Please stop with the "no duplicates" and pigeon-holing our DPS into tiny windows

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

If 20% of the damage is easily survivable with few vulnerability stacks, why wouldn't LB3 be used in that way?

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First and foremost, it isn't survivable with a "few vulnerability stacks." You're also neglecting healers have shields and Warriors typically blow Shake it Off. Basically, you had a ton of outgoing mitigation to completely ignore Hakutei. Regardless, we have an example of this very oversight in Zurvan EX where, again, the devs outright acknowledged they never considered people would tank LB3 Soar and claimed it a new developer's inexperience. A likely factor in why they don't account for cheese strats is JP players rarely exploit them. They aren't doing tank LB3 for the most part and never did with Zurvan. It's strictly a NA/EU thing.

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Your stance makes no sense. What benefit do they have to essentially lie and claim they never intended parties to rely on tank LB3 to cheese the mechanic if they actually expected people would? Tank LB3 simply gives 80% mitigation party wide, which omits virtually all of Hakutei's damage as it's entirely based on percentage.

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Who says they need a "benefit"?

Bottom line is, if it were truly unintended, they would fix it. They haven't. I don't know about you guys, but for me, actions speak louder than words.

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For another, they tend to get mad when people don’t do the content as they designed for it to be done.

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Precisely. And they aren't getting "mad" about it here. What does THAT tell you?

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

Who says they need a "benefit"?

Bottom line is, if it were truly unintended, they would fix it. They haven't. I don't know about you guys, but for me, actions speak louder than words.

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For someone claiming to have watch/read the live letter, you missed quite a few details. Yoshida explained they don't necessarily want to fix it since it's a strategy players came up with they simply didn't anticipate and doing so would punish them. Regardless, by your assessment, the exploit in O5S is equally intended. You know, the one where WAR or RDM tag the big ghost, blow it up in two GCDs and completely negate a mechanic that otherwise kills the entire raid if not done properly. Hmmmm.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

Bottom line is, if it were truly unintended, they would fix it. They haven't. I don't know about you guys, but for me, actions speak louder than words.

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Or, they could be considering the fact that if they patched that now, almost four weeks after release, the earfuls from people whining about how they can no longer cheese the mechanic they’ve been cheesing all along just isn’t worth it.

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Precisely. And they aren’t getting “mad” about it here. What does THAT tell you?

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Still tells me that tank LB3 strat wasn’t the intended strat. Otherwise, they never would have said “We didn’t intend for players to cheese this by using a tank LB3 for the second tiger”. The developers may have their faults, but they don’t strike me as the kind to lie about things like this.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

I know what they said. My stance on it is still the same though. They wouldn't have just made it "do low enough damage to be survivable with tank LB3" when the game is no stranger whatsoever to attacks that just wipe the party outright if you don't do a mechanic as intended, no ifs ands or buts.

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People do DPS the tiger, and you dont need to kill it. It's damage to you scales based on the damage you deal to it.
And with future iLv increases, the damage becomes more and more survivable.
It was never intended to kill you to begin with, since you didnt have to kill the tiger from the start.

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For someone claiming to have watch/read the live letter, you missed quite a few details

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I never claimed such a thing.

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Yoshida explained they don't necessarily want to fix it since it's a strategy players came up with they simply didn't anticipate and doing so would punish them. Regardless, by your assessment, the exploit in O5S is equally intended. You know, the one where WAR or RDM tag the big ghost, blow it up in two GCDs and completely negate a mechanic that otherwise kills the entire raid if not done properly. Hmmmm.

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I don't know what you are talking about, but that aside...

The tank LB has worked pretty much the exact same way for years now. They made it practically required for A12.

If you really believe it when they say they didn't properly account for a tank LB potentially being used in a battle strategy, I have this really cheap bridge that I'd like to sell to you.

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People do DPS the tiger, and you dont need to kill it. It's damage to you scales based on the damage you deal to it.
And with future iLv increases, the damage becomes more and more survivable.
It was never intended to kill you to begin with, since you didnt have to kill the tiger from the start.

