The current State of Casters 6.05 edition - balancing discussion

[Absimiliard]

What justifies SMN being given back the damage it once had? It's somehow even more smooth brain to play than ARR BLM was, which is truly a monumental "accomplishment" on SE's part. It in essence now occupies almost the same position RDM once did, minus the ability to function as a full time rez bot. It should remain where it is until such time as it regains its prior complexity.

[Azuri]

Well you are right there! Extra mobility don't make you stronger and extra res also don't make you stronger!

I'm gonna have a single question for you now. Which are you going to bring? The Summoner that can run around your tank with ease but can't multi res in 5 seconds or the Red Mage you can multi-res in 5 seconds?

Also, high mobility is a ranged physical feature. A friend of mine hates Summoner now and he was a main Summoner in ShB just on the fact he feels like hes playing a Machinist= and he hates it.

The answer is pretty obvious which one is better. At equal DPS, RDM would be prefered because RDM can prevent wipes. RDM can make you see mechanics further with their kit. SMN can if only 1 res was enough. You can pop Magick Barrier on command. I can Medica II at 60s, 180s, 300s on the fight. It's not on command.

So now we both agree that what you've mention isn't bound to power but one RDM has significant better odds are helping progression, pray tell me why he's not being taxed for that and not only that, but has more power than SMN? That's the whole point of having SMN get minor damage buffs so they have a bit more power than Red Mages. They can cut the mobility, no Summoner main will cry about that.

Again, I'm talking about a proper balance and this thread is to provide why it is currently not balanced and a chance for people to offer their opinion or suggestion on fixing the issue.

Putting a long cooldown on the res on both SMN and RDM would harm RDM a lot more but it would give you the argument they should be closer to SMN damage. I'm just saying, I pointed it out in my suggestions.

I think it is fair to say that we fundamentally disagree on where the balancing point should be. For me, it is at the point of high level performance and execution. The point where one person dying means you run into the wall and reset because the run is failed. You want to see the game balanced around prog. Which leaves me, as an RDM player completely irrelevant and useless after the first four weeks of a tier or so.

This bickering is leading us nowhere. I will let the devs decide in 6.1 what should be taxed and what should be kept as it is.

[Aikaal]

I think it is fair to say that we fundamentally disagree on where the balancing point should be. For me, it is at the point of high level performance and execution. The point where one person dying means you run into the wall and reset because the run is failed. You want to see the game balanced around prog. Which leaves me, as an RDM player completely irrelevant and useless after the first four weeks of a tier or so.

This bickering is leading us nowhere. I will let the devs decide in 6.1 what should be taxed and what should be kept as it is.

Mmm, I guess it's fair but speaking of high level performance and that's mainly for those that say summoner is brain dead. I will say this, Red Mage, Black Mage, Summoner, Paladin are jobs that are brain dead for me. After playing the same job all the time, the job just becomes really easy and implant in your brain. That being said, optimizing is a bit different. Same concept, optimizing becomes brain dead for your main job but certain jobs have to take extra steps. In P2S, the 9 second downtime comes at the worst timing for Summoner since everyone delay their buffs. Summoners just can't delay their Summon Bahamut, it'd be too much of a damage loss unless you don't lose a Summon Bahamut cast but I'd be spamming Ruin III for like 12 seconds. Regardless, it's a massive loss. This means after that downtime, none of my bursts will align with the buff windows. This is quite the worst. This can be worked around with Spell Speed but that suddenly bring an extra step of having a Balance Discord math wizard find the right BiS for this fight.

You also can't say the argument, "Just don't die" in progression. Progression won't be perfect, never will. You, of all people should know that since you have an imperfect P1S clear as I do not also. I personally scored a damage down but still did well. In any case, on speed run / optimized runs, people will most likely bring MNK/RPR/BRD/BLM. In Progression, RDM is just flat better than RDM because mobility isn't a valid support skill

[IchiExorz]

I'm personally not a fan how mages seem to be balanced.
I'm all fine for utility taxing some dps. But I personally feel that offensive utility should tax more than defensive/res utility.
RDM (and SMN) having a res should taxt their dps a bit but not by a lot. It should still be better to take a BLM once ur finished progging but the difference in rDPS shouldn't be big enough to make you feel bad for going RDM instead.

I also disagree with mobility being a massive tax either. At low lvl play it's going to help players a lot to have mobility but for players who are pretty decent it just feels bad.

[Rika007]

- Mobility tax is a real thing that physical ranged suffer from. Giving SMN an exemption from this tax is entirely unfair. If SMN has to go up in damage so do MCH, DNC and BRD.

