Interview with xenosys-vex

[Crater]

Balance dictates what, exactly? If war has lower utility than pld their dps should be higher because of balance, as well. That they get there through "burst" windows is just a coincidence of design. At the end of the encounter is what matters, not necessarily how they got there.

No, burst windows are inherently more valuable.

- High burst lets you push phases and skip mechanics, which not only makes fights easier from a mechanical standpoint, but has a tendency to cascade into increased party damage, as your healers no longer have to heal the mechanic you skipped, DPS don't need to accrue downtime to dodge the mechanic, etc.
- High burst is inherently easy to optimize. If a fight has 15 seconds of unavoidable downtime per minute, a tank with high burst is only going to suffer a small penalty to damage as long as they put their burst window outside of those 15 seconds - a tank that deals consistently high damage is going to lose a much higher percentage of their damage to the downtime, and there's nothing they can do about it, because every single second is equally important to them.
- High burst synergizes better with raid buffs: If your burst is 30% better than a competitor class's burst, then Trick Attack, Chain Strategem, Battle Litany, Balance, Hypercharge, etc, are all 30% stronger for you than they are for the other classes.

Balancing damage versus damage, higher burst should always be weighted more heavily than total DPS at the end of a fight. If you and I both do exactly 4,000 DPS at the end of a fight, but I did 4,000 DPS in every single second of that fight, and you did 8,000 DPS every minute in a 20 second window and 2,000 DPS in the remaining 40 seconds, your contribution was more valuable, because you had the ability to heavily contribute to phase skips, add burns, etc, and I did not.


The idea that Warrior has significantly lower utility than PLD is also pretty spurious as well, if that's the basis of an argument that Warrior should be better in both burst damage and total DPS. Divine Veil is far and away PLD's biggest contributor to party utility, and Shake it Off is just as powerful. Past that, Passage of Arms is PLD's second most powerful bit of utility, and considering the DPS loss for using it, it's only situationally helpful (and those situations are pretty much limited to "Unending Coil, and low-iLevel Neo Exdeath"). Warrior's second most powerful bit of utility is being able to generate huge amounts of enmity on a pull while losing almost zero DPS, by using Tomahawk and Equilibrium before immediately dropping into Deliverance. This is useful in every fight in the game.

Once you get past those two big examples of utility for the two respective classes, you're left comparing marginal, fringe benefits, like Intervention (only really useful for shared tankbusters), Cover (which is only ever "utility" in situations like the Neo Exdeath Delta aggro reset, and is otherwise just a mediocre defensive cooldown for PLD), and Tempered Will versus Warrior getting their own personal Slashing debuff for add pickups or party splits, using Defiance for a free 20% buff to a Deployed Adloquium, or using Onslaught's mobility to keep Alte Roite centered during Thin Ice, dealing with numerous knockbacks in Exdeath and Neo Exdeath, etc.

You'd probably have to give the nod to PLD over WAR in the 'practical utility' race, but only by a hair. And considering the relative importance of damage versus utility in the first place, that advantage is peanuts compared to what WAR brings to the table offensively.

[whiskeybravo]

No, burst windows are inherently more valuable.

Unfortunately, this entire line of argumentation can be dismissed for this particular raid tier. There aren't any "phases" to push, fights are 100% scripted. The only mechanics you're skipping are due to a faster clear, and in this regard burst damage is equally valuable as sustained. The only real phase push in current content is in Shinryu, which is pug content at this point. The adds in v3s barely live long enough for more than 1-2 fell cleaves, and the other adds are just used for pad nowadays.

Furthermore, higher burst can not be inherently easier to optimize than sustained. I really can't believe that would be argued. It's much more difficult to line up small burst windows into even smaller raid utility windows. I don't optimize to that high of a level, but Xeno said he uses 9 different rotations based on party comp? How many does his paladin have?

Overall I'm in agreement with you that burst is slightly more valuable than sustained, but you're including caveats in your argument such as the actual structure of the current raids (phase pushing when there are no phases to push) and synergy with raid buffs (party comp dictates performance). Both of these are dependent on the content design and party comp, not inclusive to the job itself.

