Pictomancer is insanely overtuned and needs to be fixed before savage drops.

[ForteNightshade]

Yeah I don’t understand why the only jobs who are “allowed” to be at the top of rDPS are VPR SAM or BLM when they are already at the top of aDPS

Like why is it so bad that when you combine the pDPS of a job with its raid buff it exceeds the aDPS of a selfish job

Because the whole purpose of selfish jobs is their "utility" is raw damage. If another job can do comparable numbers but offer raid buffs, a personal shield and range flexibility, it becomes objectively better at pretty much everything.

Keep in mind, cDPS is the better metric to use when comparing jobs against one another per FFlogs own description. For reference sake, cDPS is essentially aDPS + damage you received from other players excluding single target padding (Dance Partner and Astro cards)

cDPS allows you compare how well you and your raid played into burst windows and AOE buffs. It's a good way to look at job balance between each other, and seeing which jobs have strong buffs while also providing good damage during other job's AOE buff windows.

Using this metric, Picto absolutely dominates every single fight in the game thus far—pulling noticeably ahead of both Samurai and Viper in all but two fights where it either just barely trails the former or is roughly tied with both. That's simply way too strong for a job with both raid utility and range flexibility. If Black Mage were brought up to this level, you'd equally have to buff both Red Mage and Summoner otherwise even the raise wouldn't be worth taking either. This, in turn, causes issues with the Prange who are already far too weak as it is. There's serious discussion double Melee/Caster (assuming BLM buff) would be superior despite a full loss of 1%. So they now need to be buffed.

In other words, SE either needs to buff six jobs or slightly nerf one. And if they do go for the former, it means in any potential downtime heavy fight like what M3 looks to be, double melee is objectively worse in every way. That isn't to say I don't think double Caster should be a viable option. It should but there's a difference between being viable and just outright better. Jobs like Dragoon, Ninja and even Reaper couldn't compete with a buffed Black Mage to Picto levels.

[Supersnow845]

Because the whole purpose of selfish jobs is their "utility" is raw damage. If another job can do comparable numbers but offer raid buffs, a personal shield and range flexibility, it becomes objectively better at pretty much everything.

Keep in mind, cDPS is the better metric to use when comparing jobs against one another per FFlogs own description. For reference sake, cDPS is essentially aDPS + damage you received from other players excluding single target padding (Dance Partner and Astro cards)



Using this metric, Picto absolutely dominates every single fight in the game thus far—pulling noticeably ahead of both Samurai and Viper in all but two fights where it either just barely trails the former or is roughly tied with both. That's simply way too strong for a job with both raid utility and range flexibility. If Black Mage were brought up to this level, you'd equally have to buff both Red Mage and Summoner otherwise even the raise wouldn't be worth taking either. This, in turn, causes issues with the Prange who are already far too weak as it is. There's serious discussion double Melee/Caster (assuming BLM buff) would be superior despite a full loss of 1%. So they now need to be buffed.

In other words, SE either needs to buff six jobs or slightly nerf one. And if they do go for the former, it means in any potential downtime heavy fight like what M3 looks to be, double melee is objectively worse in every way. That isn't to say I don't think double Caster should be a viable option. It should but there's a difference between being viable and just outright better. Jobs like Dragoon, Ninja and even Reaper couldn't compete with a buffed Black Mage to Picto levels.

Even by cDPS standards PCT only pulls far ahead at its 95th and up percentile which is caused by the ridiculous crit variance on its buff window

Having a raid buff doesn’t factor into cDPS, so essentially using cDPS the only thing that PCT has over the “selfish” jobs is its shield

Is it really worth disqualifying jobs from the top slot simply because they have a small amount of non damage utility, that would also exclude RPR, MNK, the phys ranged and any caster besides BLM

[ForteNightshade]

Having a raid buff doesn’t factor into cDPS, so essentially using cDPS the only thing that PCT has over the “selfish” jobs is its shield

Yes it does.

cDPS stands for "Combined DPS" and is measuring how much damage you've done with single target padding removed and adding how much your damage you've given to others with your buffs.

