Let's Theorize a 5.1 Balance Patch.

[Shurrikhan]

Alright, guess I'll finally throw up my own two cents. Editing it in piece by piece. Once it gets too large, I'll section it off in spoiler blocks.

Stat Balancing

• Our GCDs and scalers or chances afforded by our stats now hold an additional decimal place, making breakpoints ten times as frequent. For instance, Determination will now include all values between 1.030% and 1.040%, instead of just going straight from 1.03% to 1.04% modifiers, thus allowing stat growth to make a difference in far finer intervals.
• The effects of one's stats are now clearly shown on the Character Pane alongside the stat values, e.g. 1250 Critical Hit (10%).
• Players now start with 0% Speed, 2.5% Determination, 5% Critical Hit Chance, and 5% Direct Hit Chance, Tenacity, or Piety, and this is indicated by their base stats at the same stat values that would be necessary to reach those given percentages. A level 80 Samurai, for instance, would have a base of 0 Speed, 600 Direct Hit, 625 Determination, and 625 Critical Hit.
• Critical Hit stat reworked. It again only increases Critical Hit chance -- Critical Hit values instead again dealing 50% bonus damage -- but chances in excess of 100% now deal increased effect in proportion to their excess chance. A Dragoon with 120% Critical Hit chance during Life Surge, for instance, will deal (1+(.5*1.2))x damage, or 160% damage on the auto-crit, up from 150%. Critical Hit chance now increases at a rate of 125 per 1% increased chance of Critical Hit, buffed from per 160, thus effectively increasing expected damage by 1% per 250 stat. Sustained damage does not increase with auto-crits, performing instead just short of Direct Hit's efficiency, but allows damage-buff windows which include auto-crits, etc, to be accentuated with perfect reliably. Effectively, Critical Hit will have the same damage value as Determination (250 stat per 1% damage), regardless of the user, but that damage value will be more manipulable into bonus windows and the like via auto-crits.

  This is, at worst, equal to Determination in efficiency (250 per % Damage) and 4% worse than Direct Hit (240 per % Damage). Direct Hit thus becomes the best stat for sustained damage, while Determination and Critical Hit fall just 4% behind despite offering either absolute reliability (and an effect on healing) or additional reliably-timed effective potency on relevant jobs (e.g. via Bootshine, Life Surge, or Reassemble). Compare this to Critical Hit's current efficiencies of between 330 per 1% Damage increase (starting at no bonus Critical Hit stat) and 238 per stat (at 3993 bonus Critical Hit stat, which we are unlikely ever to reach even to the final tier). Given the current chance-increase formula, it appears Critical Hit will be less efficient than Direct Hit for all but Monk until 4373 Critical Hit, and less efficient even than Determination until 3845 (or 3507 total stat each to DHit and Crit). The largest result of this is simply that Critical Hit will be far, far more linear -- rather than a stat trap until over 3.5k -- while raid buffs which increase Critical Hit or Direct Hit chance will no longer be wasted on jobs which guarantee Critical Hit or Direct Hit chances on strikes during those buffs' windows. It's very similar to Direct Hit or Determination, but with more control -- newly unable to go to waste but also no longer the worst or best stat on sole virtue of how much of it you have.
  
  Note: Monk's Deep Meditation mechanic is being revised. It will have a chance to trigger from either Critical Hits or Direct Hits based on total bonus %Damage applied across Determination, Direct Hit's base factor, and Critical Hit's base or excess-chance factors, and thus scales with every stat, leaving each as balanced as possible even for Monk.

• Skill Speed and Spell Speed consolidated into Speed. Speed now again affects Auto-attack rate rather than Auto-attack damage. Additionally, awkward intervals by which speeds from various base GCDs (i.e. 2.0 and 2.5) were forced to intersect despite imbalancing their nearby efficiencies (e.g. from the average 216 per % GCD reduction to arbitrarily over 310 in a couple intervals) have been reworked, and the GCD now decreases by 1% of base per 216 stat consistently. Periodic damage scalar attached to Speed has been buffed from 1% periodic damage per 256 stat to per 216 stat, giving some reason for DoT-heavy jobs to take Speed, rather than Speed merely mitigating its penalties faintly.
  :: (Essentially, Speed exchanges any effect on most non-gauge abilities or any accentuation of proc damage for 10% greater stat efficiency than Direct Hit. I'd probably nerf it, but these factors seem pretty ideal for meeting stat intervals, while most numbers between 216 and 240 fall short in number of factors. If necessary, I'll bump it to 224 (7% greater efficiency), but that would truly limit Speed to solely a SAM/BLM stat. Keep in mind that even among the best Speed-users, Monk has about 11% damage not affected by Speed, BLM about 10% not directly affected by Speed, and SAM about 7% not directly affected by Speed, while other jobs like DRG have at least 22% of their damage not affected by Speed. Even removing rotation-ability conflicts, as below, won't be enough to make Speed attractive to them as is, so I'd best balance around the marginal cases and try to apply my buffs to Samurai in a way that doesn't overly improve Speed.)
• Abilities frequent enough or integral enough to rotation to force GCD delay or be forced to be delayed themselves due to conflict with rotations accelerated by Speed (and which do not themselves reward speed through their duration windows) are now themselves accelerated by one's normal GCD speed. These include Life Surge; Reassemble, Hypercharge, Gauss Round, Ricochet; Empyreal Arrow, Bloodletter, Sidewinder, Shadow Bite; Ikishoten, Meikyo Shisui, Hagakure, Tsubame Gaeshi, Hissatsu: Gyoten, Hissatsu: Yaten; Ninjutsu, Kassatsu, Ten Chi Jin, Mug, Meisui; Tornado Kick, Perfect Balance; Standard Step; Onslaught, Upheaval; Spirit's Within, Circle of Scorn, Intervention; Plunge, Carve and Spit.
• Skills which reduced the GCD to a fixed lower amount now instead used a scaled lower amount. For instance, rather than reducing the GCD to a fixed 1.5 seconds, Hypercharge will now reduce the GCD to 60% (1.5 seconds when at a 2.5 second base GCD, but, say, 1.4 seconds from a 2.33 GCD). This also includes fixed internal cooldowns or extended animation locks such as those of Ninja's Mudras.
• Skills which apply buffs or debuffs for a given duration will now apply their buff instantly, just after the applying action's damage calculation, but their duration will not begin to tick down until their animation lock has elapsed. This effectively just compensates for any wasted portions of durations. As most skills did not have that portion in any significant amount, most will be unaffected.
• Replacing a debuff early will now cause the average of the remaining duration and its square root to be carried over onto the next application. For instance, replacing Demolish at 3 seconds left would allow 2.36 seconds of the old application to stack atop the new, for a total of 20.36 seconds. This makes useful GCD breakpoints far more numerous on jobs previously badly limited by their use of DoTs and at the brink of some rotational alteration.
• The standard weaponskill animation lock of .635 seconds has been increased to a base of .666 (40 60 fps frames, as that is what the animation locks are best counted in) but will now scale with GCD speed. Moreover, animation locks now wholly trust client side queues, requiring server feedback only to confirm the GCD interval for the given GCD (lest we run into subtle cases of GCD-speedhacking as in late HW). Note that at present, animations except for Ninjutsu and Jump lock for 38 frames (.634 seconds) and do not scale with GCD speed. Now they will be trimmed by some number of empty frames and some remainder amount in proportion to %Attack Speed. For instance, at a 2.25 (90%) GCD, the animation locks would be 36 frames (.6 seconds) long (or, 90% of the original animation lock), while a 2.2475 (89.9%) GCD they would be 33.9 frames (34 visible, and the last just a partial empty frame, since we cannot animate except in sixtieths of seconds), equating to .565 seconds long (89.9% of the original value). For further examples, a 2-second GCD would have animation locks 32 frames long (or, .5333 seconds), and my favored Monk speed, 1.875, would have a lock of 30 frames (.5 seconds). Thus, double-weaving is now technically possible at every GCD speed except those of Machinist's Hypercharge.
  
  Keep in mind that double-weaving would already be possible under client trust and GCD-based scaling even if this had started from 50 frames per animation rather than 40. I chose to use 40 frames because it's (1) more easily and clearly divisible, (2) leaves less duration loss than if I were to hasten the base frames if one were to weave a second duration-based oGCD too early, (3) gives more room than shorter bases for scaling before removing visible frames, but still without ever denying a GCD its double-weaving capacity, (5) because it doesn't penalize non-woven oGCDs as much as the perfect 50 frames, (6) 40 frames is enough to fit up to 20% Attack Speed increase in any GCD while still having room to spare, and (7) it fits really, really well with Ninja, allowing for a 100% GCD Raiton, 120% Suiton, and 140% Suiton-Trick Attack no matter one's GCD speed.

Other General Changes

• Barriers now also show on one’s own HP bar.
• The MP bar and HP bar are now treated as separate gauges and likewise each include a "Match to Simple Mode" option which will cause them to fit the size and aesthetic of Simple Mode gauges. By default, the MP gauge is not active on any job which does not use MP. This option may be deselected via the MP bar's HUD element configuration element.
• Combat now makes extensive use of client trust in order to minimize the consequence of ping.
• All procs -- such as combos, Dualcast, chance of Firestarter, etc. -- will now be triggered by strikes even through invulnerability, thus allowing the server to automatically trust in their success and further reduce the consequence of ping.
• Read the end of the Speed changes again. Seriously. They're pretty huge.

Warrior

QoL Changes

• Infuriate revised. The condition reading "Can only be executed while in combat,” has been replaced with "When used outside of combat, Beast Gauge generated will fade at a rate of 5 gauge every 5 seconds until having reentered combat.” This allows for Beast Gauge to be generated pre-pull for Onslaught and to make the opening smoother, but does not allow preemptive resource stacking. Using it at any point will have the same relative value as using it immediately into combat, apart from minor benefits or demerits of CD-sync.
• Nascent Flash may now be used without a target. After using Nascent Flash without a target, Nascent Flash is replaced with Nascent Glint, allowing you to affect a party member with the remainder of Nascent Flash’s duration. This latter action has no animation and may be used even in the middle of another skill.
• Nascent Flash duration increased from 6 seconds to 7 seconds.

