How much does optimal DPS depend on good RNG? (Crits, DH)

Specifically asking from a BLM perspective but this goes for any job

Ok, recently I realized I'm a half decent BLM, I get between 21.5K and 22K on SSS regularly with a ilvl 513 crit set up. Regularly get highest DPS in actual content too, even with other BLM's and SAM's (unless their ilvl is higher cause duh lol).

But here's the thing, when I'm practicing on SSS, some of the runs I do I should not be getting the DPS im getting, or at least I think I shouldn't, one run i'll clip Sharpcast (yeah, I know its a DPS gain on Sharpcast but its still not optimal) another I might forget to use a Fire 4 and just to straight to Despair, one other run I might clip a tincture, another run I might derp out and forget to cast for a second. Alll of those said runs have happened just a few minutes ago, and yet I still got near 22K on some, and on others, were I preform perfect and get all the procs for Thundercloud and Firestarter, I'll get closer to 21.5K, so whats up?

There's practice and there's the final result.

Practice is just doing the rotation right and handling (Blm specific) procs to maximize uptime. how you treat procs and polyglots depends on the encounter. You might need them to move, you might get to dump them all in buff windows.

Final result is based on RNG. Did your potency dumps in the buff window crit? Did they roll high? (All skills roll between 95 and 105% of their potential damage).

This is especially true in critical hit set ups. Sometimes you crit. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you crit on high rolls, sometimes you crit on low rolls. DPS can swing very high but it can also swing very low.

Players used to allow as much a 5% back in heavensward (minor variences depending on job) but whether that'd still the case presently I have no idea..

What I mean is back then for example the difference between say a 95th percentile player and a 90th percentile player was often attribute to rng, latency, or just sheer luck.

You could usually ignore the 100th percentiles as often they are abnormal runs where one player is heavily padded... (single balance vs aoe balance for example)

This was on an individual level at least as things like compositions and the luck element of things like ast cards also had a huge impact.

I would hypothosize that with the advent of direct hits. That percentage could be even bigger now as its an extra layer of rng but heavensward was a lifetime ago and honestly I'm out of touch on a lot of optimization stuffs.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

What I mean is back then for example the difference between say a 95th percentile player and a 90th percentile player was often attribute to rng, latency, or just sheer luck.

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Actually it's 95-100, 90-95 is never rng in a logrun, you will always hit Orange (95-98) usually with good enough skill.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

You could usually ignore the 100th percentiles as often they are abnormal runs where one player is heavily padded... (single balance vs aoe balance for example)

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This exploit was fixed in with the rDPS math calculation and only leaderboards list rDPS as a main comparison. rDPS calculates your DPS without outside buffs except yours. Each job has their own optimal kill times, and a strategy requiring a DPS to do it would usually be subbed out to keep the log high.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dzian

This was on an individual level at least as things like compositions and the luck element of things like ast cards also had a huge impact.

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It is individual yes, but like I said fflogs no longer mainly calculates this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dzian

I would hypothesize that with the advent of direct hits. That percentage could be even bigger now as its an extra layer of rng

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It got more RNG since DH got introduced, you spam the runs till DH/Crit trigger on your bursts, not the downtime/auto attacks.

RNG is only starting to become somewhat relevant in the 95+ range with 99-100 definitely relying on it.
You can hit orange with really bad RNG if you generally play very well; you don't even need to pull really crazy AI stunts with tons of lucky MP ticks. RNG is really the last thing you should ever look at, cleaning up everything else is far more important. Sure, you have some variance when playing the crit set and it can amount to several 100 dps but mistakes make for a greater dps loss.
Good dps doesn't depend on RNG, but high ranked pink parsing does.