The current State of Casters 6.05 edition - balancing discussion

[Aikaal]

I am this thread in response of the current balance patch which was done and I believe to be incomplete regarding the caster DPS role. I am making this thread in hope it attract the eye of the dev team to understand why certain decision feel unwanted and unneeded and how the community feel about those jobs. If it can help me get any sort of credit, I was the 3.0 guy who made this thread regarding Black Mage: Black Mage Sanctuary

I will provide the problems I see and I will also say what I would do to fix as suggestions.


Black Mage - The Selfish Caster

The selfish of Casters, the job with no utility. Black Mage is currently in a good spot and I don't see them needing changes. They claimed world first with a "double" caster comp. Black Mage fight their spot against selfish DPS (Samurai and Machinist)

If they were fighting their spot for a caster position, they would lose on progression. With no res, they are straight down a downgrade to Red Mage and Summoner.

In farm / optimized runs, the situation is different. In a scenario where the fight is set and known, res support becomes undesired and then Black Mage is favored over Red Mage and Summoner.


Red Mage - The Ultimate Caster

Quite literally what is being suggested. With just above DPS on Summoner. They are the best choice for progression and utility.

• Infinite res on demand - the only limit is their MP.
• Magick Barrier - A 2 minutes Tactician which also increase healing potency

Red Mage was already a very strong progression job which was appreciated and balanced by the fact their damage was bound by the superior utility they have. I don't think any red mage expected to do as much DPS than their caster counter part Summoner and be given a free tactician. Still, they won't say no to gifts.


Summoner - The Misunderstood Caster

And the main reason I am making this thread. I was a main Black Mage for ARR and Heavensward. I've never liked how Summoner played and I played it during 1 tier in Shadowbringers and I didn't like it. However, the current Summoner. Now, that's the real Summoner that everyone wanted.

I say everyone but I also know there's a part of the community who dislike the new changes. Summoner has been tagged as a fake ranged physical because you basically do 7 hardcast per 2 minutes and I would agree. That's not very caster-like to always be running in my raids.

Now... the main counter argument I keep hearing about why Summoner should not do more damage than Red Mage is that it is easier because of the mobility. Let's talk about Mobility as a support and I will throw in my good old buddy the Machinist.

Mobility is the worst kind of support you could bring. When you progress a fight, you learn when you have to move for mechanics and jobs such as Black Mage and Red Mage has proper tools to be mobile. Mobility has not been an issue this tier meaning the entire mobility "support" of Summoner is completely void. Useless. Mobility has never been good. Do not believe me? For those who remember Heavensward, the main comp was running Machinist and Bard as double ranged with no caster. Ironically, that was also when both Machinist and Bards had casts meaning they had less mobility.

But Aikaal, Summoner have ressurection spells, they have utility. Yes anddddd no. Earlier on the red mage I pointed out that Summoner had to swiftcast for a DPS gain. So Summoner has a painful choice.

• Without swiftcast, hard ressing is a massive damage loss.
• Saving swiftcast will be a moderate damage loss on a *if* situation
• Not using swiftcast further decrease the damage of Summoner versus Red Mage

But Aikaal, they just buffed Summoner, stop being greedy you obvious Summoner supremacist. Phoenix buff was also a fix from a questionable design to remove damage on summoner once they hit 80. Wishing Summoner to be between Red Mage and Black Mage isn't simping for the job, it's to balance the caveats Summoner presents that Red Mage does not.

Caveats on a job are fine! I like them personally and I like working with them around. So long I am rewarded for dealing with them.

