Do you think that Picto needs a nerf?

[Supersnow845]

You're still not making an actual argument here, it just sounds like you have some vendetta against SAM/MCH/BLM.

And since you aren't making an argument, I'll make it for you. I guess you could say that adding utility to selfish jobs would give you more leeway in job choice, because the value of utility would be incomparable between jobs, which means that you could pick one over the other in certain situations for utility rather than damage reasons, lessening the need to balance their DPS as closely.

To which I would counter with two things:

1. The devs should buck up and actually do their damn jobs balancing DPS output

2. It would be a shame to lose the identity associated with selfish DPS jobs. SAM is a loner with a sword. I'd argue it's quite key to the class identity that they stand alone and launch hard hitting high damage attacks. Same goes for Black Mage. A master of the arcane arts, studying in isolation to perfect magic with pure, destructive power associated with the downfall of a civilization.

I won't rehash the job identity / homogenisation discourse again. I'm sure you could come up with some utility themed for SAM/BLM that would fit with them. I just don't think it's worth the less in job identity compared to jobs that are themed to be more supportive.

Your first counter is “the devs should properly balance DPS” which your yard stick for what constitutes “balance” is different to mine and so is basically a pointless point. For example I have no problem with 10+% balance discrepancies if everyone has their niche and their chance to shine. I’ve stated on multiple PCT posts that I would be fine with PCT down with say…..RPR in full uptime if it stayed very slightly ahead in ultimate because that’s PCT’s niche. Then BLM can have the highest damage caster niche in full uptime. If you want BLM ahead in all circumstances that’s just actively restrictive. I actively hate “every job is the same but at least they are all within 5% of each other”, I also dislike forcing the selfish DPS to always be first because we have this argument every expansion, this isn’t a new argument BLM was losing their shit at SMN in 5.1 for the same reason and BLM and SAM were losing their shit at every DPS not named BRD or RDM in 4.x for again the same reason. I don’t necessarily know your opinion on the first half of this point but I know your opinion on the second half. So who’s balance should square be “bucking up and balancing around”

And selfish DPS can retain having no utility I’m not saying they should be forced to have utility but they should also be fine not ALWAYS being the top DPS because that’s equally unfair to every job that isn’t one of the 3 selfish jobs (MCH doesn’t count). Plus where do you put NIN and DRG? They have nothing besides their DPS buff, are they not “selfish” from a utility perspective. And what about SAM, it has a tank tier CD on a functionally zero CD, I’d argue that’s more utility than NIN has, so who’s the selfish DPS here

Edit to the point below I’m honestly not mentioning MCH because it isn’t really relevant but I’m totally fine with MCH doing melee damage, physical ranged as a role concept is a wider problem I’ve discussed in greater detail on physical ranged threads

[Reginald_Cain]

Real foxy and supersnow have valid points. but i think you guys aren't acknowledging it. Snow has a point that jobs that offer buffs and utilities should feel like they have noticeable and satisfying damage and real foxy is also correct in pointing out how pointless it feels to play a job like machinist that deals some of the lowest damage in the game while providing nothing. samaurai's and black mages are having a tougher time competing in damage than usual but not to the same degree as machinist. to foxy i ask you to understand that making selfish dps comparably high damage jobs is important but they can never be allowed to exceed the other jobs by too large of a margin. and to snow you need to acknowledge your views are why jobs like machinist will be trapped in purgatory for all time. black mage should be competitive with pictomancer from gameplay, lore and aesthetic logic. and samurai really isn't doing that bad comparatively to the other two but it has its own issues.

[Realfoxy]

Your first counter is “the devs should properly balance DPS” ...

OK, well first I actually think a 10% gap is probably too large for me, but I don't mind a like, 5-7% gap if we actually get some decent job identity. Right now we don't have job identity, we have every single job building to a burst in buffs every two minutes.

And you still haven't actually articulated an argument for why selfish DPS shouldn't be ahead in each expansion. I mean "we can't have selfish DPS ahead because of people whining on the forums" isn't an argument. You said BLM always ahead is "actively restrictive". It's funny you mention that because even when BLM has historically been overpowered, we've never had a tier where BLM was the dominating caster DPS.

RE: NIN and DRG, I consider them to be on the same level as SAM in that they do not offer any extra utility. SAM has a personal mit, just like NIN has a personal mit. It's arguably DRG who's getting a bit shafted here.

But yeah, if you want PCT ahead in burst and cDPS while BLM beats it in full uptime and rDPS, I guess that's fair. It depends on the amounts, I guess.


