Let's redefine "damage taxes"

[Aurora428]

I mean, the whole "FireMage is always trolling and wrong" thing is funny, sure, but in this case he is quite correct indeed. Just based on current fflogs statistics the Δ between 5th and 95th percentiles for the jobs are:

MCH: 9791 - 7968 = 1823 DPS (the lowest across all jobs).
DNC: 10205 - 8142 = 2063 DPS.
and just for funsies since there seems to be a complete agreement on how BLM is the gigabrain job in this thread: 10604 - 8064 = 2540 DPS (the highest across all jobs).

More than that, MCH has significantly lower spread between 50th and 95th percentiles compared to other jobs. In short, there is a single objectively correct way to play MCH - the entire rotation is a math equation and can be solved for a single correct answer. You just press the buttons in the exact order. It is likely possible to teach a talented monkey to execute. Similar to SMN, MCH optimization isn't hard, it simply has none. The only thing that separates about top 20% of all MCHs is damage variance, crit luck and gear.

Now, DNC has undeniably lost some of ShB complexity. Melee procs are gone, Flourish gives unique procs and Esprit generation from your GCDs is now static. But at the same time, addition of Tillana and especially 6.08 changes have (and I'm willing to bet absolutely unitentionally by SE) created a very curious case of 3.5 Standard Step rotation since SS is now weaker than every other GCD except the basic combo. Technical windows now require a bit of setup and thinking on the fly in regards to pooling procs and Esprit and actively making a decision to forego SS in a given window. It's not very complex, no, but it is definitely more variable than anything MCH can ever offer.

Reminder that when comparing jobs on difficulty based on damage spread, you need to consider several things

1) Raid buffs will always have higher variation because it is dependent on everyone else being good. That has nothing to do with YOUR job being difficult. You need to use ADPS for this. (which is still doesn't tell the whole story)

2) Raw numbers on damage variation is influenced by how large the base value actually is. Even without considering BLM is harder, it will have a larger gap by default since it does more damage. It's PERCENT gap is larger, so yes, there is a conclusion to be made, but that fact its "2540" DPS means nothing by itself

3) Not all mistakes are equal. It is not possible to simply compare the spread among jobs because not every mistake carries the same "damage value lost".

4) 5th percentile may not be the best starting point for this analysis as deaths start muddying the data that low

Tl;dr trying to compare the size of percentile gaps isn't totally meaningless, but I can make a list even longer against any conclusion made from it, as comparing ADPS is STILL reliant on how much damage the job is allowed to do in burst. A SAM not looping is gonna show up harder than a MCH not using an optimal queen, despite both optimizations requiring similar skill. (Honestly the SAM optimization there is even more brain dead)

[Ransu]

SAM optimization is super easy lol. Its a loop that revolves completely around a 1 minute (higabana) and 2 minutes (ishikoten) and requires only 1 filler if there's no downtime to maintain that loop with very little drift until about 9 minutes into the fight where meikyo stacks start to catch up (if you're going by the 2.14s gcd build). By FireMages terrible logic SAM should also be bottom tier dps.

[Aikaal]

That's a lie. Just because people don't want to or have time to play savage, it doesn't mean they don't care about damage in the content they do. You basically lumped everyone that doesn't play savage into one category of ability and willingness to put in their best efforts.

What you said was beyond elitist, and I actually detest using that word.

I also would not call multi-season ranked pvpers casual. I know many people that raid and pvp, and pretty much everyone agrees ranked pvp is more stressful.

That's not being elite, that's being objective. You can usually categorize people. For example you can have people and have them be considered Casual/Hardcore & Toxic/Friendly

You can have an Hardcore player who is friendly. You can have a toxic casual. Those conditions are usually rarer.

So you can definitely have a friendly casual that really cares about damage on content he doesn't do. By content, you have Ultimates, Savage, Extreme/Raid, Relic, PvP and so on. I can tell you with a certitude that a player who doesn't do ultimate or savage usually most of them won't care if their job underperform. Even among hardcores, players usually pick what they like to play. It's not because Machinist is bottom of the barrel that it'll prevent players from playing Machinist.

So yeah, there is a chance one player who is extremely good at the game and likes damage and actually know what he's talking about will go on OF and give his input. Normally he'll make a lot of sense and it'll work just fine. However, if you have a player who comes in here and have no idea what he's talking about. Someone, iunno, I'll put Firemage Li as an example, then people will background check him because he doesn't make sense. It's not being an elite. It's being, "Who is this dude who clearly have a unique way of thinking that nobody agrees on. What kind of God player is he?" Well, if you background check, he's a 1 trick RDM player since Stormblood. He only plays and favors outwardly RDM so when he says something like... lemme pick a quote that he said.

RDM shouldn't be at the bottom, MCH and SMN should. RDM should be in the middle of the pack, along with RPR. The gap should be ~5%, not 1% and definitely not the ~11% we have now. You just don't understand how balance works

The part where he said the gap between best and lowest being 5% does make sense. But him saying SMN & MCH should be the worst DPS is biased and inaccurate. In the past, Red Mages have been victims of doing less damage than Summoners. Summoners have never been so close to Red Mages than this tier. That's not because RDM gained damage. To be honest; I play Red Mage but I also play all casters. I'm subbing WHM for a friend's group on P8S.I've got a melee background from Stormblood. I main DRG in PvP but PvP has nothing to do with PvE. The only thing you won't see me is play ranged physical and tank. Right now I don't play Melee because I refuse to promote Melee Fantasy XIV.

So yeah, in general, I'll categorize people from their background but I also know when someone is wrongly categorized.

