Interview with xenosys-vex

https://www.mooglemedia.com/releasing-beast-interview-xenosys-vex/

It's a good interview I think. Xeno is a pretty animated person and it comes through well in the text.

I personally think that he's right about DRK and WAR, that they both need buffs relative to PLD, and that WAR needs some sort of change to its damage spread.

WAR ppGCD when not using FC is so bad, you're investing all of your DPS in making absolutely sure you hit as many FCs with TA up and hoping that as many of them crit or dhit. I wish that they either buffed FC (as silly as it sounds) so WAR has a better DPS base, or they just buff their regular GCDs to improve their baseline.

I think that he misvalue the overall potency of FC, but what is right is the fact the IR + zerk is 2.5 time (150% more effective) than our non zerkcombo potency is quite a problem. The warrior feel almost dead during ramp up time, and a monstruous cleave machine during his little burst window, only to fall again in apathy.

Frankly I prefered the HW zerk windows.

Where is the full interview? I did not see a thicc beard or X tat.

agree with him PLD in 4.x is more dominant than WAR in 3.x, WAR in 3.x never had the utility PLD has while still able to compete in dealing the highest damage.
people are not talking about it as much because they used to be the punching bag in 3.x but PLD is overpowered and the only thing stopping people from going double PLD in raid is because of LB penalty, they are better than DRK and WAR and SE is not going to change it until the next expansion because that's how FF XIV works they're playing favorite to one job and then change it to the other in the next expansion.

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the only thing stopping people from going double PLD in raid is because of LB penalty

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Actually, no. Besides LB penalty tanks have different CD packages, esp. invulns. Two PLD in O4S << any other tank combo.

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Originally Posted by konpachizaraki

agree with him PLD in 4.x is more dominant than WAR in 3.x, WAR in 3.x never had the utility PLD has while still able to compete in dealing the highest damage.

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sorry but storm path and eye was complety broken, specially storm eye, we can argue is part of ninja fault for having they slashing in they lowest potency combo but dont change that WAR was mandatory for that, and WAR dps and self sutain with bloodbath was bastly superior that any form of tanking that PLD have now.

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Originally Posted by konpachizaraki

agree with him PLD in 4.x is more dominant than WAR in 3.x, WAR in 3.x never had the utility PLD has while still able to compete in dealing the highest damage.
people are not talking about it as much because they used to be the punching bag in 3.x but PLD is overpowered and the only thing stopping people from going double PLD in raid is because of LB penalty, they are better than DRK and WAR and SE is not going to change it until the next expansion because that's how FF XIV works they're playing favorite to one job and then change it to the other in the next expansion.

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It doesn't make it true if you keep saying it

Warrior is still the tank that people would (edit: ) be most likely to double up on if there were no LB penalty, so that line of argument is shot, right out of the gate.

If you're going to double up on a tank, and you have, on the one hand: A) A tank with one really good party mitigation tool, and one party mitigation tool you only use if you really have to, and B) A tank with one really good party mitigation tool, obscenely powerful burst damage, higher DPS, better defensive cooldowns, better enmity management, and better mobility... Well, you're doing it wrong if you pick Tank A.

lol "obscenely powerful burst damage and higher dps", you're talking as if warrior deal 10-20% more damage than a pld when in reality if everything goes perfectly and mechanic doesn't mess the warrior's rotation(which is very hard to pull off) war can only deal 1-2 % more damage than a paladin at best(3-5 percent if you're lucky with your crits),meanwhile a paladin can pull off slightly lower to equal number to a warrior without giving it as much effort as a warrior.
and they have way less utility compared to them, if they give warrior utility that just makes them a paladin copy so the best is either make them the more durable and increase their survivability so they can survive more punishment than the other 2 tanks or increase their damage to make up for them having almost no utility

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Originally Posted by Crater

Warrior is still the tank that people would (edit: ) be most likely to double up on if there were no LB penalty, so that line of argument is shot, right out of the gate.

If you're going to double up on a tank, and you have, on the one hand: A) A tank with one really good party mitigation tool, and one party mitigation tool you only use if you really have to, and B) A tank with one really good party mitigation tool, obscenely powerful burst damage, higher DPS, better defensive cooldowns, better enmity management, and better mobility... Well, you're doing it wrong if you pick Tank A.

