2-minute meta

[GoatOfWar]

The 2 minute meta is just a way to design the jobs so they sync better in groups, really. It sounds like they wanted to try minimizing the job selection bias and make teamwork easier due to the strained relationships that can form in the tougher content they end up making. Like if all there is a job that doesn't align to the other ones properly in a 10 minute fight and they are using multipliers instead of summation, it is going to mean that in the hardest content that job is going to get booted. Even if the developers design every job to be able to clear the content, the community still will prioritize which jobs are going to clear the content the best, and if there is one thing the community is good at, it's finding out which jobs get the best results.

Heck, they got job bias just from how difficult it is to learn a job, run a job under pressure, and how much damage the job does. Astro is on the bench because it takes a mountain of effort to do the same job as a whm, and anyone can tell you that Sage is a lot easier to learn than scholar.

And this late the most common tanks I'm seeing are warrior and paladin. Gunbreaker and DRK can work but they aren't as easy to run as the former two and both have some issues: The first is drift in the rotation and the second is being a faceroll on the keyboard during burst phase that doesn't have a good ordering to it.

Drk only starts to do the same dps as Warrior at a 95% Adps parse, which is frankly kind of a stupid thing to ask from a job that already does everything else worse. It's completely outside of your control, and assumes you have the perfect team comp in the first place. So yeah, you're not seeing it as often anymore. For Drk to be as good as a Warrior (Not better) you need soooooo much to go right, and it just doesn't really happen. You can just play War, which is MUCH easier to optimise in the first place, and doesn't rely nearly as much on those party buffs. If you can play Drk competently, well, you can play Warrior with identical proficiency.

[Supersnow845]

Drk only starts to do the same dps as Warrior at a 95% Adps parse, which is frankly kind of a stupid thing to ask from a job that already does everything else worse.
So yeah, you're not seeing it as often anymore. For Drk to be as good as a Warrior (Not better) you need soooooo much to go right, and it just doesn't really happen.

So sorry the favourite child has to be the best at everything

Not even BLM gets half as favourable treatment

[Aravell]

everyone fuming about PLD feeling like GNB lite because of Divine Might/Burst Strike comparisons, I'm fuming because even after a rework we still have to press Atonement three times in a row

I'm more fuming that I lost my spreadsheet healer in 5.0, then they took away my spreadsheet tank in 6.3.

[GoatOfWar]

So sorry the favourite child has to be the best at everything

Not even BLM gets half as favourable treatment

Nothing new, War continues to cannibalise traits and identities from the other tanks, and i have no doubt that we'll have another situation where War players (Streamer and his followers) will demand buffs if and when they give Dark knight yet another identity in Dawntrail or beyond, followed by the mandatory ''Dark needs a rework because it has no identity'' like before.
The goalpost for Drk is that it can clear. The goalpost for War is that it needs to do everything better than Drk.

[Supersnow845]

Nothing new, War continues to cannibalise traits and identities from the other tanks, and i have no doubt that we'll have another situation where War players (Streamer and his followers) will demand buffs if and when they give Dark knight yet another identity in Dawntrail or beyond, followed by the mandatory ''Dark needs a rework because it has no identity'' like before.

The eternal cycle

Step 1) give DRK a new identity
Step 2) WAR complains till WAR gets the best traits of DRK’s new identity with zero downsides
Step 3) DRK plays like a worse WAR
Step 4) people complain DRK has no identity

[GoatOfWar]

The eternal cycle

Step 1) give DRK a new identity
Step 2) WAR complains till WAR gets the best traits of DRK’s new identity with zero downsides
Step 3) DRK plays like a worse WAR
Step 4) people complain DRK has no identity

Meanwhile War enables no healer comps in the hardest content in the game lol
But god forbid another tank does 2 (two) percent more damage in 6.3.

[Rithy255]

2 Minute meta is a issue for sure, but it's funny to me how it's like the "biggest issue!!" to job design when Job design is generally just not in a good state, which isn't all caused by 2 minute meta.

I think the Main issue with the game is that job design especially for support jobs such as Tanks & Healers is just really really bland and this isn't fully due to the 2 minute meta, it's a part of the safe design that was introduced In shadowbringers (at a way lower extent, looking back on it SHB design was miles more interesting for most jobs, even small things like healer cast times were a thing that made jobs feel different) the problem with the game is that it won't allow for Jobs to have "upsides" & "downsides" every job (Even the utility based ones) just have the same function with the only room for difference being rotation, you know what? I'd be perfectly fine with that If tanks actually had fun rotations instead of the snoozefest...

In reality all we can hope for is either more of the same we've been getting in EW aka only focusing on the fight design (which hurts the replay value on said design as taking a different job gave a slightly different experience but now it really doesn't) or a restructure of the combat system for all jobs, tanks and healers most importantly.

I do think the reason why 2 minute meta is so discussed is because we have something that also effects DPS players heavily. (It effects tanks as well... healers a small amount I guess), but 2 minute meta is generally seen as very bad because now the rotations are getting trimmed, the combat is merging into this general samey feeling, throughout the roles it takes even more depth out of the game when it was already in need of depth in Job design. Don't get me wrong I dislike the 2 minute meta but removing it wouldn't suddenly make the game feel that much better for me, someone who doesn't always just want to play DPS, or boring blue DPS, One button green DPS.

The question that really needs to be asked is... is it ok for the game to be slightly more unbalanced for the sake of fun and creativity? which I'd say I'd prefer, both aren't mutually exclusive but the reason why we get this sort of safe... boring job design is because it's way easier to balance. Personally I think it's fine that Tanks like DRK would do slightly more damage but have less sustain, I think it's fine that tanks like PLD have a more complicated rotation (I feel like PLD's issue was it didn't really offer much pre 6.3) the Issue is that this game tends to only buff a jobs weaknesses instead of making it's strengths stand out more and be more useful if the job is falling behind... in certain cases yes you should buff weaknesses but to a certain point tuning numbers that way will lead to one job falling behind after that buff, it becomes a cycle of choosing which tank does the higher damage number now, because all the kits are very similar.

[Raikai]

This is a game where everyone can play every job. It doesn't matter if a job is not favored by the raiding community. People can easily change to a job that fits the meta.

Also people aready do exclude some jobs in PF setups... Sadly a RDM is (usually) as desirable as the prog is done with.

[Ritsuka-55]

Nothing new, War continues to cannibalise traits and identities from the other tanks, and i have no doubt that we'll have another situation where War players (Streamer and his followers) will demand buffs if and when they give Dark knight yet another identity in Dawntrail or beyond, followed by the mandatory ''Dark needs a rework because it has no identity'' like before.
The goalpost for Drk is that it can clear. The goalpost for War is that it needs to do everything better than Drk.

That reminds on the so called "glory days" that some people like to call them here, people was constantly telling me, if you don't wanna play WAR at least switch to PLD, DRK sucks and we don't want it in our team comps, so I either had te resign playing that content or switch to class I didn't like/want to play.

fun days, were those.

[ShadowNyx3]

The reality is that there’s too many jobs in the game. But new jobs are always going to be added because new jobs sell expansions.

With each new job, more work is created for the job design team/s. To offset this new workload, the company can either a) hire more people b) consolidate job design into a simpler system.

With the direction we have seen job design going for years now, I think it’s pretty clear what the company is choosing to do.

So, truthfully the real problem isn’t that there’s too many jobs, it’s that this game is made by a massive corporation. I’m sure that many, many developers would love to put passion into the job design again, but their hands will always be tied by the direction they get from management.