Minuscule potency buffs

• Fell Cleave potency increased to 600, up from 590.
• Enhanced Infuriate now trims 6 seconds, up from 5, essentially refunding 5 Gauge worth of progress (prior to Inner Chaos), up from 4.3. Additionally, Onslaught and Upheaval will now trim 2 seconds.
• These two true buffs still apply a little over half a percent of further potency, while it currently falls a minimum of 1.3% short of GNB and at least 1% short of PLD.
• Storm's Path Cure Potency increased from 200 to 300. It is therefore still inferior to GNB's Brutal Shell in that half of its healing is not shielding and it will be used slightly less often over a fight, but should at least be less of a joke. We might even see the effect now.

Miscellaneous

• Shake it Off now more clearly instead "Creates a barrier around self and all nearby party members that absorbs damage totaling 8% of your maximum HP. Dispels Vengeance and Raw Intuition, increasing the amount absorbed by half the mitigation each provides." It therefore now synergizes with Thrill of Battle to generate mitigation equal to 10% of your HP and can provide absorption of up to 12.5% of your HP, rather than up to 18% of target HP.

Other Considerations

• That said, the stat changes above are a significant boon for Warrior during Battle Litany, Battle Voice, and Chain Stratagem during the Inner Release window, allowing it to function optimally with a far larger variety of compositions.
• (As before, however, Inner Chaos still will not be affected by Inner Release, as these effects both set base Crit/Dhit chance to 100%, rather than each adding 100% chance. This is mostly a gameplay decision, as one would otherwise be forced to hold both Infuriates for Inner Release in hopes of getting two uses of what would have been at least 263% damage on 920 potency (an effective 2420 potency). Of course, that would also be a massive overbuff and thus would need to be avoided even if its gameplay consequences weren't already disastrous.)

Paladin

QoL and Functionality Improvements

• While a shield is equipped, you Parry chance is halved. Effective Block Value and Block Rate have been increased to compensate.
• Because excess chances now increases the effect of the occurrence they modify, effects which guarantee Block chance such as Shelltron or Passage of Arms would also increase the strength of that block.
• Block Value and Block Rate formulas changed. They're also no longer necessarily paired at equal values.

  Block Rate now works a bit like the hidden and non-gearable Accuracy stat, whereby some amount of Accuracy is required to have full Hit Chance Block Chance against an enemy of a certain level. (Yes, Accuracy still exists in game, or you wouldn't be missing level 68 FATE monsters on your level 61 character. It's just not gearable. Because we want tangible progression in shields, however, Block Chance will be gearable, though only in an obvious vertical/ilvl way.)
  
  The Block Rate normally attached to a level 73 shield, for instance, would have a 20% chance to block a level 73, a 21% chance to block a level 74, 22% chance against a level 75, and so forth to a maximum of 25% chance, but only a 19% chance to block a level 74, 17% chance to block a 75, and so forth to a minimum of 14%. Block Rate may continues to increase after reaching the initial raid tier, but only very slightly. Post-cap change is instead seen mostly on Block Value.
  
  Block Value is likewise fairly simple: It's added Defense. For a level 80 Shield to provide 15% mitigation, for instance, it would need 3300 Block Value (which, again, is just Defense).

  Shelltron revised. [TUNING STILL REQUIRED] It now "Creates a barrier around you that absorbs damage totaling 10% of your maximum HP. While this barrier persists, you are guaranteed to block all incoming attacks. Duration: 4 seconds." Enhanced Shelltron extends this to 12% HP (effectively at least a 15% HP barrier) and 6 seconds duration.

  Given a Block Value of, say, 17% mitigation and Block Rate of 17% chance (Ronkan shield and above), you'd have a resultant 20% mitigation due to the excess chance improving your effective Block Value. In turn, because you're mitigating 20% of incoming damage, this HP barrier would actually last for at least 12.5% of max HP, and could be extended even further by your other CDs, giving PLD thematic interaction between its means of mitigation.
  :: Shelltron is also inherently "slow" to break. Even if the barrier has already disappeared, it might still guarantee a block against another half second of attacks.
  :: Shelltron's barrier will always be used before barriers other than TBN. TBN therefore can let it squeeze out a bit more duration, but Shelltron's its short duration already makes the benefit minuscule.

• Atonement no longer breaks combos, and the duration of Sword Oath has been increased to 15 seconds. Stacks may thus be held until after a combo to allow for casts between the Atonement uses if necessary for uptime outside of melee range.
• Cover no longer costs Oath Gauge. Its cooldown is penalty enough.
• Requiescat no longer requires that one be above 80% MP to generate its additional effect. The mere fact that one will be able to get off proportionately fewer casts under the effect when under 80% MP is penalty enough.
• Divine Veil now works in two parts: "Grants Ardent Vigil to self and Divine Veil party members within 15 yalms. Ardent Vigil Effect: Upon receiving or dealing HP recovery, heal all party members affected by Divine Veil. Cure potency: 200. Duration: 10 seconds. Divine Veil Effect: Upon receiving HP recovery, Divine Veil triggers an additional HP recovery from the Paladin who applied the effect. When the Divine Veil ends, it casts a protective Barrier. Cure potency: 200. Barrier Effect: Prevents damage equal to 10% of the maximum HP of the Paladin who applied the effect."

  This gives Divine Veil a reason for its longer cooldown to be longer than Dark Missionary, Heart of Light, and especially Shake it Off while retaining its two-stage identity, but in a way that makes more sense and better exploits PLD's utility. It can now deal 400 Paladin Cure potency (a third of a Clemency) with every heal dealt to the Paladin or 600 (half a Clemency) from the Paladin, allowing situational clutch potential from the Paladin itself to heal up the party (or grant bonus healing to the raid while being healed up itself), before applying the 10% HP barrier.

Dark Knight

QoL, Functionality, and Future-Proofing

• Living Dead no longer creates a fixed healing requirement. Instead, would-be fatal damage taken creates a debuff called Mortal Coil, of equal value, which must be erased via healing. At the end of Living Dead, 10 seconds after would-be fatal damage is first taken during Walking Dead, the damage stored in Mortal Coil will be dealt instantly. The amount of damage stored by Mortal Coil will be shown similarly to the bar-graphic of shields, but colored a smoky black. Total damage stored by Mortal Coil over the duration cannot exceed 1 fewer than Dark Knight's maximum HP.
  Think of this as simply being able to drop to negative HP, with the DRK being immune to any damage in excess of their max HP. Thus, Living Dead could technically cost twice as much healing, at worst, but in most cases it will cost less and be more intuitive in its Doom cleanse -- if you're at negative HP when you're no longer immune to death, you die.
  
  Note: Benediction has been changed to "Heals all missing HP" from "Heals to full HP", and thus does not double-dip in interaction with Mortal Coil. It will simply heal one fewer than max HP if any Mortal Coil is present (i.e. the DRK is at 1 HP), such that one ends up at Max minus whatever was in Mortal Coil.
• The Blackest Night revised. Its mitigation provided has been reduced from 25% of target HP to 20% of personal HP. The condition reading “Grants Dark Arts when barrier is completely absorbed,” has been replaced with “Reduces the MP cost of your next Edge of Darkness/Shadow and Flood of Darkness/Shadow as the barrier provided is depleted. Fully consuming its barrier makes the next use of either ability free.” Each player %HP of damage absorbed by The Blackest Night reduces the cost of your next Flood of Shadow or Edge of Shadow by 100 MP, with a further 1000 MP reduced if TBN is completely consumed. The point of this is not to reduce the risk-reward component of DRK, but simply to deal with future scaling issues that might make otherwise impossible to use without 500+ potency cost. The switch to player HP instead of target HP is dual-purposed: to facilitate the TBN depletion calculations and to only nerf TBN where it was currently too strong, on the co-tank (and thereby decreasing the advantage of pooling HP-increasing gear into the co-tank over the DRK itself).
• Blood Weapon duration effectively increased. (See general change -- "Skills which apply buffs for a given duration will now apply their buff instantly, just after the applying action's damage calculation, but will not begin to tick down until their animation lock has elapsed.") Additionally, Blood Weapon will now be treated as any other snapshotted effect, rather than as a (dynamic) aura, and thus so long as it was present when any skill was actuated, it will affect the skill. It will thus still show as 10 seconds, but with an oddly long first second, sufficient for ensuring its final supposed hit within window. As any decent DRK took enough SkS to deal with this anyways, this is just a QoL change.
• Salted Earth revised. It now "Creates a patch of salted earth. Enemies who enter will be afflicted by Fate of Ruin. Fate of Ruin effect: Deals unaspected damage damage over time. Potency: 60. Duration: 15 seconds."
• Syphon Strike and Carve and Spit additional effects now read "Restores 6% of maximum MP" or "Restores 600 MP" instead of simply "Restores MP". Because, why be vague?
• Living Shadow now reads "Conjure a simulacrum of your darkside to fight alongside you, dealing unaspected damage over time. Potency: 400. Duration: 24." Because, why be vague?

Minor PPM Buffs

• Living Shadow now more quickly enters the fight, increasing its responsiveness and allowing it one further tick over its duration, shown as a second Bloodspiller. If using the highest DRK parse to date as a basis, this would provide roughly another 13k per Living Shadow, or about another 100 dps depending on fight length.
• Delirium no longer causes Bloodspiller to generate 200 MP or Quietus to generate 500 MP. Instead, Bloodspiller will always generate 200 MP, and Quietus will always generate 500 MP. This improves a non-Delirium Quietus from a mere 5 potency over Unleash-Stalwart Soul to 55 potency over, while having no effect on Delirium-Quietus. In raids, this is of almost no consequence, providing only at most 3 more Edge of Shadow casts per fight. This would, at absolute best for current parses, provide about another 48 dps.
• In total, a 90th percentile DRK would probably do about 120 more dps, putting them neck-and-neck with PLD.

