Korean Live Letter and Job changes (Translated)

[AlphaSonic]

Those black mage fixes are very nice, though I have to question: why are black mages constantly getting the best things in the game? Be it the new HW spells, quality of life fixes or raid viability, the only time I remember black mages not being between good and excellent was in 2.2, which was quickly fixed in 2.3.

Did you play 3.0 or 3.1? BLM was awful in 3.0 and they had to buff thunder potencies so people would have a reason to use thunder. And those buffs to ease the tight rotation for BLM that you were forbidden to move if you wanted to DPS came in 3.2

[Theodric]

I'm not a huge fan of the idea of market boards becoming cross server. That'll have a pretty negative impact upon the economy for very active worlds such as Balmung if they're paired up with other populated servers. Sure, it'll make some things cheaper but the price of many items has already crashed considerably to the point where you might as well just sell them to a vendor rather than to another player. Furthermore, Balmung currently doesn't have it as bad where bots are concerned - but other servers do and so I suspect a lot of gathering items will crash in price due to that unfortunate consequence.

[ADVSS]

I'm not a huge fan of the idea of market boards becoming cross server. That'll have a pretty negative impact upon the economy for very active worlds such as Balmung if they're paired up with other populated servers. Sure, it'll make some things cheaper but the price of many items has already crashed considerably to the point where you might as well just sell them to a vendor rather than to another player. Furthermore, Balmung currently doesn't have it as bad where bots are concerned - but other servers do and so I suspect a lot of gathering items will crash in price due to that unfortunate consequence.

Balmung being on a cross server mb would crash the other servers economies, or maybe boost them, but everything is dog cheap on balmung one reason to move to a lower pop server for me

[Zojha]

Balmung being on a cross server mb would crash the other servers economies, or maybe boost them, [...]

Mhm...prices for crafted and gathered goods would probably decrease across the board. For one, because of bots, for another, because these goods usually have inflated oligopoly pricing due to being from unpopular content. That would be particularly noticeable on small servers. On the plus side, this might well cause the prices for some goods to go up again, since people from smaller pop servers were unable to afford them prior due to said pricing and are now buying a lot - price skimming effect!
I'd imagine similar being the case for battle content goods, but to a much lesser degree (since those prices are usually already low). Overall, it would probably benefit consumers of low pop worlds and sellers of high pop worlds the most.

[Shurrikhan]

Not so much the content, but the way both the battle system and class design is tuned. That's what has allowed bad habits to form.

If it works because of what's designed, then they aren't bad habits. What works, works. The only thing that can be successfully while being less "skill-productive" is easy or narrowly involved content. That's it. Our dps-centric meta is actually more broadly involved for tanks and healers than more strictly divided or arbitrarily limited roles. That's not to say it isn't stunted—DPS have minimal responsibilities, and because their involvement/contribution is so singular in type and effect, it doesn't leave as much for healers or tanks to interact with as might otherwise be possible—but as I'm pretty sure the areas you take most issue with (going by your other posts, the role-blending in the "DPS meta" (really the "when secondary contribution is less effective than primary contribution right now, use primary contribution meta") are actually the ones that are more skill productive, those things are the few that least allow for bad habits to form.

The thing is that DPS checks are there to challenge the DPSers in the group. There's encounters that are tank encounters (read: your tank not messing up leads to you getting the clear) and healing-intensive encounters. The third part of that is DPS check encounters.

Consider though: every healing intensive part of a fight that is not pure unmitigatable damage uses more than just the healer; DPS and tanks are expected not to step in shit, to appropriately use CDs, etc. I see no issue in DPS checks being similarly multi-role, and I would actually very much like for "tank encounters" to be less dependent on a single person's having hit a scripted button at the right time, irrelevant to anything else happening in the fight or anything else that the party is doing.

[Designing mechanics to punish rapid damage-dealing] is counter-intuitive and sort of pisses on the DPS. I was not a fan of this when they tried it with Pharos Sirius (adds on the first boss spawn at certain HP percentages).

