Disembowel: Please Fix this Mess

[HyoMinPark]

What's generally considered "Entry level"? for Savages?

We'll get back on topic! Promise!

Personally, I started with Extreme trials before I starting jumping into Savage—I had already cleared all of HW’s Extremes before I jumped into Creator Savage, and I also had a very good understanding of my job in terms of rotation and utility (I still continue to learn in Savage to this day, though!).

So I would recommend getting to 70 first, trying out the level 70 24-mans to apply your openers and single-target rotations in a setting that has mechanics, jumping into the 8-man normal mode raids, and then trying your hand at Extremes. All the while practicing your rotation on striking dummies (moving from regular dummies eventually to Stone, Sky, Sea dummies), looking up guides for openers, and starting to research good gear combinations (by this, I mean looking at substats on gear to determine which will be a good fit for you—as a DRG, you would like Crit and D.Hit, Det is okay, and you would avoid Skill Speed). After that, you can try some entry floors for Savage (e.g., Phantom Train/Chadarnook are pretty entry-level for Savage, and far easier than any of the first floors in a tier compared to Coils or Alexander—save Creator).

Hopefully that all makes sense! I’m a bit sleep-deprived, so hopefully I didn’t use any lingo you may not understand. Any questions, feel free to message me on Discord (Hyomin Park#0055). I may not answer because I’m going to lay down and sleeps soon, but I can try to help after I wake up!

And frankly speaking I believe that DRG is meta mostly because BRD is meta

Take out piercing, and you will have an argument to replace DRG at the least; as BRD stands now, it offers too much utility to be replaced unless there are viable replacements for Troubadour, Nature’s Minne, Refresh, and Tactician.

Alternatives could be altering MCH in a way to give it more utility, since physical ranged are supposed to be the support jobs. Perhaps giving it an equivalent to Troubadour, or buffing Hypercharge to put it on par with Battle Voice, the passive crit buff, or Foe’s.

I genually believe that once you remove disembowel ppl will remember that NIN and BRD have been meta since their introduction and while your and bourne argument is more than valid if feel like that it's better to find a different solution than simply throwing something away

Then we will have to agree to disagree. There is no other alternative, because the developers have already shown that they cannot balance selfish DPS jobs—even with 4.3’s adjustments to SAM, there is still people laughing about it: it’s a 2% buff at best, and not nearly enough to offset the utility that other melee (NIN, MNK, and DRG) can bring; and it took them years to finally get SMN and BLM to a place where they can oust MCH...which is ousted due to a combination of its clunky gameplay, its reliance on low ping for effect gameplay, its lack of personal damage, and its lack of utility that BRD doesn’t already bring.

At best what they can do is bring back the old LB rules, which required 1 physical ranged and 1 caster. At that point, it’s press F to pay respects to MCH, and DRG/BRD still dominate because piercing is still a thing, and even subbing out DRG for a MNK (or, god forbid, a SAM) still screws over the BRD far more than it does the raid (though both suffer with a SAM, but the BRD still suffers two-fold).

They could also make BRD less mandatory to a group too, it's a solution too

I’ve reached my post limit for the day (seriously, can we get rid of this?), but the only way to do this would be outright removing BRD’s utility, which has always been the basis of their job’s identity, or nerf their damage into the ground so that piercing barely makes a difference. Which they did this already...in 3.0. And then BRDs weren’t complaining about piercing, but at the fact that their job sucked and no one wanted them. BRD was absolutely awful in 3.0.

I already addressed giving MCH some tweaks to put it on par with its physical ranged twin. Only other thing they could do is adjust Mana Shift. But even that doesn’t really offset the entirety of BRD’s toolkit. And support has always been its function—it pays for high support with the lowest damage; the casters have high damage with little support...something that they still have trouble balancing even now because they cannot properly balance selfish jobs. (This is also an argument I have made for buffing RDM, because it doesn’t offer nearly the support BRD has, yet does the same amount of personal DPS.)

they could add another job bringing piercing

I already addressed this in a post to another individual. At this point, the debuffs are still redundant. All resistance downs should be removed in 5.0; not just piercing, but slashing and blunt, too. The former causes too much reliance on a single job (DRG for BRD/MCH), and imbalance with regards to metas. The later are never not present in a group, and are just redundant because they are never not up on a boss.

