Two Minute Raid Buffs - The Bane of Endwalker Job Design

[Ggwppino]

And finally, on accessibility, it really didn't help as much as people think. As you say, dying at 30 seconds after burst is FAR less punishing than dying 30 seconds before a burst, or sometimes worse, in the burst window. And while it's supposedly made it easy - "Just use your 2 min stuff on CD, stock a couple resources going into the buff window" - in practice, this has made the gap between top players and bottom players wider. The top players find it more boring, the bottom still can't coordinate it (and suffer more from the random KO's they have), and the coordinated midcore on voice chat, probably the only group benefited by it, still have the occasional string of no-crit-buff-window type stuff or a death right before burst that costs them a clear.

I don't think the designers when they moved all the buff windows every 2 minutes thought they were simplifying the game for the players. Having the buffs lined up necessarily leads to having the coordination to take advantage of them. This actually leads to not playing randomly but keeping well in mind a rotation to be made and possibly modified according to the mechanics of the raid and your comp needs. In high-level raids this could also lead to group reasoning to be able to optimize the timing of buffs to get clear by agreeing on when to use them and conversely optimize the rotation to fit within the buffs while also taking into account the needs of the entire party. currently the main problem is not the 2-minute burst but the fact that there are too many buffs that break the math of the game used badly without considering so many factors of the raid. I dont understand why there was ever this belief that the 2-minute burst is a simplification.

Indeed, Crit >>> all is another problem of the 2 min window, AND sometimes getting a 99 pink vs getting a 74 blue is literally decided only by "Did you get Crit Direct Hits during all the burst windows or did RNGesus forsake you in your time of need?"

Is it a problem with the 2-minute buffs or is it a problem that the crit in this game is broken? The buffs have accentuated it, I don't question that, but the problem of damage variance given by the crit has always been there. Personal parse are penalized by random values in general certainly not by the burst phases in the game. Take off the random numbers in the parse and you have solved the problem, but that is a problem of fflog that should consider individual performance and not mere numbers. It is not a problem of the game. I write this as one who got 99 by losing a fountain of fire, and 87 with a perfect rotation but nonexistent crit so you described me perfectly.

[Renathras]

I don't think the designers when they moved all the buff windows every 2 minutes thought they were simplifying the game for the players.

I'm not sure the Dev intent, but this is something people (generally high end raiders) have cited as a reason. Something about it being easier than correctly aligning the various different CDs in optimal ways.

Is it a problem with the 2-minute buffs or is it a problem that the crit in this game is broken? The buffs have accentuated it, I don't question that, but the problem of damage variance given by the crit has always been there.

It's a problem with the 2 min buffs.

To give you a different way to think about it: If you drive down the road at 100 mph, is you driving at 100 mph a problem, or you driving at 100 mph in heavy traffic with lots of other people driving anywhere from 110 mph down to 70 mph all sharing the same road?

Without the 2 min buff issue, it wouldn't be the problem it is. Before the 2 min buff model, Crit was still the king of stats, but other stats could be respectable in various situations. The 2 min buff window blew that away because the value of getting a Crit under up to 47% boosted damage from aligned buffs is simply far and away better than any other stat, especially the sustained throughput stats like Det and (for Tanks) Tenacity. It also means the correct second choice stat is always Direct Hit, because like Crits, you want Direct Hits during that burst window.

The 2 min buff window heavily prioritizes bursty stats and devalues non-bursty ones, and means getting a Crit Direct Hit in a burst window can be a HUGE difference in your damage output vs not getting them in that window but getting them outside of it. You need something like 3-5 Crit/Direct Hits outside the burst window to equal your damage increase from getting a Crit Direct Hit in the buff window.

The problem absolutely exists because of the 2 min buff window. Even if it would still exist in a lesser form under the ShB 30/60/90/120/180 "consistently up" windows, the impact is outsized by combining all those buffs into effectively one superbuff every 2 minutes.

[Zarkovitch]

You guys know back in shadowbringer it was 0,6 mins raids buff burst and certain job can be ditch out due to excentrique rotation and certain meta comps right? RIGHT!?! So before saying 2 mins is the plague you should do maybe research of old expansion. The current one we have is the most balance I've seen all my life in ff14. Shadowbringer was a lil mess but there was force comps due to certain raid buffs alignments .In Stormblood MCH,BRD,NIN,DRG when? Oh yeah bye bye SAM,MNK,BLM,WHM,DRK get those trash out my yard. In Heavenwards NIN,DRG,BRD,WAR,SMN when? Oh yeah bye bye PLD,MNK,BLM get those trash out my yard.

[aloneatsea]

You guys know back in shadowbringer it was 0,6 mins raids buff burst and certain job can be ditch out due to excentrique rotation and certain meta comps right? RIGHT!?! So before saying 2 mins is the plague you should do maybe research of old expansion. The current one we have is the most balance I've seen all my life in ff14. Shadowbringer was a lil mess but there was force comps due to certain raid buffs alignments .In Stormblood MCH,BRD,NIN,DRG when? Oh yeah bye bye SAM,MNK,BLM,WHM,DRK get those trash out my yard. In Heavenwards NIN,DRG,BRD,WAR,SMN when? Oh yeah bye bye PLD,MNK,BLM get those trash out my yard.