As aDPS, cDPS does not include Devilment / Standard Finish, Astrologian cards, and Left Eye. But it will add any damage your buffs contributed to the raid as your own, much like rDPS.

Keep in mind that if you're one of the jobs that have zero AOE buffs that benefit others, this is literally the same as aDPS. This is true for any tank job, Samurai, White Mage, Sage, Black Mage and Machinist.

For example, if you are a Ninja receiving buffs from an Astrologian and Dragoon. cDPS would not include those, but would still include the damage gained from Divination and Battle Litany as well as the damage from your Mug ability.

cDPS is essentially aDPS but with AoE raid buffs included. Which begs the question why does Picto have to be the top spot when it functions almost identically to Reaper and Monk? Like I said elsewhere, it's literally the best job in the game right now because it does everything well. Even cast times, which can be annoying, aren't nearly as punishing for it over Black Mage--it's sole competition as a Caster, assuming it even gets buffed.

Melee flexibility means being able to keep perfect uptime while running around as long as the boss is in range. No caster can do that. For example, if you get a bad pattern on M3 with the emerald weapon mechanic into gravity puddles into lariat combo because your party moved wonky, you kinda just take the gcd loss and can't do anything about it, which is the opposite of what you describe as free uptime (actually, the mechanic you're talking about in P10S is also crap for BLM if the party isn't cooperative, which is basically every time in the pf). You also simply don't have enough Swiftcasts for how much *insert mechanic that's annoying for casters here*. It's still up in the air how the Savage fights will be designed, but we'll undoubtedly have aoe vomit of some variety that will force casters to run around while potentially losing gcds. Once again, you're not considering that melee can run around while hitting the boss if they're within max melee. It's impossible to keep caster uptime on that mechanic on some aoe/heart patterns (which are aimed at people, so they're borderline random) because you need to run around in random directions for a good 8-10s.

See how I can construe the same argument for casters? Have you ever played BLM or PCT in your life? You're under this impression they can run around for free no biggie for an arbitrary length of time. You'll find that is not true. Melee really did forget how to work for uptime, any friction is a crime and "casters have it real good" now.

Because you typed a whole lot of nonsense trying to refute an argument I didn't even make. All while conveniently ignoring Casters can disengage from the boss entirely which is a luxury melee don't have. Now if this were Endwalker, we could argue the absurdity of melee uptime. There's a reason the enormous hit boxes were criticised, and ultimately reverted.

Even your M3 example is flawed because you're basing it around normal mode. No one is going to place puddles like that in Savage regularly because it will almost assuredly lead to damage downs or kill people, including the melee themselves, to future mechanic. A prime example of that being E3 where the chaos of headless chicken normal mode didn't extend to Savage. If you do get players that drop puddles randomly and refuse to make adjustments, well... kick them. They're bad. Balancing should never be decided on bad player performance. Regardless, you mention Swiftcast but fail to acknowledge Holy in White, which is your mobility option at only a .6% damage loss. So even in the worst case scenario, you're losing less than a melee forced out of range.

No, you just continue to make strawmen when you don't like an argument. I never once said Casters can "run around free no biggie." What I said, is they can disengage from the boss and stay along the wall. Which is often significantly easier barring some exceptions. You also assume I'm a melee player just because I'm critical of Picto being overtuned.

Why is double caster bad, what is so wrong with PCT being top DPS and being paired with a rezz caster during prog

This is the problem right here. Every critique of Picto's damage output assumes a black and white dichotomy. Most people aren't saying they have any issue with double caster. We're pointing out that assuming Black Mage gets buffed to Picto's level, both will be the undisputed best jobs in the game. They aren't on par with the melee, they're better than them. Like I said above, why does Picto, a job with both a raid buff and utility deal more damage than Monk or Reaper, who have the exact same thing.

