So does every hate new PLD now?

[Lyth]

?????

This is such a bizarre post.

I specifically told you that two tank jobs with the same dps(t) curve have the same rDPS by definition, but not necessarily the reverse. And yet your reply is 'Because you want rDPS parity, you think that this implies identical dps(t) curves.' What are you even on about? Perhaps you should actually take the time to read what you're quoting.

You then proceed to argue that two jobs couldn't possibly be designed the same burst profiles, which is even more bizarre, given that it's at the center of this discussion. How else do you expect two jobs to offer equivalent contributions under buffs without changing their burst profiles to match? And then you proceed to claim that PLD should have an rDPS advantage over other tanks because of this, which actually flies in the face of job balance in the first place. No, we don't want to return to Stormblood era PLD dominance, thank you very much.

I am a buff provider. I'm the type of person who should care most about this 'hidden rDPS effect', much moreso than the people demanding buffs in compensation. Because when you do less damage under buffs, it directly affects my gameplay. You do realize that you can specifically analyze how much damage under a buff can be attributed to individual players, right? Arcane Circle might account for about 500-600 dps over the course of 6-7 minutes in P8S part 1. Have you seen how much of that Arcane Circle damage actually comes from an individual tank in a good group? 75-100 dps. Equivalent percentile PLD and GNB actually have identical numbers on this, with DRK being at most about 20 dps higher. The differences are even smaller on Mug. Do you really think that I'm going to push for a DRK over a PLD over a 20 dps difference that could arise just as easily if someone sneezes mid-pull, and that I can compensate for myself by working harder?

And if it's such a big deal, then just improve PLD's burst profile. That's a much better decision than giving it a flat out rDPS advantage over everyone else, when I've already shown you how these two concepts can co-exist. Don't be greedy.

[Shurrikhan]

This is such a bizarre post.

I specifically told you that two tank jobs with the same dps(t) curve have the same rDPS by definition, but not necessarily the reverse. And yet your reply is...

Yes, because you've provided prior contexts for that interpretation both here and across the other threads in which you've made the same spiel that only rDPS should matter (that DRK doesn't have any real throughput-contribution advantage, yada yada).

I specifically told you that two tank jobs with the same dps(t) curve have the same rDPS by definition

Not if by "curve" you mean... a curve (the rates of change over time). That's not how rDPS works. It does not care about when that damage is dealt nor, therefore, how it might be affected by raid buffs. It is purely an average. (aDPS is as well, but it is influenced by timing in the sense that actually matters -- how the density/timing of that damage is affected by raid buffs.)

You then proceed to argue that two jobs couldn't possibly be designed the same burst profiles, which is even more bizarre, given that it's at the center of this discussion.

I argued that none currently do. Which is objectively true. You keep using that treating your hypothetical as if it were a given based on the actual state of the game. It isn't.

Meanwhile, I pointed out that the point of the change was to make PLD's burst profile more in line with other tanks. Now, why was that change necessary? Because aDPS parity --not rDPS parity-- is what best compares the contribution that non-buffers provide to their party? Why? Because aDPS accounts for what all a non-buffer brings to its party, while rDPS accounts instead for what all a buffer brings to a party, while ignoring the part of that synergy exploiters bring. Unlike rDPS, aDPS accounts for the timing of damage dealt causes it to be influenced by raid buffs. (Yes, that means DRK contributed a whole lot more throughput over PLD than just what is marked by their differences in rDPS.)

I am a buff provider. I'm the type of person who should care most about this 'hidden rDPS effect', much moreso than the people demanding buffs in compensation. Because when you do less damage under buffs, it directly affects my gameplay. You do realize that you can specifically analyze how much damage under a buff can be attributed to individual players, right?

Yes, I'm the one who pointed out to you that you can literally mouse over the fflogs to see exactly how much damage from each player, and across the whole party, came from which buff when last you said it was impossible to account for them individually and that all aDPS comparisons would therefore be bogus (regardless of the massive samples sizes).