Improving Synergies (Pipedream / Unnecessary)

• Souleater Cure potency increased to 400.
  Dark Mind replaced by Dark Dance. Dark Dance "Decreases damage taken by 15%, but causes the damage prevented to inflict Blood Price in equal amount. Duration: 12 seconds. Blood Price effect: Deals damage equal to the amount stored as periodic damage, split over 12 seconds." HP stored within Blood Price is indicated on your HP bar.
  Unlike Mortal Coil, Blood Price cannot be healed away preemptively and thus is not typically used against fatal damage unless the final tick would arrive after, say, Benediction, but before Living Dead ends.
• New trait, Blood for Blood, added at level 45, alongside Dark Dance. Blood for Blood "Increases the HP recovered through your actions by 2% for every 1% of your HP missing or stored within Blood Price or Mortal Coil."
• New trait, The Sending added at level 58: "Each time Salted Earth deals damage against more than one enemy at a time, you generate 10 Blood. Enemies affected by Fate of Ruin take an additional 20 potency of damage from your Unleash, Quietus, and Stalwart Soul skills."
• New trait, Blood to Spill, added at level 68: "When HP recovered by Souleater or Abyssal Drain exceeds your maximum HP, you gain Blood to Spill in amount equal to the excess. Blood to Spill Effect: your next Bloodspiller will deal additional healing equal to the amount stored by Blood to Spill."
• Abyssal Drain revised. It now "Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 200 while healing you for 600 potency for the first enemy, 50% less for the second, and 75% less for all remaining enemies. Cure Potency: 600 HP." At 600/300/150, this should make it a little less strong in mass pulls while making it feel at least a little impactful in general combat.

Dancer

QoL and Buffs via Fluidity and Responsiveness

• Standard Step and Technical Step no longer prevent any actions except other weaponskills. Devilment can thus be cast just before Finish.
• Standard Step and Technical Step are no longer restricted by the global recast time, but do still inflict it. Furthermore, the global recast time triggered by entering Standard Step, Standard Finish, Technical Step, and Technical Finish reduced from 1.5 seconds to 40% of GCD, and global recast time triggered by Emboite, Entrechat, Jete, and Pirouette reduced from 1 second to 30% of GCD (.75 seconds base). To compensate, Standard Finish potencies reduced to 400/600/800 (equivalent potency per second would be 333/516/700) and Technical Finish potencies reduced to 400/600/800/1000/1200 (equivalent potency per second would be 333/516/700/884/1066, but this would not account for its inflated relative value as a cooldown if left to itself). By reducing the time of a Standard combo from 5 seconds to ~2.5 and a Technical from 7 to ~3.5, these abilities should feel more fluid and less invasive upon buff periods. It also offers a fair bit more uptime per half minute and two minutes, equating to over 2.5 additional GCDs of value per average minute, a substantial buff.
• Windmill, Bladeshower, Rising Windmill, and Bloodshower now also turn into Emboite, Entrechat, Jete, and Pirouette, respectively. The condition "※This action cannot be assigned to a hotbar" attached to Emboite, Entrechat, Jete, and Pirouette has been replaced with "※Assigning this skill to a hotbar will cause other actions to no longer shift into this skill under the effects of Standard Step or Technical Step."
• Closed Position cooldown reduced from 30 seconds to 10. Standard Finish and Espirit are no longer applied to allies directly, but instead only through Closed Position. Thus when changing partners, Standard Finish and Espirit will still be lost from the first partner but automatically added to the second at the duration remaining on you. This allows for more rapid switching between recipients according to their burst phases or upon their deaths. It can therefore oblige slightly more attention at the highest levels of play, but mostly stands as a QoL bonus for parties with many deaths.

Potency and Functionality Buffs

• New trait, Devilish Grace, gained at level 64 (previously an empty level step), causes Devilment to increase your chance to trigger Flourishing Cascade, Flourishing Fountain, Flourishing Windmill, and Flourishing Shower by 20%.
• New trait, Fatal Grace, gained at level 74 (previously an empty level step), increases your chance to trigger Flourishing Cascade, Flourishing Fountain, Flourishing Windmill, and Flourishing Shower from 50% to 65%. This stacks with Devilment (via Devilish Grace) to 85%.
• Saber Dance Espirit cost reduced from 50 to 40 and its potency has been increased from 500 to 600.
• Fan Dance I potency increased from 150 to 180.
• Fan Dance II potency increased from 100 to 120.

Other Attractors and Fleshing Out Underwhelming Components

• Curing Waltz potency increased from 200 to 400.
• Enhanced En Avant now "Allows the accumulation of charges for consecutive uses of En Avant and causes En Avant to also increase the movement speed of you and your Dancer Partner by 20% for 3 seconds."
• Enhanced En Avant now "Allows a third charge of En Avant and causes your Dance Partner's movement skills to likewise increase your and their movement speed by 20% for 3 seconds."

Samurai

General Needs: Greater downtime usage and greater ease of timing to mechanics (as seen by Eden Prime and Leviathan relative to Voidwalker and Titan). About 180 dps overall, but ideally all from sources of functional ease, rather than raw potency buffs.

Hagakure Returns as a Truly Useful, but QoL, Skill

• Hagakure has now switched places with Merciful Eyes and Hissatsu: Seigan, becoming available at level 58 while Merciful Eyes has been moved to level 66 and Hissatsu: Seigan to level 68.
• Hagakure revised. It now has a cooldown of 35 seconds, scaling with GCD speed, though this cooldown is reset once out of combat. It now generates 15 Kenki per Sen, up from 5. At 3 Sen, this is merely a bonus of 10 potency, making it purely a QoL skill. It's just now actually usable in combat, rather than being a trap.

Miscellaneous Changes

• Hissatsu: Kaiten can no longer be activated while the buff is already active.
  Enhanced Jinpu and Shifu, the level 78 trait, has been changed to The Wheel Turns, and now grants its 3% additional Attack Speed and Damage baseline. This should slightly mitigate SAM's fight-specific ramp-up issues.
• Enpi buffed to 180 potency and its Enhanced Enpi Bonus Potency to 200. Combined with Yaten, Enhanced Enpi will therefore deal a net 480 potency over its GCD, just ~20 short of the average ppgcd, allowing it to be used mostly at will to the same extent as Yaten and Gyoten themselves (or, maintaining Yaten's cost)
• Iajutsu now uses a cast time of 60% of GCD from the start (1.5 base, 1.35 under Shifu and 1.3 after level 78). The level 74 trait, Enhanced Iajutsu now instead changes how Iajutsu works: "Additionally, you may now use Iajutsu on any target within the range of Hissatsu: Gyoten and your movement skills can be used during Iajutsu. If you do not enter melee range at any point before the cast completes, it will not consume Sen or Kaiten, nor trigger the global recast time. Moreover, using Hissatsu: Yaten will extend the range of any and all Iajutsu to 10 meters for 1 second." Yes, you can now Samurai-dash-Midare mobs in full style, and you can complete Higanbana while back-dashing via Yaten. You can now go from the methodical sauntering Samurai to Katana Zero. It now feels like quite a worthwhile trait acquisition.

Tsubame-Gaeshi Hidden Nerfs (as of the lastest patch) Mostly Undone/Reverted

• Tsubame-Gaeshi condition "Can only be executed immediately following Iaijutsu" has been removed. Tsubame-Gaeshi can instead be used at any time within 10 seconds of the most recent Iaijutsu. A new job gauge UI graphic has been added to indicate this capacity and its timer.
• Tsubame Gaeshi's change to an instant cast and GCD cost it roughly 500 ppm. It has been changed to split the difference: Tsubame-Gaeshi is no longer locked out by other GCDs, and is still instant, but does incur a 60% GCD. This thus returns 40% of a GCD per minute, worth roughly 200 ppm. (+200 ppm)

Meditate Improved Specifically as a Downtime Tool and Impact on Shoha

• Meditate now longer uses the server tick rate and instead follows the player GCD. It can no longer be used to trick out an extra 220 potency per minute. Functionally speaking, it's now a channeled weaponskill. This in turn has allowed its strength in or against downtime to be improved and for its availability to be increased without inflating its ppm during uptime. Each GCD's time generates 10 Kenki and a stack of Meditation (now worth 180 potency each; see below). (Net change: Lost chance of 220 ppm when in zero-downtime situations.)
• The GCD timer, ghosted, will continue to cycle during Meditation to give an idea of when your next tick will go off and when to resync to your GCDs.
• Meditate cooldown reduced to 30 seconds, but it no longer begins to recharge until after its channeling has ended.
• Shoha potency curve reworked to "Consumes available stacks of Meditation to delivers an attack of 180 potency per stack of Meditation, to a maximum of 900 potency at 5 stacks."
• Meditate is therefore now equivalently useful for downtime to the buffed Enpi at 300 ppgcd, and only 100 potency short of Enhanced Enpi or 110 potency short of your optimal average GCD, despite being able to bank Shoha for future raid debuffs. It is also available more frequently than before.
• Shoha now additionally reads "By default, replaces Meditate when 1 or more stacks of Meditation are present. Manually adding Shoha to your hotbar decouples Shoha from Meditation." Decoupling the two skills recommended for serious players in raids with high raid debuff interaction, but is otherwise completely unnecessary; most players may as well just take the QoL buff here.

