Why is everyone anxious about a PLD Rework?

[Lyth]

It's every bit as emotional as your response just now. This community is incapable of thinking for itself. Someone made a video about how the 'two minute meta' is 'destroying the game'? Guess what this forum is going to be talking for about for months, despite the fact that raid buffs have been central to optimization for years. WF cleared with a particular comp? The reason players are struggling with their week 52 clear right now with 7x Echo is because they're not using that exact same comp. Literally unplayable. The more people who stop parroting and start questioning, the more we'll see this cycle break.

One of my favorite moments was when the WF for Unending Coil ran with a DRK at a time when the job was believed by the community at large to be the absolute bottom of the barrel. When questioned about why they picked it over the then dominant WAR, the answer was 'I like playing DRK.'

[ForsakenRoe]

It's every bit as emotional as your response just now. This community is incapable of thinking for itself. Someone made a video about how the 'two minute meta' is 'destroying the game'? Guess what this forum is going to be talking for about for months, despite the fact that raid buffs have been central to optimization for years.'

One day, FFlogs should just hide the percentile and median stats on everyone's page as an april fools joke. Leave it that way for a week or two, so it doesn't just get dismissed right away as 'eh its just april fools' and people start thinking it'll stick. I want to see how many people whine and bitch that they cant see the funny color number anymore. As for raidbuffs, the issue is the adaptability factor that has been lost due to everything being made into 2mins. In the past we could have said 'ok the fight ends in 3:20, we should hold our 2min buffs until the 3min buffs come up, since we're only getting one more 2min use anyway', but now that everything's standardized to be a 2min we can't do that anymore. We can delay the 2min so that it doesn't happen during Pinax, sure, but it's not really the same. Also, it feels like it's even more punishing to mess up the raidbuff window now, due to EVERYthing being funneled into that 2min burst. If someone misaligns their buff, or mechanics force you to be unable to capitalize on the buffs as much as you'd want to (eg in prog, when enrage at it's peak threat level) it's much more of a RIP than it used to be in SB. And people do misalign their buff, Manifold Flames makes some people buff before moving out, some people after they come in for Nest/Tetraflare, and now everything's all screwed up. SE tried to make it 'easier to keep the buffs aligned' and somehow made it, not just 'not really easier' but also 'more punishing', how the heck did they even manage that

[Gserpent]

One day, FFlogs should just hide the percentile and median stats on everyone's page as an april fools joke. Leave it that way for a week or two, so it doesn't just get dismissed right away as 'eh its just april fools' and people start thinking it'll stick. I want to see how many people whine and bitch that they cant see the funny color number anymore. As for raidbuffs, the issue is the adaptability factor that has been lost due to everything being made into 2mins. In the past we could have said 'ok the fight ends in 3:20, we should hold our 2min buffs until the 3min buffs come up, since we're only getting one more 2min use anyway', but now that everything's standardized to be a 2min we can't do that anymore. We can delay the 2min so that it doesn't happen during Pinax, sure, but it's not really the same. Also, it feels like it's even more punishing to mess up the raidbuff window now, due to EVERYthing being funneled into that 2min burst. If someone misaligns their buff, or mechanics force you to be unable to capitalize on the buffs as much as you'd want to (eg in prog, when enrage at it's peak threat level) it's much more of a RIP than it used to be in SB. And people do misalign their buff, Manifold Flames makes some people buff before moving out, some people after they come in for Nest/Tetraflare, and now everything's all screwed up. SE tried to make it 'easier to keep the buffs aligned' and somehow made it, not just 'not really easier' but also 'more punishing', how the heck did they even manage that

It's really fucking weird, the 2 minute paradigm actually punishes casual groups and players *way* more than it punishes skilled ones. If someone has damage down during a 2 minute window, there goes a considerable portion of your raid's DPS. If someone is dead during a 2 minute window, there goes a huge portion of your raid's DPS *for the rest of the goddamn pull.* And then, they added way more body checks than in any previous tier. DSR, at least, has divided opinions on quality, with people either saying it's the worst raid they've ever done and them having damned near "gaming PTSD" from it (people saying that even the thought of doing more DSR makes them wince) or people saying it's the best content they've ever made - seems to be completely reliant on whether or not you had a rock-solid static to grind it with. FWIW, I think the easier UWU-style ultimates are a better design choice.