To make this clear, if Black Mage dealt roughly around what Picto is now, then Picto itself was in the Monk/Dragoon or thereabouts. We wouldn't be having this discussion. In that scenario, double caster is still perfectly viable and quite strong. Especially if fights where melee uptime might be an issue--assuming the devs do move away from Endwalker's design. Case in point, E8S would 100% be a Caster play in this hypothetical given how much that fight hated melee. And that's fine. Right now though, Picto/BLM would just be better in every fight.

[Galvuu]

Because you typed a whole lot of nonsense trying to refute an argument I didn't even make. All while conveniently ignoring Casters can disengage from the boss entirely which is a luxury melee don't have. Now if this were Endwalker, we could argue the absurdity of melee uptime. There's a reason the enormous hit boxes were criticised, and ultimately reverted.

Even your M3 example is flawed because you're basing it around normal mode. No one is going to place puddles like that in Savage regularly because it will almost assuredly lead to damage downs or kill people, including the melee themselves, to future mechanic. A prime example of that being E3 where the chaos of headless chicken normal mode didn't extend to Savage. If you do get players that drop puddles randomly and refuse to make adjustments, well... kick them. They're bad. Balancing should never be decided on bad player performance. Regardless, you mention Swiftcast but fail to acknowledge Holy in White, which is your mobility option at only a .6% damage loss. So even in the worst case scenario, you're losing less than a melee forced out of range.

No, you just continue to make strawmen when you don't like an argument. I never once said Casters can "run around free no biggie." What I said, is they can disengage from the boss and stay along the wall. Which is often significantly easier barring some exceptions. You also assume I'm a melee player just because I'm critical of Picto being overtuned.

The absurdity is that you live in lala-land where you think only melee jobs are challenged for uptime, and the non-SMN casters are not- by consistently highlighting their range but neglecting to draw the comparison with the fact you can do damage while moving. Just as it's absurd to think Savage will magically only challenge melee and not casters, who had way more on their plate in recent fights. It'd be like me saying melee uptime is free by noting that TOP p1 and p6 can be back-breaking for casters if your team isn't lending you a hand, and even then, you're bleeding all of your burst to keep almost perfect uptime.
I get it, you think melee jobs have it the worst out of all dps, somehow ignoring the last 3 Savage tiers we had were extremely pro-melee and difficult for non-SMN casters. You're being downright dishonest because you think the range somehow makes the cast bars vanish. I could go over more examples, like Superchain I, Pangenesis, 10S whenever you need to break tethers, Fourfold Fires, Dominion, some Harvests depending on strat... or, if you want to go further back, Singular Apocalypse, Icelit Dragonsong, Light Rampant and Diamondfrost on any non-pure uptime strat (you know, the ones that get melee full uptime, usually also benefit casters, almost like both roles have challenges to their uptime!)... even further back, Pantokrator, Hello World 2, Forsaken 2 (especially painful because it's followed by Celestriad > Trine).

Here's the difference: I understand that melee are challenged for uptime in these new NMs. I've posted in other threads telling people that this is why we need a "mobility tax" on physical ranged jobs (which are over-taxed right now, but that's another problem). You seem to be making up this purely fictitious scenario where casters get free uptime. Which is nonsense and has always be nonsense. Worst, your argument of "people won't run like headless chickens in Savage" also counters your own examples. If the group moves slowly together on Honey Bee's heart spam, the hearts, which are directed at players, will all be dodged at the same time, and everyone keeps uptime. Because you never touched a caster in your life, you also don't realize that the emerald weapon > dark puddles > double lariat is around the time you have a 2 minutes, so you can't just mindless spam Holy in White unless you want to tank your dps. You need to fit four casts there, or you going to either lose burst or drift. Is it possible to do perfectly? Sometimes. Depends on the party you get. BLM is losing uptime there no matter what (and not utilizing their Ley Lines)- but hey, BLM is a caster! Surely their uptime is free.