One final thing: People keep talking about class identity and numerical balance being in some kind of irresolvable tension. I personally think that while they are in tension people overrate how much this actually matters.



This was Eden's Promise. Now ignore the phys ranged and this chart looks pretty good. See how small the spread is? This isn't some unattainable ideal. We had jobs with clear identities and good balance and it wasn't even that long ago!

[Supersnow845]

OK, well first I actually think a 10% gap is probably too large for me, but I don't mind a like, 5-7% gap if we actually get some decent job identity. Right now we don't have job identity, we have every single job building to a burst in buffs every two minutes.

And you still haven't actually articulated an argument for why selfish DPS shouldn't be ahead in each expansion. I mean "we can't have selfish DPS ahead because of people whining on the forums" isn't an argument. You said BLM always ahead is "actively restrictive". It's funny you mention that because even when BLM has historically been overpowered, we've never had a tier where BLM was the dominating caster DPS.

RE: NIN and DRG, I consider them to be on the same level as SAM in that they do not offer any extra utility. SAM has a personal mit, just like NIN has a personal mit. It's arguably DRG who's getting a bit shafted here.

But yeah, if you want PCT ahead in burst and cDPS while BLM beats it in full uptime and rDPS, I guess that's fair. It depends on the amounts, I guess.


One final thing: People keep talking about class identity and numerical balance being in some kind of irresolvable tension. I personally think that while they are in tension people overrate how much this actually matters.



This was Eden's Promise. Now ignore the phys ranged and this chart looks pretty good. See how small the spread is? This isn't some unattainable ideal. We had jobs with clear identities and good balance and it wasn't even that long ago!

We’ve kinda reached a natural conclusion of everything above the linked photo so I’ll leave that off there other than say my argument for why the selfish DPS shouldn’t always be first is exactly the same reason you have for why you don’t always want PCT being first. Because if every job is a DPS and different fights reward different types of jobs then selfish DPS always being first is just a messy and restrictive balancing decision. How do you make BLM ahead in FRU for example? but I will say if your yardstick for “diverse jobs” is edens promise we are discussing things that are functionally worlds away and you had to exclude the phys ranged to even make that point

[Realfoxy]

We’ve kinda reached a natural conclusion of everything above the linked photo so I’ll leave that off there other than say my argument for why the selfish DPS shouldn’t always be first is exactly the same reason you have for why you don’t always want PCT being first. Because if every job is a DPS and different fights reward different types of jobs then selfish DPS always being first is just a messy and restrictive balancing decision. How do you make BLM ahead in FRU for example? but I will say if your yardstick for “diverse jobs” is edens promise we are discussing things that are functionally worlds away and you had to exclude the phys ranged to even make that point

Oh, when I meant I want BLM ahead, I just meant it should be ahead in rDPS + cDPS on like, all Savage fights. That would give you room for an adjusted PCT (to be less bursty) to exist and be favored overall in something like FRU. With BLM having rDPS there could be phases like FRU intermission or TOP P4 that favour its design while PCT does better in others.

RE: ShB job design vs Stormblood and earlier - I'm sympathetic to the idea that we had more diverse job design in SB, but I don't think we're ever going back to that era of job + fight design.

[Reginald_Cain]

We’ve kinda reached a natural conclusion of everything above the linked photo so I’ll leave that off there other than say my argument for why the selfish DPS shouldn’t always be first is exactly the same reason you have for why you don’t always want PCT being first. Because if every job is a DPS and different fights reward different types of jobs then selfish DPS always being first is just a messy and restrictive balancing decision. How do you make BLM ahead in FRU for example? but I will say if your yardstick for “diverse jobs” is edens promise we are discussing things that are functionally worlds away and you had to exclude the phys ranged to even make that point

Ok i hear what you mean about the danger to comp diversity and job options that could arise should selfish dps all be so strong you need atleast one to carry a raid with buff stacking. It's not healthy. I believe Realfoxy and I just have an issue with how the non samurai selfish dps feel really underwhelming for some reason. I can't speak for realfoxy but i just want skills like drill 600 potency, and flare star 400 potency after 6 fire fours/ two flares, to feel good to use in high level content. flare star would only need 20 potency to be as strong as two flares. drill feels great at lower levels but it should be equal in potency to standard finish on dancer. I'd also like high fire 2 to be a much stronger spell that interacted more with flare and flare star.

[Carighan]

but they should also be fine not ALWAYS being the top DPS because that’s equally unfair to every job that isn’t one of the 3 selfish jobs

Why?

Genuine question, why would that be as unfair as not being top DPS if you got no utility?

