Lets talk about caster balance

[Sequora]

Can we talk about the fact that caster is the only role that is divided into progression jobs (red mage and summoner) and speed jobs (black mage).

The other DPS jobs are all balanced around their damage + their party DPS boosting utility. You are either high personal damage with little to no party DPS boosting utility, lower personal damage with higher party DPS boosting utility, or something in between.

This creates this weird balance where a black mage is superior to red mage and summoner when you don’t need rez. You’re more likely to meet DPS checks with an equally skilled black mage than you are with a summoner or red mage.

With melee, you’ve got a job like SAM with extremely high personal damage, with no damage utility. NIN has lower personal damage, but can make up for that damage by boosting the party damage.

I think the dev team either needs to take another look at rez on red mage and summoner. That or add another high DPS low utility caster so that we have another option outside of black mage.

[BaconBits]

Obviously we need another speed job then.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

Yeah, I really hate the balance in the casters right now. With smn being reworked to be on about same level as rdm it feels like we don't have an in-between caster between blm and rdm... I still stand by my statement that smn is right now a worst rdm since both pretty much beings the same thing to a party but one is much better in most of the things they bring. I love to have a 4th caster closer to blm but maybe has some utility in a buff or something. No rez tho I do not want another rez caster... In fact, I also like to see the caster rez nerfed in someway. I know this expac is the first time I just don't want to play a caster. I hate blm(for a lot of reasons), rdm is just so meh, and my beloved smn has been gutted to the point I just don't enjoy it anymore. Love to have at least one more choice in the caster role. I've seen a lot of talk from people who want another melee to share gear with nin but I feel the game really doesn't need another melee. The melee role is most likely the most well-balanced role in the game and I say the caster role is the worst.

[Sequora]

Yeah, I really hate the balance in the casters right now. With smn being reworked to be on about same level as rdm it feels like we don't have an in-between caster between blm and rdm... I still stand by my statement that smn is right now a worst rdm since both pretty much beings the same thing to a party but one is much better in most of the things they bring. I love to have a 4th caster closer to blm but maybe has some utility in a buff or something. No rez tho I do not want another rez caster... In fact, I also like to see the caster rez nerfed in someway. I know this expac is the first time I just don't want to play a caster. I hate blm(for a lot of reasons), rdm is just so meh, and my beloved smn has been gutted to the point I just don't enjoy it anymore. Love to have at least one more choice in the caster role. I've seen a lot of talk from people who want another melee to share gear with nin but I feel the game really doesn't need another melee. The melee role is most likely the most well-balanced role in the game and I say the caster role is the worst.

I’m on the same page. I’ve been maiming summoner, but debating either switching to red mage or switching to another DPS.

This is my first expac not raiding in a static, so I’m pugging everything. Jobs like dancer and ninja depend more on how well the other party members perform.

This makes me consider trying out a job with more personal DPS like SAM.

All this said, I wish summoner would become the in between caster. Take away rez and increase our DPS.

Also hoping for a new caster for 7.0. Come on Geomancer!

[Namir]

RDM and SMN are the only DPS jobs where a situational utility is used to gauge how much DPS they should or shouldn’t do. Resurrection needs to either be:

1. Removed from SMN and RDM (leave the rezzing to the healers) or,

2. Leave it in RDM and SMN but give it a long cooldown of 60-120 seconds (thinking about it, Rekindle could be SMN’s rez instead of a useless situational regen) or,

3. Be made into a caster role action with a long cooldown. And before people start saying “but BLM has never rezzed in previous FFs!”, well, neither have they casted only fire, thunder, and ice spells. Neither have RDM casted flower and rose spells. Neither have SMN casted ruin spells. Some things are changed in MMOs for the sake of balance.

True caster balance will forever be unnatainable until something is done about resurrection, it’s way, way overdue. This is something very apparent and easy to see, whether this is something Yoshi-P sees and is just keeping it there because BLM is his main is something I've always asked myself.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

I’m on the same page. I’ve been maiming summoner, but debating either switching to red mage or switching to another DPS.

This is my first expac not raiding in a static, so I’m pugging everything. Jobs like dancer and ninja depend more on how well the other party members perform.

This makes me consider trying out a job with more personal DPS like SAM.

All this said, I wish summoner would become the in between caster. Take away rez and increase our DPS.

Also hoping for a new caster for 7.0. Come on Geomancer!

Im thinking about trying sam in my static next tier since I cant play rpr. Funny thing about smn is the fact they thought about taking the rez away but chickened out of it. I would had love to see what a rezless smn would look like and do... Either way here hoping for 7.0 caster. I have no job in mind I like to see tho Geomancer would be pretty cool!

[Atmaweapon510]

RDM and SMN are only about 5% behind BLM, everything here is overblown. There's also plenty, plenty of content outside of savage/ultimate fights where having the option to res is a massive quality of life boon, and having a res hasn't stopped SMN from being neck and neck with BLM in the past.

I don't think they balance around utility, otherwise, Machinist would have sat comfortably ahead of Bard and Dancer now and back in ShB rather than being dead last in dps. They probably balance around around their own average internal metrics (parsing data probably skews towards higher skilled players that care about dps) and because P.Ranged and RDM/SMN are easier to play, they end up averaging a lot higher than normal than the parsing data we have access to.