Have you seen how much of that Arcane Circle damage actually comes from an individual tank in a good group? 75-100 dps.

And? You're looking at the weakest duration-ed buff and only at its contribution among non-DPS. Of course the individual numbers are going to be small.

But hey, let's actually make the comparison and see the differences: We'll take the very best PLD (16th place rDPS) and the very best DRK (2nd place rDPS). Fight lengths within 10 seconds of each other. Both have Chain Strategem. The PLD gets 84 dps from Chain Strategem (or, thereby contributes 84 rDPS to the SCH). The DRK gets 181.

The second best PLD parse in the game shares a few more buffs with the second best DRK in the game. From Divination, the PLD got 82 dps, while the DRK got 203. From Radiant Finale, the PLD got 66 dps, while the DRK got 167. From Battle Voice, the PLD got 67 dps, while the DRK got 140. From Wanderer's Minuet, the PLD got 42 while the DRK got 43.

Add those up, and the differences are just as significant as... any difference in rDPS, because it is still absolutely part of what they contribute to a group. When a DRK contributes some 275 more dps (3.6% more total throughput) to its party across the compositions average among 99th+ percentile parses, it doesn't matter to those parties whether it comes from rDPS or aDPS, but the difference in actual contribution may well still matter.

And if it's such a big deal, then just improve PLD's burst profile. That's a much better decision than giving it a flat out rDPS advantage over everyone else, when I've already shown you how these two concepts can co-exist. Don't be greedy.

???

Someone explains the most likely reason why PLD's damage curves were changed. You imply it wouldn't matter anyways on the basis that they only needed rDPS parity. Yet, after --across here and other threads-- having had clarified for you that no, rDPS parity among non-buffers would not be parity in anything but solo content, just explaining what two options that leaves...

If two jobs have different dps(t) curves that cause them to benefit differently from raid buffs, they cannot simultaneously have parity in settings with raid buffs (as noted by average aDPS) and in settings without raid buffs (as noted by rDPS).

Which brings us back to the point long since already established: If you want PLD to have parity in its actual, total contribution in 8-mans (as noted by aDPS) without having changed its damage profile, then it needs to have excessive rDPS.

Personally, I think that'd have been fine, as we don't have any meaningful 4-man content anyways, but perhaps they're future-proofing for later variations of Criterion Dungeons or the like.

There will always be some differences in jobs' ratios between their rDPS and aDPS so long as each job has a different profile/dynamics/curve to its damage, but you can shrink the most egregious examples to future-proof for balance across multiple settings (e.g., both light and full parties).

...is being "greedy"? ???

Perhaps you should actually take the time to read what you're quoting.

Hrmm.

[Lyth]

??????

I think that rDPS parity is the cornerstone of job balance. If jobs don't have similar rDPS values, then they're not balanced. If you want to create a second order model to look at dps(t) distributions and push them to similar burst profiles, that's fine. The data exists but it's not tabulated in a way that makes it easy to compare.

By curve, I'm referring to the distribution of your damage output over time. You can look at actual damage output if you like, or damage per second. In simple terms, if your burst profiles are similar, then the unmeasured benefit you provide to buff providers will be similar. But so too will your rDPS. What you're arguing for doesn't work, because this unmeasured benefit isn't consistent. Let's say every buff provider gains 20 rDPS extra from having you around as opposed to another tank, so I give you an 80 rDPS disadvantage. Well, then groups run a comp without buff providers and then just take the tank with higher rDPS. If you want to be obsessive about that 20 rDPS gain, then you have to just make the burst profiles identical as well. But that doesn't change the need for rDPS parity. That's why the first order model exists.

Also, I'm not sure why you would offer up singular data points on Crit and DH rate buffs. How can you even begin to guess what the benefit is off a single value? If you Crit on every attack for the next 15 seconds, is that because of the buff? What if you would have rolled the exact same string of Crits even without the buff? What if we compare a data point where players get no Crits across the entire group? It's incredibly easy to cherry pick data on this type of buff when there is no compiled data set on it.

Next you're going to try to offer me numbers on Everburn, I can just sense it.

