sorry but your job sucks.....

[Bourne_Endeavor]

-Disembowel is a perfect example: there is NO reason that after all this time BRD/MCH should not be able to apply their own piercing down, in fact it's ridiculous that they can't.

If they do that, then why does Piercing even exist? It will always be active provided all jobs able to apply it are alive. This is why I find debuffs like Piercing and Slashing poor design. They require no thought nor player input outside of "do your rotation properly."

[zuzu-bq]

If they do that, then why does Piercing even exist? It will always be active provided all jobs able to apply it are alive. This is why I find debuffs like Piercing and Slashing poor design. They require no thought nor player input outside of "do your rotation properly."

Old slashing design was actually very poor, playing as NIN without a WAR was terrible and making PLD DRK duo even more unviable that they already were. Current slashing is somewhat fine, mostly because it's hard to have a party composition that has a bad application of slashing. Blunt causes no problems because only MNK has it.

[Llugen]

Doing the rotation properly is important so I see no issue, to be honest. Someone also suggested that BRD/MCH get a separate “combo” that leads to piercing but it’s “better” for DRG to just do it, much like WAR/NIN currently, so at least there is an OPTION

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Old slashing design was actually very poor, playing as NIN without a WAR was terrible and making PLD DRK duo even more unviable that they already were. Current slashing is somewhat fine, mostly because it's hard to have a party composition that has a bad application of slashing. Blunt causes no problems because only MNK has it.

That's my point though. Blunt is wholly irrelevant as a debuff because there is no scenario where it won't be active. Slashing is better now in the sense most who benefit from it also apply it, but that just makes it redundant and boring.

Doing the rotation properly is important so I see no issue, to be honest. Someone also suggested that BRD/MCH get a separate “combo” that leads to piercing but it’s “better” for DRG to just do it, much like WAR/NIN currently, so at least there is an OPTION

As noted above, there is no scenario where you aren't going to apply these debuffs. I'd rather see them do something interest, otherwise just get rid of all three of them and be done with it since they serve no purpose.

[zuzu-bq]

Oh! You said permanent debuffs are bad in general. Gotcha. Yeah, guess we agree on that haha. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[Ceallach]

this is not true, yes they would share buffs but there play styles would still be very much intact.

pressing a buff button does not distinguish a job from any other job.

Then let's follow your "solution" to its logical conclusion.

Let's take all of the two-minute recast buffs out of the game and add more ways to do damage over time. Summoners are already the top DPS Disciple of Magic job right now. They would lose Aetherpact/Devotion and gain Miasma II and another Bio spell, so they'd play more like they did in Heavensward. This is worse, not better, because you're literally just giving the summoner more damage when they're already not where they belong (on top) while removing a party buff that's literally only 2% more damage. That means even just Bio III would go from 510 potency overall to its original 500 overall, so any new damage over time ability would literally outperform Aetherpact/Devotion either on-hit or with one tick. I'm sure the current gaps would also only widen for Disciples of War.

Let's take the slashing and piercing debuffs out of the game. The blunt debuff doesn't matter because it literally only benefits monks (unless machinists' damage counts as blunt instead of piercing because bullets aren't necessarily pointed). But we're going to add more damage over time abilities, so you're actually increasing the overall DPS of everything unless such abilities are so weak they simply aren't used (see scholar's Miasma II right now unless we're talking about hitting a lot of enemies with one cast). This means you are again giving everyone more DPS in the name of "equality." This is a bad idea. The actual main problem with specific types of physical damage is the fact this isn't FINAL FANTASY XI, in which you could stay on your job and be able to use different weapons. Samurai could use bows and polearms in addition to the great katana (their main weapon), for example, so they were good at both slashing and piercing damage. But things like Trick Attack and Embolden are fine because they buff whom they're supposed to buff at the very least and in the way you want to buff them. What's next, take away the damage output support buffs from the bard, even though that's literally what bards are supposed to do?

Let's add more role action slots so we can all have more buttons to press than we already do, which is exactly what Square Enix wanted to avoid. This is completely contrary to what most people want. This is definitely contrary to what Square Enix wants.

Let's continue developing the jobs in this way, so that soon warriors will become immune to damage, dark knights will have a blinding spell and paladins will pin enemies down with their swords. Eventually there wouldn't be "identity," just glamour. You'd only be a dragoon because you looked like one, but in terms of actually playing the game, you'd just press all the same buttons as everyone else in the same order as everyone else from generally the same positions as everyone else, and you'd very likely be doing exactly the same amount of damage as everyone else. This cannot happen. I've seen this happen to other kinds of games, and those games died as a result. No one's going to care what job you are because they're all the same. That will make the game stale, not more interesting.

I'm sure you want an actual solution, but the fact is we pretty much already have one, and that's the same solution games like League of Legends use: a rotating meta. Jobs become better or worse depending on encounters added to the game, changes made to how the jobs play or often anything else, and this causes some jobs to be higher in demand than others. That demand shifts based on what's needed for the current endgame content, which also shifts. Did people want black mages in older raids with lots of enemies? Probably not, unless there was already a summoner present, and even then they were better off with Disciples of War.

Now, none of this means I think the game's perfect the way it is. Black mages can stand to do more damage or gain some kind of utility, for example. But I can also pretty much guarantee your method is absolutely horrible and should never be given a second glance. I don't mean that to be offensive, but from my own experience, there isn't a better way to describe your approach. I do agree with just one thing, however, and that is black mages should not get a Raise equivalent. It's true you can make anything fit with the lore if you write it well, but it's also true black mages throughout the series' history have only ever had one support action, which was Temper back in FINAL FANTASY for the NES. It made an ally do more physical damage. Quite frankly, it would be a slap in the face of all fans of the series to give the black mage even something like necromancy. They've literally never done support beyond a single spell in the very first game. This idea should never be brought up again.