Smoothing Potencies

• Thus far we've fallen about 20 potency short of SAM's former position in a target dummy fight, though the practical value of the QoL buffs will most likely actually place SAM into a net buff and will certainly improve Samurai's situation in fights where downtime is at all prevalent.
• In the meanwhile several Samurai potency values are still quite... awkward, so I'll be touching up some of those.
• Hissatsu: Shinten returned to 300 potency as to again have an efficiency of 12 potency, down from 12.8, giving positionals a bonus of 60 potency, rather than 64, and Gyoten/Yaten potency costs of 20, rather than 21.6. (-75 ppm)
• Hissatsu: Guren buffed from 850 to a smoother 900 (efficiency 18) (+25 ppm only before Senei).
• Hissatsu: Senei buffed from 1100 to a smoother and more impressive 1200 (efficiency 24) (+50 ppm).
• Hissatsu: Seigan buffed from 220 to 240 potency (efficiency 16, up from 14.67) as to truly have a reason for existing, providing 60 potency of advantage over a Shinten with each use, up from 40. (+20-40 ppm on average) This still would net only an extra 70 dps across, say, the top current Samurai parse in the Voidwalker fight, and is therefore basically irrelevant except to flavor. I just like the consistent bonuses of 60 potency. Clean. Simple.

Other Consolidations

• Third Eye mitigation increased to 15%, as to be at least somewhat noticeable. Eyes Opened effect duration reduced from 15 seconds to 12 seconds.
• Merciful Eyes revised. It now heals for 400 potency, up from 200, and additionally reads, "By default, replaces Third Eye while the Eyes Opened effect is present. Manually adding Merciful Eyes to your hotbar decouples it from Third Eye." This QoL buff merely offers the option of saving a hotbar space.
• Hissatsu: Senei revised. It now additionally reads, "By default, replaces Hissatsu: Guren when only one target is present in its line of attack. Manually adding Hissatsu: Senei to your hotbar decouples it from Third Eye." This QoL buff merely offers the option of saving a hotbar space.

Ninja

In progress: Raiton clipping removed. Fuma will therefore need buffs, preferably in a way that gives in some unique advantage or pursuit, similar to its old ability to save uptime.

Consolidation

• Dream Within a Dream now automatically changes to Assassinate for 10 seconds after usage during which Assassinate Ready is active.

Ninjutsu QoL:

• Mudra can no longer be used twice in the same preparation of Ninjutsu. By default, unless Ninjutsu has been manually added to one's hotbar, once a Mudra has been used it turns into Ninjutsu. :: Note that this transformed Ninjutsu cannot be queued until the transformation is complete, thus running little to additional risk of doubling--and therefore accidentally casting Ninjutsu early--when mashing the Mudra's key (which bunnying already made nonviable).
• Ninjutsu are no longer ended or placed into 'bunny' state by performing other actions while preparing them.
  Yes, you can now weave them between GCDs. Yes, it is now situationally good practice to hit Trick Attack just before a Raiton or Hyosho if you would not otherwise be able to get off an extra GCD anyways.
• "Bunnying" can now only be done by waiting out the mudra completely. It will thereafter refund 5 seconds of Ninjutsu timer. It can still give sage advice in future NIN-specific quests when you grow too arrogant or believe you have no use for your bunny.

Ten-Chi-Jin

• The 1-second forced pause between Ninjutsu casts prior to the final 3-mudra cast during Ten Chi Jin has been reduced to the normal Mudra/Ninjutsu lock instead of a separate, extended 1-second timer. Like normal Ninjutsu, Mudras before each Ninjutsu and the Ninjutsu themselves will take 2/3rds of a second, scaling with GCD speed (e.g. at most .566 seconds under Huton). This makes it more fluid without giving further advantage therein to players with lower latency. This allows for roughly .4 GCDs more uptime, worth some 90 ppm.
• Ten Chi Jin no longer requires that you are stationary. Instead, TCJ will generate two effects: Ten Chi Jin and Heaven's Seal. Ten Chi Jin reads "Your next 2 Ninjutsu casts will not consume their mudras". Heavens' Seal then acts similarly to Ley Lines: "While standing within the Heavens' Seal, your Ninjutsu casts deal 50% increased potency. Heaven's Seal ends when Ten Chi Jin ends." Thus, you must stay within the 2-meter-radius area of effect to benefit from TCJ's bonus damage, but you can still move about while unleashing all three casts.

Miscellaneous Changes

• Shukuchi cooldown reduced to 45 seconds. It now also seems to retain momentum, increasing movement speed by 20% for .5 seconds after use.
• Mug cooldown reduced to 90 seconds.
• New skill, Keiei (形影), added at level 46. Shares a recast timer with Shukuchi. It teleports one immediately to the target. It likewise increases movement speed by 20% for .5 seconds after use. This is essentially just a macro-less "at-target" version of Shukuchi, though with a different animation.
• Throwing Dagger potency increased to 220.
• New trait, Dangers Near and Far, gained at level 28: "Throwing Daggers will no longer interrupt your weaponskill combos."

Mudra Consistency over SkS and Increased Fluidity

• Ninjutsu and Kassatsu cooldowns now scales with Speed, thus avoiding awkward intervals by which Ninjutsu would be readied half-way through the oGCD gap, forcing Fuma or an outright waste of said oGCD gap (delaying Ninjutsu for the next GCD's gap). Because TA does not, this at most adds a bit of ease of timing in order to keep TA at an exact 60-second interval, the rest of the flexibility being extended by the 20-second Suiton buff (increased from 10 seconds at the start of Shadowbringers).
• Mudras now have consistent %GCD clipping over varying GCD speeds.

Some may remember the old Dervy posts about the idiosyncrasies of Mudras and Ninjutsu, whereby all GCDs use a delay of .634 seconds (38 60 fps frames) and mudras applied a .5 second delay to each other (30 frames), but a .657 (39-frame) delay onto Ninjutsu, such that a no-ping Raiton would take 1.702 seconds, instead of 1.634 seconds. Essentially, historically Mudras have had a conditional 9 extra transitional frames; before anything but Ninjutsu, they've been 30 frames long, but before Ninjutsu they've been 39 frames long.

For simple consistency, I'll be extending the 39-frame variant to 40, same as any other animation lock. Its base form will remain 30 frames. Alongside this, Trick Attack and Kassatsu will likewise be reduced to 30 frames, making them only 3/4ths the animation lock of a typical oGCD. Ninjutsu will remain at 40 frames. Keep in mind that there are effectively 150 frames per GCD, no matter your actual GCD length, since the frame count will scale with GCD duration.

So, some examples... (Keep in mind you will no longer be able to "Bunny", and are therefore totally free to weave these as you see fit.)[LIST]WS+Ten+Ninjutsu (Fuma) = 40 + 40 + 40 = 120/150 = 80% GCD.
WS+Ten+Trick+Ninjutsu (Trick-Fuma) = 40 + 30 + 30 + 40 = 140/150 = 93.3% GCD. (Note that the Mudra comes before TA, here, and is therefore shorter.)
WS+Kassatsu+Ten+Ninjutsu (Kassatsu-Fuma) = 40 + 30 + 40 + 40 = 150/150 = 100% GCD.
WS+Ten+Chi+Ninjutsu (Raiton) = 40 + 30 + 40 + 40 = 150/150 = 100% GCD.
WS+Ten+Chi+Jin+Ninjutsu (Suiton) = 40 + 30 + 30 + 40 + 40 = 180/150 = 120% GCD.
WS+Ten+Chi+Jin+Ninjutsu+Trick (Suiton-Trick) = 40 + 40 + 40 + 40 + 30 + 30 = 210/150 = 140% GCD.
So, Raiton no longer clips, ever, while Kassatsu-Raiton/Hyosho clips by a mere 20% of a GCD. Suiton only ever clips by 20%, ever, while Suiton-Trick clips by only 40%, ever. Much more straightforward. No awkward Speed interactions.

Buffing Ninjutsu Alternatives in Light of Reduction to Clipping, and Other Compensations

• At this point, Kassatsu represents an exact 20% GCD penalty, worth roughly 105 potency at present or 95 potency with the target weaponskill nerfs. That's actually less than before, so no direct compensation is necessary, though some smoothing may be desirable later, as, at present, 20% of a GCD is worth more than, say, 30% of a Fuma.
• Trick Attack's 20% further GCD cost if not held for the next GCD should remain sufficiently attractive just from keeping its raid debuff interval consistent and being able to hold enough SkS to fit another GCD (at 2 seconds or fewer).
• Since Fuma Shuriken no longer offers an uptime advantage against Raiton, it will have to have some other, preferably unique, advantage. Simply being able to weave in another non-Mudra/Ninjutsu oGCD is not nearly enough. [IN PROGRESS. This will likely make use of a shorter Ninjutsu recast time, e.g. 15 seconds at 300 potency, an Attack Speed buff, or some mechanic wound into Shukiko, Throwing Daggers (for a flexible bonus nuke best timed for melee-downtime and/or syncing rotation), or bonus damage on hit (similar to Ruination but affecting all attacks, to be used before a flurry of oGCDs).]

Balancing Sums and Gameplay Results

• Faster TCJ allows for nearly an extra half-GCD per minute for roughly 180 ppm, Bhavacakra buff gives roughly an additional 260 ppm, Suiton buff gives an extra 150 ppm, and the changes to Critical Hit and Direct Hit to prevent stat waste (by converting excess chance into additional effect) buff Assassination by a small amount atop that. Note that these are not meant to significantly buff Ninja's maximal performance. Ninja is already in a good place overall and needs only the smallest of raw and practical buffs to push it up to DRG's rDPS. These are instead to make its kit more fluid and intuitive, such as through allowing Mudras to be woven through other actions and vice versa, clip-less Raiton, faster and mobile TCJ, etc. Thus, compensation is necessary, via nerfs elsewhere.
• At present, Ninja deals 418 ppgcd when including the effects of Shukiko and assuming a single clipped tick of Shadow Fang each use. Moreover, Armor Crush is currently so absurdly strong, that Aeolian Edge has virtually no positional cost: one can merely Armor Crush early for only 20 potency less, thus scoring a fully worthwhile hit from the flank when the back is not an option. Currently, every combo but Shadow Fang has a non-integer ppgcd. I'd prefer to give each an integer ppgcd (or at least something like 333.33 ppgcd), while matching factors to per 16 gcds.

