The Wanderer's Minuet and class-design frustrations

[Connor]

Give them any more damage and they can outright replace the BLMs + SMNs they're supposed to be supporting.

This is what makes me feel like the devs aren't really paying any attention to what they're doing to the jobs. Bards and Machinists are doing way more damage than intended. The buff-war the two jobs had saw their attack potencies rising with almost every patch, not to mention that whilst these two jobs are being buffed the Alexander raids become progressively easier, meaning Ballad / Paeon aren't often worth using over Requiem. The end result is two jobs with massive burst and high attack potencies on top of being heavily utility-based. It seems obvious (especially with the games' current dps-race design) that nobody would willing drop their dps unless it was absolutely necessary, and it rarely ever is.

To be frank, it beggars belief that the devs never realized that consistently buffing the attack potencies on two jobs intended as 'support' wouldn't cause any potential balance issues.

[DarkerOrange]

To be frank, it beggars belief that the devs never realized that consistently buffing the attack potencies on two jobs intended as 'support' wouldn't cause any potential balance issues.

This is the problem. There are no support jobs in XIV, just dps with utility. They compete for the same slots as every other dps, so they need to be able to pull their weight (especially given that Paeon/Ballad are rarely, if ever, needed).

[Myon88]

Ballad/Paeon/Promotion shouldn't really be viewed as support utility that's meant to be used in normal conditions. It's better to think of it more like SMN's rez utility/BLM apoc/MNK mantra, tools you only use grudgingly in an emergency or to make things easier if you can spare the time to use them.

[gumas]

i know this is about WM stuff but i just want to give my 2 cents about brd song.

the bard support skill (song) is still fixed at "arr" era at least that's the way i see it, back when there is no HW bard actually do need to pay attention to party mp/tp, back when defeating titan is still a satisfying feeling bard is actually pretty on demand when CT/labyrinth is still a thing because some fight is really long and draining.

ever since HW a lot of thing got "balanced" and equipment get stronger, hard dungeon become easy because our equipment and new more useful/powerful skill, meanwhile the new dungeon is not getting harder from what i experience, i cant put it into words but it just feel like a roller coaster thrill ride and... that's it.

Things get updated, armor, skill, story, dungeon but somehow brd "song buff" is still stuck at arr stuff, there is no point casting mp/tp buff because its pretty much redundant since your mp and especially tp recharge so fast outside of combat, and in combat most enemy is dead within 1-2 minutes including boss, so again yes your tp is empty but by the time you reach the next enemy its full again.

the only way i see bard player to use their song again is pretty much remove the 10% penalty and change the effect, make it more feasible in their eyes like AP will refill everyone tp BUT also give the bard some personal buff effect even a small one is fine like +5% damage, MB refill mp which also give brd +5% crit and so on.

[Cetonis]

Ballad/Paeon/Promotion shouldn't really be viewed as support utility that's meant to be used in normal conditions. It's better to think of it more like SMN's rez utility/BLM apoc/MNK mantra, tools you only use grudgingly in an emergency or to make things easier if you can spare the time to use them.

This; honestly treating Ballad / Paeon as a balance concern is a joke. The reason BRD displaces casters in speedrun comps is because of Foe adding to healer and some NIN and DRK damage; they're not singing MP song in a 5-minute Lamebrix run. Also I imagine by having more HP and Second Wind, they can do a little more eating of certain things without pulling a healer out of Cleric Stance. The speedrun comp has no place propogating down to anyone else's group comp thought process, though it does anyway.


The real problem has more to do with SE creating this situation where some jobs buff others' damage output, and some jobs don't. The ones that do supposedly ought to deal less damage than those that don't, and aside from Machinist (which is doing Monk-grade damage ffs) they largely do.

However, the -amount- less isn't a big enough gap, and possibly shouldn't be - few really want to play a "dps" job that does a lot less damage for the sake of utility, that was an issue with 2.x Bard, and part of the reason why they were always in such low supply. They'll take a small cut if it's fun, but doing 10-20% less than an equivalent non-utility job is too much for it not to become a common negative notion in people's heads.

SE frankly needs to just give every dps job some form of rDPS support and be done with it - it's clear that this some jobs do it, some don't thing isn't sustainable.

[Myon88]

I think the other issue is that when it comes to practical DPS output in a raid setting, the jobs honestly differ immensely in how resistant their rotations are to disruption by mechanics. I mean if there was a fight that was just a 15min faust target dummy with no movement/mechanics, machinists would be at the bottom (with bards in second place), assuming an even composition that favoured physical/magic equally.

The reason machinists are parsing so well in Creator is their excellent mobility and very spiky burst. On a fight like a11s for example, they can just wildfire into all the 'safe' periods and then autopilot through mechanics spamming 1-2-3 while a job like DRG or MNK whose dps output is more of a flat curve cannot avoid moments where they get shafted by mechanics. They also have no enochian/botd/gl3 ball and chain around their leg like other jobs.

Bards would be able to do this too imo, if it weren't for Iron Jaws maintenance forcing them to stand still at strict intervals, and of course the whole (1. no ammo, and 2. can't stance dance because of risk of getting bloodletter procs you can't use) that I'm sure everyone is familiar with.