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If we had to pick a tank to double up on, I honestly say it's currently a toss up, as both PLD and WAR comes with soem strengths and weaknesses, that easily could have a group/person favor one or the other. (There were somethings not mentioned, like how Cover affects tank swaps, and or how WAR brings slashing resist if u dont have a SAM or NIN, holmgang, etc)

Except DRK of course, as there's just no reason to bring 2 DRKs over 2 WARs or 2 PLDs.

WAR does have the highest DPS, so if ur after a speed run, WAR is the way to go. But with its reliance on RNG and much more perfect play, a group whos not after a speed kill, might want more reliable dps, and can go with double PLDs.
If your healers want an easier tank to heal, then PLD is easier. If your healers can handle it, and both tanks are good, then double WAR would allow more mechanic cheezing.

DRK is pretty much the choice for a group who wants double PLDs, but wont actually double up on PLDs.

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Originally Posted by konpachizaraki

lol "obscenely powerful burst damage and higher dps", you're talking as if warrior deal 10-20% more damage than a pld

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Warrior deals more than "10-20% more" damage than Paladin during burst windows. Warrior bursts up to 8-10k in current gear, whereas PLD doesn't really get above 5-6k. That's 33% more if we highball PLD burst at 6k and lowball WAR burst at 8k.

Burst damage is more valuable than sustained damage, because it can be used to push phases/mechanics, has more synergy with raid buffs, and can more easily capitalize on fights with high downtime.

If Warrior is bursting for 33%+ more damage than Paladin is bursting for, balance dictates that at the end of a fight, Paladin should be dealing 2-3% more damage than Warrior, not 2-3% less.

Instead, Warrior gets to have its cake and eat it too. The imbalance is strongly in Warrior's favour.

Burst windows can help or hurt you as a warrior depending on when you burst. If you are able to cram a burst window in before boss or enemies become untargetable, you are recovering your burst cooldowns while everyone else is doing no dps anyway. It can go both ways.

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Originally Posted by Crater

Warrior deals more than "10-20% more" damage than Paladin during burst windows. Warrior bursts up to 8-10k in current gear, whereas PLD doesn't really get above 5-6k. That's 33% more if we highball PLD burst at 6k and lowball WAR burst at 8k.

Burst damage is more valuable than sustained damage, because it can be used to push phases/mechanics, has more synergy with raid buffs, and can more easily capitalize on fights with high downtime.

If Warrior is bursting for 33%+ more damage than Paladin is bursting for, balance dictates that at the end of a fight, Paladin should be dealing 2-3% more damage than Warrior, not 2-3% less.

Instead, Warrior gets to have its cake and eat it too. The imbalance is strongly in Warrior's favour.

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A reasonable argument, but its hard to say its absolute, as its very dependent on the fight.
but for the most part I can agree, as it's been the argument MCHs have been making for their high burst, but low sustain, all this time.

Jobs with high burst are always easier to optimise on. Consider that every job has access to infusions, and infusion windows are 30 s long. Content is designed around you being able to unload on the boss before running off to do a mechanic. You may not always be able to use your buff the instant that it comes up, but you will pretty much always be able to get to the maximum number of recasts.

WAR's design is like having both the best acceleration and the best top speed in Mario Kart.

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Originally Posted by Crater

Warrior deals more than "10-20% more" damage than Paladin during burst windows. Warrior bursts up to 8-10k in current gear, whereas PLD doesn't really get above 5-6k. That's 33% more if we highball PLD burst at 6k and lowball WAR burst at 8k.

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lol you get my point, no need to twist the word just to look smart because you really aren't. higher burst damage doesn't mean much because in the end PLD deal higher damage outside of it, in the end what you get is equal to a lowly 1-2% higher overall dps of warrior but that too only if everything goes your way. warrior isn't as "obscenely powerful" as you make them out to be in fact they're basically just paladin with less defense and less utility,
you just try to make them look that way because you're afraid if WAR and DRK get buffed they will challenge PLD for raid spot

It really feels like people are overplaying how weak Warrior is compared to PLD
They're pretty much neck and neck in all regards.
Who cares if you aren't the top tank DPS by the end of the fight? WARs identity has always been about extremely hard hits after a window of build up, which is does now. It has by far the highest burst of the tanks. It can't have the highest burst and the highest sustained while also offering all the defensive capabilities of a PLD. All that'll do is reverse the positions so WAR is the objective best.

