Perhaps it's about time to re examine Pictomancer/Scholar?

[Valence]

I know SE's philosophy is to balance things around win rates, but I'd still be curious to see what they intend to do with those jobs, which according to every high rated player I've talked to + myself, is a little... busted, to say the least?
I think a lot of people talk about scholar, but pictomancer a lot less so, and yet that job literally does everything and murders everybody casually as well.

SCH:
- Main grievance is on Chain Stratagem. We can discuss in details all the math about the kit perhaps, but I think everybody has a problem with this ability in particular.

PCT:
- Like all casters has a strong defensive shield AND can dash and sprint for free every 15s
- Can burst from 25y casually non stop, and the burst is pretty wild too.
-> Both of those combined make the job extremely hard to catch and actually kill.

What do people think?

[Atreus]

SCH yes. Shield cracks in general aren't particularly enjoyed by a lot of CCers, especially an oGCD one. Double heal down with DRK is also a lesson we should have learned in the Feast.

PCT yes, but carefully. The 8k shield spread may be a bit much, but the rest I'm not really mad at.

[Valence]

Remember PCT also has a heal down as well.

[Esmoire]

The thing with PCT is it has these powerful crowd control effects, buffs, and debuffs, but it suffers from the same problems as their LB: everything they do does too much at once, which is a downside when you only want a certain benefit now but a separate outcome at a different time. You can't just hold onto your motifs, because you are losing too much potential damage for a role that does a lot of poke. But if you throw it out, you are not always getting the debuff you'd want right now. As far attacks are concerned, IMO PCT is fine as the caster with high overall artillery throughput because of the preparation required and because of how much you need to choose between damage or desired utility since, while it feels great when both of the things you want happen at the same time, realistically what you want is far away in your rotation. Machinist players experience something similar, and because of that, we can have some of the tools be particularly cracked in certain situations.

If they touch something, it would definitely be defensive utility.

[Loggos]

I have to respectfully disagree. I hope that PCT can stay at the place it is at least for a bit because for the first time it actually seems to be competitive. Even after the 7.1. rework it was considered a joke by most people. The high level players I have talked to viewed it as unplayable in crystal at 7.1. and later on as a somewhat playable off-meta/meme job but not at all a busted pick.

I think the purify-mp change added a lot of value to the job since it has two big CC skills. But conversely this also means if we take this away it would fall back into off-meta job territory so I don't think the overall kit is a huge unbalanced problem. I would argue it has a lot of its own counters already built into the base kit.
I really agree with Esmoire here:

IMO PCT is fine as the caster with high overall artillery throughput because of the preparation required and because of how much you need to choose between damage or desired utility since, while it feels great when both of the things you want happen at the same time, realistically what you want is far away in your rotation.

Also, PCT has strong but slow hits, meaning that enemies often have time to recover (or even guard preemptively) if the PCT is not supported. Because of the slow pace of their attacks they're able to reduce a target's HP significantly but sometimes struggle to get in the killing blows because the target can escape inbetween attacks. So despite their raw power on paper PCT often feels a lot more like a support job because of its dependency of other DPS.
(I'm not saying PCTs don't get kills or can't snipe enemies but imho they aren't these overtuned backline murder machines either due to the sluggishness/comparably slow speed and clunkiness that's inherent to the execution of their high pressure skills.)

PCT's LB has also been discussed a lot already. Even though it's powerful if you read the tool tip its execution can be tricky (and clunky) which I think evens out the strong advantages it brings. If it works it can really help your team but pulling it off requires a mix of good game sense, a somewhat lucky situation/good "game conditions" (that let you LB on the crystal for example) and many resources (full mp, guard, tempera shield, and preferrably a stun). With all that effort and consideration that has to go into the LB I do think its power is fine as it is because many won't be able to pull it off reliably and in "optimal" conditions. And a sub-optimal PCT LB, while still better than dying and losing it, is a lot less impressive.

--

Where PCT shines is survivability but I do think that is a good niche for it to have because it's a somewhat terrible duellist. PCT is not really designed to go face to face with others so running is all it has. I'm glad it does that aspect well at least.

