Crystalline Conflict Tier List (with deep maths!)

[Myrha_Lhlalheva]

Again, I love the idea of rating jobs on vectors like this but a lot of the information presented is just incredibly wrong.

-WHM is not the only uncleansable CC if you count MNK/DNC/RPR LB. AST has overall more crowd control more often if they prioritize it, though it does hurt their healing capacity. I've already counted MoN on a double value anyway, so.
-You can add up BRD potencies yourself if you don't believe me. DRG can almost match BRD's entire burst just by pressing Wyrmwind + Nastrond (on <50%). Full stack Empyreal is significantly less than a Recuperate. Full range PP is one of the weakest burst-type buttons in the game, not even breaking 10k potency. 1+1+1 doesn't =5. If a BRD's burst feels impactful, it's because they're placing it correctly and not just blindly relying on value.
-WAR mobility is nothing to sneeze at. RDM values have been addressed in this thread already. It's not rated as "strictly poor", but relative to the options that some other jobs have, it is indeed relatively not as good.

When you have this many T30/T10 players and actual top LP players trying to explain that your list is very poorly put together, maybe try to listen to them and learn instead of acting like you know better because you added two numbers together with no perspective on what those numbers actually mean.

I understand that DRG will be pressing more buttons, but that's not the point. The point is that a DRG can match value even if they DON'T press fully optimal buttons. There is no universe where you can make the argument that the two are in contention for best STB.

The value of Paean was accounted for by awarding BRD its free point in the DEF category; BRD has no other defensive offerings, so it had nothing with which to score more highly. LB is a 10% damage buff, which WHM can provide twice as often (+healing amp + regen), and AST can triple in the short term. The LB battery effect isn't quantified anywhere in writing, so it's impossible to actually judge how valuable it is in cheating the LB economy. What's the magic bullet here? Creating a "Utility" score and giving BRD a 5?

If adding tooltips is so braindead and BRD burst is so insane, then why doesn't everyone just go pick up all these free kills with this crazy burst and overwhelming party value?

Fundamentally, I believe the effort you put into making the list comes from a good place. But these are very contradictory statements - and the way you've framed this thread is as an end-all-be-all mathematical tier list, yet it may not be reflective of actual gameplay effectiveness?

I am sorry if I have come off as rude or demeaning in my comments, but I have tried to keep my statements as rational as possible in explaining the shortcomings of this methodology that you've chosen.

Don't worry, it's not you! I've enjoyed your feedback a lot actually. As for the contradiction, I never intended for this to be "This Is The Only Tier List Ever", it was more of a math experiment--sorry if that never came across for everyone. That's why that contradictory caveat was placed there--for the MtG players among us, remember that can't always beats can: this system is making an ATTEMPT to quantify, but where it's cannot, it cannot. That's why that disclaimer is there.

[MNKabuser]

If adding tooltips is so braindead and BRD burst is so insane, then why doesn't everyone just go pick up all these free kills with this crazy burst and overwhelming party value?

You're literally just proving their point about what they said in the 2nd thing you replied to.
BRD burst is so valuable because they can combo silence with it and other jobs can help to instantly kill the picks for it before the status effect drops (provided that the target has already used purify and can be CCd with no resistance), this is why NIN+BRD in LP is a very common 2 picks to bring (though there is other combos as well) because NIN and BRD can 100-0 anyone within a silence. Obviously strats like that are rarer in Solo Q because there's no voice comms, but you can still callout who you silence with a Quickchat/Target Marker macro, or even just silencing the person everyone is hitting so they can't recupe or guard through the bursts and die faster. You heavily underestimate the potential of BRD.

[Myrha_Lhlalheva]

You're literally just proving their point about what they said in the 2nd thing you replied to.
BRD burst is so valuable because they can combo silence with it and other jobs can help to instantly kill the picks for it before the status effect drops (provided that the target has already used purify and can be CCd with no resistance), this is why NIN+BRD in LP is a very common 2 picks to bring (though there is other combos as well) because NIN and BRD can 100-0 anyone within a silence. Obviously strats like that are rarer in Solo Q because there's no voice comms, but you can still callout who you silence with a Quickchat/Target Marker macro, or even just silencing the person everyone is hitting so they can't recupe or guard through the bursts and die faster. You heavily underestimate the potential of BRD.

How is timing crowd control with Nocturne different from timing crowd control with literally anyone else? I've had the silence discussion before, but even then--why isn't everyone crying bloody murder about White Shift Resolution? It does quadruple the damage that Nocturne ever did, retains its 25y range, and now lays down the same duration silence but in an AoE, all on the exact same cooldown.

