NIN is undertuned.

[Yandere-chan]

I'm pretty sure that data isn't based off of actual players doing damage, it's just what's required to beat the dummies, which means it's how much the devs expect the classes to do. We can only guess why they are set to what they are; it's not a given that this reflects actual personal dps from solid players with equal gear. Maybe certain classes can greatly exceed dev expectations in dummy tests due to perceived skill ceilings or rng elements they don't want players to have to meet.

Until you get the very best of each class with equal gear recorded in logs, and calculate what they contribute outside of personal dps, we won't really know how classes stack against one another.

I would assume though that utility classes are going to contribute the most in group activities to the point where you want at least one ninja or one dancer. Like, they sort of have to contribute more so long as you have one of them (perhaps diminished returns from having too many right?), or else they would just be complicating things for no gain. Like, if you can do the same group dmg with just a bunch of greedy dps as you can with a ninja being among them, then drop the ninja to remove the trick attack complication. No class should exist just to make the game more complicated for others. Increased difficulty should always lead to greater results. Difficulty needs to be rewarded with overall better output relative to it.

[ValStormbreaker]

No class should exist just to make the game more complicated for others. Increased difficulty should always lead to greater results. Difficulty needs to be rewarded with overall better output relative to it.

I don't exactly agree with this. This suggests that all jobs should be equally approachable. This is false. There are certainly jobs which are intended to ease entry into specific roles, but then there are other jobs which players find attractive due to their more demanding nature. This is how the game is designed, and I believe that lowering the skill ceiling punishes more skilled players, when the game should instead do better to raise the skill floor, hence why a Hall of the Intermediate was highly requested.

To give a more real example, my first caster was RDM. It's the simplest caster and the easiest to get into. After a while I got really bored of it, since my brain could go on autopilot and I could do the rotation in my sleep. This stopped being fun for me. I wanted something more demanding so I could feel actively engaged with the content, so I switched to BLM. Loved having to stay on top of that Enochian timer. Before SHB early access dropped I was giving SMN a whirl. Loved having lots of stuff to do and to juggle. Made me feel more consciously engaged with the game. As much as I'd love for RDM to have a low skill floor but a significantly higher skill ceiling, sadly this isn't the case. Instead the game is designed to have these entry-level jobs that can still be useful in endgame, but also have jobs which are designed for more advanced players to make the most of.

I gave up SAM for MNK for this same reason. I ♥ SB MNK. SAM is a great entry-level melee DPS but I needed something more. NIN was always on my radar to try out as my next melee job. I took a look at its complexity from how it looks on the outside as someone who has never really touched it, and immediately went "Ooooooohhh, that looks like fun,". Sadly other priorities got in the way so I haven't really gotten to leveling it yet.

Different players will be attracted to different jobs for different reasons. More demanding jobs like MNK and NIN will always be more demanding by nature. Watering it down to make it accessible always comes with more of a price than it's reasonably worth, largely you'll alienate the existing players who previously swore by the job, and newer players will feel discouraged from trying it or will find it boring. This is why the active MNK population is now lower than ever.

(continued in the next post due to character limitations)

[VanceKenyon]

I'm pretty sure that data isn't based off of actual players doing damage, it's just what's required to beat the dummies, which means it's how much the devs expect the classes to do. We can only guess why they are set to what they are; it's not a given that this reflects actual personal dps from solid players with equal gear. Maybe certain classes can greatly exceed dev expectations in dummy tests due to perceived skill ceilings or rng elements they don't want players to have to meet.

Until you get the very best of each class with equal gear recorded in logs, and calculate what they contribute outside of personal dps, we won't really know how classes stack against one another.

I would assume though that utility classes are going to contribute the most in group activities to the point where you want at least one ninja or one dancer. Like, they sort of have to contribute more so long as you have one of them (perhaps diminished returns from having too many right?), or else they would just be complicating things for no gain. Like, if you can do the same group dmg with just a bunch of greedy dps as you can with a ninja being among them, then drop the ninja to remove the trick attack complication. No class should exist just to make the game more complicated for others. Increased difficulty should always lead to greater results. Difficulty needs to be rewarded with overall better output relative to it.

