Let's redefine "damage taxes"

[NightHour]

MCH shouldn't be doing as much damage as a RDM

No, MCH should be ahead of RDM by a significant margin, simply due to kit design and gameplay.


RDM brings Embolden, Magick Barrier, Verraise and Vercure to a group, what does MCH bring? Tactician.... which is just a renamed Troubador / Shield Samba.


In my opinion, Red Mage isn't taxed enough for all the tools it provides.

[Valence]

And this logic fails due to not considering actual difficulty. MCH shouldn't be doing as much damage as a RDM, just like SMN. Also all rDPS numbers being within 1% of each other is not true balance

Thank you sir for telling me to continue playing a job that underperforms because it's been considered "too easy" or a "noob job", and that is only taken in parties to fill up the role party bonus. Wouldn't blame you though since it seems to be the design process behind SE's balancing though.

Oh right, if i'm not happy I should just play a job that I don't enjoy, right, how could I forget about that.

Older fights used to push melee out of melee range quite frequently thus melee tended to always have higher dps to make up for the loss of uptime while physical ranged could potentially do all mechanics while having 100% uptime. The ranged tax never applied to magical ranged dps. Yoshi-P basically acknowledged this the other day in the recent live letter with the changes to the boss hitboxes which has lead to melee essentially having 100% uptime leading to the bigger gap between melee and physical ranged and all ranged are apparently getting potency buffs in 6.28.

It's not a new problem, melees were already way above taxed jobs and it's been like this since HW. The gap, mind you, was here on the final results, not theorically, but on actual fights with uptime already happening.

[Reimmi]

And this logic fails due to not considering actual difficulty. MCH shouldn't be doing as much damage as a RDM, just like SMN. Also all rDPS numbers being within 1% of each other is not true balance

Difficulty is subjective.
I find redmage incredibly easy to play compared to mch, therefore by this logic i think red mage should do less damage than mch
This is a horrible balancing metric.

[FireMage]

The only time difficulty should matter is when in the same role of raid damage buff jobs. MCH isn't in the same role as RDM or SMN, it's in the same role as Selfish DPS like BLM and SAM, therefore must do BLM and SAM damage, regardless of "difficulty."

No, absolutely not. That is not actual balance, even ASSUMING full uptime MCH should be lower than every other Job on rDPS, sans SMN which it should be tied with. It is weaker than it should be, but it should still be the bottom of the ceiling

[Mithron]

No, absolutely not. That is not actual balance, even ASSUMING full uptime MCH should be lower than every other Job on rDPS, sans SMN which it should be tied with.

Why? If a job is easy and therefore low DPS, it's not playable especially if it has no raid damage buffs. That's not balance or logical. That's stupid. The argument for "uptime" is irrelevant because that's a fight design issue as P8s has proven. We're no longer playing a game where "uptime" is a factor any more.

[FireMage]

Why? If a job is easy and therefore low DPS, it's not playable especially if it has no raid damage buffs. That's not balance or logical. That's stupid. The argument for "uptime" is irrelevant because that's a fight design issue as P8s has proven. We're no longer playing a game where "uptime" is a factor any more.

Because difficulty is a part of proper balance is why, I ALREADY said this. You really should read before replying. You also left out that I should that MCH should be doing more damage than now, so should a few other Jobs in fact, but that doesn't change that MCH should be tied with SMN on the lowest rung of the DPS ladder

[CKNovel]

Because difficulty is a part of proper balance is why, I ALREADY said this. You really should read before replying. You also left out that I should that MCH should be doing more damage than now, so should a few other Jobs in fact, but that doesn't change that MCH should be tied with SMN on the lowest rung of the DPS ladder

Difficulty is subjective.
I found Sekiro easier than all Dark souls but many had the opposite experience.

On top of that, balancing around difficulty would be incredibly biased and unbalanced.
If MCH was balanced around its difficulty, it would never be brought in any group.
It's SQEX that design the job, it's not the player fault if they can't or refuse to make a job hard.

[Ransu]

Because difficulty is a part of proper balance is why, I ALREADY said this. You really should read before replying. You also left out that I should that MCH should be doing more damage than now, so should a few other Jobs in fact, but that doesn't change that MCH should be tied with SMN on the lowest rung of the DPS ladder

This is beyond a stupid take. Difficulty should never dictate how much dps a job outputs. Players shouldn't be punished because they like the aesthetic of a job that happens to be easier to play.

[Liam_Harper]

Because difficulty is a part of proper balance is why, I ALREADY said this. You really should read before replying. You also left out that I should that MCH should be doing more damage than now, so should a few other Jobs in fact, but that doesn't change that MCH should be tied with SMN on the lowest rung of the DPS ladder

First of all, job balance only really matters at the high end, such as Savage or Ultimate. As long as there aren't massive discrepancies dps really doesn't matter in casual content.

In Savage and Ultimate, players generally master their job. There is no room for "only requires one brain cell" jobs that do awful damage. It might genuinely help on prog, but then what? You still need to clear enrage, so do you just toss the job in the trash and pick up a real job to clear?

Any player who belongs in Savage can learn to play any job at a competent level. Advantages like "no positionals" and "ranged attacks" and "slightly less buttons" are tiny perks that endgame players barely even need. Like I've said before, if you had a choice to pick one of two talents, one being a QoL and the other being 10% dps, it's no competition. In this way, SE making your job easier is detrimental to you. It's not a bonus or a nice reason to play that job, it's a detrimental handicap.

Since the advantage of utility and ease of play is such a tiny advantage in the only content where balance matters, yes all jobs rdps should ideally be within 1% of each other

[CKNovel]

Any player who belongs in Savage can learn to play any job at a competent level. Advantages like "no positionals" and "ranged attacks" and "slightly less buttons" are tiny perks that endgame players barely even need. Like I've said before, if you had a choice to pick one of two talents, one being a QoL and the other being 10% dps, it's no competition. In this way, SE making your job easier is detrimental to you. It's not a bonus or a nice reason to play that job, it's a detrimental handicap.

This is right, any savage player can learn any job within their role at a level enough to clear the content.
If it required to shift from a role to another, let's say from DPS to healer, the transition would take much longer. Obviously the reverse wouldn't take as much time.

But overall, there is no job excessively complex, anyone with minimum knowledge of the game can learn a DPS within a few pulls.
Some jobs like BLM will require a bit more adaptation but all remaining jobs can be played at a decent level within an hour of practice.

Especially when the gap of complexity between "easy" and "complex" jobs is as wide as the complexity between "walking" and "running".
A baby will find running a task being too complex and will prefer walking. The difference between walking and running is basically the same for an adult. (Hey look, subjective difficulty)
The same can be said about new players, I do not compare them to babies, they are learning a new field that can appear to them as complex until they grasp the game mechanics.