Let's redefine "damage taxes"

[Kabooa]

This thread's whole topic is whether or not those tools should be taxed or should be seen only as a unique healing bonus. I don't disagree with you that they should only be seen as a unique bonus but that said blowing their usefulness out of proportion or analogizing the niche times that vercure is useful and how that use can screw some healers during downtime to using tank cooldowns on people during the highest uptime mechanic in 8sp2 (and probably the most damage intensive part of it) isn't helping the argument that they should be seen as "neat bonuses."

This is ultimately a lack of flexibility in the current framework. There's a couple things to consider.

A) You cannot use a "Tax when Used" paradigm and then equalize the damage component, because then you move into functional obsolescence. Why bring the job that does 10k DPS when the other jobs also do 10k DPS but bring all the goodies? This is a case of it's better to have them than not.

B) The inconsistent valuing of non-damage utility. How much is this particular bit of non-DPS oriented goodie worth? Opinions will vary widely. The perspective one has on what's more important will change that value.

C) The tight tuning of the encounters. Even when overgearing the encounters, current content cannot be completely ignored. This is how they design. Within this relatively tight windows where all the numbers fall, the game's scaling doesn't allow (and arguably shouldn't allow) players to start a tier clearing it at 50% potential and then capping off at 100% potential (killing the boss at 50% of the enrage).

Within this limited framework, even basic solutions are problematic as they cause problems down the line. There's only so many times we can add 10 potency.

The first step then is that the framework has to change. The Role system first has to expand to accommodate the growing number of jobs. And as a disclaimer, this is less a solution, and more a process to lead to a hopefully more desirable gamestate.

1a. Formalize the Flex Spot into a role, and shove the problem children into it. The "Problem children" being Black Mage, Samurai, Machinist. One can argue that potentially one more melee fits there, but that's a different discussion.
1b. Those in this role gain a trait that increases the potency of debuffs on the enemy/buffs on them from other roles. This is, in effect, their "RDPS" contribution, and the safeguard / tuning lever against being ignored in the future, as well as ensuring that bringing two of them is undesirable.

2. Equalize the baseline "DPS" values of the now 4 DPS roles. Everyone does ~10k DPS by themselves outside of a party. (For example).

3. Role action rebalance. Actions that crossover into other sides of the Trinity (Tank/healer) should have their power reconsidered. Specific example - Caster raise being made into an emergency raise with a long CD. Healer Raise is given a free "Swiftcast" every X seconds.

3cont- This process is mostly about taking powerful but not class defining goodies and ensuring all within a role have it. From here, we can take individual goodies and only compare them against other goodies within the role and adjust them as needed. Another specific example is that Machinist no longer has Tactician, as the -10%/90s mitigation for the party is a Marksman tool. Does the Machinist have enough goodies compared to the Black Mage and Samurai? If not, address it.

TLDR: Our current sorting system sucks, we need a better one for long term game health.

[Aurora428]

Putting BLM, SAM and MCH into their own role is an extremely unnecessary change to the simple answer of Ranged just needing to deal more damage. (and doesn't even solve the problem because MCH would need to be viable in that role)

If BLM is truly so unmanageable that we would need to adjust every other job in existence around it, maybe the easier answer would be to make its GCD recast equivalent to the cast time of its spells so that triplecast exists solely as a movement tool (thus massively increasing mobility)

If we are being realistic after SMN got the changes to Ruby Ruin recast, instant cast optimization of BLM is probably on its last legs this expansion anyways.

[FireMage]

Given that difficulty is subjective, however, one cannot make a claim of fact to whether one job is more difficult than another.

What's harder, walking or mountain climbing. Writing a sentence or writing a paragraph? Difficulty is not subjective

[Rithy255]

What's harder, walking or mountain climbing. Writing a sentence or writing a paragraph? Difficulty is not subjective

What even is this argument??? If walking was "Machnist" would Climbing a mounting be Red mage for example?
It's funny didn't you say melee DPS (ALL of them) are harder then every Ranged job? despite that it's funny how so many people disagree with that take.

Difficulty is subjective, theirs bias to that subjectivity of course, like most people find Samurai easy, most people find Reaper easy, Most people find Summoner easy, that doesn't mean it's going to be strictly "easy" for everyone.

Do I need to list examples of real world things where Person A finds "X" hard, but "y" easier or Person B finds "Y" hard, but "X" easier now? are we really going to go down that level, you had to use something like "walking" just to be so disingenuous.

