Dear casters... about line break....

With great respect for your DPS and skills --

When there are no melee in the party -- I can do more damage to a single boss with LB than you can, mere machinist though I might be. So please... when the boss gets down to 20%, leave the LB to me. I know when to do it in order to get the boss within the quick-kill margin.

In five of six tome runs through Fractal Continuum, the caster let loose at 20-25%. No disaster, but we wasted time on one more wave of walkin' clocks than we had to.

It occurs to me that machinists are so rare these days that other classes have little familiarity with their capabilities. Too bad.

Not quite sure that is even true. Have you actually compared the damage? Tests say otherwise. Also which LB you use should not make a difference between time spend in the final boss. If you have adds at the end and the boss is at 10%, then you can just ignore them and finish him off.

Thanks for the comment.

Yes, I've actually compared damage on the final boss in Fractal Continuum; as best I can determine, there's a small but significant advantage to machinists. Yes, we ignore the adds when the boss is below 10-12%. No, casters usually -- usually -- cannot LB at 20% + and get to within the kill-margin.

I've talked to several casters. The idea seems to be that if there are no melee in the group, caster AoE will have to suffice. I'm saying there's good alternative.

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Originally Posted by Crissy

Yes, I've actually compared damage on the final boss in Fractal Continuum;

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Is this you testing with both ranged and caster, if so then the numbers are likely not accurate. the LB calculation takes the combined weapon damage of the entire party. With a different party you get a different weapon damage, and therefore inaccurate results.

We tested the ranged/mage LB in a3s (in the same instance and same weapons) and the mage LB did more damage.

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Originally Posted by KaosKeith

Is this you testing with both ranged and caster, if so then the numbers are likely not accurate. the LB calculation takes the combined weapon damage of the entire party. With a different party you get a different weapon damage, and therefore inaccurate results.

We tested the ranged/mage LB in a3s (in the same instance and same weapons) and the mage LB did more damage.

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Pretty much this.

All tests I've seen so far with actual controls have shown brd/mch lb to be slightly lower.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...l_limit_break/

LB3 is definitely 10% less on ranged than caster. LB1 and LB2 may or may not be 10% as well but the 10% difference isn't even worth splitting hairs over.

That said, it goes in this order of who-should-LB when it comes to AoE LBing:

SMN >>>> BRD >> MCH > BLM

Gotta look at the whole picture, not the piddling 10% difference.

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Originally Posted by Crissy

With great respect for your DPS and skills --

When there are no melee in the party -- I can do more damage to a single boss with LB than you can, mere machinist though I might be. So please... when the boss gets down to 20%, leave the LB to me. I know when to do it in order to get the boss within the quick-kill margin.

In five of six tome runs through Fractal Continuum, the caster let loose at 20-25%. No disaster, but we wasted time on one more wave of walkin' clocks than we had to.

It occurs to me that machinists are so rare these days that other classes have little familiarity with their capabilities. Too bad.

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i dunno what kinda of casters your working with but i've always seen blm/smn out dps mch even without lb no offense...hell some will even pull aggro off us tanks if your not careful also it's limit break not line break

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

That said, it goes in this order of who-should-LB when it comes to AoE LBing:
SMN >>>> BRD >> MCH > BLM

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Why?
I understand SMN being first choice because pet and DoTs keep hurting the boss while the player casts LB, but why are BRD and MCH both in front of BLM even though caster LB is stronger?

oGCD oriented nature of BRD/MCH (IE as long as a BRD/MCH doesn't lose many oGCDs for the whole fight, you can look at LBing as losing raw BRD/MCH DPS without CDs, if that makes any sense), a distinct difference in DPS regardless between BLM and BRD/MCH, and BLM loses the most DPS period from LB3ing, it being particularly bursty in how it does its damage, and even if you keep Enochian you have to spend time after it ramping up.

It's not the most common opinion for BRD/MCH to LB3 over a BLM but I'm a firm believer in it, now and for future progression.

