5.2+ Job Balance Feedback Thread

[Astryoneus]

Hi everyone,

With the constant updates and changes for PVP provided by SE, we are making a centralized thread for feedback regarding the Feast. Currently there is a lack of feedback from the western community on the Official Forums and we'd like to have our voices heard, this is a community effort across multiple discords in NA/EU to provide PVP feedback on Official Forums.

We hope the following feedback can be brought to the attention of the dev team and encourages the player base to become more active on the forums.

A small request:
- Keep it civil please,
- Don't feed any trolls.
- Please like any suggestions you agree with.

Community Discords -
PvPaissa - Central hub for Feast and Frontlines
Revival Wings - PvP discord with emphasis on scheduling, teaching and grouping up for Rival Wings.
The Braveheart - PvP discord for the Primal PvP community.
Banette JcJ - French-focused PvP discord
Feast Friends - PvP discord with a focus on custom games on Chaos DC
Crystal Customs - PvP discord with a focus on custom games on Crystal DC

The first few posts will be the some of the most agreed on feedback from our Discord incentive.

[Astryoneus]

All Jobs
Abilities that rely on dealing damage to absorb HP do not restore more than 1 HP if the target is shielded. If it is intended for these abilities to drain health even from shielded targets, please fix this interaction.
e.g. Drain's "Absorbs 200% of damage dealt as HP" effect.

Revamp common actions to allow for more variety.
Revamp additional actions to achieve the same goal.
The playerbase feels like there are too many underperforming additional actions that create an environment where there is only one or two correct choices with any given Role. Diversifying, revamping and/or bringing up underperforming additionals AND common abilities would help bring more decision-making and depth to the system and giving players more tools to deal with a variety of situations.
e.g. Rampart should be a common ability shared by all tanks, therefore moved from additionals into their base toolkit, and possibly adding more additionals, to allow more choice in how players can and want to handle different situations.

[Astryoneus]

Tanks
Consider reworking and/or re-diversifying Tank Jobs to have uniqueness with their own strengths and weaknesses. Currently, each Tank's toolkit is close to a carbon copy of one another (including buffs, CC and abilities & their potencies) minus one truly unique buff or debuff.

Each Tank Job plays in a very similar fashion. There isn't a lot differentiating them, and the playerbase feels it is frustrating to play each one when mirroring what we had during 4.x. The answer with all of them to various situations is practically the same, regardless of the Job you're playing; for example as helping a party member who's taking a lot of damage or assisting your party to kill the opposing party, the way you go about it is almost exactly the same.

The playerbase is concerned with losing albeit niche but also unique and useful abilities in the past, such as Sole Survivor, Clemency and Thrill of War. These abilities gave each Tank Job flavor and an identity, which made them more enjoyable and interesting to play. This sentiment is echoed in the usage of Tank stun abilities, with unique Stun abilities of the past (Such as the old Onslaught) being replaced by a global stun ability in Low Blow for all Tanks.

Giving Tank Jobs an additional defensive ability (e.g. Rampart as a common ability, rather than optional), or alternatively their tank stance (e.g. 20% mitigation, 25% less damage dealt) back, would improve the current situation of tanks where they're often easier to kill than their own Melee party member which should not be the case.

There is also an power imbalance between the Tank Jobs, where Dark Knight is above every other Job. In this feedback thread, we'll mention a list of possible Dark Knight specific changes, but alternatively the other Tank Jobs could also be brought up to match it. As an example, giving every Tank Job a CC ability in their baseline abilities, such as adding a Stun component back into Onslaught, Shield Bash for Paladin and possibly a ranged Stun for Gunbreaker. Other ability changes and/or revamping would be needed for the other Tank Jobs to match Dark Knight, but just the CC department fix would go a long way.

[Astryoneus]

Astrologian
Currently, any spell that is cast under the effect of Neutral Sect will be interrupted if Neutral Sect ends before the cast is finished. This should not be the case for any important Healer cooldowns, as this can very easily lead to a party member dying simply because your own cooldown renders you actionless for a few seconds. Changing Aspected Benefic to an instant cast would prevent skill interrupts, and also increase Job identity.

Astrologians will also sometimes not get the use out of an Abridged proc while going from a Benefic I directly into Benefic II, because the proc doesn't register before you use Benefic II. Something should be changed so that this would not be an issue.

[Astryoneus]

Scholar
Often 10 second duration for Adloquium ends up being an MP deficit, because the shield effect runs out rather than gets broken. Increasing the duration or making the shield effect permanent would help out Scholar greatly.

