1:39 Balancing around what jobs are 'supposed' to have an AOE at a certain level is silly because of how inconsistent it is and having to account for all job combinations. Half the magical DPS, and all the phys ranged have it by Sastasha (at least synced down). So there's already a ~15% chance you'll end up with 2 dps with aoes (assuming equal chance for each job). Meanwhile Dragoon doesn't get an AOE until lvl 40 so that skews factoring that in for every dungeon below Cutter's Cry. Honestly I would make the argument that we shouldn't have ANY jobs without AOE by the first dungeon, that way we could add AOE dps to the hall of the novice and hopefully reduce the number of players single-targeting dungeon packs at 100. Also whoever came up with giving Perfect Balance without Formless Fist at 50 is a monster.
I dont know what Monk's kit was like in ARR originally, but there's always the possibility that at launch perfect balance made a lot more sense in the 2.x patches. But then it is possible it never was a skill to begin with, so curiosity might get me to actually research the topic. That being said, the gradual changes to jobs over each expansion do a lot to recontextualize previous skills. Now that MNK doesnt have it's buff and debuff in the filler, that already changes how you might use Perfect Balance before your finishers. Then you consider things like the now removed TP gauge and other things Monk may have had in it's pre-60 kit, and it is possible that Perfect Balance served a different purpose than it does now. That being said, it clearly needs some touching up for the 50-59 range, badly.
Dragoon aoe is absolutely criminal imo. Getting first part of your aoe combo at 40 is bad enough but then the follow-up for it isn't until lvl 62 with the final part at 72.
Perfect Balance has always existed, but how it works has changed. It used to be used to get stacks of greased lightning at the start of a fight and otherwise using your highest dps buttons
@ The annoying thing is they redid monk's leveling progression to make it smoother not that long ago (I want to say sometime in Endwalker). So not giving formless fist was a recent decision.
@ yeah. i get they didnt move formless fist up because it's tied to the job quests in dialogue, but i very much agree they should just make perfect balance give formless fist. or even just put you in a specific form at the end
Buttons upgrade over time, I truly think that they should just have weaker options that upgrade at later stages. This also makes the player feel like they're getting stronger as their character.
Maybe a hot take, but I believe they should completely remove the traits that increase potencies. The potency increases are one of the most random, unbalanced parts of level scaling, and on jobs like RDM, this causes a massive mess for no good reason. Same thing for SCH -- absolutely no reason for an AoE to ever have the same potency as the strongest single-target skill.
@@NatiiixLP The potency increase traits are specifically there to try to balance lower level content, though. If your skills hit for max potency at lower levels they'd be overpowered as fuck.
@@NabsterHax Of course it would require rescaling the game, but I feel like you misunderstand. Removing the potency traits wouldn't make you hit for the level 100 potency. Everything would have its default potency from whenever you unlock it. Low level scaling is currently extremely broken anyway, so whatever the goal, it has failed. It just makes things awkward for absolutely no reason. Awful game design.
@ The problem is that many jobs have skills that are direct upgrades/replacements for old skills and these obviously come with a potency bump and brand new skills in general tend to have higher potencies because it's an easy way to make them feel like a powerful upgrade. Jobs have to be balanced to do an appropriate level of damage for their level AND a similar level of damage to all the other jobs AND not have wildly inconsistent damage output that potentially make pressing the "old" skills that haven't been replaced a waste of GCDs in favour of just pressing the shiny new ones. It's obviously unreasonable to expect a brand new skill (with new name, animation, etc.) every time some old, lower level skills need a bit of a buff to keep up with new skills. Your argument for removing the traits also makes no sense. Yes, you're generally overpowered for the content at lower levels (an inevitable result of ensuring that old content doesn't become harder when synched than when it was current), but the solution to subpar balancing is to... make it worse??? And yes, they could rescale the whole game to remove the traits and keep the experience basically the same, but the problem just comes back when new skills are added or upgraded.
I wish the tanks had maybe a more simple version of their spot-mitigation at 50. Doing MSQ roulette or getting dropped in an ARR trial feels wrong when you get targeted by a tank buster and you just have to stand there and take it because you used your longer CDs on the big pull just outside the boss door, and teaching tanks just how important that spot mitigation *can be* during the rather long stretch of ARR postpatch might be a good lesson.
Allowing post-50 abilities at 50 also introduces a problem that Guild Wars 2 has, there is a huge difference in power between a high level player and a low level player in low level content. It encourages toxicity and discrimination towards lower leveled players. Ascalonian Catacombs is a level 30 dungeon in Guild Wars 2 but no level 30 player will be invited to a group to run the dungeon because they are unlikely to be able pull their weight due to the difference in power between them and a level 80 player. The community will not allow you to do a single piece of instanced group content until you have reached endgame and fully geared your character.
This disparity already exists in XIV because while iLvl sync does exist, it doesn't actually equalise you to that level's power. Wearing endgame gear in Sastasha VS wearing the Brand New Gear, the endgame gear player ***will*** out DPS the Brand New Gearset user. Yes. Even with the massive boost from the raw stats of the rings.
the thing is. the difference in power shouldn't matter in low level. nobody wants to do sastasha and wish for it to be balanced. people when they do roulette want to breeze through it. comparing to guild wars 2 is irrelevant , since they dont have the same incentives. sastasha doesnt give high end gear, so who cares if some gets carried or not. also , on roulette you don't get to choose , often , with who you are grouped with . so why everyone has to suffer for the lowbie. all the other mmo understood that. your logic with that guild wars dungeon would be applicable to sabage though, not regular roulette
@@KitaBFawkes Yes, but not to the extent that it happens in Guild Wars 2. A level 30 Guardian or Engineer is not capable of playing their expected role. Level 30 DPS professions would be doing about half of the DPS of a level 80 player that has access to elite specs, maybe even lower. They would be instantly kicked from any party they join. In FFXIV, a player that doesn't have their full kit would be viewed as a burden by the rest of the party, just like they are when they queue into a level 30+ duty without a soul crystal.
I'm very passionate about this subject. I think SE could increase player enjoyment a lot (and therefore subscription longevity?) by having more enjoyable experience in the most common duties in DF.
I very much agree! It is difficult though, because adding more stuff further down always reduces the excitement further up. So it is a careful balance! Buuut having an interesting and functioning job at 50 specifically feels relevant since all truly challenging content (and a large part of repeated content) starts there! 😁
I was so glad that first time I played Pictomancer at 50, it just... worked fine. Simple, but it didn't feel like I was playing with a hand behind my back.
It's pretty minor, but I would like to see Hot Shot on MCH get a potency buff so that it's optimal to use Reassemble on it instead of Clean Shot. I've always just found it very awkward that Reassemble is best used on one of your combo hits rather than your tools at low level.
A change i'd make to WHM, is to switch the positions of Benediction and Tetragrammaton in the leveling order. Having Tetra at level 50 is infinitely more useful than benediction due to its lower cooldown, and that Tetra is a big heal at level 50. It's one of the things that makes AST so much better to me at level 50, having essential dignity which is quite similar to tetra.
That would be a nice change. Whenever I get synced down to those levels I end up wishing I had Tetragrammaton (also Divine Benison. and my lillies.... and assize... and... ok ill stop xD)
I argue that Tetra needs to be an even lower level unlock probably 35 at the latest. All the other three healers have an ogcd heal with short cooldown (60s or less) by level 20. WHM at ARR levels is fundamentally flawed, and moving Tetra back is not enough of a fix for the job, but it is a step in the right direction.
I feel like every time people complain about this issue the real answer needs to be the summoner and monk solution where each class has skills that build on themselves and become stronger and funner versions of themselves as you level up
i've said it before and i'll say it again: give white mage lilies earlier, like around lvl 30 or so. you don't get to interact with your job specific resource or it's mechanics until you finish ARR, do the post ARR msq and start HW.
i think about this concept often and have yapped on and on ad nauseum to my friends about how much better the low level experience could (should) be. it's extremely refreshing to see someone with an actual voice in the community explaining this stuff, and with such good ideas as well. it's clear you have a very real understanding of this kind of content as well as both the strengths and struggles involved
I was playing reaper recently as I helped a friend grind gunbreaker. Reaper at 60, let alone 50, feels so incredibly empty and boring. Thankfully it doesn't start at level 1 but it's still very possible for someone to get a low level roulette on this class. What they need to do is look at each of the jobs and identify the crucial minimum skills needed to give players an idea what it will play like later. It's crazy that most jobs don't even begin to feel complete until level 70 when players will have needed to commit over 100 hours to the game. It gets good after 100 hours. Just trust me that you'll like it after you play it for several months. Leveling alt jobs from level 1? Uh... Also, I really liked that idea for black mage
Hey, you made the topic we talked about into a vid nice! This was something that weighed on my mind for the long term health of the game. As with Daily Roulette’s main purpose keeping old content alive, old content needs to feel engaging otherwise many players like myself feel as if Daily Queue is a chore the second we get ARR content. I do think that since this is the case, every job moving forwards should be designed around having a “complete” kit at lvl 50 like how SAM and RDM were designed as they start at 50 and feel great to play in ARR content.
Honestly I think classes should unlock most of their kit earlier, at least in some shape or form, and then get upgrades over time. I don't mind if the kit is overall weaker potency-wise, i just think we should get all our buttons earlier so new players can start practicing their rotation earlier. And probably standardize AoE unlock level.
We actually kind of already have a job that works almost like this in summoner, and a lot of players say that it feels quite boring to level. This can both be blamed on the rotation itself being boring, but admittedly, the basics of the rotation is mostly in order by level 22 or so, giving very little to really look forward to! 😅🤔
@@CaetsuChaijiCh This I think is a fundamental issue with the kit combined with levelling process. Give more of their kit sooner, and they feel better at lower level - but there isn't much room to add anything beyond simple potency (and maybe animation) upgrades, making levelling arguably kind of boring. I thought BLM was fun to level because its rotation changes quite a bit, while didn't really enjoy RDM - it doesn't get that much very interesting through levelling. The only I can really think of 'fixing' this issue is by condensing level ranges, particularly that of ARR. But that's probably not going to happen.
@@undvined I honestly think RDM is a _good_ example of the minimum that should be done for a Job at earlier levels. Scatter for AoE at 15 for Sastasha, and you got your alternating black and white mana + proc gameplay with your 3 part melee combo at 50 which is the backbone of RDM's rotation at higher levels, for a Job you unlock at level 50 it's much better designed than jobs like Dragoon who start as a Lancer at level 1 and still have massive issues like not having any AoE until level 40 with Doom Spike.
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I think the way they unlock skills on summoner is honestly mostly fine, the main issue really is that summoner itself just doesn't get much to work with kit-wise... And then you have to wait until level 80-something just to have something as basic as follow-up attacks for your summons... Maybe I'm just weird, but I never really cared much for "waiting for my class to get good", I'd rather it just give a strong impression off the bat at the risk of "not having much to look forward to" because I tried to get a lot of people into the game, and a lot of them quit early-on (level 30-50) because they found the gameplay boring (especially when playing classes where you mostly press 1 button to do damage like Archer/Bard). I can promise them as much as I want that it gets better later, but first impressions are everything, and once that's squandered it can be difficult to retain those players... It's definitely not an easy problem to solve, but I do feel like classes getting more of their iconic buttons early, like you talked about in the video, would be a good start.
@@NotRealAkira I actually have to agree with some classes being so boring in early levels. I started with Monk and always thought, when I started to level the other classes, that I got the jackpot, because Monk actually feels engaging to play on Level 50 already. It still baffles me that Rogue turns into Ninja, because Rogue is the most BORING thing I have ever done in this game, until they give us the Mudras and then it becomes so fun! Archer and Bard also felt like a snooze fest in low content and I am glad I decided to level up Astrologian as Healer as it actually has stuff to do with dishing out buffs at Level 50.
Huh, good idea with BLK. I came in absolutely on the "fire 4 equivalent at 50" train because proc fishing aside from being infuriating is also as far removed from the appeal blackmage has for me as possible. Stockpiling though, it's directly applicable to xenoglossy management, the use of cooldowns as "free moves" and fixes the worst feeling I have in this game; which is realizing I have a firestarter proc halfway through a fire 1 cast, sighing and accepting that if it was going to proc again I just wasted it.
The one kinda sick thing you can do with Black Mage Level 50 is that as you drop below 4000 MP you can “predict” firestarter procs by buffering Fire 3 after every Fire 1 cast onwards
As sometime who "recently" got into the game (god it's been more than a year already) and still remembers leveling all the jobs, i actually found that lvl 50 rotations are not really an issue or even boring for someone still learning and leveling the jobs. You don't know what you're missing if you never had it in the first place and all that. The jobs are less engaging at 50, but they're still enjoyable at that level. MCH for example is still plenty engaging at 50, you only really lack Drill as a second GCD cooldown to keep track of but the rest is still about pooling and spending like at 100. DNC too at 50 might lack Dance Partner but the core of the job, the dance itself, still exists at 50 with Standard Step (even if technical step is locked to 70). Melees specifically (except RPR) have to watch out a lot for positionals because that's actually genuinely a large percentage of their damage since they just don't have all those oGCDs and raid buffs that they do at 100. Jobs still have an identify and a flow, even if it's a very different one at 50 compared to 100
The reason they don't make your full kit usable in old stuff, is because they would have to redesign old content to be more in line with a max level's kit. It would be quite the undertaking for the devs and a good chunk of a budget they don't get much of. Maybe one day, This is a great idea to explore for the long-term health of the game.
