Damage "taxes" deserve serious reconsideration

[CKNovel]

Ok, forgott mantra by the monk.
But, it doesnt chance the fact, that bardf and dancer has the most buff skills for the party.

I didnt mentioned the other things because: They are even role skills, so, that everyone from the role has it (like feint and blood bath).
Or, are only selfish boost. DNC and Bard has some selfish boost to, that i didnt mentioned.

For the simplification of the argument we can ignore the damage buffs
Those falls within the rDPS data we already have and the graph provides a much better understanding how each jobs contribute to the party with their personal damage and buffs.

Also yes, BRD and DNC have the most buffs no one said otherwise. But quality is superior to quantity, those loads of buffs aren't enough to compete with melees personal damage and buffs.

Because they are role skill they should be mentioned.
When Melee DPS suffers a 60s dot, be sure that your healers will be happy to know you use bloodbath and that they will sigh heavily if the dot falls onto a physical range or a caster.

It would be unfair to not compare role skills when Ranged only has Second wind as a usable role skill and Tacticians/Troubadour/Samba are disguised role skill.

Selfish utility needs to be counted
If a BLM, MNK and NIN use their personal defensive, this relieves a lot of stress from the healers and allows healer&tank to spend their resources on fragile allies.
There are literally cases where some jobs cannot survive raidwides because they lack personal utility.

You talk about "selfish support" but what are you talking about?
En avant and Repelling shot? Mobility on the most mobile jobs, watering the water? You can also rule this out of the equation since melees have the same.
On top of that MCH doesn't have mobility tools. (though it doesn't need one)

Second wind? I already ruled this out from this equation due to being shared by p.ranged and melees.

So... What are you even talking about?
Also what about my question about comparing MCH and SAM utility?

So far you've been ignoring compelling arguments and only fueling new reasons for closing the gap between melees and casters/ranged.

[Aikaal]

Hi,

There's one thing that was missing and it's those:

Melee/Ranged have Second Wind to help healers for big hits like Ahk Morns.

As for Casters and that's pretty significant;

Black Mage have Manaward for self-mitigation. This is useful to sponge damage or just not move and hit a mechanic to keep your DPS high. (This is pretty handy in P8S)
Summoner have 2 Radiant Aegis. This blocks damage on demand if Carby is here. (This is actually really good in P8S on High Concepts and phase 2)
Red Mage have no self mitigation They have Vercure and it can be nice. It's main goal is a free instant caster after downtime but it has niche usages but you'll never use it when you can DPS.

Summary; as a RDM, I have died a few times from eyes in DSR being full HP because there was 1 mit used there and sometimes Scholar would miss it which is fine. But also sometimes my WHM would miss Benison on me there and I would get 1hko. We memed about it but there was a special RDM protection program in my static because I was the one more likely to die randomly as a caster DPS. Not Melee DPS.

[CKNovel]

Hi,

There's one thing that was missing and it's those:

Melee/Ranged have Second Wind to help healers for big hits like Ahk Morns.

As for Casters and that's pretty significant;

Yes, I intentially omitted them as the point was to prove that melees DPS also have very strong support mitigation that increased their already great survivability.
And that in some cases, it can reach ridiculous level of strength and flexibility such as MNK, RPR and SAM.

Thought, let's compare those personal mitigation to melees:
Manaward (BLM) is very strong it's a 120s CD for a shield of 30% BLM health. It's similar to shadowshift.
Radiant shield (SMN) is a 60s CD, two charges for 20% of the SMN life as a shield. But you can't use it during a summoning or the whole duration of Bahamut/Phoenix
Rekindle (SMN) is a very good heal with a HoT working like Excog. But is technically on a 120s CD and only usable within a 15 second phase.
Vercure is a VerJoke you'll never use unless prog and even then, it's not very good.

We're going to skip the role action since the only support ability is Addle and has been already talked about.

In comparison to BLM, NIN has shadow shift but also Bloodbath and Second wind.
SMN has very strong shield and healing capacity but they're limited. RPR has a 30s cooldown on its 10% shield of its bigger pool of max HP and its healing can rivalize with SMN.
RDM still has Magick Barrier which is a very strong cooldown. Man, RDM really got the short hand of the stick this expansion, less mobile and most squishy caster.

[Aikaal]

Yes, I intentially omitted them as the point was to prove that melees DPS also have very strong support mitigation that increased their already great survivability.
And that in some cases, it can reach ridiculous level of strength and flexibility such as MNK, RPR and SAM.

Thought, let's compare those personal mitigation to melees:
Manaward (BLM) is very strong it's a 120s CD for a shield of 30% BLM health. It's similar to shadowshift.
Radiant shield (SMN) is a 60s CD, two charges for 20% of the SMN life as a shield. But you can't use it during a summoning or the whole duration of Bahamut/Phoenix
Rekindle (SMN) is a very good heal with a HoT working like Excog. But is technically on a 120s CD and only usable within a 15 second phase.
Vercure is a VerJoke you'll never use unless prog and even then, it's not very good.

We're going to skip the role action since the only support ability is Addle and has been already talked about.

