Quote Originally Posted by EaMett View Post
There was plenty of data on the methodology where I originally found the link and the data-center data (as opposed to servers). Your example of how it works is a little inaccurate, this wasn't data from a single scan, also a single scan can still get more information than just the current job.

To add to this, even IF it was a single scan and could only check the current job (which I have to reiterate isn't the case) statistically the likelihood of anyone being on an alt is equal across the data set. So over a large enough set it evens out and the data is still representative of the whole. Maybe not in absolute numbers but definitely in proportion. But that is mute anyways because it's not a one and done as data wasn't collected in this fashion.

Also yes you might account for more than 1 healer but a tank or dps might be the same. Yes you might be accounted for in every class but that just basically means you're transparent in the data. Doesn't matter much again as this evens out the bigger your data set gets, you just get included in the fringe cases.

Also 430 weapons makes no sense, you'd want to look at 440+.
I'm only speaking of the data you linked. If you have the data-center data, feel free to post it.

Yes, it is a single scan. There are previous scans and you can compare to them (e.g. Population change charts). But the character data you see is still just a snapshot of the lodestone at one point in time. The profile only includes the gear of the current job, because that is all you can check. It even says so right before the weapon ilvl charts (basically, exactly what I'm saying):

"Class at the time of Lodestone character data acquisition
It is the class reflected in Lodestone at the time of data collection, and not necessarily the main job class."

It is no coincidence that you only get weapon ilvl data for one character per profile:
Combat job profiles (sum of all weapons in the ilvl distribution chart) + Crafter/Gatherer profiles + Blue Mage profiles + Class profiles (no soulstone) = Current active profiles

Yes, over a large enough data set, being on an alt makes no meaningful difference. But that is not the kind of data you have here. You have one snapshot.

If you sum up all unlocked jobs and divide by the active profiles, you'll get an average of 9 unlocked jobs per profile. Statistically that means that every healer main accounts for at least 6 non-healers and every tank main accounts for at least 5 non-tanks.
Having unlocked multiple jobs is not the fringe case. Having only unlocked your main role is the fringe case. This is also reflected in the overwhelming majority of DPS jobs at lower levels - meaning that most people have unlocked DPS jobs, but are not leveling them.

If you sum up ilvl440+ weapons you'll get a healer:tank:dps ratio of around 1:1:3, which seems pretty damn healthy in terms of healers to me.
Presumably, this would indicate what players are maining, but for reasons mentioned before, the data does not and can not tell you what people are maining.
Besides, you've made a sweeping statement that "healers are in really low numbers". Why would I only look at ilvl440+ if I'm trying to address that?

I'm not saying that the data is pointless or that it says nothing. All I'm saying is that it does not support this conclusion: "healers are in really low numbers".