45 second 15% Balance versus 75 second 10% Balance ... which is more effective?

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Quoting me is irrelevant when you're making an absolute statement.

During burst Enhanced will outperform. It is also more effective, but my point was that your absolute doesn't work here.



Burst is normal conditions. I'm not talking about fights where there are extra damage phazes. I'm talking about standard dps burst. Which I do every fight on my nin. When I pop B4B/IR/TA, then go down my rotation and weave in all my oGCD dps skills, I should get more out of that 15% dmg buff than 10% which lingers after everything wears off but doesn't last long enough for most of it to come back off CD.

Not all classes burst the same though, so this may not be the case for everyone.

The OP asked for "normal" conditions. The following would be part of "normal conditions":
Not knowing when to obtain the card you want
Not knowing when every single party members buffs are available again
Not knowing if particular mechanics targets them that prevents them from dealing damage for a certain period of time
Not having control of transition timings
Not having control on when others use their abilities
Not having control over mechanics of an encounter (that may or may not stagger their damage output for a moment)

While some buffs are multiplicative of each other, there are too many factors to include burst as "normal". The only kind of burst you can accurately predict would be the opening pull: The entire team goes all out the first 30 seconds and use everything they have. For the rest of the fight? CDs whenever they are up. Unless you find it reasonable to know exactly when every party member pops particular buffs and you can somehow magically draw an enhanced balance the moment right as they pop one or more buff. I believe it's more "normal" to assume the baseline increase. However, even if you don't, the contrary is also true: If you draw an enhanced balance card in a "non-burst" moment, extended would be more effective. And consider that buffs are longer on CD than they actually have effect.

So here's one thing you seem to like repeating: "Absolute". Yes, it is absolute, but that does not mean it's the final conclusion. I didn't take the baseline effect of the cards for nothing. The "absolute" increase would be 10% or 15% according to the Royal Road. But the relative increase may vary. And as stated before, being relative has so many factors involved, it's easier to explain someone the "absolute" effect of the cards. Which I finished my post with this particular sentence:

Now here's the thing: Effectiveness is different story.

If we were to include other variables such as card value, draw value, draw waste, royal road waste, it's impossible to determine or explain it to someone in more objective perspective ("Relative", remember?)

So here's a start if we were to include everything else, aside from Balance:
There are a set number of cards you can draw with each encounter, so let's give each draw a value of 1 (exact card values are impossible to determine)
Royal Road has the following effects: +50% effect, +100% duration, -50% effect but 15y radius effect
As royal road consumes cards, each value for their effect respectively would be: 0.5, 1.0, 0.5~1.5. Expanded Royal Road assuming you hit the specific jobs with the particular card
Why 0.5 for Enhanced? Because you waste 1 card to increase the effectiveness of another card. Two cards would hold two effects for 100% while with Royal Road you only have one card with 150%
If we were to only consider Balance to Enhance, the chances to enhance a Balance is 16,7% with each draw and only if you have a Balance spread. However with Extended Royal Road you have a 33,3% chance to perform an extended balance under the same circumstances. You're twice more likely to extend a Royal Road rather than enhancing it. There's also the part where you may lose some healer or tank DPS by losing out on 30 seconds worth of mitigation from Bole (assuming you don't Royal Road Balance). Assuming they're proactive enough

I could write an entire essay out here for the OP to read if he really wants to know, but why would I if the previous post concerning this issue would tell the story in short without the details he didn't even ask for? So I'll stand by the other post I made as explains it to the OP the baseline of it with a disclaimer at the end.

Edit:
Edit2:
Actually, not relevant

[Eudyptes]

The OP asked for "normal" conditions.

What I said was under normal conditions. How are you not understanding that? Ast is by default a complex class, but it's not insanely complex. You don't need to keep track of everyone's CD's, just the top dps's CDs since they are the one who will get the most out of balance to begin with. You don't even have to know all their CD timers, just certain patterns which can almost always be given away by keeping track on 1 CD. Most dps rotations in this game do not sync up 100%, but there is almost always repeating patterns in the rotation that is easy enough to make mental notes of. Most of it can done at a glance even in pugs (assuming they aren't hitting buttons at random), and is made significantly easier if it's not a pug and you can communicate with your group.

Furthermore, there needs to be an assumption that there is at least some type of card control to even have this discussion. Most people utilize spread (at least I know I do) to get some form of control over exactly these situations in raids.

I also hate to break it to you, but knowing fight mechanics are also normal. Throwing out cards willy-nilly on CD isn't always the best tactic. If you know there is a semi-random element that will take people out of the fight, it's better to hold the card for a few seconds to make sure the person targeted isn't the one you plan to use the card on.

