Summoner - Why the new "buffs" are not working

[Gruntler]

Fire IV rotation always dealt more damage, and I'm glad they're willing to push it more with balance patches. My preferred change would be increasing the transpose CD as this would also curtail alternate lines that rely on either counting or addons to accurately hit mana regen ticks, though this would be a more contentious change. I think that that variety of deviation-from-standard gameplay would be better delivered through nuanced abilities than counting to three.

To be fair, the problem was two-fold. BLM wasn't putting out quite enough damage AND they were starting to gravitate towards a degenerate meme rotation. When presented with those twin problems, solving the former (buffing BLM's damage suite) happening to solve the latter is win/win, whereas fixing transpose would have done nothing to solve the bigger problem.

This also gets entirely invalidate once progression is over.

This might be a hard truth pill to swallow but SE's never balanced based on farm parse parties, they balance based on the requirements to get your party to farm which includes a) the first clear, and b) clean up on subsequent clears. Once that total progression is over, you can go in with 8 warriors and SE will give less than 1/8 of a fuck per warrior, totally a total number of fucks given of less than a single fuck, so long as things don't get absolutely degen.

So RDM paying something for its ability to raise (which still matters in pugs, where the 'clean up' still happens even in week 20) still makes sense from their standpoint. We can argue about how much, but the fact is, RDM steals clears and makes parties more reliable and if they balance based on clear rates, RDM will be balanced on those lines. As a caster, it has the casting design tension so it still has to work around mechanics so that puts a negative pressure on their clear rates. So this is why RDM doesn't do massive damage, but it's never going to be doing ranged damage.

Contrast with 6.0-6.1 when RDM did absolutely dumpster damage and they had missed the mark in the low direction and had to keep buffing RDM to where they felt it was no longer a liability to clear, using data they have that is more exact and has more metrics than FFLogs (by necessity, FFlogs does its heckin best with what it gets, but there's a limit to accuracy it can possibly have)

[Oxidized]

To be fair, the problem was two-fold. BLM wasn't putting out quite enough damage AND they were starting to gravitate towards a degenerate meme rotation. When presented with those twin problems, solving the former (buffing BLM's damage suite) happening to solve the latter is win/win, whereas fixing transpose would have done nothing to solve the bigger problem.

The problem in 6.05 was not "BLM is not putting out enough damage" as much as it was a "melee (particularly MNK and RPR) DPS are doing too much damage". They chose the buffing route instead of the much easier nerfing route. As a result, they buffed BLM more than SMN, leaving them in an ironically worse spot in relative terms and caused RDM to be put in an equally-unfavorable spot.

[Gruntler]

The problem in 6.05 was not "BLM is not putting out enough damage"

Yoshi-P explicitly said BLM wasn't putting out enough damage. Do I believe the lead director, or some guy on the forums?

as much as it was a "melee (particularly MNK and RPR) DPS are doing too much damage".

Yoshi-P did not say that and you know it. He said RPR damage was actually where it should be and that other jobs were being adjusted to be in line with where they are supposed to. Jobs were underperforming in content.

They chose the buffing route instead of the much easier nerfing route.

Because they balance relative to content, not relative to FFLogs rankings. If 'Job A is underperforming relative to Job B' on FFLogs it doesn't mean that Job A is undertuned or Job B is overtuned relative to content (you know, the thing that actually matters for balance) but it means that some adjustment needs to be made. If Job B is doing what they want it to in content, nerfing it makes no sense. If Job A is performing where it should relative to content and Job B is overperforming it makes sense to nerf Job B otherwise you nerf content through buff creep.

As a result, they buffed BLM more than SMN, leaving them in an ironically worse spot in relative terms and caused RDM to be put in an equally-unfavorable spot.

RDM is the second most played job in the game in savage clears AFTER buffs. RDM's literally not even close to a worry on anyone's mind.

[Zarkovitch]

They need to make ifrit cast time less horrible for slide cast. holy moly, even ruin 3 is less painful to slide cast than ifrit spells. And yes I use my swift on garuda splitstream baby.

[tearagion]

To be fair, the problem was two-fold. BLM wasn't putting out quite enough damage AND they were starting to gravitate towards a degenerate meme rotation. When presented with those twin problems, solving the former (buffing BLM's damage suite) happening to solve the latter is win/win, whereas fixing transpose would have done nothing to solve the bigger problem.

Yes, I like the F4 buff. I also think transpose cd increase solves problems, the problems just aren't a big deal at all (2% max potency gains over 8 GCDs kind of magnitude, but less mobile usually). They also aren't strictly bad and are a way for excellent BLM players to push themselves even further. I wouldn't want it changed until something is introduced that delivers similar gameplay without being obscured by regen ticks.