Which jobs is at its prime?

[reyre]

Once again, we can only speculate. They do poke around reddit but I tend to think they mostly stick to their own ideas and only listen to feedback if it fits into their existing design philosophy. Monk is a really stand out in this regard because they've clung to its core design for years despite increasingly negative feedback. Meanwhile, I can't recall a single complaint here or on reddit about Astro's cards yet that got such a massive overhaul. So that's what leads me to think they mostly follow their own ideas.

So wait you are telling me that in essence the player base is completely in the dark about the battle jobs, which are the vast majority of content users, and the player has no idea if some, all or none of their complains, praise or sugestions actually matter at all, is just what FF14 dev wants and that is the end of it? So the whole "we are listening to our player base" is a bunch of BS, then what is the point of official forums and the like, what a waste of resources.

[Mansion]

So wait you are telling me that in essence the player base is completely in the dark about the battle jobs, which are the vast majority of content users, and the player has no idea if some, all or none of their complains, praise or sugestions actually matter at all, is just what FF14 dev wants and that is the end of it? So the whole "we are listening to our player base" is a bunch of BS, then what is the point of official forums and the like, what a waste of resources.

I think ForteNightshade did a great job of underlining the limits to that system, but they do listen to feedback somehow. It just feels weird what they choose to focus on (and when). Like Ninja got an overhaul in 5.1 based on what I gather, negative feedback over 5.0 Ninja.
They re-did MCH for 5.X because its 4.X iteration was very clunky and weird. Same for DRK. So they do listen to some complaints.

On the other hand, they did ignore White Mage for pretty much 3.4 until 5.0, and you can bet that now AST is on par / superior to WHM, WHM will be forgotten again.
There is currently a quite strong request that physical ranged jobs should be buffed but it has not been acknowledged. Healers are unhappy with the 5.X healing design, no acknowledgement either.

It boils down to that mystery zone of what they CAN do, what they WANT to do, and WHEN they do it. That and separating constructive feedback and general forum rant too

[Akiudo]

There is currently a quite strong request that physical ranged jobs should be buffed but it has not been acknowledged.

to be fair, part of that may be because you also got a lot of players that act like if you give mch another 200~ dps and get the other physical ranged up to the same level no one will take anything but 4 phys ranged anymore, and considering we have the god decided setup of 2/1/1 to adher to at all costs (because thats how the game started out, so of course its intendet that it stays like this forever no matter what, also just look how square offers 4 spots close to the boss for most mechanics) its also unnecessary to buff the physical ranged either way as the 1% dps buff they offer simply for being taken barely makes up for their sucky numbers (possibly, at least in bards case most definately not but whatever) and if anything a slight caster nerf would fix all problems for the physical ranged as that would get us back to our god intendet times of 2/1/1 putting phys ranged in the same boat as casters regardless of being ridiculously overtaxed for their mobility....


that aside, class design wise i think we should cut the developers some slack at least, it indeed often is not easy to know just what to do with a class, because people want different things, and change for the sake of change generally is a bad idea, extreme cases like monk most likely being the exception.

[Eliadil]

that aside, class design wise i think we should cut the developers some slack at least, it indeed often is not easy to know just what to do with a class, because people want different things, and change for the sake of change generally is a bad idea, extreme cases like monk most likely being the exception.

This tbh. From what I recall, when ninja got released, the playerbase found a rotation totally different from what the devs intended. I think that they tend to avoid to "plan" too much of a job's optimization because they don't want to enforce some players on something that could be potentially a "wrong" rotation. I mean, we all see the SMN rotation, and we all see that its cooldown slightly drift each time. We can see what type of rotation was planned by the devs, but we can also see that they didn't get "too" involved in the hardcore rotation optimization, which would have avoided this "cooldown drift" issue. This is both good and bad, because it gives players more freedom when it comes to fight optimization/job optimization, but it's also bad because there's a lot of clunkyness that could be avoided if more care/polish was put into jobs other than DRG and BLM.

As another example, SAM's current iteration is a perfect representation of this mindset. You clearly identify what they wanted to do with the rotation, and clearly know what design they went for (high burst cooldowns every minute). Sadly, when you take the time to learn and theorycraft a bit more around the job, you see that it's a good idead that doesn't play well/isn't implemented correctly, forcing players to do massive adjustement to the rotation.

And also don't worry, when Eureka 2.0 comes out, RDM will be at its prime again.

[SpiralMask]

BLM easily. it's yoshi's baby and it'll never face any hardship because he has a close eye on it. SAM feels much better after the recent changes to shoha and addition of tsubame gaeshi (and it already felt pretty great when it was introduced), SMN feels good because it's overtuned currently and NIN plays basically the same but doesn't hit like a wet sock anymore. I'd call PLD's metamorphosis 'finished' as of shb, since both it's physical and magical halves seem pretty complete now. WAR's basically the same as ever, with a teensy bit more of it's old ARR self-healing restored and looking real dated next to GNB and PLD.

healers are all bunk after the devs gutted them (rather than giving WHM a downtime activity, they took SCH and AST's activities away), and DRK got turned into WAR with effectively -2 defensive cooldowns and +6 oGCD attacks

BLU still makes me depressed.

