Should most DPS be selfish DPS?

[Mithron]

What if the only raid DPS buffing jobs were DRG, NIN, BRD, DNC SMN, and RDM? Would that make the game more balanced and enable devs to come up with less homogenization and end the two minute burst meta or make it worse?

The reason I include SMN is so that every role has at least 2 raid DPS buffers to choose from.

[VentVanitas]

It wouldn't really kill the 2 minute burst situation outright, it would be closer to how ShB worked but a little worse since everyone is still uniform in design which is still pretty bad in my opinion. We would have to either change the cooldowns on a lot of skills or make their reliance on these intervals less significant by returning lost playstyles (like ramping/sustained damage on MNK just as an example) to truly bury it.

[CKNovel]

Wouldn't we go back to HW late meta?

MNK was a selfish DPS and wasn't meta.
BLM was like today, selfish.
SMN was a selfish DPS if I remember well?

HW Late meta was to stack MCH, BRD, DRG and NIN, the 4 DPS that brought rDPS support.
MNK, BLM and SMN were benched.

[Mithron]

It wouldn't really kill the 2 minute burst situation outright, it would be closer to how ShB worked but a little worse since everyone is still uniform in design which is still pretty bad in my opinion. We would have to either change the cooldowns on a lot of skills or make their reliance on these intervals less significant by returning lost playstyles (like ramping/sustained damage on MNK just as an example) to truly bury it.

What I'd like to see is that if more jobs are selfish DPS, then hopefully it would be easier to redesign their rotations to be on different timers and feel more individualized and unique rather than every job being strict two minute burst windows and feeling the same.

Wouldn't we go back to HW late meta?

MNK was a selfish DPS and wasn't meta.
BLM was like today, selfish.
SMN was a selfish DPS if I remember well?

HW Late meta was to stack MCH, BRD, DRG and NIN, the 4 DPS that brought rDPS support.
MNK, BLM and SMN were benched.

Well a lot of that was more because of job balance as a whole rather than raid buff design I think, and there was also the need for role party bonuses and weapon resistance debuffs. That meant DRG was always needed in every party so that the physical ranged benefited, and every party needed either a WAR or a NIN for slashing debuff. It just so happened that due to weapon debuffs and the fact that the raid damage buffing jobs were just the best DPS at the time that this happened, I think. If raid DPS buffs as a whole were much more limited to specific jobs and we had more selfish DPS, then the devs could redesign a lot more weird timer rotations like 80s and 90s and 70s to keep them feeling different. Ultimately there will always be a meta, but with different timers, each fight may have its own unique meta comp rather than one strict comp for all fights due to all fights needing to be based on 2 minute timers.

[wereotter]

Well a lot of that was more because of job balance as a whole rather than raid buff design I think, and there was also the need for role party bonuses and weapon resistance debuffs. That meant DRG was always needed in every party so that the physical ranged benefited, and every party needed either a WAR or a NIN for slashing debuff. It just so happened that due to weapon debuffs and the fact that the raid damage buffing jobs were just the best DPS at the time that this happened, I think. If raid DPS buffs as a whole were much more limited to specific jobs and we had more selfish DPS, then the devs could redesign a lot more weird timer rotations like 80s and 90s and 70s to keep them feeling different. Ultimately there will always be a meta, but with different timers, each fight may have its own unique meta comp rather than one strict comp for all fights due to all fights needing to be based on 2 minute timers.

Add onto this: monk didn't just die because it was "selfish" because based off utility at the time, it wasn't much more selfish than many other jobs. The problem was the utility monk provided didn't really mesh into the job system as a whole: no one but monk was doing blunt damage, no healing check was so severe as to require mantra, and the addition of dark knight removed the INT down utility monk brought. Add onto this that similarly to black mage, you had to readjust strats to allow monk to get in all their positional attacks and keep full uptime for greased lightning.

And, ninja wasn't just a slashing debuff, but it was also shadewalker and smokescreen that allowed for tanks to never need tank stance, and at the time being in tank stance reduced the amount of damage the tanks did, which just further enforced the dragoon-ninja meta of the era.

Go back to Heavensward and leave the damage type resistances off, and the tank stance acting like it does now, and I'd be willing to bet that all the DPS jobs would have a much better chance at being played.

That said.... I'm not sure if I want every job to be the selfish job. I kind of like every job having at least some kind of buff to the party, but I do get how that's lead us to the place we are now where every job has the same buff that happens every 120 seconds... but on the other other hand, we were already holding buffs and planning bursts around the trick attack window since all the way back in ARR, so is it REALLY that much different now?

[Mithron]

That said.... I'm not sure if I want every job to be the selfish job. I kind of like every job having at least some kind of buff to the party, but I do get how that's lead us to the place we are now where every job has the same buff that happens every 120 seconds... but on the other other hand, we were already holding buffs and planning bursts around the trick attack window since all the way back in ARR, so is it REALLY that much different now?

I don't think so. You can have jobs provide non-raid damage utility (thus no tax needed and can still be 'selfish DPS') such as mitigation, shields, and Mantra which would still keep them feeling unique and fun. And no, it was actually significant DPS losses to hold too much for burst windows in HW/SB/SHB, you would for some things but definitely not everything. And I think that's fine, too. Ideally, your rotation would even change slightly depending on if your comp had raid damage buffs or not, so not only is your mastery of your job the fight design, but also your comp design.

[wereotter]

I don't think so. You can have jobs provide non-raid damage utility (thus no tax needed and can still be 'selfish DPS') such as mitigation, shields, and Mantra which would still keep them feeling unique and fun. And no, it was actually significant DPS losses to hold too much for burst windows in HW/SB/SHB, you would for some things but definitely not everything. And I think that's fine, too. Ideally, your rotation would even change slightly depending on if your comp had raid damage buffs or not, so not only is your mastery of your job the fight design, but also your comp design.

