And Another Pictomancer Thread!

[SweetPete]

Im kind of scared for what PCT might do to caster balance. Hopefully not what RPR did to melee which also bled into other roles.

Do explain what you mean by that? I’m curious.

[Mecia]

Do explain what you mean by that? I’m curious.

I recall RPR not being far behind SAM in DPS which for some reason lead to them buffing the other melee instead of nerfing a single one.

Maybe i remember wrong and the issue was just Arcane Crest.

I hope that PCT likewise has a chance to genuinely challenge BLM's position, at least from an rDPS perspective.

I didnt mind when SMN poked at BLMs toes back in Stormblood but it was real job back then. Same would go for PCT but im not hopeful itll have a high ceiling.

[Tsumdere]

Do explain what you mean by that? I’m curious.

Xenosys made a short vid about this topic I recommend checking out because he says it better. This is all assuming the balancing decisions align with EW with melee doing significantly more damage than ranged. Also it only considers high end content because that is the only content stuff should be balanced around. Job balance means absolutely nothing in dungeons/alliance/EX. PIC could do as much damage as a BTN and people would still play it in casual content with no repercussions.

In short, if SMN/RDM keep rez then PIC and BLM compete for the same caster slot and BLM will automatically be the better choice. It would not be good in a prog environment (like BLM) as it has no raise but wouldn't be good for parses/speeds because it wouldn't do high damage (like BLM). It won't be a go-to choice for hardcore raiders because of above issues and would not be a go-to choice for midcore/casual raiders because it wouldn't have the raise safety net.

If PIC is very easy like SMN and competes with BLM within a close DPS margin, then BLM becomes the screwed over job. BRD is currently in this situation where it barely pulls more damage than DNC but it's so much more difficult to play that there is zero reason to bring a BRD besides one-tricks (and people don't bring it - its the least played job in the game).

Unless changes are made to the role's balance as a whole, one of them is going to be the clear loser and will be purely a preference pick like BRD is now.

[Lyth]

...

I don't think the point here was about the balance between subroles, because RPR was specifically mentioned.

When a job is added to a subrole, it disrupts the status quo. When RPR was added this expansion, it created a lot of insecurity within the melee dps subrole. The knee jerk reaction for players on those other jobs was to claim that their preferred job was somehow more challenging than the new job that they had no clue about how to optimize on. You can already see this same sentiment building up here, as there's already tacit assumption that PCT will somehow be 'easier' than BLM despite us having no idea what the rotation or skill checks are like.

People make these claims with the expectation that if they say that their job is 'harder', they'll be rewarded with a dps advantage for no additional effort. What ends up happening in practice is that Square Enix takes these complaints literally and starts simplifying jobs. The end result was that all the pre-existing melee dps jobs were backhanded by the Monkey's Paw. SAM became Kaitenless, NIN was tricked out of their one minute raid buff, and we'll see the full extent of the DRG rework next expansion. MNK thankfully managed to get out relatively unscathed as it has already had about seven reworks by this point. I suppose the point here is, if you're happy with your job's gameplay and you don't want a rework, then be very careful what you ask for.

PCT has the potential to disrupt caster dps in a similar vein next expansion. If it is anywhere near competitive to BLM next expansion, you can bet that people will take to the forums to complain about the relative difficulty of the jobs, valid or not. But hey, it's probably high time for BLM to get reworked anyways.