Are Ultimates a major contributor to Job Design issues?

[Valence]

I doubt it, but they did expand the range of some abilities. This happened because they wanted to experiment with different arena designs, and p10 was the first to fall under that category. It was a pretty common occurrence for DPS to die after Divinding Wings 2, especially if mits were missing or healers didn't sprint. I wish we had Aetherial shift back then...LOL.

P10S didn't need those changes and neither did anything else, change my mind (I can't speak for TOP though, haven't done it).

[Supersnow845]

I doubt it, but they did expand the range of some abilities. This happened because they wanted to experiment with different arena designs, and p10 was the first to fall under that category. It was a pretty common occurrence for DPS to die after Divinding Wings 2, especially if mits were missing or healers didn't sprint. I wish we had Aetherial shift back then...LOL.

If people missed mitigation that’s a positioning issue that’s on the party to fix, not just call it unfixable and make all bubbles raidwide heals

[Azurarok]

Between this and other raid finder content I do wonder if trying to move away from hard enrages and starting to do soft enrages might make any difference?

[Voryn]

When have jobs been changed specifically for specific pieces of high-end content?
…
Generally, when a job is changed, it's because it doesn't function well within the wider scope of the game. It doesn't have anything to do with specific pieces of high-end content.

I think there’s a lot of changes for which it’s reasonable to assume that they’re for high end content, even though the devs will just say “we wanted to reduce inputs” or “we heard some feedback about this.”

Double Down costing either one or two carts will only matter when trying to do the burst window perfectly. Accidentally wasting a cart or drifting the burst down’t matter outside high end content. Same with how RDM or MCH could accidentally waste a bit of meter if they pressed Manafication or Barrel Stabilizer while already having over 50 meter: you’re probably not worried about wasting a bit of meter in a Normal raid.

I think the recent change that gave DRK Dark Missionary before level 70 was specifically to make it job feel better in UWU and UCOB since otherwise it doesn’t feel like a big deal that it gets that ability ten levels earlier now. But like the above examples it’s just an assumption on my part since there wasn’t much detail given (that I know of) about why this change was made.

I haven’t read through this whole thread enough to know if it was mentioned already but I personally would prefer more transparency from the devs about why adjustments are made. Because there’s raiders on the internet who complain “I can’t believe SE ruined my job because of casuals” when it seems to me that some changes are so raiders have less to complain about. And I personally would prefer to hear more reasoning than “some people complain about this thing,” I want to know why they think each change is actually good even if I might disagree.

[Oizen]

Clearly not seeing as the game still isn't balanced at all for high end content.

[Absurdity]

It's the chicken and egg question really.
Were the jobs all crammed into the 2-minute burst window mold with pointless filler because of their high-end fight design or did they want jobs to play like that from the start and designed fights around it?

Ultimately it doesn't matter which one it is, the outcome that the gameplay nowadays is incredibly stale remains the same.

[Mikey_R]

The whole shift into the 2 minute meta really started in ShB, where, allegedly, there were people who struggled to line up raid buffs, or didn't like that some jobs were 90 seconds with most 120 seconds. Whichever way, they didn't like that things didn't line up.

With this, come EW, the devs took that feedback and remade every job to fit a 120 second buff window. With more raid buffs coming off at the same time, jobs were required to be more and more burst orientated, so much so that jobs were changed. Paladin is a classic example due to it being more of a sustain job then changed to a burst style mid expansion, though I suspect the SMN rework also had the 2 minute meta mindset when being developed. What the devs also said was with the unification of the 2 minute meta, they could more easily design fights around the fact they knew when every job was going to burst. DT just followed on by adding more potency in the burst window, making these windows even more important.

It is worth noting that back in ARR when Ninja was released, the trick attack window was something everyone wanted to play around. It did cause a noticeable increase in DPS just by lining things up with it and this was in a time where jobs didn't have massive potency in their burst windows. Just to also compare what we had then compared to what we have now, Ninja was the only job with a 'raid buff', which was (IIRC) 10% for 10 seconds every 60 seconds. Compared to now, randomly choosing Monk, Ninja, Dancer and Summoner, you get an increase of just over 27% increase, for 20 seconds, every 120 seconds, this obviously hasn't counted buffs from healers and the Dancer buff is only Technical Step.

So really, the 2 minute meta came first with fight design being built around that.

This is then were the fun discussion comes in. The 2 minute meta is (almost) universally hated and they want jobs to diversify more, with jobs going back to sustain, DoTs etc. The problem then lies in fight design. By making fights with a certain design or fight flow, it could lead to some jobs being either overpowered or underpowered just by the nature of the fight. The clear example here is Pictomancer. Pictomancer was praised as being more unique and fun to play. however, when FRU was released, and PIC was topping the charts...easily, people wanted it to be nerfed or adjusted so that it would fall more inline with the other jobs.

