2 minute meta: Rework or Remove?

[Aco505]

The system that we had previously meant that not all jobs synchronized with buff timings equally well, resulting in rDPS disparities. Some jobs like NIN were perennial picks, because a 1 minute buff aligns with pretty much everything. It also meant that your buff windows could be just free dps if they didn't align with mechanic checks.

This is important. Clamoring for the return of 90 and 180 second buffs disregards the fact that during ShB, the jobs that were the strongest and had good synergy were precisely those based around 60-120s windows: SAM, NIN and DNC with SAM in particular staying at the top of the rDPS charts too, creating an imbalance, just like BLM right now topping the rDPS, nDPS and aDPS rankings.

This doesn't mean that the idea cannot be explored, but blindly going back to how it was without further thought would be a terrible move.

On the other hand, removing buffs from all jobs would have the exact effect. And there's also to consider that, if most jobs (let's say melee and caster) had no buffs anymore, then they will all be "selfish" DPS but that won't mean that they will all be equal because bursts will still exist and the damage of a NIN burst is not the same as a MNK's.

I think that we should have jobs with different DPS patterns (some with strong burst and weaker filler, some with strong filler and alright burst, some in between, etc...), as well as various burst timings (some having strong 60s, some being the strongest at 120s).

We already kind of have this with SMN, whose Phoenix phase is quite good, MNK's 60s having their strongest attack in normal encounters with full uptime, or WAR's 60s being mostly the same to their 120s. The idea would then be to expand on this so that not everyone relied on the 120s burst, as well as to provide different timers within each job and to make the filler phase not feel like a mindless 1-2-3 spam in some cases (e. g. NIN between bursts).

Why can't we have more jobs like BLM with less burst but continuous damage yet with the ability to pool resources to dump into party/single target buffs? Why is SAM's burst stronger than NIN's considering the former has a good filler while the latter lives or dies by their burst?

[Rychu]

I think our arguments for or against the removal also hasn't factored in that not all of the current jobs will need to be reworked to be more sustained damage over the course of a fight. There should be jobs that are burst focused, that build up gauge to spend all at once on some big attacks. HOWEVER, the current raid buff system does not allow for both types of archetypes to exist, and I think that that blows. Let me give an example. Personally I would like to keep Ninja the way it is or close at least. Maybe their burst can be signified with keeping trick attack but having it be a debuff that only affects the ninja's damage and let them burst how they currently do. That's a very rough example, but you get the idea. And at the same time, you have a paladin behaving the way it did before the rework. Both players like different rotations, both get to have their fun.

To be honest, I am glad the developers made the 2 minute meta. Because it shows how much the jobs have to be homogenized to all fit into the box. The old system was not great, the jobs that had similar cooldown timers, naturally had the advantage in raids. But this system limits all jobs, both current and future.

Jobs may be homogenized further if we remove the raid buffs, they may not. What I do know is that all jobs currently are being homogenized right now with this system.

[Shurrikhan]

I think that we should have jobs with different DPS patterns (some with strong burst and weaker filler, some with strong filler and alright burst, some in between, etc...), as well as various burst timings (some having strong 60s, some being the strongest at 120s).

We kind of see that in other games, where depth of flexibly timeable burst is considered a powerful utility but is still just that -- utility; that is to say, its value is context-dependent, rather than something you can easily and/or pretty directly calculate.

Give us things within our encounters that would allow burst to be useful but variably so, and, as part of job selection, you'd be determining whether you want to be the kind of player who likes to take priority on this or that sort of responsibility --to have your value depend more on your ability to deal with this or that sort of mechanic-- atop the particular way in which you meet those and other responsibilities (by adjusting your rotation to hit its highest turns right as the need begins, and/or by banking gauge, and/or by adjusting the order of cooldowns, and/or by outright delaying cooldowns when you have to or for greater total damage, etc.).

[Rychu]

Option 2 without a doubt.

I know it's already been said that "oh well the jobs will just be homogenized to do the same thing, deal enough damage to kill the boss" which is a pretty weak argument. Samurai and Black mage both have that exact same philosophy "no raid buffs, all damage", but they couldn't play any more differently from each other.

