DPS mentality in MMOs

[Shurrikhan]

... you literally quoted my pose where I explicitly say, "Even if it wasn't a pure support job but one which heavily favored it. The same argument applies. People will prioritize having a job that buffs their numbers."

Did you just... not read the second paragraph? Regardless, now you're arguing what is essentially "feels-craft." Gameplay doesn't outweigh anything when it comes to Savage. There's a reason Samurai spent a huge portion of the expansion being told "play Dragoon or Ninja." What you're advocating for is a more support oriented job even if it can still deal damage. Like I already, my prior argument still applies. People aren't going to care. The job will either inevitably become mandatory for FFlog chases or be deemed useless and ostracized. There needs to be a balance between good gameplay and pDPS/rDPS. A job can feel absolutely amazing to play, but if it doesn't contribute enough to compensate for its counterparts, people aren't going to bring it.

The closest equivalent to a support based job you will ever see in FFXIV is Bard—a job that is functionally a DPS but has support abilities baked in.

Did you not read my second point? People will prioritize having jobs that buff their numbers only if and when they are concerned with pDPS, not tDPS. If fflogs simply used tDPS percentiles, the issue would be gone, because your numbers would be how much you actually contribute, not how much contribution you can receive. Or, lo and behold, people could just put the fflogs link into another site like xivrdps to see what their actual contribution was.

Further:

What a job feels like is the reason for a job to exist. If feels just like any other, why have it at all? The comparative power already exists, so why add another option? Why have multiple forms of the exact same thing? That is not to say that all jobs are the same now for lacking a support role -- far from it -- but if their feel was ubiquitous, the game would lose out for it, and providing something that feels new and different is the stated goal for job design.

In-practice exceeds everything in Savage? Sure. But, why stop there. It does, truly, in all content with any semblance of difficulty or from which throughput would have even a hobby-like reason to be measured. But what you are arguing is not throughput at this point. You have not been arguing for balance. SAM was undertuned, purely and simply. 3.4 AST outperformed WHM, purely and simply. It does not matter that WHM was sufficient; it mattered that AST was optimal. No one has argued that a job's worth is based on how it feels. I don't know how you even managed to stretch your strawman so many which ways to connect that here. The only instance I have mentioned feeling is in "what makes a support a support" to which I answered when it feels like a support, which comes more from how it acts than just that it's a rDPS battery.

You've argued that because a support job gives other people bigger numbers (at the cost to their own), making their percentages higher even without changing the clear speed whatsoever, then they will be obligatory. That, again, is only true if people are looking at the wrong numbers. pDPS is not a measure of one's performance. We know this. We've shouted this at each other since early HW. And yet we also know that by now jobs of high percentages of indirect contribution are not necessarily more powerful. So what is the difference? This "inherent imbalance" disappears the moment you look at how much you actually contribute, on something like xivrdps.com, rather than just personal damage, via fflogs.com alone -- the real contribution, rather than one facet of it.

Balance is possible. Looking at the tDPS of speedruns right now we seen incredibly tight balance with even SAM able to compete strongly when played very well (just not as a direct competitor with BLM in any but perhaps one fight). So why assume that a job of slightly higher rDPS percentage than the rest (still less than a fifth of total contribution) is the absolute limit? rDPS contribution percentile range has increased with time and yet we're seeing some of the tightest tDPS balance to date. How does that hint at a theoretical maximum of exactly what we already have?

Again, no one is arguing that a job is redeemed by how it feels. If we could have a job sit just sit there and outperform everyone else through rDPS, we would take it. No one is arguing that.

But something is most likely to be called a support when it feels like a support. A support job offers the most it can to a game -- according to the dev's own consideration -- when it does something that uniquely feels like support. And feeling like a support has more going on than just having x% of its tDPS being dealt through rDPS. Which is why, frankly, you don't need a "pure" or 0 pDPS support to feel like a support. And while Bard is almost certainly not the limit of how much % rDPS a job can put out, you could manage to feel like a support even with that little -- albeit probably just barely.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Did you not read my second point? People will prioritize having jobs that buff their numbers only if and when they are concerned with pDPS, not tDPS. If fflogs simply used tDPS percentiles, the issue would be gone, because your numbers would be how much you actually contribute, not how much contribution you can receive.

