The current State of Casters 6.05 edition - balancing discussion

[Absimiliard]

I'll reiterate my stance as ever: nerf or remove raise from casters entirely. There's a role dedicated to people who want the healer fantasy and neither RDM nor SMN are in it.

With Summoners you may have a leg to stand on given that they've been depicted without white magic more often than they've had it. Red Mage, however, has always been a hybrid, capable of casting both black and white magic and serving as an effective melee. Tearing away Raise is basically ripping out a huge chunk of the class fantasy and identity.

[SaberMaxwell]

With Summoners you may have a leg to stand on given that they've been depicted without white magic more often than they've had it. Red Mage, however, has always been a hybrid, capable of casting both black and white magic and serving as an effective melee. Tearing away Raise is basically ripping out a huge chunk of the class fantasy and identity.

But it is in this case better at raise than White Mage. At no point should it be better at white magic than a White Mage, which is why my stance is "nerf or remove."

We could just make it a role action and remove that arguement right off the table since all casters would have access to it.

I agree here, either all should have it or none should have it. In the case of RDM tho, it should still be disqualified from being dualcast, and it should be disqualified from BLM's triplecast. I think that would be my ideal scenario, if not second-ideal scenario personally.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

Starting to reach for it a bit. You better pick one. Either there is "ton of options to optimize on Red Mage" or "Red Mage is a damn joke to play". Either "Summoner does not have that potential" or "I can't see any difference of complexity between Red Mage and Summoner".

I think it is pretty clear. With a simple and on rails rotation SMN has there is not a lot to be "busy" about. And by Yoshida's own words, being busier warrants higher DPS.

All the talk about support is getting old and I will no longer engage you on that topic. You remain adamant on downplaying anything SMN has and making RDM that absolute beast of support abilities with on demand heal LB3 and raidwide Hallowed Ground.

To be honest, I'm tired of seeing you in this thread trying to make an argument when AiKaal or any other smn hasnt tried to attack or ask for rdm to be nerfed in any way. I never once wanted rdm to feel useless or unwanted in parties but the way you talk on here that how it seems how you feel about smn. Seems like you want smn to not feel rewarded or have a spot in parties and be replaced by your beloved rdm. I even said I love to give up something for a buff for smn but I never asked rdm to be nerfed or anything. I want both jobs to feel wanted and feel rewarding to play. So if you dont have any actually helpful suggestions or advice to add to the smn situation, then go find a rdm only thread or something. Also if the complexity of a job determined its dps then why did they nerf smn in every expac leading up to this one? According to yours and so many others views smn should have been the number one dps in SB and ShB(maybe HW but I didn't play during then so I can't say how hard smn was then) but in those expac smn saw number of nerfs whenever the devs saw it was out-dpsing blm.

I wish they'd dump raise off the caster role entirely, give it to all three casters, add a cooldown to SMN and RDM's raise of 1 minute, or make verraise ineligible for dualcast. They've shown with Accel they can disqualify spells for specific instantcast abilities. I'm not playing Red Mage to live out my healer fantasy. If I wanted to play a healer, I have an entire role to choose from, and that role should have the neat alterations to raise like fast raise, pre-raise, strong raise, group raise, etc.

I completely agree with you on this and why I was disappointed they went back on the idea of removing smn's rez. I am at the point with casters that there never be a true balance when smn and rdm have something that blm doesn't so just remove or completely nerf the battle rez and let that be a healer only job going forward.

[Dyvid]

I agree here, either all should have it or none should have it. In the case of RDM tho, it should still be disqualified from being dualcast, and it should be disqualified from BLM's triplecast. I think that would be my ideal scenario, if not second-ideal scenario personally.

Make it an ability with recast timer, say 60s or 120s

[Shiroe]

agree 100% with this thread, give Smn a boots (in reality, should be on paar with Mnk), bu being under Rdm, wtf??
and common, .. fix the Smn dps buff, .. do tiresome, when it can't be used wgen up (same actually for the Smn self shield,.. but it atlest has 2x charges)
.. cut the CD of the Smn buff in half, or just straight up buff its Garuda & Ifrit skills, fast fix (though, if the Smn buff remains unchanged, it will stlll feel clunky)

[Myon88]

It'll be a sad day if the casters ever lose the ability to raise. The fact that you can even have arguments about their merits in the first place means that their utility has real importance. The other roles are practically identical except for numbers, and your skill expression amounts to choosing what skin you want your damage dealer to have. Boring.