What part of "if you run PLD, WAR, RDM, MCH, or RPR -- as in, any one of these classes individually -- you are effectively incapable of clearing P8S's door boss during the first week" appears balanced to you? There will always be compositions that are preferred; it is impossible to have a game that is so perfectly balanced that your choice of job is entirely inconsequential to your damage output unless you give up the ghost on job design entirely and just change up the button icons.

I'm far less concerned about what people think is good, and far more concerned about ensuring every job can clear the content. The difference in job power in the recent Savage tier was utterly miserable. Some compositions could consistently clear the door boss with a margin; some could only inconsistently clear it, having to rely on an above average critrate across the party. Some compositions could not clear. I can't forget seeing Xenosys Vex talking about how he progged the fight on WAR, found enrage to be a wall, and then cleared the door boss immediately upon swapping to GNB. The dev's solution -- nerfing the boss dramatically -- did nothing to address the fact that there was a vast gap in potential DPS based on what jobs were brought into the raid.



I won't pretend to know what Stormblood balance was like, nor early Shadowbringers balance, but the fact that every job in the game was represented within the first fifty clears of E12S tells me balance was a far sight better back then than how it is currently.

[Ransu]

What part of "if you run PLD, WAR, RDM, MCH, or RPR -- as in, any one of these classes individually -- you are effectively incapable of clearing P8S's door boss during the first week" appears balanced to you? There will always be compositions that are preferred; it is impossible to have a game that is so perfectly balanced that your choice of job is entirely inconsequential to your damage output unless you give up the ghost on job design entirely and just change up the button icons.

I'm far less concerned about what people think is good, and far more concerned about ensuring every job can clear the content. The difference in job power in the recent Savage tier was utterly miserable. Some compositions could consistently clear the door boss with a margin; some could only inconsistently clear it, having to rely on an above average critrate across the party. Some compositions could not clear. I can't forget seeing Xenosys Vex talking about how he progged the fight on WAR, found enrage to be a wall, and then cleared the door boss immediately upon swapping to GNB. The dev's solution -- nerfing the boss dramatically -- did nothing to address the fact that there was a vast gap in potential DPS based on what jobs were brought into the raid.



I won't pretend to know what Stormblood balance was like, nor early Shadowbringers balance, but the fact that every job in the game was represented within the first fifty clears of E12S tells me balance was a far sight better back then than how it is currently.

They overtuned p8s, crap happens.

Personally though imo I don't think the final boss should be clearable week 1 to begin with anyways. Savage needs to stop allowing people to get into the later fights with just crafted gear. No point in farming gear if you can just clear everything week 1 with a crafted set of gear that is basically at the starting ilvl of a new tier.

[aloneatsea]

They overtuned p8s, crap happens.

Personally though imo I don't think the final boss should be clearable week 1 to begin with anyways. Savage needs to stop allowing people to get into the later fights with just crafted gear. No point in farming gear if you can just clear everything week 1 with a crafted set of gear that is basically at the starting ilvl of a new tier.

A boss that is clearable, numerically, by roughly 75% of the available classes is very clearly not overtuned. The other 25% of available classes were let down by poor balance. If the fight was truly overtuned, many more people would struggle to clear it.

As for clearable Week 1, that's your personal opinion, but there is merit in farming gear even if you can clear everything Week 1 -- ultimate fights necessitate a full set of maxed item level gear, there's prestige to be had in having the gear early, and additionally there's a small but healthy speedrunning community out there who run the bosses of each tier in as little time as possible. Full BiS is necessary for that, too -- more damage = faster kill times. There's plenty of reasons to keep farming the fights. Personally, I prefer being able to get the long prog hours over and done with quickly, so I can enjoy myself during reclears and pursue other goals like speeds or alternate strategies.

[ForteNightshade]

They overtuned p8s, crap happens.

Personally though imo I don't think the final boss should be clearable week 1 to begin with anyways. Savage needs to stop allowing people to get into the later fights with just crafted gear. No point in farming gear if you can just clear everything week 1 with a crafted set of gear that is basically at the starting ilvl of a new tier.

Note the discrepancy I mentioned above. Dark Knight pulled upwards of 11% above Warrior if both jobs were played by equally skilled players. A DRK/GNB allowed at least three of your DPS to take a damage down and you'd still have enough wiggle room to clear provided all of them didn't get one during a burst window. If you ran Warrior instead, you simply didn't have that luxury through no fault of your own. Speaking anecdotally, my group had some 50% wipes despite no deaths. Had I been on Dark Knight, every single one of those pulls would have put us in phase two.

Nerfing the boss' HP doesn't change certain jobs having an overwhelmingly higher advantage. Post-nerf, DRK/GNB allowed your DPS to straight up die while Warrior or Paladin did not.

