Curious on opinion. Smn or Mch. Which would you pick?

[Haxetc]

It only holds true if the bosses are a punching bag, such as turn 10 or turn 11. None of the content atm lasts long enough, or at least has enough pauses to necessitate a TP regen.

A NIN runs out <3min if played to full potential. A DRK runs out at 2min. In A1/2/4 you'll run out of TP.

[Minorinz]

You won't have TP depletion if you have those downtimes is what I'm saying.

It'll take a while for those downtimes to happen in savage no doubt, also those downtimes you are talking about are literally 6-7 secs, a perfect time to play a song. There were downtimes in final coil especially on T12(aoe phase, adds phase) and T13(dives, teraflare) melee still needed tp and healers still needed mp. It's literally just a cycle in this game, everything is being repeated, so if that doesn't happen and BRD/MCH will not be needed for alex savage's progression then the dev team will be forced to up their damage and remove their utility all together.

As for why? Alright, let's break the current dps jobs down.

Melee is top dps, why? because they are supposed to suffer dps loss when:

1- The boss is not stationary. (extreme headache and dps loss)
2- Their gameplay is affected by downtime a little more than casters. Losing GL or BoTD etc..
3- Having to move in and out for AOE and mechanics.

So SE has them top dps depending on the occurrence of the above to average their total dps. IF the boss is moving 24/7 rip melee, kick pls, nobody wants those. Alright let's look at casters:

1- They are ranged so they don't suffer or gain when their target moves here and there unlike melee.
2- Their own movement heavily affects their dps, especially BLM. SMN suffers too in exchange for mana, so they are mobile by burning their mana with ruin 2.
3- Downtime hurts their dps, especially BLM, but it's not as painful as melee. SMNs care now because of their AA stacks.

So SE has them right after melee, on single target they will never be top dps especially when melee gets their dummy fight. Let's look at BRD/MCH:

1- Movement during fights does not affect them heavily as much as melee or casters, they can dance all they want- lose damage but they are still DEALING DAMAGE in the end, where every other class with constant movement(or when the target is moving) will fail to deliver combos and casts. The least punished job for consistent on going movement compared to ALL other DPS jobs.
2- Downtime may hurt their activated buffs but they do not have major damage stacks to keep up, only dots which is the case with every other dps.
3- Best utility offered to the WHOLE party which is unique. (Goad is awesome but it is single target.)
Also don't forget, they will be fixing Warden.

so SE gave these ranged physical guys a stationary buff, it's not that OP because if it is then it will make them mobile whenever, extremely rewarding when stationary and best utility to be offered. You know what let's all go bards and machinists!!!


Correct me if i'm wrong about the stacks that you need to keep up? Are there any? Maybe I'm missing something?

I still remember though, all those bards during T1-T5 because of their mobility and high damage. Why would anyone want to go caster/melee on annoying fights? There is a balance in this game and I truly feel like they should give bard/machinist some more space regarding their mobility accompanied with decent damage output.

[FreeLancer4]

Mobility is hardly a good reason for ranged to deal less damage because some of them (speicifcally BLM) can't afford to move as much anyway, not to mention GB/WM restricts movement anyway and its supposed to boost their dps. Their overall dps is relatively the same as it was in 2.0, except we also lose that so-called mobility advantage that some people like to bring up to justify their lower damage output.

Yeah, I totally based that whole response on mobility and nothing else. Let's ignore all the other points I made.

Anyhow to counter Mobility is a good a reason as any to justify lower damage output. A Bard/Mch can disable GB/WM and keep DPS'ing while on the move dealing with movement heavy mechanics, meaning the party dps will take a lower overall hit. The only other job that comes close to this would be smn, at the cost of extra mp consumption, unless healers are comfortable/confident enough to deal with and keep the party alive. Sending a Melee or black mage to deal with movement heavy mechanics is often times bad party play. This may not be as prevalent atm, but it is only the start of an expansion, for which the main raid (Savage) has yet to be released.

It seems like you should be directing your displeasure towards the encounters and not the actual job itself, as they have not giving it a proper challenge and a chance to really shine.

