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

[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.

[Warlyx]

i agree with the OP

blm is the dps caster , it has no rez but who cares u have 2 instant rezs already every min (there is always 2 healers )
smn no clue but looks like tons of issues
rdm is the stepchild , because it can "possible" rez fast (what if isnt needed at all?) the dmg is subpar.

why would any1 bring smn or rdm when u have better options? MCH/brd bring dmg with 100% movility , dnc bring support , blm brings top dmg.

rough times for rdm smn .

[TraeSnow]

i agree with the OP

blm is the dps caster , it has no rez but who cares u have 2 instant rezs already every min (there is always 2 healers )
smn no clue but looks like tons of issues
rdm is the stepchild , because it can "possible" rez fast (what if isnt needed at all?) the dmg is subpar.

why would any1 bring smn or rdm when u have better options? MCH/brd bring dmg with 100% movility , dnc bring support , blm brings top dmg.

rough times for rdm smn .

In a raid scenario, BLM would have to be the "main dps" due to it's playstyle. Typically in a party without a BLM, strategy is based around melee up time with ranged DPS doing any mechanics that would allow melee to sit on boss. However that changes with BLM. BLM is at it's peak when it doesn't have to move at all, so most strategies are based around allowing the BLM to not have to move unless necessary so they wouldn't die.

With SMN/RDM, strategy does not have to change. They pretty much take care of themselves. It's why you normally don't see a SAM/MNK/BLM paired together.

[NovaBismarck]

I'm fine with the way rezzes work now. I think removing them would make complicated raids nearly impossible to clear. I don't think blm needs rez. Smn rezzes once a minute (ideally unless things go very wrong) and rdm is capable of keeping the party afloat as needed. If I had a dollar for every time I've saved a party from wipe on smn I'd be rich. I don't mind being there as support. FF MMO has always had some varying degrees of support and it feels to me that's part of the job.

Now, as low as rdm and smn dps are right now, it does feel super punishing to do the rez work we used to do fairly easily. Figuring out how to fix smn overall and pumping up smn and rdm dps to the proper places is what would make me the happiest. I get rdm takes a bump due to the ability to rez and embolden, but rezzing so much in pug content is taxing. I almost think rdm could use some other utility? Something that would make it more viable in savage? I'm not much of a savage player now so maybe I'm not speaking fairly. Feels like being that low in dps is just an unfair punishment. Smn needs both a dps boost and a rotation fix. We've got all kinds of problems and are not in a great spot atm. We need that fixed first before we can even look at what to do. We lost some utility overall, devotion is good but only every 3 min. Phoenix heal seems weak and we can't time the thing to be useful, which is annoying. For smn, we need to turret so much now and have so low damage to go with that it doesn't feel good. But I miss the mobility overall.

I haven't done savage content in a while, so I get that the same rule apply differently there. However, I don't believe anyone's dps should be so low it automatically bumps them from being used in a savage group setup. If so, then that's a failure on SE's part.

[Dralonis]

I have been a believer of making the raises on a long CD( 3-5 min) but instant cast for casters. That way it doesn't really impact me being a caster dps but also gives me a utility. Meant to be clutch for raising a healer or something to save the other healer mana/time. Just make it a trait past 82+ (If they don't do it this xpac, it may be too late to do such a drastic change?) Then RDM's could be given something that feels more fitting for support that benefits both prog/farm parties for them to still be desirable. Embolden Is pretty good however lacks synergy with other casters/healers. RDM's are heavily taxed on their mp currently that they can't really raise like they used to.

[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.

[Shurrikhan]

I'm 100% with this sentiment. Imagine if MNKs and NINs had nerfed dps because they had a melee version of rescue. After progression, it would almost never be used, but the dps tax would always be paid for that ability, even when farming. SAMs and DRGs would be the only desirable melees when progression is over. Melees would rightfully throw a fit.

Raise and casters is just as terrible feeling and kind of ridiculous to me. Why do casters have a progression caster and a farm caster? Why do no other roles have this separation (now that AST got wrecked)? Raise and its dps tax is why. Removing the dps tax would make BLMs obsolete. Giving infinite MP BLMs raise would blow SMN and RDM out of the water entirely. Removing raise as a caster ability, though, would only serve to elevate SMN and RDM.

Simple choice, really.

I mean, we say that, but by the end of SB, a top-percentile Caster of any job outperformed a top-percentile NIN for tDPS (each in their optimal compositions for their own tDPS). And for most of the expansion, SMN frequently even outperformed BLM, sometimes even in pure pDPS. Its "dps tax" was painfully overstated.

But, I too dislike the idea of "prog" vs. "farm" jobs. Our first example was of course 2.0 WAR vs. PLD, where WAR's self-healing could eventually eclipse PLD's mitigation in light, overgeared content. Across all expansions we've seen it faintly with just more lenient jobs vs. perfectly optimizable jobs (though sometimes those have been, by fluke of balance, one and the same anyways). It was subtle, but any further distinction of casters by their obligatory utility or lack thereof will only hurt the role. I like having utility, but it should come at cost enough that the "dps tax", where/if actually balanced for, has no place, such as through appropriate uptime, throughput, or resource costs when making use of that utility.

[TimeraiderGaranyi]

Atm BLM isnt up to par with the avarage melee or physical ranged dps. However.. we never know. Maybe its just a stats thing and having better gear coming up in coming patches will fix it a bit.. maybe a little bit help of the devs and it will all be fine.
It probably is not the best time to already talk about who needs buffs and who needs nerfs though so not gonna go further at that.

For now however BLM is pure damage with 0 utility. When we stand still 24/7, the damage is equal to dragoon/samurai (if lucky) .. however.. the moment we have to move even a cm, we get shot down to the amount of dps some good off-tanks already can manage
As a pure damage job, thats never a good sign

[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

[Seraphor]

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

So we definitely don't want to nerf BLM dps for a res then.