Job feedback [pre-8.0 megathread]

[Zairava]

Starting this thread since right now we're in the best time to start putting your feedback regarding jobs, whether it's on an individual job or a bunch or the role itself. The dev team is probably already starting to plan out changes for them for 8.0

Don't be silent about it. It's only been on fringe cases or knee-jerk reactions that they've made heavy modifications to jobs mid-expansion.

Even if you're generally in the silent majority, or a resident lurker here. I encourage you to post your thoughts.

If they actually are going to make big changes to them to move forward with giving each of them individuality, they need it.

Post your thoughts about jobs and/or roles here.

Regardless of if some people on here like to spout that CBU3 don't read these forums or whatever, post it. It's better to have at least tried than not at all.

Disregard "oh but this would pull people away..." There's a plethora of jobs for people to choose from. If a certain job doesn't appeal to them, that's fine. Not everyone has to like every single job.

I want to see the game have a comeback regarding job design and have it be as good if not better than it was before.

Be passionate but have respectful discourse. Try to keep your posts organized as needed so it's easier to parse. There are a lot of jobs, after all. (and likely 1 or 2 more coming with 8.0)

[Daralii]

Gunbreaker, Dark Knight, and Dragoon:

- Delete the new gap closers and bring back Rough Divide, Plunge, and Spineshatter Dive. Remove the damage component, add a minimum range qualifier, do whatever seems necessary to prevent them from being used as oGCDs(even if I'm personally in favor of allowing that choice), but bring back the more fun abilities that felt satisfying, better fit the job fantasies, and looked good.

[ty_taurus]

In Endwalker, Sage was added as effectively a completely new job concept alongside Reaper, yet it has failed to live up to the job fantasy it was given. In its teaser debut, Sage was described as a barrier healer with an emphasis on DPS and a response to the ongoing requests for more DPS spells on healers in Shadowbringers. To compliment this idea, Sage would also be able to provide healing through its DPS, yet the execution of this concept in PVE has failed to stand out against its alternative barrier healer--Scholar. It's only in PVP where the job fantasy of Sage has any tangible presence in the job's gameplay.

The Issues

DPS
Sage's DPS kit is as painfully shallow as the rest of the healers' DPS dominated almost entirely by spamming Dosis which was the main point of contention that Sage was supposedly trying to correct. A 40 second GCD cooldown does not magically fix the issue of having almost nothing to cast most of the time, and Psyche has done nothing to change this either. The Addersting system is painfully mid as well. Toxikon is meant to be an uptime tool for casting on the move, but with the only method of generating more attached to GCD barriers--something a half-decent Sage rarely ever uses, it's an incredibly lackluster method of preserving uptime that fails to help diversify the sea of Dosis spam that Sage is otherwise saddled with. There is no universe in which this is an adequate play style for the people begging for more DPS options on healers.

Healing
Sage has two very ownable and interesting methods of healing. Kardia which sets a semi-permanent target to receive healing with every attack spell Sage casts, and Eukrasia which changes various GCD spells into different spells. Unfortunately, Kardia is an entirely passive system, and Eukrasia's augments are outclassed by OGCD healing. Both are greatly overshadowed by Addersgall, which is nearly a 1:1 copy-paste of Scholar's Aetherflow. So rather than heal with its own unique healing style, Sage often feels like a watered down Scholar with less nuance.

The Solutions

DPS
Sage needs to level up its DPS arsenal. It should feel more like a mini-DPS that also heals. That was the entire point of releasing Sage to begin with, so it baffles me why it does almost nothing to differentiate itself from the other healer's painfully dull DPS gameplay. Make Sage feel like a caster DPS lite. Take inspiration from Red Mage and/or Pictomancer if you have to. Diet Red Mage or Diet Pictomancer with added healing, if you will. Rework how Addersting is generated and/or what it's spent on. Give Sage more regular spells to cycle through as something that isn't just a generic combo.