By trimming down Spinning Slash to 210, Gust Blade to 320, Armor Crush to 340/400, and increasing Shadow Fang to 230 initial damage, we'd have cleaner ppgcds of 310, 330, and 500 (465 clipped), respectively, with an average ppgcd of roughly...

[2(500)+6(330)+2(500)+3(330)+3(310)+16(60)] per 16 GCDs or 32 seconds at a 2-second GCD (sustainable for 35 rotations before needing an extra AC, and potentially wasting 1 tick per sub-string until at 1.84-second GCD), or
[2(465)+3(330)+2(500)+3(330)+3(310)] per 15 GCDs or, say, 31.875 seconds at a 2.125 GCD.

These would be cleaner, but we could do better... The /15 and /16 values should also be integers, ideally, with oGCDs then taking up the slack. [IN PROGRESS]

Pipedream Identity and Button-Value Improvements

• New trait, Throwing Daggers Mastery gained at level 64: "Upgrades Throwing Daggers to Edged Flurry."
• Mug is now always a Critical Hit, but its potency has been reduced from 150 to 100, thus dealing the same effective potency.
• New skill, Edged Flurry: "Ability. Recast time: (50% GCD). Delivers a ranged attack of 140 potency to the target. Shares a recast timer with all other weaponskills. Continues to deliver another attack of 130 potency every (50% GCD) seconds, to a maximum of 560 potency over (2 GCDs) seconds. Each additional attack will again trigger the global recast time for (50% GCD) seconds. Using another action during this time will cancel the remaining additional attacks in favor of the selected weaponskill." This essentially just allows the Ninja to pick from using .5, 1, 1.5, or 2 GCDs at a time on ranged weaponskills, weaving oGCDs between if they so desire, while dealing 280 ppgcd via ranged attacks. As an ability, these strikes do not benefit from Shukiko directly.
• New trait, Shadow's Arsenal gained at level 44: "Critical hits struck by your weaponskills and abilities generate Shadow's Arsenal, increasing the damage to be dealt by each attack of Edged Flurry by 10, to a maximum of 50. the global recast time that will be inflicted by your next use of Throwing Daggers by 10%, up to a maximum of 40%, lasting for 40 seconds." Once fully built, Throwing Daggers can essentially be used as a faint potency bonus at level 70, or for up to 2 GCDs of potency-even ranged attacks level 78+ (+/- 45 ppgcd gain if preventing a clipped tick of Shadow Fang or delaying a tick of Shadow Fang).

Dragoon

Dragoon is the gold standard for this suggestion set, so it will have no overall potency adjustments except to Piercing Talon. All else is just sensible QoL.

Blood of the Dragon, now effectively a non-mechanic outside of Eyes, has been changed to a trait.

• Blood of the Dragon is now a trait gained at level 54. "Using any damaging ability will wake the blood of dragons within you, increasing its damage and that of all your abilities by 30% for up to 30 seconds. Each ability thus enhanced consumes a further 5 seconds of duration. If the full duration is lost, the effect will end and the blood will enter a state of slumber, regenerating a second of duration each second at rest to be activated upon your next ability, at which point it will begin to drain again. Once in slumber, the blood cannot wake again until 20 or more seconds of duration are available. Automatically enters slumber when out of combat."
• This differs from the current version only in that it's a tiny bit harder to keep up as to at least pretend to be a mechanic.
• Units of Gaze of the First Brood (aka "Eyes") are no longer lost upon losing Blood of the Dragon, only upon death. Life of the Dragon otherwise changed only in that it no longer requires Blood of the Dragon, only that two units of Gaze of the First Brood are present.
• Fang and Claw no longer requires Sharpened Claw to use. Instead, it simply "Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. 140 when executed from a target's flank. Combo Action: Full Thrust. Combo Potency: 320. Flank Combo Potency: 360. Additional Effect: Extends Blood of the Dragon duration by 10s to a maximum of 30s."
• Wheeling Thrust no longer requires Enhanced Wheeling Thrust to use. Instead, it simply "Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. 140 when executed from a target's rear. Combo Action: Chaos Thrust. Combo Potency: 320. Rear Combo Potency: 360. Additional Effect: Extends Blood of the Dragon duration by 10s to a maximum of 30s."

Other QoL Changes

• Jump and High Jump now automatically change to Mirage Dive for the 15 seconds during which Dive Ready is active. Mirage Dive can only be placed on hotbars after Jump or High Jump is on the bars and placing it on the bars will decouple it from Jump or High Jump.
• Life Surge recast time now scales with player GCD and healing dealt increased from 25% of damage inflicted to 50% of damage inflicted.
• After using Dragon Sight without a target, Dragon Sight is replaced with Left Eye, allowing you to affect a party member with the remainder of Dragon Sight’s duration. This latter action has no animation and may be used even in the middle of another skill.
• Battle Litany range increased from 15 yalms to 20.
• Piercing Talon potency increased to 210.
• At level 64, Dragoon also gains Piercing Talon Mastery, upgrading Piercing Talon to Dragonkiller whenever a combo skill has been readied. Dragonkiller "delivers a ranged attack with a potency of 330 and extends Blood of the Dragon by 15 seconds. Requires that a combo skill has been readied. Deals an additional 100 potency if Full Thrust, Chaos Thrust, Fang and Claw or Wheeling Thrust are readied."

  Since DRG deals 411 weaponskill potency per GCD over time, Piercing Talon thus costs 201 potency when replacing True Thrust, while Dragonkiller costs 202 when replacing a Vorpal Thrust, and at least 163 (+ lost CT ticks or lost Disembowel bonus potency) when replacing a Full Thrust, but only 14 potency if used on the first Dragon skill (apart from whatever CT ticks or Disembowel bonus potency are lost) or 36 potency (loss increased 76 after gaining Raiden Thrust) if replacing the second Dragon skill (again, + wasted ticks or duration). This therefore not only mitigates downtime for DRG, but leaves an alternate rotational option when needing to quickly drop one's combo (especially upon the first Dragon skill) to swap to a different target or more quickly refresh Chaos Thrust. When any other skill is readied, Piercing Talon will cost half a GCD of potency, but when about to use a Dragon skill, one can choose to rush the rotation at very little potency cost. Thus the throwing skill remains something worth situationally waiting against, but is no longer so often or hugely a potency trap, and does have interesting interactions with the rotation across certain GCD spaces.

Bard

Note: At Max parse levels, Bard is about 1200-1600 rDPS, depending on the fight, behind DRG.

Fixing Apex Arrow and Returning Speed Impact

• Apex Arrow now reads "Delivers an attack with a potency of 320. | Soul Voice Gauge Cost: 20 | Potency increases as Soul Voice Gauge exceeds minimum cost, to a maximum of 520. | Consumes Soul Voice Gauge upon execution." It therefore now starts at the effective value of Burst Shot, 270, and then deals 2.5 potency per point of Soul Voice. Its potency advantage at 100 Gauge is basically unchanged, but it now offers a consistent potency advantage per gauge, rather than in an increasing amount, and is now far more transparent in its workings.
• Empyreal Arrow now again scales with one's GCD speed.
• Bloodletter and Rain of Death now additionally scale with one's GCD speed.

Improving Straighter Shot / Refulgent Arrow Interactions

• Straight Shot is no longer available only during Straighter Shot.
• Heavier Shot trait granted at level 2 replaced with Called Shot. Called Shot: "Every 10 potency dealt by your weaponskills increases the Critical Hit chance of your Straight Shot* by 1%. Called Shot is consumed upon using Straight Shot*. Straight Shot* does not generate this effect. Critical Hit chance thus generated cannot exceed 100%. Multi-target weaponskills can only apply this bonus per one attack each use." (*Changes to Refulgent Arrow after acquiring the skill.)

  Note that because Critical Strike chance cannot exceed 100%, you cannot overcap the mechanic for added damage, but you can still get full value out of the mechanic regardless of your natural Critical Hit chance.
  
  Given a natural Critical Hit chance of, say, 10%, the time required to guarantee a Straight Shot/Refulgent Arrow Critical Hit unchanged for Heavy Shot (90/18 = 5 | 100/20 = 5) and only 26% higher for Burst Shot (90/27 = 3.33 | 100/35 = 2.85), though its potency bonus will have increased from 20 to 55.
  
  Gameplay-wise, rather than chancing a proc with each shot which would thereafter be wasted if going for another Heavy Shot, you can now increasingly bank a shot towards auto-crit with rewards for every missed shot between. The proc chance is only wasted once you've already guaranteed a Critical Hit via the Called Shot mechanic.
  
  Given that Critical Hit cannot go to waste, this can be considered a simple potency increase of Straight Shot and Refulgent Arrow's auto-crits relative to their previous normal potencies. Straight Shot therefore deals 25 more potency at higher proc rates (since skills other than Heavy Shot now also apply this chance) while Refulgent Arrow pre-Burst Shot deals 50 more potency at, again, higher proc rates (same reason). After Burst Shot, Refulgent Arrow procs deal only 7 potency less given the reduced proc chance compared to the current version, though this is more than compensated for elsewhere (such as by increasing Burst Shot to 270 potency).

• A new UI component has been made to display this mechanically-increased Critical Hit chance on Straight Shot. It does not account for natural Critical Hit chance.