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Originally Posted by Blackbird1

i dunno what kinda of casters your working with but i've always seen blm/smn out dps mch even without lb no offense...hell some will even pull aggro off us tanks if your not careful also it's limit break not line break

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http://i.imgur.com/9912ppo.gif

Color me confused but why if you have no melee would you hold the lb for a boss fight when you can hit packs of trash 6+ with it multiplying the damage out?

Pretty sure it was tested even and shown that blm lb is stronger then that of mach/Bard. I know as i used to argue the opposite until some i guess... proved me wrong, lol
On the flipside if a melee is not using lb i sure as heck will

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Originally Posted by Crissy

I know when to do it in order to get the boss within the quick-kill margin.

In five of six tome runs through Fractal Continuum, the caster let loose at 20-25%. No disaster, but we wasted time on one more wave of walkin' clocks than we had to.

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Disregarding that caster LB is stronger than MCH/BRD, there is no magic quick-kill margin on the last boss of Fractal. Nothing about the boss is HP-based. It's time-based on a rotation. He doesn't take more damage when under a certain percentage of health, so he won't die any faster by holding the LB.

DPSing for 30 seconds, LBing, then DPSing for another 30 seconds is the same amount of time as DPSing for 45 seconds, LBing, then DPSing for 15 seconds.

You will never have to kill an extra wave of adds because someone LBed earlier.

The only argument for holding LB would be if you're not sure if you can kill the boss before adds even with LB, so you'd use the AOE of the LB to kill the adds at the same time as hitting the boss, which the caster one is arguably better suited for as they position the LB separate from themselves, while a BRD/MCH would need to stand on a platform that's already lighting up and carefully line themselves up to hit a maximum number of targets.

However, since you're a MCH, you actually would want the person to use the LB sooner than 20% HP if it's up to LB2 by then because the sooner it hits 20% HP, the sooner you can use Heartbreak, which would be a DPS increase for you, especially if it doesn't die within 30 seconds of hitting 20%.

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Originally Posted by Crissy

With great respect for your DPS and skills --

When there are no melee in the party -- I can do more damage to a single boss with LB than you can, mere machinist though I might be. So please... when the boss gets down to 20%, leave the LB to me. I know when to do it in order to get the boss within the quick-kill margin.

In five of six tome runs through Fractal Continuum, the caster let loose at 20-25%. No disaster, but we wasted time on one more wave of walkin' clocks than we had to.

It occurs to me that machinists are so rare these days that other classes have little familiarity with their capabilities. Too bad.

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Ranged LB does less than caster LB as other people have said; It's still 10% across the board from what I see, but that only means that the numerical difference becomes more significant as it increases.

And you're typically better off killing the clocks linearly with a ranged LB anyway. If you're still struggling to kill the boss before the extra wave of clockworks with a caster LB, you're sure as hell not gonna kill it before the spawn with a ranged lb.

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

oGCD oriented nature of BRD/MCH (IE as long as a BRD/MCH doesn't lose many oGCDs for the whole fight, you can look at LBing as losing raw BRD/MCH DPS without CDs, if that makes any sense), a distinct difference in DPS regardless between BLM and BRD/MCH, and BLM loses the most DPS period from LB3ing, it being particularly bursty in how it does its damage, and even if you keep Enochian you have to spend time after it ramping up.

It's not the most common opinion for BRD/MCH to LB3 over a BLM but I'm a firm believer in it, now and for future progression.

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The BRD/MCH would need to skill shot it without being able to see their telegraph. This already causes some downtime in trying to position for it, which may not be made up with overall dps if you factor in the lower damage (especially on the scale of LB3, where it's roughly a loss of 600 potency on each target if the value is 10%). Not to mention the width is incredibly small even for LB3 (if you even get that far anymore), you'd still need to do careful positioning to hit all the mobs in A2S. Not to mention a BLM shouldn't be using it when their enochian is active anyway (and considering that the fights are really scripted, it's something you can plan for, but it also means you can pre-aim the LB for things like landing phase or liquid gaol spawn)

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Originally Posted by Atoli

Why?
I understand SMN being first choice because pet and DoTs keep hurting the boss while the player casts LB, but why are BRD and MCH both in front of BLM even though caster LB is stronger?

