Can anyone clearly explain "job homogenization" in this game?

[Supersnow845]

I tried to do it on the other post that was done so I’ll try it again here

Classes in an MMO can be defined by their damage profile (I don’t mean tanks healers DPS support) I mean how their damage is applied and the change in the rate it applies over the course of the fight. There are in my mind 5 “classical” damage profiles in an MMO

1) builder spender- builds a lot of resources using filler then dumps them all within a particular window

2) Sustained damage- doesn’t really care about anyone else just does consistent damage over the fight

3) ramper- has to set themselves up and work towards their eventual higher damage

4) DOT’er/debuffer- focuses on sustained damage via application of damaging debuffs

5) buffer- focuses the overwhelming majority of time and space on buffing others DPS, has little to no self damage


Now let’s looks at the 14 jobs. If we go back to “classical 14” (ie the HW era) these distinctions were far more defined. SCH and SMN were DOT’ers, BLM and PLD were sustained, NIN was a builder spender, MNK was a ramper, AST was a buffer etc. all of the jobs had unique damage profiles that led to unique minute to minute gameplay

Now contrast this with the modern jobs. Every single job in this game (arguably sans SGE) has a massive nuke that is designed explicitly to be pressed once per 2 minutes (or per minute for the tanks). And every job that has a mechanic to buff others damage has that buff out on exactly a 2 minute CD. More and more skills have been altered to allow to stacking into a 2 minute burst (enshroud and awakening having 100 gauge despite needing 50 to burst encouraging triple use of the burst because the 2 minute button gives you a “burst again button”)/lilys being neutral so they are a gain to sync with the buff window and dump misery/moves getting charged allowing you to hold charges for the burst window such as phlegma.

In short everything has coalesced around the two minute burst window and since buffs are multiplicative the burst window becomes so strong that the other styles of combat become unable to keep up and get changed to fit into the buff meta (this is why PLD was redone in EW) Every change they give BLM is designed to push more potency into the burst window so they can burst better (such as 3 charges of xeno and 2 leylines to always keep it aligned with the burst window). Our two DOT’ers basically lost their DOT’s and are now generic buff feeder jobs with pointless buffs and burst focused rotations (SMN especially). The rampers now basically just get buttons that allows them to burst immediately (such as plentiful harvest on RPR) and the buffers have been reduced from meaningful buff maintenance to generic big buffs in the burst window and set and forget buffs outside of it (DNC, BRD and AST)

So in short every job is now just a flavour of builder spender because the only thing that matters is the 2 minute burst window This has also led to the removal of meaningful utility. Between 21 classes we literally have ONE skill that fits the bill of true utility; expedient. Without utility and an overwhelming focus on damage with no alternatives the jobs feel flat and stale, nobody but SCH can offer anything to the party that’s not just a flavour of damage because every ability is either “I do damage” “I make someone else do damage” or “I make the boss hit us for less damage”

Now since every job focuses on building for the two minute window every job hates downtime and hates two target cleave (sans PCT) because the way they have been designed means they really only work in full uptime 2 single target savage and basically every other fight design is just “compensation” for their inherent flaws (jobs like RPR hate not getting gauge in downtime, SAM can’t get stickers etc)


So basically every job has been shoved down into a generic builder spender that only functions on full uptime single target, hates downtime and the majority of its potency comes from big disconnected nukes you press in the burst window. That’s why every job feels homogenised