjoy the PvP kits because each job feels different and brings something interesting to the table.

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I agree with this.
I think the PvP kits are way more enjoyable to play in general.

I feel like the PvE kits exist in kind of a binary state:
Scenario 1: You're having trouble memorizing a strict, uncompromising 32-button rotation and thus you're underperforming.
Scenario 2: You've memorized that strict, uncompromising 32-button rotation and thus you'll easily grow bored.

I am of course simplifying things a lot here, but I feel like that's the crux of it.
If PvE kits were reduced to "10 really impactful abilities" rather than "24 not impactful abilities" I'd be more interested in PvE gameplay.
Lots of buttons just aren't interesting. 3-part combos that are just increasing potencies of damage. Big GCD damage. Big oGCD damage. Big AoE oGCD damage and so on.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

Scholar:
https://i.redd.it/s5mw6156zq961.jpg

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This 100%. I enjoyed SCH so much more when I had actual choices to make and damage abilities to use. Now I only play it if my group requires a healer and no one else will do it. Current SCH is so braindead boring it is actually unfun for me to play. Luckily SMN is a lot more fun so I can at least keep my ARC levels up.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

Game was at its peak in HW. Game is at its lowest point post 1.0 in EW.

Job balance and identity is the worst it's ever been.

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Bard has always had a job identity crisis.

Job identity and gameplay has only been going downhill since Stormblood, maybe HW depending on the job. They just keep homogenizing everything to the point of ridiculousness. When it comes to balance, it's pretty dumb that Ranged are forced to do less damage then Melee because uptime, when uptime is never a factor these days.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

Scholar:
https://i.redd.it/s5mw6156zq961.jpg

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You forgot Selene!

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Originally Posted by Deo14

Job design and job identity are steadily going downhill. Considering that there are no builds and jobs have only one way to play them, unlike other games where each job can have multiple distinct ways to play, then I would say balance is pretty bad too. SE just doesn't have any excuse to have bad balance, everything is predictable and there is minimal amount of variance, yet they still can't do it. All nuances are being removed, skill ceilings and skill floors are often few centimeters apart. Someone supposedly beat p12s with 5 deaths and DNC who forgot to DP, all of that in week 1. So what's the point of balance, when DPS check in current hardest content is so forgiving. Another lazy way to ensure that no job is discriminated because it's bad. What a lazy way of "solving" things.

Removing Kaiten was so incredibly out of touch, game has 4 job designers and it shows. Plenty of jobs just feel like unloved children.

Game is still good, but 6.X patches are kind of let down, and job design is just bad in all regards.

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Honestly the jobs never had any different builds, and there was always just one way to play them. During ARR you had to level other jobs in order to get all the skills you needed, notable BLM for Swiftcast if you were playing any kind of healer. In other games that have different builds or skill tress it inevitably comes down to one build or skill path being optimal and then enforced by the players, there is no real choice there if you want to participate with others. The jobs as they are now though are very similar across roles, with abilities having been pruned away in favor of a simpler and similar playstyle that is easier to pick up but leaves players wanting to change jobs more often. The instant job change mechanic is really hampering design in this way because it allows the developers to simply tell people to change jobs often if they are getting bored with one, instead of creating jobs that are fulfilling to play for any length of time.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

Honestly the jobs never had any different builds, and there was always just one way to play them. During ARR you had to level other jobs in order to get all the skills you needed, notable BLM for Swiftcast if you were playing any kind of healer. In other games that have different builds or skill tress it inevitably comes down to one build or skill path being optimal and then enforced by the players, there is no real choice there if you want to participate with others. The jobs as they are now though are very similar across roles, with abilities having been pruned away in favor of a simpler and similar playstyle that is easier to pick up but leaves players wanting to change jobs more often. The instant job change mechanic is really hampering design in this way because it allows the developers to simply tell people to change jobs often if they are getting bored with one, instead of creating jobs that are fulfilling to play for any length of time.