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No kidding. I've done the fight, I know how it works. You have to weaken the first tiger cuz there's no LB3 available yet.

The point is, making the second tiger specifically survivable (when other things like enrages or other failed mechanics wipe the party no matter what) kinda points to the fact that tank LB was always intended to be a viable approach. Otherwise they'd have just made the tiger outright kill you if you ignored it, just like enrages or other failed mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

First and foremost, it isn't survivable with a "few vulnerability stacks." You're also neglecting healers have shields and Warriors typically blow Shake it Off. Basically, you had a ton of outgoing mitigation to completely ignore Hakutei. Regardless, we have an example of this very oversight in Zurvan EX where, again, the devs outright acknowledged they never considered people would tank LB3 Soar and claimed it a new developer's inexperience. A likely factor in why they don't account for cheese strats is JP players rarely exploit them. They aren't doing tank LB3 for the most part and never did with Zurvan. It's strictly a NA/EU thing.

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I've survived it as a Monk at 3 stacks (due to being forced by the line AoE into a misplaced expanding vuln zone) with nothing but Fists of Earth (in a trap PF where everyone else was dead). I was i350 and had lingering i320 food buffs, but as a single shield could more than make up for that and only NIN and ranged would have less magic eHP than I had, "few" (not "a few" as in ~3, but as in "3 or less") seems apt.

My point, anyways, is that no one ought to make a mistake twice, almost identically, and say that they didn't think it was readily able to be used in a given way... under near-identical conditions. Hell, we don't even have to worry about vuln because it's a guaranteed hit mechanic to which they've yet to figure out how to attach a conditional (e.g. based on %HP damage) debuff.

Also, JP were the first to make common use of Titan-tank for Ramuh Ex and SCH stack T5 in those respective cheese strats, and I saw just as many (i.e. 100%) of Zurvan PFs on the JP Datacenters demanding Soar skip when that was current content... Since when were JP considered as excluded from cheese strats? They may latch onto certain strats that provide relatively little advantage for their dependence on other gimmicks, such as with Byakko Tank LB3, but they're right up there with us as far as I can tell in terms of making such circumventions. They just tend to strategically enable personal underperformance less.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

Bottom line is, if it were truly unintended, they would fix it. They haven't. I don't know about you guys, but for me, actions speak louder than words.

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Turn 2 enrage strategy says hello.

Funnily enough, there was a patch where it seemed SE did fix this strategy (the enrage would cast faster and such), but then they undid the fix and people could do the enrage again.

About duplicated jobs
It is true that people do no want duplicated jobs because of LB3 and loot. People are probably using the LB3 start to be 'safe' since not many people have enough dps to do it the right way. Keep in mind that many people are still using their 340/350 sets. I think when people gear up, they won't be having issues with second tiger and just LB3 the boss instead.

About jobs with short burst windows
I see nothing wrong with that. Every job is different/unique on its own way. Some jobs rely on burst windows and other have steady dps throughout the fight. That is why CD alignment for raid dps is a thing. You might not prefer jobs with short burst windows, but there are others that totally enjoy it, variety is good :)

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Originally Posted by Galactimus

"No duplicates" is the only reason we aren't raiding with "7 Tanks and 1 Healer." I think exclusion of popular classes would be FAR greater if duplicates were allowed. I know for a fact my PLD would have never finished AS3 and AS4 if "Warrior ONLY" comps were allowed.

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Um what? There's this thing called enrage. Warriors dont do THAT much damage.

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Originally Posted by TheDraco4011

Um what? There's this thing called enrage. Warriors dont do THAT much damage.

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Mmm...a good WAR can burst for 6,000 with the right comp, and have a relatively good sustain bordering around 3,500~4,000. WAR is pretty powerful right now lol. They aren’t a DPS, but they can still pull very high numbers.

The LB gain rate is actual pretty noticeably lower when you have duplicate jobs. Running Byakko EX even with fairly good uptime and dps we would barely hit the LB3 for tank LB. With pretty much the same amount of uptime and DPS but with no duplicates we were able to get it well in advance.

