Do you think that Picto needs a nerf?

[Supersnow845]

Not really a nightmare. It's simply that they refuse to nerf PCT and their constant double down on 120s meta.
CBU3 just straight up walked in dog poop because they refused to strafe around said dog poop just to avoid hurting someone's feelings.

And that's basically just a classic CBU3 story, picking the most unhealthy choices just to avoid hurting feelings.

It’s not really so simple. For example nobody here can come to a consensus on how to nerf it. People seem to broadly agree on two points

1) it needs a nerf
2) don’t change it’s gameplay identity

Which presents a problem as PCT’s gameplay identity is why it’s unbalanced. So how would you do a nerf in this case. What are you aiming for with a nerf. Are you aiming for ultimate balance. What level of savage balance is worth ultimate balance and vice versa

[Carighan]

Which presents a problem as PCT’s gameplay identity is why it’s unbalanced.

No? You only say this because it's too strong in an area. Because if this were actually a valid argument, then we'd always have this problem with buffing Black Mage "You can't buff Black Mage without removing its gameplay identity, but that is why it's too weak". But that's somehow never an argument against buffs.

JUST

NERF

POTENCIES

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Picto needs a nerf. Ideally without changing much of its gameplay. Nerf potencies. Done. Could there be smarter solutions? Maybe. Would those take more than 15 seconds of a single developer's time changing a bunch of numbers in a database? For sure. Is that worth delaying a fix to this problem? Heck no!

You can even be all fancy and only nerf potencies of muses and CD skills, and more the longer the CD is, to curb burst potency and downtime gain more than general use. But that's already Advanced-Nerfing, and frankly not even necessary in a first pass. Picto is ahead by 6%, right? Cut all potencies by 6%. Done.

[Supersnow845]

No? You only say this because it's too strong in an area. Because if this were actually a valid argument, then we'd always have this problem with buffing Black Mage "You can't buff Black Mage without removing its gameplay identity, but that is why it's too weak". But that's somehow never an argument against buffs.

JUST

NERF

POTENCIES

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Picto needs a nerf. Ideally without changing much of its gameplay. Nerf potencies. Done. Could there be smarter solutions? Maybe. Would those take more than 15 seconds of a single developer's time changing a bunch of numbers in a database? For sure. Is that worth delaying a fix to this problem? Heck no!

You can even be all fancy and only nerf potencies of muses and CD skills, and more the longer the CD is, to curb burst potency and downtime gain more than general use. But that's already Advanced-Nerfing, and frankly not even necessary in a first pass. Picto is ahead by 6%, right? Cut all potencies by 6%. Done.

You misunderstand, I’m not saying it’s gameplay identity is being overpowered, I’m saying it’s gameplay identity is the way its motifs system work which is why it’s unbalanced in ultimate

Is the “6% nerf” something that would balance it in savage and ultimate? How do the different profiles change the amount of this theoretical nerf

[Carighan]

Is the “6% nerf” something that would balance it in savage and ultimate? How do the different profiles change the amount of this theoretical nerf

That's my key point though: Screw figuring that out, save the perfection for later. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

It's okay if Picto ends up 2% strong in Ults and 2% weak in Savages. That's better than 8% strong and 4% strong, respectively.

Since the nerf is mechanically trivial (go to database, select for all picto damage potencies, do x*0.94 on all of them, update the DB), time exists to figure out better solutions later.

[Connor]

I mean, we can theorycraft as much as we want, but am I the only one who thinks we’ve probably completely missed the chance to adjust Pictomancer this expansion? SE is a small indie dev team struggling to make content on time (lol), somehow I get the feeling we’re stuck with this until 8.0 (like so many other absolutely awful decisions)

[Altera]

Even Mr.Happy has made a video explaining the something has to be done about PCT at this point. It's way too powerful in all content. Specially visible in FRU.

[Azurarok]

You misunderstand, I’m not saying it’s gameplay identity is being overpowered, I’m saying it’s gameplay identity is the way its motifs system work which is why it’s unbalanced in ultimate

Is the “6% nerf” something that would balance it in savage and ultimate? How do the different profiles change the amount of this theoretical nerf

The motif system's at the heart of the job and it's also an incredibly good fit for content with downtime. I like that it has that identity. Imo a job shining in specific scenarios is good (much like how VPR can handle disengaging far better than any other melee), but it's a little bit a problem because that scenario's all over the hardest content in the game.

I think allowing DoTs to continue to give damage while the boss is untargetable again could help (and return some of the DoTs they removed).