This game is way bigger than just raiding too. I've seen it smooth out so many encounters in trials or dungeons that would've ended on a sour note or a wipe instead. I'll take those holistic benefits over 1% better balance any day. This series has a rich history of jobs to draw on, it doesn't deserve to be approached as a spreadsheet simulator like WoW.

[Absimiliard]

(in reality, should be on paar with Mnk), bu being under Rdm, wtf??

SMN most definitely should not be on par with MNK. It is right now every bit as brain dead to play as BLM was in ARR. Something that easy and accessible should never outperform a job that requires even a modicum of effort to play effectively.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

SMN most definitely should not be on par with MNK. It is right now every bit as brain dead to play as BLM was in ARR. Something that easy and accessible should never outperform a job that requires even a modicum of effort to play effectively.

By your way of balance, I guess sam, rpr, and blm shouldn't out dps MNK either. Face it most the jobs in ff14 are not complex and most of them can be played pretty easily. I agree mnk has become pretty complex but it is like the only one now that is complex. I say it once and I'll say it again having a complex rotation or "hard" job shouldn't be the determining factor for balancing. If that was true SB smn and ShB smn should have stayed as the number one dps but instead, it got nerfs whenever they overturned it.

[Aikaal]

I definitely wouldn't mind a long ass CD raise role action from casters.

@Azuri, sadly for you, Summoner is straight up undertuned and require a buff to make them do a little more damage than Summoners. World First group who cleared Pandaemonium reached the conclusion when team building that Red Mage was an auto-pick over Summoner just from damage output. They never cared to check defensive support or mobility. They simply stop at the damage. Would they have got a situaiton were damage was really close between the two, they'd have checked the defensive capacity which, let's face it, Red Mage provides better defensive capacity. Better raise and better on demand utility in Magick Barrier. Yeah, it might just reduce Magic Damage but you can press the button whenever you want. For Phoenix's Medica II, you don't get the option to use it on Summoner. It's auto-default.

Add this to the fact Summoner anti-synergize with his party in situations such as P2S there is no other thing to say than Summoner is extremely undertuned in all aspects of the game, except mobility which isn't even checked by world first groups like TPS.

If I can add a final argument, it's that if you don,t believe me despite me having a background in designing a black mage opener back in Heavensward, then I can provide testimonies from high profile raiders which explains why Summoner is undertuned and Red Mage is too strong compared to Summoner..



To sum up, they've found out that without a doubt DRk, SCH, MNK, RPR, RDM and BRD were top of their job. Ironically enough, they favored a third ranged DPS slot for world prog even if MNK felt better than BLM. Still, they've obtained world first with BLM but they felt MNK was stronger. "smn damage was very low, on dummy dps, smn was abysmally low pre-patch". Red Mage was auto-included because it was doing near melee-rDPS and provided raise and magick barrier (funny I was pointing how good red mage was for these abilities!)

They tested all jobs and it was their conclusion. They also have a God BLM player in the form of Sfia. They never had to consider anything but damage, it was such a no-brainer for them to auto-slot a RDM with how SMN is.

Now, I get you could doubt me a little to know a guy who cleared world first but Kiona's a buddy of mine since 8 years, I'm met him so there you go;



Again, if you think the way casters are is fine. Then you just expose yourself at being extremely biased and wanting Red Mage to be overpowered compared to other casters. They chose Black Mage because they wanted a third ranged DPS, not because they believed Black Mage was the best caster. Even with the Phoenix buff which was more a fix then a buff, it's just not enough. Summoner suffers from heavy caveats from an over-simplified rotation that offers no flexibility and in a lot of scenarios anti-synergizes with their party member. The only redeeming factor if that it still bring utility over black mage should you not pick a red mage purely on progression but if you aim to clear at top level, then you're just sandbagging yourself from not using the best available job. Pride shouldn't get over your desire to perform at peak level.

The only good and valid argument to pick Summoner over Red Mage is "you don't need a meta team to clear, play what you like." An argument which is being used for our Dancer, Machinist, White Mages, Paladins, Samurais and Dragoons friends right now.

[Kolsykol]

The only good and valid argument to pick Summoner over Red Mage is "you don't need a meta team to clear, play what you like." An argument which is being used for our Dancer, Machinist, White Mages, Paladins, Samurais and Dragoons friends right now.

I exist too (NIN ).
There's a dozen of us.