Changing Biolysis "Reduces target's HP recovered by healing actions by 20%" effect to either not stack with, or alternatively overwrites, Dark Knight's Edge of Shadow debuff, and vice versa. Alternatively, replace the Biolysis effect with an entirely new effect altogether so that the stacking isn't an issue and allowing Scholar to contribute in some other way. Such as a pure DoT effect.

[Astryoneus]

Dark Knight
Changing Dark Knight's The Blackest Night to either to not granting Dark Arts, reduce Edge of Darkness potency from 1000 to 800 or reduce the "Reduces target's HP recovered by healing actions by 20%" to reducing recovery by 10%. One of these changes would help bring Dark Knight in line with other tanks.

Changing Edge of Shadow "Reduces target's HP recovered by healing actions by 20%" effect to either not stack with, or alternatively overwrites, Scholar's Biolysis debuff, and vice versa. Or as mentioned in the Scholar feedback, create an entirely new effect altogether for Biolysis so the stacking isn't an issue.

[Astryoneus]

Dragoon
Consider removing Dragon Sight, and replacing it with Battle Litany.

The playerbase at large feels like Dragoon's general at range damage and Piercing Talon in it's current iteration encourages "wall camping" because of it's considerably big potency when used at range and the ability having no cooldown. Either lowering potencies, adding a cooldown to Piercing Talon or removing the "Extends Blood of the Dragon or Life of the Dragon duration by 10s, to a maximum of 30s" effect from the ability would help to fix this issue.

[Esmoire]

Re: Tank
I am in favour of making Rampart baseline, yes. When they gave everyone a unified medkit with the same healing potencies the same time they boosted ranged and healer HP, they kind of flattened the overall HP pool of the jobs. The result is in, some ways, while tanks improve team defence, the tanks themselves can feel a bit flimsy for their name. Especially when we are giving melee 50% DR CDs. To make it more insulting, PLD and WAR have actions that are vastly improved when used with Rampart. It's hard to not feel a little ripped off if for some reason you don't have Rampart chosen, and it doesn't feel like a reasonable choice.

Speaking of WAR, if they are not going to let us self-target Nascent Flash, at least put self-healing on Decimate/Chaotic Cyclone. Would give WAR some much-needed sustain in FL and RW with minimal impact on Feast.

As a last note, tank adrenaline while okay for Feast and FL, kind of sucks for RW. Even if you stick with your party, the environment is frantic and you'll almost always have someone in a mech. This means the tank is suffering a self-stun for 25% mitigation on maybe 3 people in a world where we now have powerful oGCDs giving that kind of mitigation where it matters more, which is typically one target. I'd like if it could be made better here somehow.

Re: Dragoon
I appreciate what they were trying to do with dragoon in making them this sort of midranged specialist though IMO they are overperforming in FL and RW. The stickiness of a monk with half of the reach of a ranged DPS, while still getting melee damage bonus/mitigation. Not as sturdy as SAM but has a get out of jail free card on a short CD. I like having the extended reach on some of their options but yeah maybe require a little more commitment.

Re: Healing Reduction
With regards to healing reduction, I think the most elegant solution would be is to have only the highest available apply and leave it at that. On one hand it sucks because if you are a DRK being randomly matched and get a SCH, it feels like you are getting less value out of your lineup, but it's the lesser evil compared to nerfing in isolation. Not sure if they work additively or multiplicatively now (via subtraction), but the latter would be a soft nerf. Two 20% debuffs would be 64% healing received, rather than 60%

Some other thoughts
While the community didn't address monk, I do think it's fallen off in FL compared to the other melee. Pre 5.1, the burst justified their limitations, since with the +15% damage they would absolutely flatten ranged before healers could respond. Now that everyone has potions and everyone is kind of a ranged DPS in a way, monk isn't carrying their weight as much IMO. Maybe they should be given a ranged attack to maintain GL. While it's understandable DRG is better than them right now when it's broken, IMO they are a little behind NIN and SAM as well in this environment.

[Esmoire]

Speaking of WAR, if they are not going to let us self-target Nascent Flash, at least put self-healing on Decimate/Chaotic Cyclone. Would give WAR some much-needed sustain in FL and RW with minimal impact on Feast.

Well okay then.

[NyneSwordz]

Well okay then.

This was a great change. Although, I still wish Nascent Flash is self targetable in PvP. Either that, or be consistent and not allow Gunbreakers to self-target with Aurora.