Quote Originally Posted by Spider-Dan View Post
I have yet to see any actual data on the comparison.

Furthermore, I can post up plenty of parses of me beating Ifrit users with a melded Crab Bow+1 (back in 1.20). Does this mean that Crab+1 was arguably better than Ifrit back then?


TP generation is different based on the attack delay of weapons in XIV, so I don't see your point.

You can argue that the curve is more linear in XIV than in XI (and that's true), but in no way does that mean that DPS was somehow devalued in XI; it just meant that certain weapon+gear builds needed to be optimized for the specific number of hits to reach 100 TP (for a WS). And when you get right down to it, XIV has the same issue: a weapon that returns 500 TP per hit is superior (from a TP generation standpoint) to one that returns 550 or 450, because you reach 1000 TP in exactly two rounds (instead of 3 rounds like a 450 TP weapon), and you do so more quickly than a 550 TP weapon (which has longer delay).

All of the above are nuanced factors that come into play when evaluating light/fast vs. heavy/slow weapons. However, in XIV, the light/fast weapons are also the heaviest when it comes to WS. That unbalances the comparison.


Yes, that is the point: in a fight like LNC vs. Ifrit (even if WS is based on DMG), a high DPS weapon will be preferable because the vast majority of your damage is coming from autoattack. Again, that's a tradeoff that is not present in the current system. In the current system, if you need a weapon that has strong autoattack damage output, you find something with good DPS, and if you need a weapon that hits hard on WS, you find... the exact same weapon. The tradeoff doesn't exist.
It's not whether you beat others using ifrits bow while you use crab bow. That's not a controlled test and is irrelevant as it brings player skill differences into question, which is a variable you cannot control. The question is what kind of damage do you put out with the Spine and what kind of damage do you put out with ifrits. Simple as that.

Also in XIV TP generation is ultimately the same regardless of DPS or attack delay. Lower delay hits generate less TP and higher delay hits generate more TP, and yes it is very linear meaning that as far as TP is concerned delay is irrelevant.

A higher DPS weapon almost always being superior is perfectly fine so long as they don't throw DPS values of weapons all over the place for same level weapons. Some weapons will always be superior. The difference is one can chose the delay of their weapon among similar DPS weapons based on their style and what works best for them. If WS damage was based on the Damage stat higher Damage would be the superior choice for every scenario. Period. No choice at all. Lower damage weapon would always translate to lower numbers on the parse at the end. WS are not kept in check by anything other than TP generation and their own cooldowns, neither of which are based on DPS or delay. So higher damage would always win, which again offers less flexibility than higher DPS always winning.

That all being said, in the case of archer it seems higher DPS doesn't always win. It increases the difficulty in maintaining cooldowns.