Did the game get too complicated, or am I just an idiot?

[Odett]

-all im reading is I dont use sharp and swift in my 6 fire 4 opener.

Im questioning the validity of this one.

So do you not use sharpcast if Ley Lines and Raging Strikes are not up? Do you you just waste it letting it sit there?

Point is, refreshing Enochian is nowhere as hard as people make it out to be. This reminds me of the complaints that BLM were garbage DPS in Turns 6, 7, and Titan EX because "movements" (hint, they're not). Learn the fight, and anticipate mechanics. Don't blame your job for your own shortcomings.

[Alahra]

'Quickly enough' is very relative. I'm not interested in doing a boss for 62 minutes (hyperbole) purely because Square didn't feel it needed an enrage timer. And seeing as both tanks and healer contribute to the boss falling over; I would argue DPS is the best measure of their worth and their ability to complete their 'job' (exceptions and balancing withstanding). I can't tell you the amount of times DPS in dungeons (with gear) are doing less damage than the tank/healer. In this sense the tank/healer is covering for a DPS who really isn't doing their job adequately, for whatever reason. But I wouldn't know that if it weren't for my trusty parser.

There are hardly any major bosses that don't have enrage timers, outside of dungeon bosses. Several of those even have them. DPS checks outside of raid content are generally quite forgiving, and inside raid content, a failed DPS check is nearly always met with an instant wipe, so you never really have to wait long to know DPS isn't up to par.

As for DPS in dungeons, I don't need a parse to know when a particular DPS is doing poorly at all. You can generally tell within a few dungeon pulls and having even very basic knowledge of rotation to look for key abilities to know if someone's pulling their weight or not. (A prime example being whether or not someone is properly using AoE abilities, which tends to be one of the most visible reasons a particular DPS might underperform in a dungeon.)

It doesn't really matter if they're doing more poorly than the tank or healer so long as the group isn't wiping when you get down to it though. SE does not and has never held players to community standards in terms of competency, and if you were to complain/harass someone because the run isn't moving quickly enough for you but is still proceeding without failure, you would really just be rude.

I dunno, I'm not seeing a stellar argument for why there isn't one included in-light of their stance.

Their main argument is they encourage toxicity in the community, and from years of playing WoW with Recount, I'm inclined to agree with them. They've discussed the addition of in-game "tests" you can partake in (basically a solo DPS check) so that someone can make sure they're doing competent DPS, but we're not likely to ever see official meters (though if they ever get around to creating add-on support, it's possible there might be one created through that).

Mind you, you can still, essentially, use parsers for your own edification. As mentioned before, Yoshi's all but said they're fine so long as you don't harass someone over their DPS, using the parse as the basis for it.

[Psycofang]

So do you not use sharpcast if Ley Lines and Raging Strikes are not up?
Point is, refreshing Enochian is nowhere as hard as people make it out to be. This reminds me of the complaints that BLM were garbage DPS because "movements" (hint, they're not). Learn the fight, and anticipate mechanics. Don't blame your job for your own shortcomings.

You do use them when convert ley lines and raging are down to reach 5 fire f4s under said situation but you and alot of ppl who pretend to know what they are talking about seem to forget that they are on a 60. Second. Cooldown. You will use swift cast and sharp cast to quickly hit 5 fire 4s when converts down and 6 when its up, to act like we will always have p rocs is down right naive at best, to not reach these numbers asap is a dps loss, people forget blm has to burn its own safety nets to reach thr dps raiders want them to reach. . Your comment is par absurdity.

Also i love it when people say anticipate mechanics when rng mechanics are the ones that screw us, not jumps, splits, containment, add phase, tank lasers, baiting reisen puddles, flaring the whorl pool to hit the adds in etc in savage.

You cannot possibly anticipate an rng mechanic without holding on to and safety net a sacrificing your dps that your team will have to cover for.

The fact that you say swift and sharp for p rocs will save us is so situational and can only be done every 60 seconds, they should have already been used post enochian max refresh to hit 5 fire 4s, tells me you aren't doing this otherwise you wouldn't default to such a faulty excuse for an answer.

[Odett]

You do use them when convert ley lines and raging are down to reach 5 fire f4s under said situation but you and alot of ppl who pretend to know what they are talking about seem to forget that they are on a 60. Second. Cooldown. You will use swift cast and sharp cast to quickly hit 5 fire 4s when converts down and 6 when its up, to act like we will always have p rocs is down right naive at best, to not reach these numbers asap is a dps loss, people forget blm has to burn its own safety nets to reach thr dps raiders want them to reach. . Your comment is par absurdity.