A large part of the Meta is decided by the player community. 'No duplicates' is the only way to prevent the escalation of unwarranted meta turning into something like 'party looking for 2 war, 2 whm, 8 rdm,' etc.
'No duplicates' allow for the diversity of the playerbase. Other MMOs (i'm looking at you, ESO) got ruined by the meta in that it's always preferred to have a group of magic classes over melee classes, for example.

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A14: We did not foresee this. Similar to the great strategy for the meteor phase in the Second Coil of Bahamut - Turn 4, this was something the players created on their own, so we think this is good as-is. However, if you’re going to use tank limit break, make sure to discuss with your group beforehand

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Unintended or not, they're fine with it.

And btw, how is using tank lb to survive tiger more cheese then lets say, use melee/caster lb on an add?
Isnt it kinda cheesy to just lb3 the adds in O3s?

Wait, hold up.

The playerbase finds a use for tank lb3, and it isn't:
1) Literally necessary to complete the fight
2) worse to use than just another dps lb3

And people are calling it cheese?

In a thread complaining about a restriction that broadens class variety in party composition?

What the hell?

Lemme just say these things, and I'm almost willing to just outright state them as facts.
- This tank lb3 strategy is a wonderful and clever deviation from the norm, and I would love to see more fights where an LB3 other than dps LB3 is a party dps gain.
- The no-duplicates composition restriction is a great way to increase class variety without overly restricting your ability to complete content. To be honest, it's not going to actually affect your total number of limit breaks in a meaningful fashion most of the time. Byakko is an unusual exception.

If you really want to run two paladins in a byakko party, just do the mechanic correctly. You did it in phase 1, right?

I feel Machinist is mostly ok as it is, but loses to Bard in a few ways...

Warden's Paeon, BRD being able to remove or prevent statuses is extremely useful, would be nice if they gave something like that to MCH as well.

If they were to remake how the shots work, they should rework them entirely, as the current system of having a 50% to get to use the next shot with any actual damage (without using reload/quick reload) can have you just spamming Split Shot.
Maybe make it just a regular combo and rebalance the damages for that...

And BRD has 2 damage over time effects, the closest MCH has to DoTs is their turret, bring back Lead Shot.

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Originally Posted by Stormfur

1) The "no duplicates" job nonsense
2) Pigeon-holing our DPS into tiny windows
Your thoughts?

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I don't see these as problems. People choosing to make no-duplicate parties is a result of several design choices: having less party slots than jobs instead of the opposite, buffs and debuffs not stacking with themselves, the way the LB gauge works and loot systems. On the other hand people who play a popular job have to compete for party slots with others playing the same job, but on the other hand the people enjoying unpopular (usually worse performing) jobs have a better chance to join parties. I think it's a good thing that there is a benefit to playing an outcast job, but that's an opinion and not a fact. It lessens the pressure to choose a FOTM job over some other job a player enjoys more.

Having to cram moves into buff windows is not a problem as long as that's not the only play style available, and right now there are other more sustained dps options to choose from. Having options is the key. Bards and Machinists getting cast times was an issue of a play style being completely removed from the game, which was one reason why many people were against it. Melee suffer from lack of different play styles as they all have positionals and combos (tanks have the combo issue too). Going forward I hope we continue to have both "bursty" and sustained forms of damage and wish we'd get some melee or tank which doesn't use combos (or a healer which does).

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Originally Posted by TheDraco4011

Um what? There's this thing called enrage. Warriors dont do THAT much damage.

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If your entire group consists of 95th percentile players, then you can actually make it all the way up to God Kefka assuming your healer is still putting out 1k damage. That margin will increase as gear levels continue to rise.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

The point is, making the second tiger specifically survivable (when other things like enrages or other failed mechanics wipe the party no matter what) kinda points to the fact that tank LB was always intended to be a viable approach. Otherwise they'd have just made the tiger outright kill you if you ignored it, just like enrages or other failed mechanics.

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Thats not proof they intended you to use it.

That just increased the likelyhood of it, before we found out what they said.

