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

[Supersnow845]

Ah, I keep forgetting that you don't participate in current raid content. I suppose if your standard is dungeons and 24p alliance raids, then perhaps, but the game isn't balanced around that sort of content.

If we're talking about movement tools, might I remind you that PCT probably has the most broken movement tool in the history of the game, with nearly 50% sprint uptime and a fixed distance dash on a 20s recast?

You mean I don’t do it on my main, I have a raid alt (cleared week 1) and no melees still aren’t challenged in the current content, dropping 5 GCD’s (unless of course you are a VPR) doesn’t count as challenging melees. If you aren’t being forced down to BRD damage due to disconnects you aren’t being challenged

And can I like pay you to not mention PCT for one comment. Smudge is overpowered, PCT is overpowered, I get it you hate PCT let’s move on from that topic I’ve already explored my points on nerfing PCT

[Lyth]

I can't say that I've heard of a 'non-raid main' before. It feels like we're constantly having a conversation around your theoretical belief around how the game might work, rather than working off of your actual practical experience of it. Otherwise you wouldn't be saying things like 'melee can just walk back to the boss after a disconnect.'

We're also going to continue discussing how broken PCT is until it gets rectified. If the dev team doesn't realize that they need to do something before FRU, there's going to be an overwhelming backlash.

[Supersnow845]

I mean we have different ideas about the game, that doesn’t make you right and me arguing about how I think the game works, it means we have different opinions on how the game works. My non raid main exists because my original main Andreas is more about RP, take that how you will. I’ll link my raid alt if you are that hesitant to believe I have one. I don’t think the melee should have free dashes, if you or the tank messes up your positioning you should be punished for it, same as why I don’t like true north (and why I don’t like the reduced swiftcast recast for PCT and BLM, the rezzers I can tolerate it)

We can discuss how strong PCT is or isn’t if you are chomping at the bit for it but I don’t understand why you always single me out for it because I’ve told you how I would nerf PCT, I’m not like one of the WAR mains that fiercely defends thier main, I’m fine to nerf PCT. I just am sick of PCT being bought up when it’s not the point I’m making because I don’t even disagree it needs a nerf, my only difference in opinion to you is I don’t think FRU’s balance is worth how PCT feels to play in non ultimate content, hell I’d prefer PCT be banned from FRU rather than change the motif design

[Aco505]

no melees still aren’t challenged in the current content, dropping 5 GCD’s (unless of course you are a VPR) doesn’t count as challenging melees. If you aren’t being forced down to BRD damage due to disconnects you aren’t being challenged

Spoken from experience or just assuming? Have you even played melee in high end content in the latest Savage tier or Criterion? Could it be more challenging? Sure, but it's already a start.

How many GCDs do you want melee to drop? 10? 20? Do you even realize what it means to drop 10 GCDs both damage and game play wise? Perhaps not, considering you think that a "70% uptime melee" deals more damage than a physical ranged. If that was the case, the damage gap would be of 40% and not 10% on average.

Is there any content in which a PCT is forced to walk and do nothing? Any content in which with sufficient planning casters have to use Scathe or Enchanted Reprise? You cannot ask for melees to drop 10+ GCDs without also challenging casters, particularly the non-raise ones. We could say that they use their tools for movement in exchange for burst damage. Good. That's one of the interesting points of casters.

Did you know that some melees also do this? For instance, RPR keeps their strongest attack -1300 potency- for uptime if necessary because uptime > all. Perhaps what the game needs is more tools in which you have to consider situations such as the uptime vs burst cost.

And can I like pay you to not mention PCT for one comment. Smudge is overpowered, PCT is overpowered, I get it you hate PCT let’s move on from that topic I’ve already explored my points on nerfing PCT

I do agree that some of Lyth's suggestions for PCT such as requiring a target to paint motifs would just break the job. The only acceptable suggestion, imho, would be to keep the game play intact but tune the damage around so that it's still competing in full uptime with the melee/BLM but not broken in downtime.

However, to be very honest with you, the only person here that has a hate towards jobs is you to melees.

I get it, the damage gap should be lower and we should all be challenged but you try to find every single argument possible, even those that you produce without knowledge, to criticize the role non-stop while blatantly ignoring PCT (and BLM) in many of your anti-melee posts despite the fact that almost if not every single thing you say applies to those two casters as well because they're balanced around doing the same damage as melee.

You know, PCT, the job that on the 90th percentile, just to pick one, deals around 5k more cDPS than MCH in full uptime fights? That's dangerously close to a 20% damage gap between the top and bottom job.

This is what should be calling your attention, the big gap between "group 1" and "group 2" and not blindly attacking melee every single time. You're not providing useful feedback to the state of the game balance if you throw stuff like "greatly reducing gap closers from melee" or have them "drop many GCDs". It shows that you don't understand the role, probably because you don't play it.

What the game needs is encounters to challenge the jobs so that those gap closers and tools are used intelligently to try and optimize uptime, just like encounters force casters to do so with their tools.

In the short-term, we need to lower the damage gap. In the long-term, to look at the roles and especially the p.range role.

But your "solutions" would not fix the problem and instead keep PCT/BLM on top because they'd not be affected in the slightest.

[Valence]

What the game needs tbh is to veer radically away from uptime DDR bullshit and go back to a HW friendlier model with more depth to actually build back specific role identities, have varied and unique encounter mechanics challenging each role differently, if I have to be frank as a rphys main. I know it's not going to happen, and that's why AAC is going to be my last raiding tier. But if SE continues in the same direction where only damage and uptime matters, then that's what every DPS subrole is going to fight over, and that's how every DPS subrole will be homogenized to death, and the first death is going to be rphys, period, because either it turns into a ranged caster to lose the tax, or it stays as it is and will continue to be anything but an actual DPS.