Also i love it when people say anticipate mechanics when rng mechanics are the ones that screw us, not jumps, splits, containment, add phase, tank lasers, baiting reisen puddles, flaring the whorl pool to hit the adds in etc in savage.

You cannot possibly anticipate an rng mechanic without holding on to and safety net a sacrificing your dps that your team will have to cover for.

The fact that you say swift and sharp for p rocs will save us is so situational and can only be done every 60 seconds, they should have already been used post enochian max refresh to hit 5 fire 4s, tells me you aren't doing this otherwise you wouldn't default to such a faulty excuse for an answer.

Yeah, ideally 5 (without convert) and 6 on a fight. But the circumstances of the fight occasionally and sometimes often limit this. Stop having a training dummy mentality. I WILL use sharpcast to squeeze out more Fire 4's, but from experience, I will use swiftcast for those "oh shit" moments because frankly, sacrificing an extra attack every minute for insurance can be a DPS gain. If you would argue that burning every single safety net you have in order to squeeze out ONE extra attack every 60 seconds and getting caught with your pants down and reverting to your 2.0 rotation is worth it, then I would disagree with you.

You can very much anticipate mechanics. The whole concept of saving your Swiftcast for RNG mechanics (hence, anticipating) will increase your DPS over time. "Sacrificing DPS that your team has to cover for"? Losing Enochian because you got overzealous or do not know a fight enough to know that "x" can happen at "x" time is a bigger DPS loss. It's the same mentality with DRG and Geirskogul, and abstaining to use it when "you should" because an off phase is coming up and losing Blood of the Dragon (if the ability is still on cooldown) will result in an overall DPS loss.

It's very true that you will not have a proc up every time you have to move, but taking the necessary precautions in the context of the fight to make sure that your priority system is not messed up IS the difference between a regular BLM and a good one.

You have to realize that your cookie cutter rotation must achieve a certain degree of flexibility in order to maintain the best DPS you can with the fight's mechanics and phase shifts in mind.

[Psycofang]

6 fire will happen fire proc is already up pre twin raid aoes in alex 1, its up again as they cast missiles, down during resein bait, middle shrink jumps, up again on landing, swift-sharp-step-repeat until convert (and possibly rs) are up with swift and sharp after your baited add dies, proceed to 6 fire without ley refresh, jump run land leylines stand on edge etc.

So basically you hold off on your full refresh openers for the possibility of being targeted (or off targeted) by a mechanic that may or may not come while at the same time wasting possible capitalization off raging strikes, which is not only just an extra fire 4 , its at minimum 5 extra 5-8k per extra and at most 9 (thats an enrage imo) added to your current rotation. Its not a dps increase if raging falls off while you hold a swift/sharp/natural proc waiting for something that might target left field. Imo thats not good, what mechanics are you anticipating? Full burst 5/6 fires will only occur in scenarios whete nothing can possibly target you.

A2s nothing of any real importance

A3s 5 fires work lovingly on hand split (I would argue having thunder 3 proc ready), cascade form, flaring whirl to hit the adds moots that phase. F3 proc is almost always at the ready during a +\- if you even get bothered by it with an instant f3 swift f4 into reset.

Haven't been to a4 because im a scrub but im positive that's the only fight with a true interruption that your argument holds valid consideration. So I wont say your style is wrong but ill be damned if you use p rocs, sharps and swift an end all be all. Especially considering those who have the timings down will use both, the mechanics I speak of are SPECIFICALLY in enochian rotation late 2 through all of 3 unless you hold out those buff until that point?

[Odett]

So basically you hold off on your full refresh openers for the possibility of being targeted (or off targeted) by a mechanic that may or may not come while at the same time wasting possible capitalization off raging strikes, which is not only just an extra fire 4 , its at minimum 5 extra 5-8k per extra and at most 9 (thats an enrage imo) added to your current rotation. Its not a dps increase if raging falls off while you hold a swift/sharp/natural proc waiting for something that might target left field. Imo thats not good, what mechanics are you anticipating? Full burst 5/6 fires will only occur in scenarios whete nothing can possibly target you.

