Things are a Bit Unbalanced... But Does it Really Matter THAT Much? FFXIV

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

I got the impression that I may have missed the mark a bit with this video, but also perhaps that my intentions were misunderstood as well. As it stands right now, while Pictomancer is really REALLY strong in FRU, and indeed, at the top in savage content as well, *one* of these things can be resolved with a reasonable potency nerf, the other cannot. The primary reason why Pictomancer is so crazy in FRU is thanks to its downtime advantages as far as I know, and as many of us saw coming, essentially months ago, a new ultimate with a lot of downtime would absolutely cause this to be a problem. Just nerfing potencies on Pictomancer to get it "in line" will either "not be enough" to "fix it" in FRU, or will make Pictomancer essentially the job you bring to beat Ultimates, and is excluded otherwise. Whatever the case, my experience of the discussion about Pictomancer's advantage in Dawntrail in general, feels consistently exaggerated, yes it is really strong, but it is yet still not mandatory to use it. One part of my intention with this video was to try and shine a light on the fact pictomancers performance maybe is a bit exaggerated, and that people are choosing to not give other jobs a chance, just because it is easier to do that, and to try to shine a bit of a light on the fact that maybe the other jobs have more in them, that they just don't get to show because of this super focus on Pictomancer. But I understand this was not the way it was received. Last time I recall a job had a devastating mismatch with content, was in Endwalker, when Paladin had some issues keeping up (rather than being too far ahead), and after it received buff after buff to its burst (which ultimately was awkward to fit inside raid buffs anyway), the job was suddenly reworked. From the pictomancer players that recognize that this current imbalance IS a problem, I have heard a lot of concerns, not so much about being put back in line, but rather, that with how extreme the discussion is, pictomancer might not survive this in the way we know it. By which I mean, it might get reworked - easiest solution to make it not break ultimates anymore. Or it might get so severely nerfed that it essentially switches place with summoner, which is the job at present which is being excluded the most. (Which is also a problem) These things are also part of the reasons why I tried to approach the discussion with a bit more of a lean towards defending pictomancer rather than attacking it. Anyway, totally fair that we might disagree, and I also understand that the players maining the jobs that, in a weird way, pictomancer is stealing the spotlight and seats from, would be entirely against even suggesting that Pictomancer isn't as busted as the slight exaggerations suggest they are.

[@jespersamuelsson5507]

One of the issues with this video is that you even look at the world racers. And come to the conclusion that it aint that bad cause RDM is also there. But you fail to see that PCT was in every single of the 60 first clears (which I dont think have been the case for any job ever before). And when progging FRU and you get to P5 having a PCT allows you to have several deaths and damage downs which you would not be allowed to have with any other composition.. Bringing a PCT allows you to play sloppy and still make the dps Checks. Also the whole Pictomancer thing has just irritated high end raiders as a whole this entire expansion, and SE is REFUSING to nerf it. It is the best in uptime fights, and it also has the best tools for downtime making it even more oppressive in Downtime fights. PCT alone have ruined every single Ultimate from FRU to previous expansions, not just by its own damage, but also because now SE are trying to buff every other single job up to PCT level which drastically increase dps and causing Damage inflation. Going into DSR or Top with a PCT, there is no dps checks anymore and you phase to new phases so much earlier than with any other job. And BLM just has never been a good job to bring to parse runs ever, since the meta in parse runs is to bring buff jobs or jobs with a damage profile with alot of damage in 2 minutes, which BLM doesnt qualify for either. Meanwhile PCT exceed both in extreme regards, this is also why every single World prog group is bringing PCT, DRK, SCH, AST in every single group. If you do not see the issues with PCT and think the community are overreacting, you clearly have not looked enough

[@Brahmsonite]

I just saw a new video yesterday calling for PCT's deletion, so no it's not. And I thank you for defending my favorite Job.

[@TheKylern389]

I dont think you mention MCH eather as that class only 1 person out of everyone has cleard on MCH only one managed to meet the dps check of 28050dps in p5 witch is the last part as the party dps check for that phase is 177500dps that is every dps at 28k tanks at 17.5 to 18k healers at 13 to 16k.. edited from here to add this. keep in mind that alot of classes are carraying over gage abilitys from p4 and the phase only last 4min and 20 sek and it ends on a burst window

[@Scerttle]

@@Brahmsonite I saw the thumbnail too. What reactionary nonsense. I don't even care if it's just clickbait and the video is more nuanced. I'm not giving them the traffic.

[@Troselingasher]

You don't solve overreaction with reverse overreaction, you solve it with explaining how it actually is, and while it's great that you thought to try and reign in the zeitgeist about PCT it felt like reactive exaggeration, endwalker paladin's damage underperformace wasn't resolved by saying "no it's actually super strong so no need to exclude it from your group and actually you are just being influenced by the crowd if you do" it was resolved by looking at the truth of the matter and updating it's design

[@TheMountainLynx]

RDM doesn't get brought to prog for maximum damage. They get brought to prog for dualcast rezzing. That alone is enormously valuable when a group is unfamiliar with the fight. That extra little bit of group survivability while you're still learning the fight can carry you further than the difference in DPS ever would have.

[@agsdedluxferre2955]

Love Red mage is basically part healer making it my fav class next to whm for sure

[@shakeweller]

That is literally only relevant for the top 3 teams, everyone else has guides, raidplans and most importantly xivsim. In on patch ultimates the amount of extra phases a RDM or SMN res provides you is one in 100 pulls at best while picto gives the leeway of making dps checks with multiple deaths per phase. The only time a RDM can actually carry is the first 3 bosses of a savage tier that are so incredibly easy that no one cares about playing them correctly that it is simply more efficient to rezz through it rather than wasting more pulls on easy fights that no one cares about.

[@MofBal]

@@shakeweller That is straight up untrue. The existence of guides and sims doesn't automatically make people perfect at mechanics, otherwise you wouldn't see people dying to UR even though a sim exists for the mechanic. Human error is a thing, and being able to res on demand lightens the load significantly. If someone gets a damage down on an ultimate, having them wall and getting them up immediately for the next mechanic is significantly easier with a Red Mage and can reduce prog time by a lot. Seeing further into the fight more naturally leads to people learning faster. The only time RDM loses significant value is in fights where every mechanic is a body check, but FRU gives you so many opportunities to recover a pull that you will inevitably run into situations where RDM will help you see more of the fight. This also isn't strictly a RDM vs PCT argument. Double caster is incredibly strong currently, which is why you see a decent amount of groups choose to run RDM/PCT over double melee. I say this as someone currently progging FRU P5 with BRD VPR RDM PCT, Red Mage is incredibly valuable. Having cleared every other ultimate, the only one where I can see a case for RDM's res not being valuable is TOP due to being filled with body check, but even then if you NEED a PCT + double melee for that then it's simply a skill issue.

[@nazrynn3550]

Well as someone who has done a lot of FRU and cleared on pf, atm it’s is highly undesirable having anything other than a pictomancer in the caster slot, smn and rdm are fine as fake melee, but as solo casters pictomancer is unironically a better recovery job due to sheer damage alone and ability to push phases even with many mistakes done, kinda defeating the point of rez jobs. It is also very common to see mchs and these jobs locked out of parties due to how difficult in comparison it is to clear the encounter with them in comparison to other picks, so yeah while I agree job locking is cringe the balance issue does have an impact in high end community.

[@Diddz]

now we give dualcast raise to PCT and RDM will be thrown to the curb like MCH🤣

[@ashleybricco4107]

I’ve mained SMN since I started in Stormblood. The state of the job and the fact I only do pf means I basically can’t clear FRU as things are with the job I like playing. The technicalities don’t really matter; what matters is the general perception, because that determines whether or not jobs get locked out of pf (or at least aren’t desired).

[@axis1247]

My only personal issue with Picto is it does more damage than BLM, no job with any kind of party buff should do more (overall) damage than one without one. Itd be like if they added a new phys ranged with a party buff and it did more than machinist, whos only party buff is a defensive.

[@CeliLarsonient]

Well the issue there is that the Selfish DPS Jobs would need to do *so much more* personal DPS then the buffers that the issue switches from "Buffers are busted!" to "Buffers are useless!". That's not factually true, but I can easily say it would be people's reaction anyway.

[@tyro334]

This is also untrue I'm pretty sure? In terms of personal damage, Black Mage outperforms Pictomancer I believe.

[@SamoyedSagas]

​@@tyro334yeah but people have decided that with picto rDPS is the only thing that matters (because it's higher than BLM). Never saw anyone use rDPS in endwalker when comparing jobs, but oh well.

[@cablefeed3738]

​@@SamoyedSagas even in Rdps blackmage does more damage

[@MissSmoozie]

​@@cablefeed3738 Rdps ends up a poor metric though as it ignores how well PCT plays into buffs. While adps ignores that PCT brings a buff. Both also completely ignore that PCT is a top contender for dance partner, and completely unrivaled for Spear. Giving PCT Spear adds ~100 more DPS to your AST parse than a SMN which is your second best pick. There's a lot of small stuff in favour of PCT that the statistics don't show clearly until you start digging.

[@f1reman237]

Hello! I would like to give my take from a WF racer/Parser perspective, and from someone who has run PCT, BLM, and RDM in my FRU static. For the most part, yes, balance doesn't matter for Anything other than Savage/Ultimate, however, this imbalance has completely taken away something that a quite a few W1/WF raiders enjoy. The dps check. Yes, every content is balanced around being able to clear on all jobs, and it will likely always will be, but simply due to that, Pictomancer will forvever invalidate any meaningful dps check as long as it exists (Keep in mind, BLM does this too, and has done it ever since late Shadowbringers). The DPS gap between say, Picto and smn, means if the devs balance the check around SMN, then picto is going to blow through this dps check. we see this a LOT in P1 in FRU. If god forbid your running MCH/VPR, you will litterally barely kill before enrage, and might even have to start potting simply because the comps CD based burst, and ability to use downtime is awful. If you look at P1 statistics, They both do 12k less than PCT. 12 bloody k. If you were allowed to take 4 pictomancers, you wuld effectively get an extra entire dps player out of that. VPR is also one of the most popular melees right now, and is one of the main contributors to why people think they need a PCT, as you can physically feel the DPS check speed up. Secondly, there are some factors trhat make PCT just completely busted that you didnt cover. Firstly, It has basically every piece of toolkit a job could want. The best dash in the game, A 5% raidbuff, a 90s CD Mitigation (RDM"s is 120), and damage to boot. The less notable one, and often missed, is the fact that it feeds basically double, or even triple into raidbuffs than any other caster. Additionally, its native cleave is ridiculous. PCT is litterally able to singlehandedly make the bosses in P4 both hit 0%. it does 5k more dps than the next job. You've covered a lot of the reasons why picto is OP however (Downtime abuse, and such), but these still make picto broken, even if other jobs can clear. I have many first hand accounts of struggling groups having it miles easier in FRU when swapping to pictomancer. Some players rotational performance isn't perfect, and swapping just gives them way too much leway. Thirdly, on the topic of res. It really should just be removed from the game. With the exception of SOME of the WF teams (It was even heavily debatable if RDM was even necesary for them, but it is more effort to get those players to swap jobs, than to stay), Res on casters has mostly no benefit to most normal teams. you might save 1 pull out of 50, when both casters happen to die to say diamond dust slides, but most deaths in FRU are either unrecoverable wipes, or dont kill anyone, and just leave you with a DD that means you dont pass to the next phase. Whats the point of a res if my RDM has used it like, 4 times out of 200 pulls (our acctual current statistics). RDM and SMN, are unfairly taxed for a skill that is barely useful. The devs themselves even wanted to remove Res. WF raiders use RDM to see 5-10s more of mechanics in early pulls to see extra info. Not to acctually save pulls and continue the fight. Those 5-10s can be the equivalent to an extra pull as we have yet to acctually solve the mechanic. A normal team knows how the mechanics work. If someone dies, the pull is doomed. If 2 people die in a pull, its probabily a wipe. The only place thats recoverable is post diamond dust, and even then, a single healer can hard cast 2 people + swift, and everyone will be up in time for mirrors. I have been a strong advocate for the buffing of RDM/SMN dps, and for res to be locked out in savage/ult content for a long time. Additionally, you might say its possible to clear on RDM, or other casters, but the incentive isn't there. at present, picto has the most FRU clears by a mile. 1326 vs the next best RDM with 142. MCH has more clears than any other caster. If that isn't itself proof of how much easier it is to clear on PCT than other jobs, i dont know what else is. Now, what are changes we can acctually make to the jobs? Firstly... Changes to pictomancer: PCT should likely have its raidbuff brought down to 3%. This is the easiest, and least destructive way of toning back some of its burst potential. additionally, some of the potency from skills like starprism, and Rainbow drip should be moved into the RGB combo, reducing PCT's insane in burst potency. Thirdly, if Creature muse is casted without a target, it does 500 less potency. This tones back on PCT's insane downtime potential, gaining effectively 12s of uptime every single downtime phase. Changes to other jobs: MCH, VPR, and RPR IMO are the classes that need the closest eye. They need a proper downtime tool, that lets them build Gauge while the boss is untargetable. As it stands, they are the most impacted by downtime negatively, unable to build enough gauge in order to output proper DPS. Their base filler combos are too strong in terms of average GCD potency for them to benefit from downtime. RPR's average GCD potency is 670 excluding CDs. Ninj'as in comparison is 470. Some jobs, Like ninja, dont need a downtime tool, due to how powerful their burst is, and the fact that all their damage is on CDs. The one job i am worried about though is summoner, being a CD relaint job, but also having an incredibly strong filler. Primal Rushing does help it, but its unclear with the current balancing if it needs anything. Also, Phys ranged needs to be fixed too, but thats its own discussion. The truth is, that you shouldnt even be running a phys ranged rn. Double melee Picto BLM is just that strong. You dont see it in parses as nonstandard runs are invalidated, but its damage output is stupidly insane. Theres also a difference between "every job can clear" and "Picto is near mandatory". Both can be true at the same time. You mentioned double caster, but that doesn't make picto not OP because you can sneak another job into a party with a pictomancer. Additionally, we have double melee and double caster clears, but where are the double phys ranged. And before you say picto nerfs could drastically change FRU balance, i mean sure, but it will still be clearable, just as RDM and SMN are right now?

