Thread: Job feedback [pre-8.0 megathread]

Originally Posted by Mikey_R

You have quite literally proven the point I made in that post in that you aren't looking for differences. You have concentrated on what you think makes them the same and just rolled with it, and, in my opinion, failed at that. Bear in mind, I haven't said there shouldn't be more work, I just disagree with the premise that they are the same and does provide options for the Sage.

In your previous post, you implied that Sage's goal of being more DPS oriented is inherently successful because no other healer had an equivalent to Phlegma, Toxikon, or Pneuma. Saying that tools like Assize, Energy Drain, or Lord of Crowns are "equivalent" is slightly misleading based on what I'm equating them to, which I will expand on. I am not focused on equating their functionality. Rather, I am equating each healer's access to a variety of offensive tools in general--tools with a similar volume of usage. The problem that has been criticized for now 6 years is that so much of healer gameplay is completely dominated by just spamming Glare and waiting large swaths of time before you can do anything else. One 40 second GCD nuke does not magically resolve that issue, and both Toxikon and Pneuma fail far worse at alleviating the issue. Pneuma is not a DPS tool. It is a burst healing tool. Toxikon has horrible optimization, and you often get only 3 uses of it across an entire fight because GCD barriers are Sage's last desperate act of survival, not their primary method of healing.

What I need is active gameplay that keeps me cycling through a modest, yet interesting selection of spells that are always applicable no matter how simple or easy the content gets. What I don't need is a commercial break between every transient heartbeat of gameplay that reminds my brain that I'm actually supposed to be having fun, and not roleplaying as a laser hair removal technician getting Barbara's legs ready for swimsuit season.

Some of the most fun I have playing Red Mage comes from clutch situations, like when I need to chain rez or when there's a big hit coming and I've got both Addle and Magic Barrier up to help (I love that the latter buffs healing too!).

With things like Phantom Jobs, I love the synergy buff and debuff spells have with Dualcast.

Back when Manashift was a thing, I liked balancing how much mp I expected to need against how often I thought I could realistically share it with the Healers.

I say all of that to say that I'd love more party support tools. Not even necessarily ones that need to get a lot of use, just more options to use. Some could be ogcd, but it'd be neat if others needed Dualcast as well. I like the feeling Red Mage can have where you're juggling priorities and not all of them are necessarily "make number go big". It's the top priority sure, but you can have more going on depending on the situation and that's pretty fun. Like the general expectation would still be "be greedy, do big dps" but skill expression could become how well you can do that while also supporting your team in niche scenarios you have a solution for.

I see FF11's Red Mage and the buffs/debuffs they get and while the battle systems are pretty different between games, it definitely looks fun and I think we could have just a tiny bit more of that over here.

Alright, I will politely give my feedback.

Tanks:
Well, they're boring. I think WAR's braindead design is fun, but tbh they should just make everything hit harder to compensate for it and put the other tanks on an even playing field in terms of sustain. But then the people who unironically find DT dungeons hard already would riot.

So yeah.

WAR: Cut down on the heals or make them a tradeoff for DPS to bring back some of the energy that aggro combo vs dps combo had. Actually, bring aggro management back, lol.

DRK: It's honestly okay, Dark Arts sucked anyway. But it is just a glorified WAR clone. I think the defensive kit needs some work, tbh, to be made interesting. Same for the main combo. Make Darkside matter again?

PLD: I mean, it is less clunky now. That's nice. I still think we should remove Clemency for the game. Or better, make it an oGCD that shares its CD with a DPS skill. That'd be great. Combos remain boring but at least they're pretty now?

GNB: I mean, I'm sure GNB mains are more educated on this than me, but I had the impression it got dumbed down as well? Regardless, I think the defensive kit is okay at least.

Also, please put all invulns on the same unlock level, this is silly.

Healers:
Just need a complete rework. Or a safety reboot from the state pre-ShB. Seriously. In detail:

WHM: Was always rather simplistic. Won't get better any time soon unless we remove Cure I from the game (have Cure I upgrade into it) and give all healers a sensible DPS kit that also lets them heal from doing their rotation correctly.

SCH: Bane, Shadowflare, Miasma. That's a full sentence. Seriously, it's silly how hard this class was neutered. If button bloat is a concern, make Deployment Tactics work like PvP where it spreads dots OR shields.

AST: I think current AST is a step up from EW AST, but that ain't hard. It's honestly okay. But it also needs more dps going on. Like, a rotation, at all, that rewards you with free heals for not sucking at the game.

SGE: Man, Kardia was the right track but I s2g it'd be that much better if there was actually a DPS rotation to go with it. Also the fact that you have to mindlessly overheal to generate MP in a lot of content is silly. Maybe consider making MP generation also be awarded from doing your rotation correctly.

aaand I hit character limit

Physical ranged: Partial rework.
First off, the DMG values are entirely off. It should be MCH > BRD > DNC. It's dumb that MCH, a job that brings no utility whatsoever, is the worst DPS.

BRD: Dot spread? I am begging you? Multi-dotting is a DPS loss half the time. It shouldn't be. Also, make all songs do something reasonable, and not just WM and MB. Also also, if BRD is gonna have a cleanse, maybe have the cleanse be useful in different ways as well. Like idk, 1% dmg buff.

DNC: It's an okay job, low skill floor + medium ceiling. But it shouldn't do more DPS than MCH.

MCH: If you're gonna have 3 oGCDs that do the same thing qith different animations, maybe actually don't. If MCH is to stay a pure DPS, it needs a rework and also needs to actually do damage.

Melees:
Oh boy. Uhm. Where do I even start?

RPR: Please make this an actual job. Why is it so damn free? Like I get it, it has some utility, but it isn't...it just isn't great, man. Some depth to the rotation would be fire.

SAM: I'd say bring back Kaiten, but I honestly don't actually care that much. But like, bringing back Kaiten would help, y'know?

NIN: I miss Huton management. So much. But that aside, NIN is NIN. The average player already sucks at it anyway. It's fine. I think Dokumori should work on EX trial drops. I know this is Very silly because it'd make NIN mandatory, but that's why it's modtly a joke.

MNK: I mean, it could be so much worse, I guess. The class is actually intelligible for once. But I don't think MNK mains wanted that.

VPR: Those tooltips are a disgusting janky mess, and the job is currently overtuned for AoE. Nobody is surprised.

DRG: Bring back Nastrond, I am begging you. All charges of it, that is.

And like, adjust the DPS curve please. Double VPR being actually viable in M6S is stupid.

And finally, casters. Honestly, it's a fucking mess. Here we go:

BLM: De-dumb it halfway. Give us timers back, but make them not run out when out of combat. It'll be great.

RDM: Should be the lowest DPS caster. I don't know why it isn't with Verraise in its kit. It's kind of dumb.

SMN: Honestly, the utility is fine. It can be second worst after RDM. But it needs a rotation. We have the Ramuh Egi model. We have a lot of things. Make it an actual choice. Like Ramuh vs. Leviathan, Garuda vs. Ifrit, Titan vs. the Moogle. And of course, Bahamut vs. Phoenix. That would easily make it a better job.

PCT: Hammer needs to be a gain on one. That's it, that's the take. Not a high gain btw. Just. A gain. Also, it needs to do less DPS than BLM and more than SMN.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

P.S. Give BLU LB3 based on the role copied so we can actually do WoL EX. And maybe Ultimates if they ever wanna rebalance for that.