Let's redefine "damage taxes"

[MichiKyou]

In Heavensward they were able to keep up with BLM and MNK despite rDPS not even existing, everything back then was basically just aDPS but with single target padding getting added to your dps as well.
The same goes for Stormblood where Bard and Machinist could still keep up with some of the top dps jobs, just not quite as well since Samurai and Black Mage were completely busted, and Machinist had one of the most convoluted and punishing rotations ever.

Miss half a second off your cast of Drill/chain/saw?
Time to lose all your dps.

[Absurdity]

Miss half a second off your cast of Drill/chain/saw?
Time to lose all your dps.

I don't think current machinist is as easy as people claim either, atleast when you're trying to optimize it and not just press random buttons.

Your big hitters like Air Anchor, Chain Saw and Drill can easily start to drift when you mess up at specific points, but it still doesn't come close to the nonsense that was this

Where a single mistake or unfortunate phase change timings could cost you a ridiculous amount of dps.

[Nutshell]

I've believed for a while now that if they just took BLM, SAM, and MCH and put them into their own dps group SE could fix a lot of their balancing issues.

Instead of needing one dps from each of three groups and then a floater like we have now just make it so we need one dps from each of the four groups(melee, magic, ranged, selfish) to get the party buffs required to clear current savage level content. This way they could buff MCH to what ever level they want and people will still play DNC and BRD because every savage party would need one to get that party buff.

[SaberMaxwell]

Only way I can see OP working is if the recategorization changed the 1% buff from 1t/1h/1m/1r/1c to 1t/1h/1 selfish/1 mid sup/ 1 heavy sup.

Even then I'm dubious about using aDPS as the primary measure for this. I'm clearly in the minority though since measuring how a job uses buffs (but not the padded ones) is according to people more useful than the average contribution that buff gives in addition to the damage of the job that brings it. I'll get off my soapbox though.

Only other solution I could think of would be to canonize the support role, make it yellow or something, and condenn assign whatever jobs SE has stopped considering DPS to it.

[Aikaal]

It's really not. There isn't a single case where SMN is harder than RDM. There isn't a single case where MCH is harder than DNC/BRD. Also it's already "not brought" but it would at least do more damage with proper balance

Difficulty is subjective and depends on what you do. If you play to optimize. I'm sorry to say this but RDM is easier to optimize than SMN.

I pointed it a few times but it is impossible to optimize SMN. Sure the rotation is braindead but the rotation of RDM is also pretty braindead. But to the very least, RDM can work around to move their burst window. SMN? You either desync or force the party to rebuff on a bad timing. That's objectively more difficult to handle.

Anyways, I know people will disagree but that's just how I see it. I don't find any role difficult in the DPS spot. Melee have never been so easy than Endwalker. They're a ranged physical with a 10% damage buff.

[Rithy255]

The idea that they've been difficulty balancing would make sense if samurai was a lot lower, if dark knight was on par with warrior ect, Dancer not being way ahead of machinist ect, it feels like theirs no actual consistency with what the community regards as difficult being rewarded in bigger numbers, because difficulty is subjective, while their is a general consensus on certain jobs being easier it really just doesn't show that the top demanding jobs, are the most well performing currently.

Even if it's the case I don't think we should really focus on difficulty too much as a factor when it comes to job balance, while I think their should be some reward for playing a job that is "highly skilled" I dont think it justifies a big or even a noticeable difference, small benefits such as like a tiny tiny tiny amount in front in damage or some sort of utility that isn't really too powerful? I don't know, I just don't think their needs to be a massive difference between a "high skilled job" and a "low skilled job".

If they wanna reward more skilled jobs then why isn't jobs such as black mage at the top right now lol, i guess "ranged tax" but it doesn't make sense when the fight is designed so melees have a easier time now.

I just want some consistency with Job balancing, I don't mind one job being slightly ahead then another that's just going to be the case generally, but I don't think how it currently is makes any sense with how I view what makes a job "Hard"

[Axious]

How would we feel if the Devs modified every raid buff to a self buff. No one buffs anyone.

[Elizasylen]

How would we feel if the Devs modified every raid buff to a self buff. No one buffs anyone.

