Do you think that Picto needs a nerf?

[Realfoxy]

I main rpr in EW and I have to agree...it wasn't very fun knowing I was basically playing the weakest melee. Like it was ok and I didn't really have any other choice since smn was gutted in EW and I didn't like any of the other melee. Plus I believe it wasn't great in TOP or DSR. In fact, I remember ppl saying that RPR was really unfun in EW Ultimates bc of the downtime and it sufferd more from the downtime than other melee jobs.

RPR being a gauge building job is naturally a bit disadvantaged in ultimates. However, being a gauge building job, its strength means that if you're in a competent group you can hold A LOT of resources going into the final phase and dump everything into meeting that final DPS check - which is the only one that really matters. So while it wasn't considered a top meta pick, it could still definitely pull its weight.

You can check the historical data on TOP if you don't believe me.

[Supersnow845]

Are we really comparing a job that favours full uptime (Reaper) vs a job that favours downtimes (Pictomancer) and still is at a genuinely competitive position with most high DPS jobs in full uptime? Reaper's damage was fading the moment any form of downtime was introduced, which DSR provided. Pictomancer is the reverse here, it actually escalates the damage numbers from that fight design while already being in a good position in full uptime, thus going massively ahead.

Should we really just buff all other DPS jobs to match Pictomancer's power level to move it into a position where it is more balanced, just so we can avoid nerfs? Because the difference in doing so is not the same as we had back with Reaper.

I never said we shouldn’t nerf PCT I said people are losing their minds that the devs are trying to fix PCT in the same way that they fixed RPR and that the only difference is that for PCT FRU hides this balance because it is favoured in FRU

[MrJPtheAssassin]

RPR being a gauge building job is naturally a bit disadvantaged in ultimates. However, being a gauge building job, its strength means that if you're in a competent group you can hold A LOT of resources going into the final phase and dump everything into meeting that final DPS check - which is the only one that really matters. So while it wasn't considered a top meta pick, it could still definitely pull its weight.

You can check the historical data on TOP if you don't believe me.

I believe you. I only going by what others have said in the pass and pretty much every I talked to who played rpr in dsr and top have said the same thing. The job is really unfun in those fights and you better off playing something else. That what I based my opinion on, how fun a job is in content. This is off-topic so Im not going to go to much more into it.

[Wayfinder3]

Are we really comparing a job that favours full uptime (Reaper) vs a job that favours downtimes (Pictomancer) and still is at a genuinely competitive position with most high DPS jobs in full uptime? Reaper's damage was fading the moment any form of downtime was introduced, which DSR provided. Pictomancer is the reverse here, it actually escalates the damage numbers from that fight design while already being in a good position in full uptime, thus going massively ahead.

Should we really just buff all other DPS jobs to match Pictomancer's power level to move it into a position where it is more balanced, just so we can avoid nerfs? Because the difference in doing so is not the same as we had back with Reaper.

No, because this isn’t a numbers issue. This is an issue with the the job design vs class design. If every job prior to picto hates downtime, then picto shows up and love it. Then it’s obvious that picto is going to have such a massive advantage in a fight designed with alot of it. SE needs to add downtime mechanics to other classes, give them ways to benefit from not hitting the boss that more substantial than say meditate.

Pictomancer is balanced nicely with black mage in savage, both are completely viable so any changes to picto that nerf will only serve to make it worse there or even more likely, ruin the mechanics of its design that makes it fun to play. Difficulty doesn’t matter since the difficulty between a high performing picto blm and rdm is basically interchangeable, SMN is the only caster that’s noticeably brain dead in its design. The alternative is to suck it up and give black mage meaningful support options so it doesn’t have to feel entitled to being the best in slot option at every step. This has caused problems for casters EVERY SINGLE EXPANSION pictomancer complaints now used to be levied against summoner back then before 6.0 gutted the job.

The problem is with the design of black mage and the everyone else. Changing pictomancer to fall in line with the style of play we’ve been groaning about for the last expansion is just going to send us further down this nonsense homogeneous arc that players hate but keep unintentionally advocating for with post like these.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

[...]

There is a lot of jobs that like ultimate-mode downtime.

