Bring difficulty back to job rotations, not just boss mechanics.

[ForsakenRoe]

I'm unclear as to the overall complexity of the other jobs in this scenario. Using DRG as an example, are you saying that it should get 98% damage from the base looping combo and only have a couple extra optional buttons beyond that, or are you saying it should have all the complexity of say EW DRG but 98% of the damage comes from the base combo and everything else is optional?

It gets a bit harder to visualize for me for DPS, because I'm a healer main, I don't know optimal rotations for any DPS and so I can't really say exactly what impact such a change would have. Given the amount of people who have responded to my posts of 'hey what if we had a couple more buttons on Healers for damage, but they're optional due to how their potencies would be balanced' over the past year or so, with 'no they would not be optional because this playerbase is so parsebrained they'd insist on the additions being mandatory', I never really had time to think about the DPS jobs.

I would imagine that the way to go about it would be to make the 123 combos a bit stronger, and the OGCD once-per-2min burst attacks like Dragonfire Dive/Rise of the Dragon, Stardiver/Starcross, etc, a little weaker, to reduce how much impact the 2min burst window has on your overall performance, so that while using your actions in the optimal order is still good, just using them with some degree of regularity gets you most of the way there (and misaligning them from the burst window is less punishing due to their lower impact on your overall performance). It seems to have worked well enough for PCT. But at the same time, it's also a little inaccurate to use PCT as an example, because their OGCDs are linked to GCD use (Muses require Painting GCDs first, for example). The PCT equivalent of what I'm thinking of would be like, nerfing Star Prism's potency and moving some over to the 123, or to the Gauge version of the 123. Trimming a little bit off of Rainbow Drip (why is it 1200) and moving it over to the 123 and the Hammer. Etc

Tanks are another example. Confiteor Combo and Lionheart Combo are like, 4-digit potency values for whatever reason. In what world does a Tank need a 4-digit potency value? We didn't have such potencies back in SB and we managed to clear things just fine. WAR is even more egregious. pulling up a completely random log (they got a 37), this WAR did 1.45m damage in the first minute of the fight, and of that, 456k was done within the 10s Inner Release window. Add to that the GCDs you can only use because of Inner Release (Primal Rend/Ruination) and the OGCD you get after consuming IR (Primal Wrath), and you get 296.4k damage. So, in total, Inner Release was responsible for about HALF of this player's damage, in that first minute. Half of your damage output being from 16%-25% of your time in the fight, is quite imbalanced IMO. It all comes back to the 2min meta


Here's an example in action: BLM. Thanks to SE buffing Flare again and again (and FlareStar again), and completely forgetting that HighFire2 exists, it's actually more damage on a trash mob pull to ignore HighFire/HighBlizzard, and instead go Transpose-Freeze-Filler GCD (Thunder4, or a Foul if available)-Transpose-Flare (with AF1, takes you to AF3)-Flare-FlareStar-Transpose (and repeat). How many people actually do that, though? Is that a playstyle that feels 'mandatory' because it's more damage, or is it something that falls into the category of 'it's cool that it exists for those that want to mess with it, but you don't have to use it'? Cos I've seen plenty of BLMs that still use HF/HB to switch, as the developers presumably intended, and it's never been a problem. So I wonder why it is that this perception of 'any rotational adjustment would become mandatory because the playerbase would demand its use' exists

[Valence]

"Play something else then" they'll all scream

Yeah that's what I've been told for 6 years now since they ran MCH to the ground in 2019. Welcome to the club.

I heard SMN mains are experiencing the same thing now.

[BlisteringFrost]

Yeah that's what I've been told for 6 years now since they ran MCH to the ground in 2019. Welcome to the club.

I heard SMN mains are experiencing the same thing now.

How's M6S feel down there?

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[...]Here's an example in action: BLM. Thanks to SE buffing Flare again and again (and FlareStar again), and completely forgetting that HighFire2 exists, it's actually more damage on a trash mob pull to ignore HighFire/HighBlizzard, and instead go Transpose-Freeze-Filler GCD (Thunder4, or a Foul if available)-Transpose-Flare (with AF1, takes you to AF3)-Flare-FlareStar-Transpose (and repeat). How many people actually do that, though? Is that a playstyle that feels 'mandatory' because it's more damage, or is it something that falls into the category of 'it's cool that it exists for those that want to mess with it, but you don't have to use it'? Cos I've seen plenty of BLMs that still use HF/HB to switch, as the developers presumably intended, and it's never been a problem. So I wonder why it is that this perception of 'any rotational adjustment would become mandatory because the playerbase would demand its use' exists

I'm gonna go one step further where BLMs don't even do Double Flare to accumulate Flare Stars at lv100 or literally anywhere past lv58. Yes, they exist way more common that one may think of. How's that been doing? Why am I almost never seeing people go "OMG you're not using -the- correct rotation!!!" nor even notice sometimes.

