Do you think any DPS jobs are in a good spot right now?

[Supersnow845]

Melee uptime requires effort in this tier (besides M1S), in a similar way to Criterion in EW.

While a lot of it can be mitigated with skill and knowledge, you will find plenty of players using several ranged attacks per fight to avoid griefing their party, whether they play on PF or not.

And the fact that melee are still so ridiculously far ahead is my point

If melee are struggling to keep uptime then your average poor uptime melee should be doing around the damage of a phys ranged or slightly less, not “the worst melee you know is doing about 3% more than a phys ranged and we only go up from there”

[Aco505]

And the fact that melee are still so ridiculously far ahead is my point

If melee are struggling to keep uptime then your average poor uptime melee should be doing around the damage of a phys ranged or slightly less, not “the worst melee you know is doing about 3% more than a phys ranged and we only go up from there”

In Criterion the numbers were close for several melee and ranged jobs, so it's possible, but would you say that BLM or PCT should be doing p. range damage if they had to move too much? When was the last time a fight forced a caster to use Scathe or Enchanted Reprise for movement after optimizing resources and strats?

The thing is that the DPS difference is not necessarily due to uptime but because the devs refuse to balance MCH or the other "lower end" jobs. If a fight forced melees to use 20 ranged attacks, it would feel awful game play wise. Even when allocating resources to keep uptime, like RPR does by moving their strongest hit to get uptime in this tier, melees would just sit there firing weak ranged attacks, while casters have the option to keep their rotation easily by, at worst, losing some potential damage or resources within burst, just like RPR does with Perfectio.

I invite you to play a melee job and try to get full uptime in M2S or M4S. The Stage comboes, Beat 3 defamations, Alarm Pheromones 2, Witch Hunts or Electrope Edge 2 require precise timing to pull it off.

The gap between top and bottom should be lowered, I think we can all agree on that.

However, complaining now considering that melee have to work for their uptime makes no sense, as this was one of the biggest gripes of the player base in EW due to melee uptime being fully free. If the gap is still wide enough, then melee uptime is not the reason.

It makes even less sense when we realize that the jobs that will end up on top when there's melee downtime are BLM and PCT, those balanced within the "top group", not the rest of the ranged jobs. Precisely because casters can still continue their rotation unimpeded as long as they optimize their movement, slide casts or resources.

I think it's good that players can keep uptime by clever use of resources and skillful timing. Should there be more challenges to melee uptime in future content? Yes, but at the same time, not every job is equal. VPR has zero issues with it, and the jobs that struggle the most don't deal the highest damage even if they manage to get 100% uptime.

TL; DR. The gap should be at 5% at most. A difference of 10% or more between PCT and the bottom jobs is too much.

[Supersnow845]

TL; DR. The gap should be at 5% at most. A difference of 10% or more between PCT and the bottom jobs is too much.

I’m not comparing to PCT or the rezz casters because they explicitly are balanced differently due to the presence or absence of rezz. That’s a different discussion. Meanwhile physical ranged are explicitly taxed because they have 100% uptime by default whereas the melee theoretically have to work for their uptime. But currently the balance exists in a way that even when the melee are working for uptime they still out damage the phys ranged by a ridiculous degree. If you have poor uptime as a melee you should be doing less damage than a phys ranged because that’s the only difference between you

This is the problem I have, a lot of people seem to think the balance should be “bad uptime melee does 3% more damage than phys ranged, good uptime melee does 10-15% more” whereas I think that if you are bad melee you should do less than a physical ranged. Inherent higher damage minus average uptime concerns=physical ranged damage. If you are “working for your uptime” and still doing 10% more damage than the physical ranged and those that throw an enpi every time they are remotely challenged also still do more damage than the physical ranged then you aren’t actually being challenged on your uptime

The damage casters can just be bought down to that new equilibrium but the damage casters are a different story because they are fighting for a spot with classes that have rezz

[BabyYoda]

I would summorize it this way:

1- Melee: need more innovation but it is currently better than other roles

- Scouting: perfect
- Striking: great
- Maiming: RPR is good but too simple to play, DRG undertuned

2- Magic: addressing 2 min meta will solve most its issue and RDM/SMN require more innovation because nothing changed

- PCT is killing not only this role but whole DPS jobs
- RDM feel stingy and nothing really changed.
- BLM is a dev struggle.. they can't buff it and they can't rework it again because of how rigid 2min meta
- SMN solar behemoth

3- Phy: a complete mess

DNC: keep failing after shadowbringers
MCH: worst job in the game in every term.
BRD: not enough changes that interest me.


overall: devs need to address 2 thing:
1- DPS jobs have tons of tools to survive which kills healer role
2- 2 min meta and buffs for most jobs is killing the encounter design and Jobs that meant to be supportive and jobs that meant to be selfish DPS

[Aco505]

Snip

PCT and BLM are balanced within the melee group, not the other ranged. They occupy the caster slot (and ideally also flex slot) but they also have to work for their uptime. If a caster player is unable to keep uptime, then they should do less than p.range, following your logic. Yet you're only focusing on melee.

