Quote Originally Posted by Briarthorn View Post
Because in the same way that the devs buff things instead of nerfing things because people don't like nerfs.
Nerfs are one of the best changes in balance when they happen usualy. But thats luckily because the devs do understand some key balance features quite well: when you balance things, you want to avoid touching old content. which simply means only the newest buffs are being handled. And in most cases they decide to underpower every thing they arent sure about to be able to buff it later on.

However, such system cannot compensate for game breaking issues. If a certain skill from the previous expansion ends up overpowered (or just plain broken). Nerfing might still be needed. But by being safe with buffing, this rarely happens.

It also follows the general flow of power creep. As you get further into the game, your skill is demanded to improve, so mechanics can be harsher, which are usualy the greatest nerf towards players. It just doesnt feel like that to them.

Note that the savage boss damage reduction could also have been handled by buffing all the other bosses. The simple reason not to do that is because buffing feels better (and reducing boss health is a buff here).

But this only works in a pve based system. When its PvP, nerfs are generaly required in order to avoid instant kills, or to add vulnerabilities (avoiding the unkillable). In PvP they normaly buff the weakest and nerf the strongest. And even if it isnt perfect. The change of meta can change a lot (and over time, even without any change, just because of a certain aspect a certain class can turn out a lot stronger).

However, even in pve. Nerfing is sometimes just needed. If abilities make you able to do excessive things, nerfing might be mandatory because it avoids the situation in which you have to buff everything to a broken state. And especialy when a single job is OP. Nerfs are the way to go. Making everything OP is a disgrace towards the balance team as they generaly balance things towards the current state, and not the buffed one.