[Shurrikhan]

I think that rDPS parity is the cornerstone of job balance.

It is for buffers, because it then includes what they provide towards team synergy, thus giving a sense of all that they provide. It is not the cornerstone for non-buffers, for whom it excludes all that they provide for team synergy, thus only giving an incomplete picture of their merit. It's not that hard.

By curve, I'm referring to the distribution of your damage output over time.

Then no, rDPS parity does not mean an equal damage curve. If I did 3,600,000 damage in 1 second and then again every 6 minutes, and the fight is only 5:59 long, I'll still have the same ~10,000 rDPS as someone who deals a flat rate of 10,000 damage per second. Will those damage curves anything close? No.

In simple terms, if your burst profiles are similar, then the unmeasured benefit you provide to buff providers will be similar. But so too will your rDPS.

Yes, because rDPS is the value without buffs. But unless purposely limiting ourselves to then-weaker comps, we do not run without buffs.

Let's say every buff provider gains 20 rDPS extra from having you around as opposed to another tank, so I give you an 80 rDPS disadvantage. Well, then groups run a comp without buff providers and then just take the tank with higher rDPS.

No, there'd be no reason to. Taking no buffers is still going to cost the party more than that amount of dps, regardless. You'd be taking the single individually "better" job by sticking your head in the sand to ignore the actual total contribution the job can bring... at cost to the party's actual total dps. And that's assuming anyone cares about comp synergy beyond the former likes of "PLD/MCH bad. Me no take you."

What you're arguing for doesn't work, because this unmeasured benefit isn't consistent.

How the hell do you think rDPS works on any job with at least a single buff? They're just as inconsistent, because team synergy (which rDPS rewards only to buffers) is inconsistent, because teams are inconsistent, and yet we can still make real comparisons because when those choices in composition are averaged out over hundreds of thousands of parses with no Stormblood-esque set comps required of different jobs, yeah, they stop being relevant in job comparisons (outside of maybe, maybe whether single-target buffers had decent exploiters with them, since then the relevant exploiter's skill levels only have a single layer of averaging).

Every job in every parse is going to luck out or be screwed over in some way by their actual Crit/DHit chance that run relative to what their gear says they should average. That doesn't make their data useless.

It's incredibly easy to cherry pick data on this type of buff when there is no compiled data set on it.

But there is: the averages. And if the gap in rDPS to aDPS then matches what is seen in the most self-similar parses (same clear times, same comps, same percentiles) that can be compared to between two tanks, yes, that proves out.

And that's not merely a hypothetical, in this case. It's the reality. 6.28 DRK having more than double 6.28 PLD's (10.3% of its total value coming from buff synergy vs. PLD's 4.8%) over the average matches quite neatly with what we'd already seen specifically in the closest comparisons that can be drawn in individual parses.

And neither of those (~5% or ~10% of total throughput) are negligible, yet they're completely left out by rDPS.

Next you're going to try to offer me numbers on Everburn, I can just sense it.

Everburn isn't even in Phase 1. And that is the constraint you brought to these comparisons.

[Shurrikhan]

>Make the Job Fun at early levels, Holy spirit, Divine might and even req could be moved down.

This is one thing I'd really like to see. PLD used to be "gets okay at 54." Now, it's "gets maybe okayish at 64."

Personal accordant pipedream wishlist (still fairly spitball):

• Revert Goring Blade. No, DoTs aren't especially interesting in themselves outside of cleave situations and syncing to other means of providing the same DoT, but at least it has those two aspects by endgame (still more than any other buff or CD-based combo) atop the usual variety created by having multiple combo finishers.
• Make Circle of Scorn a bit more interesting. I particularly don't care how. Desync it from Spirit's Within, such as by putting it on a 20s CD. Maybe go the DoT route and have it refresh Goring Blade. Maybe have it spread Goring Blade from any targets thus afflicted, splitting its duration across all enemies afflicted. Or maybe it just reduces their damage dealt per attack, by a flat amount (as per "Scorn," -- begone peasant, with your peasant blows). Just, something.
  