1. Embolden versus Searing Light - Searing Light last longer and is a weaker buff. The issue is that buff requires Carbuncle meaning it can't be cast if you have Phoenix or Bahamut up or when you Summon any elemental Primal. That means you have about a 15 second window every minute to use that ability. This also applies to Radiant Aegis. In general, Embolden is better because while it is shorter, all job burst fit 20 seconds. 30 seconds on Searing Light is very niche on Summoner themselves and this is fine.
2. Summoner must hold Swiftcast in order to res properly. That's more or less just a downgrade and not a caveat to the Red Mage who can just abuse his dualcast trait and keep Swiftcast as a pure DPS CD.
3. Summoner... optimize very poorly and synergize poorly with everyone. I already knew but it came for me to no surprise that my team currently wants to delays their buffs during P2S. To short up the situation, after 4 minutes, you get a 9 seconds downtime. So my group's reaper wants to delay his buff and asked everyone to delay theirs (which is overall the best option). However, while I can delay Searing Light, I can't and will not delay Bahamut. This means for the remaining of the fight, my elemental summons will benefit the buff windows. Not only that but I must sacrifice which spells I wont be casting for that 9 seconds which is a caveat in itself but I am downright punished for how my job works compared to others. Also If you press the button and it didn't cast and suddenly your Bahamut is up, well, too bad you can't cast it anymore!

To sum up the caveats of Summoner. Instead of being issues which could reward gameplay, they are straight down punishments. They are no benefit at all and yes, it is even worst than TBN. Because the caveat of TBN is even if it procs, it's a neutral DPS gain. At least its a neutral DPS gain. Summoner's caveats are damage losses.

While Summoner gameplay is very simple, it is extremely restrictive and punishing. Having Summoner to be on par with Red Mage is completely unbalanced and favors Red Mage outright because you do not possess the argument of "Well, Summoner does more damage at least"

Lastly, I will rate the 3 casters in specific aspects of the game that people look them for.


Power

1. S, Black Mage, Purely Selfish, should always be that way. They also have this super Paradox meme rotation that is still better than RDM and SMN.
2. A, Red Mage, Second best damage dealer right now
3. -A, Summoner, just behind Red Mage

Utility

1. S, Red Mage, Magick Barrier and res on demand. Do you need more?
2. A, Summoner, 1 res per minute at best. Niche restricted self barrier with 2 charges.
3. B, Black Mage, no utility other than Manaward for self mitigation.

Party Synergy

1. S, Red Mage, Embolden was fixed and can build burst on 2 minute windows. Can also work around delays.
2. A, Black Mage, My DPS is my Support. Can build burst on 2 minute windows.
3. B, Summoner, Searing Light is niche for Summoner themselves and it is restricted with a condition in order to press the button. Crippled by fight delays.

Mobility

1. S, Summoner, The only good thing about Summoner. They have 7 hard casts per 2 minutes at 2.46 GCD.
2. A, Black Mage, Mobility on demand with 2 stacks of Triple Cast, Thundercloud Procs, Firestarter Procs, Umbral Ice Instant Paradox, Swiftcast, Xenoglossy Stacks. Do you need more?
3. B, Red Mage, on paper, Dualcast sounds like they are mobily with 2 stacks of acceleration and swiftcast. They have good mobility, other jobs just have better.

Fun, this is purely biased on my preferences

1. S, Summoner, Because this is the real definition of Summoner. I like it.
2. A, Red Mage, Jack of all trades, 33% White Magic, 33% Black Magic, 33% Rapier moves.
3. C, Black Mage, since when Black Mage has always just been Fire IV and Fire spells? I lost interest at Stormblood because they started to remove the caveats on Black Mage.

I do want to say I have a preference on jobs with caveats because they usually are rewarded by those. Summoner is currently filled with those which is why I am attracted to Summoner. But they are straight down issues and damage losses. There is no reward or gain in playing Summoner right now. If you were to play and raid in ultimate or competitive week 1 progression, you are sort of sand bagging your team for picking Summoner over Red Mage. Black Mage I name as a fake caster because if you have a Black Mage, you most definitely are running a Red Mage also. They fill the filler 4th DPS spot, not the caster spot. It is fine this way because Black Mage is extremely strong right now.

I will finish by saying what I would do and give suggestions. But I also want to hear everyone's opinion on the subject. Do I make sense? What would you do to fix the situation?

