We cannot achieve balance while DPS jobs have utilities

[Lyth]

I don't think this is an issue for melee, because the role is just there to provide damage and nothing else. Any combination of two melee is going to be fairly robust and is largely interchangeable. It's just the PCT slot that's essential.

[kajv95]

Idk how to best phrase it but while the game is in 2min meta mode, it's never gonna get better. As hard as it is to swallow, as long as "any comp can clear" without any real synergies between jobs, they can only ever be different flavours of the same thing. Buffs are only allowed to make one job as strong as the strongest job can be without them in this setting after all, or the entire thing crumbles.

You make bards stronger support again, that deletes mch. You make mch the strongest because they don't have support, that deleted brd and DNC.

Its been a problem since I started playing (end-hw) and the changes to delete meta parties in shb never made it better, only different.

There will always be a "single best party" composition, there's no getting around that. Luckily most people don't care, and the way it would be right now would be mostly fine if it weren't for some weird arbitrary damage differences within roles (caster raise is flavor mostly; the damage difference is self-contradictory)

If parties accept me as a summoner, they'll accept you as a black mage. Unless you're trying to go for WF, but by that point you should be ready to job swap at any point anyway.

[Connor]

What are SAM and VPR suffering from? Success? VPR is the most popular job in Savage, by far. SAM is the most popular melee after VPR, again, by far.

It’s less important, but it’s worth mentioning that based on various statistics and my own personal possibly biased experience, Viper is both the most popular in Savage and normal content. Being so popular in high end content is one thing, but the fact that remains consistent across both difficulties surely means something.

In a ‘perfect world’ though (I think) we’d expect to see normal difficulty having a fairly even distribution of jobs because it doesn’t really matter what the comp is outside of role requirements for DF. But the fact that even there Viper is the most popular by a noticeable amount, is surely something worth noting.

Viper clearly has a huge ‘fan base’ as it were, and I imagine that’s likely a combination of both the aesthetics, the design itself, and the general perception that the game is skewed towards favouring melee. I’d even say it’s likely more popular than Pictomancer, even in the complete absence of any utility/raid buffs. Viper is less impactful on balance overall (I think) than Pictomancer too, but that hasn't stopped how popular it’s become in any way.

If anything Viper has only gone to show how quickly players take to jobs without support/utility, whether that’s because of playstyle itself or the ‘high damage’ that comes with ‘selfish style dps’.

[Tunda]

It’s less important, but it’s worth mentioning that based on various statistics and my own personal possibly biased experience, Viper is both the most popular in Savage and normal content. Being so popular in high end content is one thing, but the fact that remains consistent across both difficulties surely means something.

In a ‘perfect world’ though (I think) we’d expect to see normal difficulty having a fairly even distribution of jobs because it doesn’t really matter what the comp is outside of role requirements for DF. But the fact that even there Viper is the most popular by a noticeable amount, is surely something worth noting.

Viper clearly has a huge ‘fan base’ as it were, and I imagine that’s likely a combination of both the aesthetics, the design itself, and the general perception that the game is skewed towards favouring melee. I’d even say it’s likely more popular than Pictomancer, even in the complete absence of any utility/raid buffs. Viper is less impactful on balance overall (I think) than Pictomancer too, but that hasn't stopped how popular it’s become in any way.

If anything Viper has only gone to show how quickly players take to jobs without support/utility, whether that’s because of playstyle itself or the ‘high damage’ that comes with ‘selfish style dps’.

VPR is great and balance as Selfish DPS,
and I think all Selfish DPS should be in the same as VPR.

SAM is also balance as selfish DPS, and from my analysis I think some players who enjoys samurai switch to VPR after its release because how fast and fluent the job is

sadly PCT/MNK/RPR cannot be balance in this game with their utility,

we can have them as support but I don't think that it needs really, They need to adjust their raid buffs to self buffs as a quick fix.
but healing skills for DPS is a problem really but not too much.

[Lyth]

The long term solution will be to treat Ranged as a single category for the purposes of LB generation and 1% damage buffs (i.e. combinations that break from the 2/2/2/2 format are considered non-standard, similar to how it currently works for solo tank and solo healer violations). Then DPS and utility balance really only matters within a given role category (tank/healer/melee/ranged). At that point you could probably turn Phoenix Down into a role action for Ranged jobs, such that you can bring any combination of two Ranged that you like.

[Connor]

The long term solution will be to treat Ranged as a single category for the purposes of LB generation and 1% damage buffs (i.e. combinations that break from the 2/2/2/2 format are considered non-standard, similar to how it currently works for solo tank and solo healer violations). Then DPS and utility balance really only matters within a given role category (tank/healer/melee/ranged). At that point you could probably turn Phoenix Down into a role action for Ranged jobs, such that you can bring any combination of two Ranged that you like.

It’s a cool idea, but I don’t think this would be possible with the current role skill system? Either you end up with phys ranged getting a bunch of caster support tools they’re essentially incapable of using (Swiftcast, Lucid, Surecast, Sleep I guess but nobody uses that anyway lol). Or we’d end up with casters getting a bunch of random physical skills like Head/Foot Graze and Arm’s Length.
Though saying that, having Summoners whack an enemy over the head with a book and silencing them would be extremely comical lol, like the enemy is so shocked by what you’ve just done they can no longer concentrate on their actions.

