Caster balance - Progression jobs vs speed

[Sequora]

Why is it acceptable that casters are divided into “progression” and “post-progression” jobs?


Caster is the only role that deals with this. RPRs aren’t switching to SAM once they’ve cleared a fight. Many groups put pressure on their caster to play summoner and red mage until a fight has been mastered or at least cleared. I know there are groups that clear fights with a black mage, but many groups would prefer to have that rez for progression purposes and it puts additional pressure on players who do not enjoy those jobs.

Ranged physical pays a “ranged tax”, and while that is an entire other topic of conversation the idea behind those jobs is that their damage is in relation to their personal damage plus the damage they provide to the party. They’re essentially balanced around one another.

I think the balance team should look at this and consider removing raise from summoner and possibly red mage. It would be weird and uncomfortable at first, but the player base would eventually adjust.

[Seiori]

This could be considered a hot take to some people lol.

[SeiyaSoiya]

uh it's not a caster wide problem
it is quite literally a black mage only problem
black mage is the only job in the entire game that is not suitable for progression

and honestly I don't want it to be changed, black mage is enjoyable because you are forced to play much better than everyone else to get the same material reward, but much, much higher spiritual reward.

[Sequora]

uh it's not a caster wide problem
it is quite literally a black mage only problem
black mage is the only job in the entire game that is not suitable for progression

and honestly I don't want it to be changed, black mage is enjoyable because you are forced to play much better than everyone else to get the same material reward, but much, much higher spiritual reward.

Black mage is 1/3 of the caster jobs. You're referring to job complexity. They don't have to touch the complexity of the job if they remove raise from rdm and smn. I would prefer SMN to be the mid damage mid utility caster, and red mage to be the high utility, lower damage job.

Raise is unlike any other type of utility in the game. It does nothing unless someone dies. Damage boost is always useful, healing and mitigation, are also useful, but not so strong that you have to significantly balance jobs around it.

[Myon88]

They don't have to touch the complexity of the job if they remove raise from rdm and smn. I would prefer SMN to be the mid damage mid utility caster, and red mage to be the high utility, lower damage job.

The problem is raise is the only utility actually worth sacrificing damage for. Do you think people actually care about magick barrier or the phoenix heal in a vacuum? They're nice, but only because they're a bonus - a package deal with the rest of the job - raise is what you actually bring those jobs for.

There are only two outcomes I foresee if raise is removed from the casters:

• Summoner and Red Mage just become shitty low damage jobs that good players will ignore. Without raise, no discerning player would volunteer to do 'mid damage' or 'lower damage' for such laughable utility.

• The casters are balanced much more tightly similar to how the melees are, black mage players complain they have to work much harder for similar damage.

[smol_cofe]

they aren't, really it's just an echo chamber type of thing.

[AnotherPerson]

People go with the other two because in prog, you don't have the fight memorized / planned out / known, so having a ress is more like a safety net. It's not required for prog and BLM can definitely do prog. You just won't actually know all the mechanics until you go through all of them, so you have no idea how much extra movement you can bank on. That pretty much applies to every job though, but BLM just has it worse since that's their gimmick and core gameplay focus. Any job can clear any content, it's just when you have fights memorized and done, DPS becomes the only metric that matters more since there will be less mistakes (and less heals/raises needed as a result of good gameplay). You don't need raise to do prog, it's just much easier and quicker to have raises in prog. If you're more comfortable playing BLM than RDM though, then by all means, play BLM.

[Picker]

Nonsense, I’ve only ever progged on blm, and I’ve never even seen anyone bring it up in game

[Sequora]

Nonsense, I’ve only ever progged on blm, and I’ve never even seen anyone bring it up in game

Let me clarify. No other role has one job in the top 3 DPS, when the other two DPS are at the bottom. Black mage is the better job if you're clearing a fight. The other two are paying a heavy tax because of their ability to Rez.

The other jobs are all competitive within their roles. The melee jobs are all within a small margin, and most of that margin is due to their varying DPS utility.

Physical ranged DPS, all pay the "ranged tax" and are all balanced around their damage utility. Dancer is the weakest, however this margin can be compensated for with their boost in damage to their party members. Machinists should have the personal damage out of the three.

I would love to see rez be removed and SMN and RDM DPS be increased closer to black mage. SMN should be mid utility, mid damage, and RDM can be high utility, lower damage.

[CKNovel]

Res are virtually useless in a prog.
Sure they will help you discover mechanics, but it won't help against enrage.

If you have a KO, most of the time you better wipe due to not being able to solve the next mechanic or not being able to beat the DPS check.

Or your group is overgeared and DPS check don't matter, which is where res can become handy.
BUt since your group is overgeared, the res is just more breathing room to the healers.