PLD for Confiteor burst windows.
WAR for... well, Inner Release.
DRK for their multitude of damage gated behind CD rather than resource.
WHM to prep Afflatus Misery during downtime (sizeable gain)

DRG if you get to reopen reliably every 60s for Geirskogul windows
NIN for similar reason as DRG but with Ninjutsu charges + Hyosho every 60s
BRD (nowadays) due to song procs during downtime (Apex Arrow gauge), I think at least
BLM to a smaller degree with Polyglot stacks and Triplecast recharging
SMN to have more relative time of uptime be their Demi Primal phases

It's mainly jobs that focus heavily on generator-spender playstyles (GNB, RPR, VPR, DNC, MCH to a degree, RDM) that really dislike downtimes unless certain CDs come up. On the flipside, PCT is also a job that obviously really likes downtime - but at a much greater extent than the above mentioned jobs. This is fine, but not at the current values.

To say this "isn't" a numbers issue and insisting that the problem is just every other job not playing well into downtime unlike PCT and therefore blaming either this or content design feels like an olympic stretch.

But to keep our heads on solutions, buffing every other job to PCT's level isn't one - because that would just cause unnecessary powercreep when the idea is that old ultimates should remain relevant, which I think should include DPS checks.

[Supersnow845]

There is a lot of jobs that like ultimate-mode downtime.

PLD for Confiteor burst windows.
WAR for... well, Inner Release.
DRK for their multitude of damage gated behind CD rather than resource.
WHM to prep Afflatus Misery during downtime (sizeable gain)

DRG if you get to reopen reliably every 60s for Geirskogul windows
NIN for similar reason as DRG but with Ninjutsu charges + Hyosho every 60s
BRD (nowadays) due to song procs during downtime (Apex Arrow gauge), I think at least
BLM to a smaller degree with Polyglot stacks and Triplecast recharging
SMN to have more relative time of uptime be their Demi Primal phases

It's mainly jobs that focus heavily on generator-spender playstyles (GNB, RPR, VPR, DNC, MCH to a degree, RDM) that really dislike downtimes unless certain CDs come up. On the flipside, PCT is also a job that obviously really likes downtime - but at a much greater extent than the above mentioned jobs. This is fine, but not at the current values.

To say this "isn't" a numbers issue and insisting that the problem is just every other job not playing well into downtime unlike PCT and therefore blaming either this or content design feels like an olympic stretch.

But to keep our heads on solutions, buffing every other job to PCT's level isn't one - because that would just cause unnecessary powercreep when the idea is that old ultimates should remain relevant, which I think should include DPS checks.

Those jobs don’t “like” downtime, they can just partially mitigate it by not having important CD’s gated by boss uptime. Downtime still leads to cursed optimisation on these jobs because at their core every job in this game is designed to function correctly only in full uptime single target. Like using the simplest example in SMN, spamming your primals then going into your demis faster isn’t really “liking” downtime, it’s doing weird optimisation around it. And even then it has limits because if you drift your Demi’s you drift your burst window. SMN actually does this in FRU and it’s cursed AF. Soulsow, meditate, chakra spam and lilys are really the only examples of downtime tools that are ambivalent to the position of the downtime relative to the rotation and meditate and soulsow are both on heavily gauge affected jobs anyway

PCT is the only job that actually likes downtime because it can convert downtime into uptime and it has the least rigid rotation of any job in the game so it also doesn’t care about any sort of optimisation around messy downtime windows. PCT can stop whenever it wants, can move muses around to take advantage of momentary cleave and since they never make the burst a downtime phase they can prep it whenever they want

The only other job I’d say that doesn’t mind downtime/actually benefits from it is WHM and WHM has basically exactly the same system as PCT it’s just not as potent

[Wayfinder3]

With the exception of white mage, none of those jobs truly gain in the presence of downtime, they just lose much less than the gauge builders.

The fact is, having more jobs with unique mechanic that reward them in downtime scenarios while being inconsequential in full uptime scenarios is a net positive for class design and balance. It gives jobs different selling points and paths to their power.

The Olympic stretch is going for the gold. Nerfing picto becuase it dominates in one fight that majority of the player base will never is just the equivalent of giving everyone a participation award. That is to say, thanks for playing the same class as everyone else with a different skin. Black Mage and Picto are balanced in savage at the moment, the most popular raiding content in the game at this current moment. That is what is important. This whole thing just highlights how silly it was for SE to basically design none of the other jobs with a substantial gain from downtime. Even white mage could afford to gain more from it, however white mage is screwed by its proximity to astrologian, not becuase downtime like black mage is when compared to picto.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

[...]

