Picto makes the game less fun

[Lyth]

PCT isn't really a problem, its a unique well designed and fun job its just blantantly overpowered for the encounter design and 2 minute buff meta.

I can't even process this sentence. What?

I remember the WAR party line from Heavenward was 'WAR is just better designed than other tanks. Don't nerf WAR, buff the other jobs into equality.' Which of course was blatantly false, because every time someone advocated for equality they were then told 'Don't homogenize the tanks.' But at least that circular argument was superficially coherent to the point that it could fool some people.

This is like trying to hide in plain sight.

[Supersnow845]

I can't even process this sentence. What?

I remember the WAR party line from Heavenward was 'WAR is just better designed than other tanks. Don't nerf WAR, buff the other jobs into equality.' Which of course was blatantly false, because every time someone advocated for equality they were then told 'Don't homogenize the tanks.' But at least that circular argument was superficially coherent to the point that it could fool some people.

This is like trying to hide in plain sight.

Seems pretty clear to me

PCT is overpowered in the 2 minute meta but doesn’t change it’s a really well designed class

Don’t get rid of what makes PCT a well designed class remove the 2 minute meta instead because you’ll nerf PCT by proxy of doing this anyway

I don’t think this would actually work given it would 8.0 at the earliest that they would get rid of the 2 minute meta but the thought is sound

[Carighan]

PCT is overpowered in the 2 minute meta but doesn’t change it’s a really well designed class

Don’t get rid of what makes PCT a well designed class remove the 2 minute meta instead because you’ll nerf PCT by proxy of doing this anyway

Yeah, like this. Assuming the frankly silly 2-minute meta stays, Picto is overpowered due to the nature of that, and the medium~long-CD burst skills ought to be nerfed by medium amounts (so actually lose a whole lot of damage). OTOH, only mess with the potency, because the rest - the design - actually works much better in the context of modern combat-design in FFXIV than other jobs do, in particular other casters (so comparing Red Mage and Black Mage, Summoner is phys ranged if we're being honest).

[Supersnow845]

Yeah, like this. Assuming the frankly silly 2-minute meta stays, Picto is overpowered due to the nature of that, and the medium~long-CD burst skills ought to be nerfed by medium amounts (so actually lose a whole lot of damage). OTOH, only mess with the potency, because the rest - the design - actually works much better in the context of modern combat-design in FFXIV than other jobs do, in particular other casters (so comparing Red Mage and Black Mage, Summoner is phys ranged if we're being honest).

Red mage is another class that doesn’t get discussed often as to how they made it worse to try to fit it into a design it doesn’t match

Back in SB it had a very flat damage profile and it’s middling burst (which required a lot of setup since it was 80/80 and was much shorter ending at Verholy/verflare) could be put basically anywhere because it wasn’t available often and you basically gained nothing to ever hold it

To try to shove it into the 2 minute burst they made it so you just bursted 3 times in a row and added a tonne of finishers on top which were just more powerful to shift its prior towards bring burstier

PCT’s strengths lie in it playing to the modern encounter design better than them retroactively refitting wonky changes into the legacy jobs that dont work well in that design

[Carighan]

Yeah Picto in fact just shows how outdated and boring and samey most DPS in this game are designed. It's also overpowered to a degree, but frankly I see that as the much smaller issue. The big one is that it puts a big thumb onto the wound of terrible DPS design in FFXIV. In particular thematically, as the themes are never realized into gameplay elements.

[Ramiee]

I can't even process this sentence. What?

I remember the WAR party line from Heavenward was 'WAR is just better designed than other tanks. Don't nerf WAR, buff the other jobs into equality.' Which of course was blatantly false, because every time someone advocated for equality they were then told 'Don't homogenize the tanks.' But at least that circular argument was superficially coherent to the point that it could fool some people.

This is like trying to hide in plain sight.

And to follow up where you cut off "blantantly overpowered for the encounter design and 2 minute buff meta."