I do very much agree with what Aisi said about BRD's good burst availability--I think THAT'S its real strength. Having access to your burst almost on demand with very little immediate setup is very valuable. But let's not pretend that the number available is particularly high. Saying that you can 100-0 anyone when Seiton does literally 50% of the work is a bit odd, isn't it? And saying that crowd control secures kills when someone has no purify is borderline unnecessary, I think I could've figured that one out.

Just read everything you've written there. It's like 4 instances of "BRD can help its team kill people", not "BRD can kill people." It's not a burst powerhouse one-shot wonder, it's good at helping secure kills that your team couldn't otherwise complete. Does that mean it should be rated highly when comparing single-target burst capability? If I press my entire kit to include LB and I cannot solo kill a SGE/BLM if they press Recuperate even one (1) time, do I say that I'm one of the heaviest bursters in the game? I'd say no, but if you want to say yes then feel free.

[MNKabuser]

How is timing crowd control with Nocturne different from timing crowd control with literally anyone else? I've had the silence discussion before, but even then--why isn't everyone crying bloody murder about White Shift Resolution? It does quadruple the damage that Nocturne ever did, retains its 25y range, and now lays down the same duration silence but in an AoE, all on the exact same cooldown.

RDM and BRD have the same length of silence yes, but BRD can weave it during its burst while RDM silence shares recast with its GCDs and therefor cannot weave it while bursting.

Let's talk about NIN+BRD then.
BRD silence has a 20sec cooldown, no? Mug and Assassinate ALSO have 20sec cooldowns, so for every silence NIN can use Mug (buffing the BRDs burst ontop of it btw) and then do a 19.8k Assassinate (13.2k+6.6k if they have bunshin stacks active for it) into a 17.6k Hyosho in 2sec (the silence duration) adding up to 37.4k damage (39.4k I guess if you really wanna count Mug's 2k LOL) from just the NIN using those 2 alone, not counting the BRD's burst which would add the total damage up much further. If you try to do this same thing with RDM silence, it won't have the same effect because RDM can't just weave its silence between GCDs, Resolution shares recast with its GCDs.

In CC, having even 1 extra number of advantage matters a lot (unless your teams just that bad), so BRD being able to setup KOs like it can makes it very useful, because if that KO setup works then you immediately just took out a number from the enemy side and likely gain numbers advantage because of it. Similarly to MNK LB in a way, except MNK LB being uncleansable and MNK can solo KO people if it wants to, or just use its LB as CC to setup a quick KO for their team; however BRD can silence every 20sec while MNK can only LB every 75sec (not counting if it gains gauge from BRD LB or map things like the coins on Clocktown or feathers on C9/btw don't play MNK on C9 pls it's very bad for you), Purify being 30sec CD with 5sec immunity when used means BRD gets a full 25sec window to use silence on the people who use Purify, setting up KOs for their team. That is why BRD is valuable, and maths aren't going to arrive you to that conclusion because it's a situational kit advantage.

Speaking of MNK btw, I don't know if you slapped its moves next to eachother just for numbers case and didn't care about the correct order, because the combo you listed in the googledoc anyone can just prevent from being done.
There's many different orders of MNK LB combo or burst combos, and that one ain't it.

[Myrha_Lhlalheva]

Let's talk about NIN+BRD then.

I don't doubt that NIN and BRD have great synergy, but "BRD has really great burst" is kind of a hard sell when you spent the whole paragraph talking about how much it enables NIN. "BRD is nice to its friends" is what I got out of that, and I don't think anyone ever disagreed on that point. My point was never that BRD can't set up or help secure kills. The point was that BRD never has the option of solo killing anyone, and that's why it's rated relatively low in single-target burst.

There are other jobs that do more damage and contribute just as much if not more crowd control on a similarly regular basis; there are other jobs that contribute partywide buffs, often with greater value attached. Sure BRD has a full uptime 5% buff, but how valuable is that really when you could have an entire other job with much greater overall output instead? If I gave you the sole task of deleting one person every fight to create that man advantage, would you rather have a BRD+NIN or a MNK+NIN? The only thing that BRD really truly does uniquely is its LB battery effect, and I bet none of you even know exactly how much LB that gives. It's not written anywhere (because SE seems to hate explaining their game), and I'm pretty sure nobody has bothered to test it except us.

And again, saying that crowd control is valuable because Purify is fundamentally insufficient isn't exactly an argument that limits itself to Silent Nocturne.

