Are DPS LB3 becoming useless in certain large raids?

I noticed the damage dealt with DPS LB3s barely do much to bosses percentage wise in high level raids, and especially in Delubrum Reginae. Its just all flash and no substance.

Why make LB3s so weak at this point when that wasn't the case in the past?

I know some people may not agree with me on that assessment, but I don't recall Dragoon LB3 being so weak before and I'm only started to notice this when Yorha raids came out at the time.

They scale off of players ilvl, thing is the raid bosses (especially alliance raids) have such inflated health pools that the lb3, while doing a lot of damage, barely makes a dent in their health pool. With the upcoming squish they may end up having a larger impact again.

To clear up any misunderstandings, LB3 is scaled on the entire ilevel of your group. An LB3 with a full party of people in ilevel 530 gear will do more than LB3 at ilevel 510 gear.

Inside Bozja, everyone is ilevel 430, however bosses inside Bozja are scaled differently to other group content in the game, even at ilevel 430, a group of people with all their essences and skills will do more DPS than LB3 because you're doing more DPS than what is expected at ilevel 430. You can easily pull off 30k as a WHM inside Bozja at ilevel 430 because of the essences and Lost actions provided, with Bozjan content scaled around that instead.

Outside of Bozja however, content gets outpaced by newer gear, and sometimes LB3 might not even be possible to obtain, to use an example - Hades Normal is scaled at ilevel 420, but everyone is at ilevel 510-530 nowadays compared to ilevel 420, killing it with twice the amount of DPS and speed compared to the release of Shadowbringers where everyone had ilevel 430, making it impossible to obtain LB3 in Hades. But content released in 5.5 - such as Diamond Weapon, LB3 can do a considerable chunk to speed up a kill by 10 or 20 seconds, just 10 or 20 seconds is a massive gain to fights that have an enrage timer. Compared to Yohra however, Yohra's bosses have their HP 3x more inflated because there's 24 people in an instance vs 8, and LB3 only scales on your alliance party. If LB3 did 3% on Diamond Weapon, it'll do 1% on a Yohra boss because their health is 3x more inflated.

I hope this makes some sense. Tl;dr An LB3 on Diamond Weapon does 3% of his HP bar but 1% on a Yohra boss because of HP inflation, scaled on everyone's ilevel of your group.

As stated above, they feel weak when they're really not weak. if you do 2 mil damage to something with almost 100 mil HP of course it's not going to feel like much when it's still a nice chunk.

The HP bloat is what the issue is. Once the stat squish happens they'll probably feel more impactful. What else would you do with it anyway? Let it sit there at full 3 bars and never get used?

In what universe is it "useless" to be able to do 900,000 damage with a limit break in the time it would take you to do 150,000 with your normal attacks?

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

I noticed the damage dealt with DPS LB3s barely do much to bosses percentage wise in high level raids, and especially in Delubrum Reginae. Its just all flash and no substance.

Why make LB3s so weak at this point when that wasn't the case in the past?

I know some people may not agree with me on that assessment, but I don't recall Dragoon LB3 being so weak before and I'm only started to notice this when Yorha raids came out at the time.

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I think DPS Limit Breaks need a rework entirely, not just in raids. Healer and tank are fine and ranged and magical LB are decent on trash packs but being limited to using on trash already seems like a waste of our super special party move. Melee LB is just tragic though, most of the time it isn't even worth getting the animation lock never mind dropping your rotation just to pop it.

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Originally Posted by Artemiz

Melee LB is just tragic though, most of the time it isn't even worth getting the animation lock never mind dropping your rotation just to pop it.

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During that animation lock it does literally five to six times your average DPS.

why can't casuals lb

LB scaling is one of the things I'm wondering about after the stat squish coming in Endwalker. Will they leave the LB damage scaling as it is thus making its usage more impactful during fights or will that get nerfed due to enemy stats also being reduced to accommodate the stat squish with player gear and the removal of belts?

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

LB scaling is one of the things I'm wondering about after the stat squish coming in Endwalker. Will they leave the LB damage scaling as it is thus making its usage more impactful during fights or will that get nerfed due to enemy stats also being reduced to accommodate the stat squish with player gear and the removal of belts?

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Of course they're going to reduce LB damage as well. Even then, it will still be worth using because nobody is going to do be able to do anywhere near that much damage with normal attacks even at their burstiest times.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

During that animation lock it does literally five to six times your average DPS.

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I know I was very slightly off topic as the thread specifically says LB3 and that's what you're referring to. At least LB3 has an argument for it, 1 and 2 though are practically a waste of time.

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Originally Posted by Artemiz

Melee LB is just tragic though, most of the time it isn't even worth getting the animation lock never mind dropping your rotation just to pop it.

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Let's run some numbers, shall we?

Checking a quick DRG POV vid of a full i530 party doing E12s pre-echo, LB3 does about 857k across 8.2s including castbar + animation lock. That's roughly 4 GCDs lost.