Meanwhile DRK has the weakest party mitigation, the weakest burst and weakest sustained damage. DRK should be the only tank being talked about, WAR is completely fine.

Sidenote: Since when did people start complaining about WARs difficulty? All since 2.0 and 3.0 Wars seemed to accept that and say it's difficulty is one of the things that makes it funner to play, in comparison to the simple playstyle of PLD. Nothing's changed? PLD is still simple, WAR is still more difficult. Is it really just because WAR isn't, by the end of the fight, top DPS?...

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

It really feels like people are overplaying how weak Warrior is compared to PLD
They're pretty much neck and neck in all regards.
Who cares if you aren't the top tank DPS by the end of the fight? WARs identity has always been about extremely hard hits after a window of build up, which is does now. It has by far the highest burst of the tanks. It can't have the highest burst and the highest sustained while also offering all the defensive capabilities of a PLD. All that'll do is reverse the positions so WAR is the objective best.

Meanwhile DRK has the weakest party mitigation, the weakest burst and weakest sustained damage. DRK should be the only tank being talked about, WAR is completely fine.

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Every tank is within a couple % of each other. Being 'weakest' is a couple % in various areas under the next guy. You could rewrite that post but replace War with Drk and Pld with War. Every single tank thread on this board is pumping out hyperbole everywhere. All tanks are viable in all content. DPS is within a couple% across the board. Minor baby tweaks will bring everyone in line, and even if they do nothing, tanks are, objectively, in a passable spot (no extreme discrimination, all viable, within a few % of each other. Will not dramatically affect your in game experience). I get it. Everyone looks up the hill and sees the class shining above them. But when you realized that shining paragon on the hill is only 2 feet above, you realize its not that big a deal.

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Originally Posted by Crater

If Warrior is bursting for 33%+ more damage than Paladin is bursting for, balance dictates that at the end of a fight, Paladin should be dealing 2-3% more damage than Warrior, not 2-3% less.

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Balance dictates what, exactly? If war has lower utility than pld their dps should be higher because of balance, as well. That they get there through "burst" windows is just a coincidence of design. At the end of the encounter is what matters, not necessarily how they got there.

Burst is utility.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Balance dictates what, exactly? If war has lower utility than pld their dps should be higher because of balance, as well. That they get there through "burst" windows is just a coincidence of design. At the end of the encounter is what matters, not necessarily how they got there.

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No, burst windows are inherently more valuable.

- High burst lets you push phases and skip mechanics, which not only makes fights easier from a mechanical standpoint, but has a tendency to cascade into increased party damage, as your healers no longer have to heal the mechanic you skipped, DPS don't need to accrue downtime to dodge the mechanic, etc.
- High burst is inherently easy to optimize. If a fight has 15 seconds of unavoidable downtime per minute, a tank with high burst is only going to suffer a small penalty to damage as long as they put their burst window outside of those 15 seconds - a tank that deals consistently high damage is going to lose a much higher percentage of their damage to the downtime, and there's nothing they can do about it, because every single second is equally important to them.
- High burst synergizes better with raid buffs: If your burst is 30% better than a competitor class's burst, then Trick Attack, Chain Strategem, Battle Litany, Balance, Hypercharge, etc, are all 30% stronger for you than they are for the other classes.

Balancing damage versus damage, higher burst should always be weighted more heavily than total DPS at the end of a fight. If you and I both do exactly 4,000 DPS at the end of a fight, but I did 4,000 DPS in every single second of that fight, and you did 8,000 DPS every minute in a 20 second window and 2,000 DPS in the remaining 40 seconds, your contribution was more valuable, because you had the ability to heavily contribute to phase skips, add burns, etc, and I did not.


The idea that Warrior has significantly lower utility than PLD is also pretty spurious as well, if that's the basis of an argument that Warrior should be better in both burst damage and total DPS. Divine Veil is far and away PLD's biggest contributor to party utility, and Shake it Off is just as powerful. Past that, Passage of Arms is PLD's second most powerful bit of utility, and considering the DPS loss for using it, it's only situationally helpful (and those situations are pretty much limited to "Unending Coil, and low-iLevel Neo Exdeath"). Warrior's second most powerful bit of utility is being able to generate huge amounts of enmity on a pull while losing almost zero DPS, by using Tomahawk and Equilibrium before immediately dropping into Deliverance. This is useful in every fight in the game.

