Some views on DPS balance that everyone cares about

[Eliadil]

A situation where a job in the same role deals much more damage than the others should be avoided at all costs, as that would simply translate to a clear meta choice for that role.

I think that, while being a reasonable opinion on paper, is fundamentally flawed when you see how Stormblood "meta" went. Selfish jobs were ignored/kicked out of party because they "didn't bring enough to the table". While I do agree that there shouldn't be that much of an advance in rdps for every job, the general playerbase sadly don't think like that. And a Black Mage that deals just the same amount of rdps as a Summoner will just get ignored in pf, because "summoner does the same thing but it's easier, and it has rez".
We've seen how the "synergy" meta went, when everybody had raid buffs and the selfish weren't that much ahead. Then suddenly the "selfish" jobs become much less interesting to have in your pf because every other job could do the same AND buff others.

On the opposite now, in Shadowbringers we've reached a point where in pf it doesn't matter what class you play. As long as there isn't a trio of the same role (triple melee/caster/ranged) everybody is happy and content gets cleared just fine (well depends the skill of your pf. It's pugs after all).


Still I do agree that maybe summoner is a bit high when compared to red mage right now, and that bard should probably get something better, at least to put it on par with dancer in terms of rdps. But I do not think that nerfing the damage of selfish jobs will do any good to the way the meta is seen by players. Or then you'd have to change the playstyle of samurai and black mage. Because seeing how difficult it is to get really high with those two jobs (especially the current sam design lol), lowering their output to bring them on par with the other jobs would just mean that bad/decent BLM or SAM will suffer even more from this nerf, as there is currently quite a gap between the highest and lower percentiles.

[Lastelli]

I think that, while being a reasonable opinion on paper, is fundamentally flawed when you see how Stormblood "meta" went. Selfish jobs were ignored/kicked out of party because they "didn't bring enough to the table". While I do agree that there shouldn't be that much of an advance in rdps for every job, the general playerbase sadly don't think like that. And a Black Mage that deals just the same amount of rdps as a Summoner will just get ignored in pf, because "summoner does the same thing but it's easier, and it has rez".

Selfish jobs were never ignored, they just weren't meta. I swear people on this forum really overdramatize what happens in the real game. The reason they were nowhere to be seen in the top groups on fflogs is just because balance was much worse than it is now, with a stupidly high synergy between 4 jobs in particular (DRG, BRD, NIN and SCH) and selfish jobs dealing lower rdps than more utility oriented jobs, at least in the first half of the expansion. There were also other problems, like WHM being strictly inferior to AST, NIN being too good because of both tricks and shadewalker (tanks really wanted it, especially if there was a WHM in the party), BLM being less mobile than it is now and others I'm probably missing right now.

If you are talking about pure damage, then yes, you have a point. But when you think of all the utility SMN brings with it, either they shouldn't have that utility or they shouldn't do as much damage. At least that's what the design philosophy that Yoshi-P says the Dev team has been following since Stormblood battle rework.

SMN right now is definitely overtuned for what it brings to the table, compared to BLM. It's like saying a burger and a soda is the same as just a burger.

The only utility SMN brings that BLM doesn't is a rez once in a while that can be effectively used only if swiftcast is available and that is relevant only during prog and only if healers can't do it. This is very different from the (much superior) chain rez available to RDM that somewhat justifies a slightly lower dps output. All the rest of the utility is just damage, either direct or via dps buffs (devotion).
Phoenix regen is so laughably weak that it cannot even be considered utility, it's there just for flavor.

[Cosaint]

Selfish jobs were never ignored, they just weren't meta. I swear people on this forum really overdramatize what happens in the real game. The reason they were nowhere to be seen in the top groups on fflogs is just because balance was much worse than it is now, with a stupidly high synergy between 4 jobs in particular (DRG, BRD, NIN and SCH) and selfish jobs dealing lower rdps than more utility oriented jobs, at least in the first half of the expansion. There were also other problems, like WHM being strictly inferior to AST, NIN being too good because of both tricks and shadewalker (tanks really wanted it, especially if there was a WHM in the party), BLM being less mobile than it is now and others I'm probably missing right now.



The only utility SMN brings that BLM doesn't is a rez once in a while that can be effectively used only if swiftcast is available and that is relevant only during prog and only if healers can't do it. This is very different from the (much superior) chain rez available to RDM that somewhat justifies a slightly lower dps output. All the rest of the utility is just damage, either direct or via dps buffs (devotion).
Phoenix regen is so laughably weak that it cannot even be considered utility, it's there just for flavor.

And Black Mages brings... a whole lot of nothing. Even in Stormblood BLM had more utility than now in the form of Mana Shift. That's gone now.
This whole discussion is completely disingenuous, downplaying SMN's utility to justify it being neck to neck with BLM.
The day they give BLM a ress we can call this even, until then the only balanced nature will be BLM>SMN>RDM

[dinnertime]

And Black Mages brings... a whole lot of nothing. Even in Stormblood BLM had more utility than now in the form of Mana Shift. That's gone now.
This whole discussion is completely disingenuous, downplaying SMN's utility to justify it being neck to neck with BLM.
The day they give BLM a ress we can call this even, until then the only balanced nature will be BLM>SMN>RDM

They are not exactly wrong about "downplaying" Summoner's utility. All they have to really utilize is Devotion, meanwhile you can't exactly do the same with Resurrection and Everlasting Flight in every fight.
Still, I agree that Summoner should at least be right below Black Mage, but some of you are overdramaticizing Summoner being overpowered. The gaps between the casters right now isn't a lot, which is a good thing.