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Enochian is a pain

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Originally Posted by Arkenne

Enochian is a pain

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I never use LB with Enochian up. What a waste. I time the LB with Enochian running out anyway.

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Originally Posted by Maero

Pretty sure it was tested even and shown that blm lb is stronger then that of mach/Bard. I know as i used to argue the opposite until some i guess... proved me wrong, lol
On the flipside if a melee is not using lb i sure as heck will

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This mentality really annoys me. So many casters I run with just assume I'm not going to LB because I refuse to break a combo to do so. People shout LB as I hit Heavy Thrust - you can be damned sure I'm gonna do another 5 GCDs before that LB drops - but it *WILL* drop. So so so many casters get antsy and prematurely shoot the load when you could have waited 10 seconds and I'd have dropped a Bladedance or Dragonsong Dive to do way more than yours did. I was in A3 today - LB3 was ~75% full, so I was waiting on that when one of the SMNs decided to just drop their LB at around 40% on the boss.

Casters need to stop doing things like this. Trust that your melee will use it. And if they don't, blame them if you wipe.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

snip.

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Its not something you can just "plan for" as sometimes it will screw with your rotation. For example, in the case of A3S, I start a new Enochian refresh after sluice/digi because there are no movement required that can potentially interrupt you during that part so it's perfect to pop all your buffs(RS+Pot+BV foes) at that point which also lets you get a boosted flare + convert on the limb + boss.

Not to mention, the animation lock for BRD/MCH LB3 is faster than a BLM.

Its all situational on the fight and your CDs timing.

I thought ranged was about 2-3% less than caster. Not that it matters much in anything but raid/ex trials content. Also, Limit Break.

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Originally Posted by Whiteroom

I thought ranged was about 2-3% less than caster. Not that it matters much in anything but raid/ex trials content. Also, Limit Break.

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Caster is consistently 47k in i210, ranged is 43k. LB3 of course, can't say I've tested LB1 or 2.

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

Caster is consistently 47k in i210, ranged is 43k. LB3 of course, can't say I've tested LB1 or 2.

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Is that tested with the same group? LB damage is calculated from the total weapon damage of the party, so testing with different parties isn't very accurate.

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Originally Posted by JackFross

This mentality really annoys me. blah blah blah

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Umm well i play Mellee as well (Dragoon and Ninja both of which are level 60 and around ilv 186) if mellee do not know that lb is a thing or when to use it they need to re evaluate how they play.
I have encountered far too many mellee who have not used any limit break at all because i did not for the fact knowing mellee lb is stronger then that of caster.

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Originally Posted by JackFross

So so so many casters get antsy and prematurely shoot the load.

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Sunoverbeach, theres coke (drink not drugs) all over my table. Good one ^^

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Originally Posted by Whiteroom

Is that tested with the same group? LB damage is calculated from the total weapon damage of the party, so testing with different parties isn't very accurate.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...l_limit_break/

"yes 3 of us had ilvl 190 weapons and 1 person had ilvl 170. All 4 tests were done with the same group with the same equipment."

You would think Ranged LB would be stronger since Casters can accurately control where their AoE is placed and thus hit many intended targets, where Ranegd have to kind of guess.

Though I guess Casters are full DPS jobs and Ranged are DPS/Support jobs. Still, wish they gave Ranged a bit of something else then, like DoT or a status debuff to make it not completely worthless. Maybe given the DPS/support function that MCH and BRD have, making it reduce the target's damage dealt by 10% for 10 seconds would be cool and almost like a DPS/Tank hybrid LB.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

snip.

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I mean, 2.0 was a completely worthless limit break. I think that's all the new lb was designed to counter; all the "2brd dungeon groups have no lb" complaints and stuff.

