Multiple Job Roles Idea

[SilkaN]

They have enough trouble balancing SMN / SCH. Having to balance every other job around multiple specs would crush their souls.

They are giving us several jobs per expansion. I think there's enough freedom since we can already play all jobs on a single character.

edit

Also, WAR might as well be a DPS at this point.

[loreleidiangelo]

They have enough trouble balancing SMN / SCH. Having to balance every other job around multiple specs would crush their souls.

They are giving us several jobs per expansion. I think there's enough freedom since we can already play all jobs on a single character.

This is pretty much my thought too. They gave it a whirl with SMN and SCH, both are/were objectively plagued with balance issues that in some cases (SCH) still haven't been corrected, and I'd rather they not try to brute-force a concept that it's clear they haven't been able to master yet. Meanwhile, new jobs may not be perfect (AST, MCH...), but they've at least had a good amount of attention given to them and their problems can be corrected in a relative vacuum, making it easier to work on them (AST is harder because of how baldly it mimics SCH/WHM, IMO).

[Ririta]

This is pretty much my thought too. They gave it a whirl with SMN and SCH, both are/were objectively plagued with balance issues that in some cases (SCH) still haven't been corrected

What balance issues? Both works perfectly and are fun to play.

[loreleidiangelo]

What balance issues? Both works perfectly and are fun to play.

Except for the part where SCH DPS is insanely MP efficient due to their ACN roots, which can't be adjusted without hurting SMN? Were you even around for Final Coil? I was, where being a SMN was a hugely painful crunch of MP issues and lower damage, and the developers told me I'd have to sit that way until the expansion because they couldn't buff me without also buffing their OP golden child, SCH, who was solo healing T13s at the time and wrecking on mass Snowcloak pulls.

The problem comes from SCH DPS. I get that people don't like hearing that, and for once this isn't a criticism of the healer DPS meta, it's a criticism of class design. All of SCH's DoTs are designed around ACN, a DPS class, and later SMN, a DPS job. This means that they're given mana costs proportionate to the idea that they will be seeing 100% uptime on a boss. Those mana costs are IN NO WAY adjusted for SCH, who has a much higher natural MP pool due to piety, gets higher returns on Aetherflow because it's a 20% flat restoration rate, and also gets the advantage of getting piety on gear, which means higher in-combat mana regen. This wouldn't be a problem if their healing kit had inflated MP costs, but they don't - aside from two abilities, mana costs are exactly the same vis-a-vis on my SCH as they are on my WHM (identical gear).

Seriously, my SMN has almost 4k less MP at level 60 than my SCH, but DoT costs are the same. Basic heal costs on my SCH (Physick vs Cure) are the same as a WHM, cleanse costs are the same as a WHM, rez costs are the same as a WHM, Broil vs Stone III MP costs are the same, and SCH's "Regen" is MP-free, and off the GCD in the form of the fairy. Yes, DoTs are lower potency compared to WHM/AST, but the point remains that their mana costs are reflecting an uptime that is just not possible for the other healers to achieve, AND SCHs still have really efficient mana costs on their actual healing kit as well, save Adloquium/Succor which is pretty high I guess to discourage spamming. Pet abilities also cost no mana, which again, is likely a design decision influenced by ACN/SMN rather than SCH itself, and one of the biggest complaints balance connoisseurs have about SCH right now is how brutally effective and efficient the entire fairy kit is (Eos mostly).

As to your other point about SCHs being more "interesting" than spamming "3-4 abilities on WHM"...SCH doesn't really have that many more, tbh. They have 5 DoTs (including Aero cross'd from CNJ) and a filler. WHM has 3 DoTs and a filler, but also Fluid Aura every 15 seconds if they can get in range. SCH only has two more abilties to upkeep, and they're actually easier to manage because they have longer duration. WHM rotation is actually incredibly frustrating because of how short Aero II is and how much I have to pay attention to it. Even then, I can't say I'd care if they still want SCH to have a bunch of DoTs to upkeep to maintain the illusion of complexity... I just don't want those DoTs to be ACN DoTs, I want them to have higher mana costs to reflect SCH's naturally higher piety/MP pool.

[Ririta]

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So balance for scholar is homogenizing them into the same mediocre level as white mage and astrologian?

I didn't ask for white mage to keep getting nerfed over and over since 2.0; I didn't ask for astrologian to be on the same level as white mages instead of scholars. Why bring one job down instead of buffing the others? People like to DPS, let them. It amuses me how badly they've been ruining white mage since 2.1, but that wasn't possible with scholar, so they began crying on how arcanist is bad for balance, as if that wasn't a self-inflicted problem.