Yes it does.
cDPS is essentially aDPS but with AoE raid buffs included. Which begs the question why does Picto have to be the top spot when it functions almost identically to Reaper and Monk? Like I said elsewhere, it's literally the best job in the game right now because it does everything well. Even cast times, which can be annoying, aren't nearly as punishing for it over Black Mage--it's sole competition as a Caster, assuming it even gets buffed.

So, the problem is that PCT is top cdps? Was it ok, in both patches 6.4 and 6.5, that the top cdps job between the 70% and 95% was a melee, SAM? Was it a problem that, in all of EW, out of the top 5 cdps jobs, 4 were always melee? In patches 6.0 thru 6.3, the top 2 were both melee too. Is that ok?
Or is it just a problem when the top cdps is a caster? If a melee job got buffed to be first place, would it be overtuned? Were those melees overtuned in EW, according to your vision? If the situation repeats itself- like it probably will- does it become acceptable?


(Funny enough, I went to take a look at the funky spreadsheet site, and you, yourself, lost uptime- in fact, you're behind the melee in uptime on most of your own logs... so I literally do not understand how you can't see the problem after having experienced it yourself)

[rewd]

This is the problem right here. Every critique of Picto's damage output assumes a black and white dichotomy. Most people aren't saying they have any issue with double caster. We're pointing out that assuming Black Mage gets buffed to Picto's level, both will be the undisputed best jobs in the game. They aren't on par with the melee, they're better than them. Like I said above, why does Picto, a job with both a raid buff and utility deal more damage than Monk or Reaper, who have the exact same thing.

To make this clear, if Black Mage dealt roughly around what Picto is now, then Picto itself was in the Monk/Dragoon or thereabouts. We wouldn't be having this discussion. In that scenario, double caster is still perfectly viable and quite strong. Especially if fights where melee uptime might be an issue--assuming the devs do move away from Endwalker's design. Case in point, E8S would 100% be a Caster play in this hypothetical given how much that fight hated melee. And that's fine. Right now though, Picto/BLM would just be better in every fight.

Best jobs for what?
Prog? Certaintly not, you are better off replacing at least one of them for SMN/RDM if you are running double caster (preferably BLM).
To clear for the average group and better than average group? Debatable, especially considering BLM. It's an inflexible job now that still requires skill to just keep basic uptime, let alone optimize. You would be better off playing an easier job that can provide high damage faster and with less effort required.
For speed kills/farm runs? Yeah, I guess. And this matters how?

What does Monk/Dragoon mean? Are we talking about data or vibes here? MNK is unquestionably better than DRG, it deals more damage and actually has utility (which is also stronger/more versatile than PCT's). Since you guys love to consider the 99th percentile, in EX1 MNK is the third strongest DPS, behind PCT and SAM. Dragoon is the weakest melee, on par with NIN. It's a problem for you that PCT, a job with utility, does a bit more damage than MNK and RPR, jobs with utility, but somehow it's perfectly fine to you that MNK and even RPR deal more damage than DRG, which has no utility. Even better: the difference between MNK and DRG is bigger than the difference between PCT and MNK!

Galvuu already addressed this (and we talked about this 596 times already), but do you really believe that if melee uptime is a problem, caster uptime on the other hand isn't? Especially when your entire argument relies on the assumption that if BLM is buffed, everyone will play it and everyone will be good at it because it's an easy jobwith free uptime, unlike those poor melees (won't anyone think of the melees?)?!


You guys couldn't be more clueless about casters even if you tried, I swear.

[Supersnow845]

Yes it does.



cDPS is essentially aDPS but with AoE raid buffs included. Which begs the question why does Picto have to be the top spot when it functions almost identically to Reaper and Monk? Like I said elsewhere, it's literally the best job in the game right now because it does everything well. Even cast times, which can be annoying, aren't nearly as punishing for it over Black Mage--it's sole competition as a Caster, assuming it even gets buffed.