[StriderShinryu]

Nice to see that I'm not alone in feeling that SAM and RDM are in a good place mechanically. Sure RDM is not overly complex but I'm not sure why it needs to be. It just feels great to play with the tools it has right now outside of lacking a bit in AoE variety. Not every DPS needs to break your brain to be enjoyable.

MNK really does need the most work. It's got some cool core ideas and some great animations but the class mechanically just feels like a complete mess after level 50 or 60. There are some god ideas there but they need to go back to the drawing board to figure out how it should all really work as a cohesive job.

MCH and BRD could also still use some work as well.

[Rai_Takara]

All three ranged are under powered. It needs fixing ASAP. End of

If we want us ranged to do more damage, our jobs need to be more complex and we need positionals of some sort. Whether it be cast bars for certain skills or potency depending on distance to target, we need something to optimize around. Otherwise our role is just too simple to warrant more DPS than being there for the 1% buff.

Once again, we can only speculate. They do poke around reddit but I tend to think they mostly stick to their own ideas and only listen to feedback if it fits into their existing design philosophy. Monk is a really stand out in this regard because they've clung to its core design for years despite increasingly negative feedback. Meanwhile, I can't recall a single complaint here or on reddit about Astro's cards yet that got such a massive overhaul. So that's what leads me to think they mostly follow their own ideas.

AST cards were definitely them finally listening to the top end raid community. As an AST back then, it was really due for a rework because of the nature of DPS buffs. While the method they choose isn't ideal or one I would have guessed, the current iteration is a lot better than the previous one for us.

Overall this expansion, I think they are definitely listening to us top end folks. Maybe they have a better source now? I've noticed a lot of JP top end raiders making an appearance so maybe they were able to setup some kind of communication with the devs. For example, LB cheesing existed since the game's inception and yet it was only fixed when JP speed runners pointed it out to the dev team.

[Miminming]

Counterpoint: Players that are not good enough to enter the endgame are also not good enough to know what "prime" is due to lack of game knowledge and experience. How can a player that struggles to play the game possibly know what would qualify if a job is in its prime or not?

In the end, the question is entirely subjective. You cannot exclude a group of players simply because of your personal opinion of them. Someone saying Monk is in its prime right now is just as valid as someone saying it is not. The same applies to every other job in the game. So no exclusionary statements, eh?

Im not excluding end game player in my argument but they saying RDM is not at prime because their dps is a little lower than the other caster is bassically ignoring all other factor than DPS, which only people who do savage care and yes i do care about DPS, but look at SMN despite their obertuned DPS their gameplay is just not as smooth as the other caster, SMN prime is at 4.5 not now RDM and BLM on the other hand have a good DPS and smooth a gameplay.

There is a lot of factor and while it maybe subjective DPS is not the only factor and i'm just saying that people have to take that into account... DPS is everything if we are talking about meta though.

[ForteNightshade]

If we want us ranged to do more damage, our jobs need to be more complex and we need positionals of some sort. Whether it be cast bars for certain skills or potency depending on distance to target, we need something to optimize around. Otherwise our role is just too simple to warrant more DPS than being there for the 1% buff.

While I agree Range lack in complexity to a certain degree. The whole justification around their low DPS has always been free mobility. Alas, the game simply does almost nothing to make use of that. This tier epitomizes it more than ever when despite being severely Melee unfriendly, all four dwarf the Range handily. There is little need for a mobility tax when fight design does not utilize one. If say, Light Rampant could be baited so Melee always get chains, you could use that mechanic as a launching point for their low DPS. But it doesn't. Furthermore, the rotational simplicity is not unique to Range. Red Mage is notoriously cited as one of the easiest jobs in the game. Dragoon isn't exactly screaming at complexity either, having the most straight forward rotation. Even Summoner, for all its complex, has nearly as much free mobility and laughably outperforms all three Range by a country mile.

Range mobility needs to be taken advantage of or the tax is simply arbitrary.

AST cards were definitely them finally listening to the top end raid community. As an AST back then, it was really due for a rework because of the nature of DPS buffs. While the method they choose isn't ideal or one I would have guessed, the current iteration is a lot better than the previous one for us.

Overall this expansion, I think they are definitely listening to us top end folks. Maybe they have a better source now? I've noticed a lot of JP top end raiders making an appearance so maybe they were able to setup some kind of communication with the devs. For example, LB cheesing existed since the game's inception and yet it was only fixed when JP speed runners pointed it out to the dev team.

Which isn't working in their favor, if true. Astro (and healers in general) have faced more complaints than ever before. Astro still remains the least played healer; only gaining some ground on Scholar due to the latter's lackluster rDPS. I suppose it's to each their own but I prefer the old system by far even if I acknowledge some of its flaws. Maybe by 6.0 they can iron things out but I can't say this iteration of Astro is a good one. If nothing else though, I'd at least like to see Sleeve Draw addressed before then.

[Curisu]

BLM and PLD.
Both got a nice addition to their rotations and it didn't changed compare to SB.

Just the cover of PLD would need a small buff to be useful again.