(long-ish ramble incoming) Something to add to the "why not have all the skills from your current level when you sync down": Just having all skills at each level range would suck due to the power output which is why some people suggest that those (in this case) post level 50 skills would have their potency reduced to balance things. But this leads into one major issue, especially for GCD skills: why even use them. Cause to balance things you couldn't just have them at only 70% of their normal potency, that would still kill things too fast. You'd probably have to cut their potency at least in half (and with that I mean their initial potency, not the one they have at level 100 cause your level 50 skills would all be at their level 50 value already). And that's just for GCD skills, oGCDs would probably have to be nerved even more (those from DT even more given that they are balanced around the most recent damage buff for skills). Using Reaper as an example: There would be a argument that using Gallows and Gibbets (outside of doing them after Gluttony) isn't as useful cause of their lower potency as you would lose damage between bursts compared to just doing your filler rotation. And the potency gain from doing a second or third enshroud would be fairly small due to all those skills being tuned down as well (especially if we assume that the skills new to DT would have to be lowered even more). Now we could just argue: Why not lower the potency of your entire tool kit at level 50? That way you could just use your normal rotation and still do reasonable damage without making ARR content too easy. But I hope everyone notices how many issues would arise if you did that. For one, as mentioned in the video, any pre-ShB job gets their skills via job quests until level 60 (inlcuding one more at level 70) so they would suddenly get their skills scaled down without having anything to complement that loss in potency. And even if we say that only those that actually have started HW would suffer from that loss there is another issue: people with non-optimal rotations that rely a ton on the abilities they learned in ARR would be punished for not learning the optimal rotations. I know, some would see that as a good thing as it forces people to improve but it would also be a very demotivating feeling to suddenly do less damage with the rotation that worked so far only because you leveled up and gained a new skill it suddenly has become worse. So overall the approach of this video of just learning one or two skills (maybe even just a new low level version) at pre level 50 is so much better than actually giving the entire tool kit.
I was thinking a very similar line of logic myself! Thank you! An additional part to it too is some players have suggested this solution of keeping your kit as you get synced down as a toggleable option, but in those cases, if the damage reductions you suggested (necessary for things to be fair and balanced) were in effect, it would essentially be: "would you like to have to work way harder for no reward? No? I thought so! 😂"
I find it kinda funny how at 50 monk gets dragon kick (nice, now you have your full suite of basic gcds) and what amounts to basically an IOU ("Don't worry, I'll make it up to you by level 60. Trust."). Also, since I think actually lunar revolution looks quite nice, it's a shame that it only ever exists as a fail state, so giving it some time to shine would be neat.
personally, i just want a way for WAR to gather gauge from AoE at 50. Berserk aside, steel cyclone, in my opinion, is the most awkward thing to use in pulls because you're just left with whatever gauge and infuriate charges you have. if not at 50, at least at 60 when you unlock decimate, instead of at 74 where the "mastering the beast" trait currently is. and if that's too strong, make mythril tempest only generate 10 gauge until you unlock the upgrade.
For Red Mage. Given how much finishers are focused on at end game. Having one at level 50 might be a good idea. Even if it's a 'lesser' version of verflare or verholy. Maybe a big Lightning hit for Black mana and a big Rock for White mana? It just feels wrong everytime I play lower level Red Mage that they don't have something after the sword combo.
While perhaps not quite being a fix designed for level 50 experience specifically, I feel like tanks having weaker versions of their short cooldown mitis moved to lower levels would improve new player experience for tanks a lot. Among sprouts, returners and players who just say they're new to tanking, PLD's are consistently the ones who use their Sheltron/Holy Sheltron the most in my experience. Especially if PLD is given access to combat spells and a heal in their rotation earlier, there's not much reason for them to have access to Sheltron that much earlier than the rest of the tanks get their spammable mitis. Since lower level dungeon content makes up the bulk of the more casual player experience, and frankly also mentor roulette (on Dynamis), getting access to these earlier would make it easier for newer players to learn to play around them and have a much better time tanking, I believe. And a distinct side benefit, it would also make my mentor roulette runs less stressful for my poor sprout healers to boot. I am biased tho, since I've been a DRK main since I started playing earnestly, and the more I do content at level 70 and above, the more my miti spacing suffers at lower levels, because it's becoming more and more ingrained in me to miti around TBN, and it feels bad that without the audio/visual feedback from pressing that one button I just play worse. Aside from that I can only agree with your suggestions ^^
I was going through the end of ARR when the lily guage suddenly appeared on my screen. It would have been REALLY nice to be able to play with that at all during the time it took to get into Heavensward proper and finally see lillies bloom on the guage. For black mage I was thinking of bad luck mitigation by giving firestarter a higher proc chance every time it fails, but the idea to hold two firestarters is something that'd be even more awesome! That and maybe giving blm firestarter at the same level as fire 3
Yes, when I was a sprout, I found the inability to get lilies until I slogged through all the ARR patch content and opened HW to be extremely frustrating.
Glad to have been part of your think tank during the live streams that I have yet to see any form of announcements for (on youtube) in the form of a schedule on the channel banner or sth.
The schedule is posted every Sunday or Monday in the community tab, so if you go there and scroll you'll find it eventually! 😊 Alternatively it's also easily accessible on the discord (link in video description) and is pinned on my bluesky profile (also in description) It is typically somewhat detailed so changing the banner each week would be rather awkward! 😅
I still wish DRK got a baby-TBN before or at 50 that upgrades to the TBN we know and love at 70, with weaker shield potency and no Dark Arts refund. The Dark Mind buff helped but they still feel a little flimsy from 40-70.
TBN is fundamentally flawed for costing mp, so in addition to what you say about no refund for an ogcd attack, it should also not cost mp. Because mp is extremely expensive to DRK, it makes no sense that it is a shared resource for both dps and mitigation.
That's the biggest thing I've run into. I stopped playing DRK in the 50s because it was so much more frustrating than WAR or my main, GNB. I can't put my finger on _why_ DRK feels so much less complete without TBN, because I've never seen how it's supposed to feel _with_ TBN. When I play both jobs at the same level and have to rely on basic defensive cooldown cycling + combos, it just feels like DRK can't stay on its feet while GNB can. Maybe it's because DRK is biased toward magic defense? Maybe it's because GNB heals on the second hit of its single-target combo rather than the third?
Some jobs "Suck" at level 50 for a few reasons. Either they are a base job and while not having a few utility spells from ARR/HW days - those were the abilities you had, the design for the game was a bit different and hard dungeons actually used to be kind of challenging. OR they are 'advanced jobs' and weren't really made to be played at low levels. Like a Reaper in Satasha, buuuut you generally always make up for it by being generally more powerful at the level with what you got.
It definitely can be a problem, yet in a weird way i actually kinda like it. It feels like a little mini game having to determine what actions you have and how best to use them in the situation. It is weird and maybe not fun for the average person, but it makes me actually think about what I'm doing on a job that feels like it has been stripped down to the bare essentials due to the loss of the debuff
Great idea for a video! I think about this a lot myself too. The idea of “just don’t sync buttons” is common but ultimately ridiculously silly, it would basically ruin the game for anyone new to the game AND make people play super sweaty in low-level content, both things that are terrible for player retention. There’s a wide amount of great possibilities between the current “some jobs have only 2 Buttons at 50” and “give everyone their 100 kits” and this video offered a ton of creative solutions! Personally I think the design philosophy should be: Every job should have their basic Job Gauge elements by 50. These are iconic aspects of FFXIV and it’s kinda silly that they’re not. Jobs with raid buffs should have them by 50. This not only gives them more buttons to press and keeps them more engaging, but it trains new players extremely well on “fitting your good damage under buffs” and getting that started as early as possible is beneficial. Every job should have rudimentary versions of basic utility: every job should have their AoE, their personal defensive cooldown, their mitigation, etc. Even if these need to get “nerfed” versions that upgrade later, it’s way better to get people used to using these buttons earlier.
The raid buffs at 50 meshes well with the suggestion from others of tanks getting a short cooldown by then too. In both cases it adds some sort of teaching tool to train newer players on the "basics" of the game in certain aspects! 😁
I agree with this in principle. I've seen too many people use the defense of dragoon doesn't get its aoe until late so you can't have other classes have their kit because then dragoons get kicked. Firstly, people barely kick in this game, secondly, so every job has to be drug down via the sync system because they designed some poorly? What sense does that make? If the problem is they've denied jobs their kit then they need to fix THAT not make getting to max level worthless by sending a level 94 to sastasha for the 4th time this week.
@@KILLRAIN42 agreed. Jobs should feel PLAYABLE at 50 at least. It’s kinda embarrassing that we get reaper with like 4 buttons and Viper with literally 2 buttons haha.
Consensus for most jobs seems to be to just bring rotations down to lower levels as weaker versions. It really comes down to game feel it seems for this particular situation, even if numbers pushed things a little far they can always be adjusted
It’s not so much level 50, but I wish Warrior’s Inner Release granted 10 seconds of Surging Tempest, rather only extending it. It would make hunt marks easier to do more damage, and it would help WAR have a smoother opening if the other jobs are a little too fast with their buffs. Like SMN that opens with Searing Light for example, WAR now has to waste 3 GCDs to get Tempest up.
It is an interesting suggestion! In a weird twist, where the extension was added at a time where 10 seconds would actually cover the whole inner release itself, and then primal ruination was added! But it is fascinating how it is like the only action that remains that extend instead of apply!
I heavily agree with the pally changes in general, it's my current tank for level 100 difficult content but I despise playing it before it's spells heal. However I disagree in having only every other full 123 combo giving a proc for the spell. While I understand the rotation uniqueness and it does sort of mimic 123 + Atonement 123 it doesn't match paladin's mechanical counterpart Gunbreaker which always gets a cartridge after every full combo and while I do like it being open for players to realize optimization for their FoF window I think it would likely create more confusion than necessary. Simply keeping Spirit's power and healing potency lower at lower levels would be enough with what we already have built into the job. You ingrain the basic setup of paladin's rotation and it's still limited by the spells being twice as expensive below level 64 and paladin lacking MP gain until higher levels. Those should give low level paladin magic it's own unique flare and have it be a teaching tool while evolving with levels to grow mastery in both using magic more efficiently and often and it becoming more powerful.
Although I have absolutely no problem with the current Lv50 SCH/SGE toolkit, if I were to pick, sometimes I wish EITHER Indomitability/Ixochole OR EmergencyTactics/Pepsis were available at Lv50, to have a better AoE healing capability.
Yeah that would probably be nice. I can see how with all the healers being somewhat limited at 50, pure healers have a slight edge on party healing since barrier healers are missing that a bit! 😅🤔
To piggyback off your WHM suggestion, I'd even go as far as to: 1) Upgrade Cure 2 to Afflatus Solace and give it a cast time. Make it just a bit better of a heal than Cure 2 as well. Medica can be upgraded to Afflatus Rapture after 50 but it might not hurt to throw that in at 50 as well if it's not leaving 50-60 too bare 2) Change Freecure to the lily system and Solace is changed to an instant-cast spell when the whm has a lily. 3) Bring back Fluid Aura and make that a weaker, single-target version of Afflatus Misery to match 4xStone 2's potency We delete the noob trap that is current Freecure, chop down WHM's buttons a little (I'm always an advocate of lighting our button bloat) and give them something to manage that isn't mindless Stone casts.
Yes yes yes, the black mage part, I've been levelling it, and I've been so anxious over the firestarter procs, every 2.5s I'm staring at my bar, preparing a firestarter reaction test, it's bugging the fek outta me
I think Scholar really needs something more interesting. Art of War being a gain on 1 is fine but that's basically the entirety of what you do in a dungeon, since usually your carbuncle handles healing the tank.
This may be a weird change, but something I'd do for Dark Knight is move Oblation down to level 45 (same as Dark Mind), but make Dark Mind's 10% physical damage reduction a trait upgrade at level 82. Oblation would also naturally gain its second stack at 82. This functionally changes nothing about DRK's personal mitigation at lower levels, since instead of pressing Dark Mind on everything you're pressing Oblation. But it makes small changes that "teach" how the job works better than it does now. 1. Oblation can be targeted on allies, so it introduces off-tanking mechanics to the job most likely to end up in that role. 2. DRK gets its regular short mit, TBN, at level 70, which is later than all the other tanks. You can't really move TBN down given how strong it is and because it's tied to a job quest, but Oblation works as a good substitute before then. 3. Starting off with a magic-only Dark Mind better emphasizes damage types as an important tank mechanic. (As I wrote this I realized that being able to stack Oblation and Dark Mind on magic attacks at low levels is too strong, especially in something like UCOB, so maybe this early version of Oblation should be physical-only and upgrade into mitigating all damage at 82 as well. Or alternatively Dark Mind could start off as 10% magic mit and upgrade into 20% magic + 10% physical.)
A Black mage change I would do to introduce an element of the job significantly earlier actually stems from one of their thaumaturge spells: Scathe. A button in lv50 cap that has some slight niche applications if forced to due to their limited toolkit to now being a button that progressively became "If you had to press this at any point, you screwed up....BADLY." My change: Make scathe a precursor to the Xenoglossy gauge, making it a high-powered instant cast ability that introduces your Xenoglossy gauge (Will need to be renamed for the sake of this) and will transform into xenoglossy at the appropriate level.
Very much agree on the black mage changes. Black mage is my favorite dps at 100 and one of my least favorite at 50 for the precise reasons you mention.
while making wanderers to 50 makes bard much more streamlined and i want that change..... the entire point of the heavensward story for bard involves learning wanderers minuet and its nuances. Theyd have to do something to make that quest line still make sense
I might be misremembering but the HW bard quests were more about Ballad of Oblivion instead of Wanderer's Minuet. Even so, I think a minimal story change of "You already know that song? No wonder you're praised as a well traveled bard. But you don't know it's nuances yet!" Would suffice for the lvl 52 quest.
