6.08 buffs, what´s the point?!

[rewd]

Arcane Crest heals the party on its own compared to Mantra that makes healers heal harder. (Also every healer I've done savage raiding with says it's a worthless skill since it's never saved them a heal cast, which arguably could be said of Arcane Crest too, which would make it utility in a similar manner to Everlasting Flight, except it puts out a regen when the party actually has damage on them)

Arcane Circle buffs the party for longer than does Brotherhood.

And you think that a measly 250p regen - DPS potency - is going to save healers heals? In this game and with their bloated kits full of free healing anyway?

Also, Brotherhood has a bigger %. So no, Reaper doesn't have more utility.

[Atmaweapon510]

MCH has far superior nDPS than Bard or Dancer, it doesn't need huge potency buffs.

What does nDPS have to do with anything when everyone is looking at this from an rDPS perspective? MCH is bottom tier and the only job in the game with 0 unique utility skills unlike even SAM or BLM who get Third Eye and Manaward.

MCH will also fall behind on scaling into the expansion, both because BRD/DNC raid buffs scale better based on the difference between the highest nDPS jobs from the lowest, and because Reassemble inherently devalues Crit and Direct hit the same way WAR's Inner release does, but without anything like MNK's chakra system to balance it out.

[SpeckledBurd]

And you think that a measly 250p regen - DPS potency - is going to save healers heals? In this game and with their bloated kits full of free healing anyway?

Also, Brotherhood has a bigger %. So no, Reaper doesn't have more utility.

The duration of the buff being longer on Reaper more or less equals out to the slightly higher buff on Brotherhood. The skills are for all intents and purposes equivalent. Arcane Circle is decidedly better as a healing skill since it's 5250 Healing potency across the party per use, with it being usable 3 times in the window it would take for Mantra to come off cooldown and without requiring any healing input. To get the healing potency for a single Arcane Crest out of Mantra healers would need to dump 50k healing potency over those 50 seconds. So it is most certainly is better as far as healing utility goes even if you don't like that it is, and that can be useful in Savage (particularly later Savage floors) where unavoidable partywide AOEs can kill the entire party unmitigated and will leave you at about 10-20% health with your mitigation strategies.

The other reason is also that Monk is more technical to perform with than Reaper at both a base level and in optimized play so frankly that effort should put Monk over it (though not necessarily SAM/BLM).

[Scuoll]

Exactly, the monk buff feels more like the tomahawk buff. Sure it's nice, and yes monk will actually use this skill more in a raid than warrior will use tomahawk, but it's a skill that monks don't even use until two minutes into the fight. This just feels like a buff intended to make sure monk is above reaper for damage. Reaper gives more utility to the party than monk does, so monk should be comfortably above reaper.

Following the same logic though monk should be the second lowest melee rdps, since it has more utility than ninja, sam and dragoon which doesnt even have a defensive.

I think the monk buff is just weird, it was the only job already competing with reaper and sometimes beating it, even if only at max percentile with good rng and almost perfect play, and it got a buff that is for my understanding numerically comparable to machinist, which is probably the worst/second worst dps in the game, althouth the ranged ease of use tax is kinda awkward.

[rewd]

The duration of the buff being longer on Reaper more or less equals out to the slightly higher buff on Brotherhood. The skills are for all intents and purposes equivalent. Arcane Circle is decidedly better as a healing skill since it's 5250 Healing potency across the party per use, with it being usable 3 times in the window it would take to use Mantra. To get the healing potency for a single Arcane Crest out of Mantra healers would need to dump 50k healing potency over those 50 seconds. So it is most certainly is better as far as healing utility goes even if you don't like that it is, and that can be useful in Savage (particularly later Savage floors) where unavoidable partywide AOEs can kill the entire party unmitigated and will leave you at about 10-20% health with your mitigation strategies.

DPS buffs are not utility, but if we want to compare them: yes, they are roughly equal, which is what I was saying.

Saying that Arcane Creste is 5250 potency is meaningless. This is a game where damage comes in spikes and healers have hilariously bloated kits. Do you actually play healer, especially in Savage? I'm not asking this in a condescending way, but it's relevant to the topic. No healer is going to say "I'm really grateful Arcane Crest was used!". At most we are going to say "Wow, now my regen only overhealed for 15%!".

You might think that a raidwide leaving the party at 10-20% puts a strain on the healers but... It doesn't. We wish this was true, though. No one is going to change their healing plan because of Arcane Crest, not only because it is weak, but also because our healing kits are too strong (or, relatively speaking, damage is too low).

If you really want to get technical about the Arcane Crest VS Mantra debate: one thing you are not considering is that AC is tied to a shield that has to break in a very short window, which makes its timing very precise. Obviously, there will be plenty of mechanics that will seperate you from the party, making you unable to hit all your party members. Saying that the skill has a XY potency in a vacuum is, as I said, meaningless. Not to mention that having 50, 500 or 5000 healing potency doesn't matter if none of it is going to be, realistically, useful.

