Pictomancer is insanely overtuned and needs to be fixed before savage drops.

[Galvuu]

Using this metric, Picto absolutely dominates every single fight in the game thus far—pulling noticeably ahead of both Samurai and Viper in all but two fights where it either just barely trails the former or is roughly tied with both. That's simply way too strong for a job with both raid utility and range flexibility. If Black Mage were brought up to this level, you'd equally have to buff both Red Mage and Summoner otherwise even the raise wouldn't be worth taking either. This, in turn, causes issues with the Prange who are already far too weak as it is. There's serious discussion double Melee/Caster (assuming BLM buff) would be superior despite a full loss of 1%. So they now need to be buffed.

In other words, SE either needs to buff six jobs or slightly nerf one. And if they do go for the former, it means in any potential downtime heavy fight like what M3 looks to be, double melee is objectively worse in every way. That isn't to say I don't think double Caster should be a viable option. It should but there's a difference between being viable and just outright better. Jobs like Dragoon, Ninja and even Reaper couldn't compete with a buffed Black Mage to Picto levels.

Which percentiles are you using for this, out of curiosity? Because using anything above 90% or below 70% is very suspect. I checked the 70% and 80% percentiles, and PCT is ahead of VPR/SAM/MNK by... 1.3% in cdps. Sure, if you wanna nerf PCT by 1%, I guess I could see it, but 1.3% is hardly a meaningful difference.
And, regardless of where I think jobs should be in dps, let's not slap "range flexibility" on PCT and BLM. Yea, they have range... but they also have cast bars. Or should melee be penalized for "instant cast flexibility"?
It's extra funny, because M3 actually poses a lot of challenges to the caster jobs with actual cast bars. Casters have never had free uptime anyway- melee apparently just forgot that, a long time ago, they also had to work for their uptime. The difficulties melee have in M3 are the same ones that casters do. Same for M2 and M4.
I mean, you end with "It should but there's a difference between being viable and just outright better" when double caster isn't better now (not even close) and hasn't been since Stormblood. But yea, the moment double melee isn't unequivocally better, melees need to put in some elbow grease for uptime or a non-melee job is top dog, it's a "problem".

The "serious discussion" of 2x caster+2x melee being better is also not very serious. There has never been a time in XIV history where a comp without a physical ranged has been the best, and it still wouldn't happen if BLM did PCT levels of cdps (just off some napkin math I did when checking the PCT cdps percentiles in the NM raids). And even if you nerfed PCT cdps by 5% to have it behind the melee overlords of XIV, guess what? All the issues with physical ranged are still there.

[ForteNightshade]

I haven't run the numbers yet, but I doubt this is true. If BLM became melee levels and what you're saying were true, then triple melee would already be optimal (since we're comparing BLM to a melee). People underestimate the multiplicative nature of raid buffs. But, again, until I go crunch logs, I cannot definitely say so- although never, in the history of the game, was running 0 physical range optimal (it literally never happened), and while physical ranged balance is pretty bad now, we've had other periods where it was basically comparably bad before.

Apologies. Didn't see this response from earlier.

Triple Melee isn't viable because most Savage fights force range mechanics. Take P10S, for example. There's no way to resolve turrets in a tribe melee comp without one of them taking a massive L. Even in Vilgarmanda, you'd have downtime with the healer/range pair.

Another factor is dropping down to 4% is really only for speeds. You'll never do it for a parse which tends to be what people focus on.

And yes, it was. At the very beginning of Shadowbringers, the Prange weren't able to keep up with the Casters. It never got to the point of being a serious pick because pretty everyone knew SE would buff them in 5.1, which they did.

Which percentiles are you using for this, out of curiosity? Because using anything above 90% or below 70% is very suspect. I checked the 70% and 80% percentiles, and PCT is ahead of VPR/SAM/MNK by... 1.3% in cdps. Sure, if you wanna nerf PCT by 1%, I guess I could see it, but 1.3% is hardly a meaningful difference.
And, regardless of where I think jobs should be in dps, let's not slap "range flexibility" on PCT and BLM. Yea, they have range... but they also have cast bars. Or should melee be penalized for "instant cast flexibility"?
It's extra funny, because M3 actually poses a lot of challenges to the caster jobs with actual cast bars. Casters have never had free uptime anyway- melee apparently just forgot that, a long time ago, they also had to work for their uptime. The difficulties melee have in M3 are the same ones that casters do. Same for M2 and M4.
I mean, you end with "It should but there's a difference between being viable and just outright better" when double caster isn't better now (not even close) and hasn't been since Stormblood. But yea, the moment double melee isn't unequivocally better, melees need to put in some elbow grease for uptime or a non-melee job is top dog, it's a "problem".

90% is what I used for that response. Although, 95% isn't suspect at all. Yes, crit variance does become something of a factor but there's more than enough wiggle room for a reasonable assessment. The fact Picto pulls away at just a 5% difference adds credence to it being overtuned since it shouldn't be anywhere near Samurai and Viper. They bring nothing to the raid except damage. That is their utility. Picto has a raid buff and a shield, which puts in the Dragoon and Ninja category yet it outpaces them handedly. You could argue Monk but we'll come back to that.