Now you're arguing a what if. FFlogs has followed the same structure for five years—only once deviating when Balance got out of hand. They aren't going to abruptly prioritize rDPS. So what you're purposing is a moot point. Furthermore, even if they did, there will still be a pDPS category. Therefore, we're back to the same position we're currently. Simply put, you're wanting both FFlogs and ACT to change which aspect of damage they focus on. While it could happen, the likelihood at this point is slim. And it still won't change the fact people will prefer a job that buffs their personal numbers.

snip

Do you even follow FFlogs? Again, you're arguing a what if yet accusing me of strawman-ing? Please. You can scream until your turn blue, people aren't going to suddenly change focus because you're telling them to care more about rDPS. They should, yes. And to a point people do—insomuch it doesn't impact the raid too significantly. 3.4 AST didn't outperform WHM as a healer. It simply brought 10% aoe Balance and did an efficient enough job to compensate. Guess what? People wanted that extra balance so much WHMs were getting locked out of parties. What you're failing to understand is even with a rDPS focused FFlogs, there will still be a pDPS category. And if a hypothetical support job offers as much damage through rDPS as a dedicated damage dealer. The support job will always be chosen because why not? You get equal party contribution and pad your personal numbers.

Put simply, let's pretend Dancer were a true support DPS. Very low pDPS (enough to handle the MSQ and whatnot though) but extremely high rDPS—enough its overall contributions were similar to BRD or SMN. Why are you going to bring a SMN? This hypothetical DNC offers the same rDPS while buffing everyone's pDPS. You lose nothing and only gain a prettier page on FFlogs. That will always come out ahead in the raid scene where you agree with it or not.

[Shurrikhan]

Now you're arguing a what if. FFlogs has followed the same structure for five years—only once deviating when Balance got out of hand. They aren't going to abruptly prioritize rDPS. So what you're purposing is a moot point.

It's a discussion of context that should be had regardless if xiv wants any real freedom of job development. If you had that kind of data inaccuracy in any other undertaking, you wouldn't just proceed onward denying half of your possibilities because they don't mesh well with those flaws. You certainly wouldn't claim a theoretical impossibility just because you refuse to get your measurements right. You would fix it.

Your argument is that every possible use of rDPS ranging beyond the roughly 16% of Bard is impossible purely because people the currently most popularly accessed site values only pDPS. Yet xivrdps has been up for less than two years and already sees substantial use, has continues to see more links here and, say, after each optimized clear or in discussing whether a job swap for next tier would be reasonable, over the course of this expansion. A site has reason to change when it is given pressure, by competition or otherwise. But neither does it have to change for this singular issue to become a nonissue. Almost no one on fflogs is unaware that rDPS is important. Until 4.4 even grey parsing players would commonly restrict PFs to meta jobs. But you think it's somehow more tenable that all future expansions of the game hard cap design in order to suit one particular form of analytical stupidity than that additional xiv players might also start looking at a better site, despite it already seeing steadily increased usage?

Option 1: The current trend continues and statics increasingly look at the actual contributions of their jobs. When linking one's best parses, the recipient tosses them through xivrdps.com, tested against the job-specific Player Damage rankings for the same fight, now sorted through xivrdps.com by tDPS instead, thus seeing your actual performance. You or no longer typically refused entry to a given static just because your last static outperformed your next by using a SAM, BLM, or Monk instead of further padding your damage. The game is free to design jobs in whatever way creates new and enjoyable designs, regardless of rDPS percentiles. Eventually, for convenience sake, fflogs might even include an embedded query API which allows you to quickly request information from xivrdps.com in order to see your actual contribution, or offers its own form.

Option 2: The trend towards considering actual contribution dies outside of vague rumors of meta performance, xivrdps.com usage died even while fflogs becomes more emphatically required, players only ever judge others by how padded their parses were, BLMs, SAMs, and Monks roll back towards and beyond previous levels of exclusion, and SE is forced to avoid creating anything outside of the 12% to 16% rDPS range.

That second one honestly seems more likely to you?

You are literally advocating that SE pander to an issue that may well be a nonissue by the time 5.0's Savage tier is released due to access to better systems of measurement, at cost to any freedom of job design outside of a narrow rDPS bracket. No more than Bard's rDPS. Period. Why? Because people only care about numbers, meaning BLM, Monk, and SAM are already screwed.

Furthermore, even if they did, there will still be a pDPS category.

Not insofar as performance is concerned. The difference between pDPS and rDPS is purely that one scales with party size and the other does not. It makes zero difference to your clear time whether contribution is provided directly through your own damage or as a tack-on effect deal with others' damage -- it's still your contribution.

Therefore, we're back to the same position we're currently.

Which is what, in your eyes? I see a trend whereby people are finally getting out of the above delusion. The highest DPS parties (not just individual players) are no longer meta parties. They might not have the highest fflogs percentiles but they have the fastest clear speeds. People are increasingly seeing the discrepancy. BLM, Monk, RDM, and even SAM are among top the speedruns in at least one fight each, with minimal tDPS gaps. Balance hasn't been better and those who aren't just looking to pad their percentiles are reaping the benefits.

Simply put, you're wanting both FFlogs and ACT to change which aspect of damage they focus on.

