4.1 and us dps

**SkyHorizon** · 09-27-2017 06:31 PM

I just want the "meta" to be variable so people in pf can start accepting casters / samurai / monks. The old dragoon, ninja, bard/mch is still king

**Cetonis** · 09-28-2017 02:48 AM

Originally Posted by SkyHorizon

I just want the "meta" to be variable so people in pf can start accepting casters / samurai / monks. The old dragoon, ninja, bard/mch is still king

No, it's not. Not anywhere near as clearly as HW, anyway. It's the best comp for people's personal numbers, so it is therefore popular. Groups with SMNs have done very well, and there's been some solid results with BLM and MNK. The kinds of players / groups that are both willing and able to speedrun competitively are fairly limited, so you have to be wary of small sample size theater, and it's not safe to assume that all of them are fully testing out every comp. I don't think anyone is really seriously trying Samurai at all, for instance, because muhdeeps, and also because Monk seems likely to just outclass them in that kind of slot anyway.

**echo78** · 09-28-2017 04:52 AM

BRD, NIN and DRG are already considered "required" to be optimal and MCH is currently first for every fight alongside DRG/NIN/BRD. So yes, the same meta from creator has returned. At least casters can pretend to compete with MCH for the 4th slot, very few groups are willing to run triple melee so rip SAM/MNK.

The meta could have been different too but the 4.05 and 4.06 buffs put an end to that. Instead of nerfing BRD they'll likely buff MCH in 4.1 which will be a repeat of HW lol.

NIN really needs to be nerfed too imo.

**Cetonis** · 09-28-2017 05:28 AM

The meta from 3.5 entailed 50 out of the top 50 clears using the same exact comp. That is nowhere near the case right now, and you really really cannot ignore the small sample size dynamics.

What a group runs has a lot to do with what really good players they know, what jobs those players are good at, what they have geared, how much the members of the group care about personal parses versus just speed, how much patience they have for experimenting etc. etc. To pretend that the standings on fflogs are the result of some kind of perfect and thorough scientific experiment is silly.

Also Bard / Machinist balance is pretty fine. To whatever extent Bard might be ahead (it really is close at the top end), that'd be very particularly dependent on having both DRG and SCH - the removal of one or both of which begins to tilt things in MCH's favor.

So long as Bard is going to be tied so tightly to crit, and skills like Chain and Litany are going to exist, the only sensible answer to balancing vs. Machinist is to let Bard be better with all such buffs available, Machinist be better without any of them, and then in between is in between. The fact that SCH and DRG are two of the four plainly overpowered jobs right now is a separate concern.

If I were SE, I would take away / rework Shadewalker and Energy Drain (from SCH only) somehow, and probably also nerf TA a little bit (8%? 5% for 15s?). I'd double Verraise's MP cost while giving RDM a piercing debuff on Impact to end DRG's monopoly on it (buff Nastrond to partially compensate), and buff BLM / SAM by a little bit (these are tricky) and RDM damage output by a lot. On top of the forthcoming SMN QoL things of course.

Which is to say that I agree that job balance isn't in a great place right now - but, we should have a sense of scale here. It's not nearly as absurdly bad as it was in Creator. It's probably in the best spot it's been in since maybe 3.1, AST woes notwithstanding.

**echo78** · 09-28-2017 06:52 AM

The balance is just as bad as it was in creator. The tier hasn't gone on long enough, you have to compare now to 3.4. There was plenty of variety around the same time in 3.4. Once we get into late 4.1 it'll likely be just as bad as 3.5 was. A lot of players haven't even bothered leveling MCH yet and are only now getting around to it because its become "meta" again. There are already 6 confirmed "meta" jobs (PLD, AST, SCH, NIN, DRG and BRD) and MCH/WAR will be added to that list soon enough.

The balance was better in 4.0 before the 4.05 (lol DRG buffs) and 4.06 buffs.

**HyoMinPark** · 09-28-2017 07:34 AM

Originally Posted by echo78

The balance was better in 4.0 before the 4.05 (lol DRG buffs) and 4.06 buffs.

I disagree. Before the 4.05/4.06 buffs, MCH was trash-tier, and nobody wanted to play it—they all switched to BRD or another DPS because the job was just awful. The job was clunky, weak, and it was not pulling anywhere near the numbers BRD was at 4.0 release. SMN was also in a tricky spot; their damage is nothing to scoff at, but the job itself played very clunky (still does, really), and deaths are extremely punishing (still are). Now, MCH pulls slightly ahead of BRD in terms of damage unless BRD is catered to with DRG/SCH, because a BRD’s fullest potential is tied to Disembowel (as is MCH to an extent) and Chain Strategem/Litany (because BRD thrives on Crit). WAR was in a bad spot because of the stupid stance swap Beast Gauge penalty (which didn’t last that long), and even though it was nerfed quite a bit compared to it’s HW version, SB WAR is still really strong since they got rid of the stance penalty. Meanwhile, PLD was just raised to god-tier levels...

In addition, AST was still OP until they nerfed Balance, and SCH was struggling. WHM was god-tier in terms of damage and MP management, even though they aren’t part of the speed-kill meta that you’re referring to because they don’t bring any raid utility.