I agree completely. So many people are making it sound like people are asking for NIN/DNC to do equal damage to SAM/BLM. That's not what's being asked for. Doing "equal" damage, but only as part of the 8 man meta means NIN/DNC add complexity to the raid with absolutely no reward. Better to just bring SAM/BLM/MCH and call it a day. NIN/DNC need to do well enough that they aren't competing directly with the no-utility heavy hitters, but aren't so far behind that bringing them becomes a serious question of whether their utility is worth their low PDPS. Right now I can only say DNC feels pretty weak compared to BRD/MCH. Like, 5% dps buff to one other and 5% to raid on a 2 minute CD doesn't feel like it's going to close the gap weak. Can't comment on NIN. I'm kind of okay with DNC being the lowest, lower than NIN. It's so easy to play and it brings decent support, there needs to be some trade off. I just think the gap is too wide at the moment is all, but we really won't know more for the next month or so and we know balance passes will be coming so it's a bit early to get worried.

[ValStormbreaker]

There's a great analysis video on Youtube by Core-A Gaming about the consequences of reducing the skill gap I highly recommend watching. While it most directly pertains to fighting games, the general principles apply to all kinds of games, including this one.

Ultimately, when you take away portions of a job's kit, you lower a skill ceiling, so even skilled players can only go so high until they hit that ceiling as their options are going to be far more limited as a consequence, and there's only so much they can do with what they have to work with. MNK mains are feeling this right now, big time. Henceforth, the idea of it being an "equal gear but coming down to player skill" sort of thing is getting skewed by removing options for skilled players to use, and shackling them down.

There are players who hate double-weaving, and there are players like me who live for it. I have played MNK at a skill speed north of 2300 and it's still too slow for me. I want it to be faster and more complex. That's not for everybody. Then again, a job with demanding positionals and timing isn't for everyone, either. I wouldn't want those to be removed just to cater to people who aren't into it. At a certain point you have to say to these people, "maybe the job just isn't for you," and call it a day. But when you try to make said job more accessible... that comes with a price, and that price is often too big for any individual job in this game to bear, if it wasn't designed as one of the entry-level jobs to begin with.

[Yandere-chan]

@ValStormBreaker What? I don't think you understood what I said. You can't make two classes, and the only difference be (aside from their aesthetic) that one has to work twice as hard for the same result. That's just bad design and will result in the easier job being more consistent and more flexible to raid mechanics. I don't think all classes should be the same difficulty, nor did I say that in any way shape or form. I'm not sure how you made that leap or why you made that leap. Some jobs should stand out in being more difficult, and as a result, have a higher ceiling, but at the cost of increased chance of failure under pressure. High risk, high reward vs. easy, consistent, and flexible. There is only so many ways you can balance classes while making them unique from one another, and this is a major way to do so. In regard to Ninja, making the group dynamics more complicated by needing to line up bursts with Trick Attack (and whatever else is going on) should result in better output than a set up without that (or an equivalent) complication, so long as the group is able to rise to the task.

[Rivxkobe]

Better to just bring SAM/BLM/MCH and call it a day.

Why would anyone take a SAM over DRG? Or MNK even?

And right now I think NIN dps is fine with Trick Attack. But we'll see.

[ForteNightshade]

Testing out NIN more now and... to my surprise, I may advocating for a buff. Unless it's a gear syncing issue, my i400 NIN couldn't out-dps a DRK in Bartem's Mettle (they were synced down with lvl77-79 gear). Now this may just be due to NIN lacking many of its new tricks but frankly, it's absurd to think synced below 70 you're essentially useless. Even at 71, the job still feels rather weak. I'm beginning to think the dev team vastly overestimated Meisui and didn't nearly compensate enough for the loss of Dripping Blades.

I'll need to get both DRG and NIN to 80 for some direct comparisons at their highest potential but it's more than a little concerning for NIN right now.