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

Thank you for the very detailed and thought out explanation and perspective. The two things that stand out in particular to me is the part about res and how you would reign in pictomancer, it is a lot more grounded and reasonable than many takes I've gotten. To start with the res part, I imagine part of the reason why the devs might feel a bit stuck, despite having openly stated their desire to remove caster res, is how appreciated it is outside of cutting edge savage and ultimate. My thought process on this is whether there is a way to prevent red mages (and summoners) from having their res in the hardest content, without them being unfairly advantageous in other content due to balance possibly not needing to consider the res utility in the first place. I had no idea how to do this, without it feeling weirdly mechanically broken in some way. On the pictomancer thing, yes, nerfing the raid buff is a great start. Moving potency from the burst to the filler is also a great idea, as it can still allow pictomancer to work the way it does without being busted. The idea with reducing the power of living muses if it was drawn without a target is actually very thematically interesting: the motif is worse because you didn't have proper inspiration to draw from without an enemy target. I'm not sliding past the rest of your points, I did read them, but they are things that I agree with as they are. For example, a concern I definitely also have is about ranged physical. I just didn't even think about it as much in the context of the discussion because it felt like we already had this problem rear it's head at the start of dawntrail, so it almost felt separate from the pictomancer problem in my mind! 😅

[@cablefeed3738]

I don't care what anyone says. I like red Mage for its Rez as well as other things. Why does everyone wanna keep taking it from me? As if they're want for summoner, to be more powerful means, I have to lose what I like, leave my rez Alone

[@MissSmoozie]

​​​@@CaetsuChaijiCh I feel Criterion has solved the ress issue already to be honest. They could just make it so synced savage without echo and all ultimates disables non-healers from raising. The other alternative is moving the entire ress tax into having used your SMN/RDM raise. The issue here is that it's unfun, RDM having their damage/mana fucked from raising feels bad, and the recipient in a chain ress situation feel shit it they have to eat a 4k adps tax because the RDM and not a healer raised *them*. It also kinda have to go on the RDM/SMN or you'll just have the RDM pick the least punished job(s) forcing the tax to be a crippling % when it goes on a DPS.

[@Daltheer]

As a caster main myself who likes to push the boundaries of my personal skill level whose static progresses the savage tier at a bit more of a casual pace, I can offer some thoughts on the matter of my own. If we ignore personal preference as a factor when choosing jobs, as after all this is the more important choice than performance, then we are left with some highlights for each caster: -Pictomancer brings strong DPS and has good utility to back it up. This actually allows strong groups to perform even stronger vs a Black Mage, for example, as the buff stacking will be of more benefit overall, generally. -Black Mage brings very strong DPS with only really Addle to help the group as a whole out. Black Mages tend to stand out as better in some raid statistics for the same reason Samurais and Vipers do as they are not reliant on the group to get the most out of stats like rDPS relies on. A high skill level Black Mage can offset a low performing group's damage enough that they could beat an enrage over a high skill Pictomancer being in that slot that could not beat an enrage. -Red Mages are called Prog Mages for a reason. Between Addle, Magic Barrier, and the ever-famous Ver-Raise, their raid utility is very high alongside their 2-minute button that allows them to boost the other members of their party. A pull that may have otherwise been a wipe due to an upcoming body check can be avoided with a quick-thinking Red Mage while allowing their healers to simultaneously heal the raid without needing to concern themselves so much about getting raises going. -These three casters have their own sort of balance in most content simply due to what their strong points are as listed above. Summoner, however, suffers compared to the other casters. Having the same DPS tax as Red Mage due to having a Raise but can only raise at the same rate as healers, losing much more damage as a group than a healer would in raising a downed party member. They also lack a good raid utility similar to Magic Barrier or Tempura Grassa, instead having passive utility as part of their rotation in Phoenix's HoT while active, which actually got worse in Dawntrail due to the addition of Solar Bahamut thereby taking longer between. Realistically, Summoner is the only "unbalanced" caster in the vast majority of content. However, many of these points become smaller when taken in context for Ultimates, as most Ultimates have portions of downtime where Pictomancer is allowed to shine more than any other job in the game due to its rotation being based on burst damage. It is this reason that some casters have lamented Pictomancer being "overpowered", as this was a factor even in previous Ultimates before Futures Rewritten.

[@Water-vk1vs]

Everyone sees picto at the top of fru and goes into a frenzy without realizing its an encounter design issue

[@shooterperson]

Funny thing about picto balance and how it affects static comps. I heard the argument that if it does more damage than melee, why would anyone take a second melee? Which is hilarious because that’s what my FRU static is doing and we can hold bursts pretty comfortably. Edit: DPS comp is blm, pic, sam, and dnc as fake melee

[@Naoto-kun1085]

I feel like expecting perfect balance across all jobs is what leads to "homogenization" that people complain about, but if we want more unique job identity then we should expect that not all jobs will be equal! And I think that's fine, not all jobs need to perform the same as long as it's possible to clear the content!

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

That is exactly it. It will be impossible to get perfect balance, without all the jobs getting more and more similar. Even if all jobs did the same dps, we would have other things that make one job better or worse. And the closer the balance comes, the more people zoom in to see there is a difference 😰

[@m0fn668]

I remember back in HW when you could notice a massive difference in AoE damage in dungeons if a BLM or SMN would be in your party - but it wasn't about "BLM OP", it was more of a "whoa look at tham pretty explosions :D" kinda vibe. Nobody hated it when no mage joined a queue, it was more of a cool thing when it happened. Same with single target DPS of decent melee players - bosses just melted and you skip phases, but it's not a big deal when that didn't happen due to having 2 MCH in your lil party today.

[@shadowthehedgehog181]

"No SAM MCH SMN or SGE in our party, please!" 😢

[@TactiSmolKoko]

people in the community used to preach "you can clear on every job" abyssos and now FRU basically destroyed that perception

[@CarToOxX]

Agree on some point but not rly. If a job that abuse downtime is the best even if there is no downtime you can balance the the job to underperform a bit with full uptime and overperform when there are downtimes. You can have an average balance with job identity, but you cant have balance in all situations without homogeneisation

[@siosilvar]

After 7.1, everything is close enough that regular damage variance, let alone crit variance, makes more difference than picking one melee/PCT/BLM over another (assuming equal skill on each). My only real concerns are ones that affect PF: - PCT is mandatory for FRU - ranged tax is *very close* to what their party bonus provides, and there's a possible future where people start deciding to ditch rphys for a PCT/BLM even though it throws away the most consistent role for the *possibility* of everyone purple parsing and having more total DPS

[@FutayuriShironeko]

Ranged tax, makes phys ranged a dead role. Best balanced dps comps (2/2) are double melee/double caster. Phys ranged not in sight. Blessing and curse for Phys ranged is that with Picto in the group Phys ranged over taxxed low dps doesn't matter. However picto being so far ahead, makes phys ranged shit and not needed for 1%.

[@cablefeed3738]

Sorry, no, the 1% still covers more. Then what you gain from having no ranged job

[@shakeweller]

​@@cablefeed3738Not true at all.

[@MissSmoozie]

@@shakeweller Looking at current speeds, to replace BRD with BLM for a gain in the NIN/DRG/PCT/BRD/DRK/DRK/SCH/AST cop you need a BLM pushing something in the realm of 32.9k adps and 30.5k rdps. There's probably multiple sweetspots where you can remove e.g. MCH for a gain, but those are all irrelevant as swapping to BRD or DNC would already be a massive gain.

[@yabiyabi]

I am so tired of pictomancers-only recruitments in PF, the boss dies too quick in P1 and as a reaper a pictomancer is horrible feeling from p1 .... if the boss dies too quick my gauge is screwed + burst for the rest of the fight causes many enrages (WITH the pictomancer). I ask in PF for the pictomancer to please calm their DPS down in P1 so we can burst at normal time and fill the LB3 before 2.5 in case somebody makes a mistake. (This is a PF and cannot expect to run perfect)

[@vagabondstars]

this may be partly my social circles but in my experience i've seen more concern over the state of SMN compared to PCT than RDM -- RDM is in a great spot right now and fills a niche that isn't stepped on by PCT being stronger, but SMN is a more direct competitor to PCT: they both have a raw damage party buff, a party-wide heal during burst, a personal shield and freedom of movement. looking at just ults because that's what i've been running lately, every single SMN main i know has swapped to PCT because it offers The Exact Same Utility (sans res but if you're relying on SMN res then things are dire anyway) while doing SO much more damage AND being significantly more fulfilling to actually *play*. the main concern (at least in my social circles) is that there was a promise to bring other DPS closer in line with PCT but in the patch that was supposed to do that SMN got... a bug fix, and nothing else, and they've been stuck with that bug since DT came out (the potencies on ACN pets being reflected incorrectly in both damage and healing outputs). the last time i checked, a few days ago, there were 3 total logged FRU clears that included a SMN but NOT a PCT. all the jobs are fine in savage and EX, since they're full uptime encounters and PCT damage can be brushed off as just being a little silly but the gap is so wide in ultimates currently that PCT is all but REQUIRED in FRU right now, which feels especially bad for the SMN players specifically because they're the first ones to get locked out of content since they're the weakest caster at the moment. the fact that PCT can fully utilize downtime to come in blazing the second they get uptime but SMN could be screwed into being stuck in Phoenix for burst with the wrong timing going into downtime is just icing on the cake for how bad SMN feels in comparison tldr; PCT is "anything you can do, i can do better" to specifically SMN rather than RDM, which is where i think the main concern actually lies for a lot of casters (from my experience). for a double-caster comp PCT/RDM is the PREFERRED option even, because RDM fills a niche that no other casters do (extra mit, healer buff, and the aggressive res) edit: another huge concern with PCT is its effect on phys ranged! DNC scales so incredibly hard with one single very strong dance partner it's almost pointless to take a different phys, BRD's damage gets completely screwed over if the party's PCT dies because of the % total damage the PCT is contributing, and MCH is so weak on its own there's almost no reason to bring it anyway and it serves nothing to PCT. the average damage of phys ranged jobs is actually low enough now that it's MORE effective to take 2 melee, a PCT, and a RDM because PCT on its own makes up the 1% difference in damage that a phys ranged contributes. PCT's balance concerns come from WAY more places than just RDM's performance in comparison.

[@Brahmsonite]

For sure. PCT is fun and a bit too strong. SMN is boring af and (probably) a bit weak. I didn't even play SMN this expac (leveling by SCH) because Bahamut Reskin adds nothing and fixes nothing.

[@vagabondstars]

@@Brahmsonite I've played SMN off an on in all levels of content this expac and yeah, Solar Baha adds nothing... the party heal on it goes wasted more often than not because while it's very strong it's just not needed in most scenarios and can only be held for 30 seconds (though PCT has this too, with Star Prism, but Star Prism does a metric ton of damage while Lux Solaris does literally none). it just makes SMN players question why they'd even bother playing the more boring, statistically worse job if PCT does the exact same things but better

[@hallowedgrave2360]

In my circles nobody talks about SMN, they don't consider it as a viable job at the moment. I main caster (mostly blm, rdm), and did some SMN last expac but after seeing what they 'got' this expansion I just disregarded the job and don't consider it an option at the moment. SMN was barely alright to play last expansion, but most people around me thought they'd do something interesting with it. But they did the most uninteresting thing possible with it and completely gutted my desire to ever play that job.

[@vagabondstars]

@@hallowedgrave2360 this is exactly it, it’s just not as good or fun so everyone who used to play it has moved to greener pastures and that’s where a lot of balancing concern comes from, especially since in this game all jobs are supposed to be viable for all content. It just makes no sense for a caster player to choose to play SMN instead of PCT when PCT is just better in every way while filling the same role in the party’s utility, even the most diehard SMN players I know moved on to PCT or RDM this expac after being let down on the kit

[@hallowedgrave2360]

@@vagabondstars Picto is very oppressing for the caster meta. As well as some casters being quite literally left behind. Currently progging FRU on ninja because we already had a picto and I started on BLM. I don't play ninja, had not played it since I leveled it to max, but 1 pull in the group was suddenly holding on all phases. Buff heavy comp + picto = easy DPS checks. SMN, looking at the stats, probably feels even worse to play than BLM. The one good thing is that you maybe can res someone.

