Is it just me or is class design / balance severely lacking this expansion?

[Tranquilmelody7]

Tanks and Healers underwent a tremendous amount of homogenization, party utility is still very unbalanced, and some jobs... barely evolved.

Combat classes were barely touched in 5.2, and now upcoming combat changes are being withweld making the process of submitting feedback even more difficult.

BLU mage also hurts, we waited for the job to flesh out like Yoshi P initially insisted, and now I only hear of then being used in Amh Araeng.

I had so much more fun actually playing the game in StormBlood, despite it widely being viewed as the worst expansion.

[althenawhm]

Oh yeah, healers are absolutely boring to play right now.

"But, but but! If you play the hardest content while intentionally gimping yourself its fun!"

No, the jobs should be fun the whole time.

[Enla]

As a Healer main I almost wish they'd stop trying to 'balance' us at this point. There isn't a single dedicated class-oriented developer who mains healer and it shows in how the team attempts to 'balance' us. Hell, even AST's existence as a hybrid healer seems like something only a player who has never played healer a day in their life would think was a good idea from a balance standpoint.

There have been countless threads both here and on reddit on how the game should balance healers while maximizing each classes unique aspects - and time and time again the suggestions in those threads have been ignored. If they can't be bothered to hire someone who knows what they're doing and can't be bothered to listen to their community, then I'd rather they just stop pretending to balance us at all. It's not like their attempts have been an overall net positive - save for the WHM rework which is only good because the development team dragged SCH and AST down to make it work instead of the other way around.

[MagiusNecros]

Shadowbringers barely changed the way you play jobs(except maybe MCH) and overall I find them slow and unengaging. The only class I enjoy a whole lot now is Blue Mage. Which they intentionally lock them out of rather basic content and make you work to put a group together.

All I really see is them being happy with how boring or safe the jobs are and are just going to do the Potency adjustment teeter totter thing every other patch cycle. K.

[Jandor]

Yeah, they did go a little overboard with the homogenization.

I have no issue with tanks and healers having the same basic kit required for their roles, but that basic kit should be a foundation to build upon, not a blueprint for the bulk of the rest of the jobs abilities too.

[Raiya]

SCH Day one 5.0.

/Thread

[Videra]

SCH Day one 5.0.

/Thread

Why are we still here? Just to suffer?

[shao32]

this expansion is a joke on job desing for many jobs, tanks have to much homogenization and WAR/DRK are basically clones, this expansion just killed DRK gameplay, healers are the worst as far as i know specially SCH and AST and we have MNK suffering from awful design choices as always and im pretty sure i miss something.

SCH Day one 5.0.

/Thread

this is basically me with DRK too

[MagiusNecros]

I preferred DRK in HW. Fast fluid and very engaging. 2 xpac later and we pretty much became WAR with sword and gave most of our CDs to the other tanks. Only thing DRK brings is their damage shield IMO. If given the choice between WAR and DRK I'd pick WAR because as is it's less clunky.

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As for healers they made WHM good by virtue of making the other 2 classes suck in comparison.

[Cetek14]

I think 5.0 jobs are much more playable overall, but they lack any soul.
DRK - boring 123 spam.
GNB - club sfx for a blade user.
Healers - not really a healer myself but people complain for a reason.
MCH - heat mechanical summoner, no connection between lore and gameplay.
A bunch of other jobs also have issues but i would say small enough to wait for 6.0. People also complain about MNK but not a Monk myself so can't say anything.