Bokchoykn's Rough Napkin Math for New WAR [~5% DPS Nerf]

So here's the reddit post

tl;dr, while new Inner Release might not be worse than current IRzerk, it's going to get worse with time and with worse buff alignment it's likely that it is going to get weaker. That, and with general potency nerfs across the board on GCDs, it looks like WAR might get shifted from a little ahead of PLD in terms of DPS to just slightly behind or on par with it. And ahead of DRK, of course.

It's just napkin math and of course until we get to use it the exact numbers difference is an unknown, but this does mean that while SE said this would be a WAR buff it's a fairly modest nerf to the job. This might change in the next patch notes but if it doesn't... Well... That kinda sucks.

Slightly off-topic but this is a bit weird because while the PLD nerf is in line with what SE said for changes (albeit the math Bok did said it'd be a 1.7% decrease, less than the WAR nerf lol) , the WAR nerf is pretty significant in its current form and the DRK buff is pretty insignificant. I wouldn't say they lied but either someone put the wrong potencies down or their definition of buffs and nerfs is a little weird.

Also, Just in case anyone missed this:

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Regarding balance adjustments, you mentioned that you'd be making adjustments to warriors and black mages during the producer letter live, but what else do you have planned?

Yoshida: For a lot of the jobs, we'll be making adjustments so that they stand better side by side while also ensuring there are fun elements specific to the each job within a role. Only five jobs will remain untouched this time - red mage, samurai, ninja, dragoon, and bard.

Does that mean you might be weakening certain jobs that are preferred at the moment?

Yoshida: Jobs that had come out in front have been adjusted slightly. The basic policy behind our adjustments is, as much as possible, to raise things, but in this case it would put us beyond where the role should be and lead to overall inflation, so the decision was made to suppress the outliers. For paladins in particular, we had to drop their damage a little, and it was difficult because of all of their utility, so I'm sorry about that.

So the power will be suppressed.

Yoshida: Yes, but we kept it to a small adjustment. It won't be extreme, please be assured of that.

Warriors have also been decreasing a bit.

Yoshida: Haven't they been on the rise recently? I think it's the opposite. I'm surprised that we've been seeing more warriors than dark knights.

You see them sometimes as MT in Savage or on Shinryu.

Yoshida: Right now it seems like the OT spot is held only by paladins and rarely warrior or dark knight.

Often in Duty Finder, you'll see two paladins on Shinryu. Are you just targeting the OT spot?

Yoshida: It's both. As we moved towards 4.1, we significantly raised the jobs which became imbalanced at the start of 4.0 by 4.06, but we did it quite boldly and there were several jobs which got raised too much, so we're making these adjustments so jobs of the same role line up side by side.

We could have raised it little by little with repeat fine tuning as usual, but the fear with that is an image issue develops that's much harder to dispel, so by 4.06 we decided to strengthen them considerably. However, now we're rebounding from that and have to make another adjustment. I'm truly sorry for what's been reduced.

There's been a lot of focus on Paladin, so it's about time some of that light hits other jobs as well.

Yoshida: We were especially pleased with paladin given the weak image it had based on its magical defense in the 3.0 series, but it had the impression that it was a strong and easy to use job, so please pardon these changes.

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https://www.bluegartr.com/threads/13...01#post7010901

Reposting here and editing with some additional thoughts as this thread is more relevant to the numbers.

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Originally Posted by DaulBan

According to Bok at least, this amounts to about a 5% DPS decrease. So hopefully they implement some significant changes to the potency buffs because as-is the job is getting a modest nerf.

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Kinda. The 5.1% nerf is just the Storms Eye vs Potency gained alone. The burst is a little side grade-ish. 1 epic burst every 90 sec vs smaller bursts every min as it is now.

The unmeasured variable is the increase in overall number of FCs. We currently get 180 gauge for free during perfect IRZerk window now. That will change to 5FC/upheaval/onslaught during new IR giving us a free 290 Gauge. We just got 110 gauge which means 2 more FCs we didn't have before and then some. If you count both that 110 gauge and the time shaved off infuriate as more gauge it starts to stack up. We are completely free to use infuriate on CD now which we weren't able to do all the time before.