[@XNecroEyesX]

The big issue is ultimate prog where having picto or not makes the dps check go from ultra sweaty to quite managable even with a death wich also leads to more liberale pot timings and way more choice on the other jobs brought. Ofc many ppl complaining dont even deal with this issue but the core problem still persists

[@Nazuiko]

For reference: 1.26% higher group DPS turns an 8min 51 second kill time into 8min 44s. That doesnt sound like much, but it is about 3 GCDs worth of time; The total damage difference comes out to 1,086,760 more - and thats a sub 9 minute kill time. in a fight like say, p8s, you'd have that much damage in *both* phase 1 and 2. Especially given how much time P8s' second phase spends untargetable. That is an extra Melee LB3 *and change*, for free, without actually using up 8s+ of the melee's rotation Part of the reason complaints are so loud at the moment is, yes, Ultimate, but also being a bit spoiled by having such TIGHT balancing historically. Should Red Mage have more DPS? Yes, I think it should. Should Pictomancer have less? Maybe, maybe not. Overall DPS being so high is less of a problem than its obscenely high burst, which as you mentioned is intended to be balanced out by spending so much time not attacking (4 seconds of 0 Potency + 6 seconds of 1200 potency is only 360 potency per second, or 900 per average GCD) but perhaps the numbers are a bit too high, and the filler numbers too low.

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

That time comparison is quite interesting and does explain a lot I think! 😊 Thank you!

[@purplefreedom1631]

It's the difference between skiprise and doing sunrise... lock it to PCT and save yourself the trouble

[@komurmaldeb]

To be perfectly honest "spoiled by having such tight balancing historically" seems a little bit like rewriting history. My memory of Endwalker was people saying 'man this dps check isn't tight' in Asphodelos, followed by 'oh my god p8s is way too tight' in Abyssos, followed by 'man this dps check isn't tight' in Anabaseios. Like, generally I have a hard time being concerned by the variance of pictomancer when I either see people saying that DPS checks are lax (which they likely are deliberately so that we don't actually run into issues where jobs are nonviable), or people complaining the moment a check starts approaching the level of tightness that might cause a problem. Yes, pictomancer brings more damage, but I really don't think that the historical state of Endwalker supports the idea that as it currently stands it's actually an issue in terms of job viability. That's not to say that players in-game won't make it an issue by locking slots, but that's... more an issue of player perception, which really is what all this comes down to in the end.

[@purplefreedom1631]

@@komurmaldeb player perceptions only go so far... when you have 1297 PCTs clear FRU vs only 44 SMNs, 139 RDMs, and 73 BLMs... there's a problem and it's not perception.

[@FloatingGhost]

hm, this one feels like it's technically correct in the context of savage, but less so in ultimate. the core difference isn't actually downtime, but the frequency of DPS checks - every single phase in an ultimate comes with a DPS check, and every second of leeway you can give yourself against that to guard against shakies ruining your rotation, or someone making a mistake is very important. to put it into perspective, the difference between enraging in phase 1 and clearing with a few seconds to spare is only a few hundred cdps, due to how short phases are. this is the true balance issue, and why picto is genuinely a lockin for FRU. having that extra little bit of cdps allows a damage down to not be a instant fail state to the next enrage the community does read a little too much into it though and locks out "low damage" classes like mch and vpr, when a competently played one of either can comfortably meet checks (we've been running vpr/mch without issue) then again the picto's extra little bit of damage allows people to bring classes that need time to build gauge without instantly failing the P1 enrage... so it becomes near mandatory

[@ChancellorOtomovonBismarck]

They lock it out because there is no reason to make your PF experience harder and more stressful just to accomodate someone who wants to play a class that Square left in the trash can. I'm sure these people don't actually WANT to lock their slots in this way, but the game balance makes it the correct choice. The vast majority of casters are PCT anyway, so you're not making it notably harder to fill, and given that you're almost better off with no Physrange at all, shutting off the woefully underperforming from that already underperforming role isn't a big surprise.

[@Scorchlette]

god, fflogs is the worst thing to happen to 14

[@agsdedluxferre2955]

The red mage brings support i'm fine with it where it's at, The black mage segment is pure cope though, i'm not even close to the "best" at black mage but the damage difference is black and white and when a class ONLY brings damage it's a problem with the class design when your trying to PUG and fighting over one magic dps slot in most groups. It's why I shuddered when picto was announced it's now going to be a problem of "Ok who is relevant this patch black mage or Picto?" As neither one does anything "unique" it's a problem with hard damage classes in this game they don't work the more jobs you add to the game, because if they fall behind by a large enough margin they are worthless to bring other than "Sure Jack we like you around you can be a Samurai :3" Otherwise in PUGs your experience is gonna be hella shit except for around the best mannered folks which isn't the game's fault that just be how mmo culture is and not even this game is immune to it. It won't matter if it's a small margin or not people WILL hyper focus who deals more damage in the game where damage is all that matters because the game's design doesn't leave room for half the abilities to be relevant. Black mage vs Pictomancer is just a problem with this game's "Blue, green, and red dps assemble!!!!" Design and sadly will now be a constant thorn to the dev team of their own making because these two jobs ONLY deal damage. It's like the issue machinist suffers from and Samurai suffers from, if your class can only bring damage people will question why they should bring you if they can find someone else as you only deal dps IF your not doing a large enough dps for it to matter. Edit: I also forgot to add, the problem with the job system making classes something you can actively drop and pick up, causes people to often question why your too stubborn to job swap between patches, i've had it happen countless times throughout my time playing this game as a white mage main and have had to force myself to play classes I otherwise don't enjoy just to be apart of some of the raids which is a big reason I despise raiding in general.

[@metaboi488]

One thing I like to add when checking logs (or any graph) is to always check the starting number. FF logs does not start with 0 damage to max, it starts around 20k and ends about 27k. Which means any difference we see there is of much bigger magnitude than how it actually is. It might seem Picto is miles ahead of everyone or deals 3 times more damage than, say, Machinist but in reality it is about 20% more.

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

Indeed. The adjustment on the graph is obviously to make the difference easier to see and leave out the blank space, but if you don't actually account for that, it is easy to mistake picto being further to the right on the graph as picto being completely busted 🤣

[@tohkaxiv6162]

In a game like this though 20% IS a massive difference. With even somewhat tight engrages one player doing 20% less than they could be if they did something different is easily able to be the difference between clearning and not clearing.

[@TactiSmolKoko]

FRU damage checks are hard UNLESS you have a picto, it's not even a discussion

[@CeliLarsonient]

@@tohkaxiv6162 While technically true, the issue here is in your own statement. "20% less then they could by doing something different". You can find that much damage by swapping Jobs... or just screwing up the fight/your own rotation less. Improving at the fight or the Job you actually want to play should happen *long* before you consider swapping Jobs.

[@GayLPer]

Those are niche cases, though, usually if a party isn't clearing content, it's because of other reasons.

[@RakdosSororitas]

Literally lost me at 'Oh Pictomancer has some casts so It's okay that they deal as much damage as melee with full uptime' -- come on... Even the Ultimate raiders want Picto nerfed because it literally shaped the meta into a position where a Picto MUST be on the team, but also wanting an additional Ress via RedMage/Summoner. This forced out Black Mage and ALL OF PHYS RANGED from viability- How is that *NOT AN ENORMOUS* PROBLEM??

[@NotRealAkira]

One other thing I'd like to mention is that for the first week of FRU pretty much every party that cleared had a pictomancer. I think there was only 1 that didn't. I think that was really eye opening for a lot of people, at least for FRU specifically.

[@NomoregoodnamesD8]

Parties are locking double melee + Pictomancer caster slot on Aether PF FRU for parties past phase 2. If you want to prog a phase without the need for damage as picto, just use Holy in White liberally. Other casters do not get the luxury of just sitting on 5 swiftcasts on top of their usual rotation. Even with that consideration, most of the hard mechanics in FRU are downtime mechanics anyway, and they are often followed immediately up with a body check, or have body checks within body checks. So, res is not a good argument against bringing Pictomancer to prog. With the back-to-back body checks in FRU, caster res is not as much utility as it would be in the current savage tier. Even one player dying easily causes the rest of the party to wipe to damage or overlapping stacks/spreads at most points during downtime mechanics. The prog isn't over in a current ultimate until a mechanic is cleared cleanly every time. Otherwise, the party is back to progging that old mechanic (so-called reverse prog).

[@armorparade]

i feel like the common response to all of the ongoing discussion is to point at the community and insist that this all is what people asked for and while that is technically true i feel it has stopped being a useful thing to say. the thing is there are tons of things The Community asks for, raiders and msq-onlys and everyone inbetween and sqex chooses what feedback to listen to out of the bunch and makes adjustments as they see fit. but just because players complain about one aspect, doesn't mean the ADVICE specifically given is useful- it rarely will be. sqex could have addressed the buff window gripes from past xpacs in different, better ways from "everyone fits into 2m neatly". why is it the community's cross to bear- the average player is clueless when it comes to design! however, their feedback is still useful for being able to identify when something feels bad. that part is crucial and sqex should be listening out for that. most people in this comment section would absolutely do a terrible job at balancing the game and improving future job/encounter design but sqex, with all their resources and experience should be offering more creative answers based on the feedback they get because that's their role in this. who cares if a bunch of raiders, in frustration, say they want pct dismantled? that's not a comprehensive complaint nor should it be taken as one! if you get a roundtable together you'd be able to hear everyone's deeper insights about everything but even then players are often selfish and will ask for what suits them more than they'll ask for what best suits the game as a whole and into the future. if you ask me(and you seem to agree as well)- the issue is not PCT itself but the meta it exists within, the meta that has been built over years and years to reward that massive 2m burst. PCT is frustrating not because it is uniquely juiced but because it gets moments where it is uniquely performant in a way all of us wish the rest of our jobs had moments to be. they need to break apart a lot of existing design and go back to old ideas from 4.x, they need to look around and drum up new and exciting ideas they haven't tried before, all without completely abandoning the strides they've taken in recent years because i do think they've done a lot of good for all the whining we do. samurai for example has finally escaped the mire it was stuck in when 5.0 dropped- we just need encounter design to get livened up to really let samurai players feel like champions the same way pictomancers get to feel in current raids. also sqex needs to make gauges meaningful again. i want jobs that have mp and job gauges to actually give weight to the cost of abilities, instead of being The Colorful Bar Onscreen That I Shouldn't Overcap. pct has an entire suite of gauge to juggle while something like DRK has Gauge You Don't Overcap, Gauge You Can Honestly Ignore 99% Of The Time, and my favorite, Proc This Every Minute For Your Burst long rant but i just think about all of this a lot. i think we should want better but i think it's sqex's fault for being uncreative first and foremost

[@ChancellorOtomovonBismarck]

Wanting innovation and "4.X ideas" in the game is a totally seperate discussion from if PCT bends the current meta in an unhealthy way. But if we want to talk about the meta being bent out of shape then one has to consider that back in 4.X in the Top 100 speed kills for O12S there are 5 team comps that don't feature a DRG, and perhaps 10 that don't feature a Ninja. Bards are also 91% of all Physrange, and SMN is nearly 70% of all casters. In addition, DRK and WHM are almost non-existant. There is nothing like that level of meta narrowing in M12S. The only exception is PCT, which is 73.7% of all casters, more Dominant than SMN used to be in Stormblood, and in a role with an extra job in it compared to 4.4 to dilute the numbers. PCT is quite clearly the biggest problem, it warps the meta around itself in a way that nothing else in the game currently does. Every class is designed for the 2m meta now. Warrior and Ninja are both burst heavy, but they are healthily balanced despite the meta. You can invoke the meta for something like RPR falling behind compared to other melee, or for PLD's problems in early Endwalker, but neither of those were/are as extreme as PCT

[@armorparade]

@ChancellorOtomovonBismarck i feel you have zeroed in on one smaller part of my greater point and also i was there, i did not say that 4.x did not have its own issues. i'm speaking to an overall frustration with job design, not simply pct bc the current state it exists in is a symptom of greater long-standing issues. some of which were in fact created by changes made in 4.x- which is why i say that both new, current, and old ideas need to enter the blender to bring the game forward. pulling out stats is cool but i don't think any of it invalidates the point I'm trying to make

[@kirigayakazuto6877]

Problem 5: You literally cannot queue into FRU with any mage DPS except for Pictomancer (at least not any Clear groups, Progs are fine). The typical scenario is as follows: (1) You join a group in party finder. (2) They ask you to switch to Pictomancer (3) You refuse (4) They kick you.

[@stonium69]

For me I've engaged with the other side of this. Machinist balance post FRU. Contrary to the common internet take machinists are actually (of the physical ranged) the strongest in 85% of uploaded clears of savages. Are phys ranged weak? Maybe, but machinists aren't uniquely bad and outside of the top groups that are literally coordinating their team composition for maximum burst damage, they outperform the other two. Like if your team has a white mage and sage, or a blm instead of a pictomancer, thats enough to push machinist above the other two in full uptime fights like savage. But because in fru specifically mch cooldowns happen to lead to them being weaker than the other two phys ranged, ive heard internet discourse around how mch is unplayable at any level extreme and up.