Potency Adjustments and Symmetries Consequent to Called Shot

• To balance out the far stronger auto-crit mechanic, Straight Shot potency has also been reduced from 200 to 150 (auto-critting for 225+ potency and Refulgent Arrow potency from 340 to 260 (auto critting for an effective 390 potency). Net potency over time changes listed earlier, above.
• To facilitate interactions with Called Shot and to make gameplay more engaging at lower levels, Venomous Bite direct potency has been increased from 100 to 135 and its periodic potency from 40 to 45 but its duration has been reduced to 21 seconds. Likewise, Windbite direct potency has been increased from 60 to 110 and its periodic potency from 50 to 55. Iron Jaws potency increased to the larger of the two at 135 potency. This changes weaponskill potency per 30 seconds only from 1960 to 1987.5, or by a mere 55 potency per minute, prior to gaining Iron Jaws, and to 2115 after, a potency per minute increase of 155.
• To facilitate interactions with Called Shot and skill symmetries, Stormbite potency has been increased from 100 to 120 (i.e. again 2 instant ticks vs. Caustic/Venom's 3 ticks). This is irrelevant to sustained damage.
• To facilitate interactions with Called Shot and to improve late-game balance, Burst Shot potency has been increased from 230 to 270. This would be an increase of about 600 dps if applied to the highest Bard parse to date, which trails about 1800 rDPS behind the best DRG parse for the same fight.

Revising Songs for Flexibility

• Army's Paeon revised and Enhanced Army's Paeon replaced. Army's Paeon now simply reads "Repertoire Effect: Increases your Attack Speed 5% for 15 seconds, stacking up to 3 times. Each additional stack refreshes the effect. Effect does not end when the song ends. Additional Effect: Potency dealt by Abilities will also count towards Called Shot."
• Mage's Ballad, Army's Paeon, and The Wanderer's Minuet no longer require a target and no longer deal potency. This lost ~240 ppm has been compensated for elsewhere.
• New level 30 trait, Breath of the Muse, added: "MP naturally regenerated over time doubled." You thus regenerate 2% MP per second.
• Mage's Ballad, Army's Paeon, and The Wanderer's Minuet no longer have fixed cooldowns. Instead they now have MP costs. Each shows an MP cost of 2400 (equal to roughly the first 20 seconds' drain cost, and requiring 8 seconds' downtime to recover) and now additionally reads "Increasingly drains MP over time, starting at a rate of 8 MP per second and increasing by a further 8 MP per second with each second. When the song is longer in use, its drain rate is reduced by 4 MP each second."
  The gameplay consequences of this system is that one will be perfectly free to rotate Songs within 24-25 seconds of each other and will waste only minute amounts of MP (i.e. 120) rotating between every 20 and 30 seconds, but can now choose to overextend their songs at MP cost based on relative value (vs. time spent not singing) or upcoming downtime.
• Empyreal Arrow now additionally regenerates 5% of missing MP, thus allowing you to extend your Songs up to 34 seconds without cost or more frequently rotate between them at every 19 seconds. Ideally, it should be used immediately after changing Songs, thus pushing Song swaps towards 15/30 seconds in use.

Improving Upon the Song Effects Themselves

• In progress: Now that Songs are more flexibly timeable, each will need to be more competitively attractive with the others.

Improving Other Synergies

• Raging Strikes replaced again with Hawkeye, which increases Critical Strike chance by 20%. It thus has the same net damage effect, but better synergizes with auto-crits by decreasing the Called Shot % required to guarantee that the Critical Hit chance will not go to waste.
  In progress: Repertoire generation adjustments to offer even more synergies. No, it will not be based solely on Critical Hit.

Other Buffs

• Sidewinder potency increased from 100 to 210 and its Additional Effect now reads "Instantly deals damage equal to twice the periodic effect potency of your effects currently afflicting the target." It thus deals an additional 90 for Venomous Bite, 100 for Caustic Bite, 110 for Windbite, and 120 for Stormbite, to a total of 400 to 420.
• Shadowbite potency increased from 100 to 160 and its Additional Effect now reads "Instantly deals damage equal the periodic effect potency of your effects currently afflicting the target." It thus deals an additional 45 for Venomous Bite, 50 for Caustic Bite, 55 for Windbite, and 60 for Stormbite, to a total of 260 to 280.
• Battle Voice cooldown reduced from 180 seconds to 120 seconds. This is worth roughly 153 to 220 rDPS at current highest rDPS parses.

Totals

• + ~150-220 rDPS from Battle Voice
• - ~220 ppm (~170 DPS) from Songs no longer requiring targets.
• + ~600 dps from Burst Shot.
• + ~165 ppm from Sidewinder.
• In progress: + ~300 from Repertoire effects and Song adjustments.
• In progress: + ~300-400 from returned, revamped Foe Requiem.
• In progress: Nature's Minne buffs. Warden's Paeon minor buffs.

Monk

Note: Monk is only at most about 400 rDPS above the intended mark. Thus, I'll be including some fixes meant to make Monk less clunky first and then slightly downtune certain major power factors where such where potency loss from failure to exploit these factors was badly disproportionate to any other sources of failure.

Chakra/Meditation

• The Forbidden Chakra and Enlightenment will now consume all available chakra, dealing 75 and 45 potency per Chakra consumed, respectively. This can be used at any point from 1 to maximum Chakra.
• Meditation and The Forbidden Chakra still remain attached to each other by default, changing Meditation into The Forbidden Chakra at 5 or more Chakra, but manually adding The Forbidden Chakra to your hotbars while Meditation/TFC is already present will decouple the two skills.
• If Meditation and The Forbidden Chakra are already separated, Enlightenment will bind to The Forbidden Chakra by default, to be used when two or more targets are within its line of attack. These, too, can be separated by manually adding Enlightenment to your hotbars.
• Deep Meditation now also affects Meditation itself, granting its chance times your Critical Hit chance to generate a second Chakra.
• Meditation recast time will now always be equal to 50% of a GCD, rather than a fixed 1.2 seconds.
• Meditation can no longer be used outside of combat, but at level 54 (the level at which Meditation is acquired) Monk also gains the trait, Mind and Body, which causes the Monk to gain a point of Chakra every half-GCD when out of combat, as if Meditation were being used immediately and continuously but without triggering the global recast time.
• The Forbidden Chakra and Enlightenment may again be used regardless of combat state. The awkward and unnecessary combat-check delay has been removed.

Forms/Form Shift

• Form Shift now instead offers access to skills belonging to a further stance until one’s next weaponskill, rather than shifting from one to stance to another, granting either Simian Slight, Raptor’s Flight, or Coeurl’s Might. These may stack together, each lasting 10 15 seconds in combat. While out of combat, their durations do not fade.
• At level 52, Monks also gain access to the trait, Formless, which causes the effects of Form Shift to occur automatically when out of combat without incurring the global cooldown, starting a global cooldown after combat has ended advancing with each GCD's time until reaching access to all three forms. The durations of these added forms do not fade until entering combat.
• Perfect Balance will now grant Simian Slight, Raptor’s Flight, and Coeurl’s Might at the end of its duration, allowing access to any form for their next hit within 10 15 seconds.

Anatman, Brotherhood, and Tornado Kick

• Anatman now ticks instantly and then once per player GCD, rather than following the server tick.
• Tornado Kick now delays its GL cost until slightly after its maximum animation time has completed.
• Brotherhood now affects all sources of damage.

Improving Upon "Fists" Stances

• You can no longer be without a stance.

  Once Fists of Earth is acquired, it will be activated automatically then and each time you swap to Pugilist/Monk and cannot be turned off. Fists of Earth won't even take up a hotbar space until you acquire Fists of Wind, unless you manually add it to your hotbars.
  When you acquire Fists of Wind, it will replace Fists of Earth as the default stance and you will have a single hotbar slot by which to swap between the two stances, though you can add the other manually.
  Once you acquire Fists of Fire, Fists of Wind will remain the default stance but you will have two hotbar slots by which to swap to Fire or Earth. Once swapping to either, that slot will be replaced by Fists of Wind. You may, again, place Fists of Fire into your hotbars manually to break this coupled functionality.

• Fists of Earth, Wind, and Fire now each have shorter animation locks and their shared recast time has been reduced to 1.5 seconds, down from 3 seconds.
• Fists of Earth revised: "Reduces damage taken by 10%*."
• Fists of Wind: "Increases Movement Speed by 10%* and Attack Speed by 5%."
• Fists of Fire: "Increases your damage dealt by 5% and causes you to generate healing equal to up to 10%* of your damage dealt based on your missing HP." *Healing effect diminishes between 25% and 75% HP, from the full conversion factor at 25% HP or less to half that at 75% or more.
  
  
• Mantra "Grants effect to self and party members within 10 yalms based on current stance. Fists of Earth effect: Reduces damage taken by 10%. Fists of Wind effect: Increases movement speed by 15%. Fists of Fire effect: Increases healing taken by 15%."
• New trait at level 46, Elements Within: "The Damage Reduction provided by Fists of Earth, the Movement Speed provided by Fists of Wind, and the Healing provided by Fists of Fire now increase by 5% per stack of Greased Lightning. Shoulder Tackle now gains additional effects based on current stance.

  (Fists of Earth) Steel Peak: "Stuns the target for 2 seconds, ignoring diminishing returns and generating 5 seconds of Earth's Reply. Reuse on the same target within 3 seconds to knock back the enemy 10 yalms or, failing that, knock self back 10 yalms."
  (Fists of Wind) Riddle of Wind: "Generates a charge of Greased Lightning and a portion of Twisting Winds. Reuse to consume Twisting Winds. Once Fists of Fire effect: Marks the enemy with Searing Fists, causing 10% of Damage dealt to the enemy to be stored over 3 seconds."
  (Fists of Fire) Red Lotus: "Marks the target with the Red Lotus, which duplicates and stores 10% of your damage dealt to the target for up to 10 seconds. Damage stored by Red Lotus at any point in time rapidly fades over 5 seconds. When the duration ends the damage stored will be dealt, and 50% of that damage will additionally be dealt to all enemies near the target. Reuse to end Red Lotus early.

