Do you think that Picto needs a nerf?

[Wayfinder3]

{Continue}

In my opinion, we should be considering expanding the scope of the games combat. For example, the trinity of tank heal and DPS is way too archaic by this point this game needs a support role for classes who are designed to benefit others, dancer, red mage, ninja, etc… these are classes who’s identity is built around having options but are extremely limited in what they offer due to being DPS when that’s not why you bring them.
Adding a 4th classification and updating the play styles of these classes in addition to increasing the number of classes required for raid from 8 to 10 would allow for these ideas to flourish a bit better.

A far more realistic option is instead of changing pictomancer playstyle, change the other jobs so that they also benefit from its advantages in some way. Maybe allow red mage to generate black and white mana at an increased rate during downtime for more melee combos, or samurai to build sen without a target. Or ninja to store its mudra’s into scrolls to keep their mudra cr rotating. There are many ways to extrapolate what worked for picto and apply it to other jobs.

Nerfing picto is the easy option but if it comes at the expense of a class with a unique playstyle. All because it dominated in an encounter for less than 1% of the community that we only get 2 of. This community needs to forever stop complaining about job homogenization. This is the most unique class we got since red mage became the first “hybrid” class and all the suggestions everyone has is to nerf it and put black mage on top for some reason….which begs the question as to why anyone would play pictomancer if blm was just objectively better. See how the problem doesn’t go away.

[Wayfinder3]

And I just want to make sure people understand. Saying picto needs a nerf because it’s better than black mage is silly. One of them has to be better

People saying pictomancer needs a nerf because it’s trivialize ultimate is a very different argument so please don’t conflate the 2 in order to make an argument why your pet job isn’t the absolute best in the role. One is a game balancing decision, the other is a flaw in the games design. The fight can be the problem in this equation, not necessarily the class.

[Derio]

If picto is balanced in savage and not in ultimate due to fight design. Shouldnt they be looking at ultimate fight design? SE is in a difficult position.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

If picto is balanced in savage and not in ultimate due to fight design. Shouldnt they be looking at ultimate fight design? SE is in a difficult position.

"Balanced" is debatable considering all the other upsides Pictomancer has compared to a Black Mage, even in full-uptime fights (and then also apparently more than just competitive in terms of provided damage output) - completely ignoring the actual difficulty of the job.

It is also a bit difficult to review Ultimate design post-release to make adjustments; at best future content can be adjusted, but for everything that comes before?

[Lyth]

Pictomancer should be nerfed, and it needs to be nerfed this expansion before the design problems it creates drives away more players. The sensible solution is to just make PCT's motif system require uptime in order to generate its burst. If you do that, then you can balance both high uptime and high downtime cases simultaneously, while allowing the job to still be competitive.

[IOwn92FCHouses]

Pictomancer should be nerfed, and it needs to be nerfed this expansion before the design problems it creates drives away more players. The sensible solution is to just make PCT's motif system require uptime in order to generate its burst. If you do that, then you can balance both high uptime and high downtime cases simultaneously, while allowing the job to still be competitive.

You're delusional if you think picto's existence is driving away players in any notable degree. The vast majority of players don't do content where balance matters, haven't noticed/can't notice picto's strength as a job, or only hear of the issue through the grapevine. This discourse in this thread is the minority of the minority talking to each other about a problem that is most present in content said minority, and, in the case of fru, a minority of the minority, do.

If anything, Picto is keeping casuals playing because it's fun, easy to pick up, and "my raid friend said it was good!" Evidence being the extremely high play rate in casual content.

Unironically thinking picto is driving away players, in any significant way, is a go touch grass moment.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

You're delusional if you think picto's existence is driving away players in any notable degree. The vast majority of players don't do content where balance matters[...]

If the damage of Pictomancer was actually nerfed, the casuals who like Pictomancer's gameplay would still play it, because if they don't actually do content where that balance matters, then they also won't exactly be affected other than "my numbers are now lower I guess".

On the other hand, I am witnessing a staggering amount of Pictomancer-only slots on partyfinder in EU Light for high-end content (Future's Rewritten Ultimate at least), barring three other casters from a lot of parties. Frankly, high-level players ARE being affected by Pictomancer's overwhelming presence - do they not matter when saying "it's driving away players"?

[Realfoxy]

The real issue is that Pictomancer is the equivalent of letting the genie out of the bottle. It’s not really feasible to put the lid back on anymore because they introduced a true Hypercarry class into this game that is designed to maximize the buffs of the party member and is tuned to sacrifice uptime to make sure that gain is substantial...

OK I really don't get this attitude towards PCT.

PCT does not represent some fundamentally broken threat towards job design and balance. PCT is fun, I get it, but let's not pretend that just nerfing the job is going to magically suck all the fun out of it (unless your fun comes from being stupidly OP, in which case, tough luck).

Like I'm fine with a little imbalance between jobs in service of playstyle diversity. But you can't have PCT's playstyle be "does the highest damage in every single type of content. and brings raid utility as well". That's not having a niche that's just being overpowered!

The heal is fine, the shield is fine, you just need to tone back on the insane burst a bit. There's plenty of room to nerf motifs or tone back the raid buff strength while still making the job feel the same to play.

As a BLM main I don't have a problem with PCT outputting higher damage in full raid buff stacking comps designed around it. I do have a problem with PCT being higher in rDPS when rDPS doesn't capture how hard PCT feeds others' buffs, while also bringing better utility.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

Pictomancer should be nerfed, and it needs to be nerfed this expansion before the design problems it creates drives away more players. The sensible solution is to just make PCT's motif system require uptime in order to generate its burst. If you do that, then you can balance both high uptime and high downtime cases simultaneously, while allowing the job to still be competitive.

Im guess you saying making motifs requires a target...that may be one way to solve this but its also would affect Picto in ways other than dps. It would make the job feel really bad to play. We have already seen a system like this and it was brd's songs. Ask BRDs how much they loved the fact their songs used to require a target to use. Even in Mr happy rant video about Picto, he said the one thing they shouldn't do is make it where motifs require a target bc it would hurt the enjoyment of playing the job a lot more than its dps.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

OK I really don't get this attitude towards PCT.

PCT does not represent some fundamentally broken threat towards job design and balance. PCT is fun, I get it, but let's not pretend that just nerfing the job is going to magically suck all the fun out of it (unless your fun comes from being stupidly OP, in which case, tough luck).

Like I'm fine with a little imbalance between jobs in service of playstyle diversity. But you can't have PCT's playstyle be "does the highest damage in every single type of content. and brings raid utility as well". That's not having a niche that's just being overpowered!

The heal is fine, the shield is fine, you just need to tone back on the insane burst a bit. There's plenty of room to nerf motifs or tone back the raid buff strength while still making the job feel the same to play.

As a BLM main I don't have a problem with PCT outputting higher damage in full raid buff stacking comps designed around it. I do have a problem with PCT being higher in rDPS when rDPS doesn't capture how hard PCT feeds others' buffs, while also bringing better utility.

Depends on how hard you nerf it. I know if PCT was nerfed to be around SMN/RDM levels I wouldn't find it very fun bc what the point of even bringing it when I could help my team a lot more if I bring a caster who can rez... I bring this up bc I have seen a decent number of players who think PCT, RDM, and SMN should be around the same dps when I find that dumb. If they were around the same DPS then what's the point in PCT, the other two have better utilities and have rezs. You also see the opposite where you see parties locking PCT out of parties bc they would rather have a caster who rez them than one who only has a shield and a 2 min heal that they have no control over. I do think PCT needs nerf but it should be among the other melees not with the two rez mages.