Agreed, though I actually liked it in that particular fight (Pharos 1st boss, pirate + dogs) because it allowed me to time add waves to crystal formation, AoE burst availability, etc.

Unfortunately, for SE this translates into "more Dive Bombs and clones of Final Liberation". Add control would be a good approach, but I've yet to see SE try it in a way that is not "here's something else for you to hit for a while".

Renauds in T7. And... that's kind of it, sadly.

[Hyperia]

"all healers are viable"

...

Tell that to the "Meta" crowd. As a WHM, I have been politely shown the door for Savage raiding, I can go SCH or AST but not WHM. The reason? WHMs have "poor utility" compared to the other healers and the raids don't require the burst healing of WHM offers. I can keep everybody alive on my WHM just fine but its not about healing anymore, its all about how much deepz you can do.

The last time I heard the quote "all healers are viable" was when AST was having problem in the 3.0 to 3.3 patches. Yes, to a degree, it was viable but the community didn't agree and in the end, that's all that matters. Yoshi can say WHM is viable all he wants but if the community disagrees, then it isn't plain and simple.

Sincerly,
A WHM being forced to hang up the cane.

[ChloeGrace]

"all healers are viable"
Tell that to the "Meta" crowd.

As someone who has felt the stigma attached to the jobs I enjoy the most (white mage, bard and paladin), this saddens me.
On all 3 of these jobs, I've been excluded from content by the community. It's not enough to just be viable.
A job needs to be designed to be competitive, and balanced with all other jobs in the same role. This is poor design, and I hold Yoshida and the devs 100% responsible for it.
SE has chosen to embrace the DPS meta, and failed to maintain job balance. I don't see it changing anytime soon, either. It will be a different shade of lipstick on the same pig over and over again, while the player base opts for whatever the current flavor-of-the-patch happens to be.
SE really doesn't give a sh*t, either, as long as they collect their 14.99 every month. If they did, we wouldn't have the mess we're in now.

[Dualgunner]

As someone who has felt the stigma attached to the jobs I enjoy the most (white mage, bard and paladin), this saddens me.
On all 3 of these jobs, I've been excluded from content by the community. It's not enough to just be viable.
A job needs to be designed to be competitive, and balanced with all other jobs in the same role. This is poor design, and I hold Yoshida and the devs 100% responsible for it.
SE has chosen to embrace the DPS meta, and failed to maintain job balance. I don't see it changing anytime soon, either. It will be a different shade of lipstick on the same pig over and over again, while the player base opts for whatever the current flavor-of-the-patch happens to be.
SE really doesn't give a sh*t, either, as long as they collect their 14.99 every month. If they did, we wouldn't have the mess we're in now.

The current optimum dps setup is DRG/NIN/BRD/MCH though.

[ChloeGrace]

The current optimum dps setup is DRG/NIN/BRD/MCH though.

Now. Back in 3.0, I was vote kicked before the first trash pull simply for showing up as bard.
Machinist was brutally bad when it first came out. So was AST, for that matter.
People who joined my savage PF would say, "Ugh WHM no thanks." and leave.
Paladin has been the red headed step child that no one wants since HW release.

All of this because, although they are viable, SE (re)designed the jobs and content horribly, causing the community to treat them like lepers.

[ToasterMan]

A WHM being forced to hang up the cane.

If SE fails to address the AST issue (And lets be real here they most likely will). It won't be just White Mages getting tossed out, There's a good chance Scholars will be joining them as well. The optimal raid setup for healers right now is double AST. Get ready to see it in the Omega raids. If it does happen, I'll quit healing. I'll pick Samurai up in the mean time.

Balance needs to be completely removed from this game and no healer should EVER be allowed to give a straight up damage buff ever again. In my opinion, White Mage needs a rework. The big heals identity just doesn't work. All healers need to be able to clear content and any healer worth their salt will be able to meet that healing requirement on the other jobs. Just healing in this game is very easy to be completely honest.