So you're telling me..

[ssunny2008]

RPR should not be the lowest melee DPS. Everything about this job screams DEAL DAMAGE. It's class identity, transforming into a void sent and dealing a ton of damage, would feel completely underwhelming if it hits like a wet noodle. If you're not a fan of class identity or want to be more realistic with your approach, then RPR's whole kit is designed around having a 40 - 60 second burst phase (double or triple enshroud). Circle gives a 3% damage buff, but most importantly it gives us the resource we need to use PF which enables us to do these long burst phases. I'll be honest and admit that I'm not sure if NIN and DRG has such a long burst phase and set up requirements (although lvl 80 DRG didn't seem have any issue with getting it's burst phase which was maybe a 15-20sec burst iirc). But I guarantee you RPR will become a laugh that it has to do a long burst phase in order to do more DPS than ranged variants.

What I don't understand is if you think crest is so strong, then why not advocate for nerfing it to be more on par with what MNK has, instead of wanting to nerf the whole job in itself. I'm not talking about not tuning at all, of course, but most people's reasoning for nerfing RPR to lowest "melee" dps is because of crest? Makes no sense to me and feels very overreaching. If crest was removed, would their DPS output be more acceptable?

I want MNK to be nerfed too and i´m an old MNK main so... i would always prefer to keep things UNIQUE but balanced instead of easy and broken. Imo both don´t deserve to be top melee-DPS.

Let´s say 8k DRG, 7,9k SAM / NIN, 7,7k MNK, 7,6k RPR... without AC i would go for 7,7k RPR, but that´s it. If MNK had no Mantra, i would go for 7,8k at best.
You and others might see it opinion-based, but MNK and RPR are way easier to play than the others. They´ve the flow, they´ve only 2 positionals, they´ve like 0 oGCD´s unless your gauge is full, you´ve no real animation stuck, the chance to missplay is ~halved compared to the other melees. And bot have utility,which is not just DPS, imo.
The reason why MNK should be a little bit above RPR is, because you´ve a 6 key rotation you need to adjust and a way shorter buff / Dot timing. RPR on the other hand just have to keep an eye on a 30s buff and should take care that the gauge won´t get overfilled while playing 123.

I get your point, but isn´t everything on DPS classes screaming like "DAMAGE!"? I´m up for class-identity and uniqueness in all ways. I hate homogenization, but it should still be balanced somehow. Not that i would care to be excluded from raids, because i don´t rely on the meta... i just don´t see the need that some classes should´ve everything in their kit, that they make other roles obsolete in some way or that you get "bigger rewards" in kind of DPS for less efford.

?? I don't think I understand what you are saying here, NIN and DRG have a ton of raid utility?

I don´t count raid-damage buffs as utility so far. I would always count it in the average DPS already. They don´t have stuff like AC or Mantra to assist the whole raid in another way but DPS.

I don't agree at all with your opinions, but I hope we can at the very least agree to disagree and let SE do what they feel is best.

Of course.

Don´t get me wrong, i get your and others points. I know it´s often even just about "having fun", which is the most important thing in games and ppl mostly forget it. But since it´s a multiplayer game, you might take fun away from others if stuff isn´t well balanced or changes happen out of nowhere. I lost a lot of fun because MNK and tanks got simplified and homogenized again and again to cater ppl who use them once in a while. But i would never rate "being top DPS" as fun. Big numbers are nothing but scaling. I press that button, my char uses Midare, it makes pewpew, why should i feel good, seriously? Great gameplay shouldn´t defined by some numbers. Of course it can feel great to slaughter everything down, but then i would recommend an ARPG title like Diablo instead of a MMORPG.

[Maverick_Haas]

I am a bit confused by this part, i am pretty sure the fantasy of every melee dps is doing damage, ninja stabs and casts magic, dragoon is shooting dragons and jumping all over the place, samurai does big sword slashes, am i missing something?
...
I am aware that perfect balance is impossible unless complete homogenization happens, but right now it definitely has room for improvement/tightening the margins.

In hindsight, I agree it's silly to say that because, subjectively, I find RPR more badass/appealing that thus should deal more damage. It's not what I was trying to say, but it does come across that way I suppose. But playing the job gives you the perspective that you will deal a lot of damage during burst phase.

Of course tuning is required, and I'm not advocating that RPR be the clear top DPS, but I am trying to prevent it from being the worst dps.

You and others might see it opinion-based, but MNK and RPR are way easier to play than the others.
..
i just don´t see the need that some classes should´ve everything in their kit, that they make other roles obsolete in some way or that you get "bigger rewards" in kind of DPS for less efford.

