Crystalline Conflict Tier List (with deep maths!)

[Myrha_Lhlalheva]

Not to piggyback on the back of the things Aisi said, but they explained a lot of my issues with this tier list, better than I possibly could.
It can't cover all the possible circumstance of an actual match as it plays out,and you cant look at everything in a vacuum so its hard to make an objective tier list.
You'd be better off just making a tier list of your own opinion on the balance of said classes instead of trying to make an "objective" that doesn't consider most everything.

And that's a 100% fair assessment to make. If you do ignore the scoring subsystems though and only look at the tier list(S/A/B/C), which jobs would you move? What would your reasoning be? I'm genuinely curious, because honestly speaking, I do think the overall grading is more or less correct. I might make an argument for SCH being a better than the system gives it credit for, but then again...it IS kind of just a value engine with no real winning gameplan besides "I hope my teammates are good". The current rank 1 player on Primal is maining SCH this season, but I would also caution us not to confuse good players with good jobs.

[Nostoptrying]

This is the worse tier list I've laid my top 10 eyes on and you should feel bad for even making it.

[kayll]

And that's a 100% fair assessment to make. If you do ignore the scoring subsystems though and only look at the tier list(S/A/B/C), which jobs would you move? What would your reasoning be? I'm genuinely curious, because honestly speaking, I do think the overall grading is more or less correct. I might make an argument for SCH being a better than the system gives it credit for, but then again...it IS kind of just a value engine with no real winning gameplan besides "I hope my teammates are good". The current rank 1 player on Primal is maining SCH this season, but I would also caution us not to confuse good players with good jobs.

I can't give an objective tier list placement for classes, just opinions, I'm biased and I know I'm biased.
This is also my first season of even bothering with ranked CC,so I'm still learning.
But I can still see that some classes are being done a disservice by not considering their entire kit,what they are capable of and what it costs to do it during a game.

[Aisi]

Not sure what you mean by "not factoring the delay on Apex Arrow", since Apex isn't even part of the ~1GCD STB being calculated. If you mean that there should be another 8400 tacked on there for Blast Arrow, that would break our rules on how may GCD's we're allowing during the window we're considering. If we just gave everyone else another free GCD as well, then...there isn't really a point.

How is it a free GCD when you use silence to confirm the combo and to get the Pitch Perfect proc in the first place? Does silence not count as a hard GCD?

RDM's low mobility rating is likely because we used the rule of "half value for mobility that was only valid on one type of target". It might seem like an unfair assessment, but I don't think you can argue that 2 enemy-only dashes and 2 enemy-only backflips is just as mobile as, say, Thunderclap.

The mobility is flawed if you judge it only as an enemy-only backflip because the utility will be nearly identical - backflipping to disengage from a fight. But according to your metric an untargeted dash is... quadruple the value of an enemy only dash? There is zero attempt to quantify the mobility as a tool to disengage very liberally. If you want to compare Thunderclap to RDM backflip alone, Thunderclap requires you to have a teammate outside of the fight to escape to, while Backflip has so much more freedom to disengage when you want - why does needing an enemy targeted matter in 95% of situations? You're either in melee range doing melee combo, and then you can opt to backflip whenever you would want. Or you're not in that range, and you can simply sprint and use your ranged privilege to reposition as freely as you want. Add on top of that RDM naturally splits gap closer and disengage into two separate cooldowns - you get so much freedom to choose how to engage, disengage, and keep cooldown rollings. 2 gap closers and 2 disengages is stronger than 2 any targeted dashes because you get more freedom in how to use those 4 button presses. Why is it not possible to argue that it's at least comparable to 3 charges of Thunderclap? The entire reasoning feels like it's written from the PoV of someone who doesn't play melee at a high level.

That says you should use common sense and in-game experience to contrast against the numerical system. In any case, DNC/RPR LB are both supremely impactful when they do hit, and we're considering things based on what happens when buttons hit. If we considered counterplay and enemy mitigation for everything, then nothing would ever work and all the numbers would be lower.

So why didn't you use common sense in creating or curating the metrics? If DNC LB only lands, say, 10% of the time because of real gameplay circumstances, how is that reflected in the numbers? If we disregard counterplay and enemy mitigation for everything, then everything ever would work and you get inflated numbers.

[Myrha_Lhlalheva]

How is it a free GCD when you use silence to confirm the combo and to get the Pitch Perfect proc in the first place? Does silence not count as a hard GCD?

The mobility is flawed if you judge it only as an enemy-only backflip because the utility will be nearly identical - backflipping to disengage from a fight. But according to your metric an untargeted dash is... quadruple the value of an enemy only dash? There is zero attempt to quantify the mobility as a tool to disengage very liberally.

If we disregard counterplay and enemy mitigation for everything, then everything ever would work and you get inflated numbers.

You know what? That's a good catch. That would tack an extra 8400 onto BRD burst, which would move it up one point for STB on the rubric. It'd still sit squarely in C tier, and it'd still be the lowest overall scoring job though.

The utility of a targetless dash is nowhere near identical as a targeted only dash. Consider the following: backflipping forwards. Also, Elusive Jump dispels Bind and Heavy, so you can consider its high rating to be a reflection of that bit of utility.

The reason that we erred on the side of disregarding counterplay vs accounting for counterplay is that there's no way to accurately quantify how much counterplay is occurring, but there IS an objectively "all things being equal" value in disregarding it. If we just start arbitrarily deciding how often any given thing works, then we might as well just throw out the whole system and rank stuff by eye.

