4.05 DPS Ranking Expectations

[Genjii]

Take what I'm about to say w/ a grain of salt or whatever, but as someone who has leveled a BLM to 70 and a SAM to 70, I felt like my BLM was definitely punished more in fights. I main SAM because I found it much more fun to play, and typically I can always find a way to DPS the boss. Maybe that's because I think I'm better than your average player? I dunno. I didn't play HW and I didn't play ARR, but as it stands now I feel like Melee isn't punished as much as casters are. Just my 2 cents though.

[CecMiller]

So it's like this atm.

Melee: SAM/NIN> MNK/DRG
Casters: RDM>BLM/SMN
Ranged: BRD>MCH

How rankings should be:

1 - SAM/BLM
2 - MNK
3 - SMN
4 - RDM/NIN
5 - DRG
6 - MCH
7 - BRD

How rankings really are atm:

1 - SAM
2 - RDM
3 - BLM
4 - SMN
5 - NIN/MNK
6 - DRG
7 - BRD
8 - MCH

Your rankings of how things are atm are REALLY off. SMN is bottom 3 and lowest at all percentiles below 70, but rises to 3rd worst with MCH at bottom at higher percentiles. Also there is NO WAY that BRD is doing less dps than DRG atm. BRD is always higher than DRG in the statistics of the 2 EX fights. NIN and MNK are both higher up with MNK 2nd (for the higher percentiles, but usually RDM) and NIN 4th/3rd usually. RDM at most percentiles also had 2nd place. They only really start going down the rankings at 95/99th percentiles to 3rd losing their place to monk.

My statistics for the classes are available from here: https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/15/#dataset=70

Fiddle around with that in the top left corner to get some idea of how certain classes perform at certain percentile/player skill levels (10th being really bad and 90+ being really good)

That said if SMN was just below Monk I'd be fine with that.

Oh wow, some of you are seriously going to argue that casters have equal uptime to melee. Yes, it is true that if you do this mechanic in a certain way with the entire raid co-operating you can make it so that melee have equal uptime with casters. That doesnt invalidate the main point. It is generally true that casters are less punished by mechanics than melee, hence the reason for them generally having higher damage.

Checking your lodestone, it seems that you don't really have you casters levelled past 30 and so have no idea how the classes play. I have my SAM to 70 and RDM/SMN at 70 and I've used them all in EX trials. Where is you evidence that casters are less punished by mechanics than melee? You mentioned uptime, so go look at fflogs and you'll notice that they're within 1-2% of each other and if anything, I see the casters having less uptimes than any other class. I do think BLM should do SAM comparable damage. If you're arguing that melee are more punished than casters with regards to mechanics, answer me this: Why are all the casters bar RDM doing such low dps on EX fights compared to dummies? SMN is bottom 3 and the supposed big hitter of the casters - BLM - is doing less than SAM (by a wide margin), MNK, RDM and NIN (yes even ninja) and only catches up at the 95/99th percentile. I've played SAM in susano and dodging the puddles are SUPER easy and you can gap close back. The uptime of melee dps isnt that different from a caster. I'd recommend you look at some susano logs and if the players are good, they should be within 1-2% of each other at most. There is no reason melee should be doing more DPS than a caster based on the fact that they're "melee". Mechanics effect both equally in general but in certain fights, it can be worse for either the caster or the melee.

You can begin by looking at some of the fastest kills where playerskill is about equal: https://www.fflogs.com/reports/MZ7fQ...pe=damage-done

You'll notice that the casters generally have the lowest uptime (healers cast too but I don't really include them as the uptime is based on dps). You can look at many more logs of equally skilled player and you'll find that the casters, in general, have lower uptime in susano (BLM is probably the worst affected here).

EDIT: Just read up on the responses. Looks like Galvuu got there first. They're completely right.

[Daws]

RDM: mobile ranged class that can heal, raise and buff. They should be near bottom of the pack if YoshiP is true to his words.

When balancing RDM's damage against their utility, I'd separate heal and rez from Embolden (physical dps group buff). Embolden falls in line with other job buffs that don't come at the expense of your personal dps. You just hit that button and pew pew. When a RDM uses their heal and rez utility, however, it comes at a dps loss. So I wouldn't nerf RDM's dps just because they can heal and rez. You know if a RDM in your group is needing to use their heal and rez utility that their dps isn't optimal (not only are they skipping a high damage spell but they didn't charge their balance meter either). It's situational utility also versus Embolden which is just an always "Yes I'm going to absolutely use this on every fight" utility.

[Eyvhokan]

If you stack properly, you can dodge puddles and still attack the boss from left or right. Melee can do damage while moving as well so you dont lose any damage dodging mechanics around bosses. If blm have to stop casting for dodging mechanics, it is more dps loss than that melee have to hit one positional from the wrong side. Now we even have true north for mechanics where you can not hit positionals.

It's swings and roundabouts. Range is handy for starting damage on his cup game (acquire target and immediately start rather than having to run up to it), and if he puts pools around the right cup, melee literally can't get in for a while.

Broadly speaking:

Things that require movement to safe spots (as long as the safespot is near enough to the boss for melee anyway) is disadvantage to cast time casters.

Anything with target switching is inherently disadvantage to melee.

[Ferrasper]

But they haven't really though have they? 2.0 BLM was far more simple, it had very little room for failure within the rotation. 3.0 BLM was a monster. Coupled with Foes, Casters were pretty much the top dps throughout the entirety of alex. Check the logs if you don't believe me. Even with the anti caster meta of 3.4+, casters were still at the top even if FFLogs if full of padding. Casters have always been powerful especially due to how potent foe's was.