Thing there is that creates another kind of meta, or makes that utility useless. Speaking as someone who has mained monk in most the savage raids, my healers have more than once forgotten I even have mantra when I ask them when they need it used, and then tell me when I have used it that the amount of increase to healing didn't actually save them from having to use skills. So you'd need to design fights in such a way that these skills are actually more useful than they currently are, which creates it own new meta of having the DPS that provide more healing and mitigation be required. But, if they did that, then jobs that don't have that utility become unviable because the fights won't be able to be cleared with them.

Like if healing checks were so intense to need the kind of defensive utility skills, parties would demand people bring reaper, summoner, monk, dancer, red mage or other jobs that provide those tools, while refusing to bring jobs like samurai or black mage that don't protect the party, especially if all jobs are selfish DPS. Why bring the jobs that offer nothing over the jobs that do? And even then, there will ultimately be a tier list of which is better and those jobs will become meta, while jobs that provide the less valuable defensive tools will be booted out of PF alongside the jobs that have none at all.

This is actually the kind of problem we saw a lot of in Heavensward. I was kicked out of groups more than a few times in PF, and then saw when I looked into the recruitment that after kicking me, they changed the recruitment to exclude monks from joining at all. Friend who played machinist back then had the same thing happening because bard was meta.

[Azuri]

What I'd like to see is that if more jobs are selfish DPS, then hopefully it would be easier to redesign their rotations to be on different timers and feel more individualized and unique rather than every job being strict two minute burst windows and feeling the same.

So you'll hard fix certain "selfish" DPS to matching "buff" DPS. None of the buffers will be happy with a mismatch in the party because it's a straight DPS loss for you.

I played RDM in ShB. It wasn't fun knowing that you are simply screwed just because a BLM or NIN happened to join the group. Neither were the SB era damage type vuln ups. Between having to force a comp for certain jobs and two-minute, I'll take two minute.

[Shurrikhan]

What if the only raid DPS buffing jobs were DRG, NIN, BRD, DNC SMN, and RDM? Would that make the game more balanced and enable devs to come up with less homogenization and end the two minute burst meta or make it worse?.

You kind of have to go all in or not at all. External (raidwide or on-party-member) buffs compel shared timings on other buffs and/or their exploiters (direct damage CDs, etc). If any remain, you're stuck with at least job dependencies.

Personally, I don't care that much either way. The two-minute metas fixate play, sure, but they're hardly the unique reason for anything we've lost outside it. So long as there are interesting mini-burst cycles between the two-minutes and the sustain itself (such as via optimal drift in setting up for those bursts or mini-bursts, etc.) is decently entertaining, that's about all that remains relevant to me in that area.

Now, encounter design itself, on the other hand...

[ty_taurus]

The biggest concern about making most DPS entirely selfish is it makes balance far more cutthroat. If both MNK and DRG offer only DPS, and MNK deals more damage than DRG, then DRG can become invalidated.

Melee, ranged, and caster role buffs would still exist, so there would at least be incentive to bring one of each, but without nuance to further define each DPS, you'd get a dominant trio situation very easily. Difficulty tax can be a factor that creates some nuance, such as BLM dealing more because its harder to play correctly, but FFXIV taxes jobs too greatly on the bases of range, mobility, and difficulty. If properly balanced, the idea is the average BLM would perform on a similar level to RDM, for example, but a skilled BLM will edge RDM out.

That said, something that could be a better source of balance would be what additional aspects of valuable utility a DPS provides. Between BLM and RDM, BLM can offer a higher damage output, but RDM can offer raise utility, which has notable value. It essentially boils down to do you want more room for error meeting the DPS check, or more room for error in recovering from the mechanics before the DPS check. This creates a more meaningful choice between DPS in theory, but FFXIV lacks options to give utility to jobs. Besides giving a DPS a raise, what else can you offer to a DPS that actually holds weight?

What Currently Works
- Raise, as mentioned above.
- Combat sprint a la Expedient, however, an important question to ask is how common would we want a combat sprint to be, and does that take away from SCH's niche as a healer?
- Mitigation beyond existing role actions and Samba/Tactician/Troubadour. Mitigation has become a standard, high-value tool for raids, and having more sources like with Magic Barrier could help give a DPS more value.

What Currently Deosn't Work
- Sustain/healing and increased healing received buffs. As nice as it is, tools like Curing Waltz and Rekindle are too inconsequential to hold weight. They may be nice, but they don't generally heal enough to really make the healer's job noticeably easier. As a DNC, I don't think my team even knows when I use Curing Waltz, or if I do at all. Also, healers are over-capable of handling healing requirements. There are practical applications of these tools, but they aren't impactful enough to considering them weight in favor of those DPS over a more offensive alternative.
- Esuna effects. The dev team does not use cleansable debuffs more than like 3 times an expansion. Were they to expand on debuffs so that they were consistently applied in most fights, either as a mechanic that you can either remove or endure, or as a punishment for a failed mechanic, something like Warden's Paean could actually be useful. Personally, I think it would be great if Warden's became AoE on a longer cooldown, and bosses more regularly could do things like paralyze the entire party with damage for failed mechanics, so BRD could offer more security for those challenges.
- MP regens. These have been killed off from the physical ranged role, but given insignificant MP management has become as an actually important resource, it wouldn't stay feeling useful anymore anyway.

What Currently Doesn't Exist
- Dispel effects. Only BLU has access to buff removal, but introducing bosses that give themselves vulnerability down buffs or damage dealt up buffs that perhaps healers need to remove with a Dispel action could also allow DPS to do this off the GCD potentially.