[Xieldras]

Yeah that's what I've been told for 6 years now since they ran MCH to the ground in 2019. Welcome to the club.

I heard SMN mains are experiencing the same thing now.

I want my DoTs to be linked to my songs and Sidewinder again. I want Foe's and Refresh back, and I miss Palissade. I miss feeling useful to my team other than simply damage.
But many Bard mains currently seem happy with the more Ranger-esque version we have right now, some even calling for walking casts like in PvP. I might have "old main" tag, but there are more current mains.

Should Square have to redesign jobs, I personally would prefer if they went with the originals I started with. The issue remains that the old mains have either quit or switched jobs entirely, so by their metrics they'll satisfy the current mains only.
This is a mess for them to be frank, and it's entirely due to the homogenization of playstyles resulting from their philosophy focus on faster-paced encounters.

No one would be happy with the job redesign, because you'd be fragmenting the playstyles again.

[Daralii]

I want my DoTs to be linked to my songs and Sidewinder again. I want Foe's and Refresh back, and I miss Palissade. I miss feeling useful to my team other than simply damage.
But many Bard mains currently seem happy with the more Ranger-esque version we have right now, some even calling for walking casts like in PvP. I might have "old main" tag, but there are more current mains.

Should Square have to redesign jobs, I personally would prefer if they went with the originals I started with. The issue remains that the old mains have either quit or switched jobs entirely, so by their metrics they'll satisfy the current mains only.
This is a mess for them to be frank, and it's entirely due to the homogenization of playstyles resulting from their philosophy focus on faster-paced encounters.

No one would be happy with the job redesign, because you'd be fragmenting the playstyles again.

They just need to crank up the potencies on the more drastic redesigns to "encourage" people to play them, like they did with SMN's lobotomy in EW(the job disappeared immediately afterwards) and BLM's lobotomy in 7.2.

[DynnDiablos]

I like my super simple DNC rotation. I am not looking to think/time/figure complicated rotations out. I don't play this game for the combat. I play for the MSQ and all the other activities.

[Azurarok]

I want my DoTs to be linked to my songs and Sidewinder again. I want Foe's and Refresh back, and I miss Palissade. I miss feeling useful to my team other than simply damage.
But many Bard mains currently seem happy with the more Ranger-esque version we have right now, some even calling for walking casts like in PvP. I might have "old main" tag, but there are more current mains.

Should Square have to redesign jobs, I personally would prefer if they went with the originals I started with. The issue remains that the old mains have either quit or switched jobs entirely, so by their metrics they'll satisfy the current mains only.
This is a mess for them to be frank, and it's entirely due to the homogenization of playstyles resulting from their philosophy focus on faster-paced encounters.

No one would be happy with the job redesign, because you'd be fragmenting the playstyles again.

BRD specifically is caught between players who want a song mage and/or a bow hunter class that are trying to get it warped into being something it isn't, along with folks wanting them to get rid of range tax and think walking casts are the solution for it, as well as a fight design team that only knows how to punish sustain jobs and the 2-min meta making its personal damage garbage. I kinda doubt anyone's happy with how the job is right now.

[Valence]

How's M6S feel down there?

I don't know? Why are you asking me that? I'm genuinely confused

[BlisteringFrost]

BRD specifically is caught between players who want a song mage and/or a bow hunter class that are trying to get it warped into being something it isn't, along with folks wanting them to get rid of range tax and think walking casts are the solution for it, as well as a fight design team that only knows how to punish sustain jobs and the 2-min meta making its personal damage garbage. I kinda doubt anyone's happy with how the job is right now.

Bard is technically overperforming right now. Why? I couldn't explain personally, but because it still uses its aged gameplay is why nobody wants to touch it. "IT'S TOO HAAAAAARD" or sumthin'.