Put PCT and BLM down with the other ranged and players of those jobs would (rightly) complain that they don't do much more damage than the jobs with utility. The fact that they occupy the resurrection slot is not important for uptime purposes besides, of course, the fact that SE nerfs SMN and RDM damage based on it. Buff BLM to be more competitive with melee and two caster comps that spring up won't contain a RDM or SMN if damage is a concern.

The fact that casters have to cast doesn't mean they don't compare to melee or p.range. Both casters and melee have to work to keep uptime when conditions are against them, with p. range fully ignoring this problem regardless of circumstances (with some small exceptions being DNC not having range to hit the boss with a dance in specific encounters).

The problem is, again, bad balance, not that melee can finally work for their uptime again. The difference should just be 5% at most.

[Supersnow845]

PCT and BLM are balanced within the melee group, not the other ranged. They occupy the caster slot (and ideally also flex slot) but they also have to work for their uptime. If a caster player is unable to keep uptime, then they should do less than p.range, following your logic. Yet you're only focusing on melee.

Put PCT and BLM down with the other ranged and players of those jobs would (rightly) complain that they don't do much more damage than the jobs with utility. The fact that they occupy the resurrection slot is not important for uptime purposes besides, of course, the fact that SE nerfs SMN and RDM damage based on it. Buff BLM to be more competitive with melee and two caster comps that spring up won't contain a RDM or SMN if damage is a concern.

The fact that casters have to cast doesn't mean they don't compare to melee or p.range. Both casters and melee have to work to keep uptime when conditions are against them, with p. range fully ignoring this problem regardless of circumstances (with some small exceptions being DNC not having range to hit the boss with a dance in specific encounters).

The problem is, again, bad balance, not that melee can finally work for their uptime again. The difference should just be 5% at most.

Again my point doesn’t involve the Non rezz casters because their damage profile also includes considerations around rezz vs no rezz, whereas melee vs physical ranged is entirely based on maintenance of uptime. I for one think that rezz itself is overtaxed but that’s not really my point here, my point is that if you are going to differentiate the melee and the physical ranged who’s only axis of balancing is uptime then there has to be a decent inflection point where a melee does less damage than a physical ranged because of poor uptime but that just really doesn’t happen in the current design, the melees are just always better

If your concern on this is the fact that nerfing melee with higher uptime considerations would unequivocally put the damage casters on top that’s a fair point but again the casters are differentiated based on rezz and not so much utility. I’m not exactly against slightly nerfing the non rezz casters to fit this new paradigm but again that’s not really my point here, my point is that the melee are not taxed enough for their uptime concerns and only doing 3% more rather than 15% more with bad uptime is bad design because if you have bad uptime you should be doing less

[Aco505]

Snip

Your point has been thus: a bad melee should deal less damage than a good p. range.

Right now, a bad PCT will do more damage than a good p. range. This should be an issue to you regardless of role, but you left out PCT and BLM. These two should be taxed for their uptime, just like melee, following your words.

The fact that the caster role is a mess because there's two groups in it is a different question and it's been like this for some time now even before PCT existed.

The difference between melee and ranged is not 15% but closer to 10%. And in any case, the problem is one and the same: the gap is too wide.

[Supersnow845]

Your point has been thus: a bad melee should deal less damage than a good p. range.

Right now, a bad PCT will do more damage than a good p. range. This should be an issue to you regardless of role, but you left out PCT and BLM. These two should be taxed for their uptime, just like melee, following your words.

The fact that the caster role is a mess because there's two groups in it is a different question and it's been like this for some time now even before PCT existed.

The difference between melee and ranged is not 15% but closer to 10%. And in any case, the problem is one and the same: the gap is too wide.

Yes but I’ve already acknowledged and moved past that point because uptime isn’t the only axis of balance the casters exist on, you have to consider that’s not the only reason the damage casters do good damage, but like I said I have no problem with the damage casters being taxed more heavily

[Valence]

There is that fantasy from non rphys players that rphys is 100% uptime free and can do whatever the fuck it wants by having full freedom. The toolkit and the job mechanics make this true, but the encounter constraints do not, and also affect rphys jobs to a lesser degree. It's not because you're playing rphys that you suddenly magically can stand everywhere you want without consequences, you know? With the exception of DNC, you have literally zero movement tools to save your ass which makes mechanical resolution and DDR tighter on movement than for more than half the job roster (which I'm not contesting and certainly not asking for one, that's part of rphys limited set of constraints), you always need to be somewhat close to melee range for heals, mitigation and whatnot, or just mechanical resolution, while being able to move to far away spots here and there also for mechanical resolution. As ranged job (rphys or caster) you do have to move considerably more than a melee DPS. As a rphys job, you don't have uptime considerations but you do have speed and mobility considerations because every caster and can just slide or tp to other members, while every melee can just snap back to the target with gap closer (and some can also backflip away, in and out).