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

Indeed. What I know is machinist performs better the less well structured a group is. Meaning the worse the raid buffs align, the less you know of when you need the defensives etc. Where machinist having a more free form rotation at base, combined with an extra damage reduction option, makes it very good at dealing with this kind of stuff. But that doesn't give you the maximum damage on the chart so people say mch bad anyway 😰

[@Nazuiko]

MCH has been in a really rough spot for *three* Ultimates now. Its been suffering for basically all of Endwalker and gotten to the point that I think it needs a complete rework. While the kit functions well, its so janky that a "fixed" version would look very little like it does now. However its filler and tools are fine as is; The issues are in Hypercharge (Wildfire cant crit, MCH has no self buffs, robot timings can be awkward and pet mechanics in general are grossly misunderstood by players, not to mention how delayed her actions are), Ping dependence, and AoE situations. They 'solved' that last part with Chainsaw and Full Metal, while also turning Ricochet into an AoE and buffing Flamethrower, but now Autocrossbow barely exists and Scattergun has no follow up. Plus Hypercharge only buffs single target weaponskills, and not by very much (8% increase on Blazing Shot, 3.3% on Drill/Air Anchor, 4.75% on Heated Clean shot if you sneak one in a HC window) Bard and Dancer being at their level is fine, because of what they provide the team defensively and passively, whereas MCH only has Dismantle every 2 minutes besides its own damage

[@Nyistic]

​@@Nazuiko​I mean I also think mch rn is in a really bad state but saying it's been bad for 3 ults in a row is just wrong. The world first for top literally had a mch

[@armorparade]

@@Nyistic i get the sentiment but WF is not a good benchmark for the health of a job i feel like seeing how much you want to play it in reclears speaks more to how well a job fares in that environment

[@Nyistic]

@@armorparade unless you want to make the case mch is unfun I don't see how reclears is a good indicator of the strength of a job vs racing. Rdm for example is one of the strongest DPS jobs right now and it's one that's regularly dropped for reclears because people enjoy playing the other mages. Especially in a game as balanced as ff people can bring whatever they want and clear fights so outside of racing there really isn't any meaningful takeaway from what jobs people are playing.

[@TruckDrivinGamer]

I'm still new to the game, so I have no preference yet, but I will say that when emotions are put aside for raw numbers, it seems like it's best to just play what is fun. Video games? Fun? Shocking, I know. 😂

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

Exactly. 🤣

[@Kwstr42]

ahh the bane of the human race, negative space. 1 persons cell phone battery explodes and everyone panics, not one of them thinks about the 16 trillion other batteries in all the rechargables that didnt explode. no one ever looks at the big picture lol

[@matthewwysong644]

The issue isn't Pictomancer's kit and it being very strong during optimal circumstances, it's that it's the strongest even when it DOESN'T have optimal circumstances, and then completely warps game balance because of that. Off the top of my head, it has a 2nd 90 second defensive, 12 seconds of turning downtime into uptime, absurdly high burst damage and respectable filler damage, in addition to the best movement tool in the game, strong multiple target cleave damage, and free weaves after every GCD. Hell, it even has a pseudo-execute in swiftcasted Rainbow Drip, like with Six-sided Star, making downtime phases even better for it. The biggest issue with that is not the laundry list of upsides, it's that it's two downsides are "no res" and "folds like bad poker hand if it has hate or healer drops", and those weaknesses are shared by the jobs it competes with for a slot- and if that happens in harder content, you're already boned and about to jump headfirst into the death wall. If I were to get my hands on the job balance reins, I would say this would be how I'd handle it: 1: Decrease filler damage by 20% for 123, 5% for Subtractive Palette spells 2: Drop Star Prism potency to 1000, increase Star Prism Ready duration to 1 minute, increase healing potency to 600 3: BLM style cast times on Subtractive spells, no weave slots (optional, messes with job feel a lot, but brings it closer in line with Black Mage's mobility while increasing utility of Holy in White) The goal of these changes is to drag Pictomancer down to the level of low melee in full uptime scenarios, and let it shine at the top in high downtime fights without completely trivializing the DPS checks when its in its element, and to toss it a bone with Star Prism's extra healing and flexibility. I don't want to see it get homogenized to death, I want it to have strengths and weaknesses just like every other job in the game. I don't care if it's still the best option in Ultimates, it just shouldn't be ahead by a country mile. Also, as for other jobs, other than potency adjustments, I would like to see downtime options for the three gauge jobs- Viper perhaps getting something akin to Anatman or Meditate, gaining gauge and pausing buff decay, Reaper getting a buff to Soulsow (maybe give Harvest Moon 20 Shroud Gauge upon execution?) , Machinist getting something to increase Battery and allowing Flamethrower to build heat in combat. I'd also chuck a bone to BLM, and increase the potency of Fire II and Blizzard II, and increase the radius of it's AoE spells to 8-10 yalms.

[@furo822]

PCT is a bit difficult in ultimate… By too busy drawing during downtime mech😂

[@octolyn5529]

bit off topic but where can the rotations at 15:19 be found? i wanna have a more in depth look at them if possible

[@TheReMiXTheo]

The Balance discord server has that for all jobs !

[@octolyn5529]

@@TheReMiXTheo thanks

[@shogyi]

I got to say compared to some of your other stuff I wasn't really won over by the video even after reading your comment. compared to summoner it's doing over %10 more damage at med and around %15 if you compare them at their peak. even taking into account that summoner has rez and that picto does well in down time I still dont think it should be that far behind especially because picto actually does have utility. it's also not like it's a bunch of casuals that don't raid that are saying picto is too strong. several people from week 1 groups and even kindred agreed that the job is too strong. I understand that this was in part aimed at people who think that picto is mandatory to clear fru and that it deals double the damage of rdm/smn, and while those things are definitely not true the video and even the comment seem to suggest the maybe the gap isn't really THAT big and that picot isn't a problem when that doesn't really seem to be the case

[@Scerttle]

Hah! I was considering making a video on the matter after seeing a couple in my recommended feed. Haven’t watched Cae’s yet but I feel like my thoughts will align.

[@Scerttle]

My general feeling is that this isn't a Pictomancer problem so much as a Dawntrail problem since they doubled down on the 2 minute burst meta. By making ALL buffs 20 seconds and moving EVERYTHING to basically being centered around using your buffs every 2 minutes (remember all those new shiny abilities that are TIED TO YOUR BUFF USAGE?!?), it makes the meta stronger than ever, far worse than it ever was in Endwalker. Pictomancer is just built around this. It's wild to me, then, that Viper is the opposite, built around consistent damage with a small 2 minute burst. I feel like old Blackmage design was similar: consistent damage with a small burst. But they tried to change that with flare star which arguably ruined the job for a lot of people, moreso than picto being strong. They honestly need to make some buffs weaker and 60 seconds long or do more abilities like monk where it's 90 seconds and is SOMETIMES within the 2 minute burst but not always.

[@Scerttle]

Gearing is also a problem. I think it's OK for some jobs to not really be suited to some content, like summoner is so good at duty finder but less than ideal in ultimate when you're going for the clear thanks to the DPS. But I think that's fine.... assuming you can get multiple weapons within the same role easily enough. But you can't.

[@Scerttle]

13:15 I do think it's important to note that the way gearing currently works makes it more of a pain in the ass to switch even within the same role, though.

[@literalsoup]

People DO tend to overexaggerate the "imbalances" in the game because it has historically had, and continues to have quite tight balancing. Ironically, the tightness of job balance itself caused the problems we see with PCT today. Because the devs try to balance such that ANY composition of unique jobs can clear a piece of content, the variance between jobs ripples outward. In EW, the job balance, especially amongst DPS were EXCEPTIONALLY TIGHT to the point where they were almost functionally interchangeable, letting them tune DPS checks really tightly. This reared its head when P8SP1's DPS check was so tight that certain groups couldn't meet it even with an otherwise "clean" run (no failed mechanics). This spiraled out such that groups began to lock certain jobs out of PF despite them still being "viable," something that most people can agree is a little silly. However, due to the way that games, generally, are played nowadays where information, especially from top players, is almost TOO readily available. The availability of information combined with the shift towards "results-oriented" gaming attitudes creates an odd rubbernecking situation where people will believe things that have little effect on them simply because they heard it from someone who it DID affect. I think there is a real discussion to be had about the balance of classes, but specifically what the actual goal of job and encounter balance should be. Is the goal of balance to ensure that every job is "viable," ie any job can clear in any comp, or is the goal of balance to provide "well-tuned" encounters, ie a satisfying DPS check. IMO it is exceptionally difficult to design one encounter such that the lowest common denominator group CAN clear without making the DPS check trivial for an optimized group, much less four. The problem in both cases is that a "stronger" job like PCT increases the margin for error; it makes the encounter easier by allowing for deaths, damage downs, etc. The questions people should be asking about that are: - is it okay for variance between jobs to exist if it's still possible for every job in any given comp to clear the content? - is it even possible to design a damage check where that kind of margin cannot exist without locking certain jobs out? One full raid tier, 3 extremes, and one Ultimate in DT so far, all of which have had very, very lenient damage checks (except FRU specifically without a PCT, I guess). Is that fine? Should it be required for every single person in your raid to be able to do competitive damage to clear an encounter? Personally, I think the damage checks in Dawntrail have been perfectly fine. High level players may be disappointed, even my static sometimes jokes about how free the checks are this tier, but sometimes players underestimate the minimum competency of the average player. In fact, you'd be surprised to see how many casual statics exist that do struggle with the DPS checks, even now when the tier is functionally "done." I actually secretly kind of like that there's an imbalance between jobs such that a "stronger" job can carry a "weaker" player, whether that being an individual playing a strong job or a strong player playing a strong job making up for a weaker player. At the end of the day, FFXIV is a COOPERATIVE game and the endgoal is to have fun playing it. As a side note, it is somewhat funny how strongly players in this game tend to identify with one job over some others, despite them being complained about as "overly-homogenized." It's kind of ironic given that this game, opposed to some other MMOs out there, typically gives you the freedom to play every job on one character.

[@Diddz]

PCT being this powerful explains why a friend told me that FRU was easier than the last few ultimates

[@ruka9700]

Short answer no. Long Answer the people that jerk off to third party websites will never be happy and can't just play the game to play game and have this weird class fantasy of being loyal to to their class ride or die and alot of self worth hanging in the balance meanwhile none of this actually matters. This point I'm just tired of hearing it. It's not like this is shadowlands level of awful you can STILL play everything and do fine.

[@ItsASleepySheepy]

RDM still having provable utility meanwhile SMN is still suffering

[@m0fn668]

What do you mean? We got 🌟 P H Y S I C K 🌟

[@furo822]

Physick 1000!

[@GayLPer]

...or you could use the built-in healing utility Summoner has with Phoenix and Solar Bahamut. It's not like you don't know when you're going to be using them.

[@Mibu13]

who ?

[@NotRealAkira]

I'm personally OK with Pictomancer doing more damage in downtime scenarios, but in full uptime scenarios I feel like it shouldn't be anywhere near Black Mage's damage. Picto has a party buff, a gapcloser, utility in the form of tempura and much much more movement opportunities. I think it should be in the middle of Red Mage and Black Mage damage wise. I've met people who refuse to take Black Mage into savage because they feel like they're griefing their party if they don't bring picto, this shouldn't be a thing. Phys ranged definitely needs some help though. Especially Machinist.

[@SirUmnei]

I really feel like you're brushing off the issue in a very ignorant manner. All your arguments are like "Picto does so much more than everybody else, but like, you know, it's just a lil bit, so..." or "Picto is stronger than every melee DPS and is ranged at the same time, but does it actually *really* matter if most of the fights are full uptime?". And the answer is that yes, it actually does matter. All those little bits make a big bit. A pretty massive one in fact. The problem is that currently, Picto is eliminating options because of how imbalanced, marginal as it may be individually, it is compared to every other DPS job. Talk to any end-game raider, or just browse youtube itself and the consensus is that Picto is too strong. Has the damage of a SAM/BLM, mobility of a SMN, 20 second dash with a 5 second sprint, a party wide damage buff, a heal (that doesn't usually matter), a personal shield, a party shield, the best downtime tools in the game, no real resource management to speak of, essentially 0 drifting because all of it's abilities have charges, flexible rotation that allows you to fit whatever you want whenever you need outside of the 2 minute window... each of these things are 100% okay on their own, but compare it to any job, and you'll very easily see how lopsided it is in favor of Picto. And please, saying that the cast times for the muses are an incovenience and make picto "difficult"? Like, reallly? Do you understand that they have charges and you don't need to use them at a specific point in the fight? That there's literally no fight that has enough continuous movement that they can't take their time to paint? That even if you don't plan it out, you can very easily figure out a spot to draw your muse in the time you'd be doing filler? This is the weakest argument to defend Picto I've ever heard. Like please, incovenient? Next you're gonna tell me the fact that SAM has cast times on their stuff is so incovinient that it matters whatsoever. But with all due respect, I love your videos and watch them religiously every single day, but what strikes me the most is that someone like yourself, who tends to optimize even the most trivial of duties like dungeons and such, is playing devil's advocate to Pictomancer. That is wild. I concur with you that the hatred for it is a bit overblown, but by no means or stretch of the imagination do I think there's no good argument there in the fact that is it overtuned and overpowered. Job balance for XIV has been mostly very finely tuned over the years, with a couple stinker patches here and there, but for the most part, it stayed at a range where *most* jobs had a determined spot in comparison with eachother. Pictomancer has thrown that out of the loop in a major way. Why is it at the top when other jobs bring less to the table and *also* deal less damage? The problem isn't each individual problem Picto has, but all the numerous problems it has compounded into one. And let's not pretend that the developers balance the jobs for anything other than Savage+. The balancing of jobs always has, and still is, based almost solely on how well a job performs in the actual high end content, where said fine tuning and balancing actually matters. And guess what job you ideally wanna see on *every single* party? Yeah. There are literally party finders for FRU that lock a slot to picto. And as someone who optimizes things, surely you would understand that *A LOT* of raiders and people who are actually good at the game would opt to optimize their statics and groups in general to have the highest likelihood of achieving a clear? I don't want picto to be nerfed to the ground, burned and crucified. I just want to see the devs take the L and bring it down a notch to match other jobs, and give it a clear, obvious downside that would make people actually weigh other jobs into consideration. Bring the little job identity that we still have to the table. There is absolutely no reason to play selfish DPS, with high skill ceiling but high damage when Picto is an utility DPS, with low skill ceiling and even higher damage aside from personal bias towards it. And while I think everyone will agree that job identity is not exactly at an all time high with how monogenized jobs are currently are, I think it's only fair to want jobs to be able to stand next to one another as equals until they actually make job identity changes, hopefully in 8.0.