  
• Remove the gauge cost of Cover. Reduce its CD. Eventually grant it a second charge.
  
  
• Nerf Divine Magic Mastery II, or even remove it. It's almost wholly rigid in its timing, which leaves the player very little agency for/in optimizing it. Use other means of providing that sustain value per minute.
  
  
• By all means, bring back the %HP dependence on Sword Oath, but have it heal for cure potency equal to twice the potency lost when using it at lower %HP.
  
  
• Have filler/situational spells not cancel combos. That means Clemency, Holy Spirit, Holy Circle, Shield Bash, and Atonement.
  
  
• Change the resource granted by Royal Authority from "Sword Oath" to "Holy Oath," and have it additionally offer some vastly empowered use for Shield Bash (e.g., dealing additional damage based on damage mitigated by Shelltron or Bulwark within the last 4 seconds, with fall-off AoE). OR: Allow Shelltron to generate Shield Oath, perhaps usable for an oGCD Clemency or an empowered Shield Bash, while Sword Oath would offer a second combo-finisher replacement (e.g., for Goring Blade, with Atonement and that new skill [Redemption?] replacing their accordant finishers while available and while Goring/Royal themselves are not combo-readied).
  
  
• Have Confiteor replace Requiescat while the latter is on cooldown. OR: Have all PLD spells spend up to 100% more MP to have 50% additional potency and up to 100% reduced cast time based on the PLD's current %MP, reduce MP generation slightly, and simply have Requiescat cause the next 4 spells to be cast as if at 100% MP.
  
  
• Either consolidate Shelltron and Intervention (e.g., into just "Aegis Boon"), or differentiate those on-demands and allow both to be used on both self and allies (with one perhaps being more of a flat eHP increase and the other percentile).
  
  
• Ideally, have Oath Gauge also incur some benefit from mitigation, healing, and/or the like, to make its generation feel at least a bit more interactive.

Now, is that an awful lot of benefit for PLD? Sure. But the same could be simultaneously done for the other tanks, too.

[Lyth]

...

I'm not sure why you keep misreading my statements about rDPS parity despite me reiterating this for the nth time in a row. If two jobs have equal damage curves, then by definition, they have rDPS parity. The converse is not necessarily true. Yet you keep quoting it backwards. Are you doing this deliberately? If you actually need me to explain how if-then statements work then I can, no worries. But otherwise this is a needless discussion.

There's really no distinction between whether you run a group of buffers or non-buffers because - guess what - both types of jobs are balanced on the basis of rDPS, which already accounts for this. The instant you start messing with rDPS to skew for that invisible 20 rDPS gain from your tank's burst distribution, you create inequalities between the two sets of jobs. Now I have a tank job that does extra rDPS at baseline, and only breaks even with other tank jobs when we run a group of buff providers. So we just run non-buff providers and take the rDPS gain. This is why it's a bad strategy to privilege a job with an rDPS advantage, period. If you want to account for the difference due to burst, you just have to make their burst profiles identical.

If you want to analyze data from Crit/DH rate buffs, then you need to compile it as percentile-based data. Ideally, for any buff, you should be able to pick a buff and look at the damage taken under that buff by percentile for each fight (i.e. for PLD, let's say the 96th offers 175 dps under Arcane Circle, while DRK offers 190.) You can look at a few individual runs and try to get a ballpark sense of what the numbers are for flat damage buffs. But trying to do this with Crit/DH rate buffs is impossible. You could cherry pick a run where there's no Crits at all under the buff. You could cherry pick a run where they're all Crits. These buffs are actually the most difficult to quantify the benefit from specifically because they're so variable, and you can't actually tell if the increase in probability was specifically responsible for a given crit. That's why you need to look at the entire dataset to find the expected value.

And Everburn is a confounder, which is why I looked at Phase 1 in the first place.

[Shurrikhan]

If two jobs have equal damage curves, then by definition, they have rDPS parity. The converse is not necessarily true. Yet you keep quoting it backwards.

