XIV EW Job-Gameplay is Terrible... Why?

[Valence]

- Square erases Job Flare/Flavor/Depth, because...

I think Xenosys had the right idea in one of his videos with the Cup of Balance(tm): in short, you cannot overfill the cup, and you have to balance between DPS checks, Encounter mechanical intricacies, and Job/battlesystem intricacies. If you overfill it then the balance gets out of hand and it starts being too difficult for a wide margin, or at least, the system gets caught flat footed so to speak, or too obnoxious.

Back in HW/SB we had a similarly sized Encounter Design and Job Design. Since ShB and they doubled down in EW on this, they immensely reduced the side of Job intricacies until it became very thin, in favor of increasing dramatically Fight Design and difficulty (in savage+). Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that everything hasn't become insanely rigid due to the formulaic aspect of their approach, and I do believe we could get more varied encounters and whatnot without even touching this balance, but fact of the matter is they have chosen a paradigm where they put 99% of the focus exclusively on fight design, difficulty and more intricate mechanics at the expense of job intricacy which only gets to deal with minimum welfare. For instance, if we had to clear the recent savage tiers, or worse, the last 2 ultimates with the HW/SB battlesystem and job kits, well, you can imagine the nightmare.

I do however wish for them to go back to a more balanced approach between Encounter Design and Job Design though, for the very reason you explain. I do agree 100%. I play for the battle system and the jobs first and foremost.

Question: " Does your favorite Job(s) give you the best Job-Gameplay experience in the current EW Expansion or even the current Patch 6.55 compared to another Patch or Expansion? "

I do not know if the question was only rhetorical or not, but no, my favorite job has stopped giving me satisfaction since ShB butchered it irremediably to the ground, and EW didn't improve anything on what people said would have been a " basic, fresh start". It's still as dull and its identity is at the opposite of what it used to be.