I don't really think this was ever intended to make brd/mch lb competitive with other lb's, but the priority used to be st: melee>caster>nothing, aoe: caster>melee>nothing. Even if phys ranged are at the bottom of the list, they're at least on the list now.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

You would think Ranged LB would be stronger since Casters can accurately control where their AoE is placed and thus hit many intended targets, where Ranegd have to kind of guess.

Though I guess Casters are full DPS jobs and Ranged are DPS/Support jobs. Still, wish they gave Ranged a bit of something else then, like DoT or a status debuff to make it not completely worthless. Maybe given the DPS/support function that MCH and BRD have, making it reduce the target's damage dealt by 10% for 10 seconds would be cool and almost like a DPS/Tank hybrid LB.

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Well we can at least have the discussion of groups using BLM or BRD/MCH LB with how they balanced them. If it was flipflopped in potency caster LB would be worthless (barring angles you can't hit everything) and caster LB is one of the reasons you even bring a caster in the first place.

I do wish you could aim the LB properly though, or at least see the lines.

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Originally Posted by JackFross

This mentality really annoys me. So many casters I run with just assume I'm not going to LB because I refuse to break a combo to do so. People shout LB as I hit Heavy Thrust - you can be damned sure I'm gonna do another 5 GCDs before that LB drops - but it *WILL* drop. So so so many casters get antsy and prematurely shoot the load when you could have waited 10 seconds and I'd have dropped a Bladedance or Dragonsong Dive to do way more than yours did. I was in A3 today - LB3 was ~75% full, so I was waiting on that when one of the SMNs decided to just drop their LB at around 40% on the boss.

Casters need to stop doing things like this. Trust that your melee will use it. And if they don't, blame them if you wipe.

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The longer you take to use it the more it wastes to build up another dungeon wise

Can someone explain me how is a 6000 potency LB worse than a 5400 potency LB?

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

Well we can at least have the discussion of groups using BLM or BRD/MCH LB with how they balanced them. If it was flipflopped in potency caster LB would be worthless (barring angles you can't hit everything) and caster LB is one of the reasons you even bring a caster in the first place.

I do wish you could aim the LB properly though, or at least see the lines.

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Even if caster LB was lower damage, it's effective range is just that much better that it's might as well justified for hitting all the targets. The width of ranged LB is so damn pitiful that you're bound to miss 3-4 targets in a 6+ mob pull, espesically with how they "converge and spread" onto the tank. The length amounts for nothing from a practical standpoint except for fracturnal's clockwerks and A1 (and even then caster LB is going to hit them both if you tank them on opposite sides rather than corners)

In 3+ enemy AoE, like dungeons and A2S, caster should LB, regardless of SMN or BLM, because of a few reasons, one of the most important being range and more of a cooldown period in BLM's AoE rotations. In raids, what I should have specified I was referring to when I said MCH/BRD should LB over BLM, typically caster/ranged hits a small cluster of enemies or 2 enemies, like T5, T6, T8, T9, T12, A3, and range isn't really in the equation.

ranged lb is 10% less potency than caster lb. average meteor does around 47k average ranged lb does around 43k. So the cost of using ranged lb is about 8-10k worth of damage. Both bard and mch can and should be doing their dps + lb + a supporting feature such as foe or w/e. Blm can easily make the dps up, this should be a common sense thing with the numbers given here. But if you wish I can show you those values too. In other words the opportunity cost of the blm limit breaking (huge lb lock animation, we're frozen until far after the meteor animation ends.) So to time out my limit break lock I went to my youtube channel and watched my first a3 clear. Here is how the lb went down: start channeling meteor @ 6:39. meteor finishes channeling at 6:43. I'm locked into animation until 6:52. I am unable to cast ANYTHING for aprox. 12 seconds. In that time I can get in 4 globals. To be precise 3 fire 4s and a fire 1. This is about 17k damage if I do not get a single crit (est. fire 4 at 4800 and Fire 1 at 3k Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7HGsEWo4L4


So the question is then, can the brd and mch do more than 17k damage in that 12 second window, excluding damage they could be doing while in LB? my answer is no.


