Interview with xenosys-vex

[whiskeybravo]

No, burst windows are inherently more valuable.

Unfortunately, this entire line of argumentation can be dismissed for this particular raid tier. There aren't any "phases" to push, fights are 100% scripted. The only mechanics you're skipping are due to a faster clear, and in this regard burst damage is equally valuable as sustained. The only real phase push in current content is in Shinryu, which is pug content at this point. The adds in v3s barely live long enough for more than 1-2 fell cleaves, and the other adds are just used for pad nowadays.

Furthermore, higher burst can not be inherently easier to optimize than sustained. I really can't believe that would be argued. It's much more difficult to line up small burst windows into even smaller raid utility windows. I don't optimize to that high of a level, but Xeno said he uses 9 different rotations based on party comp? How many does his paladin have?

Overall I'm in agreement with you that burst is slightly more valuable than sustained, but you're including caveats in your argument such as the actual structure of the current raids (phase pushing when there are no phases to push) and synergy with raid buffs (party comp dictates performance). Both of these are dependent on the content design and party comp, not inclusive to the job itself.

Well if utility should, like Xeno or Whiskey are claiming, balanced around DPS, DRK should be hand down the best damage dealer out of tanks. However argument against it will come as much as necessary, because no warrior wants to be beaten in damage.

I have no problem with this personally, but myself and I'm sure others agree, just buffing drk dps doesn't solve the problems with drk overall.

[SyzzleSpark]

I have no problem with this personally, but myself and I'm sure others agree, just buffing drk dps doesn't solve the problems with drk overall.

Xeno conveniently left WAR out of the balance equation when talking about DRK, and went on a long tirade about DRK having inferior utility to BOTH tanks, and that low utility should be balanced by higher personal DPS, and then in his closing paragraph on that segment, stated specifically that DRK should deal higher damage than only PLD (omitting WAR from the statement altogether).

If buffing the living hell out of DRK's personal DPS wouldn't solve all of the job's problems, that just explains why Xeno suggested it. He's a self-professed WAR fanboy and it is the only job for which he will demonstrate attention to detail when discussing balance.

For evidence:

The more raid utility a class has, the less solo damage it should do. Because if that’s not the case then you end up in situations like the current one, where Dark Knight is just abysmal. After the Shake it Off change there’s no reason to bring a Dark Knight, because Warrior does more damage and now has better utility.

Paladins have insane amounts of utility, and they still do more damage than Dark Knights. Why would a job that has more utility do more damage than a job that has less utility? That doesn’t make any sense at all.

Paladins have Intervention, Divine Veil, and Cover! Cover is so stupid good it’s insane, and so is Intervention. Sheltron is also busted. The fact that you can block magic now just completely shits on Dark Knights. That literally took away all of their individuality. They were supposed to be the “magic tank”. Why can magic be blocked, but not parried? If you can block it, you should be able to parry it.

Xeno's argument implies that DRK should be at the top in tank DPS. He comes right out and says DRK has less utility than both WAR and PLD.

It also implies that as soon as WAR got its buff to SiO, it lost its argument for getting additional DPS buffs because, sing it with me folks -

The more raid utility a class has, the less solo damage it should do.

Lets take a tally here by Xeno's scoreboard.

Utility:
PLD: 1st
WAR: 2nd
DRK: 3rd

DPS:
PLD: 2nd
WAR: 1st
DRK: 3rd

His logic suggests that to make up for DRK being 3rd in one category, it should be 1st in the other.

Both of the other tanks have more utility than Dark Knight, so Dark Knight needs some potency increases so they can do more damage. That’s all they need. Dark Knight needs to deal more damage than a Paladin, and it needs to be enough more to outweigh the extra healer GCDs that you get by bringing a Paladin.

Here however, he conveniently says that DRK should have more DPS than PLD ONLY. He mysteriously neglects to mention WAR. So, essentially he is saying DRK and PLD should be balanced with eachother, but WAR should bring more DPS than both, while also having more utility than DRK. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? I'm getting severe deja vu here. Oh, right, this is what we had in Heavensward. Isn't that interesting.

I'm sure that Xeno is a talented player and an asset to the PF community. His logic skills however, need some work.

[TouchandFeel]

snip

The problem with his logic is that it is nonobjective and bias-blinders play into what data forms the basis for the proposed arguments.