A lot of mmos I know of that do the "don't sync buttons at all" thing ends up with it being a barrier to new players because other players get angry about the newbie not having their toolkit. Even ffxiv's one place this sort-of applies (certain (maybe all?) role actions; arm's length doesn't get removed when synced down as far as I can tell), people will even nonmaliciously be annoyed at the perception of someone not using their full kit when they just *don't have it* (hence how I know the nonmalicious part, I was healing in Sastasha and the baby tank got reasonably confused that I was asking them to use something they just didn't have yet), and it enables a certain class of people to be more toxic.
A really easy way to fix that is to show the actual level of the player, this way you could still allow them to use their high level kit and in case of people that are still leveling you would know that they don't have access to certain abilities yet.
Unless I misunderstood your comment, you can see their actual level, just check their player search (or similar name, game not in front of me) and it will list all their job levels. o/
I mean when inside an instance, next to your name, let's say it's a level 30 dungeon and you're at level 100, your damage would get synced but people would still see that you're level 100.
Kinda off-topic to the video, but something this video actually made realized is that it would be pretty neat if WHM regen worked kind of like Kardia/Kardion. Make regen an ogcd that lasts indefinitely but is limited to one target. You'd need to change its potency to be roughly in line with what carbuncle does. This would work well with WHM being a "easier" class while also allowing better players to juggle regen on different party members, effectly giving whm a form of ogcd "aoe" healing. It would also fit well into the regen healer archetype whm kinda falls into. Personally I always felt that the way regen was implemented. Its nice to apply to the tank before a dungeon pull but outside of that it either ends up just pointlessly overhealing or being too slow as a reactive spell. WHM already has a bevy of GCD healing, regen fells pretty bad to press.
Perfect Balance should have a lower level upgradable ability that simply gives three stacks of Formless Fist, with Perfect Balance being properly unlocked alongside the acquisition of Masterful Blitz.
I like the idea of stealing a part of the higher-level rotation and slotting it in as a lower-potency (like 100-200, depending the cooldown) ability and stealing 25~ points of potency from the 1-2-3 skills before giving it back when you get the upgraded ability as part of one of those "maim and mend" style job traits. This not only makes the level 50 content better, but it gives players more time to get used to the expected final rotation instead of learning level-specific rotations for each capstone.
While i sometimes think not every job should get it, I was really glad when they did it for BRD's aoe. It felt so clunky prior to getting the combo step and I just enjoy it a lot more at those low levels
I've actually thought about whm a lot for this topic specifically. Most of the other healers dont gain too much between 51-60 but white mage gains their job mechanic in lilies, Asylum, Thin Air, Assize, AND Tetragrammaton. For comparison the only real upgrades its pure healer counterpart gets are Collective Unconscious and Celestial Opposition. I personally thought of moving lilies to either 45 or 30 (45 lines up with Scholar's Aetherflow and Sage Addersgall, and 30 would make Lilies feel a bit more tied to the core of the job since it would be tied to actually getting the job stone/align with Ast cards in level), giving them Tetra somewhere between 15 and 20 (Astro gets an imo better heal in Essential Dignity at 15 so it really shouldn't be a problem), and removing freecure and putting Thin Air in its place (the actual good mp efficiency button). Note: Level 30 Lilies might need Cure 2 to be moved to an earlier level to feel more distinct from one another (Once again Ast gets their equivalent at an earlier level so they could just move cure 2 to 26 like Asr bene 2).
Cae's suggestions sounds good, better than any that I have thought. For instance, I thought that Black Mage's Firestarter could work so that it always procs after using two Fires. But this might cause problems later, when Fire IV is learned. The only solution then would be that Fire always grants Firestarter with every use, like how Paradox under Astral Fire does it. But could it then be that Fire and Fire III together becomes a damage gain over Fire IV?
Part of my issue is less about dps potential but about class fantasy. I kinda like that dark knight basically has a baby shadowbringer at low levels. Art of War spam as a caster is quite depressing, and makes me wish (in spite of balancing issues) aoe was not spammable so there was both variety and the feeling of being a caster. 😭
This may be a rather wild take, but I think for a majority of jobs, because they weren't originally designed for the 2 minute meta but over time received multiple small changes that gradually fitted them into the 2 minute meta, we are faced with a problem where SE is currently unwilling to "shake things up" or else they risk disrupting the job balance at 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100 (arguably, 50-80 levels are already very unbalanced, so I don't know why they remain afraid). Though I do consider this a bit of a band-aid fix, I think a vast majority of jobs can benefit from button consolidation of their 1-2-3 combos (or some variation of it). Almost all jobs who go through this change will lose 2 buttons due to the simplified gcd filler rotation, but this means there's suddenly room for 2 brand new buttons that can be an original gcd or ogcd and at least add variety, especially if the unlock level is early. i.e. DRG's Vorpal Thrust and Full Thrust are combined into one button, Disembowel and Chaos Thrust are combined into one button, Spineshatter Dive is brought back, and Nastrond uses increase back up to 3 depending on level sync.
I think in my head both ninja and red mage feel very good at level 50 they have everything that’s most important to them and everything above that is a bonus to add on to the kit
Great video Caetsu :D I'm a MINE enjoyer and have played EX/Coils and some savage Coils quite a bit at lv50 with different jobs. I disagree with some points here due to balance issues and making these lv50 EX/Coils even easier than the natural powercreep we already receive. These fights I enjoyed a ton and it would be sad to have them lose their spice even further. Reworks without tweaking power are totally fine though. Tanks PLD: Currently PLD is mitigation king at level 50 coupled with an 'absorb' invuln, which has more value due to having the ability to prevent some nasty debuffs like tb vulns. Cover is also very unique to PLD and should not be undererstimated on how strong it is. At level 50 MINE content its the reason you'll mostly see PLD. Healers WHM: Medica 2 AoE Regen heal is crucial as a low mp option, it has huge value and it being stripped would make WHM worse for AoE healing then AST even with Cure 3. Cure 3 is situational due to its low range and high mana cost. Currently I do believe in most cases where Cure 3 doesn't have much use, it will be inferior to AST. The reason for that is AST rework giving it a ton more defensive utility, so the issue is rather AST than WHM for the imbalance. I'd rather them leave it how it is, since nerfs don't occure anyway - in fear of them making WHM stronger then AST and creating a new cycle. Ranged Adding in raidwide mits at 50: This is large mit added into the mitgation pool which can allow for some new cheese options, some mechanics can already be ignored due to Food buffs HP increase. Some of the later coils also have tight mitigation checks, this would make them far easier.
I think in general all melee classes should have all of their 1-2-3 rotations plus some extra abilities that introduce the uniqueness of each job, but don't complete the kit. One of the biggest things I think would be to give Bard its third song. It feels so incomplete at 50, like it could use a third song. I worry that it might feel overkitted, but this would honestly just make it feel like you're able to keep buff uptime, which is sorely lacking in any elongated synced fights.
Warrior gets their AoE spender at lvl 45 but you don't get to use it often in mob pulls till lvl 74 when Warrior learns Mastering the Beast, adding a 20 beast gauge generation to Mythril Tempest. The way I would do it is to give Mythril Tempest a 10 beast gauge generation when you learn it then upgrade it to 20 at lvl 74. For Viper, if Noxious Nash still existed I would've recommended just giving the Dreadwinder without it's follow ups at lvl 50 as a way to practice keeping up Noxious Nash, even at lower levels. Also quite curiously Vicewinder combo starts with 2 charges, it may be possible to add it to a lower level by just limiting it into 1 charge then granting it's second charge later on.
Dragoon at early levels is so bland, like you put it. What I wouldn't give to get Wheeling Thrust/Fang and Claw at 50! But thank goodness we get Life Surge at... Level 6?? I feel like swapping these around would already make the job a lot more enjoyable. I would also like to have Drakesbane by level 60, but I don't really have good ideas to fill that level 64 gap then. By level 70 I feel like the job functions already very nicely (RIP 3x Nastrond)
The level 50 kits aren't too boring when you're doing coils and extremes. It's the scaling currently for ARR content that gives you such a massive advantage over anything in that level range. You don't have to interact with the mechanics in almost any Arr dungeons.
Personal idea for Monk: get Masterful Blitz at 50 with Celestial Revolution as the only option out of it, kind of like you said in the video- and unlock the rest of the Blitzes gradually over the course of Heavensward levels. Flint Strike at 52, Elixir Field at 56, and Tornado Kick at 60, maybe? Might even serve to teach the player how to use them better by unlocking them one at a time rather than dumping the info onto the level 60 player all once, haha. (Great video as always, by the way!)
As a “hardcore raider” I enjoy the somewhat bizarre world of level 50 optimisation, however I do strongly feel that jobs should be much closer to their level cap rotation by level 70, which is the lowest level for ultimates. The most extreme examples of jobs which is missing too much at 70 is VPR and RPR. As an aside, I really do like the idea of BLM’s firestarter procs being a gauge element. In addition to the level 50 quality of life, and the potential for non-standard lines, if it functions like the paradox gauge where it is permanent until spent then it would remove the admittedly minor pain point of losing an unspent firestarter proc because of downtime.
With jobs that don't have many unique buttons like viper, what if the skills they build towards (e.g reawaken) had incrimental upgrades throughout level ranges. Imagine if you get the initial explosion at 70 then the extra GCDs are added in later
The leveling process is a lot more important than end game players give it credit for. That is an experience and intimate relationship to the job as you grow with it, and that is irreplaceable to a person's connection to the job. Whatever solution considered should also maintain that. But at the same time there is certainly a huge feeling of something lost when you know how the job was and having it taken away. Especially when we get new actions only to not be able to use it all. I actually think that giving lower levels mini versions of higher level skills negatively affects a larger portion of new player experience than it positively affects. I certainly don't think that lvl 100 players should be able to just enter duties with all their skills, but I find it disingenuous to dismiss the concept completely out of hand when plenty of games are perfectly capable of syncing. There is a possible middle ground. While yes, it has the potential of making new players feel bad when comparing themselves, comparing can also be a source of inspiration and desire to continue playing. We can maximize both these effects by making all the capstone skills stay when synced down. Jobs are kind of like little fan clubs or park attractions. It's beneficial to get people to want to come and try them out, and exposing newer players to the cooler skills earlier would help massively with that. It also helps make jobs *feel* better at lower levels while not necessarily drastically altering them at that level range, and it provides a curatable selection of actions that the devs can carefully tune. There are a number of other positive effects, such as providing incentive for lvl 100 players to still join leveling content, giving more experienced players more tools to help new players, etc. Some actions are poor candidates for this, but if you play around with the idea I think it makes a lot of sense.
Blm stocking Firestarter procs would be awesome. I have done it so many time where i hit a fire1 get a proc and missed spending it immediately cause I'm trying to pump out damage as much a possible...would also like to see it extend for AoE with fire 2 and able to spend it in something for that
From a beginners view: more buttons = more confusion From a 2k+ hour veteran = more buttons at a lower level plz! They can kind of alleviate this by combining buttons that automatically upgrade to the next ability in order to save space. Kinda like in the MSQ where you play as
Every job should have some kind of AoE by level 15, and every job should have a complete "core" rotation by level 50. Example: RDM has Scatter at level 15, and they have Jolt, Verthunder/Veraero, Verfire/Verstone, and the three part Melee combo as it's fundamental core rotation against a single target for level 50.
honestly i dont think giving WAR inner release at level 50 would be that bad, because you still don't have fell cleave then, you have inner beast, inner beast is actually pretty pathetic gauge spender since it literally does less damage than storms path/eye, the only problem it has is once you get fell cleave then its a bit more OP but its rather easy fix still, just nerf fell cleave potency by like 50-100 until level 70 (also for the love of god just let it get gauge from his 1-2 AOE combo from start, needing to wait until level 72 is just awful)
Oh the main problem with giving them inner release at 50 isn't a balance concern. The concern is more that if you get such an amazing upgrade that early, it massively reduces the amount of things to look forward to at higher levels! Although that is a weird conversation of course! 😅
@@CaetsuChaijiCh that has always been the problem with early levels and why some jobs are so awful at early levels, the jobs at early levels are basically nothing like how they are at later levels, that is why the jobs should give the basic concept of how they work in late game, in weaker form if nothing else, but even simple job like WAR is really different in level 100 than 50, because stuff like IR at level 70 and infuriate cooldown reduction per spender used at level 66 drastically change how the job plays, instead of you having this weak ass gauge spender you do like once every 30 seconds at level 50 you do every 10 seconds, doing it a total of 7 times in a row at max level, never liked how you get the complete kit at max level, i always liked the way WoW handled the specs and classes, they give all your major skills, cooldowns and passives at early level and only the talents change how you play the game (they do change the classes and specs a lot, but the basic concept is always there, fire mage is always about crit and throwing pyroblasts while arcane mage is about mana management with arcane charge generation and spending etc.) i do get the point tho, it is exciting to get new abilities at later level, however the way XIV does jobs its not a "bonus" you get for being higher level, its the major core part of your jobs design that you need to play the job as intended so once you lose them because of level sync it just feels awful
Some low level stuff is so awful lol, at least they have taken some steps to make things a bit better. I remember a few expansions ago back when AST still had sects you would unlock your first one at 30 but it wouldn't do anything because you didn't get your first aspected spell until 35 or something. Such a weird design flaw but at least that's been addressed now.
