Dragoon buffs and Ninja nerfs coming Dec 9th in patch 2.45

[Dunncan]

Well there is a video of a NIN in full iLvl 110 gear (+115 weapon) who's doing 520 DPS on a training dummy (with group buff and buff food; no other outside help) over the course of ~3 min. This indicates that Ninjas may currently be about on par with MNKs in terms of DPS. But as the exact equipment of said NIN is not known, that parse may probably be the result of full overmelded 110 gear in a low accuracy setup, whereas I've seen MNK vids doing as much as 517 in non-crafted 110 gear (+115 weapon) without group buff or food. So MNK might still be slightly ahead, but not by much.

I'm 114 DRG with 115 Nexus and I do 520 on a dummy with food and party buff, no potions on an 8 minute parse. I'm using mercy stroke though, lol.

Yeah, I wish all fights were like dummies :P

Dummies are by no means a trust way to see if a job is good or not in Raid enviroment or compare the balance between jobs. It's there for you to train your rotations and gears, no more.

Specially true for Dragoons, wich one of the most dps nerf is fight movement requeriments, wich you "can't" simulate on a dummie.

Looking forward to the buffs. Personally, I was hoping for something like MNK combos (not losing the bonus, only potency, when miss the target side) and a fix on Jumps animations.

[KikoriL]

Dummies are by no means a trust way to see if a job is good or not in Raid enviroment or compare the balance between jobs.

It IS a good enough test to see what different jobs can pull when allowed to consistently deal damage while maintaining their attacks. Now, are there any jobs that suffer from potentially losing all of their momentum if they have any of interruption that forcefully removes buff stacks due to the time taken to deal with the interruptions? If all they lose is some of a CD timer and their place in a combo, I'd call it an accurate enough number. If they have to start over with building themselves up, expect the results to be far higher than what's going to happen mid-fight.
If it wasn't subtle enough, Monks and Black Mages are more prone to lose that momentum than Summoners, Dragoons, Bards, and Ninja. So every "Boo hoo Monks still beat Ninja so why nerf Ninja" poster here kind of makes me laugh.

[Dunncan]

It IS a good enough test to see what different jobs can pull when allowed to consistently deal damage while maintaining their attacks.

That was my point. In a raid enviromnent, it won't be happening too much. What can you SOLID get with a dummie parse, is diferences between rotations and some gear combinations.

Beside that, you can try to extrapolate the data to a boss fight, but you can't simulate the machanics or how often they can hit you.

I'm not saying dummie parse are useless at all. But, people complaining about wich jobs needs buff/nerf based on this kind of data is, at least, funny. How a Job fit in different party setups, the synergy between jobs, how much utility it brings to the battle, how do mechanics bring it's rotation down, etc, etc, are parameters to make such a decision. The damage in no "adverse conditions" is only one, if not the last, to be taken in consideration.

[Sleigh]

That was my point. In a raid enviromnent, it won't be happening too much. What can you SOLID get with a dummie parse, is diferences between rotations and some gear combinations.

Beside that, you can try to extrapolate the data to a boss fight, but you can't simulate the machanics or how often they can hit you.

I'm not saying dummie parse are useless at all. But, people complaining about wich jobs needs buff/nerf based on this kind of data is, at least, funny. How a Job fit in different party setups, the synergy between jobs, how much utility it brings to the battle, how do mechanics bring it's rotation down, etc, etc, are parameters to make such a decision. The damage in no "adverse conditions" is only one, if not the last, to be taken in consideration.

Let's just look at it DPS wise, because otherwise DRG will get blown away by MNK and NIN. I agree that dummy =/= raid DPS, but it's certainly got its merits. You actually are hitting a boss with all positionals T10-13 large chunks of the fights, larger than 80% of the fights are training dummy for melee. Mechanics are usually once every 20s or so, otherwise you just smack the boss.

T10 - occasional charge (if not the victim of charge, minimal difference). Adds benefit those who can multi-DoT stronger and can start their debuffs on the enemy with less loss. Final phase, outside of tether smacking and avoiding overlapping Heat Lightning it's pretty training dummy.
T11 - occasional missed positional on the boss due to Nerve Cloud and in/out mechanic. Only final phase is a true positional difference, and possibly the biggest time in T10-13 where it's not training dummy DPS (where DRG can get hurt the most due to their reliance on positionals).
T12 - Blackfires force momentary flanking. Otherwise just dummy. Add phase is just dummy for melee except you attack new enemies constantly. Final phase, no strategy should involve melee in fountains, just training dummy except for the occasional dodging of phoenix charges.
T13 - Megaflare can force rear positioning once a minute, Earth Shaker can force downtime. Otherwise it's just pure dummy 90% of the fight outside of the add phase where you restart your rotations constantly.

These new fights are all very melee friendly as a whole, and unlike previous turns, I'd say DRG does worse proportionately to a dummy than a MNK/NIN does because they're all just long, drawn out slug fests - T1-9, the melee difficulty was RNG forced downtime, and I considered the contrary usually true with RNG mechanics that could force GL3 drops. Now it's all about positionals getting compromised with large amounts of guaranteed uptime (other than T10 Wild Charge and T13 Earth Shakers).

Because of the low practicality and application of AoE, I generally look at two things when I go with who I like more on certain turns (ignoring the absolutely balance breaking MNK MNK comp which breaks the rules really bad) - forced breaks and/or mechanics downtime (which hurts MNK far more than DRG) and positional compromise (which right now rapes DRG and is a minor DPS loss for MNK). On a lesser note, BRD DPS (BRD does particularly well T9, for example, and this makes DRG a bit stronger than otherwise). Then you compare training dummy DPS and apply it to these things and you actually get a pretty fair assessment of which melee to bring, in my experience.

[Dunncan]

These new fights are all very melee friendly as a whole (...) Because of the low practicality and application of AoE, I generally look at two things when I go with who I like more on certain turns(...). Then you compare training dummy DPS and apply it to these things and you actually get a pretty fair assessment of which melee to bring, in my experience.

Agree with all of that, specially the last part. As I've said before, I can see the value of a dummie dps, but in most of the threads, I only see people taking exclusively it in consideration while crying for buffs/nerfs.

While it can often be used as a "base" parameter wich you'll then apply the fights particularities, the true job balance goes furter, and is intended to, for example, avoid

the absolutely balance breaking MNK MNK comp which breaks the rules really bad

But sadly, we can't see too much people analysing the big scope as you did right now.

[roninoftagrm]

Yeah, I wish all fights were like dummies :P

Dummies are by no means a trust way to see if a job is good or not in Raid enviroment or compare the balance between jobs. It's there for you to train your rotations and gears, no more.

Specially true for Dragoons, wich one of the most dps nerf is fight movement requeriments, wich you "can't" simulate on a dummie.

Looking forward to the buffs. Personally, I was hoping for something like MNK combos (not losing the bonus, only potency, when miss the target side) and a fix on Jumps animations.

actually you can simulate mechanics, with imagination, a stopwatch(or your own counting from a given fights memory) and running from a dummie(pretending you cant hit the target), though dots numbers have to be altered to figure out, your parse will show true numbers, easiest way is to watch a fight on your phone/tab and do all the same moves and dodging along with the video