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Let me ask you this: Do you think Jobs should be expanded to have different builds (like other MMO's) or do you think Square should focus on making different jobs as uniquely distinct from one another as possible? (or both?).

As a former ESO player, I lean more towards the latter option myself. I think people underestimate just how much players value flavor in their classes, even if its just getting a unique animation or jump (like in old WoW for example).

Summoner between levels 51-85 is painfully stale, they need a mechanic to make use of their aetherflow gauge or something.

Likewise alot of jobs barely change throughout heavenward and Stormblood due to rebalancing of skills. Rather than shiny lvl 100 skills in next expansion we need more to fill out the mid levels

Mao thinkings is not the jobs that has become problematic in some cases, but is the way fights has evolved in EW. EW promotings fights with more runnings around and Mao finding it harder to play as BLMs. Mao sad.

The balance is still bad despite the efforts made to homogenize the classes. Every class is just playing into the two minute windows, and every fight is playing around it.

EW is just buns.

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Originally Posted by Vulpixi

Hey there everyone, I'm pretty new to the game (the forums too) and I've been hearing a lot of talk about FFXIV's Jobs like Summoner getting reworked, tanks getting nerfed, skills getting removed, healers getting homogenized and all that stuff.

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1. Summoner used to be really difficult to play, to the point SE had to make temporary changes due to complaints, then reworked it entirely to be more like a traditional Final Fantasy summoner. Jobs used to be full of useless, annoying and janky abilities and harder to play in Heavensward, but since Shadowbringers SE has been trying to making them simple and intuitive to play, so that even a new player can't mess them up. Players that like complexity and difficulty haven't liked that.
2. Tanks haven't got nerfed (although some people are saying their self-healing is too great, particularly healer mains). Tanks, like other jobs, have been made easier and more intuitive to play. Holding the attention of enemies used to be a lot more work to explain than it is now, and many of their damage-reductions used to be unique (but also relatively light or pointless).
3. Healers have always been pretty homogenized except Astrologian, because their card system is unique. In fact even White Mage and Scholar used to be the same when the game released because White Mage's version of Adlo/Succor was Stoneskin. Most of Scholar's uniqueness came from what it inherited from Arcanist, a class shared with Summoner. What unique thing did White Mage have? Fluid Aura, an enemy knockback that annoyed melee jobs and the stun on Holy.

For a better idea of how jobs used to be and how they have changed, you can watch through a youtube series at https://youtu.be/Pve2swkUMUI&list=PL...7W0DUWz3ZAoyf7

Or just look at videos of people doing content from years ago.

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However, everything I've heard on that front is a year+ old and a lot has happened since then, including some buffs; but I've heard nobody talk about it, so I figured I'd ask you.

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If you want to keep up-to-date on this you can read the patch notes (not recommended unless you are through the entire MSQ) https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...patchnote_log/

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What's your opinion on job identity right now? how's your main job doing? do you think Square is going in the right direction or do you still miss how your class(s) were in a past iteration of FFXIV? let me know :D

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Contrary to what a lot of people say, tanks have always been pretty homogenized (always had the same ways to create enmity, a ranged attack, a 20% mit, a 30-40% mit, a flavor mit or more, a stun, a tank stance. However there were subtle differences, such as Warrior having a cone aoe which required a target that is now a circle.

Most of the changes to jobs were widely regarded as for the better. They got rid of useless, barely-used or clunky abilities up until Shadowbringers. In Shadowbringers that was done, so all that was left was to make the jobs more intuitive and simpler to play, and chip away at their identities, and that's where it began to alarm people.

I still really enjoy tanking, but I do think tanks should have something or other unique about them. Even if it's as subtle as "this job self-heals" and "this job shields" and "this job mitigates". Otherwise what's the point in even switching between them? These exact differences have been blurred in Endwalker.

I preferred how Paladin used to play. The changes are good, but the old version had a fun and lengthy rotation with a unique flow to it. Dragoon has something like that as well and they are planning to adjust it in 7.0.

