Picto is still the worst thing ever

[Supersnow845]

The request here isn't to make BLM strictly ahead in FRU because that would just result in obscene numbers on BLM in full uptime fights, doesn't take a PhD to figure that out. Having jobs be ahead "a bit" due to situational advantages is something completely okay, but Pictomancer is not ahead "a bit", it's downright demolishing DPS checks in FRU, no? Also I do not see why BLM needs to be ahead of all melees either, I'm not sure why you are derailing the conversation by introducing melees about 6.X damage philosophy.

I do not see why BLM needs to be changed if BLM is actually one of the better designed jobs that doesn't just go "2min ability to burst" like the others, the damage kit is fine and like many jobs, has reasonable gains/recovery for downtime - it is Pictomancer that has disproportionally high gains in this scenario allowing it to do what it does. "Maybe" we could give BLM a bit of extra utility to justify it being lower? Beyond that, BLM is mechanically sound. Don't get me wrong though - Pictomancer is ALSO mechanically sound, but it simply should not have this much damage on top of the utility, regardless what version of uptime (Savage, Ultimate) we are talking about.

Keep Pictomancer mechanically as is, simply lower the potencies where it is a bit below BLM in full-uptime and has opportunity of going ahead of BLM in ultimate raids with frequent downtimes. Or how would this not be an okay thing for you?

I’m not saying I wouldn’t be fine with that particular scenario I’m saying the whole “BLM only brings damage so it has to be higher than X Y Z job” depending on the expansion is a tale as old as time. Like I said we had this discussion in 4.x 5.x 6.x and now 7.x, I mean you’ve returned it to this exact point. No I don’t particularly have a problem with PCT being lower in full uptime but why does BLM HAVE to be higher by the same argument

I’m not derailing the argument by discussing melees specifically I’m just pointing out we have this same song and dance with BLM every expansion, what does it take for anyone who has utility to be allowed to do better than BLM? Only in scenarios that disfavour BLM? That’s one fight every year at absolute best

And OP was specifically talking about PCT’s dominance in FRU in relation to BLM which is almost entirely a difference borne of ability to mitigate downtime. You can argue PCT is also too far ahead of the melee that don’t hate downtime (like DRG and MNK) and I’d agree, but OP is whining about the problem between PCT and BLM which FRU is not an example of

[Sifpatata]

Another Patch, still not even the slightest effort to do anything about the horrible state of class balance.

This joke is really going too far.

I cant even look forward to any updates until LITERALLY ANYTHING is done about picto AND you give me back my 1% to enochian i swear can we please acknowledge how absolutely ridiculous it was that anyone on the dev team could have even begun to have the thought that enochian needed any kind of nerf at all while uh, hello, picto is making dps checks so trivial we have to stand still and do nothing for 10 seconds?

Yes I'm just going to periodically come here to complain about picto until something is done about it.

ATTENTION DEVELOPERS: PICTOMANCER MAKES THE GAME LESS FUN.

Did you see it this time?

PICTOMANCER IS AWFUL AND UNFUN TO HAVE AROUND

Got it now? Now gimme back Enochian. Make it 35%.

Cry harder

[Realfoxy]

Isn’t it starting to become noticeable that BLM’s design within the caster meta is becoming a problem because we have this discussion literally every expansion

In 4.x and 5.x it was SMN who did competitive damage with more advantages, in 6.x it was its position relative to melee who bring utility and now in 7.x it’s PCT who does more damage with more advantages

Maybe the whole “I must be first all the time because I only bring damage” is a dated flawed concept that BLM continuing to end up in the toilet compared to other casters and even the melee is representing.

If BLM HAS to be first for every fight for eternity because it brings nothing but its damage maybe it’s time to change BLM, especially since OP is discussing BLM against PCT in FRU which specifically is a fight type that favours PCT and disfavours BLM, if BLM was ahead of PCT in FRU in the current design BLM would either be so far ahead in savage or PCT so far behind the balance would be 10* worse than it is now. The two are well balanced in savage

They aren't balanced in savage though, PCT was ahead by in 10% in cDPS in patch 7.05. And let me assure you, the 7.1 buffs did not buff BLM by anywhere close to that.

