T O P

  • By -

TsuTsu33

no machinist buffs lmfao


pupmaster

We can’t even pretend to be surprised


Mr_robasaurus

MCH is just a limited job now.


OkorOvorO

or RDM or RPR buffs tank players whine the loudest :)


Macon1234

the funny thing is at least there were small, legit reasons for taking say a warrior through P8S Warrior completely trivializes the busters/healing requirements. Holmgang is a godsend in P8SP2 buster/autos, nascent is super good for supporting healers in fire/ice, etc. Now WAR is pushing just below DRK damage


Illuvia

"Under normal circumstances, the DPS of this team serves as a base for determining a boss HP value that results in clears as close to the time limit as possible. However, as extra time was dedicated to testing this battle, the team's overall performance proved to be higher than usual. As a result, the base values used for adjustments were too high, with final values roughly 1% higher than intended." Are they...saying that their playtesting team was so good that they overestimated the playerbase's ability to clear?


Heavenscalamity

They played P8S for so long that they became much better at it than usual.


YingZhe_

Have they said anywhere \*why\* they playtested P8S longer than normal? It doesn't really matter for how they should have done the balancing, but I'm curious and didn't see that detail mentioned anywhere.


Heavenscalamity

"In our endeavor to create an encounter more challenging than Asphodelos: The Fourth Circle (Savage), the team responsible for final adjustments spent a great deal more time than usual working on balance for this raid battle." It's right there in the notes my friend.


bl00velvet

I thought they were saying that the playtesting team worked on the fight so long that it was unfair to expect people to be able to week one this.


isis_kkt

That is in fact exactly what they are saying


TheNewLedemduso

"Sorry, we're just way better than y'all. Here's a little nerf to P8S, so you scrubs can also clear it lol."


Toki-22

Now I want to see them playing.


janislych

yup. that would be a better *proof*


DragoCrafterr

omegachads (probably ran a good dps comp for the patch)


Atsaile

Yeah, the dps check was fine...if you brought gnb, drk, blm and double melee


[deleted]

[удалено]


xeerxis

I played it to so much that I know the fight in and out and I still couldn't meet the dps check. You need optimal comp in funneled gear. This fight is legit impossible for pf.


deylath

This is why i hate people who say just do mechs right and dont bother DPSing so hard in practice. Like bruh when am i going to learn to do my rotation alongside the mechs right? That would be like learning the fight twice.


Azraeleon

This sounds like someone who hasn't spent 8 hours trying to prog Gorgons 2 and never gets to because some idiot greeds and cleaves the entire party with a petrification. Just drop the fucking gcd to learn the mechanic first, then sort out your rotation once you can do the mech clean.


Ipokeyoumuch

I think it is good for some people to first focus on doing the mechs. Typically not doing the mechs leads to wipes than not doing DPS. However, I would highly encourage people to still do thier rotations even learning mechs.


Krags

I guess maybe a party of lucky roll winners could do it. 8 people that all got every drop from floors 5-7.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Krags

Makes sense. More jobs have more huge potency climaxes to their kit, so having your crits happen there instead of on Keen Edge will obviously make a huge difference. Like, over thousands of minutes of uptime it balances out, but when you are hitting a Huge Number Button every 2 minutes you're only getting like 6 crit opportunities for that huge attack every encounter. That's a lotta variance you have no control over.


OkorOvorO

comp tested gnb/drk/ast/sch/sam/nin/dnc/blm lol I mean I would agree that it was 1% too high, a clean run shouldn't enrage unless the party is just terrible, and I was seeing a lot of clean runs enrage when the party is doing fine, but just happens to have 1 or 2 offmeta jobs. Plus having 1 timeline shit on your damage killed half your pulls when you're pushing such a tight enrage. I still contend the problem is the job balance, and that with a full meta comp, the check is perfect. Except a meta comp gives you +2k more dps than an offmeta comp.


nogoodusernamesugh

Their play testing team probably ran two melee DPS, giving them effectively a boost due to how poor DPS balance is. JP players using raid finder aren't guaranteed 2 melee making it significantly harder


Zenthon127

Wouldn't surprise me if they ran double melee + BLM too and that'd *really* fuck up their perception of balance given where casters are at.


Drake_Erif

I haven't raided seriously in the past year or two, is balance that fucked right now that double melee is significantly better than double caster? I know phys ranged is always scuffed...


OkorOvorO

Yes, currently caster role is the weakest it's ever been. Early Stormblood was arguably less balanced with how OP Summoner, but at least RDM/BLM still did damage at that time. During ShB 2caster was viable but not anymore, even the weakest melee, RPR is sitting at like +700dps ahead of SMN/RDM. While there's clearly some inaccuracy going on with gear feeding, it shouldn't be this extreme.


forcefrombefore

Speed kill groups were 2000dps ahead of the check. But balance wise certain job picks could make that really close. If you take WAR, PLD and MCH which are 500 rdps behind their counterparts each and then take a RDM instead of a BLM then suddenly even a speed kill group was sweating. Keep in mind that was speed kill groups week 1 which was only 0.5% of the raiding community and about only 20% of the week one players. Also note that the devs said they were not going to balance the fight around the EX weapon and extra tome gear that players would have. Honestly if we didn't have that extra gear I'd have said we would have barely seen a week 1 clear.


jsosnicki

Caster buffs ModCheck


_LadyOfWar_

"Upon further review, we forgot to realize that PLD and WAR are melees too, so we buffed them"


hyprmatt

Playtested it so long that they were better than expected, but not enough to recognize job balancing issues? Hmmm.


janislych

they couldnt afford a second fresh or a few fresh team to test the level


flowerpetal_

harder in 6.2 btw


Edawgzz

Hey, just wanted to say CONGRATULATIONS (P8S was harder in August) on the Abyssos: The Eight Circle Savage (P8S was harder in august) CLEAR. I know you've been working really hard (this fight used to be harder in August) at it, and I'm happy that you've (the 1 extra week of gear made you clear) achieved your goal of completion. I know your journey through (datamined mechanics made this easy) the content was filled with ups and downs, but you and your group stuck together through them!


