Why Black Mage is the best designed job and what can be learned from it

[rawker]

PLD is exactly the kind of horrid blind butcher job I'm talking about. Careful and unique DoT management and phase dancing replaced with the usual mindless 60s cooldowns, because hey that works so neatly on paper. Why take care understanding what makes a rotation flow on pure gameplay experience level, when you can make the numbers easily balanced by making every job have a spammy burst at 60/120 second intervals with nothing happening in between except shorter fire-and-forget oGCDs.

Main point is that they were able to do something of that magnitude.

[ThorneDynasty]

Yeah, but what does scale matter if it's just nuclear levels of scorched earth on job mechanics?

[rawker]

To me, it matters. It actually makes me think that they're gonna make it right someday.

[SieyaM]

It's the job Yoshi P plays so it gets more attention and refinement than other jobs. That's all there is to it.

[ThorneDynasty]

To me, it matters. It actually makes me think that they're gonna make it right someday.

I'm confused, how does blatant and sweeping disregard for job identity make you think they'll do it right one day? All it shows is they don't even care - At least disappointing but incremental changes would leave some benefit of the doubt.

[rawker]

I'm confused, how does blatant and sweeping disregard for job identity make you think they'll do it right one day?...

It only means that they are not afraid to shake things up when push comes to shove. Again, like what I said in my previous post, I think in this thread (too lazy to backread), some voices are heard more than others. Their vision on how a job will be designed was implemented.

... All it shows is they don't even care - At least disappointing but incremental changes would leave some benefit of the doubt.

Pure speculation. We don't have proof that they don't care. Sure we can say that they do and you might even be correct. But again, given that they did make some drastic changes says otherwise.

[Supersnow845]

It only means that they are not afraid to shake things up when push comes to shove. Again, like what I said in my previous post, I think in this thread (too lazy to backread), some voices are heard more than others. Their vision on how a job will be designed was implemented.



Pure speculation. We don't have proof that they don't care. Sure we can say that they do and you might even be correct. But again, given that they did make some drastic changes says otherwise.

What push came to shove anything about pre 6.3 PLD, everyone adored it, it was just a little too weak on the damage side, then instead of actually buffing its DPS while maintaining its design they just made it a diet GNB

[rawker]

What push came to shove anything about pre 6.3 PLD, everyone adored it, it was just a little too weak on the damage side, then instead of actually buffing its DPS while maintaining its design they just made it a diet GNB

I remember back during HW in one of their live letters. They acknowledged the overwhelmingly negative responses to PLD sucking so bad (blocks only affecting Physical damage when raid tiers are mostly magical because DRK was the new tank back then and one of its highlights, I think it still has it at this moment, is its magical mitigation) and promised that they will make adjustments. Surely they did. Indomitability/Emergency Tactics was SE's answer to SCH missing an on-demand AoE healing other than Succor spamming.

And who would've forgotten the SMN that we have right now? It is not engaging and downright boring but still the job has undergone rework after rework, hopefully they do another. The changes might not be the right one but again, it is a progress.

Edit.. don't crucify me for saying this but I think in one of the interviews or whatever it is, the community has been allegedly labeled as "hard to please". I guess it shows, if accurate.

[Supersnow845]

I remember back during HW in one of their live letters. They acknowledged the overwhelmingly negative responses to PLD sucking so bad (blocks only affecting Physical damage when raid tiers are mostly magical because DRK was the new tank back then and one of its highlights, I think it still has it at this moment, is its magical mitigation) and promised that they will make adjustments. Surely they did. Indomitability/Emergency Tactics was SE's answer to SCH missing an on-demand AoE healing other than Succor spamming.

And who would've forgotten the SMN that we have right now? It is not engaging and downright boring but still the job has undergone rework after rework, hopefully they do another. The changes might not be the right one but again, it is a progress.

I mean I still don’t get why you think HW problems that were fixed 3 expansions ago have any relevance to the current talent or quality of the design team

PLD’s trajectory during EW has been well designed class that’s too weak->well designed class that’s still too weak but not as weak->diet GNB

If we are bringing up things they have “fixed” since HW we can also make an argument that just about every class has become better or worse in 10,000 different ways depending on the player

[rawker]

I mean I still don’t get why you think HW problems that were fixed 3 expansions ago have any relevance to the current talent or quality of the design team

I am merely making a reference to an instance where community feedback has pushed a change to a job that may even not be what they originally planned.

PLD’s trajectory during EW has been well designed class that’s too weak->well designed class that’s still too weak but not as weak->diet GNB

Weak in what area? DPS? Kindly elaborate.

If we are bringing up things they have “fixed” since HW we can also make an argument that just about every class has become better or worse in 10,000 different ways depending on the player

Partially correct. The main idea for everything I have said was them taking feedback from the community and attempts to implement it.