Can we talk about how mnk, drg, and blm are blatantly overpowered right now?

[TaiyouSeishin]

Lets say Summoner brings 500 damage bonus from Devotion. If we equalize the RDPS of Summoner to Black mage (we'll use an arbitrary 15,000), then Summoner must have 14,500 Personal DPS.

We'll say Devilment and Standard Finish is 10% just to round it off. That's 1500 for your Black Mage.

That's 1450 for your Summoner.

But wait, you're saying that RDPS benefits should be -greater- than what a PDPS based job can bring. So lets just amp Devotion a bit. Lets say in a team of like minded and able individuals, RDPS from Devotion is worth 1000.

That means Black Mage is 15,000 and Summoner is 15,500.

Why bring the Black Mage?

Consider further we apply this to Machinist.

Machinist is just a PDPS class so it should just be equal to Black mage. 15,000.

Why bring the Black Mage?

Bard is job like summoner, so 14,500 + 1000.

Why bring the Black Mage and Machinist?

Ninja. 14,5000 + 1000

Why bring the Black Mage, Machinist, or Samurai?

All the debates keep going from one extreme to another.

Summoner rdps shouldnt meet or exceed blm rdps because it brings more than the dps increasing utility.

Nin amd dragoon, conversly dont bring anything but dps increase utility, if that utility dont increase total dps, they may as well not exist. But you dont want them to outright trump pdps. A NIN's TA benefits more than just one person, so their pdps needs to be lower, and thats fine, but THEIR issue is that their own pdps nullifies TA, and if TA just breaks even, their is no point to bring them either.

You shouldnt have to work and synergize with a class just to make them break even with their more powerful counterparts

[Kabooa]

You shouldnt have to work and synergize with a class just to make them break even with their more powerful counterparts

I disagree. I think everyone should have to work together, and it's not like the supporters do this in a vacuum. Everyone works together to create those mythical 120s burst windows.

However, you have actually isolated why Ninja has fallen out of favor (and conversely why they were in favor to start). Because Threat manipulation has been king when it comes to Tanks, Bards, Machinists, and Monks/Samurai. When that was taken, Ninja was not compensated. So sure, come on up, Ninja buddy, you earned it.

The rest of you can fit your Raise through the mail slot, and then the door opens.

[Myon88]

Lets say Summoner brings 500 damage bonus from Devotion.

I think I'll just stop you right there, because defining the additional damage from raid buffs as a flat number is putting the cart before the horse. Like your dancer example, raid buffs are percentage based by nature, whatever number their contribution turns out to be in reality is entirely dependent on what job is being compared with those buffs. If it's 500 when a 15,000 dps blm is on the other end, it's going to be 430 when it's a 13,000 dps bard. This puts a natural damper on combining multiple support jobs without any heavy hitters to cash in on those buffs. The rest is just a matter of tuning to ensure the margins between the different combinations of jobs are sane.

As for the matter of machinist output compared to black mage, that's an issue of inter-role balance and has nothing to do with the matter of support vs selfish jobs. I don't think machinist players would be very happy about being treated like second class citizens though, just because you think their job is 'easy' or something. You may as well ask, why play machinist if blm is going to get special treatment? I didn't see any warning saying machinist was designed as a job with a lower skill ceiling on purpose.

There is also the matter of the 1% mainstat buff you get for each unique role you add to the party. It's basically a forced-diversity quota to encourage you to make balanced parties. Even if black mage were slightly worse off, as long as it's better than losing 1% mainstat, that is your reason for bringing black mage. And like I said, it's telling that the jobs are balanced so badly people are considering ditching the ranged for that reason - they're so bad even a free 1% mainstat buff isn't enough of an incentive.

[Kabooa]

I think I'll just stop you right there, because defining the additional damage from raid buffs as a flat number is putting the cart before the horse.

How else do you propose we set up our equation? With fancy "Blm = Sum = Rdm" ?

You said, and I quote.

Indeed just breaking even is fine as a baseline, but if anything a support job should be bringing more dps than a selfish one when you use rdps as a metric.

Yet when we apply hard numbers to show that, it's suddenly unacceptable? Or is it because when we actually look at it from that angle, it's obvious how bad for the jobs that is?

[Myon88]

You conveniently left out quoting the remainder of that paragraph which contains the context for that statement. Review it and all will be made clear, whether you agree with that premise or not is your prerogative.

As for 'how', I told you didn't I? The percentage based nature of buffs is inherently self correcting. The game was far more balanced in Stormblood circa alphascape, so it's not a matter of whether balance is possible or not, but whether they want to put in the effort to tune it to be so.

[Kabooa]

You conveniently left out quoting the remainder of that paragraph which contains the context for that statement. Review it and all will be made clear, whether you agree with that premise or not is your prerogative.

As for 'how', I told you didn't I? The percentage based nature of buffs is inherently self correcting. The game was far more balanced in Stormblood circa alphascape, so it's not a matter of whether it's balance is possible or not, but whether they want to put in the effort to tune it to be so.

Percentage based buffing means the more personal damage you bump everyone else by inherently makes those buffs stronger. The Black Mage, the Samurai, the Machinist will never contribute more "RDPS" as other jobs are strengthened, but those other jobs, as they are increased, retain their %bonuses and just get even more benefit. In other words - Every step of PDPS gained by them has to be matched by removing their party damage buffs.

Lets be clear - what's being asked for here isn't to reorganize the game to follow a sane method of parity. It's asking for more damage on jobs that not only clear the current content in excess, but bring additional tools that would make them more desirable than those who give up literally everything else to have more damage.