Ultimately, there are a few things that players need to agree to for any sort of change to happen. The first is the raid buffs either need to be removed or heavily nerfed. I will caveat that 100% uptime buffs are fine (Bard's songs/Dancer's Standard Step) as it provides an increase to everything equally. The second is, if you want jobs to have a different damage profile, you might need to accept the fact your job might be underpowered compared to another jobs, just because of fight design.

[Absurdity]

y, there are a few things that players need to agree to for any sort of change to happen. The first is the raid buffs either need to be removed or heavily nerfed. I will caveat that 100% uptime buffs are fine (Bard's songs/Dancer's Standard Step) as it provides an increase to everything equally. The second is, if you want jobs to have a different damage profile, you might need to accept the fact your job might be underpowered compared to another jobs, just because of fight design.

I'm not sure even that is really necessary.
Sustain jobs like Paladin were fine when raid buffs were still 60, 90, 120 and 180 seconds because the different timings of FoF and Req allowed Paladin to take advantage of the multiple different buff windows, it wasn't the 2nd highest dps tank in most of ShB for no reason.

It's really only the consolidation of all buffs into the same window that killed sustain dps jobs

Paladin in the middle of Endwalker got a full rework because it didn't fit into the current 2 minute rotation design. The 2 minute rotation is only really relevant in higher level raiding. Old paladin functioned completely fine outside of that content.

You could even see it in the fact that old Paladin was doing fine when it came to rDPS, problem is that it completely fell off a cliff when it came to aDPS and for tanks it is relevant how much damage you can put inside other people's buff windows.

[Mikey_R]

I'm not sure even that is really necessary.
Sustain jobs like Paladin were fine when raid buffs were still 60, 90, 120 and 180 seconds because the different timings of FoF and Req allowed Paladin to take advantage of the multiple different buff windows, it wasn't the 2nd highest dps tank in most of ShB for no reason.

It's really only the consolidation of all buffs into the same window that killed sustain dps jobs

Which is true, to a degree. Paladin was a weird job in that it was buffed for the vast majority of it's GCDs, so you could make the argument that it was no wonder it all lined up, because the chances of it not are slim. In a different mindset, this buffed damage was PLD's baseline, with a boost during Req and a slight dip when there is no FoF or Req.

However, temp raid buffs could potentially hinder job diversity. Imagine for a second 2 burst DPS, one where the buffed period is fixed, like Dragoon and another where it could be more flexible, as an example, take Monk, remove RoF and Brotherhood and make Perfect Balance and Masterful Blitz the burst window for Monk (with Perfect balance boosting damage). With perfect balance, you can be very very flexible with were you burst in a vacuum, you could delay it for an important ADD to take down as an example. Dragoon is as it is now (minus Battle Litany for this example).

If I now introduce a job that has a raid buff, the Monk is now going to want to put it's burst damage in that window, necessarily restricting where it can burst and losing that previous flexibility. Whilst Dragoon is hoping that the timing's on their burst window line up with the raid buff to make full use of it.

This is why I bought up Ninja in my post as it was the first job to have a universal raid (de)buff (Foe's Requiem was magic only) and that one debuff alone necessarily wanted people to make full use of it. We didn't have the insane potencies we have now, but it was still a factor. It causes jobs to funnel into that window, which is the same path that got us to where we are now.

As for ShB, being the last expansion before the 2 minute meta, most jobs were already 60/120 second jobs, with 90 second being uncommon and 180 being even rarer. But this is where the problem arises. Why should I bring the 90 second job when I can replace it with the 60 second job and get more damage out of it? That raid buff at 90 second is only really benefitting that one job and the odd action here and there. It is just in this weird, awkward spot. Maybe, shove it into the 120 second window? Just so it feels a but better to use. So again, we are shoving things into the raid window.

We could make some jobs 60/120, some 90 in about a roughly equal split, but could that then split the jobs down the middle, only wanting to party with jobs of their own buff timings? Would adjusting a job to fit both make it over/under powered in either one?

So it comes down to 2 main reasons why I do think they should go. The first being, we tried it, and throughout the expansions, it just kept getting shoved into the 2 minute meta it is now. It could end in a 3 minute meta if done differently, but it would still be the same complaints. The second, it necessarily reduces how you can build a jobs damage profile. By making these raid buffs, you are saying, dump all high potency attacks here, even if you job really doesn't want to. You kill the ability to provide flexibility in some jobs and diversify the way jobs do their damage.

Note, that this doesn't stop raid buffs going out, just ones that provide an increase in damage. Arcane Circle and Brotherhood are raid buffs that rely on the rest of the team to buff the job using them. There is also the case of keeping raid buffs up 100% of the time can be something that the job has to maintain by pressing more than just 1 button.

This all being said, there is no real right or wrong answer to this dilemma. Different people are going to have different opinions about what they think is the right direction, which does highlight the fact this is a more complex matter than it might initially seem.