I keep seeing people complain that if BLM gets buffed too much then PCT won't have a niche. I don't mind BLM being a little bit behind PCT. I absolutely do mind when it's behind a lot in content that favours it (full uptime) and is absolutely getting wrecked in ultimate content?

How do the PCT defenders not see how much of a massive balance problem SE has on their hands right now? Like we could all see how absurd PCT was going to be with downtime as soon as the job was released. And instead of changing ultimate fight design or making changes to PCT, they went ahead and released a fight that massively favours one particular DPS job. Not just to the point of "NIN is better because it's ult" but "this job can singlehandedly carry phases by bringing 5k+ DPS to the entire raid".

Seriously this PCT cope needs to stop.

[Supersnow845]

They aren't balanced in savage though, PCT was ahead by in 10% in cDPS in patch 7.05. And let me assure you, the 7.1 buffs did not buff BLM by anywhere close to that.

I keep seeing people complain that if BLM gets buffed too much then PCT won't have a niche. I don't mind BLM being a little bit behind PCT. I absolutely do mind when it's behind a lot in content that favours it (full uptime) and is absolutely getting wrecked in ultimate content?

How do the PCT defenders not see how much of a massive balance problem SE has on their hands right now? Like we could all see how absurd PCT was going to be with downtime as soon as the job was released. And instead of changing ultimate fight design or making changes to PCT, they went ahead and released a fight that massively favours one particular DPS job. Not just to the point of "NIN is better because it's ult" but "this job can singlehandedly carry phases by bringing 5k+ DPS to the entire raid".

Seriously this PCT cope needs to stop.

cDPS isn’t the be all and end all either, cDPS is specifically for speed kills because it represents a jobs ability to buff feed, comparison of a job that has good buff feed and bad buff feed from the perspective of general balance is much better done as rDPS in which they are almost equal. Looking at PCT and BLM together under cDPS to paint general balance pictures is like comparing SAM to NIN under aDPS and saying that’s justification for SAM to be nerfed because it’s so far ahead of NIN

But like I’ve said 4029592@6@3 times, I have no problem nerfing PCT, I’m pushing back against the age old BLM discussion of “I only do damage so I must do the most damage”, the only place PCT is doing the sort of damage that OP is losing their mind about is FRU, FRU specifically favours PCT and disfavours BLM, does that mean that PCT isn’t still too strong; of course not, PCT/DRK/AST/SCH are all disgustingly too strong right now. But it OP wants to complain about PCT dominating BLM then FRU is exactly not the content to point out this discrepency

[Realfoxy]

cDPS isn’t the be all and end all either, cDPS is specifically for speed kills because it represents a jobs ability to buff feed, comparison of a job that has good buff feed and bad buff feed from the perspective of general balance is much better done as rDPS in which they are almost equal. Looking at PCT and BLM together under cDPS to paint general balance pictures is like comparing SAM to NIN under aDPS and saying that’s justification for SAM to be nerfed because it’s so far ahead of NIN

But like I’ve said 4029592@6@3 times, I have no problem nerfing PCT, I’m pushing back against the age old BLM discussion of “I only do damage so I must do the most damage”, the only place PCT is doing the sort of damage that OP is losing their mind about is FRU, FRU specifically favours PCT and disfavours BLM, does that mean that PCT isn’t still too strong; of course not, PCT/DRK/AST/SCH are all disgustingly too strong right now. But it OP wants to complain about PCT dominating BLM then FRU is exactly not the content to point out this discrepency

Why would you ignore cDPS when balancing jobs though? It's not like you can just ignore the existence of raid buffs when it's very clear that the designers are trying to balance jobs with them in mind.

