Damage "taxes" deserve serious reconsideration

[Rithy255]

Did you even read my post, you aren’t seeing more of the fight with verraise when the fights are obsessed with body check mechanics, like if more than 1 person dies to devour then verraise won’t save you on the next mechanic, yet RDM is still taxed as if the rezz is useful in this situation

ok but that's one example and im sure theirs way more of a fight having body check mechs, generally theirs been cases where you need everyone alive at one instance, in the case of that mech it wouldn't be useful but in a lot of situations having a job be able to get up someone before a body check mech happens would actually help prevent that body check mech causing a wipe in the first place.

And if we wanna argue it's a problem with raise? maybe it's just a problem with how they designed the mechanic, it would be more worth complaining about how they're invalidating raise more and more in that case.

Like I said if you want RDM/SMN/BLM all to be equal give them all raise or remove it, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

[Mithron]

Why should Red mage and summoner perform the same as black mage and bring objectively pretty good utility.
You just look at damage numbers and don't actually think about how it would bring no reason to play black mage over the other casters.

You either remove all utility or make BLM have the same sort of utility, which in my opinion brings down job diversity more then it already has been, which if thats your goal? sure.

I'd rather BLM be top DPS in the game with no raid damage buffs and a job identity of low mobility hard casting. No raise. I do not think SMN and RDM should have damage tax for raise, but I do think SMN and RDM should have raid damage buffs and thus lower aDPS than BLM, and that all jobs be within 1% rDPS between each other. That way BLMs can feel good about playing their no raise playstyle and you can feel good playing your raise playstyle despite having less personal DPS and everyone be viable because you're all contributing to the same amount of total DPS. You're already losing DPS by having to raise as a SMN or RDM anyway, therefore no further penalty is needed.

[Rithy255]

I'd rather BLM be top DPS in the game with no raid damage buffs and a job identity of low mobility hard casting. No raise. I do not think SMN and RDM should have damage tax for raise, but I do think SMN and RDM should have raid damage buffs and thus lower aDPS than BLM, and that all jobs be within 1% rDPS between each other. That way BLMs can feel good about playing their no raise playstyle and you can feel good playing your raise playstyle despite having less personal DPS and everyone be viable because you're all contributing to the same amount of total DPS. You're already losing DPS by having to raise as a SMN or RDM anyway, therefore no further penalty is needed.

Ok so you just basically want no one to ever touch Black Mage because they bring zero utility and basically output the same total damage as the other two casters got it.

If you gave black mage raise they'd also lose dps for using raise your argument makes no sense, it's less of a dps loss to cast raise then to let someone tank the floor, so casting raise (if your healers can't) is unironically a total dps gain.

[Supersnow845]

ok but that's one example and im sure theirs way more of a fight having body check mechs, generally theirs been cases where you need everyone alive at one instance, in the case of that mech it wouldn't be useful but in a lot of situations having a job be able to get up someone before a body check mech happens would actually help prevent that body check mech causing a wipe in the first place.

And if we wanna argue it's a problem with raise? maybe it's just a problem with how they designed the mechanic, it would be more worth complaining about how they're invalidating raise more and more in that case.

Like I said if you want RDM/SMN/BLM all to be equal give them all raise or remove it, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Well they balance for savage, if you think the mechanic is the problem because there is too many body check mechanics which is invalidating raise that is a valid opinion, but you can’t have mechanics constantly invalidating raise (like 7 and 8 each have like 10 body check mechanics) and then tax RDM and SMN constantly for their ability to raise you either have one or the other

[Rithy255]

Well they balance for savage, if you think the mechanic is the problem because there is too many body check mechanics which is invalidating raise that is a valid opinion, but you can’t have mechanics constantly invalidating raise (like 7 and 8 each have like 10 body check mechanics) and then tax RDM and SMN constantly for their ability to raise you either have one or the other

Well I don't think we'll get anywhere with the current state I even disagree with a massive difference between casters, more or less I just find raise a pretty interesting ability theirs plently ways/solutions you can fix the difference without making Black Mage completely useless.

Any one of these would fix the current caster "problem" (Mind you adjusting so theirs less of a gap between casters is fine).
A: Reduce the amount of checks in one fight, make raise more useful, in general to justify a decent dps gap.
B: Remove raise from harder content such as Savage and extremes, They're already doing this for harder dungeons, This would also mean making the damage difference between all casters could be very small.
C: Give Black Mage a raise, All casters would again be on similar terms, BLM would prolly need a timer to avoid triple cast abuse in like a 24 man, as Mp doesn't really matter for black mage.

My main point is, if you want Red Mage/Summoner to do similar amounts of damage you can't have black mage not have any sort of utility you'd need to change something, even if raise was so useless I don't see how removing it (at least for harder content) would make people mad inturn for higher damage, when it's "useless" to those same people.

I'd personally choose A as I enjoy job diversity, but really that's my preference. It would likely be easier to balance the game where the only job utility is addle and faint, because their would be no reason to debate over a utilities usefulness, all jobs doing the same damage.