The speed-kill meta is almost the same as it was in Creator because of the synergy between DRG/BRD/MCH. NIN has been present in EVERY meta since the job was released in 2.x (can’t remember the exact patch) because of Trick Attack, and I don’t think the job itself has ever received any significant nerf since it’s inception. PLD/WAR are current tank meta for speed kill because DRK’s damage is just not up to par with PLD/WAR (which, PLD was not in the meta for Creator, it was DRK/WAR because PLD’s damage was the worst of all the tanks). Healer meta is SCH/AST because of their utility (Chain Strategem and AST’s Arcana), and because SCH’s Chain Strategem synergizes so well with BRD. If we want more balance, other jobs not present in the current meta need to be reworked to provide the synergy that DRG/BRD/MCH have, which will be difficult to do because you have 3 DPS there benefiting from a single debuff (piercing) and buffing one another (Foe’s/Song crit buffs from BRD, Hypercharge from MCH, and Litany from DRG); where as slashing has similar benefits (NIN/PLD/WAR and even DRK and SAM benefit), SAM has 0 raid utility outside of raw damage, and DRK’s damage is lacking; the only utility they bring is a spammable cooldown (TBN).

**echo78** · 09-28-2017 07:53 AM

I was referring to how the meta was more open in 4.0. There was actual competition outside of PLD/AST/NIN/BRD, now there are 6 locked jobs instead of 4 :P

MCH should be at the bottom of DPS and BRD should be down there with it. "Support" DPS with a ton of utility that can run and jump around the stage while DPSing should not do as much DPS as the other DPS jobs. MCH is closing in on MNK in personal DPS atm, it has no business being above NIN/DRG/RDM.

**Cetonis** · 09-28-2017 08:17 AM

MCH is closing in on MNK in personal DPS atm

You're forgetting to use some math here. MCH is an average of ~150 dps behind MNK. Hypercharge is worth ~350 raid dps, Brotherhood ~175-225 depending on comp. The two are super close, varies by fight to be specific, but in any case it's well within take-the-better-player range.

And if that's a tie? People are going to take the one that's better for their personal deeps. Which is, of course, Machinist. If you flipped the two, and Monk dealt a little less personally but had the better raid buff, we'd be in a triple melee "meta" instead. That's all that's going on here.

If Rushers swapped in one of the best Monks in the world for their MCH, and spent an equal amount of time optimizing and planning cooldowns and positioning, and spent an equal amount of time fishing for good RNG and high balance ratios and so on, there's no cause to believe that they'd do substantially worse on the whole.

**Tracewood** · 09-28-2017 11:43 PM

Originally Posted by echo78

stuff

NIN doesn't really need a nerf, just the big reason they get an automatic "must have" is Trick Attack. Without TA, NIN would be dead in the water.

SE needs to force groups to have alt setups. For MNK, increase Mantra potency and change brotherhood to affect ALL damage types. Would come in handy for newer groups who struggle with certain damage phases. SAM could use a slight buff... a stronger DoT. Or maybe have Kasha apply a Mag Def. Down or something.

**Sam26** · 09-28-2017 11:47 PM

Originally Posted by Cetonis

No, it's not. Not anywhere near as clearly as HW, anyway. It's the best comp for people's personal numbers, so it is therefore popular. Groups with SMNs have done very well, and there's been some solid results with BLM and MNK. The kinds of players / groups that are both willing and able to speedrun competitively are fairly limited, so you have to be wary of small sample size theater, and it's not safe to assume that all of them are fully testing out every comp. I don't think anyone is really seriously trying Samurai at all, for instance, because muhdeeps, and also because Monk seems likely to just outclass them in that kind of slot anyway.

This actually. Many speedkill groups started running a SMN for example after realizing how strong they got after the recent buff + their utility. Same thing with MCH. MNK is really strong right now, in my opinion the strongest dps in a physical comp and superior to SAM despite so many people doomsaying/crying at the boards.
Nin is actually replaceable with MCH/DRG/MNK in physical comps without really noticeable raid dps changes. The only dps job that isn't replaceable is BRD and if you are running BRD+MCH , DRG too.

Nin got already nerfed 2 times during SB , their personal dps is pretty low imo, the only reason they are (and were) brought is Trick Attack. I hope that they change that in the future...
They could nerf/change TA and give Nin actually something more focused on it's job identy which would be more exciting... I don't like how they turned the job to only "Trick Attack" for the grp. They made goad + several enmity tools role skills so that Nin's utility outside of TA isn't really relevant anymore.
Shadewalker is only useful at the pull and o4s to help with the enmity reset but outside of that, OT can now Shirk the MT on CD to hold enmity in offstance. Any Job has access to enmity tools now since 4.0...
Well Shadewalker still has atleast some uses but it's a mystery to me why they didn't remove/change Smoke Screen with SB, that skill is absolutely useless and an oversight in my opinion.

An other issue is the Raiton vs Fuma topic which is still stupid and they didn't care to fix it since the poison nerf back in ARR... They should have reverted the change and let Nin's Dripping Blades affect magic again and adjusted
numbers somewhere if necessary. I mean Nin's strongest abilities are Magic dmg, why do they get a + dmg trait that don't affect their core abilities? They even nerfed the trait further in SB making it not affecting Autoattacks...
TCJ even increased the clipping issue further for many people, it's a bad design for a job which is supposed to be "agile".

It would be nice if they add a way to manage/manipulate our ninki bar with actions (like SAM for example) , right now it feels like an unfinished idea which they added just for the sake of adding something new (AAs filling the bar). The fact that all 3 Ninki spenders have the same cost (80) seems a bit off.

I don't like how they started handing dmg utility to any job out like candy, synergies might be a nice thing but it promotes that certain comps get mandatory and creates one dimensional metas... For example that BRD/MCH are dependent on having a DRG etc...
I wish that they give all jobs some kind of Niche some day (with certain jobs beeing better on different situations) not plain + dmg for grp...

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