Thread: 5.2+ Job Balance Feedback Thread

For ninja
I believe an aoe silence feels kinda OP considering you can go invisible and shukuchi. After the duration Nerf, the silence just feels lack luster now and doesn't really have an impact as the 1 sec is partially negligible. I'd suggest giving us jugulate back in play of Ill wind and increasing the duration to its original 2 seconds. This will return ninja to being more of a single target assassin as an aoe silence is more mage like and doesn't really fit with the assassin archetype. The loss of a stun, silence and root really hurt ninja combined with increasing damage made it lose its original identity of being a utility assassin.

In general
Some classes losing CC was a major turn off in general. I feel some classes lost forms of counterplay and play making abilities because of it, along with their archetype niche/identity. There was also a bit of skill and fun when coordinating CCs and Anti CC to make a play or defend yourself. That is now lost so we only have to coordinate bursts. Also as a whole I feel like tanks and healer identities are skewed because of the cc changes as well. All combined it, I feel it messes up unique comps in Team ranked.

Tanks
To go with thee above, I believe that in pvp we have to reconsider tank archetypes again. Should only tanks be capable of CC? If so why do they all have to have the same CC across all classes. When I look at other pvp games or mobas like league, you have various tank archetypes. Bruisers, vanguards, juggernauts, etc. And now that's gone because all tanks pretty much have the same kit with just slightly varying Mitigation and damage skills. With DPS losing some of their CC it feels like tanks are literally only there to be meat shields and peel without any type of uniqueness between the 4 tanks. That's just how I feel currently. Although I do enjoy how tanks don't feel unkillable this patch, so that's a plus I'd like to keep.

Healers
After Tanks got toned down/changed. Why is this still the only class that seems unkillable, especially with the loss of CC on most classes? I would be all for making healers less of a heal bot, in exchange for slightly more damage or utility to solidify them into the support role. And, as with tanks, the homogenization of healer role abilities and loss of some cc made it feel like healers loss a bit of their individual identity.

Machinist
Machinist is kind of clunky and weird as a whole. the hypercharge combo just feels clunky, with both Gauss round and ricochet, as the animation cast cause CD clipping. My solution to this would be to remove the ricochet CD reduction from heat blast and add it to auto crossbow. This would give it an aoe combo and single target combo. Also both bio blaster and blank having low range (For a ranged class) and being necessary for burst feels clunky as you would not normally go into melee range to attack. If this is for balance reasons, I would make bio blaster be an OGCD to make up for it. And with Air anchor, drill and heatblast sharing a GCD it just feels hard to grasp what would be an ideal burst phase for this class. With all of those combined MCH just doesn't flow like the other ranged dps classes. They all have some type of combo that flows with silence and a quick 3-4k combo for an execute if they have to finish off. Idk what could be done with this class.

Scholar:

Maybe tie their indomitability/Lustrate charges to the job gauge via aetherflow stacks that refill over time. There are three charges and using the fairy gauge refills a charge. It follows that the charges should be a part of the gauge since they work in tandem.

Quick take on 5.3 patch notes.


Shared actions
Agreeable, across the board. As a WAR main I feel a sense of panic over Rescue working against Holmgang, but honestly it's fair. It feels like that thing wasn't working for healers when they needed it most. Anyways, 40% DR on Addle is huge, but like... it feels like it has to be amazing to compete with the other options. This will absolutely neuter somebody's burst sequence, but you are losing out on DPS or one of the other survivability options to get it which is fair. Especially since it can save your healer if the focus shifts onto them.

Healing Reduction
There was a lot of ways to approach the problem. They could have done something like cap it at the highest value applied (which is anti-synergy and kind of sucks) for example. Instead, they went for just raw number nerfs... which is fine. I think healing someone with a 25% healing penalty is going to be a lot easier than 40%. We'll at least give it a try.

Gunbreaker Changes
I appreciate them giving some flavour back to GNB. Having CC will give it some much needed utility to compete with the other tanks. Losing sks on the surface is a DPS loss, but having a +10% damage buff up for your CD-based damage is going to be big. Looking at the updated PvP guide, it looks like Draw and Junction has a 30 sec CD. Means 100% uptime and you can enjoy the power of the debuff often. Given you will almost always want the damage buff for Feast, you'll almost always be getting the -10% damage/healing on a ranged DPS/healer rather than the +10% damage taken on melee/tanks. As an aside, Lightning Shot's +50% damage buff is nice for the non-combo cartridge spenders.

Ranged DPS stuff
Hello MCH buffs. Don't mind me, I'll just scooch right in there. As an aside, looks like they want to keep BLM DPS, but tone down the burst sequence a little, which is fair. Would have been dangerous to increase the damage bonus of Astral fire without monitoring that. Also, RDM getting DR for Frontline is going to help a lot. Using the melee sequence was really difficult.

Originally Posted by snipski

Also Zero nerfs to Dragoon that was clearly super OP this season.

You ready for another season of drg kills ranged in their base till timeout. I AM

This is gonna' be a hit it and quit it season for a lot of people I can already see it.

Rescue now 100% mandatory and make holmgang worthless.
Monk now impossible to kill.
SCH nerfs when it's the worst healer, AST buffs when it's the best healer.
SMN buffs when it's the best dps.
Ranged players deleting you if they look at you like in SB again.
Good patch.

If you compare suggestion with changes: They adressed healing reduction in a way and gave gnb a higher burst. But many bydesign gameplay elements stayed the same.

The overall mitigation boost makes even PLD look good, while its still a slow job and stuck in animation delay when the burst already ended. Underplayed classes got potency boosts, but Im sure BRD and MCH want a different kit instead. And who in their right mind would play a physical job anyway right now, when mages got a 40% addle that absolutely destroys any bursts. Melees should have Feint in their common actions now on a 30s cooldown to counter it.

And just repost the big rest of this thread for 5.4.