Why is everyone anxious about a PLD Rework?

[Shurrikhan]

you never heard of logs, have you?

They are referring to the logs.

Until over the 90th percentile, unless a fight specifically aligns well with DRK's uniquely short-on demand or has especially heavy magic damage, the 0.56% difference (that's taken straight from the median performances of DRK vs. WAR) isn't possibly going to offset the increased self-sustain of the Warrior. Trading an extra 6k+ (and for DRK to get that close, it needs to drop Edges from within its raid window, tightening the DPS gap even further) potency of healing per minute for an extra 37 dps isn't anywhere close to worthwhile, especially when you account for how one hard need even preempt incoming damage, but instead merely react to it afterwards. Until both are playing at/among the top ~5%, specifically in content that (A) has no use for WAR cheese and (B) has an enrage timer that the group is falling barely short of, the more challenging is already at a disadvantage.

That's why when you ask for balance, people will rightly ask you "Where? For whom?"

[Melethron123]

They are referring to the logs.

That's why when you ask for balance, people will rightly ask you "Where? For whom?"

how are logs "theoretical striking dummy damage"?

balance in raid content for all levels of play. a DRK that spams unmend and nothing else will deal less dmg than a warrior that uses the path combo and nothing else, sure. but if the best warrior in the world is doing significantly less dmg than the best DRK in the world - especially if that difference is high as 11% - anyone with a functioning brain can see the job balance is terrible

[Lyth]

Outliers are generally a poor place to evaluate balance from. You're not going to nerf the best tank player in the world by simply boosting a job's potency values (they'll just swap), and it's irrelevant to the rest of the playerbase. The truth is that this is probably the tightest tank balance that we've seen in the past ten years of this game. You can try and cherry pick values to try and wrangle out an advantage for your preferred job amongst players who don't understand how such statistics work, but you're much better off investing that time in practicing to become better than you are campaigning here for buffs. With the existing balance, player skill is the greatest buff.

[Melethron123]

The truth is that this is probably the tightest tank balance that we've seen in the past ten years of this game.

now you're just making things up...

[Lyth]

No, it's true. WAR was a mandatory pick for the entire duration of Heavensward and the majority of Stormblood. The absolute dps differences were larger than they are even now, despite jobs having smaller dps numbers overall back then (and tanks actually had a lot more carry potential in terms of dps). Shadowbringers had a closer balance overall, but this is the first expansion that you can actually see them attempting to do balancing on the basis of rdps such that the averages are within 100 dps of each other. The main balance discrepancy isn't with tanks, but rather with casters and ranged dps, which is more of a job design philosophy issue that needs to be looked at. But that's a discussion for elsewhere.

Of course, you'd be better off sticking to providing commentary on expansions that you were actually there for.

[Shurrikhan]

how are logs "theoretical striking dummy damage"?

Your claim: That all jobs should have the same performance.

Others: Note that

• the variance between jobs, even of the same player skill level, vary based on that shared skill level and on the particulars of a given fight (even if far less now than was the case in older expansions),
  
  
• that it is therefore impossible to balance all jobs for all fights for all players, and
  
  
• that it would take little adjustment for the benefit of lower performing jobs' place among the 75th+ percentiles to then simply push out beneath that point other jobs that are harder to learn and therefore would be disproportionately more affected by those relative nerfs.

Your claim: That shouldn't matter; the jobs should be balanced even for the top. If someone wants to do more for the same reward, their love of the job should be sufficient. No exceptions, no caveats, no matter the imbalances elsewhere.

Others: Then you're effectively balancing for striking dummies, not content.

Does that explain how that reasoning ensued? You appear to have been the first to conflate practical balancing with results only relevant to balancing done on-paper or for the top 1% alone. That's why the two ends of responses are mixing.

especially if that difference is high as 11%

The gap between the Warrior and Dark Knight, your examples, are at most 1.8%. At the median, just 0.56%.

And that doesn't even account for what the Warrior is bringing extra to the table: a raid miti that is better in any situation in which players would not have otherwise died twice over from specifically magic damage, and some 25% more combined mitigation and effective self-healing.


Your "11%" gap doesn't appear the 99th percentile and Maximum, wherein no one chasing a generally decent parse (e.g., competing with more than just their own job) is going to be playing an underperforming job anyways. You would be, I'd assume, among that "anyone with a functioning brain," so why are you knowing using a sample biased by a negative feedback loop?

Look instead to, say, the 90th percentile, wherein the greatest extremes are 7.8% apart, and the next rung in, a mere 5.5%.

Note also that the lowest performing job above that percentile isn't even always the lowest performing below; a better indicator of the general health imbalance is instead simply whether their are different "tiers" of jobs (visible from any clefts/cliffs in their bars as you move up or down the percentiles) and whether the lowest performing jobs at the top end can shuffle into higher positions at the lower end.

At present, there is a cleft and the lowest performers (barring a couple outlying extremely skilled Bards) never escape that general position, only jostling among their own (just as the higher tier does). That, especially as complemented by viewing what else each job brings to the table, is a much better framework by which to identify the problem than blanket diagnostics like "all should have the same DPS," when they do not have the same complexity, vulnerabilities, nor degree of utility.

Tl;dr: Yes, the lowest performers should be buffed slightly, but for pragmatic reasons -- the ability of a typical player to play what they want. Because different jobs bring different degrees of utility and reliability, their likely performance would have to be similarly varied for tuning to maximize player choice, rather than simply worsening balance for the vast majority of players.

[Gserpent]

but this is the first expansion that you can actually see them attempting to do balancing on the basis of rdps such that the averages are within 100 dps of each other.

But balancing tanks around rDPS is stupid. It's why DRK is in a state wherein it bursts so hard it takes card priority away from *actual DPS classes* during its window.

[Shurrikhan]

But balancing tanks around rDPS is stupid. It's why DRK is in a state wherein it bursts so hard it takes card priority away from *actual DPS classes* during its window.

It's dumb only if that goal hurts goals (e.g., for diversity and/or depth in toolkits across jobs) that are more desirable for players of the given job/role/game.

Looking at rDPS alone just happens to be dumb when rDPS isn't all that's on offer. And the more we obsess over it, the more it will have to be the only thing on offer as its balance tightens and pulls all other element in, too, in turn.

As long as those tendencies are kept in check, though, tight balance is always* a good thing.

* Actually, small caveats may apply even then, but only in disrupting outsized community perceptions following a long-time imbalance.

[Gserpent]

Tight balance is stupid and they should tell the parsebrains to get bent. Fun is far more important than balance.

[Shurrikhan]

Tight balance is stupid and they should tell the parsebrains to get bent. Fun is far more important than balance.

Fun, when dependent on how well a given class/job/spec clicks for a given person, will be dependent in part on balance.

Balance is currently more than close enough for that for most forms of content, but where getting it closer would come without cost elsewhere, we might as well.

(It just shouldn't be a balance tightly woven around only a single and non-comprehensive dimension of otherwise varied jobs, nor designed only for the top end.)