Otherwise somehow prevent players from acting during some phase changes (which I believe FRU's phase 2 intermission does by freezing the party and final phase change does with a cutscene) and/or add/buff resource generation skills on the other jobs that fall behind at those points.

Maybe nerfing everything but its motifs would let it keep its identity, but would that fix the balancing problems?

[Valence]

They knew PCT would ruin their new ultimate balance. The only thing they could come up with was LB generation limits.

[ForteNightshade]

In your imagination, unconsciously, when you think of a balanced party you think of 2 melee, 1 caster and 1 pranged. And throughout Endwalker was objectively the best thing to have, given the 6-8% difference between melee and the others.
Well a balanced party is 1 melee, 1 caster, 1 pranged and a free spot.

If the RDM did the same damage as the melee, the melee would still have their space, but it would allow the RDM to compete much more easily at the caster spot because it will do considerable damage plus its versatily and could compete for the free spot.

No, I'm thinking about what you conveniently ignored in my response: the fact Red Mage has vastly superior utility to every single melee, thus buffing it to deal comparable damage wouldn't allow it to simply compete for the free spot but guarantee it. You'd be downright griefing your team to bring two melee with your buffed up version of Red Mage.

Once again, Red Mage brings 10% party wide mitigation, a raid buff, position flexibility and on demand healing and a raise. Literally nothing the melee have can compete with that. What you're asking for isn't a "well balanced party" but turning Red Mage into, ironically, the best job in the game alongside Picto.

So why is melee uptime a consideration but casting cast times aren’t. People seem so quick to forget that casters have to…….you know cast. Mechanics these days rarely force melee out of melee range but mechanics love casters running marathons around the arena to solve mechanics. Does “I can’t hit the boss when I’m not next to them” mean literally anything when you know every mechanic they made will allow you to solve it with 4 people next to the boss

Where is the compensation for caster uptime

When was the last time we got a mechanic that felt like it was designed around a turrety caster and not a melee

Didn't you just say: "The AVERAGE melee in M4 has EIGHT. 8 GCD’s of downtime"

There is not a single fight in the last two expansions combined where you're losing an "average" of 8 GCDs due to miscasts. You're not even losing half that. At the balance threshold (85-90%), casters are hard pressed to lose any casts whatsoever. I didn't forget. It's simply not nearly as big an issue for them as fights like say, E8 were. Even M4 is worse for melee by far than casters. And that's even by your own admission. If you're losing casts in M4. I'm sorry mate, that's on you.

Just for specifics, we can basically ignore Black Mage and Summoner in this discussion because neither one of them struggles whatsoever with mobility. That leaves Picto taking a very small loss having to use Holy in White, which exist solely as a movement tool and literally nothing else. And then Red Mage which does have to put in the most effort but between Acceleration, Swiftcast and duel casting, it does fine enough.

None of this considers the benefit of safer strats because it's typically easier to spread five people away from the boss than four locked on it, being able to preposition outside of melee range or simply not having to worry about greeding in melee range. A double caster comp is almost always superior assuming equal damage. As for a mechanic designed around a "turrety caster." Find me a caster that can't move while turreting first.

Put bluntly, Casters don't have an uptime problem.

[Ggwppino]

No, I'm thinking about what you conveniently ignored in my response: the fact Red Mage has vastly superior utility to every single melee, thus buffing it to deal comparable damage wouldn't allow it to simply compete for the free spot but guarantee it. You'd be downright griefing your team to bring two melee with your buffed up version of Red Mage.
Once again, Red Mage brings 10% party wide mitigation, a raid buff, position flexibility and on demand healing and a raise. Literally nothing the melee have can compete with that. What you're asking for isn't a "well balanced party" but turning Red Mage into, ironically, the best job in the game alongside Picto.

Well, yes, so? After an entire expansion of taking cocks because of smn, and after this one which is taking cocks anyway, perhaps the time has come to push this class a little.
Then you're basically saying: that if this is done, that's it, the static and PF will close the doors to the melees for the free slot because it's either RDM or nothing?.

Didn't you just say: "The AVERAGE melee in M4 has EIGHT. 8 GCD’s of downtime"

And yet, and yet, the logs show how this downtime ultimately doesn't weigh that much on performance. However, remaining firmly above the pranged and the RDM.

Put bluntly, Casters don't have an uptime problem.

If melee has uptime problems it's because basically either a strategy to follow as a robot hasn't been studied yet, or the fight doesn't allow it, it's not like you can invent much.
A caster must always weigh their resources to achieve movement. but unlike melee, which once the strategy is ready, you just have to follow it and inevitably find yourself next to the boss, the caster has to think and vary his rotation, even arriving at compromises for damage/movement /strategy.