Damage "taxes" deserve serious reconsideration

[SaberMaxwell]

I also find it "lolsy" when people use rDPS as the only metric of performance. I think we need to look at both rDPS and aDPS to get a better idea of a job

It is weird to use a job's total raid contribution as one of the primary methods to judge how its doing compared to other jobs, huh.

Aikaal posted the explanation too; aDPS only filters out single target padding, it doesn't filter other jobs' damage buffs. My embolden is counted into the Samurai's aDPS, so it's not really the Samurai's DPS. Hence rDPS, which filters all other damage buffs out and counts the damage you gave others in; even "aDPS jobs" whatever that means, have a more accurate description of the damage THEY bring to raid from their rDPS.

rDPS is not necessarily a good metric to view your OWN performance on, that's where aDPS and nDPS come in. But when talking about general job balance? I think rDPS outweighs the other metrics completely.

[CKNovel]

rDPS is not necessarily a good metric to view your OWN performance on, that's where aDPS and nDPS come in. But when talking about general job balance? I think rDPS outweighs the other metrics completely.

I believe this is correct. This is a teamgame, rDPS measures your job contribution to the whole group.
Yes, your rDPS can be quite different between what is shown on the graph and what you achieve, party composition and skill level of the group can vary.

It's simply great to understand your job possible value.
FFLogs using it as a ranking is what induces many players in errors.

[Aco505]

rDPS is not necessarily a good metric to view your OWN performance on, that's where aDPS and nDPS come in. But when talking about general job balance? I think rDPS outweighs the other metrics completely.

The three of them have to be used as a tool of analysis.

Balacing only around rDPS means that if the top jobs are the "selfish" ones such as SAM or BLM, then they are good for every piece of content in any comp.

For these jobs, rDPS = nDPS. Their rDPS will be the exact same (ignoring variance) whether their group has no buffs or optimized buffs. They're also not punished in this metric if they don't align their cooldowns within buffs as only aDPS tracks that although partially (single target buffs have to be manually checked through rDPS).

Therefore, if only rDPS is considered for balance, then these jobs are the best in every single scenario on top of getting the highest benefits out of buffs.

aDPS also depends on composition, so while it is a relevant metric to look at, it can vary a lot in a similar way that rDPS does for buffing jobs.

The metric that will tell you the individual performance of a person without taking other people from the party into account is nDPS.

Jobs that are strong in the nDPS/aDPS department should be lower in the rDPS department and vice versa, because the higher the percentile, the more damage players will squeeze out of buffs and so the more they will feed into others' rDPS. For example, since SAM is the job that benefits the most from buffs, it should be higher in aDPS than BLM, but lower in nDPS since the latter does not benefit as much from them (though it still does).

Balance seems to be made around the average player, not the very top (95+ or more).

You can see this when checking more accessible fights (i. e. those cleared by many people of different skill) such as P5S. MCH is the top ranged/caster job in the rDPS charts in the overall percentile and until the 80th because it doesn't rely on others for its damage and actually overtakes some melee jobs (NIN and DRG, so the ones with the lowest personal damage) in both aDPS and nDPS until higher percentiles. In fact, MCH's nDPS is still higher than DRG's in the 90th percentile.

[SaberMaxwell]

The three of them have to be used as a tool of analysis.

Balacing only around rDPS means that if the top jobs are the "selfish" ones such as SAM or BLM, then they are good for every piece of content in any comp.

Balancing around rDPS means the only variable is non-DPS support, such as Curing Waltz.

For these jobs, rDPS = nDPS. Their rDPS will be the exact same (ignoring variance) whether their group has no buffs or optimized buffs. They're also not punished in this metric if they don't align their cooldowns within buffs as only aDPS tracks that although partially (single target buffs have to be manually checked through rDPS).

Yes it's true, for these jobs rDPS does = nDPS. This doesn't change that their rDPS is the total raid damage contribution they offered.

Therefore, if only rDPS is considered for balance, then these jobs are the best in every single scenario on top of getting the highest benefits out of buffs.

That's not true at all. Your premise is flawed based on the idea that rDPS is not a job's total raid contribution, when it by definition is. Just because their rDPS = their nDPS doesn't change anything, it just means that they themselves don't bring raid buffs that would modify their own personal damage.

aDPS also depends on composition, so while it is a relevant metric to look at, it can vary a lot in a similar way that rDPS does for buffing jobs.

The metric that will tell you the individual performance of a person without taking other people from the party into account is nDPS.

Yes. This is why I mentioned that for gauging your own personal ability, nDPS/aDPS are better gauges than rDPS. For general balance, however, rDPS is superior as it goes into aggregated data points.