Summoner

• Minor potency buffs to put them higher than Red Mages.
• Remove the restriction on Searing Light.
• Change Emerald Rite/Catastrophe as such; 3 charges with a 1.5s cast on a 2s CD.
• Put Summoner raise on a long cooldown as an instant cast. (Like a battle res)
• Summoner rotation is too simple to master. It requires little thoughts to learn and need more complexity
• Summoner rotation is too rigid, binding your elemental primal gems to Summon Bahamut/Phoenix ruins creativity on optimization
• Remove the restriction of Searing Light bound to Carbuncle
• Rework the support of Everlasting Flight & Rekindle to not be gated on on Phoenix

Red Mage

• Put Red Mage raise on a long cooldown as an instant cast. (Like a battle res)
• Keep Red Mage firepower to competitive levels to Summoner (Do not overtune SMN during adjustments so Red Mage falls behing SMN)

Black Mage

• Destroy the meme Paradox Rotation by preventing Paradox procs from Transpose.

I will finish this topic by saying that if your logic (I'm speaking to Square dev team) is that Summoner should lose power because of mobility. Then I'm pretty sure 95% of the community would rather lose mobility to gain back that power. Nobody asked Summoner to be this mobile and its downright an issue because Red Mage and Black Mage have, on demand, mobility which voids the whole "advantage" Summoners may have.

I have also decided to make this thread because based on this Radio Mog Station Video, it seems that they feel Summoner is perfectly fine.

I have hope they will address the Summoner issue or I'm just not gonna play it anymore and play Red Mage. I'm a caster main and it's fine in savage if I play Summoner but it won't be during Ultimates. It's unfortunate because I'm someone's whose performances does get impacted by the joy I have of the job I play.

[Risvertasashi]

Another point that's worth considering...

When setting up a party, people aren't go to go "Hmm, should I take a bard or a summoner." They're going to go "Hmm, should I take a summoner or a red mage or a black mage."

Black mage is apparently getting buffs in 6.08, which, cool, but if SMN is left as is, it's going to be the caster no one wants for certain.

[Aikaal]

It's actually the reason why I made this thread! I can't help but see them saying Black Mage is busy when they have the lowest cast per minute of all DPS jobs.

Post about cast per minute on jobs.

This aggravtes me that some jobs are just not played by the dev team. Healers definitely do not feel balanced right now. My White Mage is going Astro because of how little White Mage brings.

I have a strong fear that they see issues from how many players play the job. White Mage being the easiest and most played must mean it is played right. Well, Summoner looks super easy and fun to play so it must be fine right...?

[Risvertasashi]

It's actually the reason why I made this thread! I can't help but see them saying Black Mage is busy when they have the lowest cast per minute of all DPS jobs.

Post about cast per minute on jobs.

This aggravtes me that some jobs are just not played by the dev team. Healers definitely do not feel balanced right now. My White Mage is going Astro because of how little White Mage brings.

I have a strong fear that they see issues from how many players play the job. White Mage being the easiest and most played must mean it is played right. Well, Summoner looks super easy and fun to play so it must be fine right...?

As a former healer main and also someone that played bard for some raids back in ShB, believe me I feel it. Well, I hope this gets some support and 6.08 help instead of a bunch of the "BuT It'S mObIlE" (and so should apparently be trash) brigade.

[Anvaire]

As a former healer main and also someone that played bard for some raids back in ShB, believe me I feel it. Well, I hope this gets some support and 6.08 help instead of a bunch of the "BuT It'S mObIlE" (and so should apparently be trash) brigade.

TBH though, I think the mobility argument is heavily flawed. It isnt about a job being Mobile, its about what benefit it brings. On the whole Melee are mobile, and the only issue they face related to mobility (outside of hitting positionals) is when they need to disengage, However, given the sheer size of max range, that seldom happens from what i can see. You can argue that targetability for Ranged classes is always 100%, but there are only a handfull of cases where this actually is a boon for them only. Mobility Alone is such a strange metric to use to determine a jobs DPS.

