Summoner is doing too much in 5.10

[wereotter]

snip

I have to say I'm not terribly knowledgable regarding the discrepancies of the output on the physical ranged jobs.... so I'm going to go at your example and say that if the difference between a bard and a machinist playing at equal skill levels is 100 DPS then that's a difference that regardless of which way it leaned in favor of, I'd be okay with. The jobs are never exactly balanced 100% so we just kind of have to accept that there will be some jobs that do slightly more and some that do slightly less.

It definitely feels bad to be the one doing less. I saw that as someone who was playing red mage for raid this expansion up till this patch. So I really do understand the feel bad when you look at the others in your role outperforming you. If the discrepancy is large, then definitely it's something that should be fixed. If it's small, then I would just say to roll with it. Sometimes some jobs in a role do slightly better than the others, sometimes they do slightly worse, and the best we can hope for is to be close to the same once party buffs are taken into consideration.

Though there will be people who want to squeeze out every last point of DPS from the team as possible, and will refuse entry for certain jobs, most players will look at such a minor discrepancy and roll with it. In fact sometimes even if the bard is slightly lower, some players will look at it and think "yeah, but they're raising MY DPS" and insist on the bard anyway.

As far as the crit buff, I only say that it will even out in the long term because nerfing jobs has been notoriously unpopular and Square tends to save those changes for the major expansions. Giving a job a buff that's balanced now but is over powered in a year or two will only cause more problems down the line, which is probably why the developers were cautious about it right now. Bard song buffs were really strong in Stormblood, and they don't want to go down that rabbit hole again. Easier to buff bard more in the future than over adjust it now and have to justify nerfing it.

That said, if your job is suffering being too far behind machinist, I do hope for you and all people who main it that the discrepancy is adjusted sooner than later.

[Myon88]

also you seem to be having a funny definition of "blackmage smoking summoner" considering summoner is outperforming blackmage on basically every percentile, its great that blackmage has a higher max if you just let him soak everything and let others deal with mechanics or whatever, doesn't mean the fact summoner is beating out blackmage at every percentile up to 95% is irrelevant

Well, the reality is SE balances jobs around the possibility of them being used to the fullest. They need to do that to balance content after all, things like enrage timers are tuned around what the jobs can do in theory, they have said this explicitly in past interviews. So metrics derived from average gameplay are irrelevant, and black mage is still very much 'smoking' summoner if you include 5.0 parses (which you should be, since all the good black mage parses were done before the patch, and most are preparing for ultimate now).

Because verraise is such a huge boon in progression, everyone has to put up with red mage being weaker dps wise. Because a small handful of people are capable of pushing black mage to its limits, it *only* does 18k instead of 24k dps even if that would make things more fun for average players. Aren't there people that enjoy the high skill ceiling and punishing gameplay that blm has, and cite it as a reason the job deserves its top spot? You need to take it up with them.

It's not just some hardcore raiding thing either. I'm sure people who like solo content like potd enjoy the support nature of red mage. There are 'casual' players who enjoy playing a dps with support options, and having hero moments where they save the run with verraise. Just look at all the bards who complained that losing their party buffs hurts the job fantasy.

At the end of the day it's impossible to design jobs to cater to every single demographic, if you like red mage and you also want to be a dps superstar, well you're out of luck. I have no stake in red mage. I'm only interested in making sure black mages don't project their failings onto the other casters again and get innocent jobs nerfed. I can name at least 10 reasons why people don't want black mages in their parties, and summoner damage being 'strong' is very far down the list.

i don't want a weak summoner, but the stronger one class is the weaker the rest are in comparison which in turn effects raidbalance and what having an optimal/suboptimal group composition means to people.

The only job that's affected if summoner is 'strong' is red mage, because they compete for the same role in a progression environment. It's certainly not black mage that's at risk, because remember, they're still the number 1 choice in speedrun groups, and in progression they will replace a melee if they're included at all. What is there to complain about?

