PCT is actually good now

[Loggos]

With a bit of strategic pacing you can insta-cast pretty much all your motifs now (after using both charges at the start of the fight your smudge and muse CDs more or less align).
(At the same time it makes using smudge slightly more strategic which is fun. Not much but still enough to be noticeable imo
Also, I previously held the opinion that motifs shouldn't be insta-cast to make the gameplay more strategic. But I was blind. Blasting people with moogles and madeens left and right has converted me.).

Motif cast times are slightly faster, too.

You now have a multi-target silence and a multi-target stun (previously heavy and bind).

Your CMY combo has fast cast times and does 24k damage.

The damage of most of your muses has been doubled.

Your RGB combo does 18k damage. Together with insta-casting muses and having easier access to Moogle/Madeen in 1v1s now (plus the old white comet heals, shield and smudge) your survivability and ability to duel has increased significantly.

Your LB does more damage, has a big frontloaded heal and gives a team-wide damage buff.
(The frontloaded heal is the same as the old 8k heal + HoT so I wouldn't say that aspect is better per sé. But it does turn the LB more into one big emergency button when contesting a point which could be good to (partially) counter groupwide LBs like SMN or DRG.)

All in all, it’s so much faster, smoother and more fun now.

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I’d say that’s a glow-up. Personally I love it, heh.
(I’ll enjoy it while it lasts until the next rework/round of nerfs comes around.)

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Good luck in ranked, everyone!

[Loggos]

Ok I need to make one addition of what I think is quite clunky.

After swift-casting your motif your entire offensive kit goes onto a long GCD of 3.5 seconds. I can (kind of) understand why you'd put Moogle/Madeen and comets on this CD because otherwise you could occasionally (but not really that often) chain two muse casts together (muses are oCGDs ironically) and add an extra 8k to your big burst.*
The long GCD prevents that. (Though this begs the question if those 8k are really such a dealbreaker. If that's the reason for the GCD counter-measure it doesn't feel proportional.)

But being locked out of your RGB/CMY casts is frankly speaking bad. Because now you'll have plenty of situations where you are mid-fight and can't attack at all for 3ish seconds. Not only does it lead to lost opportunities, it must also look really weird for your team-mates and might give them false impressions. (Because you do cast your motifs mid-fight. You can't always pre-cast them before you engage. Which would also kind of defeat the purpose of swift-casting them anways...)

Being strategic about your big burst is one thing. I can see that this long GCD would make you more mindful of your timing to swift-paint your motifs. But I see no point in locking you out of your entire kit for 3+ seconds.

I don't know if this is an oversight or by design. But that's just not good.


(* Prep first motif via slowcast, dash for Quick Sketch ready, cast first muse oGCD, immediately paint second motif and cast second muse oGCD. Follow up with Mog/Mad + comets)

[RyoXander]

I'm glad it's even better now, but I was already dominating with PCT before this patch so I can't imagine how much easier it's going to be now :P

[Loggos]

Hehe, glad to hear that! Best of success throwing even more moogles at people's faces. >: D

[SweetPete]

It’s gotten better but it still needs some help. It’s still the lower tier caster. I can see them getting more buffs in the future.

[Loggos]

It's definitely still no meta pick that's true! But I think it also got a lot more flexible and I've seen people pull off really good damage and K/A numbers. From my (anecdotal) experience so far its average lies around that of other "not-overtuned" DPS. But I won't complain about more buffs!

Its playstyle is definitely more finicky though since you need to build your resources and hold them for the right moment. Being good at that kind of decision-making ("now or later? use parts of my burst and hold the rest or use all of it at once?") really makes and breaks your game. You can either unleash ~40kish AoE bursts on the enemy team every ~40 seconds or so, or you can blast them all into that one person guarding and lose your entire arsenal (not like this happens to me on a regular basis...).

[Router]

Personally I think PCT would be perfect with an LB buff; Either make the damn thing come out faster or maybe let us freeaim it. Using it defensively right now is suicidal because of how long it locks you into the animation (especially at higher ranks), so I usually end up putting it in weird places and primarily using it to get the burst damage + buff (heal is nice too). It's not exactly bad when used that way, but the defensive aspect of it is undercooked for sure.

[Loggos]

Oh yeah I definitely agree with that. That's honestly one of my biggest annoyances right now. The amount of times I've died because I've been animation-locked forever is too high. And you can't really pre-purify either since it wears off too fast now. The long animation also makes the knock-back effect practically useless because people have an eternity to guard or walk away.
(I guess you can use it to bait guard so the drg and smn on your team can do their thing but it's still really badly designed for a caster, esp. one who's on the lower end of the health spectrum.)

I do the same thing you do most of the time and cast it away from the group so I get the damage buff and aoe dmg/heal at least. But it's sad because the 25% healing buff and 25% dmg reduction have good team value in theory. Even more so because the healing buff is supposed to be used for your own star prism heal as well which elevates it to an instant 20k aoe heal. When you actually manage to pull it that heal can have a big impact. I was able to almost completely negate a smn or drg LB by casting star prism right afterwards in the small number of situations that gave me the opportunity to use my LB to its full potential.

If you could place it deliberately like a sage, summoner or an old scholar LB then this would really help. Otherwise you are losing half of your burst's utility most of the time. I think the ability to place it would be fair because imo pct's LB is not more powerful than summoner's or (old) scholar's LB so I don't think the high risk of casting pct's lb is proportional to its impact (sage is a tragedy in itself but I digress.). Melee casting it definitely leads to lots of terrible plays where you die and lose your LB together if you try to give your team its full benefits (or when you need/want to cast it to hold a point).


Another buff for PCT could be to shorten the black comet animation. I understand the reason since 12 line aoe with utility and 2 x 12k circle AoE back to back every 32 seconds (or 12k circle aoe every 16s) is powerful but the delay makes PCT's strength, its burst, less powerful (and probably easy to avoid/guard against at high levels). Since its burst attacks are already separated by gcds (except for the muse ocgds) having them delayed even further by animations that take up to 3s before they hit takes a lot of pressure/high intensity out of it and makes it feel rather sluggish. (At least the delay can be used deliberately sometimes, e.g. when somebody is almost at the end of their guard and you can cast black comet in advance so the attack hits neatly when their guard wears off.)