Ideally, there's a smoother dps curve rather than this weird 3% divide starting at RPR to RDM. 3% dps variance from top to bottom is what I'd like, but 5% really isn't that bad to balance around.

[Whalaqee]

RDM and SMN are the only DPS jobs where a situational utility is used to gauge how much DPS they should or shouldn’t do. Resurrection needs to either be:

1. Removed from SMN and RDM (leave the rezzing to the healers) or,

2. Leave it in RDM and SMN but give it a long cooldown of 60-120 seconds (thinking about it, Rekindle could be SMN’s rez instead of a useless situational regen) or,

3. Be made into a caster role action with a long cooldown. And before people start saying “but BLM has never rezzed in previous FFs!”, well, neither have they casted only fire, thunder, and ice spells. Neither have RDM casted flower and rose spells. Neither have SMN casted ruin spells. Some things are changed in MMOs for the sake of balance.

True caster balance will forever be unnatainable until something is done about resurrection, it’s way, way overdue. This is something very apparent and easy to see, whether this is something Yoshi-P sees and is just keeping it there because BLM is his main is something I've always asked myself.

The first is just a bad idea. As all it advocates for is pruning and homogenizing the game.

The second might be fine for a summoner as they mostly just use swiftcast for their ruby or emerald phase anyway, but actively punishes any red mages who are actually very adept at using their dualcast to raise their teammates.

The third is option 2, but gives utility to the black mage and saddles black mages with the same responsibility as summoner or red mage. Said responsibility is that if a wipe can be avoided, a black mage would be expected to not be selfish with their swiftcast or triplecast for their normal rotation. Also the justification for option 3, is too hyperbolic.

In addition, blue mage which is also by default a dps job that can pivot into a healer or tanking role, is given another raise if option 3. Which also invalidates the need to get Angel Whisper, which requires completing 30 floors of the carnival to get. Which also in turn reduces the importance of the Carnival.

Advocating for any of the three is just gonna result in a worse feeling gameplay experience.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

The first is just a bad idea. As all it advocates for is pruning and homogenizing the game.

The second might be fine for a summoner as they mostly just use swiftcast for their ruby or emerald phase anyway, but actively punishes any red mages who are actually very adept at using their dualcast to raise their teammates.

The third is option 2, but gives utility to the black mage and saddles black mages with the same responsibility as summoner or red mage. Said responsibility is that if a wipe can be avoided, a black mage would be expected to not be selfish with their swiftcast or triplecast for their normal rotation. Also the justification for option 3, is too hyperbolic.

In addition, blue mage which is also by default a dps job that can pivot into a healer or tanking role, is given another raise if option 3. Which also invalidates the need to get Angel Whisper, which requires completing 30 floors of the carnival to get. Which also in turn reduces the importance of the Carnival.

Advocating for any of the three is just gonna result in a worse feeling gameplay experience.

Question...Why are you even including BLU is this discussion? Blu is a limited job that never will be a full job so why would we even care about how giving a rez role action affects them? Last time I check you can't do normal at level content with blu and they are never really included in the whole balancing discussion so why even bring them up? The reason why some of us want a change to the caster rez is that it does cause balancing issue in the caster role. It encourages groups to deny one of the three casters a spot depending one where the group is in a fight. I have seen groups deny blm because they want the all mightly thrid rez and I've seen rdm and smn be deny in clear/speedrun parties bc the rez doesnt have value outside prog. The rez is always been an issue among the caster even making rdm into a meme(rezz mage) job doing SB.

[Namir]

The first is just a bad idea. As all it advocates for is pruning and homogenizing the game.

The second might be fine for a summoner as they mostly just use swiftcast for their ruby or emerald phase anyway, but actively punishes any red mages who are actually very adept at using their dualcast to raise their teammates.

The third is option 2, but gives utility to the black mage and saddles black mages with the same responsibility as summoner or red mage. Said responsibility is that if a wipe can be avoided, a black mage would be expected to not be selfish with their swiftcast or triplecast for their normal rotation. Also the justification for option 3, is too hyperbolic.

In addition, blue mage which is also by default a dps job that can pivot into a healer or tanking role, is given another raise if option 3. Which also invalidates the need to get Angel Whisper, which requires completing 30 floors of the carnival to get. Which also in turn reduces the importance of the Carnival.

Advocating for any of the three is just gonna result in a worse feeling gameplay experience.

The first option is not homogenizing the game. Resurrection is not, or should not be a defining feature of SMN and RDM, both damage dealers, especially if that causes imbalance within the caster role, which it currently does. No other role has to deal with this. Not to mention that they can be given another utility in place of resurrection that is actually used in any situation instead of only specific ones, getting rid of any homogenization concerns. Resurrection is a problem when it comes to caster balance, and even Yoshi-P has stated it.

Second, yes, that is actually the point, RDM would not be able to chain cast rezzes anymore in exchange for greater caster balance. Also, not the point I want to focus on, but RDMs casting a rez every other spell is not that hard and doesn’t require any skill.

Third, exactly as you say, yes, the responsibility should be shared equally amongst all casters or none at all. Making it the responsibility of 2 out of the 3 casters has introduced an imbalance between them. Regarding BLU, it’s a different beast entirely so it doesn’t matter. Also, I’m sure it’s not that hard to not make it accessible to BLU.