Let's redefine "damage taxes"

[Aurora428]

Well the thing about nerfing jobs is that it makes everyone feel bad unless they are super absurdly broken, which no job honestly currently is. It isn't so much that melees are too good, because if they were then P8s wouldn't have needed nerfing, it's that non-melees are really bad right now. If you only buff, sure that introduces power creep for older content and can invalidate it, but this game is all about current and new content. So they can buff the bad jobs and the new fights released in future patches will be tuned for those buffs in mind. It's the most sensible solution, IMO. Nerfing is necessary for extreme outliers (like old SMN) but I don't think any job is at that level right now.

They should have nerfed RPR at the beginning of the expansion, rather than buff everything else to where it ends up effectively being a nerf anyways. The end result would have ironically likely been better for RPR itself who sucks now in comparison to other melee.

Had they brought RPR DOWN to the other melee's level, the gap between melee and ranged also wouldn't be as high (BRD was not tremendously behind non-RPR melee, but as other melee got buffed up and beyond RPR, that gap widened.)

A majority of current issues right now could have been avoided if they were willing to nerf, especially considering that RPR was basically nerfed in relation to the other melee anyways.

[Mithron]

They should have nerfed RPR at the beginning of the expansion, rather than buff everything else to where it ends up effectively being a nerf anyways. The end result would have ironically likely been better for RPR itself who sucks now in comparison to other melee.

Had they brought RPR DOWN to the other melee's level, the gap between melee and ranged also wouldn't be as high (BRD was not tremendously behind non-RPR melee, but as other melee got buffed up and beyond RPR, that gap widened.)

A majority of current issues right now could have been avoided if they were willing to nerf, especially considering that RPR was basically nerfed in relation to the other melee anyways.

I don't think so. I think there was already a significant gap of melee above ranged before this raid tier, and the ranged needed buffing before Abyssos, it was just Abyssos fight design that really shed the light on how much of a gap there was. They should've buffed all the ranged as well.

Normally I'm an advocate in nerfs because of power creep, but I don't think it's congruent to 14's design of current relevant content.

[Rithy255]

I don't think farm groups will really care as long as the person is good at their job and can pull good numbers, the only time jobs ever get locked out is when you have situations like with PLD or MCH or even RDM where the damage is so comparatively low that it's just objectively better to lock them out because a mediocre player on a different job within the same role will pull almost always better numbers (At least if we're speaking in terms of FFLogs because there are other factors)

Plus the tight damage checks (Less so now anyways) incentivize locking out the lowest performing jobs because it gives a lot more leeway for mistakes and such

I do think it's a issue that BLM would be 1% infront of the other casters, my main point which is apparently hard to understand is:

>In Progression, You generally would care about what you would bring for learning the fight because that's the most difficult part about savage, hence theoretically taking a more mobile job with a party raise such as Summoner would easily be your best option, while taking something like a BLM for insignificant damage increase, meaning the extra damage doesn't really make up for any mistakes in rotation or anything like that, While a BLM who's at least a bit more then "1%" ahead would at least be way more useful at recovering damage for peoples mistakes, you also can't make fight checks required enough so that RDM/SMN cannot clear or become a detriment to a dps check.

>In farm/reclears, You've already beaten the fight no one is going to care about using a BLM doing a extra "1%" because you likely got gear, less mistakes are going to happen ect, at that point no one will really care aslong as the job you got gets it done.

I think this really hits a problem with casters, while the uniqueness and design choice of certain casters bringing utility vs damage is good, it's not really balanced at all, for classes such as BLM, you can't have one job do practically everything that BLM already brings, has mobility, utility ect. then give the BLM a tiny damage advantage that's also not "good balance"

[Azuri]

I do think it's a issue that BLM would be 1% infront of the other casters, my main point which is apparently hard to understand is:

>In Progression, You generally would care about what you would bring for learning the fight because that's the most difficult part about savage, hence theoretically taking a more mobile job with a party raise such as Summoner would easily be your best option, while taking something like a BLM for insignificant damage increase, meaning the extra damage doesn't really make up for any mistakes in rotation or anything like that, While a BLM who's at least a bit more then "1%" ahead would at least be way more useful at recovering damage for peoples mistakes, you also can't make fight checks required enough so that RDM/SMN cannot clear or become a detriment to a dps check.

>In farm/reclears, You've already beaten the fight no one is going to care about using a BLM doing a extra "1%" because you likely got gear, less mistakes are going to happen ect, at that point no one will really care aslong as the job you got gets it done.

I think this really hits a problem with casters, while the uniqueness and design choice of certain casters bringing utility vs damage is good, it's not really balanced at all, for classes such as BLM, you can't have one job do practically everything that BLM already brings, has mobility, utility ect. then give the BLM a tiny damage advantage that's also not "good balance"

And it has been said to you times and times again that no, "no one will care" is not the case. Both from the point of the rest of the group caring about it and forcing people to swap and both from the point of the player themselves, knowing that they can be doing more damage even if they were quite bad at BLM compared to perfect play RDM/SMN.