Mantra on the other hand is a buff, which gives you much more leeway in how and when you apply it. On top of this, AC is only a healing tool but Mantra is more versatile. It can be used as a healing tool (indirectly) but also as a mitigation tool as it can make shields bigger.

Ultimately, none of this really matters and this is just a huge exercise in futility for several reasons:

- AC and mantra work in completely different ways so a 1:1 comparison is not possible
- as long there is a massive discrepancy between outgoing damage and healing kits, DPS' healing skills won't matter
- skills of this kind are way more useful in casual content, but jobs can't and shouldn't be balanced around casual content.

So no, RPR doesn't have more utility than MNK. This is also distracting from the fact that NIN, SAM and DRG should all be doing more damage than MNK and RPR as they have zero utility.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

If dps buffs are not utility then why do the devs seem to balance around them so much? That was the first time I ever heard anyone say "dps buffs are not utility" Just don't understand that argument lol xD Even if buff are not utility the dev still takes them into count when balancing jobs. The reason dnc has always been near the bottom among the phy range bc of its buffs. Maybe I just don't understand I guess but to me, buffs play a big part in balancing the jobs. Again so far balancing in EW has kinda been all over the place at the moment and seems a lot of jobs aren't where they should be in the rankings.

[wereotter]

Following the same logic though monk should be the second lowest melee rdps, since it has more utility than ninja, sam and dragoon which doesnt even have a defensive.

I think the monk buff is just weird, it was the only job already competing with reaper and sometimes beating it, even if only at max percentile with good rng and almost perfect play, and it got a buff that is for my understanding numerically comparable to machinist, which is probably the worst/second worst dps in the game, althouth the ranged ease of use tax is kinda awkward.

I agree. The monk buff is very odd, and if I'm being honest, I'd rather have seen a buff, if any, go to Elixir Field so it has the same potency as Rising Phoenix, but more than that, I wanted changes to Six Sided Star and Anatman, not potency, just give me a reason to use those buttons.

As for the rest of the post... ninja has more party damage utility than monk, so no. Trick is up for every 60 second burst window whereas other party buffs are 120 seconds. And Machinist, while needing it, did get more of a buff than monk did. Machinist got 220 potency every 2 minutes compared to the 150 for monk. Yes, it's close and doesn't do much to close the gap between the jobs, but it is a bigger buff none the less.

[Sqwall]

I was hoping Mantra would have gotten the intervention or shake it off treatment.

Couple Mantra with Riddle of Earth, Riddle of Wind, Riddle of Fire.

Riddle of Earth used for solo incoming damage, but if you use Riddle of Earth and then Mantra...Mantra gives the party Riddle of Earth for mitigation

Riddle of Wind consumed with mantra to spread the -50% auto attack delay for whole party.

Riddle of Fire consumed for party 15% increase to damage.

Of course everyone would just use it with Riddle of Fire...and it would completely break the game.

Screw the healing....let me share my riddles! This would make me think a little bit about using mantra and my riddles.

Will they do that.....HECK NO!! But would be fun! It's that kind of out of the box thinking I like.

Mantra is just ....MEH. It won't save a run like Shake it Off has for me. Mantra is incredibly niche....works great for stack mechanics or multi hit stack mechanics (styx). Couples great with Bloodbath and second wind and nascent. But other then that...pretty much it.

It's pretty much always on cooldown like riddle of wind....soo...

Personally...they should just make throw out a Regen and the regen ticks just crit. That would be more impactful then it's current form.

But seriously also like to see all DPS lose any party wide healing or personal healing. Give us something that compliments our gameplay, but in a group setting. Something like brotherhood, Maybe have Mantra gives 3% crit chance to party while also MNK gains a 10% chance of gaining missing NADI when a party member uses a weapon skill.

[rewd]

If dps buffs are not utility then why do the devs seem to balance around them so much? That was the first time I ever heard anyone say "dps buffs are not utility" Just don't understand that argument lol xD Even if buff are not utility the dev still takes them into count when balancing jobs. The reason dnc has always been near the bottom among the phy range bc of its buffs. Maybe I just don't understand I guess but to me, buffs play a big part in balancing the jobs. Again so far balancing in EW has kinda been all over the place at the moment and seems a lot of jobs aren't where they should be in the rankings.

It's only confusing if you dont know what rDPS means and what it entails. Devs do consider party buffs, which is why MCH or SAM (jobs without party buffs) have more personal damage than NIN or DNC, role counterparts with party buffs. Jobs like NIN and DNC are supposed to make up for this difference with their personal buffs.

It gets a bit more complicated when you consider that there are jobs that have real utility (Raise, Nature's minne, Improvisation etc.). This is the reason why, for example, BLM should have more rDPS than SMN and RDM. Not because these jobs have Searing Light and Embolden, but because they have Raise, Magick Barrier etc.

[FlareVyzar]

Idk what to say, we are on week 4, p2s reclears had 18 deaths today. We still recleared it around 20s before enrage. Half of our group isn't even near BiS.

I understand that savage dps checks does become easier once past week 1, because of gear. But like, these buffs coming post savage release instead of on release really made things so much easier.

I can just hope, p5-p8s will be harder.