Nope. Control-F "ACT". Not one mention.

Now, do I think fflogs would be far more intuitive if it measured how a player contributed to his party instead of just his pDPS + rDPS received so that we had the actual relevant information for choosing between two people or jobs? Yes. But neither do I think it's necessary. But if you look at the changes made to the site fflogs is directly copied from, warcraftlogs, it would be by no means out of question for an API to be slipped in to provide xivrdps's services bundled within the normal fflogs framework.

And it still won't change the fact people will prefer a job that buffs their personal numbers.

Except it... absolutely would. When your numbers are your actual contribution, it doesn't increase one single damage point with what was given to you, only what you gave to your party. So... what possible reason would one have to prefer a job that buffs their personal damage numbers. SAM and BLM wouldn't care what their comps are, percentile-wise, and high-rDPS jobs would simply be looking to get into the best party they can, who can better exploit the bonuses those high-rDPS jobs give.

Again, you're arguing a what if yet accusing me of strawman-ing?

You did just go on a segment about something I've never once mentioned, so yes. (Well, I guess now there's two things.)

The support job will always be chosen because why not? You get equal party contribution and pad your personal numbers.

Right now, if your static leader does not know how to use xivrdps.com and is unaware of how rDPS works despite being picky about who he or she is taking or you are forming a party in the primary interest of impressing such a static leader then you are correct.

That's an incredibly narrow and temporary issue.

It is not something that you prevent all job designs outside of a narrow band of %rDPS for.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Your argument is that every possible use of rDPS ranging beyond the roughly 16% of Bard is impossible purely because people the currently most popularly accessed site values only pDPS.

No.

My argument is a job which primarily increases pDPS without negatively impacting rDPS will instantly become mandatory. You're arguing a strawman at this point. I neither said xivrdps wasn't relevant nor that groups didn't look at it. In fact, I even gave you a specific example. Say Dancer offered the exact same overall contribution of SMN—i.e. their rDPS is identical. However, because DNC achieves this through increasing one's pDPS. What motivation do people have not to bring this job? Xivrdps doesn't matter in this scenario because, like I said, this hypothetical DNC contributes the same thing a SMN would in another group. It simply has the added caveat of making your FFlogs' page look better. It will be favored immensely.

And in the reverse scenario—where Dancer cannot offered enough rDPS to supplant SMN/BLM/BRD/DRG or whatever. Why would anyone bring it except in a pad run? This is what results in a the binary with support focused jobs. They either aren't good enough or too good. Hence why SE adopted the method they have where support jobs like RDM and BRD tend to contribute a fairly significant amount of pDPS, and function more as typical DPS with some support abilities.

Which is what, in your eyes? I see a trend whereby people are finally getting out of the above delusion. The highest DPS parties (not just individual players) are no longer meta parties. They might not have the highest fflogs percentiles but they have the fastest clear speeds. People are increasingly seeing the discrepancy. BLM, Monk, RDM, and even SAM are among top the speedruns in at least one fight each, with minimal tDPS gaps. Balance hasn't been better and those who aren't just looking to pad their percentiles are reaping the benefits.

Really? Because I looked at the top twenty five speed kills for Chaos, Middy and Final Omega. You what I didn't see? A single Samurai in any one of them. I saw only one RDM. In fact, the only job that saw some love was BLM. But even it lost out to the overwhelming dominance of DRG, NIN, BRD and SMN.

So... either you're ignorant to the speed kill meta or you're flat out lying.

Nope. Control-F "ACT". Not one mention.

Don't be obtuse. If you have any understanding of FFlogs, you know it uses ACT as its data source. Therefore, both would have to adopt a rDPS focus otherwise you'll end up with a rDPS and pDPS category. Which would be a good thing, honestly. Except now we're back to the aforementioned argument

Except it... absolutely would. When your numbers are your actual contribution, it doesn't increase one single damage point with what was given to you, only what you gave to your party. So... what possible reason would one have to prefer a job that buffs their personal damage numbers. SAM and BLM wouldn't care what their comps are, percentile-wise, and high-rDPS jobs would simply be looking to get into the best party they can, who can better exploit the bonuses those high-rDPS jobs give.

Essentially, you're not only demanding FFlogs focus on rDPS, but do so exclusively. That simply isn't going to happen. And it's pointless to argue about because there is no right or wrong answer. It's a what if scenario where you determine the rules. It could happen, but any number of things could also happen. The likelihood they completely remove pDPS as a category is next to zero.

Edit: And none of this begins to cover whether a support heavy job would attract enough interest to make it a worthwhile endeavor.

[Dzian]

That is true however we have all seen where the holy trinity is broken and everyone is a dps type of MMO fails ( cough cough Guild Wars 2 cough).