In comparison to BLM, NIN has shadow shift but also Bloodbath and Second wind.
SMN has very strong shield and healing capacity but they're limited. RPR has a 30s cooldown on its 10% shield of its bigger pool of max HP and its healing can rivalize with SMN.
RDM still has Magick Barrier which is a very strong cooldown. Man, RDM really got the short hand of the stick this expansion, less mobile and most squishy caster.

Agree on that. I would say Rekindle and Vercure have niche usages.

Vercure gives you instant casts on downtime. Vercure provide some supports in mechanics like High Concept and all the downtime of DSR.

Rekindle highly depends if it's needed or not. If you take a big aoe hit, jsut summoning phoenix gives a medica II. Rekindle usually is used on the tank as overheal. Phoenix needs to spawn when damage happens which isn't always the case. I will say, however, that on the second p8s boss it does shine well.

[FireMage]

Those taxes are on paper, valid, but with the exception of the difficulty tax they aren't being designed around, which is the problem

[Keichi]

You talk about "selfish support" but what are you talking about?

So... What are you even talking about?
Also what about my question about comparing MCH and SAM utility?

It was asked, wich support, the ranger are giving. I mentioned the support skills of most of the dd. That is all.
And like i sayed: Meele should do simply doing the greates dmg, because simply of the fact, that they have to be near to the enemy. And that close up aoe can block them very easily (close up aoe by the boss, targeted aoe, the: "all player have aoe attacks arounbd them" attack from some bosses).
Maybe, in this round of content arent many of this scenarios. But, whe had this scenarios allready in the past content, where there was often close up aoe attacks (at last, in normal dungeons or es a example, Zodiak, who used many aoe attacks).
So, alone from the concept ist this set up.

What the Mch could have, could be, similary in dmg to the black mage. Blm and Mch are more similary, as MCh/ Rangers and caster to the meele.
And maybe could the roles be closer in the cap. But, they can not be the same. Otherwise would meele have to big disadvangtements.

- They have many or long combos, who can be messing up, if the system didnt notice the buttom rightfuyll and let you use a false skill (like: you want to use shift+2 for a skill, but the system didnt notice the shift buttom, it use than only the skill on 2 and you have to use a other combo or start the combo again, rangers and caster are lesser bond by combos and have more priority, what forgives this kind of error more).
- has the most situations, where they can not effectivly attack (maybe not in this end content, but it will probally come again, whe had it allready in the past)
- has to do positionals, for max dmg. The positionals have been reduced and it exist true north. But, they still exist and north is limited for 2 uses in 2 minutes)

Ranger and caster, who dont have postitionals, and who dont have long / complicated combos (exception the red mage meele attacks) and lesser situations, where they can not attack, can simply not do the same dmg, for fairness. And because of the practicly endless free movement + attacks + more support skills, does it look logically, that they have to do lesser dmg as caster. With the exception of Machinist, who could be near or similary to the black mage.

The few lesser % dmg shouldnt even be so much of a problem. Even for savage. It doesnt matter much, if you finished a dungeoni 1-3 minutes later, as with pure meele . Or, if you beat a dmg check with 90 or 94% (even, when the first would be nicer and safer). Would it be truly impossible, to beat the dmg check with mostly ranged classes, than, i would say, that they would make the raid to hard. As to say, that they have to increase the power of the player. Because: Increasing the power of the player, could make other content more easily, as they want it to be.

[CKNovel]

I sayed melee should be higher because Melee must be close

- Melee combo
- Uptime is not garanteed
- My positionals

The few lesser % dmg shouldnt even be so much of a problem. Even for savage. It doesnt matter much, if you finished a dungeoni 1-3 minutes later, as with pure meele . Or, if you beat a dmg check with 90 or 94% (even, when the first would be nicer and safer). Would it be truly impossible, to beat the dmg check with mostly ranged classes, than, i would say, that they would make the raid to hard.

You didn't progged week 1 and you are no savage raider, maybe you shouldn't get near the topic.

You're just repeating the same arguments despite our valid counter arguments.
You just added melee combo... If you fail to press 1 2 3 I don't know what to say.
Point blank aoe are very often small enough to keep melee uptime. Even bigger one you can safely get a GCD then move out.
This is coming from someone who did Endwalker content as a GNB: Melee uptime has never been easier.

As you said "It doesn't matter if you finish a dungeon 1 or 3 minutes later".
We can extend this to every casual content. Would it matter if as a Melee you finished your dungeon 1 or 3 minutes later because you struggle with uptime and positionals?
This is your very own argument and it can be easily reversed. If DPS doesn't matter then it doesn't matter that the gap between ranged, caster and melee doesn't exist.

I feel like you have no more arguments to bring to the discussion in favor of melee DPS.
You've also failed to bring valid counter-argument to keep the gap between melees and ranged/caster, but stick to "positionals" and "melee uptime".
If you want to counter argue then show me you can lose 10 GCDs due to mechanics on every floor of Abyssos as a melee DPS.

[Aikaal]

What the Mch could have, could be, similary in dmg to the black mage. Blm and Mch are more similary, as MCh/ Rangers and caster to the meele.
And maybe could the roles be closer in the cap. But, they can not be the same. Otherwise would meele have to big disadvangtements.

