Which Job, in your opinion, has the biggest identity issue?

[Renathras]

I think it really depends on the person.

The point was that the PLD rework hasn't been universally considered bad, and a lot of people like it. I like it much better than the prior rotation, which had multiple cursed openers and a lot of jank, not to mention felt terrible in syncing content because your muscle memory (Royal comes after Swords) would actively work against you since Goring was supposed to instead. The new one feels like it uses more of PLD's kit, too, has a more intuitive flow, and feels more flexible.

I do know some people liked the old one, but having played PLD since ARR, I like this one better. PLD was my only Tank until ShB, where I picked up GNB as well and played both, and in EW, I also added WAR to my stable, but PLD is the one I keep coming back to. So I'm not a "new to PLD" person. I honestly never liked Goring as a DoT, personally. I hate DoTs. I tolerate them if they do something meaningful with a kit, like generate resources or something, but Goring never did. It was sort of the "left swing" of the right/left metronome that was Royal/Goring ever since they got rid of Halone (though to be fair, that wasn't often needed even when Agro was a thing other than on the pull or if a BLM/SAM got a string of crits). But we have Atonement for "the other half" combo, and it's honestly more flexible with HS being usable anywhere around it and you being able to push Atonements to straddle the 1-2-3.

But yeah, point was that not all the reworks have been bad. And, again, the most panned one on the forums, SMN, also seems to be highly praised by the community as a whole. So I don't even think it's right to call that one a flop, either.

WHM, as part of the ShB healer changes, was also ragged on (and still is), but was a vast improvement over SB's WHM, which was the worst iteration of the Job in the game's history (also been playing it since ARR). So the forums don't always get it right which reworks they rag on.

I think it's better to say that reworks have been mixed in both result and in controversy. That's probably fair. But the "1 for 7" stuff is inaccurate.

AST's rework(s) (since there have been SEVERAL) were pretty much all stages of getting worse. SCH's was mixed, since it was worse for people that liked a more varied DPS game, but it also fixed a lot of the bugs with things like pet AI and responsiveness, and Expedience has been universally lauded. MNK's has been praised. NIN's was neutral-to-good after the patch (5.1, was it?) that got it set right. MCH gets ragged on by some people, but others love it and it improved on some of the unfun jank in the original (a procing main combo was always...odd). BRD's "bowmage" rework was pretty disliked, though its reworks since have been disliked, too (I still think the ARR version where songs were situational and toggles was better...). WHM's rework was an overall improvement no matter how much some people pine for Aero 3 (Aero 1 was already removed in SB, not ShB, so the "many DoTs of all different durations" was never really a thing for WHM anyway). WAR's rework was hated by a lot of vets but seems to be generally liked now by a lot of folks. SMN's rework is constantly decried by online forums but generally well received by the playerbase. SAM's mini-rework by removing Kaiten seems to be pretty widely disliked. PLD's rework seems to be neutral-to-good as well.

So out of 11, there's 3 Jobs there just hated (AST, BRD, and SAM), and the rest are somewhere between neutral and good. And that's not counting "not really reworks/major changes, but still significant" like BLM getting Triplecast to really help with its old mobility problems; things that don't make a Job totally different but still significant in the feel and enjoyability of play.

So I'd say they're closer to 8 of 11, which is a pretty decent win/loss rate.

Again, controversial and mixed, but only 3 Jobs seem to be total losses.

Though I'll note two in particular, BRD and AST, just seem to be born under unlucky stars or something (yes, ironic for AST) in that they've had several reworks, and all of them not so good.

[Shurrikhan]

Bard, for the lack of support gameplay (no, hitting an extra, still-generic raid buff from time to time does not count, Minne is just Mantra, a passive ~1% damage buff just for doing what you have to for your own dps anyways is not support, and Troubadour is just a better-dressed Role Action).

The bow is fine; its origin story in XIV was fine. It just lacks palpable support options, especially any to do with music or its mechanics to a degree we might notice even if were renamed.

That or... maybe WAR? I could see it passing on buffs to others from the "thrill of battle," such as granting them the ability to take on some additional healing from their output produced or additional stats from input received, but... Nascent Flash makes no damn sense. How does the damage you do... heal them, and what could that have to do with the thrill of battle?

The HoT and especially the instant barriers itself in Shake it Off are also weird as heck, flavor-wise. I could see a Warcry that increases max HP and maybe increases natural HP regen tremendously, or just flat out grants a bunch of Tenacity, but... a pure barrier based on the Warrior's HP again seems an odd pick.

[TheDustyOne]

I think it really depends on the person.

The point was that the PLD rework hasn't been universally considered bad, and a lot of people like it. I like it much better than the prior rotation, which had multiple cursed openers and a lot of jank, not to mention felt terrible in syncing content because your muscle memory (Royal comes after Swords) would actively work against you since Goring was supposed to instead. The new one feels like it uses more of PLD's kit, too, has a more intuitive flow, and feels more flexible.

Apart from the cursed opener, could you elaborate more on the jank of old PLD? Cause to me, new Goring, Atonement, the fact that FoF and Req aren't combined, are all new jank that old PLD didn't have.

Also, while we had 2 main openers back in ShB, I don't see that as problem, if anything, that's a major thing to allow for different forms of skill expression compared to "this one opener is ALWAYS used". We chose the different openers based on fight knowledge and where things lined up for us better. The only thing bad was the cursed opener that EW made standard.