To make this clear, if Black Mage dealt roughly around what Picto is now, then Picto itself was in the Monk/Dragoon or thereabouts. We wouldn't be having this discussion. In that scenario, double caster is still perfectly viable and quite strong. Especially if fights where melee uptime might be an issue--assuming the devs do move away from Endwalker's design. Case in point, E8S would 100% be a Caster play in this hypothetical given how much that fight hated melee. And that's fine. Right now though, Picto/BLM would just be better in every fight.

When I said “it doesn’t factor into cDPS” I meant it’s already included as in you can’t go “oh it’s first in cDPS then also has a raid buff on top of that” because the raid buff contribution is already counted amongst the cDPS, so PCT’s only extra utility when factoring in cDPS is tempra grassa

As for buffing BLM, you seem to harbour the illusion that just because PCT’s 100th percentile pulls away because of massive crit luck in the starry muse window that PCT is just unequivocally the better class at all percentiles which it’s not, it falls away incredibly quickly below the top and like BLM has an extremely wide IQR indicating a large variance in skill level. This is how it should be, in general the casters have to fight harder for their uptime than the melee (this has been true since about HW) so their ceilings should be higher

If you think BLM and PCT exceeding the peaks of the melee at 95+ means a hard double caster meta will form that’s just dooming because 19 out of 20 PCT’s will put out less damage than the melee

[Galvuu]

Using this metric, Picto absolutely dominates every single fight in the game thus far—pulling noticeably ahead of both Samurai and Viper in all but two fights where it either just barely trails the former or is roughly tied with both. That's simply way too strong for a job with both raid utility and range flexibility. If Black Mage were brought up to this level, you'd equally have to buff both Red Mage and Summoner otherwise even the raise wouldn't be worth taking either. This, in turn, causes issues with the Prange who are already far too weak as it is. There's serious discussion double Melee/Caster (assuming BLM buff) would be superior despite a full loss of 1%. So they now need to be buffed.

In other words, SE either needs to buff six jobs or slightly nerf one. And if they do go for the former, it means in any potential downtime heavy fight like what M3 looks to be, double melee is objectively worse in every way. That isn't to say I don't think double Caster should be a viable option. It should but there's a difference between being viable and just outright better. Jobs like Dragoon, Ninja and even Reaper couldn't compete with a buffed Black Mage to Picto levels.

Which percentiles are you using for this, out of curiosity? Because using anything above 90% or below 70% is very suspect. I checked the 70% and 80% percentiles, and PCT is ahead of VPR/SAM/MNK by... 1.3% in cdps. Sure, if you wanna nerf PCT by 1%, I guess I could see it, but 1.3% is hardly a meaningful difference.
And, regardless of where I think jobs should be in dps, let's not slap "range flexibility" on PCT and BLM. Yea, they have range... but they also have cast bars. Or should melee be penalized for "instant cast flexibility"?
It's extra funny, because M3 actually poses a lot of challenges to the caster jobs with actual cast bars. Casters have never had free uptime anyway- melee apparently just forgot that, a long time ago, they also had to work for their uptime. The difficulties melee have in M3 are the same ones that casters do. Same for M2 and M4.
I mean, you end with "It should but there's a difference between being viable and just outright better" when double caster isn't better now (not even close) and hasn't been since Stormblood. But yea, the moment double melee isn't unequivocally better, melees need to put in some elbow grease for uptime or a non-melee job is top dog, it's a "problem".

The "serious discussion" of 2x caster+2x melee being better is also not very serious. There has never been a time in XIV history where a comp without a physical ranged has been the best, and it still wouldn't happen if BLM did PCT levels of cdps (just off some napkin math I did when checking the PCT cdps percentiles in the NM raids). And even if you nerfed PCT cdps by 5% to have it behind the melee overlords of XIV, guess what? All the issues with physical ranged are still there.

