FFXIV DAWNTRAIL VERSUS - Black Mage vs Summoner vs Red Mage vs Pictomancer (Caster 7.05)

Intro - 00:00
Black Mage - 01:46
Summoner - 07:23
Red Mage - 11:16
Pictomancer - 16:24
Final Thoughts - 20:47

[Larryzaur]

iiit’s SUMMON…PICTOMANCER? 😢 This tragedy… greater even than the seventh umbral calamity

[rndm]

Casters: The role blessed with the most unique design yet cursed with being the least balanced

[JustinK]

pictomancer
Pro: not too difficult to learn
Con: difficult to learn

[Emarella]

As a casual/intermediate RDM main: while the cons are absolutely true, I find most of these points to be elements that add to the challenge and uniqueness (and thus interest) of how the class plays. Many of them require me to be very intentional about when and where I use abilities, which means when I do use them appropriately, it's very satisfying.


Melee combo being an all-or-nothing and Sprint removing Dualcast forces me to be very mindful of when I activate them. Especially with the melee combo, I actually enjoy the challenge of keeping an eye on when to use my melee combo and what I weave between skills. It's especially fun and challenging when doing solo Variant Dungeons, trying to figure out just how much damage I can take while weaving in my combo.

Same with backflip. It can be a lifesaver (and make you look and feel really cool) when you have your spacing down and zoop out of an incoming tell only to rush back in immediately. It is a little annoying many maps are simply too small to use it, but once you have the mastery of knowing your proper spacing and you can pull it off consistently, it feels amazing.

[DoktorWieg]

The aesthetic of the Pictomancer doesn't bother me; in fact, I actually like how original it looks compared to the other jobs' spell effects. It IS quite jarring to first see in action but then, considering that Moogles exists and they pretty much are as silly as pictomancer's spells can be, it fits right in the setting nonetheless.

That being said, I don't enjoy the job too much. Sure, it is fun and simple to pick up and then take some time to understand how things flow but regardless, there's a bit of a clunkiness I can't get around when refreshing the muses in the middle of battle. I understand this might be the caveat of the job that makes it less enjoyable for some but I really dislike suddenly being idle just to create a new motif and how even using Swiftcast to make one quickly still has the recast time take forever and unless you have some spendable abilities ready, you're pretty much a sitting duck all the while. Perhaps it is a nitpick but it does bother me that much.

As for the other three... well I've always been a fan of Black Mage and while it took some adjustment to the rotation given the changes made, I see them overall as a net positive. Umbral Ice phase now granting MP on cast makes it so you're not dependent on GCD for MP recovery. The change to Umbral Soul freezing (ha!) your timer and recovering all your Umbral Ice resources out of combat was direly needed, if only to not get carpal tunnel from using it all the time between pulls or phases. Thunder spells coming up with phase changes, dealing full damage and applying DoT was a neat choice... but I still do miss those Thunderstorm procs in-between AoE nukes. Manafont basically resetting your Astral Fire phase is great though I still have to fully grasp it as it does slip my mind at times. Flare Star however, as visually pleasing the casting and actual effect looks, feels like it is missing a lot of oomph on the sound department; it is very muted compared to Flare, High Fire II, Fire IV and Foul. I like the mechanic of readying it up to be used but yeah, that audio issue bothers me still.

Black Mage is still my go-to caster regardless; it's just too satisfying to play.

Summoner... well I wasn't expecting Solar Bahamut. To be frank, I was fully expecting an "Enkindle Carbuncle" ability to make it turn into Proto-Carbuncle from the Pandaemonium raids and wreck faces. IMO, it would have made a much more interesting grand summon and I would have expected that while Proto-Carbuncle would be up, you'd still be able to use Carbuncle-specific abilities. To be frank, SMN feels like it would have benefited better from perhaps adding Ramuh, Leviathan and perhaps even Shiva as alternates between Demi summons. Mechanically, they could have worked the same as Ifrit, Titan and Garuda except with their themed abilities and different potencies. Otherwise, I get the impression that they could have added a trait to turn Physics into a reasonably potent INT-based healing spell each time you either do a regular summon or a Demi summon. Just so it has some use.

