The Current Hierarchy of DDs

[Dooom]

If anything at all has made Abyssea more friendly to "use whatever DD you want" it's the HP merit Abyssites and infinite MP, NOT Razed Ruins.

This, so god-damn much. Who cares what an NM can do to you if it's not gonna one-shot you and your whm has infinite MP? I dare say it's also a part of why MNK is so in-favor right now. They're already starting from a higher base HP than other jobs, so adding a %-based buff on top of that widens the gap, and makes MNK + WHM even more easy-mode than pre-Abyssea. If all you care about is killing the mob and now how "smooth" a fight it is then monk allows you more room to mess up with less risk of being fucked up, making people think "oh wow, that was easy, monk is badass". And FWIW, it's also part of why I personally favor monk, because the margin for error can seem so insane with huge HP and counters that it makes a lot of fights more enjoyable for me, as I feel I can goof off a bit more rather than focus focus FOCUS.

Furthermore, we all know this discussion is pretty pointless, but it's still fairly interesting and fun.

[Scrooge]

Please tell me why in the world you'd stick a DRK on an NM now when you could put a WAR or MNK on instead.

Try that again with NIN or DRG instead of DRK and maybe you'll get where I'm coming from.

I'm sorry, but you're just completely wrong here, in every sense of the word. -YOU- wouldn't have done it, whereas a ton of other people were 100% fine with it, people did Nyzul with THF as the only DD, or Salvage, or fucking anything else that 1 DD was acceptable on.

It's not about me. If you looked hard enough, I'm sure you could find me a group that did Salvage with nothing but THFs and DRGs for DD. They did exist. Maybe. But for every one group like that you could find, I guarantee I could find 100 that revolved around mnk dmg or sam dmg.

If anything at all has made Abyssea more friendly to "use whatever DD you want" it's the HP merit Abyssites and infinite MP, NOT Razed Ruins.

1. Yes, Abyssea is more friendly to use any DD you want. That's what I call balanced. If what you call balanced is something else, that's your sideshow.
2. Take AWAY Razed Ruins, and see if everyone's as receptive to THFs plunking away at NMs. You had HP buffs, you had refresh atmas before Scars came out, and it did pretty much nothing for general perception on THF dmg. They were held in the exact same regard at 80 with vision buffs as they were at 75.

[FailureMidgard]

Try that again with NIN or DRG instead of DRK and maybe you'll get where I'm coming from.

I'd prefer both of those jobs to DRK, so ... no idea how that's gonna change it.

It's not about me. If you looked hard enough, I'm sure you could find me a group that did Salvage with nothing but THFs and DRGs for DD. They did exist. Maybe. But for every one group like that you could find, I guarantee I could find 100 that revolved around mnk dmg or sam dmg.

We used Sam+Thf as our "tanks", we also brought a drg regularly. Yea, we took a Sam too 'cause it was higher damage, just like most groups now still take a mnk or war (or nin or sam?). How any groups actually go with 3 thf as their DDs now? We -never- have in Abyssea, and while I acknowledge it could, it's not ideal...

1. Yes, Abyssea is more friendly to use any DD you want. That's what I call balanced. If what you call balanced is something else, that's your sideshow.

This is a mindset more than a fact about Abyssea, and again, any aspect of it that is Abyssea is because of Refresh and HP, NOT RR. Take away RR and go try an NM, I guarantee you it'll be just as easy, and can still use any DD job.

2. Take AWAY Razed Ruins, and see if everyone's as receptive to THFs plunking away at NMs. You had HP buffs, you had refresh atmas before Scars came out, and it did pretty much nothing for general perception on THF dmg. They were held in the exact same regard at 80 with vision buffs as they were at 75.

I'm not arguing if people will be receptive to it. I'm saying it'll work perfectly fine, just like thfs could melee NMs outside Abyssea at 75, and now, fine. Yes, thfs are held in low regard - grats on being one of the close-minded people that did this to THF. I guarantee you it is not because the job does that little damage, it's because people like you perceive it to do that little damage.