I don't think you understand what Im saying. I'm holding off on ONE move: Swiftcast. You do not need swiftcast to pull off 6 fire 4s in your raging strikes+convert+ley lines+sharpcast burst.

You mentioned flaring the whirlpool. Right, that's a great idea and you can definitely say that using swiftcast for that instead for Enochian keep-up is a better idea, but that's what I'm trying to get at: your rotation is not a static thing. It's not just A4, though. Look at primals. Look at Titan, Ifrit, Levi, Garuda, T9, the last boss of Nevereap (I'm probably missing a lot, but you get the point), all fights where a clutch swiftcast B4 makes the difference between keeping up Enochian and having it fall off.

[Psycofang]

What

The reason you use swift cast is to make sure your rotation DOESN'T fall in line with an aoe mechanic that forces movement creating a net loss.

Not seift castings greatly ups the possibility of your non instant procs to fall into the enemies aoe part of THEIR rotation. Swift cast allows you to avoid having an oh shit moment (spell speed dependant). That 3 second cast is massive in a raid environment.

Also t9/ old primal dont even work here because the unusable tools and stat differences are completely different, swift cast served a different purpose back then than it does now. That shouldnt even be a thing and lets not talk about the new primal since ravana is a training dummy and Bismarck post esoteric weapon requires no timing, especially since manaward messes with the tornadoes and standing in a certain spot will almost guarantee never being targeted by one in snake phase.

On the back? 6/5 fire all the way.

EDIT: also why never reap? I thought we were only talking raids here, never reap boss especially emphasizes getting those f4s out asap and b4ing the divine water or divine winds thats a moot point.

[RapBreon]

There are hardly any major bosses that don't have enrage timers, outside of dungeon bosses. Several of those even have them. DPS checks outside of raid content are generally quite forgiving, and inside raid content, a failed DPS check is nearly always met with an instant wipe, so you never really have to wait long to know DPS isn't up to par.

As for DPS in dungeons, I don't need a parse to know when a particular DPS is doing poorly at all. You can generally tell within a few dungeon pulls and having even very basic knowledge of rotation to look for key abilities to know if someone's pulling their weight or not. (A prime example being whether or not someone is properly using AoE abilities, which tends to be one of the most visible reasons a particular DPS might underperform in a dungeon.)

It doesn't really matter if they're doing more poorly than the tank or healer so long as the group isn't wiping when you get down to it though. SE does not and has never held players to community standards in terms of competency, and if you were to complain/harass someone because the run isn't moving quickly enough for you but is still proceeding without failure, you would really just be rude.

Though I think my point was lost (possibly due to my own failings), I will agree that you can spot an under-performer without the aid of a parser most of the time. I was probably just splitting hairs for sake of being argumentative. However, for various reasons I have trained myself out of the habit of making judgments with out data and dislike making said judgments based on my 'feelings' - a necessity of my life. If I was to call someone out, I'd like to do so with evidence backing my claim. This is what it really revolves around for me.

It's fairly clear at this point our positions are entrenched in our ideologies (as are most ultimately). To me a DPS doing less damage than a tank/healer is them failing their job (exceptions withstanding). You do not view it this way. I doubt we'll convince each other otherwise. Do I guess we'll agree to disagree.

None of my posts condone harassment (though some staunchly opposed to my views may read it as such). Though I don't condone an embargo on the ability to tell people to pick up their game based on 'hard evidence' rather than my 'gut feeling'.

Their main argument is they encourage toxicity in the community, and from years of playing WoW with Recount, I'm inclined to agree with them. They've discussed the addition of in-game "tests" you can partake in (basically a solo DPS check) so that someone can make sure they're doing competent DPS, but we're not likely to ever see official meters (though if they ever get around to creating add-on support, it's possible there might be one created through that).

Mind you, you can still, essentially, use parsers for your own edification. As mentioned before, Yoshi's all but said they're fine so long as you don't harass someone over their DPS, using the parse as the basis for it.

Encourage? Quite possibly, but this really would be a case of treating a symptom before the cause. It merely gives them a hook in which to latch onto; a conduit which to channel if you will. Otherwise dicks will still be dicks, just without 'hard' numbers to entrench their dickishness. Though this argument remains firmly in the realm of sophistry rather than tangible evidence.

Thankfully Yoshi has his head screwed on and have no problem with his views on the subject. Square's 'official' stance, in which 'mentioning it' is 'forbidden' I still have problems with.