I simply explained how they could be in the mind set to not think of it.

again, he was intended to be made "easy" at higher iLvs in later patches, so you could survive, w/o tank LB, and w/o doing enough DPS.
(You'd still have to do SOME damage, but the amount of damage required is dependant on the amount of damage u could survive."
THAT is where they forgot tank LB is enough to survive it.

Even the 1st tiger can be survived at like 37% with high gear, and shields. (and obviously low dps)

Yes, they didnt design it so killing it is passing the mechanic, and anything else is 100% wipe.
Then again, a lot of "insta wipes" do damage, and going in as a Lv70, if its a Lv50 fight, can survive it sometimes.

So it's an easy mistake to do.
And the reason they wouldnt fix it, is most likely because they wanted high iLv groups to not have to work hard to win. (This is of course the assumption on my part.)

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

If your entire group consists of 95th percentile players, then you can actually make it all the way up to God Kefka assuming your healer is still putting out 1k damage. That margin will increase as gear levels continue to rise.

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IDK about that. I know its possible in some cases, but liek with O5S, our WAR did 4k, our PLD did 3.5k, our DPS did 4.5k-5k, and healers 1k-1.2k
the 1st 2 weeks, we cleared no problem.
3rd week, same numbers, and HIGHER total DPS, and we lost to enrage with 5% still left.

take those same numbers, except the 2nd week, all dps did 4.8k-5k dps, our healers did 1.4 and 1.6k in O6S
we cleared the 1st 2 weeks no problem, 3rd week, those same numbers, and higher total DPS, lost to enrage at 10% hp left.

I almost think they changed the fights on the emergency maintenance before we did both of those fights on the 3rd week, maybe to try and counter this.

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Originally Posted by Stormfur

This is getting to be a really disturbing trend that I think the developers don't really see, because they're so far buried in the minutiae of balancing jobs and creating new content

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Ohoho, but that's where you are wrong, this is raid finder's requirement for savage raids:

https://i.imgur.com/6s5jMOs.png

Not only do they see it, they enforce it pretty hard in their own match making system (while not used in NA/EU it is very popular in JP). Not only that but when they say party composition doesn't matter they are clearly not talking about duplicate jobs, because the LB penalty is something they 100% intentionally added to the game to discourage such compositions.

So you got it backwards, whenever you try to stack two of the same jobs you're the one playing against what devs intended, and your LB gets penalized as result.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I saw just as many (i.e. 100%) of Zurvan PFs on the JP Datacenters demanding Soar skip when that was current content... Since when were JP considered as excluded from cheese strats?

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Generally speaking, JP uses the RF and DF and leaves PF for learning parties. It would not surprise me if you were on the DC for Tonberry and were seeing PFs from English speakers using the NA/EU strats. Seeing as they were, apparently, using PF just as the players on NA and EU do.

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Originally Posted by JohnnyDevo

Wait, hold up.

The playerbase finds a use for tank lb3, and it isn't:
1) Literally necessary to complete the fight
2) worse to use than just another dps lb3

And people are calling it cheese?

In a thread complaining about a restriction that broadens class variety in party composition?

What the hell?

Lemme just say these things, and I'm almost willing to just outright state them as facts.
- This tank lb3 strategy is a wonderful and clever deviation from the norm, and I would love to see more fights where an LB3 other than dps LB3 is a party dps gain.

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I'd love a fight where it's required to use a healer LB3, just to break from the norm. Other than making A4S less of a pain in the ass.

I do wish Raid Finder were more popular in the US datacenters.

I figured it was due to people being people and thus too lazy to do mechanics properly in ByaEX. Given my luck in finding people that can't do easy mechanics, the laziness is definitely showing IMO. I mean, is there any current content out that actually requires the use of a tank LB3?

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

The LB penalty for doubling up on the same jobs is far more than marginal, considering even one double job in Byakko Ex means you won't have tank LB3 for the second tiger (and people don't want to do the mechanic properly so, there's that). Tank LB2 isn't enough even when the tiger is at 50%. .

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I've been in a group that LB2'd the tiger and survived with a deployed adlo.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

A likely factor in why they don't account for cheese strats is JP players rarely exploit them. They aren't doing tank LB3 for the most part and never did with Zurvan. It's strictly a NA/EU thing.