Esp. because the job's survivability does suffer from the netcode and the animations in two ways:

Holy in White's heal takes ages to come out as the heal is located at the end of the animation (as opposed to the shield which comes out at the start). You can die a lot while casting it. You kind of have to use it in advance; it doesn't work well as an emergency "Oh crap" button (hence, it doesn't really function as a quick "extra recuperate" most of the time). Compared to BLM, it's not nearly as fast as the heal on Xenoglossy for example.

Switching palettes to access your heals is often impaired by netcode (on a regular basis nothing happens when you press the skill; if that happens in emergency situations you are screwed). Which is not my advocating to remove palettes - I don't want PCT to be neutered like RDM.
In its current state PCT's survivability still requires foresight and is an area of skill expression because everything's rather slow and sluggish. To me this evens out the theoretical strength of its survival kit.

[Valence]

The thing with PCT is it has these powerful crowd control effects, buffs, and debuffs, but it suffers from the same problems as their LB: everything they do does too much at once, which is a downside when you only want a certain benefit now but a separate outcome at a different time. You can't just hold onto your motifs, because you are losing too much potential damage for a role that does a lot of poke. But if you throw it out, you are not always getting the debuff you'd want right now. As far attacks are concerned, IMO PCT is fine as the caster with high overall artillery throughput because of the preparation required and because of how much you need to choose between damage or desired utility since, while it feels great when both of the things you want happen at the same time, realistically what you want is far away in your rotation. Machinist players experience something similar, and because of that, we can have some of the tools be particularly cracked in certain situations.

If they touch something, it would definitely be defensive utility.

I don't disagree with that assessment, but I also do think that PCT is a much better MCH in most ways right now. Both aren't even comparable in terms of raw effectiveness. It feels like a MCH that you just can't kill unless they're the last one standing. They don't have to come close, everything they nuke is 25y of range, they can slip away and freesprint at the smallest threat. Their crowd control is also infinitely better.

It may or may not be a problem of design, even though it can feel a little bloated, but more a problem of balance.

[Loggos]

Genuine question but how frequently is PCT picked at the highest levels? I don't deny that the job is in a much better state now but I also feel as if this description overstates its power? I never had the impression the class is a particular headache to have on the enemy team and that you can counter it fairly. But then again I also don't play at the highest levels. So I'm curious if meta has shifted up there and if crystal/omega/ultima PCTs are egregiously strong/unbalanced?
Where do they stand in the meta compared to other classes atm (RDM, BLM, SMN, BRD, WHM, etc.)?

I can completely see how MCH's design feels unfair compared to PCT but I'm not sure this is indicative of PCT's design being the problem (and needing change) and rather that MCH needs improvement?

[Valence]

Genuine question but how frequently is PCT picked at the highest levels? I don't deny that the job is in a much better state now but I also feel as if this description overstates its power? I never had the impression the class is a particular headache to have on the enemy team and that you can counter it fairly. But then again I also don't play at the highest levels. So I'm curious if meta has shifted up there and if crystal/omega/ultima PCTs are egregiously strong/unbalanced?
Where do they stand in the meta compared to other classes atm (RDM, BLM, SMN, BRD, WHM, etc.)?

I can completely see how MCH's design feels unfair compared to PCT but I'm not sure this is indicative of PCT's design being the problem (and needing change) and rather that MCH needs improvement?

It's picked a lot, because it plays right into what people complains about the "ranged meta", which doesn't necessarily means ranged jobs are better, but that DT introduced a lot of ranged nukes and a lot less requirements for ranged jobs to go melee. I don't necessarily think that a job like PCT having everything on a 25y metric is a bad design if it can give the class an identity, but it also happens that PCT is one of the four main nukers in the game (with SMN, MCH and DRG). You'll note that all of the three others have to get close at one point or another, and two out of those have no escape tools while one (mch) is the squishiest job in the game by far. The complaints I've seen about PCT are usually not that it has one specific broken tool, but that it's bloated to a point that it can do everything on top of surviving close to BLM levels without having to choose between damage or defense, and without the cast times on what matters to deal damage. On top of it, its CC and damage/vuln support is crazy good and AoE.

But currently the main complaints found all across the board is about SCH over anything else, as usual. Unlike PCT that does literally everything, SCH actually offers absolutely broken tools and combos that are meta defining on a S tier level (healing reduction stacking notably in conjunction with Sole Survivor, something that stinks back from the days of Feast, guard break on the oGCD to name a few).