Once you get past those two big examples of utility for the two respective classes, you're left comparing marginal, fringe benefits, like Intervention (only really useful for shared tankbusters), Cover (which is only ever "utility" in situations like the Neo Exdeath Delta aggro reset, and is otherwise just a mediocre defensive cooldown for PLD), and Tempered Will versus Warrior getting their own personal Slashing debuff for add pickups or party splits, using Defiance for a free 20% buff to a Deployed Adloquium, or using Onslaught's mobility to keep Alte Roite centered during Thin Ice, dealing with numerous knockbacks in Exdeath and Neo Exdeath, etc.

You'd probably have to give the nod to PLD over WAR in the 'practical utility' race, but only by a hair. And considering the relative importance of damage versus utility in the first place, that advantage is peanuts compared to what WAR brings to the table offensively.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Balance dictates what, exactly? If war has lower utility than pld their dps should be higher because of balance, as well.

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WAR is at a utility disadvantage, eh? I can see it now:

4.2
Battle System

Warrior
The following actions and traits have been added:
Cover: Transfers all damage from your teammates to you. Also applies a Hallowed Ground effect. 60 second recast. Reason: WAR doesn't have Hallowed Ground or Cover yet.

The following actions and traits have been adjusted:
Defiance: Now heals you for the amount that your max HP is increased by.
Holmgang: The root effect has been removed.
Fail Cleave: Now has a range of 25 yalms. Usable in both stances. Ignores the damage penalty. Heals you for 100% of the damage dealt. Reduces incoming damage by 20% for 6 seconds. Applies trick attack, slashing, blunt, and piercing debuffs. Costs 20 beast gauge. Also does your laundry.
Inner Beast: Shields both yourself and an ally for 25% of your max HP. Usable in both stances. Costs 10 beast gauge. Restores 60 beast gauge when you use it. Also restores 60 beast gauge when you forget to use it. Does your taxes.
Inner Release: Now also changes every button on your hotbar to Fail Cleave. Just in case you were thinking of pressing something else.

The following actions have been removed:
Heavy Swing: This action only had one beneficial effect, so it no longer qualifies for being an ability on WAR (due to a lack of utility).

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Balance dictates what, exactly? If war has lower utility than pld their dps should be higher because of balance, as well. That they get there through "burst" windows is just a coincidence of design. At the end of the encounter is what matters, not necessarily how they got there.

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Except WAR does have utility. Not as much as PLD, no. But you also don't see PLD bursting for more than some DPS'.

I'd also argue that SiO is much better and accessible than PLD AOE mitigation.

Well if utility should, like Xeno or Whiskey are claiming, balanced around DPS, DRK should be hand down the best damage dealer out of tanks. However argument against it will come as much as necessary, because no warrior wants to be beaten in damage.

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Originally Posted by MauvaisOeil

Well if utility should, like Xeno or Whiskey are claiming, balanced around DPS, DRK should be hand down the best damage dealer out of tanks. However argument against it will come as much as necessary, because no warrior wants to be beaten in damage.

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And the vicious circle goes round and round. It might actually help if devs stated how and what they are balancing exactly so we don't just assume.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

And the vicious circle goes round and round. It might actually help if devs stated how and what they are balancing exactly so we don't just assume.

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I agree. Do they want equality in damage ? In threat ? In mitigation ? In sustain ? Is the flavor seen as superior to the balance ?

Party utility potential is not solely based on the number of utility abilities you have but also by the strengths and weaknesses of said abilities, the frequency they can be used and whether there are any costs associated with their use.
It seems like these basic considerations are being overlooked for the point of bolstering arguments.

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Originally Posted by konpachizaraki

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Shake it off is pretty good, better that divine veil and have the best defensive kit, you can complaing paladins dealt almost almost same dps that WAR with less effort, i dont really agreed i think WAR is more easy, but on HW WAR was just a fell cleave bot and dealt huge dps numbers with so little effort and no DRK or PLD complaing about that.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

Party utility potential is not solely based on the number of utility abilities you have but also by the strengths and weaknesses of said abilities, the frequency they can be used and whether there are any costs associated with their use.