Range flexibility means being able to disengage completely from the boss without losing damage. No Melee can do that. Per my example above, a melee having to do range turrets in P10S is losing several GCDs worth of damage that Casters don't. It's still up in the air how the Savage fights will be designed but we'll undoubtedly have range mechanics of some variety. And M3 is equally miserable for Melee because they have to chase the boss who even briefly out ranges their gap closers. You also simply don't have enough for how many Lariots he does. While certainly annoying, Casters can just stay on the opposite side of the arena to dodge both combos. So yes, you do have free uptime in that scenario. Once again, you're not considering that Casters can stay away from the boss. It's much easier to dodge all the heart nonsense from the wall than in melee range because you have a wider arena to play with.

Just to reiterate, none of this is to say Picto can't do within the realm of melee. That isn't the issue. It's doing the highest damage, period. If Ninja was doing Picto damage, we'd have a similar problem because a job with raid buffs is doing more damage than the selfish ones. Right now, Picto literally does everything. It deals the highest damage in the game, brings both a raid buff and AoE shield and can completely disengage from the boss. What is it bad at? What do any of the melee (or other roles, for that matter) offer that Picto doesn't? Nothing. It's better than all of them.

[CKNovel]

I don't think we should think about balancing jobs DPS around the utility they bring.
If anything, they should buff Viper and Samurai defensive to make them jobs that brings no raid DPS but can take care of themselves.
But it's also true we would see double caster if Picto remains as it is... I don't want SQEX to buff everything again so I'm for a slight nerf but while remaining within the melee roles.

As for M3, it's not that complex to maintain melee uptime, you need to get used to sprint and prepare your dashes. Viper especially has 3 dashes and 3 Uncoiled Fury that can be used to not lose a GCD without being a loss.
Positionals, however, are pain. I can ensure 80%+ success but to go beyond would require more practice, at the very least I hope M3S will have that full circle when casting Larias.

As for early Shadowbringer, I can confirm that double BLM + double Melee was a gain, I've sadly been there...
However the role bonus ensured we would go with 1 melee, 1 caster, 1 ranged and 1 flex since ShB. Health and DPS gains were too big to not matter in early savage/ultimate.

[rewd]

1) PCT does the highest damage at the highest percentiles with favourable crits and KT. Sounds great, and it's also useless for balance.

2) This community really, really, really needs to put this to rest: "selfish" jobs don't need to top every DPS chart in the world. They are meant to have more personal damage that makes up for the raid damage other jobs can provide. Raid buffs are not utility, they are damage. Damage is damage, it doesn't matter where it comes from. Think about it for a second: what's the point of having a raid buff if the damage I can provide will always be inferior to the job without any buff? What am I gaining from it?

3) Why do melee players complain so much? Why is missing a GCD (if even that) the end of the world? You have ranged GCDs (except for MNK), use them if necessary. Use your gap closers, use the plethora of tools in your arsenal to deal with disengagement, even if it results in a small DPS loss. Welcome to basic caster/healer gameplay, enjoy your stay. We sometimes accept small (and sometimes not that small) DPS losses because it's the nexr best thing to do in that instance. We are fine, we all survived this traumatic event. So can you you melee players, I promise.

4) Devs don't maniacally balance jobs based on every tiny bit of utility they might have. How would that even work? Do you tax every utility in the same way regardless of what it does? Do you use a hierarchy or what? How much do we tax Tempera Grassa? Arcane Crest? Mantra? Dismantle? Nature's Minne?
Tempera Grassa is good, yes. You also wouldn't notice if it was gone. Healing and mitigation keep getting stronger and damage just doesn't keep up with it. Are we really acting as if PCT's shield makes or breaks a run? Also ignoring the fact that it makes PCT even more fragile than RDM (and a dead DPS is a significant DPS loss, you know)?

Even though this community loves to make up apocalyptic scenarios, I assure you that no one is going to tell the SAM player to swap to PCT because of Tempera Grassa. Or because they need PCT's absurdly high damage (?) compared to SAM's pitiful output (?).

[Zarkovitch]

Picto is too much efficient than is other job who fit the role of selfish with a bit utility. We are are going back duo caster meta of SHB and that's bad.

[Galvuu]

90% is what I used for that response. Although, 95% isn't suspect at all. Yes, crit variance does become something of a factor but there's more than enough wiggle room for a reasonable assessment. The fact Picto pulls away at just a 5% difference adds credence to it being overtuned since it shouldn't be anywhere near Samurai and Viper. They bring nothing to the raid except damage. That is their utility. Picto has a raid buff and a shield, which puts in the Dragoon and Ninja category yet it outpaces them handedly. You could argue Monk but we'll come back to that.

PCT is far behind both of those jobs in adps- as it should. It's slightly ahead in cdps... which is fine? Like, it has a damage steroid, which will inflate its rdps, and it's a bursty job, which will inflate its cdps. Why must those two be top of the charts for cdps again?
I don't know what you mean by "NIN doing more dps" is a problem "because it has a buff". Doing more rdps? It's fine, like you said, it has a buff. More cdps? Maybe ok? It's bursty and has a buff, you need to go case by case. More adps? Yes, that one would be wrong, and a definite problem. But PCT isn't leading in adps so...