Red Mage is a lot of the same... mechanically speaking, it didn't get anything unexpected other than perhaps Circle of Thorns. We all expected the full combo to be extended and some new skill tossed in the lot like Grand Impact. Otherwise, it plays like RDM always played and I don't see that as a bad thing... just a very boring thing. I will say that I like Jolt III since it looks like RDM upgraded from a single shot spell to a burst rapier rifle XD

Looking forward to your melee DPS Versus. At first, Monk felt a bit jarring but having gotten used to it and its new skills, I love it even more than I did before. Dragoon feels really nice now despite having a DASH as a gap closer instead of... you know... a JUMP; they could simply have made Elusive Jump make you jump forward a given distance and 2 charges with a semi low cooldown and I think it would have been better. Ninja is less stressful with no Huton management and now AoE debuff. Samurai and Reaper suffers the same issue as RDM : more of the same, for better or worst. And Viper, once you figure out how its main combo functions, is satisfying, especially if you wanted to see how a DBZ character would play in FFXIV.

[astrealove]

I feel like it's an easy choice really. Pictomancer does everything that all other Casters do, but better. It have the damage of BLM, the mobility of SMN & the buffs of RDM, it doesn't really have any major weaknesses.

[thehermitwizard]

Unstated con of PCT: everyone and their mom is currently playing it because it's damage is so drastically overtuned so the odds of getting into a group that doesn't suck as one is lower.

[blackmagecompendium]

Mrhappy posts blackmage, i click like. Its a simple life, but a fulfilling one

[amUusTV]

I just started learning red mage and only noticed that sprint used up dual cast yesterday at level 68

[CrowToast]

Picto being strong on short burst phases and drawing its motifs on downtime phases where there's nothing to hit will make picto the GOAT in Eden Ultimate. The job has more to show...

[threadscore]

Me, remembering HW/SB SMN and now hearing it called "easy."

[theChaosKe]

Picto is cool but i feel like it having a 5% buff is the main issue because it just simply deals way too much to be in that category.
Reduce its raidbuff to 3% (so its in the same category as RPR - which it outdamages btw) and the numbers start to make a bit more sense.

That would be the easiest fix with the smallest amount of changes.

[Itachiflameamaterasu]

Picto may have the best dps and utility, but it doesn't have the drip and sauce from the RDM job gear tho. Aesthetics > meta 🗿🍷.

[Adkhean]

There should be a Con for RDM that it can wipe the whole raid with it's LB3

[Bellemac]

Never forgot fellow blackmages, if you fuck up, you can always use flare to refresh astral fire and get an extra 3 stacks towards flare star!

[Halvos]

As a summoner player I have no issue with Solar Bahamut itself the issue is that it screwed up the rotation, pushing Phenoix to like three or four cycles deep which is Summoner only real way to self heal outside of the single use 500 potency spell you get from solar bahamut.

[justinjones]

For RDM use sprint before you start casting. Less overall sprint duration I know, but it's a workaround I found. I'm sure other RDM's found out other workarounds

[MrMadvik]

RIP SMN, hope someday you will return to your former glory 😥

[Channelcomments]

Man was right. It's another 'Picto dunks on everyone' episode.

Just hella overtuned with way too much going on.

[Lordwhizzkid]

Some of my personal thoughts in terms of the Dawntrail changes:

BLM - Honestly it's close to being so fun to play, I just wish Flare Star didn't make the rotation so rigid. It's a hefty loss if you don't get to use it, and any slight positioning change could ruin it for you. Letting stacks stay during Ice phase would improve the job to be the best it has for years imo.

SMN - there's so much to say here. Solar Bahamut should at the very least have more visually interesting moves, if not a different moveset that varies gameplay. I also feel the main bulk of the kit is already pretty dull and knowing it could be like that for another 2.5-3 years? It needs a refresh and honestly needs it sooner rather than later, but it does not need to be fully reworked again. Just give it a little more decision making in its rotation, and variety in its burst and it'll be a very fun job.

RDM - I was a little worried about it going into Dawntrail, but the more I play it the more the charm of this job just keeps on falling out. Genuinely other than the small changes like dualcast taken up by sprint, it's a near perfect job for me. Grand Impact feels like it's been in the class since the very beginning with how smoothly it fits in. Truly no real notes.

PCT - So the class is phenomenal, there's no saying otherwise, but I do feel the need to talk about some worries I have in the future. I think fights are going to have to be near full uptime now, because any minor downtime can put a Picto further ahead than every other class since it gets to store damage when no other class can. The best way I can describe this is like if a Monk got to use Six Sided Star to do a mechanic, but the damage of it gets stored for use in the 2 minute burst. It's crazy potential and won't be matched without significant buffs to other classes. I certainly expect Picto to completely dominate the Criterion & Ultimate, which it is already doing at 90. And I do wonder how this'll be reflected, whether it'll be in boss design or balance design, because more downtime is coming in high level instances, so I imagine alarm bells are ringing for CU3 going into 7.1.