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Exactly this. That's why I said I'd argue that SiO is a better mitigation tool than anything PLD has.
It's easy to just list the numbers of tools a job has, but did you mention that Divine Viel needs a heal to work and doesn't effect the caster?
And that Passage of Arms completely stops you from attacking?
Or how Intervention costs some of you gauge?

In comparison, SiO is simply use a CD and use the skill for instant benefits. It's easier to use, almost always stronger than what a PLD has and most importantly the WAR benefits from the mitigation as well.

WAR doesn't have as many party mitigation tools as PLD, because the one it has is extremely strong.

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Originally Posted by Crater

No, burst windows are inherently more valuable.

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Unfortunately, this entire line of argumentation can be dismissed for this particular raid tier. There aren't any "phases" to push, fights are 100% scripted. The only mechanics you're skipping are due to a faster clear, and in this regard burst damage is equally valuable as sustained. The only real phase push in current content is in Shinryu, which is pug content at this point. The adds in v3s barely live long enough for more than 1-2 fell cleaves, and the other adds are just used for pad nowadays.

Furthermore, higher burst can not be inherently easier to optimize than sustained. I really can't believe that would be argued. It's much more difficult to line up small burst windows into even smaller raid utility windows. I don't optimize to that high of a level, but Xeno said he uses 9 different rotations based on party comp? How many does his paladin have?

Overall I'm in agreement with you that burst is slightly more valuable than sustained, but you're including caveats in your argument such as the actual structure of the current raids (phase pushing when there are no phases to push) and synergy with raid buffs (party comp dictates performance). Both of these are dependent on the content design and party comp, not inclusive to the job itself.

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Originally Posted by MauvaisOeil

Well if utility should, like Xeno or Whiskey are claiming, balanced around DPS, DRK should be hand down the best damage dealer out of tanks. However argument against it will come as much as necessary, because no warrior wants to be beaten in damage.

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I have no problem with this personally, but myself and I'm sure others agree, just buffing drk dps doesn't solve the problems with drk overall.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

I have no problem with this personally, but myself and I'm sure others agree, just buffing drk dps doesn't solve the problems with drk overall.

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Xeno conveniently left WAR out of the balance equation when talking about DRK, and went on a long tirade about DRK having inferior utility to BOTH tanks, and that low utility should be balanced by higher personal DPS, and then in his closing paragraph on that segment, stated specifically that DRK should deal higher damage than only PLD (omitting WAR from the statement altogether).

If buffing the living hell out of DRK's personal DPS wouldn't solve all of the job's problems, that just explains why Xeno suggested it. He's a self-professed WAR fanboy and it is the only job for which he will demonstrate attention to detail when discussing balance.

For evidence:

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The more raid utility a class has, the less solo damage it should do. Because if that’s not the case then you end up in situations like the current one, where Dark Knight is just abysmal. After the Shake it Off change there’s no reason to bring a Dark Knight, because Warrior does more damage and now has better utility.

Paladins have insane amounts of utility, and they still do more damage than Dark Knights. Why would a job that has more utility do more damage than a job that has less utility? That doesn’t make any sense at all.

Paladins have Intervention, Divine Veil, and Cover! Cover is so stupid good it’s insane, and so is Intervention. Sheltron is also busted. The fact that you can block magic now just completely shits on Dark Knights. That literally took away all of their individuality. They were supposed to be the “magic tank”. Why can magic be blocked, but not parried? If you can block it, you should be able to parry it.

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Xeno's argument implies that DRK should be at the top in tank DPS. He comes right out and says DRK has less utility than both WAR and PLD.

It also implies that as soon as WAR got its buff to SiO, it lost its argument for getting additional DPS buffs because, sing it with me folks -

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The more raid utility a class has, the less solo damage it should do.

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Lets take a tally here by Xeno's scoreboard.

Utility:
PLD: 1st
WAR: 2nd
DRK: 3rd

DPS:
PLD: 2nd
WAR: 1st
DRK: 3rd

His logic suggests that to make up for DRK being 3rd in one category, it should be 1st in the other.