You want to be on the Black Mage's level, get rid of everything else that benefits the party outside the Role Menu. It's that simple. Surely that should be an agreeable stance, no? That's fair. That's balanced. And in many cases, it's not even active gameplay being given up.

And frankly, I think we'd all be fine with that. At that point, a Summoner or a Red mage isn't bringing something a Black Mage isn't, and then you can just play what you enjoy.

[Shurrikhan]

All the debates keep going from one extreme to another.

Summoner rdps shouldnt meet or exceed blm rdps because it brings more than the dps increasing utility.

Nin amd dragoon, conversly dont bring anything but dps increase utility, if that utility dont increase total dps, they may as well not exist. But you dont want them to outright trump pdps. A NIN's TA benefits more than just one person, so their pdps needs to be lower, and thats fine, but THEIR issue is that their own pdps nullifies TA, and if TA just breaks even, their is no point to bring them either.

You shouldn't have to work and synergize with a class just to make them break even with their more powerful counterparts.

Except, bringing a NIN isn't just the NIN's job to compensate for, and does come with benefits not necessarily felt in kill speed, namely burst.

When I'm running with raid (de)buffs, gameplay changes slightly. This is perhaps most significant with TA since it's short, frequent, and potent. Yes, the NIN cannot control the contribution given by their Trick Attack except through what little pDPS they personally apply during the buff, but by that very fact it doesn't mean that the responsibility for making use of TA belongs to NIN alone. The NIN's responsibility is to keep it rolling as frequently and (thereby) consistently as possible with few exceptions. Everyone else's responsibility is banking burst for it.

Should parties be compensated for this added complexity? Yes, faintly. But, they already are. So long as NIN is, itself, bursty, the burst that comes from bringing NIN (and therefore TA) -- especially to a composition with flexible oGCD expenditure such as through non-CD sources -- is greater than without one. The sustained might not increase by much, but that is okay, so long as that added burst occasionally has utility advantage, such as by reducing risk over a brief soft enrage (e.g. via powerful adds) or the like.

[Vendalwind]

Except, bringing a NIN isn't just the NIN's job to compensate for, and does come with benefits not necessarily felt in kill speed, namely burst.

When I'm running with raid (de)buffs, gameplay changes slightly. This is perhaps most significant with TA since it's short, frequent, and potent. Yes, the NIN cannot control the contribution given by their Trick Attack except through what little pDPS they personally apply during the buff, but by that very fact it doesn't mean that the responsibility for making use of TA belongs to NIN alone. The NIN's responsibility is to keep it rolling as frequently and (thereby) consistently as possible with few exceptions. Everyone else's responsibility is banking burst for it.

Should parties be compensated for this added complexity? Yes, faintly. But, they already are. So long as NIN is, itself, bursty, the burst that comes from bringing NIN (and therefore TA) -- especially to a composition with flexible oGCD expenditure such as through non-CD sources -- is greater than without one. The sustained might not increase by much, but that is okay, so long as that added burst occasionally has utility advantage, such as by reducing risk over a brief soft enrage (e.g. via powerful adds) or the like.

But that frankly isnt true. The simple truth is it would still be better to bring a Pure PDS instead of NIN.

The cumulative total of NINs complex output that also requires team coordination does not exceed, or even meet, that of bringing another pure. By very nature utility dps SHOULD be capable of exceeding the contribution of a pure DPS or they are not worth anything and only bring extra difficulty, not only for themselves, but for the whole team to maintain the same outgoing dps.

i literally hard math explained this in a thread about BLM recently... some of you were involved in that thread.

utility dps in pointless if it contributes less than a pure dps overall. THIS IS JUST FACT

[Myon88]

In other words - Every step of PDPS gained by them has to be matched by removing their party damage buffs.

Considering summoner and red mage are currently more than a thousand rdps behind blm, rest assured there is plenty of room to buff either or both their pdps and party buffs without stepping on blm's toes.

It's asking for more damage on jobs that not only clear the current content in excess, but bring additional tools that would make them more desirable than those who give up literally everything else to have more damage

Yeah, tell that to the groups flexing mnk, drg, and blm in week 1 just to have a better shot at the fight's enrage timer. These are the groups you would expect to be generally informed on the state of the game, so their choice in composition is extremely telling. Were you there last week? I was, and thankfully I did not have to pull out blm just to get the clear, although it was a pretty close thing.

[Vendalwind]

I disagree. I think everyone should have to work together, and it's not like the supporters do this in a vacuum. Everyone works together to create those mythical 120s burst windows.

However, you have actually isolated why Ninja has fallen out of favor (and conversely why they were in favor to start). Because Threat manipulation has been king when it comes to Tanks, Bards, Machinists, and Monks/Samurai. When that was taken, Ninja was not compensated. So sure, come on up, Ninja buddy, you earned it.

The rest of you can fit your Raise through the mail slot, and then the door opens.

I disagree with your first paragraph. Taiyou is completly right. working harder to break even and synergize should be more rewarding, not because of class complexity, but team complexity. Else why even play the freaking game in teams? the WHOLE point of MMOs is team multiplayer gameplay.

Other than that paragraph tho you are right. NINs old value didnt come from its trick, but rather its ability to allow tanks to stay out of tank stance while still protecting healers via its proper application of shadewalker/smokescreen etc.
Which although it was cool, was stupid because the NIN was effectively doing the Tanks job for them. we have not been compensated for the loss of our misdirection enmity tools as of yet, and without them our rDPS should be able to exceed that of a pure if perfectly executed.