4.11+ DRK Suggestions/Balance Changes from a "Hardcore" Player

[Lyth]

I think you misunderstood. It's a question of how you represent your data. If the top dps job (lets say SAM) does 5800 on a fight, then one point on the normalised scale is worth about 60 dps. If the top dps job at a different percentile (let's say MNK) does 1800, then one point on the normalised scale is worth about 18 dps. So even if you look at the same fight, on the same tier, the normalisation scale varies based off of percentile. In fact, the normalisation of each job varies with percentile, so it's actually meaningless to say "job X has a score of Y". Does a 3 point difference represent 54 dps, or does it represent 180 dps? It depends on the percentile. If you can't even use normalised values to assess a single job, on a single fight (because it varies with percentile and the top dps done by any job at that percentile), then imagine trying to compare two different jobs, in two different tiers, in two different expansions. Good luck with that.

As far as speedkills go, some players just have their preferences, either because they really like a given job, or because they have invested a lot of time training on it. Even in HW, you could outplay a more powerful job if you wanted to with tighter uptime and overall better play. I'm not asking who the twenty best players are. But that doesn't mean that the right player on the right job couldn't push those numbers even further. The problem that I'm seeing is that there's enough of a difference at the moment that more good players are starting to switch off of DRK because of the incentives than the ones sticking to their guns (or greatswords, as it were.)

[Zykor]

I think you misunderstood...

You're right, I did, because I assumed you knew what you were talking about. The actual DPS count does not matter in the slightest when comparing classes of different expansions to see if balance is better or worse. If in patch 7.0 pld could do 77k dps and the drk could do 78k dps, that would be a difference of 1000 DPS, and if we have them both be identical in terms of percentage score, that would make them completely balanced despite the large "disparity" of 1k dps in this expansion. It's why we use percentages.

When ranking based off the highest dps, if warrior does 68% of that in both creator and delta, we can go ahead and assume that warrior is the standard and use that to determine how close the other tanks are.

Go a step further and actually see how the other tanks compare if warrior was 100% on the DPS scale, and you find that DRK is 96% of a warrior's DPS and PLD is 86.6% of a warrior's DPS as of creator, and in SB pld is 98% of a warrior's dps and drk is 94% of that same warrior.

[Lyth]

Again, it's not relative to one number. If it was, then it wouldn't make a difference. The scale itself depends on both the fight as well as the specific percentile that you are looking at. You can cherry pick whichever percentile you like, and your 3 normalised points means something completely different. The normalisation process is percentile and fight specific, and it changes the scale. There is no point in comparing two different numbers under two different normalisation processes.

[Zykor]

Again, it's not relative to one number...

Then let's use every savage fight in creator and SB, assuming a 95 percentile skill level, since you don't want to use the average of all of them combined into one meaningless statistical number.

A9S
Drk: 97%
Pld: 82.8%

A10S
Drk: 97%
Pld: 88.2%

A11S
Drk: 100% (warrior is actually 99% here)
Pld: 93%

A12
Drk: 98%
Pld: 86.9%

See a trend? Now here's Delta:

O1S
Pld: 98%
Drk: 92.7%

O2S
Pld: 100% (tied with warrior)
Drk: 92.7%

O3S
Pld: 96%
Drk: 94.3%

Neo
Pld: 97%
Drk: 95.2%


These are the fights people are concerned with when discussing that drks are the weakest. All of these numbers are in comparison each tank's performance in each savage fight in comparison to who performs the best. These are the numbers that matter. It gets averaged into what I had listed in my earlier post, but since you wanted to see every individual fight... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Kabooa]

These are the fights people are concerned with when discussing that drks are the weakest. All of these numbers are in comparison each tank's performance in each savage fight in comparison to who performs the best. These are the numbers that matter. It gets averaged into what I had listed in my earlier post, but since you wanted to see every individual fight... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Wouldn't it be more accurate to use Alexander 1-4?

Fact of the matter is that expansions are pretty hard resets, and even though Omega is 'level 70' content compared to 60, Omega 1-4 is still entry tier and thus should be compared to Alexander 1-4.

[Zykor]

Wouldn't it be more accurate to use Alexander 1-4?

Fact of the matter is that expansions are pretty hard resets, and even though Omega is 'level 70' content compared to 60, Omega 1-4 is still entry tier and thus should be compared to Alexander 1-4.