It only holds true if the bosses are a punching bag, such as turn 10 or turn 11. None of the content atm lasts long enough, or at least has enough pauses to necessitate a TP regen.

I'm certain Turn 2 of Savage alex will be requiring a lot of AoE out of everyone, TP is like to be an issue as DPS checks will no doubt be a lot rougher. Turns 1 and 3 may see some song/turret dancing to sneak in a few ticks of mp for healers as there are a good few pauses and turn 4 will likely be something akin to Turn 11, so you can expect the encounter to last a fair bit longer and have TP/MP being drained.

[Bishop81]

Well, at Lv 60 SMN you have to deal with Dreadtrance and the rush to pop Deathflare before it wears off - no trance, no Deathflare.

So if you hate lining up abilities with buffs ...

[Leonus]

Freelancer4 and Minorinz...
please stop. You logic is too sound, they (most anyway that rant on the forums) don't want to hear that.

[RiceisNice]

That post limit ate up my replies...lemme try to abridge it as best as I can

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Those downtimes still exist is what I'm getting at. It's all interval based and classes won't run out of TP on A1 unless they're using high cost abilities. They will run low, but they won't run out.

The current fights they are now, are not punching bags to the same extent as FCoB. But again, I've said this, they'd have to change it to so it's not the case. We saw SCoB savage that remained mostly intact with the amount of uptime on the bosses (except for T9) because it was close to the original mechanics, whose to say that it will or will not be the same in Alex Savage?

Also, you mentioned this when you brought out your points.

Melee is top dps, why? because they are supposed to suffer dps loss when:

Supposed to. While your logic is sound, it's hardly ever the case in actual practice, or least its not to the extent where it is detrimental to melee (because more or less, they still end up topping numbers even on the likes of T13 because they can maintain uptime on earthshakers.) Not to mention I honestly can't think of a boss where it not being stationary would become a problem.

Across the board, every class has something they need to manage, not just SMN or BLM or whatever. The difficulty of that is subjective, but the reward/risk/loss is different. Except for Bard. Their challenge is remaining sane when you realize that none of your skills flow together when WM is active.

And just to nitpick on SMN, does AA have a duration or is it infinite like aether flow? If infinite, doesn't that boil down to cooldown management on when to use DWT, which is technically the case for all classes (but again, the payoff/risk of it is different)

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Mobility is the most relevant thing when I see "MCH is a ranged class, meaning it will typically have to deal with less danger". Where does the less danger factor from? Other than that, it's the same as my above reply. It's all sound on paper, but it hasn't been the case in actual practice if other classes are still pulling ahead despite all that.

Also, to my knowledge the turret isn't terribly effective at soaking damage. I've only ever heard of T5 where pets work, but not T9.

MCH's support is also not exclusive to them; its typically less effective than what's present on other dps classes (specifically trick attack and virus). If it's the regen aspect of it, then I have to ask why their natural output is supposed to be lower when using said regen will lower their damage anyway.

[OneWingedSora]

And just to nitpick on SMN, does AA have a duration or is it infinite like aether flow? If infinite, doesn't that boil down to cooldown management on when to use DWT, which is technically the case for all classes (but again, the payoff/risk of it is different)

AA has a duration, yes.

[Minorinz]

Those downtimes still exist is what I'm getting at.

They better exist, otherwise it'll be miserable for the brd/mch to sing 24/7. What matters is the duration of the downtime and its frequency and honestly, so far they are not that frequent. What do you mean unless they use their high cost ability? In savage, everyone will be going all out on dps there is no holding back especially when its a dps races? Could you clarify what you were referring to? Also, the current alex story mode is literally a punching bag, even better there is a lot of AOE going on and guess what? Melee can AOE too!! But you know that takes the fun away, they should make savage more than just a dps race, they should add those kind of mechanics that require much movement to make it a living hell for caster and melee so then a bard/mch can be happy.

Back on t13, plds covered melees over casters, melees are literally dps bots. The whole party would run around getting mechanics done just so melee can sit there and dps. It's the party's choice, this doesn't mean melee isn't capable of doing mechanics, it means the party has decided to adjust and set the melee top priority on the dps list in exchange of the extra effort. Sounds fair to be honest. Melees have the freedom to go and get things done themselves if they want to, SE made sure of that option.