When ARR was current the level 50 kits were pretty alright. It was mostly because you had a bunch of other buttons and multiple combos but... SE trimmed these down on SBs launch for button bloat reasons. I believe if they didnt cut down this bloat as much then we'd still be fine. They couldve just built on it.
DRK really needs some love at 50. It gets to press edge/flood of darkness every 4ish 1-2-3 combo, blood weapons barely does anything compared to other tanks 1m CDs. It has the least amount of useful defensive abilities and the one thing it should have over the other tanks at 50, self healing through soul eater, it gets beat out by gunbreaker thanks those having access to both brutal shell as well as aurora.
I'm still a sprout so I might be totally off-base, but GNB healing on the second hit of its 123 makes me feel like I'm cheating. If I get low, I can just spam 1-2 1-2 1-2 until my health stabilizes, then go back to 1-2-burst-3. If DRK was also 1-(heal)-(class resource), I wonder if that would help it catch up.
I can't blame the mobile team for remapping the entire level 90 kit into level 50. The lower levels have become so anemic in abilities (especially after shadowbringers), that all the fun has just been distilled out of them until you reach at least level 70. Level 50 was meant to be the FIRST endgame, as in you're supposed to have a complete kit for later expansions to build on and refine; not for them to finish the job. What is currently classed (for most) as the level 50 kit is far too simple and basic to be appropriate for anything beyond level 30. I'd do a lot further than you, jobs should have several of their gimmicks by 30 (and some upon getting your get your jobstone), and all of them by 50, no exceptions. They do not need to be full featured, but you should have them all by them (i.e. it's fine for WHM to just have the lily Cure II).
I think ninja should have a buff to hyoton when used under kassatsu It’s a bit of a problem when syncing down to have muscle memory to do that ninjutsu and then have it be the wrong move Also it would give a reason to ever use hyoton since it’s a skill which is otherwise never used and a hold over from when PvP and PvE skills were the same (the bind was to escape players in PvP)
for BLM, I'm a little bit iffy on that change, it might encourage a bad practice of fishing for firestarter procs at inappropriate times, maybe keep the timer until a higher level removes it? a different suggestion I might posit is a weaker version of blizzard IV and the addition of umbral hearts at 50 as opposed to 58, I think it would help round out the rotation at 50 and get newer black mages eased into the 60+ rotation much better
they won't do the bard change because that would mean you change the lv 52 job quest where there is a cutscene where your character comes up with the song at the end of the quest lol imagine them spending extra writing budget to retcon the end of the lv 52 bard quest to make the change. lol
At present, the summoner questline references and requests the summoner to cast spells like bio and miasma, which they don't have. So while it would be strange, I wonder how big qualms they would have about this specific concern! 🤔😊
Reaper is so miserable at lower levels, and to be honest I think in part it's due to the complete lack of positionals. I kinda love how easy it is to hit all the positionals or stick them all under true north at max level, but boy is it a snooze-fest when all you have is 123 and you don't even need to move. Something you didn't mention but I think is relevant is that the reasoning of needing something to look forward to when levelling up doesn't really make sense for jobs that you can only unlock at high levels anyway. Like sure, if I started levelling as pugilist into monk I might be underwhelmed if I didn't get anything new or exciting from level 50 onwards, but viper STARTS at level 80. Nobody is levelling that job from 50 and anticipating some new skills - they've already got them unless they're stuck in a lower level duty. I do generally like jobs playing differently at different levels, but I'm not sure there's a good excuse for certain jobs to be quite as neutered as they are when playing at lower levels, especially when there are other jobs in the same role that are still reasonably interesting even at 50.
I just wish we could use our full kit, granted they would actually have to in some effort for once, but saying "having someone use AOE in the 1st dungeon when it wasn't designed for it" is also just wrong, maybe it wasn't "designed" for him, yet plenty of other jobs have an AOE at that level already, it makes it feel bad when you get a dps job with an AOE at the 1st dungeon, while the others don't. I still as much as possible since as a tank I can still AOE at all times, but it just feels bad when some dps have to single target, while others don't. Also, I don't think Yoshi really cares for older content being broken, since plenty of jobs already break older content by simply existing. (which they design btw) while they also refuse to rebalance older ultimates ... you know, that type of content that people will do expansions from release? (people still do UCOB and UWU, mechanically both are on par with savage nowadays, the DPS checks are literally non existent anymore, which shouldn't be a thing in ultimates, even when I did TEA last expac, the DPS check was already a joke where you gotta hold for 10-20 seconds on P3 enrage and then we kill it before the 2nd person is jailed at P4 enrage)
I would argue that certain things need to be in jobs. Like why does DRK get their aoe now giving gauge in the level 40s but warrior has to wait till theyre in the level 70s? Why does gnb also have the ability to get gauge by level 50 content yet no AoE to use it on till like 72? Stuff like that just feels really stupid, why not give a weak version of fated circle on GNB early, and allow warrior to earn gauge early?
In Destiny, when you do low level stuff your dps scales as such. Why not do something like that, you can keep all your abilities but you continue to do dps as a lvl 50
Does Monk really need the help at 50? I don't pay that close attention to exact damage numbers but it's become my go-to DPS for MSQ roulette since I feel the duties progressing notably faster when I go in as Monk. And that's *with* me using the two Perfect Balance charges back-to-back, since I was under the impression that alternating 6 or 7 Dragon Kick + Bootshine in a row was a damage gain over just going through the basic 1-2-3s. The job also already has a lot going for it to keep it active, with the fast GCDs, alternating combos, chakra gauge, and Mantra on top of its role actions for utility. Perfect Balance dropping you out of forms definitely feels awkward, but if it truly is a damage loss at 50 when Monk already hits so hard even with it at that level, I'd actually say to delay it to 52 and have it learned alongside Form Shift, then also tie Formless Fist to the last stack of Perfect Balance. And if it isn't enough to just learn Dragon Kick at 50, I'd say move the trait that guarantees chakra gauge on critical hit down to level 50. It's already 80% at that level, so it doesn't feel good when you get the proc, it just feels bad when you miss it.
The point of these fixes isn't to buff or nerf jobs damage wise. It is to buff them feel wise. The potency on a job could always be adjusted at 50 if some change made it busted. The problem with monk is that it legitimately learns an ability at 50 that is, effectively speaking, useless! 🤔😅 I suppose different things could be done as well and throw perfect balance up to level 60 instead 😊
Xiv really should allow the use of your actual level kit and just sync the damage down for dungeons, trials and alliances (excluding things like EXs and above), not only would that make daily roulettes more enjoyable it would also better train players with jobs that start at higher levels during their leveling process, as for the balance, SE already doesn't care that much about dungeon balance, just look at how WAR is utterly broken at the self mit department and how AST already at low level has enough single target mit to make wall2walls a walk in the park.
I am so, SO glad you've made this video, the only one I can think of that's made a similar suggestion was MrHappy saying that more jobs should be similar to how Monk's toolkit is more rounded compared to some (apart from Perfect balance). I feel like "just let us keep our toolkit when we sync down" was too short-sighted and too selfish towards newer players and so I would much, much rather see changes across the board like this. I really hope 8.0's slated job adjustments will take more consideration towards the holistic leveling experience particularly as it pertains to 50 and below. You're a bit conservative than I'd have been but that might be for the best, I'd like to make my own suggestions for some jobs but I think I'll leave that in a later comment (or edit this one).
The solution you mocked at the start is the way to go bud. Level and gear synch takes care of balance "issues" (not sure what those as everything scales off of stats and potency). ALL classes have had abilities REMOVED to alleviate button bloat (most of these abilities were removed from lvl 50 and pushed down the line). The answer is not adding buttons. The answer is allowing players to use the buttons they have earned. Also feel free to use any part of this comment in a mocking tone in a future video. It will make you look 200% cooler 🤣.
I know they want to have a new thing every few levels, and that works for a new expansion imo, but for older level ranges? I don't think people would be all that mad if they only got one or two new things from 51-60 so long as their 50 kit felt really fun. They have said they're looking at much bigger job changes in 8.0, and I hope part of that is making the level experience more fun across the board. I honestly think some of the stigma behind black mage is how its gameplay up to 50 is really pretty boring even by level 50 standards, and then its gameplay massively changes when you get fire IV, which can feel confusing
When you think about it, it makes no sense for the ShB-DT expac jobs to have this type of drip feed skill distribution as they don’t experience lvl 30-50 leveling at all. So why are they designed like this? For leveling roulette? I agree that the newer jobs should focus more on complete/improved rotations at level caps. Leveling roulette will always be jank anyways and is one of the few roulettes that’s not level cap content.
funny enough, as someone who used to do a lot of old content MINE, I find that the WAR rotation at 50 feels much better than at 60. at 50 you want to use your berserk stacks on one storm's path and 2 inner beasts which means you can come into the minute with either exactly 100 gauge or just 50 and save an infuriate. It's nothing super complex but I think it's up there as one of the better kits at 50. Then you get to 60 and all 3 berserk stacks must go to fell cleave, which means you must come into the minute with 100 gauge AND an infuriate stack. but whats *infuriating* is that you produce way too much bar between berserk usages, if you use one fell cleave outside of berserk you will overcap and if you use 2 fell cleaves you will not have enough bar for the berserk window, which means you have to chose between overcaping or drifting to hell and back. and maybe if we had 60 evergreen content like ultimates it would be a fun thing to spreadsheet, but as things are you have to chose between sitting on your bar or hoping you dont lose berserk usages trought the fight, and no matter what path you end up taking it just feels so bad.
5:50 and at that point i would be fine playing roulettes with lvl 50 content ... whitemage main and playing roulettes daily since 2 years ... max lvl roulettes only ... played lvl 90 and expert in endwalker and since dawntrail obviously just the expert till there is a lvl 100 maybe ... pretty much every roulette get me in lvl 50 or even lower content in more then 80% of the time ... obviously just the raid dont because it starts with 60 but to be honest having finally a single target heal with job ressource isnt that helpfull in a raid when you need most of the times aoe healing instead of single target .. for alliance raids i NEVER got something other then the lvl 50 and i tried it over 20 times in endwalker having every alliance raid unlocked and dont beside the lvl 60 ... for trials it was always a 50 as well ... sometimes with "luck" it was a 60 and there we are again content for 8 people you need mostly aoe healing and got the single target heal ... thanks for nothing ... level roulette is a complette other scam in that case i am even happy if its above 30 not even thinking about over 50 in over 90% of the times ... 4 people at max lvl just getting dungeons under 30 nearly every day ... the system is just stupid in my opinion for the old max dungeons its been a while i played them wasnt that bad like every other roulette but still most was lvl 50 ... and most of the time everybody was max lvl or close too at the beginning i liked the idea to get some random content and was fine with the downscale but over time it just dont feel like "random" content its more like "low level content with a low gamble for a bit higher level" for other jobs i cant really call .. i have everyone at 90+ but since i played daily roulette and so on most of the times as whitemage and every other job just in dungeons and nearly all the time just in the highest dungeon possible there is no way for me to call things that are really missing in lower levels for the jobs since they are maxed for over a year ..xD
Man, BLM is such a horrible mess at 50 I feel you'd need to completely rework a lot of stuff to make it fun to play at that level. It also heavily underpeforms numbers wise at that level, exasperated by pct being existing.
Honestly the rotation on pally is fine at lvl 50. Boring sure but fine. Though plesse give us a heal before lvl 84 in our rotation. Please. Actual pally struggle is lvl 70. Oh boy this lvl is so weird for them. Single target is amazing for them. AoE sucks to use though. At first glance it the same as lvl 50 one. At funny enough this is the problem. You get requiescast at this point. On single target you can use spirit or clemency. On aoe you can use clemency... and that it since the aoe spell is at 72. Worse, you dont gain mp on aoe at 70, so if you do need to start spamming clemency on aoe you get 5 cast and that it before having to single target. And bare in mind you dont attack when using clemency which can spiral where you need to keep using clemency.
I would love for higher level abilities to be allowed at lower levels, but with a 5-10% reduction in power scaling from stats when used below the level you acquire an ability. That way the rotation is the same but you don't significantly outperform a character using just the abilities available at that level.
1:39 Balancing around what jobs are 'supposed' to have an AOE at a certain level is silly because of how inconsistent it is and having to account for all job combinations. Half the magical DPS, and all the phys ranged have it by Sastasha (at least synced down). So there's already a ~15% chance you'll end up with 2 dps with aoes (assuming equal chance for each job). Meanwhile Dragoon doesn't get an AOE until lvl 40 so that skews factoring that in for every dungeon below Cutter's Cry. Honestly I would make the argument that we shouldn't have ANY jobs without AOE by the first dungeon, that way we could add AOE dps to the hall of the novice and hopefully reduce the number of players single-targeting dungeon packs at 100.
Also whoever came up with giving Perfect Balance without Formless Fist at 50 is a monster.
I dont know what Monk's kit was like in ARR originally, but there's always the possibility that at launch perfect balance made a lot more sense in the 2.x patches. But then it is possible it never was a skill to begin with, so curiosity might get me to actually research the topic.
That being said, the gradual changes to jobs over each expansion do a lot to recontextualize previous skills. Now that MNK doesnt have it's buff and debuff in the filler, that already changes how you might use Perfect Balance before your finishers. Then you consider things like the now removed TP gauge and other things Monk may have had in it's pre-60 kit, and it is possible that Perfect Balance served a different purpose than it does now.
That being said, it clearly needs some touching up for the 50-59 range, badly.
Dragoon aoe is absolutely criminal imo. Getting first part of your aoe combo at 40 is bad enough but then the follow-up for it isn't until lvl 62 with the final part at 72.