Because

(A) you've more than implied the converse before whenever the differences between rDPS and non-buffers' total contribution have come up -- over which you've repeatedly dismissed any value a job may bring that is not included directly in rDPS, despite that being up to 14% of a tank's total contribution to a given party, and

(B) your statement otherwise has no bearing on the conversation nor in rebuttal to the points you started this whole back-and-forth off by contesting (that the changes were to make PLD's damage curve more similar to that of other tanks, reducing the degree to which it was an outlier that made exceptionally poor use of raid buffs, and therefore warranted by an underperformance unable to be accounted for in PLD's rDPS metric that would otherwise take overpowering them in light-party content to correct).

There's really no distinction between whether you run a group of buffers or non-buffers because - guess what - both types of jobs are balanced on the basis of rDPS, which already accounts for this.

So, does raw DPS, you realize? The party's total damage always will be the sum of its parts, regardless of whether you give the credit for synergy to exploiters / buff-usage (DPS) or buffers / buff-giving (rDPS). (aDPS is merely DPS made more usefully readable by removing the otherwise conflating gap between a given first and second place due to single-target buffs all being given just to that best user.)

That's not relevant, though, to which metric best account for a given job's typical total value averaged across whatever parties they may end up in. Which is, again, whichever one actually gives credit for what they contribute towards that team synergy. For anyone with more rDPS than aDPS, that's going to be rDPS. For anyone with more aDPS than rDPS, that's going to be aDPS.

There's really no distinction between whether you run a group of buffers or non-buffers because - guess what - both types of jobs are balanced on the basis of rDPS, which already accounts for this.

No. Again, rDPS alone does not account for job balance, and is painfully insufficient to account for the total value brought by non-buffers.

An aDPS-poor job could have higher rDPS (essentially, as a non-buffer, solo DPS) and, paired into the very same composition, provide that party with less DPS than would another job, because the rDPS lost to its buffers will exceed its rDPS advantage over another non-buffer that has higher aDPS.

Yes, the rDPS loss caused by the change in non-buffers is accounted for... but unlike with aDPS, rather than being within the scope of comparison, that difference is rDPS is only shown elsewhere, not on the stats for the jobs you're balancing against each other. Here, we are comparing tanks, who are purely non-buffers, and yet you insist on balancing those non-buffers specifically on the basis of a metric that would say "X is better" even while X provides less DPS to its party than its alternatives. Why the hell would choose to use that metric, then, as your sole point for comparison in this context?

Every buffer's rDPS [their metric for personal+synergies] depends on their buffs' usage. Every exploiter's DPS [their metric for personal+synergies] depends on their buffs received. You do not look at DPS alone for buffers. You do not look at rDPS alone for exploiters.

* And yes, when single-target buffs are involved, the single-target buffer's rDPS gets even more dependent on having a great exploiter, while any optimal exploiter's DPS can greatly widen its lead based on whether it has single-target buffers (to the point of hiding how large the gap between it and second place would normally be). That volatility is why we look at AST/DNC rDPS far more carefully, and why we tend to look instead to aDPS rather than just DPS.

Tl;dr: No, you do not balance tanks --nor any other job that has more aDPS than rDPS-- around their rDPS alone. Such would balance their throughput only for solo encounters. If you want to balance them for party play, you must look also at their measures of what they contribute to party play (instead of specifically trying to remove that element just to, say, make the case that two jobs are wholly balanced while one has nearly 4% more contribution than the other).

[Rithy255]

This is one thing I'd really like to see. PLD used to be "gets okay at 54." Now, it's "gets maybe okayish at 64."

I don't know about a full revert on goring blade (if thats what you mean) but a soft revert into making it a seperate combo action for PLD, is something I would really want, mind you i wouldn't really mind a full revert over just pressing it once per minute, personally I don't even think it would have been that hard to make goring blade somewhat interesting, I'd like to see circle of scorn changed it just seems like a really odd weak OGCD button that takes up space right now.