I don't think the current state is great either BLM compared to red mage and summoner is doing way too much but also compared to samurai it's doing way too little, I think the idea of the ranged tax hurts casters in general more then a raise tax, but both should generally be addressed.

[Ferrinus]

It's correct in principle that having to fight at melee range is a disadvantage. Imagine if there was a "samurai w/ gun" job with completely identical traits, buttons, and numbers to the regular samurai except that all its attacks had range 30y instead of range 3y. That'd be unfair, right?

Of course, it's SE's job to make melee vs ranged mean something. If every enemy in the game had Hephaistos's hitbox, the melee and ranged samurai WOULD be balanced. SE's admitted themselves that they deliberately eased off inconveniencing melee this tier, probably to a greater extent than they should have, but I'd rather just see enemy hitboxes shrink than play a game where action potencies are seesawing up and down based on how big the current pinnacle boss is.

[Supersnow845]

It's correct in principle that having to fight at melee range is a disadvantage. Imagine if there was a "samurai w/ gun" job with completely identical traits, buttons, and numbers to the regular samurai except that all its attacks had range 30y instead of range 3y. That'd be unfair, right?

Of course, it's SE's job to make melee vs ranged mean something. If every enemy in the game had Helhaistos's hitbox, te melee and ranged samurai WOULD be balanced. SE's admitted themselves that they deliberately eased off inconveniencing melee this tier, probably to a greater extent than they should have, but I'd rather just see enemy hitboxes shrink than play a game where action potencies are seesawing up and down based on how big the current pinnacle boss is.

Except in the current climate outside of the hitboxes themselves what is actually riskier about being in melee range, we all get hit by the same mechanics; we all spread/stack and resolve mechanics within a range that square has given us, about the last mechanic that actually challenged melees to get uptime on was junction shiva based on how hard mechanical execution was vs uptime reward

Being in melee range isn’t inherently riskier when mechanics are just on a “hit player no matter the distance” style of design

[Ferrinus]

Except in the current climate outside of the hitboxes themselves what is actually riskier about being in melee range, we all get hit by the same mechanics; we all spread/stack and resolve mechanics within a range that square has given us, about the last mechanic that actually challenged melees to get uptime on was junction shiva based on how hard mechanical execution was vs uptime reward

Being in melee range isn’t inherently riskier when mechanics are just on a “hit player no matter the distance” style of design

It's not necessarily riskier, it's just less convenient. A MCH who had SAM dps could stand either near or far to resolve mechanics, but the SAM has to stand near. If a boss does a circle followed by a donut, a melee character has to stop attacking half the time but a ranged one doesn't.

This, again, comes down to enemy design. To give another extreme example, BLM and RDM cast times would mean nothing against a boss that never requires you to move. It's SE's responsibility to make mage lives harder by killing players who refuse to reposition, just like it's their responsibility to make melee lives harder by killing players who refuse to back away.

[ForteNightshade]

Personally give a res as a role action with a 2 minutes CD on casters. Odds are we're getting a 4th Caster and I'm gonna be severely disappointed if they split "res caster" and "pure caster" because it'll default that RDM/SMN will never be performing like other casters.

What's sad about that potential split is it all but ensures Red Mage and Summoner die. I just don't see how they balance it when they're already overvaluing Raise. Fortunately, since Yoshida came right out and said he wanted to axe Resurrection from Summoner, I suspect they'll either leave Verraise (rip RDM) or kill off Caster rez entirely. I'd prefer the latter at this point. They just can't seem to balance around it.

The wheel of balance inevitably turns and one day even BLM will get to partake of the humble pie and sit at the bottom of the dps charts. SMN and even SAM already had theirs. No one is safe from a "rework". And that will be a glorious day indeed.

Technically, it already did. Black Mage was all but worthless in Heavensward and most of Stormblood. The former was the height of Range dominance while the latter was when they overbuffed Summoner so much, it killed even Machinist.

Which really makes you think. We once lived in a world where Summoner was a god and Machinist was meta.

[Aikaal]

It's not necessarily riskier, it's just less convenient. A MCH who had SAM dps could stand either near or far to resolve mechanics, but the SAM has to stand near. If a boss does a circle followed by a donut, a melee character has to stop attacking half the time but a ranged one doesn't.

This, again, comes down to enemy design. To give another extreme example, BLM and RDM cast times would mean nothing against a boss that never requires you to move. It's SE's responsibility to make mage lives harder by killing players who refuse to reposition, just like it's their responsibility to make melee lives harder by killing players who refuse to back away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9_t7md58v0 Week 1 clear, Ninja's moving like a ranged physical. Not losing any GCD.75% of the arena is a hitbox with no positional. I agree a melee should do slightly more DPS but I can't agree with the current values nor I would agree it's riskier to play a Melee DPS. If anything, Caster DPS is more dangerous.