I'm just gonna leave this with a "fair enough" - maybe my view on how jobs like downtime isn't quite in line with what other players perceive or what may be factual.

I just personally think something can/should be done with PCT directly rather than moving all other jobs around it - and I'd rather not make it change on a mechanical level, like requiring a target for Motif casts because that would just feel awful, just like Bard songs used to. The job doesn't need to be gutted and forced to swim along with RDM/SMN, but the job can also not just go unaffected; the power level it is at is quite real, regardless how we view job balance and what we think is the broken part here.

"Something" should happen.

[Supersnow845]

I'm just gonna leave this with a "fair enough" - maybe my view on how jobs like downtime isn't quite in line with what other players perceive or what may be factual.

I just personally think something can/should be done with PCT directly rather than moving all other jobs around it - and I'd rather not make it change on a mechanical level, like requiring a target for Motif casts because that would just feel awful, just like Bard songs used to. The job doesn't need to be gutted and forced to swim along with RDM/SMN, but the job can also not just go unaffected; the power level it is at is quite real, regardless how we view job balance and what we think is the broken part here.

"Something" should happen.

The other jobs shouldn’t be “balanced around PCT” they should be redesigned around PCT. Basically my general opinion of “if you have to nerf PCT do flat potency nerfs, don’t change its mechanical design” and “I don’t really care that PCT dominates in FRU because that’s where it’s designed to shine not because I main it in dungeons” is entirely borne from the fact that in my eyes PCT has ripped open the thin veneer of job design in this game and shown it to be a stale mess.

People shouldn’t look at PCT and go “it’s out of line nerf it”, they should look at PCT and go “why isn’t every job that well designed”. You don’t have to actually like PCT’s mechanical or visual design to realise that a freeform rotation that balances feeding buffs and doing higher personal damage that actually likes downtime and random cleave is far better designed than the rigid messes that make up the rest of the jobs that only barely function in the one scenario they are designed for (full uptime single target)

Like why do we continue to make ultimates when everyone but PCT hates downtime

PCT’s existence is good for showing off why the rest of job design is so bad. PCT is a crossroads in the game so to speak, we can either embrace PCT’s design and diversify the other jobs, or we can nerf PCT into the same stale mess as the other jobs and go back to complaining about homogenisation. That’s why I support flat potency nerfs that still leave PCT ahead in ultimates over any other fix on raw numbers if you take the stance of “okay it’s design is good and other jobs should follow but it doesn’t need to be top damage in every scenario” which is a fair point and why I’m not opposed to raw potency nerfs

[MrJPtheAssassin]

Those jobs don’t “like” downtime, they can just partially mitigate it by not having important CD’s gated by boss uptime. Downtime still leads to cursed optimisation on these jobs because at their core every job in this game is designed to function correctly only in full uptime single target. Like using the simplest example in SMN, spamming your primals then going into your demis faster isn’t really “liking” downtime, it’s doing weird optimisation around it. And even then it has limits because if you drift your Demi’s you drift your burst window. SMN actually does this in FRU and it’s cursed AF. Soulsow, meditate, chakra spam and lilys are really the only examples of downtime tools that are ambivalent to the position of the downtime relative to the rotation and meditate and soulsow are both on heavily gauge affected jobs anyway

PCT is the only job that actually likes downtime because it can convert downtime into uptime and it has the least rigid rotation of any job in the game so it also doesn’t care about any sort of optimisation around messy downtime windows. PCT can stop whenever it wants, can move muses around to take advantage of momentary cleave and since they never make the burst a downtime phase they can prep it whenever they want

The only other job I’d say that doesn’t mind downtime/actually benefits from it is WHM and WHM has basically exactly the same system as PCT it’s just not as potent

As someone who played smn some in EW, you are completely right. One primal exp I can think of was P2S. I HATED that fight as smn bc most ppl were holding their 2mins till after the forced downtime in Kampeos Harma I believe. The issue there was tho is there was just enough time to get a demi out so as smn it was better to use baha without your buff since spamming Ruin3 wasn't great and just accepting your burst window will be misline for the rest of the fight with everyone else's buffs after that. At least that's what I remember happening, and I hated it so much I switched to rdm for that fight. SMN really doesn't like downtime at all and as you say it leads to nightmare levels of optimisation.