I was more or less answering that way because his response was snarky, so my response was being snarky back. If you want my serious answer, as Galvuu and you said 2.0 was boring and simple as hell to do, so I wish we could have done a little more single target in it, but overall I was fine with it. As for 3.0, I honestly wasn't there for most of it because that is when I took a year break from the game because of job related reasons. With 4.0 though, I do strongly believe that we should be doing more then melee because of how short our windows are and how so easily it can get screwed up.

[Eyvhokan]

I was more or less answering that way because his response was snarky, so my response was being snarky back. If you want my serious answer, as Galvuu and you said 2.0 was boring and simple as hell to do, so I wish we could have done a little more single target in it, but overall I was fine with it. As for 3.0, I honestly wasn't there for most of it because that is when I took a year break from the game because of job related reasons. With 4.0 though, I do strongly believe that we should be doing more then melee because of how short our windows are and how so easily it can get screwed up.

I wouldn't say that's inherently a caster thing, it's more job specific.

[AmandaLashaquoa]

I believe its pointless to say whether melee or caster has more or less uptime, but from my experience, playing with every class and main DRK; I HAVE to say that casters have much more downtime, hence why they are so powerful.

If you are casting and are targeted, you must move.
You can be targeted again for another mechanic, you will have to move; Now you've lost a couple seconds doing nothing but running, your DPS was 0 for a couple seconds.

If you're melee in FFXIV, you can do mechanics while dealing DMG, let's take Susano EX as an example:
You have to move away from puddles, do you stop attacking? No, you'll stop for a split second so your character won't tilt, but you'll hit the mob from the side, you'll reposition WHILE dealing dmg.
And now a caster: You are casting, then you're targetted by a puddle. Do you stop attacking? YES you do, you will move out and then you have to reposition, now you've lost DPS, while the melee just had to miss one single cooldown.
Casters not only miss a cast whilst moving for mechanics but while they're moving, they're useless.
Melee can always move a bit to the side, and if you can't do your rotation while moving (if melee) then you have to stop clicking and use your keyboard (or controller).
If you parse, you can clearly see how casters DPS go down during "movey" mechanics, which there are many in this game, how many casters don't die while trying to get that "last spell" out? Too many, which is something that melees don't suffer.

And no, I don't play a caster, I main DRK and I run content as MCH with my Static. (lvling BRD atm cause yeah.)
I am standing with casters here because that's the truth.

[Chronons]

You've never played a caster in your life, I'm assuming.

Or, you know what?
Open fflogs and check the 90% percentile and check dps uptime. And then tell me who comes dead last.
I can't believe I have to type this out.

Just so you know this is called an Argument from Authority, its wrong and a bad argument. If you want to prove someone wrong argue their points not their character. Dont worry, your not the only one who did it.

That being said - I hate to have annoyed you so egregiously. Allow me to clarify a few things in answering your questions.

I dont think it is appropriate for melee to out dps casters "by like 10%". I agree at the end of a raid calc "equivalent" forms of caster and melee should be equal. Meaning I agree, SAM should do as much damage as BLM on somewhere like fflogs. However, I maintain that casters are less punished by mechanics than melee and that is the reason why caster should do marginally less damage than melee. To account for this fact. It could very well be the case that it is unbalanced right now, I never commented on that. Only that the reason for melee generally being higher than casters is the aforementioned opinion. SE seems to agree with me based on their treatment of the two roles thus far.

snip

See above for a bit of debate advice. At least you have a melee lvled. The other poster wanted to hit me with a bat that could inversely be used on them.

I did go look at fflogs after the other poster mentioned it. As you say generally speaking good players fall in a 1-2% distribution as far uptime is concerned. I see some BLMs with more uptime than some SAMs and vice versa. I dont disagree that BLM should be equal to SAM, just in how other posters think it should get there. In all fairness Susano may have been a poor example, I underestimate how critical people in the forums can be. I only brought it up to point out that when a mechanic must be dodged, it is generally true that melee will have a longer time before being able to return to its main rotation than a caster. Of course there are ways to cheese that and likely any example I would have brought up would have been met with a similar response. I think if you looked at the breadth of content in the game it is generally true that casters have more uptime than melee due to mechanics, which is why historically SE has had melee do more damage than casters.

[poffo]

MCH should be top dps

[Ariyn]

I love how people keep refering to fflogs as a basis for dmg rankings. Group comp means more than any single person. I can hold steady at 3.5-3.7k dps as sam solo ... but put me in a group with a nin/rdm/astro and that jumps to 4.5. Using logs to judge anything in an 8man environment is asking for hurt feelings unless you are using the exact same group in multiple tests. Best thing to do is hit a dummy for 5 minutes with an equal ilvl solo if you really want to judge.

RDM and BLM are both up there with SAM and its painfully obvious when you see a good one compared to someone who isnt so good. Hell half the people I see in pug groups crying over dps numbers are people who won't use any decent food, pots, or even go to a site and read up on how to play their class. It's people who want to simply log on and be top of the meters with zero effort. No class can do that. Sam may not be the hardest rotation wise, but it's pretty easy to spot the people who are doing nothing but putting up 3 buffs and using midare. There's a whole lot more than that to the class.

As far as what I expect to see, buffs to MCH, BRD, DRG, SMN (perhaps some QoL stuff too). The rest of the classes really aren't in terrible shape. Also hoping they fix tenacity but think that's just wishful thinking