Why class balance sucks.

Hey! I appreciate you taking your time to voice your opinion. I completely agree with you, i definitely mishandled the post and it deviated from the main issue and i see the error of my ways now but saying im balls deep would be the understatement of the year. With that being said, i completely agree with your balancing philosophy and if achieved that state i would personally feel very satisfied.

One very crucial aspect that i should've probably mentioned somwhere is the fact that the current endgame boss "PB" isn't very "inclusive". By this i mean that the lack of consistent ways for classes with low avoid to survive regardless of their hp limits how appealing they may be for a squad. For example it feels like buffing hero damage wise by a massive margin wouldn't really make them "good" at pb since their main issue doesn't seem to have a solution tied to the class itself and more so to boss changes or perhaps the "defense rework". I think it's completely normal and acceptable for classes to have different degrees of performance in bosses but i feel like no boss should really "exclude" classes by making them too death prone or simply a liability.

 

Hello! Thanks for replying. You definitely bring some important points up and i'll gladly share my PoV.

#1: Even with the current amount of damage cleave can offer, it would be "game breaking". I haven't done math regarding darks post change for example taking into account their cleave damage performance prebuff as a reference, i would suspect they do around archer tier of dmg post buff. If we add bosses where you effectively X3 that damage then it would already be widely considered overpowered damage. I personally don't think the current damage warriors can do is very problematic and more so other issues like their survivability at endgame bosses. I personally think that the solution to this is moving forward would be to custom changes to new content to include segments of the fight were both cleave and single target are needed and not separate the content in two big groups. The content seems to be more at fault than the classes in this case. This would obviously be somewhat challenging but i think a boss fight like empress is a prime example of needing both single target and cleave.

With regard as to what should be taken into account for balancing a class this one is a bit more complicated. I say this because there's a significant portion of the community who only value classes by their ability to do damage or whatever it is they provide to a party while being active (like bucc pb aggro) which is largely due to the ability to mule buffs, leech/boss for exp and make meso on mages. This ultimately means that there is no other trait that could be valued since everything can be solved by popping another client open. Then there's another big part of the community who value the ability for a class to be independent and produce money on their own, value buffs and the ability to grind. Both takes are completely valid but if you wan't my opinion i believe class balance should prioritize largely what a class provides by being active which is usually damage, over other perks because these other perks often have an infinity of alternatives that could resolve them. I also personally believe grinding through 4th job is somewhat overrated because the exp:meso:hour that you can expect out some content is vastly superior.

#2: I don't think the "annoyances or nuissances" or enjoyability should be taken into account in the sense that what may seem a nuissance to someone could be very fun to me. At the end of the day what makes a class enjoyable doesn't have to be it's simplicity, it could be their animations, you being attracted to the concept and many other things. I do think however that classes that need to "Put in more effort" which i wouldn't call an annoyance personally should be rewareded. I believe that this is already somewhat true since corsair (with the exception of pb) does by a reasonable chunk the highest damage. The other class is dark and within their "cleave title" they also outperform heroes by a reasonable margin.

#3 I'm not personally attached to the whole melee vs ranged philosophy so I wouldn't be against darks to be above or equal NL in damage. I know that this isn't the point but i don't think the issue with cleavers is the current damage they do and it's simply the overall lack of importance their role has in most content. Like i mentioned earlier, even without the damage being touched, the gap between a single target NL and a Dark cleaving would already be MASSIVE. The key to this problem is content where both are needed. A decent example is CWK. It has 2 single target slots and 2 cleave slots for optimal clearing.

 

I was mostly over this thread but i'll shed some clarity regarding my stance.

If you want to compare Shad cleave vs hero cleave i'll indulge. Hero HAS better cleave and shad SHOULD not have better cleave this is statement i wholeheartedly agree with. Now if you want to compare shad single target to hero or any other class then shad still looses.

Comparing between melees here's what you can see: Hero > shad , Paladin (Even on elemental neutral) > shad, Dark > Shad. As an extra paladin (Who isnt meant to be cleaver) also does more cleave damage than shadower.. Does that really make sense to you then? Only reason why i compared shad to NL is because they are the 2 avoid tankers which is the most game breaking trait the thieves have and the only thing that leaves room for argument regarding shad's viability.