I'm saying that given PCT's overwhelming burst and the fact that it generates motifs without a target, PCT should be tuned to do less damage than BLM, MCH, RDM, and BRD on a target dummy. That way whenever you have fights with downtime, it will actually be more reasonably balanced. The devs can't be playing favorites like this. Hope that helps.

Oh, you were actually speaking in nDPS? What an odd metric to use for 8 man fights..
But yes the lesser the downtime penalty, the more taxed should any job be. If anything, if there was a single tax to apply to jobs in XIV, it should be on burst potential. Even in flat dummy fights burst jobs still have an edge since they either 1) end up closer to their burst and will have a higher average at the kill time or 2) end up before their next burst and this is going to average out with flatter dps profiles anyway.

[Carighan]

Yeah I agree. Right now the game needs less balance.

More fights that just are cruel and unfair to some jobs but not to others (just do this evenly, then it balances out in the long run!), more unique mechanics and unique design approaches on jobs that make them anything from overpowered to rubbish for specific situations, and more mechanics that don't align with whatever your group is doing.

Why? Because right now it's freaking boring how every single combat job ultimately plays the exact same: Press your nearly-100%-fixed sequence of buttons. Repeat every 2 minutes. Done. Remember to not fall asleep despite how boring this is so you don't wipe your group.

[Supersnow845]

snip

The reason why I intentionally leave PCT out is specifically because lyth and I have had multiple long discussions about PCT’s balance state and I’ve given multiple suggestions of how it can be nerfed and explained my reasoning and even providing Maths for how that would constitute a nerf and how much of a nerf it would constitute on pages relating to PCT. I’m not ignoring PCT I’ve already given a comprehensive explanation of what I would do to nerf PCT

That’s why I don’t like when I’m on a topic discussing the melees and suddenly lyth goes “yeah but what about PCT” like lyth I’ve explained to you 50,000 times what I would do to nerf PCT, I know it’s too strong I don’t know what else you want me to say, literally any post I discuss bringing the melee damage down comes with the caveat that I would bring the damage casters down as well, I don’t want the damage casters to dominate over the melee either and I’ve explained this many times. I’m a healer main at heart, I know what it’s like to be stomped over by WAR mains, I don’t want PCT to dominate everything. So yes when I say “nerf melee” I mean “nerf melee PCT and BLM”

So yea when you draw attention to my point that I would reduce the ability of the melee to move when the tank positions wrong (emphasis on tank positions wrong not forcing the melee to just walk around because I don’t like them) but like all my posts this comes with the caveat that I would 100% nerf smudge and aetherial manipulation as well, just as if the melee should lost uptime to bad tank positioning if someone else makes a mistake it should punish the caster uptime, again I’m not being biased hateful to the melees this is just a retread of old arguments I’ve had with lyth where they know all these points but still draw me back into the PCT argument again and again

I know I come off as hating melees but it’s more just because I’ve had these arguments before and over time I slowly condense my points when I’m constantly asked to retread them, I’m happy to reiterate in proper detail what I actually believe because I don’t have a strong bias to the non raise casters

[Lyth]

There's no use in pointing your finger at melee when the biggest ranged balance issue remains with PCT.

The core problem is that the development team is frightened of losing further players through job nerfs. They've openly recognized that PCT is overpowered right from the start of the expansion. It's written in the patch adjustments comments in the job guide. They've talked about how they had attempted to 'buff other jobs to the same level as PCT' both for Arcadion, and even more recently their plans to keep on the same track for 7.1. They'll continue to drag their heels on this issue until they suffer massive losses, but then it'll be too late.

What the developers don't realize is that having a consistent, clear cut winner in a job category is a terrible idea, because the rest of those other jobs might as well not exist to players. You'll have one popular job, sure. But what about those players who want to play Magical Ranged, but don't want to play PCT? You either find yourself a new role with a job that you actually like, or you find yourself a new game. It might seem like a win when jobs like WAR and PCT are very popular, but that's just because they're dominant picks. You gain far more from having a variety of popular options.

PCT is central to the existential crisis with Physical Ranged as well. Historically, you could at least justify the split in Ranged as being about utility vs. damage, with Raise Casters and Physical Ranged seemingly belonging in a separate damage category due to their support functions. But PCT has better damage, utility, and mobility than most Ranged jobs. The only thing that it's missing is Raise, and let's face it, nobody wants to directly bring Raise themselves in the current environment because you're penalized for bringing it and penalized again for using it.

SE knows exactly where the problem is, and have gone on record multiple times on what it is. And they'll continue to play favorites with PCT until it backfires on them.

[Supersnow845]

Conversely passing off all ranged problems as a PCT problem ignores the fact that this balance issue existed for two expansions before PCT even existed

Let’s say tomorrow we nerfed PCT down to about NIN (about where I think everyone could agree is a fair position) that still doesn’t change the fact that right now the melee hold a dominance they don’t really deserve over the collective ranged classes that aren’t PCT

You’ll notice I discussed this balance issue prior to PCT even existing, it’s not a new problem entirely caused by PCT. Yes PCT makes it worse and the have less than zero problem nerfing PCT but dumping the collective ranged issues onto PCT doesn’t change the fact this problem predates PCT. If they nerfed PCT tomorrow would you (just collective you) then go on and go “okay PCT is nerfed time to buff phys ranged or nerf melee” or would we just stop at step 1

[Carighan]

Conversely passing off all ranged problems as a PCT problem ignores the fact that this balance issue existed for two expansions before PCT even existed

It also ignores that numerical output-balance is but a teensy tiny fraction of "balance", and often the least important one (as any changes to any other area automatically break it and you have to start over).

The game needs gameplay changes. Balancing DPS output is so unimportant it should be crossed off the list devs are allowed to talk about in the office, tbh.