I have no clue what they're doing but Endwalker is quite easily the worst design for raiding since fucking Gordias. I mean, at least it's *playable* and all classes are nominally viable (lol, PLD), but I think they're getting slapped with reality here - you can't keep taking shit out of the game and dumbing things down, or else you end up in a system that is paradoxically extremely hostile to unskilled players because you've gone and removed all of the little bits and bobs that they could have used to get themselves back on track after a mistake.

[ForteNightshade]

It's every bit as emotional as your response just now. This community is incapable of thinking for itself. Someone made a video about how the 'two minute meta' is 'destroying the game'? Guess what this forum is going to be talking for about for months, despite the fact that raid buffs have been central to optimization for years. WF cleared with a particular comp? The reason players are struggling with their week 52 clear right now with 7x Echo is because they're not using that exact same comp. Literally unplayable. The more people who stop parroting and start questioning, the more we'll see this cycle break.

One of my favorite moments was when the WF for Unending Coil ran with a DRK at a time when the job was believed by the community at large to be the absolute bottom of the barrel. When questioned about why they picked it over the then dominant WAR, the answer was 'I like playing DRK.'

There is nothing emotional about my response. Your argument goes entirely against the data we have readily available and your only source of evidence is "raiders are emotional". The rest of this is little more than a tirade which has nothing to do with my response. Casual players following a meta they don't properly comprehend has nothing to do with tank balance. Nobody is arguing all tanks (or all jobs) can't clear content. They're arguing about their imbalances. Dark Knight isn't simply doing 50 more DPS and people are whinging. It's dealing almost 400 more aDPS in some fights.

Going back to actual statistics, the argument rDPS is perfectly fine for tanks doesn't hold up when Paladin is actually the strongest rDPS tank in P5S yet Dark Knight has a staggering 61% representation at the speed kill level compared to Paladin's 2%. You can't dismiss this massive a gap with a handwave "raiders are just emotional". These are speed killers whose entire content is based around using the strongest jobs available. There's a reason Dark Knight is overwhelmingly dominate in every single fight over the span of two full raid tiers and an Ultimate. It's simply better in overall capability. Once again, if you want to disagree with FFlogs' metrics then by all means. However, that isn't the same argument.

[Lyth]

...

People always seem to get emotionally worked-up when you challenge the established dogma. But you have to think critically for yourself rather than just relying on what you are told.

There are a number of issues with the popular interpretation of aDPS as a 'measure of buff alignment' that should show you that it is incorrect. You should actually take a look at what you're measuring in the first place. It's not buff alignment. It's just raw dps with single target padding permanently discarded (and remember, the presence of a BRD in any run will skew those numbers because of how their buffs work). There are plenty of other ways that you can pad those numbers with raidwide buffs, so it's entirely composition dependent. It's pretty much worthless unless you're comparing two different runs with the same composition.

It's not hard to determine a significantly more useful parameter. All you need to do is publish the 'damage taken' under a given buff by percentile and compare like percentiles for different jobs. Then you can say a NIN benefits by X rDPS by virtue of having a GNB present instead of a PLD, or a NIN benefits Y rDPS by virtue of having a SAM present instead of a DRG. It's a much more effective method of analysis rather than looking at a parameter that is completely meaningless without knowing the composition in which it was generated in.

[Melethron123]

There are a number of issues with the popular interpretation of aDPS as a 'measure of buff alignment' that should show you that it is incorrect. You should actually take a look at what you're measuring in the first place. It's not buff alignment. It's just raw dps with single target padding permanently discarded (and remember, the presence of a BRD in any run will skew those numbers because of how their buffs work). There are plenty of other ways that you can pad those numbers with raidwide buffs, so it's entirely composition dependent. It's pretty much worthless unless you're comparing two different runs with the same composition.

It's not hard to determine a significantly more useful parameter. All you need to do is publish the 'damage taken' under a given buff by percentile and compare like percentiles for different jobs. Then you can say a NIN benefits by X rDPS by virtue of having a GNB present instead of a PLD, or a NIN benefits Y rDPS by virtue of having a SAM present instead of a DRG. It's a much more effective method of analysis rather than looking at a parameter that is completely meaningless without knowing the composition in which it was generated in.

a SAM using their cooldowns with multiple raidbuffs active will deal more dmg than a SAM using their cooldowns with no raid buffs active, and that difference in damage comes from the bonuses they get from said buffs. so yeah, aDPS does measure buff alignment (and the same applies to every job out there)

DRK does 12% more dmg than WAR and PLD, despite their rDPS being very close to each other, because they can put more potency inside buff windows

and correct me if i'm wrong, but can't you see the party composition when you look at someone's log?

