Now you may be thinking "Oh, but every job can manage in every fight!" and yes, you're correct - it's about the player behind the wheel. But, when it comes to player preference as we've seen multiple times over the years, the path of least resistance is the thing they will always go for in PF, Statics, or whatever majority of the time.
So, why am I bringing up this topic? Look at the data.
The first one is rDPS, or Raid DPS. This is the contribution that is provided to the entire raid through Buffs, personal damage, and all the other stuff put in one bundle. As you can see, the bottom most jobs are All Ranged Plus Summoner.
The reason why is because of the recent changes to RDM and its damage increase gained from Manafication. Also consider that RDM has one of the largest utility belts you can ask for in spot heals, Dualcast Raises, a 10% Magic Shield that's almost equivalent to Samba/Tactician/Troubadour plus 5% Healing, and to top it all off it has Embolden, a raid buff.
Remember how we had PCT be so powerful because of potencies? Yeah. RDM is the new PCT, except it will replace Ranged at every level because of the disparity. Not even the 1% is going to fix this mess until way down the line because the gap's too big. Now, take a look at the next category.
aDPS is the actual DPS output you're putting out as a job - your damage, padded by buffs and everything else, excluding contributions to the raid you are giving. Basically "How Selfish am I?" if you want to put it simply. It's without question that DNC/BRD are expected to have it low, but it is EXTREMELY LOW.
MCH only has good aDPS because it has nothing to offer to the raid other than Dismantle and Tactician, but mind both BRD and DNC are in the toilet by at least 10 percentage points if you compare it to RDM. This is really bad because by not only having the worst aDPS, they are bottom of the barrel in rDPS.
Essentially with RDM's utility and damage, it can replace any Ranged without a doubt on Day 1 and give people what they need on both prog AND kill.
So, how do we fix this? We need to start by taking a good, long look at all the Ranged plus Summoner. The reason I include Summoner in this is because it has been bottom of the barrel for quite a while in Dawntrail and has been considered the worst caster bar none because you'd rather take PCT or RDM instead for prog every tier, and I wish this was a joke.
The general idea has always been that DNC and BRD have really high rDPS because they contribute a lot to the total damage in raid buffs - those days are over. Let's see their reasoning for why they did the changes they did.
Quote:
Across Patches 7.2 and 7.3, the attack potencies of magical ranged DPS jobs have been increased to address casting difficulties experienced during unique battle mechanics. As physical ranged DPS jobs may attack while in motion and possess damage reduction actions, they seem to boast an advantage over magical ranged DPS jobs. However, in terms of offensive power, physical ranged DPS jobs are lagging behind their magical counterparts, so we have increased the overall potency of their actions.
They are still clinging to the Ranged Tax that we all know and hate. Can move anywhere while doing rotation at Range? Overall lower DPS - even abysmal. This is unacceptable.
Quote:
Red mage's firepower often suffered when distancing themselves from a target due to battle mechanics. For this reason, we adjusted Enchanted Riposte, Enchanted Zwerchhau, and Enchanted Redoublement so they may be executed at a distance while under the effects of Manafication. Furthermore, we have removed Manafication's magical damage increase effect to prevent potential stress resulting from entering burst phases with Manafication still on cooldown. To ensure red mage's offensive contribution is not negatively impacted by this change, we have increased the potency of Vice of Thorns and enhanced the effects of Embolden.
On top of increasing potency and doing a QoL for Manafication, they buffed RDM pretty hard to the point it can seamlessly handle any burst phase with at minimum 50 gauge. No longer needing to go into Melee for Manafication is alright, but the damage output is different because the Manafication is a free Enchanted Combo. That's what's attributing to RDM being so much more powerful than any Ranged because their overall damage shot up where Ranged got crumbs. SMN didn't even get anything impactful and it's starting to do abysmal damage because of how strict the rotation is during downtime phases in different fights. Even at no downtime, it's getting outdamaged by RDM, and provides next to no real on-demand utility compared to what RDM has going for it.
I know I've been going on about RDM, but that's really the crux of this issue and is going to cement Double Caster until 7.5 or 8.0. We had this discussion all the way back in Shadowbringers during E4S where taking 2 Casters outdamaged the 1%. Now, we're dealing with the same issue, except they are being overshadowed in both support and damage. RDM is essentially Ranged's nail in the coffin since we already have PCT dominating the Caster slot due to its superior damage, utility, and raid buff compared to BLM.