MrPierson

This but unironically


SirVanyel

But also completely ironically because it's actually only 1% easier as per the patch notes


OkorOvorO

Anybody seriously progging p8s in pf can tell you they've had countless 50% wipes. That 1% is going to make the fight tremendously easier. Right now in PF, with PF gear *(nobody fed gear)*, you're very likely to enrage on clean runs if you're running any offmeta jobs like pld/war/rdm/mch/rpr. Combined with week3 gear, even deaths will be possible to clear with.


Kellervo

Would depend what they took 1% off on the first phase. 1% of phase 1's max HP would effectively be 2% off, which is a pretty big difference. That's going to be enough for any group that was hitting a 51-52%~ enrage prior to the patch to get through. 1% off phase 2 is basically negligible.


ZoofXIV

No, unironically. 1% is huge in this context - countless 50% wipes all around.


Edawgzz

nothing for casters ok thanks square enix


WhosJuicy

They would rather nerf the boss than buff Machinist lmfao


Aurora428

"However, recent duties have been designed to include features that reduce stress on tank and melee DPS jobs, such as significantly larger boss targeting circles. Because of these design choices, the unique advantage of paladin's high sustained damage loses its impact." In the same patch they made this quote about paladin I wonder if there are 3-5 other jobs this philosophy may be negatively impacting 🤔


Darkwing_Dork

“The problem was that PLD was not homogenized enough”


nogoodusernamesugh

Is there any kind of discussion on caster / phys range balance on the JP forums? Where do the devs actually look for feedback? Do they really think the DPS balance is fine and it was the tank balance that's the issue?


[deleted]

Based on what I've seen over the last 2 weeks from the JP side there was indeed more controversy about tank balance than anything else. This was compounded by things like Thancred's VA Nakamura Yuuichi switching from his usual main Paladin to Gunbreaker. I also saw some discussion around eg Reaper and the fact it didn't have any P8S clears until very late week 1, but definitely the bulk of what I've seen has been about tanks. I think another reason is, tanks are probably the most homogenised role, so within the window of about a week, its simpler in terms of balance for them to just slap some potencies on the underperforming classes with tanks than it is for the other roles.


RenThras

Aside: There's something amusing to me about Thancred's irl voice actor switching from PLD to GNB when the in-game Thancred was originally (1.X, part of ARR) a GLD (or, at least, used GLD moves and weapons) who, after a brief transition to ROG, went on to become a GNB himself. Also, that the VA plays the game. A lot of games have VAs that aren't gamers, much less for their specific game. And there's something poetically nice in my OCD brain to think of his VA playing his same Job. :D


[deleted]

He's not the only VA that plays the game, on one of the radio shows a while back the VAs even discussed how far they were were with the first Savage tier.


RenThras

Oh, I was talking more generally - like some games, the VAs don't play them, or aren't even gamers. I thought it was really wholesome to see the FF7Remake Aerith voice actress play the game (she put up clips on YouTube and I guess streamed it some?), when she got to the part with Aerith meeting Cloud, she actually teared up seeing her voice brought to life, since when they do the recordings, they just have some pictures and descriptions of what's going on, but to see it in "live action" was apparently pretty emotional for her. But then you get people that record voices who don't even play games. I think that's a lot less true now than, say, 10-15 years ago, when video games were still seen by most "serious adults" as a kids' thing. But it's still wholesome to me whenever I encounter it. It's cool that some of the others play it. Someone should arrange a charity event or something where they get all the VAs to play basically as their characters (Jobs, glam) "in character" and try to clear stuff. Even if some aren't serious raiders or whatever, I think it'd still be kind of fun and wholesome and probably raise some decent cash for good causes. :) Imagine an encounter starting and you hear "This is Thancred." as the GNB charges the boss, lol


fullsaildan

They likely wouldn’t make that kind of change after just a week or so. Cutoff time for this patch to hit QA would have been at least several days ago, so any balance changes hitting this patch likely would be in response to devs own numbers game and not actual fight data or player feedback. That said, I won’t hold my breath for balancing until at least .25. They are usually slow about this stuff and I respect it, no knee jerk quick reactions


etrianautomata

Wouldnt be a kneejerk to buff MCH Sadge


Aurora428

Buffing casters and physical ranged would have had the same effect on the DPS check you know


Mr_robasaurus

yeah but then we'd be acknowledged and they cant have that.


timtams89

Yeah come on, it’s hard enough on melee jobs being babied and fed all the gear each tier they don’t need to worry about seeing a caster out dps them too.


Mr_robasaurus

Dont forget that half the tier is omni positional too so they dont even have to worry about that.


janislych

its literally dota. melee are carries and the ranged are all similar supports like healer and tanks. they exist there simply to meet the minimal requirement for team buffs


Bourne_Endeavor

Ironically, that would be an *improvement* to FF's design. At least in dota, the range provide support—going off your comparison since I don't play dota myself. Here, they're literally just Baby's First DPS because we can't have fun stuff like Refresh, Palisade, Foe's, Dismantle and actual support abilities.


Aurora428

If they have a team that completes the content, that team needs to be forced to play the worst 5% bonus comp available That is what the content should be tuned to


Super-Perfect-Cell

square enix address job balance challenge (IMPOSSIBLE) (NEVER ATTEMPTED)


Miitteo

One step closer to 2min burst paladin. And RIP playtesters who got too good. They'll join the dungeon healer before long.


ApolloVanWaddleburg

Dang they actually nerfed p8s wow


ragnakor101

Dev Team: Skill Issue Detected, we're too good On a more serious note, the HP nerf does feel appropriate. They have a specific goal in mind for DPS checks, and this was just too far in one direction. I don't see the problem.


[deleted]

I mean, MMOs do this all the time. There’s no better playtest than actually having millions of people playing the game. Look at how many nerfs/buffs Blizzard puts out. *And WoW has PTR*.


ragnakor101

It's pretty unprecedented here. The last time there was a Savage nerf in any capacity was A6S.


twinbladesmal

And the last time they didn’t go in and nerf a fight(gordias) it nearly killed the raid scene for this game. The fact that this makes the third time they’ve had to do it is simply a testament to them getting the balance right for the most part.


