What even is the purpose of all those non melee/blm jobs?

[Shurrikhan]

Also, I'm doing fine. Huffing that hopium for Machinist to get that dang sniper rifle in PVE.

Dropping some hypermobility (though in a bankable way, I hope?) and expanding on MCH's heel-high complexity for far tighter rDPS parity? I'd dig that.

Unsurprisingly, if one is paying attention, there's an undeniable line between what players ask for and what the developers implement. While not one to one translations, nearly every single major change can be traced to a thread like this one that has bulked up enough common interest from the playerbase.

Just because something wasn't implemented exactly as the OP or following discussion would have liked doesn't mean that feedback wasn't taken into consideration. This includes the 2minute meta, Tank stats, caster uptime, and core melee mechanics.

Yup. Very, very few changes have come entirely out of left field. Even the worst ones are still "Monkey's Paw" changes -- a response that our critiques nonetheless prompted but which failed to sufficiently consider the context of our critiques or to design beyond just a "problem-solving" model (that tends to reduce most uniqueness into issues to be "solved" instead of springboards for developing for/towards enjoyable engagement).

[kajv95]

Can't say I disagree with the fact that historically they've made judgements over the state of the board. The current state of things is sorta carry-over from people not liking the stormblood meta after all. Feels like everything gets taken to such extremes though. I also can't stress enough that when bards were pretty much rioting before a good part of us just dropped the class/game, they told us that we weren't giving feedback when that was all the boards were at the time so they're incredibly picky about what feedback they'll implement, to the point where I wonder if it's even implemented because of the boards at all.
To me, it sometimes feels like the board isn't properly considered, more like they'll vaguely take things and implement it in a way that's easier to keep track of over time, but I digress.

You're not wrong in that regard, and while I'd still like to focus on the here and now of where I want them to go, it's definitely my B that I wasn't considering the past as much.
(Does make me wonder where all the physrange discussion of the last 3 years went + why the hell SAM's Kaiten died)

Either way, I still think these other jobs need to start bringing something that *isn't* tied to damage. You can make the argument that it'll have to be accomodated for in fight design but it really doesn't have to be that integral, just something that lets a job be a job while still letting the BLM/SAM be their stupid strong selves.

Let me spitball just a few that my 2AM brain is saying:
RDM can bring Vermedica II - It just gives them a regen that you can use to prog and patch up mistakes without stressing out your local healer. With a cooldown obvs, you want this to help but not be a complete crutch.
BRD can bring Peloton II - It works in combat and gives everyone sprint speed for 5 seconds. Helps repositioning while not trivializing the fight. Technically buffs dps through uptime too I guess? Obviously has a cooldown but doesn't have to be massive.
DNC can bring a skill that gives their dance partner a swiftcast stack and... some other effect for melees idk. They already work in tandem with their partner, may as well make it more intimate.
SMN can have Titan take a hit for someone occasionally? As always, on a cooldown and definitely not a short one at that.

With things like that, now you can have jobs whose main thing it is to bring damage, and whose main thing it is to bring something else to the table that can be useful and dare I say, worthwhile to bring while not explicitly being either damage or mitigation all the time. Substantial things that can swing a run back into a team's favor but don't necessarily invalidate the jobs whose main thing it is to just... kill the thing faster. Because atleast in terms of BLM, they're supposed to be the most raw caster - it's part of their job identity and as we've seen with BRD, you shouldn't just take the job identity away entirely.

SMN might be a bit too much, but what I'm trying to say is, increase the amount of nice-to-haves a job can have that can increase their viability while not just depending on damage. All of these ideas have one thing in common - they wouldn't necessarily need to be pressed in every scenario, but they're nice to have when things go south. Higher damage classes have a built-in prevention of things going south by finishing a fight and dps checks faster, but the other jobs don't get too much in this sense. With that in mind, the logical conclusion I come to is that the other jobs should get some form of prevention or ways to retroactively correct mistakes whilst not falling into the trap of "just being more damage." There will absolutely still be viability problems when it comes to speedkills but prog and casual raiding viability would be increased by a fair margin... not to mention that I just think it'd be more fun if the game wasn't just nigh-exclusively damage skills, but that's personal bias lmao

oh and just buff MCH there's no reason that job shouldn't be dealing more damage. Complexity argument lmao

[Belaradra]

That's my more or less my position as well.

Jobs with more room for niche optimization and more opportunities to make mistakes should have this variance factored in similarly to jobs with greater variance due to RNG.

Ultimately, all I'm saying is that a job like BLM shouldn't have to maintain perfect uptime, use all triple/swifts on cooldown for dps instead of mobility, force the entire party to change their strategy in order to minimize the amount they need to move, install a mp tick counter, and run the wackiest transpose lines to deal the same damage as the significantly easier to optimize SMN.

I'm definitely not saying that the current gap between BLM and SMN/RDM is healthy for the game or that it is somehow proportional to the amount of effort it takes to play BLM at a competent, but non-optimized, level. I would have zero issue with the gap between ranged, blm, and melee being reduced to one that's comparable to the current gaps within the other roles.

You raise a many good points throughout your posts.
Personally I think that Black Mage does not deal enough damage for what it takes. Yes, compared to Summoner and Red Mage, the damage difference is relevant, but not when it comes to melee classes; all of which are laughably easy for the most part.
What I would love to see, is both Summoner and Red Mage be brought up considerably (along with other ranged classes) while Black Mage is also brought up to a lesser extend. The stereotype you mentioned in an earlier posts, I fullfill it and make no secret of it: I think Black Mage requires more effort to do well and thus should deal significantly more than it does.