So either we can lose what makes PCT unique by nerfing it's motifs and make it I don't know what people want. As strong as what? Ninja?
Instead of removing this awful shitty raid buffing meta and let PCT have it's strong bursts and weak filler identity across a more reasonable stretch of time instead of every 2 minutes.

[Raikai]

And to follow up where you cut off "blantantly overpowered for the encounter design and 2 minute buff meta."

So either we can lose what makes PCT unique by nerfing it's motifs and make it I don't know what people want. As strong as what? Ninja?
Instead of removing this awful shitty raid buffing meta and let PCT have it's strong bursts and weak filler identity across a more reasonable stretch of time instead of every 2 minutes.

I keep wondering how long it will take for CBU3 to finally recognize that the whole "2min burst" concept is creatively unsustainable not only to job gameplay, but also to encounter design.

I mean, unless they are happy with the status quo, which is (playing the devil's advocate) understandable because that's much less work to balance things if everything ends up following a very strict formula.

And if they do... what can we even expect in the so promised job focus in 8.0?

[BabyYoda]

I keep wondering how long it will take for CBU3 to finally recognize that the whole "2min burst" concept is creatively unsustainable not only to job gameplay, but also to encounter design.

I mean, unless they are happy with the status quo, which is (playing the devil's advocate) understandable because that's much less work to balance things if everything ends up following a very strict formula.

And if they do... what can we even expect in the so promised job focus in 8.0?

2 min wasn't balanced and it will never be balance.. unless all dps jobs play the same 99% like how healers ( and they still not balanced )

[Lyth]

...

No, I included the entire quote. I just highlighted the parts that directly contradict each other, just to make it even more immediately obvious. You claim that 'PCT isn't a problem' and also admit that 'it's just blatantly overpowered' in the same sentence.

Current content encounter design hasn't even demonstrated PCT's full potential, simply due to the lack of targetless intermissions. And even in situations where PCT is the only buff providing job, it's still every bit as broken. The reason why all the other modern burst jobs can co-exist with sustained DPS jobs is because of resource systems. Resource systems make you work to earn your burst through uptime. PCT ignores this in how motifs are generated. That's not 'unique design', it's called ignoring design constraints. A job with an 'I win' button would be equally unique, and equally bad design.

Motifs need to change to have an uptime requirement, at bare minimum.

[Ramiee]

No, I included the entire quote. I just highlighted the parts that directly contradict each other, just to make it even more immediately obvious. You claim that 'PCT isn't a problem' and also admit that 'it's just blatantly overpowered' in the same sentence.

Current content encounter design hasn't even demonstrated PCT's full potential, simply due to the lack of targetless intermissions. And even in situations where PCT is the only buff providing job, it's still every bit as broken. The reason why all the other modern burst jobs can co-exist with sustained DPS jobs is because of resource systems. Resource systems make you work to earn your burst through uptime. PCT ignores this in how motifs are generated. That's not 'unique design', it's called ignoring design constraints. A job with an 'I win' button would be equally unique, and equally bad design.

Motifs need to change to have an uptime requirement, at bare minimum.

Its overpowered yes but thats not a problem with pictomancer its a problem with the job design, pictomancer is not this mythical villian that if you nerf will fix the job design issues, no BLM will still underperform because it can't burst properly, Phys range still suffer from lack of damage and PCT will still be one of the strongest jobs in the game unless its nerfed to do damage around the level of a phys range because its just so incredibly well scaling with the burst meta because it benfits insanely well from raid buffs from its core.
Sure add uptime requirement, it will still destroy all other DPS because of its burst is insane. Hell even if pictomancer was made to do no damage it won't make other jobs fun and the targets will switch from pictomancer to viper because im sure a lot of Samurais are not happy that a one button rotation job like Viper scales so much better with buffs then it. The games issues do not lie with one job, it lies with the core design around raid buffing every 2 minutes and deleting pictomancer wont fix that.
Your arguement about PCT not having a unique system is wrong, it charges attacks it can hold and use when it wants which would probably be more fun in a game without consistent bursts every 2 minutes, its actually really sad that now people who play this game want every job to be resource gaining and using instead of doing anything different.