[PrismaticDaybreak]

Whoa, careful with suggesting that. BLM not having a raise just means you're short sighted and unimaginative, not that you care about the lore of the game or anything. Or the fact that Yoshi-P downright laughed at the idea.

More on topic, putting any of these supposed debuffs in cross-role wouldn't do anything, it'd just make another mandatory cross-role skill and SE already decided they weren't adding any more slots for it. We need more diverse debuffs tbh, there's only one source of magic vulnerability in the game and the one class the applies it takes up the only magic DPS slot. Furthermore the meta comp wouldn't change much if at all. You'd still have one of each DPS type and the last slot would belong to whoever brings the highest rDPS contribution.

[Joe777]

To those saying Freeze is useless: It's actually stronger than Fire II in potency. Dungeon-wise it has more use at lower levels, just like Sleep where you can actually put enemies to sleep. There is a fine line between useless at high levels and useless period. Sure it'd be nice if all abilities maintained use always but even if Sleep was revived for high level content it's still a DPS game people play and simply letting them sleep while Thunder and other DoTs tick will not mesh with many people. Also if you want Freeze to be more useful it will have to be as useful as Blizzard III is in transitioning between Astral Fire and Umbral Ice. As for BLM not having a life spell: Totally legit and would be completely out of its element if it did have one, regardless of how useful it would be to it. In fact, a res from a Black Mage would have no real repercussion barring personal DPS loss since Black Mage essentially has infinite MP, and therefore people dying in groups with a Black Mage would be less penalizing, even taking Weakness into account.

[Sandpark]

That's my point though. Blunt is wholly irrelevant as a debuff because there is no scenario where it won't be active. Slashing is better now in the sense most who benefit from it also apply it, but that just makes it redundant and boring.

As noted above, there is no scenario where you aren't going to apply these debuffs. I'd rather see them do something interest, otherwise just get rid of all three of them and be done with it since they serve no purpose.

There is no scenario any job buff won't be active, it's called not using your entire kit. And slashing being more beneficial because more jobs can apply the same useful debuff is a step towards homogeneity, of course it would be bland.

Something interesting. The older sister mmo did this by giving special weaknesses to certain enemies. Monk blunt would deal greater damage to skeletons, dragoons would deal greater damage to dragons, paladin would deal greater to undead, dark knight would deal greater damage to magical based enemies, and so on. Even though they dealt more damage based versus certain enemies, most often other jobs could deal above decent damage to enemies they did not specialize in. Some bosses had phases where only one type of trait would work each phase or be reflected.

If anything, every job having the same debuff would defeat the purpose of applying it, at that point might as well make it a global passive.

My fix:

1. Have debuffs designed to boost the innate skills of your job only and not effect other party members.
2. A two sided effect to each debuff, on one hand you can use it every fight for some usefulness, but also can give a job an additional slight edge depending on the enemy fought.

Example:
Monk:
Blunt debuff-
Decreases blunt resistance against any enemy solely for the monk, always works.
Damage and crit rate against certain enemies gains an additional +5 percent , affects monk solely.
Brotherhood now grants the blunt debuff to party members during brotherhood

Dragoon:
Piercing debuff-
Decreases piercing resistance against any enemy solely for the dragoon, always works.
Damage and crit rate against certain enemies gains an additional +5 percent , affects dragoon solely.
Battle Litany now grants the litany debuff to party members during Battle Litany

Black Mage:
Empower-
Decreases magic resistance against any enemy solely for the blm, always works.
Damage and crit rate against certain enemies gains an additional +5 percent , affects blm solely.
Empower now grants the empower debuff to party members during empower

So it looks like

1. A debuff you always use for sole usage for first effect
2. A debuff that sometimes gives you an edge over another job depending on the enemy
3. A debuff that for a short time you can transfer it over to other jobs.
4. The damage and crit rate only gets boosted on certain enemies and can be shared during your jobs brotherhood type moment
5. Since the damage and crit rate will only apply for certain enemies and is not a global always work debuff, certain jobs will not always preferred over another but sometimes will.

With the global utility mantra, some jobs are always preferred over others in raids, more so if the numbers granted of the boon are big. But if it always works regardless of the scenario, then they will be king or other jobs will want the same thing. Might as well make it a global passive in that case.

[Cynfael]

To those saying Freeze is useless: It's actually stronger than Fire II in potency. Dungeon-wise it has more use at lower levels, just like Sleep where you can actually put enemies to sleep. There is a fine line between useless at high levels and useless period. Sure it'd be nice if all abilities maintained use always but even if Sleep was revived for high level content it's still a DPS game people play and simply letting them sleep while Thunder and other DoTs tick will not mesh with many people. Also if you want Freeze to be more useful it will have to be as useful as Blizzard III is in transitioning between Astral Fire and Umbral Ice. As for BLM not having a life spell: Totally legit and would be completely out of its element if it did have one, regardless of how useful it would be to it. In fact, a res from a Black Mage would have no real repercussion barring personal DPS loss since Black Mage essentially has infinite MP, and therefore people dying in groups with a Black Mage would be less penalizing, even taking Weakness into account.

As a rule, if you need to cite low-level examples to explain how an ability can be useful, it is generally useless.

I don’t think it’s okay or that it’s good design that Freeze’s uses are so incredibly niche while leveling and virtually non-existent thereafter.

I agree with you that any change to Sleep to make it useful in current content would have to go beyond simply allowing it to work.