Some views on DPS balance that everyone cares about

[Kabooa]

By the same token, BLM should be very close to them, unless you want to argue that Raise alone justifies a 10% rDPS difference, which of course is absurd, and in any case, if 1 single Raise is worth that much, RDM chain raise should result in RDM being close to Healers' DPS level, that is even more absurd.
Mind you, I believe having casters close to physical ranged dps would be much more reasonable than what we have now, since SMN and BLM are clearly too powerful and instead of buffing RDM, the other 2 should've been nerfed to its level instead.

I mean, sure. You can make that argument. You'd probably just have the same result as we have now, just double ranged instead of double caster.

[Lastelli]

While the degree to which he feels it needs to be nerfed is ludicrous, he's not wrong that it should see a reduction in damage. A reduction of 2-3% would put it in line with the other casters. It would give BLM the same lead over casters that SAM has over melee and SMN wouldn't need to lose any of it's utility.

If you look at all boss stats, that might seem plausible. On the other hand, if you look at ramuh, that is the only full uptime single target fight in this savage tier, you'll see that BLM has that 3% you're looking for. If, for instance, the next raid tier has 2-3 fights similar to ramuh or voidwalker, BLM will be clearly at the top.
The problem is that if you nerf smn without touching blm, the role itself becomes unbalanced. Right now, SMN is the only job (among all other dps jobs) that can compete with BLM for the same spot. Nerf it, and BLM has a sure spot in any comp that is looking to be rDPS efficient. This cannot be allowed in a balanced game. To be honest, the balance is so good that even arguing about 2% buffs/nerfs look silly. In practical terms, we're talking about a 1-2 seconds advantage in clear times. That's how silly it is.

Another problem is fflogs itself. People rely too much on it without understanding it. People don't understand how rDPS is computed and its limits or how the top percentiles are skewed because they're influenced by the meta comp. What fflogs tells us is that the differences are so small that we're here arguing about 1-2% differences. That's good enough. So good, in fact, that I'd be surprised if the devs make more balance changes during this expansion.

I mean, sure. You can make that argument. You'd probably just have the same result as we have now, just double ranged instead of double caster.

Not really. We would just have the standard 2 melee, 1 caster, 1 phys ranged dps comp. A 2 caster meta is as bad as a 2 phys ranged dps meta. I don't think things will change tbh, but I'd really like to see a small nerf to the 2 top dogs to bring them in line with the other melee dps.
What I find absolutely hilarious, though, is BLM mains trying to explain why SMN should be nerfed, because they're basically asking for their job to become mandatory.

[Silverquick]

While the degree to which he feels it needs to be nerfed is ludicrous, he's not wrong that it should see a reduction in damage. A reduction of 2-3% would put it in line with the other casters. It would give BLM the same lead over casters that SAM has over melee and SMN wouldn't need to lose any of it's utility.

No that's not true.

As was demonstrated it is middle of the pack or sometimes even lower in other content types like dungeons and alliance raids.
You are attempting to justify making it middle of the pack or lower in Savage content... which in turn will make it bottom of the pile in all other content, even lower than Red Mage.
Who would want to play a job that is middle of the pack in Savage and bottom of the pile in all other content. That is not "balance' its the opposite.

There is no justification for that.

Worse some people here seem to think Summoner and Red Mage are equal in their support abilities when that is provably false.

Red Mage Heals are about 10,000 healing and dual casted for 20,000... Summoner Heals are a whopping 800.
Summoner has ONE Ressurection that can be quickcasted... after that its 8 second casting time.
Red Mage has no such limitations, it's Verraise is dual casted. So no matter how many raises you do with RDM it never has a casting time, and can be combined with attacks for instant raises at any time (Jolt + Verraise for example).

They have overestimated SMN capabilities... and far underestimated RDM capabilities.

If SMN DPS drops below or equal to RDM DPS what do you think is going to happen? Yeah it makes the Summoner job pointless.

[Animadragon]

People tend to forget that by the nature of SMN's burst DPS rotation that their overall DPS can be heavily affected by the timing of the fight's downtimes. This means that you can't easily judge the firepower of SMN on a single fight without the context of its downtime, and thus not as easily balanced by changing some potency values. Conversely, a fight with little to no downtime shows the strength of a BLM very readily.

