Concerns Regarding DPS Balance: Physical Ranged, Red Mage, and Summoner

[Aco505]

A shoddily played melee with 70% uptime should not be out DPS’ing a physical ranged

a 50% uptime melee who can barely hit his buttons properly outperform a physical ranged who's playing perfectly or near perfect.

Uptime numbers of 70 or 50% would mean someone not attacking the boss for 30 or 50% of the time. In this situation, not even the strongest job will produce more DPS than a physical range. This is, I assume, a misunderstanding of the colored numbers in a certain website.

Uptime does not correlate to the colored numbers.

Physical Ranged right now are basically "Play Perfect or get out DPS'd by Tanks."

And when I mean perfect, I mean perfect.

If a DPS class has to play perfect to not be out DPS'd by a SUPPORT CLASS something is seriously wrong.

The best 99th percentile tank in cDPS in the current Savage tier, Dark Knight, only has higher numbers than the lowest DPS at the 10th percentile in the same category.

This is considering that DRK requires specific comps (as many buffers as possible) and kill times to produce such a number, as the other tanks are several hundreds of DPS below in the same situation.

Tanks never beat any DPS rDPS-wise at any percentile either.


Misunderstandings aside, I think we can all agree with the concerns. A short-term solution would be reducing the damage gap so that it's never higher than 5%.

Long-term solutions would involve rethinking the physical range role as a whole, as well as SMN and RDM's role within casters.

[VellAshe]

Misunderstandings aside, I think we can all agree with the concerns. A short-term solution would be reducing the damage gap so that it's never higher than 5%.

Long-term solutions would involve rethinking the physical range role as a whole, as well as SMN and RDM's role within casters.

Bumping this thought process. To make physical ranged more relevant in a high-end mindset, there should be a change in how we review the roles of DPS in the game.
We always talk greedy vs support DPS classes regardless of the roles, and in a perfect situation, we should be able to say yes to the following scenarios:

1. Can 4 'Greedy' DPS classes together clear this fight?
2. Can 4 'Support' DPS classes together clear this fight?
3. Can a combination of both Greedy and Support DPS clear this fight?

If you can answer yes in all scenarios, then it would mean that we've achieved some solid level of balance across all forms of DPS roles.

With the requirement of having specific roles filled out for the 5%, only two of these three conditions are usually met because we don't really have a good 'support melee dps' example. I'm pretty sure all Melees are just significantly strong across the board with minimal party buffs outside of 1/2-minute burst (MNK, RPR, DRG), or are greedy by design (SAM, NIN, VPR). Does that classify them as support melee? I don't think so.

Other DPS roles have significantly easier examples to showcase however; we can call MCH greedy in design, DNC is good for single-target support (greedy support? lol), and BRD is just full support, no greed.

Casters are even easier: BLM, PCT, SMN, RDM in terms of greed - support respectively. (Picto is just both; it's just that universally powerful right now that any class with a Pictomancer is just incredibly buffed.) But their support is still very subjective, and similar to Melee; burst DPS windows, and some mitigation similar to Ranged.

Do we lean more towards their defined roles (Melee, Ranged, Caster) and their utility going into raid, or more into their subjective roles (Greedy, Support)? Can we find a good mesh of both? I feel like that line of dialogue may yield better gameplay relevance for Ranged DPS.

[BabyYoda]

Bumping this thought process. To make physical ranged more relevant in a high-end mindset, there should be a change in how we review the roles of DPS in the game.
We always talk greedy vs support DPS classes regardless of the roles, and in a perfect situation, we should be able to say yes to the following scenarios:

1. Can 4 'Greedy' DPS classes together clear this fight?
2. Can 4 'Support' DPS classes together clear this fight?
3. Can a combination of both Greedy and Support DPS clear this fight?

If you can answer yes in all scenarios, then it would mean that we've achieved some solid level of balance across all forms of DPS roles.

With the requirement of having specific roles filled out for the 5%, only two of these three conditions are usually met because we don't really have a good 'support melee dps' example. I'm pretty sure all Melees are just significantly strong across the board with minimal party buffs outside of 1/2-minute burst (MNK, RPR, DRG), or are greedy by design (SAM, NIN, VPR). Does that classify them as support melee? I don't think so.

