Please Make Pictomancer's Hammer Usable Again / Review the Potency Shifting

[Azurarok]

It's now a tool built up exclusively during downtime/phases with dps checks mid-fight, like RPR's Harvest Moon or SGE's Toxicon.
Also is it still a gain in multi-target scenarios? Might even be intentional if that's the case. It's not exactly a terrible idea imo considering how much downtime and/or adds and the like they seem to be trying to add lately.

Of course it's still not a great move to change up the gameplay of a job like this. The tone probably would've been a little different had it been like this at launch.

[Keshigomutsuri]

At this rate, I don't think there will be anything in this regard until maybe 7.3 — if at all.

[Rithy255]

At this rate, I don't think there will be anything in this regard until maybe 7.3 — if at all.

Most likely they do sometimes do stuff on .X5 patches (such as 7.25) but it's very rare at this point and they don't really seem to care much about job balance/job design right now as long as the dance fight is fun.

You will likely get something at 7.3 but if it breaks the job more or ruins it further do not be surprised, black mage players were perfectly fine with 7.1 design but wanted potency buffs instead they decided to overhaul the entire job.

My guess if they change anything they will make motif paintings way more quicker so it becomes less of a cast, expect it to be 2s if they do anything, which is a roundabout way of making paintings viable and reducing casts on picto, Not that I want these changes but as it seems to be the general direction of the game.

Also expect stone in yellow, Thunder in Magenta, Blizzard II in Cyan all to be 1.5s (if your lucky 2s) because them buffing pictomancer will likely be adjusting mostly cast times.

[Taranok]

At this rate, I don't think there will be anything in this regard until maybe 7.3 — if at all.

If they touch it, it's most likely 7.3. Unfortunately, the devs released PCT extremely half baked, rushed it to release, broke it on rebalance for DT launch, and then broke it in the other direction trying to fix the initial launch problems. The class needed a solid 6 months in the oven in a rapid development environment just to fix things like holy in white not even being worth using as a movement tool or the fact that 7 buttons could be merged down into other buttons without meaningfully changing the rotation. We can see this same problem with VPR, in how they completely removed an entire gameplay component of it not even 1 month after launch (and good riddance, launch wasn't that good a design) but you shouldn't be doing stuff like that on a brand new job. It being bad design is secondary to it being a new job and being changed 1m after launch.

All of this more or less lends itself to a dev team in hyper-scramble mode trying to launch a product that was nowhere near ready. PCT from 7.0 to 7.1x was objectively bad for the game, but a half-baked class can't be changed, at all, without breaking the class, which is what happened. Dawntrail truly is a reprise of everything that made Heavensward an awful expansion. And make no mistake, that expansion was extremely bad for the game. Anyone with fond memories typically remembers the final tier only.

You will likely get something at 7.3 but if it breaks the job more or ruins it further do not be surprised, black mage players were perfectly fine with 7.1 design but wanted potency buffs instead they decided to overhaul the entire job.

BLM mains were definitely not fine with 7.1. People (myself included) are still decently mad with despair needing to be instant, and I can say after playing M5S that 7.1 BLM would have been a nightmare in that fight. And I say that because trying to find time to cast Ifrit's 2 2.8s cast times is also a nightmare in that godawful fight. YMMV because ping heavily impacts how the fight feels, and I'm on high enough ping for it to feel very inconsistent and bad. But somehow swapping from SMN to BLM actually made the fight easier to optimize and play, because trying to find time for super long cast times during funky floor is simply a nightmare.

But this ties into a separate problem. Encounter design is dogwater, it's actively getting worse, and the death of casters is just the third harbinger in the constant homogenization nonsense that ShB started, EW accelerated, and DT proved that the devs just don't understand why the encounter design is hurting the game so much.

[Supersnow845]

If they touch it, it's most likely 7.3. Unfortunately, the devs released PCT extremely half baked, rushed it to release, broke it on rebalance for DT launch, and then broke it in the other direction trying to fix the initial launch problems. The class needed a solid 6 months in the oven in a rapid development environment just to fix things like holy in white not even being worth using as a movement tool or the fact that 7 buttons could be merged down into other buttons without meaningfully changing the rotation. We can see this same problem with VPR, in how they completely removed an entire gameplay component of it not even 1 month after launch (and good riddance, launch wasn't that good a design) but you shouldn't be doing stuff like that on a brand new job. It being bad design is secondary to it being a new job and being changed 1m after launch.

All of this more or less lends itself to a dev team in hyper-scramble mode trying to launch a product that was nowhere near ready. PCT from 7.0 to 7.1x was objectively bad for the game, but a half-baked class can't be changed, at all, without breaking the class, which is what happened. Dawntrail truly is a reprise of everything that made Heavensward an awful expansion. And make no mistake, that expansion was extremely bad for the game. Anyone with fond memories typically remembers the final tier only.

Why was PCT in any way half baked? Hell it’s probably the most well received class since SAM/RDM in 4.0. It’s only problem was it did a bit too much damage and people hated how it abused downtime in FRU. But it certainly wasn’t underbaked as a class

[Taranok]

Why was PCT in any way half baked?