A metaphor in this case would be like the drift races in Initial D, where the main character's slower car can catch up to faster cars because of hard turns (downtime) disabling the full potential of a job, while in a straightaway road, the fast cars quickly gain distance.
This metaphor falls apart very quickly when BLM and RDM aren't as heavily affected by downtime anymore unlike SMN being heavily reliant on cooldowns that need to be continuously cycled properly.

[Ramura_Sono]

No that's not true.

As was demonstrated it is middle of the pack or sometimes even lower in other content types like dungeons and alliance raids.
You are attempting to justify making it middle of the pack or lower in Savage content... which in turn will make it bottom of the pile in all other content, even lower than Red Mage.
Who would want to play a job that is middle of the pack in Savage and bottom of the pile in all other content. That is not "balance' its the opposite.

There is no justification for that.

Worse some people here seem to think Summoner and Red Mage are equal in their support abilities when that is provably false.

Red Mage Heals are about 10,000 healing and dual casted for 20,000... Summoner Heals are a whopping 800.
Summoner has ONE Ressurection that can be quickcasted... after that its 8 second casting time.
Red Mage has no such limitations, it's Verraise is dual casted. So no matter how many raises you do with RDM it never has a casting time, and can be combined with attacks for instant raises at any time (Jolt + Verraise for example).

They have overestimated SMN capabilities... and far underestimated RDM capabilities.

If SMN DPS drops below or equal to RDM DPS what do you think is going to happen? Yeah it makes the Summoner job pointless.

Dude. Just stop. Dungeons and Alliance raids don't matter. A 2-3% nerf puts SMN's damage on par/slightly better than Monk. It would still remain ahead of Red Mage. That is completely fair when both jobs have somewhat limited raid buffs, and utilities. It also doesn't make it suddenly worse than Red Mage in anything not Savage. Stop being weird.

SMN DPS would still remain ahead of RDM. As far as the heals go. Verraise and vercure both have significant MP and damage costs to them. SMNs heals are a free bonus. Any "mechanical costs" associated with it already being taken into account in the numbers we're seeing SMN put out.

Who would want to play a job that is middle of the pack in Savage and bottom of the pile in all other content.

You're talking to someone who mained MNK all throughout HW. When it was a meme. It might surprise you but some people play jobs for their play style over their DPS numbers. Losing 2-3% won't suddenly kill off SMN.

[Myon88]

I mean, sure. You can make that argument. You'd probably just have the same result as we have now, just double ranged instead of double caster.

Well, you just made that argument yourself, didn't you? If similarity of 'toolkits' is sufficient to lump dancer, bard, and summoner in the same category, by all rights machinist is due for a blm-tier buff, or blm needs to start looking more like a machinist on the charts.

Personally I don't really see the similarity, not to mention they're completely separate roles. It's popular to view summoner as a pseudo-ranged after its 5.1 mobility buffs, but the fact is the dps/percentile box plots show that summoner has the same skill gap as the melees and rdm. If giving them additional mobility via egi assaults apparently 'dumbed down' their difficulty to physical ranged levels, their box plots would be as short as the physical ranged - they are not. So what's happening? Either they're not as mobile as they seem, or their rotation is complex enough that people are finding plenty of other ways to make mistakes, or both.

Whatever it is, the data doesn't support it being appropriate to compare them to the physical ranged, especially if the reason is 'Well summoner is as easy as a ranged job now'.

What I do agree with though is that the casters as a whole are grossly overpowered compared to the melees and ranged. Like I've said many times, this is a HW ranged situation where jobs within a role get counter-buffed against each other repeatedly until the entire role grows out of scale.

A simple thought experiment, remove summoner from the game completely and what are you left with? Black mage, which is the best dps in the game by far, even outstripping samurai its counterpart in the no-raid-utility category. Oh and it's ranged. Red mage, which brings the same amount of rdps as the non-samurai melees, except it can also rez and it's also ranged. Why would anyone play a melee over a caster? Even with embolden as is, you would lock in blm + rdm in any party even if summoner didn't exist.

The caster role is due for a massive correction and the more people sulk over perceived 1% dps disparities instead of marveling at the fact that it's only 1%, the sooner it will happen. Personally if that day comes, I think it would be appropriate for blm to get a real nerf so it sits alongside samurai, summoner sharing a spot with the other melees, and red mage down at the same level as the physical ranged. I'm not sure how I can explain it any simpler for the rdm and blm 'mains', but if summoner goes down, you guys are coming along for the ride.