Other DPS roles have significantly easier examples to showcase however; we can call MCH greedy in design, DNC is good for single-target support (greedy support? lol), and BRD is just full support, no greed.

Casters are even easier: BLM, PCT, SMN, RDM in terms of greed - support respectively. (Picto is just both; it's just that universally powerful right now that any class with a Pictomancer is just incredibly buffed.) But their support is still very subjective, and similar to Melee; burst DPS windows, and some mitigation similar to Ranged.

Do we lean more towards their defined roles (Melee, Ranged, Caster) and their utility going into raid, or more into their subjective roles (Greedy, Support)? Can we find a good mesh of both? I feel like that line of dialogue may yield better gameplay relevance for Ranged DPS.

it is simple,

balance the boss damage and health based on party jobs

if we got 4 support then boss should do more damage and have less HP
if we got 4 dps then boss do less damage and more HP
if we got both we should have formula to calculate HP and damage of the boss.

it is really this simple

[VellAshe]

it is simple,

balance the boss damage and health based on party jobs

if we got 4 support then boss should do more damage and have less HP
if we got 4 dps then boss do less damage and more HP
if we got both we should have formula to calculate HP and damage of the boss.

it is really this simple

My original point was focusing on DPS inside of a Full Party of 8. While your idea may be perfectly serviceable for a Light Party, this isn't necessarily the core issue being talked about here. Apologies if it wasn't clear!

There are several reasons why this wouldn't work in a Full Party scenario.
Immediately off the top of my head:

1. This would require different variable health pools and damage values specifically for class composition. Which in of itself is more data that has to be attributed to every boss/enemy/add in the game. That is a lot of variables to rework.
2. Moreover, by adding this sort of implementation, you add an additional layer of metagaming where parties and statics would be optimizing their party based on 'What combination of classes are the best DPS-vs-Enemy Health. This could alienate classes even further and make some classes completely unwanted based on this criteria.
   
   (As an example, BLM and PCT may both be considered 'Greedy Caster DPS', and increase the Boss' Health, using your idea. But PCT is significantly more versatile and powerful. So why would you ever bring a BLM into the party over PCT?)

This isn't as simple you'd think; it's a lot more involved problem than it originally seems.
It also bleeds into 'job complexity and uniqueness vs job homogenization and balance,' but that's a whole other can of worms.

[BabyYoda]

My original point was focusing on DPS inside of a Full Party of 8. While your idea may be perfectly serviceable for a Light Party, this isn't necessarily the core issue being talked about here. Apologies if it wasn't clear!

There are several reasons why this wouldn't work in a Full Party scenario.
Immediately off the top of my head:

1. This would require different variable health pools and damage values specifically for class composition. Which in of itself is more data that has to be attributed to every boss/enemy/add in the game. That is a lot of variables to rework.
2. Moreover, by adding this sort of implementation, you add an additional layer of metagaming where parties and statics would be optimizing their party based on 'What combination of classes are the best DPS-vs-Enemy Health. This could alienate classes even further and make some classes completely unwanted based on this criteria.
   
   (As an example, BLM and PCT may both be considered 'Greedy Caster DPS', and increase the Boss' Health, using your idea. But PCT is significantly more versatile and powerful. So why would you ever bring a BLM into the party over PCT?)

This isn't as simple you'd think; it's a lot more involved problem than it originally seems.
It also bleeds into 'job complexity and uniqueness vs job homogenization and balance,' but that's a whole other can of worms.

Who said PCT is greedy dps?
PCT does have utility for party and movement bonus that BLM doesn't have which is the opposite of what Greedy dps means.

Meta gaming do exist now and Warrior is superior tank and PCT is better than BLM bringing both damage and utility and movement, and MCH is worst job in the game.

and if you play 2 pure healers in a party first 2 weeks you most likely die in first wide AoE.

"This would require different variable health pools and damage values specifically for class composition. Which in of itself is more data that has to be attributed to every boss/enemy/add in the game. That is a lot of variables to rework."

you can categorize all mobs/boss/lite boss as a category then you can attach the attribute (health and damage) to each category.

this idea wont work immediately it require calculation for each job how much their utility actually do then do a statistics based on that boss/mob/lite boss damage and HP will change.

