Picto makes the game less fun

[Lyth]

I don't understand why there's so much aversion to utilizing nerfs in job balance in this game specifically. Every other game dev does it without issue. You recognize PCT is overpowered, but you'd sooner have all other jobs to be reworked just to accommodate it. Just fix the problem directly.

With the release of 7.0, however, we noticed that the DPS of the new job Pictomancer clearly stood out from the other classes. We could have nerfed Pictomancer before the raid, but since many people liked playing it so much, we decided to bring the DPS of the other classes into line with that of Pictomancer. Source

It's so tiring seeing the dev team predictably try to fix recurring problems like this with half-hearted upward flat potency buffs to all other jobs.

Either they'll do this incredibly slowly all expansion and PCT will perpetually dominate to the point that they start losing players, or they'll overcompensate in response to player outrage during FRU and PCT will be left underpowered for the next tier. This is all completely avoidable, as direct fix to the problem job in question is all that is required.

[Supersnow845]

I think the point more centres on the fact that nerfing PCT while leading to PCT not being overpowered anymore doesn’t actually fix the wider balance issues at all nor do a lot of the offered suggestions around things like motifs needing targets consider the fact that core job design shouldn’t change when nerfing something

A lot of BLM’s have come in here and said “I feel bad that PCT does more damage than me while being easy”. That isn’t PCT’s fault, that’s the fault of BLM being a terrible burster in a burst heavy innate design. If we nerfed PCT down to NIN level tomorrow it would be back above BLM next tier anyway because it feeds into buffs so well, we have evidence of this with how well the healers scale over the course of the expansion.

Nerfing PCT but changing nothing about the core design of the buff meta won’t fix BLM’s problems, it won’t fix phys ranged doing less damage than melee even when melee have awful uptime and it won’t fix VPR dominating the melee despite being easier than SMN

I’m not opposed to nerfing some aspects of PCT (though absolutely not changing how the motifs work) but people are way too quick to act like PCT is the entire cause of the reason why this tier is so terribly balanced when it’s only a minor contributor

[Loggos]

I’m not opposed to nerfing some aspects of PCT (though absolutely not changing how the motifs work) but people are way too quick to act like PCT is the entire cause of the reason why this tier is so terribly balanced when it’s only a minor contributor

Seconding this. I would be very disappointed if they changed how motifs currently work and/or cut their number down. Managing them, their spenders and building paint inbetween while preparing everything for your burst is what makes this job so fun to play. It's the job that makes me feel the most engaged in terms of actual thinking/planning (even if it's just a little).

I do absolutely not want the gameplay to be simplified or streamlined or any of that.

(And in terms of job fantasy it does feel a little like "prepping" all your tool and colours
meticulously for your painting which I think is a neat little bonus.)

Motifs needing a target makes no sense to me tbh. The whole point of them is preparation before you actually attack. Why should you need to target an enemy to execute a target-unrelated skill when you are not actually attacking them. What makes motifs interesting is finding the right moment to commit to their long cast time in preparation of a future attack.

I can live with nerfs to numbers but I also agree with Supersnow, picto is not the core of the problem and changing it won't really fix the underlying issues other jobs have.
You'd put a bandaid on a bullet hole so to speak.

The problem is that a rigid 2 minute meta actively counters true job variety. If you try to make jobs unique then some will inevitably not fit the strict meta mold and lose out.

I'd rather prefer a system where you can approach casting from two different angles without one style being so blatantly favoured by the meta mold. I love that BLM does not have a strict burst window but in picto's case it's the whole burst and the extensive build-up that I love and don't want to miss.

Naturally you'll never be able to balance jobs perfectly and some will always have a (small) edge but flat damage profiles and burst-reliant profiles should not be (dis)advantaged over each other in principle/across the board due to meta restrictions.

[mallleable]

What they could do is like cut the potencies of all muses in half or so, but make them all auto direct hit crit.

[Ramiee]

I don't understand why there's so much aversion to utilizing nerfs in job balance in this game specifically. Every other game dev does it without issue. You recognize PCT is overpowered, but you'd sooner have all other jobs to be reworked just to accommodate it. Just fix the problem directly.

It's so tiring seeing the dev team predictably try to

Here I'll write it super clearly in short sentences:

Nerf PCT = Band aid fix
Remove 2 minute meta = Fixing the entire issue

I would prefer it if we stopped having reworks constantly and just fix the entire issue by changing CD timers.

[Lyth]

I think the point more centres on the fact that nerfing PCT while leading to PCT not being overpowered anymore doesn’t actually fix the wider balance issues at all nor do a lot of the offered suggestions around things like motifs needing targets consider the fact that core job design shouldn’t change when nerfing something

A lot of BLM’s have come in here and said “I feel bad that PCT does more damage than me while being easy”. That isn’t PCT’s fault, that’s the fault of BLM being a terrible burster in a burst heavy innate design. If we nerfed PCT down to NIN level tomorrow it would be back above BLM next tier anyway because it feeds into buffs so well, we have evidence of this with how well the healers scale over the course of the expansion.

Burst and continuous DPS can definitely coexist under the current game design. If you want to understand this, just look at what happened with M1S over the weeks. We've seen VPR/MNK trade off against DRG/NIN/SAM on a weekly basis. VPR is currently one of the weakest melee on that fight, with a 2.0% representation in the top 50 fastest clears in contrast to DRG's 31% and SAM's 25% (PCT has 100% representation - no other casters were used at all). That's purely a function of fight length. As ilvl goes up, fight duration shortens to the point where you clear on your 6 minute potion burst. That's like the zenith of burst-orientated jobs, which is what we see now.

