Utility vs Raw DPS (Helpful vs Selfish)

Hey, so I'm just a noob here with a question. I come from WoW, and I've been thinking on the roles of DPS and how they are viewed at the Endgame level. I'm not there so my question goes out to everyone else that's been there, and knows how the end game is.

When it comes to DPS, must we sacrifice fun for utility? Or vice versa, is it okay to give up Utility if you wanna play a dps that is more aesthetically and mechanically pleasing to play. Is it okay to be selfish, or will you simply be denied due to playing a job you like to play vs something you feel is a bore.

Utility is a big thing in any real MMO, especially in teamwork environments that require such things such as diverting aggro, shirking aggro to another tank, putting down cover for the healer. I understand that completely.

But is it wrong to be selfish in you wanna play something that is simply fun, yet has nothing substantial in terms of utility?:confused:

For example, I wanna play Ninja, and from what I've seen, it's one if not THE biggest Utility Melee DPS job in the game, and it's aesthetically pleasing to look at in gameplay, but it hits like a wet noodle, again from what I've seen. Would it be okay to drop it for something like Monk or Samurai?

I think I'm just rambling in a loop now, but I'm just curious. How do all of you see it in Endgame?

If you're not having fun as a NIN because it doesn't do enough personal DPS, then play something else you will have fun playing. Just whatever job you play, care enough about it to learn how to use its entire panoply of actions effectively, whether it be for the party or for yourself.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

If you're not having fun as a NIN because it doesn't do enough personal DPS, then play something else you will have fun playing. Just whatever job you play, care enough about it to learn how to use its entire panoply of actions effectively, whether it be for the party or for yourself.

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Well that's the conundrum I've reached regarding Ninja. I've not tried it yet, but from what I've seen of it, it's incredibly cool to play, but its personal DPS is extremely lackluster compared to its utility.

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Originally Posted by Ryuuisamu

Well that's the conundrum I've reached regarding Ninja. I've not tried it yet, but from what I've seen of it, it's incredibly cool to play, but its personal DPS is extremely lackluster compared to its utility.

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ninja can have a very high personal dps after it's fully optimized for the fight. do keep in mind though, even if you aren't on the top, you being that role brought a substantial amount of raid dps for the party.

To go monk or samurai is fine as well, but know to be a selfish dps and still get accepted into higher tier content, you need to really be good at the job. As a pure dps, your only role is to bring high damage. High enough that it makes up for not buffing the party's dps. Its much easier to be accepted as a mid tier ninja than a mid tier sam.

I don't think you have to sacrifice anything, unless your vision of how a job should play differs from how it is set up to function in a raid scenario. So if you do care more about pDPS than rDPS, but also really love a job like NIN; then it might be an issue for you. But if you are ok with choosing a job based on your preference of playstyle, then things are much more flexible for you.

I don't play a lot of DPS jobs, but what I find unique about a job like NIN is it potentially increases everyone's DPS by increasing its own. Ultimately, I think it is best to do as much damage as possible with the job you enjoy to play, not play the job that brings the most damage. Unless these two line up of course.

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Originally Posted by Zerathor

ninja can have a very high personal dps after it's fully optimized for the fight. do keep in mind though, even if you aren't on the top, you being that role brought a substantial amount of raid dps for the party.

To go monk or samurai is fine as well, but know to be a selfish dps and still get accepted into higher tier content, you need to really be good at the job. As a pure dps, your only role is to bring high damage. High enough that it makes up for not buffing the party's dps. Its much easier to be accepted as a mid tier ninja than a mid tier sam.

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I see, so the utility of the Ninja works for both itself and the raid by increasing overall raid dps. You can play it with mid difficulty and still pull alright numbers due to what you can do with your toolkit. While on the other hand, for Samurai or Monk, I'd need to really really push myself to make myself a spot in a raid.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

I don't think you have to sacrifice anything, unless your vision of how a job should play differs from how it is set up to function in a raid scenario. So if you do care more about pDPS than rDPS, but also really love a job like NIN; then it might be an issue for you. But if you are ok with choosing a job based on your preference of playstyle, then things are much more flexible for you.