SE doesn't balance classes on difficulty to play, in fact not many game devs balance on difficulty to play. Years playing mobas have taught me that the difficulty of a hero/champ/avatar doesn't equate to higher performance. Though more difficult classes can have higher performance potential, it's not always the case. Perhaps you could argue that it should, and some part of me would agree with you. After all, I mained BLM for SB and ShB and I did love playing BLM and it's difficulty made it a good challenge for me, and I love the BD dps numbers. But after playing BLM for so long, the difficulty of pulling big numbers became dependent on fight knowledge and just it kinda got... easy after that.

RPR is by no means the hardest job to play, but I don't agree that because it doesn't have a high skill requirement that it should be the lowest DPS. But we could argue all day about skill requirements and what seems fair for DPS, but ultimately I defer to SE's balancing.

Personally, I find RPR to be the most balanced gameplay wise. Also, who's to say the reason RPR feels "easy" is because it was simplified alongside MNK and others? Or at the very least it was designed this way precisely because everything else got simplified. IIRC, yoshi-p stated that RPR was meant to be on par with SAM.

[ZiraZ]

What I don't understand is if you think crest is so strong, then why not advocate for nerfing it to be more on par with what MNK has, instead of wanting to nerf the whole job in itself. I'm not talking about not tuning at all, of course, but most people's reasoning for nerfing RPR to lowest "melee" dps is because of crest? Makes no sense to me and feels very overreaching. If crest was removed, would their DPS output be more acceptable?

Because the whole job is busted, it's not just one thing, you can't just nerf AC and leave the job doing the damage it's doing
and I don't recall anyone saying reaper should be the lowest dps in the game, just the lowest melee dps if AC remains as strong as it is

Also, crest is one of the weakest regen abilities, only beating fairy whispering dawn, not to mention is very situational with a 30sec recast time, where as medica2 can be recast immediately after the 15s duration. Not saying it shouldn't be tuned, but it's asinine to claim that it's putting healers out of a job.

healers don't usually spam spells to keep 100% uptime on the HoTs or shields what are you even talking about?
healers basically only use 1 gcd per regular burst of damage and then combine it with oGCDs to lose as little dmg uptime as possible, having a reaper with AC means the healers don't even have to cast anything most of the time
yes that's very very strong the fact you can't understand how strong that is troubling
this makes it the only melee in the game capable of covering heals for another role in the trifecta, possibly all jobs and not only melee since the dnc heal requires far more coordination to pull off and has double the cooldown.

RPR should not be the lowest melee DPS. Everything about this job screams DEAL DAMAGE. It's class identity, transforming into a void sent and dealing a ton of damage, would feel completely underwhelming if it hits like a wet noodle. If you're not a fan of class identity or want to be more realistic with your approach, then RPR's whole kit is designed around having a 40 - 60 second burst phase (double or triple enshroud). Circle gives a 3% damage buff, but most importantly it gives us the resource we need to use PF which enables us to do these long burst phases. I'll be honest and admit that I'm not sure if NIN and DRG has such a long burst phase and set up requirements (although lvl 80 DRG didn't seem have any issue with getting it's burst phase which was maybe a 15-20sec burst iirc). But I guarantee you RPR will become a laugh that it has to do a long burst phase in order to do more DPS than ranged variants

Weren't you the one saying it's ok for sam/blm to perform worse because it's all about playstyle and theming?
that's kind of hypocritical to then say that can't apply to reaper just because it's special and above the other jobs for arbitrary reasons

[ssunny2008]

SE doesn't balance classes on difficulty to play, in fact not many game devs balance on difficulty to play. Years playing mobas have taught me that the difficulty of a hero/champ/avatar doesn't equate to higher performance. Though more difficult classes can have higher performance potential, it's not always the case. Perhaps you could argue that it should, and some part of me would agree with you. After all, I mained BLM for SB and ShB and I did love playing BLM and it's difficulty made it a good challenge for me, and I love the BD dps numbers. But after playing BLM for so long, the difficulty of pulling big numbers became dependent on fight knowledge and just it kinda got... easy after that.

RPR is by no means the hardest job to play, but I don't agree that because it doesn't have a high skill requirement that it should be the lowest DPS. But we could argue all day about skill requirements and what seems fair for DPS, but ultimately I defer to SE's balancing.

Personally, I find RPR to be the most balanced gameplay wise. Also, who's to say the reason RPR feels "easy" is because it was simplified alongside MNK and others? Or at the very least it was designed this way precisely because everything else got simplified. IIRC, yoshi-p stated that RPR was meant to be on par with SAM.