If people think this is just me trying to classify them as a melee to avoid conflict with summoner, you need to wake up and face reality. No serious group will learn a fight without bringing at least 1 dps rezzer, even random party finder groups understand the value raise brings as a safety net. This will not change no matter how much dps black mage does, or how little dps summoner does. If you're a 'caster main' who prefers black mage and are tired of your group pressuring you to play summoner, what you should be doing is educating your static and breaking them out of the 1 caster mindset, not griefing them by asking them to prog without a raise.

[AikenDrum]

I'm honestly confused, i do switch to rdm during learning new floors, but i'm not counting that as "playing rdm" since i don't have rdm specific gear (only thing that matters is hp) and don't do any rotations (dps during learning is irrelevant); i also don't see how smn can possibly be an option there since dualcast raise is vastly superior and dps isn't a factor ^^

[wereotter]

If people think this is just me trying to classify them as a melee to avoid conflict with summoner, you need to wake up and face reality. No serious group will learn a fight without bringing at least 1 dps rezzer, even random party finder groups understand the value raise brings as a safety net. This will not change no matter how much dps black mage does, or how little dps summoner does. If you're a 'caster main' who prefers black mage and are tired of your group pressuring you to play summoner, what you should be doing is educating your static and breaking them out of the 1 caster mindset, not griefing them by asking them to prog without a raise.

I do think that this is a problem that goes both ways. There do exist groups that expect a caster to change off of red mage/summoner once a fight is learned and play black mage, even if the player isn't as knowledgable on the job. I say this is an issue since no other role expects its player to be proficient at multiple jobs, and learn the fights on both as well as change from one to the other once a fight is learned. No one is pressuring, for example, someone to change from bard to machinist or monk to samurai. This is not to mention that gear progression for two jobs is more taxing on that player than just progressing one, especially since one job values spell speed, and the other two tend to avoid it.

I think this is an issue that many have commented on that the value of raise, when it comes to the DPS penalty on jobs that have it, might at this point be over taxed. Is raise worth 6k DPS, going off your comparison of 18k for Red Mages versus 24k on Black Mages? Sure red mages should be lower because of more than just verraise, but this is still a valid question. And how do they balance this discrepancy between the roles? These are questions I've seen many players float solutions for, but until they can find a comfortable balance between the numbers and the solution, I think many players are going to be dissatisfied (and probably even once they do)

[Akiudo]

Well, the reality is SE balances jobs around the possibility of them being used to the fullest. They need to do that to balance content after all, things like enrage timers are tuned around what the jobs can do in theory, they have said this explicitly in past interviews. So metrics derived from average gameplay are irrelevant, and black mage is still very much 'smoking' summoner if you include 5.0 parses (which you should be, since all the good black mage parses were done before the patch, and most are preparing for ultimate now).

Because verraise is such a huge boon in progression, everyone has to put up with red mage being weaker dps wise. Because a small handful of people are capable of pushing black mage to its limits, it *only* does 18k instead of 24k dps even if that would make things more fun for average players. Aren't there people that enjoy the high skill ceiling and punishing gameplay that blm has, and cite it as a reason the job deserves its top spot? You need to take it up with them.

It's not just some hardcore raiding thing either. I'm sure people who like solo content like potd enjoy the support nature of red mage. There are 'casual' players who enjoy playing a dps with support options, and having hero moments where they save the run with verraise. Just look at all the bards who complained that losing their party buffs hurts the job fantasy.

At the end of the day it's impossible to design jobs to cater to every single demographic, if you like red mage and you also want to be a dps superstar, well you're out of luck. I have no stake in red mage. I'm only interested in making sure black mages don't project their failings onto the other casters again and get innocent jobs nerfed. I can name at least 10 reasons why people don't want black mages in their parties, and summoner damage being 'strong' is very far down the list.

The only job that's affected if summoner is 'strong' is red mage, because they compete for the same role in a progression environment. It's certainly not black mage that's at risk, because remember, they're still the number 1 choice in speedrun groups, and in progression they will replace a melee if they're included at all. What is there to complain about?

