Time for a public test server?

[JunseiKei]

Stress testing servers would be better than PTRs. This isn't Blizzard that will nerf and buff something just because someone sneezed. Honestly, the team already has in mind how the classes are supposed to work. We see "balances" when the playerbase fails to meet the performance needed to play the class well (3.0 and AST). Very few classes get any balances, just tweeks (like BRD and making Minuet instant, but with a cooldown when it was originally a stance that took 3 seconds to cast like it was a song). They fixed the Raw Intuition bug pretty quickly.

[Kazrah]

Honestly, the team already has in mind how the classes are supposed to work. We see "balances" when the playerbase fails to meet the performance needed to play the class well (3.0 and AST). Very few classes get any balances, just tweeks (like BRD and making Minuet instant, but with a cooldown when it was originally a stance that took 3 seconds to cast like it was a song). They fixed the Raw Intuition bug pretty quickly.

They also fixed Minuet and Gauss Barrel quickly too after theorycrafters figured out that both of those buffs were actually DPS losses right after launch due to a failure in factoring in the loss of auto-attack damage.

That's exactly why we need at least more open testing of job-based content. They can explain the overall goal for how each job is supposed to work, but only players can really show how that job works in practical application.

[JunseiKei]

Yes, yes it is. It's players that figure out things that the dev miss and notice certain classes being over or under powered and making efforts to fix them.

On Blizzard's test server for WoW they allow players to test everything coming up, ALL the content, all the raids and dungeons, and allow players to use the numbers and gear to help the devs balance things, there's spoilers and all of the surprises are removed ahead of time. Know what? That's the way I prefer it, believe it or not I actually hate surprises. Especially when it comes to things like new abilities and numbers, I want to know EVERY change, EVERY number, EVERY mechanic, and all of that ahead of time so I know what to expect.

The devs need to stop being so restrictive and just let players in to test the content and use parsers to determine where things are messed up or don't work right. It's definitely a lesson they need to learn from Blizzard. If you don't want to be spoiled, fine, don't go on the PTR and don't read the posts about it on the forums. Keep yourself away from any sort of information you don't want, but for the rest of us? I say the devs should let us in to see what's up.

That would kill all the fun for people like me and would mean you'd have to utterly disconnect yourself from anyone and everyone you know that went into PTR and wanted to talk about it. That's the just the tip of the iceberg on that, but I'll just boil it down to a difference of bias between us and people like us.

They also fixed Minuet and Gauss Barrel quickly too after theorycrafters figured out that both of those buffs were actually DPS losses right after launch due to a failure in factoring in the loss of auto-attack damage.

That's exactly why we need at least more open testing of job-based content. They can explain the overall goal for how each job is supposed to work, but only players can really show how that job works in practical application.

*Rubs chin.*

From when I was playing then and what I understood that it was known that stance dancing was required on BRD and MCH and not meant to be a set and forget mechanic. However, this made both classes largely undesirable so they tweaked it to be more appealing. Hence why I stated, also, Minuet being used like a song, but having no cooldown to having a cooldown, but can instantly switch back into it.

Literally, Yoshida's post was:
-We know the damage while in Minuet is not comparable to when you are not in Minuet;
-It's hard to feel like you're getting a positive return switching in and out of Minuet, especially when you keep your mobility outside of it;
-That switching, overall, was just hard to use.

Nowhere in the post did it imply that it was a bug or a bad judgement, only that it made players feel it was more work for what felt like little gain.

I actually find it amusing that 4.0 seems to be re-visiting the idea they had behind BRD being a stance dancer with the song gauge.