Don't nerf DRG - BUFF NIN

[TaiyouSeishin]

I concede that perhaps my points are childish but I strongly believe it is the “meta” and these damn party buffs that got us here to this point in the first place. People want to play support jobs but want the personal damage of jobs that have no utility. SE should maybe think about getting rid of this “meta” and scrap all party buffs in the game. It’s clear that somewhere down the line perhaps they are struggling to balance party buffs that certain jobs have against those that don’t have it. Just my opinion so feel free to disagree.

Eh, don't see how making a point is childish unless you are having a tantrum over it, at least I don't think you are.

As for losing party buffs. Suppose that would be "fine" but do you also mean all utility. As a person who came here to get away from other mmos, I have to say, the homogenizing of classes is what made me leave.

To have NO raid benefit, means that all classes HAVE to be equal now. And then you will come into more issues. Like "but my class is more complicated to just do the same dps". Someone will always find somethimg to complain about.

I dont get why SE is worried about meta. Thats decided by people who play, crunch numbers, etc. No matter what is done, there will always be cookie cutter, meta, optimal builds, etc.

I dont care if im lowest on dps charts, as long as there is still a reasom to take me. There needs to be a middle ground with whats "going to be meta" and something that "is nice to have so if we can try to get (x-class)". Sam needs a bit of a buff, ninja either needs to pull damage weight (because its only utility is a dps utility) or provide some other benfit for consideration. Rdm needs to be brought up, and for the love of all the gods, fix Ast... plz..

(Edit: had to edit twice cuz im on mobile and my thumbs suck)

[Marianno]

Like make it so the buff only affects the job and adjust their personal damage accordingly. Something along those lines. I feel like trick attack is hurting NIN, the cards are hurting AST, devotion/raise is hurting SMN, Verraise/Embolden is hurting RDM, BRD is peeved at loosing so much utility to DNC, MCH barely has any utility and what little utility it does have is pitiful (in my opinion), BLM/SAM has no utility and devs seem afraid to hoist them BOTH up to the top. Maybe making it so the buffs only affect said jobs is better or something along those lines. These are not the only things hurting these DPS jobs but just going off the buffs themselves. I think it may have been better to make DNC a healer but seeing the terrible state of healers currently, that may be a bad choice too.

[Marianno]

Let’s not forget that DRG/MNK are hurt just as equally. MNK has a buff with a shorter CD but only works well with healers and melee users. Completely blocking out casters (except healers). DRG is in a situation due to having to buffs but on longer CDs and if the devs nerf it, people will not be happy. If they buff it, like the did for ShB expansions then people will not be happy. A sticky situation. Healers are another war-story and story altogether and so are tanks.

[MaelleRiou]

Because they have to for the reasons already stated. If the range DPS did equal damage, they have zero drawbacks and therefore become automatically better. Conversely, the current design revolves around fight encounters themselves. Bosses with forced disengagement will encourage a triple range comp, especially given all the changes in Shadowbringers.

Put simply, each role needs some inherent weakness. Melee lose uptime but deal higher damage to compensate. Range are the reverse.

I don't buy this uptime argument since melee are dealing more damage than ranged(except BLM) in the actual live fights. They lose uptime and still do more damage, seems like more than just compensation. I'm not understanding why melee should just be straight up superior to ranged.

[CapricaLangley]

I don't buy this uptime argument since melee are dealing more damage than ranged(except BLM) in the actual live fights. They lose uptime and still do more damage, seems like more than just compensation. I'm not understanding why melee should just be straight up superior to ranged.

This is just wrong. Ranged jobs are doing far more damage than melee DPS. At the top percentile, which is 1% of the playerbase, melee jobs are doing more damage. Go check the 50% of DPS statistics in Eden. Machinist does DOUBLE the damage than any other job. We can't taylor our statements around the 200 best players in the world.

[MaelleRiou]

This is just wrong. Ranged jobs are doing far more damage than melee DPS. At the top percentile, which is 1% of the playerbase, melee jobs are doing more damage. Go check the 50% of DPS statistics in Eden. Machinist does DOUBLE the damage than any other job. We can't taylor our statements around the 200 best players in the world.

Even at 50% monk and dragoon are still the top 2 personal DPS on half the fights.

[ForteNightshade]

I don't buy this uptime argument since melee are dealing more damage than ranged(except BLM) in the actual live fights. They lose uptime and still do more damage, seems like more than just compensation. I'm not understanding why melee should just be straight up superior to ranged.

