Do you think that Picto needs a nerf?

[MrJPtheAssassin]

I really think that developers have this flaw of never wanting to nerf a job, even when it’s completely overtuned.
Instead, they prefer to buff other jobs—but they often do it poorly.

The Pictomancer and its kit are simply overpowered, and this is no secret, not even to the devs.
The problem is that the Pictomancer renders both the BLM and Summoner obsolete in FRU.

The Pictomancer’s DPS exceeds the Summoner’s by over 3k, which is simply colossal given the kit it has. The BLM, despite the changes, is still not in a good place.

The Red Mage isn’t that great either, but it’s much better than the Summoner in terms of DPS, has good mobility, and can double rez, making it very useful in fights like FRU.
However, the Pictomancer completely outclasses all the casters.

The caster balance is just a mess, probably one of the worst states it’s been in since FF14’s release.
I know the game has gone through other crises where caster balance was poor or the Summoner was broken in all content.

However, the Pictomancer isn’t doing too badly in terms of being a giga unbalanced job.

I agree PCT need some nerfs but honestly smn belongs at the bottom of casters. In fact it shouldn't even be a caster anymore and be moved to phy range bc how easy it is and little casting it actually does. SMN rework ruin that job and it deserves to be at rock bottom till the devs realize they f up and make it into a caster again.

[Rithy255]

I agree PCT need some nerfs but honestly smn belongs at the bottom of casters. In fact it shouldn't even be a caster anymore and be moved to phy range bc how easy it is and little casting it actually does. SMN rework ruin that job and it deserves to be at rock bottom till the devs realize they f up and make it into a caster again.

Yeah this might be a hot take but I think summoner in endwalker was genuinely over tuned with how it was designed to be a physical ranged with like two casts, while also being over red mage in terms of damage, I would rather RDM be better then current summoner just because I really don't agree with how the job is designed. We saw it even having high play rates which reflects with how much easier it was to bring over BLM/RDM for the majority of the expansion with little downside (until BLM got actual buffs, even then it was still strong) I don't honestly want see high summoner play rates until that job is actually designed better.

Though I do think it's 100% just a issue with how its designed currently, although with how much Mage jobs have been getting recently I wont be surprised if they head towards Magic Dps practically not having cast times in the future which is scary to think about, It's the opposite issue of turning physical ranged into mages, It lessens the way jobs play/function at a core level, which honestly seems to be a goal of the balance team as if jobs are very samey numbers are very easy to tune, hence why Pictomancer is standing out now because we don't really have anything comparable with how much of a advantage it gets in downtime.

[Tigore]

It's not because I wanted PCT to be punished that I placed it just above RDM and SMN on my first list. That's just how strong the utility is. Starry Muse provides a 5% raid buff to 4 - 8 people. The Tempura Coats self barrier can be converted to the raid barrier Tempera Grassa with the cooldown reduced to 1 minute or 90 seconds depending on which barrier is "broken". The heal on Star Prism I'll give you that on it maybe half counting since it is tied to a damage cooldown just like SMN does with Phoenix. Both of these healing utilities may need to be moved to another button or given a new slot for them for better control of using them.

Although we've touched on talking about it and it looks like there wouldn't be a problem if we negotiate weakening the utilities a bit to keep their personal DPS higher. Starry Muse at 3% with both barriers probably cut down in half would pretty much start to compare with what RPR can do with Arcane Circle, Arcane Crest, and Second Wind with Bloodbath. At 2% for Starry Muse with half barriers, we may be able to justify them doing a little more than RPR and being a bit below where I think DRG should be. I can rewrite the chart based on 2% Starry Muse and half barriers. Some minor adjustments might need to be done with 2% Starry Muse to shift some personal damage effect to it as well so it is still worth using below level 90.

DPS Placement with PCT adjusted with 2% Starry Muse and Half Tempura Barriers

#1 BLM, VPR
#2 SAM
#3 MNK, MCH
#4 DRG, PCT, RPR
#5 NIN, RDM, SMN
#6 BRD, DNC
#7 GNB, DRK, WHM, SGE
#8 PLD, WAR, SCH, AST

This will still have issues like WAR, PLD self heals and mitigation being crazy strong still and some DPS utilities with RDM vs SMN still being too similar. It's a start at least.

