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

[CKNovel]

If you replace a SAM with a PCT you gain 1% cDPS at 95 and up or lose DPS at below 95 and you trade a party shield for stronger personal survivability. That’s not going to enforce a double caster meta because there is no reason why PCT couldn’t just take up only the default caster slot. And if it allows for more “1 melee 1 ranged, 1 rezz caster 1 selfish caster” as an alternative to 2/1/1 that’s not a bad thing

And I’m not sure how MCH proved that at all, disassemble is a pity addition because the job was straight up being locked out of PF for its low damage. PLD is more just “we’ve long since accepted the devs refuse to make PLD’s damage good”

As I've said, the problem is the "Why":
The closer you are to ultimate/week 1 savage the more extra mitigation/DPS gains value as comfort. More mitigation might result in a healer DPS increase. And of course, w1/ultimate player often know how to reach a 95.
PLD and MCH extra mitigations were extremely valuable in TOP, mitigation planned would go from a puzzle to a breeze. MCH was only locked out of PF in Abyssos Savage but its popularity surged in 6.3 after the addition of "dismantle". PCT is similar but without the MCH poor DPS.

Even on the "casual savage" side, it will be a massive comfort to have 2 caster and 1 melee.

[Supersnow845]

I play Viper, a melee job that has no party buff, no unique party mit, no personal mit, and is meant to do as much damage as possible while dodging hearts like a madman to stay in melee range to make it all worth it.
In the upcoming raid, my dancer is going to partner the pictomancer over me, a caster that has a raid buff, a raidwide shield, can sit comfortably at a distance, and does more damage than me.

I'm just throwing my hat in here, I really hope they help out the game balance because I think a lot of people, especially black mage players, will not get invited to raids

PCT’s raid buff is just damage by another name, people need to see that. If you calculate the 2 minute raid buff contributes 1000 potency (just making up a number) of DPS it’s exactly the same as just having a 1000 potency nuke. Using a raid buff as an “advantage” is pointless. VPR is still more survivable than PCT because of its HP bonus and bloodbath. PCT also only pulls past VPR at about the 94th percentile so you need to be exceeding that for it to be worth it. You also have to remember that while melee may be a little more disadvantaged in something like honey b lovely’s hearts conversely casters are at a massive disadvantage in M3 and have to work harder

PCT’s real only actual differentiator is its raidwide shield. If that disqualifies it from potentially being first in rDPS I consider that philosophy bad balancing because then you are basically saying only BLM/SAM/VPR are allowed to ever be first in any balancing category

As I've said, the problem is the "Why":
The closer you are to ultimate/week 1 savage the more extra mitigation/DPS gains value as comfort. More mitigation might result in a healer DPS increase. And of course, w1/ultimate player often know how to reach a 95.
PLD and MCH extra mitigations were extremely valuable in TOP, mitigation planned would go from a puzzle to a breeze. MCH was only locked out of PF in Abyssos Savage but its popularity surged in 6.3 after the addition of "dismantle". PCT is similar but without the MCH poor DPS.

Even on the "casual savage" side, it will be a massive comfort to have 2 caster and 1 melee.

We are already drowning in mitigation across every role and all mitigation got buffed. I really don’t see why one 90 second mitigation should disqualify a job from taking the top spot because SAM mains aren’t going to swap to PCT for a 10% shield

As for casual savage casters on average perform worse in prog than melee so I still have no idea where this “a double caster meta will form by default” is coming from

[rewd]

Yes, us casters can sit comfortably at a distance, every day I appreciate I play caster so I can enjoy a frictionless game experience. I can't imagine going through all these melee tribulations. Playing Viper especially sounds awful, gap closers and Uncoiled Fury? Oh, poor people. You have my sympathy.

[Ggwppino]

I play Viper, a melee job that has no party buff, no unique party mit, no personal mit, and is meant to do as much damage as possible while dodging hearts like a madman to stay in melee range to make it all worth it.
In the upcoming raid, my dancer is going to partner the pictomancer over me, a caster that has a raid buff, a raidwide shield, can sit comfortably at a distance, and does more damage than me.

