Design of DRK and PLD

[Mikey_R]

The problem with creating synergy is, what do you do? You don't want to have it tied to DPS otherwise you start with the case where if you have one of the 2 jobs, you will need the other just for the extra damage. Extra mitigation potential? If it causes healers to save GCDs for more damage, of course it is going to be better.

You could see this issue crop up from the past. In HW you always took a Warrior tank, partly because of their massive damage potential, but also, they could apply the slashing down Debuff. With Ninja being very common due to the power behind Tick Attack, pairing them up meant that Ninja could do even more damage than potentially intended by not having to use Dancing Edge at all (Dancing Edge applied the Slashing Down Debuff and done less damage than Aeolian Edge).

Then you have the double ranged meta, where you had Bard, Machinist and Dragoon. Dragoon was really strong in it's own right, but being able to buff the damage of Bard and Machinist meant you done more damage overall by having double ranged rather than ranged and caster.

With that, Stormblood basically made every job that had a slashing/piercing/etc. Debuff require them to be part of the rotation, so that you couldn't have the cases, where, Ninja wouldn't use Dancing Edge (though, they removed it anyway with this change). Ranged didn't get the ability to apply Piercing because they never had it to begin with, but Dragoon kept it, so Ranged were still strong. Which then leads to where we are now with Debuffs that apply additional damage across multiple jobs being completely removed.

The only thing since that comes close is Reaper with Death's Design, however that only applies to the damage done by the Reaper and no other job. Obviously, they didn't want it to increase other jobs, otherwise you, again, start having to balance it over every job.

Now, every raidwide buff is being changed so that they affect everyone, as having it only apply to specific damage types potentially limits the groups. Monk's Brotherhood was changed from only physical damage to all damage and gave spells the chance to proc Chakra, Redmage's Embolden, Just physical damage for the raid to all damage for the raid.

By having specific job synergy, you create an imbalance which then goes against the philosophy of any group can clear any content.

[Shurrikhan]

By having specific job synergy, you create an imbalance which then goes against the philosophy of any group can clear any content.

No, it doesn't. Any set of jobs can have different but (roughly) equally-valuable synergies. (See Overwatch, for instance, whenever it's in a good patch. For almost all hero/job choices, the way you play is more dependent upon your comp than not, and yet even at the professional level, it could take a month or more for even a map-specific meta to outperform comfort picks or intentionally off-meta --harder to counter-- comps.)

Having synergies isn't damning; it just means you have to balance comps, not only individual jobs.

It just comes back to whether players actually want XIV to be a team game beyond merely picking an angle, and perhaps an 'out' or 'in' position if there are more ranged than melee, before performing their mostly unchanged T&S dance. So far, that seems a no. We seemingly like as little effect from playing with others as possible, or indeed of any chance, anything outside our control.

[Mikey_R]

No, it doesn't. Any set of jobs can have different but (roughly) equally-valuable synergies. (See Overwatch, for instance, whenever it's in a good patch. For almost all hero/job choices, the way you play is more dependent upon your comp than not, and yet even at the professional level, it could take a month or more for even a map-specific meta to outperform comfort picks or intentionally off-meta --harder to counter-- comps.)

Having synergies isn't damning; it just means you have to balance comps, not only individual jobs.

It just comes back to whether players actually want XIV to be a team game beyond merely picking an angle, and perhaps an 'out' or 'in' position if there are more ranged than melee, before performing their mostly unchanged T&S dance. So far, that seems a no. We seemingly like as little effect from playing with others as possible, or indeed of any chance, anything outside our control.

What you have to remember is that balancing between PVE and PVP have different things to be considered. Whilst PVE is being balanced against each other to fight a static encounter, PVP have to be balanced not only between each other, but the dynamic environment of a human on the other side.

This is why SE balances in each role. All the tanks are similar enough that you can choose any and be fine. Start adding synergy between 2 tanks, and you would have to add it for all different compositions, otherwise, you start having imbalances. That is 6 different combos for the tanks, not much, but it is still something to think about. Then you have the fact the synergies will not apply in dungeons, which SE do balance around.

If anyone can give examples of potential synergies, I am willing to look at it as there might be something I have overlooked.

[Shurrikhan]

What you have to remember is that balancing between PVE and PVP have different things to be considered. Whilst PVE is being balanced against each other to fight a static encounter, PVP have to be balanced not only between each other, but the dynamic environment of a human on the other side.

You seem to be forgetting that they're also balanced separately, with entirely separate toolkits between PvP and PvE for each job?

[Shurrikhan]

Start adding synergy between 2 tanks, and you would have to add it for all different compositions, otherwise, you start having imbalances.

Yes, obviously. Which creates exponentially more work because --when it's not just a mere +X% damage by which to shuffle numbers on a meter and then unshuffle them back in a resultant log-- it's exponentially more gameplay available to each job in party play. The question is merely whether it's worth it, whether we actually want team play, or mostly just simultaneous play.

If anyone can give examples of potential synergies, I am willing to look at it as there might be something I have overlooked.

Honestly, most would be dependent upon actual undermechanical depth, such as not all elements doing the exact same thing (solely raw damage), let alone the same thing as physical damage. Those synergies are things that come pretty quickly and naturally out of fire having some appended mechanic, of wind having an appended mechanic, of multi-strike attacks actually having a intuitive difference from big, single-hit attacks, of attacks that seem--in their animations--to knock enemies to the ground or into the air, of mobs that have more ways to manipulate their behavior than just to be at the top a damage-times-modifier list (a.k.a. Enmity), etc.

Flare goes off in the middle of the enemy pack and for that brief moment, the Ninja has n-1 shadows to jump to. The White Mage draws a torrent from the lifestream (literally just taking advantage of ground on which heal or Holy casts previous landed) or draws up an occluding boulder (ala Stoneshield / ground-targeted Stoneskin) and the Ninja can use that block line of sight between enemies and himself and go into Stealth. The White Mage can project Fluid Aura through Suiton, adding that much potency-to-HP to its wave as it heals and cleanses allies, damages and purges enemies. Etc. Etc.

It's just a matter of having more to our abilities than mere timers, resource gauges, and linear unlock sequences so that a battle doesn't almost precisely as it did, save for perhaps holding an extra GCD before deploying oGCDs in one's opener, in party play as it does against a striking dummy. The synergies form simply from the types and classifications that'd come into play. That's not to say they wouldn't need a fair bit of balance so that, say, a Black&White NIN/BLM, DRK, WHM, PLD doesn't become the go-to speedrunning group for hard dungeons or the like or that you don't end up just stacking Monks and Warriors for the stagger they might induce on adds in a given Savage raid such that you don't even need a second healer. Such wouldn't be "easy". But it's not a fatally flawed course of action to have synergies, nor absurd to want more from party play. It's just more work... mostly because there's then more gameplay actually there.