[ForteNightshade]

Meanwhile you are reducing caster uptime concerns to “lol just do it”. When you are progging a fight

Yes, because we're talking about overall job balance. You don't balance jobs around prog because everyone is playing safe. You seem to think melee just greed every GCD easily without the slightest thought unless the mechanic forces them off. During prog, any good melee (or tank, for that matter) is dropping several GCDs because it's not worth risking a pull to optimize their uptime. How is that different than the casters giving up casts? Both roles play safe for prog.

Regardless, it's irrelevant to discussing job balance. You need to balance around what the jobs are capable of when played properly, i.e. when melee greed every GCD they can and casters aren't losing casts. Which is where the problem with Picto represents itself. The job is basically good at everything. Like I said previously, it has both raid utility and a buff, flexible mobility and deals the highest damage. There's zero reason it should be pulling ahead of Black Mage, Samurai or Viper when all three jobs entire relevance revolves around damage. What's the point of a selfish DPS when the job with a raid buff beats it any way? And that's in Savage where the discrepancy isn't nearly as bad. FRU is just downright ridiculous. You are actively griefing your party to not have Picto.

[Wayfinder3]

Yes, because we're talking about overall job balance. You don't balance jobs around prog because everyone is playing safe. You seem to think melee just greed every GCD easily without the slightest thought unless the mechanic forces them off. During prog, any good melee (or tank, for that matter) is dropping several GCDs because it's not worth risking a pull to optimize their uptime. How is that different than the casters giving up casts? Both roles play safe for prog.

Regardless, it's irrelevant to discussing job balance. You need to balance around what the jobs are capable of when played properly, i.e. when melee greed every GCD they can and casters aren't losing casts. Which is where the problem with Picto represents itself. The job is basically good at everything. Like I said previously, it has both raid utility and a buff, flexible mobility and deals the highest damage. There's zero reason it should be pulling ahead of Black Mage, Samurai or Viper when all three jobs entire relevance revolves around damage. What's the point of a selfish DPS when the job with a raid buff beats it any way? And that's in Savage where the discrepancy isn't nearly as bad. FRU is just downright ridiculous. You are actively griefing your party to not have Picto.

That’s a problem with FRU and how downtime is designed in this game, not the overall job balance. If the game has 20+ jobs that all hate downtime or don’t gain significantly from it, then release a class that genuinely benefits from not being able to hit the boss during active uptime. This is what happens, it exposes a poor game design decision on behalf of the classes themselves. Pictomancer just made it glaringly obvious was jobs should have something meaningful to do in their rotation when the boss is away instead of just standing there.

[Wayfinder3]

Why?

Genuine question, why would that be as unfair as not being top DPS if you got no utility?

First off, the pure DPS aren’t just competing amongst their Role, they’re competing amongst their archetype. If MCH was hitting top tier numbers, it would be played WITH bard and Dancer in double physical ranged comps. The reason MCH struggles is because it’s not directly competing with the other ranged, it’s competing with the other pure DPS and that’s where the issue is. If MCH isn’t better than VPR/SAM/BLM and the 4 them together aren’t the universally most optimal comp that everyone should be playing for max damage, then the worst options are going to fall to the way side immediately.

Who’s going to settle for the 4th best selfish DPS. These people can’t even settle for BLM being behind pictomancer, why would they settle for MCH who’s behind MNK let alone BLM, SAM, and VPR. And even if MCH was the 4th strongest behind BLM SAM and VPR, unless the pure DPS were so overtuned they running 4 was better than running any utility option which nobody wants, it would still not see any play OR, it would choke out the life of the other 2 physical ranged completely which is what black mage has done to red mage and summoner since 6.0 launched.

It also means, SE can never add more pure DPS because as soon as they add a 5th one, the weakest of the 5 is dead on arrival and nothing can be done to save it.

This is why pure DPS needing to be the best at everything 100% of the time is nonsensical. It leads to a stale metagame dominated entirely be classes with nothing to offer but damage. PCT is currently fine in savage, it’s competitive with BLM and both are healthy for majority of the player base. FRU is the only case where PCT is too good but that’s not a balancing decision, that’s a fight design issue where PCT is succeeding in the environment it was designed to do so. The class was designed with abusing downtime in mind while no other class besides white mage to much less degree is and mind you. White mage is perpetually worse than astrologian in every single way.

No other subjective argument like difficulty matters here. It doesn’t matter what’s harder or easier to play. At a fundamental level, the idea of jobs that have nothing to offer but damage is stupid and extremely flawed when in game that allows all jobs to comfortably kill content in any combination that doesn’t double up.