But in all seriousness people like to see big damage numbers. Even in games that dont have designated roles, there are things required to support the party as MMOs inspire people to work together.

In many of the older mmos seeing small damage numbers was just as satisfying for many players at least for tank side of it. seeing that massively powerful hit come at you hard and you basically just stand there and dust off your jacket like it was absolutely nothing gave you an immense sense of power and in some ways made you feel untouchable or even invincible.

something i've said a few times before as well is i think games have become so dumbed down and simplified that tanking and healing have both become incredibly bland and boring. in the case of 14 for example tanking is so dull boring and predictable its no wonder so many players hate it. encounters and bosses are so heavily scripted and static that tanking is 95% just stand still and be ready to press your rampart button for the tank buster coming in exactly 46 seconds... or be ready for the other tank to voke and take over in exactly 83 seconds when the boss will put some arbitrary vulnerability on you.. at which point you then just need to ready to voke 120 seconds later when the boss puts that arbitrary debuff on him. it's bland it's predictable and it's incredibly boring.

healing is much the same be ready to toss out a big heal on the tank in exactly 38 seconds followed by that raid wide heal in 52 seconds. and then just let some regen effect top the party off till the next big damage comes along in exactly 112 seconds from now..
it's just dull bland and boring when everything is so predictable It's really no wonder people don't enjoy it anymore.. it's like watching a movie when the guy next to you keeps telling you whats going to happen next. completely ruins the whole experience.

it's why quite a few of my friends over the years and I just dont play tank anymore. boring predictable and just uninteresting. "oh look a tank buster how unexpected" said noone ever...

dps is marginally better because you can at least get a little variety in exactly which dps a mechanic might target even if you can still it happening on someone to the exact second..

[Shurrikhan]

My argument is a job which primarily increases pDPS without negatively impacting rDPS will instantly become mandatory. You're arguing a strawman at this point. I neither said xivrdps wasn't relevant nor that groups didn't look at it.

When your entire argument -- that further rDPS jobs are impossible to design -- depends on people using pDPS measurements and personal comparisons obsessively enough to exclude all jobs not of highest possible %rDPS yet use pDPS measurement exclusively, it is not strawman to note that -- by your logic -- information such as that provided by xivrdps.com, or any other measurement of actual (tDPS) contribution, is irrelevant. If one's actual contribution beyond pDPS is irrelevant to player decision-making, then so must be information that notes anything more than pDPS. Unless all you've given thus far was an unrelated rant, rather than your warrant, addressing said warrant is not a strawman.

Don't be obtuse. If you have any understanding of FFlogs, you know it uses ACT as its data source. Therefore, both would have to adopt a rDPS focus otherwise you'll end up with a rDPS and pDPS category.

Then I guess you're just... acutely mistaken? Do you have any understanding of tDPS calculation? It doesn't use a separate kind of parsing. It uses the exact same ACT data we already gather now, which is why it can be gleaned directly from any fflogs post. ACT would not have to be newly adjusted for fflogs to provide more intuitive or relevant data.

rDPS is found through area under the curve -- how much affected damage was dealt during the given buff? In a tDPS measurement, all external buffs received are "undone" and their contribution awarded instead to the buffs' appliers rather than the buffs' recipients. Again, pDPS + rDPS given - rDPS received = tDPS = your actual total contribution. Simple as that. It already works within a few seconds' calculation from precisely the fflogs data. It requires only the exact same parsing we already do. It is not new. It is not different. It's what we already have, and the calculations can be done automatically for you. It just takes a second site at present where fflogs could insert an API, much like for warcraftlogs (from which fflogs is a direct copy) plugin on WoW. They did that upon user requests in a couple weeks.

Because I looked at the top twenty five speed kills for Chaos, Middy and Final Omega. I saw only one RDM.

You realize there are 2 RDM top-20 speedkills on Chaos alone, right? Did you perhaps check... 5 out of every 20? 10 if unlucky?

You what I didn't see? A single Samurai in any one of them.

And I can't at all imagine why SAM is seeing less use than its usual direct competitor, BLM, on those three melee-disruptive fights... Take the one fight that actually gives casters a bit of trouble though, and SAM is each of the top 3 speedkills.

So... either you're ignorant to the speed kill meta or you're flat out lying.

It previously had exactly two forms, DRG NIN MCH BRD or DRG NIN SMN BRD. (That shit was true for much of Heavensward as well until BLM finally started outscaling SMN in low-motion fights.) Now we also see BLM and MNK as frequently included members. Not one job is utterly absent from a top place speedrun parse if you're not cherrypicking. (I'll take the continuous uptime turret fight and the one that disporportionately affects melee and -oh- would you look at that, no SAMs and the super mobile ranged meta comp is still in full swing!) That is an improvement, both over SB thus far and most of Heavensward.