Edit: it can also be very hard to gauge a job's effectiveness at the macro game level when they don't necessarily directly hit you where it hurts personally during games. For instance, SCH is the perfect example of this for a lot of players until you can actually notice what a guard break on demand can do with high level games since it essentially acts as a cheat against the normal flow of engagements and deny a guard (which is why guard breaks haven't sat very well within high rankers so far as I can tell), or when you actually get to deal with a sole survivor + biolysis combo as the burst target for the enemy team (it's rough, but it will fly way over the head of many players how impactful it is, especially at lower ranks where focused bursts matter a lot less and are a lot less followed). Similarly you won't feel what a vuln up +10/20% from a PCT will do to a team the same way you'll feel, say, one bursting you with the correct tools and also having access to what only BRD also has at long range: OGCD crowd control which can be instantly paired with an alpha strike.

For example, if I had to point at a single job that I find absolutely obnoxious to deal with and oppressive at a personal level, it would be GNB, even at crystal+ where it's a lot less dominating, because it's a job you constantly have right in your face being a huge pain in the ass (or just when your team can't even kill one). But it doesn't mean that GNB is being a bigger problem at the meta/macro level, and I do think that's also the difference between what SCH offers, and what PCT offers. PCT cannot swing games like SCH can for example.


Edit 2: also I won't claim to hold the truth on this, and even though I evolve at crystal+ I'm actually informed by a lot of echoes from other better players, and I wanted to stir up a discussion about it there. It's very possible that I'm blind sided by the only circles I'm interacting with without seeing other points of views on the matter.

[Mercury_Grey]

Remove PCT line silence then it would be more balanced or even jsut make it so it either has a silence or knock back not both

[Loggos]

snip

Thank you for your elaborate feedback (I have completely forgotten about this which is why I'm only replying now, sorry).


These points make sense to me.

I wonder if that jump to OP-status came with the purify mp costs?
With picto having CC on both big beams it basically "adds" 15k more damage to one damage cycle of 30s.
Because I could swear right up to that point I remember discussions (even on this forum) about what pct might need to be more meta since it wasn't viewed as it is currently iirc. With the consensus being that it's actually in a decent spot but also not particularly OP (even though it already had all the tools it has today).

So to me it looks like this sudden jump from "decent" to "dominating" was not caused by adjusting the job itself but by a shift in the game's general mechanics (i.e., how purify works) that happened to synergise a bit too well with pct's kit?

Because if it was just about the bloated kit alone then I think it would have been a top pick well before 7.3? Technically it had all that at 7.1 (the AoE heal-down debuff, the CC, the smudge into insta cast, and the comets/beams damage numbers were there at 7.1). It got a few refinements that made things even smoother post 7.1 but none of them fundamentally changed the class and I remember a rather common verdict at 7.1 being that it was seen as more or less "unplayable" at crystal+ (even though I knew of a few ppl who had reached crystal with it). That view mellowed with the class receiving refinements but I don't think it ever went to “problematic enough for the game balance to warrant a nerf” before 7.3? At least I don't remember it being named in the same breath with other s-tier classes before that. (I may be wrong though of course.)

(The 7.3 patch notes list that the hard-cast times for motifs had been reduced by 0.2 seconds and star prism's buff was elevated to 15% alongside with the purify changes. And whereas I think the star prism buff in particular is very nice I don't think this had the same "breaking" effect as the purify changes?)


I'm biased here of course because pct is my favourite class so I feel quite protective of it (fearing that the devs will take away from its identity and/or its fun factor in a potential attempt to address its current place in the meta).
But if picto's sudden OP strength might be an unintended byproduct caused by the general purify changes I'd rather have the devs tackle those instead of meddling with its kit.

Because its bloated “does way too much all at once but you have to watch your timing/motif-cycle because nothing is on-demand” character as well as the stance-dance is exactly what I love about it.

The complaints I've seen about PCT are usually not that it has one specific broken tool, but that it's bloated to a point that it can do everything on top of surviving close to BLM levels without having to choose between damage or defense

I’m being a bit pedantic here but technically pct does have a trade-off since in cases of emergency it has to swap its nukes for weaker versions with a heal. But I see your point how a top player who’s skilled at leveraging distance and foresight might barely have to use them because they know how to preemptively stay safe most of the time given the 25y range.