I wanna hear what everyone has to say on this matter because this is serious for an entire role and does not deserve to be ignored.
Continue reading...
So, why am I bringing up this topic? Look at the data.
The first one is rDPS, or Raid DPS. This is the contribution that is provided to the entire raid through Buffs, personal damage, and all the other stuff put in one bundle. As you can see, the bottom most jobs are All Ranged Plus Summoner.
The reason why is because of the recent changes to RDM and its damage increase gained from Manafication. Also consider that RDM has one of the largest utility belts you can ask for in spot heals, Dualcast Raises, a 10% Magic Shield that's almost equivalent to Samba/Tactician/Troubadour plus 5% Healing, and to top it all off it has Embolden, a raid buff.
Remember how we had PCT be so powerful because of potencies? Yeah. RDM is the new PCT, except it will replace Ranged at every level because of the disparity. Not even the 1% is going to fix this mess until way down the line because the gap's too big. Now, take a look at the next category.
aDPS is the actual DPS output you're putting out as a job - your damage, padded by buffs and everything else, excluding contributions to the raid you are giving. Basically "How Selfish am I?" if you want to put it simply. It's without question that DNC/BRD are expected to have it low, but it is EXTREMELY LOW.
MCH only has good aDPS because it has nothing to offer to the raid other than Dismantle and Tactician, but mind both BRD and DNC are in the toilet by at least 10 percentage points if you compare it to RDM. This is really bad because by not only having the worst aDPS, they are bottom of the barrel in rDPS.
Essentially with RDM's utility and damage, it can replace any Ranged without a doubt on Day 1 and give people what they need on both prog AND kill.
So, how do we fix this? We need to start by taking a good, long look at all the Ranged plus Summoner. The reason I include Summoner in this is because it has been bottom of the barrel for quite a while in Dawntrail and has been considered the worst caster bar none because you'd rather take PCT or RDM instead for prog every tier, and I wish this was a joke.
The general idea has always been that DNC and BRD have really high rDPS because they contribute a lot to the total damage in raid buffs - those days are over. Let's see their reasoning for why they did the changes they did.
Quote:
Across Patches 7.2 and 7.3, the attack potencies of magical ranged DPS jobs have been increased to address casting difficulties experienced during unique battle mechanics. As physical ranged DPS jobs may attack while in motion and possess damage reduction actions, they seem to boast an advantage over magical ranged DPS jobs. However, in terms of offensive power, physical ranged DPS jobs are lagging behind their magical counterparts, so we have increased the overall potency of their actions.
They are still clinging to the Ranged Tax that we all know and hate. Can move anywhere while doing rotation at Range? Overall lower DPS - even abysmal. This is unacceptable.
Quote:
Red mage's firepower often suffered when distancing themselves from a target due to battle mechanics. For this reason, we adjusted Enchanted Riposte, Enchanted Zwerchhau, and Enchanted Redoublement so they may be executed at a distance while under the effects of Manafication. Furthermore, we have removed Manafication's magical damage increase effect to prevent potential stress resulting from entering burst phases with Manafication still on cooldown. To ensure red mage's offensive contribution is not negatively impacted by this change, we have increased the potency of Vice of Thorns and enhanced the effects of Embolden.
On top of increasing potency and doing a QoL for Manafication, they buffed RDM pretty hard to the point it can seamlessly handle any burst phase with at minimum 50 gauge. No longer needing to go into Melee for Manafication is alright, but the damage output is different because the Manafication is a free Enchanted Combo. That's what's attributing to RDM being so much more powerful than any Ranged because their overall damage shot up where Ranged got crumbs. SMN didn't even get anything impactful and it's starting to do abysmal damage because of how strict the rotation is during downtime phases in different fights. Even at no downtime, it's getting outdamaged by RDM, and provides next to no real on-demand utility compared to what RDM has going for it.
I know I've been going on about RDM, but that's really the crux of this issue and is going to cement Double Caster until 7.5 or 8.0. We had this discussion all the way back in Shadowbringers during E4S where taking 2 Casters outdamaged the 1%. Now, we're dealing with the same issue, except they are being overshadowed in both support and damage. RDM is essentially Ranged's nail in the coffin since we already have PCT dominating the Caster slot due to its superior damage, utility, and raid buff compared to BLM.
I wanna hear what everyone has to say on this matter because this is serious for an entire role and does not deserve to be ignored.
Continue reading...