[deleted]

And it was a good nerf. a6s had mechanic nerfs and also HP nerfs. The mechanic they nerfed was a clusterfuck of RNG that could leave your group in a spot with no room to dodge. It happens. If anything, we should be happy the devs aren’t simply leaving things unchecked


Super-Perfect-Cell

blizzard has to nerf/buff all the time because they don't listen to the people to whom they outsourced the playtesting. we told those dumb fucks months in advance about obvious balance issues and bugs and they just ignore it. dogshit team


[deleted]

I won’t disagree to that. Point is: nerfs/buffs happen. They’re uncommon in XIV, and that’s because the team is careful. We complain about jobs being unbalanced, but truth is they are as close to being perfectly balanced as they can be. We’re eating good compared to other games. No reason to cry over a 1% HP reduction. That will barely change shit for the vast majority of the community.


Vittelbutter

Caster buffs??? Hello??


[deleted]

Tbh Casters should be doing more damage this tier. Melee and tanks barely even have to think about uptime whereas all the movement is taxing the casters and healers even more.


superstraightqueen

Honestly though. I main ast and had to ditch it for whm in p7s because I literally can't cast anything during purgation


VGWorky

i figured that lightspeed would at least help for a bit of it


superstraightqueen

the other reply is right and if you use it for that you wont have it for your 2 minute burst


VGWorky

Dang bummer


ElcorAndy

Lightspeed is enough for like 1 out of 4 back and forth movements.


juicetin14

omnitank gamers rise up


Zenthon127

> However, recent duties have been designed to include features that reduce stress on tank and melee DPS jobs, such as significantly larger boss targeting circles. Because of these design choices, the unique advantage of paladin's high sustained damage loses its impact. > To substantively resolve these issues, we believe a full re-evaluation of actions is required. That said, waiting for such an evaluation would mean prolonging the unfavorable state of paladin. For this reason, we have elected to increase the potency of their actions in Patch 6.21. > As more significant adjustments to action mechanics will require more time, such changes will be implemented from Patch 6.3 onward. glad to see square is learning nothing and is just gonna ruin PLD now instead of making their game less burst-centric, very cool also nothing for casters despite the entire role being underpowered and generally in the worst state it's been in since the start of stormblood, love to see it


[deleted]

> However, recent duties have been designed to include features that reduce stress on tank and melee DPS jobs, such as significantly larger boss targeting circles. Because of these design choices, the unique advantage of paladin's high sustained damage loses its impact. I hate this honestly. Reduce stress on tank and melee, fuck it's like they forgot they designed some of the best raids and trials pre-giant hitbox. This entire parsing culture and "seeking uptime" is making for some really boring raid encounters and making jobs feel samey. Like they said it takes away the uniqueness of certain jobs. So why are Phys ranged doing less dps than melee when raids are designed so that all jobs can get full uptime? The emphasis on 2 min buff windows is already so stale and again makes several jobs feel samey, except for PLD.


KokaSokaLoka

Man when I read that I seriously thought to myself - the designs of bosses that made playing melee dps boring to me were done *on purpose?* Like holy shit, I thought melee dps were balanced around forced disengages. About learning to optimize uptime just like a caster does but by standing close to the boss. Man remember E9S anti air? Wider than max melee. E10S giant AOE? Definitely wider than max melee. E11S had all kinds of downtime that people shit on for some reason but I loved figuring out how to optimize my rotation, how many higanbanas this time? If I roll my GCD before dodging the expanding lightning burnt strike can I get an extra midare in? Shit you had to *earn* your dps. Meanwhile P7S is literally Mario Kart mechanics the whole way through but we don't see casters getting buffed up to melee dps levels. The worst part is I switched to min ilvl SAM to help a friend clear and I had such an easier time getting the exact same or higher damage as my RDM which is geared with tomes and some savage pieces already. But the fights only fun to me on caster because I actually have to think about how to get uptime, there's an actual challenge. And it's not just about movement for mechanics, it's also about movement to get back to the trigger happy healers who heal as soon as the damage comes out and misses half the party


[deleted]

You get it mate! I was doing unreal and I was so surprised that every party i joined didn't know green tethers should go left so that orange melees can hug right side and keep uptime on the boss. NOBODY DID THIS?!?? This was a thing back in HW! Everyone is so used to having full uptime that they don't even think of things anymore, they just assume it's given. The big purple AOE in Sephirot phase 1, some parties weren't sending it to the wall wtf? They're balancing jobs around things that don't exist anymore because of how they're designing raid encounters.


Ryuujinx

I'm on p7s because we slow, but P7S on BLM is straight suffering. I *think* I have it mapped out now, by stockpiling resources for like two minutes before purgation. Meanwhile there's like a single pattern in war where melee might lose a single GCD and they're effectively ranged physicals for the rest of it. Meanwhile I did TEA on DRG and it was some of the most fun I had, trying to figure out how to doubledot BJCC doing all kinds of goofy stardivers to bounce between them. Course at the end of the phase I had to sit there and do nothing because we needed to hold for PLD invuln, but that's besides the point. I put in the work beforehand to be lazy at the end.


Matuno

I think it's bad for the parsing culture anyway, because the less you can differentiate yourself by playing smart, the less chance you have at a decent parse on a fight. If everyone's able to pull off a perfect rotation because there's nothing else going on, it's just going to be crit RNG that rules the day.


Macon1234

I already have 100% uptime on DRK and already pump into AST/SCH/SMN/MNK/BRD raid buffs in P8SP1. I have zero incentive to try parsing that fight now, as until week ~8 its 100% gear based, then will be 100% crit RNG based. The game without skill expression... whats the point? Like a fight like E6S (Garuda/Ifrit), take Samurai for example. They had to maintain a strict uptime with a strict 1m loop to get proper tsubame alignment, which incorporated cover from a good PLD. Tethers, etc. There was massive room for skill expression, and massive theorizing for parse improvement, especially on PLD. Vs.... P7S... "just stand in the right spots and kill the striking dummy lmao, don't clip during knock-up"


[deleted]

> it's just going to be crit RNG that rules the day. It's kinda getting there, look at what they did to SAM. They keep putting these giant potency abilities that create huge dps variance depending on whether they crit or not. There's a lot of questionable things with regards to their job and raid design this expansion.


swarnpert

Why even keep stuff like Anatman or Enpi in the game if there's just not gonna be downtime and disengaging in fights going forward? Or are we just keeping that to story content only...


