Picto makes the game less fun

[Valence]

I do love my Manaward and I wish RDM had something similar since Magick Barrier is nearly useless against physical raidwides, regardless many of the melee DPS not only have a personal & party mitigation tools but they also have Bloodbath and Second Wind.. Now clearing savage content in a static with consistent players can make this a non issue, but if you have cleared in PFs then you will experience inconsistency in both healing or mits. A lot of the strats also involve ranged DPS moving further out or not being in range of at least one of the healers(out spreads on m2s as a potential example), and I have straight up died on the phase transition Impact/Cannonbolt in m4s as a PCT because one of the healers were down.. and this was with Tempera Coat + Addle, mind you I was the only one that died from that raidwide while being at full HP.

The differences between roles and jobs should be rooted in how they play, what their rotation is like and ideally having some kind of player agency.. I just don't agree that having the fundamentals balanced across the board would somehow get in the way of that. Let's look at melee DPS for example, MNK and NIN have pretty close rDPS yet MNK has a follow up heal to their personal mitigation(Earth's Reply) and they also have Mantra; not only that, they can make better use of Bloodbath since a lot of NIN damage is unaspected or elemental. An even more egregious example would be to compare DRK to WAR or PLD, Dark Mind and Dark Missionary are not exciting differences between the other tanks, they are either useful or useless.

It also happens in statics, I have been at the receiving end of it for various mechanics, notably EE2 in M4S when I'm long debuff and miss a heal (and that's why all those geniuses that tell you that rphys has FULL mobility are full of s*** when it has the lowest speed across the board except for DNC). I've even had crazier similar situations in other mechanics due to fairy's smaller range. I still do believe it's not on the job but on the healers and the party and that's a positioning, healing and coordination skill issue. They even buffed mitigation and healing ranges like crazy in Anabaseios and half the things now reach for 50 yalms (which was a terrible choice for skill expression btw)... I really do like that all those constraints and differences used to bring specific skills as a player to have, notably be sure to be positioned properly to be healed (less of a thing now with the crazy ranges for most heals and mits), having sometimes healers to actually use their single target heals as well to help the weakest members and adjust for discrepancies in health and do their actual job (forgive me but glare mages I swear...), and just the party actually talking to each other. I do not like where the battle content has been going over time and I do feel that making everything a non problem anymore is literally removing what I liked about it.

However on top of Maiming jobs having even higher physical defense than the rest, melee DPS have crazy self sustain tools that they do not need more than the rest of the DPS roster, and it's ironic in a way because in pvp it's actually warranted... But for pve melees, they do not take more damage on the frontlines at melee range than ranged players do. It's a bit sad that this specificity of them isn't actually put more to contribution by all the battle content.

Which actually makes me think, perhaps that's a start of a solution to design the differences between ranged and melees while giving them an identical/more balanced damage output in the process. Perhaps ranged jobs shouldn't be able to survive well at close range. Or perhaps that's a shit idea idk.

[LysDusoir]

It may be why they gave AST & WHM another charge on their oGCD single target heal, but I agree that having the supports have more specific problems to take care of during mechanics is interesting. It still feels uncomfortable to essentially be at their mercy while it is not a problem at all if one is playing a melee. I've even seen melee eat a mechanic that would otherwise just kill a caster; I just don't understand why they even have those tools(Bloodbath, etc) when I can't recall a single raid that actually needed them.. and if casters had something similar to Second Wind then maybe they could actually design more mechanics that have intermittent damage going out. The prior raid tiers almost always had magical raidwides as you said, even though casters have more magical defense they still have less HP and HP is effectively mitigation. It honestly just seems like it is something nobody really cares about, much like the seemingly inconsistent support utility that all of the DPS have. Another funny situation I ran into on M3S was having both tanks die during a knock and then proceeding to get punched by brute bomber having it interrupt my cast, like why? Oops, don't be top aggro or just pop that Surecast I guess?

On supports having to take care of certain party members, I played tank during Abyssos savage and strangely enough one of the most enjoyable things to do was using my mitigation on the casters or ranged physical during certain mechanics, especially on DRK(hearing that TBN pop).. Yet, I can only recall one time so far this tier that a tank has been willing to do that(this is PF mind you), even if I kindly ask for a little love during things like EE2; I just don't think it is something that most tanks think about nor does the fight design explicitly ask them to manage that.