The definition of cDPS is the damage your job contributes to the raid - your own personal damage, the raid buffs you bring AND the damage that you feed into other people's raid buffs. For an individual player it's literally the damage you contribute to the raid.

So yes, we should look at cDPS, and yes, BLM is still losing out in full uptime Savage to PCT.

And look, if PCT players want to lose all utility and compete with BLM for top DPS, that's fine by me. Hell, we could even have BLM ahead in rDPS (favoring situations like uncoordinated PFs or TOP P4 where raid buffs are not as important) while PCT is ahead in cDPS (favoring situations where burst alignment is important). But looking at Savage stats, that's very much not the case (ignoring 7.1 because no one's playing in 7.1).

[Supersnow845]

Why would you ignore cDPS when balancing jobs though? It's not like you can just ignore the existence of raid buffs when it's very clear that the designers are trying to balance jobs with them in mind.

The definition of cDPS is the damage your job contributes to the raid - your own personal damage, the raid buffs you bring AND the damage that you feed into other people's raid buffs. For an individual player it's literally the damage you contribute to the raid.

So yes, we should look at cDPS, and yes, BLM is still losing out in full uptime Savage to PCT.

And look, if PCT players want to lose all utility and compete with BLM for top DPS, that's fine by me. Hell, we could even have BLM ahead in rDPS (favoring situations like uncoordinated PFs or TOP P4 where raid buffs are not as important) while PCT is ahead in cDPS (favoring situations where burst alignment is important). But looking at Savage stats, that's very much not the case (ignoring 7.1 because no one's playing in 7.1).

I’m not saying ignore it I’m saying it’s not the only relevant measure of balance because high performance in cDPS is reliant on comp and clear time. Looking at the top cDPS parses is like looking at the number 1 speed kill and going “yep that’s the number one speed kill” then balancing everything around that. It’s not meaningless but it’s not the only important stat either. rDPS gives a better representation of average performance when under the situation of kill time and buff comp being not under the control of everyone simultaneously

Regardless you just bought the point back to again what I’m trying to push back against “if PCT wants to lose all its utility and compete with BLM”

If your only identity is “I need to better than everyone else or I’m useless” that’s a flawed identity and needs to change

[Carighan]

Why would you ignore cDPS when balancing jobs though?

I think the point was to look at (mostly) rDPS instead, as it presents a better overall picture of how jobs interact and perform in the context of such interactions, instead of focusing nearly-exclusively on the very upper end of speed kill performance.

That doesn't change that Picto needs a pretty hard nerf, but just saying, cDPS isn't some magical metric that is universally better.

[Valence]

So a little bit of history there. In EW when DSR dropped in 6.1, the game balance was in a similarly awful state with some of the same culprits (MCH) and some other culprits, namely PLD and WAR that were more than 400 rDPS below their counterparts, which generated extremely lopsided party comp results as well notably for phase 3. It became such an obvious problem when the P8S doorboss enrage fiasco appeared, and lo and behold, SE emergency buffed WAR and PLD to match the others. But in the whole duration of 6.1? Those full 4 months? The job balanced remained as garbo as it was.

I find it interesting that similar patterns are repeating this time. It feels like the whole ship is set to continue on its course without anybody steering the wheel. This is what I find worrying the most. Balance patterns have been going through the same pitfalls and bumps since SHB dropped with an alarming formulaic regularity.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

Honestly, I don't know why ppl are acting so surprised...Ff14 always has had balancing issues esp at the beginning of an expac and esp in the caster role. I still say that caster is the worst-balanced role in the game. Before SMN was sundered in EW, it was threatening BLM in parties bc it did competitive dps and came with a rez. After the sundering(the 6.0 rework) it dropped down to rdm's levels. Even then SMN was causing slight issues bc it was easy to play and did more dps than rdm even tho both jobs are pretty similar in what they bring to a party. Then you had BLM in EW who was only doing DPS of a utility melee and that made ppl mad bc BLM only thing is damage and nothing more. Now we have a 4th caster who is somewhere in the middle(has utility but no rez and high dps). Admitty PCT is too strong, Im do not disagree with that. I do think it needs nerf but I also think the caster role will forever be in a mess balance-wise because of the combat rez and BLM's only identity of "I have to have the highest dps or Im useless).