"It also bleeds into 'job complexity and uniqueness vs job homogenization and balance,' but that's a whole other can of worms."

I can't see why my idea isn't making things balance, I see that we can actually have unique jobs and balance at the same time, by balancing encounter(boss/mob/lite boss) hp and damage based on job selected and rDPS isn't a factor anymore.

[VellAshe]

...

Oh, apologies, Removing the Greedy vs Support DPS thought process for a moment, then!

In my opinion, the sheer fact that you want to essentially take all mobs, bosses, basically every instanced enemy in the game-- heck, even just in high-end duties and raids, and their auto attacks and casts, and turn them into variables based on the individual party members leads me to believe that you aren't thinking about this within the real world. Throwing aside that every single one of those bosses would still need to retain their static health and damage values, the concept of putting a weighted contribution on every character's class based off of said class' overall performance is... horrifying to put into any form of practice. Saving every instance of every fight within even a singular datacenter would be a harrowing nightmare, let alone EVERY datacenter that exists, and then parsing that data into a tangible weighted value for said class?

There's a reason why instances have time limits, and are on a separate server!

I do understand the concept you're going with though, but unfortunately I don't think it's even remotely feasible in reality.

My idea was trying to provide a better identity for Ranged and Support DPS roles by reviewing a Matrix between Greedy/Support DPS and Melee/Ranged/Caster DPS, and how their existing tools could be remade to provide better personal/party support depending on where they fall in that Matrix so that classes like Ranged DPS, RDM and SMN could have more utility and be better defined within their role as Supportive classes.

[BabyYoda]

Oh, apologies, Removing the Greedy vs Support DPS thought process for a moment, then!

In my opinion, the sheer fact that you want to essentially take all mobs, bosses, basically every instanced enemy in the game-- heck, even just in high-end duties and raids, and their auto attacks and casts, and turn them into variables based on the individual party members leads me to believe that you aren't thinking about this within the real world. Throwing aside that every single one of those bosses would still need to retain their static health and damage values, the concept of putting a weighted contribution on every character's class based off of said class' overall performance is... horrifying to put into any form of practice. Saving every instance of every fight within even a singular datacenter would be a harrowing nightmare, let alone EVERY datacenter that exists, and then parsing that data into a tangible weighted value for said class?

There's a reason why instances have time limits, and are on a separate server!

I do understand the concept you're going with though, but unfortunately I don't think it's even remotely feasible in reality.

My idea was trying to provide a better identity for Ranged and Support DPS roles by reviewing a Matrix between Greedy/Support DPS and Melee/Ranged/Caster DPS, and how their existing tools could be remade to provide better personal/party support depending on where they fall in that Matrix so that classes like Ranged DPS, RDM and SMN could have more utility and be better defined within their role as Supportive classes.

no one would say it would be easy, creating unique jobs is hard, balancing jobs instead of balancing encounters will always be a bad idea, it will always lead to homonization which is what we currently have.

this idea do exist in other games and it is succesfully done for many years, I didn't bring that up, it is even exist in FFXIV.

"I do understand the concept you're going with though, but unfortunately I don't think it's even remotely feasible in reality."

If you go to open world content in FFXIV you will see Elite boss HP increase based on people in the instant, not only that but also fates, but it seems that you first time hear this, Idk when you started the game but try to go no instant where many people there and try fate you will see this concept is already in the game but not made outside of open world.

[Valence]

Bumping this thought process. To make physical ranged more relevant in a high-end mindset, there should be a change in how we review the roles of DPS in the game.
We always talk greedy vs support DPS classes regardless of the roles, and in a perfect situation, we should be able to say yes to the following scenarios:

1. Can 4 'Greedy' DPS classes together clear this fight?
2. Can 4 'Support' DPS classes together clear this fight?
3. Can a combination of both Greedy and Support DPS clear this fight?

If you can answer yes in all scenarios, then it would mean that we've achieved some solid level of balance across all forms of DPS roles.

All those scenari already happen and most fights (no, all fights really) can be cleared by any of those compositions. Yet balance remains scuffed, but the problem is that you're considering balance on a viability scale, where it works fine for what we have to clear ingame, but not on a logic, utility, and fair scale, where it starts to seriously fall apart and that's the crux of the problem. This is not a clear rate problem.

