What is the Caster Role for 5.0 Going Forward and Where is balance?

[Taranok]

I'm of opposite mind to Tanarok. No DPS should ever be focused around an ability to heal, and in essence that is what raise is: a 25% HP heal that can only target incapacitated party members. Instead, casters should be focused on having overwhelming power: to quote Zyneste, glass cannons. I can't speak for anyone else, but when I play spellcasters, my goal is to be a destructive force of nature and not a back-up healer. IMO, SMN raise and RDM raise should be shackled or outright removed from the game, and both their damage potentials raised to compensate.

Okay, but right now BLM doesn't have it and that's a serious consideration to have when you flat out don't have res utility on the caster DPS slot, since not having it puts a ton of pressure on the healers during prog or, on the flip side, removes a ton of pressure from healers if you happen to have a double caster group with smn/rdm.

The current situation is bad though and BLM suffers more for lack of it than it would suffer because of having it.

Also, there is not and can never be such a thing as "glass cannon" in FFXIV because of the way encounters and healing is designed. Fundamentally, every DPS is a glass cannon in the game because of this, even if some of them do more damage than others. Every DPS dies to the same things usually, they can survive the same things, the only difference is whether you have Manaward or nothing at all.

Res utility isn't a caster thing though.

Res was a SMN thing because it was an Arcanist thing, because of SCH.
RDM has a res, because it's a Red Mage.
BLM came before both of them.

If we get a fourth caster, it shouldn't, and there's no reason why it should, have a res.

But I'm fine with it being this way.

Physical Ranged DPS have a gradient of utility, from MCH having least, to DNC having most.
A similar paradigm for casters works well too, BLM least, RDM most.

No, it's a caster thing. 2 of the 3 casters have it, and Arcanist got in combat resurrections before you could even be a Scholar. The inclusion of Red Mage more or less sealed res utility being a thing on casters since they added it at a time when they were starting to remove abilities they didn't want SMN to have that was there because of scholar. So because of that, it ended up being caster utility.

Sure, you can remove it, or you can keep it, but as long as the majority of casters have it, any caster not having it is a serious balance problem and motivation against taking that class.

And the type of utility I'm talking about on ranged is Shield Samba. It's a baseline thing that all of them take that's very powerful. 2 of 3 casters have something in the same vein, the third does not.

[SaberMaxwell]

Okay, but right now BLM doesn't have it and that's a serious consideration to have when you flat out don't have res utility on the caster DPS slot, since not having it puts a ton of pressure on the healers during prog or, on the flip side, removes a ton of pressure from healers if you happen to have a double caster group with smn/rdm.

First let me say that removing raise from casters likewise removes this consideration. My entire point is that the caster role shouldn't be defined by healer abilities and support like raising. That's the healer's job in my opinion, plain and simple.

The current situation is bad though and BLM suffers more for lack of it than it would suffer because of having it.

The state of Red Mage's MP actually has my Red Mage not doing any of the raising whatsoever in EX level content right now. Both healers handle any and all raises unless both Swiftcasts are down, it's one of the healers that died, or it's both of the healers that died. The Red Mage handling any more than that runs them OoM and at the point they're OoM, they're worse than dead.

My Red Mage has actually started leveling Black Mage because, "I do less damage because I have a utility that I can't use in most practical situations. I'm a weaker Black Mage, so I might as well level Black Mage."

So as far as Black Mage suffering because it's "the caster without a raise," at the current moment (I don't know about Summoner), Red Mages are watered down Black Mages because they have the raise. Which again goes back to just getting rid of raise on casters entirely; it's not a DPS's job to have to worry about that.

Also, there is not and can never be such a thing as "glass cannon" in FFXIV because of the way encounters and healing is designed. Fundamentally, every DPS is a glass cannon in the game because of this, even if some of them do more damage than others. Every DPS dies to the same things usually, they can survive the same things, the only difference is whether you have Manaward or nothing at all.

You have a point... until you start telling me some of those glass cannons should do less damage because they can also repair other glass cannons in a pinch. It's not a cannon's job to fix a cannon.

[Kurando]

Which again goes back to just getting rid of raise on casters entirely; it's not a DPS's job to have to worry about that.
.

To be fair we could say this about any job in the game. PLD shouldn't be using Clemency as it's the healer's job to worry about that, or RDM/DNC/BRD shouldn't be providing heal/esuna support as again it's the healers job. A number of role actions cause several jobs to have access to the same thing, again causing toe stepping on who should or shouldn't be doing things. Granted these are not the same as Raise, but we can't be isolating certain hybrid jobs just because some other jobs can't do the same thing, they all have specific strengths to make up for shortcomings. FFXI was pretty heavy in jobs doing multiple things, should be nothing new for XIV.

[SaberMaxwell]

To be fair we could say this about any job in the game. PLD shouldn't be using Clemency as it's the healer's job to worry about that, or RDM/DNC/BRD shouldn't be providing heal/esuna support as again it's the healers job. A number of role actions cause several jobs to have access to the same thing, again causing toe stepping on who should or shouldn't be doing things. Granted these are not the same as Raise, but we can't be isolating certain hybrid jobs just because some other jobs can't do the same thing, they all have specific strengths to make up for shortcomings. FFXI was pretty heavy in jobs doing multiple things, should be nothing new for XIV.