If people think this is just me trying to classify them as a melee to avoid conflict with summoner, you need to wake up and face reality. No serious group will learn a fight without bringing at least 1 dps rezzer, even random party finder groups understand the value raise brings as a safety net. This will not change no matter how much dps black mage does, or how little dps summoner does. If you're a 'caster main' who prefers black mage and are tired of your group pressuring you to play summoner, what you should be doing is educating your static and breaking them out of the 1 caster mindset, not griefing them by asking them to prog without a raise.

again, not everything is progression, and everyone having to put up with redmage being weak because verraise is such a boon to progression would only make sense if nerfing its damage would do its job, its not, no amount of damage nerfing will stop people from going redmage for progression raiding and than switching once they know how the fight works, they would do it if rdm did 50% of summoners damage and they would do it if rdm did 99% of summoners damage, this isn't about not being able to please everyone, its literally trying to hinder certain subset of the playerbase but in reality punishing everyone else BUT them, its like giving your opponent in a race food poisoning ignoring that out of 5 runners you are the slowest, not only is it a questionable way to go about it at best, its also literally not working.

and square balancing jobs assuming they are used to their fullest does not mean they get it right, if it did there would never be a need for nerfs or buffs outside of the release of newer and stronger gear or a new class, first and foremost what does "using them to their fullest" even mean in a group setting ?does it mean standing in aoe so you can get out a dps skill and just get healed through it ? does it mean having someone else do a mechanic that would cost you 50 dps while it costs him 100 ? does it mean still nuking the boss even though the add is 2 seconds from exploding because switching would cost you your top dps ? i'll see again that i only do eden through pf right now, one of the worst titan ex groups i had before killing it was with a group where half the people had the kill and 90% gold parses, we literally had 10k buffer to kill the boss, yet couldn't do the gaols because half the group didn't want to move 2 meters or hit anything but the boss, i don't care how you call this from a playstile perspective, what they at the very worst tried was "maximizing their potential", summoner is out dpsing blm in 19 out of 20 cases, thats a fact laid out by bare date, smn literally does the same damage in the range of "maybe 20 dps less" even if you compare a full week of smn to the last 2 weeks of blm up to 95% percentile so cut the "oh yea, all the good blackmages aren't here right now" literally any class will have some higher very very best run given enough time, give it another 5 weeks without a nerf and yes, smn "MAX" parses will also go up another 200 or 300 dps.

[Kabooa]

Smn "MAX" parses will also go up another 200 or 300 dps.

Maybe. Some things you can't really adjust around currently, however, "MAX" tends to be misleading anyways. Prior, 95-100 was a heavily padded realm. 95 was achievable without having an Astro favor you a bit more than general, but above that was the land of the buff funnel.

Now, Max tends to be the realm of both perfect execution and favorable RNG.

95-99 offer fairly accurate assessments of a Job's standing. 99 you can generally assume relatively perfect execution in up-time strats.

That said.

Just get rid of the raise. This thread wouldn't exist, or at least, it'd have been a shorter, much more clear cut statement, if Raise wasn't in the equation.

[ShadowNyx3]

snip

Very well said overall. You make many good points here but I think what's worth highlighting here is that this whole discussion is an issue for casters only.

Trying to cross over and say that the balance for ranged and melee is being affected by having two very strong casters right now is completely missing the point that there's no restriction or rule saying that you can't have two casters in a party. This community is obsessed with having two melee because we like having our 4/4 melee/range distances, but there's no reason that any of those roles who can perform at a distance can't do that same thing at close range. This is why trying to nerf one particular class within a role to make the other roles viable is an exercise in failure, essentially creating more imbalance within one role while also adding additional imbalance to the other roles by singling out a clear favorite. If people are wanting to complain about the current state of ranged dps, then take a look back at how the functional use of that role has been dismantled up and to this point by removing MP and TP resources from this game and investigate how the role can be given more tools than just their 1% stat contribution to be an asset to a party.