[Aikaal]

TBH though, I think the mobility argument is heavily flawed. It isnt about a job being Mobile, its about what benefit it brings. On the whole Melee are mobile, and the only issue they face related to mobility (outside of hitting positionals) is when they need to disengage, However, given the sheer size of max range, that seldom happens from what i can see. You can argue that targetability for Ranged classes is always 100%, but there are only a handfull of cases where this actually is a boon for them only. Mobility Alone is such a strange metric to use to determine a jobs DPS.

Yeah, melees are super mobile. The caveat is they have to disengage from mechanics but often strats are found to keep them in melee. So the whole caveat is a strength because they overall deal more damage for that weakness. And boy will they take mechanics if it's to keep uptime and it wont give a damage down or death.

As for Summoner mobility. Yes, they are mobile but why? Why so much mobility? Nobody in the community asked for that. Please give back my hardcasts along with my power. I already have to deal with downtime caveats which is a huge loss most the time and it can be fix with a ludicrous amount of speed. My guess in P2S and I have nothing to prove but with somewhere like 2.28 to 2.29 GCD, you should be able to cast Bahamut after the downtime with all your buffs.

Now, a question for all! Which job would be considered more complicated. The one with the same BiS on all fight or the one with 4 potential BiS gear depending on downtime!

[Risvertasashi]

TBH though, I think the mobility argument is heavily flawed. It isnt about a job being Mobile, its about what benefit it brings. On the whole Melee are mobile, and the only issue they face related to mobility (outside of hitting positionals) is when they need to disengage, However, given the sheer size of max range, that seldom happens from what i can see. You can argue that targetability for Ranged classes is always 100%, but there are only a handfull of cases where this actually is a boon for them only. Mobility Alone is such a strange metric to use to determine a jobs DPS.

I mean, I agree with you 100% yeah. ShB bard had the same problems when arguing that it shouldn't be trash - "But it's mobile and has 100% uptime," the forums would say, while a melee could be dead on the floor for over a minute and still do more damage, lol.

Yeah, melees are super mobile. The caveat is they have to disengage from mechanics but often strats are found to keep them in melee. So the whole caveat is a strength because they overall deal more damage for that weakness.

And, sure, but they can be disengaged or even dead for a pretty long time and still keep their DPS lead. But in practice that never happens because strats try to prevent them from losing even a single GCD.

As for Summoner mobility. Yes, they are mobile but why?

TBH, I was pretty happy with pre-rework mobility. Yes there were lest instant casts but there was a lot more flexibility on when to choose them. The only restriction was to have 4 further ruin stacks going into bahamut, but even if you didn't manage that, a ruin 2 didn't really cost that much DPS in the long run.

By the numbers - If given a choice between old smn and new smn, I'd choose old smn because it still had all the mobility it needed, when it was needed. (And had some other perks like not being punished as hard for holding burst for add phases).

[IdowhatIwant]

TBH though, I think the mobility argument is heavily flawed. It isnt about a job being Mobile, its about what benefit it brings. On the whole Melee are mobile, and the only issue they face related to mobility (outside of hitting positionals) is when they need to disengage, However, given the sheer size of max range, that seldom happens from what i can see. You can argue that targetability for Ranged classes is always 100%, but there are only a handfull of cases where this actually is a boon for them only. Mobility Alone is such a strange metric to use to determine a jobs DPS.

Every DPS should have roughly the same rDPS at 100% uptime. That should be the goal of SE.

[Kolsykol]

Black mage is apparently getting buffs in 6.08,

Huh, did I miss something?

Where did you hear this?

[MrJPtheAssassin]

Great read and I completely agree with you on all fronts. I have been a smn main since I started doing savage back in SB on O5S. I always felt smn should be in the middle of the two other casters and that feeling hasn't changed even with the rework. I hope SE hears us out and slightly buff and fixes some of the issues with the new smn. I, for one, am in the camp of sacrificing some of our mobility to gain some power into our kit. I want to feel more like a caster and never ask for all this mobility we have now. Anyway wonderful write-up! Thank you for making this post.