- They have many or long combos, who can be messing up, if the system didnt notice the buttom rightfuyll and let you use a false skill (like: you want to use shift+2 for a skill, but the system didnt notice the shift buttom, it use than only the skill on 2 and you have to use a other combo or start the combo again, rangers and caster are lesser bond by combos and have more priority, what forgives this kind of error more).
- has the most situations, where they can not effectivly attack (maybe not in this end content, but it will probally come again, whe had it allready in the past)
- has to do positionals, for max dmg. The positionals have been reduced and it exist true north. But, they still exist and north is limited for 2 uses in 2 minutes)

Ranger and caster, who dont have postitionals, and who dont have long / complicated combos (exception the red mage meele attacks) and lesser situations, where they can not attack, can simply not do the same dmg, for fairness. And because of the practicly endless free movement + attacks + more support skills, does it look logically, that they have to do lesser dmg as caster. With the exception of Machinist, who could be near or similary to the black mage.

I find it really hard to take you seriously on that. So let's recap.

- 2 out of 5 bosses do not have any positional.
- There is no GCD / downtime loss outside of 1 GCD maybe in some fights (P5S you lose 1 and P8S you may lose 1
- They have True North to compensate on positionals. Strats are designed for melee to hit their positionals.
- Melee can move around their bursts (Summoner can't). You're saying SMN don't have any complicated combo. Summoner can't move their burst. They either desync Bahamut or spam Ruin III so there's no optimization. Red Mage have to deal with mobility logistic nightmares such as door boss vents.
- Positionals can literally be seen as being the "mobility" logistic that casters deal.

In the past, Melee was a nightmare to uptime. In Endwalker? Melees have been having it extremely easy. This is fine they do it this way but casters and ranged needs compensation for this.

Lastly but... You haven't actually done any savage right? I don't think this is right of you to discuss a topic you haven't experienced.

[Raikai]

Difficulty Tax:
Theory: If a job is harder to play, the player should be rewarded for doing it correctly with higher damage output. Conversely, easier jobs are "taxed" with lower damage output.

Problems:

• Again, players feel "punished" if they happen to enjoy a class that SQEX has dubbed, for lack of a better term, "easy mode."
• Disagreements over what constitutes "difficulty," or which jobs are actually the most difficult
• Disregards possibility that certain jobs may be easier/harder in certain encounters
• Potentially excuses lazy or uncreative development. E.g., make a half-assed rotation, call it "beginner friendly," and slap it with the difficulty tax.

Commentary: In my humble opinion, this shouldn't even be a thing. It's easier said than done, I know, but every job ought to be both approachable for newcomers, intricate enough to have a learning curve, and rewarding to those who master it. If a job has a "difficulty tax," to me, that's code for the job deserving another look at its fundamental design. But moreover, I think this tax is flawed for the simple fact that "difficulty" can be tough to gauge, especially across the wide variety of encounters in the game. As an example, most high-end raiders that I'm familiar with would argue that BLM is the hardest job to execute well in savage/ultimate content, and that evidently isn't reflected in SQEX's take. Does "difficulty" mean pressing more buttons? Positioning more precisely? How much damage you lose if you press the wrong key? I don't think this has an easy answer, which makes the prospect of "taxing" based on it even more questionable.

Proposal: If a job is being "taxed" for being too simple, I think it's deserving of another look at its design, not a damage penalty.

Conclusion
Respectfully, I believe all three of the main damage "taxes" discussed by SQEX have serious incongruencies either within themselves, or in context of the game's current design. I think all three deserve serious reconsideration in how they allegedly influence job balance.

Thank you for reading.

As the game is currently, I've got to agree with the "difficult tax" (and that's coming from someone who mostly plays those jobs). Indeed I agree with your point that the job design should be looked at if they ever want to remove this tax... In theory, I think the skill ceilings should be high for every job, so there would be an actual challenge goal in the end of the day for everyone, like BLM with their transpose usage.

For example, today, as opposed to some suggestions I've seen, I can't in good faith think that MCH's dps being on par with BLM and SAM would be okay. A ranged job with no cast times and braindead rotation would certainly seize a lot of players just because of that, not even counting the impact that would have with the other 2 aiming jobs.

[Dogempire]

Snip.

Ah yes, the difficulty tax, the one that comes from SE constantly gutting jobs and calling them reworks and then nerfing the jobs for being simple, the tax that doesn't apply to melee jobs; only ranged and caster jobs.

Difficulty has gone down across the board, there's barely any room for optimization except for a select few jobs, that doesn't mean that those jobs deserve to be on top while everyone else gets taxed for SE's inability to design jobs with any meaningful depth

The fact of the matter is that the difficulty tax isn't justified because in an ideal world we wouldn't have any braindead jobs, just a few jobs with a low skill floor while retaining a high skill ceiling, but that's not the case.

MCH should absolutely be doing more damage than a Samurai if they're better at playing their job than the Samurai, and a mediocre samurai should not be able to compete with a machinist optimizing the job to its fullest