Range DPS Jobs And Action Role Change Suggestion

[Mazora_Espeon]

Greetings fellow Adventurers! So after playing BRD for a while and testing out the new Action Role abilities, I would like give my thoughts and also somewhat propose an idea for a suggestive change to BRD's song abilities and Action Role abilities. I would also like to know of other's people thoughts about this and if anyone else have thought about this too...

Before Stormblood 4.0, BRDs were sought out for their party supportive ability mostly towards magical damage DPS, where as MCH, who were also wanted for it's supportive abilities mostly towards physical damage DPS, was mainly sought out for more additional damage. Now, it seems that both classes are more focus on damage output than anything else.

Then one day, someone in my free company had mention about how they didn't really like MCH's "Flamethrower stall" and so that's when I had suggested to play BRD. After that, they asked me what's great about BRD this time? And the only thing I could think of was that it didn't have any kind of stall that MCHs have with the Flamethrower.

It was then after thinking of them asking me what was special about the two jobs was when I thought of evaluating these two jobs to figure out what makes them so unique to what makes them interesting and what would cause people to play them. Aside from aesthetic and mechanical reasons, I couldn't find anything else that makes them different.

And so... that leads me to the idea I have about suggesting a change with the Action Role abilities for Range DPS, the BRD and MCH abilities and what role these two jobs should be taking in a party situation.

My suggestion is that the Refresh and Tactician abilities should be removed/replaced from the Action Role set and that the MP/TP replenish effects should be re-implemented back into the BRD abilities. The BRD's abilities, Mage's Ballad and Army's Paeon, would instead be given the Refresh/Tactician effect replenishing the party's MP/TP respectively as it once did before Stormblood 4.0. This would allow the BRD to maintain it's key role as a supportive type DPS in/for the party.

If this were to happen, then MCH would then become a purely damage role or the party. And then in the future expansions, there could be a potential new job that might have less DPS output, but has a lot of abilities that support the party as a whole. The MCH could then combine with that job to make up for the loss of DPS.

And so alternatively, having these changes would might allow for more different party combinations and perhaps even other combinations that were once thought were impossible, possible.

Let me know what you guys think about what I've read and your ideas about the topic if you have any. Happy hunting and safe adventuring everyone!

[Tridus]

Wouldn't a side effect of that be to make BRD more in demand because it'd be the only one with Tactician and Refresh? I mean, IIRC MCH already doesn't have an equivalent to Foe Requiem or Battle Voice, both of which are group wide DPS buffs.

[AiharaMizuki]

The issue with removing support skills and making MCH a purely damage class is that MCH will fall into the same pit as SAM and BLM though not as deep because they still have Hypercharge. Selfish dps that offer little to no raid utility is not feasible at the moment where dps is so reliant on burst windows where everyone's cooldowns line up to get the highest damage possible. Also, Tactician and Refresh is the only aggro-management skills those two classes have (can't exactly remember if they get Diversion).

MCH already doesn't have an equivalent to Foe Requiem or Battle Voice, both of which are group wide DPS buffs.

Hypercharge is a group DPS buff with the Vuln down effect.

[ErryK]

They need to get rid of the utility meta (ie. Foe Requiem, Battle Litany, Chain Stratagem) before they can do anything like this. This will only hurt MCH players more, potentially even being the last nail in the coffin.

[Tridus]

Hypercharge is a group DPS buff with the Vuln down effect.

Ah cool, thanks. I don't know MCH that well, obviously.

[Tridus]

They need to get rid of the utility meta (ie. Foe Requiem, Battle Litany, Chain Stratagem) before they can do anything like this. This will only hurt MCH players more, potentially even being the last nail in the coffin.

Or change how group composition is done. If you look at something like Rift, they had a dedicated support slot in groups, along with 2 more traditional DPS. When you can stack support on support on support and they all buff each other, it gets out of hand pretty quickly.

[HyoMinPark]

The only reason I would agree with reimplementing the MP/TP regen back into Mage's/Army's would be if the didn't also reimplement the 10% damage penalty for using your support abilities; that was the most ridiculous part of the entire thing, and why you ran into so many BRDs that wouldn't sing.

But, redesigning Mage's/Army's to function how they previously used to would require a third overhaul to my main job, and I think they should leave BRD alone for a while. Because if Mage's/Army's went back to MP/TP Refresh, them being on 80 second timers--provinding the refresh rate is as potent as current Refresh/Tactician--would be incredibly OP. Personally, BRD is perfect in its Stormblood incarnation, and I really do not want them to overhaul it again for the next expansion.

MCH could possibly do slightly more damage (though it's certainly not hurting for personal DPS or even rDPS contribution right now), but if they removed the utility aspects of it, unless it did massive amounts of damage to compensate, it would end up just like SAM and BLM--average damage, no utility, and people would prefer jobs that deal less damage but offer more rBuffs to a group.

With regards to the role actions, it doesn't help that basically 5 of them are mandatory/clearly better options for both, 1 optimal for speeding up your running pace in either dungeons, 24-mans, or city states, and the other 4 bordering on useless because most mobs/bosses cannot be stunned/silenced/bound/heavied in content where they would prove more useful than any of the other five (Iron Giant in V3S aside, but if you have a NIN, they can Jugulate it and not lose a slot for Invigorate or Second Wind). But this is a fault with a lot of the role skills--e.g., healers have to take Protect, Esuna, Lucid, and Swiftcast usually, with not much wiggle room for customization unless its 8-man content where they can easily coordinate with another healer to mix things up a bit.

[VanilleFang]

I never touched BRD before SB but as soon as I saw how much focus it has on support while still having respectable DPS I was sold. BRD's current incarnation is so incredibly good, fun, and enjoyable that I don't really think they should change it all that much. Granted I'm no expert on the job but it just feels so good to play and it actually feels like it has impact on the group outside dealing damage.

[SaitoHikari]

MCH is actually fine when it comes to utility. The real problem is that players find the class rather convoluted due to the heat gauge stuff, compared to the free form machine gun proc system of endgame Bard. A properly crit-focus geared high skill level Bard is basically a ranged Monk with the firing rate they have.

MCH could be the highest DPS class in the game (which IIRC they were at the end of Heavensward), and I doubt people would still play it in higher numbers because the way the job controls is just so unsatisfying. It's a very slow and clunky job compared to Bard, and the RNG built into their global cooldowns does not help at all (and while Bard does have RNG, they purely revolve on off-global cooldown skills - which is entirely different in terms of how it actually feels). It also doesn't help that people have issues with their animations as well.

[Zsolen]

We were the highest DPS during any of 3.X? News to me.

I prefer MCH as a debuffer with the same role actions as bard than a pure dps.