I personally think the whole aspect that is holding shad as an "objectively playable" main is the fact they can get into PB groups. In the current iteration of PB avoid tanking is good enough to merit shad having a slot over other melee attackers but if that were subject to change, would that be the case? The short answer is no, these classes would also relatively good survivability and clearly better damage. I'm one to think that PB balance changes are bound to come since i doubt it's considered "okay" for classes to be excluded and seen as even third class citizens in the context of PB. I could be wrong about this but it really does feel to me like the class atleast in the context of endgame and "objective viable pick" is being held by a string that could break at any given moment.

The whole objective viability of shad as a main (Disregarding the subjective traits we can all agree for example them being fun, enjoyable and other things) is already a stretch because of other objectively better picks. I might be wrong about this but i would predict inclusive PB changes that would completely throw shadowers desireability under the bus. The only reason why i keep mentioning PB is because this is the main boss where there is room to debate. The other ones are mostly low risk bosses where utility skill and raw damage are the most important traits. If you want my opinion regarding other positives and how i value them feel free to read them all scattered around my thread.

Since I know this got very heated early on, i will once again clarify. I'm not saying someone should NOT play shadower nor am i saying it's unplayable. If you enjoy the class, definitely play it, i play and will play mine regardless of potential changes. This discussion has the intent of raising awareness of the current state of class balancing in my opinion, which also has nothing to do with class preference and what each of us enjoy.

 

Sorry I missed this, I genuinely did not see it. I'll just share how I view this you are bringing up to the best of my ability. These tier lists are meant to be taken as a grain of salt and you definitely need context to get the best information out of them. Tldr: In PB, shads are simply a worse NL since their contribution is far less yet they are viable given their ability to stay alive (Not their damage). In HT in terms of the effective damage contribution a shadower can have, it actually deals the least and given the NEED of a seduce target, you could increase them in tiers. Since sed mules are more common practice these days, there's also runs where shadowers can be D tier. In terms of Auf there's definitely split opinions regarding shadowers. I do think this is one of the bosses where they do relatively better but I also wouldn't put them in the same tier as paladin, buccs and more arguably hero. They are definitely not bad here though. In every other "dummy" boss without weapon cancel, their damage should be strictly the worse. In a boss fight where there is weapon cancel they can probably best hero/darks in single target depending on how bad the wep cancel RNG is and do worse than the rest. It is also true that the lower the cost of the gear, shadowers will look relatively better. As players level up and acquire better gear, the gap widens massively.

In regard to the lower level content, I'm not very familiar with JC but it's good to hear that they do well there! In terms of how they do in zak I wouldn't say they "thrive" but they are definitely acceptable. I was actually checking out if perfectly timed weapon cancels (The boss always weapon cancelling off of cooldown, although obviously this never happens) would make shadowers stronger than NLs and Corsairs and the answer was sadly no. I still think they do relatively better in content like this though. At the end of the day, it's hard to value my opinion or anyone else's in regard of a classes damage. I think a much better approach is to put the class in the context of their raw damage, the damage efficiency the class can obtain, and how they avoid hazards that could affect them during a fight. Each of us can have different experiences and our perception will be biased greatly if comparing to those around us. For example if you usually run zak with a night lord with 200 base int, who often forgets to cider and doesn't pay much attention then it would be very easy to believe shadower is very strong in this phase of the game. The opposite is also true. My intention is to NOT to disregard any of these inputs but I do believe there's certain biases that we need to bring to attention to avoid misconceptions.

 

Not sure why you insist on making this about me. I completely respect that a lot of players love shads and think they are fine the way they are / claim they are better than i say but i think i was very clear regarding my stance and have stated repeatedly that it's my opinion and the same way some people don't magically change their opinion because of what i said, i don't have to magically change mine.

For the most part most of the valid arguments people present regarding shads are things i already agree with regarding them being enjoyable amongst other things. Some claims are completely anecdotal and it's possible to confirm their validity through math which i think is superior to anyone's opinion, mine included. I completely respect everyone who thinks shadowers are great and balanced, we can simply agree to disagree. Other than that, i think i'm in my own right to "correct" when a comment regarding shadowers damage by up playing its real value the same way everyone was quick to say im underestimating their damage.