Balance

[Wyakin]

I serious don’t understand how balancing is done in this game. 6.0 everyone went mental about reaper being over powered. Several patches later and every job has been buffed once, twice and sometimes three times leaving reaper in the dust. The power creep is unreal and crazy. To a point where what was once the most powerful melee to by far and large the worst. At what point does someone say “we’ve gone too far with our buffs” or actually try to balance the classes.

[SargeTheSeagull]

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.

[MikoRemi]

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.

Just because all of them are viable doesn't mean all of them feel great. Machinist is a great example of that as is. If anything, because everything can clear content, it shouldn't matter if some classes are changed to be made better, carefully of course.

The job design changes mainly come from trying to appeal to the casual base too hard, lowering the skill ceiling rather than the floor which has been exceptionally terrible. Yet these same people will somehow manage to have a hard time regardless because they just can't be bothered to take any sort of time to learn the jobs no matter how easy they get. Lowering the skill floor is one thing, that shouldn't be a big deal, but lowering the ceiling has been a rather sorrowful experience.

Personally I think Reaper is in a pretty good spot though, it's around the middle in terms of DPS given the insanity of Arcane Circle while having a rather powerful set of potencies all without being overly complex. It's still not quite as static and easy as Dragoon of course, but it certainly holds its own so I don't know where the idea of being the worst comes from. Most I would like is for some fixes to the actual button bloat like Arcane Circle turning into Plentiful Harvest once you hit the button and Enshroud turning into Communio while the state is active. That's a whole other topic though.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

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.

Just because all jobs can clear content doesn't mean there shouldn't be a balance. I want to point out the caster role for this. Right now there really isn't a real reason to take an smn over an rdm because smn does the same damage as an rdm but is worst for prog than rdm. Rdm can do everything an smn can but better since it's the better support mage. Meanwhile, you have this huge gap in the casters. There isn't a middle mage that offers higher dam and some utility/buffs at all now, you have the pure dps mage in BLM and the support mage in rdm but nothing in between since smn doesn't fill this spot anymore. The game might as well have just two casters now that they gutted smn. Either way, my point is if you don't have a balance among jobs it will lead to ppl denying party spots to jobs or ppl will just stop playing the weaker jobs to play the stronger ones. Balance is very important even if every job can clear fights.

[darkdyllon]

Just because all jobs can clear content doesn't mean there shouldn't be a balance. I want to point out the caster role for this. Right now there really isn't a real reason to take an smn over an rdm because smn does the same damage as an rdm but is worst for prog than rdm. Rdm can do everything an smn can but better since it's the better support mage. Meanwhile, you have this huge gap in the casters. There isn't a middle mage that offers higher dam and some utility/buffs at all now, you have the pure dps mage in BLM and the support mage in rdm but nothing in between since smn doesn't fill this spot anymore. The game might as well have just two casters now that they gutted smn. Either way, my point is if you don't have a balance among jobs it will lead to ppl denying party spots to jobs or ppl will just stop playing the weaker jobs to play the stronger ones. Balance is very important even if every job can clear fights.

you could bring an SMN for 1 simple reason, that BLM has nothing of and RDM in the middle.
movement.
an SMN is mostly an physical ranged now except for 2 hard casts (1 of which can be be made instant)
RDM is in an extremely good spot honestly, maybe make another button to replace the gap closer if you don't need it (kinda like just 2 melee hits like the disengage RDM has, but also an button that shares that disengage cooldown)
i main RDM this tier (1st time maining RDM) and i've been incredibly pleased, not only did i prevent entire wipes on my own (since i can easily rez 3 people in the span of 5 seconds) but if someone does go down i the rez ready in an instant, while being able to move quite a bit compared to the Turret Mage.

But SMN has the superior movement here, the only time you HAVE to hard cast is when you don't have swiftcast ready for 1 of the 2 mandatory hard casts, so from an point of view how versitile SMN is with movement it can be a game changer, on top that it does a lot of damage, you could run double caster and have the SMN take the 2nd melee spot without losing anything.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

you could bring an SMN for 1 simple reason, that BLM has nothing of and RDM in the middle.
movement.
an SMN is mostly an physical ranged now except for 2 hard casts (1 of which can be be made instant)
RDM is in an extremely good spot honestly, maybe make another button to replace the gap closer if you don't need it (kinda like just 2 melee hits like the disengage RDM has, but also an button that shares that disengage cooldown)
i main RDM this tier (1st time maining RDM) and i've been incredibly pleased, not only did i prevent entire wipes on my own (since i can easily rez 3 people in the span of 5 seconds) but if someone does go down i the rez ready in an instant, while being able to move quite a bit compared to the Turret Mage.

But SMN has the superior movement here, the only time you HAVE to hard cast is when you don't have swiftcast ready for 1 of the 2 mandatory hard casts, so from an point of view how versitile SMN is with movement it can be a game changer, on top that it does a lot of damage, you could run double caster and have the SMN take the 2nd melee spot without losing anything.

See I disagree bc I believe the movement is really overrated with the current fight design in savage. Maybe in ultimates that movement is more valued but savage not really to be honest. This tier alone was really easy for melee to keep full uptime and casters now have more movement tools to adjust around the few mech they are forced to move. Even blm I believe dont really have that hard of time in this tier keeping uptime. Movement tax for phy range and smn is to high imo and I think its about time for the devs to rethink what they really want out of the roles. The fact smn has been pretty much made into a phy range but kept in the caster role is dumb imo. Either way, I just don't value movement as much as others do bc of how easy fights at the savage level are right now.

[CKNovel]

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.

Before adjusments, in 6.0, DRK could afk a whole minute and still outdps PLD.
Do you think it's funny to play an undertuned job? Why you should put extra effort while other job can bring much more with much less efforts?
If the job feels weak, it feels bad.

Using "Balance doesn't matter, all jobs can clear" can excuse many crappy situations.
Imagine if BLM was below SMN and RDM? But it wouldn't matter since all jobs can clear?
What if all 3 physical ranged were at the top? But it wouldn't matter since all jobs can clear?
What if DRG, MNK, RPR and NIN got access to crazy survival but not SAM? But it wouldn't matter since all jobs can clear?

Currently, MCH is below DNC&BRD or just barely ahead by a pixel, but without the extra support the BRD and DNC can bring. It's not balanced.

Let's name this the "all jobs can clear" fallacy.

[Avenger]

Imagine if BLM was below SMN

It has happened before. Usually BLM comes back eventually though since SMN has more utility, etc..

Since all jobs can clear all content I am inclined to play the job I like rather than the job that someone else says is better.

BLM has always been something of a challenge in PvP but I like playing it anyway.

[CKNovel]

Since all jobs can clear all content I am inclined to play the job I like rather than the job that someone else says is better.

I used to live by that logic, then I had enough of being extra work to the team because of the balance team.
Might as well play a job I like and that is useful.

[rewd]

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 know that every job is viable because of balance, right?