Perfect Balance has always existed, but how it works has changed. It used to be used to get stacks of greased lightning at the start of a fight and otherwise using your highest dps buttons
@ The annoying thing is they redid monk's leveling progression to make it smoother not that long ago (I want to say sometime in Endwalker). So not giving formless fist was a recent decision.
@ yeah. i get they didnt move formless fist up because it's tied to the job quests in dialogue, but i very much agree they should just make perfect balance give formless fist. or even just put you in a specific form at the end
Buttons upgrade over time, I truly think that they should just have weaker options that upgrade at later stages. This also makes the player feel like they're getting stronger as their character.
this. i can't wait for the day i can take benefic/cure 1 off my bars lol
Maybe a hot take, but I believe they should completely remove the traits that increase potencies. The potency increases are one of the most random, unbalanced parts of level scaling, and on jobs like RDM, this causes a massive mess for no good reason. Same thing for SCH -- absolutely no reason for an AoE to ever have the same potency as the strongest single-target skill.
@@NatiiixLP The potency increase traits are specifically there to try to balance lower level content, though. If your skills hit for max potency at lower levels they'd be overpowered as fuck.
@@NabsterHax Of course it would require rescaling the game, but I feel like you misunderstand. Removing the potency traits wouldn't make you hit for the level 100 potency. Everything would have its default potency from whenever you unlock it. Low level scaling is currently extremely broken anyway, so whatever the goal, it has failed. It just makes things awkward for absolutely no reason. Awful game design.
@ The problem is that many jobs have skills that are direct upgrades/replacements for old skills and these obviously come with a potency bump and brand new skills in general tend to have higher potencies because it's an easy way to make them feel like a powerful upgrade. Jobs have to be balanced to do an appropriate level of damage for their level AND a similar level of damage to all the other jobs AND not have wildly inconsistent damage output that potentially make pressing the "old" skills that haven't been replaced a waste of GCDs in favour of just pressing the shiny new ones.
It's obviously unreasonable to expect a brand new skill (with new name, animation, etc.) every time some old, lower level skills need a bit of a buff to keep up with new skills.
Your argument for removing the traits also makes no sense. Yes, you're generally overpowered for the content at lower levels (an inevitable result of ensuring that old content doesn't become harder when synched than when it was current), but the solution to subpar balancing is to... make it worse???
And yes, they could rescale the whole game to remove the traits and keep the experience basically the same, but the problem just comes back when new skills are added or upgraded.
I really love that suggestion for Black Mage.
Also, it really speaks to Ninja that it’s basically complete at 50 and just needs a bit of AoE love
Indeed! It is fascinating how ninja still can look forward to so many additions as well while still feeling somewhat complete at 50!
I wish the tanks had maybe a more simple version of their spot-mitigation at 50. Doing MSQ roulette or getting dropped in an ARR trial feels wrong when you get targeted by a tank buster and you just have to stand there and take it because you used your longer CDs on the big pull just outside the boss door, and teaching tanks just how important that spot mitigation *can be* during the rather long stretch of ARR postpatch might be a good lesson.
That is an excellent point!
Just letting tanks have a short cooldown early on to teach it would be great!
Allowing post-50 abilities at 50 also introduces a problem that Guild Wars 2 has, there is a huge difference in power between a high level player and a low level player in low level content. It encourages toxicity and discrimination towards lower leveled players. Ascalonian Catacombs is a level 30 dungeon in Guild Wars 2 but no level 30 player will be invited to a group to run the dungeon because they are unlikely to be able pull their weight due to the difference in power between them and a level 80 player. The community will not allow you to do a single piece of instanced group content until you have reached endgame and fully geared your character.
This disparity already exists in XIV because while iLvl sync does exist, it doesn't actually equalise you to that level's power. Wearing endgame gear in Sastasha VS wearing the Brand New Gear, the endgame gear player ***will*** out DPS the Brand New Gearset user. Yes. Even with the massive boost from the raw stats of the rings.
the thing is. the difference in power shouldn't matter in low level. nobody wants to do sastasha and wish for it to be balanced. people when they do roulette want to breeze through it. comparing to guild wars 2 is irrelevant , since they dont have the same incentives. sastasha doesnt give high end gear, so who cares if some gets carried or not. also , on roulette you don't get to choose , often , with who you are grouped with . so why everyone has to suffer for the lowbie. all the other mmo understood that.
your logic with that guild wars dungeon would be applicable to sabage though, not regular roulette
Do people even do dungeons in that game anymore?lol
@@KitaBFawkes Yes, but not to the extent that it happens in Guild Wars 2. A level 30 Guardian or Engineer is not capable of playing their expected role. Level 30 DPS professions would be doing about half of the DPS of a level 80 player that has access to elite specs, maybe even lower. They would be instantly kicked from any party they join.
In FFXIV, a player that doesn't have their full kit would be viewed as a burden by the rest of the party, just like they are when they queue into a level 30+ duty without a soul crystal.
@ No, ever since runes were changed there is no reason to touch them unless you want the armour and weapon skins.
I'm very passionate about this subject. I think SE could increase player enjoyment a lot (and therefore subscription longevity?) by having more enjoyable experience in the most common duties in DF.
I very much agree! It is difficult though, because adding more stuff further down always reduces the excitement further up. So it is a careful balance! Buuut having an interesting and functioning job at 50 specifically feels relevant since all truly challenging content (and a large part of repeated content) starts there! 😁
I was so glad that first time I played Pictomancer at 50, it just... worked fine. Simple, but it didn't feel like I was playing with a hand behind my back.
Meanwhile, VPR has a grand total of 5 buttons and NO ogcd. Picto is the favorite child 😂
It's pretty minor, but I would like to see Hot Shot on MCH get a potency buff so that it's optimal to use Reassemble on it instead of Clean Shot. I've always just found it very awkward that Reassemble is best used on one of your combo hits rather than your tools at low level.
A change i'd make to WHM, is to switch the positions of Benediction and Tetragrammaton in the leveling order.
Having Tetra at level 50 is infinitely more useful than benediction due to its lower cooldown, and that Tetra is a big heal at level 50. It's one of the things that makes AST so much better to me at level 50, having essential dignity which is quite similar to tetra.
That is a pretty good point! It would probably be a lot more helpful to have tetra!
That would be a nice change. Whenever I get synced down to those levels I end up wishing I had Tetragrammaton (also Divine Benison. and my lillies.... and assize... and... ok ill stop xD)
I argue that Tetra needs to be an even lower level unlock probably 35 at the latest. All the other three healers have an ogcd heal with short cooldown (60s or less) by level 20. WHM at ARR levels is fundamentally flawed, and moving Tetra back is not enough of a fix for the job, but it is a step in the right direction.
I feel like every time people complain about this issue the real answer needs to be the summoner and monk solution where each class has skills that build on themselves and become stronger and funner versions of themselves as you level up
Honestly Monk does this very well
I kinda agree on monk, but tbh summoner feels like a level 50 job even at cap.
@@NabsterHax That's the main issue honestly
i've said it before and i'll say it again: give white mage lilies earlier, like around lvl 30 or so. you don't get to interact with your job specific resource or it's mechanics until you finish ARR, do the post ARR msq and start HW.
i think about this concept often and have yapped on and on ad nauseum to my friends about how much better the low level experience could (should) be. it's extremely refreshing to see someone with an actual voice in the community explaining this stuff, and with such good ideas as well. it's clear you have a very real understanding of this kind of content as well as both the strengths and struggles involved
I was playing reaper recently as I helped a friend grind gunbreaker. Reaper at 60, let alone 50, feels so incredibly empty and boring. Thankfully it doesn't start at level 1 but it's still very possible for someone to get a low level roulette on this class.
What they need to do is look at each of the jobs and identify the crucial minimum skills needed to give players an idea what it will play like later.
It's crazy that most jobs don't even begin to feel complete until level 70 when players will have needed to commit over 100 hours to the game.
It gets good after 100 hours. Just trust me that you'll like it after you play it for several months. Leveling alt jobs from level 1? Uh...
Also, I really liked that idea for black mage
Hey, you made the topic we talked about into a vid nice!
This was something that weighed on my mind for the long term health of the game. As with Daily Roulette’s main purpose keeping old content alive, old content needs to feel engaging otherwise many players like myself feel as if Daily Queue is a chore the second we get ARR content.
I do think that since this is the case, every job moving forwards should be designed around having a “complete” kit at lvl 50 like how SAM and RDM were designed as they start at 50 and feel great to play in ARR content.
Honestly I think classes should unlock most of their kit earlier, at least in some shape or form, and then get upgrades over time. I don't mind if the kit is overall weaker potency-wise, i just think we should get all our buttons earlier so new players can start practicing their rotation earlier.
And probably standardize AoE unlock level.
We actually kind of already have a job that works almost like this in summoner, and a lot of players say that it feels quite boring to level. This can both be blamed on the rotation itself being boring, but admittedly, the basics of the rotation is mostly in order by level 22 or so, giving very little to really look forward to! 😅🤔
@@CaetsuChaijiCh This I think is a fundamental issue with the kit combined with levelling process. Give more of their kit sooner, and they feel better at lower level - but there isn't much room to add anything beyond simple potency (and maybe animation) upgrades, making levelling arguably kind of boring.
I thought BLM was fun to level because its rotation changes quite a bit, while didn't really enjoy RDM - it doesn't get that much very interesting through levelling.
The only I can really think of 'fixing' this issue is by condensing level ranges, particularly that of ARR. But that's probably not going to happen.
@@undvined I honestly think RDM is a _good_ example of the minimum that should be done for a Job at earlier levels. Scatter for AoE at 15 for Sastasha, and you got your alternating black and white mana + proc gameplay with your 3 part melee combo at 50 which is the backbone of RDM's rotation at higher levels, for a Job you unlock at level 50 it's much better designed than jobs like Dragoon who start as a Lancer at level 1 and still have massive issues like not having any AoE until level 40 with Doom Spike.
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I think the way they unlock skills on summoner is honestly mostly fine, the main issue really is that summoner itself just doesn't get much to work with kit-wise... And then you have to wait until level 80-something just to have something as basic as follow-up attacks for your summons...
Maybe I'm just weird, but I never really cared much for "waiting for my class to get good", I'd rather it just give a strong impression off the bat at the risk of "not having much to look forward to" because I tried to get a lot of people into the game, and a lot of them quit early-on (level 30-50) because they found the gameplay boring (especially when playing classes where you mostly press 1 button to do damage like Archer/Bard).
I can promise them as much as I want that it gets better later, but first impressions are everything, and once that's squandered it can be difficult to retain those players...
It's definitely not an easy problem to solve, but I do feel like classes getting more of their iconic buttons early, like you talked about in the video, would be a good start.
@@NotRealAkira I actually have to agree with some classes being so boring in early levels. I started with Monk and always thought, when I started to level the other classes, that I got the jackpot, because Monk actually feels engaging to play on Level 50 already. It still baffles me that Rogue turns into Ninja, because Rogue is the most BORING thing I have ever done in this game, until they give us the Mudras and then it becomes so fun! Archer and Bard also felt like a snooze fest in low content and I am glad I decided to level up Astrologian as Healer as it actually has stuff to do with dishing out buffs at Level 50.
Huh, good idea with BLK. I came in absolutely on the "fire 4 equivalent at 50" train because proc fishing aside from being infuriating is also as far removed from the appeal blackmage has for me as possible. Stockpiling though, it's directly applicable to xenoglossy management, the use of cooldowns as "free moves" and fixes the worst feeling I have in this game; which is realizing I have a firestarter proc halfway through a fire 1 cast, sighing and accepting that if it was going to proc again I just wasted it.
The one kinda sick thing you can do with Black Mage Level 50 is that as you drop below 4000 MP you can “predict” firestarter procs by buffering Fire 3 after every Fire 1 cast onwards
As sometime who "recently" got into the game (god it's been more than a year already) and still remembers leveling all the jobs, i actually found that lvl 50 rotations are not really an issue or even boring for someone still learning and leveling the jobs. You don't know what you're missing if you never had it in the first place and all that. The jobs are less engaging at 50, but they're still enjoyable at that level.
MCH for example is still plenty engaging at 50, you only really lack Drill as a second GCD cooldown to keep track of but the rest is still about pooling and spending like at 100. DNC too at 50 might lack Dance Partner but the core of the job, the dance itself, still exists at 50 with Standard Step (even if technical step is locked to 70). Melees specifically (except RPR) have to watch out a lot for positionals because that's actually genuinely a large percentage of their damage since they just don't have all those oGCDs and raid buffs that they do at 100.
Jobs still have an identify and a flow, even if it's a very different one at 50 compared to 100
The reason they don't make your full kit usable in old stuff, is because they would have to redesign old content to be more in line with a max level's kit. It would be quite the undertaking for the devs and a good chunk of a budget they don't get much of. Maybe one day, This is a great idea to explore for the long-term health of the game.
Oh thank gods I'm not the only one who felt like that about Firestarter. I thought it was just a skill issue.
Oh No it is definitely very awkward! 😁
(long-ish ramble incoming)
Something to add to the "why not have all the skills from your current level when you sync down":
Just having all skills at each level range would suck due to the power output which is why some people suggest that those (in this case) post level 50 skills would have their potency reduced to balance things. But this leads into one major issue, especially for GCD skills: why even use them. Cause to balance things you couldn't just have them at only 70% of their normal potency, that would still kill things too fast. You'd probably have to cut their potency at least in half (and with that I mean their initial potency, not the one they have at level 100 cause your level 50 skills would all be at their level 50 value already). And that's just for GCD skills, oGCDs would probably have to be nerved even more (those from DT even more given that they are balanced around the most recent damage buff for skills).