[Laur1x]

And right now I think NIN dps is fine with Trick Attack. But we'll see.

It's really not. I'm used to NIN being in the bottom, but the difference wasn't this drastic. Being 10-15% behind all other melee is not fine, TA doesn't make up for that much.

Testing out NIN more now and... to my surprise, I may advocating for a buff. Unless it's a gear syncing issue, my i400 NIN couldn't out-dps a DRK in Bartem's Mettle (they were synced down with lvl77-79 gear). Now this may just be due to NIN lacking many of its new tricks but frankly, it's absurd to think synced below 70 you're essentially useless. Even at 71, the job still feels rather weak. I'm beginning to think the dev team vastly overestimated Meisui and didn't nearly compensate enough for the loss of Dripping Blades.

I'll need to get both DRG and NIN to 80 for some direct comparisons at their highest potential but it's more than a little concerning for NIN right now.

Can confirm, seems like we were tuned for 80 and only 80 content. Something is not right with NIN right now. I'm unsure what genius decided removing dripping blades and not compensating for it was thinking, because those potency buffs were merely a blanket DPS increase for losing slashing. Also don't understand why they didn't make our new ST-Mudra just be an enhanced Fuma instead of Hyoton so we don't have to clip our GCD's like crazy again.

I'm just leveling some other jobs, if we don't see buffs by savage I'm benching NIN. Seeing tanks slowly creep up to my pDPS when my burst windows are over is pathetic. I don't mind being a TA bot, but if I play with perfect execution with this convoluted opener/rotation, I expect to be somewhat competitive in damage (not top, but not barely above tanks either).

[Kerrigen]

I agree that NIN does feel pretty weak for the effort you actually need to be putting into it. Its playstyle and current rotation are amazingly crafted and a lot of fun, but it's exhausting to play right compared to the other DPS I've tried and I'm not certain the reward is going to be worth the effort.

[Hydrium]

There's a great analysis video on Youtube by Core-A Gaming about the consequences of reducing the skill gap I highly recommend watching. While it most directly pertains to fighting games, the general principles apply to all kinds of games, including this one.

Ultimately, when you take away portions of a job's kit, you lower a skill ceiling, so even skilled players can only go so high until they hit that ceiling as their options are going to be far more limited as a consequence, and there's only so much they can do with what they have to work with. MNK mains are feeling this right now, big time. Henceforth, the idea of it being an "equal gear but coming down to player skill" sort of thing is getting skewed by removing options for skilled players to use, and shackling them down.

There are players who hate double-weaving, and there are players like me who live for it. I have played MNK at a skill speed north of 2300 and it's still too slow for me. I want it to be faster and more complex. That's not for everybody. Then again, a job with demanding positionals and timing isn't for everyone, either. I wouldn't want those to be removed just to cater to people who aren't into it. At a certain point you have to say to these people, "maybe the job just isn't for you," and call it a day. But when you try to make said job more accessible... that comes with a price, and that price is often too big for any individual job in this game to bear, if it wasn't designed as one of the entry-level jobs to begin with.

I know the video you're talking about and I agree with that video a lot however I don't agree with its usage here, fighting games are competitive we fight against each other to achieve our goal of winning, when you lower the skill ceiling in a competitive game it dilutes the pool and allows lower skill players to compete with higher skill players, that's counter productive in a competitive game because the sole reason you're fighting is to find out who is better.

FFXIV is a collaborative game, we all work together to achieve our goal of winning, having a class that has a lower skill ceiling is actually a good thing because it allows more players into the game, if the mechanical cost of entry is too high then sure, you'll be left with nothing but the best players but the community will suffer for it. Having a low skill class allows those lower skill players (or just anyone in general, I swapped to DNC because I like proc based classes) to tag along to help with accomplishing the main goal, winning.

There should be classes with skill ceilings for all play types and skill levels, the tuning needs to reward the higher skill classes with "more" of whatever it's bringing but not enough that the community shuns all others for them, maybe around 3%.