Giving piercing to RDM or SAM with DRG in the party would not hurt as badly and can give BRD/MCH options, but groups that want true optimization would still be less likely to bring them in the end. Because they wouldn’t have an alternative to Litany/Dragon Sight—Embolden is weak, and SAM offers nothing with little personal damage to offset that; MNK slaughters it. They would have to adjust RDM and SAM as well to make this an option. But it still doesn’t take away from the fact that the resistance downs are growing to be redundant.

Frankly speaking while BLM is better now it's still not enough I'd say, You are still hurting your group with one, he's helped by no1 and helps no1, there are much better alternatives

BLM and SMN have better arguments for themselves as opposed to SAM or RDM. No, they aren’t in the physical meta, but at least they have the capability to replace MCH; their personal damage is enough to offset the fact that they don’t have Hypercharge (which pales in comparison to TA, its closest equivalent), and you’ll still have BRD for all your Refresh/Tactician needs. But the balancing of selfish jobs against jobs with utility is an entirely separate argument.

Re: a caster meta—
There was already a pseudo of this in Gordias/Midas: BRD was more favored for comps that had casters (because Foe’s was magic damage only), and MCH was more favored for physical comps. Then Creator happened. Creating a caster meta won’t really solve anything with piercing still being the same unless they add “magic resistence down” to a job. At that point, it’s still a question of selfish DPS jobs versus utility jobs. Which is, again, a separate argument. And “magic resistence down” would just create a new problem of which meta will reign supreme: caster meta or physical meta. Is the caster meta doing more damage than the physical with just raw damage (since casters offer limited utility)? Or are the physical utility jobs still superior (because they’re still buffing the raid)? Again: selfish versus utility; a different argument entirely.



A much better solution would be a way for all roles to interact in a single comp: melee, physical ranged, and casters. Rather than creating a divide of physical only meta or caster only meta, or by having debuffs that gimp one player because the group decides to not bring the only job that offers it. At that point, it’s a question of balance, and the balance can start with the removal of Disembowel’s piercing resistance down to offer alternatives to DRG/BRD/MCH, DRG/BRD, or DRG/MCH without hurting one of those three jobs, and, by extension, giving those “underdogs” a better chance even though they would probably still need adjustments.

Again, we are going to have to agree to disagree. I’ve explained this as many ways to you as I can, and now I am tired and out of posts for the day. And making a lot of typos, so I am going to go take a nap now.

[Remedi]

I’ve reached my post limit for the day (seriously, can we get rid of this?), but the only way to do this would be outright removing BRD’s utility, which has always been the basis of their job’s identity, or nerf their damage into the ground so that piercing barely makes a difference. Which they did this already...in 3.0. And then BRDs weren’t complaining about piercing, but at the fact that their job sucked and no one wanted them. BRD was absolutely awful in 3.0.



I already addressed this in a post to another individual. At this point, the debuffs are still redundant. All resistance downs should be removed in 5.0; not just piercing, but slashing and blunt, too. The former causes too much reliance on a single job (DRG for BRD/MCH), and imbalance with regards to metas. The later are never not present in a group, and are just redundant because they are never not up on a boss.

Giving piercing to RDM or SAM with DRG in the party would not hurt as badly, but groups that want true optimization would still be less likely to bring them in the end. Because they wouldn’t have an alternative to Litany/Dragon Sight—Embolden is weak, and SAM offers nothing with little personal damage to offset that; MNK slaughters it.

First of all, I agree they should remove the post limit it's annoying, second what you say about 3.0 is exactly why I believe ppl would simply shift their anger to something else
as for resistances I'm on half and half because while I agree on the general belief that they are redundant, I also feel like that removing them completely would remove a flavor in the combat, I know sounds crazy, but as said I'd rather SE work on them to make them effective.