For a fun comparison, let's theoretically break the limits and give a SAM a supernatural godmode where their sens never run out during those 4 GCDs so they can chain Midare back to back every GCD, let's even say their Tsubame CD is up so they can throw it in on the first midare as well for fun, and say every Midare is Kaiten'd. Checking another vid of an i530 SAM who had dance partner, their Midare un-crticial'd, un-dh'd, does about 72k-80k (we'll use 80k to give as much advantage to the SAM as possible). Their Critical-DH ones do about 150k.

Assuming nothing crits-DH's, that SAM, given godhax Sen powers, can only do about (80,000 * 5) = 400,000 damage, less than half of LB3's damage. But let's just crank up the godhax further and say they get Inner Release, so now everything is doing 150k.
Even giving them insane godhax, they're still only doing (150k * 5) = 750k damage. They're still doing less damage than melee LB3 in the same timeframe.

Melee LB3 is fine. It does literally 4-6x damage than you could possibly do during that timeframe depending on your job, melee LB3 is always a net dps gain.

Even checking LB2 in a vid of Matoyas relicit, it still does roughly 420k with a lockout of 6.86s, or a bit over 3 GCDs lost. Our godhax'd Samurai just barely falls short if nothing CRTs or DHs. For an actual realistic rotation, Melee LB2 is still doing far more damage than you can personally output in the same timeframe, it isn't even a contest. Melee LB1 is the only one where its use is sketchy. Melee LB2 & LB3's only actual discussion is whether firing it during raid buffs would net you another use of an LB2/3 by the end of the fight or not and if you have multiple melee dps in your group, which of you is the lowest dps and thus the LB user.

Total lockout times on LB's sourced from this lovely document by the allagan studies group: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...Z7-WubKI/edit#

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

Let's run some numbers, shall we?

Checking a quick DRG POV vid of a full i530 party doing E12s pre-echo, LB3 does about 857k across 8.2s including castbar + animation lock. That's roughly 4 GCDs lost.

For a fun comparison, let's theoretically break the limits and give a SAM a supernatural godmode where their sens never run out during those 4 GCDs so they can chain Midare back to back every GCD, let's even say their Tsubame CD is up so they can throw it in on the first midare as well for fun, and say every Midare is Kaiten'd. Checking another vid of an i530 SAM who had dance partner, their Midare un-crticial'd, un-dh'd, does about 72k-80k (we'll use 80k to give as much advantage to the SAM as possible). Their Critical-DH ones do about 150k.

Assuming nothing crits-DH's, that SAM, given godhax Sen powers, can only do about (80,000 * 5) = 400,000 damage, less than half of LB3's damage. But let's just crank up the godhax further and say they get Inner Release, so now everything is doing 150k.
Even giving them insane godhax, they're still only doing (150k * 5) = 750k damage. They're still doing less damage than melee LB3 in the same timeframe.

Melee LB3 is fine. It does literally 4-6x damage than you could possibly do during that timeframe depending on your job, melee LB3 is always a net dps gain.

Even checking LB2 in a vid of Matoyas relicit, it still does roughly 420k with a lockout of 6.86s, or a bit over 3 GCDs lost. Our godhax'd Samurai just barely falls short if nothing CRTs or DHs. For an actual realistic rotation, Melee LB2 is still doing far more damage than you can personally output in the same timeframe, it isn't even a contest. Melee LB1 is the only one where its use is sketchy. Melee LB2 & LB3's only actual discussion is whether firing it during raid buffs would net you another use of an LB2/3 by the end of the fight or not and if you have multiple melee dps in your group, which of you is the lowest dps and thus the LB user.

Total lockout times on LB's sourced from this lovely document by the allagan studies group: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...Z7-WubKI/edit#

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Mhmm mhmm, now tel me the prime numbers!

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Originally Posted by Artemiz

I know I was very slightly off topic as the thread specifically says LB3 and that's what you're referring to. At least LB3 has an argument for it, 1 and 2 though are practically a waste of time.

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Here are some calculations based on actual numbers from an E10S encounter. A 95th percentile NIN averaging 23,544 DPS over the course of the fight performed a Chimatsuri for 898,482 damage.


According to Fürst Blumier of Allagan Studies, LBs are subject to a ±5% damage range. So for the sake of argument let's assume 898,482 was at the maximum end of the range and it's possible it could have done as little as 812,912.

According to the same document, 1 LB3 = 3.5 LB1 and 1 LB2 = 2.2 LB1. The total animation locks for each LB are lock1 = 5.86s, lock2 = 6.86s, lock3 = 8.20s.