Well if utility should, like Xeno or Whiskey are claiming, balanced around DPS, DRK should be hand down the best damage dealer out of tanks. However argument against it will come as much as necessary, because no warrior wants to be beaten in damage.

I have no problem with this personally, but myself and I'm sure others agree, just buffing drk dps doesn't solve the problems with drk overall.

[SyzzleSpark]

I have no problem with this personally, but myself and I'm sure others agree, just buffing drk dps doesn't solve the problems with drk overall.

Xeno conveniently left WAR out of the balance equation when talking about DRK, and went on a long tirade about DRK having inferior utility to BOTH tanks, and that low utility should be balanced by higher personal DPS, and then in his closing paragraph on that segment, stated specifically that DRK should deal higher damage than only PLD (omitting WAR from the statement altogether).

If buffing the living hell out of DRK's personal DPS wouldn't solve all of the job's problems, that just explains why Xeno suggested it. He's a self-professed WAR fanboy and it is the only job for which he will demonstrate attention to detail when discussing balance.

For evidence:

The more raid utility a class has, the less solo damage it should do. Because if that’s not the case then you end up in situations like the current one, where Dark Knight is just abysmal. After the Shake it Off change there’s no reason to bring a Dark Knight, because Warrior does more damage and now has better utility.

Paladins have insane amounts of utility, and they still do more damage than Dark Knights. Why would a job that has more utility do more damage than a job that has less utility? That doesn’t make any sense at all.

Paladins have Intervention, Divine Veil, and Cover! Cover is so stupid good it’s insane, and so is Intervention. Sheltron is also busted. The fact that you can block magic now just completely shits on Dark Knights. That literally took away all of their individuality. They were supposed to be the “magic tank”. Why can magic be blocked, but not parried? If you can block it, you should be able to parry it.

Xeno's argument implies that DRK should be at the top in tank DPS. He comes right out and says DRK has less utility than both WAR and PLD.

It also implies that as soon as WAR got its buff to SiO, it lost its argument for getting additional DPS buffs because, sing it with me folks -

The more raid utility a class has, the less solo damage it should do.

Lets take a tally here by Xeno's scoreboard.

Utility:
PLD: 1st
WAR: 2nd
DRK: 3rd

DPS:
PLD: 2nd
WAR: 1st
DRK: 3rd

His logic suggests that to make up for DRK being 3rd in one category, it should be 1st in the other.

Both of the other tanks have more utility than Dark Knight, so Dark Knight needs some potency increases so they can do more damage. That’s all they need. Dark Knight needs to deal more damage than a Paladin, and it needs to be enough more to outweigh the extra healer GCDs that you get by bringing a Paladin.

Here however, he conveniently says that DRK should have more DPS than PLD ONLY. He mysteriously neglects to mention WAR. So, essentially he is saying DRK and PLD should be balanced with eachother, but WAR should bring more DPS than both, while also having more utility than DRK. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? I'm getting severe deja vu here. Oh, right, this is what we had in Heavensward. Isn't that interesting.

I'm sure that Xeno is a talented player and an asset to the PF community. His logic skills however, need some work.

[TouchandFeel]

snip

The problem with his logic is that it is nonobjective and bias-blinders play into what data forms the basis for the proposed arguments.

The interview displays a number of blatantly lop-sided logical arguments where points were very much selectively brought to bear, often to a hyperbolic degree, or just straight up omitted if they didn't reinforce the predetermined argument, not to mention some of the side-by-side comparisons being dubious at best.

Essentially the interview can be boiled down to "PLD has good DPS now and brings good utility, buff Fell Cleave ... oh and DRK sucks ... WAR needs moar deeps!".

As you said, great player who does great things for the community but people need to see his opinions as just that "opinions", which are very much skewed by heavy job preference.

[Aana]

The problem with his logic is that it is nonobjective and bias-blinders play into what data forms the basis for the proposed arguments.