Agree with Cover, Things not cancelling combos atonement currently can be annoying to use as it breaks your 1, 2, 3, I generally agree with making the Oath system more interactive, right now its just this weird auto attack timer for your short CD's, I'd like PLD's gauge to have something to stand out defensively. (Clemency idea is pretty interesting, as I like its niche case uses but overall I'd like to see it be brought up a bit so its used more in serious content, not just emergencies).

To me I don't dislike the PLD rework, but at the same time it's more like I feel like PLD could be so much better, I feel like it has similar problems as Dark knight in my opinion while it's not weak/bad (though PLD isn't meta in terms of dps currently but could be boosted slightly more), I just think the design of both feels a bit lacking and messy, where I find DRK too heavily focuses on OGCD's (I think gunbreaker generally feels way more rewarding then how DRK handles OGCDS) and not an actual rotation, they're good defensively but also have really weird weaknesses like dark mind being super strong but magic only? TBN being neat but really punishing instead of rewarding Job feels like it could do with a redesign personally, PLD has more problems with a lot of odd choices in how it's using atonement spam a lot, how it buffs its magic with fof and req, how goring blade just doesn't fit, a lot of its abilities are a bit more niche, how oath gauge just feels weird and tacked on the job.

Edit: Also magic healing, I feel like should be removed, give a small amount to atonement and give then we could have a way of using clemency for personal sustain or targetable sustain to make up for big amount of potency loss, I personally don't think we need that much self healing tied to Burst really, it's still wasting around 2000 potency of healing in your burst if you don't make use of it and another 1200 only really useful if you time in correctly when you're taking damage, I rather that sustain go somewhere else in your kit.

[Shurrikhan]

I don't know about a full revert on goring blade (if thats what you mean) but a soft revert into making it a seperate combo action for PLD, is something I would really want, mind you i wouldn't really mind a full revert over just pressing it once per minute, personally I don't even think it would have been that hard to make goring blade somewhat interesting, I'd like to see circle of scorn changed it just seems like a really odd weak OGCD button that takes up space right now.

I don't need have to go back to exactly what it was, but just as single extra button that roughly doubles our physical combo count (depending on how one considers Atonement, as part of RA combo or no) with time enough to be used every 3 combos, preferably as a DoT (because a buff combo is already more interesting to me than a fixed CD combo, since it has at least a couple extra opportunities there to optimize it, and a DoT combo is more interesting still than a buff combo because it will have a span of enemies over which it can be repeated).

(Ideally, I'd want it to be competitive with dropping RA-Atonement combo completely across 3 targets. So, a tiny bit more potency relative to the AoE combo, now including Holy Circle, at 3 targets. But it really doesn't matter that much so long as it isn't just wonkily out there as a disjointed 60s GCD a la Sonic Break.)

To me I don't dislike the PLD rework, but at the same time it's more like I feel like PLD could be so much better...

Edit: Also magic healing, I feel like should be removed, give a small amount to atonement and give then we could have a way of using clemency for personal sustain or targetable sustain to make up for big amount of potency loss, I personally don't think we need that much self healing tied to Burst really, it's still wasting around 2000 potency of healing in your burst if you don't make use of it and another 1200 only really useful if you time in correctly when you're taking damage, I rather that sustain go somewhere else in your kit.

My thoughts exactly.

[Lyth]

?????

You have directly misquoted me in a way that is false. I have corrected you repeatedly. If you want to claim otherwise, please provide a direct citation or stop making that claim. Thank you.

nDPS and rDPS is identical on tanks. I'm not really sure where you're going with your 'aDPS is a slightly more useful nDPS' tangent. Also, you do realize that nDPS is composition independent, right? By definition you're excluding all external buffs provided by other players.

If you want to see the impact of burst on buffs, we can directly look at the damage taken under any given buff. Nobody has tabulated this data as percentiles yet, but the information exists. If you genuinely have an interest in evaluating this rather than trying to win internet arguments, then this is the quantity to be looking at and offering discussion around. We can directly look at the parameter of interest in this discussion. You don't need to offer a proxy.