The current State of Casters 6.05 edition - balancing discussion

[SaberMaxwell]

I ain't a RDM expert so thanks for clarifying. Still, I must remain with my base ground info. How does those impact you in any fight? I get SMN has more mobility but in order to taxe such mobility, I must see a reason to believe I'm gaining DPS from it and I just don't see that. If anything, you have to optimize more your melee combos and mobility than SMN. Great. I'll trade that any day for multiple raises on SMN.

Unfortunately I have not had the pleasure of tackling this tier yet due to extenuating real life circumstances, Mt raid group found a sub for me in the interim so I cannot answer how that would affect Red Mage in this tier, though I'm given to understand that very frequently in 2s and 3s that it's mobility tools are taxed quite a bit just getting into position for mechanics.

Don't take the following to mean I dislike or don't want these disadvantages. Much like you I assume since you said you wanted cast times back, I enjoy them and consider them integral to the rdm / caster experience.

In a fight like e11s, however, when the group has two melee and two tanks, all the melee spots are taken up if he casts thunder. During the 2m burst back then, which was simply two 10.2 second combos back to back, I had to get real skinny and precise with my positioning in order to not kill anyone or get killed with lightning.

In the melee uptime strategy for e12s part 2, I as the caster was forced far away to the back and rendered completely unable to burst.

E4s, as ranged I had to disengage a few times I'd have rather stayed in and melee combo's.

TEA, my bursts mandated me to take up already clogged traffic zones in Brute/Cruise, and when I subbed for groups who were used to smn they had to get used to working around just how immobile rdm was comparatively.

UCoB, several times throughout twin and adds phase, rdm is forced far FAR out of range for melee for a variety of reasons. Any group with rdm needed the healer to act as the backup hellbaiter if the phys ranged got picked, whereas smn were just fine filling the role if they were present.

UWU; ifrit baiting and getting into position with titan were quite tough since you were frequently away from / launched away from the boss. God help any group that tried to get their rdm to handle mesohigh tethers in Ultima Weapon itself, though summoner was just fine handling it. Admittedly though phys ranged was best for handling this part of the mechanic during annihilation.

I can brainstorm more later but those are off the top of my head.

Funny enough, SMN is terrible to optimize because there is no optimization. Just a monkas line to follow. It was only a matter of time until a fight like P2S make you sync Bahamut out of buff windows and point this glaring weakness. RDM isn't dealing with such issue during the downtime, they can just vercure to get a free quickcast.

Cureproc is great for getting back into the bread and better but every second not casting and generating mana is a second that rdm is misaligning its melee bursts with embo and manafy. It's perfectly possible too much downtime will ruin triple combo burst.

Legitimately I'm trying to understand this big tax because Ranged Physical is a giant wildfire and only Bard is currently doing fine. I don't see Machinist being good unless they get some massive firepower boost.

It's a dumb tax in the first place. It was really only conceived because of the piercing meta I believe, though also possibly due to Bard job stacking back in arr, though the role buffs ought to have been a good enough answer imo.

To begin with, SMN new rotation looked nice and all on paper but it has massive issues and not to mention that now everyone that hates on SMN just says mobility is the reason and deal with it. It gives the job a giant identity crisis. Before potency buffs, I would rather have them have another look at the job because its just not working.

That one's out of my wheelhouse, sorry.

[rewd]

For two gcds per minute, and displacement is not "a quick way out" in the way one might wish it to be. Compare also to the above figures of 38.1 seconds of mandated melee uptime for its fullest burst and who's out of melee faster?

It's not a dumb argument if one accepts that conceit that casters do more damage because they aren't as mobile. If one rejects that premise, then the other side of the argument becomes again "raise both smn and the phys ranged up in damage."

It's not a competition between RDM and SMN, no one is saying that SMN is less mobile. If you are saying that "RDM casts XY% of the time" is not as cut and dry as presented, then you have to make similar considerations for SMN too. Saying that SMN should be treated and balanced as a Phys ranged DPS is dumb and for several reasons:

- SMN doesn't compete with Phys ranged or, if you prefer, phys ranged don't compete with SMN
- SMN was already very mobile in ShB (not to mention Ruin II, which wasn't even a big DPS loss). Just looking at hardcasts per minute is also a very superficial way to determine mobility. Old SMN casted way more Ruin III than new summoner, but your main mobility tools, Egi Assaults and Ruin IV, were very flexible. I actually feel more restricted now, as far as movement is concerned, especially considered how strict the rotation is
- SMN still has more mobility limitations than all of the phys ranged DPS combined, so there's no reason to downplay them.