The cursed opener was moreso a problem with this expansion specifically because of how stupid the 2 minute meta is. Because old PLD would prefer to open with FoF, it pushed the magic phase past burst windows into a lull period where it wasn't getting boosted. ShB PLD actually did more damage in its physical phase (only by a little) than its magic phase, so even with openers wanting as much potency as possible back then, PLD still did well enough because the physical phase was strong enough to open with. The cursed opener was used one time I believe in ShB back in E8S because of timings, but again, that was small optimization compared to "your DPS will just suck if you don't do it all the time".

So yeah, cursed opener I'll chalk up to 2 minute meta being the issue, not old PLD. But that's a discussion for another time.

The big problem I think I had with the rework was that old PLD was a well designed job, it just didn't fit the mold that Square created with EW where if you didn't get your stupid high potency attacks in the designated burst, you were going to perform terribly. So we lost a good job with a gameplay style different from the other tanks for something closer IMO to GNB.

I do know some people liked the old one, but having played PLD since ARR, I like this one better. PLD was my only Tank until ShB, where I picked up GNB as well and played both, and in EW, I also added WAR to my stable, but PLD is the one I keep coming back to. So I'm not a "new to PLD" person.

Remember, I did say 'non-mains' as ones that liked the rework, not mains. So while you do have experience with it, even as your primary tank of choice, I know you have more of a tendency towards healers and simpler DPS. Even then, I did say that older mains existed that like the new one, just that in my personal experience, they're much fewer compared to mains that disliked it.

I honestly never liked Goring as a DoT, personally. I hate DoTs. I tolerate them if they do something meaningful with a kit, like generate resources or something, but Goring never did. It was sort of the "left swing" of the right/left metronome that was Royal/Goring ever since they got rid of Halone (though to be fair, that wasn't often needed even when Agro was a thing other than on the pull or if a BLM/SAM got a string of crits). But we have Atonement for "the other half" combo, and it's honestly more flexible with HS being usable anywhere around it and you being able to push Atonements to straddle the 1-2-3.

I know you dislike DoTs, but the point of Goring was just that it provided a rhythm to the rotation; Goring combo > RA combo > Atonement > Goring would work just as well if Goring had a 20s cooldown applied to it under old PLD. That said, I don't see the point of removing DoTs from kits just because you don't like them, they can still serve a purpose even if they don't do much else but provide a ticking timer to watch, it depends on the context of the rest of the kit.

But yeah, point was that not all the reworks have been bad. And, again, the most panned one on the forums, SMN, also seems to be highly praised by the community as a whole. So I don't even think it's right to call that one a flop, either.

I don't see it highly praised in game either. People play it because it's easy, give people multiple paths to the same location, and they'll likely choose the one of least resistance, so why bother to earn good DPS with something like BLM when you can sidestep all of that with SMN? It's fine having jobs that are easy to get into, but top DPS should be something earned through good play, not given because you played a specific job. About the only thing I've seen praised about new SMN is its visual presentation, which is definitely good, but not its mechanical implementation.


Good grief I hate this text limit.

[Shurrikhan]

I think it really depends on the person.

The point was that the PLD rework hasn't been universally considered bad, and a lot of people like it.

And the point that's typically been made in response is that a net improvement still isn't necessarily good and, especially when the initial bar was already quite low, shouldn't necessarily be used as an example of favorable design.

It also left on the floor a lot of opportunities for both identity and just... not screwing over its leveling experience.

For instance, instead of neutering the base potency of PLD's spells to make them wholly dependent on Requiescat/Divine Might and reserve MP basically just for Clemency, they easily could have had Holy Shock/Circle damage (and later cast time) scale with %MP and made Requiescat either (A) cause your next X spells to consume no MP and count as if cast at 100% MP or (B) halve your MP costs for X seconds. Voila, PLD actually has lower ranged punishment than before and a more involved MP mechanic and is naturally better readied for burst and flexibility, both.

Similarly, rather than axing a combo entirely in favor of a Sonic Break-lite, they could have just (A) gone any of various routes to accelerate the Req-DoT (such as applying it on Confiteor, so we RA, Req, Conf, and have our DoT only 1 GCD later than normal, Conf combo, Atonement combo, RA combo, GB combo, Atonement combo, so on and so forth) or, (B) if the DoT were somehow so antithetical despite PLD having 2 DoTs since HW (not counting cross-class actions), they could have shuffled MP generation to Royal Authority and used Goring for the pure damage, with either both unlocking Atonement at a third of RA's MP gen or RA unlocking Atonement (high MP + moderate damage) and GB unlocking Retribution (low MP + high damage), etc.

[TheDustyOne]

I think new PLD has potential to be better than old PLD, I just don't trust Square as they are now to deliver on it.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, PLD may have problems, but not on identity (even if I think mechanically it's starting to get too similar to GNB).

Everyone and their mother is saying Bard, and while I know I said WHM earlier in this thread, I still agree that Bard has problems. I don't think however that the problem is it being a hybrid between an archer and singer, just that it half-asses both aspects.

A quick wishlist of mine for making it more traditionally bard-like would be:
Put the songs on the GCD with a short cast time just to represent the Bard actually playing some music rather than just a strum before going back to spamming Burst Shot.
Bring back Foes Requiem.
Reduce song cooldowns back to 90s. Screw the 2 minute meta, have me singing more often.

For making it more archer like:
Reduce the DoT durations. This breaks up Burst Shot spam
Make the DoTs have differing timers, one being 15s and the other 30s. This means we now have to alternate between refreshing the short DoT and Iron Jaws and further breaks up Burst Shot spam.
Make Sidewinder do more damage again based on DoTs applied.
Give Iron Jaws a Bane-like effect and finally let us spread those DoTs.