Constructive opinions on job balances for 5.0

[Llugen]

Book-smacks in 2.x were meaningful damage. Currently, book-smacking is technically more damage than zero as well, so there's that.

[Komaru_Tatoro]

talking about knockback, what if blm have a raid wide anti knockback ability in 5.0? will they get favor more? :thinking:

[NovaLevossida]

To be honest, BLM was a huge disappointment from 3.0 to 4.0. BLM in general is just bleh.

It's the only job I can stand playing in 4.0, and I'm not overly thrilled with it being a "spam one attack over and over" design. Not to bust out the cranky old person schtick, but I enjoyed more of FFXI's jobs with how they played so differently, and BLM in particular for being something other than the spam machine 14's design is. But it is what it is. So long as I have to spam one attack, I'd like a prettier version of it. I'm not going to entertain any wild ideas that change how BLM plays for 5.0.

[Carstien]

Straight of the bat you're wrong, the meta should ideally be one ranged physical, one caster, two melee. The reason is because the melee take up space close to the boss for mechanics, while the caster and ranged take up space in the distance. Two tanks will also be in melee range while the healers will be further back, it makes sure that for aoe damage there is room for everybody so forget the 'wild card' idea. Two melee should always be the meta. A caster for balance, meaning that in this raid tier there should be physically resistant enemies to stop both ranged physical from overpowering casters again and making DRG also mandatory. Gonna read the rest of your post now, just wanted to get that out of the way.

After reading the rest, you're definitely right about the NIN threat manipulation, our WAR found it very hard to adjust when our NIN went on holiday and was replaced temporarily by a SAM. The other raid buffs are tricky, I wouldn't want them all removed, I like that there are skills like that and timing them and aligning them is a part of being a better raid group and teamwork that I wouldn't want to see removed from the game. The solution is to give other jobs raid buffs too, but of course that would mean bringing personal dps down to match across all dps which also removes job identity and differences. Don't want that.

Really, it only matters in the top 1% and speed runs anyway, just make physically resistant adds that make a caster mandatory to add and that should make the meta better. Raid buffs just leave them, let people either stack them in their comp for max effectiveness or just play what they like in a more midcore group, like I did playing MNK this raid season.

[Aikaal]

Straight of the bat you're wrong, the meta should ideally be one ranged physical, one caster, two melee.

I fail to understand some of your arguments. In what madness should it be impossible to have 1 melee in O4S? You can send a ranged to a melee spot. As much as you could bring 3 melees and have 1 sit out because the DPS enrage isn't hard at BiS. The current meta is 2 melees, 1 ranged and 1 caster usually because it's the current one with the best DPS jobs. Back at 2.0, Bard was so strong and had no penalty on refresh that the meta was 3 bards and 1 dragoon. SE killed it fairly quickly.

The meta for DPS picks goes like this -
1. Ninja > All. Shade Walker is unique to then, too strong for Tanks. Also provides Slashing Debuff on 3rd GCD + TA.
2. Ranged DPS. You want refresh, ranged DPS gives very good raid boons in Crit up / Damage up from Bard or Machinist.
3. Dragoon. Because they provide strong raid utilities in BL + DS. They also bring Piercing Debuff which is very strong for ranged DPS.
4. Summoner / second ranged DPS - Devotion is nice and Summoner DPS is ridiculous to the point it doesn't need much raid synergy to still outdps everyone. It outdps selfish jobs such as BLM and SAM. You could also bring a MCH/BRD to have double melees and double ranged. World first UCoB was that comp despite the fight being very clearable with a caster.

You could work around with RDM having a strong raid utility + swift raise. Exceptional Monks will do massive DPS while bringing Brotherhood. Truth be told, if Ninja had TA to 5% and shadewalker role action, the meta would very likely be DRG + BRD + MCH + NIN. To make it fair for everyone, most group comps should work well. You can do any kind of healer and tank comp with nothing much to lose. It is very different for DPS and this is a problem.

So I'm curious on how it should be ruled to always be 2 melees when it's not even enforced by game developers :\

[Deceptus]

I know this is just wishful thinking but I'd like them to finally separate SMN and SCH and make summoner actually use Summons as attacks instead of dots.

[Llugen]

After "maining" level 70 SMN for the last 2 months or so, I can definitively say that it feels pretty good with the pet management now. I'd still like to see more interaction with the Egi, but SMN is much less a "DoT" class now than it used to be; sure, DoTs are the basis for your damage (fester, painflare, and by extension DWT and Bahamut from building trail), but you only actually hardcast the DoTs once every two minutes now vs. in 3.0 where you had to watch like a hawk to keep up all 3-4 DoTs (Bio I in particular).


In 2.x and sort of 3.x, they made raids have "requirements" for casters/physical damage, like adds that reflected physical or reflected magic damage, but that seems to have fallen by the wayside. Couple that with the "physical damage up" buffs like Embolden and Brotherhood and Radiant Shield, and it makes for physical meta making the most sense. This lock on physical/magic damage should probably go away in this form.

[Shurrikhan]

I'd rather see the jobs' play experience considered first, within reasonable parameters, and only thereafter balance fully enter the equation.

There are probably a few more factors that ought to be considered within those reasonable parameters, however, that are currently sorely missed or skipped over...