Beyond that XIV and XI are very different games, the thrust of this comes down to "These are not the same as Raise." Raise is a strong enough utility that we're even having this conversation; it goes beyond the PLD or RDM being able to sacrifice an entire GCD of damage for healing. Raise is a very specific ability; it's a single-target heal that can target incapacitated players. With casters as they are now, Taranok has a point: Black Mage is at a disadvantage being the only caster that has no access to it. With 66% of the role having it, the role is starting to get defined by it. The caster DPS role is being defined by raising, which is ostensibly a healer utility. It shouldn't be, which is my point.

Casters should be walking nuke factories, not back-up healers. Sure, part of the flavor of RDM is they're part White Mage; if that's the excuse that says they have to have raise, then whatever. Restrict it to a 60s oGCD then remove it from Summoner entirely would be an okay compromise; RDM keeps this weird niche of "It can raise real good!", do pitiful damage and never get taken into raid anyway, and the caster role can stop being defined by raising.

[Seraphor]

Okay, but right now BLM doesn't have it and that's a serious consideration to have when you flat out don't have res utility on the caster DPS slot, since not having it puts a ton of pressure on the healers during prog or, on the flip side, removes a ton of pressure from healers if you happen to have a double caster group with smn/rdm.

The current situation is bad though and BLM suffers more for lack of it than it would suffer because of having it.

Also, there is not and can never be such a thing as "glass cannon" in FFXIV because of the way encounters and healing is designed. Fundamentally, every DPS is a glass cannon in the game because of this, even if some of them do more damage than others. Every DPS dies to the same things usually, they can survive the same things, the only difference is whether you have Manaward or nothing at all.



No, it's a caster thing. 2 of the 3 casters have it, and Arcanist got in combat resurrections before you could even be a Scholar. The inclusion of Red Mage more or less sealed res utility being a thing on casters since they added it at a time when they were starting to remove abilities they didn't want SMN to have that was there because of scholar. So because of that, it ended up being caster utility.

Sure, you can remove it, or you can keep it, but as long as the majority of casters have it, any caster not having it is a serious balance problem and motivation against taking that class.

And the type of utility I'm talking about on ranged is Shield Samba. It's a baseline thing that all of them take that's very powerful. 2 of 3 casters have something in the same vein, the third does not.

BLM is not suffering in any way. All the top EX clears have one now.
It's 'glass canon' role comes into play as a turret, rather than having less HP/defense. Which means it's vulnerability is entirely dependent on player skill.

And before RDM, there was 1 caster with a Res. It's not a caster thing.

If you give BLM a res, it's DPS gets nerfed, that's the reality.
Nerf BLM DPS and it becomes useless, because of its playstyle. THEN it will suffer as MNK/SAM will always be chosen over BLM for DPS, and SMN/RDM will always be chosen over BLM for mobility/utility.
BLM's USP right now is its high DPS.

[TimeraiderGaranyi]

BLM is not suffering in any way. All the top EX clears have one now.
It's 'glass canon' role comes into play as a turret, rather than having less HP/defense. Which means it's vulnerability is entirely dependent on player skill.

And before RDM, there was 1 caster with a Res. It's not a caster thing.

If you give BLM a res, it's DPS gets nerfed, that's the reality.
Nerf BLM DPS and it becomes useless, because of its playstyle. THEN it will suffer as MNK/SAM will always be chosen over BLM for DPS, and SMN/RDM will always be chosen over BLM for mobility/utility.
BLM's USP right now is its high DPS.

Its not high though atm. Not compared to the other DPS.
Thats the issue XD

[DaulBan]

Its not high though atm. Not compared to the other DPS.
Thats the issue XD

BLM is the DPS with far and away the highest DPS though.

Just a small nitpick, BLM only takes top spot after 70th percentile on Innocence EX, but you are mostly right, we BLMs have nothing to complain at level 80 content right now (low level BLM sucks tho) performance is great and the jobs feels just right to play.

Sort of irrelevant. Sub-80th percentile is, given the competitive level of fflogs, generally a failing of your ability to perform the basic duties of your job and maintaining your ABCs. If you're dying and not playing the job correctly that shouldn't really be taken into consideration for whether a job is 'good enough' in the way Timeraider is talking. There's a separate consideration for skill floors and ceilings, but saying BLM doesn't do well (ie, isn't topping other jobs by notable margins at reasonable percentiles) because you personally might not be doing well is similar to saying tanks should be nerfed because you personally are doing less dps than them in a dungeon.

BLM is currently very competitive at a farm level, and (hopefully) can continue to maintain that level going forward. it's likely to be a pain during prog but that's nothing new, and it's likely it will become the best caster when prog is over. That being said I'm not sure what the magic numbers are for SMN and RDM going forward to have similar performance. They're already better during prog, but as someone else in this thread pointed out it's not necessarily fair to pay the prog tax forever. At the same time there's a reason we can gear multiple jobs, and it's not unreasonable to prog on one job and switch to another (I personally might go MCH first then swap to BLM when we're done for example).