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Both of the other tanks have more utility than Dark Knight, so Dark Knight needs some potency increases so they can do more damage. That’s all they need. Dark Knight needs to deal more damage than a Paladin, and it needs to be enough more to outweigh the extra healer GCDs that you get by bringing a Paladin.

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Here however, he conveniently says that DRK should have more DPS than PLD ONLY. He mysteriously neglects to mention WAR. So, essentially he is saying DRK and PLD should be balanced with eachother, but WAR should bring more DPS than both, while also having more utility than DRK. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? I'm getting severe deja vu here. Oh, right, this is what we had in Heavensward. Isn't that interesting.

I'm sure that Xeno is a talented player and an asset to the PF community. His logic skills however, need some work.

Sometimes I look at arguments and I legit feel like warrior and paladin argue over what food to eat while drk is just begging for tablescraps. I legit get that feel around here. Sometimes even think the devs ignore the NA forums for these reasons but I have no idea what the JP tank forum is like currently.

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

Exactly this. That's why I said I'd argue that SiO is a better mitigation tool than anything PLD has.
It's easy to just list the numbers of tools a job has, but did you mention that Divine Viel needs a heal to work and doesn't effect the caster?
And that Passage of Arms completely stops you from attacking?
Or how Intervention costs some of you gauge?

In comparison, SiO is simply use a CD and use the skill for instant benefits. It's easier to use, almost always stronger than what a PLD has and most importantly the WAR benefits from the mitigation as well.

WAR doesn't have as many party mitigation tools as PLD, because the one it has is extremely strong.

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PLD's utility skills are much better than Shake it Off. Divine Veil is more powerful than Shake it Off unless it consumes 2 cooldowns. It's not hard to activate because it has a huge 30s duration and gets applied by any aoe heal that happens in that time, like shields going up. The shield doesn't need to affect PLD at all because they already have 10k+ HP more than a melee DPS with VIT melds, it's just completely unnecessary. In my opinion Shake it Off shouldn't shield the WAR to stop it being used as a personal cooldown.

15% mitigation is also a lot on Passage of Arms. Sure, it costs a couple of GCDs, but straight up mitigation instead of a shield is good in another way. PLD having both PoA and DV means you can have some kind of raid mitigation every 60s compared to 90s from Shake it Off.

PLD's gauge is purely defensive so it doesn't matter that Intervention uses it.

PLD also has Clemency which is better than WAR's personal sustain (at the cost of some DPS) and can also target other people, and Cover which is great for mechanics like Earthshakers in O4S. Making it work on all damage and giving it 20% mitigation made it really strong.

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PLD's utility skills are much better than Shake it Off. Divine Veil is more powerful than Shake it Off unless it consumes 2 cooldowns.

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Just to correct, SiO is stronger with only one cooldown eaten.

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Originally Posted by MauvaisOeil

Just to correct, SiO is stronger with only one cooldown eaten.

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Divine Veil is 5.6-5.8k on an i340 PLD. SiO depends on the DPS/healer's HP, not the WAR's. A melee DPS with VIT melds has around 44-45k HP, and 12% of that is 5.4k. It's even lower on the ranged DPS and healers. You need the 16% shield to beat DV.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

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The problem with his logic is that it is nonobjective and bias-blinders play into what data forms the basis for the proposed arguments.

The interview displays a number of blatantly lop-sided logical arguments where points were very much selectively brought to bear, often to a hyperbolic degree, or just straight up omitted if they didn't reinforce the predetermined argument, not to mention some of the side-by-side comparisons being dubious at best.

Essentially the interview can be boiled down to "PLD has good DPS now and brings good utility, buff Fell Cleave ... oh and DRK sucks ... WAR needs moar deeps!".

As you said, great player who does great things for the community but people need to see his opinions as just that "opinions", which are very much skewed by heavy job preference.

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Originally Posted by Launched

Divine Veil is 5.6-5.8k on an i340 PLD. SiO depends on the DPS/healer's HP, not the WAR's. A melee DPS with VIT melds has around 44-45k HP, and 12% of that is 5.4k. It's even lower on the ranged DPS and healers. You need the 16% shield to beat DV.

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My bad, I thought to remember DV was also based on the target's HP.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

The problem with his logic is that it is nonobjective and bias-blinders play into what data forms the basis for the proposed arguments.