Minimum melee LB1 damage for this party: 812,912 / 3.5 ≈ 232,260
Maximum melee LB1 damage for this party: 898,482 / 3.5 ≈ 256,709
Damage this NIN could do during the lock period for an LB1: 23,544 d/s * 5.86s ≈ 137,967
Melee LB1 damage vs this NIN's normal attacks: 1.68x ~ 1.86x

Minimum melee LB2 damage for this party: 812,912 / 3.5 * 2.2 ≈ 510,972
Maximum melee LB2 damage for this party: 898,482 / 3.5 * 2.2 ≈ 564,759
Damage this NIN could do during the lock period for an LB2: 23,544 d/s * 6.86s ≈ 161,511
Melee LB2 damage vs this NIN's normal attacks: 3.16x ~ 3.49x

Minimum melee LB3 damage for this party: 812,912
Maximum melee LB3 damage for this party: 898,482
Damage this NIN could do during the lock period for an LB3: 23,544 d/s * 8.20s ≈ 193,060
Melee LB3 damage vs this NIN's normal attacks: 4.21x ~ 4.65x

A melee DD might burst for more than 1.68x their average DPS; but a burst window doesn't last ten minutes. After a few seconds the burst window is going to close and their DPS is going to drop below their average DPS, and that would be a good time to LB.

The 95th percentile NIN in the referenced E10S run never reached more than 1.95x their average DPS during a burst window, so beating out an LB2 would be right out. And mind you, these numbers are for a 95th percentile NIN. An average player will have a much higher gain from using the LB.


tl; dr: Melee LB1 is worth it outside of a burst window. Melee LB2 is always worth it.

Those numbers just back up how I feel about melee LB to be honest. Yeah you should use it and everything but man it's underwhelming. LB 1 needs a caveat to be even worth it and has an animation lock of nearly 6 seconds, how does that even make sense for a group attack that takes ages to charge? If LB 1 did 4-5x the damage of a normal rotation, with LB 2 doing maybe 7-8x and LB 3 doing 10-12x then I would say it's balanced against the other LB's. As it is though, I is disappoint. In the game of balance it's going up against a whole group raise, a super strong defensive buff that is literally mandatory in some fights, and a trash pack remover. Melee is the single target super punch, and it's meh.

People often wonder why new players don't use the LB, amongst the many reasons I would argue the "meh effect" of LB 1 coupled with a 6 second animation lock in a fight they don't yet understand is definitely one reason.

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Originally Posted by Artemiz

Those numbers just back up how I feel about melee LB to be honest. Yeah you should use it and everything but man it's underwhelming. LB 1 needs a caveat to be even worth it and has an animation lock of nearly 6 seconds, how does that even make sense for a group attack that takes ages to charge? If LB 1 did 4-5x the damage of a normal rotation, with LB 2 doing maybe 7-8x and LB 3 doing 10-12x then I would say it's balanced against the other LB's. As it is though, I is disappoint. In the game of balance it's going up against a whole group raise, a super strong defensive buff that is literally mandatory in some fights, and a trash pack remover. Melee is the single target super punch, and it's meh.

People often wonder why new players don't use the LB, amongst the many reasons I would argue the "meh effect" of LB 1 coupled with a 6 second animation lock in a fight they don't yet understand is definitely one reason.

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Play with a pocket healer and have them rescue you outta the animation lock then :3

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

Let's run some numbers, shall we?

Checking a quick DRG POV vid of a full i530 party doing E12s pre-echo, LB3 does about 857k across 8.2s including castbar + animation lock. That's roughly 4 GCDs lost.

For a fun comparison, let's theoretically break the limits and give a SAM a supernatural godmode where their sens never run out during those 4 GCDs so they can chain Midare back to back every GCD, let's even say their Tsubame CD is up so they can throw it in on the first midare as well for fun, and say every Midare is Kaiten'd. Checking another vid of an i530 SAM who had dance partner, their Midare un-crticial'd, un-dh'd, does about 72k-80k (we'll use 80k to give as much advantage to the SAM as possible). Their Critical-DH ones do about 150k.

Assuming nothing crits-DH's, that SAM, given godhax Sen powers, can only do about (80,000 * 5) = 400,000 damage, less than half of LB3's damage. But let's just crank up the godhax further and say they get Inner Release, so now everything is doing 150k.
Even giving them insane godhax, they're still only doing (150k * 5) = 750k damage. They're still doing less damage than melee LB3 in the same timeframe.

Melee LB3 is fine. It does literally 4-6x damage than you could possibly do during that timeframe depending on your job, melee LB3 is always a net dps gain.

Even checking LB2 in a vid of Matoyas relicit, it still does roughly 420k with a lockout of 6.86s, or a bit over 3 GCDs lost. Our godhax'd Samurai just barely falls short if nothing CRTs or DHs. For an actual realistic rotation, Melee LB2 is still doing far more damage than you can personally output in the same timeframe, it isn't even a contest. Melee LB1 is the only one where its use is sketchy. Melee LB2 & LB3's only actual discussion is whether firing it during raid buffs would net you another use of an LB2/3 by the end of the fight or not and if you have multiple melee dps in your group, which of you is the lowest dps and thus the LB user.

Total lockout times on LB's sourced from this lovely document by the allagan studies group: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...Z7-WubKI/edit#

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LB3 is a no brainer, but I think you're right about Blade Dance as well. I think only a melee burst phase will do more in the same amount of LB lock time, but not entirely positive. I have waived off a few wipes with LB2, but again, my burst phase wasn't up. Even then, I am going to feel much safer going with Blade Dance if the group needs high deeps quickly unless I am mid burst, in which case I am going to finish it out for sure.