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

You raise a lot of fair points. My best explanation for why I seem to undersell the problem in this way, is because, like you, I also don't want pictomancer to be utterly destroyed in the counter swing of getting it back in line. Whether that is done with reworking the whole job, or by nerfing it to the ground. And each point where you might feel I heavily side with pictomancer, by for example maybe defending it's damage advantage too hard, or pointing to how it "isn't so bad!", or pointing to there being "something" that can make it difficult to play and so on and so forth, it is sort of the inverse of the exaggerations I see from many others in the conversation. By which I mean, pictomancer is incredibly strong in ultimates right now, but I feel the conversation blows it out of reason, and sometimes, to have a balanced discussion, when one side walks too far off in one direction, the other side ends up pushing too far in the other direction to reach balance again. For example, I BELIEVE that some part of the blame for groups locking in picto like that goes to how extreme the current debate is on how strong it is. And it might not had been as severe otherwise. I 100% agree that OBVIOUSLY a lot of players will choose what is best to increase their chance of victory, but I do feel in recent times especially that we all may have gotten a bit lost in the sauce of winning over enjoying the game (doesn't even apply exclusively to ffxiv), which is why I was trying to demonstrate that things weren't as bad as they sound. But I understand it might give the wrong impression, and I can say it hurts more to hear from someone that genuinely believes in me otherwise, but I understand.

[@SirUmnei]

@@CaetsuChaijiCh Thank for taking your time to answer. And by no means I think you've made a bad video. I just think that it's a bit too stark of a contrast to the consensus, as overblown as some people make it. I feel like if you took the video to solely to discuss Picto, as many creators have, but unlike them, point out all the pros, cons, and listen and debate to both sides of the argument, like you've done with so many other topics before, it might've landed itself better. I love this game and I want to see it succeed just like you do, and out of every prominent creator out there, I truly believe you are one of the best one when it comes to helping people grow and learn. And having at least one person that is prominent in the community provide a counter argument to all the hatred Picto gets is certainly a good thing at the end of the day. I just think that the presentation made it seem/feel like you only defend it and don't truly recognize the issue, despite me now knowing you do. And without a doubt, I do agree with your second paragraph. People seem to tryhard a lot more these days, and it honestly bothers me a lot. As a wise chair of mishapen has once said "All you have to do to succeed in XIV, is to be perfectly mediocre."

[@iantaakalla8180]

I think that Pictomancer was a mistake. Not in the sense that it is not a fun caster to play nor that it is different than other mages, but that it basically has ruined one of the other things FFXIV has been known for. The infamous statement of letting every job being able to clear every thing has practically made it so that most jobs are roughly the same, but it has the fun side-effect that you really can play whatever, with only BLM being solely about damage. Now that PCT not only has it all and is uniquely suited for damage and some party raids especially in Ultimates, the last bastion of skill expression in FFXIV, the community is about to turn in on itself since FFXIV is no longer the guaranteed overwhelming set of good stories it was in the Ascian arc. Now that the two pillars that make FFXIV unique are gone, and the balancing issue will not be solved by 8.0 and the story is not even guaranteed to be different yet still of high quality, I sincerely think FFXIV will go down around the 8.0-8.55 parts because now there is nothing differentiating it from other MMOs and other MMOs will improve their stuff to be up to snuff from FFXIV, and when word gets out that one game does what FFXIV does better, that’s it. And it will be likely to be this way because changes in FFXIV are slow except when they ruin things. The issue here is that Caetsu thinks it is just a problem of damage variation and of possible skill, when in fact Pictomancer is actually dismantling all that FFXIV promises on the gameplay end, and since the story of Dawntrail dismantles the promise on the story end, who is to say people will keep playing FFXIV when the next big thing comes out?

[@jonamar3965]

4:38 This is the type of toxicity I want to see in the xiv community.

[@neflarionshadowflame2050]

I do think some people get a little too lost in the "this job is "harder" to play so it should do more damage than this other job." I've had conversations with people, before MCH was given dismantle. My take was because MCH is a selfish dps, it should be in the top 5 of damage or close to it at least. I would specifically say that it shouldn't compete with BLM or SAM but it should be a top DPS. Most kind of agree and kind of don't, though I've been told (specifically by BLM mains) "BLM is way harder to play than MCH and MCH is "easy" to play, so it shouldn't be anywhere near the top 5. And I'm sorry, but what someone considered to be "easy" and "hard" are purely subjective. I found MCH just as hard to play as BLM back in EW. In DT, I would say I find BLM easier to play than I do MCH. So imo, the argument of "this job is easier to play than this job, so it should do less dps" is a stupid one.

[@Diddz]

SATIRE PCT nerf idea, if the PCT has too many damage buffs up, then they get hit with brink of death until all the damage buffs fall off

[@AutoAlligator]

Ofcourse it matters! What a ridiculous vid to have made. It makes a difference in every aspect of the game. If this was intended to be "funny" it misses the mark by a mile. You are suggesting that, in a game designed around dps, dps doesn't matter?!? Fanboy as much as you want, it doesn't hold water. I would suggest the game is in a terrible place right now. Game balance is completely out-the-window coupled with a lack-lustre story (something it historically does well) and some bizarre decisions around content release simply looks amateurish at best and incompetent otherwise.

[@alloounou6900]

As long as they keep to their design priciple of all content can be cleared with all classes, then it shouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately we have a time tested saying, "players will optimize the fun out of game." There are plenty of people who will, and are, going to refuse to let certain jobs join because of what is 'optimal' rather than 'fun' What's, also, irksome is people will flatout lie with graphs. They'll stretch the x axis, hide numbers, and point saying "omg this class is so overpowered!" No. It's not. You literally took a 1.3% difference and made it look like 20%. If your numbers for picto are reasonably accurate, then this feels like those optimizers and doomsayers are making another mountain out of an anthill. The difference in downtime potency equals... what... like a single extra GCD from each member of the group? Hardly the "trivializes dps checks" people claim it to be for Eden Ultimate.

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

Indeed. That is indeed the crux of the issue, is that even if the game is balanced such that all jobs can participate, many will choose what makes it the easiest anyways 😰 I understand that pct can apparently do some miraculous things with it's burst in FRU, but not only are other jobs almost not allowed to even attempt to participate (fail any way at all as a mage? Can you go pct instead? That kind of stuff), but it's not like the other jobs can't do it. They absolutely can, some players just want it easy 😅 as you said about the optimization quote I can say the statistics are moving a bit around on the power comparison, but the presence of the pictomancer, in the grand total dps scheme of things, really shouldn't make THAT much of a difference. It's just that that difference is big enough that it causes sensationalism to blow it out of proportion 😅

[@Jacob_S13]

MCH is NOT viable in high-end content, literally useless class

[@Nazuiko]

I mentioned and mathed it out in another comment, but the difference is the equivalent to a Melee LB3, and possibly slightly higher. Its about 3 extra GCDs across the entire party worth of damage, without actually changing a single thing except one job. Id have to get the numbers but I think/heard Picto's downtime is worth more than the difference of having two melees use pots and food. Do you need to bring pots (Gemdraughts) to Savage? No, you absolutely don't. Food buffs are more about the HP boost than damage, imo. But, should you reasonably expect a clear party to use Pots? Mostly, yes. Food buff is closer to mandatory for the aforementioned vitality buff, but has little bearing on the damage if one person is missing theirs

[@DarkDyllon]

@@CaetsuChaijiCh you not including the FRU graph is also miss leading, since that's where the main argument comes from with Picto, people see the savage graph and go "people are overreacting" now show the FRU graphic and do it again. Balance in Savage and below doesn't matter that much, since the margin of error is much bigger, when you're in an ultimate and 1 job can turn an "perfect play" margin of error into an "someone can die as long as it's not the picto" margin of error, we're going to have problems.

[@notoriousotaran8015]

They're not fully accurate. The phrase "all classes can clear all content" isn't fully accurately displayed in the numbers here. Can you clear ultimate without a Pictomancer? Demonstrably, yes. However, it's essentially like playing the game on nightmare mode because the amount of effort and crit RNG you need to not bring a PCT is so much higher that most people outside of the very best players simply aren't able to do that. It effectively makes SMN unviable if only the best players can afford to bring one.

[@Dyxid]

Fun factor matters the most to me when it comes to any job. I main NIN, MCH, and RDM which are touted as one of the most difficult/janky jobs (NIN is the only one that can literally whiff if you mess up Mudras), the absolute worst job in the game (a "selfish" ranged DPS that reigns supreme at the *bottom* of most DPS charts), and RDM is considered "training wheels" before you're expect to move up to a "superior" caster. But I enjoy their rotations and mechanics, and no amount of another job being easier, having more, or being stronger will change that. In fact VPR, BRD, and PCT are some of my least favorite jobs in those respective roles with MNK/BRD/BLM being my top 3 most hated jobs, logs and raid utility be damned because I'm not here to min-max the fun out of everything, least of all normal content.

[@EmperorSnivy]

"But Does it Really Matter THAT Much?" Yes actually, it does in fact matter THAT much

[@CineGoodog]

You missed the point by a lot. The major problem with Pictomancer is that he is so strong with potencies so high that SE buffed all other DPS instead of nerfing Picto what is the consequence of that? Super easy endgame content with no DPS check. Savage was a joke and FRU is literally griefing not playing Picto since you can beat P4 and P5 with deaths thanks to Picto.

[@CeliLarsonient]

Other Ultimates were beatable with deaths *on release*, and PCT didn't exist there. If PCT is the only reason deaths are allowable in FRU, then that just means FRU is very tightly tuned and you may want to just get better instead of relying on one Job.

[@MissSmoozie]

@@CeliLarsonient Normally that's how progging ultimates on content works, deaths cause you to enrage in the furthest (or slightly before) progged phase until you've practiced it a bit more and people optimized there damage for it, PCT lets you skip that step, and then lets jobs that carry over resources well (which are already good in ultimates generally) just bring even more damage into later phases, which adds even more margins there, repeat.

[@XNecroEyesX]

The big issue is ultimate prog where having picto or not makes the dps check go from ultra sweaty to quite managable even with a death wich also leads to more liberale pot timings and way more choice on the other jobs brought. Ofc many ppl complaining dont even deal with this issue but the core problem still persists. Personally i swapped from gnb to drk for better damage profile but our black mage really did not want to swap but ultimately had to or we would still struggle to even get to p2

[@danbagon924]

While there are definitely things that could be done to try and address Pictomancer's overturned damage, particularly looking rebalancing DPS gains from motifs (especially creature motifs) and putting some of their potency elsewhere so it doesn't just run away in fights with downtime. A real issue I think is the raiding scene's (specifically Party Finder's) general attitude towards players choosing to play "non-optimal jobs", especially in FRU as of late. I've know multiple people who've been pressured or just straight up forced to switch off their preferred jobs to make DPS checks or simply just play the content, while having parses in the purple/gold range for their original job. It creates a very hostile environment for some players and it's genuinely unfair towards them. Summoners especially getting kicked from PFs simply for being a summoner and not a red mage, or more sought after picto. Similarly machinists have seen this treatment. I've seen people getting gold parses on these "bad jobs" getting kicked from parties or pressured into changing, sometimes outright and others because DPS checks weren't being met due to worse performance on other members. Actually addressing the community behaviour isn't something easily doable, probably not possible at all, so the problem needs to be addressed at its source instead which is job balance. While I'm not an ultimate raider, from the outside looking in it isn't so much Picto's damage that's the biggest problem, but the jobs on the lower end of the scale seeming quite under-tuned in response. Square should be addressing these balance differences so that the logs of the worst clearing pictos aren't out performing the best of every phys range (along with summoner) clears in recent FRU clears. While its not nearly as much of a problem in savage or extremes, Ultimates should be worthy of having job balance specifically designed with them in mind as well, that or fight design in ultimates should change to mitigate this extreme gulf in the future. I ultimately quite like pictomancer's current design, and I really don't have much issue with it out damaging every other job. I just want to see that gulf closed, and jobs on the lower end of the spectrum given the love the deserve. (Especially phys range but that's an entirely different discussion). (Though I wont deny Picto running away with damage in ultimates being a problem either lol, I just chose not to focus too much on it since pictoless clears have been made)

[@seselis625]

So I'm really confused on how potency works. It functions differently depending on the class right? Wouldn't that mean using potency numbers directly is only useful when comparing different moves within a specific job? What am I missing?