Summoner plays like a lv30 class would in ARR..

Bosses use to crit their autos and not spend half the fight casting mechanics, giving healers something to do in downtime. MP management existed. Solo tanking was something you could do in some fights, and playing around less mitigation was interesting and fun.

I'm not going to say it was a perfect system by any means. No one would expect that from an MMO that was essentially brought back from the dead. But I do miss it, especially compared to what we have now.

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Originally Posted by Kansene

If PvE kits were reduced to "10 really impactful abilities" rather than "24 not impactful abilities" I'd be more interested in PvE gameplay.
Lots of buttons just aren't interesting. 3-part combos that are just increasing potencies of damage. Big GCD damage. Big oGCD damage. Big AoE oGCD damage and so on.

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I've said this for years. There's no weight or impact to any of the skills in xivs combat just follow a rotation over and over boring..

Buffs and cool downs are the same they don't do anything they just make numbers slightly higher or slightly lower again dull and boring.

I'd much rather have less buttons but they all actually do something or impact a battle in someway. Be it blinding a boss so an attack misses or a tanks cooldown that does more than just x%less damage. 1.23 had a paladin skill called aegis boon which was fun to use. It'd block the next hit and heal hp equivalent to the damage you would have taken or something such. Took an element of skill to use.

The problem is that when things are dull and boring like this. Players are lazy and when content is so easy they can still win then there's no reason to do a rotation. And the devs mistake that laziness for difficulty and then nerf jobs and make them even simpler and more boring but content is still so easy that players can basically auto attack and win so they still don't play jobs properly. And the devs think oh this jobs still too hard to play let's make it even simpler....

Downward spiral of doom.

There’s one and a half jobs worth of tank split across four, nearly a coherent job between the healers, bard is just sad with the three fixes for a problem it no longer has, every big ability being hit at 2minute intervals makes things feel more similar than they really are, summoner is a complete abomination and should be taken back to the drawing board wholesale, fight philosophy is inferior to arr/hw, something unreal seems to have inadvertently emphasised- compare tank damage in mb:ub and p4s for example. The number of flat body checks is just not engaging; someone dying means you can’t even attempt to scrape a recovery because the debuff soup can’t be rectified with 7, blue mage is the sole light in this fetid mire and that’s mainly because it can’t enter current content where the problems are at their most noticeable.

2/10 could be better.

Only maybe two kits feel basically complete and capable of any significant rotational nuance.

Even encounter-based difficulties are being shrunk in ways that homogenize the fights and thereby our experiences with them.

A quarter of some kits can be consolidated without cost to depth of said kits (this is meant as a complaint about lack of available nuance to them, not just wasteful button counts).

Even roles' agencies inherent to that have been starved: we have very few dps checks beyond enrage and raid buffs are now timed automatically; tanks went from a poor balance state between defensive and offensive options to outright zero decisions to be made beyond that of dps with a handful of extra CDs to be used on a fixed schedule; healers lack the damage intake to situate any decisions between immediate or stronger healing and more MP-efficient healing, any risk opposite their damage weaving, and generally spend less than 3% each of their CPM on 60% of their kit while hopefully never touching a sixth of it at all.

It could be worse, but it feels like difficulty curves, relative and contextual balancing points (the whole reason for this or that option within play itself feeling like a satisfying and competitive decision), and the whole general midcore part of the game has been stomped down on pretty hard in favor of a low-as-possible floor (as if one didn't have 90 levels to become familiar with the jobs, if we just hadn't dumbed down even the mechanics and intensities players are exposed to in leveling) that becomes increasingly incoherent with the skill ceiling.