The interview displays a number of blatantly lop-sided logical arguments where points were very much selectively brought to bear, often to a hyperbolic degree, or just straight up omitted if they didn't reinforce the predetermined argument, not to mention some of the side-by-side comparisons being dubious at best.

Essentially the interview can be boiled down to "PLD has good DPS now and brings good utility, buff Fell Cleave ... oh and DRK sucks ... WAR needs moar deeps!".

As you said, great player who does great things for the community but people need to see his opinions as just that "opinions", which are very much skewed by heavy job preference.

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Agreed. There are so many posts that are just "(insert idea) needs to happen. Xeno explains why *link*". That's the danger of celebrity 'opinions' they get trotted out like a scientific study when they aren't. They are just players better than you saying things about jobs. Theres no scientific method. Theres no standard applied. But they become battle cries for people who want the same buffs/nerfs as the celebrity player.

This whole idea about Utility vs DPS is a red herring anyway. When in the history of this game did the meta ever take the highest utility tank with lower DPS than the less utility tank? Never that's when. Pld had by far the best utility in HW. It was in the dumpster with low deeps. The community will take the highest DPS combos every time all the time unless the game fundamentally changes. People are only talking about utility now because Pld has 2nd highest DPS and utility. "But I have utility" didn't help the plds when they had low damage for 2 years.

No one cares about utility. The only thing that decides tank comps is raid damage. People took Drk over pld for all of HW because it did more damage MT and War did more damage OT. Pld had more utility and no one gave a crap.

As long as we moved from 2 tanks to 3 utility has NEVER been a factor in choosing tank meta. Only the highest DPS combo.

Utility is a red herring. Make them all do similar damage or there will be a looser. Stop trying to balance with utility as a factor. It doesnt matter.

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Originally Posted by Launched

Divine Veil is 5.6-5.8k on an i340 PLD. SiO depends on the DPS/healer's HP, not the WAR's. A melee DPS with VIT melds has around 44-45k HP, and 12% of that is 5.4k. It's even lower on the ranged DPS and healers. You need the 16% shield to beat DV.

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A 16% shield is incredibly easy to achieve, though it's never actually needed. One CD with SiO is more than enough mitigation.

Also I'm not saying that SiO is, literally, stronger than what PLD has. It's simply easier and more accessible to use. How many times has a PLD popped Divine Viel but the healer didn't pop it until after the AOE goes out?
Or used Passage of Arms but either too late that the effect didn't hit the party quick enough or used it in a odd position that half the party wasn't even in it.

WAR's is simple and effective. PLD has more options, but it's easier to achieve what you're trying to do on WAR.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Here however, he conveniently says that DRK should have more DPS than PLD ONLY. He mysteriously neglects to mention WAR. So, essentially he is saying DRK and PLD should be balanced with eachother, but WAR should bring more DPS than both, while also having more utility than DRK. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? I'm getting severe deja vu here. Oh, right, this is what we had in Heavensward. Isn't that interesting.

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I don't think he's comparing WAR to DRK here because when it comes to balance the biggest issue is tanks relative to PLD, not tanks relative to WAR. He's comparing DRK to the best tank (PLD). I'm sure that if Xeno was actually putting together a video talking about balance he'd mention DRK vs WAR, he just didn't think of it here.

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Originally Posted by Crater

- High burst is inherently easy to optimize. If a fight has 15 seconds of unavoidable downtime per minute, a tank with high burst is only going to suffer a small penalty to damage as long as they put their burst window outside of those 15 seconds - a tank that deals consistently high damage is going to lose a much higher percentage of their damage to the downtime, and there's nothing they can do about it, because every single second is equally important to them.

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Just as a side note because all your points are valid here, if a jump lands just before when WAR can get its burst window out it gets punished pretty hard. It is worth noting that because WAR ppGCD outside of Zerk or IRZerk is so bad that if, for example, a boss jumps before zerk comes back up again (ie Exfaust) WAR loses a lot of damage because it can't necessarily get back that damage later. Burst damage is excellent when your windows land before jumps, but is absolutely terrible when the jump happens before you can use it. WAR and MCH both are on tight schedules, and while they can hold their burst (usually bad) they can't speed it up at all. The one minute zerk and two minute irzerk trains come when they come, no sooner.