Essentially, you're not only demanding FFlogs focus on rDPS, but do so exclusively. That simply isn't going to happen.

No, I'm not demanding it. But it is the objectively better measurement. You yourself have said as much in other threads in discussing why meta compositions exist. We take a job for the combination of its own damage and what it gives to others, not its own damage and how much more damage it can get from others.

You've asked that SE never consider creating a support class. Your arguments thus far have been

1. A support class would require a high(er) percentage of their contribution to be dealt through indirect means.
2. Players are blind to all but their pDPS and thus will exclude any job that does not maximally pad their numbers. (BLM and MNK are clearly just flukes and people will soon return to their (non)senses.)
3. Because players only care about their pDPS, any new rDPS-heavy job will be obligatory, excluding any non-duplicate job with lesser rDPS percentage. (Except that we already see this not happening with BLM and MNK.)
4. rDPS cannot be measured by the existent means and thus any effort to convenience the playerbase as to break these faulty assumption and community-driven limitations would take too much development time on the parts of third-party information providers to be at all likely. (Except, the current means already do exactly that. It's just on a different site, from which the same data is reread in a more relevant/accurate/useful form.)

Which is, again, to throw out the baby with the bath water -- no different than to ask that SE never make (another) DoT job during the brief time in early ARR in which SMNs were considered underpowered or overpowered because the parsers didn't yet know how to correctly measure DoT damage. It's a likely temporary third-party issue. You don't go on to forbid entire design aspects over it.

Supports? Never. People might get the wrong idea and feel obliged to play them on the faulty assumption that it'll improve their team's performance or because it'll make them look better at a glance to people suffering from that faulty assumption. Better to just cut that whole aspect of design possibilities for this and all future expansions than let people realize for themselves that indirect contribution works both ways (what benefits you receive, rather than give, are actually someone else's contribution).

Edit:

Edit: And none of this begins to cover whether a support heavy job would attract enough interest to make it a worthwhile endeavor.

Now, that's an altogether different discussion, but I can briefly sketch out some of my own vague ideas and others I've seen about these forums if you like. I'll just say for now that I don't find it devoid of potential. And while I can't rightly ask for details as to why you might think it a barren field, so to speak -- as, you do seem to be rather pessimistic towards what gameplay it could potentially provide -- as empty is empty and nondescript is... hard to describe, I'd be curious as to what you think would limit it from an actual gameplay standpoint.

Admittedly, I do think it'd have a ton more potential given other changes (that have nothing directly to do with the community, let alone the third-party information or ranking systems behind it), or at least more challenging content types in order to offer more than just having to switch buff placement before who can do more throughput in that exact moment as a result of the buff (e.g. who gives you the most rDPS). But I think it could be decently fun and unique even within the current limitations.

[Adrestia]

Shurrikhan are you the owner of xivrdps? You seem to mention it literally every opportunity you get, I don’t see anyone else talking about it, and you consistently include the “.com” whereas you don’t for fflogs.

[Dualgunner]

Shurrikhan are you the owner of xivrdps? You seem to mention it literally every opportunity you get, I don’t see anyone else talking about it, and you consistently include the “.com” whereas you don’t for fflogs.

FFLogs was created by "Blackcat Ofillomen of Gilgamesh" according to the site itself at the bottom. And it's worth mentioning in this discussion, I think.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

When your entire argument -- that further rDPS jobs are impossible to design -- depends on people using pDPS measurements and personal comparisons obsessively enough to exclude all jobs not of highest possible %rDPS yet use pDPS measurement exclusively, it is not strawman to note that -- by your logic -- information such as that provided by xivrdps.com, or any other measurement of actual (tDPS) contribution, is irrelevant. If one's actual contribution beyond pDPS is irrelevant to player decision-making, then so must be information that notes anything more than pDPS. Unless all you've given thus far was an unrelated rant, rather than your warrant, addressing said warrant is not a strawman.

I never said rDPS jobs are impossible otherwise Bard wouldn't exist. I said that is roughly where the line will be drawn in terms of support in this game because people heavily focus on both their own pDPS and rDPS. You keep trying to insist pDPS will abruptly become irrelevant, which is you making an assumption the entire playerbase will abandon pDPS. Could it happen? Maybe. But that is a massive shift—one SE isn't going to bank on because in the event it doesn't happen. They'll have released a job with a lot of backlash one way or another. The shift in mindset will have to occur first, if it ever does.

Then I guess you're just... acutely mistaken? Do you have any understanding of tDPS calculation? It doesn't use a separate kind of parsing. It uses the exact same ACT data we already gather now, which is why it can be gleaned directly from any fflogs post. ACT would not have to be newly adjusted for fflogs to provide more intuitive or relevant data.