[RylaBee]

And Black Mages brings... a whole lot of nothing.

Wrong. BLM has 2 teleport abilities and Manaward to live past some mistakes.

SMN is the true glass cannon of the entire game, you have no jump in/out abilities and no shields or heals.
Pugging prog a lot, I can tell you, how it is almost exclusively me to end on the floor when healers couldnt top-off party before AoE for any reason.
Healer will ou-shit heal or shield themeselves, RDM will vercure, BLM will manaward and non-cloth classes have more health and second wind.

SMN has.. physics.

[Renkei]

Wrong. BLM has 2 teleport abilities and Manaward to live past some mistakes.

SMN is the true glass cannon of the entire game, you have no jump in/out abilities and no shields or heals.
Pugging prog a lot, I can tell you, how it is almost exclusively me to end on the floor when healers couldnt top-off party before AoE for any reason.
Healer will ou-shit heal or shield themeselves, RDM will vercure, BLM will manaward and non-cloth classes have more health and second wind.

SMN has.. physics.

I play Dragoon and i literally get locked in place for .7 seconds on jumps and 1.2 seconds on Star Divers, You can cast at 25m which is radially most the majority of all the arena's and your summons have attack ranges of 100ms, I don't think you should be getting hit at all as DPS as general, but if you look into HPS on dps, SMN has on average the highest Highest HPS for NOT having to worry about using it as an extra ability, you don't need to go out of the way to provide good HPS, which i find odd and strange, for example in Ramuh due to timings, Summoners have double the HPS of Melee and Triple of Range jobs, It even beats Dancer in HPS in that fight due to how Phoenix is timed, I wouldn't exactly call 700 HPS without trying Glass cannon without utility, considering you guys also have self heals in emergency situations (when the boss jumps for example) It is strange because it's raid wide heals, and doesn't effect your weaves since its kitted into summoners rotation.

Some of it ends up being over-heals, but the time it counts you can get easily around 2k-4k+ heals to the group in 10 seconds.

Let's not lie to ourselves though because everyone knows that summoner is over-tuned and i wouldn't be surprised if they get toned down next patch.

[Lastelli]

I play Dragoon and i literally get locked in place for .7 seconds on jumps and 1.2 seconds on Star Divers, You can cast at 25m which is radially most the majority of all the arena's and your summons have attack ranges of 100ms, I don't think you should be getting hit at all as DPS as general, but if you look into HPS on dps, SMN has on average the highest Highest HPS for NOT having to worry about using it as an extra ability, you don't need to go out of the way to provide good HPS, which i find odd and strange, for example in Ramuh due to timings, Summoners have double the HPS of Melee and Triple of Range jobs, It even beats Dancer in HPS in that fight due to how Phoenix is timed, I wouldn't exactly call 700 HPS without trying Glass cannon without utility, considering you guys also have self heals in emergency situations (when the boss jumps for example) It is strange because it's raid wide heals, and doesn't effect your weaves since its kitted into summoners rotation.

Some of it ends up being over-heals, but the time it counts you can get easily around 2k-4k+ heals to the group in 10 seconds.

Let's not lie to ourselves though because everyone knows that summoner is over-tuned and i wouldn't be surprised if they get toned down next patch.

You must be joking. Please stop talking about things you're not familiar with. Try healing some savage with a SMN in you party, maybe you'll realize how pointless that regen is.

[RocciaSolida]

I play Dragoon and i literally get locked in place for .7 seconds on jumps and 1.2 seconds on Star Divers, You can cast at 25m which is radially most the majority of all the arena's and your summons have attack ranges of 100ms, I don't think you should be getting hit at all as DPS as general, but if you look into HPS on dps, SMN has on average the highest Highest HPS for NOT having to worry about using it as an extra ability, you don't need to go out of the way to provide good HPS, which i find odd and strange, for example in Ramuh due to timings, Summoners have double the HPS of Melee and Triple of Range jobs, It even beats Dancer in HPS in that fight due to how Phoenix is timed, I wouldn't exactly call 700 HPS without trying Glass cannon without utility, considering you guys also have self heals in emergency situations (when the boss jumps for example) It is strange because it's raid wide heals, and doesn't effect your weaves since its kitted into summoners rotation.

Some of it ends up being over-heals, but the time it counts you can get easily around 2k-4k+ heals to the group in 10 seconds.

Let's not lie to ourselves though because everyone knows that summoner is over-tuned and i wouldn't be surprised if they get toned down next patch.

It doesn’t matter that SMN has the highest HPS amongst the DPS, you can’t decide when to spend that healing potential because it’s tied directly to your Phoenix and you want to summon Phoenix under raid buffs following a very strict rotation cycle.
Also HPS doesn’t mean anything if not mentioned alongside overheal. Would you consider a WHM whose only GCDs casted during a fight are Medica II a good WHM?