If best way is the only...why do we see different setups ?

[Dualblade]

Heh yeah, and I saw someone with a Thordan "clear" party who as a paladin, restricted the second tank to another PLD or DRK. Must have been someone with no experience MTing and wanted the ideal "main tank". Because it's impossible for a warrior to MT that right?

Needless to say, his PF kept popping back up about every 10 minutes all night lol.

Shouldn't they want a WAR OT for the massive deeps though? Its what I always hear about em atleast.

[Andrea]

Shouldn't they want a WAR OT for the massive deeps though? Its what I always hear about em atleast.

I think he means the PLD didnt want to MT it and instead wanted to dump that task on someone else.

[Fevelle]

Some people put the min/maxing meta over their freedom and fun. I've lost count of how many times I've read people complaining about "my static is making me change from X class to Y class, I don't like that class but I have to learn it and play".

Personally, I would never be ok with this type of decision, and I know a lot of people agree with me. That's just their way of playing, so taking the "best combination" as a norm is quite unreasonable.

[lawlHT]

Some people put the min/maxing meta over their freedom and fun. I've lost count of how many times I've read people complaining about "my static is making me change from X class to Y class, I don't like that class but I have to learn it and play".

Personally, I would never be ok with this type of decision, and I know a lot of people agree with me. That's just their way of playing, so taking the "best combination" as a norm is quite unreasonable.

Problem is, once groups find themselves hitting a wall, they start looking for every advantage they can get to clear that hurdle. Sometimes you have to do something you don't necessarily like for the sake of your group, and that's just the way it is

[Reynhart]

Problem is, once groups find themselves hitting a wall, they start looking for every advantage they can get to clear that hurdle. Sometimes you have to do something you don't necessarily like for the sake of your group, and that's just the way it is

In my group, we stick to the main job people want to play, except when it doesn't offer a viable setup (Sorry, 7 BRD is not a viable setup ). The most we do is having a second role available to compensate for a missing person.
We're far...excuse me...we're faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar from being competitive raidwise, but we don't care.

[Zojha]

Sometimes you have to do something you don't necessarily like for the sake of your group, and that's just the way it is

Such as using fire spells >_>

[Tilgung]

Everywhere in these parts, we see how <insert_job> is weak or how people always find and use only the best path...

If that is so, why do we see so much different setups in videos ?

At Savage release, everyone jumped the bandwagons "PLD sucks", "MCH is garbage", "AST is dumb", etc...
Yet, it's not uncommon to see clear videos with approximately any job as soon as early september, when A4S world first was only 23rd of August.

If that's the case, isn't it just saying that people are still basically playing what they want and not automatically reroll towards "What is best"?

Because even though some classes are objectively better than others, XIV is balanced well enough that all other jobs are only slightly less viable than optimum set-ups.

Balance being key, which is why some people (such as myself) are hesitant about skill trees and unique class specific materia. It's a balancing nightmare and I dont' want to see XI-2 where half the jobs in the game are considered unviable by the player base because they're ridiculously outclassed be easier to gear/play jobs.

Something like Jump Recast: -5 Seconds Materia is a ~90 DPS gain for Dragoons. Ninja has Juggulate on the same initial recast as Jump so you'd think -5 seconds would be cool. But because of the potency differences, it's closer to a ~35 DPS gain.

Dislcaimer: Values are a sloppy estimate based off the memory of some math I did a few months ago.

[Reynhart]

It's a balancing nightmare and I dont' want to see XI-2 where half the jobs in the game are considered unviable by the player base because they're ridiculously outclassed be easier to gear/play jobs.

FFXI was a balancing mess right from the start, because it didn't even properly enforce each role.
PLD had less HP than most of DPS jobs, and several of them could equip the best mitigation gear. In fact, PLD wasn't even a proper tank without the WAR subjob.
RDM, apart from being able to do almost everything was also the best at two things. You don't do that, it's jack-of-all trades 101.
Dev team also let emergent gameplay flourish without any control. "NIN wasn't supposed to be a tank !" Then, fix this ! Make Utsusemi like Blink. Done. NIN tank dead.

FFXIV is far more controled, especially because, now, they have an official forum to take the temperature. It's more balanced now with 13 jobs than FFXI ever was with 6.

[Tilgung]

Why are people quoting me and literally repeating what I said?

XIV is extremely well balanced. XI never was and never will be, and a lot of that has to do with a lack of communication and stubbornness on the Dev Teams side. But if you think the dozens and dozens of unique stats found on weapon and armor had no part in it, you're kinda absolutely wrong.

Adding unique stats would be cool, but pretending it isn't going to be a huge strain on the development team is silly.

[Ibi]

XI never was and never will be, and a lot of that has to do with a lack of communication and stubbornness on the Dev Teams side. But if you think the dozens and dozens of unique stats found on weapon and armor had no part in it, you're kinda absolutely wrong.

XI wasn't imbalanced because balance was difficult to achieve, it was imbalanced because achieving balance wasn't one of SE's goals.

And, outside of a very small number of rare and unusual items (Ridill, relics, mythics), XI's imbalance had almost nothing to do with unique stats found on weapons and armor and almost everything to do with job and system designs.