I don't play a lot of DPS jobs, but what I find unique about a job like NIN is it potentially increases everyone's DPS by increasing its own. Ultimately, I think it is best to do as much damage as possible with the job you enjoy to play, not play the job that brings the most damage. Unless these two line up of course.

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So in that scenario, it's the age old saying, "Bring the Player, not class" but in this instance if I enjoy Ninja, and I do optimally well enough with PDPS, I still do alright due to my toolkit increasing dps for the rest of the raid as well. Is that right?

If they bring the same total DPS (personal + indirect), there's no difference except to their fflog percentiles.

Nonetheless, SAMs and BLMs will often be shunned because their "selfish" dps doesn't let anyone (themselves included) have as high of percentiles as they otherwise would, even if getting the exact same clear speeds.

"Bring the player, not the class" is the best way to answer this question, yeah. A player who knows their job and the fights will always be a boon to the party, regardless of what job they're playing.

That said, "Wet noodle" isn't really a good way to describe NIN pDPS. They got some really good burst damage and while they're not as strong as a SAM or MNK, they can hold their own really well on top of boosting the entire party's DPS output. Many times I see myself as a NIN topping the DPS charts in a party full of MNKs, SAMs or BLMs simply because I know how to optimize my job; put enough effort into it and you can pull off some good damage regardless of what job you choose in the end!

rDPS is far more of an important moniker than pDPS. This is where utility jobs absolutely shine. NIN, for example, fluctuates in the top three overall damage spots because Trick Attack is simply that strong a utility. BRD is another job that despite low to average pDPS utterly dominates at a rDPS level.

It is for this reason, selfish DPS jobs like SAM/BLM suffer. Their benefits are entirely dependent on the person being good at the job. While both are in far better spots nowadays—BLM especially—utility jobs are still better overall.

At the end of the day, people are going to prefer having jobs in their party that will boost their own damage. You can be considerably better at samurai then ninja, thus giving your party more overall dps on samurai, but people will still prefer having you go ninja. And samurai currently is good enough in personal damage output that unless your party utilizes raid buffs effectively, similarly skilled and geared parties will get more damage out of taking a samurai; however, if your party does utilize raid buffs, ninja is totally worth taking. It just requires more optimization from the entire party.

I also think monk is in a really good spot if you are looking for something kind of in the middle. Monk can feel overpowered in a full physical damage dps comp, but even with a caster, monk fits well into most parties. And with the changes they made to the class, there is a good amount of optimization you can do with it. Which, to me, feels very rewarding.

Calling pure DPS jobs selfish became popular on Heavensward, from back when raid utility was entirely busted and not having them was a huge detriment to the party. Offensive utility was a massive boost since most jobs had the same baseline personal damage so bringing jobs with party buffs just meant even more damage and some specific defensive tools were so strong that openned space for healers to keep their damage spells rolling.

Nowadays all the major tools you need to provide required support to the team is on your Role Actions meaning even the pure damage classes will bring those. While damage utility is high on demand for XIV because of damage rankings, its majorly well balanced to the point the gamebreakng utility skills are in reality the Job exclusives defensive ones like Veil, Shake it Off, Troubador. Currently a skilled BLM's raw damage can outdo many SMNs in some fights with high uptime.

Play what you have fun with, or what you're good at. At this exact moment in the game MCH and WHM are the only jobs behind the balancement curve of everyone else from their role for endgame content. Which is funny when you think about it because MCH is by no means a "selfish" job.

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Originally Posted by Ryuuisamu

Well that's the conundrum I've reached regarding Ninja. I've not tried it yet, but from what I've seen of it, it's incredibly cool to play, but its personal DPS is extremely lackluster compared to its utility.

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For reference, the NIN in my static regularly does 6,000+ DPS in savage fights. While it isnt going to be as high as a BLM, SMN, or SAM, that is some darn good damage. The trade off is that they KNOW that role and are one of the best NINs Ive seen in this game. Know your role and master it. Once you accomplish that, you can clear anything! I know you can do it :)