[Seku]

It's not hard, but it punishes you pretty heavily at 60 if you mess up. But it's nothing you won't experience on monk with greased lightning.

DRG is really boring early levels, gets some variance in rotation by lvl 38 (more weapon skills to use, more oGCDs coming all the time too), then 50-60 ramps it up, where we get our "greased lightning".

nah. @ the time of that post I already had all classes but blm @ 50. I meant from 50-60. So far DRG is easy and a power house. But looks like they got shafted with skills. if I'm understanding right and the next two skills I get at 56 and 58 are basically the same move but have positional and is random which will be up to use, which imo is just BS and was a waste of a skill.

Classes are pretty easy from 1-50, with the exception of ninja maybe due to Marada and the lag.

[Alahra]

It's fairly clear at this point our positions are entrenched in our ideologies (as are most ultimately). To me a DPS doing less damage than a tank/healer is them failing their job (exceptions withstanding). You do not view it this way. I doubt we'll convince each other otherwise. Do I guess we'll agree to disagree.

Oh, I don't disagree with you. They're failing at their jobs. But in Duty Finder content, you kinda have to be prepared for that. You don't know if the person on the other end of that awful DRG is colorblind and has trouble seeing AoEs, so they're more focused on that than their rotation. They could be juggling parental responsibilities (from all I hear, holding a baby and working a PS4 controller's quite the feat). They *could* just not know what they're doing. But you don't really know, so I tend to be generous with people when I'm in DF content. When in a PF group, I'm less generous because I expect people to be performing differently in that case.

We're well within our rights to ask someone to step up (and I do so frequently, especially if I see someone not using AoEs on large pulls--that should be a no-brainer), but we really don't need parsers to do that at all, which was really my only point. What prompted my response generally was your initial use of the word "complain," which suggested (to me at least) something of a condescending attitude when you find yourself in those situations. That may have been on me, though.

None of my posts condone harassment (though some staunchly opposed to my views may read it as such). Though I don't condone an embargo on the ability to tell people to pick up their game based on 'hard evidence' rather than my 'gut feeling'.

I never said your posts condoned harassment, but as I mentioned above, I've gotten the impression that you might not always be very diplomatic when you find DPS under-performing in DF, but that's just what I'm picking up from word choice and the like on here so it may be misreading. As for an embargo on telling people they're underperforming based on "hard evidence," again, that embargo is a soft one. You can still use a parser and use it to determine who's performing poorly (so you know who to speak to). You just can't safely say, in party chat, that this is how you arrived at this conclusion. Just ask the DPS in question to step it up (it helps if you can identify something they're doing/not doing, of course, for guidance).

Encourage? Quite possibly, but this really would be a case of treating a symptom before the cause. It merely gives them a hook in which to latch onto; a conduit which to channel if you will. Otherwise dicks will still be dicks, just without 'hard' numbers to entrench their dickishness. Though this argument remains firmly in the realm of sophistry rather than tangible evidence.

I think what you're missing is that, essentially, if dicks have "hard evidence," they are more likely to be dicks. It also can push some people that aren't *normally* dicks to behave dickishly because an intense focus on numbers performance sometimes takes the human part of the equation out of things for those that are highly focused on performance. It's not sophistry, that's just part of human attitudes, especially in online spaces and even more especially in online gaming spaces. If you've never really been privy to the levels of vitriol that people in MMOs can spit at their fellow players, you've been pretty lucky, but I've been at this for a long time and I've met some real human scum on games like these.

Square's 'official' stance, in which 'mentioning it' is 'forbidden' I still have problems with.

The reason they do this is to keep their hands clean. If they put in an official parser and the community becomes more toxic to some degree or another, it creates a bad impression of the game as a whole that, in some sense, they would then be "condoning." By keeping parsers "officially" unsupported but "unofficially" supported, they can allow players to use them for performance while essentially washing their hands of any effect they have on the community (thankfully in general, the Final Fantasy MMO community has always been less toxic than other similar titles, like WoW--but it still has its problems, such as with the Hunting community).

There are also various other reasons, including that they have to disallow third-party tools because of botting and things of that sort, and it's far easier to say, in the ToS, that all third-party tools are disallowed, than to complicate and categorize, as there are various ways in which programs could be argued to be allowed or not allowed depending on specific functionalities. A blanket statement is easier to enforce and takes load off of the GMing team (which probably isn't very large).