Do you think that Picto needs a nerf?

[Carighan]

“Just nerf PCT” is an empty and vapid statement because it ignores the 10,000 nuances of the way the job is designed.

Well then, what are those 10k nuances? Go on...

So how would you nerf PCT?

Oh it's good that you ask.

Goal:

* Leave the entire design as-is. The job will be intentionally too weak in full-uptime fights, an acceptable compromise given that it brings strong self and group shielding, a raid buff and a mobility tool.
* Heavily curb the paint skills. Take ~20% potency off of Creature and Weapon Muse, including the entire Hammer combo and the completed creatures.
* Take the same 20% off of Star Prism and Rainbow Drip, potentially 22%-25% off the former. As an example, that brings Star Prism from 1400 potency to 1120, which is still quite high for a skill used in the prime damage moment and being instant cast. Hence I'm unsure whether it doesn't actually need a stronger nerf.
* Holy and Comet also need a nerf, but a smaller one, probably ~10%.
* The main filler rotations both stay the same.
* (Potentially, the only mechanical change) increase motif paint time by 1.0s. Remove the weaving window on motifs, basically. But I'm unsure about this, it feels too big a change to gameplay flow for "just a nerf".

If currenty statistics serve, this would result in about a 6%-7% total loss of Pictomancer damage output in most non-Ultimate situations, scaling a bit up and down with how many raid buffs your group has: the more, the stronger the nerf, but it goes down to ~4% if there are essentially no other buffs.

For most fights this would put Picto on par with ~Black Mage, Reaper, Monk and Samurai, with a similar reaction to raid buffs as both Reaper and Samurai have, and a nearly inverse one to Black Mage, which is good for differentiation.

Again I'm not sure the potency reductions are enough, and that really shows just how bonkers out of whack the numbers on Picto are. Their combat flow is unique and damn cool, but also highly resistant to nerfs via potency reductions, more so because due to scaling with burst windows, you really need to take ~all potency you want to take off from burst skills not the main filler.