Ill just go down the list with my personal opinions:

DPS
All Melee DPS: Fine where they are. I'm a Sam main so I might be bias, but I don't really care when other jobs do like 1% more dps in some encounters on logs
Black Mage: Gud
Machinist: Finally close to where it belongs
Bard: Needs something special like a combat peleton on llike a 90s CD exclusive to bard
DNC: Fine as is although I never touched dancer after getting it to 90
Summoner: I don't have an answer for this, but you shouldn't be able to functionally one button macro SMN. Feels bland. Needs more integration with summoning primals in a certain order + maybe you could pick to glamour some primals.
Red Mage: Pays the VerRaise Tax and I think it should stay that way unless they make it so you cant.

Tanks: Remove Damage from Gap Close
Warrior: I'm kinda salty its doing the most damage atm while having some of the best mit and its party mit only being topped by PLD because PLD has Divine Veil + Passage
Paladin: I hate Goring blade the way it currently is. I like the atonement combo changes. Clemency sucks when compared to Oblation and Equilibrium
Gunbreaker: Aurora feels kinda useless. Otherwise, I'm bias towards liking how GNB is overall although I do kinda wish SKS didnt make the job into an optimization nightmare.
Dark Knight: Feels like there's not much reason to play it after the GNB and WAR potency buffs

Healers:
Astrologian: I don't know what AST needs but I dropped it as soon as I hit 90 because unlike all the other healers you are punished by the random RNG that is Astrodyne and Lord/Lady of Crowns
Sage: This job is so strong and convenient to play I think it actually makes me worse at other healers.
White Mage: heavily struggles in the mit department compared to AST
Scholar: I don't know how Aetherflow and Energy Drain still exist when Addersgal and Addersting is such an insanely better alternative. I don't have any reason to ever play Scholar the way it currently is

Additional Mini-Rant about healers:
Everyone complaining about healings thinking that adding more dots would improve the job don't really know what they want or what they're asking for.
You would just pog out during the announcement and then after a couple days feel like healing is no different and if anything is worse because you have to spend more GCD time re-apply dots which may conflict with mechanics and cause drifting.
The entire approach to encounters and damage would have to change for them to rework healers unless they just give healers combo actions and a rotation that magically heals up the party with some oGCD cooldowns for mits or topping up individuals

All of the jobs just feel the same, just covered with a different layer of paint. I really wished every job was truly different and had its own unique advantages and disadvantages.

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Originally Posted by RaionKansen

Additional Mini-Rant about healers:
Everyone complaining about healings thinking that adding more dots would improve the job don't really know what they want or what they're asking for.
You would just pog out during the announcement and then after a couple days feel like healing is no different and if anything is worse because you have to spend more GCD time re-apply dots which may conflict with mechanics and cause drifting.
The entire approach to encounters and damage would have to change for them to rework healers unless they just give healers combo actions and a rotation that magically heals up the party with some oGCD cooldowns for mits or topping up individuals

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I assume you're referring to old SCH love, in which case.. what is wrong with that? It is proof of concept it worked and those players like it, though the fairy obviously did a lot of lifting for healing (and is basically addressing your last bit too, magically healing up the party by simply existing lol).

In a way it feels like the people you're addressing with 'more dots' have then essentially addressed all your concerns, in which case I have no idea what you're addressing.. xD.

There are certainly a lot of issues with healing but there is no change that can be done without a lot of 'something' changing. Can't have gear, player skills, tank skills, and nerfs all pointing to healing be invalidated and make healers interesting for that content. Now it seems to me the obvious and easiest way to address healers therefore is just to give them 'more dots' (among other new actions), essentially give up the fight on 'heailing' and go into the other themes. Warrior healer is proven to be appreciated, shows SCH (and SGE to an element), so there is one side. The other side, that obviously warrior healer misses and where a lot of players who are like 'healing is useless' is the supportive players... So.. let them help the group by being supportive but still avoid that green hp go brr as a majority activity, as honestly healing in this game is just probably never going to be hyper* valuable outside of very hard content and of that really only 'new' hard content (so a small portion of the game). *Naturally if no healer the game would have some changes, but like.. you'd just see blue healers and maybe a few more RDM and SMN to solve it (not saying you can do current hard content without a healer, but you can definitely do it in current expansion MSQ / 'old' content that isn't savage and above).

