Early Vs Delay Openers

[xxPheNoMeNa]

Testing a rotation at 2.43s isn't relevant when none of our BiS builds have that much spell speed to begin with. 2.5s and 2.48s are the primary BiS builds (and theoretical highest damage potential), if it's not even consistent on either of those 2 GCD tiers then there's no argument to begin with before we get to potency comparisons.

"if you hold Aetherpact until the middle of the GCD cooldown, it won't be applied until at least 1.5secs later"

This isn't how it works exactly. It really just boils down to where your pets "GCD" is, and how soon it can weave Devotion once it's commanded to. Devotion timings are never 100% consistent because of this, with REALLY good execution you can generally keep it contained within the window of 1 GCD worth of time, but you can't guarantee it will ALWAYS occur at the exact same place. This is also where your GCD build comes into play, because your GCD alignment will differ slightly compared to me testing this at 2.48 (and for me, that Devotion is casting nearly instantly with how you're proposing it).


"the difference in DoT damage depends on how many DoTs tick via a Bio and Miasma refresh before a boss jumps"

The only thing that matters when it comes to a situation like this, is whether you can avoid a hardcasted set of DoTs or not. The number of DoT ticks will always be the same, it's just where those ticks occur. You can then take it a step further and include the potential of gained Tri-Disaster casts, as they provide 300 potency up front now (by gained, I mean using a Tri-Disaster before down time, provided the down time is long enough that you'll gain the next cooldown in time for a boss to return). However you never clarified on either of these points.


"you then get a difference of 47.9 potency, again, in favor of the delayed opener"

From where exactly? It's already flawed that you shown 2 images of different length (you took my opener and reduced it down to 13 GCDs, yet what you created is 16 GCDs long). So are you attempting to compare a 13 GCD sequence to a 16 GCD sequence? Because according to the rotation sheet we use, all of our openers come out ahead in a 16 GCD sequence compared to yours (with me attempting to correct what you've edited, and even giving you the benefit of the doubt of 2x akh morns hitting Devotion with an actual BiS build).

[Oxdarock]

snip.

The reason I used a 2.4sec GCD in every opener (excluding BLM) is precisely because it’s not BiS. What I mean is, while it can be a simple matter of melding sps to reach a higher speed threshold, the same can’t be said for lower speed tiers. Depending on what gear you have available, the only way to reach lower speed tiers might be to either use gear with lower main stat values or (in my case) to strip your character naked with only the weapon left (which of course isn’t a realistic option). If the argument here is that an opener not built around 2.5secs and 2.48 BiS builds isn’t viable, then the counterargument is that an opener built around those builds isn’t viable for higher speed builds either. Mind you, I’m not saying the delayed openers don’t share this same issue. A higher or lower build might just be enough to push a GCD outside a raid window or push a buff out of the alignment. My goal was to find a middle ground to work from.

I completely agree on your point regarding Devotion timings, though you seem to have stumbled upon the goal in how I phrased it, since you mentioned that it comes out nearly instantly). It’s a lot easier to predict when Devotion will come out when the only other thing Ifrit is doing at the time is Burning Strike as opposed to that and an Egi Assault. What’s more, because the goal is to get 2 Akh Morns within Devotion, the timing is meant to ignore the R3 that comes right after Aether pact and instead catch the Deathflare (though again, whether you’re still able to fit 2 Akh Morns in Devotion at rock bottom sps, even when switching the order of the 2nd Akh Morn and Fester, is something I’m not 100% sure of).

We seemed to have reached something of an agreement regarding DoTs, though just worded a bit differently (and I guess poorly on my part). However, the part about the extra Tri cast fits into my statement regarding which opener to use depending on the fight: If the delayed opener causes you to miss the cast of an important oGCD or complete burst window before a boss jumps, then use the early opener. If the number of oGCD casts and buff duration is the same regardless, then use the delayed opener.

As for the potency difference statement, that’s just in regards to the tables I made which apply the maximum number of percentage based damage buffs. It’s much lower the less buffs there are (I even used a few party comp examples at the bottom of the doc. Going by this discussion, if you were to remove the extra 380 potency from the delayed opener in the first example, the difference ends up being 5.5 potency). As for using two pictures with the different number of GCDs, I simply copied exactly what was written from the guides that list the early openers. In order to make a fair comparison between the two, I had to add the subsequent rotation to the early openers to match the same timeframe as the delayed ones. If the matter of when an opener truly “ends” is the issue here, then just think of it instead as the “Early Rotation” and the “Delayed Rotation,” since there will come a point when both use up all their buffs and oGCDs and end up in a filler rotation.

[Oxdarock]

snip

I assume you mean the delayed SAM opener because both the Higa 1st and Midare 1st openers would be considered the “early openers” in this. ^^;

Regarding Shifu and Jinpu falling off before reapplication and royally screwing the entire rotation, that’s a pretty extreme example statement, especially since this particular instance would only happen a handful of times in a fight with full uptime (mainly due to the Tinc window). Not only that, but in the delayed opener given, the moment both buffs fall off is the moment they’re reapplied (you literally press Shifu as the buff falls offs). Even if Shifu falls off before it’s reapplied and the next CD lasts for .32secs (give or take depending on your sks), you’re telling me that’s enough to mess everything up later down the line and that there’s zero adjustments that can be made? As for the Jinpu matter, that’s literally the same as the Twin Snakes optimization that MNKs do, and since it’s a 40sec buff, it’s not nearly as constant since there’s almost no other time it should fall off in a full uptime scenario (outside of Tinc windows).

