Balance

[Stasya]

Balance. Doesn’t. Matter. Every job is viable. People whining about job balance (which literally doesn’t matter in everything except week 1 ultimate prog) is how we got to this abysmal state of job design with every job being identical give or take two or three abilities.

A balance matters week 1-2 even in savage prog. Ofc every job is viable since you probably only play when everything gets buffed with bandaid fixes and you get showered in loot that slightly lower ilvl than savage (alliance patches).

[Avenger]

A balance matters week 1-2 even in savage prog. Ofc every job is viable since you probably only play when everything gets buffed with bandaid fixes and you get showered in loot that slightly lower ilvl than savage (alliance patches).

The devs have explained that they test all content with all jobs to make sure that they are viable on day 1. Of course the dev team and testers may know more about the internals of the jobs and the fights than we do at the beginning at least.

Presumably the reason why Reaper and Sage were so strong out of the gate was to encourage people to play them (and to compensate somewhat for unfamiliarity.) Balance would have been counterproductive in both regards.

Now that the new jobs are well established and people know how to play them, it seems reasonable to balance things out a bit –which seems to be what they are doing.

[Wyakin]

Presumably the reason why Reaper and Sage were so strong out of the gate was to encourage people to play them (and to compensate somewhat for unfamiliarity.) Balance would have been counterproductive in both regards.

Now that the new jobs are well established and people know how to play them, it seems reasonable to balance things out a bit –which seems to be what they are doing.

the problem isn't having reaper be the weakest melee, the problem is they went overboard with the buffs. Leaving it behind siginificantly.

[Mikey_R]

the problem isn't having reaper be the weakest melee, the problem is they went overboard with the buffs. Leaving it behind siginificantly.

I don't know what you class as 'significantly', but I am not seeing that at all.

Going by the site that shall not be named, looking at rDPS across the whole of the first raid tier, Ninja is top at 8141 and Reaper is 7972, this is looking at the median DPS. That is ~2% less DPS and it is the same sort of story looking at the top parses as well.

So, the question then becomes, where did you expect to see Reaper? Or is it more of a case of, well, everyone else got buffs, what about Reaper? As it stands, reaper is in a fine spot, it didn't get anything, because it didn't need anything. I have also heard that Reaper is where they wanted to set the 'baseline' metric for the other melee jobs (take with a grain of salt), if it is the baseline, of course it isn't going to get changes as everything else should be confirming to it. As has also been stated, they do not like nerfing jobs and would rather buff others, I'm sure if reaper fell too far behind, it would also get buffs.

[Stasya]

The devs have explained that they test all content with all jobs to make sure that they are viable on day 1. Of course the dev team and testers may know more about the internals of the jobs and the fights than we do at the beginning at least.

Presumably the reason why Reaper and Sage were so strong out of the gate was to encourage people to play them (and to compensate somewhat for unfamiliarity.) Balance would have been counterproductive in both regards.

Now that the new jobs are well established and people know how to play them, it seems reasonable to balance things out a bit –which seems to be what they are doing.

After savage week 1 stuff and very late 6.08 buffs with later killing of sam in 6.1 i won't believe they test all content with all jobs(it shows with their useless band aid fixes prior ultimate release, you really TELL me they tested ultimate with sam in comp, when 4 classes no more have synergy with sam?????? or stuff like was bard tested in ultimate aswell???). And wtf is this logic: make reaper broken on release so people play them more?

Devs can also say that they care about job balance. 6.05 and SAM changes(might aswell include NIN) prove it otherwise.

[HyoMinPark]

Balance. Doesn’t. Matter. Every job is viable. People whining about job balance (which literally doesn’t matter in everything except week 1 ultimate prog) is how we got to this abysmal state of job design with every job being identical give or take two or three abilities.

Balance does matter. No matter how many times you say it doesn’t, it absolutely does.

Viability =/= balance. Just because a job is viable doesn’t mean that it is balanced against the others within its respective role. We have seen this time and time again with all roles, but healers and physical ranged especially. WHM has always been viable, but AST has always pulled ahead of it in prior expansions when you consider the overall contribution both bring to a party. The two have struggled with finding balance between them for years. Likewise with MCH versus BRD (and now DNC). MCH was 100% viable in SB, but it was not balanced against BRD; the latter was straight up better (although I do believe they were closer to one another then than they are now). In ShB and EW, MCH is viable and can clear all content, but it is not balanced against the other two. You bring nothing to the party as a MCH that BRD and DNC don’t already bring. All MCH has is its damage—which is lower than BRD and DNC when you consider how much those two bring to the raid as buff jobs compared to MCH’s selfish design.


When people make statements like the one I quoted, it’s clear that they don’t understand the difference between a job being viable and a job being balanced against its direct competition.

[Wyakin]

Balance. Doesn’t. Matter. Every job is viable. People whining about job balance (which literally doesn’t matter in everything except week 1 ultimate prog) is how we got to this abysmal state of job design with every job being identical give or take two or three abilities.

You’ve had two people counter you with perfect logic. So here’s a third.

Balance does matter. While people may argue that reaper is the easiest melee and deserves to be bottom etc etc. it doesn’t mean it should be so far behind the rest it gets excluded from groups.

[Vatom]

Wait.. reapers weak?

[Wyakin]

Wait.. reapers weak?

Honestly, it’s not so much that they’re weak. It’s more that every other job has had two or more buffs in recent patches creating a power creep. Leaving reaper in the dust. I honestly believe that SE went over board with the buffs. So now the only alternative is to either nerf (which no one wants) everything else. Or buff reaper.