Quote from callback;1283596:
Know what's really important for close combat? Movement speed. Guess who has that?
And with all the %-based MS buffs available, it gets even worse. Let's say you're taking 26% bonus. The human gains 26 speed from this. The giant gains 30. The speed difference becomes larger the more buffs both use.
Using a vales shield with your fanatic greatsword. Really? Yeah, let's remove the only downside of a big two-hander and give them 100% hidden DR when using the defense skill as well, not to mention getting exclusive access to the highest tier of shield mastery benefits when failing to defend. Don't want a shield despite all of this? That's ok, you can charge without p2w reforges, have better shieldless defense, and a shorter windmill cooldown with larger radius to make sure nothing can get to hurt you anyway.
And outside of close combat, how about we let them keep 90% of their dex with heavy armor? Because fuck humans who want to use puppets **and** stay alive. Speaking of heavy armor, let's remove the fighter penalty **entirely** for them while giving them shorter fighter cooldowns across the board.
Face it, giants have **always** had the most advantages. It's NA elves who get shafted (KR elves have low enough lag to make use of their archery advantages), and humans who really get dicked out of a ton of boss fights (hi Sephirot) that rely on moving to dodge thanks to how huge the base speed difference is.
I can't tell if you're complaining about giants. Not sure about the beginning, but at least at the time I started (G7), Giants are better in melee, but shitty mages and range and elves are better at range and magic (Ice Spear). Humans just had balance and no glaring issue aside from being as fast as an elephant using defense. Giants could N+Smash, dual-wield warhammers, Vales shield had comparable stats to the Dragon Shield (Even though Composite used to be better), and their trans skill kicked fucking ass. There were still some people like Vejosa that went against the norm and performed well as a giant mage. Homesteads made the giants issue with MP non-existent though.
Elvens had .5 second magnums and could lock down enemies using it. Humans never could at the time, they had to rely on AR mostly. Ice Spear on an Elf functioned nicely in solo or bad situations since they could lock stuff that didn't have level 2 mana deflector easily for a very low cost.
Fighter comes out. Giants are close combat specialists, so naturally they get more of the boosts. Makes sense that heavy armor wouldn't slow them down personally. Lances come out, 2handed weapons. Giants can already use 2handed weapons with a shield, so they benefitted naturally.
The racial balance thing got fucked up with Genesis. That N+smash you guys had? Nope, anyone can now. The Magnum locking that Elves had? Humans can do it too, Elves are still a bit faster but it's nowhere near as Significant. Fighters unique insta load times? Null and void.
Now, what do we have? Giants have gone from higher damage to basically being meatshields because of defense and the Vales Shield. Sure, Fanatic Greats are badass, but they still don't have extra bash damage that puts it over 500%, extra crit damage that'll stack with R upgrades or the durability loss. Isn't it that with VIP you'd lose 75%
LESS durability? Saves you money on repairs as you don't have to do it as often. The real kicker though? Giants don't have FH. Say what you want, both races could go in a room and put everything to sleep or rain cast. Humans can clear the room before giants can using FH easily, aside from Alban and maybe some Abyss/Lord stuff.
Is there something else. . .? Oh right! Giants don't get level 20 Commerce gear
AT ALL. They also have to make a fucking Raccoon Cub for them to use it, because they can't use the wiz suits everyone else does. Those things aren't that easy to make, and that's still -1k CP they have to do more to get.
I can partly agree on the heavy armor and puppetry stuff, though I don't see why someone would want to use puppets and heavy armor, but that's just me. Also, Sephiroths thing isn't that hard to avoid, I can't consider this a valid argument.
In the end, giants really just have one thing going for em, aside from the Vales Shield and I'd say that's just Rain Cast+ Giant Full Swing. Aside from that, humans are better at melee than they are.