Any serious gaming-company will keep "difficulty to execute" somehow in mind for the reasons i´ve already stated: "The average player", "More efford = more reward"

Classes with a higher skill-floor need some space, otherwise "no-expert players" would always underperform an so they gonna rely on easy champs as safer pick. This would make the class somehow "wasted" in its potential and design. Just check out my example on ff.logs. Top RPR and top DRG aren´t so hard away from each other. But DRG is definately harder to execute for a lot of reasons. The further you go down with the percentiles, the bigger the gap will become. And not only to DRG, to any class.
This will automatically lead to the issue one of the following issues:

- If the content is balanced around the top aka RPR / MNK, the most players gonna have trouble to beat the DPS checks unless they stay with RPR or MNK.
or
- If the content is balanced around the average DRG / NIN, RPR and MNK gonna be "easy-mode" for good and expert-players.

We can´t do anything else but keeping class-difficulty in mind and the actual stats speak for themselves. Yes, my inner voice is like "I don´t want to see broken and easy to play stuff at the top.", but just look at the stats, scroll through the stuff on ff.logs. Everything is alerting when we just look completely objective on RPR. MNK and yes, even SAM just follow him.

And i´m pretty sure SE keeps difficulty in mind, just look at the RDPS classes. I highly doubt the next patch will bring them in line or on the top with melees. SMN is easy to execute too now and stucks with them. Don´t know if SE just fckd it up, but in kind of difficulty? Absolutely reasonable to pay an "easy to play / range tax".

I don´t know what you actually mean with "RPR is the most balanced gameplay-wise".


And seriously MOBA´s can´t be counted. I´ve played LoL for years too.

1. PvP and PvE balance work way different.
2. MOBA´s have to mix up their meta again and again to keep things fresh. In MMORPG´s, it´s the boss-content. In MOBA´s the characters are the content.
3. Obviously, atleast 90% of all time, the champs got buffed, which surprisingly became a new skin. And obviously mainstream champions recieved the most skins and are mostly meta.
4. It´s a matter of items. While MMORPG´s have some gear, such gear is mostly shared and / or has atleast similar stats. But items in MOBA´s are there to either counter enemy-abilities or to leave the player the possibility to adjust (crit, flat, tank, support-builds). Of course "BIS" exists too, but it´s not always the best option. There is way more strategy involved based on the enemies, your own teamcomp and how the game is going on.
5. The balance measures around early-, mid- and lategame aswell.

Don´t know if i forgot something at the moment, but it´s definately not comparable. And some form of "harder to execute = more reward" balancing exists there too. Lee Sin and Yasuo, even Bard are the perfect examples.

[Shironeko_Narunyan]

YP said difficulty has no bearing on performance.
I believe that if Reaper is too strong, it needs a nerf, but just because it's "too easy", that's not a reason.

Tanks would heal mobs if they'd balance it that way

[Maverick_Haas]

Any serious gaming-company will keep "difficulty to execute" somehow in mind for the reasons i´ve already stated: "The average player", "More efford = more reward"
...
And i´m pretty sure SE keeps difficulty in mind...
I don´t know what you actually mean with "RPR is the most balanced gameplay-wise".
...
And seriously MOBA´s can´t be counted. I´ve played LoL for years too.

Difficulty to execute can be rewarded with many things, but in the case of FFXIV equating difficulty to execute to higher performance (in this case DPS) is problematic in my opinion. This means that unless you are playing that difficult class then you can't compete, so why bother playing any other class? If not for the LB penalty, whole teams would be constructed of SAMs, BLMs, GNBs, and ASTs, perhaps swapping one of the DPS with a token NIN, DRG, or BRD. Not saying every single class needs to be homogenized so it doesn't matter what class you bring, but when you can compete as different classes do you see a different variety of compositions which is what we have. But lets all be honest here, mostly all jobs are not difficult to use. There is a difficulty to get in to, but that's not the same thing as difficulty to use when conditioned. Coming from a BLM main (which is considered by many the most difficult class, though argued that old SMN was more difficult), BLM is not hard once you know a fight, you literally just sit there casting F4 with the occasional UI transition to regen mana.

As for SMN, well I don't play it, but BLM has gotten several simplications with Xeno and reduced sharpcast and 2 triple cast charges and keeps it top DPS bar.

RPR feels balanced in it's approach. It feels smooth and has power to match it's burstiness. This is subjective for me, but it feels like a well designed job.

I brought up mobas because those are the types of games that have more turn over on balance, and even though there are times the meta certainly changes there are still times when you find a spinning Garen coming out of the bush and being completely unable to do anything. But certainly it is a pvp game so the way it's balanced is different with there being a meta of counter picking. But I believe my point still stands, some champs who are easy to play (like Garen) are still viable and can overpower more difficult rated champs. One the otherside of that argument, using HOTS, Abathur is an extremely hard hero to play, and isn't a complete powerhouse. However their usefulness is great via other mechanics when used correctly. But I digress, I understand it's not a 1-to-1 comparison, but I wanted to show that you can have difficult classes that don't directly transition to being top DPS.