At the end of the day, it's a win-more job that is almost entirely reliant on its team to accomplish anything. Its strength is in the on-demand flexibility of its burst, but that burst still has to placed with exceeding care that isn't demanded of other jobs--at least not to the same extent. There are no miracles that a BRD can pull out of a hat like a NIN or SAM or MNK or MCH or SMN or etc can. "Win-more value engine that enables picks with good teammates" isn't the most flattering A+ tier description of job if I've ever seen one.

If the monk combo is wrong I will gladly take your input in correcting it. Not sure how it's a freely available option to "just don't get hit kekw", between Six-sided Star and Enlightenment/Meteodrive, but maybe you know something I don't. Remember that we're mathing for theoretical maximums sans counterplay, because that's what we can control for and calculate.

Speaking of monks and LB charging, we were doing some additional testing and I'm not sure if it's a duel-specific thing, but MNK LB seems to be bugged, wanted to pull your ear on that one real quick. Every Meteodrive that we used did 3 ticks of 4k damage during the animation, and then a last hit of 12k--regardless of whether the Meteodrive was used against Guard or not. The 3 ticks of 4k also were not reflected at all in the battle log in either situation. I'm pretty sure that it's supposed to only award a bonus 12k damage if you hit an ungarded target, so unless it's counting its own de-Guarding, I don't think it's behaving as intended. If that IS the intended interaction, it's pretty weird that a) it doesn't show up in battle log, and b) the tooltip doesn't just say "strips guard and deals 24k damage".

[MNKabuser]

I don't doubt that NIN and BRD have great synergy, but "BRD has really great burst" is kind of a hard sell when you spent the whole paragraph talking about how much it enables NIN. "BRD is nice to its friends" is what I got out of that, and I don't think anyone ever disagreed on that point. My point was never that BRD can't set up or help secure kills. The point was that BRD never has the option of solo killing anyone, and that's why it's rated relatively low in single-target burst.

Well yeah, BRD is a support job after all, it helps its friends.
But the thing about BRD bursts is that it comes out quick and can be lined up with its silence, so as long as 1 or even 2 out of your other 4 teammates follow it up, you have a high chance of securing KOs with the silence+burst. CC is a team mode after all, not dueling, solo KO potential is not super important in CC imo, solo KO potential is just a bonus.

[MNKabuser]

If the monk combo is wrong I will gladly take your input in correcting it. Not sure how it's a freely available option to "just don't get hit kekw", between Six-sided Star and Enlightenment/Meteodrive, but maybe you know something I don't. Remember that we're mathing for
Speaking of monks and LB charging, we were doing some additional testing and I'm not sure if it's a duel-specific thing, but MNK LB seems to be bugged, wanted to pull your ear on that one real quick. Every Meteodrive that we used did 3 ticks of 4k damage during the animation, and then a last hit of 12k--regardless of whether the Meteodrive was used against Guard or not. The 3 ticks of 4k also were not reflected at all in the battle log in either situation. I'm pretty sure that it's supposed to only award a bonus 12k damage if you hit an ungarded target, so unless it's counting its own de-Guarding, I don't think it's behaving as intended. If that IS the intended interaction, it's pretty weird that a) it doesn't show up in battle log, and b) the tooltip doesn't just say "strips guard and deals 24k damage".

That's a translation error in the tooltip iirc, it does the same damage whether they're in guard or not.

[MNKabuser]

If the monk combo is wrong I will gladly take your input in correcting it. Not sure how it's a freely available option to "just don't get hit kekw", between Six-sided Star and Enlightenment/Meteodrive, but maybe you know something I don't. Remember that we're mathing for theoretical maximums sans counterplay, because that's what we can control for and calculate.

I meant to reply to this as well in my last post, but as I said there is multiple different ways to LB combo as MNK, but I'll give the proper order to one of them using the skills you had for it in the doc.

Rising Pheonix > Enlightenment > Six-Sided Star > Meteodrive > Rising Phoenix > Phantom Rush
Assuming your first Rising Phoenix hits them, it's:
3k+12k+4k+24k+8k+3k+18k = 72k
Sometimes the ending has ping issues though and is better off not being Rising Phoenix'd for the 18k Phantom Rush, so if you don't do that in favor of just raw Phantom Rushing, while also not including the damage of the first Rising Phoenix, it still does 60k damage.
That's just one of the LB combo variations, and usually in my experience you don't have to use it much when your team can follow up to secure the KO; usually I've just done a simple: Quick chat LB ping > Mark Target on point where your team is > raw LB > Rising Phoenix > Six-Sided Star > Phantom Rush = 49k. If your team somehow cannot help you secure this on point after pinging LB and marking target, then your team probably doesn't belong in PvP.