And what site do people focus on more? FFlogs. You can prattle on how much better xivrdps is, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but the fact remains people still focus on FFlogs and their personal numbers. At best, xivrdps is a companion site used on the side. Therefore, for FFlogs to account for rDPS both it and ACT will need to show that information in a separate category when neither do. Now to be fair, I think they should but it won't happen with the exclusion of pDPS.

You realize there are 2 RDM top-20 speedkills on Chaos alone, right? Did you perhaps check... 5 out of every 20? 10 if unlucky?

So... 2/25 is your definition of RDM getting into the speed kill meta? You're grasping at some serious straws...

And I can't at all imagine why SAM is seeing less use than its usual direct competitor, BLM, on those three melee-disruptive fights... Take the one fight that actually gives casters a bit of trouble though, and SAM is each of the top 3 speedkills.

M/F is the only fight where SAM comes anywhere close to speed killing. But why is that? Because Trick Attack can only benefit four people for most of the fight. Basically, when a fight gimped NIN, Samurai finally got in. And what fight exactly gave casters trouble this tier? BLM and SMN are in speed kills for every single one of them. Furthermore, in what universe is Chaos melee-disruptive? Not to mention, DRG and NIN are no less hindered yet never seem to fall out of the melee meta.

It previously had exactly two forms, DRG NIN MCH BRD or DRG NIN SMN BRD. (That shit was true for much of Heavensward as well until BLM finally started outscaling SMN in low-motion fights.) Now we also see BLM and MNK as frequently included members. Not one job is utterly absent from a top place speedrun parse if you're not cherrypicking. (I'll take the continuous uptime turret fight and the one that disporportionately affects melee and -oh- would you look at that, no SAMs and the super mobile ranged meta comp is still in full swing!) That is an improvement, both over SB thus far and most of Heavensward.

Once again, this is false. MNK is only included in triple melee comps with one exception, I believe. That is not "frequently" by any stretch. In fact, MNK only tops MCH in overall uploads. Yes, the supposedly "frequent" MNK has seen almost as low usage as the least popular job in the game. Sweetheart, you're the one cherrypicking here. When DRG and NIN dominate by almost a 90% margin, you can't go and point to the one fight where SAM comes out ahead in only three parses and say, "See! SAM is in the speed kill meta too!!!!"

SAM: 3/25
MNK 0/25
DRG: 24/25
NIN: 21/25

Definitely looks like SAM is getting popular for speed kills...

No, I'm not demanding it. But it is the objectively better measurement. You yourself have said as much in other threads in discussing why meta compositions exist. We take a job for the combination of its own damage and what it gives to others, not its own damage and how much more damage it can get from others.

No. You're just mis-characterizing my argument to suit your narrative.

One more time. If a support job contributes the exact same rDPS and pDPS as a SMN, why wouldn't this job be prioritized? That has been my argument. I never once said people would exclude just to pad their numbers. At least not on a wide scale. In fact, I explicitly said only if it doesn't negatively impact the group's overall rDPS—and even used a numerical equation to represent it yet you keep trying insisting I'm arguing something else. With that in mind, if hypothetical Dancer did 5,000 pDPS and 2,500 rDPS through buffs, making it similar in overall contribution to SMN. It will be unfairly prioritized so long as pDPS remains a focal point. You can split those numbers in whatever manner you fancy; higher/lower, it doesn't matter. So long as it contributes the same.

As for MNK and BLM. You can count the number of fights on a single hand where MNK replaces either DRG or NIN regardless of which fight you pick. It's currently the second least popular jobs in terms of Savage uploads. The third? BLM, which admittedly, is cutting closer to SMN. Of the jobs you've mentioned, BLM is the only one even scratching its way in. Hence why I didn't include it earlier. And to be fair, it has less competition as MCH is a complete mess right now and SMN's buffs aren't amazing.

[Shurrikhan]

I never said rDPS jobs are impossible otherwise Bard wouldn't exist.

Nor did I ever once say that you said as much. I said that you drew the line at Bard and said that nothing of further %rDPS (what % of its throughput in a composition of equal skill and gear would be indirectly contributed) would be permitted. You have. You are now, in your very next sentence, explicitly restating that as if I somehow didn't catch it the previous four times. I did. It's not been confused.

You, on the other hand, have managed to conflate my response to your response to someone asking that support be more visible through actual utility and not just % stat buffs as arguing the value of all jobs off (in which you dismissed their opinion completely in favor of 'current community bias bonzai, supports binary and doomed to failure) as arguing that gameplay should trump performance for all jobs, rather than simply gameplay doing more to determine whether something feels like a support than its %rDPS despite that being exactly the subject of the post you quoted.

