Do you think that Picto needs a nerf?

[Carighan]

PCT is far enough ahead in ultimate that balancing it in ultimate without changing motif design (which is horribly unpopular) would shove it so far down in savage as to be next to useless.

This is just not true, we have statistics available publicly after all.

If you nerf Picto by 8% overall, it'd drop to or just above Black Mage, Reaper and Ninja in rDPS, but below Dragoon and Monk.

In Savage this would drop it to just below Reaper, but still the entire "gap" (~6%) ahead of the 5 utility-burdered jobs RDM, SMN, BRD, MCH and DNC.

So in other words, in Ultimate it'd be very marginally stronger than it ideally would need to be (ideal nerf ~10%), but in Savage it'd be very marginally weaker (ideal nerf ~6% or 7%).

Consider how tiny a variation that is. We're talking 2% DPS difference in either direction. It's an absolutely negligible amount considering how trivially it can be achieved (cut all potencies by 8% across the board). And that's assuming one would even use an overall nerf, like I said before the smarter way to achieve this 8% reduction is an ~14% nerf to the Muses + Starry + Drip + Holy + Comet, because this affects the downtime-gain very slightly more in the final result than the straight casting setup, meaning it'd be more like 9% in Ult and 7% in Savage. But again, that's not even needed. Considering how Reaper and Ninja and so very much aren't hardblocked from Savage, someone else dealing their damage while being highly mobile and bringing a raid buff like them isn't going to get blocked, especially because the caster alternative (Black Mage) comes with the moody attitude you always get when you let a black mage into your party. :P

[Supersnow845]

This is just not true, we have statistics available publicly after all.

If you nerf Picto by 8% overall, it'd drop to or just above Black Mage, Reaper and Ninja in rDPS, but below Dragoon and Monk.

In Savage this would drop it to just below Reaper, but still the entire "gap" (~6%) ahead of the 5 utility-burdered jobs RDM, SMN, BRD, MCH and DNC.

So in other words, in Ultimate it'd be very marginally stronger than it ideally would need to be (ideal nerf ~10%), but in Savage it'd be very marginally weaker (ideal nerf ~6% or 7%).

Consider how tiny a variation that is. We're talking 2% DPS difference in either direction. It's an absolutely negligible amount considering how trivially it can be achieved (cut all potencies by 8% across the board). And that's assuming one would even use an overall nerf, like I said before the smarter way to achieve this 8% reduction is an ~14% nerf to the Muses + Starry + Drip + Holy + Comet, because this affects the downtime-gain very slightly more in the final result than the straight casting setup, meaning it'd be more like 9% in Ult and 7% in Savage. But again, that's not even needed. Considering how Reaper and Ninja and so very much aren't hardblocked from Savage, someone else dealing their damage while being highly mobile and bringing a raid buff like them isn't going to get blocked, especially because the caster alternative (Black Mage) comes with the moody attitude you always get when you let a black mage into your party. :P

According to current savage statistics even using cDPS which massively biases PCT because of its design PCT is 9% ahead of RDM (it’s 7% ahead in rDPS) and that’s at max which biases PCT as well. Using the more even 90th PCT is ahead of RDM by 7% in savage. So an 8% nerf puts it below RDM in savage

Sure high performing players aren’t doing savage in 7.1 but jobs also received buffs in 7.1 so you can’t just ignore 7.1 data and only use 7.05

However if the data can play out that way I literally have zero opposition to that design

[wojtyla]

Move some of the damage from the muses onto the motifs themselves. Makes the class gain less from painting in downtime while still being a gain and not feeling as bad as being unable to paint without a target.

[Carighan]

Move some of the damage from the muses onto the motifs themselves. Makes the class gain less from painting in downtime while still being a gain and not feeling as bad as being unable to paint without a target.

Interesting, although I would not make it "If you have a target, optionally this'll deal 300 potency damage but if not then not", rather I'd make it so that the motifs give a selfbuff if executed with a target that enhances the next muse. Same functionality in the end (and same numbers, just make the muse -300 potency and the buff gives it +300 again) but it feels cleaner and less arbitrary.

Still, all quite complicated solutions. Just nerf numbers across the board. The issue is primarily not whether Picto is too strong at X and too weak at Y: It's too strong, period. Across the board. In everything. In particular given it's flexibility and near-exhaustive toolkit. It's okay for it to deal less damage. This isn't a Samurai where you actually have to do something for your damage, or a Black Mage where you are distracted by constantly having to post on the forum about how tough Black Mage is.