[Shurrikhan]

and correct me if i'm wrong, but can't you see the party composition when you look at someone's log?

You can, yes. Every individual log is part of a larger party-wide log, and records exactly dps how much they (and every other party member) received from each buff.

[ForteNightshade]

...

Once again, you are arguing against the literal description from FFlogs.

aDPS removes single target padding, but still rewards you for playing to AOE buffs. It also doesn't include your buff contributions, so this metric allows you to evaluate how well players are aligning their damage bursts with external AOE buffs.

Furthermore, neither metric is immune to padding. They both can be abused with the right comp under the right circumstances. Hence why both are valuable metrics depending on the job as some benefit more from aDPS and others from rDPS. Dismissing it as "worthless" because of two different comps is ignoring rDPS can also be manipulated. aDPS is meant to calculate job bursts within raid buffs while not contributing their own whereas rDPS is a better metric for jobs with buffs that benefit from said bursts. Which is why tanks tend to favor the former.

However, let's put all that aside for a moment and return to the speed kill examples I've provided. Both of which you've ignored. If rDPS is the superior statistic for tanks, and thus, accurate, why is Dark Knight over twenty times more dominate in P5S than Paladin when the latter actually performs better in rDPS? Out of the top 50 ranked speed logs, only one group isn't running a Dark Knight. Twelve of those groups (24%) have two Dark Knights. That is more than Paladin and Warrior's representation combined.

Now when we glance at rDPS, this extremely lopsided result simply doesn't make sense when the entire purpose of speed killing is to bring the most efficient jobs. At 99% Paladin is ahead of Dark Knight and roughly tied with Gunbreaker. At max%, it's actually ahead of all tanks. Meanwhile, when we look at aDPS under those same parameters, we see Dark Knight pulling away by 600 at 95% and a staggering 900 at 99%. In other words, the overrepresentation makes sense. So... what is this? Is the speed kill community just emotional and completely ignoring raw DPS because of established dogma as you put it or is your dismissal of aDPS completely unfounded and the statistics reflect that?

[Melethron123]

Now when we glance at rDPS, this extremely lopsided result simply doesn't make sense when the entire purpose of speed killing is to bring the most efficient jobs. At 99% Paladin is ahead of Dark Knight and roughly tied with Gunbreaker. At max%, it's actually ahead of all tanks. Meanwhile, when we look at aDPS under those same parameters, we see Dark Knight pulling away by 600 at 95% and a staggering 900 at 99%. In other words, the overrepresentation makes sense. So... what is this? Is the speed kill community just emotional and completely ignoring raw DPS because of established dogma as you put it or is your dismissal of aDPS completely unfounded and the statistics reflect that?

i'd bet a whole cookie that whoever is in charge of tank balance is tuning the numbers around rDPS instead of aDPS

[Lyth]

...

This seems to be an analysis issue on your part. Yes, that quote says that it 'allows you to evaluate how well players are aligning their damage buffs with external raidwide buffs.' That's true, when you're comparing yourself with yourself. What it doesn't tell you is how well two different jobs matched with different raid comps intrinsically align with two-minute raidbuffs. You'll note that gains from BRD's rotational raidwide buffs are included, which have nothing to do with your burst alignment. You'll also note that there are no pretenses made here about this illustrating tank damage balance, or in how much additional damage is actually contributed to buff providers. These are just false inferences that you have made because you haven't bothered to take the time to read what it actually says on the tin.

I don't really think that you can say that rDPS is subject to padding on anywhere near the same scale as aDPS is, simply because setting aside single target buff jobs, the only way that other players influence your rDPS contribution is in what they do under your 16% uptime two minute buffs (i.e. individually, what's going to amount to 0.5-0.8% of your total rDPS). That's the same quantity that you're quibbling over, on the second lowest damage role in the game. What's going to influence it more than raid composition is being paired with players who keep dying during buff windows or can't maintain proper uptime. But that's a bit like saying that clearing a fight faster with a group of better players boosts DPS metrics at all levels.