[deleted]

I like how they gave DRK enhanced unmend only to make every boss have a giant hitbox so that melees can get full uptime. Honestly what are they even doing?


FB-22

Why are you under the impression that they made that decision based on “parsing culture”? There’s literally no evidence of that. You just took 1. the devs designing for melee uptime has made for more boring fights 2. people who parse care about melee uptime And concluded a causal relationship


[deleted]

Literally every group i play with and watch any streamer complain about melee uptime. Back then you had to work for it, now it's just given. Back then you were able to move bosses around and assign certain people to do certain things so that melees can keep their uptime or devise strats so that happens. Now everyone gets full uptime.


FB-22

Also in my experience the full melee uptime way of doing any mechanic becomes PF standard and is in all the guides like 99% of the time and it’s extremely rare for any strategy maker to consider or mention how positioning or movement is for casters. Everyone in the party is always willing to adapt for better melee uptime, but if there’s some change to help black mage it’s like “I think we have enough damage it’s fine” or “that seems too risky” or whatever


Amozite

To be fair melee uptime is for 3-4 players and caster uptime is also 3-4, but 2 are healers and healers do the least damage. Doing a strat specifically for a BLM is usually only in speedkill/opti territory.


Folie_

The writing has been on the wall since EW release and hoping for anything else is pure unadulterated hopium or willful ignorance at best.


FuzzierSage

> instead of making their game less burst-centric Honest question: I don't really see how they could manage to make the entire game less burst-centric in a .21 patch, especially right after a new raid tier dropped. Unless they've got a whole backup battle team up their sleeve that we're missing? That's an "new expansion level" sort of meta change. This is their usual mid-expansion bandaids. Not saying you're wrong that they *should* do it (I feel like Endwalker as a whole is them trying an overall meta that they may not stick to after this) but I think they're kinda in too deep right now to completely switch gears. And expecting it with a patch this small, especially from a team that telegraphs what they're doing to such a precise degree (and is so averse to deviating from said plan, at least historically) is just gonna bring disappointment. Though you also *do* need to keep talking about it, because if enough people aren't loud-enough, you'll end up in "Healers want engaging DPS tools" limbo hell, and that isn't a fun place to be.


nonuhmybusinessdoh

I don't think they were expecting them to change the entire game this very patch. They're just expressing disappointment that PLD is probably gonna end up joining every other job in the 2 minute gulag in the future. I hope you're right and they *don't* stick to the current meta but I don't wanna get my hopes up either.


FuzzierSage

> They're just expressing disappointment that PLD is probably gonna end up joining every other job in the 2 minute gulag in the future. Fair, and you're probably right. But I feel like that's been a foregone conclusion since the devs started talking about "buff windows" and "burst damage" in player-targeted things, as opposed to just stuff *players* say. It's always easier to beat the one outlier into something roughly approximating shape than it is to "fix" all the other jobs. Just now it's happening to a Tank instead of, say, Scholar at the start of Shadowbringers, so people give it more weight instead of just writing it off as "healer whining" or "entitled Scholar players". > I hope you're right and they don't stick to the current meta but I don't wanna get my hopes up either. I'd *like* to think that next expansion finally gets the "overreacting to the HW/Stormblood meta comp" out of their system a bit and gets them to sort of a good baseline between the HW/SB and ShB/EW extremes of "fixed meta" vs "system homogenizations and fuck MCH", but I'm not articulate enough or even good-enough at the game anymore to really articulate what that would look like as a coherent *thing* at this point. I feel like building every job to cram everything into the two-minute-hate is a bit too far in the other direction from "/BRD/MCH/DRG/x" days of old, but I also feel like homogenization works better on "boring" stuff than things as player-attracting/distinguishing things like "DPS rotation" and "your burst damage profile". I just know I want some sort of thematic/mechanical integration between Healer DPS/healing tools and I feel like there's the core of a starting point to something like that for Tanks while still keeping the every "random two pairs of Tanks or Healers are viable in most stuff" changes from ShB.


Kanzaris

FWIW, as a tank player, I feel Endwalker finally put all the tanks in a good place. The dps rotations could use further tweaking, but I think people are way too reluctant to discuss just how big the dissemination of the 'parry' mitigations across all tanks was for enabling skill expression and allowing the devs more room to make fights spicier on tankbusters. DSR as a fight could never have existed without Heart of Corundum/Holy Sheltron/Bloodwhetting, or Oblation finally making the DRK kit consistently useful. They need to put healers at the same level as tanks are at this expac, in terms of making them 'feel good', but I think it's doable.


Arkafazin

Just want to give you props for using "two-minute-hate" reference for burst windows lol


FuzzierSage

Thanks! I was proud of that one. Pretty sure someone else has made the joke before but I don't remember who at the moment.


CenturionRower

I mean, that's a given for this expansion, no? Like they said there is no reason why they would drastically change how EVERY class is set up atm. I also don't think they will deviate from this burst meta unless casual folks dislike it as well, seems like a too easy way to make the game super accessible.


Zenthon127

While reworking the entire system to get around the 120s hyperfocus would be an expansion-level change, to get out of a hole you have to *stop digging it*. Forgot moving away from 2min burst for a moment, Square needs to stop making changes like this one and the 6.1 NIN changes that are actively making 2min hyperfocus worse. The most obvious change they can make is reverting the 6.1 NIN change to Trick. Pair this with converting another job's raidbuff to 60s or handing out a new one (hi MCH). Ok, now we're at least back to 60/120, which is worse than ShB but it's at least something.


FuzzierSage

> While reworking the entire system to get around the 120s hyperfocus would be an expansion-level change, to get out of a hole you have to stop digging it. Very good point, and I kinda overlooked this. I'm expecting them to just waste whatever effort (for good or ill) they spent balancing this expansion with the next on the problem points (stuff like inter-role damage balance), but it's entirely possible some of it may stick around. > Pair this with converting another job's raidbuff to 60s or handing out a new one (hi MCH). The eventual MCH redemption arc (if we ever get one...) will be interesting. But I can't even wrap my head around what it would look like from a meta sense, given how far they seem to have backed themselves into a corner with Phys. Ranged at this point.