As for not being clearable week 1. They tried that with Gordias and Midas and virtually no one liked it. Knowing that no matter how well you play, you'll simply die to enrage because of a gear check you can't overcome until week x demotivates people from even bothering. It simply isn't fun. Aloneatsea more or less covered the reason people farm gear: speedrunning and parsing. Both have a fairly healthy community, especially the latter. Being able to skip whole mechanics is another fun factor for groups.

[ForteNightshade]

You guys know back in shadowbringer it was 0,6 mins raids buff burst and certain job can be ditch out due to excentrique rotation and certain meta comps right? RIGHT!?! So before saying 2 mins is the plague you should do maybe research of old expansion. The current one we have is the most balance I've seen all my life in ff14. Shadowbringer was a lil mess but there was force comps due to certain raid buffs alignments .In Stormblood MCH,BRD,NIN,DRG when? Oh yeah bye bye SAM,MNK,BLM,WHM,DRK get those trash out my yard. In Heavenwards NIN,DRG,BRD,WAR,SMN when? Oh yeah bye bye PLD,MNK,BLM get those trash out my yard.

Ahahahahahahaha

I'm sorry but you must have barely started playing if you genuinely believe this. Endwalker has seen the worst balance since Heavensward. They had to nerf a damn Savage fight because so many jobs were laughably underperforming. You mention the old meta of Heavensward and Stormblood but that fix has almost nothing to do with the dev team and everything to do with FFlogs changing their ranking system. They used to rank based on personal DPS. If that category remained, every single selfish job is instantly dead.

When Asphodelos launched, Machinist, Dancer and Paladin were grief picks. You could technically clear but it meant demanding significantly more out of your team for zero benefit. The Casters have been a mess almost the entire expansion while Warrior has been buffed three times now and they still haven't gotten it right. Abyssos was so bad on release, a rank 47% Dark Knight was only 100 dps less than a 100% Warrior or Paladin. I should know, I was that Dark Knight having switched jobs because even with a damage down, I'd still outperform Warrior. Prior to the panic buff three weeks later, Dark Knight was pulling ahead by 11%. To illustrate just how utterly absurd this is, the Piercing debuff was originally 10%. Which means it was actually a smaller loss to deprive your Bard of a Dragoon in Heavensward than to bring a Warrior over a Dark Knight in Endwalker.

Viability doesn't mean balance. Warrior could clear both Dragonsong and Abyssos on release. Dark Knight just demolished it, thus allowing far more mistakes from your team throughout prog.

[Valence]

Ahahahahahahaha

I'm sorry but you must have barely started playing if you genuinely believe this. Endwalker has seen the worst balance since Heavensward. They had to nerf a damn Savage fight because so many jobs were laughably underperforming.

While I agree on the sentiment, I disagree with this. Using DSR or P8S as example is disingenuous because those dps checks were insanely stricter than what we usually have. What we usually have is able to hide balance issues better, but here, it put them all into the spotlight for all to see.

But yes, I do agree that viability doesn't equate balance.

[ForteNightshade]

While I agree on the sentiment, I disagree with this. Using DSR or P8S as example is disingenuous because those dps checks were insanely stricter than what we usually have. What we usually have is able to hide balance issues better, but here, it put them all into the spotlight for all to see.

But yes, I do agree that viability doesn't equate balance.

For the precise reason I cited in my subsequent response: Dark Knight pulled upwards of 11% higher DPS than Warrior even if both players were of equal skill. Nerfing Hephaistos' HP doesn't change a tank comp of Dark Knight and Gunbreaker allowed for significantly more leeway in performance. We saw that when Xeno swapped to Gunbreaker and his group cleared with two damage downs and a death, albeit the death came near the end of the fight. Reducing the boss' HP doesn't remove this overwhelming advantage. It simply allows that same comp to have even further wiggle room. Had P8S released at its current threshold, groups running DRK/GNB could afford DPS deaths week 1 whereas a WAR/PLD couldn't. In a prog setting, that is absolutely massive.

Any comp which included DRK, GNB, WHM, AST, SCH, SGE, DRG, MNK, NIN, SAM, BLM, DNC and BRD had zero issues with the tighter DPS check provided they performed well. Only groups running WAR, PLD, RPR, RDM, SMN or MCH had issues, especially if they ran more than one of the aforementioned jobs. What's disingenuous is blaming this wholly on a stricter DPS check when thirteen of the nineteen jobs available could meet that check. Especially when every single one of these underperforming jobs have been buffed since—some several times.

As for Dragonsong. None of the Ultimates have an overly strict DPS check even on release. In fact, you could push certain phases with enough DPS such as skipping Nid-stinien before his enrage started casting, killing eyes before their final AoE or pushing either phase of Thordan well before he finished his end sequence. Double Dragons is downright free in terms of DPS, provided everyone is pushing buttons. None of this changes Dark Knight being hilariously stronger than every other tank by a mile. Not only did the phases line up almost perfectly with its burst but the fight being so heavy on mitigation favored Dark Knight immensely. The only advantage Warrior brought was it being easier to do 6-1-1 in Dragon King.