Picto makes the game less fun

[Carighan]

I personally want them to move away from 2 min burst and I agree with what you are saying in the post.

But I don't do savage and this whole burst was designed for savage so...i got nothing.

And I mean, it's not like it was done without reason. Before it, whether your job had bursts that aligned with the rest of the group or not was as massive decisionmaker in whether you were useful to be in a savage raid or were excluded for most prog fights when gear was still low.

That being said, in particular M1S and M2S show the devs willing to rather err significantly on the side of avoidance checks than damage checks, so maybe that would not be a problem any more as even the least fitting combat job would still do significantly more damage than is needed. Still, at a higher level of progging, people would rather take a slightly less mobile and less performant job with a 60s damage cycle (hence it aligns every time) than a better one that has a 70/80/90/whatever damage cycle (hence it only aligns every few times, not always). The former has more effective damage output in an organized group.

That's what the devs would say, anyways. "Nothing was actually changed", as prog groups already sligned everything to a steady, concerted, burst window. Hence they just formalized what was already happening. IMO they massively underestimated how it feels to have every job we aligned around this, however.

IMO, a soft solution could be to build jobs around a 120s burst window, but in a heterogenous way. Take Paladins as an example, they have a 60s cycle. This is different from the 120s cycle of many jobs like Dancer or the 2:1 of Red Mages or so, but fine as it means they align every time. But does it stop there? Yes it does, and there's no reason for it to. How about:

* A 30s cycle?
* Or even a 15s cycle! Every 6th GCD is your "burst". Your burst would of course be benign, your overall damage much higher, but you align every time so in an 8man prog scenario your overall contribution is identical to other people.
* On the opposite side, a 240s cycle? Your damage would be lower in-between, in particular at the 120s/360s/etc marks, but your burst would be spectacular.
* Or even "no" cycle, you have a steady combat system without any CDs or abilities to save up at all, just a huge branching flow of GCDs and dependent Continuation-style oGCDs that take up 12-24 buttons and a bunch of defensive and mobility cooldowns on top of that.

These could all be balanced so that when placed in an 8 minute fight, they perform the same as a 120s-cycle job, but they would feel utterly different.

[Grumblecakes]

And I mean, it's not like it was done without reason. Before it, whether your job had bursts that aligned with the rest of the group or not was as massive decisionmaker in whether you were useful to be in a savage raid or were excluded for most prog fights when gear was still low.

That being said, in particular M1S and M2S show the devs willing to rather err significantly on the side of avoidance checks than damage checks, so maybe that would not be a problem any more as even the least fitting combat job would still do significantly more damage than is needed. Still, at a higher level of progging, people would rather take a slightly less mobile and less performant job with a 60s damage cycle (hence it aligns every time) than a better one that has a 70/80/90/whatever damage cycle (hence it only aligns every few times, not always). The former has more effective damage output in an organized group.

That's what the devs would say, anyways. "Nothing was actually changed", as prog groups already sligned everything to a steady, concerted, burst window. Hence they just formalized what was already happening. IMO they massively underestimated how it feels to have every job we aligned around this, however.

IMO, a soft solution could be to build jobs around a 120s burst window, but in a heterogenous way. Take Paladins as an example, they have a 60s cycle. This is different from the 120s cycle of many jobs like Dancer or the 2:1 of Red Mages or so, but fine as it means they align every time. But does it stop there? Yes it does, and there's no reason for it to. How about:

* A 30s cycle?
* Or even a 15s cycle! Every 6th GCD is your "burst". Your burst would of course be benign, your overall damage much higher, but you align every time so in an 8man prog scenario your overall contribution is identical to other people.
* On the opposite side, a 240s cycle? Your damage would be lower in-between, in particular at the 120s/360s/etc marks, but your burst would be spectacular.
* Or even "no" cycle, you have a steady combat system without any CDs or abilities to save up at all, just a huge branching flow of GCDs and dependent Continuation-style oGCDs that take up 12-24 buttons and a bunch of defensive and mobility cooldowns on top of that.

These could all be balanced so that when placed in an 8 minute fight, they perform the same as a 120s-cycle job, but they would feel utterly different.

This is informative thank you. I am a newer player as I started shortly after EW launch so I don't fully know the history of why things are the way they are and what they were prior. I wonder if they can implement any sort of cha.ge like this or have they painted themselves (no pun intended with PCT lol) into a corner with encounter and job design? I enjoy combat in the game but as someone who has levelled everything to 100, there def is a homogenization going on.

[Valence]

Mao thinkings Devs paintings themselves into ever tighter corners by doubling downs on DDR-style fights with bursty phases. At some point job designs and fight designs gonna become so one-dimensional that game won't even resemble fantasy MMO anymores. Is gonna looks and plays more like old-style video arcade game. Mao gonna walks away if game becomes nothing buts that. Fights should has mostly random elements whats reward players for quick thinkings and fast reactions. Ask selves this question: Is extreme bursty style jobs universally good for all game-play or is really just useful for boss fights as is designed by SE? Mao also wants see more stuffs to do for overland adventurings buts that also seems to becomings less and less importants. Everything for the boss fights in high end content. Is really bad way to paint selves into corners.

