Pictomancer is not the issue.

[Connor]

PCT can be a problem (not saying it is or it isn’t) and the physical/rezz tax can still be stupid

There is absolutely no reason why the physical ranged and rezz casters are as far behind as they are

Yoshi-P: ‘mobility’ *mic drop*
Players: but what about all the mobility casters and melee have now?
Yoshi-P: *he’s hiding behind the stage curtain*


Jokes aside based on what I’ve seen it seems like ‘Pictomancer power’ is more culmination of various things rather than a straightforward matter of ‘potency too high’.

There’s also relative strength (maybe other jobs are too weak lol), recency of job development (it doesn’t have outdated ‘old expansion artefacts’ like certain other jobs), and encounter design in general (sometimes it’s extremely favourable for Picto, sometimes it’s very much not lol. Like ultimates vs chaotic).
Even party composition will likely have [some] effect on the extent to which Pictomancer can be ‘powerful’.

I think ‘ranged tax’ made sense at the time they started developing around it; it was/is generally applied to ‘support’ oriented jobs so they don’t end up overpowering non-support jobs (in theory lol, in practice it’s never quite worked out). In a game where like, phys ranged and SMN/RDM had valuable and accessible (i.e not 120 cool-down lol) supportive/utility/whatever abilities, I could see some justification for it. Like when Bards and Machinists could recover party MP/TP.

Naturally, that time has long passed and ‘support’ is basically a thing every job does bar some notable exceptions. Which raises the question: what are we even being taxed for ? lol. Isn’t the 2500MP cost and (potential) 7-sec cast time already tax enough for using Raise?

[Supersnow845]

Yoshi-P: ‘mobility’ *mic drop*
Players: but what about all the mobility casters and melee have now?
Yoshi-P: *he’s hiding behind the stage curtain*


Jokes aside based on what I’ve seen it seems like ‘Pictomancer power’ is more culmination of various things rather than a straightforward matter of ‘potency too high’.

There’s also relative strength (maybe other jobs are too weak lol), recency of job development (it doesn’t have outdated ‘old expansion artefacts’ like certain other jobs), and encounter design in general (sometimes it’s extremely favourable for Picto, sometimes it’s very much not lol. Like ultimates vs chaotic).
Even party composition will likely have [some] effect on the extent to which Pictomancer can be ‘powerful’.

I think ‘ranged tax’ made sense at the time they started developing around it; it was/is generally applied to ‘support’ oriented jobs so they don’t end up overpowering non-support jobs (in theory lol, in practice it’s never quite worked out). In a game where like, phys ranged and SMN/RDM had valuable and accessible (i.e not 120 cool-down lol) supportive/utility/whatever abilities, I could see some justification for it. Like when Bards and Machinists could recover party MP/TP.

Naturally, that time has long passed and ‘support’ is basically a thing every job does bar some notable exceptions. Which raises the question: what are we even being taxed for ? lol. Isn’t the 2500MP cost and (potential) 7-sec cast time already tax enough for using Raise?

The only job that has enough support to be justifiably taxed for it is (ironically) SCH and in true “square can’t balance healers if you paid them (which we do)” fashion SCH is never taxed on anything