We also only ever look at the utmost highest performance of the best players. While mediocre or even above mediocre Black Mage's remain behind tremendously and therefore make it feel very unrewarding to play Black Mage from a performance standpoint. This too should be considered. It surely must be great for the gods of the class, but for many others, it is pretty miserable.

[Lyth]

I think that one of the main reasons why BLM has perpetually been in a good place is because it has never been reworked. The job is iteratively improved from expansion to expansion, so it never really has been forced to start from scratch. The primary reason for this is because players don't really complain about 'difficulty'. You study the fight, find how to minimize movement, and then do monstrous damage output while standing in one spot. It's a planning job rather than a mechanically intensive one, and it consistently has some of the lowest CPM counts in the game. But it's consistently near the top because players historically recognized that they've been in a really good place and don't want to disturb that.

I'll be interested to see what happens now that casters are starting to get greedy and demanding that they do more damage than everyone else because of supposed 'difficulty'. What newer players like yourself don't realize is that when you start demanding this, SE's response is to give you a rework to simplify down the job to make it more accessible. And it makes a lot of sense, because if you think that the job that you're playing is super difficult, then this actually means that you're struggling with it and need help.

Monkey's paw, friends. You will always get exactly what you deserve. Be humble, get good, and don't try to gain unfair advantages over others by begging on the forums. Play the rework roulette only if you're truly desperate.

[Mithron]

I think that one of the main reasons why BLM has perpetually been in a good place is because it has never been reworked.

Sadly BLM being behind all melee is not in a good place, and PLD also has never been reworked but still sucks due to 2 minute meta sucking. BLM does feel fun to play, but the numbers don't reflect it properly.

[FireMage]

I think that one of the main reasons why BLM has perpetually been in a good place is because it has never been reworked. The job is iteratively improved from expansion to expansion, so it never really has been forced to start from scratch. The primary reason for this is because players don't really complain about 'difficulty'. You study the fight, find how to minimize movement, and then do monstrous damage output while standing in one spot. It's a planning job rather than a mechanically intensive one, and it consistently has some of the lowest CPM counts in the game. But it's consistently near the top because players historically recognized that they've been in a really good place and don't want to disturb that.

I'll be interested to see what happens now that casters are starting to get greedy and demanding that they do more damage than everyone else because of supposed 'difficulty'. What newer players like yourself don't realize is that when you start demanding this, SE's response is to give you a rework to simplify down the job to make it more accessible. And it makes a lot of sense, because if you think that the job that you're playing is super difficult, then this actually means that you're struggling with it and need help.

Monkey's paw, friends. You will always get exactly what you deserve. Be humble, get good, and don't try to gain unfair advantages over others by begging on the forums. Play the rework roulette only if you're truly desperate.

Wanting what is supposed to be is not greedy. I guess marginalized people fighting for basic civil rights has just been them being greedy. Garbage logic

[Lyth]

I don't think that anyone can sensibly argue with all dps jobs (melee/casters/ranged) having rdps parity. BLM is not too far off where it needs to be at the moment, but it could very easily be adjusted. I think that if your argument is that it should do more damage than everyone else because it's personally difficult for you to play well, then you're playing a very risky game given how the dev team interprets such demands and follows up on them with complete reworks.

I will note that PLD has been previously reworked once between Heavensward and Stormblood, and benefited tremendously from it, but I think that's largely because the job ended up with a net surplus of actions compared to other tanks. The problem with a lot of recent job reworks is that they have tended to prune action counts in the name of 'accessibility'. That's what makes them undesirable.

[Mithron]

I don't think that anyone can sensibly argue with all dps jobs (melee/casters/ranged) having rdps parity. BLM is not too far off where it needs to be at the moment, but it could very easily be adjusted. I think that if your argument is that it should do more damage than everyone else because it's personally difficult for you to play well, then you're playing a very risky game given how the dev team interprets such demands and follows up on them with complete reworks.

I will note that PLD has been previously reworked once between Heavensward and Stormblood, and benefited tremendously from it, but I think that's largely because the job ended up with a net surplus of actions compared to other tanks. The problem with a lot of recent job reworks is that they have tended to prune action counts in the name of 'accessibility'. That's what makes them undesirable.

BLM should be top damage because it has no raid damage buffs, and when compared to SAM and MCH (the two jobs of its same "selfish DPS" category), it has the least mobility as its core job concept. Less mobility = more damage. You could argue that less mobility = more difficulty, but difficulty is subjective. Mobility is not.

I don't remember PLD being reworked between HW and SB. It may have lost Rage of Halone, had TP shuffled, and gained Req. + Holy Spirit, but I don't remember any real rework. In the same vein, DRK also lost Power Slash and Delirium combo, and WAR was the only tank rework in SB that I recall.

[FireMage]

Difficulty is not subjective. There's a reason phys ranged should be bottom

[Belaradra]

I'll be interested to see what happens now that casters are starting to get greedy and demanding that they do more damage than everyone else because of supposed 'difficulty'. What newer players like yourself don't realize is that when you start demanding this, SE's response is to give you a rework to simplify down the job to make it more accessible. And it makes a lot of sense, because if you think that the job that you're playing is super difficult, then this actually means that you're struggling with it and need help.

Good that you say this, because this give me the chance to add that I am not asking for Black Mage to become easier and I should highlight this more.
It does not need to change, but I want it to be more rewarding than it is. Even though I have only been playing for 2 weeks, I have no interest in Black Mage gaining more tools to make it easier; just stronger.

I will however not be framed as greedy or not being humble enough, neither am I desperate or in search of an unfair advantage.