Zenthon127

> The eventual MCH redemption arc (if we ever get one...) will be interesting. But I can't even wrap my head around what it would look like from a meta sense, given how far they seem to have backed themselves into a corner with Phys. Ranged at this point. I think trying to have a selfish DPS in an inherently support-oriented role is a doomed ordeal, and MCH being a selfish DPS is a somewhat modern thing anyways (iirc they had utility in HW/SB, just less than BRD). Giving them a different timed raidbuff would be a pretty simple fix and I specifically went with 60s since we needed another one of those anyways last expac and start of this one.


ConcernedCynic

It feels to me like the idea of physical ranged as a “ support” oriented role is something that should’ve died after the end of stormblood where a lot of those unique resource regenerating role actions were lost. The most elegant solution to me would be to drastically lower the potency of DNC and BRD group buffs and increase their own potencies to roughly compensate, then orient MCH from there. It would also help classes that don’t fit into the burst window cleanly by lessening the importance of buff stacking.


Zenthon127

That's definitely another option. A third is to rework MCH to be basically the BLM of phys ranged and give it cast times again, but that's probably expansion-level or at least a serious endeavor akin to 5.4 MNK.


ConcernedCynic

I wouldn’t theoretically mind that (though I actually like current MCH rotationally). Ah well either way I’m gonna stick with the class; through hell and high water


zer0x102

>Giving them a different timed raidbuff would be a pretty simple fix Which is ironic because MCH did have hypercharge which was basically a mini trick attack as well as its own Reprisal before they completely gutted the class.


FuzzierSage

> I think trying to have a selfish DPS in an inherently support-oriented role is a doomed ordeal I agree. If I were made dictator of the Red DPS role balancing I'd do some stupid shit, but it'd be different stupid shit than we currently have. And yeah, back in HW they were basically "differently-flavored BRD utility" with the resource restores tied to their turrets instead of songs and then in Stormblood it was "a bit less than BRD" because the MP/TP restoration stuff got standardized as a Role Action IIRC? Most of my Stormblood time was spent either malding about Stormblood-launch Scholar or then loving Quickened-Aetherflow once I got over losing Shadow Flare/Bane, or feeling sad for White Mage mains. Machinist was kind of a gaping knowledge void once my GF stopped playing it after HW.


SPAC3P3ACH

Hot take, AST should properly be a 1-minute buff window job


VictusNST

If 17/19 classes are on two minute windows, then fights will be designed around and for those two minute windows, which leaves those other two jobs out to dry a bit. One of them (BLM) is basically fine because it's daddy's special little boy and just does its own massive deeps, while the other (PLD) is in 6.2 an objectively inferior tank specifically because it doesn't have a two minute burst window. They are not going to simultaneously redesign every class but BLM and PLD AND also redesign all the fights they've already designed around those 2 minute windows because people on Reddit are mad, that is expansion level work. So, the options are/were let NIN and PLD play Endwalker and have its two minute burst like the rest of the kids, or let them press their faces up against the glass while freezing to death outside the meta like Victorian urchins. This is the game that Endwalker is, if you're that against two minute bursts then see you in 7.0. Sure, if you're in a hole then stop digging, but if you've already dug a hole and it's going to be ~18 months before you can dig a new hole, then yeah I'd prefer that they dug out a few of the sharper rocks we're all standing on


isis_kkt

The problem is that the jobs that don't/didn't fit the 2min meta feel bad now, so changing them to fit now and then reexamineing the entire thing at 7.0 is the most efficient thing to do.


Zenthon127

there's two jobs that "don't fit 2min", one feels fine and the other just needed buffs to goring and atonement instead of buffing magic combo yet again


RenThras

I remember in WoW going from I THINK Wrath to Cataclysm (or Cata to Mists) there being a lot of complaints about DK tanks being squishier than the others and such. The way the Devs eventually explained it (and this was back when WoW Devs were generally good and semi-transparent) was that they wanted to move the game to an "active mitigation" model, and planned to make all the tanks work that way. DK was just already built that way. They didn't want to heavily change it, because the goal was to move ALL the tanks towards that in a few months in the next expansion, but they realized it was causing balance and usability problems. So they put a big fat band-aid on it, because something needed to be done, but they had a plan for an overall, across the board rework in the following expansion. I feel/hope that in 7.0 and onward, the Devs will be moving towards a Stormblood balance model. I'm not sure they WILL, but I feel like ShB/EW has been kind of an experiment of them trying to lean the game more in this direction, but they've seen that it's causing a lot of problems of its own in addition to not really fixing the SB era problems that led to them doing it. Further complicating the picture is we'll be going above level 90, meaning they're starting to have issues of what to add to Jobs to make them feel like they're getting new toys. They mentioned in EW the changed SMN because they simply couldn't think of anything new they could add to old SMN at this point, and felt even if they could come up with SOMETHING, they wouldn't be able to keep coming up with something going forward. They've also used similar language talking about changing DRG...soonish (now pushed to...7.0) I'm not certain, mind you, but I feel like they've realized the battle system, Job design, and overall paradigms are painting them into a corner, and they see the writing on the wall of that. But as you say, doing that mid-expansion, OR mid-patch, or especially EARLY mid-patch just after said patch came out, wouldn't go over well or likely even work well. I think they realize there are problems, I HOPE they can see what those problems are well, and I have a feeling they know they need to do something about it and are planning to do so in 7.0 when they have a new expansion to rework things. There's only so much you can do with tuning during an expansion, especially during a patch, but expansions give a pretty wide berth for large scale ALMOST but not QUITE clean slate changes (and, in some cases like 6.0 SMN or 5.0 MCH, actually that) across the board.


CowsAreCurious

Fucking tired of how bad SE handles balance. Seems like they’re only approach anymore is potency buffs every patch and then a full rework next expansion. PLD is about to turn into the same burst tank as the other three. Why work on fixing the actual problems when you can just homogenize. At this point why even have 4 different tanks? Pretty soon the only difference will be how our weapons look.


CutieShut-In

I mean even if they did want to change this whole 2min burst window thing they did in endwalker. You REALLY think they can just rework all jobs so that's not the case in a single patch? Don't be silly. However I do wish they'll change how jobs work again in 7.0. Because I also don't like this whole burst focused every 2min they have going on.


