Disembowel: Please Fix this Mess

[GunksFoy]

Heavy Thrust is already 10%. And I disagree with this. Most people outside the forums don't really care about meta, and bard and machinist are still valuable to a group even without a dragoon. They're DPS isn't that bad. Bard is pretty low, but Machinist ranks pretty middle of the road, with or without Disembowel.

[Dualgunner]

Heavy Thrust is already 10%. And I disagree with this. Most people outside the forums don't really care about meta, and bard and machinist are still valuable to a group even without a dragoon. They're DPS isn't that bad. Bard is pretty low, but Machinist ranks pretty middle of the road, with or without Disembowel.

Most people outside the forums? I mean, if that means most people outside Savage too, then sure. But we don't and shouldn't balance solely around casual content.

DPS Job rankings in Sigmascape based on popularity (total uploads) over the last two weeks:
BRD: 42k
DRG: 37k
NIN: 31k
SMN: 24k
RDM: 19k
SAM: 17k
MNK:16k
BLM: 16k
MCH: 11k
(Sauce: https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/21 )

People like Bards. And Bards like not having 5% of their damage gone for no reason. Oops, I mean having a dragoon.

[GunksFoy]

Snip.

I didn't say meta isn't popular, just that most people outside the forums don't care that much. I only meant that most groups aren't going to turn you away if you're a Bard and they don't have a Dragoon or vice versa. People on the forums make it seem like n one plays anything but meta.

If you believed the forums sometimes, those numbers would look more like this:

BRD: 100k
DRG: 100k
NIN: 100k
SMN: 8k
RDM: 4k
SAM: 3
MNK: 1k
BLM: 504
MCH: 50k

(obviously sarcasm, but really, the forums exaggerate.)

[Dualgunner]

I didn't say meta isn't popular, just that most people outside the forums don't care that much. I only meant that most groups aren't going to turn you away if you're a Bard and they don't have a Dragoon or vice versa. People on the forums make it seem like n one plays anything but meta.

You have that second part a bit backwards: you're going to turn groups away if you're a bard and they don't have a Dragoon, so they're going to turn away SAM and MNK because they want a BRD.

Besides that, my main point was that "most people outside the forums" also means "lots and lots and lots of people who don't raid in the first place." Most people on the forums don't raid either, but the issue becomes when people playing the top end of content come and say "Hey, Disembowel is not a very well thought out buff that locks a job in not because it can bring powerful damage additions to the group through smart play, but rather ridiculously powerful additions to the group through sheer virtue of existing", a response like "Most people off of the forums don't care about meta" is a strange response.

To elucidate further: yes, we can agree most people don't care about meta. Most people also don't play content where it matters.

[GunksFoy]

Snip

Fair enough. Although, I would argue that meta doesn't "matter" in any content. All jobs can clear the content in nearly any party comp (4 red mages might run into an issue, for example) but any reasonable comp is fine.

I don't necessarily disagree that Disembowel could be reworked or deleted, I just don't think it NEEDS to be. The numbers you provided show that other jobs are still having plenty of luck getting into raids, albeit at a lower rate. I think Ninja is just as skewed as Dragoon though, they just don't have the added benefit of directly assisting one of the best supports.

[Sapphire_Dianta]

This also. Would require a pretty huge buff since this is the biggest way a Dragoon contributes to the party.

Perhaps weaken the effect of Disembowel, but allow said weakened effect to apply to the damage done by all classes?

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Just give BRD and MCH their own Disembowl and nerf their damage a bit to compensate. There's no reason their full potential should be tied to another job.

[zuzu-bq]

Just give BRD and MCH their own Disembowl and nerf their damage a bit to compensate. There's no reason their full potential should be tied to another job.

"That would make them too strong" -Yoshida 2k12+6

[HyoMinPark]

Just give BRD and MCH their own Disembowl and nerf their damage a bit to compensate. There's no reason their full potential should be tied to another job.

That would just make piercing redundant, like all the other resistance down debuffs. How about we just remove all of them entirely instead? I'd rather them removed, personally, and I main BRD.

I don't necessarily disagree that Disembowel could be reworked or deleted, I just don't think it NEEDS to be. The numbers you provided show that other jobs are still having plenty of luck getting into raids, albeit at a lower rate. I think Ninja is just as skewed as Dragoon though, they just don't have the added benefit of directly assisting one of the best supports.

