job balancing discussion (1.22a-hotfix)

[Molly_Millions]

I really don't see the point of the BRD change. The class is already overlooked by many groups because it doesn't generate enough DPS to be useful, why reduce it even more?

Clearly, you don't know what you're talking about. BRD is essential to any group with a mage, which in my estimation, is ALL of them.

Try a mage burn with no BRD and let me know how far you get.

[Asiaine]

Part of the problem may simply be so few jobs?
One Healer (WHM)
Two Tanks (WAR/PLD) (no giggling at PLD tank)
One Magic DD (BLM)
One Range DD (BRD)
Two Melee DD (MNK, DRG)

If the target is weak to magic: One choice -- BLM
If the target is too dangerous to be near: Two Choices -- BLM/BRD
If the target is weak to melee: Two choices -- MNK/DRG

Given that a lot of enemies are just too dangerous to get near, but easy to take out from afar, is it no surprise that BLM/BRD is nice to stack?

That being said, what if we had a variety of different jobs that filled the role of 'Ranged DD':
BLM, SMN, BRD, RNG, COR, SCH, RDM

There would be less job stacking... because the issue not really is the desire to stack a job.. but rather, the desire to stack a role. The primary roles being: Tank, Healer, Melee DD, Ranged DD, Support

If we had 5 jobs for each of those roles, I feel stacking would be gone.

(And if those jobs could co-ordinate together for bonuses, such as in Weapon Skill Chains, then there would be more interest in non-stacking).

[Caliburn]

Great news for DRGs, spamming Surge abilities was driving me to distraction... sometimes I'd just leave it. Thanks devs!

[Volfield]

My god i expected them to nerf MNK because of Miser.

[Daku_Naito]

Part of the problem may simply be so few jobs?

I still feel like the game is new, honestly. We have what FFXI by now, less if you just count the jobs, but I feel they are going to add more then just a couple of jobs for 2.0

[Velhart]

Everybody here liked the idea of varies class, who doesn't? but nobody.. let me repeat NOBODY has came up with properly written idea on how to do balance things properly. All they do is cry and cry somemore.

Really now? Over the past few months I have seen wonderful ideas on how to properly balance jobs and events in this game that SE has never payed attention to. I can give some myself right now.

PLD - Needs an AoE attack (Needs Circle Slash back.), needs more oomph on enmity generation abilities on a large scale.

WAR - It is fine now. SE gimped it but we played with it last night and still a much better tank than PLD. I wouldn't consider a WAR tank OP anymore however.

BLM - I know people will grab the pitch forks and find which window in my home they need to break into, but I do believe BLM's need to be toned down. I mean in particular their AoE damage. Fire damage should spread depending on how many enemies get hit by it. How OP is it you can go into a dungeon and just take a few BLM's and kill all the enemies in a room in a matter of seconds before a melee can barely hit it?

As for dungeons. The idea of speed runs is the core of the problem here. Not to mention the abysmal drop rates. When people are forced to speed through the content as fast as possible at a abysmally low chance of getting a piece of gear with only a 15 minute cool down, of course they are inevitably going to find the quickest way of doing it. It is because they are sick of the content, they don't care about the dungeon itself anymore, it is all about the treasure chests at the end now. I don't know why other MMO's know exactly how dungeon content should be distributed but SE can't get something so simple right.

For bosses, they just really need to tone the AoE down. The biggest problem with Chimera is that it is just not melee friendly at all. Poisons and his AoE potentially instant kills whatever is near him. How do you expect WHM's to keep up with this? You are practically begging people not to use melee in this fight. Chimera is the most unbalanced boss fight I have ever gone against in my MMO career. Sure have AoE in there, but AoE should never be bad to the point that it isn't practical to be near him.

So if you want to make bringing melee and PLD viable, you really need to adjust the conditions of the dungeons. Speed runs screw a lot of things up.

If anything, I wish Darklight didn't drop in dungeons at all. Would be nice if it was just setup that you got points at a dungeon and you got a daily cap on how many points you can get and have a NPC sell you Darklight. This works in other MMO's, don't see why it can't here. You can get more points a dungeon run by setting conditions (Kill Marshall after Princess) or (Lure Chimera into a sandpit three times). Can still do dungeons if you hit the cap, but just won't be rewarded points (In case you wanted to help others). I would put at least a 30 minute timer on the dungeon so it is an incentive not to spam one dungeon, but alternate between AV and CC.

So Char, after all this, rather you agree with my ideas or not, it is still my attempt to help this game go in the right direction. Not all of us just come in here to whine, some of us use these forums only as a way to give developers proper feedback they seek. Rather my tone sounds frustrating or not, I strive to give feedback whenever I can and hope that developers will take into consideration my ideas.

[Colino]

Clearly, you don't know what you're talking about. BRD is essential to any group with a mage, which in my estimation, is ALL of them.

Try a mage burn with no BRD and let me know how far you get.

I said their DPS is overlooked (or underestimated), not their usefulness as buffers.

But it's cool to say "you don't know what you're talking about" cus it makes you sound real smart.

[Chardrizard]

For bosses, they just really need to tone the AoE down. The biggest problem with Chimera is that it is just not melee friendly at all. Poisons and his AoE potentially instant kills whatever is near him. How do you expect WHM's to keep up with this? You are practically begging people not to use melee in this fight. Chimera is the most unbalanced boss fight I have ever gone against in my MMO career. Sure have AoE in there, but AoE should never be bad to the point that it isn't practical to be near him.

So if you want to make bringing melee and PLD viable, you really need to adjust the conditions of the dungeons. Speed runs screw a lot of things up.

You know how clueless you sounds right now? the only AoE's that will hit melee at Chimera is Voice of Ram and it does 1.7k-2k at most, easily avoidable because of the casting time. The other AoE is Poison Sting, very deadly and fast cast, but if you incapacitate the chimera's tail, it will stop using Poison Sting and it suddenly become a very melee friendly fight.

Every fight so far since CC/AV to Garuda is very melee friendly, i am not even sure u have tried to attempt meleeing Chimera properly, by properly i mean not mindlessly punching but playing cautiously making sure skills doesn't get you while attempting to incapacitate its tail.

I am sure we all are after the same thing here, but it's hard to agree with someone that doesn't even deliver the correct information.

and most of the suggestions is very biased to the jobs they wanted to play, nerf the one they hated, So no there aren't really any properly written suggestions. I would love being proved wrong though.

[ydp002]

Let just wait for the E3 Video for any clues on new classes or jobs.. But Y.P. told us there where going to be a lot of stuff that we already have in the game, so let just hope that new element are good.

[Molly_Millions]

I said their DPS is overlooked (or underestimated), not their usefulness as buffers.

But it's cool to say "you don't know what you're talking about" cus it makes you sound real smart.

You said their lower DPS makes them not useful, which is completely untrue because they are incredibly useful regardless of their DPS. They could have lower DPS than PLD and BLM burn parties would still need them.

in case you forgot:

I really don't see the point of the BRD change. The class is already overlooked by many groups because it doesn't generate enough DPS to be useful, why reduce it even more?

Last time I checked, stacking BLM/BRD is most used setup for pretty much all end game content. Therefore the part I put in bold is 100% incorrect.

Insane DPS is not your duty as BRD and it never will be.