[Scrooge]

This is a mindset more than a fact about Abyssea, and again, any aspect of it that is Abyssea is because of Refresh and HP, NOT RR. Take away RR and go try an NM, I guarantee you it'll be just as easy, and can still use any DD job.

Take away Razed Ruins, and this topic wouldn't even exist.

Everything about the current state of melee relative to each other is about Razed Ruins and how it impacts. Count how many of your posts in this topic have to do with Razed Ruins in some way if you really don't believe me.

Though I don't discount Cruor buffs and all that jazz, the simple truth is you had all that going from 75 => 80 + Vision buffs. Yet there was no real blown out hooplah about how melees compared to each other, or whether people were more willing to "use whatever DD" in Visions. It happened after people realized how powerful and game-changing Razed Ruins was.

If I remember correctly, this topic spawned off you and Byrthnoth arguing over whether BRD or DRK was a better DD. That would never have happened before Razed Ruins, cruor buffs and whatnot be damned.

[FailureMidgard]

Take away Razed Ruins, and this topic wouldn't even exist.

Everything about the current state of melee relative to each other is about Razed Ruins and how it impacts. Count how many of your posts in this topic have to do with Razed Ruins in some way if you really don't believe me.

Though I don't discount Cruor buffs and all that jazz, the simple truth is you had all that going from 75 => 80 + Vision buffs. Yet there was no real blown out hooplah about how melees compared to each other, or whether people were more willing to "use whatever DD" in Visions. It happened after people realized how powerful and game-changing Razed Ruins was.

If I remember correctly, this topic spawned off you and Byrthnoth arguing over whether BRD or DRK was a better DD. That would never have happened before Razed Ruins, cruor buffs and whatnot be damned.

What does that even have to do with whether or not thf was a good DD beforehand?

My point: Before, every job was a fine DD, but for some reason people had a standard that was roughly in the middle of the distribution as "what's worth it". Now, people decided the standard should be at the very bottom (likely because the jobs at the bottom were acceptable before, so they must be acceptable now!), and ignore the fact that the gap is wider than before. Yes, RR has changed what jobs can do how much damage, I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing right now that if there is a reason "any job can tank and hit the mob" now, it's because of the fact that mages have infinite MP and survivability is way up - not because of damage output.

Yes, RR made thief do more damage relative to other jobs. I'm not debating that, it did not suddenly make thief worth having on NMs more than before - it was always worth it before, it's still worth it now, RR did -not- change it in that regard, it only changed the perception of said jobs (likely because people were used to bad thieves). You've really just ran a circle, and when I counter a point you make, you move onto a new point and ignore it.

[Malacite]

tl;dr (will catch up afterwards) but... fSTR caps at 150? So, that means you need Enemy VIT + 150 STR right? Wow, that blows chunks... I mean shit, between the 2 furtherance abyssites, food, & level caps going up (not to mention AF3 being just plain psychotic) you're totally right... STR Atma is overkill.

Maybe we'll see some straight up WS DMG Atma? Or maybe they're saving the crit WS for other jobs until 99? I mean, I can't see the the Empyrean WS being the absolute final WS you can get, that'd be silly (amazing as they are) there's bound to be either a new batch of WSNMs or some other quested WS (maybe even merited?) for level 99's like we had before with Kasha/Evisceration/Asuran etc. The question is how will SE manage them? By which I mean the DD's that already having amazing crit WS should instead get another utility WS, like say another Break for WAR (Full Break 2.0?) and let jobs like SAM & DRK who don't have a decent crit WS get one.

[Scrooge]

What does that even have to do with whether or not thf was a good DD beforehand?

It doesn't. It has to do with one of the fifteen digressed topics that spawned off all that nonsense.

I'm well aware of what your original point was. I'm not sure you are of mine. I originally posted this:

Perhaps this is merely a case of "from where you stand", but imo, Razed Ruin did exactly that. When we're at the point that I don't mind a THF meleeing an NM, I think we're about as balanced in the DD phase as we can get.