You have terrible Mentor players.
You have outstanding sprouts.
You have toxic casuals.
You have friendly hardcore.

In this case, Firemage Li has cleared P8S yesterday. That's a decent pace for mediumcore. He does savage and have cleared some Ultimates. But we don't value what he says simply because all his takes are bad. He's opinionated over facts, he's biased toward Red Mage and let me tell you, there's a lot he can personally do to improve as a Red Mage. What I'm doing looks and sound harsh because it is. However, people like him need to be checked quickly. I guess he did forget that Manafication is 110s and it shouldn,t be delayed in the fight because you get an extra one at the end. 1 extra Manafication is an entire melee combo, the only reason you have damage on RDM.

[Mithron]

I think it's important to note though that even casual players who don't complete 4th tier Savages or Ultimates are still impacted by such DPS disparities though because that player could still be playing optimally with the gear available to them rotationwise, but especially if they're in PF, will face a lot more enrages/wipes that they otherwise would not face if they were playing a better DPS job instead. For example, it feels a lot worse for me to play RDM right now in Barb ex than SAM even if I like playing RDM more and know we probably won't hit enrage, simply because I'm aware that if I played SAM, we'd have a much faster clear speed and less chance of enraging instead of RDM. That eats away at your soul and definitely lessens the enjoyment of the game, even acting as a mental deterrent to want to play some jobs.

[Kabooa]

That's not being elite, that's being objective. You can usually categorize people. For example you can have people and have them be considered Casual/Hardcore & Toxic/Friendly.

One should also keep in mind being good at a game doesn't mean one is good at balancing or designing it.

Likewise the inverse can be true.

We have to consider the merit of suggestions and ideas despite the source - The source is just a handy indicator of perspective.

[CKNovel]

I mean, the whole "FireMage is always trolling and wrong" thing is funny, sure, but in this case he is quite correct indeed. Just based on current fflogs statistics the Δ between 5th and 95th percentiles for the jobs are:

MCH: 9791 - 7968 = 1823 DPS (the lowest across all jobs).
DNC: 10205 - 8142 = 2063 DPS.

Percentile is no measuring of skill level and doesn't represent the difficulty of jobs. And especially not using rDPS.
Technically the 0th percentile playing is doing 0 DPS, I have no idea how FFLogs judge a performance to be enough for a 0.
Thought what are you using? Which boss, which stats? What are you even reading? rDPS, aDPS, nDPS?

A good example is SMN, a very easy job to play, yet it has a large margin.
If your choice of data was right, the SMN gap between worst and best would be ridiculously small.
The same applies to tanks, yet the gap doesn't reflects the skill difference between each jobs, it only shows WAR with the least variance.

Also another RDM, is it a conspiration or something?

4) 5th percentile may not be the best starting point for this analysis as deaths start muddying the data that low

I would add to that:
Some jobs are even more punished by KO. MCH would obviously suffer more and DNC the least.
Yet, the 5th percentile doesn't reflect that, which once again reflects that this isn't a good data to represent the skill gap.

[Aikaal]

One should also keep in mind being good at a game doesn't mean one is good at balancing or designing it.

Likewise the inverse can be true.

We have to consider the merit of suggestions and ideas despite the source - The source is just a handy indicator of perspective.

Oh right, that's true. Forgot to mention that. That, again, when someone is really good at the game he's usually more suitable to provide better points on stuff like balancing but this isn't an absolute truth either. You'll rarely see someone from the bottom of their heart will request a nerf if their job is too op lol. I can't really blame Monk players however, they were really strong and kept getting buffs they didn't ask for.

[Mithron]

Oh right, that's true. Forgot to mention that. That, again, when someone is really good at the game he's usually more suitable to provide better points on stuff like balancing but this isn't an absolute truth either. You'll rarely see someone from the bottom of their heart will request a nerf if their job is too op lol. I can't really blame Monk players however, they were really strong and kept getting buffs they didn't ask for.

As a PLD/DRK main, I want DRK's damage to be more inline with the rest of the tanks so there's minimal disparity, while also DRK having more utility and healing for trading less damage. For all accounts and puproses, that's a nerf, but that's the job fantasy of DRK for me. PLD/DRKs are the high utility low DPS tanks, WAR/GNB are the low utility high DPS tanks, but I want to see minimal differences in DPS disparity and the mitigation never being required, just comfy.

[FireMage]

Imagine not realizing that MCH right now is outright being blocked from the majority of PF's.

First off citation required. 2nd off proper balance would buff its DPS by hundreds and the gap would be around 1k DPS with current numbers

I don't think you shouldn't speak because you're casual, I think you shouldn't speak because you're always wrong. Just giving you a taste of your own logical fallacies.

You never explained in great detail why DNC is harder than MCH. "Closed position changes" and "react to RNG" are not harder than MCH, so explain more.

I'm not wrong though, nor am I using fallacies. Also imagine trying to denounce me as a casual, the idea is beyond hilarious. Also I have gone into multiple reasons why. You should actually read the posts in your own topic instead of impotently raging

[Ransu]

First off citation required. 2nd off proper balance would buff its DPS by hundreds and the gap would be around 1k DPS with current numbers



I'm not wrong though, nor am I using fallacies. Also imagine trying to denounce me as a casual, the idea is beyond hilarious. Also I have gone into multiple reasons why. You should actually read the posts in your own topic instead of impotently raging

Spend 5 seconds looking at PF's...Also, the gap wouldn't change anything. With your "balance" the DNC and BRD would still be doing more DPS while also bringing raid utility. Nothing changes. MCH either needs to go back to being a support job or they need to make it a proper DPS and have its DPS within range of SAM and BLM.