For reference here is the MCH lb: starts at 3, channel finishes at 7, no longer locked at 12. They are locked for 9 seconds total.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ryEcp7UM7I


Here is the BRD LB: Starts channel @9, finishes channel @ 13, unlocked @ 18. Again 9 seconds.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2Spu6JxtzA





LB priority order for 2 targets are as follows:

SMN > BRD> MCH > BLM


For 3 targets or more


SMN > BLM > BRD > MCH


LB priority for 1 target...


you melees sort it out.


There are your numbers. BLM limit break does a total of 8k~ more than a bard lb but lose one more global than a bard does while lbing, which is around 4800 damage by itself. They also lose the opportunity cost of casting during the limit break, as well as enochian up time. The true values of the lb on 2 targets are: bard lb: 86,000/9 = 9555 dps. Caster LB = 94,000/12 which is 7833 dps. huh, look at that. Physical Ranged dps LB is designed FOR 2 targets.

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Originally Posted by Xisin

Good testing[/B]

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That's good to know, I knew the animation lock was less on BRD but I never checked to see if the time difference was there. Assumed same cast time.

Not just a time difference, or just the DPS difference on what a BRD/MCH can do vs BLM, it's also the big fact that an LB impacts them differently. BLM is the highest per GCD attacker in the entire game, oGCD buffs and attacks are small and spaced wide apart. In contrast, MCH/BRD derive a LARGE part of their DPS from DoTs, oGCD buffs, and oGCD attacks, and in MCH's case, turret damage. When you're talking about a 10~ second period of immobility between the two, you're basically saying, MCH 123 or BRD Heavy Shots with nothing vs BLM regular rotations with nothing, and we're talking 2k~ more per GCD easily. Then when MCH or BRD are done, their ramp-up is limited if any at all, while BLM mandatory has to at best do a slow, weak no-AF F3 to get back into the game.

It's just no contest, as much no contest as talking about SMN LBing vs anyone in AoE situations. BLM sucks at LBing on two targets now, assuming range isn't an issue.

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Originally Posted by jmdude

The longer you take to use it the more it wastes to build up another dungeon wise

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Using LB in dungeons for melee on bosses is dumb if you have a caster or ranged dps. It's always better to use it on the mobs until the final boss, when I'll still only use an LB if it's LB2. LB1 feels like a dps loss for my dragoon whenever I use it. It's not even 10k and takes longer than 3 gcds to finish. That's a full combo, plus a potential extra GSK that I'm dropping to do like 8k damage.

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Originally Posted by JackFross

This mentality really annoys me. So many casters I run with just assume I'm not going to LB because I refuse to break a combo to do so. People shout LB as I hit Heavy Thrust - you can be damned sure I'm gonna do another 5 GCDs before that LB drops - but it *WILL* drop. So so so many casters get antsy and prematurely shoot the load when you could have waited 10 seconds and I'd have dropped a Bladedance or Dragonsong Dive to do way more than yours did. I was in A3 today - LB3 was ~75% full, so I was waiting on that when one of the SMNs decided to just drop their LB at around 40% on the boss.

Casters need to stop doing things like this. Trust that your melee will use it. And if they don't, blame them if you wipe.

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Even better when you're just waiting for the boss to be animation locked or for a particular mechanic to go off so you can be sure it's safe to LB. It's like, well excuse me for not wanting to be stuck in LB animation when the boss targets me with a floor AoE.

I have a friend that yells at me in party chat when she thinks I should use the melee LB and threatening to use it herself if I don't (she is usually on tank when she does this). I finally told her to quit, because I know when to safely LB and was waiting for a mechanic.

This is a little off tangent to the last few pages, but isn't this topic kinda done?
The TC hasn't even spoken once after being corrected about Caster LB vs Ranged DPS LB damage.