Now if you look at M2S in comparison, it's a completely different story. VPR is the strongest melee in that fight, and has about 27.6% representation in the top 50 fastest clears (PCT has 94.2%). That's not surprising either, because kill times are between 7-8 minutes (i.e. between burst windows). So dealing continuous DPS gives you the chance to catch up and overtake jobs with heavier burst (PCT aside). In fact, you can predict VPR and MNK's usage in the top 50 fastest clears based entirely on fight length. I think when a system is closely balanced, you'll see natural trade-offs between these job damage types without one job being always on top for all fights.

It's not really the magnitude of PCT's burst that worries me. There are some intrinsic problems with this, the obvious one being a lot of damage variance, which may point to a need for more Crit/DH caps on burst actions. But I think the real issue is going to happen when you have fight designs with forced downtime and no target. That's where PCT will be truly uncontested, because it will have a full burst where even other burst jobs won't be able to build resources. That's why motifs are a big part of the underlying problem. I don't think flat potency changes can fix this.

In short, I don't think that you can balance PCT by just titrating average DPS, because the size of the discrepancy will be very much fight dependent. This is why we have resource-gated burst systems, to ensure that your ability to burst is still at least partially a byproduct of uptime. Motif casts should be uptime dependent and should require a target.

[Supersnow845]

None of the melee DPS have remotely as large of a magnitude of burst difference between their burst and their downtime as PCT and BLM, honestly the closest comparison you’d get is comparing SGE to AST in which AST just scales better and better throughout the expansion and is totally unaffected by downtime because its burst is reliant on draw which doesn’t need a target and divination which is just a CD. You can nerf AST now but it’ll just scale straight back to being dominant in half an expansion because it’s a factor of the burst meta not just its own damage capacity, the way the burst CD’s work on all jobs also means you will never “skip” a burst so jobs that play into burst will always scale better. Flat profiles are always playing catch up in this meta because the job design means you can save burst to always align it, that’s the core of the problem. If an 8 minute fight has only 1 minute 20 seconds of uptime across the fight you’ll just do 4 20 second bursts, if it’s 8 minutes full uptime you’ll still do 4 20 second burst but then you add filler. The 2 minute meta needs to go because this was always going to happen to BLM when they introduced a non flat caster that isn’t arbitrarily handicapped by raise like SMN is

As for the suggestion of motifs need a target that’s simply a point of “1 ultimates every 2 years doesn’t justify destroying the best received job since SB”, if you are going to nerf PCT that’s absolutely the last thing you should do because not everyone wants their favourite job destroyed to balance an ultimate

[Lyth]

As for the suggestion of motifs need a target that’s simply a point of “1 ultimates every 2 years doesn’t justify destroying the best received job since SB”, if you are going to nerf PCT that’s absolutely the last thing you should do because not everyone wants their favourite job destroyed to balance an ultimate

PCT's advantage is definitely not limited to Ultimates.

If you're referencing downtime intermissions, we have those in Savage fights as well. P8SP2 was a particularly extreme example. The fight was essentially alternating burst windows with a targetless HC 1 and 2, culminating in a potion burst under Everburn that doubled your damage. And even when you factor that type of fight design effect out of the equation, we can still see very clearly that PCT is obviously dominating this tier.

The reason why they keep adding new jobs to the game is to attract new players and give them more variety to choose from. Having a single job dominate a role and have its own dedicated role slot runs completely contrary to this. Telling players that they need to play PCT if they want to be a caster main is not good design. You're always going to get backlash for rebalancing an overpowered job. You've seen for yourself how much pushback there is around toning back WAR's self-healing currently. But what you're doing here is no different. Protecting your turf sometimes runs contrary to what's good for the game.

What SE needs to recognize is that this type of pushback will go away instantly once they just do their job and balance the game. FoTM players don't have loyalty to any job, so they'll just switch anyways the advantage is gone and the resistance will vanish. The real risk is pushing away players who are really attached to a specific job design aesthetic, which is why variety is so important. SE can continue to cater specifically to PCT if they want, but only if they're also prepared to continue to lose players.

[Valence]

The real issue is that we just have way too many motifs, and a good option could be to cut them down back to no charges each, but that would remove a big part of the job's flexibility. On the other hand, a lot of other jobs don't have that luxury and have had to content with not drifting important GCDs. Still, redistribute the potency all across the board without making the motifs an actual damage loss, and remove 1 charge from the creature one would be a good start in my opinion.

And frankly I know it's gonna make people laugh but you don't even need ultimates to already see what the math and experience shows, and what you can already see in dungeons when it comes to downtime. Ultimates have rarely been very well balanced. For instance, DSR was an absolute joke of balance back then between jobs, and they didn't bother adjusting for it.

[Ramiee]

And frankly I know it's gonna make people laugh but you don't even need ultimates to already see what the math and experience shows, and what you can already see in dungeons when it comes to downtime. Ultimates have rarely been very well balanced. For instance, DSR was an absolute joke of balance back then between jobs, and they didn't bother adjusting for it.

TOP also being cleared in the same patch it released in without healers with zero adjustments also goes to show that ultimates really don't mean much at all anymore. God I wish blue mage ultimates became a thing so some actual interesting job actions can come out of ultimates.