[ForteNightshade]

I haven't run the numbers yet, but I doubt this is true. If BLM became melee levels and what you're saying were true, then triple melee would already be optimal (since we're comparing BLM to a melee). People underestimate the multiplicative nature of raid buffs. But, again, until I go crunch logs, I cannot definitely say so- although never, in the history of the game, was running 0 physical range optimal (it literally never happened), and while physical ranged balance is pretty bad now, we've had other periods where it was basically comparably bad before.

Apologies. Didn't see this response from earlier.

Triple Melee isn't viable because most Savage fights force range mechanics. Take P10S, for example. There's no way to resolve turrets in a tribe melee comp without one of them taking a massive L. Even in Vilgarmanda, you'd have downtime with the healer/range pair.

Another factor is dropping down to 4% is really only for speeds. You'll never do it for a parse which tends to be what people focus on.

And yes, it was. At the very beginning of Shadowbringers, the Prange weren't able to keep up with the Casters. It never got to the point of being a serious pick because pretty everyone knew SE would buff them in 5.1, which they did.

Which percentiles are you using for this, out of curiosity? Because using anything above 90% or below 70% is very suspect. I checked the 70% and 80% percentiles, and PCT is ahead of VPR/SAM/MNK by... 1.3% in cdps. Sure, if you wanna nerf PCT by 1%, I guess I could see it, but 1.3% is hardly a meaningful difference.
And, regardless of where I think jobs should be in dps, let's not slap "range flexibility" on PCT and BLM. Yea, they have range... but they also have cast bars. Or should melee be penalized for "instant cast flexibility"?
It's extra funny, because M3 actually poses a lot of challenges to the caster jobs with actual cast bars. Casters have never had free uptime anyway- melee apparently just forgot that, a long time ago, they also had to work for their uptime. The difficulties melee have in M3 are the same ones that casters do. Same for M2 and M4.
I mean, you end with "It should but there's a difference between being viable and just outright better" when double caster isn't better now (not even close) and hasn't been since Stormblood. But yea, the moment double melee isn't unequivocally better, melees need to put in some elbow grease for uptime or a non-melee job is top dog, it's a "problem".

90% is what I used for that response. Although, 95% isn't suspect at all. Yes, crit variance does become something of a factor but there's more than enough wiggle room for a reasonable assessment. The fact Picto pulls away at just a 5% difference adds credence to it being overtuned since it shouldn't be anywhere near Samurai and Viper. They bring nothing to the raid except damage. That is their utility. Picto has a raid buff and a shield, which puts in the Dragoon and Ninja category yet it outpaces them handedly. You could argue Monk but we'll come back to that.

Range flexibility means being able to disengage completely from the boss without losing damage. No Melee can do that. Per my example above, a melee having to do range turrets in P10S is losing several GCDs worth of damage that Casters don't. It's still up in the air how the Savage fights will be designed but we'll undoubtedly have range mechanics of some variety. And M3 is equally miserable for Melee because they have to chase the boss who even briefly out ranges their gap closers. You also simply don't have enough for how many Lariots he does. While certainly annoying, Casters can just stay on the opposite side of the arena to dodge both combos. So yes, you do have free uptime in that scenario. Once again, you're not considering that Casters can stay away from the boss. It's much easier to dodge all the heart nonsense from the wall than in melee range because you have a wider arena to play with.

Just to reiterate, none of this is to say Picto can't do within the realm of melee. That isn't the issue. It's doing the highest damage, period. If Ninja was doing Picto damage, we'd have a similar problem because a job with raid buffs is doing more damage than the selfish ones. Right now, Picto literally does everything. It deals the highest damage in the game, brings both a raid buff and AoE shield and can completely disengage from the boss. What is it bad at? What do any of the melee (or other roles, for that matter) offer that Picto doesn't? Nothing. It's better than all of them.