*We are going to be spamming a LOT of FCs in our non-burst windows with all this 110 extra gauge.
*We will get even MORE FC because we will not need to use onslaught to 'manage' gauge and can just freely use FC instead of onslaughts when gauge is capping out.
*Both of which multiplies further with enhanced infuriate giving us even more FCs AND we wont be sitting on infuriate like we sometimes do right now

So our non-burst rotation got nerfed ~5%and we don't align with party buffs as neatly. However we will also see an pretty big influx of probably 3-4 more FCs a 90 sec cycle than before.

I suspect we will at worst break even, or some negligible amount in either direction.

As for SE's prediction of war's doing more damage, I strongly suspect that includes less optimized play. Defiance just got some giant buffs to damage. If you are playing defiance war or progression-safety net war, your damage just went up a LOT with the unchained separation. Wars 'overall' will certainly do more damage if you count this category.

I made a thread in general in regards to tank balance:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Tank-Balance/

Honestly I think this is kind of an issue that needs to be in general discussion because at this point it doesn't just affect tanks.

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Originally Posted by Aana

Snip

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I forgot to account for the 2min timer vs 90 sec for bst gauge generation. It actually means more gauge.

IR now (optimal use. 6FC, 2 onslaught, 1 upheaval) gives us 190 'free' gauge every 120 sec. 95 gauge/min.
New IR gives us (5FC, 1 onslaught, 1 upheaval, all 0 gauge) gives us 290 gauge every 90 sec. 126.6 gauge/min.

We just got 2.5 FCs a min for free, straight up, then add in the other. No wasting gauge on onslaughts, more enhanced infuriate procs, no sitting on infuriate ever. 24 GCDs a min. 3 minimum more FCs. 600 pot a min. Base combos are 4800 potency over 24 gcds. Thats a gain of 12.5% over flat no FC rotation. Of course we have to add in natural FCs and opportunity costs of loosing 20-30 gauge from those FCs, but that is probably made up for by the increased infuriate usage and trait proc. We can easily make up the 5% difference with the extra FCs.

His napkin math is extremely inaccurate and does not take into account his own observations about increasing the number of fell cleaves.

Here is the major clue why his analysis should not be trusted: He based his analysis on extrapolating the 4.1 rotation when just about everyone and their mother can see that the current changes will change the distribution of skills. You cannot extrapolate warrior's damage based on the percentage of the damage break down of the old strategy when those numbers are likely to change to reflect skill changes and different optimization strategies.

@Anna, reached my daily post limit LOL. This could be a ball park if any of what you said happened in the analysis which it didn't. Therefore the result is not likely to match reality.

I agree that overall Warrior dps metrics look like they are going down, Bok's napkin math definitely shows that, but I think people are seriously underestimating the power of 5 direct hit Fell cleaves being added to the rotation every 90 seconds out of the blue along with the general increasing in Fell Cleave frequency overall outside of IR windows. That metric is definitely going up. The question people need to be asking is whether or not that is large enough gain to counteract the nerf. We are talking about huge swings either way, therefore detailed calculations are really necessary. Napkin math isn't enough to convince me on this one.

For those who have forgotten, dragoon underwent the same experience, most of the combo potency increases did not match the damage lost from the decrease in Heavy Thrust's damage bonus. The combo changes were overall a negative, but nastrond received a frequency increase, the net result was positive for dragoon's dps. I'm sure if we applied such loose napkin math to the dragoon changes we would have also predicted a nerf, much to people's surprise it was in fact a buff.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

His napkin math is extremely inaccurate and does not take into account his own observations about increasing the number of fell cleaves.

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But you can still take not of some general trends. If you use the old rotation as a control, you just look at what changes.

The fundamental base rotation wont change. Eye>Path>Path for days. Thats simple to calc out in both potencies. The only thing that changes is the number and placement of the FCs and then apply the buffs. New buff being so straightforward it wont take much to figure that out. Calculating the new rotation will, flatly, be very simple because SE took all the complexity out of it. Its litterally just Eye>Path>Path. Use FC before you go over 100. Keep infuriate on CD. Use upheaval twice. 90 sec hit IR>5FC/Onslaught/3rd upheaval. Rinse repeat. His analysis isnt perfect but its a ballpark.

Honestly if this weekend ends up being slow I might just do the math myself if someone else doesnt beat me to it. But at 1st glance it really doesnt look to be much of a change overall in deliverance. Massive boosts to defiance play.