Thread: The Current Status of FFXIV Patch 3.1 and How to Address it Moving Forward

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

That's when you need to keep that within reasonable balance of each other. Bard is better than mch in almost all aspects in regards to progression for pushing Dps, and speed kills, but some groups still run with a mch over a bard, and same with meld and caster to an extent. There needs to be some flavor or at least a sense of empowerment with the job, otherwise you're playing at the same pacing and strength for the entirety of the expansion.

That is something that is debatable. Obviously each job should play differently and have it's own flavor, but in cases like MCH and BRD I wonder if their support functions in general should be more symmetrical since it doesn't completely break the differences MCH and BRD have. That can have it's own issues however. They did say in 3.2 we would likely see changes that in fights that require more tanking and healing, so that alone might balance which one you take in terms of heavy progression. Just have to see.

Originally Posted by Kaurie

First, I thought we were talking about stats balance, not job balance?

It ultimately falls into the same category. Since you have to completely rework the job system to favor the new stat system.

Third, this game has shown that player skill trumps class balance by a long shot.

And the system proposed could put that into question.

Sure, i think of the consequences. I just think that the dev team is not fully incompetent, and that having variation is fun.

It is not a matter of if they are incompetent or not. It is simply over the top balancing that couldn't even be approached steadily in FFXI/1.xx, so expecting them to bring a similar system to that back and not be a mess balance wise does not seem realistic.

Outside of raiding, I fully agree. I think the nerf to Steps of Faith was uncalled for - for example. I've never been in a group that had to vote abandon this fight, and was able to clear it on my 2nd run with my first group on the first day. It wasn't a hard fight, but it required a bit of game knowledge and coordination.

Yep. Instead of giving a small push to players, they simply dumb down the fight. For Steps of Faith in particular, what they could of done to make it easier is simply doing a better job explaining what is going on and what function does what. It wasn't a fight that needed to be dumbed down, it was just a fight people needed to understand. Before the nerfs, going in the only issue was people didn't know what the canons or dragonkiller did.