Jobs that are strong in the nDPS/aDPS department should be lower in the rDPS department and vice versa, because the higher the percentile, the more damage players will squeeze out of buffs and so the more they will feed into others' rDPS. For example, since SAM is the job that benefits the most from buffs, it should be higher in aDPS than BLM, but lower in nDPS since the latter does not benefit as much from them (though it still does).

This isn't true at all. First of all it's a blatant misunderstanding of what r, a, and nDPS are; second, these are FFLogs measurements, not Square Enix measurements. In general, all jobs' rDPS should be within a few percent of each other bar whatever "taxes" are deemed necessary on an entire role. Where their a and nDPS will fall is a metric of flavor and personal skill in comparison to others of the same job.

I'm not saying rDPS is a perfect metric, but it's the best for inter-job comparisons while nDPS and aDPS are more or less better for intra-job comparison.

Balance seems to be made around the average player, not the very top (95+ or more).

You can see this when checking more accessible fights (i. e. those cleared by many people of different skill) such as P5S. MCH is the top ranged/caster job in the rDPS charts in the overall percentile and until the 80th because it doesn't rely on others for its damage and actually overtakes some melee jobs (NIN and DRG, so the ones with the lowest personal damage) in both aDPS and nDPS until higher percentiles. In fact, MCH's nDPS is still higher than DRG's in the 90th percentile.

Yeah, MCH's median and upper quartile surpass RDM's, BRD's, SMN's, and DNC's as of 9/20/22. Talking about who balance is decided on is a bit tangential to the topic of how taxes should be approached in balance.

But again, nDPS is a measure of a job against itself. It's purely meant to be a gauge of how well one performed their own rotation in a vacuum, hence why it excludes all buffs including one's own buffs on other players. It doesn't MATTER how its nDPS is doing vs other job's nDPS.

[Aco505]

Your premise is flawed based on the idea that rDPS is not a job's total raid contribution

That's not what I have said in my post. The point here is that the damage of "selfish" jobs depends entirely on their performance whereas the damage of any job with a damage buff depends on their performance and the other players in the party.

rDPS and aDPS/nDPS rely on each other. Synergy jobs need the other jobs to capitalize on their buffs. The stronger a specific job is at a particular thing (e. g. 2-min burst windows), the more they will provide. This is why NIN, for instance, is one of the best DNC partner, because despite the fact that their personal damage is lower than other jobs like MNK, their 2-min burst is stronger than the latter but their filler is weaker.

Therefore, if you put "selfish" jobs or jobs with stronger personal damage at the top of rDPS, they will always be the best jobs in most cases because their damage depends entirely on themselves, not others. The weaker a group is, the more a buffing job will be negatively affected and vice versa.

This is why the MCH example is relevant, because it is better than the other two p.ranged and non-BLM casters until a specific point in which buffs/comps are more optimized.

Even if the theoretical difference between all jobs was like 1-2%, synergistic jobs will always struggle to keep up unless we're talking about the 95th+ percentiles or, in other words, more optimized environments.

Yes. This is why I mentioned that for gauging your own personal ability, nDPS/aDPS are better gauges than rDPS

The three of them need to be taken into account or otherwise you can end up with unbalanced jobs. MNK right now is very high in nDPS compared to the other melees and top in rDPS, just like at the beginning of the expansion. Whether this is their right spot or not is SE's decision, but ideally if their nDPS is that high, then their rDPS should be lower.

rDPS is superior as it goes into aggregated data points.

All three metrics work in the same way, they just include buffs or take them out as necessary.

it's a blatant misunderstanding of what r, a, and nDPS are

all jobs' rDPS should be within a few percent of each other

I'm not entirely sure you understand my point or if you know what these metrics actually represent. Ideally jobs should be close to one another in rDPS and nDPS, with their order from top to bottom changing depending on where their focus is (personal or buffing), but in a general scenario you will never have absolute balance like this because overall is not the same as 75th, 95th or 99th percentile and the devs choose to balance around a specific group of players.

Take the 1-2% difference I mentioned above. What's the point of reference? If we choose the top percentiles, then synergistic jobs suffer until they reach the necessary requirements to actually be within the accepted number.

these are FFLogs measurements, not Square Enix measurements

We cannot know the way SE measures job performance so the only tool we have available to us to discuss the game's balance is the FFLogs website. You yourself are using their metrics so bringing this up is contradictory and strange.

Talking about who balance is decided on is a bit tangential to the topic of how taxes should be approached in balance.

Not tangential at all. Some of those taxes are based on SE's idea of how useful they are. In weaker groups, people will die more and so rezzes are more important than in stronger groups where people die less.