All 4 of those jobs you listed should 100% be buffed (Machinist the most, Bard the least, dancer right up to where Bard is, and summoner somewhere above them). The mobility tax is a meme at this point. None of the upper tier content enforces use of that mobility, melees have been given so much uptime QoL that there is no excuse for them to ever not keep up a flawless rotation, and the way mechanics now work it basically requires ranged to stay up close with the team or risk missing out on crucial heals (which enforces them to deal with the same mechanics melees do anyway).

[Aikaal]

All 4 of those jobs you listed should 100% be buffed (Machinist the most, Bard the least, dancer right up to where Bard is, and summoner somewhere above them). The mobility tax is a meme at this point. None of the upper tier content enforces use of that mobility, melees have been given so much uptime QoL that there is no excuse for them to ever not keep up a flawless rotation, and the way mechanics now work it basically requires ranged to stay up close with the team or risk missing out on crucial heals (which enforces them to deal with the same mechanics melees do anyway).

Bard's currently the better ranged phys but yeah. The main issue I have with comparing Summoner to a ranged Physical is that they are essentially two different jobs. Ranged Physical are balanced around high mobility being a feature on them. That's not what should define Summoner. If they decide to put the tag on Summoner so you can get 5% stats buff with Summoner and Red Mage then sure but that wouldn't make sense.

The true terrifying thing about Summoner is what has been killing White Mage. It has a very easy and pleasing gameplay. Most casual will enjoy playing them regardless it is good or not and it does feel White Mages are not getting much love because it is played a lot.

While Summoner is truly simple, they get gutted with a highly restrictive rotation and gameplay. It is really just Baha > Elemental Summon > Elemental Summon > Elemental Summon > Phoenix > Elemental Summon > Elemental Summon > Elemental Summon

Restricting Garuda/Ifrit/Titan to Phoenix and Bahamut feels like a flawed design. I would dig having an oGCD ability with 2 charges that unlock my gems so in situations such at P2S where I must burn my Bahamut I could instead use a filler Elemental Summon and have Bahamut still in the burst window.

It feels so wrong they've removed so many restrictions on jobs like Monk GL, Dragoon's BotD or BLM Enochian but they gives such an awkward limitation to Summoner.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

I think it is fair to say that we fundamentally disagree on where the balancing point should be. For me, it is at the point of high level performance and execution. The point where one person dying means you run into the wall and reset because the run is failed. You want to see the game balanced around prog. Which leaves me, as an RDM player completely irrelevant and useless after the first four weeks of a tier or so.

This bickering is leading us nowhere. I will let the devs decide in 6.1 what should be taxed and what should be kept as it is.

Here thing from your standpoint smn should be irrelevant and useless. I don't know a single smn who wants rdm to be irrelevant and forgotten, we just want to be on the same level if not slightly higher in dps. I'm one of those Aikaal spoke about. I would love for them to give smn more casts and give us back some of our power. I don't like being called the "new phy range" and this thread is trying to tell the devs that. We don't want to make rdm irrelevant or useless so don't take these suggestions so personally. You act like you are being personally attacked because smn wants some of its power back. As I said I'm willing to give up the movement options I never asked for, for more power.

Shoot personally I wish the whole rez thing didn't exist since it does lead to these problems for balance among the casters. Also, I like to add that the regen smn has is not utility really, phoenix's regen and single target HoT are more flavor than anything because we don't get have a choice when to use it. Most of the time my regen and HoT are out healed by the healers and offer no real benefit.

[Kabooa]

I'll be worried if 6.1 passes and Summoner isn't megabuffed like it usually is.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

What justifies SMN being given back the damage it once had? It's somehow even more smooth brain to play than ARR BLM was, which is truly a monumental "accomplishment" on SE's part. It in essence now occupies almost the same position RDM once did, minus the ability to function as a full time rez bot. It should remain where it is until such time as it regains its prior complexity.

Complexly of a job shouldn't be used for balance. There are a lot of jobs in the game now that has simple, easy rotations(Blm being one of them) and the way they design jobs now of days complex job is a thing of the past.

[Mesarthim]

Ooooor we can stop saying to nerf the damage of my dps (RDM). It's asinine to treat my job as throwaway if prog is over.

I will agree on the notion that Summoner should be doing more damage than it is. I like the idea of new summoner but it feels half baked as if the job wasn't left in the oven long enough. I'm more in line with "stop asking to nerf a job and instead buff the one that needs it." I never really asked for the raise but here it's been. Didn't SE float the idea of even removing resurrection from Summoner if the rework goes well? I can't say I really like the idea of that as it'd put more emphasis that we have Verraise and then everyone would go "But RDM is the only caster with a raise, they must do less damage!!!1!". I never did like this raise conundrum but it also would feel dumb to rip summoner's away because SE just has to change the job considerably every expansion. Worst case maybe put a cap on mine or something with stacks.

tl;dr This version of summoner doesn't feel quite done but also shouldn't be doing as little damage as it is.