"Balance team tests the fights themseslves"

[Imora]

Do we know what comp they used to test this?

[gotaname1]

Do we know what comp they used to test this?

We probably will never know.

[NightHour]

Unless you're a week 1/2 clearer , this doesn't effect you because you'll have more gear by the time you see this boss.


I haven't paid much attention to all this drama about balance and p8s because by the time I see the fight I'll have a few more pieces of gear.




Also the discussion about class balance doesn't affect anyone but week 1/2 and world prog - All jobs CAN and WILL continue to clear all content available.


This p8s boss hp thing only affects week 1/2 and world prog too - I can understand complaints from people actually clearing week 1/2 but it gets picked up by the average PF bob who clears 5-10+ weeks or w/e in and starts banning specific jobs from their groups simply because some video said the job can't do that fight.

[Raoabolic]

Unless you're a week 1 clearer none of this affects you.


The discussion about class balance doesn't affect anyone but week 1 and world prog - All jobs CAN and WILL continue to clear all content available.


This p8s boss hp thing only affects week 1 and world prog too - I can understand complaints from the top 1% or so but everyone else won't be seeing that boss for another few weeks at which point they have gear.

Perhaps, but the changes that the devs make in response to this mess WILL affect the playstyle of any class they change. It's not hard to see why people are nervous considering how they took SMN out back and "changed" it, lol.

[Iyrnthota]

Unless you're a week 1 clearer none of this affects you.


The discussion about class balance doesn't affect anyone but week 1 and world prog - All jobs CAN and WILL continue to clear all content available.


This p8s boss hp thing only affects week 1 and world prog too - I can understand complaints from the top 1% or so but everyone else won't be seeing that boss for another few weeks at which point they have gear.

I mean, ideally it would only affect early weeks progs, but realistically even after gear overcomes any job balance deficits, idiots in PF are still going to restrict jobs they see as being weak or non-meta.

Even if the actual job balance is generally okay, the perception of job balance is almost as important, even to those not currently high end raiding.
Hell, the amount of times I see people in the 14 reddit discord saying "I decided to swap to X because I think it'll be better at endgame" is surprisingly high, even if they are immediately informed that reasoning is a bit uninformed.

[Liam_Harper]

Also the discussion about class balance doesn't affect anyone but week 1/2 and world prog - All jobs CAN and WILL continue to clear all content available.


This p8s boss hp thing only affects week 1/2 and world prog too - I can understand complaints from people actually clearing week 1/2 but it gets picked up by the average PF bob who clears 5-10+ weeks or w/e in and starts banning specific jobs from their groups simply because some video said the job can't do that fight.

Not true, it affects everyone who raids to varying degrees.

Let's say we have 2 casual teams in 630 gear mid-tier. Neither team is amazing at dps, just average players. Team A is a full meta comp and Team B is PLD, WAR, MCH, RPR, double caster, ect.

Team A will probably clear p8s with 6 deaths and 7 damage downs and be enjoying their shiny loot.

Team B will have 3 deaths, no damage downs, wipe to enrage and will probably spend a few weeks longer on prog until they learn the fight well. They likely won't even know why they're struggling so much when team A is online posting about how "easy the raid is".

That's not balanced. Players of equal skill should expect a fairly similar raiding experience. Not a harder mode than others because they chose their favorite jobs. Gear does not fix job imbalance.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Not true, it affects everyone who raids to varying degrees.

Let's say we have 2 casual teams in 630 gear mid-tier. Neither team is amazing at dps, just average players. Team A is a full meta comp and Team B is PLD, WAR, MCH, RPR, double caster, ect.

Team A will probably clear p8s with 6 deaths and 7 damage downs and be enjoying their shiny loot.

Team B will have 3 deaths, no damage downs, wipe to enrage and will probably spend a few weeks longer on prog until they learn the fight well. They likely won't even know why they're struggling so much when team A is online posting about how "easy the raid is".