If your kit is really only helpful for a small portion of the game (up for argument depending on your play style, if you're exclusively hard new content then.. /shrug), I think that describes healers upset over anything else- and any change will require many system changes.. I honestly feel it will take more system changes to make healing valuable than it would be to just give healers more group responsibilities outside of purely adding green health bars. Of course making healing valuable is actually an option, I'm just not sure where your confidence on giving healers more things to do isn't a valid solution (which is an open invitation to state why, not facetious)- given that a lot of complaints are nothing to do but oGCD heal and press one or two buttons for damage (which probably means they're not doing the hard content when they talk about that issue).

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Originally Posted by Kansene

Lots of buttons just aren't interesting. 3-part combos that are just increasing potencies of damage. Big GCD damage. Big oGCD damage. Big AoE oGCD damage and so on.

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Combos are really only interesting when you get to choose through split paths. So yeah, most combos are really bland.

I get that XIV has a ver on-leash job design, but they certainly didn't have to double down on that by making the 120s meta what it is today.

For almost every job playstyle, what we are challenged with is not our ability to think, but our reflexes. Can a RDM press a 6 step combo in the correct order? Can we hit every OGCD as it comes off cooldown so everything aligns in the 2min marks?

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Originally Posted by Raikai

For almost every job playstyle, what we are challenged with is not our ability to think, but our reflexes. Can a RDM press a 6 step combo in the correct order? Can we hit every OGCD as it comes off cooldown so everything aligns in the 2min marks?

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And even that feels very, very constrained if there's no means (or need) to adjust for recovery / to salvage the larger rotation -- which then brings us back to the (lacking) capacity for decision-making within our kits.

I like the jobs that have less buttons to worry about. Let's me stay more focused on mechanics and having fun.

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Originally Posted by AstrumRemi

All of the jobs just feel the same, just covered with a different layer of paint. I really wished every job was truly different and had its own unique advantages and disadvantages.

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More or less yeah.
Not saying it's exactly the same right now, but it's really close to the point where every job is almost just a reskin of each other and the only difference is rotational (hardly in a lot of cases) and visually.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

More or less yeah.
Not saying it's exactly the same right now, but it's really close to the point where every job is almost just a reskin of each other and the only difference is rotational (hardly in a lot of cases) and visually.

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Basically the only things that makes jobs distinct nowadays are aesthetics and the obligatory job gimmick they have, but in the bigger picture everything is just meant to align to the 2min burst. Ironically, even the few actions that are not on the 2min recast time are meant to be used on cooldown or else they won't align to the 2min burst.

Honestly, I feel that no matter how many ideas the playerbase writes on posts like this... If the 2min meta remains, job design will always have to orbit it. And being chained to that severely limits the designs we get and in the end of the day all they will have to offer is going to be a gimmick.

PvP has better job identity representation than PvE and that's just plain sad.

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Originally Posted by Soge01

PvP has better job identity representation than PvE and that's just plain sad.

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I agree! And pvp actions are way less numerous than their pve counterpart, but still more engaging, because you have to think strategically when to use your tools rather than putting them on a set script.

I pvp mostly as a Dancer, and one thing that really thrills me is that to play optimally you dynamically swap Closed Position based on the situation, or even to save someone that is about to die with Curing Waltz. It's a shame that the only real good PVP we have right now is CC. Besides the messy situation with ranked, the casual is really fun to play, but it certainly gets old to play over and over the same mode.

PvE could use with cutting done on button redundancy. Like, on Scholar, I'm often confused on why I have multiple abilities that do the same thing (and share the same or close to same cooldowns) with that "one" ability out of the bunch just being better in most situations.