Healing
Sage's main methods of healing should be redirected to center around Kardia and Eukrasia. These should be my go-to, most optimal methods of healing anytime the party takes a raidwide hit. Other actions should be supplementary and exist to support Kardia and Eukrasia when they aren't enough, such as tighter healing checks in Savage or when your party messes up. Consider reworking what Addersgall is spent on. Instead of Aetherflow reskins, why not spend it on actions like Soteria and an actual Pankardia that triggers off your DPS? Make it support Kardia healing rather than replace it.

The TLDR
Sage was sold as a DPS-focused healer, but its DPS is no different than the other healers, is severely boring and fails to live up to the exciting expectations of an attack-based gundam healer. And the token healing methods associated with Sage are greatly outclassed by boring reskins of Scholar healing. These need to be changed going into 8.0 so that Sage can live up to the job fantasy that it was assigned, but failed to live up to.

[Raikai]

The aiming group needs a technical reason to exist other than an 1% party composition buff. Catering below with the copium that they won't ever let the 2min meta go:

- The aiming group (as well as SMN and RDM) need their Rdps gap a bit narrowed with the 'upper elites', and that should be achieved by increasing the 'outsourced dps' even more, in case of Phys Ranged.

- They simply can't properly balance MCH with the other aiming jobs being a selfish dpser. If they buff its personal dps too much, the others are outclassed. If stand as it is, MCH is the one eating the dust, because even if they reach a numerical parity on paper, stat scaling will always benefit the buffers above. Add a dps% contribution to this job as well, more specifically as debuffing the enemy for damage taken.

- Add more agency to the aiming jobs as 'healer helpers'. Not by removing all mitigation from healers, but more like reducing the recast timers of the utility that Aiming jobs can have. Make it so that they have something to help with almost every other raidwide or tankbuster. I'd even go further down on the rabbit hole and remove Addle/Feint functionalities from the other DPSers and make them Physical Ranged responsibilities. Buff/give something new to casters and melee's personal utility actions to make up for this loss.

- Last, but not least, make whatever buff scaling there is in Criterion dungeons to other Light Party content, to make up for the lack of 4 extra people benefitting from the buffs. In DNC's personal case, give a "Closed Position II" which is a self buff to make the Dancer's personal dps a bit stronger, to make up for the lack of a partner, so the job doesn't feel as bad to play solo.

[Kozh]

+1 on making Sage a Caster DPS lite. If GNB can be DPS tank, why can't Sage get the same treatment?
For crowds who dislike DPS healer, there are still 3 other healer jobs to play with, so it's fair.

[Aco505]

For DRG, I've given recent feedback here.

There's also plenty of posts and feedback in the DPS subforum such as these two.

But essentially, to me what they must do is focus and expand on the aesthetic (jumps, dragon powers, flashy and acrobatic spear animations) and functional (oGCD management and animation locks, long looping GCD string, line attacks, gauge management and positionals) themes instead of eroding and reducing them. For instance, Stardiver should keep its animation lock as is but deal more damage than other oGCDs as a result of its single weave nature. This should be implemented harmoniously with whatever theoretical big changes that may be introduced in 8.0.

Job rotation design should also follow the "low skill floor, high skill ceiling" mindset.

Finally, more damage profiles for jobs: not all of them need to solely focus on 2-minute bursts. In addition, improve the filler of jobs so that they're not all so empty. Some jobs can keep such fillers if it fits their theme but it shouldn't be the majority.

[Altina_Orion]

Gunbreaker, Dark Knight, and Dragoon:

- Delete the new gap closers and bring back Rough Divide, Plunge, and Spineshatter Dive. Remove the damage component, add a minimum range qualifier, do whatever seems necessary to prevent them from being used as oGCDs(even if I'm personally in favor of allowing that choice), but bring back the more fun abilities that felt satisfying, better fit the job fantasies, and looked good.

Are we really talking about the animation of abilities? You are talking about a change that is functionally nothing.