The reason why I feel this way is because of how parties are set up and the 1% boost. So let's say PCT gets nerfed tomorrow and it lands somewhere between the melees and the two rez casters. Who going to get the caster spot then? If history has told us anything then that caster spot will always be defaulted to a caster with the all mightily rez esp in prog. Ok, that only leaves the flex spot left, BLM honest is a better choice here if PCT does too little DPS (around smn/rdm or even between them and the melee) since it has the highest DPS or another melee who has better dps as pct and has utility. This why I say PCT needs to do at least utility melee levels of DPS just to be able to compete for the flex spot, if it's below the melee then ppl will take a 2nd melee or BLM, and since PCT doesn't have a rez it most likely never be picked for caster role since ppl would rather take smn/rdm to help with mistakes and recovery. Overall this is why I think the caster role is unbalanced, right now its bc PCT does so much damage that it overshadows all the casters but if it gets nerfed too hard then we have PCT being overshadowed by RDM/SMN bc doesn't have a rez and BLM because he doesn't have high dps compare to it and other melee.

Yes PCT needs a nerf, I just hope it doesn't get sent below the melee bc then we never see it again. I also hope one day we see casters role reworked, getting rid of the caster rez and giving BLM a new identity other than " I have to be the best or am useless"

[Wayfinder3]

Honestly, I don't know why ppl are acting so surprised...Ff14 always has had balancing issues esp at the beginning of an expac and esp in the caster role. I still say that caster is the worst-balanced role in the game. Before SMN was sundered in EW, it was threatening BLM in parties bc it did competitive dps and came with a rez. After the sundering(the 6.0 rework) it dropped down to rdm's levels. Even then SMN was causing slight issues bc it was easy to play and did more dps than rdm even tho both jobs are pretty similar in what they bring to a party. Then you had BLM in EW who was only doing DPS of a utility melee and that made ppl mad bc BLM only thing is damage and nothing more. Now we have a 4th caster who is somewhere in the middle(has utility but no rez and high dps). Admitty PCT is too strong, Im do not disagree with that. I do think it needs nerf but I also think the caster role will forever be in a mess balance-wise because of the combat rez and BLM's only identity of "I have to have the highest dps or Im useless).

The reason why I feel this way is because of how parties are set up and the 1% boost. So let's say PCT gets nerfed tomorrow and it lands somewhere between the melees and the two rez casters. Who going to get the caster spot then? If history has told us anything then that caster spot will always be defaulted to a caster with the all mightily rez esp in prog. Ok, that only leaves the flex spot left, BLM honest is a better choice here if PCT does too little DPS (around smn/rdm or even between them and the melee) since it has the highest DPS or another melee who has better dps as pct and has utility. This why I say PCT needs to do at least non utility melee levels of DPS just to be able to compete for the flex spot, if it's below the melee then ppl will take a 2nd melee or BLM, and since PCT doesn't have a rez it most likely never be picked for caster role since ppl would rather take smn/rdm to help with mistakes and recovery. Overall this is why I think the caster role is unbalanced, right now its bc PCT does so much damage that it overshadows all the casters but if it gets nerfed too hard then we have PCT being overshadowed by RDM/SMN bc doesn't have a rez and BLM because he doesn't have high dps compare to it and other melee.

Yes PCT needs a nerf, I just hope it doesn't get sent below the melee bc then we never see it again. I also hope one day we see casters role reworked, getting rid of the caster rez and giving BLM a new identity other than " I have to be the best or am useless"

I agree, I’ve been saying it for a long time but caster raise should’ve died or been reworked as a role action available to all 4 of them for a long time now. It causes these issues right here as no other role has such a disparity between its top performers and its lowest options.