I dunno, why haven't we seen a difficult to play utility class/job? Or a hard to play tank? I suppose healers can have some difficulty to them, but anytime difficulty comes up it's always about DPS.

[ssunny2008]

YP said difficulty has no bearing on performance.
I believe that if Reaper is too strong, it needs a nerf, but just because it's "too easy", that's not a reason.

Tanks would heal mobs if they'd balance it that way

Who cares about stuff what Yoshi said?

Things change and he´s in the position to claim whatever the majority wants to hear. And of course the casual majority don´t want to hear that the easy picks lack behind if you perform well. On top i do even highly doubt that he has much to do with balancing. There are teams for different stuff and as director you don´t sit there and start to program everything on your own. You sit there and choose the right ppl for the needed jobs, meanwhile you need to justify any costs and timings about the game. Of course you gonna do some quality-checks, but it´s not possible to keep everything tracked alone in a big game like this. You don´t develop in the first case, you coordinate, you decide and you´re the representative for us players and for the investors.

And if we take that statement serious, what´s the point in RDPS classes lacking behind then? Those 10% mitigation you need in 1% of the whole content? Why does RDM or MNK aren´t on their level then in kind of utility?
Or is it, because they´re able to clear trash faster with aoe spam? Have you seen what melees are able to do with their aoe´s now?

Unless ACT measurements are completely broken in kind of RDPS-classes, the only justified reason, why they lack behind, would be "easy to execute".

I dunno, why haven't we seen a difficult to play utility class/job? Or a hard to play tank? I suppose healers can have some difficulty to them, but anytime difficulty comes up it's always about DPS.

I would like to see it and i think we had some, more or less. But well... homogenization and simplification happened again and again for the sake of "balancing", to cater ppl who disliked whole class-identities, to make everything "more accessible", to safe money and time. This game lost more than enough over its years to be safe to say, that the devs are completely incompetent in kind of gameplay or just don´t care anymore.

I´m not saying, that they don´t do their job correctly. But they took any unique aspects of the game and threw them into the bin more and more with each patch. No matter if we talk about buffs / debuffs, tanks, healers, DPS, perfect rounded arenas,... way too much is gone which has been unique at a time. The latest aspect has been clearly MNK as positional-heavy class, which has been unique in any MMORPG. Or Nocturnal?!
It´s not only the gameplay, it´s everything to safe time and efford. It´s just all about money and "graphics only" are obviously enough.

[Maverick_Haas]

Who cares about stuff what Yoshi said?

Yoshi P is the director. I'm sorry but, what the director says goes. He will get suggestions if something he says goes against sane design practices, but if Yoshi says to make a class that only has 1 ability and does 1mil dps... Then they will make the class, or fire yoshi p. He doesn't have complete control over everything, but his word certainly goes a vary far way, especially considering he saved the MMO as a whole. So I'm willing believe that if YoshiP said classes will not be balanced by difficulty, then very good chance they will not.

I don't know how it works in other industries, but in the software/games industry you give your recommendations to the director/producer/managers, but ultimately the decision to do a certain thing is up to them.

[Xiaoki]

Unless ACT measurements are completely broken in kind of RDPS-classes, the only justified reason, why they lack behind, would be "easy to execute".

Ranged Physical DPS have low DPS because they can attack from away and do not have cast times like the Caster Magic DPS, so they can move and shoot.

It's not a good reason, especially with how mobility has changed over the years, but it is the reason.

[ssunny2008]

Yoshi P is the director. I'm sorry but, what the director says goes. He will get suggestions if something he says goes against sane design practices, but if Yoshi says to make a class that only has 1 ability and does 1mil dps... Then they will make the class, or fire yoshi p. He doesn't have complete control over everything, but his word certainly goes a vary far way, especially considering he saved the MMO as a whole. So I'm willing believe that if YoshiP said classes will not be balanced by difficulty, then very good chance they will not.

I don't know how it works in other industries, but in the software/games industry you give your recommendations to the director/producer/managers, but ultimately the decision to do a certain thing is up to them.

Yeah he has to make decisions, but it won´t sit there like "Man... this class needs 100 DPS more...". There is no time for fine-tuning is this job. He has his trusts for sure.

And again, what´s the point in RDPS classes then, if it´s not the difficulty? That Yoshi is like "I don´t give af as long as my BLM is on top!" ???
Without a range-tax, there is no reason that they should lack behind in the raiding scene, but they do for a long time now.

Ranged Physical DPS have low DPS because they can attack from away and do not have cast times like the Caster Magic DPS, so they can move and shoot.

It's not a good reason, especially with how mobility has changed over the years, but it is the reason.

I would call it "easier to execute", "easier to play", choose whatever you want. So yeah, Yoshi is lieing if that´s the case, and i´m pretty sure, that everyone agree, that this is the case. There have been more than enough discussions about the range-tax.