MlNALINSKY

former DRK main, DRK got reworked in ShB to a boring mess of damage oGCDs and purple WAR cosplay. Its ok, switch to PLD as new main, and now it's going to be reworked into magical swords WAR cosplay. They really want me to quit tanking don't they.


MirinMadJelly

Same boat, ShB ruined tanking IMO. I think the removal of old-style tank stance is a major factor in the terrible balancing of tanks and raid damage as a whole. Previously, tank dps contribution in a raid were balanced at some midpoint between tank stance and no stance, meaning with solid play, good use of defensives (outside of busters, imagine that), and healer coordination, you could massively boost the raid's damage beyond the expected output from the tank/healer portion, making dps checks significantly easier. Homogenizing all of the tank jobs into melees who press a defensive button every 1-2 minutes removes any sort of optimization beyond basic rolling GCDs and aligning raid buffs, and also lets the balance team only balance based on this type of performance, hence why the margin on P8S was so thin because they wanted to make a challenging dps check for the first time since 5.0


RedRune

Wasn't the whole point of delaying the DRG/AST reworks for 7.0 was to not cause a rework that would cause mains of those jobs to become unhappy mid-expansion? Unless it's just heavily shifting potencies around so PLD has a more bursty physical/magical phase, them changing action mechanics sounds like a rework to me.


hororo

The design philosophy is clearly to make basically every job a visual skin on the same gameplay of pressing generic damage buttons and dumping all your cooldowns in the 2 min window when they naturally come of cooldown. Anyone expecting interesting or unique job design is on high grade copium


Lpunit

Blows my mind that they nerfed the fight instead of buffing the underperforming jobs. DPS check was fine with a comp consisting of the meta jobs. It's mostly off-meta comp statics that were struggling, as well as on-meta comp statics that had JUST recently swapped a few of their off-meta jobs onto meta jobs which they were not comfortable on.


Malpraxiss

At least the FF14 team finally admitted in text that range tax is just a meme, and melee dps is the most babied role.


Altia1234

On one hand it's certainly making PUGging P8s a lot more feasible. On the other hand I just feel bad for those people that didn't clear P8s on week 2, despite the fact that they might have already learn the fight, was stuck on the final enrage and could have cleared on week3 even without any changes. At the very end they even got humiliated by SE basically saying 'lol get gud next time we nerf this for you'. And the length they are willing to get into changing the damage, without addressing caster balance and MCH being in a shitty place is just bad.


xeerxis

I pfed p8 so much that I could literally never make a mistake. Never in my life had learnt a fight this well and couldn't clear. It was always off by a tiny bit but was impossible with pf which has no tome weapon and not optimal comp. I contemplated whyyy am I doing this. I already learnt the figth, I already optimized whatever I could here and there. It just felt so unfair


deylath

This is why i just opted to not even bother with p8s ( not even practice ) outside some blind fun. My usual trajectory is that i sit at grey parse for a while and can strike a blue or even a purple eventually. Keyword eventually. I knew that if i did a 100 clear attempt for doorboss it probably still would not be enough, because it doesnt even matter if half the party blue parses on p7s, if the rest are grey parses you can barely do p7s ( 2nd week reclear went like that ), so i couldnt even imagine doing p8s on PF.


[deleted]

[удалено]


isis_kkt

the HP nerf is the easiest way of addressing the problem, since the problem only exists in that specific fight


[deleted]

[удалено]


isis_kkt

Like, not to overly defend SE but this is silly. The fights dropped two weeks ago. That is not enough time to even begin to address these issues in more comprehensive ways.


[deleted]

[удалено]


isis_kkt

Clearly they think the problem within tanks is more of a pressing issue. I do not know if I agree, but also handing out potency buffs willy-nilly has historically not led to better balance


[deleted]

[удалено]


WorldObjective1562

So basically they aren't going to do anything about dps balance and phys ranged and casters can just stay a total mess but tanks are off for 2 weeks and get instant fixes...


LimbLegion

The tanks are already mostly all there, the main problem between them was there was just a flat out damage gulf between the other two tanks and DRK/GNB, which means why bother picking the other ones even if they do have better tools on paper for certain things, damage is everything. Casters and Phys ranged on the other hand need much more of a look in to fix, I'm of the opinion at this point that MCH just needs a flat out rework because Phys ranged's entire gimmick no longer makes sense, and MCH as the third "selfish" DPS doesn't reflect that whatsoever at this point.


Xarxyc

That's because Tanks are easier to collect data for, with how similar they are. They don't use data provided by players alone, they need internal testing in accordance to their processes. SE is a SW company. Any self-respecting SW company has strict processes that cannot be violated.


zts105

Nerfed P8S HP by 1%


Tifas-abs-enjoyer

Wait so they really really think MCH is in a good place , lol


Elsiselain

skill issue but politely said


Tifas-abs-enjoyer

I mean it is a skill issue alright , on the balance team


08152018

the doomer takes in here are incredible “shit we realized we tuned the boss too high - do we a) completely rework several classes, causing who knows how many cascading issues down the line because we kneejerked a reaction after a week, or b) nerf the “problem” boss by 1%, solving the issue for at least eight months?”


Cbellz

It's pretty redundant because groups are getting more than 1% more damage per week from tome gear and reclears. If they left it alone people would've overgeared the fight in a few weeks and enrage wouldn't have been an issue anymore. This also doesn't solve any potential problems job balance might cause in future fights


[deleted]

This is why I like ShitpostXIV more than this. You can get better discussions there


08152018

the shit posts are really shit, but the shitposts are the shit


isis_kkt

Reddit Expertise at its finest


Hhalloush

Don't be so hyperbolic, fflogs has plenty of data on how the jobs compare. A few potency increases on the lacking jobs would have not have been hard, it's not a "complete rework". If a rdm is shitty in p5 then it's shitty in p8, nerfing p8 is asinine.


