Balance the DPS or increase enrage timers.

[Kitfox]

A bard/mch not having a DRG in their party, does put them at a disadvantage.

The only thing which concerns me is, that MCH DPS depends alot from META (especially from DRG... that 5% piercing damage). No DRG, 5-6% less damage. No NIN, 2-3% less. Playing MCH in a group of SAM, BLM and MNK (or other random non-META-DPS) will result in about 10% less DPS, no matter how hard you try.

The above is only true for personal dps. If you look at the raid contribution MCH or BRD brings to the party, it does not change whether a DRG is present or not (outside of small gains in multiplier stacking). When looking at what you bring to the party, it's DRG who should be worried about not having ranged in the party, because their rdps contribution goes down the drain, and in fact it's much better to replace DRG with another class if there's no ranged classes present. MCH and BRD still provide the same raid dps regardless of party setup. Of course, if you have two ranged in the party, then DRGs' rdps contribution becomes the highest in the game and that's why you take a DRG, not because it makes MCH/BRD "better."

I think it's incredibly vain and selfish to think that your dps is only worth it when there's 5 other jobs lifting you up. MCH/BRD contribution to the party doesn't go down with non-meta setups, only your personal number, which is absolutely not the thing you should be looking at. It's much better to look at how useful you're to the party than your own e-peen.

[zuzu-bq]

I think it's incredibly vain and selfish to think that your dps is only worth it when there's 5 other jobs lifting you up. MCH/BRD contribution to the party doesn't go down with non-meta setups, only your personal number, which is absolutely not the thing you should be looking at. It's much better to look at how useful you're to the party than your own e-peen.

Although I don't agree with everything you said, people should understand this concept more.

[Karshan]

And a lot of "metaslaves" (people who care for meta outside of it's real purpose, records and speedkills) are not actual team thinkers. They just don't want to go in there without good team buffs and perform less on fflogs, but won't come out frankly about it ;P

[Kleeya]

Sadly your group contribution>personnal dps theory ins't worth a lot when most of parsers freaks are only looking at the pretty colors on the fflogs raids frontpage and nothing else. Hence healers i have seen that dont raise people, too busy launching stone spells, or tanks that like to play a bit defensely to protect the party correctly being told to drop it and being more agressive, even though the enrage would not have been meet anyway. Of course that when your MCH get kicked of a party because of not enough dps although the last raid has been achieved nicely, you dont want to join another group without a DRG and over useful buffs ever again. Especially when most of rosters you would want to join will reject you if they see too low parses on your fflogs page.

[Yeol]

All high endgame encounters have enrage. Each fight needs xxx amount of total raid dps in order to down it. This includes both tanks and healers dps. If you step into o7s and o8s during the first 4 weeks of this tier, you'll notice that even if dps are doing their job perfectly but healers and tanks are not pushing it, you will see enrage. This however is not an issue once your damage dealers are well geared.

If you look at week 1 savage clears, you'll notice that every job in this game have cleared it. You need good players, not better jobs.

The mentality behind meta needs to be explained over and over... It is not used for progression, it is used for speed kills. And you need very good players in order to achieve it. Just because you have a meta comp, it does not guarantee that you will down things easily. A simple raise from RDM can lead to a clear, I've seen this happening many, many times.

[Acidblood]

There won't be a major advantage or disadvantage no matter what setup you have. This type of trend gives a negative impression to specific jobs. We would appreciate if the community would stop being swayed by this trend.

... Yet it is the Devs themselves that constantly drive this mentality by making DPS the only thing that matters due to hard enrage, and worse, skipping key mechanics (e.g. Soar)... i.e. Doesn't matter how good your mitigation is (past a basic point), or how good your healing is (past a basic point), or how co-ordinated you are on mechanics (past a basic point), if you can't hit that magical rDPS it's a wipe.

And I know they have been making things easier so that more people can clear... but it would be far nicer (IMO) if bosses had a soft enrage that built up, i.e. increasing in damage and / or frequency, with each 'rotation' (think Titans' Stomps). This would create a much better balance and contrast between DPS and 'support' ability... for example:
- Paladin wouldn't need to do near as much DPS as DRK, as Passage of Arms, Divine Veil and Intervention would be able to get the group through another rotation, with WAR taking up the middle ground.
- WHMs design of high healing output could contrast better with ASTs design of lower healing but better support and higher rDPS, with SCH being somewhere in the middle (with a focus on mitigation).
- Abilities like Mantra and Nature's Minne (increased group healing), and the correct use of abilities like Troubadour would be far more generally useful.
- Even the DPS themselves could see a far greater contrast, with 'pure' DPS like BLM, SAM and (IMO what MCH should be) MCH able to push the boss harder, while others like NIN, BRD, and RDM could help the group survive longer, with DRG, MNK, and SMN occupying a middle ground (including being able to survive better themselves, e.g. Fists of Earth, what should be DRGs better than average armour, and SMNs Physick doing something worth a damn).

NB. Yes, high DPS could still be seen as the 'meta', but at least there would be an arguable alternative, especially if fights are designed in such a way as to make a maximum DPS composition the more difficult option (e.g. high boss damage output at various stages before 'enrage', and no way to 'skip Soar'), with lower DPS and higher survivability being generally easier (but obviously taking a bit longer due to going an extra round or three).

[Sylvain]

... Snip.

Agreed, but imo the problem doesn't really lie in the fact that there are enrage and "tight" dps check. (altough I agree, soft enrage are better imp, I like tsuku ones)

But more in the fact that between tank buster and/or aoe busters, there is simply not healing requirement.

Increase boss AA by 100~200% and you'll see you won't have much time to dps and your tank will think much more about mitigation.

Look at wow, 3~4sec without heal and your dead.

[Kabooa]

A) Why did you bring this back up

B) There is no gearing for mitigation like in WoW, so saying they'd think more about mitigation is wrong. Mitigation is largely about cooldown use. No cooldowns, no mitigation, no thinking required.

[AlphaDragoon]

will blm just stop asking for more party support / utility, god dammit (who are the $/&*%÷$ asking for it?... lol

if anything sam and blm need a big and slight buff, smn and mnk are still too close in many comps and fights dps wise (+ they contribute dps party buff + utility)..

Yup, I don't really need utility on SAM. I just want to hit like a nuclear bomb, that'd be enough for me. The fact that SAM only contributes damage yet isn't the flat-out, unapproachable king of personal damage for DPS (when two people of equal skill play) is dumb.

[Eszi]

Jobs are balanced enough.
Enough meaning that you can clear anything with any comp, as long as everyone in the party is somewhat decent.
People really like to overblow this thing, making it seem like you need a 100% meta comp to even get your weekly clears but its really not true.
If all you want is a clear, there's absolutely no reason to be picky, or do the "amg no dupes pl0x" that people in PF have started somewhat recently.
I have a suspicion that even if they hypothetically buffed SAM so that it can do, say 10k dps with current gear, people still wouldnt want one. Why? Because the game most people play is fflogs and FFXIV is just a 3rd party addon. Sure, you could have an assurance that dps won't be a problem, but the objective is no longer "get a clear". It's "get a good parse", and having someone else not buffing my dps isn't helping with that.