There's always gonna be one or two jobs that stand out at the top, and jobs some people consider "trash", balance is when you've got more jobs than not that can be considered "relevant". Maybe it's just me, but pre-Abyssea, people seemed more close minded that only a few jobs were considered "serious DDs", whereas post-Abyssea (and more specifically post-RR) people consider a fair number more jobs to be "serious DDs" if not necessarily "Overpowered DDs".

I bolded some parts for emphasis. Your reply included this:

The difference is, people have decided that the acceptable damage output is at the very bottom of the spectrum, instead of the middle. This is entirely arbitrary, and you can say so is the middle value - which it is, but I see no logical justification to suddenly change it, then claim the game is more balanced because it's been changed.

Again, bolding some parts for emphasis.

It's my opinion that if people perceive more jobs as acceptable DD relative to each other, then the game feels more balanced. Two things worth pointing out about that though:

1. When you say "people have decided", as far as I can tell, you agree with my on the perception being there. BUT
2. You disagree with the logic of the perception. Which is fine.

You'll note, I never specifically disagreed with you that the "phenomenon"* is happening. I simply do not care and don't find it particularly relevant. It's there, so it is what it is. I accept it and move on with the new status quo. You don't like that there's no particular reason for the new status quo. I get it.

The whole THF shit is a digression off this:

See, I don't get this...thief has always been a pretty solid DD, and could easily outparse "real DD jobs" vs piercing mobs, and still go neck and neck without piercing bonus. Honestly, if you think thf needed Abyssea to compete, you just played with a bunch of shitty thieves, and/or had/have no real concept of game mechanics.

Where you went out of your way to goad me with the whole you must suck if blah blah blah argument. You should also note no where did I say THF couldn't do damage, or outright sucked. I said something to the effect of "I no longer mind THF melee'ing NMs" and "I wouldn't do x NM with THFs meleeing it, but I'd do y NM post-Abyssea with THFs". There's a difference. What followed was a branch-off of that crap.

* EDIT: To clarify, I don't disagree that the perception of the range of acceptable melee has increased. I personally think the baseline's always been at the bottom though, before and after Abyssea. Of course, that's mostly opinion and semantics with no real import one way or another.

[FailureMidgard]

Ok, so you're missing the point that it's pure fact that the gap is bigger, gotcha. There is really no debating this aspect, yet it's the aspect you chose to. It is 100% relevant that in fact, in the past people did not want a DD that did 66% of the max potential, but now everyone is suddenly ok with a DD that does 40% of the max potential.

Logically, there is -no- reason for this to be acceptable. None, at all. DDs are not more balanced, they are less balanced, people are just more willing to accept shitty damage.

[Yugl]

Eight pages and we haven't made a hierarchical chart for DDs. Bravo BG, only you. Can we close this thread now?

[FailureMidgard]

Eight pages and we haven't made a hierarchical chart for DDs. Bravo BG, only you. Can we close this thread now?

And yet the entire thread is on-topic. Don't click the thread if you don't want to read it. It's like saying the BLU thread should have been locked because the vast majority of the posts don't really have anything to do with "job findings". Yet they are still relevant and on-topic for BLU, imagine that. The posts, for the most part, are examining the heirarchy of DDs, sorry that the past was brought into a thread entitled current - it's still relevant to current-day.

[Scrooge]

Ok, so you're missing the point that it's pure fact that the gap is bigger, gotcha.

Define gap. Are you referring to the gap of what people consider acceptable, or the gap between tiers of effective melee.

[FailureMidgard]

Define gap. Are you referring to the gap of what people consider acceptable, or the gap between tiers of effective melee.

The gap between the best and worst DD in the past, and now. I'm saying that there is a larger opportunity cost in taking the "worst" DD now than there was at 75/outside Abyssea. You are giving up more by allowing a subpar DD in your ally now than every in the past, yet people are more okay with said loss than ever before also.

