SAM out classing all other DPS

[HolyTurtle]

In short, for NIN to be at least at the level of SAM, you need a group that can do 21k DPS. It means that your whole group has to work quite hard to make up for the fact that they bring a NIN instead of a SAM which could've been fine by

Susano needs 14k group DPS to be clearable. As of today, quite a lot of PF groups still hit enrage. So this 21k group DPS is far from being the norm.

Choosing a phenomenon (350 dps difference between SAM and NIN) in the highest performance level (top 100 parses for each job) and a phenomenon in PF (21k raid dps is uncommon) to make an implication on choosing a raid composition in PF is irrational. In PF, the 350 dps difference between SAM and NIN is as uncommon as raid dps more than 21k is. In the top 100 parses, the 350 dps difference between SAM and NIN is as common as raid dps more than 21k is. Do not mix and match conditions from different performance levels to make an implication on a specific performance level.

Furthermore, using only 100 parses to represent the performance of any job is inadequate and misleading. Balancing should not be based on the top 100 parses (not even the 90 or 80 percentile), and choosing a raid composition should not revolve around the top 100 parses either since those parses do not reflect the performance of the majority of raiders.

What differ is what data we use. And it's true that the difference in DPS between NIN and SAM when looking at specific percentiles doesn't align with what I found.

Let me restate my conclusions clearly:
- If the performance of every party member is within 10 percentile of each other, then Trick Attack damage increase outscales the dps difference between SAM and NIN.
- If the performance of SAM and NIN are excessively high while the performance of all other members are low, then the dps difference between SAM and NIN outscales the Trick Attack damage increase.

And this was my main conclusion, supported by your calculations: for NIN to be on par with SAM, the whole group needs to be top notch. This condition greatly devalues Trick Attack and often leads to the situation I described.

This is wrong. At all percentile levels, Trick Attack damage increase outscales the dps difference between SAM and NIN, assuming all party members are within the same percentile. A group does not need to be top notch for NIN to provide more raid dps than SAM; the group members only need to be approximately equal in performance.