This is not to say that mobility and uptime on rphys requires equally as much effort to maintain than melee or caster (definitely not), but it's not an inconsequential zero either. Now I'll say though, while gigantic hitboxes definitely got noticed, there is one thing I absolutely hated from Anabaseios and Abyssos changes and it's the general increase of mitigation range and heals all across the board to ludicrous degrees (we're speaking about 40-50 yalms). Even healer bubbles occupy the whole arenas now. People don't seem to realize that this further improved positioning and mobility for ranged jobs tenfold since positioning for team support has stopped being a consideration by now. This was a non negligible part of ranged positioning before and required team coordination with support roles. If anything, it reduced the little modicum of effort that was still required from rphys players, and I do think it was an absolutely terrible change they made which further removed not only positioning constraints but also tactical considerations, where using a small healer bubble was akin to deciding to use cure III or not back when they were still 6-8y wide, for example. Now healers just have to press a button and it will work anyway, and the only exception is the fairy and a couple of abilities that still work on a 15y basis. This was a terrible, terrible change, and one again part of their generalized enterprise of systematic destruction of the battle system.


I'll specifically talk about rphys DPS jobs because people already did for melee and casters. Rphys overall suffers from multiple issues, notably supposedly being a role that buffs the party, but its mitigation and support tools are weaker than any of the tanks or healers by miles and just a bit better than what other DPS roles have, in a meta where supports could mitigate everything on their own just fine anyway (making it borderline useless on rphys). It also suffers from having damage raid buffs that are fire and forget and don't feel more active or meaningful than any other DPS job: in HW/SB we actually had to monitor buffs that depleted our MP and we had freedom of when to use it and whether we wanted to use it for damage or for mitigation. While all of this has been axed out of the role, nothing has been gained in counterpart and the job also lost what were some of the most complex and demanding rotations of all DPS jobs (BRD used to have way shorter songs and dots to manage, and completely rng unpredictable, hectic procs, MCH used to have ammo and a more complex triaging of procs not only during burst but also during filler and tight and variable burst pattern identification for some of the most notable traits). The role just survives in some sort of limbo where everything in the game has shifted and focuses almost exclusively on a damage meta centered around uptime, which feeds into melee DPS and caster DPS (and even support roles), but not into rphys. Essentially choosing to play rphys those days feels just like choosing to ignore a part of the game (uptime) with nothing else in compensation. It feels like the quarantine role for players that don't like half of what makes the game, the game (uptime) so that they stop complaining about it.

- DNC: too many things in a burst that was already packed in EW, and the introduction of more deterministic tools in there which makes those bursts even less affected by priority/triaging and rng, which is a shame. Tilana and the 50 gauge increase is a problem and the gauge keeps overflowing even when you do everything right (which was already borderline of a problem in EW so you can imagine the disaster in DT). The addition of Finishing Move and Last Dance however are a true boon to make the filler of the job less boring, even though it still stays incredibly resident sleepers. The presence of En-Avant is not required for the job anymore to function properly except for AoE, and it's also a shame, especially since the job lost all constraints and skill expression from proc overwriting and max melee range for bursts that it had in ShB. If anything, it makes the job absolutely free from most mechanical execution unlike BRD and MCH. Standard Step is back to ShB where it still DOESNT scale with speed but is bad to drift, which essentially constantly cripples the job in execution.
- BRD: some more tools to put into a burst that was pitifully empty back then, so that's good... Ballad being back over Army is probably a good change as well. Otherwise, the job still suffers from crippling problems that also make up for at least 50% of its difficulty which is centered around horrible clipping and speed constraints, Empyreal Arrow still not having charges, and the flow of songs and burst windows that can be extremely finicky to use: without this, the job is incredibly simple and even the rng is extremely basic outside of the burst, even easier than DNC, just more spammy. If anything, it suffers from the same issue than MCH to a lesser degree, which is APM vs EPM (actions per minute vs effective actions per minute) where the rotation asks you to spamm crap for the sake of it without any meaning behind. Under ballad for example, you're brought to spamm Bloodletter just to artificially fill weave slots and APM. On flavor, feels less and less like a magical job.
- MCH: suffers from serious identity issues and doesn't even fit the mold of Rphys anymore by lacking any party buffs that were all removed, which incidentally makes it a selfish DPS that constantly falls behind because benefiting less from and playing a lot less into raid buffs than other true selfish DPS. Also lost its extreme burst identity, and I'd argue that MCH should have been the job to have PCT's burst for the simple reason that this would have helped MCH not only retain what made MCH what it used to be, but also to keep within the DPS race by feeding twice more than anyone else into raid buffs to offset its ranged tax. On the toolkit itself, the job suffers from an incredibly bloated artificial APM for the sake of APM (see Double Check and Checkmate being the exact same abilities just to offer more buttons to spamm with the exact same use in mind), because let's be honest, the "difficulty" of the job is tied to its APM like VPR. It suffers from terrible non looping heat and battery plans that require excel spreadsheet memorization over 10+ minutes if you want to play it perfectly into buffs. Its AoE design is half a disaster with battery being useless, and flamethrower still being a meme.

[CNitsah]

Honestly as someone that doesn't play high lvl content and don't about meta and how they're balanced compared to each other, and just want to play a fun to play class, but just to play enough to not be a burden to other and know the basic idea of the rotation without going for optimization, I find most dps jobs fine. Viper and Monk are the 2 I don't like, and Red Mage is not my favourite,