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Who came up with the sac strat for A4S?

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Originally Posted by Elixirboy

Who came up with the sac strat for A4S?

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Hence why I said "rarely" instead of never. ;)

There's nothing wrong with "no duplicates" party's well I say who cares in byakko becuase it's easy but I do see the annoyance of no tank LB3....

But like Savage heck no lol I agree, i even hate seeing another caster besides myself because of selfish gear reasons but also for other reasons

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Thats not proof they intended you to use it.

That just increased the likelyhood of it, before we found out what they said.

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I'm not saying that they intended us to use it.

I'm saying that if it were UNINTENDED, they would have made the tiger 1-shot if ignored (or they would have patched it to make it such after it was discovered).

What I'm trying to say is that anyone who's calling the tank LB3 strat unintended (or worse, calling it an exploit) is full of it, because all the evidence left in the game points to otherwise.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

What I'm trying to say is that anyone who's calling the tank LB3 strat unintended (or worse, calling it an exploit) is full of it, because all the evidence left in the game points to otherwise.

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Lmao. The devs themselves said it was unintended, so are the devs full of it when they didn't see precedent for it? It's not even an enrage, soft or hard. It's a DPS check, you don't meet it, you don't kill the boss.

Dude, just stop and get off your high horse.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

Generally speaking, JP uses the RF and DF and leaves PF for learning parties. It would not surprise me if you were on the DC for Tonberry and were seeing PFs from English speakers using the NA/EU strats. Seeing as they were, apparently, using PF just as the players on NA and EU do.

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I've seen these in RF/DF as well. And the PFs were in Japanese so I'm not sure where the "English speakers" assumption is coming from.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

I'd love a fight where it's required to use a healer LB3, just to break from the norm. Other than making A4S less of a pain in the ass.

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Same. Though unless the whole fight is built around the idea of required deaths, I suspect PLD may become required for the prior Cover. That'd still be refreshing even then, though.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

I'm not saying that they intended us to use it.

I'm saying that if it were UNINTENDED, they would have made the tiger 1-shot if ignored (or they would have patched it to make it such after it was discovered).

What I'm trying to say is that anyone who's calling the tank LB3 strat unintended (or worse, calling it an exploit) is full of it, because all the evidence left in the game points to otherwise.

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To which I (again) say Turn 2 Enrage strategy. When a boss enrages, normally the raid wipes and you have to start over. Not the case with Turn 2. ADS' enrage is survivable, but it requires constant AoE healing. This was clearly not what the devs intended, as it completely negates all mechanics of a fight (not dealing with Allagan Rot being the biggest reason why people did it). Despite this, they never fixed the enrage (and as said before, they had to unfix it when a patch made it impossible to do the enrage strat).

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Same. Though unless the whole fight is built around the idea of required deaths, I suspect PLD may become required for the prior Cover. That'd still be refreshing even then, though.

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To my understanding O4S did have mechanics that required party members to die (specifically to other mechanics and not falling off the arena), so it's a possibility. Personally the reason I like the tank lb strat in Byakko is BECAUSE it isn't needed but is something viable, which Healer LB3 essentially is in quite a bit more content itself (though much more unplanned.) But I wouldn't be unopposed to such a thing...if the Bahamut vids aren't lieing to me technically Phoenix currently has the monopoly on required Healer lb3s casted :p

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Originally Posted by Dualblade

To my understanding O4S did have mechanics that required party members to die (specifically to other mechanics and not falling off the arena), so it's a possibility. Personally the reason I like the tank lb strat in Byakko is BECAUSE it isn't needed but is something viable, which Healer LB3 essentially is in quite a bit more content itself (though much more unplanned.) But I wouldn't be unopposed to such a thing...if the Bahamut vids aren't lieing to me technically Phoenix currently has the monopoly on required Healer lb3s casted :p

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I mean, you had to cleanse a debuff by hitting 1 HP when said debuff also prevented you from dropping beneath 1 HP, like a reversed Living Dead, but, I meant the... corpse-y kind of death.