Really now? Is that why Machinist is on par with Monk and Dragoon at the 75% for Innocence? And why Bard is only a 100 rDPS behind all three? Of course the gap widens at the higher percentiles. Players parsing at 95-99% are employing janky strats or straight up eating mechanics for uptime. The devs cannot balance for that since the vast majority of players won't do crazy strategies, especially in PF. You never, ever saw uptime Unreal in PF. And regular Unreal could be brutal to melee DPS. Don't even get me started on how awful Fennek was. Naturally, the higher up the percentile you claimed, the more melee pull ahead for the reasons above.

Such is why melee will always be the superior option if catered towards. Think of it like this... melee strength is entirely dependent on the party's willingness to adapt towards them in every capacity; be it healing excess damage or performing mechanics that potentially sacrifice another role's damage. A tank, for example, should always adjust for a melee. Range, on the other hand, can essentially do whatever. That tradeoff results in higher damage output for the melee to compensate for the extra work. Without said compensation, melee are simply a hindrance.

[MaelleRiou]

Really now? Is that why Machinist is on par with Monk and Dragoon at the 75% for Innocence? And why Bard is only a 100 rDPS behind all three? Of course the gap widens at the higher percentiles. Players parsing at 95-99% are employing janky strats or straight up eating mechanics for uptime. The devs cannot balance for that since the vast majority of players won't do crazy strategies, especially in PF. You never, ever saw uptime Unreal in PF. And regular Unreal could be brutal to melee DPS. Don't even get me started on how awful Fennek was. Naturally, the higher up the percentile you claimed, the more melee pull ahead for the reasons above.

Such is why melee will always be the superior option if catered towards. Think of it like this... melee strength is entirely dependent on the party's willingness to adapt towards them in every capacity; be it healing excess damage or performing mechanics that potentially sacrifice another role's damage. A tank, for example, should always adjust for a melee. Range, on the other hand, can essentially do whatever. That tradeoff results in higher damage output for the melee to compensate for the extra work. Without said compensation, melee are simply a hindrance.

Even if you go down to the 50th percentile monk and dragoon are still top on half of the Eden fights.

Seems fundamentally broken that 2 support DPS are beating all 3 of the pure DPS jobs.

[ForteNightshade]

Even if you go down to the 50th percentile monk and dragoon are still top on half of the Eden fights.

Uh... at 50% on Innocence EX MCH is 200 above DRG, and currently #1. BRD is basically dead even with both DRG and MNK. So... what fight are you even looking at?

I just understand that samurai loses damage if the job is forced to disengage. However, haven’t we had enough where everything should always be about melee? Why can’t others shine? I agree that SAM could use a buff but to bring BLM down is the part I can’t get behind. BLM has mobility but what happens when they are forced to disengage for a mechanic and the boss is on the other side of the arena? The job loses damage. People like to say that BLM should be brought down, however the argument was different some time ago. It was all about... “I don’t understand why SE is afraid to give it the damage it needs to actually be a true selfish DPS.” Now that this has happened, people want to bring it low. Why not just buff the damn SAM, fix SMN issues with OGCD saturation, bring RDM up and fix its mana issues, fix ninja with buffs and address it’s play-style issues, fix monks issues and address is identity issues.

BLM can pre-position once they know attack patterns. Melee cannot. If a mechanic demands the melee disengage they can either chance eating said mechanic or lose damage. Furthermore, BLM now has substantially more tools to mitigate its losses—including a very potent shield to outright ignore a mechanic if need be. Regardless, no one is saying BLM should be brought down a lot but it's currently smoking everyone. Despite being a self DPS, they have 400 more rDPS than DRG or MNK. And they utterly dominate the Caster role. What it boils down to is simply, do you nerf BLM slightly or do you buff, SAM, RDM, SMN and possibly even DRG and MNK? This is the same argument people had regarding BRD in 4.4 where it was the obvious outliner given how every other range DPS fought for those two spot... except them.

[MaelleRiou]

Uh... at 50% on Innocence EX MCH is 200 above DRG, and currently #1. BRD is basically dead even with both DRG and MNK. So... what fight are you even looking at?

Um, exactly what I said I was looking at? Eden fights? Voidwalker and Leviathan specifically. They also 2 and 3 on Eden Prime, monk is 2nd on Titan. Monk is 2nd on Titania and 3rd on Innocence.

I'm failing to see the reason why these 2 support DPS should be beating pure DPS. Monk is within the top 3 DPS of every fight and Dragoon is often in the top 3 or just below it. Monk probably needs bigger nerfs than Dragoon does.