I'm just throwing my hat in here, I really hope they help out the game balance because I think a lot of people, especially black mage players, will not get invited to raids

Yes, well, sitting comfortably.

Are we talking about Endwalker that the melee had 100% guaranteed uptime, while the blm had to lower its head with strategies absolutely not designed for a caster and do less damage than any melee?

The PCT has to sweat the uptime like a real caster. The blm has to sweat the uptime like a real caster. If the smn is not called in the raids it is only justice. The blm absolutely needs to be buffed, because mathematically broken in the negative, but I don't see why real casters should do less than melee.

[Galvuu]

I play Viper, a melee job that has no party buff, no unique party mit, no personal mit, and is meant to do as much damage as possible while dodging hearts like a madman to stay in melee range to make it all worth it.
In the upcoming raid, my dancer is going to partner the pictomancer over me, a caster that has a raid buff, a raidwide shield, can sit comfortably at a distance, and does more damage than me.

I'm just throwing my hat in here, I really hope they help out the game balance because I think a lot of people, especially black mage players, will not get invited to raids

What's wrong with PCT being the best dance partner? That doesn't have any bearing on ndps or rdps, and if it's the brustier job... why is dance partnering not being best on melee a problem?
The best partners have been melee since DNC came out except for patch 5.0 (they buffed jobs in 5.05 and made melee the best DNC partner again).
Is it mandate that melee must be the best choice for closed position? The top three best closed position targets have been melee for over 5 years. Why is it a cardinal sin that one of them is a caster?
(This bearing in mind that SAM is still slightly better than PCT as a partner, and VPR is roughly the same)
And if your PCT does more adps than you, that's a you problem. VPR (and SAM) leads in that metric on literally every percentile. There's such an obvious melee bias when it comes to dps jobs on a subset of a playerbase- I guess it's what happens when SE treats them like kings for 5 years in a row.

The buff talk makes no sense. What matters for a closed position target is how much burst the job has.
Case in point: one of the best recipients of the closed position buff (often the best for multiple patches) is NIN, a job that also has a raid buff. It's the best recipient because of its burst. Another counterexample, BLM had the highest adps (and rdps, actually) in ShB and EW and was a suboptimal choice for closed position because it isn't as bursty. I've never seen a serious career BLM complain about this, or raise it as a problem.

[CKNovel]

We are already drowning in mitigation across every role and all mitigation got buffed. I really don’t see why one 90 second mitigation should disqualify a job from taking the top spot because SAM mains aren’t going to swap to PCT for a 10% shield

As for casual savage casters on average perform worse in prog than melee so I still have no idea where this “a double caster meta will form by default” is coming from

Yeah, we're drowing in mitigation and they eat each other effectiveness due to the nature of the calculation.
Shields are the only thing that bypasses the calculations, it would be a shame if Pictomancer had a raidwide shield.

Compared to SAM/VPR, Picto is more DPS and more comfort.
People will stick to their favorite jobs but PCT will bring a lot of value.

[CaedemSanguis]

pct should deal as much damage as melees with party utility, and less damage than melees without party utility

[CaedemSanguis]

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

it's bad since a lot of groups have 2 omni melees, so hard to go for a double caster comp in week1/hc prog

but I guess it's not the end of the world if you go rdm for m1s-m3s and then pct for m4s

[ShadowNyx3]

it's bad since a lot of groups have 2 omni melees, so hard to go for a double caster comp in week1/hc prog

but I guess it's not the end of the world if you go rdm for m1s-m3s and then pct for m4s

Sounds like a problem for the players to solve, not the developers.

[Zakuyia]

I some how feel like its thanks to this forum that dancer got nerfed and I tend to wonder now why dancer feels weird. ..ty forum for being toxic you know what you did...