The interview displays a number of blatantly lop-sided logical arguments where points were very much selectively brought to bear, often to a hyperbolic degree, or just straight up omitted if they didn't reinforce the predetermined argument, not to mention some of the side-by-side comparisons being dubious at best.

Essentially the interview can be boiled down to "PLD has good DPS now and brings good utility, buff Fell Cleave ... oh and DRK sucks ... WAR needs moar deeps!".

As you said, great player who does great things for the community but people need to see his opinions as just that "opinions", which are very much skewed by heavy job preference.

Agreed. There are so many posts that are just "(insert idea) needs to happen. Xeno explains why *link*". That's the danger of celebrity 'opinions' they get trotted out like a scientific study when they aren't. They are just players better than you saying things about jobs. Theres no scientific method. Theres no standard applied. But they become battle cries for people who want the same buffs/nerfs as the celebrity player.

This whole idea about Utility vs DPS is a red herring anyway. When in the history of this game did the meta ever take the highest utility tank with lower DPS than the less utility tank? Never that's when. Pld had by far the best utility in HW. It was in the dumpster with low deeps. The community will take the highest DPS combos every time all the time unless the game fundamentally changes. People are only talking about utility now because Pld has 2nd highest DPS and utility. "But I have utility" didn't help the plds when they had low damage for 2 years.

No one cares about utility. The only thing that decides tank comps is raid damage. People took Drk over pld for all of HW because it did more damage MT and War did more damage OT. Pld had more utility and no one gave a crap.

As long as we moved from 2 tanks to 3 utility has NEVER been a factor in choosing tank meta. Only the highest DPS combo.

Utility is a red herring. Make them all do similar damage or there will be a looser. Stop trying to balance with utility as a factor. It doesnt matter.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

When in the history of this game did the meta ever take the highest utility tank with lower DPS than the less utility tank? Never that's when. Pld had by far the best utility in HW.

Did it though? In an expansion where WAR had Storm's Path and DRK had Delirium and Reprisal?

[Crater]

Did it though? In an expansion where WAR had Storm's Path and DRK had Delirium and Reprisal?

Yeah, I don't think that one was true at all. Warrior absolutely ruled the roost in 3.x in terms of utility, between Storm's Path, Storm's Eye, Unchained (or just a Defiance-Equilibrium) for enmity on a pull, being able to boost a Deployment Adlo to 1.44x with Conv+Defiance, and they even had a ton of mobility since Deliverance-Equilibrium gave them enough TP that they could Sprint and not run dry.

3.x Reprisal pretty much went toe-to-toe with Divine Veil in terms of party mitigation tools (another reason it should come back), but then DRK had Delirium, and Plunge for mobility.

PLD's utility basically just boiled down to Divine Veil, which is and always was a really powerful skill, but wasn't enough to carry the class when WAR/DRK had equivalent abilities and non-defensive utility and did better damage. Halone's debuff was more of a personal mitigation tool, Cover never really had any particularly good use cases, and the Shield Bash chain stun was totally outstripped by having oGCD stuns on DRK/WAR. They had a Silence, but unless you ran without a Ninja, Machinist, or Bard in A6S and A8S, that wasn't really good for anything.


You really can't overstate just how badly 3.x stacked the deck in favour of Warrior and against Paladin, in almost every single regard. We don't really know whether a "worst DPS but best utility" tank would get picked for progression, because from 2.1 all the way through to the day before Stormblood launched, the tank with the best DPS also had the best utility, and the tank with the worst DPS always had the worst utility.

[Reynhart]

Pld had by far the best utility in HW.

Not, it didn"t. Having only Divine Veil to reduce the massive amount of magic damage on the raid, and losing its shield entirely for magical tank busters are very deep flaws.

[whiskeybravo]

Here however, he conveniently says that DRK should have more DPS than PLD ONLY. He mysteriously neglects to mention WAR. So, essentially he is saying DRK and PLD should be balanced with eachother, but WAR should bring more DPS than both, while also having more utility than DRK. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? I'm getting severe deja vu here. Oh, right, this is what we had in Heavensward. Isn't that interesting.