[Yugl]

And yet the entire thread is on-topic. Don't click the thread if you don't want to read it. It's like saying the BLU thread should have been locked because the vast majority of the posts don't really have anything to do with "job findings". Yet they are still relevant and on-topic for BLU, imagine that. The posts, for the most part, are examining the heirarchy of DDs, sorry that the past was brought into a thread entitled current - it's still relevant to current-day.

If I click a thread, I expect relevant information. Fault lies on those who do not provide this, not the individuals reading the thread in anticipation of *spoiler* it being on topic. Hypothetical atmas are irrelevant. Bitching about RR is irrelevant. Balance, if we acknowledge difference, is irrelevant. Comparison to the past is irrelevant. People's perceptions and the gaps (Especially in a hierarchy) is irrelevant.

Do you think BLU findings is off topic? Make a case against it. I dare you.

[Vincento]

Yugl's bait is obvious, let's see who takes it.

The fact that people are willing to accept a variety of jobs to tackle any event is about as balanced as DD's in this game will get. Should we strive for the best, sure eventually, but pigeonholing everyone onto 1-2 jobs again feels counterproductive. I only say this because that mentality is what breeds the stigma that jobs like thf carried - you can blame lack of understanding math etc, but in reality it was just most people following the trends of bg (see Mnk for a current example). If anything, I am all for multiple DD (in this case War, Mnk, Nin) taking the lead once people get over the high of "omg3kws's" and return to the whole lolX jobs phase.

This is strictly abyssea related, and the jobs listed are altered by empyreans.

In hindsight, all of this leads back to ideas already posted as potentially: all of this is void should they introduce mobs that actually present a challenge - post abyssea for instance - but as it stands everything dies too quickly to determine that X job would have allowed Y mob to be killed with so much less mp used.

[Malacite]

The gap between the best and worst DD in the past, and now. I'm saying that there is a larger opportunity cost in taking the "worst" DD now than there was at 75/outside Abyssea. You are giving up more by allowing a subpar DD in your ally now than every in the past, yet people are more okay with said loss than ever before also.

You mean because of how Abyssea has opened up so many venues right? Just making sure I understand your point correctly, the recent slew of gear, anima and job updates has made what were perceived "weak" jobs and made them quite capable, and even toppled SAM taking it down from it's long-held throne. Not to say that SAM is by any means old news, but no sane person can deny that WAR & MNK have hit the jack pot with Abyssea. Shit even BST has finally gotten into the spotlight with how amazing the new jugs have been. DRG's new jumps give it a rather nice edge too, dramatically increasing it's TP gain (I'm starting to wonder if the new "Super Jump" we're likely to get will be a 4x TP multiplier since the other 2 are 2x and 3x.)


Just curious though, how does a non-Empyrean NIN fare within the hierarchy? Blade: Hi is a tremendous power boost to NIN (along with AF3+2) and it's looking like NIN is going to give MNK a serious run for it's money for the fastest DoT slot since DW grows exponentially and Martial Arts is linear. But without Blade: Hi, can Jin put up decent enough numbers to warrant taking NIN as a serious DD, or is it pretty much Blade: Hi or gtfo?

[Fallyn]

DRG's new jumps give it a rather nice edge too, dramatically increasing it's TP gain (I'm starting to wonder if the new "Super Jump" we're likely to get will be a 4x TP multiplier since the other 2 are 2x and 3x.)

If it follows the same pattern with Jump/High Jump, then I'm not even expecting it to do dmg.

...Or they'll throw a curveball and make it to serious dmg and the 100% enmity loss lol.

[Malacite]

Well see that's what I'm confused about, since the other two simply reduce your enmity gain while doubling/tripling TP return (and auto crit). Since Soul Jump ditched the -50% Enmity of High Jump (which really does suck but for 3x TP...) I would imagine the next one will ditch the enmity wipe. The only problem is, even for 4x TP I don't know if it's worth the ability to totally clear hate. Incidentally, Super Jump is also one of the biggest reasons I hate them for capping us at 99 max. Oh the shenanigans one could do... ah well.