That's not balanced. Players of equal skill should expect a fairly similar raiding experience. Not a harder mode than others because they chose their favorite jobs. Gear does not fix job imbalance.

isnt that running risk of homogenizing if all jobs perform the same? Shouldnt it be as long as its "doable with all party comps" then it doesnt really matter how fast it gets cleared?

[AmiableApkallu]

isnt that running risk of homogenizing if all jobs perform the same? Shouldnt it be as long as its "doable with all party comps" then it doesnt really matter how fast it gets cleared?

Running the risk of homogenization, yes. Guaranteeing homogenization, no. At least I don't think so. Making jobs "perform the same" is a bit fluid.

- You could require that all jobs within a role do the same total amount of damage every 1 GCD. This gives you essentially no flexibility in job design.

- You could require that all jobs within a role do the same total amount of damage every 72 GCDs. This gives you a bit of flexibility in job design, but you also need to be mindful of how kill times effect things. A job that does the same, small amount of damage for each of those 72 GCDs and a job that puts 80% of its damage into the 70th GCD would, in practice, perform very differently.

As long as you accept that at any given point in a fight, jobs will have delivered different amounts of total damage, but that in the long run, they'll be equal, the question becomes one of how large that difference can get and how much of a difference the players will tolerate.

[ForteNightshade]

HP got reduced, problem solved. Mistakes were made, apparently. I understand the problem, but it's making mountains out of mole hills.

Would you say that if it were other content? How about if the upcoming Criterion Dungeons see no balance changes, thus leading to Warrior being the undisputed best tank due to Bloodwhetting being hilariously broken in an AoE environment? What if Deep Dungeon was made nearly unclearable with certain jobs for similar reasons? Players who enjoy early progression only have a very limited window for their particular content. So far we've had two tiers out of three with a complete failure of job balance. Some jobs, like Machinist, have been suffering for years. At what point does it stop being a "mole hill" and actual criticism the dev team simply isn't addressing?

isnt that running risk of homogenizing if all jobs perform the same? Shouldnt it be as long as its "doable with all party comps" then it doesnt really matter how fast it gets cleared?

Homogeneity is better than uniqueness for the sake of it.

Case in point, let's look back at Heavensward. Paladin and Dark Knight were both unique as the physical and magical tank, respectively. Unfortunately, most mechanics are designed around magical damage. Therefore, Paladin's uniqueness had literally zero value. In an expansion worth of Savage tiers, there were maybe 2-3 fights where you'd even consider Paladin over Dark Knight. Ironically, these two tanks would have a similar problem in Stormblood, albeit reversed. Only Dark Knight lacked in AoE mitigation, supposedly due to its superior single target mitigation—namely TBN. This didn't matter since both Warrior and Paladin had near equal defensives while contributing the highest damage output. In a fight like UCoB, Dark Knight was a liability. Could you still clear? Of course. You just made it harder on your healers.

Certain aspects of job design need to be somewhat homogenized for balance sake. Hence why tank CDs are largely the same.

If you took Reaper and simply pumped up some numbers, nothing about the job changes. It won't suddenly be Monk or Samurai with a scythe. It'll just deal comparable damage without being a detriment. Likewise, Warrior isn't going to suddenly play like Gunbreaker if they give it another 100-ish DPS to better close tank balance. There are easy solutions to the problem. SE just remains incredibly hesitate to do anything. That, or they're stubbornly caught up on aspects of jobs which don't contribute nearly as much as they believe they do. Warrior's massive healing, for example, doesn't matter when autos deal 20k. Dark Knight can handle those just fine without Equilibrium. In fact, I take more damage on Warrior in P7 than Dark Knight because the latter will always have TBN + Dark Mind + Oblation for every single buster.

Like it or not, damage is king in this game. Any job lagging too far behind simply can't justifiable its existing because nothing else is rewarded.

[Packetdancer]

What if Deep Dungeon was made nearly unclearable with certain jobs for similar reasons?

I mean, I'll point out that the fan-calculated S/A/B/C/F tier ranking of "which jobs are best for solo deep dungeon clears" had an entire separate category for AST during Shadowbringers labeled "Just Don't".