[@CeliLarsonient]

It does not work different based on Job. 1 Potency is 1 Potency on every Job, at a baseline. The main thing to keep in mind is that Ranged Physical, Healers and Casters have a trait that increases the damage their buttons do by 30% and BLM has even more of these passive damage buffs. If you were to remove those traits, those Jobs are suddenly doing less damage.

[@seselis625]

@CeliLarsonient Ah, that makes sense! So to make sure I understand, it's not that potency itself works differently per job, it's that some jobs/roles have passives that you have to keep in mind when making the comparison?

[@CeliLarsonient]

@@seselis625 Correct! :D

[@MissSmoozie]

Tanks, while technically having the same damage per potency do come with a hidden (iirc 10%) damage debuff.

[@CeliLarsonient]

@@MissSmoozie 20% They effectively got the old Tank Stance Damage Debuff turned on at all times.

[@Kefka0630]

You could have brought up some good points in this video, but the fact that you started it by mocking the people who you're trying to respond to makes you come across as whatever you say is probably going to dishonestly portray and completely dismiss/disregard their points and the reasons they feel the way they do, and thus this seems like a waste of 17 minutes for anyone like myself who has issues with current job balance in FFXIV's current high end content. Kinda disappointed, since you usually release pretty good content.

[@BlakeAustin2011]

There is certainly a top 8 used in high end raiding. But some of the utility classes are used in other content or for prog. I don’t mind imbalances since nearly all (or all?) end game raiders tend to have multiple jobs they have mastered at max tier. That’s the beauty of the job system, as opposed to something like WOW where you have to level up multiple characters. We are taking about 5% or so of the player base. But that 5% has led to the homogeneous approach to the classes, which is starting to hurt the game.

[@TeriiTeri]

This is some grade A cope lmfao.

[@kyallokytty]

I never thought about RDM being weak, I think RDM and BLM are the two caster dps that are where they *should* be the one I'm thinking hit the most by this is SMN, RDM can do chain raise, rdm can make pulls go *so* much further than they should but smn has does even less than RDM, has a worse raise. it's the reason there's a single clear of FRU with SMN last I checked and while I'm not gonna say that I got the answer, PCT being on par with highest damage when it has it's training weights on(full uptime) will *always* lead to it shooting up when it doesn't have that. and in FRU the difference is just too great as a result: it's minimum is higher than the second highest *median*. and thats just insane to me. nerfing potencies, making it's full uptime dps be closer to the low meeles instead of above them would be the first step I took and work from there and it's no like that's gonna make the job bad at any regular content, PCT will still be fun, will still be doing loads of dmg, just not pulling ahead of everyone at it's weakest no job should feel required to clear content, but not having a pictomancer in FRU is like playing the game on hard mode the comp for FRU is 2 tanks, 2 healers, 3 dps and 1 PCT atm and that's just *not good*, having a single dps job pulling so far ahead others are equivalent to tanks to it is *not good*

[@Ignotus519]

So, I'm just a sprout, mid-stormblood, i realize my opinion here carries basically no weight but here goes. In my experience, when it comes to balancing different characters/classes/weapons in games, what matter far more than making sure they all have the similar output, is that they all have their own niche. If each Job brings different unique utility to the table, then theyre not just left competing with each-other for the bigger numbers. I imagine when FFXIV was still in its early days this was a lot easier to do, as there were less jobs and thus each one was distinct from each-other. But theres so many jobs now that that gotten more difficult. From what i can tell, BLM and PCT are more damage focused casters, while RDM and SUM are utility. The latter can do things the former can't, which is balanced by them having a lower overall damage output. Given that not even healers can dole out rezes faster than RDM without an LB3, I dont think RDM will ever go out of fashion, which probably means summoner needs some help but thats a different discussion. Between BLM and PCT then, Id wanna see how much solo damage each puts out. BLM's whole things ideally is that it has the highest personal damage of the casters, balanced by the fact that its the hardest one to play and provides no party utility. From what ive heard, PCT is easier to play and DOES buff the party, which to mean means it should have less personal damage that black mage. Rather than being as rewarding for personal skill, PCT offloads that expectation to teammates. The question then is, should a master BLM player be able to outperform a PCT in a coordinated raid group? is it easier to rely on yourself, or your party? Because if the answer is the latter, i really dont mind PCT being a higher performer than BLM. I think in general, more party reliant jobs SHOULD be able to outperform selfish jobs under ideal circumstances, as the whole point of being in a party is to work together, and I think it good to reward players for doing so. But i also think it should be possible for selfish jobs to beat them out in some cases, because then it puts the focus on you to be absolutely cracked to make up for the missed party potential, and pulling that off feels really good. The most powerful jobs should also be the least consistent, as that means their power needs to be EARNED. So id need to know specifically what part of PCT is overperforming right now that makes it so much better than EVERY other dps. Does its personal damage beat out selfish dps? Does its party utility provide such a big boon that its just strictly not worth it to run selfish dps in any circumstance? Because if its got great personal damage, great party utility, AND its not even that difficult to reach its full potential, then yes, theres a balance issue.

[@lolthesystem]

You missed the real problem with PCT's existence in its current state. It's not RDM that's in danger because verraise is still good during prog, it's SMN and the ranged physicals. SMN outright has no use. It doesn't do enough damage and it doesn't bring enough utility, any other pick is flat out better. As for the ranged physicals, you actually showed it without realizing when you showed the difference in your team comp between RDM and PCT. Swap your physical ranged for a PCT instead and not only will you GAIN damage, but you also won't lose much utility for it. This is what the HC community is most worried about right now, the 1% buff is all the physical rangeds have to justify their existence and at this point even that isn't enough. Also, M4S has downtime for PCT, not just FRU, so even in that fight they're still a lot better than the other jobs. Realistically, Savage and Ultimate are the only content where balance matters, discussing balance for EX and below has no consequence since anything can clear the DPS checks with ease there.

[@GayLPer]

You missed the point, which is that absolutely NONE of that matters. You can still clear just fine with a physical ranged and no PCT.

[@nevarinai6120]

You also gotta keep in mind that game balance is not purely a numbers game, and that community sentiment regularly plays a role in balancing games. It's why a lot of very technical heroes in MOBAs are allowed to be a little worse on average than some heroes, because people don't remember the 10 times they stomped that hero into the dirt but do remember that one time the hero absolutely trounced their entire squad. It is also present in fighting games where grapplers and zoners are more highly scrutinized when they are good. Even if their tools on average are worse than their opponents, the ways these archetypes win (very high burst damage off of one interaction and filling the screen with "annoying" projectiles) are often viewed as toxic, and fighting game devs will often balance accordingly, allowing grapplers especially to remain in the lower tiers of most modern fighters. Zoners kinda get a pass tho if I'm being honest lmao.

[@iantaakalla8180]

As a question, at what amount of tuning does it take for a grappler to become good, as in not low-tier at launch or after a long time, but also not annoying? What exact amount of times would a grappler have to work and not work to be fair and be higher-tier?

[@nevarinai6120]

@iantaakalla8180 "Pure" grapplers (meaning characters that are generally slow, have high damage command grabs and high health) will start to hear complaints usually when they are around mid-tier imo. People just hate feeling "robbed (meaning they were about to win a round when the grappler player manages to pull out a win despite it.") King in Tekken 8 was pretty damn good on release, and the community made him (and Dragunov) the enemy for months after release. Recently in Guilty Gear Strive, Potemkin has, through several balance updates, risen to be pretty good (probably upper mid tier) and it is impossible to avoid seeing people complain about him and his game plan. People love both King and Potemkin generally, they are fan favorite characters. But grapplers are often only really fan favorites when they are playing from behind. Interestingly, characters who are big and slow like grapplers, but strike instead of throwing often get away with being good for longer. Imo very few grapplers that I've seen have every been truly high/top tier (I think Broly and Android 16 in DBFZ were both top tier at the end and beginning of the game's competitive eras respectively) but they are still some of the most consistently griped about characters in most metas of fighting games. This is just imo though, I am not an expert, i just like fighting games.

[@iamme625]

WoW also has this issue where the overreliance on logs and DPS meters makes people think balancing is way worse than it is. If you show a graph of highest DPS in a certain encounter and something is the best, people will call it OP even if it's only a few % better than the worst for that encounter. Balance shifts over time and this is just PCT's moment in the spotlight. When the next tier comes around and the fight doesn't have 12 seconds of downtime lining up with how PCT plays, it won't be top DPS anymore and people will start blaming something else for being OP.

[@NatiiixLP]

Idk, PCT just seems numerically way too high, regardless of downtime uptime. FRU simply paints a picture, and it's up to the rest of the player base to evaluate its meaning and draw their own conclusions. It shouldn't be that much stronger than everyone else, and regardless of what the game is actually like in any other content, this is what people will use for their judgement, because this is the one piece of content where DPS matters. Why play a crummy old class with awful playstyle limitations and poor DPS, when you can play the shiny new job with more convenient playstyle and DPS so vastly superior that it outperforms even melee DPS? How is BLM not significantly more inconvenient in every conceivable way? Yes, 7.0 BLM is relatively trivial to play, but so is PCT, and I'd still consider BLM more annoying due to its long casts that no longer reflect very well in its DPS output. Would reducing PCT's potency across the board by 10% make it significantly inferior to other casters in any content? No? Then it should have been done before 7.1 release. You seem to be (kinda intentionally?) using the graph that makes DPS differences seem much smaller by including non-DPS jobs. The week 1 FRU difference between PCT and BLM was over 15% iirc, and those 3 BLMs were all carried by a PCT in the same party.

[@Richterdgf]

All I know is, based on that DPS ranking chart that PCT reigns supreme on, SAM should NOT be getting outperformed by DRG, NIN and MNK. You know, Jobs with some actual fucking utility beyond their damage contribution. Why is nobody bitching about that, because there really IS no reason to bring a SAM as it stands.

[@fluffyfang4213]

As someone with strong opinions on the whole "healers are boring outside of prog" discussion, I feel like it's worth mentioning that prog does tend to be a noticeable majority of gameplay for most people. If you prog FRU as RDM and switch to PCT for clears... you probably ended up playing RDM 90% of the time. Of course, I also guess that most people just play what they enjoy regardless of what's "best" for a situation. Some people, including me to an extent, just like to comment on the drama.

[@chelsthegameruiner8669]

For me, its more or less the chase of what's "meta" that annoys me because people are treating this game like its Destiny 2 (we all know how shitty that game is now). It leads to people excluding others which to me is insanely bad. I'm a Machinist player, its my preferred play style. Sure I don't mind Bard but learning a new class for content I rarely play is pointless since I've cleared content as Machinist. Dancer? I'd sooner swallow cyanide than play Dancer, hate that class because of how boring it feels to me. I play to have fun, not have a dick measuring contest with players who stare at colorful numbers

[@javi7636]

I agree that the overall issue is overblown, but there is definitely an element of "fairness" that is causing all the fuss. Even if it doesn't objectively hurt gameplay (everyone could still clear content just fine if Picto got deleted tomorrow), the subjective perception still matters. "It's not fair" that Picto gets such high personal dps while also having a flexible shielding skill, a free-aim dash with lingering speed bonus, and a raid buff. Does any of this actually hurt players on other jobs? Not really, but it still feels bad, which makes us non-Picto players really want to justify nerfing it.

[@Shizuma]

The balance is decently good, but Square's methods are concerning. They didn't want to nerf Pictomancer because they were afraid of upsetting people who were enjoying the job. As a result they've kind of upset everybody else, and made balancing harder for themselves. Rather than simply lowering the potencies of one job, they're going to take forever (likely the entire expansion) buffing the other jobs up, and having to raise the boss HP up. It reminds me of last expansion with Dark Knight- it was very strong at launch and the other tanks took all expansion to catch up, and as a result tanks now do around 80% of a dps role rather than 60%, changing the damage makeup of parties considerably.

[@XAquilaLOLLOSA]

To any who may have forgotten. You know what other job had amazing team utility and near constant top damage in any fight, so much so that had to be reworked? Summoner. Picto is merely the new Summoner until Shadowbringers era.

[@ChancellorOtomovonBismarck]

Firstly the comparison between RDM and PCT at around 8:30 is strange. Your own numbers show that PCT is a 8.3% personal DPS gain over a RDM, that is a huge amount when you don't attempt to hide it by subsuming it into party damage, even then having a ~1.25% party damage increase is 25% better than having Mage's Ballad active for the entire fight for the whole party without a Bard, just for picking the right class, and this in a setting where PCT isn't favoured by the fight design. PCT being favoured by one or two fights per savage tier that have some downtime wouldn't be such a big issue, but the problem comes when you design almost every Ultimate (the pinnacle of your game) in such a way that heavily favours PCT. Only in the level 70 ones is PCT not dominant due to how level scaling works with its kit. In the level 90 ones it's even more dominant than it is in FRU. If FRU had been designed as a fight with minimal downtime, this discussion would still be valid, but it would be less important. It shows that they either don't understand or don't care about the implications of fight design on job balance. They know that people aren't happy about PCT, but they went ahead and designed a fight that exaggerates the existing problem with it as their big showcase endgame Ultimate fight. One of two in a whole expansion. But by far the biggest problem with PCT being as it is, is that it exposes the obvious flaws in SE's balance philosophy. All of this could be averted (with the exception of downtime fight design favouring PCT) by a few minor potency adjustments to PCT moving it down and back in line with the rest of the jobs. But instead they simply refuse to move any numbers downward for PvE content. Instead they buff everything else. Not only is it way more work to make and calculate adjustments for a dozen other classes than just one or two adjustments to one class. But it also power creeps all content released before that patch date (depending on change locations and what abilities are usable at what levels). There is no reason to avoid nerfs other than to attempt to preserve the unearned dopamine hit for anyone who attaches their ego to their PCT doing big numbers. It's not even that they feel good about their gameplay, because that will not change, it will just be a slightly smaller number relative to all other non-PCT classes.