Using Reaper as an example: There would be a argument that using Gallows and Gibbets (outside of doing them after Gluttony) isn't as useful cause of their lower potency as you would lose damage between bursts compared to just doing your filler rotation. And the potency gain from doing a second or third enshroud would be fairly small due to all those skills being tuned down as well (especially if we assume that the skills new to DT would have to be lowered even more).
Now we could just argue: Why not lower the potency of your entire tool kit at level 50? That way you could just use your normal rotation and still do reasonable damage without making ARR content too easy. But I hope everyone notices how many issues would arise if you did that. For one, as mentioned in the video, any pre-ShB job gets their skills via job quests until level 60 (inlcuding one more at level 70) so they would suddenly get their skills scaled down without having anything to complement that loss in potency.
And even if we say that only those that actually have started HW would suffer from that loss there is another issue: people with non-optimal rotations that rely a ton on the abilities they learned in ARR would be punished for not learning the optimal rotations. I know, some would see that as a good thing as it forces people to improve but it would also be a very demotivating feeling to suddenly do less damage with the rotation that worked so far only because you leveled up and gained a new skill it suddenly has become worse.
So overall the approach of this video of just learning one or two skills (maybe even just a new low level version) at pre level 50 is so much better than actually giving the entire tool kit.
I was thinking a very similar line of logic myself! Thank you!
An additional part to it too is some players have suggested this solution of keeping your kit as you get synced down as a toggleable option, but in those cases, if the damage reductions you suggested (necessary for things to be fair and balanced) were in effect, it would essentially be: "would you like to have to work way harder for no reward? No? I thought so! 😂"
I find it kinda funny how at 50 monk gets dragon kick (nice, now you have your full suite of basic gcds) and what amounts to basically an IOU ("Don't worry, I'll make it up to you by level 60. Trust."). Also, since I think actually lunar revolution looks quite nice, it's a shame that it only ever exists as a fail state, so giving it some time to shine would be neat.
personally, i just want a way for WAR to gather gauge from AoE at 50. Berserk aside, steel cyclone, in my opinion, is the most awkward thing to use in pulls because you're just left with whatever gauge and infuriate charges you have. if not at 50, at least at 60 when you unlock decimate, instead of at 74 where the "mastering the beast" trait currently is. and if that's too strong, make mythril tempest only generate 10 gauge until you unlock the upgrade.
For Red Mage. Given how much finishers are focused on at end game. Having one at level 50 might be a good idea. Even if it's a 'lesser' version of verflare or verholy. Maybe a big Lightning hit for Black mana and a big Rock for White mana? It just feels wrong everytime I play lower level Red Mage that they don't have something after the sword combo.
While perhaps not quite being a fix designed for level 50 experience specifically, I feel like tanks having weaker versions of their short cooldown mitis moved to lower levels would improve new player experience for tanks a lot. Among sprouts, returners and players who just say they're new to tanking, PLD's are consistently the ones who use their Sheltron/Holy Sheltron the most in my experience. Especially if PLD is given access to combat spells and a heal in their rotation earlier, there's not much reason for them to have access to Sheltron that much earlier than the rest of the tanks get their spammable mitis. Since lower level dungeon content makes up the bulk of the more casual player experience, and frankly also mentor roulette (on Dynamis), getting access to these earlier would make it easier for newer players to learn to play around them and have a much better time tanking, I believe. And a distinct side benefit, it would also make my mentor roulette runs less stressful for my poor sprout healers to boot.
I am biased tho, since I've been a DRK main since I started playing earnestly, and the more I do content at level 70 and above, the more my miti spacing suffers at lower levels, because it's becoming more and more ingrained in me to miti around TBN, and it feels bad that without the audio/visual feedback from pressing that one button I just play worse.
Aside from that I can only agree with your suggestions ^^
I was going through the end of ARR when the lily guage suddenly appeared on my screen. It would have been REALLY nice to be able to play with that at all during the time it took to get into Heavensward proper and finally see lillies bloom on the guage. For black mage I was thinking of bad luck mitigation by giving firestarter a higher proc chance every time it fails, but the idea to hold two firestarters is something that'd be even more awesome! That and maybe giving blm firestarter at the same level as fire 3
Yes, when I was a sprout, I found the inability to get lilies until I slogged through all the ARR patch content and opened HW to be extremely frustrating.
Glad to have been part of your think tank during the live streams that I have yet to see any form of announcements for (on youtube) in the form of a schedule on the channel banner or sth.
The schedule is posted on the Community Tab on YT, and the Discord server in the description. :D
The schedule is posted every Sunday or Monday in the community tab, so if you go there and scroll you'll find it eventually! 😊
Alternatively it's also easily accessible on the discord (link in video description) and is pinned on my bluesky profile (also in description)
It is typically somewhat detailed so changing the banner each week would be rather awkward! 😅
I still wish DRK got a baby-TBN before or at 50 that upgrades to the TBN we know and love at 70, with weaker shield potency and no Dark Arts refund. The Dark Mind buff helped but they still feel a little flimsy from 40-70.
TBN is fundamentally flawed for costing mp, so in addition to what you say about no refund for an ogcd attack, it should also not cost mp. Because mp is extremely expensive to DRK, it makes no sense that it is a shared resource for both dps and mitigation.
That's the biggest thing I've run into. I stopped playing DRK in the 50s because it was so much more frustrating than WAR or my main, GNB.
I can't put my finger on _why_ DRK feels so much less complete without TBN, because I've never seen how it's supposed to feel _with_ TBN. When I play both jobs at the same level and have to rely on basic defensive cooldown cycling + combos, it just feels like DRK can't stay on its feet while GNB can. Maybe it's because DRK is biased toward magic defense? Maybe it's because GNB heals on the second hit of its single-target combo rather than the third?
Some jobs "Suck" at level 50 for a few reasons.
Either they are a base job and while not having a few utility spells from ARR/HW days - those were the abilities you had, the design for the game was a bit different and hard dungeons actually used to be kind of challenging.
OR they are 'advanced jobs' and weren't really made to be played at low levels. Like a Reaper in Satasha, buuuut you generally always make up for it by being generally more powerful at the level with what you got.
VPR just feels weird when you have more buttons unlocked for any one “side” of your combos
On the bright side, that's mostly when you get synced suuuuper far down! 😅
It definitely can be a problem, yet in a weird way i actually kinda like it. It feels like a little mini game having to determine what actions you have and how best to use them in the situation. It is weird and maybe not fun for the average person, but it makes me actually think about what I'm doing on a job that feels like it has been stripped down to the bare essentials due to the loss of the debuff
Great idea for a video! I think about this a lot myself too. The idea of “just don’t sync buttons” is common but ultimately ridiculously silly, it would basically ruin the game for anyone new to the game AND make people play super sweaty in low-level content, both things that are terrible for player retention.
There’s a wide amount of great possibilities between the current “some jobs have only 2 Buttons at 50” and “give everyone their 100 kits” and this video offered a ton of creative solutions!
Personally I think the design philosophy should be:
Every job should have their basic Job Gauge elements by 50. These are iconic aspects of FFXIV and it’s kinda silly that they’re not.
Jobs with raid buffs should have them by 50. This not only gives them more buttons to press and keeps them more engaging, but it trains new players extremely well on “fitting your good damage under buffs” and getting that started as early as possible is beneficial.
Every job should have rudimentary versions of basic utility: every job should have their AoE, their personal defensive cooldown, their mitigation, etc. Even if these need to get “nerfed” versions that upgrade later, it’s way better to get people used to using these buttons earlier.
The raid buffs at 50 meshes well with the suggestion from others of tanks getting a short cooldown by then too. In both cases it adds some sort of teaching tool to train newer players on the "basics" of the game in certain aspects! 😁
I agree with this in principle. I've seen too many people use the defense of dragoon doesn't get its aoe until late so you can't have other classes have their kit because then dragoons get kicked. Firstly, people barely kick in this game, secondly, so every job has to be drug down via the sync system because they designed some poorly? What sense does that make? If the problem is they've denied jobs their kit then they need to fix THAT not make getting to max level worthless by sending a level 94 to sastasha for the 4th time this week.
@@KILLRAIN42 agreed. Jobs should feel PLAYABLE at 50 at least. It’s kinda embarrassing that we get reaper with like 4 buttons and Viper with literally 2 buttons haha.
Consensus for most jobs seems to be to just bring rotations down to lower levels as weaker versions. It really comes down to game feel it seems for this particular situation, even if numbers pushed things a little far they can always be adjusted
I like the ideas of skills getting their upgrades without changing the core gameplay. This way, you would be missing only a few OGCDs.
It’s not so much level 50, but I wish Warrior’s Inner Release granted 10 seconds of Surging Tempest, rather only extending it. It would make hunt marks easier to do more damage, and it would help WAR have a smoother opening if the other jobs are a little too fast with their buffs. Like SMN that opens with Searing Light for example, WAR now has to waste 3 GCDs to get Tempest up.
It is an interesting suggestion! In a weird twist, where the extension was added at a time where 10 seconds would actually cover the whole inner release itself, and then primal ruination was added!
But it is fascinating how it is like the only action that remains that extend instead of apply!
I heavily agree with the pally changes in general, it's my current tank for level 100 difficult content but I despise playing it before it's spells heal. However I disagree in having only every other full 123 combo giving a proc for the spell. While I understand the rotation uniqueness and it does sort of mimic 123 + Atonement 123 it doesn't match paladin's mechanical counterpart Gunbreaker which always gets a cartridge after every full combo and while I do like it being open for players to realize optimization for their FoF window I think it would likely create more confusion than necessary.
Simply keeping Spirit's power and healing potency lower at lower levels would be enough with what we already have built into the job. You ingrain the basic setup of paladin's rotation and it's still limited by the spells being twice as expensive below level 64 and paladin lacking MP gain until higher levels. Those should give low level paladin magic it's own unique flare and have it be a teaching tool while evolving with levels to grow mastery in both using magic more efficiently and often and it becoming more powerful.
Although I have absolutely no problem with the current Lv50 SCH/SGE toolkit, if I were to pick, sometimes I wish EITHER Indomitability/Ixochole OR EmergencyTactics/Pepsis were available at Lv50, to have a better AoE healing capability.
Yeah that would probably be nice. I can see how with all the healers being somewhat limited at 50, pure healers have a slight edge on party healing since barrier healers are missing that a bit! 😅🤔
To piggyback off your WHM suggestion, I'd even go as far as to:
1) Upgrade Cure 2 to Afflatus Solace and give it a cast time. Make it just a bit better of a heal than Cure 2 as well. Medica can be upgraded to Afflatus Rapture after 50 but it might not hurt to throw that in at 50 as well if it's not leaving 50-60 too bare
2) Change Freecure to the lily system and Solace is changed to an instant-cast spell when the whm has a lily.
3) Bring back Fluid Aura and make that a weaker, single-target version of Afflatus Misery to match 4xStone 2's potency
We delete the noob trap that is current Freecure, chop down WHM's buttons a little (I'm always an advocate of lighting our button bloat) and give them something to manage that isn't mindless Stone casts.
I agree with your recommendation for black mage. This is a perfect idea, and I hope a dev hears and considers it as an option.
Yes yes yes, the black mage part, I've been levelling it, and I've been so anxious over the firestarter procs, every 2.5s I'm staring at my bar, preparing a firestarter reaction test, it's bugging the fek outta me
I think Scholar really needs something more interesting. Art of War being a gain on 1 is fine but that's basically the entirety of what you do in a dungeon, since usually your carbuncle handles healing the tank.
This may be a weird change, but something I'd do for Dark Knight is move Oblation down to level 45 (same as Dark Mind), but make Dark Mind's 10% physical damage reduction a trait upgrade at level 82. Oblation would also naturally gain its second stack at 82.
This functionally changes nothing about DRK's personal mitigation at lower levels, since instead of pressing Dark Mind on everything you're pressing Oblation. But it makes small changes that "teach" how the job works better than it does now.
1. Oblation can be targeted on allies, so it introduces off-tanking mechanics to the job most likely to end up in that role.
2. DRK gets its regular short mit, TBN, at level 70, which is later than all the other tanks. You can't really move TBN down given how strong it is and because it's tied to a job quest, but Oblation works as a good substitute before then.
3. Starting off with a magic-only Dark Mind better emphasizes damage types as an important tank mechanic.
(As I wrote this I realized that being able to stack Oblation and Dark Mind on magic attacks at low levels is too strong, especially in something like UCOB, so maybe this early version of Oblation should be physical-only and upgrade into mitigating all damage at 82 as well. Or alternatively Dark Mind could start off as 10% magic mit and upgrade into 20% magic + 10% physical.)
A Black mage change I would do to introduce an element of the job significantly earlier actually stems from one of their thaumaturge spells: Scathe. A button in lv50 cap that has some slight niche applications if forced to due to their limited toolkit to now being a button that progressively became "If you had to press this at any point, you screwed up....BADLY." My change: Make scathe a precursor to the Xenoglossy gauge, making it a high-powered instant cast ability that introduces your Xenoglossy gauge (Will need to be renamed for the sake of this) and will transform into xenoglossy at the appropriate level.
Very much agree on the black mage changes. Black mage is my favorite dps at 100 and one of my least favorite at 50 for the precise reasons you mention.
It is quite awkward because I kind of enjoy it, but that specific issue makes it very difficult to enjoy it at 50! 😅
while making wanderers to 50 makes bard much more streamlined and i want that change..... the entire point of the heavensward story for bard involves learning wanderers minuet and its nuances. Theyd have to do something to make that quest line still make sense
I might be misremembering but the HW bard quests were more about Ballad of Oblivion instead of Wanderer's Minuet. Even so, I think a minimal story change of "You already know that song? No wonder you're praised as a well traveled bard. But you don't know it's nuances yet!" Would suffice for the lvl 52 quest.