I disagree with your take on 90% or 95% being ok. I sometimes join parties as PCT to get parses and I can tell you the following:
- If you don't get decent crits, you're not getting an orange;
- If your party dies just before burst, or has brink of death, or has their burst totally misaligned, you're not getting an orange;
- On that note, if the party buffs drift, PCT suffers a lot. Sometimes people throw up Divinations or Litanies like 30s late, and I'm out of juice and painting motifs for 12s while doing literally 0 dps under the drifted buffs.

Maybe you can overcome one of these with a lot of crit under burst, or your party gigachadding while your buff is up, but tick two of these and your rdps and cdps nosedive. That's why, out of all jobs, you need to be very careful with high PCT parses. When the stars align, if your team is competent and you're knowledgeable, you tear the boss apart.
But I play primarily on the pf and df. My parties are mostly random, their performance is random. I don't want my job to be tuned to the top 5% statics when I don't have the benefit of such a group. I already feel the pain of not having a rez when half my group suicides to Honey Bee's "love me tender" or whatever her heart spam is called. Speaking of which...

Range flexibility means being able to disengage completely from the boss without losing damage. No Melee can do that. Per my example above, a melee having to do range turrets in P10S is losing several GCDs worth of damage that Casters don't. It's still up in the air how the Savage fights will be designed but we'll undoubtedly have range mechanics of some variety. And M3 is equally miserable for Melee because they have to chase the boss who even briefly out ranges their gap closers. You also simply don't have enough for how many Lariots he does. While certainly annoying, Casters can just stay on the opposite side of the arena to dodge both combos. So yes, you do have free uptime in that scenario. Once again, you're not considering that Casters can stay away from the boss. It's much easier to dodge all the heart nonsense from the wall than in melee range because you have a wider arena to play with.

Melee flexibility means being able to keep perfect uptime while running around as long as the boss is in range. No caster can do that. For example, if you get a bad pattern on M3 with the emerald weapon mechanic into gravity puddles into lariat combo because your party moved wonky, you kinda just take the gcd loss and can't do anything about it, which is the opposite of what you describe as free uptime (actually, the mechanic you're talking about in P10S is also crap for BLM if the party isn't cooperative, which is basically every time in the pf). You also simply don't have enough Swiftcasts for how much *insert mechanic that's annoying for casters here*. It's still up in the air how the Savage fights will be designed, but we'll undoubtedly have aoe vomit of some variety that will force casters to run around while potentially losing gcds. Once again, you're not considering that melee can run around while hitting the boss if they're within max melee. It's impossible to keep caster uptime on that mechanic on some aoe/heart patterns (which are aimed at people, so they're borderline random) because you need to run around in random directions for a good 8-10s.

See how I can construe the same argument for casters? Have you ever played BLM or PCT in your life? You're under this impression they can run around for free no biggie for an arbitrary length of time. You'll find that is not true. Melee really did forget how to work for uptime, any friction is a crime and "casters have it real good" now.

[Supersnow845]

Picto is too much efficient than is other job who fit the role of selfish with a bit utility. We are are going back duo caster meta of SHB and that's bad.

Why is double caster bad, what is so wrong with PCT being top DPS and being paired with a rezz caster during prog

[CKNovel]

Why is double caster bad, what is so wrong with PCT being top DPS and being paired with a rezz caster during prog

Double caster isn't bad, the problem is that you can just have a PCT instead of a VPR/SAM and only gain DPS + raidwide utility.
PLD and MCH proved that extra utility can bring a lot to the table.

The problem isn't a double caster meta, the problem is why we are heading to a double caster meta and why it'll specifically have a PCT.

[Supersnow845]

Double caster isn't bad, the problem is that you can just have a PCT instead of a VPR/SAM and only gain DPS + raidwide utility.
PLD and MCH proved that extra utility can bring a lot to the table.

The problem isn't a double caster meta, the problem is why we are heading to a double caster meta and why it'll specifically have a PCT.

If you replace a SAM with a PCT you gain 1% cDPS at 95 and up or lose DPS at below 95 and you trade a party shield for stronger personal survivability. That’s not going to enforce a double caster meta because there is no reason why PCT couldn’t just take up only the default caster slot. And if it allows for more “1 melee 1 ranged, 1 rezz caster 1 selfish caster” as an alternative to 2/1/1 that’s not a bad thing

And I’m not sure how MCH proved that at all, disassemble is a pity addition because the job was straight up being locked out of PF for its low damage. PLD is more just “we’ve long since accepted the devs refuse to make PLD’s damage good”

[WhensMarvel]

I play Viper, a melee job that has no party buff, no unique party mit, no personal mit, and is meant to do as much damage as possible while dodging hearts like a madman to stay in melee range to make it all worth it.
In the upcoming raid, my dancer is going to partner the pictomancer over me, a caster that has a raid buff, a raidwide shield, can sit comfortably at a distance, and does more damage than me.

I'm just throwing my hat in here, I really hope they help out the game balance because I think a lot of people, especially black mage players, will not get invited to raids