Current problem with battle materia

[baklava151]

The purple materia at least still see some use and I'd like if more jobs had the option to build sks/sps vs crit, like BLM. That seems to be one of the easiest ways to encourage build diversity even if it's a binary choice between crit and speed.

As far as I know for piety there's at least different tiers you can meld depending on how much of a cushion you want for MP, although I don't know how many people do that in practice but it's there at least. Tenacity on the other hand is a completely dead stat and I don't know how they'd encourage its use other than making bosses whack tanks so hard that they absolutely need it for its damage reduction, or giving it some other effect.

[Rilifane]

The purple materia at least still see some use and I'd like if more jobs had the option to build sks/sps vs crit, like BLM. That seems to be one of the easiest ways to encourage build diversity even if it's a binary choice between crit and speed.

As far as I know for piety there's at least different tiers you can meld depending on how much of a cushion you want for MP, although I don't know how many people do that in practice but it's there at least. Tenacity on the other hand is a completely dead stat and I don't know how they'd encourage its use other than making bosses whack tanks so hard that they absolutely need it for its damage reduction, or giving it some other effect.

The reason it works so well for BLM but no other class is because BLM is the only class that has 100% of its damage on the GCD.
BLM doesn't have a single oGCD flat potency hit, all of its oGCDs are GCD enhancing like Ley Lines or Sharpcast.
But if a good chunk of your dps comes from oGCDs which are unaffected by SpS/SkS then it quickly loses value compared to crit, which aways affects both.

And piety is nothing but "idiot ensurance".
It's a completely boring, practically dead stat. You either have enough to ress those idiots that keep doing the carpet RP or you don't and any excess MP at the end of the fight is just wasted secondary stay.
If anything, piety needs a rework from the ground up because right now it's the worst stat.

[baklava151]

The reason it works so well for BLM but no other class is because BLM is the only class that has 100% of its damage on the GCD.
BLM doesn't have a single oGCD flat potency hit, all of its oGCDs are GCD enhancing like Ley Lines or Sharpcast.
But if a good chunk of your dps comes from oGCDs which are unaffected by SpS/SkS then it quickly loses value compared to crit, which aways affects both.

That's true but even then some jobs like SAM will still meld some SkS to a certain point depending on what they want, and even though the fastest tier is a slight damage loss it's still very viable. Not that I take SAM into high-difficulty content but I still like going fast as possible so it's nice when the option is there.

[jazzcatte]

Materia is useful for being able to customize your secondary stats, for example to get to a particular gcd tier or being able to choose between crit-heavy (and therefore variance-heavy) builds or more consistent builds.

It's small changes but it makes enough of a difference for high level play that I think it's worth keeping around.

If I was to make any change I would like to get rid of overmelds, or at least change them from a completely rng-system to something where maybe you have to spend more materia for the overmeld slot, but a consistent amount of materia per slot so people can plan better.

[Eraden]

Materia is useful for being able to customize your secondary stats, for example to get to a particular gcd tier or being able to choose between crit-heavy (and therefore variance-heavy) builds or more consistent builds.

It's small changes but it makes enough of a difference for high level play that I think it's worth keeping around.

If I was to make any change I would like to get rid of overmelds, or at least change them from a completely rng-system to something where maybe you have to spend more materia for the overmeld slot, but a consistent amount of materia per slot so people can plan better.

Mao likes jazzcatte suggestion. Mao once lost 80 Tier 9 materias to a single meld.

[Rilifane]

That's true but even then some jobs like SAM will still meld some SkS to a certain point depending on what they want, and even though the fastest tier is a slight damage loss it's still very viable. Not that I take SAM into high-difficulty content but I still like going fast as possible so it's nice when the option is there.

The difference is that for every other class it's just "SpS/ SkS to comfortable tier or for better alignment". There is some wiggle room but let's not pretend all classes have the same freedom as BLM there.
And the reason is simply being a good chunk of other classes' dps coming from oGCDs. Yes, there are some tier but if you take DRG for example, it's not "anywhere between this and this GCD works" - you have specific GCD tiers and you can pick one which suits you best. SAM has the most freedom of the melees which is why it's not a good example to bring.

I never said you cannot meld any SpS/ SkS EVER.
I just said that it quickly loses value over crit - and that is a simple fact and why we have this "crit > all" meta when it comes to melding, BLM being the exception.

[baklava151]

The difference is that for every other class it's just "SpS/ SkS to comfortable tier or for better alignment". There is some wiggle room but let's not pretend all classes have the same freedom as BLM there.
And the reason is simply being a good chunk of other classes' dps coming from oGCDs. Yes, there are some tier but if you take DRG for example, it's not "anywhere between this and this GCD works" - you have specific GCD tiers and you can pick one which suits you best. SAM has the most freedom of the melees which is why it's not a good example to bring.

I never said you cannot meld any SpS/ SkS EVER.
I just said that it quickly loses value over crit - and that is a simple fact and why we have this "crit > all" meta when it comes to melding, BLM being the exception.

Well even if it just ends up being different tiers rather than full-on crit vs speed builds, I'd still love to see that option on more jobs. I don't know how it would look since that would depend on the job and would require some big changes but that would still be my pipe dream if they want to move away from crit being so dominant.*

*I think Yoshi said at some point he doesn't like how powerful crit is but I can't find where he said it, if anyone has it I'd greatly appreciate it