• At level 66, Earth's Reply is replaced by Elements Within II:" Fists of Earth gains Earth's Reply. Fists of Wind gains Twisting Winds. Fists of Fire gains Heart of Fire."

  • Fists of Earth: Generates Earth's Reply for a duration based on the damage absorbed*. Earth's Reply Effect: Increases the potency of your weaponskills at an amount based on remaining duration, to a maximum of 80 potency. This bonus potency does not stack with the bonuses provided through positioning, but may exceed and thereby temporarily replace them. Use of this bonus potency further drains the effect's remaining duration based on the potency granted used**. While Earth's Reply duration remains, Greased Lightning cannot end. Earth's Reply duration fades twice as quickly and its duration costs are doubled when outside of Fists of Earth.***"
    *This damage will be compared the %HP available at the minimum ilvl to attend the instance in each slot. Leveling dungeons use a mock-minimum item level.
    **Use from the proper position does not drain Earth's Reply unless Earth's Reply granted more effective potency than the positional could provide, in which case it only costs the difference between the two.
    ***This includes via the duration cost per action.
  • Fists of Wind: Your weaponskills and offensive abilities generate Twisting Winds. Twisting Winds effect: something, something recast times. IN PROGRESS.
  • Fists of Fire: Your damage dealt generates a proportionate value of Heart of Fire. Heart of Fire effect: something, something "activate this" to be allowed to generate %damage on each hit, consuming resource, while generating potency increases over downtime, including simply being able to clip skills at little to no cost due to that downtime bonus. IN PROGRESS.

• Riddle of Fire has been replaced again with Internal Release, which increases your Critical Hit chance by 40%. This would nominally equate to a 20% damage increase, whether to Bootshine or any other skill due to the Critical Hit changes, but has further synergy with the Deep Meditation system.
• At level 72, Enhanced Fists of Fire replaced by Elements Within III: "Passively generate Earth's Reply, Twisting Winds, and Heart of Fire. Each no longer fade or are consumed at an increased speed when outside of their relevant stances. Damage Reduction generated by Fists of Earth, Attack Speed granted by Fists of Wind, and Damage granted by Fists of Fire each increased by 5%." Thus, your maximum damage bonus will be 40% (50% with Twin Snakes), but your maximum Attack Speed will be 25%, and maximum Defense will be... 30%.
• The level 78 trait, Riddle of Wind has been replaced with Move as Lightning: "You will now benefit from half the effectiveness of Fists of Earth, Fists of Wind, and Fists of Fire even when not in their respective stances." Thus, you can have +25% Attack Speed, +35% Damage, and +15% Mitigation in Fists of Wind; +40% damage, +20% Attack Speed, and +15% Mitigation in Fists of Fire; or +30% Defense, +35% Damage, and +20% Attack Speed in Fists of Earth.
  Fists of Fire and Fists of Wind will both be of high use depending on future macrorotational sync (via Twisting Winds) and incoming oGCDs (due to the Attack Speed bonus not affecting oGCDs and Heart of Fire). Fists of Earth should be used just before raid damage if needed in order to ignore positionals. Fists of Earth is also technically the strongest skill for a regular Bootshine, as the up to 80 added potency can far exceed the 5/10% bonus of Fists of Fire.

Making Positionals Matter Again / Smoothing Potency values

• Bootshine potency increased to 160. This gives it a smoother positional value of 80, in light of the Critical Hit changes.
• Twin Snakes potency reduced to 130/170.
• Snap Punch potency reduced to 180/220.
• Dragon Kick potency reduced to 140/180.
• Leaden Fist potency reduced to 240, a difference of 80. It thus matches the normal positional difference and the normal critical value. Both the positional and Leaden Fist will each increase Bootshine potency by 50%. Together, they therefore increase it by 125%, worth always and exactly 200 potency given the Critical Hit changes. A DK-Bootshine combo thus deals 500/540 potency versus the 480 of two normal critical Bootshines, a difference of 60.
• Demolish potency remains 70/90. This is the only skill that maintains a low positional priority, largely to free up positioning just a bit. Most positionals will vary by 40, while Bootshine will vary by 80 (double), Leaden Fist by 120 (triple) and Demolish by 20 (half).
  
• NOTE: These positionals are being returned to importance only because you also will have a constant +20% to +40% Movement Speed at GL3 in Fists of Wind or after reaching the Move as Lightning trait, atop also benefiting from Earth's Reply (half of it without even needing to change stances after reaching Move as Lightning) to skip positional requirements. So, again, you now move faster and have unlimited access to Riddle of Earth via Fists of Earth, just in much smaller duration increments and at brief cost to 5% damage. Using Fists of Earth to absorb massive damage just before a Bootshine or Leaden Fist Bootshine, moreover, is now a damage bonus.

[Archwizard]

Dark Knight

• Living Dead no longer creates a fixed healing requirement. Instead, would-be fatal damage taken creates a debuff called Mortal Coil, of equal value, which must be erased via healing. At the end of Living Dead, 10 seconds after would-be fatal damage is first taken during Walking Dead, the damage stored in Mortal Coil will be dealt instantly. The amount of damage stored by Mortal Coil will be shown similarly to the bar-graphic of shields, but colored a smoky black. Damage stored by Mortal Coil at any given time cannot exceed 1 fewer than Dark Knight's maximum HP. Thus, there is no necessarily increased healing penalty for having a higher-HP Dark Knight, while the maximum healing required to ensure the tank's life through both Doom and standard damage, remains unchanged.

I think the main problem here is that as a result of the change to a dynamic damage storage, it could interact awkwardly with Benediction. Plus it means that the effect actually causes healing to double-dip as a result, since each heal would simultaneously bring the DRK back up from 1 and reduce Mortal Coil, and that the healing still required is actually more difficult to gauge without using their HP as a metric.

[SaitoHikari]

I'm not sure how I would go about it since I don't have too much experience with RDM/SMN, but I'd give them a bump in damage output because the raise tax is inherently self-defeating in the current state of the balance. A death already comes with a drop in the party's total damage output, the large tax on the two casters on top of that is ridiculous. Especially when considering that the healers are going to be the ones raising first, so RDM/SMN are getting massively taxed for a skill they won't even use in the vast majority of situations. Only because they might reverse one wipe into a clear, out of several dozens of fights where it isn't necessary or it was a wipe no matter what.

Ranged have a bunch of issues, but I'm only really that well versed in Bard, so my suggestions are going to be focused on them. My suggestions include a mix of obvious QoL adjustments mostly revolving around Apex Arrow, but also re-introducing some support. I'm not suggesting theoretical potency changes, because the changes to Apex Arrow/Soul Voice gauge and charges on Bloodletter/Rain of Death/Refulgent Arrow might indirectly buff Bard's damage potential enough already.

Apex Arrow:
- Now an off-global cooldown skill.
- Tooltip changed. It would now say that using it at 20 gauge results in a 100 potency attack, with potency increasing by 25 per 5 gauge, maxing out at 100 gauge/500 potency. (Unchanged from how it currently works, it's just the tooltip description is no longer a newbie trap)
- Soul Voice gauge can be charged up to 150, though the maximum amount of gauge you can expend at once is 100. This is for the purpose of collecting overflow, especially in situations where you have to walk far out of Apex Arrow's range.
- Because of the various changes to the Soul Voice gauge, combined with the fact that it's now an off-global skill, it has a cooldown of 20 seconds between uses (so no trying to cram in two Apex Arrows in a Raging Strikes window).

Mage's Ballad/Army's Paeon/Wanderer's Minuet:
- Now has an additional effect of charging the Soul Voice gauge by 10 upon activating each song. This is to help control the timing in which you get to use Apex Arrow at near maximum or maximum gauge in single target fights.

Raging Strikes:
- Now has an additional effect of charging the Soul Voice gauge by 25 upon activation. Again, something to help control the timing in which you get to use Apex Arrow.

Bloodletter/Rain of Death:
- Both abilities can now hold up to 2 charges. Because lord knows how many procs you already lose when AoEing in a dungeon run, and with Empyreal Arrow also being able to proc it top of that. 2 might not even be enough to stop that, but any more than that would be arguably busted for other reasons.

Straight Shot/Refulgent Arrow:
- Straight Shot/Refulgent Arrow can now hold up to 2 charges. Both charges will be lost if the Straighter Shot buff expires, note that using one charge will not refresh the buff timer for the remaining charge. This is for those situations where you risk overwriting an existing proc due to needing to refresh via Iron Jaws, applying both DoTs at the start of your opener, or because you used Barrage when you already had a proc for whatever reason.

Nature's Minne:
- Cooldown reduced to 60 seconds.
*OR*
- Effect duration increased to 30 seconds.

I find that the current 90 second cooldown/15 second duration is a bit excessive for what is essentially a single target Mantra. The cooldown is too high or duration too short, to the point where I think many Bards just forget it exists and don't get into the habit of using it as often as they should. After all, its effect relies on other people to capitalize on it. Well, mostly, and I say mostly because...

Warden's Paean:
- Warden's Paean retains its current effect, but has an additional effect depending on the active song, if any. The below values are assuming that the skill retains its current cooldown of 45 seconds, or is increased to no higher than 60 seconds.
- Mage's Paean: If the target's HP drops below 40%, they will receive a 400 potency healing effect. (Effect can be boosted by Nature's Minne.) Duration: 30 seconds or until effect is triggered.
- Army's Paean: The target receives a barrier that absorbs damage up to 10% of the target's total HP. Duration: 10 seconds or until the barrier is broken.
- Wanderer's Paean: The target takes 5% less damage for the next 15 seconds.