On the heels of talking about impact of 3.4 AST, you somehow assume that the only way AST could outperform WHM is "as a healer", despite my talking about rDPS in response to your talking about rDPS, all so you say -- so wisely -- that AST didn't outperform WHM "as a healer". Jee, I wonder in what way AST could possibly be outperforming WHM in its contribution to parses, since, that is what we'd been talking about without deviation.

You've used the warrant consistently that players will only ever care about their pDPS percentiles, which are dependent on being maximally padded. I offered that we see now more compositions than we did previously that are not maximally padded, both in general play and, as per speedruns, at the highest level of play, meaning that the balance of %rDPS clearly isn't so absolute -- be it by community or theoretical limits. It's not a hard binary even now.

You've conflated the historical exclusion of a notoriously underperforming job, SAM, as evidence solely of a desire to pad one's own numbers, despite SAM simply being a worse tDPS performing job at that time, and in most fights now, an altogether different issues.

I said that is roughly where the line will be drawn in terms of support in this game...

Yes. I know.

You keep trying to insist pDPS will abruptly become irrelevant, which is you making an assumption the entire playerbase will abandon pDPS.

Sure. In the sense that it eventually became the norm to include pet damage in the Summoner's damage and shield absorption in healing dealt. It's not some revelational shift. And neither have I asked that it end abruptly. I asked simply that you see where the current trends of considering tDPS / actual contribution for balance and job merit continue and see how perspectives might change before asking that SE refuse to ever design a job with more support functionality or %rDPS (again, not necessarily the same thing to me) than Bard.

Could it happen? Maybe. But that is a massive shift—one SE isn't going to bank on because in the event it doesn't happen.

Not a massive shift. And you are this point arguing that SE not only knows, but will as their preemptive option pander to, an ideosyncracy of parse-progression culture, even at the cost of job design freedom.

They'll have released a job with a lot of backlash one way or another. The shift in mindset will have to occur first, if it ever does.

Or it can encourage the shift in mindset. That is exactly what AST did. It was considered trash until, for the first time, people started considering and then calculating the actual of its buffs. God forbid they make ever made AST though right? That was clearly asking for trouble. SE's deep knowledge of parse-prog culture should have let them know it was theoretically impossible to balance. It's no wonder why they just up and gave WHM absolute shit spells and traits this xpac; it was irredeemable upon the other's arrival.

So... 2/25 is your definition of RDM getting into the speed kill meta? You're grasping at some serious straws...
"See! SAM is in the speed kill meta too!!!!"

Nope, nor did I ever say as much. I said they are now balanced enough to see use at the highest levels of play. Or, very specifically:

BLM, Monk, RDM, and even SAM are among top the speedruns in at least one fight each, with minimal tDPS gaps.

This is true. It was not true for BLM, RDM, or SAM before the most recent buffs. Low- to no-%rDPS jobs are no longer held back by their actual tDPS. They can contribute with the best of them. They are seeing far more frequent use at the highest levels of play. I've said nothing more than that.

MNK is only included in triple melee comps with one exception, I believe.

Claim: We are seeing parties that aren't just DRG NIN SMN BRD or DRG NIN BRD MCH meta comps among our speedkills.
Rebuttal: Monk is only included in 3melee comps.

...And that's... somehow a DRG NIN SMN BRD or DRG NIN BRD MCH meta comp?

Monk is the lynchpin of the fastest Chaos kill. BLM or Monk are the highest tDPS contributor of all but 1 speedrun in the top 10.

Yes, Monk will be melee exclusive so long as SE forces it through Brotherhood to be melee-exclusive. %rDPS when applied typally (e.g. Embolden, Brotherhood, Disembowel, and to an extent Chain Stratagem and Battle Litany) is what locks down dependencies and is what most keeps the meta comp as mostly all or nothing right now. You know this. You've written about this. But at least it is theoretically possible now to use a Monk and be the best party for a given, to use a SAM and be the best party for a given fight, to use a BLM and be the best party for a given fight, or to be a RDM and be the best party for a given fight. The difference between the meta and Monk comp Midgardsormr, which is not too melee- or ramp-up friendly, is 3 seconds, or 0.6% speed.

At present, MCH is the lowest average tDPS contributor across the Max percentile range. NIN is, on average, the second lowest.

Furthermore, in what universe is Chaos melee-disruptive?

Midgardsormr. Never said Chaos. Chaos's best run is not a meta comp. It's Monk comp.

You can count the number of fights on a single hand where MNK replaces either DRG or NIN regardless of which fight you pick.