I can think of an encounter than made our melees cry, T6 savage, where rafflesia had to move everytime a bulb spawned near it. Their dps was taking a hit, it was fluctuating so bad, the bard and caster were a little higher during that phase. Also t7, whenever they got shriek, it was always a pain. Did I forget to mention that melee have positionals? so it's not only about the target moving but also they also need to get their positionals and combos running while having the target stroll around. Lovely. Yup I totally get it, melee should get punished even harder and the party should assign them mechanics because they are supposed to be equal in dps with casters and ranged physical dps.


Bard's rewards are reasonable, they are not extreme or worthless. People are addressing bard's issues as if they are still back in 2.0, why is bard's dps low? what? you just realized what playing bard is like?
I do understand that weaving during WM is a pain and oh god the mobility vs dps choice, but SE isn't that heartless and cruel, I'm sure they are studying the case. Just don't expect a bard or a machinist going anywhere near melee's level of damage on a dummy fight or something similar.

[RiceisNice]

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The point I was getting across is that those downtimes exist to the extent that TP songs are not necessarily needed. Otherwise, you'd have a repeat of fights like T11 or T7 where it's a punching bag and TP regen is absolutely required (not that I necessarily agree with this design choice either since you're pretty much forcing a specific class rather than role into the composition). Whether or not you hold back or not wouldn't matter if you still had downtimes that would downplay the necessity of a TP song.

Dont mind the following responses since I'm just nitpicking your examples, but know that while I do understand your context, its just that it's not to an extreme degree that it gets detrimental *that* to melee.
>T13 my group had melees (and offtank) dancing in an out inbetween each earthshaker to minimize their downtime (unless it was last phase).
>Shriek isn't exclusive to melee and often the placement puts them out of range of ranged attacks anyway, at least with how we placed the renauds so they were never standing on the glowing platforms or risk clipping through the renaud's hitbox.
>I've never seen T6 savage as an issue for melee when it came to moving raff because of it's large hitbox. The tanks always communicated (or at least established a pre-determined direction) where they're going to be taking raff anyway. It wasn't enough of an issue to still pull ahead of me or the summoner.

In the end to me, it boils down to what's justifying their overall lower damage output. Even with their 100% uptime, other classes are finding ways to topple their damage output anyway. Now with 3.0 out, the damage difference is still relatively the same (throwing out random numbers here) as it was in 2.0, except now that 5-10% difference between a physical ranged and a caster is also with WM/GB in mind, dropping lower than it was before if they have to end up disabling it to dps on the go. It's not necessarily a damage increase compared to how it was in 2.0 because everyone's optimal damage is balanced around the new abilities they've received.

[Sleigh]

In the end to me, it boils down to what's justifying their overall lower damage output. Even with their 100% uptime, other classes are finding ways to topple their damage output anyway. Now with 3.0 out, the damage difference is still relatively the same (throwing out random numbers here) as it was in 2.0, except now that 5-10% difference between a physical ranged and a caster is also with WM/GB in mind, dropping lower than it was before if they have to end up disabling it to dps on the go. It's not necessarily a damage increase compared to how it was in 2.0 because everyone's optimal damage is balanced around the new abilities they've received.

It boils down to, because they're ranged (which is useful for adds/mechanics/multi-DoTs, not necessarily hitting the main target), they give very generous raid DPS boosts with Foe's/Hypercharge, and they enable Disembowel, they are already worth a slot even in content without TP/MP requirements. You can't just put in another caster or melee over BRD/MCH and have more or even equal raid DPS, it doesn't work that way, and I'm getting the impression people who ask for BRD/MCH buffs don't realize this point (or play at a level where Foe's/Hypercharge are strong enough to justify the slot). BRD/MCH are presently as balanced as they were at the end of ARR, which is saying a heck of a lot.

Really the only thing ranged have to complain about is the playstyle differences aren't as fun/fluid to them as they could be, not much else IMO.