[Rithy255]

And it has been said to you times and times again that no, "no one will care" is not the case. Both from the point of the rest of the group caring about it and forcing people to swap and both from the point of the player themselves, knowing that they can be doing more damage even if they were quite bad at BLM compared to perfect play RDM/SMN.

If a cleared group is forcing someone to switch off RDM/SMN even though they cleared already, in the situation where RDM does 1% less, that's a problem with the group, the idea theirs going to be actual groups that do that is insane.

I don't think i see reclear groups force people into BLM currently, despite being miles ahead of both other casters, at least not from what I've seen also BLM is very underplayed Like i've said hundreads of times, making RDM/SMN be 1% off Black Mage isn't a magic fix, instead of buffing summoner/rdm it's more making BLM useless.

I guess Summoner and Red mage players feel entitlement, that they should be bastions of utility, Summoners should just be super mobile and easy to pick up. but it's ok! people will use blm for reclears! because some groups will force smn/rdm off for a extra 1%! do you have any idea what you're talking about?

If you're aim is to make RDM/SMN 1% off black mage you need to fundamentally change both SMN/RDM or Black mage.

[Azuri]

If a cleared group is forcing someone to switch off RDM/SMN even though they cleared already, in the situation where RDM does 1% less, that's a problem with the group, the idea theirs going to be actual groups that do that is insane.

I don't think i see reclear groups force people into BLM currently, despite being miles ahead of both other casters, at least not from what I've seen also BLM is very underplayed Like i've said hundreads of times, making RDM/SMN be 1% off Black Mage isn't a magic fix, instead of buffing summoner/rdm it's more making BLM useless.

I guess Summoner and Red mage players feel entitlement, that they should be bastions of utility, Summoners should just be super mobile and easy to pick up. but it's ok! people will use blm for reclears! because some groups will force smn/rdm off for a extra 1%! do you have any idea what you're talking about?

If you're aim is to make RDM/SMN 1% off black mage you need to fundamentally change both SMN/RDM or Black mage.

Sigh. We've been through that. Yeet that trash utility and give us the one "utility" that matters. Damage.

[Rithy255]

Sigh. We've been through that. Yeet that trash utility and give us the one "utility" that matters. Damage.

Well you're missing half the arguement, as mithron said it would be balanced to keep RDM/SMN the same just buff it's damage to 1% behind and call it balance, good job for missing my point I guess.

Like I said I personally dislike the idea of ruining jobs for the sake of more damage, ruining what makes then unique and any semblance of identity, I'm sure people wanna play a game where the only thing that makes a job unique from another is a different flavour.

But yes removing smn/rdm utility would be a easy fix, likely would be "balanced", Would it be good for the game? likely not it will just make it more boring and they'll further remove stuff that makes jobs stand out for the sake of balance, But at the end of the day if that's your goal and you want balanced damage numbers more then a intresting game that's on you and that's what you'd like so I can't complain.

Either way My main point you completely missed either only reading that post, not the posts before that was You can't just buff smn/rdm in their current state to be 1% behind or even closer BLM and expect to call that balance.

EDIT:
Also I'm not going to discuss removing raise, I already said it would be better to balance without raise, just less interesting or fun for the game. That's more a personal thing to me more then "ideal" balance for the game.

[Ferrinus]

It'd be funny if defensive/support abilities like resurrections or groupwide damage shields came with survivability taxes, like they meant slightly lower max HP, or mobility taxes, like they came at the cost of lacking any oGCD movement powers or a larger portion of your abilities having cast times.

[Aurora428]

In order for something to be "utility" the sacrifice made for it must be smaller or equal to what was gained. Otherwise, it is baggage, not utility.

If a physical ranged can't outclass a melee who is seriously struggling to maintain uptime and hit positionals, its ability to move is worthless and not utility.

If RDM is paying basically a death worth of damage compared to melee, what is its raise even providing? That's not "safety", its just baggage the second you have the ability to get your first clear (which is still part of prog).

Trying to make sure that the jobs with the least utility are the most desirable by a significant degree is irrational. Any damage extra they deal should reflect the value of mobility or raises on a clear run, which is very, very small, at least massively less than what we see. Uptime is not perfect on a clear run, but it isn't clueless. Requiring a RDM raise to reach the end is usually an enrage to begin with. "Taxing" should be conscious of that .

The word "utility" is vastly exaggerated when it almost always is "the reason 'X job' should suck"

[RydiaFey]

Wish all jobs were made to feel complex, while still being passable in basic content if you messed up a lot. Harder content would be more strict, but the jobs would feel way more fun to learn.

As a previous summoner player who liked the flow of old summoner, I think it's dangerous to base DPS off of complexity, because imo there shouldn't be easier or harder jobs, which is super subjective anyways, instead all jobs should aim to be complex, while giving enough breathing room in encounter design to allow newer players to make mistakes.

Instead of not trusting them to be smart enough to handle complexity in their job of choice.