[Valence]

I have a Google doc that we were using to break down all the in-depth calculations if you wanted to see that. Also, you keep saying "rated so low" for jobs that are scoring 4/5 points in the category you specify? A rating of 4 is very high under our rubric--scores of 5 are almost impossible to get and are reserved for jobs that are unquestionable best-in-class for that capability.

Keep in mind that AoE is rated specifically for ~1GCD AoE BURST, not for sustained AoE. If we were calculating for that, then SGE and SCH would break the scales. MCH doesn't actually have that much consistently repeatable AoE anyway--not in the way that Phlegma spam or Biolysis can be used. Similarly, defensive ratings are graded around one cooldown cycle, not repeatable healing like WHM/AST. You could make an argument that the two pure healers should be awarded an extra point just by virtue of how much repeatable healing they have, but the grading criterion was specifically built to compare each job's short-term contribution to the survival of a targeted attack.

RDM single-target burst was a huge clusterfrick of averaging that best possible combos in both White Shift and Black Shift, so the average will naturally be a bit lower. I suppose in theory we COULD grade jobs like GNB or RDM based on their stances--it'd require a bit of retooling and an updated graphic. Fun fact--the math states that GNB actually has more effective health in Junction Healer than in Junction Tank.

Alright, I understand better the AoE ratings if it's for a burst AoE and not just AoE pressure. I guess I expected pressure as well because it's important in a way to peel off enemy resources and push the crystal when it matters. I understand that burst is meta and turns games, but pressure is not an afterthought either.

Yes, Healer GNB has a huge potential when your team is cluttered, but also has to face a problematic overhealing on allies AND the GNB themselves. I was also surprised at RDM because from experience, that job literally deletes everything with a full burst like there is no tomorrow. It's one of the jobs I fear the most as a ranged player (with some melee DPS), because its only weakness is crowd control, and they have ways to work around it still.

I am also curious how many GCDs you actually included into that RPR burst because I'm kinda puzzled to see something score higher than MNK and MCH that can, with LB, literally break over 70-75k damage within 2-3 GCDs.

I know RPR has an insane pressure in damage, but it never struck me as something that would fall into the strongest alpha strike category...

MCH aoe is prob due to the aoe's outside of bioblaster not being that great, shotgun is very meh on more than one target, nobody is gonna stand in the turret for more than one tick and any decent opponent isn't gonna wildfire their own team if they can prevent it, so all you have left is short range bioblaster, and a line aoe chainsaw that is very meh without target being <50% and analyzing it.

MCH has one of the best sustained AoE in the game, after the usual culprits (BLM/SMN). It's comparable or higher to DNC and GNB or even DRG, that are also very strong in that department. I always get consistently top damage at the end of games as MCH unless there is BLMs/SMNs. I think MCH still gets a good chunk of its damage from the single target applications, but it just has so many different AoE sources (bioblaster, scattergun, chainsaw, WF even though it's a gimmick impossible to predict) that it just peppers the results pretty well with inflated damage I guess.

I am keenly aware of exactly what WHM LB does and how often it's up. Again, I'm not in any way saying that it's a bad or low-value LB--but it CAN be played against. Compare AST LB, which has precisely zero counterplay and arguably vastly more value. I get that WHM is big scary laser with tons of value attached, but with correct positioning and good usage of crowd control nullification, you can turn WHM LB into "18k damage to one person with tons of value attached", which is honestly approaching playable. It's not like AST LB, which strangles the fight with overwhelming numerical superiority.

I think WHM LB on its own isn't huge on overall results and table turning games, but if used in conjunction with other LBs like DRG, SMN, etc, can be absolutely devastating. A good WhM player should know that, but it's true that you don't see it a lot in games. They just belch the lazor whenever it's up.

AST counterplay, besides having a pocket PLD with its own LB I guess, imo, is just for everybody to Guard up and brace until the worst of it is over. Delaying and stepping back. It's somewhat similar to SGE LB, that you can counter by just refusing to fight until it's over (and a good SGE LB will wait for the critical moments where you cannot afford to delay/retreat). As you probably know, retreating is not really a problem unless you're close to the end of a game or specific overtime shenanigans... Problem is like for WhM, people are bad at dealing with it, just the other way around. If I personally see a Celestial River going up, like for a DRG LB, I just Guard if I can, else I run the hell away.

[Valence]

I guess I'm also biased in a way because while this is all well and good for job potencies, it completely fails to address what is a bigger problem in my book on CC right now, aka the supposedly role agnostic side of it, which is a big lie. I feel like the higher you go in levels (diam/crystal but especially top rankings), bringing a ranged DPS to a game is actually not far from griefing. They get deleted instantly all the time, people know how to defend against their convoluted toolkits, and... idk, it's just a nightmare to play at times, unless your team is truly winning and it makes you safe by proxy.

[MNKabuser]

This list is so wrong, how do you main BRD but don't even understand how BRD works. Then even saying that GCDs give back MP...I CANT LOL

[Myrha_Lhlalheva]

This list is so wrong, how do you main BRD but don't even understand how BRD works. Then even saying that GCDs give back MP...I CANT LOL

Hey now, I accepted that that was a mistake and rectified it. At least I made any effort at all to put out information, and people are bound to make mistakes. If everyone else on the planet is such a BRD genius and BRD is such an amazing job, then where are all the high-ranking BRD gods? Where are they? Nobody seems to want to answer that question.

[Towa-Musa]

PLD should be A tier ngl, its really good if you're all about team play. (as you should be, why else are you playing a moba mode)