[Scrooge]

The gap between the best and worst DD in the past, and now. I'm saying that there is a larger opportunity cost in taking the "worst" DD now than there was at 75/outside Abyssea. You are giving up more by allowing a subpar DD in your ally now than every in the past, yet people are more okay with said loss than ever before also.

Um. Okay.

If you wanna compare #1 to last place and talk about how big of a disparity it is now compared to before, whatever. Perhaps WARorMNK vs DRK is a bigger gap now than WARorSAM vs NIN (or whomever you care to consider the trashiest melee of lvl.75) was then. Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. Personally, I follow the school of thought of who cares about that, trashiest melee is trashiest melee, and it's never worthwhile from an efficiency standpoint to have him in the alliance regardless. Razed Ruins does nothing to change that. HP cruor buffs / unlimited MP doesn't change it either. There is no way the game will ever be balanced enough that some melee job out there isn't considered to suck. It's just how it is.

No one that I can see is arguing that the shittiest melee in the game is acceptably efficient, then or now. It doesn't matter if the worst DD in the game can only do 10% of #1, or if it can do 15% of #1. It's at the point of unacceptable either way.

At 75, most people considered WAR, SAM to be the best with MNK rounding out top three (fully aware some people have slightly differing opinions but for the most part, I think everyone can agree these three were the most relevant DDs). You had them, then you had everyone else (DRG, DRK, DNC, THF, NIN) ranging from middle-of-the-pack types to shitty melee types.

At 85, post Abyssea, most people seem to consider MNK, WAR to be the best with NIN rounding out the top three. Then the middle-of-the-pack types to shitty melee types.

So. At 75, we two melees at the top, one close to them, followed by a bunch of middle-of-the-pack kinds, and depending on who you ask, one or two shitty ass jobs that were considered trash.

We now have two melees at the top, one close to them, a bunch of middle-of-the-pack kinds, and one or two shitty as jobs at the end.

I'm not seeing a whole lot of difference in practice. It's the same thing.

You keep talking about this irrefutable supposed widening gap between jobs that's suddenly sprung up. Based on what exactly? Your made-up, fictional numbers to describe baselines and what not?

It's simple. SAMs and DRKs took a dive, MNKs and NIN climbed. Everyone else, pretty much stayed the same. It's the same playing field, you just don't have the same people playing the same position anymore. It's the difference between a summer day and a winter day; it's different, but it's not like we stepped into a whole new world.

Perhaps you're confusing the disparity between the top melee that SAM is now suffering with some perceived disparity all melees are supposedly suffering. I'm not seeing anyone but SAMs and DRKs saying that Razed Ruins is unfair, the same way DRGs said it was unfair how poor their job was for years, the same way two handers said dual wield was unfair, the same way one handers said it was unfair when they released the 2Her patch.

[FailureMidgard]

Scrooge's post

So now it's the same, and a page back you were arguing that it's more balanced than ever?

Your analogy is garbage...if we up the damage of mnk and war by an extra 100% of what it does now, and nin by another 80%, you still end up with your layout of 2,1,pack,2. The difference is relevant however, so I don't see how your massive generalization means anything. Drk was already one of the worst DDs at 75, and War one of the best. Now, War got a huge buff and Drk stayed exactly where it was. I don't see how you can't say that the gap widened, and it's more unbalanced. Is it a huge deal? No, probably not. Is it more unbalanced than the past? For sure. Did RR magically fix the game and make it more balanced? Not at all.

I do agree with you that trashiest melee is never worth having in the ally...the point is that's a blurry line, and in the end, only the top 1-2 are truly worth having in the ally (though in practice, I don't actually care what people come on - but this isn't a new to Abyssea thing, it's always been that way unless something was very under-manned.). I won't sit here and argue their jobs are worth having and we aren't hurting ourselves by taking them though...