[@Strider_Shinryu]

One of my biggest issues with the debate is that many of the same reasons used to defend PCT as being "fine" as the top DPS are the same ones being used to defend RDM/SMN as being "fine" as the worst DPS in the caster sub-role. PCT is only Really Good in certain fights so it's okay that it has the most DPS. RDM is Really Useful in certain fights so it's okay that it has lower DPS RDM/SMN have some utility so it's okay that they have lower DPS. PCT has some utility but that shouldn't be factored into it's DPS. PCT being the dominant job in the role is fine just because a lot of people like it. RDM/SMN are fine just being the jobs that people try in prog but get dropped once you know the fight, I don't mind the balance being variable (though I do think PCT should be nerfed to at least have it's damage shifted around so that it doesn't get as much direct benefit from downtime), but I am bothered by the double standard that a lot of people have. Basically it at least made sense when BLM was top caster because it really did offer nothing else to the party AND was the hardest caster to play well. Now, however, all of the reasons people used to use (and still use) to justify RDM and SMN being lower on the DPS scale could and should also be applied to PCT but just.. aren't for reasons. Oh, and ranged DPS needs better DPS across the board. When most groups wouldn't even bring one if it didn't offer the Varied Role Buffs there's a problem.

[@jachibel3280]

Dude no one trying to prog Ulti in PF wants any other caster than Picto for a reason. I'm at CT prog and can confirm every single PF I have joined in a past week has had Picto locked with no other casters allowed. Yes, it matters that much, because myself as a RDM/BLM player cannot hope to prog in PF without conforming to the meta. Hosting a PF as non-picto means no one joins. Sending a tell asking if they would take a consistent non-Picto at P4 prog is always met with a "No" or "Could you picto instead??" Most out of touch video you've released.

[@puppachino]

I entirely agree, as someone who only plays caster in this game PCT has absolutely ruined the balance within the caster role so bad it leaks over to the pys ranged role too at times. Between this and the BLM changes that made it genuinely harder and more punishing to play (hey Flare Star) and how relatively underpowered SMN and RDM (in terms of damage output they're essentially rDPS) compared to PCT, no wonder this job is so divisive in a game where everyone is expected to "do damage".

[@resenas5063]

I am surprissed people complain about Pictomancer that much with the whole "Black mage is harder so should do more damage" argument We still have Samurai which I would consider (personally) is one of if not the easiest Melee DPS in terms of rotations. and I dont hear people complain there that much

[@lanah_tyra]

People should focus more on what they enjoy to play and less on min-maxing numbers. Like you said, it only really matters in a race to bring the best of the best. In casual savage raid progs, it matters more if people play something they enjoy on a long term. And the best players of a job which is considered "weak" will still outperform the average players of a considerably good job. Seen that when playing my main SMN. If SMN was SO bad, how am I outdpsing melees in similar gear? Maybe because that melee is still learning, and I got the muscle memory of clearing an ultimate on SMN? Did we clear? Yes. Did we have fun? Yes. Does it matter then? No.

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

That is exactly right! A lot of players also forget that even if a job is the best when played well, it doesn't matter if you're not very good at it!

[@tohkaxiv6162]

@@CaetsuChaijiCh Except when we look at the case of Pictomancer in FRU, where a 25th percentile Pictomancer is literally at a higher level of output than a 95th percentile player of any other job in the game. When it's actually the case that beingreally quite bad at one job is still leading to more damage than being genuinely great at another, I think that's when the balance has to be acknowledged as a problem.

[@IWLGaming]

Yes, it matters. What's the point of bringing a black mage when picto is easier and MURDERING everyone elses damage when it matters most? It REALLY matters because there's no way to balance it due to it's insane damage coming from downtime, and without downtime it's still the top job.

[@reaverdropper2997]

They could just lower pictos potency down to black mage level. Simple also turn cast rate up. Or have BLM have lower cast rate at level 100.

[@dragumkirisute1998]

"Red Mage is underpowered" *cries in machinist*

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

I'm hoping if I don't talk about it for long enough people will forget and give machinist another chance. They deserve it 😰

[@dragumkirisute1998]

​@@CaetsuChaijiChthey really do, i just wanna use my robot in fights 😭

[@KentoIsogai]

I will never understand why people outside of parsers will complain about this since FFXIV is one of the few games where it’s balanced since every single content is possible to clear regardless of your job and composition. If it’s like PVP sure I get it that damage balance is required but this is PVE and doing high end content in all honesty is more for glory than something required. I main RDM but even when it was “weak” in endwalker I had no problem clearing savage in PF regardless of composition which I feel is the most important aspect of balance.

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

The best way I can explain it is that some players feel like they let their team down if they play something that is considered weaker. Not much you can do for them, as they will always feel compelled to choose "the best". Others will let whatever is best dictate what they play, whether it matters or not, and will impose this expectation on others too. Some explained this as FRU groups in party finder starting to lock in a pictomancer slot beforehand (such one slot must be filled by a pictomancer), and the person suggested that groups that didn't do this, and already had a different kind of mage, would not fill. Meaning the party finder players play survival of the fittest, and the groups with pictomancers will be the ones that get to play. This is a huge problem, and it doesn't matter to them whether it is or is not beatable without a pictomancer, because data shows pictomancer being there makes things easier. That is why I try to shine a light on how things don't need to be so bad, and that we can do it differently, but many don't want to hear it unfortunately 😰

[@KentoIsogai]

@ I guess that’s fair. But also I feel like you can also always start your own PF or group. At least when I saw that groups were full I’d start my own PF or prog group and have had no problem since many people were more than happy to participate(I am in JP servers so I can’t say for all DC). But I do see your point on kind of optimization and all. I think picto could use a little bit of a nerf but also still feel that it isn’t too much of a problem outside of people obsessing about optimization or being “meta” in which I still understand your problem but definetly feel like people really are over thinking picto :(

[@mirageowl]

people complain about this because Party Finder exists, and they will lock Picto. And not everyone changes the default settings so bringing another caster instead of a melee is not always an option.

[@KentoIsogai]

@ well that’s the thing there will be groups with regular slots and you can always start your own PF and people will still happily join but I do get that it can be frustrating when lots of PF locks it

[@TheGreatDanish]

Mechanically, no it doesnt matter that any one class is too strong or too weak. But any platonic ideal of every class being equally viable goes out of the window when multiplayer culture gets involved. It is considered rude to be bad at video games. Look at the way people treat low skill players. I dont care how kind or gentle you are about it, i know everyone has thought at least once "god damn i wish this guy would learn to play,," or somethings to that effect. You might not have said anything, but you thought it. We have as a group internalized the idea that to participate in a game you need to be good at it, otherwise you are wasting the time of the people you are playing with. So we want to be the best we can. This leads to choices like picking the best class, focusing on BiS gear and learning indepth, excessive rotations for casual content. Its not a thing unique to ff14, its endemic to any game where you team up with other players.

[@paz8723]

I feel like balance only really matters at the upper echelon of performance where small potency tweaks actually matter. For the rest of us, only true mechanical changes will ever be important

[@thrillhouse4151]

I think it would be *more fun* if it were even less balanced. In Anarchy Online there was a profession called the Agent that could assume the false identity of every other profession and cast most of the nanos (spells) in the game while turning invisible with a sniper rifle, and they still weren’t the most busted profession.

[@arcanine_enjoyer]

I play picto because I'm an artist so seeing it being really high in DPS is nice but I would like a raise like RDM even if it nerfs my DPS lol

[@vespi57]

Sometimes I wish people would stop complaining about how some jobs are way worse than others. It shouldn't matter. And it is wrong to deny some jobs in taking part in some groups. Everyone should be allowed to play any job they want, regardless if the job seems to be worse than some other. Fortunately this problem doesn't exist in my static group.

[@linkaiser8709]

It matters for people who have no stakes on it.

[@Beosker]

It has temporarily grassa AND starry muse though

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

Starry muse is included in its damage performance. In savage content, pct doesn't beat blm, for example, without starry muse. Whenever we compare damage on jobs, this is something that is accounted for 😊

[@syn8485]

@@CaetsuChaijiCh Not exactly true if we're showing cDPS instead of rDPS though.

[@arknightsboi2050]

Its a fun discussion for awhile but as long as every job is viable, or at least viable/preferred on some fights and it flip flops then quite frankly Im fine with it. FRU is a perfect example where every is saying PIC is basically needed and not having one is a detriment which if true I think is 1000% fine and honestly good as it shows the job is different and shines. If PIC was needed in every fight though its clear unbalance. I think people do get a little too lost though in these arguments sometimes as you can still clear with every job currently

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

Indeed, that last bit was kind of the point I was also trying to get across. Sure, picto is really good in ultimate. Do you need it? No. But it is really strong. I think what is getting some players angry though is the fact that picto has both this, and also being strong elsewhere. That's a different conversation of course, but I agree that I could accept picto being stronger in ultimates perfectly fine 😅

[@arcanine_enjoyer]

People say Picto is good with a lot of downtime (ultimates) but honest to god barely any savage or extreme trials have enough downtime to make it worthwhile. I have to stop doing my rotation in M2S because of AP1 so I don't die to the worker bees. And in some cases, the boss will be pulled so far from my landscape that I can't even deal damage (EX2). Generally, while PCT is the current highest potential DPS if we just look at statistics, it is also the most tortured of the casters because the burst most of the time happens during the moments where paying attention to your surroundings and the boss matters most. Unlike Black Mage who can just leave their ley lines and come back when necessary, or Summoner who just has to press glowy buttons. Pictomancer gets actively punished for not staying inside the landscape because it bars them from completing the 9-spell window burst and no mistakes are allowed or you fall low in DPS.

[@bendonatier]

Even in ew I was listing parties with black mages as a fake melee, now we just have a second job to muddy the waters. Where I see it being a problem is we've currently got two tiers of DPS, ones that are taxed, and ones that aren't, and it feels bad knowing that some DPS are contributing more to enrage than others. This is especially frustrating for machinist.

[@syn8485]

Mentioning RDM's presence in first clears is a great argument! But if we take that argument to look at BLM, it paints a *very* different picture (haha).

[@Caterfree10]

As someone who is a RDM with a PIC on the same static, I am frequently out damaging them on our good pulls while progging lmao. Granted, I’ve also been raiding longer than her, so there’s some level of experience in dodging mechanics at play, but still. There’s always a level of skill involved here, and I think people underestimate that. Also luck given how crit hits work.

[@SoulBurnerIori]

Let’s not act like groups weren’t bringing RDM for oh shit rez

[@Amuro37]

Don't you need to use a third-party plugin to generate those logs, then upload said log to third-party website, and said third-party website gives you an arbitrary number based on some arbitrary criterion? Do I have this right?

[@littywitty5867]

The issue is only now being exacerbated because of FRU. We didn’t hear people complaining too much during savage. Ultimate difficulty has a tendency to highlight underlying issues. If you’re doing some of the hardest content in the game and playing a different class can make the content noticeably easier (and it does in ultimate), it’s reasonable to assume others would want to take advantage of this. I think PCT being good in downtime is perfectly fine. I think it’s cool certain content gives certain jobs the time to shine. Problems arise when that same job is just the best job across the board (talking about full uptime in PCT’s case). The other jobs just simply haven’t had a turn to be as good as PCT. What’s the point of homogenization if the game is unbalanced? That’s why people are mad.

[@NotTheWheel]

I agree with everything you said Caetsu to me its not a big deal. This is like one of the first times one Job was clearly better in a particular fight in FF14 history... but like for me it's not a big deal. If Picto is better you play Picto. Let jobs get buffed up or maybe Picto reflects what jobs will be like in 8.0 so maybe we take the set back knowing things will change soon enough. If you were a caster or ranged it's not exactly like it takes long to level up picto you can literally be any job. It doesn't hurt anybody, it's not like "I invested all this time in BLM start from scratch"

[@HiveTyrant25]

I started playing Dawntrail (and FFXIV after trying to get into it for years) to play Viper and Picto. I got viper to 100 and got tons of “viper is so easy and it doesn’t help the raid” and then wanted to level picto. Then I saw that literally EVERY thread complains about picto so I lost passion in trying since I was just going to be “meta chasing.” So I leveled red mage to 100 and even though it’s not “OP” I like the play style and the double rez.

[@LordMidichlorian]

Gamers will whine about classes being unbalanced until they can whine about all the classes being the same because all are equivalent to each other. "Balance" is the second most damaging to videogames behind "videogames are art". And highly civilized aliens have never contacted us because trhey see that people are unable to grasp that there being a point where too much imbalance hurts a game doesn't meant there isn't the other excess in which too much balance hurts it equally.