The dps are overall okay other than summoner
Tanks are too samey, would love to see them diversified a bit
healers lol, pick your 1 button rotation

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

The dps are overall okay other than summoner
Tanks are too samey, would love to see them diversified a bit
healers lol, pick your 1 button rotation

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I wouldn't say Tanks are the same. Dark Knight isn't the same as Warrior at all other than both having a combo system. Warrior is much easier for less experienced players to play as, while Dark Knight is much squishier (and way less self-healing) and takes more skill.

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Originally Posted by Tanis_Ebonhart

I wouldn't say Tanks are the same. Dark Knight isn't the same as Warrior at all other than both having a combo system. Warrior is much easier for less experienced players to play as, while Dark Knight is much squishier (and way less self-healing) and takes more skill.

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The main thing about Dark Knight is the amount of abilities to press at level 90. There is the opener with almost the entire kit ready to be weaved and you've got to pick 1-2 every GCD depending on your ping. And a bunch of them restore MP making it easy to overcap. Warrior is so much more compact than that and doesn't have this at all. You also have to try not to spend 50 of your blood gauge right before Living Shadow, and maintain 3,000 MP for TBN. But these are all things you get used to when you play it regularly for more than a day, and then it becomes relatively braindead.

Still, when I want to play an easy tank I choose Warrior, not Dark Knight, because of that. Which is most of the time to be honest.

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Originally Posted by Vulpixi

tanks getting nerfed

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https://media.tenor.com/MbiqXHCxTNAAAAAC/obi-wan.gif

...Wait, you mean the role that barely needs healers anymore?

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

https://media.tenor.com/MbiqXHCxTNAAAAAC/obi-wan.gif

...Wait, you mean the role that barely needs healers anymore?

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That's less a job issue and more a content / difficulty issue. They deliberately tune content damage low because they don't want healers to be stressed or panic and scared of the role because its too hard.

That's a big part of why tank self sustain is perceived as too high. Because incoming damage is too low and heavily predictable.

This has always been the case though. Every expansion. Even ARR /HW. It felt like there was amassive disconnect between the team designing jobs and the team designing content..

Old school paladin. The iron fortress tank. Low dps high defence and mitigation...

Old school whm. Pure healer class.

Old school monk. Single target king but crap at aoe.

All sound great but content designed entirely around dps /aoe meant none of those job designs ever fit in.

It's the same even amount dps.


Melee should hit hard but have the survivability to take a few hits due to be danger close to the boss.

Casters should hit even harder at the cost of reduced mobility there survival comes from spells like sleeps binds or magic barriers. Casting those spells costs dps.

Then physical ranged always used to be the glass cannon jobs. Super high damage super mobile. But squishy enough a falling leaf from a tree would drop them.

However xiv content is designed around unavoidable raidwide damage and stuff so every role type has to make a trade off for survival and that trade is always damage.

So now physical ranged is a highly survivable highly mobile but low damage role in a game where damage is all that matters...

Even magic ranged is highly mobile highly survivable and again low damage role. And melee Reighn supreme as a result.

All because of content design and unavoidable raidwides.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

That's less a job issue and more a content / difficulty issue. They deliberately tune content damage low because they don't want healers to be stressed or panic and scared of the role because its too hard.

That's a big part of why tank self sustain is perceived as too high. Because incoming damage is too low and heavily predictable.

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Right, I can see what you're saying. It's just the phrase "Nerfed tanks" just felt really weird to me.

As far as DPS goes, there's at least a lot of gameplay variety, even when there's a few similar mechanics. All the jobs feel different enough to where it's not a massive concern on homogeneity. Balance within the roles is a different story, but that's not something I'm massively concerned with as someone who does mostly casual content nowadays, haven't touched savage throughout EW except for P1S.

RDM and MNK are my go-to DPS jobs with some BLM on the side, EW Monk I think is probably the best iteration of Monk, and Red Mage feels good to play. The only concern I have with some DPS jobs is in gameplay depth (mostly SMN). But in terms of identity, DPS are varied in playstyle and don't feel too similar to each other.