That said, I can’t particularly say too much more with matters involving drift (excluding the bit about Higa completely falling out of alignment with raid buffs since it’s used smack dab in the middle of all of them in the delayed alignment), as that is dependent of both one’s rotation and sks. However, given how flexible SAM is, I find it hard to believe that there’s nothing that can be done about this, nor can I believe that severe drift can be assumed to happen at a glance.

Lastly, I find the mention of the one GCD delay regarding the delayed opener from the other two as a bit contradictory since the same can be said in regards to Tsubame. What I mean is, it’s already well known that you’d use the Midare 1st opener over the Higa 1st if doing so would gain you an extra Tsubame (which again, is similar to the core idea around all of the delayed openers). The delayed SAM opener is essentially the third counterpart part in the series. If you won’t lose a Midare and/or Tsubame cast, then use it. If you will, then go for one of the other two. Hell, the Midare first opener can actually work pretty well with the delayed raid timings if you move some oGCDs around.

EDIT: One thing that I will admit is that the placement of Senei and Meikyo for the delayed opener should be swapped (double weaving Meikyo with Kaiten would also work, but ick, clipping). The reason is, with Meikyo being used after Tsubame, it's very likely to clash with Kaiten. Just took the time to switch it, so at the very least, thank you for giving me a reason to reevaluate that.

[xxPheNoMeNa]

"then the counterargument is that an opener built around those builds isn’t viable for higher speed builds either"

But this does not matter when higher spell speed builds aren't BiS to begin with.



"What’s more, because the goal is to get 2 Akh Morns within Devotion"

Since you seem to be making a big deal about this, you do realize that we also made an opener that can accomplish this? It just has a much higher bar of execution, so it wasn't pushed for most players as the "standard", but it does exist and is still (mathematically speaking) the strongest opener currently available.


And I'll remind you again, that despite you claiming that your delayed opener comes out "ahead", our math shows it being behind. So I'm still not quite sure how you "compared" these openers.

[SpeckledBurd]

"then the counterargument is that an opener built around those builds isn’t viable for higher speed builds either"

But this does not matter when higher spell speed builds aren't BiS to begin with.



"What’s more, because the goal is to get 2 Akh Morns within Devotion"

Since you seem to be making a big deal about this, you do realize that we also made an opener that can accomplish this? It just has a much higher bar of execution, so it wasn't pushed for most players as the "standard", but it does exist and is still (mathematically speaking) the strongest opener currently available.


And I'll remind you again, that despite you claiming that your delayed opener comes out "ahead", our math shows it being behind. So I'm still not quite sure how you "compared" these openers.

You're arguing with someone who refuses to be corrected about this. If you look in their thread history you’ll see they have made 3-4 other threads just like this one where they theorycraft from fundamental misunderstandings on how the jobs and their actions work. People have tried to explain multiple times in these other threads with regard to multiple openers that have been made for every job that what's being proposed is less effective than a standard opener just as you’re doing now, but Oxdarock won't accept it. At best they’ll accept a single correction on something minor while ignoring how wrong they are about everything else.

The best thing you can do is not engage them and let this thread fall off the front page so someone doesn't actually try and use their guide. While I understand what you’re trying to do, you’ll never break through to them. All you’re really doing is giving their misinformation more exposure.

[Oxdarock]

"then the counterargument is that an opener built around those builds isn’t viable for higher speed builds either"

But this does not matter when higher spell speed builds aren't BiS to begin with.



"What’s more, because the goal is to get 2 Akh Morns within Devotion"

Since you seem to be making a big deal about this, you do realize that we also made an opener that can accomplish this? It just has a much higher bar of execution, so it wasn't pushed for most players as the "standard", but it does exist and is still (mathematically speaking) the strongest opener currently available.


And I'll remind you again, that despite you claiming that your delayed opener comes out "ahead", our math shows it being behind. So I'm still not quite sure how you "compared" these openers.

Well, let's just hope that future BiS doesn't increase the sps. ^^;

I'm curious about this other opener that you're referring to that gets two Akh Morns within Devotion since the one I came up with is pushing it as is. Contrary to what people might think, I haven't been back to the balance discord since I got banned, so I have no idea what's changed there. All I have to go on is what's available from a Google search.

As for my math, it's all there in the doc I linked. All the values I use, how I calculate them, the standard values I use for everything, extra info for particular classes, you name it. My goal was not to find out what the exact damage values would be with a particular gear set, be it BiS or otherwise. It was to show what the general potency would be for a given class' rotation (since more potency generally means more damage) and, more importantly, how it would affect other classes' overall potency between the early and delayed buff alignments.

So if your math shows which opener/rotation comes out ahead, that's fine. However, as I've been told several times, just saying so won't cut it for most people. Work needs to be shown, preferably where people can break it down and see for themselves. It also needs to match what you're trying to compare it with since, while having tools to figure out exact damage numbers based on gear sets is helpful, it's not particularly relevant to this particular situation since the potency of a class's rotation doesn't change regardless of what gear you have, whether it's BiS or otherwise. Only thing that changes is the timing based on sps.

And then, after you've figure out how it affects SMN, you'll also need to show how it affects all 16 other classes since the point I've been trying to make with delayed openers is that lining up raid buffs as uniformly as possible results in higher raid dps.