No. When discussing balance we used what the balance was before the brand new changes. Therefore we use the known creator balance in comparison to the current balance we have now that is being used as a complaint. Besides, paladins were far far far far worse in Gordias that it shouldn't even be a discussion, because of the buffs they received throughout the expansion (shield swipe going oGCD and etc). In Gordias they were in an extremely pitiful state.

EDIT: You might be onto something actually, maybe SE is using ARR 2.0 for tank balance and still see warriors being the unwanted child, and that's why every warrior change gets addressed quickly o.o

[Syrellaris]

In FF XIV, dps is king. Maybe it should be not, but it is.

Again, that is the problem of the game. People got so accustomed to it, they don't want anything else or cannot see anything else. There's plenty of MMO's around that use plainly DPS as the key factor, luckily there is also some that rely on dps but did not make it the key factor in every fight. Some fights can be extremely mechanic heavy for example. Try to think outside of a box for a change, but because players don't, developers don;t either. They rather stick with tried and tested(while boring) methods that work.

And no, in my example DRK isn't useless. All 3 tanks can easily MT bosses in raids, they just bring different things to the table. But that is why this is a forum, people can express idea's and opinions as they see fit. You don't always have to agree with them.

[Valdegarde]

What would interest me more is seeing relative DPS per damage taken. Harder to quantify due to the existence of off-tanking and main tanking uptime, but that's what matters most in terms of tank balance I think. Just DPS alone is not telling the whole story.

[Shinkyo]

And no, in my example DRK isn't useless. All 3 tanks can easily MT bosses in raids, they just bring different things to the table.

DRK is certainly viable and only marginally suboptimal. The problem is that they don't bring anything the other tanks don't do better.

[Lyth]

...

It's an improvement. Let's take a look at what the absolute values correspond to.

A9S:
PLD: -272
DRK: -79

A10S:
PLD: -230
DRK: -59

A11S:
PLD: -99
DRK: +9

A12S:
PLD: -224
DRK: -26

O1S:
PLD: -67
DRK: -287

O2S:
PLD: +1
DRK: -202

O3S:
PLD: -138
DRK: -202

O4S (Exdeath):
PLD: -82
DRK: -153

O4S (Neo):
PLD: -118
DRK: -230

You can make arguments either way on which is more significant. There is some hidden nuance to this as well. A9S and A12S both have lots of adds which can be used to pad your dps, which generally favours DRK. This tier has relatively fewer adds. It also doesn't tell the story of what is happening defensively. There are a lot of fights in HW where DRK offers higher dps, although at a defensive disadvantage. A7S is a very clear example of this, where PLD was widely preferred in prog, but DRK was preferred for speedruns. There are some fights where PLD is at a disadvantage at both, like A12S, which affects pick rates.

Either way, there's only one running theme in common. PLD and DRK are fighting over scraps.

Let's take a look at usage rates for a second.

Usage Rates:
A9S:
PLD: 2404 (27% of total)
DRK: 2162 (25% of total)

A10S:
PLD: 2019 (25% of total)
DRK: 1947 (26% of total)

A11S:
PLD: 1520 (24% of total)
DRK: 1658 (26% of total)

A12S:
PLD: 485 (10% of total)
DRK: 1900 (40% of total)

O1S:
PLD: 6494 (42% of total)
DRK: 3655 (23% of total)

O2S:
PLD: 6065 (42% of total)
DRK: 3408 (24% of total)

O3S:
PLD: 5294 (42% of total)
DRK: 2927 (23% of total)

O4S (Exdeath):
PLD: 6447 (43% of total)
DRK: 3357 (23% of total)

O4S (Neo):
PLD: 3659 (44% of total)
DRK: 1906 (23% of total)

Here's something interesting. While PLD had a relative disadvantage in terms of DPS in HW, pick rates were similar outside of fights where PLD was at a double disadvantage (i.e. A12S). In some cases, PLD had higher pick rates. Fast forward to SB, and there's a consistent gap. That's because DRK is generally at a disadvantage at all areas. You're putting in more effort for less, regardless of whether the fight is physical or magical.

Just as a bonus:

Shinryu:
PLD: -258 (90%), 10411 runs (44% of total)
DRK: -325 (88%), 4976 runs (21% of total)

My concern isn't about who suffered the most historically. My concern is about the impact of balance decisions on present pick rates. That's why I take issue with the way that you chose to represent your data.