Scholars also have more spells to use in an AoE rotation: the 4 DOTs, Bane, Miasma II and Blizzard II. And in the single target rotation you forgot to add Energy Drain.
Speaking of MP efficiency, Blizzard II isn't exactly the most MP efficient spell for the damage it deals.

On summoner; I did raid FCoB, but as paladin. Why couldn't they rise the summoner's base piety? We've had just seen a base stat increase that tier (dragoons with their magic defense) so it could be done. And by the way, the summoner problem was self inflicted after the black mage over reaction in 2.3. A higher MP pool wouldn't make summoners be able to catch up to black mages.

Would you prefer being excluded from any difficult content? FFXI suffered notably from certain builds or sub-classes being deemed "trash" and people outright refusing to take them. Balance is what allows players to more freely choose the job they prefer and still complete everything. Yes, the meta comp exists but it's not to the point of exclusion.

You can have several jobs be viable without homogenizing them to the point where your choice is just aesthetics. What really matters is the encounter design, it can't commit the same mistake as Coil often did.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

You can have several jobs be viable without homogenizing them to the point where your choice is just aesthetics. What really matters is the encounter design, it can't commit the same mistake as Coil often did.

While true, we have no idea if they are homogenizing the jobs. Nevertheless, what you're asking for is a monumental task. Consider, if you will, each job being able to play into every role. With Stormblood adding two additional jobs, you've effectively tripled the devs' work; going from 15 jobs to a whopping 45 as they have to make each viable. Your scenario will, ironically, lead to even more homogenization because creativity is a finite source. They can only make so many builds or jobs unique before ideas start to blend. It happened in WoW.

[Ama_Hamada]

You can have several jobs be viable without homogenizing them to the point where your choice is just aesthetics. What really matters is the encounter design, it can't commit the same mistake as Coil often did.

That has nothing to do with what is being said though. Fixing something that is broken and not fit for the game =/= homogenizing. Also no one uses blizzard II for DPS. Every time I see people attempt using that for DPS, it is a dps loss compared to if they did something different. Dot everything then spam ruin sheesh.

[Neophyte]

What balance issues? Both works perfectly and are fun to play.

You can't give SMN a stronger Ruin, while SCH's ruin remains the same. Same for Ruin2, Bio, Bio2, Miasma, Miasma2, Shadowflare and Energy Drain..

Buffing/Nerfing SMN's old abilities also always affect SCH.

It's a balancing issue if you can't change a job without changing a 2nd one.


This is a soooo obvious issue, I'm baffled that people are actually arguing this fact.

[SendohJin]

It's a balancing issue if you can't change a job without changing a 2nd one.

This is a soooo obvious issue, I'm baffled that people are actually arguing this fact.

SMN is not currently unbalanced because those things can't be changed. They don't have to change the potency of any of those. instead of buffing Ruin they can buff Ruin III, who uses Ruin anyway? they don't need to buff the 3 main dots or shared AOE spells they can buff Fester, Painflare and Deathflare instead.

you cannot and should not attempt to balance every job at every level cap, that's a waste of time.

it's obviously a very minor issue which is why the only thing someone really complains about is Leeches and they have nothing to say about Lv 50-60 spells and abilities.

[loreleidiangelo]

SMN is not currently unbalanced because those things can't be changed. They don't have to change the potency of any of those. instead of buffing Ruin they can buff Ruin III, who uses Ruin anyway? they don't need to buff the 3 main dots or shared AOE spells they can buff Fester, Painflare and Deathflare instead.

you cannot and should not attempt to balance every job at every level cap, that's a waste of time.

it's obviously a very minor issue which is why the only thing someone really complains about is Leeches and they have nothing to say about Lv 50-60 spells and abilities.

The fact that jobs get their own unique abilities themselves should be a sign that the class system failed, IMO. Broil and Ruin III could have just been Ruin III for ACN except the devs realized there was no decent way to make the ability work for both SCH and SMN. By saying "just tweak job abilities" you're already admitting defeat by saying that class abilities can't be adjusted to preserve some semblance of balance.

See also: why Physick sucks for SMN because it scales off of SCHs primary stat instead. If your solution to making Physick a viable self-heal for SMN while not breaking SCH is "just pile MND on the SMN jobstone until it works" then you have already lost. (Or alternately, "make it scale off INT for SMN only", as that is also a change at the job level and not the class level.)