[@Envinyon]

I would say its overall not a problem for the vast majority of the playerbase. "Aracadion and FRU were cleared so quickly because of pictomancer" are both untrue statements and even if they were, that still doesn't impact average players. I play pictomancer regularly, even with it, people underperforming on their jobs nullifies the advantage that picto brings. An extra party mitigation is great, but PFs under-mitigate things so often that I end up having to use the personal shield to survive. The recent discourse is about FRU and we knew as soon as the media tour information came out that Pictomancer was uniquely suited to ultimates. What I'm afraid of is that pictomancer's unique gameplay will be destroyed in the name of balance. I don't want that to happen, especially not when the only content that its actually a "problem" in are ultimates. In full uptime fights, the difference is still small enough that player skill is the most important factor in what will be doing the most damage. Its not good, imo, to only ever look at the absolute best parses and compare them, especially since parses above ~90 are more reflective of crit luck than anything else

[@FutayuriShironeko]

Well, it was cleared so fast because of pictomancer. First non-picto group cleared Fru over a week later. You can gaslight yourself how "it's not Picto", but in FRU it was all Picto.

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

@FutayuriShironeko that is a difficult argument because we don't know if that's because it was that much harder so it took that much longer, or people didn't bother to try it without a picto until then 🤔 Although I will probably agree that picto did have a hand in the speed at which the ultimate was beaten, that is probably the case.

[@Envinyon]

@@FutayuriShironeko That means very little. How many groups were actually not running pictomancer in the first week? How many hours a day was this non-picto group actually putting in? Completely ignoring player skill and time investment is silly when those are the two biggest variables. Pretending that playing a job that does a bit less damage means prog time doubles just makes me think you've never raided before.

[@FutayuriShironeko]

@@Envinyon If picto diff didn't matter best top 50 rankings wouldn't be all picto groups. You are arguing of false-positive which is impossible to prove, since that's not what happened. Live in reality, not fictional "maybe, what if's?"

[@Envinyon]

@@FutayuriShironeko The reality is no different than how the game has been played for years, hardcore groups pick the jobs that do the most damage. If pictomancer was only 1% stronger than black mage, they would still pick pictomancer. The reality is also that FRU is just not as punishing as DSR and TOP were. Thinking jobs actually have that much sway in how fast you clear something is, again, a sign you do not raid

[@devxved]

I bet theyd rather range tax us in some way again than try to fix the hole theyve dug. Also by many of these logics, just give bard a raise then

[@stephbenson7340]

Picto is fine and even if it wasn't, changing the balance of the entire game because PCT has a niche in high-downtime fights is stupid

[@cross6781]

It matters when it removes other jobs from the regular rotation. RDM and SMN are in a bad spot, picto shouldn't be as strong as a melee and be as mobile as a rphys. It's a great dynamic, needthe other jobs need to catch up in some way

[@axis1247]

Also I find it very funny personally that people unironically think that certain DPS jobs are going to make it impossible to clear dps checks like people dont clear raids with all tanks and shit.

[@GayLPer]

To be fair, the fights cleared with all tanks are usually not Ultimates or Savages. *Usually*.

[@tohkaxiv6162]

To be fair there is a bit of a difference between on content ultimates and even something like tankcob, which took several years of compounding job buffs before it happened.

[@MorningSunGamer]

I don't have a big hand in this since I don't use 3rd party/websites/etc. and am not a tryhard. Although I will if the complaints make picto unfun to play/or make it even more awkward (picto helps with farm parties and some relic grinds like Eureka and especially Bozja). Most of the criticism is hardcore since few casual players are that fired up about picto being strong. Anyways: Basically from what I can see: Nerf Picto potency (would suck a bit, but would keep the fun kit it has right now while appeasing the hardcore players), picto being better than the others, people kicking non-picto/locking picto to easily get FRU title and weapon for bragging rights (a bigger flex is to not bring a picto), world first is a joke due to most teams using 3rd party stuff, SMN and others being neglected again, etc. Hardcore players will always complain (decently justified if not overblown) about balance and strong classes since they are very tied to it. Whenever the classes are too same-y/homogenous or too powerful and makes fights easy/easier, the balancing act will always have 2 sides. Game changes should always boil down to appeasing/calming the most that they can.

[@Sebs-FFXIV]

A game that is this watered down for the sake of balance and still managing to be this unbalanced (like seriously, this is almost WoW level of balance) is just sad and pathetic, this should never happen in the current game.

[@RagnarokiaNG]

The thing I never get about balance complaining is that you dont get buffs if you stack the same jobs for hard content, its not like World of Warcraft when every raid had a dozen boomkins

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

Usually the way it goes down is that, in wow you would be able to do that as you said, in ffxiv, we have less seats, so a lot of players view something like picto being stronger, as "the mage seat is never open to anything but a picto", and some players see it as there only being ONE mage seat, even if that's not the full truth. I think that is the reason anyway.

[@DarkDyllon]

the thing is that SE saw this specifically being the case that Picto would be so strong in FRU that it would dominate everything. (which it does) that 1% stat buff isn't much when the other side is literally so much more DPS that it's insane, so SE instead of fixing the issue, they put a band aid on it and made passive LB generation require all unique jobs, instead of double jobs. Picto could basically double on their Tempura Grass as well, add 2 dancers to the mix and your 2 picto's would skyrocket through the roof like it's nothing, doubly so when Picto's can setup their entire opener again in down time and basically do 2 full LB3 melee's back to back on their own. The balance in Savage and below matters much less than the balance in an ultimate, where in ultimate, the difference between a wipe and progressing becomes literally "did you do your burst correctly"

[@lucalopez9604]

I argue the balance is currently only an issue in ultimates. everywhere else some jobs could do with a buff (please god let MCH hit hard) but anyone who argues bringing BLM to EX or savage is a waste of space is inane and not good enough to be in that kind of content. But ultis? I absolutely adore PCT, is my favorite job and I will be devastastated if they touch the rotation but holy shit nerf it already, lower creatures potency and make hammer only crit at the very least. Im happy to have a really strong caster and to see double caster being a valid comp, but its kinda wild how my life as a PCT in FRU is fucking top priority. The other day playing around I got a damage down in P1 and we felt that shit all the way to our prog point in P4, as we had to move around pots and LBs and lost any cushion we had for fuck ups while if we lost ANYONE ELSE we might shift some cds or 2 but would rapidly recover, it doesn't help my anxiety to be the one who really can't fuck up. The other day someone mentioned the dps checks were super lax and I joked about being able to fix that by swapping to BLM and is kinda nuts how even a comp with the second strongest caster will be forced to pot on opener and loss most if not all of a groups wiggle room for mess ups. I like ultis and how the downtime in certain parts can change completly how jobs work. I liked how in EW SMn had overall better dps than RDM but RDM had higher ceiling in TOP where it was allowed to leverage its strenghts there with is more fluid rotation. And as long as PCT has the same design (please dont dare to change it) it will still be a super strong job in content like ultimates where theres lots of downtime and are more willing to add 2 targets, and that fine, but the current gulf between PCT and everyone else is just way too extreme.

[@shanehunt3019]

The community needs to get out of its own way. "We want individuality!!!" Screams the masses "Here's a class that has a unique interaction with fights" says SE "KILL IT" malds the community back.

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

Yep. "we want the jobs to be different and unique!" Okay that'll make them a bit imbalanced and sometimes one job will be better at something. "no we meant like... While everything is still in perfect balance!" 🤨

[@Narlaw1199]

These are not mutually exclusive. Tuning down the overall potency a notch is enough to bring PCT in line without removing its uniqueness. It is fine that it's the best dps for downtimes. It's problematic that it's also the case for full uptime, while bringing a raid buff, while bringing a shield/regen, and while being relatively easy to play.

[@FutayuriShironeko]

This comment is in such a bad faith... Fanfest picto with their lower potencies would still have been insane in ultimates and better than blm, with all their mechanics and gameplay intact. SE overbuffed the living shit out of it to be the best caster even with full uptime whilst having both raid buff and group utility over BLM. That creates major imbalance, since BLM brings nothing but dps and with picto in the picture they aren't even the best at that job... People are "crying" for picto nerfs, not homogenization, you disingenuous twat. Only FFxiv player can come up with such BS bad faith argument...

[@shanehunt3019]

Would you say fitting in 4 second cast motifs is easy during full uptime? Trick question, yes it's easy when you know the flight. BLM was also the highest DPS when you knew the fight, and hey! It's really only got, what... 3 copies of the same spell and a stance mechanic? Must be super easy to play.

[@magik8831]

@@CaetsuChaijiCh When people say they want job variety they mean they want unique rotations and skills to make you look play the game in a different way. That was accomplished with pictomancer, but that’s not because of its insane damage with downtime and is rather because of its unique gameplay. Square is capable of bringing it into a balanced state while maintaining what makes it special. I’d even argue balancing it would make it more unique because in its’ current state almost every fru group has one and when a job starts being seen as nearly mandatory to bring, that’s when player expression really becomes stifled.

[@Noah-gn2gu]

Ehhh... I don't think I agree with your analysis of the box plots. RDM and SMN's maximums excluding outliers (speedkills) are outright below BLM and PCT's 3rd quartile. What this essentially means is 99% of RDMs and SMNs perform worse than 25% of BLMs and PCTs. The whole argument about finding the "limit" of what the jobs can do is kinda moot. We don't need the outliers to understand the job differences, the median and upper/lower quartiles do that more than enough. Specifically, you say "then PCT has the advantage of having the best players propping up its results." This is misleading and borderline just incorrect. Again, we're looking the quartiles. The upper quartile is largely going to be unaffected by the existence of those few outliers. We are not looking at AVERAGE we're looking at MEDIAN. The whole point is the data isn't really going to be skewed by a couple hundred good players. I think one of the biggest things you can see when looking at those box plots is how the upper end of some jobs are "scrunched." These are jobs that largely do not gain anything from fights being one way or another, and if anything lose damage because of the intricacies of fights. MCH and BLM are very clearly scrunched up. Meanwhile more evenly distributed jobs like PCT have huge outliers. This is because they have some sort of bias affecting them. And in this case, that is the job gaining a lot from mechanics. (Remember, performance naturally has an upper bound making it naturally skewed (scrunched) towards the upper limit, which means an evenly distributed plot has a bias pushing against the natural skew.) This is where people's dissatisfaction with PCT comes from. A job that gains something extra from downtime (as seen by the even distribution) shouldn't be on par or even better than BLM outside of the situations that benefit them (as seen by the medians and upper quartiles). Outside of fights with downtime, PCT should be slightly worse, and inside fights with downtime PCT should be slightly better. (In terms of data, this would look like BLM's entire box plot being higher than PCT's, while PCT's higher end isn't as scrunched as BLM and has higher outliers than BLM.) 15:15 I really don't know exactly what you're trying to say here because you're intentionally contradicting the point you made. Either the data supports that BLMs left or the data didn't. You're trying to criticize people's logic by pointing out that the two ideas are contradictory, but instead of pointing out the logic on its own and letting them come to a conclusion you brought in evidence supporting both claims, so I don't know what your point was. 15:33 I 100% sympathize with your point here. But just like it's been discussed with HP, you're either alive or dead. It doesn't matter if you're at 100% HP or 0.01% HP. The same is with clearing a fight. Everything is discrete. Sure, if you're playing casually it doesn't matter. If it's about speed, saving 1 or 2 more seconds doesn't matter. But when it comes to enrages or hard fights, it matters a LOT. If you can squeeze out just a little more DPS to skip a mechanic, that can be the difference between winning or losing. And when runs can be 6+ minutes each, that starts to add up. Especially since runs where you get close to the end are broken up by runs with earlier wipes. It really can save you HOURS. Again, I 100% sympathize with what you're saying. For casual content, it ends up not mattering at all, with the exception I would argue of dungeons where being able to paint on the fly is definitely overpowered. I think a MUCH better discussion is the direction of 14 regarding what jobs are. They used to be classes that we identified with, experienced stories with, felt job identity, something that had meaning. And now everything has been reduced to the same role with different aesthetics. Sure, we have a couple interesting jobs that are different. RDM is different to SMN is different to BLM. MCH is different to BRD is different to DNC. But can you say WAR PLD DRK and GNB are different? Can you say WHM SCH AST SGE are all that different? Can you say VPR and RPR and DRG are all that different? We're just going to get more jobs. The more jobs we get in a role, the less room for mechanical identity there is. In that case, jobs start to become pointless in and of themselves. And the reason for that is that all jobs are these days is for fighting. Sure, it's an MMO, and it's not like technically it matters a lot if that's the design choice and MMO makes from the start. But jobs used to be integrated into the world of 14. And when you can freely swap, it sure is starting to feel like jobs are just skins of each other with slightly more or less damage. What I'm saying is that people are over-emphasizing damage differences between jobs because 1.) all we get as content are all raids where the damage does matter and where combat power is all that matters and 2.) job identity has been gutted to the point people no longer have a connection with jobs anymore (god I miss job quests). If we have a discussion about how job identity (outside of combat) is something we need back, and how we need WAY more content that emphasizes job differences (like Exploratory Missions), and we can make impactful changes, people won't feel the damage differences as much as they do now.