Though between you and me if you were to point a gun to my head and ask what they are more likely to do in the end I would definitively said that they will idd remove it, especially after the reduction to 2 min of shadow wall, I feel like that after that the team won't stick to their belief any longer.
As such I feel like they shouldn't, but I think they will move that way sooner or later

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I repeat I understand it sucks you lose 5% dmg simply for the lack of dragoon, but wouldn't the raid feel the same for the loss of a BRD a NIN or an AST?

No because Piercing only buffs Bard and Machinist. Like I said in my preceding response, if you drop Ninja for Monk, you replace Trick Attack with Brotherhood. The latter may be inferior, but it and Monk's significantly higher personal damage help off set the loss. There is literally nothing that off sets Piercing. In my current static of DRG/MNK/RDM/BRD, if I play Ninja, the raid loses Battle Litany while gaining Trick Attack. The Bard loses Piercing and gains absolutely nothing. Look at the logs I linked; specifically the second. That Bard lost nearly 600 DPS yet everyone else parsed 94%+

I agree that disembowel for the moment is problematic and all, but considering how speed kill metas are atm, I would say that it's the better it has ever been and frankly it shows that depending on the fight the meta will shifit as such they should focsu on how to fix the underdogs first and foremost, to make them less of a terrible pick

And you know how to fix that? By removing a debuff which encourages DRG/BRD almost unanimously. Yoshida flat out said they do not take Disembowel into their equation when balancing Bard and Machinist hence why they have struggled to the extent they have.

[NewAgeDoom]

I have to say @ Hyo and Bourne, a lot of this is sounding over my head as a new player, but it's definitely helping me learn more about the game, at least in terms of number crunching, and end game.

Thanks.

[HyoMinPark]

I have to say @ Hyo and Bourne, a lot of this is sounding over my head as a new player, but it's definitely helping me learn more about the game, at least in terms of number crunching, and end game.

Thanks.

With more exposure to high-end, it will become easier to understand. X3 I was in the same boat as you until I started getting heavily into Savage and optimization. But it all ends up making sense eventually. ^^

[NewAgeDoom]

With more exposure to high-end, it will become easier to understand. X3 I was in the same boat as you until I started getting heavily into Savage and optimization. But it all ends up making sense eventually. ^^

I'll get there eventually. My main challenge atm is deciding what I want to get to 70 first -.-

[HyoMinPark]

I'll get there eventually. My main challenge atm is deciding what I want to get to 70 first -.-

Understandable! X3 Focus on that, then focus on diving in head-first into Savage.

[NewAgeDoom]

Understandable! X3 Focus on that, then focus on diving in head-first into Savage.

What's generally considered "Entry level"? for Savages?

We'll get back on topic! Promise!

[Remedi]

They could also make BRD less mandatory to a group too, it's a solution too, they could add a meta weigthed towards caster especially, they could add another job bringing piercing, there are alternatives to pursue

Frankly speaking while BLM is better now it's still not enough I'd say, You are still hurting your group with one, he's helped by no1 and helps no1, there are much better alternatives

[Nominous]

Resistance debuffs don't introduce interesting gameplay. You press a button when it lights up. Even the worst, lowest denominator player can manage 100% uptime of slashing/piercing/blunt, because they are flat out built into the proper rotations. It asks nothing more of you. For that matter, most 'synergy' in this game is mindless for that same reason.

If you're looking for a buff that did have interesting gameplay interactions, look at 4.0 Dragon Sight (Dragoon tether). It was very clear that it was a buff meant for the DRG's melee partner. In order to maintain the buff, the partners had to stay close to one another. THAT is a buff that's interesting, and creates interesting interactions, and requires some modicum of thought. That's what the game needs more of.

Frankly, there's only two (good) solutions to the problem. Either they remove piercing/slashing/blunt, or they split them up in cross-role. And for that matter, I've been feeling like that's the best option for things like TA and Litany as well. Define the Job by their gameplay, not by singular buttons.