[Galvuu]

90% is what I used for that response. Although, 95% isn't suspect at all. Yes, crit variance does become something of a factor but there's more than enough wiggle room for a reasonable assessment. The fact Picto pulls away at just a 5% difference adds credence to it being overtuned since it shouldn't be anywhere near Samurai and Viper. They bring nothing to the raid except damage. That is their utility. Picto has a raid buff and a shield, which puts in the Dragoon and Ninja category yet it outpaces them handedly. You could argue Monk but we'll come back to that.

PCT is far behind both of those jobs in adps- as it should. It's slightly ahead in cdps... which is fine? Like, it has a damage steroid, which will inflate its rdps, and it's a bursty job, which will inflate its cdps. Why must those two be top of the charts for cdps again?
I don't know what you mean by "NIN doing more dps" is a problem "because it has a buff". Doing more rdps? It's fine, like you said, it has a buff. More cdps? Maybe ok? It's bursty and has a buff, you need to go case by case. More adps? Yes, that one would be wrong, and a definite problem. But PCT isn't leading in adps so...

I disagree with your take on 90% or 95% being ok. I sometimes join parties as PCT to get parses and I can tell you the following:
- If you don't get decent crits, you're not getting an orange;
- If your party dies just before burst, or has brink of death, or has their burst totally misaligned, you're not getting an orange;
- On that note, if the party buffs drift, PCT suffers a lot. Sometimes people throw up Divinations or Litanies like 30s late, and I'm out of juice and painting motifs for 12s while doing literally 0 dps under the drifted buffs.

Maybe you can overcome one of these with a lot of crit under burst, or your party gigachadding while your buff is up, but tick two of these and your rdps and cdps nosedive. That's why, out of all jobs, you need to be very careful with high PCT parses. When the stars align, if your team is competent and you're knowledgeable, you tear the boss apart.
But I play primarily on the pf and df. My parties are mostly random, their performance is random. I don't want my job to be tuned to the top 5% statics when I don't have the benefit of such a group. I already feel the pain of not having a rez when half my group suicides to Honey Bee's "love me tender" or whatever her heart spam is called. Speaking of which...

Range flexibility means being able to disengage completely from the boss without losing damage. No Melee can do that. Per my example above, a melee having to do range turrets in P10S is losing several GCDs worth of damage that Casters don't. It's still up in the air how the Savage fights will be designed but we'll undoubtedly have range mechanics of some variety. And M3 is equally miserable for Melee because they have to chase the boss who even briefly out ranges their gap closers. You also simply don't have enough for how many Lariots he does. While certainly annoying, Casters can just stay on the opposite side of the arena to dodge both combos. So yes, you do have free uptime in that scenario. Once again, you're not considering that Casters can stay away from the boss. It's much easier to dodge all the heart nonsense from the wall than in melee range because you have a wider arena to play with.

Melee flexibility means being able to keep perfect uptime while running around as long as the boss is in range. No caster can do that. For example, if you get a bad pattern on M3 with the emerald weapon mechanic into gravity puddles into lariat combo because your party moved wonky, you kinda just take the gcd loss and can't do anything about it, which is the opposite of what you describe as free uptime (actually, the mechanic you're talking about in P10S is also crap for BLM if the party isn't cooperative, which is basically every time in the pf). You also simply don't have enough Swiftcasts for how much *insert mechanic that's annoying for casters here*. It's still up in the air how the Savage fights will be designed, but we'll undoubtedly have aoe vomit of some variety that will force casters to run around while potentially losing gcds. Once again, you're not considering that melee can run around while hitting the boss if they're within max melee. It's impossible to keep caster uptime on that mechanic on some aoe/heart patterns (which are aimed at people, so they're borderline random) because you need to run around in random directions for a good 8-10s.

See how I can construe the same argument for casters? Have you ever played BLM or PCT in your life? You're under this impression they can run around for free no biggie for an arbitrary length of time. You'll find that is not true. Melee really did forget how to work for uptime, any friction is a crime and "casters have it real good" now.