[Kansene]

What's harder, walking or mountain climbing. Writing a sentence or writing a paragraph? Difficulty is not subjective

I have an okay enough time doing SL1 runs in Dark Souls.
I can't get past a single level in Ori and the Blind Forest.

Did I break the rules of the universe?

[CKNovel]

What's harder, walking or mountain climbing. Writing a sentence or writing a paragraph? Difficulty is not subjective

We're back to walking and running.
Walking and Mountain climbing are way too different, you're comparing a daily movement to a skill, that's sophistry.
Writing a paragraph is writing multiple sentence. If you can do the sentence, you'll have no troubles writing a paragraph.

Sometimes it's easier to use a paragraph than a sentence.
What if I asked you to explain to me the immune system in detail, or the concept of an engine, how a computer work, what do you think would be easier? A sentence or a paragraph?
If you choose to go with a single sentence, you will have to sacrifice a lot of details at the risk of making the explanation more confusion than anything.
You can't simply say "Good cells fight bad cells" or "combustion makes things move", that would barely explain anything and leave many informations in the dark.

Here's a very simple exercice:
How do you properly raise a kid to make it a well behaved and educated man/woman?
How does a nuclear central works, from start to finish?
Can you explain to me in a single sentence the recipe of the beef wellington?
Can you explain to me the speedrun of Ocarina of time?

Try to explain that within a sentence then try with a paragraph.
You'll find yourself having a much easier time to explain a complex topic throught multiple sentence than a single one.

[Mithron]

Putting BLM, SAM and MCH into their own role is an extremely unnecessary change to the simple answer of Ranged just needing to deal more damage. (and doesn't even solve the problem because MCH would need to be viable in that role)

Huh? If MCH did BLM and SAM levels of damage, that would make them viable in their role. It's necessary because if MCH doesn't bring any raid damage buffs like a BLM or SAM, but doesn't do damage like them to justify it, why bring one at all over a BRD/DNC which will make up for it in rDPS?

[Nutshell]

Putting BLM, SAM and MCH into their own role is an extremely unnecessary change to the simple answer of Ranged just needing to deal more damage. (and doesn't even solve the problem because MCH would need to be viable in that role)

There's a few benefits to putting BLM, SAM, and MCH into their own 4th dps role.
MCH would just need be buffed to do around the same damage level as SAM and BLM if they made a 4th dps role for the selfish dps jobs. Much easier to do than to rework MCH.
RDM and SMN could keep their raises and not be taxed dps for them as they are no longer in the same dps role as BLM
Balancing for all jobs would actually get easier as each job would only have to be balanced to other jobs in the same dps role. The party buff would just have to be great enough to require people to take one of each dps role in high end content to clear. I still think it'd be better if the damage level between all dps roles is closer than it is now.

Plus they could make new dps roles and mix and match dps types to fill these new roles allowing for more unique job identities. NIN, DNC, and the next new dps job released could be their own dps group as an example. This would mean if you like what that dps role brings to the raid but only like playing as melee dps you'd still have an option.

[SaberMaxwell]

What's harder, walking or mountain climbing. Writing a sentence or writing a paragraph? Difficulty is not subjective

Writing a thesis statement is harder than writing all of the supporting paragraphs to that thesis statement.

Writing a sentence in Mandarin is harder than writing a paragraph in English.

Climbing Camelback Mountain is easier than walking "The Maze" in Utah.

As well, define difficulty in FFXIV. In no uncertain terms I want you to provide a metric in which we can objectively measure a job's difficulty, otherwise your claim to fact of objective difficulty is a bit moot.

TLDR: Our current sorting system sucks, we need a better one for long term game health.

I more or less agree with all of this, all the way down to recategorization being possibly one of the best (if least likely, knowing SE) solutions to the problems we're facing.

[CKNovel]

Climbing Camelback Mountain is easier than walking "The Maze" in Utah.

I missed that one, that's a good one...
It's easier for a horse to walk on flat surface but harder to walk on a desert.
Camels have a easier time walking in the desert.

The same way, walking in a desert if very difficult and requires adequate skill but climbing a tree doesn't.
If we want to absolutely use a mountain, mount Fuji is said to be easy to climb and a tourist attraction.

A final example, it's easier to live in the hot country for an egyptian than in a cold place such as Alaska.
The opposite would be true for the Inuit, they developped skills to survive in the cold but not the hot desert.
Or for an experienced mountain climber, walking in the desert would be a difficult challenge to them.

Therefore, once again, difficulty is subjective.