@metaboi488 yes balad of oblivion and that was when you learn wanderers minuet and the guy goes wow is this the one?
A lot of mmos I know of that do the "don't sync buttons at all" thing ends up with it being a barrier to new players because other players get angry about the newbie not having their toolkit. Even ffxiv's one place this sort-of applies (certain (maybe all?) role actions; arm's length doesn't get removed when synced down as far as I can tell), people will even nonmaliciously be annoyed at the perception of someone not using their full kit when they just *don't have it* (hence how I know the nonmalicious part, I was healing in Sastasha and the baby tank got reasonably confused that I was asking them to use something they just didn't have yet), and it enables a certain class of people to be more toxic.
A really easy way to fix that is to show the actual level of the player, this way you could still allow them to use their high level kit and in case of people that are still leveling you would know that they don't have access to certain abilities yet.
Unless I misunderstood your comment, you can see their actual level, just check their player search (or similar name, game not in front of me) and it will list all their job levels. o/
I mean when inside an instance, next to your name, let's say it's a level 30 dungeon and you're at level 100, your damage would get synced but people would still see that you're level 100.
Kinda off-topic to the video, but something this video actually made realized is that it would be pretty neat if WHM regen worked kind of like Kardia/Kardion. Make regen an ogcd that lasts indefinitely but is limited to one target. You'd need to change its potency to be roughly in line with what carbuncle does. This would work well with WHM being a "easier" class while also allowing better players to juggle regen on different party members, effectly giving whm a form of ogcd "aoe" healing. It would also fit well into the regen healer archetype whm kinda falls into.
Personally I always felt that the way regen was implemented. Its nice to apply to the tank before a dungeon pull but outside of that it either ends up just pointlessly overhealing or being too slow as a reactive spell. WHM already has a bevy of GCD healing, regen fells pretty bad to press.
Perfect Balance should have a lower level upgradable ability that simply gives three stacks of Formless Fist, with Perfect Balance being properly unlocked alongside the acquisition of Masterful Blitz.
I like the idea of stealing a part of the higher-level rotation and slotting it in as a lower-potency (like 100-200, depending the cooldown) ability and stealing 25~ points of potency from the 1-2-3 skills before giving it back when you get the upgraded ability as part of one of those "maim and mend" style job traits. This not only makes the level 50 content better, but it gives players more time to get used to the expected final rotation instead of learning level-specific rotations for each capstone.
While i sometimes think not every job should get it, I was really glad when they did it for BRD's aoe. It felt so clunky prior to getting the combo step and I just enjoy it a lot more at those low levels
I've actually thought about whm a lot for this topic specifically. Most of the other healers dont gain too much between 51-60 but white mage gains their job mechanic in lilies, Asylum, Thin Air, Assize, AND Tetragrammaton. For comparison the only real upgrades its pure healer counterpart gets are Collective Unconscious and Celestial Opposition. I personally thought of moving lilies to either 45 or 30 (45 lines up with Scholar's Aetherflow and Sage Addersgall, and 30 would make Lilies feel a bit more tied to the core of the job since it would be tied to actually getting the job stone/align with Ast cards in level), giving them Tetra somewhere between 15 and 20 (Astro gets an imo better heal in Essential Dignity at 15 so it really shouldn't be a problem), and removing freecure and putting Thin Air in its place (the actual good mp efficiency button).
Note: Level 30 Lilies might need Cure 2 to be moved to an earlier level to feel more distinct from one another (Once again Ast gets their equivalent at an earlier level so they could just move cure 2 to 26 like Asr bene 2).
Cae's suggestions sounds good, better than any that I have thought. For instance, I thought that Black Mage's Firestarter could work so that it always procs after using two Fires. But this might cause problems later, when Fire IV is learned. The only solution then would be that Fire always grants Firestarter with every use, like how Paradox under Astral Fire does it. But could it then be that Fire and Fire III together becomes a damage gain over Fire IV?
Part of my issue is less about dps potential but about class fantasy. I kinda like that dark knight basically has a baby shadowbringer at low levels.
Art of War spam as a caster is quite depressing, and makes me wish (in spite of balancing issues) aoe was not spammable so there was both variety and the feeling of being a caster. 😭
This may be a rather wild take, but I think for a majority of jobs, because they weren't originally designed for the 2 minute meta but over time received multiple small changes that gradually fitted them into the 2 minute meta, we are faced with a problem where SE is currently unwilling to "shake things up" or else they risk disrupting the job balance at 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100 (arguably, 50-80 levels are already very unbalanced, so I don't know why they remain afraid).
Though I do consider this a bit of a band-aid fix, I think a vast majority of jobs can benefit from button consolidation of their 1-2-3 combos (or some variation of it). Almost all jobs who go through this change will lose 2 buttons due to the simplified gcd filler rotation, but this means there's suddenly room for 2 brand new buttons that can be an original gcd or ogcd and at least add variety, especially if the unlock level is early.
i.e. DRG's Vorpal Thrust and Full Thrust are combined into one button, Disembowel and Chaos Thrust are combined into one button, Spineshatter Dive is brought back, and Nastrond uses increase back up to 3 depending on level sync.
I think in my head both ninja and red mage feel very good at level 50 they have everything that’s most important to them and everything above that is a bonus to add on to the kit
Great video Caetsu :D
I'm a MINE enjoyer and have played EX/Coils and some savage Coils quite a bit at lv50 with different jobs. I disagree with some points here due to balance issues and making these lv50 EX/Coils even easier than the natural powercreep we already receive. These fights I enjoyed a ton and it would be sad to have them lose their spice even further. Reworks without tweaking power are totally fine though.
Tanks
PLD: Currently PLD is mitigation king at level 50 coupled with an 'absorb' invuln, which has more value due to having the ability to prevent some nasty debuffs like tb vulns. Cover is also very unique to PLD and should not be undererstimated on how strong it is. At level 50 MINE content its the reason you'll mostly see PLD.
Healers
WHM: Medica 2 AoE Regen heal is crucial as a low mp option, it has huge value and it being stripped would make WHM worse for AoE healing then AST even with Cure 3. Cure 3 is situational due to its low range and high mana cost. Currently I do believe in most cases where Cure 3 doesn't have much use, it will be inferior to AST. The reason for that is AST rework giving it a ton more defensive utility, so the issue is rather AST than WHM for the imbalance. I'd rather them leave it how it is, since nerfs don't occure anyway - in fear of them making WHM stronger then AST and creating a new cycle.
Ranged
Adding in raidwide mits at 50: This is large mit added into the mitgation pool which can allow for some new cheese options, some mechanics can already be ignored due to Food buffs HP increase. Some of the later coils also have tight mitigation checks, this would make them far easier.
I think in general all melee classes should have all of their 1-2-3 rotations plus some extra abilities that introduce the uniqueness of each job, but don't complete the kit.
One of the biggest things I think would be to give Bard its third song. It feels so incomplete at 50, like it could use a third song. I worry that it might feel overkitted, but this would honestly just make it feel like you're able to keep buff uptime, which is sorely lacking in any elongated synced fights.
Bro. U da best music!
I was literally having a conversation in Crystal Tower about Viper and Reaper being so bare bones
Warrior gets their AoE spender at lvl 45 but you don't get to use it often in mob pulls till lvl 74 when Warrior learns Mastering the Beast, adding a 20 beast gauge generation to Mythril Tempest. The way I would do it is to give Mythril Tempest a 10 beast gauge generation when you learn it then upgrade it to 20 at lvl 74.
For Viper, if Noxious Nash still existed I would've recommended just giving the Dreadwinder without it's follow ups at lvl 50 as a way to practice keeping up Noxious Nash, even at lower levels. Also quite curiously Vicewinder combo starts with 2 charges, it may be possible to add it to a lower level by just limiting it into 1 charge then granting it's second charge later on.
When I get level synced at Ninja, there's an at least 99% chance I will forget I don't have Hyosho Ranryu and waste all of my Kasatsus on Hyoton.
Dragoon at early levels is so bland, like you put it. What I wouldn't give to get Wheeling Thrust/Fang and Claw at 50! But thank goodness we get Life Surge at... Level 6?? I feel like swapping these around would already make the job a lot more enjoyable.
I would also like to have Drakesbane by level 60, but I don't really have good ideas to fill that level 64 gap then. By level 70 I feel like the job functions already very nicely (RIP 3x Nastrond)
The level 50 kits aren't too boring when you're doing coils and extremes. It's the scaling currently for ARR content that gives you such a massive advantage over anything in that level range. You don't have to interact with the mechanics in almost any Arr dungeons.
Personal idea for Monk: get Masterful Blitz at 50 with Celestial Revolution as the only option out of it, kind of like you said in the video- and unlock the rest of the Blitzes gradually over the course of Heavensward levels. Flint Strike at 52, Elixir Field at 56, and Tornado Kick at 60, maybe? Might even serve to teach the player how to use them better by unlocking them one at a time rather than dumping the info onto the level 60 player all once, haha. (Great video as always, by the way!)
As a “hardcore raider” I enjoy the somewhat bizarre world of level 50 optimisation, however I do strongly feel that jobs should be much closer to their level cap rotation by level 70, which is the lowest level for ultimates. The most extreme examples of jobs which is missing too much at 70 is VPR and RPR.
As an aside, I really do like the idea of BLM’s firestarter procs being a gauge element. In addition to the level 50 quality of life, and the potential for non-standard lines, if it functions like the paradox gauge where it is permanent until spent then it would remove the admittedly minor pain point of losing an unspent firestarter proc because of downtime.
With jobs that don't have many unique buttons like viper, what if the skills they build towards (e.g reawaken) had incrimental upgrades throughout level ranges. Imagine if you get the initial explosion at 70 then the extra GCDs are added in later
Closed Position at 50 would be really nice, honestly. It's pretty much the only thing I think DNC feels like it needs at that level.
The leveling process is a lot more important than end game players give it credit for. That is an experience and intimate relationship to the job as you grow with it, and that is irreplaceable to a person's connection to the job. Whatever solution considered should also maintain that. But at the same time there is certainly a huge feeling of something lost when you know how the job was and having it taken away. Especially when we get new actions only to not be able to use it all.
I actually think that giving lower levels mini versions of higher level skills negatively affects a larger portion of new player experience than it positively affects. I certainly don't think that lvl 100 players should be able to just enter duties with all their skills, but I find it disingenuous to dismiss the concept completely out of hand when plenty of games are perfectly capable of syncing. There is a possible middle ground. While yes, it has the potential of making new players feel bad when comparing themselves, comparing can also be a source of inspiration and desire to continue playing. We can maximize both these effects by making all the capstone skills stay when synced down.
Jobs are kind of like little fan clubs or park attractions. It's beneficial to get people to want to come and try them out, and exposing newer players to the cooler skills earlier would help massively with that. It also helps make jobs *feel* better at lower levels while not necessarily drastically altering them at that level range, and it provides a curatable selection of actions that the devs can carefully tune. There are a number of other positive effects, such as providing incentive for lvl 100 players to still join leveling content, giving more experienced players more tools to help new players, etc.
Some actions are poor candidates for this, but if you play around with the idea I think it makes a lot of sense.
Iron Jaws on BRD moved to level 50 would also be nice.
Blm stocking Firestarter procs would be awesome. I have done it so many time where i hit a fire1 get a proc and missed spending it immediately cause I'm trying to pump out damage as much a possible...would also like to see it extend for AoE with fire 2 and able to spend it in something for that
I just kinda wish DRK had TBN earlier
Or maybe like a... shittier version of it. Like Paladin's Sheltron.
From a beginners view: more buttons = more confusion
From a 2k+ hour veteran = more buttons at a lower level plz!
They can kind of alleviate this by combining buttons that automatically upgrade to the next ability in order to save space. Kinda like in the MSQ where you play as
Every job should have some kind of AoE by level 15, and every job should have a complete "core" rotation by level 50. Example: RDM has Scatter at level 15, and they have Jolt, Verthunder/Veraero, Verfire/Verstone, and the three part Melee combo as it's fundamental core rotation against a single target for level 50.
honestly i dont think giving WAR inner release at level 50 would be that bad, because you still don't have fell cleave then, you have inner beast, inner beast is actually pretty pathetic gauge spender since it literally does less damage than storms path/eye, the only problem it has is once you get fell cleave then its a bit more OP but its rather easy fix still, just nerf fell cleave potency by like 50-100 until level 70
(also for the love of god just let it get gauge from his 1-2 AOE combo from start, needing to wait until level 72 is just awful)
Oh the main problem with giving them inner release at 50 isn't a balance concern. The concern is more that if you get such an amazing upgrade that early, it massively reduces the amount of things to look forward to at higher levels! Although that is a weird conversation of course! 😅
@@CaetsuChaijiCh that has always been the problem with early levels and why some jobs are so awful at early levels, the jobs at early levels are basically nothing like how they are at later levels, that is why the jobs should give the basic concept of how they work in late game, in weaker form if nothing else, but even simple job like WAR is really different in level 100 than 50, because stuff like IR at level 70 and infuriate cooldown reduction per spender used at level 66 drastically change how the job plays, instead of you having this weak ass gauge spender you do like once every 30 seconds at level 50 you do every 10 seconds, doing it a total of 7 times in a row at max level, never liked how you get the complete kit at max level, i always liked the way WoW handled the specs and classes, they give all your major skills, cooldowns and passives at early level and only the talents change how you play the game (they do change the classes and specs a lot, but the basic concept is always there, fire mage is always about crit and throwing pyroblasts while arcane mage is about mana management with arcane charge generation and spending etc.)
i do get the point tho, it is exciting to get new abilities at later level, however the way XIV does jobs its not a "bonus" you get for being higher level, its the major core part of your jobs design that you need to play the job as intended so once you lose them because of level sync it just feels awful
Some low level stuff is so awful lol, at least they have taken some steps to make things a bit better. I remember a few expansions ago back when AST still had sects you would unlock your first one at 30 but it wouldn't do anything because you didn't get your first aspected spell until 35 or something. Such a weird design flaw but at least that's been addressed now.