Some may think that Warden's Paean is a bit too much like old Troubadour, and old Troubadour had problems with aligning the correct buff to the situation. However, I think the real problem with old Troubadour was that one of the three effects was effectively useless (the maximum HP increase effect), and the other two only worked on specific types of damage. The proposed Warden's Paean buff is designed to be useful in all kinds of situations no matter what, just with slight advantages depending on the type of mechanic that the target is dealing with. Warden's Paean also has a lower cooldown than old Troubadour, making each use more precise (and would encourage using it more in general).

As you've probably figured out by now, I genuinely believe that one of the problems with Bard's support identity is that we now have very few support skills, and the few support skills we do have now tend to have a high cooldown or are far too situational for frequent usage. (They did have high cooldowns in SB too, but there was enough of them that enough of the Bard population still considered it to be a support class.)

I would re-introduce Foe Requiem, but I don't know what's the best way to go about doing that, since it'd most likely mean that it'd have a different effect (though I would want it to use our MP again for flavor purposes). I thought about it being an AoE damage debuff on enemies (since IIRC such an effect doesn't yet exist in-game), but that combined with the above might push us too far into mandatory raid progression class territory. The old effect combined with the above might definitely do that too.

[SaitoHikari]

On a separate note (and probably shouldn't be included with the above, as this is a rather separate design/thought experiment and would likely make Bards absolutely busted if combined with the above), I thought of a way to bring back Foe Requiem and Refresh. They would be balanced against each other - as in, if you use one, the amount of time that you can use the other is decreased, as both use the Bard's MP and they can't be activated together.

Foe Requiem:
- Learned at Level 25
- Re-introduced as an enemy debuff aura that increases damage inflicted by 3%.
- No cast time. Disables the Bard's natural MP regeneration while in use, and also disables the ability to use Angelic Elegy when active. Once activated, the effect cannot be disabled until the Bard's MP reaches 0, in which the effect will end automatically.
- Drains 2,000 MP per tick. Minimum requirement of 4,000 MP to activate, so you can't just keep spamming it with minimum MP while taking advantage of the debuff lingering on enemies due to server ticks.
- (I don't know how MP regen/tick rates are like now, but I'm aiming for 15 seconds with a full MP bar.)

Refresh: (Renamed to Angelic Elegy)
- Learned at Level 58
- Re-introduced as a party buff aura. Restores 250 MP per tick.
- No cast time. Disables the Bard's natural MP regeneration while in use, and also disables the ability to use Foe Requiem when active. Unlike Foe Requiem, the effect can be switched off early. However, there is a 10 second cooldown, so you can't just keep spamming it and taking advantage of server ticks to avoid the MP drain.
- Drains 1,500 MP per tick. Minimum requirement of 2,000 MP to activate.
- (Again, I don't know how MP regen/tick rates are like now, but I'm aiming for the ballpark of being able to sustain it for 20 seconds with a full MP bar, restoring up to 2k MP for party members. High enough to be significant, low enough that this wouldn't be seen as mandatory over the other ranged and a free ticket to not using spells efficiently.)
- Unlike prior Refresh and pre-stormblood Mage's Ballad, the effect DOES NOT apply to the Bard that's singing, so the Bard will not be getting any MP refunded by its use.

This interaction between Foe Requiem and Angel's Elegy only exists under the assumption that the developers don't give a refresh to Dancer and Machinist. If they do (and they're cast and forget with no similar damage/support balancing mechanics attached to their versions), Bard could have a more powered up version of Angel's Elegy that can potentially restore 30% more MP than the others, assuming usage of a full MP bar. Although that might not be necessary, considering Bard would theoretically get to cast it more often + they also have the ability to control exactly how much MP the party could regenerate.

As an aside...

Enhanced Army's Paeon:
- Effect changed. Rather than providing a skill speed buff for 10 seconds upon activating another song, it will instead restore the Bard's MP by 750 per repertoire stack, up to a maximum of 3,000 MP. (If you are lacking in MP and need some immediately, this means you can now swap early for that MP if necessary. There would also be a benefit to waiting until the song runs its course if for some reason you don't have all 4 stacks by the time you hit the 10 seconds remaining mark.)
- The Army's Ethos effect (the 30 buff that holds the above effect to carry over the next song, if Army's Paeon runs its full course without activation of another song) remains.
- This will apply even if Foe Requiem or Angelic Elegy are in use (again, both only disable natural MP regeneration).

[Grimoire-M]

I guess it's time for me to poke out of Eden and give my thoughts on a 5.1 patch for SMN specifically. Going to try something different, and mark buffs with a +, nerfs with a -, and changes with a neutral numerical effect with a ~.

Player Actions:
Tri-Disaster (Overall ~):
+ Gains 2 Charges.
+ Cooldown reduced to 40s.
+ Ruination renamed to Imperil, now applies to Bio, Miasma, Fountain of Fire, and Brand of Purgatory.
- No longer reset by Dreadwyrm Trance or Firebird Trance.

Notes: 40s is the magic number to ensure you only have 3 Tri-Disasters for each 2 minute cycle in your rotation. Whether you hardcast at all of course depends on the fight, but it potentially (when taken alongside the changes below) can also vary in your opener.


Bio/Miasma (Overall +):
+ Bio now gains a base potency of 50/100/150 based on rank.
+ Miasma's base potency increased to 80/150 based on rank.
~ Damage over Time components (and, therefore, Tri-Disaster's total potency) unchanged.
Notes: This is partially to help encourage a Hardcast DoT opener, but mostly to add DPS where there wasn't any before by mitigating the penalty for hardcasting them in the first place. It also serves to compensate a bit for the next change below.


Energy Drain/Siphon and Aetherflow (Overall -):
- Energy Drain and Energy Siphon no longer grant Aetherflow II.
+ Aetherflow Gauge reworked: Now has an additional bar that only increases during combat, and increases independently of the Aetherflow you have stocked. Players begin with 2 Aetherflow upon entering a new instance/zone or resetting an instance, and gain 2 aetherflow every 30s when the bar fills.
~ Energy Drain: Deals damage with a potency of 150. Costs 1 Aetherflow.
~ Energy Siphon: Deals damage with a potency of 90. Costs 1 Aetherflow.
~ Fester now learned at level 45. Replaces Energy Drain.
~ Painflare now replaces Energy Siphon.
+ Aetherflow Added (Learned at level 18): Restores 5% of MP. Additional Effect: Increases the potency of your next Ruin or Outburst spell by 50 while guaranteeing it will be a direct critical hit. Cooldown 5s.

Notes: Take a combination of the Lily and Foul mechanics on WHM and BLM respectively and you have the new Aetherflow Gauge. It's everything people want out of Aetherflow and Energy actions with 2 buttons trimmed. The Aetherflow ability itself becomes a DPS tradeoff for small MP recovery in a pinch. It'll never beat out a Fester or Painflare, but it does help salvage long downtime periods and help with raising in prog. Still, we lose 100 Single Target potency and/or 80 AoE potency every 30s here. Over 2 minutes that's 400 ST or 160 AoE respectively.



Egi Actions:
Ifrit (Overall +):
Burning Strike (Auto-Spell):
+ Potency increased to 120.
Crimson Cyclone (Egi Assault I):
+ Potency increased to 250.
Flaming Crush (Egi-Assault II):
+ Add a secondary effect that deals fire damage with a potency of 200 distributed amongst all nearby enemies.
Inferno (Enkindle):
~ Base effect changed. Now deals fire damage with a potency of 300 distributed amongst all enemies in a cone.
+ Damage over Time potency increased to 50.

Notes: I'm making use of a defunct mechanic from Heavensward that was only present on one ability for Machinist at the time, Ricochet. Back then it distributed damage, which basically translates to "Divide this ability's potency across all enemies in range". I only use this on a few of Ifrit's abilities, and primarily to make those abilities more favorable in 1-2 target scenarios compared to Garuda's equivalents so as to solidify each of their roles, and therefore eliminate the need to petswap except during dedicated AoE situations. It costs more DPS than its worth except maybe under DWT currently, but I'm of the opinion it should be clear-cut when to switch, and targeted 1-2 for Ifrit specifically.


Garuda (Overall +):
Wind Blade (Auto-spell):
+ Potency increased to 50.
Aerial Slash (Egi Assault I):
+ Potency increased to 100.
Slipstream (Egi-Assault II):
+ Base Potency increased to 90.
+ Windstorm Damage over Time potency increased to 30.
- Windstorm duration decreased to 9 seconds.
Aerial Blast (Enkindle):
+ Potency increased to 300.


Titan (Overall +):
Rock Buster (Auto-spell):
+ Potency increased to 90.
Mountain Buster (Egi-Assault II):
+ Potency increased to 120.
Earthen Fury (Enkindle):
+ Molten Earth now applies a 20% Slow to all enemies in the area. Duration: 6s.

Notes: Titan has some minor utility here because he specifically can be used for AoE petswaps in some situations via the buffs to Mountain Buster. However, it takes 11+ enemies for that to be the case, so realistically only when SE allows you those triple dungeon pulls with tiny mobs.


Ruin IV, Egi Assaults, and Devotion (Overall +):
+ Ruin IV Potency increased to 280.
+ Enhanced Ruin II reverted: Pet Actions have a 15% chance to grant Further Ruin. Maximum Stacks: 4.
+ Enhanced Egi Assault reworked: Grants Further Ruin upon using Egi Assault I and II.
~ Enhanced Egi Assault now triggered by the Summoner, not the Egi.
~ Devotion reworked: Increases damage dealt by all party members within a 15-yalm radius by 5%. Duration 15s. Cooldown unchanged.
- Aetherpact removed.



I haven't done the precise math on this. In rough terms I think it could be a slight overbuff (I seriously doubt it because most of the changes target pet potency and the Energy Drain/Siphon loss is significant enough to dampen it), but altogether it targets the right Quality of Life, removes excess buttons, and puts emphasis on the areas players want to matter the most, which is my larger goal. If I was to remove anything, it would be the Enhanced Ruin II revert, which I think is where the bulk of the actual damage increase comes from.