If you look at the SSS dummy HPs for each job, it's clear that SE does deliberately design some jobs to have more dps output than others, but that's just on paper and they don't seem as interested in enforcing that hierachy in actual raids. It's more of "In principle we designed BLM and MNK to be the top dps, but in actual raids you're on your own because not all job playstyles are made equal".

[Cetonis]

(snip)

Right; having admittedly not touched Machinist, I'm of the impression that fight mechanics largely don't affect them* so long as they have places to fit in Wildfires. Meanwhile Bard gets hurt not just by heavy movement stuff, but also by frequent boss jumps (needing to re-apply DoTs is a big loss) and any add that isn't worth dotting.

And every other DPS is basically in a similar boat - they need to give up a bunch of of potency in order to put up or maintain a set of DoTs or debuffs, in some worst cases needing to go without. MCH just has the one DoT; even their turret happily just starts shooting on its own.

It's not an entirely dissimilar problem from the 2.0 Bard situation, where the damage was maybe similar to others on paper but Bard gave no damns about a lot of mechanics.

(*Certainly they help MCH get better numbers relative to other jobs, but that's because those other jobs get hurt, not because MCH deals any extra damage)

[Khalithar]

I want WM gone and I've wanted it gone for a long time, for a few reasons:

1. I do think it's a bit drastic of a playstyle switch. Having the class be a mobile ranged dps able to move while keeping up it's assault was brd's whole "thing" and one of the reasons why it was fun and suddenly forcing a more stationary playstyle after 52+ levels isn't (in my opinion) the best way to design a class.

2. Not everyone that plays a ranged dps wants to be a caster or deal with cast times. There should be a viable option for people that want a ranged dps that doesn't have any cast times or cast bars at all. If you prefer that playstyle your options are either be sub-optimal or go play WoW and roll a Hunter.

3. I don't feel like minuet really "works" for brd and it's abilities. Bear with me here, but when it comes to the "feel" of the class, I feel as though Mch was specifically designed around having Gauss Barrel later on, whereas for brd it "feels" like it's a "forced" mechanic. I'll grant this is a subjective criticism.

Solution: Give brd a passive damage buff that only works when they're staying still but get rid of the casting times, from there brd still has to choose between mobility and damage but doesn't have to worry about interrupted casts and those of us that want an option for a viable ranged DPS with no cast bars have something.

[CookieMonsta]

I want WM gone and I've wanted it gone for a long time, for a few reasons

Solution: Give brd a passive damage buff that only works when they're staying still but get rid of the casting times, from there brd still has to choose between mobility and damage but doesn't have to worry about interrupted casts and those of us that want an option for a viable ranged DPS with no cast bars have something.

Why must WM be an all or nothing affair? I keep saying it but no one seems to have grasped that WM adds skill ceiling to the class. You are not supposed to have WM on all the time. The skill is knowing how and when to stance dance it. In fact the optimal BRD dps requires toggling to bait autoattacks during buff windows and allow repositioning.

The brd rotation without cast bars, even if it demands zero movement is braindead simple. There is no skill in the class.

[Khalithar]

Why must WM be an all or nothing affair?

Because if you get rid of the cast times for Brd there is no reason to have WM any longer. But for the sake of not having to change reward for the level 52 Job quest, it will probably be reworked in to something else with the same name.

Oh I grasp it, but I don't think that should be where the skill ceiling needs to be. In response to that adding skill I suggest you read this post which in my opinion is the best in the whole thread:

The issue is that the confluence of (WM + River of Blood + lots of other oGCDs) just doesn't function properly. It's anti-synergistic and leads to a myriad of decision points that - while yes, in a vacuum more decisions means more skill - some of these judgment calls are frankly bulls**t in nature and have no place within the design philosophy of this game.

Trying to figure out on the fly whether a DoT tick that started a refresh animation that finished some variable tenths of a second later, came before/during/after a half-second window on your cast bar, and then responding appropriately within the next half second - that kind of thing belongs in competitive fighting games where people count frames, not an MMO that ostensibly uses a 2.5s GCD to allow room for forethought and attending to mechanics.

Now, I understand that Cetonis is NOT arguing for the removal of WM, but for the reasons she listed above, I actually think it's a better argument for why WM is a poorly designed mess and needs to be scrapped with a new mechanic in it's place.

In relation to your point about the brd rotation being braindead simple, I can sort of see where you're going with this. But I assert that just because something is "simple" that doesn't necessarily mean it's "easy."

Bear with me on this, if they were to remove WM right now and there were no more cast times to deal with, good players at a class will still stand out compared to the average one. The great brds that know how to perfectly time their dots to prevent clipping, maintain maximum dps while doing mechanics, and don't stand in fire will always stand out among those that don't play nearly as well. I don't believe that turning the class in to a caster is the solution. I can totally get behind the idea that you want a real distinction between a good player at a class and a great player at a class, that is a completely valid viewpoint to have and I can go along with it. However, I think there can be a different way of doing that while leaving brd the mobile DPS it is until 52-60. Now, I don't know what that could be, I'm not a game designer or an expert on ranged dps classes. But I believe it can be done.