Have you seen the Argus (Heroic or Mythic) fight from World of Warcraft: Legion? It plays with the concept of death a fair bit. If not, but curious, the "Fatboss" channel on Youtube covers it.

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Lmao. The devs themselves said it was unintended, so are the devs full of it when they didn't see precedent for it?

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Saying the tank LB strategy was unintended when it clearly lets you survive an ignored mechanic (and isn't being addressed/fixed) makes about as much sense as saying it was unintended for FFXI NINs to be able to tank after giving them an ability that lets them completely avoid attacks. What did they THINK was going to happen there? It isn't fooling anybody, certainly not me.

So yes, I'm saying anyone who is calling this unintended is full of it.

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It's not even an enrage, soft or hard. It's a DPS check, you don't meet it, you don't kill the boss.

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Except it isn't a DPS check at all because the DPS can completely ignore it and you can very much still kill the boss.

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To which I (again) say Turn 2 Enrage strategy. When a boss enrages, normally the raid wipes and you have to start over. Not the case with Turn 2. ADS' enrage is survivable, but it requires constant AoE healing. This was clearly not what the devs intended, as it completely negates all mechanics of a fight (not dealing with Allagan Rot being the biggest reason why people did it). Despite this, they never fixed the enrage (and as said before, they had to unfix it when a patch made it impossible to do the enrage strat).

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You're only proving my point.

If that approach were unintended, they'd have made it such that running out of time in turn 2 would just instantly wipe you like it would in any other fight with an enrage. Yet as you say yourself, that isn't how it works (and as I've pointed out already, Coil was *no stranger whatsoever* to mechanics that would just flat out instantly kill individuals/parties for failing them, so the fact that they diverted from that here is notable). Same deal with the tank LB3 on Byakko.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

So yes, I'm saying anyone who is calling this unintended is full of it.

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:|

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

Except it isn't a DPS check at all because it can be completely ignored and you can very much still kill the boss.

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Tried doing that without tank LB3? Oh wait, that's right, it's "intended" to do it with tank LB3, my mistake.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

If that approach were unintended, they'd have made it such that running out of time in turn 2 would just instantly wipe you like it would in any other fight with an enrage.

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T2 enrage strat was unintended, and was a side effect of overgearing the content. You're forgetting that T2 enrage strat only picked up when a lot of people were in i90, 20 item levels above the recommended.

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Originally Posted by ErryK

Tried doing that without tank LB3? Oh wait, that's right, it's "intended" to do it with tank LB3, my mistake.

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There's a large difference between something being intended "intended" and "allowed for", or not strictly unintended.

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Originally Posted by ErryK

T2 enrage strat was unintended, and was a side effect of overgearing the content. You're forgetting that T2 enrage strat only picked up when a lot of people were in i90, 20 item levels above the recommended.

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People just ran triple-healer until gear was enough, well before even full myth gear.

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Tried doing that without tank LB3? Oh wait, that's right, it's "intended" to do it with tank LB3, my mistake.

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A DPS check, last I heard, tests the DPS of the party. Please explain to me how it's still a DPS check when a defensive tank action can bypass it?

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

A DPS check, last I heard, tests the DPS of the party. Please explain to me how it's still a DPS check when a defensive tank action can bypass it?

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i think its just semantics at this point. it still a DPS check at the end of the day if people choose not to do the tank LB3, its just that the fail mechanic for not passing it is bypassed. you simply don't "need" to tank LB3 to pass the content, it just slightly faster. they admitted it was unintended, im willing to accept that more than saying "they're full of it".

I can accept it as unintended. I still love the strat because it is a tank lb3 use that isn't scripted beyond belief.

Now, RDM vs Tank Ghost...I can't see that as anything but exploitative cheese.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

I can accept it as unintended. I still love the strat because it is a tank lb3 use that isn't scripted beyond belief.

Now, RDM vs Tank Ghost...I can't see that as anything but exploitative cheese.

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My thoughts exactly. Being able to send one person with little preparation (just dual-cast and oGCDs) to do 8's work is...