[Kabooa]

Well, you just made that argument yourself, didn't you? If similarity of 'toolkits' is sufficient to lump dancer, bard, and summoner in the same category, by all rights machinist is due for a blm-tier buff, or blm needs to start looking more like a machinist on the charts.

Yeh. That's basically been one of my angles in other discussions. Shove Samurai, Black Mage, and Machinist into their own category to give us another tuning lever.

[Silverquick]

Dude. Just stop. Dungeons and Alliance raids don't matter. A 2-3% nerf puts SMN's damage on par/slightly better than Monk. It would still remain ahead of Red Mage. That is completely fair when both jobs have somewhat limited raid buffs, and utilities. It also doesn't make it suddenly worse than Red Mage in anything not Savage. Stop being weird..

Your answer is NO.... While I certainly don't have a problem with you playing Savage... I have a SERIOUS problem when your idea of "balance" keeps hosing up the rest of the content for everyone else all for your 1%. It was the worst possible idea to think that Savage is somehow the ultimate balance point when in reality NONE of the things in Savage apply to any other content.

This is going to be a shock to you, but Savage players are NOT the majority of players in the game, in fact they're only a very small percentage. So hosing up the balance of the rest of the game just for your tiny little 1% screws over the rest of the players in the game and I do have a serious problem with it.

You are directly lying to me when you attempting to tell me Red Mage and Summoner have "comparable" support abilities they are nowhere even in the ballpark of each other. It's not even in question that Red Mage is far superior to Summoner in that field. And those abilities play a much larger role in ALL other types of content.

So when you ignore this because it "doesn't apply in Savage" you end up unbalancing the entire rest of the content where they do apply.

And that's only this one part, this doesn't even get into how weak SMN ends up being all for this little tiny 1% of content few people ever play.

[ReiMakoto]

Your answer is NO.... While I certainly don't have a problem with you playing Savage... I have a SERIOUS problem when your idea of "balance" keeps hosing up the rest of the content for everyone else all for your 1%. It was the worst possible idea to think that Savage is somehow the ultimate balance point when in reality NONE of the things in Savage apply to any other content.

This is going to be a shock to you, but Savage players are NOT the majority of players in the game, in fact they're only a very small percentage. So hosing up the balance of the rest of the game just for your tiny little 1% screws over the rest of the players in the game and I do have a serious problem with it.

You are directly lying to me when you attempting to tell me Red Mage and Summoner have "comparable" support abilities they are nowhere even in the ballpark of each other. It's not even in question that Red Mage is far superior to Summoner in that field. And those abilities play a much larger role in ALL other types of content.

So when you ignore this because it "doesn't apply in Savage" you end up unbalancing the entire rest of the content where they do apply.

And that's only this one part, this doesn't even get into how weak SMN ends up being all for this little tiny 1% of content few people ever play.

As has been explained to you this entire thread, balance doesn't matter in other content when they can be cleared so easily that they can be done with teams of all tanks, dps and healers. Changing balance doesn't screw over anyone doing casual content, because that content is designed with the lowest common denominator in mind, its designed to be cleared by 0 dps healers or people who can't string a combo together. You can't unbalance content that was never balanced around high dps in the first place. If summnoner or any class for that matter lost 2-3% damage total, it would make such a negligible impact on casual content it might as well not have happened, but to savage it does make a difference. You've also chose to ignore someone who was asking you a question like a page or 2 ago, nice moves there.

Edit to comment on some stuff in your other post

RDM healing costs gcds to use which is a massive damage oppurtunity cost, whereas everlasting flight is, whilst not that impactful, free and will heal whilst you're doing damage. Also 20k healing is like really bad to be wasting 2 gcds on dude
In harder content, 1 res per minute is more than enough, compounded by the fact rdm can't chain res without seriously impacting its rotation and mana, if you're running rdm smn, unless the smn is in firebird its actually better if the smn res's not the rdm because its less of a damage loss/ rotation mess up.

[Myon88]

Also, fun fact that I will now share since the thread is abruptly on topic again.

Are y'all aware that at high spellspeed values, the blm thunder dot is being under-valued on a certain site? This means they're not being credited as much dps from thunder on logs as they're actually doing ingame, blm numbers should be even higher than they are now.

As you know, speed stats now directly buff dot damage. Apparently this has something to do with a certain program not correctly accounting for the amount of spellspeed you have, when trying to figure out how much of the dot damage taken by a target belongs to you. Just so you know, parsing is not an exact science, and things like this are still being worked out.