When ARR was current the level 50 kits were pretty alright. It was mostly because you had a bunch of other buttons and multiple combos but... SE trimmed these down on SBs launch for button bloat reasons. I believe if they didnt cut down this bloat as much then we'd still be fine. They couldve just built on it.
DRK really needs some love at 50. It gets to press edge/flood of darkness every 4ish 1-2-3 combo, blood weapons barely does anything compared to other tanks 1m CDs. It has the least amount of useful defensive abilities and the one thing it should have over the other tanks at 50, self healing through soul eater, it gets beat out by gunbreaker thanks those having access to both brutal shell as well as aurora.
I'm still a sprout so I might be totally off-base, but GNB healing on the second hit of its 123 makes me feel like I'm cheating. If I get low, I can just spam 1-2 1-2 1-2 until my health stabilizes, then go back to 1-2-burst-3.
If DRK was also 1-(heal)-(class resource), I wonder if that would help it catch up.
I can't blame the mobile team for remapping the entire level 90 kit into level 50.
The lower levels have become so anemic in abilities (especially after shadowbringers), that all the fun has just been distilled out of them until you reach at least level 70.
Level 50 was meant to be the FIRST endgame, as in you're supposed to have a complete kit for later expansions to build on and refine; not for them to finish the job.
What is currently classed (for most) as the level 50 kit is far too simple and basic to be appropriate for anything beyond level 30.
I'd do a lot further than you, jobs should have several of their gimmicks by 30 (and some upon getting your get your jobstone), and all of them by 50, no exceptions.
They do not need to be full featured, but you should have them all by them (i.e. it's fine for WHM to just have the lily Cure II).
I think ninja should have a buff to hyoton when used under kassatsu
It’s a bit of a problem when syncing down to have muscle memory to do that ninjutsu and then have it be the wrong move
Also it would give a reason to ever use hyoton since it’s a skill which is otherwise never used and a hold over from when PvP and PvE skills were the same (the bind was to escape players in PvP)
for BLM, I'm a little bit iffy on that change, it might encourage a bad practice of fishing for firestarter procs at inappropriate times, maybe keep the timer until a higher level removes it?
a different suggestion I might posit is a weaker version of blizzard IV and the addition of umbral hearts at 50 as opposed to 58, I think it would help round out the rotation at 50 and get newer black mages eased into the 60+ rotation much better
Those are also good suggestions yes!
One of the biggest lies influencers said was to do ur blues and unlock all the optional dungeons in ARR
15:57 excuse me sir... is that a single target Doton in my ffxiv video?
Multi target stone sky sea waiting room 🤣
@ just add badly photoshopped stick figures in the background
they won't do the bard change because that would mean you change the lv 52 job quest where there is a cutscene where your character comes up with the song at the end of the quest lol imagine them spending extra writing budget to retcon the end of the lv 52 bard quest to make the change. lol
At present, the summoner questline references and requests the summoner to cast spells like bio and miasma, which they don't have. So while it would be strange, I wonder how big qualms they would have about this specific concern! 🤔😊
Reaper is so miserable at lower levels, and to be honest I think in part it's due to the complete lack of positionals. I kinda love how easy it is to hit all the positionals or stick them all under true north at max level, but boy is it a snooze-fest when all you have is 123 and you don't even need to move.
Something you didn't mention but I think is relevant is that the reasoning of needing something to look forward to when levelling up doesn't really make sense for jobs that you can only unlock at high levels anyway. Like sure, if I started levelling as pugilist into monk I might be underwhelmed if I didn't get anything new or exciting from level 50 onwards, but viper STARTS at level 80. Nobody is levelling that job from 50 and anticipating some new skills - they've already got them unless they're stuck in a lower level duty. I do generally like jobs playing differently at different levels, but I'm not sure there's a good excuse for certain jobs to be quite as neutered as they are when playing at lower levels, especially when there are other jobs in the same role that are still reasonably interesting even at 50.
I just wish we could use our full kit, granted they would actually have to in some effort for once, but saying "having someone use AOE in the 1st dungeon when it wasn't designed for it" is also just wrong, maybe it wasn't "designed" for him, yet plenty of other jobs have an AOE at that level already, it makes it feel bad when you get a dps job with an AOE at the 1st dungeon, while the others don't.
I still as much as possible since as a tank I can still AOE at all times, but it just feels bad when some dps have to single target, while others don't.
Also, I don't think Yoshi really cares for older content being broken, since plenty of jobs already break older content by simply existing. (which they design btw)
while they also refuse to rebalance older ultimates ... you know, that type of content that people will do expansions from release? (people still do UCOB and UWU, mechanically both are on par with savage nowadays, the DPS checks are literally non existent anymore, which shouldn't be a thing in ultimates, even when I did TEA last expac, the DPS check was already a joke where you gotta hold for 10-20 seconds on P3 enrage and then we kill it before the 2nd person is jailed at P4 enrage)
I would argue that certain things need to be in jobs. Like why does DRK get their aoe now giving gauge in the level 40s but warrior has to wait till theyre in the level 70s? Why does gnb also have the ability to get gauge by level 50 content yet no AoE to use it on till like 72? Stuff like that just feels really stupid, why not give a weak version of fated circle on GNB early, and allow warrior to earn gauge early?
In Destiny, when you do low level stuff your dps scales as such. Why not do something like that, you can keep all your abilities but you continue to do dps as a lvl 50
Does Monk really need the help at 50? I don't pay that close attention to exact damage numbers but it's become my go-to DPS for MSQ roulette since I feel the duties progressing notably faster when I go in as Monk. And that's *with* me using the two Perfect Balance charges back-to-back, since I was under the impression that alternating 6 or 7 Dragon Kick + Bootshine in a row was a damage gain over just going through the basic 1-2-3s. The job also already has a lot going for it to keep it active, with the fast GCDs, alternating combos, chakra gauge, and Mantra on top of its role actions for utility.
Perfect Balance dropping you out of forms definitely feels awkward, but if it truly is a damage loss at 50 when Monk already hits so hard even with it at that level, I'd actually say to delay it to 52 and have it learned alongside Form Shift, then also tie Formless Fist to the last stack of Perfect Balance. And if it isn't enough to just learn Dragon Kick at 50, I'd say move the trait that guarantees chakra gauge on critical hit down to level 50. It's already 80% at that level, so it doesn't feel good when you get the proc, it just feels bad when you miss it.
The point of these fixes isn't to buff or nerf jobs damage wise. It is to buff them feel wise. The potency on a job could always be adjusted at 50 if some change made it busted. The problem with monk is that it legitimately learns an ability at 50 that is, effectively speaking, useless! 🤔😅 I suppose different things could be done as well and throw perfect balance up to level 60 instead 😊
Xiv really should allow the use of your actual level kit and just sync the damage down for dungeons, trials and alliances (excluding things like EXs and above), not only would that make daily roulettes more enjoyable it would also better train players with jobs that start at higher levels during their leveling process, as for the balance, SE already doesn't care that much about dungeon balance, just look at how WAR is utterly broken at the self mit department and how AST already at low level has enough single target mit to make wall2walls a walk in the park.
Gnb NEEDS fated circle at lvl 50
I am so, SO glad you've made this video, the only one I can think of that's made a similar suggestion was MrHappy saying that more jobs should be similar to how Monk's toolkit is more rounded compared to some (apart from Perfect balance). I feel like "just let us keep our toolkit when we sync down" was too short-sighted and too selfish towards newer players and so I would much, much rather see changes across the board like this. I really hope 8.0's slated job adjustments will take more consideration towards the holistic leveling experience particularly as it pertains to 50 and below.
You're a bit conservative than I'd have been but that might be for the best, I'd like to make my own suggestions for some jobs but I think I'll leave that in a later comment (or edit this one).
The solution you mocked at the start is the way to go bud. Level and gear synch takes care of balance "issues" (not sure what those as everything scales off of stats and potency). ALL classes have had abilities REMOVED to alleviate button bloat (most of these abilities were removed from lvl 50 and pushed down the line). The answer is not adding buttons. The answer is allowing players to use the buttons they have earned.
Also feel free to use any part of this comment in a mocking tone in a future video. It will make you look 200% cooler 🤣.
I know they want to have a new thing every few levels, and that works for a new expansion imo, but for older level ranges? I don't think people would be all that mad if they only got one or two new things from 51-60 so long as their 50 kit felt really fun.
They have said they're looking at much bigger job changes in 8.0, and I hope part of that is making the level experience more fun across the board. I honestly think some of the stigma behind black mage is how its gameplay up to 50 is really pretty boring even by level 50 standards, and then its gameplay massively changes when you get fire IV, which can feel confusing
When you think about it, it makes no sense for the ShB-DT expac jobs to have this type of drip feed skill distribution as they don’t experience lvl 30-50 leveling at all. So why are they designed like this? For leveling roulette?
I agree that the newer jobs should focus more on complete/improved rotations at level caps. Leveling roulette will always be jank anyways and is one of the few roulettes that’s not level cap content.
Paladin and Bard are the obly jobs i hate getting level 50 content with just because paladin is uninteresting at 50 and bard having no wm is annoys me
funny enough, as someone who used to do a lot of old content MINE, I find that the WAR rotation at 50 feels much better than at 60.
at 50 you want to use your berserk stacks on one storm's path and 2 inner beasts which means you can come into the minute with either exactly 100 gauge or just 50 and save an infuriate. It's nothing super complex but I think it's up there as one of the better kits at 50.
Then you get to 60 and all 3 berserk stacks must go to fell cleave, which means you must come into the minute with 100 gauge AND an infuriate stack. but whats *infuriating* is that you produce way too much bar between berserk usages, if you use one fell cleave outside of berserk you will overcap and if you use 2 fell cleaves you will not have enough bar for the berserk window, which means you have to chose between overcaping or drifting to hell and back. and maybe if we had 60 evergreen content like ultimates it would be a fun thing to spreadsheet, but as things are you have to chose between sitting on your bar or hoping you dont lose berserk usages trought the fight, and no matter what path you end up taking it just feels so bad.
About 10 minutes of effort so something SE will never do
5:50 and at that point i would be fine playing roulettes with lvl 50 content ... whitemage main and playing roulettes daily since 2 years ... max lvl roulettes only ... played lvl 90 and expert in endwalker and since dawntrail obviously just the expert till there is a lvl 100 maybe ... pretty much every roulette get me in lvl 50 or even lower content in more then 80% of the time ... obviously just the raid dont because it starts with 60 but to be honest having finally a single target heal with job ressource isnt that helpfull in a raid when you need most of the times aoe healing instead of single target .. for alliance raids i NEVER got something other then the lvl 50 and i tried it over 20 times in endwalker having every alliance raid unlocked and dont beside the lvl 60 ... for trials it was always a 50 as well ... sometimes with "luck" it was a 60 and there we are again content for 8 people you need mostly aoe healing and got the single target heal ... thanks for nothing ... level roulette is a complette other scam in that case i am even happy if its above 30 not even thinking about over 50 in over 90% of the times ... 4 people at max lvl just getting dungeons under 30 nearly every day ... the system is just stupid in my opinion
for the old max dungeons its been a while i played them wasnt that bad like every other roulette but still most was lvl 50 ... and most of the time everybody was max lvl or close too
at the beginning i liked the idea to get some random content and was fine with the downscale but over time it just dont feel like "random" content its more like "low level content with a low gamble for a bit higher level"
for other jobs i cant really call .. i have everyone at 90+ but since i played daily roulette and so on most of the times as whitemage and every other job just in dungeons and nearly all the time just in the highest dungeon possible there is no way for me to call things that are really missing in lower levels for the jobs since they are maxed for over a year ..xD
I said it numerous times.
All tank gap closer at 50 pls. Even 1 charge is fine.
Man, BLM is such a horrible mess at 50 I feel you'd need to completely rework a lot of stuff to make it fun to play at that level.
It also heavily underpeforms numbers wise at that level, exasperated by pct being existing.
Honestly the rotation on pally is fine at lvl 50. Boring sure but fine. Though plesse give us a heal before lvl 84 in our rotation. Please.
Actual pally struggle is lvl 70. Oh boy this lvl is so weird for them. Single target is amazing for them. AoE sucks to use though. At first glance it the same as lvl 50 one. At funny enough this is the problem. You get requiescast at this point. On single target you can use spirit or clemency. On aoe you can use clemency... and that it since the aoe spell is at 72. Worse, you dont gain mp on aoe at 70, so if you do need to start spamming clemency on aoe you get 5 cast and that it before having to single target. And bare in mind you dont attack when using clemency which can spiral where you need to keep using clemency.
Give every job at least one aoe by satasha. Squish the level cap to 50 or double the xp. Would solve 80% of the problem.
I would love for higher level abilities to be allowed at lower levels, but with a 5-10% reduction in power scaling from stats when used below the level you acquire an ability. That way the rotation is the same but you don't significantly outperform a character using just the abilities available at that level.