[Asari5]

For DRG, what they must do is focus and expand on the aesthetic (jumps, dragon powers, flashy and acrobatic spear animations) and functional (oGCD management and animation locks, long looping GCD string, line attacks, gauge management and positionals) themes instead of eroding and reducing them. For instance, Stardiver should keep its animation lock

pretty much this.
yes including positionals. its a melee mechanic. yeah some people dont like them and thats alright. sometimes there are bosses you can only hit like 99% of them. thats also alright. and sometimew there are wallbosses who dont need positionals thats alright too.
but since we have 6! melees there should be differences. should there be a melee without any positional? YES absolutely. give people who dont like positionals the choice to play a melee without positionals.
but also give people who like positionals the choice to have a lot of them. give monk all positionals back!
also give dragoon the lost positional back. as it is now with only one position change every five globals it feels annoyingly pointless.

what was an amazing mechanic related to positionals was back in ShB when you had to hit your last positional to be able to use an upgraded skill to start your next combo. that was GREAT. bring it back pls it served as a reward to do positionals but also as confirmation that you did them successfully. two very important points in good gamedesign.

a confirmation effect should be added to every positional btw. i dont get how that is not a thing. a weak light effect and a soft sound should already be enough.

one thing i wanna say is: i love reapers positional design. (dont make copy paste on it for every job though) it has them but you have a little bit of room when to use these skills. its good to have differences between jobs.


and another thing: its GOOD to not have an 100% uptime as a melee. its what differentiats us from ranged jobs. wanna have 100% uptime? play bard!


as a mainly melee player i say we need more friction and limitations. there is no point in melees if you just can hit from everywhere

[Shistar]

AST: I'd love to see a return of AST's sects. Being able to swap from regen to barrier almost on-demand made it great for casual content and made them more flexible when setting up statics or tackling different difficulties.
I personally like the card groups as they are now, but for those who like RNG, I wouldn't be against them adding a "Shuffle" skill that rearranges your card groups with a long cooldown. Got a bad shuffle? You need to figure out how to make it work before the next burst is here. Got a good shuffle? Enjoy being lucky lol
I think people would stop using it once they get their desired group layout. Maybe giving the skill itself an extra benefit would encourage us to press it even if we already have the ideal card group layout. It'd be nice if you can use it after burst is over, so you can spend the time before the next burst setting up your deck, aligning your cards for the perfect burst, etc.


RPR: Can we please get more avatar interactions? I can't get over that this familiar is a literal person, we know about it, and we've never even tried to speak to the guy? He doesn't even idle or emote with us for /vpose and /bstance. I think the return of job quests (but only to unlock dyeable versions of the gear, please don't lock skills behind it D:!!) would be huge for these new jobs that barely get any lore, even in their sad 10 levels of catch-up job quests.


Please don't touch PLD.

[MetaBoi]

But essentially, to me what they must do is focus and expand on the aesthetic (jumps, dragon powers, flashy and acrobatic spear animations) and functional (oGCD management and animation locks, long looping GCD string, line attacks, gauge management and positionals) themes instead of eroding and reducing them. For instance, Stardiver should keep its animation lock as is but deal more damage than other oGCDs as a result of its single weave nature. This should be implemented harmoniously with whatever theoretical big changes that may be introduced in 8.0.

I was thinking along the same way. I feel like DRG should constantly feel busy. I've checked your suggestions, and I like it! GSK should turn back to 30 secs and MD should give eyes back. Instead of GSK constatly giving LoTD I think it can give BoTD for 10 secs when you have 0 or 1 eyes (Most of the oGCD's added after level 70 anyways so I don't think it would be a huge change) or LoTD when you have 2. BoTD can also give a lesser NST called Heska once. And maybe add a new action that gives one eye that shares CD with HJ so that DRG can get eyes when there are no enemeis.

Battle Litany giving TN and LS giving scales are awesome ideas!