My suggestion for how to fix the current "Synergy Stacking" meta.

[Zerathor]

There's a much easier 3 step solution:
* Remove Disembowel
* Buff all drg potencies by 5%
* Buff mch potencies by 3%

Job combinations would be lenient enough off those changes alone. The differences in other comps outputs would be close enough to almost be ignored.

Inb4 bard tears. Let's be real here, even taking a 5% loss on your personal damage, brd would still be the star child dps every group wants because their contribution would still be high enough to outweigh that personal loss, while still having the most insane support ability kit on a dps. If anything, be glad brd wouldn't be shackled to needing a drg.

[Remedi]

What if heat makes so MCH weaponskills are fire non piercing attacks?

[HyoMinPark]

Totaly right.

I don't know why so much players bother about 10% over 10s over a 10min battle, it's so little.

If you looked at raid DPS calculators, you would see why. In a good group, TA can give ~900 rDPS to 7 other people. This game is all about damage, since healing is overpowered, and enmity is a joke for any tank that knows a proper opener. The only thing left to focus on for tanks and healers is damage, just like the 4 DPS in the party. So the meta stacks rBuffs to give the party more damage.

That being said, Disembowel is the real culprit in terms of the current meta at hand—where as TA can give anywhere from 90 DPS to 150 DPS to a single person, Disembowel gives ~300 DPS: it’s +5% damage for the entirety of the fight, which is why BRDs and MCHs that care about their damage will always want a DRG with them, and any group running BOTH BRD/MCH would be out of their mind to not bring a DRG for that +~600 free rDPS.


As for the OP’s suggestion, I disagree with it, mainly on the account that resistance down debuffs should not even be included in these new “role actions”. They are all redundant at this point, with only BRD/MCH being unable to apply their own, and should be removed entirely in 5.0 — with minor adjustments to DRG’s damage, since they will be severely hurting at that point, and maybe a slight tweak to at least MCH, who is already getting replaced in speed kill comps by BLM or SMN, and who severely lacks in both utility and damage. BRD may have low damage, but it is the master of utility (and always has been since 2.0) so it can at least compensate in some shape or form.

It is also worth considering that this would just cause more of the same issues that the current role actions have for some jobs, in which there are no “options” in terms of what to bring, only the illusion of it. For example: physical ranged have 2 mandatory skills (Refresh and Tactician), 1 semi-mandatory skill (Palisade—for physical damage), and 2 skills that they usually prefer to have at all times (Second Wind and Invigorate); the remaining skills are either useless in combat (SWIFTSONG—never not going to call Peloton that), highly situational (Head Graze), or completely useless (Leg Graze, Arm Graze, Foot Graze—I put Arm Graze in here not because the stun is worthless per say, but that it’s never been used since 4.0 launched, and other jobs already have stun options—only physical ranged have a silence outside of NIN’s Jugulate, and tanks can bring something more useful to them instead of Interject). Adding something like Foe Requiem to their arsenal would just further remove the illusion of optional role action skills, and put another mandatory skill in there.

Give damage type debuffs to a couple other classes.

Literally the only two that don’t have them are BRD/MCH—all other DPS (and WAR) can apply the resistance downs the buff their own damage. And since Yoshida has already said that he is not okay with BRD/MCH being OP and having their own piercing (yet perfectly fine with them being OP with a DRG in the party), they aren’t getting their respective damage downs. And if they did, then the debuffs are just redundant since they will never not be on a boss. Might as well remove them from the game from that point.

Sure you can argue to give piercing to RDM, but I would be more for just removing them entirely. They were something that should have gone with 4.0’s release, rather than have 1 nerfed by 5%—which didn’t destroy the physical meta at all until BLM and SMN began to pull enough damage to replace MCH (BRD didn’t go anywhere).

What if heat makes so MCH weaponskills are fire non piercing attacks?

That still doesn’t answer the piercing problem with regards to BRD, or with MCH’s other active time this is not spent Overheating. I stand by what I keep telling you in other threads—remove the resistence downs. They offer no synergy other than 1 comp, which people have been complaining about for almost 2 years. Get rid of them.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Personally as someone who grew up with fighting games and RTSes, I don't understand why some speed-oriented players are so insistent on having SE balance the game for them.

Because they recognize the trickle down effect. Less skilled players are going to look at the better players and structure their own groups around them, thus you see certain jobs locked out. This also impacts recruitment. You see less and less groups willing to accept Samurais right now because they're woefully inferior to any of their melee counterparts, assuming equal skill. Furthermore, you do not have to be a speed kill 99% static to care about your performance. Currently, Bard and Machinist severe immensely without a Dragoon. I certainly cannot begrudge people who play those respective jobs feeling disappointed when no other job suffers such a damage loss with no trade off. Despite the meme, most players complain do not necessarily want certain jobs to be meta, they want them to be more competitive.

"Job identity" is a poor excuse. Samurai's "job identity" was supposed to be high damage yet all three melee contribute more than an equally skilled Samurai. The devs have an entire different perspective on how we play than how we actually do. Hence Yoshida's recent lament over how infrequent Warrior's use Defiance. They've given us virtually no reason to touch it outside pulls. Therefore, we don't.

Making a new meta changes nothing people will get on that train leaving any classes that fall out of that meta behind. There's no fixing a meta because in this game there's nothing wrong with it. Your issues with it are community based the game is pretty well balanced

If this were true, why has Summoner clawed its way into speed kill groups? Why does Monk has a pretty decent representation despite Dragoon and Ninja being superior? People will accept jobs which are close enough to one another that a slight loss won't be as noticeable.

[Okamimaru]

To truely fix the meta you need to remove slashing, blunt, piercing buffs and party buffs... then balance them around damage vs mobility...

[Remedi]

That still doesn’t answer the piercing problem with regards to BRD, or with MCH’s other active time this is not spent Overheating. I stand by what I keep telling you in other threads—remove the resistence downs. They offer no synergy other than 1 comp, which people have been complaining about for almost 2 years. Get rid of them.

I keep telling that it will simply shift the blame to something else, look let's just not start again, we don't agree with this