Why do people care about potency so much?

[Amh_Wilzuun]

Players don't really care about potency, they care about the balance between jobs. For example the difference between mch and dnc that are both phys ranged (or smn and picto) is so huge that it feels bad to play the former instead of the latter. Also i'm amazed at how SE is capable of fucking up jobs rotation every time they tweak potencies. Now picto don't even get to use the hammer combo bc it's a dps loss over the basic combo(?) like hello who the hell tested these changes

Rotation design is way more impactful to how a job feels than the actual damage numbers. I do more personal damage when playing MCH or DRG than while on Dancer but I feel like I’m doing more damage on DNC due to how the damage is spread out with dopamine buttons like Starfall and Dance of the Dawn distracting you from low your damage is on average with their huge numbers.

An increase in potency that is noticeable enough to actually make a job start to feel more impactful than another job would have to be a game breaking overbuff

[YukioKobayashi]

I know some will claim jobs get locked of PF but I don’t think think that is an actual thing at all from my experience. If that does happen it’s probably just an isolated toxic group and the only reason they think they need to lock out jobs is because of the aforementioned discourse perpetuating the myth that “meta” jobs actually matter.

ShB-Babys wont understand this.
We had this in HW with PLD,MNK,WHM and SB with DRK,WHM,SAM,BLM
WHM was unplayable for at least 3 years straight. Pretty much 80% of the Reclear-PF's were locking the healerslots to AST/SCH. Same was the case for the other mentioned Jobs.
Either you played something that was somewhat good or you had to join a PF with 7 Johnny Twofingers that were not pressing buttons.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

ShB-Babys wont understand this.
We had this in HW with PLD,MNK,WHM and SB with DRK,WHM,SAM,BLM
WHM was unplayable for at least 3 years straight. Pretty much 80% of the Reclear-PF's were locking the healerslots to AST/SCH. Same was the case for the other mentioned Jobs.
Either you played something that was somewhat good or you had to join a PF with 7 Johnny Twofingers that were not pressing buttons.

So? We’re not playing Heavensward

[Kes13a]

So? We’re not playing Heavensward

we arent. back then, the game could still be considered "fun"

[Neoyoshi]

I still remember when my limit break in PvP actually killed people. Today it's just a stun that 'sometimes' works.

[Voryn]

Why do people care about potency so much? I genuinely don’t get it. Picking a “meta” job only matters in like week 1 savage or ultimates.

There are people who do week 1 savage and new ultimates.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

There are people who do week 1 savage and new ultimates.

I meant people who try and CLEAR a whole tier in one week, not just people progging week 1. People who actually get those first or second lockout full clears are an insanely small minority of players

[ReynTime]

Jobs being "locked out" wasn't a thing even in Heavensward. This playerbase loves to overstate the importance of meta, as if XIV is designed any worse for character meta than the thousands of multiplayer games out there.

[Kohashi]

job balance is important in the overall grand scheme of things but it's not always relevant. It depends on what kind of content you are doing. It is nice to be able to do all the available content with the job/ role that you enjoy the most.

However, Balance is always finicky and hard to achieve. Generally, games buff/nerf classes/ roles on rotation. You will never have a perfect balance. The same thing also happens with League of Legends. They rotate FOM characters to keep things interesting but at the end of the day, every champ has to not break competitive play. Of course, nothing is ever perfect and some always find ways to break the balance.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

I think people are conditioned to care about balance due to how much it actually matters in other games like Marvel Rivals or LOL and takw that mindset into XIV even though you can clear all content with any job choice