Unless I misunderstood something, your "38.1 seconds of mandated melee uptime" also sounds quite disingenuous and something that would need an additional note at the very least. Most of a melee combo can actually be performed out of melee range. Whether or not you need full uptime in melee range depends entirely on what is happening during your burst. If you are free to go in, do the 3 melee hits, go out and use your finishers and then go in again (and so on) then you certainly do not need "38.1 seconds of mandated melee uptime".

[SaberMaxwell]

I'm just gonna respond to the last bit about the melee combo for now; no ill will intended, I'm just a bit under the weather.

38.1 seconds is your burst of three combos at once. You're not realistically gonna go in for 5.2, duck out for 7.5, come back in for 5.2, duck back out for 7.5, then come back in for 5.2 though even if you did that's 15.6 seconds of melee uptime (and a LOT of extra movement because reasons).

[Aikaal]

-snip-

Lol, no worries.

Well, you'll be glad to know SMN is a lot less mobile is 70 and 80 content. In 70 content, Ruin III is stronger than your Garuda Rite quickcasts. You get more mobility at 86 from getting Astral Flow abilities from your elemental summons.

I didn't get to really experiment and do optimize runs in the last eden tier on caster. I can only check the top 50 on fflogs. I know RDM was slightly weaker than SMN back then but if you look at SMN vs RDm on E9S and E12S II, it was 26% vs 20% in favor for SMN for E9S and 43% vs 38% in favor of SMN.

Right now if you check P1S, 61% for RDM vs 19% on SMN and 57% vs 28% in favor of RDM.

Funny enough when you look at pure damage on fflogs. Both in e9s and e12s RDM make the top 5 having an overall beterr damage output than SMN despite SMN having more exposure. Right now in Pandaemonium, funny enough, SMN is beating RDM by like 20 DPS on p1s but is losing by like 150 dps on p4s.

My guess is with the craziest setups, you can probably have the underdog pull an upset. However, the exposure of both jobs is currently what is worrying.

I think in general, downtime is bad for everyone but in current example. I doubt any minor melee combos would have a bigger impact than having to unsync Bahamut on buff windows. It's straight 1800 potency you're losing in that burst. The downtime is also only 9 second. The issue is it happens during a buff window so buffs are delayed. You can delay Searing Light but SMN's current rotation doesnt allow you to just delay Bahamut, you'd be spamming Ruin III for 11 seconds, arguably the worst choice you could make. The current top SMN on p2s can,t breach 8k rDPS while RDM is at 8141 (roughly 150 more)

If anything, in ultimates, you are required to move more, you have more mechanics to deal and they are faster and more deadly. But because ultimates are also extremely rough, raise and magick barrier are likely just superior choices I'd feel since you aint really looking at speed running ultimates.

It's not a competition between RDM and SMN, no one is saying that SMN is less mobile. If you are saying that "RDM casts XY% of the time" is not as cut and dry as presented, then you have to make similar considerations for SMN too. Saying that SMN should be treated and balanced as a Phys ranged DPS is dumb and for several reasons:

I'm pretty sure his goal isn't to put a competition between the jobs but he just want to clarify. Because it's true SMN always had the bigger end of the stick in term of firepower but RDM brought other stuff.

People that just bring out the RDM vs SMN are usually just saying dumb stuff like, "mobility should be taxed and braindead jobs are expected to deal braindead dps"

[rewd]

I'm just gonna respond to the last bit about the melee combo for now; no ill will intended, I'm just a bit under the weather.

38.1 seconds is your burst of three combos at once. You're not realistically gonna go in for 5.2, duck out for 7.5, come back in for 5.2, duck back out for 7.5, then come back in for 5.2 though even if you did that's 15.6 seconds of melee uptime (and a LOT of extra movement because reasons).

If you are free to be in melee range like anyone else, those 38.1s won't be a problem. If melee range can be tricky at the time of your burst (AoEs? Spread? Stack? Etc.?) then you can and should use your finishers to your advantage in order to get to a safe zone and then go back in, especially with three finishers now because that's plenty of time. I'm just saying that "38.1 seconds of mandated melee uptime" sounds and effectively is deceitful.

[Imoen]

In 70 content, Ruin III is stronger than your Garuda Rite quickcasts.

Genuinely curious.