Simple.

One, it launched with an exploit to toggle off a buff to gain a not insignificant dps gain from fast-cycling to more comets in black.

Two, holy in white has an entire gameplay element implemented for it for a mechanic that can be used once every 4 GCDs, and is lucky to be used once a minute by most PCT mains. That's right, holy in white is literally as bad as scholar's faerie gauge. And it launched with it.

Three, the entire painting gimmick feels tacked on and barely interacts with the rest of the class. Starry Sky is an interesting exception but doesn't affect other paintings and is a 2m cooldown, hammer stamp is just triplecast with extra steps. I'm still trying to figure out why creature motif has 3 charges, and the only thing I can think of is preventing it from having Monk's masterful blitz problem of starting desynced from the burst.

Four, I can remove 7 buttons from the class without changing any optimization, decision making, anything at all short of the texture of pressing a button on a separate keybind.

Five, of all the things to merge down, why is tempera grassa determined to be unimportant enough to not need to be rapidly deployed? Imagine designing short duration party support that needs a double weave on a class that only has ad hoc access to single weaves.

Six, the devs didn't even bother to think about just how much damage PCT could gain from casting its 3 paintings during boss downtime. To say PCT completely broke ultimate fight design is a gross understatement.

Seven, bereft of the paintings, the class is basically a badly designed gunbreaker rotation. The majority of the class can be played with 5 buttons, and 1 of those buttons is a combined blizzard in cyan 2 and fire in red 2.

You might think I'm being dismissive of the paintings, but the only painting that actually interacts with the core kit is starry sky. Every other painting is a direct interrupt and doesn't really flow with the rest of the class. Some people may love that, but I'd like a little more substance behind the arbitrary nature of the paintings. Nevermind how bloated the paintings are in button count for the sake of it. Ignoring creature, since those 3 buttons have very interesting optimization options if you want it regardless of how tacked on they ultimately are.

Hell, holy in white is the most damning "We half baked this class and don't care that it's half baked." It's an entire gameplay mechanic that most PCTs ignore because it's a DPS loss. It's the functional equivalent of a gunbreaker not using cartridges because it's a DPS loss or a scholar having faerie gauge because that mechanic never should have been put on scholar to begin with.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

*snip*

Im not sure why you think PCT half-baked... I say it was one of the most complete and well-designed jobs the devs have put out in years. The only job of recent years that is completely uncompete I would say is the reworked smn since it has never felt like a fun job since it came out in EW. The only major issue with PCT was in FRU, where it excelled since it could abuse the fact that ultimate's have a large amount of downtime. That said, I still don't think PCT should have been nerfed just bc of FRU. I know that's a hot take, but I just think there's no way to find a good balance for a caster who doesn't have a rez but has other forms of unility in this game. I would rather PCT be good in savage(doing melee levels of dps) than be completely balanced for ultimates. Right now, PCT is not worth bringing to savage since it doesn't have a rez and it doesn't do enough damage. Then you have issues with hammer ontop of that as well.

[Rithy255]

Im not sure why you think PCT half-baked... I say it was one of the most complete and well-designed jobs the devs have put out in years. The only job of recent years that is completely uncompete I would say is the reworked smn since it has never felt like a fun job since it came out in EW. The only major issue with PCT was in FRU, where it excelled since it could abuse the fact that ultimate's have a large amount of downtime. That said, I still don't think PCT should have been nerfed just bc of FRU. I know that's a hot take, but I just think there's no way to find a good balance for a caster who doesn't have a rez but has other forms of unility in this game. I would rather PCT be good in savage(doing melee levels of dps) than be completely balanced for ultimates. Right now, PCT is not worth bringing to savage since it doesn't have a rez and it doesn't do enough damage. Then you have issues with hammer ontop of that as well.

Depends what you mean by "half baked" I personally think the better way to describe picto right now is "broken" not as in overpowered but functionally broken with one of it's muses not really being useful anymore.

On the topic of other jobs, tanks and healers are very half baked and rushed designs that barely work in modern FF14 the current state of non dps jobs is a joke so thats already 8 other jobs alongside summoner, while some other DPS jobs maybe more functional then summoner a lot of the time they function the same as any other DPS practically this game has very few unique designs to begin with and the ones they do like current pictomancer doesn't even function properly due to bad potency tuning.

[ShadowNyx3]

My biggest problem with the nerf is that is was done purely because of FRU. They want to maintain the design philosophy of being able to clear anything with any party comp, which is an unnecessary constraint on what is supposed to be the most challenging content in the game. It is not too much to ask of players to pick the best jobs to complete the hardest content.

Additionally, it is a choice to design the fight in such a way that Picto was able to paint so much during downtime. If you design your fight around the strengths of a job, then you should be prepared to accept the consequences of doing that. If you don't want jobs that benefit from downtime to be wildly overpowered in a fight, then stop putting so much downtime in the Ultimate fights, or prevent the use of actions during some segments of downtime.

[Sequora]

We shouldn’t be balancing an entire job around a single fight that less than 1% of players will even attempt… let alone clear.

Also how short sighted of them to essentially rework the job half way through an expansion.