Feel free to write up all the essays you want, but they will remain wrong if you only look at the buffs in a vacuum.

Edit: I think the root of the problem here is that OP is asking for "normal" in a class where normal doesn't exist. I mean, it's an rng mechanic. Ast requires more knowledge of the specifics of other classes if you want to min/max to this degree. You need to know who benefits from what the most and when, while applying that to real time situations.

If you are not going to min/max than this point is moot, and you just need to know who likely benefits the most from dps cards in general and just use whatever you get when you get it.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

snip

If you have no idea or control over what the others are doing, then how does your "burst" argument hold water?

As for whatever control you mentioned, spread aside, you have no control over any mechanic or transitions. I never mentioned you have no idea when they'll happen - Unlike the other points mentioned before. Spreading cards aside from Balance for that particular transition, for example, is the only control you have. But this comes with even more factors which I will omit for this post. As for the indirect insult from you pointing out that I don't learn fights, I'll overlook that for now.

[Eudyptes]

If you have no idea or control over what the others are doing, then how does your "burst" argument hold water?

What are you talking about? I literally just told you how to have an idea of what others are doing. Understand how x dps class works and pay attention to their buffs. Most dps classes have patterns they abide by, including when it comes to CDs. If you are using spread on balance whenever it's up (specifically to hold for an RR version), you can decide which card to burn as you draw based on an educated guess as to where they are in said pattern (by counting B4B's and/or paying attention to the fight for example).

If you are just going to burn whatever comes up first, or just alternate RR and draw, then this topic is moot cause it doesn't matter which is better at specific times.

As for whatever control you mentioned, spread aside, you have no control over any mechanic or transitions. I never mentioned you have no idea when they'll happen - Unlike the other points mentioned before. Spreading cards aside from Balance for that particular transition, for example, is the only control you have. But this comes with even more factors which I will omit for this post.

You don't have direct control over mechanics, but you do have control over knowing when something is coming and preparing for it. That's actually something I had to learn on nin early so that I didn't have my TA CD sync'd poorly with mechanics.

As for the indirect insult from you pointing out that I don't learn fights, I'll overlook that for now.

I think you're reading far too much into something that was never implied.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

I did split up the list in "do not know" and "do not control"

[Eudyptes]

I did split up the list in "do not know" and "do not control"

My point was that in either case there is enough that you can know that you can plan around it/for it appropriately.

Either way this is, for the most part, an argument where neither of us are right or wrong because trying to define "normal" on an rng system is inherently flawed. The only thing I truly disagree with you about is extended always being more potent than enhanced, as during burst enhanced will give you more bang for your buck. With that said, I did mention back on page 1 that extended will be better more often. So if you absolutely have to choose one or the other to go with all the time, it should be extended.

Well, really it should be expanded 95% of the time.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

I'll just drop this here with a summary and go to bed. I'll let you draw the conclusion here.



Simplified damage to average damage rather than depending on rotation. Used dragoon as base for buffs. Differences on picture are as follows:
With both time buffs
Without b4b: 9.49 DPS difference
With b4b: 1.03 DPS difference

With only Time dilation
Without b4b: 11.07 DPS difference
with b4b: 2.61 DPS difference

Without either
Without b4b: 15.81 DPS difference
with b4b: 7.35 DPS difference

[Roxas_Andrade]

I would never sacrifice an arrow, that's silly.

The OP asked wich effect on Balance is better, I just answered based on that.
(But if you have a melee party, maybe using a spear is better than an arrow, because the arrow would drain TP faster. Even if you use the arrow on yourself, you can get OoM faster too. All cards are situational, you have to adapt yourself to optimize whatever card you draw. If the goal was to improve DPS using Balance - which is the main topic of this thread - and I had a Balance on the spread, I would RR an arrow to throw an extended Balance on a melee fighter. Or would throw the arrow on a caster and balance on the fighter. It always depends on the situation)

[Eudyptes]

I'll just drop this here with a summary and go to bed. I'll let you draw the conclusion here.

So, you notice how the gap gets significantly less when B4B is involved? Now consider that B4B is not the only CD or oGCD skill being used and the gap should not only get closer, but even swap which buff is better. Also consider that not all jobs are created equal, and some will benefit more from enhanced, while others less.

I do agree that most of the time extended is better. I said as much before we even started debating. I just don't agree that it's better "under any circumstances".

[Mercurias]

Situationally dependent, I'd say. On a push or DPS check, I'd use the shorter duration with the higher DPS boost. When you're doing regular DPS to whittle the enemy down, especially if you have to run between groups of mobs, I'd use the longer duration.