People have been complaining about the physical meta since 3.4. Even nerfing Disembowel to 5% from 10% did nothing to it because Disembowel is still so skewed. Yeah, BLM and SMN are at a point where they can oust MCH, but if the meta of DRG/BRD/MCH is to ever be removed, there is only one solution: remove piercing. I'm honestly tired of having to rely on a DRG for 5% of my damage. It may not seem like much, but with my current Savage runs, it is the difference between purple and orange.

I'm not saying people should put a lot of stock in parses, but if they're like me and enjoy pushing themselves to beat last week's highest and keep the content interesting after you've already geared up... I enjoy seeing myself beat last week's numbers. I enjoy seeing the improvement. It's not that I don't see it without a DRG, but I, again, am tired of needing a DRG to reach the goals I have.

[Tex_Mex]

I believe that any balanced dps composition should always include 1 magic dps, 1 physical ranged dps, and 1 melee dps, with the final slot being completely open to every DPS class. This type of setup seems to me like it would be the best possible solution for the playerbase, so that each of the DPS types can be relevant and have a spot in high end raiding. I do not believe that this goal is possible without some homogenization, though I am a staunch believer that complete homogenization would be a disaster. Balancing these 2 factors is not easy, but I believe a happy middle ground could be formed. With that in mind, here is what I would do to encourage class diversity within team compositions:


Step 1) Remove all current 100% uptime resistance debuffs from the game. Piercing, slashing, and blunt resistance downs are inherently imbalanced because there are not even numbers of classes that benefit from those damage types. 5 classes benefit from slashing down, but only 1 benefits from blunt down?? Who thought that was a good idea?

Step 2) Introduce 3 new 100% uptime damage resistance debuffs: Magic resistance down, Physical Ranged resistance down, and Melee resistance down. These generalized resistance downs would greatly simplify how debuffs work and allow these debuffs to benefit more classes.

Step 3) Give EVERY DPS class one of these resistance downs as a normal part of their optimal rotations. The debuffs would be assigned as follows:

All Melee DPS => Physical Ranged Resistance Down Debuff
All Physical Ranged DPS => Magic Resistance Down Debuff
All Magic DPS => Melee Resistance Down Debuff

*These Debuffs WILL NOT STACK with a debuff of the same type (I.E. if you bring 2 magic DPS, the party will not get double melee resistance down)

Step 4) Rebalance class potencies to make up for the losses and gains in pDPS. Some classes would lose a lot from a change like this, while others would gain a lot. A simple potency rebalance would be all that is needed to bring these numbers back in line.



Reasoning - The Good
This setup highly encourages parties to bring at least 1 of each of the 3 DPS types. In fact, (assuming good DPS balance) this setup will make that composition mandatory in order to achieve maximum rDPS.
Using this idea would completely alleviate the imbalance caused by Disembowel, and would put all DPS on a more even playing field when trying to find parties.
This setup also allows parties complete freedom with the 4th DPS slot, since the group will already have access to all of the resistance debuffs.
This setup also allows tank and healer damage to benefit from the debuffs, though the healers and tanks will not be able to provide the debuffs.
Using this methodology, individual job abilities like BRD utility, Trick Atttack, Battle Littany, etc. do not need to be removed or shared, so jobs can still maintain distinct identities.

Reasoning - The Bad
This is yet another step towards homogenization, and it also completely trivializes game mechanics like damage types (piercing, blunt, etc.). Personally, I think these are trivial mechanics to begin with, but this could be a downside.
This type of setup makes having one of each of the DPS types basically mandatory for end game raiding. While I see this as a good thing, forcing players to play a game one specific way will undoubtedly turn some players off.
One imbalance to this idea is that Melee players get the short end of the stick when it comes to the rDPS provided to the party because of this change. Their debuff would only affect the physical ranged DPS (maximum 2 people, but more likely 1 person), while the other debuffs affect not only the DPS, but the healers and tanks as well. To balance this, the debuff that melee players give could be increased to compensate (say from 5% to 8% or something like that). There are multiple ways to address this, but I feel it is an extremely minor issue.


Conclusion
In my opinion, this solution would go a long way towards balancing classes and encouraging diverse class compositions, while leaving the identity of FF jobs intact.