SMN would probably require a form of rework that completely changes their 5% raid buff to a personal effect and possibly remove the Raise / Physick too to justify them being below the BLM, but around the SAM to MNK levels. Trying it out on the target dummy, the milestone summons are a bit muddled with Solar Bahamut every even minute with Bahamut and Phoenix alternating every odd minute. Unless they tune the boss to do more damage every 3 - 4 minutes to align with Phoenix and Solar Bahamut, SMN will need some refinement here. Expert roulette bosses are usually starting to die at the 2 minute mark as well. The regular Bahamut summon tends to happen on trash with Phoenix summons on the boss. The mini summons in between are okay, but it could probably be more than just Ifrit, Titan and Garuda. Maybe we can have a second rotation with Leviathan, Ramuh and Shiva? Although the tools that could use the most changing would be the Aether system that is still present on the class. They are just fire off and forget buttons during every minute burst. It will require a lot of brain power discussion from multiple people to decide how this rotation can be improved since I may trail off base by myself being used to the flexible altoholic role from Warcraft.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

Yeah this might be a hot take but I think summoner in endwalker was genuinely over tuned with how it was designed to be a physical ranged with like two casts, while also being over red mage in terms of damage, I would rather RDM be better then current summoner just because I really don't agree with how the job is designed. We saw it even having high play rates which reflects with how much easier it was to bring over BLM/RDM for the majority of the expansion with little downside (until BLM got actual buffs, even then it was still strong) I don't honestly want see high summoner play rates until that job is actually designed better.

Though I do think it's 100% just a issue with how its designed currently, although with how much Mage jobs have been getting recently I wont be surprised if they head towards Magic Dps practically not having cast times in the future which is scary to think about, It's the opposite issue of turning physical ranged into mages, It lessens the way jobs play/function at a core level, which honestly seems to be a goal of the balance team as if jobs are very samey numbers are very easy to tune, hence why Pictomancer is standing out now because we don't really have anything comparable with how much of a advantage it gets in downtime.

Yeah I agree with your take about smn in EW. I admit I used to defend smn somewhat in EW in its placement but the more I play it and see what they did to it this expac...yeah, I think this job deserves to be the lowest dps in the game. The job is by far the easiest job since the rotation is the same 3 or 4 buttons over and over, it is barely a caster, and it kit if filled with useless utility like phox heal that only happens 1/2 the time now solar baha is in and even sola baha heal is meh bc you can only hold on to it for a short time. The only thing it has useful for team utility is its rez but honestly rdm is better at rezzing IMO.

That said I have my own hot take that is little off topic. I think its really silly viper is a selfish dps and will always have high dps while it also really easy to play...I don't know about anyone else but I get as bored playing viper as I get when Im playing smn. The job semi-plays itself since all you doing is following the dotted lines. Im not saying viper needs a nerf, Im saying they really need to add more to it to give it more complexity.

[Lyth]

I agree PCT need some nerfs but honestly smn belongs at the bottom of casters.

Let's be real - PCT is just SMN without raise. That's where the Endwalker SMN numbers went to - they're all playing PCT now. I think if you brought PCT down to the level of SMN, where it belongs, players would very quickly become passionate about SMN again. Not out of any particular loyalty, but because you're targeting the same set of people who are looking for the maximum value for the minimum effort.

[Supersnow845]

Let's be real - PCT is just SMN without raise. That's where the Endwalker SMN numbers went to - they're all playing PCT now. I think if you brought PCT down to the level of SMN, where it belongs, players would very quickly become passionate about SMN again. Not out of any particular loyalty, but because you're targeting the same set of people who are looking for the maximum value for the minimum effort.

Yeah let’s give the caster that doesn’t have a raise the same damage as the caster that has a raise I’m sure that balance decision is gonna go down well

[Lyth]

I think if the lack of Raise on PCT is literally the only justification for why you do more damage than all other jobs for no effort, then you probably shouldn't be doing that much damage in the first place.

[Supersnow845]

I think if the lack of Raise on PCT is literally the only justification for why you do more damage than all other jobs for no effort, then you probably shouldn't be doing that much damage in the first place.

That’s disingenuous and you know it

There is a middle ground between top of the charts and SMN level damage especially when SMN has an incredibly powerful piece of utility that is why they attempt it justify doing the damage it does

Is “low melee range in full uptime” and rising higher in uptime such a foreign concept or does PCT have to be literally the worst job in the game for you to forgive it the indecency of shoving the melee off the top of the board

[Lyth]

I'd be fine if it was BLM that happened to be topping the charts, even if my preference is for jobs to be able to trade-off on the top spot. I just don't think it's acceptable for PCT of all things to be the one dominating all other jobs across the expansion when it has so many advantages for no effort. It's just genuinely terrible design, and it is guaranteed to drive players out of the game.

And if raise is such an issue, then give PCT raise and downtitrate its damage to where it deserves to be.

[Supersnow845]

I'd be fine if it was BLM that happened to be topping the charts, even if my preference is for jobs to be able to trade-off on the top spot. I just don't think it's acceptable for PCT of all things to be the one dominating all other jobs across the expansion when it has so many advantages for no effort. It's just genuinely terrible design, and it is guaranteed to drive players out of the game.

And if raise is such an issue, then give PCT raise and downtitrate its damage to where it deserves to be.

So your opposition to PCT basically boils down to your personal opinions on PCT’s relative difficulty.