[Sol_Seppy]

As a MCH main I kinda understand where you're coming from, this tier especially I've been told numerous times to switch off MCH to play DNC (never BRD mind you, which is the actual "meta" pick) both jokingly (which gets old and annoying) and in serious static situations. MCH isn't in a great place, neither is BLM. While BLM can deal damage tantamount to a melee even now, it's still not where it deserves to be.

Because of the complexity of the job I genuinely think BLM should be one of the highest damage dealers, and definitely far ahead of Picto who has oodles and oodles of party utility.

I think for the most part the balancing on this game is decent, for an MMO. But there are a few outliers that really need some love right about now... :c

[mallleable]

As a MCH main I kinda understand where you're coming from, this tier especially I've been told numerous times to switch off MCH to play DNC (never BRD mind you, which is the actual "meta" pick) both jokingly (which gets old and annoying) and in serious static situations. MCH isn't in a great place, neither is BLM. While BLM can deal damage tantamount to a melee even now, it's still not where it deserves to be.

Because of the complexity of the job I genuinely think BLM should be one of the highest damage dealers, and definitely far ahead of Picto who has oodles and oodles of party utility.

I think for the most part the balancing on this game is decent, for an MMO. But there are a few outliers that really need some love right about now... :c

BRD isn't even in a good spot as a 'meta' pick. Its personal damage is unacceptably low -- even for a phys ranged with a raid buff, and it is plagued by janky timing issues as its GCDs, and oGCDs crash into each other at really any speed, and its probaly the most severely punished job for dying. These issues need to be fixed.

[Sol_Seppy]

BRD isn't even in a good spot as a 'meta' pick. Its personal damage is unacceptably low -- even for a phys ranged with a raid buff, and it is plagued by janky timing issues as its GCDs, and oGCDs crash into each other at really any speed, and its probaly the most severely punished job for dying. These issues need to be fixed.

Idk, I just meant that generally in high end play BRD is more desirable because of its output + raidbuffs. Are any of the phys-range in a great place tho? No.

[PercibelTheren]

Idk, I just meant that generally in high end play BRD is more desirable because of its output + raidbuffs. Are any of the phys-range in a great place tho? No.

Huh, I've been told it's actually DNC that's desirable because it further boosts the already absolutely ridiculous VPR. Might be a DC/region meta difference, I guess.

[Supersnow845]

Huh, I've been told it's actually DNC that's desirable because it further boosts the already absolutely ridiculous VPR. Might be a DC/region meta difference, I guess.

BRD overtakes DNC when everyone gets gear because it’s buffs are AOE

DNC is better early in a tier when you feed gear to the designated dance partner

[Valence]

It may be why they gave AST & WHM another charge on their oGCD single target heal, but I agree that having the supports have more specific problems to take care of during mechanics is interesting. It still feels uncomfortable to essentially be at their mercy while it is not a problem at all if one is playing a melee. I've even seen melee eat a mechanic that would otherwise just kill a caster; I just don't understand why they even have those tools(Bloodbath, etc) when I can't recall a single raid that actually needed them.. and if casters had something similar to Second Wind then maybe they could actually design more mechanics that have intermittent damage going out. The prior raid tiers almost always had magical raidwides as you said, even though casters have more magical defense they still have less HP and HP is effectively mitigation. It honestly just seems like it is something nobody really cares about, much like the seemingly inconsistent support utility that all of the DPS have. Another funny situation I ran into on M3S was having both tanks die during a knock and then proceeding to get punched by brute bomber having it interrupt my cast, like why? Oops, don't be top aggro or just pop that Surecast I guess?

On supports having to take care of certain party members, I played tank during Abyssos savage and strangely enough one of the most enjoyable things to do was using my mitigation on the casters or ranged physical during certain mechanics, especially on DRK(hearing that TBN pop).. Yet, I can only recall one time so far this tier that a tank has been willing to do that(this is PF mind you), even if I kindly ask for a little love during things like EE2; I just don't think it is something that most tanks think about nor does the fight design explicitly ask them to manage that.

In my opinion it is precisely because we have asked the devs allowed the game to progressively lose team interplay and interdependence, that everybody just play selfish and doesn't give a crap tbh. If you die, not their problem. But when they die you can be sure they're gonna make it your problem one way or another.

[Sparkling_Aria]

Whoever was it that said that as soon as melee or caster players had to deal with the bullshit pranged has been dealing with for like 3 expansions now they would crumple and start crying about how awfull everything is was absolutely correct

[mallleable]

Some free potency that could be nerfed on PCT could be like reducing the potency on Star Prism, and making it an oGCD.