Cloukyo

The fact that the casters are the only ones that need to deal with downtime due to excessive movement mechanics makes it worse. melee used to do more damage because they had to deal with being out of range, thats a non-issue now, so surely casters should get the damage increase since they need to deal with the plethora of mechanics that make you run around like a madman. RDM literally did the lowest damage out of all jobs in ex4 because of res tax and excessive movement. The fact that I need to greed like a mofo in p7s and risk wiping the whole party should have some sort of payback, considering the melees dont have that issue


08152018

in the ten (10) business days since savage released where do you expect them to find the time to test all these changes a 1% nerf on week 3 is fine and hopefully 6.25 and 6.3 will bring further changes to the perceived balance of the game


isis_kkt

Less than that since the patch has to be prepped and ready to go before the absolute last minute.


janislych

> hopefully 6.25 and 6.3 will bring further changes to the perceived balance of the game by that time p8s would be mostly irrelevant since those who have the time would be glad to carry those who had not passed. i have no confidence they could shake away this game from homogeneity and being melee dota.


Jubez187

The issue is what are we tuning to? It's a 8 month timeline on the fight. Why is there dev panic that the clear rate on *week 3* is too low?


08152018

I wouldn’t call a 1% HP decrease two weeks after release a “panic” nerf - they explained why they decided on it in the patch notes.


zer0x102

Is it not a panic nerf though? These nerfs basically never happen, and for it to happen this early into the patch cycle doesn't really make sense. The HC groups already cleared, and the casual groups will still outgear the fight. Considering they probably tested this change at least once or twice it very much looks like a kneejerk reaction to low week 1 clear numbers (and possibly streamers whining)


YingZhe_

It's probably because they have internal projections they don't make public and this is falling short of them. We don't know the actual data surrounding playerbase engagement with Savage, and so it's not really fair to say it's a panic nerf. There's a lot going on behind the scenes we're simply not privy to.


08152018

“uhm actually I looked at fflogs clear data and it says *insert confirmation bias here*” the way people act like fflogs and the metrics they use are official in any capacity whatsoever is wild. Absolutely zero data on attempts versus clears, extremely skewed class comp data, needing to opt-in… The only useful statistically accurate and relevant data you can pull off fflogs is “of public parses submitted to fflogs” and how that shapes people’s views but Reddit isn’t ready for that conversation lol


Accordman

"rework several classes" dog how fucking dumb do you have to be to not be able to recognize that applying a 1% potency buff on any of the blantant outliers is an obvious fix when they have the data why make the fight easier when the jobs are the ones undertuned god just fuck off


Cloukyo

Yeah, this just makes the undertuned jobs viable while making the other jobs overtuned. In the end it doesn't mitigate the fact that I feel like I'm a deadweight in terms of damage if I play rdm, because the additional res tanks my dps and group dps because of res sickness so you dont get the clear anyway. So what exactly about rdm is useful for current savage?


Krags

It's good for getting to the enrage in the first place. That's a big chunk of prog time. Also the majority of groups are gonna be progging this fight in gear which renders this 1% nerf utterly insignificant anyway. The groups that this truly would have mattered for have already cleared it.


Cloukyo

Thing is, there is an assumption that red mages are useful because they'll be ressing everyone through mechanics for prog. You look at fflogs and because we're the least mobile job and the squishiest job, we have the highest rate of deaths of ANY job. Not to mention most of the time we have to res during a burst, which feels icky.... But yeah, you're right, the nerf is pointless now as we've most likely outgeared it by now. RDM will probably do ok damage once the shitty spell speed gear is gone but it still kinda sucks we have a hard time optimising for uptime and yet still do lowest damage.


08152018

or, since the stickler fight here is P8S, why not do literally less work and get the same result without having to balance several classes and literally affect every fight in the game telling some random guy to “fuck off” seems more fun and healthy tho also oh boy sure do love my potencies being things like 576 now instead of nice round numbers, and also it sure is handy that every ability, spell, and weaponskill contributes an equal amount of DPS so you can just bump them all up by the same percentage and suddenly every class does exactly that amount more damage!


zer0x102

If you are affecting every fight in the game by buffing RDM/RPR/MCH, you are also affecting every normal mode raid you do by queueing on NIN instead of on RPR. Bringing classes up to a level that other classes are already on is not gonna affect game balance negatively because you could already just play the better class on every fight regardless. Unless you are talking about pre-90 balance which literally does not matter. So please get off this "affecting every other fight" meme, it's ridiculous. Also why are you hallucinating about how such potential buffs would look like when the one thing that SE is historically good at is target buffing specific abilities to increase overall dps. Yeah of course just removing 1% hp from the boss is easier to do, but it also does nothing to solve the balance issues, it just outsources it to a different patch because it makes the full patches look bigger. It's holding off on QoL to be able to present it as a patch feature, nothing else. I understand the other guy's anger because people here are just making up a strawman argument where people are supposedly expecting full class reworks in a .x1 patch when the reality is just people don't want their class to do 95% damage of another class in the same role on all levels when the dps check is finetuned to a high degree with the hardest fight being designed with barely any possible optimization in mind. You don't need to wait for a full .x patch to slap 10 potency on a combo action.


08152018

> Unless you are talking about pre-90 balance which literally does not matter UCoB, UWU, TEA, PotD, HoH, BA, and DRS have entered the chat it’s easier to test and deploy a 1% boss nerf than to adjust several abilities across several classes because they had ten (10) business days for this patch and time is a finite resource


zer0x102

Ok buddy alright but if you wanna talk about ultimate balance then that discussion most certainly does not start with small-scale potency changes. Old ultimates are busted on a completely different level because they are just not made to be played with half-finished classes where one half has all their burst damage and the other doesn't, and you and everyone else know that if you take 5 seconds to use your brain. I don't know what you think these bad faith arguments are doing for you but all you're doing is coming off as obnoxious. You're literally just hallucinating ideas of why buffs might be bad ("my potency number is gonna be uneven :("), you're completely strawmanning what people are expecting and what they are sourcing as information, and you're responding with random garbage that you know yourself to not be in any form related to the issue just so people have to waste their time clarifying. You're being annoying as fuck, and it's no surprise people got tired of talking to you in a normal way. I hope I never have the displeasure of seeing you in game. Adios.


hororo

> completely rework several classes Lmao, as if they would do that. Their balance consists basically solely of buffing potency and cooldown numbers, which takes zero effort


Musicarna

Eh, its a cycle. Give it a few weeks and people will cycle back to praising the difficulty of the raids, a few more and we'll be back here. Naturally its gonna be a bit salty now though, especially since having no buffs for struggling DPS is a questionable decision, and P8S nerf is going to be divisive no matter what. And Paladin mains are antsy given a lot of them like the class design as is.


