Let's redefine "damage taxes"

[Rithy255]

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"

RDM raise, generally lets you see more of the fight, generally which is a massive bonus.
Like I said it would be easier to balance the game without red mage raise. People just want to really ignore that part of my argument or actually ignore Red Mage raise and act like it's useless in every situation.

Phys Ranged should do more in general, Casters should do more in general THE main issue is how privileged melees are, Casters like Black mage and red mage have less mobility then melees generally, so it makes no sense why Black Mage would be so far behind, it makes no sense why red mage is so low currently, Phys/SMN ranged are also in a terrible state.

Removing job diversity and different abilities to a state that it would make the game more boring for me (and likely a lot of people who will be posting about "job diversity). I'm sure it would be more balanced and easier just to get rid of battle raises, I even rather they get rid of battle raises if they think SMN/RDM should be 1% off blm, already hating the 120 burst meta, Making fights babied for melee uptime and the idea of removing "utility" just makes the game worse even if it's more "balanced" and no job will be left behind, until jobs become reskins of each other.

If Red mage was 5-3% behind BLM with a battle raise people would complain that it still doesn't do enough, If RDM was 1% off a BLM people will complain that BLM is practically useless outside getting a "1%" damage bonus, Balancing around raise likely isn't ever going to work at the highest level, they should just not allow raises in harder content (like they're doing with savage dugeons), not the best solution but at least people can look forward to being close to BLM.

[Dogempire]

RDM raise, generally lets you see more of the fight, generally which is a massive bonus.
Like I said it would be easier to balance the game without red mage raise. People just want to really ignore that part of my argument or actually ignore Red Mage raise and act like it's useless in every situation.

Phys Ranged should do more in general, Casters should do more in general THE main issue is how privileged melees are, Casters like Black mage and red mage have less mobility then melees generally, so it makes no sense why Black Mage would be so far behind, it makes no sense why red mage is so low currently, Phys/SMN ranged are also in a terrible state.

Removing job diversity and different abilities to a state that it would make the game more boring for me (and likely a lot of people who will be posting about "job diversity). I'm sure it would be more balanced and easier just to get rid of battle raises, I even rather they get rid of battle raises if they think SMN/RDM should be 1% off blm, already hating the 120 burst meta, Making fights babied for melee uptime and the idea of removing "utility" just makes the game worse even if it's more "balanced" and no job will be left behind, until jobs become reskins of each other.

If Red mage was 5-3% behind BLM with a battle raise people would complain that it still doesn't do enough, If RDM was 1% off a BLM people will complain that BLM is practically useless outside getting a "1%" damage bonus, Balancing around raise likely isn't ever going to work at the highest level, they should just not allow raises in harder content (like they're doing with savage dugeons), not the best solution but at least people can look forward to being close to BLM.

Honestly they could always just limit the raise ability of RDM, if they just added say a 60s cooldown to the raise then it would still let the job be useful by raising the right person, would add an element of decision making on deciding who to go for, and would probably justify them bridging the gap between casters, either that or they could just make it cost say 5-6k mp and probably achieve the same result.

[Lyth]

I don't think that inbalances in raid dps can be counteracted by further inbalances in utility. That simply leads to something doubly imbalanced. You need to balance raid dps against raid dps, and utility against utility.

Raises seem to be consistently controversial, but I think that simply comes down to placing a hard cap on uses based on content difficulty. That could be done per caster (i.e. x uses per fight), per player (you can be raised x times per fight) or per team (shared across all players, MH cart style). You could remove those caps on normal/story difficulty fights, and have them drop off to tune fight difficulty. I think that were such a system in place, you wouldn't be able to use it as a justification for inequalities in rdps. Either way, let's hope that Criterion Savage ends up being a means of weaning players off of raise dependence.

As for other forms of utility, I think it's just a question of ensuring that every job has something unique and enjoyable to bring to the table, such that you don't have to individually penalize any of them for actually having access to fun support elements. In particular, I'd like to see more creativity and variety when it comes to movement abilities (which in fairness, we're finally starting to see).

[NightHour]

And this logic fails due to not considering actual difficulty. MCH shouldn't be doing as much damage as a RDM, just like SMN. Also all rDPS numbers being within 1% of each other is not true balance

What?

Red Mage is easier than MCH.

[SaberMaxwell]

Hence, "difficulty is subjective" and why we shouldn't have balance based on it.

[FireMage]

What?

Red Mage is easier than MCH.

It's factually not

[Donoman]

It's really not. There isn't a single case where SMN is harder than RDM. There isn't a single case where MCH is harder than DNC/BRD. Also it's already "not brought" but it would at least do more damage with proper balance

Yes, it really is. I find it way more difficult to execute the MCH rotation than both BRD and DNC because of the sheer number of weaves you're forced to do while lacking of mobility and healing options. Never seen someone have such a hard on for crapping on the worst job in the game. Your posts make my head hurt!!!

[Ransu]

Honestly they could always just limit the raise ability of RDM, if they just added say a 60s cooldown to the raise then it would still let the job be useful by raising the right person, would add an element of decision making on deciding who to go for, and would probably justify them bridging the gap between casters, either that or they could just make it cost say 5-6k mp and probably achieve the same result.

They could just make dualcast not work on raise. I get that being a "rez mage" is their niche, but I'd really like to enjoy red mage more as a pure dps like BLM than to be a utility bot to prog with. Don't think they should have BLM level dps, but I'd like to see them up there.

[Fryfor]

Yes, it really is. I find it way more difficult to execute the MCH rotation than both BRD and DNC because of the sheer number of weaves you're forced to do while lacking of mobility and healing options. Never seen someone have such a hard on for crapping on the worst job in the game. Your posts make my head hurt!!!

Wild, someone who barely touches the raid content in this game is offering his insight on a job he doesn't play. Go figure. MCH is easier, btw.

[Ransu]

Wild, someone who barely touches the raid content in this game is offering his insight on a job he doesn't play. Go figure. MCH is easier, btw.

By who's standards? For me I personally don't find any of the jobs difficult to play. Some are a bit more rewarding than others, but not a single job in this game is difficult to play well which goes back to the main point that difficulty is subjective and should NEVER be a method utilized for balance. Aside from also bein subjective, why should a player be punished for liking a job that just happens to be "easier."

What about SMN fans? SMN used to be relatively complex to some degree, and now its kind of brain dead easy, but should players that enjoy the SMN fantasy be punished for that? IMO no. SMN dps shouldn't be the dumpster fire it is just because its more mobile now and much simpler to play. Yes, generally speaking higher mobility accompanied with range should equate to less dps than melee, but right now with the massive hit boxes that argument is kind of flawed and even if we didn't have massive hitboxes, SMN and MCH are just way underperforming. Heck even RDM imo is waaaaay too low on dps.