Tanks however, are starting to blend in with each other. WAR and DRK have been way too similar ever since DRK got reworked back with SHB launch, it just spams more oGCDs. But now even GNB and PLD are slowly becoming similar, not to the same degree as WAR and DRK, but close enough for me to complain about it. Goring Blade is now just Sonic Break, FoF is a carbon copy of No Mercy, Bow Shock/Circle of Scorn, Blasting Zone/Expiacion, Burst Strike/Holy Spirit. Even the blades combo and Confiteor could be seen as similar to the Gnashing combo if it was locked behind Double Down instead. About the only major difference is Atonement spam, which up until recently may as well read "we have a 6-part combo where you see the same animation overcap your MP for the 100th time this fight".

I miss old PLD... There's potential to make the new PLD work much better than the old, but currently it's just a mess of old abilities they somehow had to make work in a new rotation.

As for the healers... good lord they need a ground-up rework. SCH and SGE are near carbon copies outside having to press Eukrasia before a heal or pre-placing a fairy. The kits are a complete mess, we're so bloated on oGCD heals that we never want to touch a GCD heal, and our reward for ignoring said GCD heals is to spam the same button over and over again. MP means nothing except press Lucid on cooldown. There's not enough incoming damage to actually make use of the amount of healing our kits are capable of, and increasing that damage is only going to drive less skilled healers away from a role that's already feeling underplayed. The end result has us spamming Glaroilificosis, only being broken up by the occasional Combiodiasis every 30s, even some of the most sloppy raid clears has healers churning nukes at least 5 times more than any other button. Energy Drain is the only thing keeping SCH interesting and AST cards are alright, but not as engaging as it used to be IMO.

They all start feeling very, VERY samey when I'm pressing only 2 buttons for 80% of a fight.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

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So, agreed on most of this, but...

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Old school monk. Single target king but crap at aoe.

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Monk was putting out 6 GCDs in a row of 186 ppgcd while DRG could only do 154 with Doom Spike (121 with Ring of Thorns).

It just had the same problem with maxing out its burst that BLM had via Flare --3 minute CDs [Perfect Balance <> Convert/Ether]-- but without the then-150 effective ppgcd of Fire II (100p * 1.8 via AF3, but a 3s cast / 2.5s GCD) to fall back on. Heck, WHM was up there with the AoE burst powerhouses back then, just due to Holy's ridiculous original potency (atop its originally 5s stun).

On the other hand, MNK had no significant single-target advantage without high-SkS builds that would require Army's Paeon to a degree wasteful to anyone else (though Goad would later help with this). DRG outcompeted it in rDPS for most of ARR before in turn being outshined by NIN. Optimized BLM play likewise generally outperformed it, especially if Foe uptime didn't have to be squashed in favor of extra Paeo.

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Old school paladin. The iron fortress tank. Low dps high defence and mitigation...

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Likewise... not really a thing. Though it had virtually no defense, originally, true, Warrior also had a lower damage ceiling than Paladin, and remained that way throughout ARR, especially if/when tier included a faster-attacking sword to synergize with Sword Oath.

The difference was that Warrior could (A) AoE, and (B) eventually (for real content, too late) outscale content with its 33.3% uptime on 25% Leech and up to a 1633 relative potency (or 2450 if the heal-from-damage could also crit back then; I forget) burst-heal via Inner Beast.

And because Inner Beast's damage bonus could only be accessed from tank stance, Warrior generally ended up occupying a more MT position in the neutral (neither having and/or needing preemptive defensive CDs), as Defiance was less punishing to damage even if it also gave considerably less eHP.

All in all, the most pivotal difference jobs brought was kill order and the degree of Paeon use.
No job was designed strictly as an "ST king", and BLM AoE was quickly nerfed back into check with the very next expansion.

My opinion of the current state of job identity is that it's stale, most of the jobs feel almost the same and some are almost 100% identical during burst windows. As for job balance, it's an utter failure. Despite making jobs roughly the same and gutting the identities of the jobs, they still manage to mess up balance so badly that some jobs are still seen as useless.