It is just frustrating knowing that every job has to fit into this 2 minute box, and especially when the said two minutes comes up during parts of fights that does not play well with said burst window. I have brought it up plenty of times in the forums but P12S is miserable on Red Mage because 2 of the burst windows happen when casters are forced to be away from the boss and cannot do their melee combo. And the damage of Red Mage isn't good enough to force a random pf party to adjust for you, but that's a separate issue.

I would prefer if they just got rid of all of the 2 minute burst abilities and move the damage to somewhere else in their kits. We can keep consistent buffs like bard's songs and maybe rework dancer's technical finish to do something similar instead of just being a burst window buff. This decision to have all jobs in a 2 minute window means that we will never ever get another job that is just sustained damage throughout a fight, because they won't fit into the burst window.

The 2 minute meta was made to make it easier for new players to understand how to play their jobs "right", but guess what? New players don't care about pressing their buttons immediately as they come off cooldown, meaning they won't fit into the burst phase regardless. All this does is force endgame players to play a specific way every raid tier.

[4clubbedace]

Option 2 without a doubt.

I know it's already been said that "oh well the jobs will just be homogenized to do the same thing, deal enough damage to kill the boss" which is a pretty weak argument. Samurai and Black mage both have that exact same philosophy "no raid buffs, all damage", but they couldn't play any more differently from each other.

It is just frustrating knowing that every job has to fit into this 2 minute box, and especially when the said two minutes comes up during parts of fights that does not play well with said burst window. I have brought it up plenty of times in the forums but P12S is miserable on Red Mage because 2 of the burst windows happen when casters are forced to be away from the boss and cannot do their melee combo. And the damage of Red Mage isn't good enough to force a random pf party to adjust for you, but that's a separate issue.

I would prefer if they just got rid of all of the 2 minute burst abilities and move the damage to somewhere else in their kits. We can keep consistent buffs like bard's songs and maybe rework dancer's technical finish to do something similar instead of just being a burst window buff. This decision to have all jobs in a 2 minute window means that we will never ever get another job that is just sustained damage throughout a fight, because they won't fit into the burst window.

The 2 minute meta was made to make it easier for new players to understand how to play their jobs "right", but guess what? New players don't care about pressing their buttons immediately as they come off cooldown, meaning they won't fit into the burst phase regardless. All this does is force endgame players to play a specific way every raid tier.

"giving atk up to the party" is as instrumental to Role playing games as "giving def buffs" or healing to the party, all these are part of the fantasy since its been derived from tabletop. removing them at all is a bland decision choice that limits the world feeling and vibes of the game, and overall more stale balancing decision.

[Ggwppino]

In my opinion there are just too many buffing classes. There are jobs that are blatantly selfish but have the buff quite unjustifiably. And with the advent of arena-wide buffs, it's just a button press for them.

[Neoyoshi]

I'll pack up and take my Brotherhood elsewhere. *switches to Fisher Job*

[GoatOfWar]

I really don't see the problem with some classes doing less damage in a raid setting where everyone gets buffs.
Warrior SHOULD be the weakest tank offensively with all the bloated sustain and utility they have. You can't be the best at everything, that just leaves no room for the other tanks to ever be a good pick over yours. You need to be worse at *something* than the other tanks. Why even have 4 different tanks if 1 of them is just the de facto best in every given situation? I don't see the point.

[Tiramu]

Neither are good, I would go for:

1. Support focused jobs (like BRD) keep their buffs, and are reponsible for party buffs.

2. Make other job buffs and debuffs on a 1 minute cooldown, more interesting, and situational. So jobs can either use their own buffs and debuffs to react to specific situations (that they have to react to in high end) or give themselves a buff either aligned with support job buffs, or just for personal dps as and when.

[Kalaam]

I honestly think removing all direct damage buff that are party wide would be interresting to explore.
Have buffs be more indirect helps such has reduced cooldown, cast times, increased mp regen, movement speed etc.

Bard could still keep its cyclic "2% damage increase" during the songs etc. And if this all leads to job rotations spreading further again and being more varied that could make something interresting for dancer where as its dance flourishes are like minute or two minute, but some other dps are 3 minutes, you'd benefit the team more when knowing when to swap dance partner so you maximise everyone's DPS one at a time. That'd be quite a high skill ceiling on dancer all of a sudden. Could be fun, I think.