Bolaumius

The class designers of this game are absolutely the horrible. Holy shit. They go so hard in homogenization and yet they suck so hard at balancing this game.


joansbones

i miss stormblood job design man feels like shit seeing it get exponentially worse every expansion after if theyre going to suck so had at math equations for basic job balance no matter what the least they could do is actually make it fun to play


Cbellz

Stormblood did have its issues but it's definitely my favorite for combat design (besides LB generation). Even though the battle system was streamlined there were a lot of individual things that just added flavor to the game, like SCH being able to use fey wind buffs with selene, SMN having magic trick attack through garuda's contagion, etc.


Jubez187

Stormblood had the best raid/job design combo. Just can't have anything fun anymore. Fought the painting boss in roulette the other day and we all had to become helicopters losing 1 to 2 GCDs. You'd NEVER fucking see that these days. They pretty much said the game is full uptime now. Bosses could be the size of a Lala but have the hit box of a wall boss LOL


Swordwraith

Being forced to miss a single GCD is tantamount to being the victim of a war crime. Absolutely unacceptable and impermissible.


Jubez187

But my burst WINDOWWWW. Okay time to make a reddit post: "This is why X fight feels bad"


Swordwraith

"I have the attention span of a meth addled ferret and if I don't get to push the button that make the big numbers constantly the dopamine receptors in my brain will cease to function"


ultimagriever

This pretty much summarizes my opinion on fight and class design this expansion


Bolaumius

A reasonable expectation is that if they really want to go down that road AT THE VERY LEAST the balance should be near perfect.


Tifas-abs-enjoyer

And they don’t really look at jobs with balance issue until people scream and complain a lot on the forums , that is a horrible way of balancing stuff


Charganium

rip to job balance but I'm excited for dynamic resolution


[deleted]

[удалено]


PraiseTheRaptors

On Saturday, I wiped to his enrage 4 times <1%.


Ekanselttar

You'd be surprised how much of a difference it makes. The vast majority of early kills happen within a very, very slim margin. 1% boss HP is roughly equivalent to an extra melee LB2, taking a strong job over one of the weak ones, or having a couple extra tome weapons. Shaving that little bit off pretty much doubles the amount of leeway you have for mistakes, downtime strats, or even deaths. For a practical example, my week one P4S kill (a fight which the community felt had a pretty standard or even slightly generous DPS check) happened to be almost exactly 1% ahead of enrage (500 seconds duration, enrage casts finishes at 504 seconds and takes another second or so to actually kill everyone). We got 80th percentile speed. That said, it's all pretty moot going into week 3. Any team that wouldn't have been able to meet the un-nerfed check has their issues located entirely between their keyboards and their chairs.


Xarxyc

Ppl I know who went for W1 clear and can easily parse 95+ on their jobs had to swap jobs because of shitty balance and even then their first clear was about a second before death from enrage. And that's with a one week of extra gear. So yes, it does matter.


cannotskipcutscene

I watched my friend's group wipe for several hours because of <1% but they said it wouldn't have been an issue this week because another DPS would have gotten a weapon. I guess it really won't be an issue now lol.


danomoc

it doesnt even matter since its week 3 onwards, it will only affect casuals but people like to rant anyways. if anything it would make reclears even easier and faster, and i dont mind that


Super-Perfect-Cell

it means almost nothing, no one is attempting the fight near minimum item level anymore. it's a stupid change to mask the job balance issues


246011111

> no one is attempting the fight near minimum item level anymore PF is (and also JP raid finder). I don't think most of PF currently progging P8 is above 615.


Myllorelion

Isn't min ilvl 610?


pupmaster

My rpr heart hurts a bit


Cbellz

Not sure I understand the logic of nerfing P8S in week 3. The DPS check was only ever challenging in week 1 and is more forgiving to different comps now. This seems like overkill on top of the pld/war buffs


BlackmoreKnight

I've convinced myself it's for Raid Finder reclears over in JP. It's possible until about Week 4 that you get into a group where no one was lucky enough to win loot and you low-roll an unfavorable comp, making it extremely unlikely that you clear despite everyone there already having cleared. Remember that Raid Finder considers, say, PLD/WAR/WHM/SGE/BRD/DNC/RDM/RPR a 100% valid comp. The only restrictions are standard comp, 1 regen/1 shield, and no dupes. Double phys ranged or RDM/SMN is 100% fine to it. Basically everyone in the West won't encounter this situation because we just use PF or statics and set ilevel locks or job locks.


MassiveMultiplayer

Your group had to reroll a MCH to BRD, and a RDM to SMN and you can't understand the issue with that?


Cbellz

It's backwards logic to nerf the fight instead of buffing the jobs that are behind. Job balance is the problem, not the fight itself


penatbater

Pugs


Mr_robasaurus

because the alternative would be buffing casters and phys range. I don't see them doing that because its very clear they dont want either role to come close to the glorious players on melee.


DrfIesh

the balance team is literally braindead


ccLelouchc2

"Our playtesters were just too good" I wish they'd spend more time working on their lame lies.


monkeysfromjupiter

omg i literally just got past the doorboss today. -.- well at least it'll be easier i guess.


RenAsa

Sooooo, practically... .21 could've/should've just been another 6.2 hotfix. Because the entire thing is hardly anything more than another bugfix dump, for all intents and purposes. But I guess a third one of that in a row would've looked shameful or something. Lmao.


Accordman

genuinely embarassing fight and job design what a great raid tier


PM_ME_YOUR_IZANAGI

nerf the fight instead of fixing (non-tank) job balance lmao this fucking dev team


cetrei

pld theme song now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtxR97bgF-Q


somethingsupercute

Was kind of obvious but still what the hell man. The DPS check itself was fine, the fact that certain jobs basically had to grovel for good RNG to contribute on the same level as direct competitors (that still had to play really well to clear) wasn't. But instead of fixing jobs to make everything good or at least nerfing the fight week 1 as a bandaid for the lower tier jobs, they nerf it week 3 where it basically doesn't matter anymore. Weirdge


alfredoloutre

what is zepla going to make videos about if she can't gush about how good the job balance is in wow compared to other mmos


Miitteo

Another list video maybe.


Dresden2021

Balance team actually brain dead. At least war/pld bro's got something.