Selective quotes are selective.

So Paladin has a lot more utility than Warrior, yet they still do just as much damage as a Warrior. Paladin’s DPS potential is actually a little bit less than Warrior, but if you fuck up even one time on Warrior, then a Paladin will out DPS you, at least in my experience, because Paladins do a lot of damage.

Of the three tanks, I think Paladin should do the least damage, because they have the best utility. Paladin is really fun, and I don’t think it needs a nerf. It’s in a perfect spot right now. I just think that Dark Knight and Warrior should do more damage than Paladin. I know that Warrior can do more, but that’s only if you have a perfect run. A Paladin should not rival a Warrior in damage, not when they have all that utility, as well.

I think that Warrior and Dark Knight both need some potency buffs, especially Dark Knight.

He doesn't outright say it, but if we are going to imply anything it should be that since he thinks drk only needs potency buffs and that's it, that he'd be OK with it doing more dps than war because it has less utility.

Essentially the interview can be boiled down to "PLD has good DPS now and brings good utility, buff Fell Cleave ... oh and DRK sucks ... WAR needs moar deeps!".

Again, not really. He's suggesting that there be less emphasis on Fell Cleave damage:

A way to adjust Warrior damage without buffing Fell Cleave would be to actually lower the potency of Fell Cleave and buff the three core combos, instead. That would distribute the damage output more evenly across the entire rotation, and Warrior DPS would no longer be so dependant on Fell Cleave crit RNG, because that one move would no longer be responsible for such a huge portion of your total damage.

The only real inconsistency is that prior to this statement he also says he thinks fell cleave should do more damage, which is kind of opposite of his more detailed suggestion here. While it could be interpreted as lop-sided logic, I'd lean more toward fell cleave buff comment being more of a reactionary/headline grabbing type statement which he's known for, while the more detailed suggestion is something that actually required a fair amount of thought or discussion.

- High burst lets you push phases and skip mechanics, which not only makes fights easier from a mechanical standpoint, but has a tendency to cascade into increased party damage, as your healers no longer have to heal the mechanic you skipped, DPS don't need to accrue downtime to dodge the mechanic, etc.

I'd also like to just add, phase pushes aren't always a good thing. T7 and T7 savage say "Hi"

[TouchandFeel]

Again, not really. He's suggesting that there be less emphasis on Fell Cleave damage:

The only real inconsistency is that prior to this statement he also says he thinks fell cleave should do more damage, which is kind of opposite of his more detailed suggestion here. While it could be interpreted as lop-sided logic, I'd lean more toward fell cleave buff comment more of a reactionary/headline grabbing type statement which he's known for, while the more detailed suggestion is something that actually required a fair amount of thought or discussion.

This is what he said, copy/pasted straight from the article. It is a direct argument for a buff to Fell Cleave damage with the logic that because other classes got big hard hitting abilities, Fell Cleave is no longer "Fell Cleavey" enough and other abilities are stealing it's thunder.

I think that Fell Cleave should do more damage. Five hundred potency is not a lot anymore. It’s just not. People call me a fucking retard, and say “why would you buff Fell Cleave, it’s so powerful” and it’s kind of not. Not when fucking AST has a five hundred potency ability. Every job in the game has a five hundred potency ability, it seems. It was crazy in Heavensward, but not anymore. Paladins have a ranged ability that hits almost as hard as a Fell Cleave now. That means that they can move away to do mechanics and still get their Fell Cleaves in. I wish I could do a fucking Inner Release window from halfway across the room!

Yes, he then argues that WAR is too burst dependent and says that an alternative to Fell Cleave buffs is to boost combo ability potencies.

He provided contradicting arguments that only agree on one thing, "WAR needs moar deeps!", which lines up with my satirical summation of the interview.

Really I feel his position is actually based less on objective concerns over balance and more about wanting to not feel diminished in WAR feeling like, as Xeno himself likes to put it, the "big dick" job.