It's already that as far as I'm concerned. Everything in challenging modes is designed on DRR with a unique, unchanging 8 man party model where it's all about keeping uptime, and where uptime becomes the unique cornerstone of difficulty. There is very little else left and that's why the amount of constant movement and DDR we have to do during fights is going up all the time while every caster in the game is getting more and more mobility tools to keep up with it. And since uptime becomes everything (casters the most, then melees), then it leaves rphys in that weird void where it's just there for people that aren't interested in it, but in reality they still have to deal with the same mechanics anyway, for which they don't even feel that they fit the design mold anymore anyway.

Personally I've already taken my decision and I'm retiring from savage+ unless something absolutely out of this world happens somehow in 7.1. I'm just not having fun and listening to Yoshida tell us they're working on surprising us and me saying "alright let's try the next raid tier then" is just coping and reiterating the same thinking process every time which is a mental trap just priming me for disappointment. And who knows, if something happens for 8.0 somehow maybe I'll be back.

[Sequora]

So the tldr is that pictomancer is currently the better designed job and you’re upset about it?

Pictomancer is honestly the perfect caster and what many of us were hoping for. It’s very cast heavy, unlike summoner, and it doesn’t have a Rez, or a set rotation.

It deals competitive damage to other non Rez DPS jobs.

Black mage is still undertuned. That will hopefully be addressed soon.

Pictomancer should be up there with all of the non selfish melee jobs.

[Tunda]

So the tldr is that pictomancer is currently the better designed job and you’re upset about it?

Pictomancer is honestly the perfect caster and what many of us were hoping for. It’s very cast heavy, unlike summoner, and it doesn’t have a Rez, or a set rotation.

It deals competitive damage to other non Rez DPS jobs.

Black mage is still undertuned. That will hopefully be addressed soon.

Pictomancer should be up there with all of the non selfish melee jobs.

BLM isn't undertuned.. PCT is optimal job for current encounter design.. it is cheesy and play of the encounter design weaknesses

buffing BLM even more will not solve PCT issue

[Sequora]

BLM isn't undertuned.. PCT is optimal job for current encounter design.. it is cheesy and play of the encounter design weaknesses

buffing BLM even more will not solve PCT issue

And what are the issues with PCT?

[PercibelTheren]

And what are the issues with PCT?

Personally, the issue with PCT is that it's the "kitchen sink" job. It has everything in its toolkit and zero disadvantage. Most jobs are a tradeoff. If you play melee, you deal more damage at the cost of losing some uptime to mechanics (in theory). If you play caster, you have to balance movement and casting. If you play physranged, you are free to move as much as you like but your damage suffers for it. If you play Picto, you hit like a truck, have a bunch of instacasts to cover movement AND you get an incredibly powerful mobility tool.

[Sequora]

Personally, the issue with PCT is that it's the "kitchen sink" job. It has everything in its toolkit and zero disadvantage. Most jobs are a tradeoff. If you play melee, you deal more damage at the cost of losing some uptime to mechanics (in theory). If you play caster, you have to balance movement and casting. If you play physranged, you are free to move as much as you like but your damage suffers for it. If you play Picto, you hit like a truck, have a bunch of instacasts to cover movement AND you get an incredibly powerful mobility tool.

Until boss battles actually have strategies that force melee out of range for actual amounts of time this point is isn’t valid.

Encounters have been designed with melee uptime for several expansions now. The first tier of 7.X is no exception.

PCT has about as much utility as MNK and RPR.

[Ramiee]

And what are the issues with PCT?

It's incredibly strong and it's not even in fights where it's greatest strength is on display. PCT has tons of movement, a decent mit, one of if not the strongest burst in the game and a filler rotation that isn't rigid.

M1-4S do not have downtime often, downtime usually is a detriment or a pause to jobs, to PCT it allows them to effectively have free muses. This will make it extremely powerful in these situations.
PCTs only disadvantage is that it doesn't have a Res and it's non-burst damage is bad, however in a game defined by a burst meta this disadvantage means nothing.

[Lyth]

This runs much deeper than just a two-minute meta problem, and there are jobs with heavier burst that can coexist with consistent DPS just fine. Most jobs with big burst windows require uptime to build up the resources required to burst. This reduces the advantage that you gain from downtime and scales back the strength of your opening burst.

PCT's design completely ignores this in how muses are set up. If you want an equivalently absurd design choice, you might as well make RPR to gain full Soul Gauge with every use of Soul Sow, including out of combat. If you want to balance PCT's damage output, force the job to build up to its burst through actual uptime like everyone else. With PCT you have a 25 APM job that does the majority of its damage over a few button presses on a fixed timer, with no uptime requirement to build up that burst. Why were we surprised that this is broken?

The devs can talk all they want about not wanting to upset PCT's popularity, but what they should really worry about is losing the players who don't enjoy playing PCT and would prefer to play another caster. Upward balance on its own simply does not work, and poor role balance will drive players out of the game in the long run.