Is it though? A partial cast is not a full cast and we are still going to pop our Bahamut proportionally and hardcast at least one of Ifrit before getting to a second cycle of ruda, which is where the pot gain would be, on a second full cycle, right?

I'm only asking because it seems like you have put a lot more thought into the actual numbers than I have. Anyway sorry for the silly question.

[Lauront]

By your way of balance, I guess sam, rpr, and blm shouldn't out dps MNK either. Face it most the jobs in ff14 are not complex and most of them can be played pretty easily. I agree mnk has become pretty complex but it is like the only one now that is complex. I say it once and I'll say it again having a complex rotation or "hard" job shouldn't be the determining factor for balancing. If that was true SB smn and ShB smn should have stayed as the number one dps but instead, it got nerfs whenever they overturned it.

And it isn't from what they've said in the past. Partly because what one player finds difficult/easy is not always the same for another player, and also partly because the more familiar a class/job becomes to you, the easier it is to forget what it's like to a newer player.

SMN most definitely should not be on par with MNK. It is right now every bit as brain dead to play as BLM was in ARR. Something that easy and accessible should never outperform a job that requires even a modicum of effort to play effectively.

One thing to note is that they don't balance on (perceived) difficulty. It's a function of uptime and utility as well as role. I wouldn't say it's comparable to ARR BLM, though.

[Aikaal]

Genuinely curious.

Is it though? A partial cast is not a full cast and we are still going to pop our Bahamut proportionally and hardcast at least one of Ifrit before getting to a second cycle of ruda, which is where the pot gain would be, on a second full cycle, right?

I'm only asking because it seems like you have put a lot more thought into the actual numbers than I have. Anyway sorry for the silly question.

At level 70 content, your Garuda Rite attacks are 180 potency; 120 PPS. Ruin III is 310 for 2.5 cast so it's 124 PPS. You do have Garuda Rite has a mobility option but essentially it is weaker. Ifrit Rite is 128.57 PPS and Titan Rite is 120 PPS.

Both Garuda and Titan are quick cast options however but hey, I ain't SE doing all that balance. If you ask me, I do question and find it question that at 90 Topaz Rite is a quickcast with an oGCD that is your highest PPS spell just behind your Phoenix GCDs but above your Bahamut GCD. I say that because Ruby Rite spells are long casts and do less DPS. Slipstream is a long cast and deals less DPS also. So in situaiton you gotta sac multiple GCDs, why would you ever pick the casts options when the instant casts are stronger? There's no reward in risking it.

Also, I got to prog P3S and I swapped from SMN to RDM. RDM really has no issue there, if anything, hitting Resolution on the boss + 2 darkflames is pretty dope. Personally as a main SMN who knows exactly how to optimize SMN and a seasoned RDM who knows the job and is still figuring the optimal options and still drifts his oGCDs. It's just a straight win for my group if I got RDM and bring Magick Barrier and raise for progression because wipes are a thing. As an additional bonus, I just do the same damage.

However, p3s is already a terrible fight to claim good performances as the community deemed unworthy to include the entire add phase. I understand why, you can't have a strat involving 1 person AoEing the whole phase. but that would mean, in order for me to get a good performance, I will be spending about 20 seconds just casting Ruin III on Summoner to just align my Bahamut with buff windows. That's an awful decision as a progression / kill time perspective but it is the smartest option for my own selfish performances.

[Imoen]

snip

Thanks, I get the pps thing, but I assume there is only so many spells you can actually cast between Demi cycles. So I guess I was curious if you actually got the benefit of casting the Ruin over the Rite or if by doing that, you were delaying Demi slightly or something, since Ruda's Rites shorten the GCD. (Or if you end up with extra dead time using Rite)

I'll have to sit down and look at it at some point lol. Like from what I saw in HoH you can do 4 charges of Rite in 6 seconds. Ruin can only get two casts in that same time frame (Since a partial cast is not a cast at all) and that puts Rite ahead of Ruin in that context. It was a quick glance though so, ya that's why I was curious. Anyway, I don't want to veer off topic, that just caught my eye and got me curious.

[Sunako]

At level 70 content, your Garuda Rite attacks are 180 potency; 120 PPS. Ruin III is 310 for 2.5 cast so it's 124 PPS. You do have Garuda Rite has a mobility option but essentially it is weaker. Ifrit Rite is 128.57 PPS and Titan Rite is 120 PPS.

Ruin 3 is not 310 potency before lvl 84 trait?