That's not how metas work. Why would it replace a physical dps, when it depends on a physical-only rDPS skil? It will replace a caster, because the caster has the least synergy. Every meta comp is formed upon maximizing its rDPS tools until they fall below tDPS value. The logical alternatives for meta SMN are MNK and RDM. SAM requires a 2-minute-based comp for best performance and is currently hampered by the underperformance of MCH relative to BRD.

In fact, MNK only tops MCH in overall uploads.

Maybe in fair part because it's one of the most frequently complained about jobs in the game? Second only in number of vent-threads to MCH? Monk contributing to top 5 speedruns isn't even new to this tier. If anything it, like Bard, had a larger launch off the toes of CH and BL at earlier tiers than current. Now increased scaling is letting it hold its position, but tDPS-wise, it certainly does not need further buffs. It just needs less clunky af gameplay. MCH needs both parts improved.

I never once said people would exclude just to pad their numbers.

But... you did. This one is neither the first nor the last mention.

The job will either inevitably become mandatory for FFlog chases or be deemed useless and ostracized.

In fact, I explicitly said only if it doesn't negatively impact the group's overall rDPS.

...Could this possibly be because you misread %rDPS/%pDPS as performance percentile, instead of the % of total contribution that comes from rDPS as opposed to pDPS, when I first mentioned it in the context of 'what makes a support a support'. I see no other way you could possibly say all the things you've said and not mean that players are willing to exclude low %rDPS jobs (i.e. high %pDPS jobs) for their fflogs numbers. You know, like

3.4 AST scenario where everyone wants them as they make their FFlogs page much prettier.

It will be unfairly prioritized so long as pDPS remains a focal point.

I could go on...

Though then there's this...

You can split those numbers in whatever manner you fancy; higher/lower, it doesn't matter. So long as it contributes the same.

See, this seems a paradox to me.

Statement 1: Players will favor whatever makes their fflogs parses look better.
Statement 2: It doesn't matter so long as the tDPS (base pDPS + contextual rDPS, or damage deal minus contribution received plus contribution given) is equal. (Unless I'm somehow misunderstanding your above quote. Which is quite possible, because it seems exactly the opposite of what you said one sentence earlier.)

The second is what I've been arguing from my first reply to you. I've agreed that at present there is a tendency towards [1], but that people are generally moving towards [2] and are likely to continue to do so, especially given that the start of new tiers and expansion puts more theorycrafters and otherwise more informed people in the spotlights, carrying public opinion with them, as we've seen with AST, the creation of the standard meta comps, and now deviation from them insofar as the game permits.

And to be fair, it [BLM] has less competition as MCH is a complete mess right now.

And hopefully the lowest tDPS job will see substantial buffs as to again be permitted. But, hopefully not without trimming down the interdependent of the old standard DRG NIN BRD MCH meta comp.

While they're at it, I hope they'll also get rid of Foe Requiem's mana dependence so that BRD+MCH doesn't always feel like always BRD+BRDsidekick. Heck, I wouldn't mind seeing all but DRG no longer classified as Piercing damage and Disembowel increased back to 10% and Bard and MCH damage each increased by ~4.1% and 4.8% respectively to compensate. I feel like it'd be a bit of a shame, and a potentially dangerous precedent, but the outcry about that one issue is specific enough (which is to say, without additional impetus of principle) that it shouldn't be too problematic and will hopefully make the devs, at the least, reconsider typal damage vuln mechanics for the better.

Edit: You know what, I'm just going to repost my first reply to you with added clarification underlined and the potential origins of confusion underlined:

1. You are arguing in regards to a pure support, and I am explicitly not. I've argued only that no one has asked for a pure support (i.e one that deals no pDPS, only rDPS), but simply something that actually feels like a support. Gameplay outweighs percentile rDPS to pDPS in making a satisfying support job. Bard is ~16/84% r/pDPS. NIN and single-ranged-DRG are about 13/87% r/pDPS. But you do not necessarily need a job to be 40/60% r/pDPS or further to feel like a support. A rDPS passive battery is neither fun nor "supportive" in its feel. I also very much doubt that XIV would implement a job that is literally incapable of solo content.
   
   
2. You have supplied an issue that has nothing to do with balancing and everything to do with, say, xivrdps.com not being integrated with fflogs.com. It has to do with tDPS, true/total contribution, not being as conveniently reached or ranked a measurement as pDPS, which is just part of one's contribution and say as much or more about padding than one's own performance. That's it. That is the only issue with high-pDPS jobs at the moment and the only thing that would guarantee the presence of a support when otherwise balanced.

Here's hoping I misunderstood your warrant to something unrelated as being applied to a misunderstanding of what I wrote (i.e. finding differences in a job's total contribution, rather than a wider margin in %r/pdDPS than the mere 16/84% or so that Bard carries right now, as being okay in design). If so, I apologize for my part in the confusion.