As long as the boss dies in a timely manner people don't care where the damage comes from, they don't care if there's no buffs. If a 4 SAM 2GNB 2WHM gets the most damage out and the fastest kill time then that's what people will take. People have been seriously looking at whether or not taking 4 melee is superior to standard bonus comp. It's barely not worth it.

[Renathras]

OP, pretty much agree with that overall. I honestly feel like each of the main sub-roles (Melee, Ranged, and Caster) should have at least one of each (e.g. if BRD or DNC was mid-support). I'm not sure the solution, but it does seem a better way to think about it.

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

SAM isn't much harder than MCH and has 100% uptime in fight design now. This perspective is invalid. Hell, RDM is harder than SAM right now.

Not to mention difficulty is 100% based on the person. I sometimes fight GNB easier than WAR since it's easy to NOT lose my place in the rotation and I don't have an upkeep buff that I tend to forget about (on WAR) that falls off. I find upkeep buffs and DoTs the hardest (or, more accurately, most annoying) kinds of gameplay since they're easy for me to forget about. (GNB's issue is like Ex4 fights where, right when you have your 30 sec Gnashing Fang ready to go, the boss forces tons of movement and disengagement, etc). So what people find "more difficult" highly depends on the person.

Not only that, but optimizing MCH actually ISN'T that easy, especially on high latency connections, where it may in fact be impossible. It's just the gap between low and high skill on the Job isn't super high because the Job's mechanics, not that getting the high end is easy, per se.

I'm also confused how rDPS numbers being within 1% of each other "is not true balance" as that...would kind of be a pretty good definition for what true balance IS, honestly. If you're going to go with "well, some have utility" - fine, then give every Job non-damage utility that's different but equal. There, we have balance and with 1% damage so no Job is blackballed by a community that cares about damage >>>>> all anyway.

EDIT:

I've sat through enough dissertations on the healer subforum explaining why WHM "properly" deserves to have the stupidest, least interactive gameplay (it's the intro healer!), and therefore deserves to have the weakest output (more effort properly means more damage!), while also having a non-advantage (but it's the HEALIEST healer! Never you mind that it isn't true and isn't an advantage either in a game where Squeenix wants all healing outputs to be adequate).

No. Begone with this. I've heard "this job I don't play only naturally deserves to be worse than mine in every way because because because wah wah blah blah yak yak yak" enough times to roll my eyes off a cliff.

This may be the only time I ever get to say this, Semirhage, so listen up:

I agree with you.

Only other solution I could think of would be to canonize the support role, make it yellow or something, and condenn assign whatever jobs SE has stopped considering DPS to it.

I feel like it would be Purple. not quite sure why, though. Yellow could work, too. I forget what DoH/DoL are (I think they technically have a color other than gray, but can't remember what, maybe one is Yellow and one Purple already...), so maybe Orange? Gonna have to go to ye olde color wheel here. XD

Honestly, they could make it a fourth slot but when quing content (dungeons/24 mans) it just ques like a DPS does. That way they wouldn't have to redesign the entire game and in 4 mans and 8/24 man casual content, it legitimately doesn't matter anyway.

But I do agree they should stop dancing around the issue and just make Support a role already. We already arguably have a Support from each of the categories as it is (DNC/BRD, SMN/RDM, probably NIN and maybe MNK - and if we want to get super frisky, PLD and AST, but they should stay Tank/Healer), so it's not like they couldn't populate this role fairly quickly.

Bonus, more people would have gearsets that straddle roles for them to pick up an alt if they want to do something different.

So Orange would probably be the color. It's Red when it needs to be.

[Sunhwapark]

if everyone gets a defensive then it needs to become a major part of the playstyle.

It could happen, I remember when phys ranged had no arm's length at all when the rest of the party could prevent kb and were basically at the mercy of plds to get a cover +tempered will on some fights, kind of glad that we don't have to deal with situations anymore like Sigmascape v1 Savage where Machinists would be given a death sentence because the melee killed the only available safety boxes for the next knockback mechanic. Bards at least had repelling shot to cancel those kinds of lethal knockbacks.