Yugl, the last 2 pages have been a discussion on how the new armor looks, and regurgitation builds, it qualifies no more as "Job Findings" than shit in this thread does to the Heirarchy of DDs. This thread is in fact, examining the differences in DDs, what causes those differences, how to close the gap, how large the gap is (which is far more significant imo than "which job is best"...saying war>mnk>nin>w/e is much less useful than saying war is 15% ahead of mnk is 20% ahead of nin is 55% ahead of whatever. Quantity is important, and examining these relationships is useful. I'm sorry you don't feel that way - honestly, don't click on the thread, it's not our job at all to provide only what you feel is pertinent. The thread title does not say or imply that we should list the order of jobs sans discussion, and in fact, if everyone just replied with their opinion of the top5 jobs in order, this would be a far stupider thread than it is. And yes, I bit, don't care/etc.

Vincento - I do agree that it's good and healthy that people aren't stressing too much over the top job, but it would be better and healthier if this included DRK and SAM, IMO. Again, this isn't really a personal complaint, anyone who thinks their non-Emp DD can compete with an Empyrean is borderline delusional in my opinion, so please don't take this as me thinking I got cheated - but I feel bad for other Sams and Drks out there, as I did for other jobs in the past, and feel that it isn't hard to make it a little more balanced. I don't see a very strong argument for not throwing them a bone. I do strongly disagree with your last line though, and I don't feel the content at 75 was hard enough to warrant this either. I think Ein is maybe the only thing people struggled with, and from all of my experience both in some bad shells before I joined good ones, and talking to people that were in bad shells, it had nothing to do with DD jobs/etc, and everything to do with either organization or lack of bards. The fact remains that marchx2+haste is a ~70% increase in damage for a DD with a mere 15% haste, and so many shells didn't (or couldn't) ensure they had a bard in each melee party. Even if that was only 1 buffer, going from 1Mage4DD > 1Mage1Bard4DD is adding nearly 3 DDs, in addition to more support (in both ballads and cures/-nas). I really don't think at 75, now, or in the future of this game, were events so hard that you needed an optimal group. Optimal salvage groups cleared SSR in ~60minutes. Competent, but completely un-optimal salvage groups could still clear it in 80-90 with a near 100% success rate (this is how my group started out - I didn't even have haste legs until I got Usu...I finally got Byakkos some 1 week before I finished full Usu). Anyway, I think we both agree that it's healthy for the game to not have to stress over 1-2 select DD jobs instead of others - would be even nicer if the gap were narrower though, rather than having to give up even more damage now to take a DRK than you had to give up at 75.

[Scrooge]

So now it's the same, and a page back you were arguing that it's more balanced than ever?

I said this: "It's my opinion that if people perceive more jobs as acceptable DD relative to each other, then the game feels more balanced."

I should reiterate again, this isn't simply my observation, you yourself agreed that people perceive it as much even if you didn't agree with the logic of it:

The difference is, people have decided that the acceptable damage output is at the very bottom of the spectrum, instead of the middle. This is entirely arbitrary...

Whether it's logical, or whether I'm right it's because of Razed Ruins, or you're right it's because of more HP/unlimited MP doesn't really matter. You can argue with my opinion all you want if it makes you happy. The "phenomenon" you described exists, and it doesn't matter if you agree with it. But as long as it does exist, as long as people continue to decide a broader range is acceptable than before, it feels more balanced.

Now, War got a huge buff and Drk stayed exactly where it was. I don't see how you can't say that the gap widened, and it's more unbalanced.

Precisely because it is the worst job. It's irrelevant now, it's irrelevant then. There is no practical difference. It's beyond the point which it matters. If I broke both my legs, the remote control can be 5 feet away or it can be 7 feet away. I sure as shit don't care though, I can't reach it either way.

NIN was simply a shitty melee comparatively at 75. It is now, WAY closer to WAR then it used to be. That's a practical difference.

MNK is comparatively closer to WAR now then they were before. That's a practical difference. A net shrink in the gap, if you want to think of it that way.