Adps vs Rdps. Which one to go by?

[Blutiful]

Both.

To try and simplify an argument that's been ongoing in several threads - RDPS shows DPS minus single target and aoe buffs, + the damage others gain from the buffs you give, and ADPS shows DPS minus single target padding, but including AoE buffs you receive from the party. https://www.fflogs.com/help/rdps

What this essentially means is, a job with sufficiently high ADPS is bursting within 60/120s windows which increases overall group DPS in a way that can't be measured purely by the RDPS number, just like how the ADPS number can't account for damage the job gives with their buffs.

There is no simple and clean and easy "which one" answer.

The answer is both.

Samurai is the 5th highest RDPS at max at the moment, and yet if you go look at the top speed kills for 3/5 of the fights, it is used in the comps. This is because of their high ADPS, very strong personal dps and burst that's dumped into buff windows, which is complimented by a comp that gives buffs for them to dump their burst into.

https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statistics/44/#dataset=100
https://www.fflogs.com/zone/rankings/44/

You cannot look exclusively at either one or you are not grasping the entire picture.

Aside from that, Machinist and ranged physicals/casters not named BLM are on the weaker side in general, but that's a more complex issue, imo, and is something I've never seen people come to a consensus on - how close should Machinist be to BLM and Samurai ADPS? Who should be the lowest RDPS/ADPS? Etc? Look in a hundred threads and see a thousand answers, with dozens of factors taken into account, from difficulty(which people argue for and against,) APM, melee vs. ranged, cast times vs. instant cast, res vs. no res...yadda yadda.