I feel like collapsing ‘ranged’ into one category simply isn’t possible so long as the role skills exist, unless they were completely reworked for said merger. Though, maybe they should look into the role skill system itself too, since it’s mostly sat untouched for a while now

[Lyth]

I feel like collapsing ‘ranged’ into one category simply isn’t possible so long as the role skills exist, unless they were completely reworked for said merger

If 8.0 plans to overhaul the existing job designs, then I think revising the Role Action system would be a really good starting point. A lot of Role Actions, as you've pointed out, are archaic, and some primarily have value in niche content like Deep Dungeons. I don't think they've really thought about the system since Stormblood.

I think if you took away damage interrupting casts in general, you could turn Arms' Length into a General action available to all jobs, like Sprint. You likewise could remove Second Wind and give every job a standard 'Potion' General action that restores damage on a fixed recast, with a trait-based upgrade to adjust the potency with level (Hi-Potion, X-potion). You could likewise integrate the various Stuns and Interrupts into a singular Interject, perhaps with a Heavy or Slow additional effect.

Specific to Ranged, the main thing that you would want to carry across is an Addle equivalent. I'd also replace the various raises on Ranged jobs with a Phoenix Down role action with a fixed recast. The Magical Ranged jobs are all very different in their degree of MP management, so I think the likes of Lucid would be better suited as a set of job-specific actions. It's really only Swiftcast that you'd need a more specific solution for, but that may end up being job specific as well.

Likewise, a lot of the more niche Physical Ranged role actions probably could have these integrated as additional effects on their toolkits. I think Petolon could probably be reworked into a combat-based movement tool similar to Expedient, so long as there were appropriate constraints around its recast and reapplication. I want to see more universally useful Role Actions in general.

[Shurrikhan]

I feel like collapsing ‘ranged’ into one category simply isn’t possible so long as the role skills exist, unless they were completely reworked for said merger. Though, maybe they should look into the role skill system itself too, since it’s mostly sat untouched for a while now

Why, though? Sometimes %DR is the more worthwhile, other times rez, other times flat shields. Why not let a party pick what all utilities and what degrees of mobility they want, or the least of each (BLM)?

While it would force physical ranged to actually be a bit better balanced against other roles, I don't see why that'd be an issue. I'm sure Physical Ranged wouldn't mind being taken for more than just their % bonus.

(Personally, I'd like to see the bonuses increased for the first in each role in full party content, 2% each for the first tank, melee, ranged, and healer, and just 1% for the second, reducing the relative penalties of single-healer, single-melee, etc., compositions. Such in turn increases the incentive not to be complacent with imbalances between roles. Naturally, boss HP would be increased by some 3.3-4.9% to compensate -- 4% still obliging standard comp or 3.3% offering 1 slot of leeway, same as now.)

[Connor]

Why, though? Sometimes %DR is the more worthwhile, other times rez, other times flat shields. Why not let a party pick what all utilities and what degrees of mobility they want, or the least of each (BLM)?

While it would force physical ranged to actually be a bit better balanced against other roles, I don't see why that'd be an issue. I'm sure Physical Ranged wouldn't mind being taken for more than just their % bonus.

(Personally, I'd like to see the bonuses increased for the first in each role in full party content, 2% each for the first tank, melee, ranged, and healer, and just 1% for the second, reducing the relative penalties of single-healer, single-melee, etc., compositions. Such in turn increases the incentive not to be complacent with imbalances between roles. Naturally, boss HP would be increased by some 3.3-4.9% to compensate -- 4% still obliging standard comp or 3.3% offering 1 slot of leeway by comparison.)

I meant to go back an edit it, but I meant ‘role skills as they are currently’, because again it’d end up with a weird situation where either caster stuff goes on ranged or vice-versa. Idk maybe I’ve misunderstood what ‘merging into one ranged role’ means.

If they reworked the role skills somehow, whether making it so different jobs within the same sub role had different role skills as required, or just making things like Swiftcast part of caster’s toolkit like the damage reduction skill all phys ranged have. Or idk if there’s a third option, just that they’d need to clean up how role skill distribution would work. It’d be a different story in that case. But as of yet there’s no indication they have any plans of changing them.

I mean, if they just stuck all the caster and ranged abilities into the same pool wouldn’t they end up with double (give or take one or two) what the others had?
They’d kind of have to adjust it by necessity, and since we’re unfortunately dealing with ‘small indie company SE, I imagine they’d mark that as ‘far too much work’.

Though it would be funny using Lucid Dreaming as a Bard lol (“How do you do fellow casters?”)

[Shurrikhan]

I meant to go back an edit it, but I meant ‘role skills as they are currently’, because again it’d end up with a weird situation where either caster stuff goes on ranged or vice-versa. Idk maybe I’ve misunderstood what ‘merging into one ranged role’ means.

I think it was referring simply to the party bonuses, whereby we could then take 2 of whatever we like among any ranged DPS, physical or magical, not that the role actions would necessarily be changed up, rather than being forced towards 1 Melee, 1 Ranger, 1 Caster, 1 Any DPS?