[ForteNightshade]

This game is incredibly scripted which is why cast difficulty is meaningless

But melee uptime is such a difficult consideration they must be compensated for it

Which is especially ironic given you used triple cast as a consideration where you actively want to use that in the burst window so a strat that uses triple cast to force the BLM to move that much is ironically caster unfriendly

Name a single fight where you lack the following as a Caster through no fault of your own:

1. Ability to slidecast
2. Movement resources (Triplecast, Swiftcast, Acceleration and etc)
3. Can preposition ahead of time

Conversely, M4 alone has several mechanics that force melee off the boss with no way to adjust or greed. Or doing so will risk wiping the group. Furthermore, uptime strats are inherently riskier and wouldn't really be necessary in a double caster comp.

As for my Triplecast example. Pulling it out of raid buffs is a significantly smaller loss than a melee needing to result to "Piercing Talon" So much in fact, prior to buffing it after five years, it was actually better to simply use our AoE combo, specifically with DRG!!!!!!. Regardless, like I already said, Black Mage competes with melee damage. Therefore, it's a moot point. It makes comparable sacrifices (moving Triplecast) that melee do (using range GCDs) while dealing comparable damage.

[Supersnow845]

Name a single fight where you lack the following as a Caster through no fault of your own:

1. Ability to slidecast
2. Movement resources (Triplecast, Swiftcast, Acceleration and etc)
3. Can preposition ahead of time

Conversely, M4 alone has several mechanics that force melee off the boss with no way to adjust or greed. Or doing so will risk wiping the group. Furthermore, uptime strats are inherently riskier and wouldn't really be necessary in a double caster comp.

As for my Triplecast example. Pulling it out of raid buffs is a significantly smaller loss than a melee needing to result to "Piercing Talon" So much in fact, prior to buffing it after five years, it was actually better to simply use our AoE combo, specifically with DRG!!!!!!. Regardless, like I already said, Black Mage competes with melee damage. Therefore, it's a moot point. It makes comparable sacrifices (moving Triplecast) that melee do (using range GCDs) while dealing comparable damage.

That’s basically what the other person was trying to explain to you

M4 has a few GCD’s that force you off the boss with no possible way to alleviate it; you just have to take the downtime. But other than that basically everyone just does this fight with melee uptime strats (not that you really have to vary almost any strat to actually give melee good uptime the default strat just has melee uptime)

Meanwhile you are reducing caster uptime concerns to “lol just do it”. When you are progging a fight you have a limited number of uptime tools for movement and you have to learn over multiple pulls when to use them, which one to use where and how to minimise DPS loss. You often have to go back change and correct your plan over time to ensure you maximise it and sometimes you still run short on casts

So basically you are comparing the fact that melees have a few instances of enforced downtime but basically get their theoretical maximum by default to casters who theoretically have higher uptime (except in instances where there is simply too much movement to handle which affects PCT and RDM worse) but actually have to learn to map out their entire rotation to facilitate it

In that setting I see caster as the harder role but back when uptime concerns of the melee affects danger for everyone I saw melee as the harder role

[NightHour]

This is a better representation of a current Picto, by the way:



Black Mage and Summoner found dead in a ditch, my lord. And dont even look at machinist, LMAO.

Dancer's only doing as well as it is because PCT is broken.

Move some of the damage from the muses onto the motifs themselves. Makes the class gain less from painting in downtime while still being a gain and not feeling as bad as being unable to paint without a target.

Shift damage out of burst and put it into Fire in Red, Aero in Green and whatever the blue one is called in the 1,2,3 combo.


If the burst they set up for free is weaker but their damage outside burst is higher, they'll feel downtime a bit more... right?

[fulminating]

Won’t moving damage to the filler make motifs even more of a gain in downtime as the damage cost to paint in uptime is higher than current?

[Supersnow845]

^correct

Moving damage from motifs to filler is a small nerf in full uptime as PCT can’t burst as hard but it’s a buff in downtime relative to classes that can’t compensate for downtime (so everyone but PCT) because the cost benefit of moving the motifs into downtime is now higher

[Kabooa]

So I had a whole write out about what and why we should shift where, and then compared logs to see how it would come out.

And the conclusion I came to is just remove the party buff from Starry Muse, lmao.