The reason that this whole thread exists is because of the misalignment in utility for casters that has shifted this community's perception on how parties should be structured. Because only 2/3 casters have a raise and the community thinks that only one caster should be in a party, we're left with this never-ending holy war between Black Mages and Summoners while Red Mage tags along behind because people think there must be only one caster in the party. Party composition should always come down to what utility is relevant to the fight and for all progression, raise is the one utility that practically demands a spot because of how much it accelerates progression, yet that does not affect how groups can balance out the additional spots for utility. A Black Mage joining a raise caster could be quite useful for their very high damage and additional Addle for magic damage but you could also bring two raise casters to vastly increase the chance of extending pulls for progression at the expense of a lot of damage. It's worth noting here again that this additional utility has been dismantled from the game in Shadowbringers even further as Apoc and Palisade were very good abilities that were removed, thus the focus goes even harder on raise as it still exists as such a powerful asset on a limited number of jobs.

[Akiudo]

Very well said overall. You make many good points here but I think what's worth highlighting here is that this whole discussion is an issue for casters only.

Trying to cross over and say that the balance for ranged and melee is being affected by having two very strong casters right now is completely missing the point that there's no restriction or rule saying that you can't have two casters in a party.

Exactly because there is no hard and fast rule you cant have 2 casters in a party is what makes it a cross role issue, in case of melees fine, if casters are too strong (thats just a theoretical, what if caster in fact ARE too strong, not saying they are) then they are at risk of losing 1 of 2 spots that are right now save to them, if melee should have 2 slots saved for them is another discussion, but they are very well at risk of losing that slot, just as the physical ranged are in fact at risk of losing their only slot at all, it very much is an issue for every class, even ignoring the melee the intent at least is clearly to bring at least one per role, thats the only justification something like the 1% role bonus can ever have for existing and having 2 strong casters very much is an issue as long as the ranges are as weak as they are

[Akiudo]

Maybe. Some things you can't really adjust around currently, however, "MAX" tends to be misleading anyways. Prior, 95-100 was a heavily padded realm. 95 was achievable without having an Astro favor you a bit more than general, but above that was the land of the buff funnel.

Now, Max tends to be the realm of both perfect execution and favorable RNG.

95-99 offer fairly accurate assessments of a Job's standing. 99 you can generally assume relatively perfect execution in up-time strats.

That said.

Just get rid of the raise. This thread wouldn't exist, or at least, it'd have been a shorter, much more clear cut statement, if Raise wasn't in the equation.

you know i'm totally with you there, max is a terrible metric, but it was argued SMN is fine because at max Blackmage clearly beats it , even though that max came from a way longer period of time and way more parses, thats basically the only reason i mentioned Max parses at all. Also about the rezz, while i personally think either blm should get its own rezz or rezz should just go away i indeed think a changed approach to rezz for redmage would be a good thing for the game,because as it stands on the caster front we have "no rezz"->""'regular' rezz"->"chain rezz" like i dunno, maybe change it so redmage rezz is an instant no mana ogcd (so really, really powerfull) but hit it with a 5 minute cooldown so chain rezzing is out, mind you thats just one idea, not saying a good one but at least something different than what we have now were one is indeed simply superior

[LariaKirin]

Well, the reality is SE balances jobs around the possibility of them being used to the fullest. They need to do that to balance content after all, things like enrage timers are tuned around what the jobs can do in theory, they have said this explicitly in past interviews. So metrics derived from average gameplay are irrelevant, and black mage is still very much 'smoking' summoner if you include 5.0 parses (which you should be, since all the good black mage parses were done before the patch, and most are preparing for ultimate now).

If you include 5.0 parses, you also include several months of good RNG for BLM. 5.1 BLM is not reaching 5.0 BLM for this reason.

However, 5.1 SMN is closer than 5.1 BLM to 5.0 BLM.