I've been starting to rethink the 'ranged tax' or uptime tax' as a positioning tax, and I say this as a phys ranged player, but a positioning tax does kinda have a point. Phys ranged have no positioning concerns unlike every other job in the game. They don't need to worry about being at the correct range or on the right spots on an enemy's hit box like a melee. They don't need to worry about standing still or minimizing movement like a magical ranged. They don't have caster concerns or be in range of other players to dish out heals like a healer. And they don't need to worry about being in melee range, and how their positioning will affect the enemy's position like a tank. The only time phys ranged have to think aout their positioning is when mechanics are happening, but that's concern for everyone. Why is there a role that don't need to position in a game where positioning matters?

It's like if there were a multiplayer shooter game that had a handful of damage characters or weapons that can hit their target anywhere on the map while being anywhere on the map, and they don't need to aim -- they would be unbalanceable. I think it would be healthier for the phys ranged role if it had some positioning responsibilities either through things like walking casts or positionals or both. Now, I think it would be cool to have like a mobility specialist job that doesn't have positioning concerns, but not an entire role dedicated to the same specialty.

We need to consider that rphys is no "positioning free" either. Beyond staying at range for heals and whatnot as a consideration, which every role has, there is no gap closer or teleports to help us move over crazy distances like it's nothing. If you position too far away or too angled for some mechanics, you're not gonna make it when a caster would just laugh at you while they do zip past you. Ranged casters don't have to worry about being "at the correct range" anymore than we do. Actually, it's less of a concern for them for the aforementioned mobility reason, but what is more of a concern for them is "being on the right spots to minimize movement" as you say, as in they do not always care about distance (depends of the caster, RDM and especially SMN do care more) but they do care about how much time they're going to spend moving. That's the big main difference between both roles.

I am not against more positioning considerations though. They have been however removed more and more from the game over time. That's legit one of the things they have consistently tried to "ease" or outright remove out of the game. Everybody and their mothers have gap closers now. Every is more mobile to accommodate for the crazy increases in having to move all around in modern encounters.

[VellAshe]

All those scenarios already happen and most fights (no, all fights really) can be cleared by any of those compositions. Yet balance remains scuffed, but the problem is that you're considering balance on a viability scale, where it works fine for what we have to clear ingame, but not on a logic, utility, and fair scale, where it starts to seriously fall apart and that's the crux of the problem. This is not a clear rate problem.

I think I understand what you're saying, but I wanna make sure I'm on the right track; usually when I perceive balance within a game, I tend to lean towards viability, as you mentioned. Can you elaborate on the logic, utility and fairness further? (Or, have you already in this thread and I just missed it? Sorry, if that's the case!)

[NightHour]

Uptime numbers of 70 or 50% would mean someone not attacking the boss for 30 or 50% of the time. In this situation, not even the strongest job will produce more DPS than a physical range. This is, I assume, a misunderstanding of the colored numbers in a certain website.

Uptime does not correlate to the colored numbers.



The best 99th percentile tank in cDPS in the current Savage tier, Dark Knight, only has higher numbers than the lowest DPS at the 10th percentile in the same category.

This is considering that DRK requires specific comps (as many buffers as possible) and kill times to produce such a number, as the other tanks are several hundreds of DPS below in the same situation.

Tanks never beat any DPS rDPS-wise at any percentile either.


Misunderstandings aside, I think we can all agree with the concerns. A short-term solution would be reducing the damage gap so that it's never higher than 5%.

Long-term solutions would involve rethinking the physical range role as a whole, as well as SMN and RDM's role within casters.

5% difference between Melee and Ranged is imo fair.



RDM and SMN are hard bound by their resurrection abilities, I'm hoping in 8.0 they yeet them and give them meaningful damage.


BLM is the only caster in my opinion that deserves to sit with melees on damage.




I think the whole caster role needs rethinking.

Pictomancer is overtuned.

BLM is the greedy caster and does less damage than PCT which has a raid wide heal, a raid wide shield AND a raid buff.

SMN/RDM are being shafted because they have resurrection abilities.



Caster Hierachy imo should be BLM > PCT > SMN -> RDM.