The interview displays a number of blatantly lop-sided logical arguments where points were very much selectively brought to bear, often to a hyperbolic degree, or just straight up omitted if they didn't reinforce the predetermined argument, not to mention some of the side-by-side comparisons being dubious at best.

Essentially the interview can be boiled down to "PLD has good DPS now and brings good utility, buff Fell Cleave ... oh and DRK sucks ... WAR needs moar deeps!".

As you said, great player who does great things for the community but people need to see his opinions as just that "opinions", which are very much skewed by heavy job preference.

[Aana]

The problem with his logic is that it is nonobjective and bias-blinders play into what data forms the basis for the proposed arguments.

The interview displays a number of blatantly lop-sided logical arguments where points were very much selectively brought to bear, often to a hyperbolic degree, or just straight up omitted if they didn't reinforce the predetermined argument, not to mention some of the side-by-side comparisons being dubious at best.

Essentially the interview can be boiled down to "PLD has good DPS now and brings good utility, buff Fell Cleave ... oh and DRK sucks ... WAR needs moar deeps!".

As you said, great player who does great things for the community but people need to see his opinions as just that "opinions", which are very much skewed by heavy job preference.

Agreed. There are so many posts that are just "(insert idea) needs to happen. Xeno explains why *link*". That's the danger of celebrity 'opinions' they get trotted out like a scientific study when they aren't. They are just players better than you saying things about jobs. Theres no scientific method. Theres no standard applied. But they become battle cries for people who want the same buffs/nerfs as the celebrity player.

This whole idea about Utility vs DPS is a red herring anyway. When in the history of this game did the meta ever take the highest utility tank with lower DPS than the less utility tank? Never that's when. Pld had by far the best utility in HW. It was in the dumpster with low deeps. The community will take the highest DPS combos every time all the time unless the game fundamentally changes. People are only talking about utility now because Pld has 2nd highest DPS and utility. "But I have utility" didn't help the plds when they had low damage for 2 years.

No one cares about utility. The only thing that decides tank comps is raid damage. People took Drk over pld for all of HW because it did more damage MT and War did more damage OT. Pld had more utility and no one gave a crap.

As long as we moved from 2 tanks to 3 utility has NEVER been a factor in choosing tank meta. Only the highest DPS combo.

Utility is a red herring. Make them all do similar damage or there will be a looser. Stop trying to balance with utility as a factor. It doesnt matter.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

When in the history of this game did the meta ever take the highest utility tank with lower DPS than the less utility tank? Never that's when. Pld had by far the best utility in HW.

Did it though? In an expansion where WAR had Storm's Path and DRK had Delirium and Reprisal?

[Crater]

Did it though? In an expansion where WAR had Storm's Path and DRK had Delirium and Reprisal?

Yeah, I don't think that one was true at all. Warrior absolutely ruled the roost in 3.x in terms of utility, between Storm's Path, Storm's Eye, Unchained (or just a Defiance-Equilibrium) for enmity on a pull, being able to boost a Deployment Adlo to 1.44x with Conv+Defiance, and they even had a ton of mobility since Deliverance-Equilibrium gave them enough TP that they could Sprint and not run dry.

3.x Reprisal pretty much went toe-to-toe with Divine Veil in terms of party mitigation tools (another reason it should come back), but then DRK had Delirium, and Plunge for mobility.

PLD's utility basically just boiled down to Divine Veil, which is and always was a really powerful skill, but wasn't enough to carry the class when WAR/DRK had equivalent abilities and non-defensive utility and did better damage. Halone's debuff was more of a personal mitigation tool, Cover never really had any particularly good use cases, and the Shield Bash chain stun was totally outstripped by having oGCD stuns on DRK/WAR. They had a Silence, but unless you ran without a Ninja, Machinist, or Bard in A6S and A8S, that wasn't really good for anything.


You really can't overstate just how badly 3.x stacked the deck in favour of Warrior and against Paladin, in almost every single regard. We don't really know whether a "worst DPS but best utility" tank would get picked for progression, because from 2.1 all the way through to the day before Stormblood launched, the tank with the best DPS also had the best utility, and the tank with the worst DPS always had the worst utility.

[Reynhart]

Pld had by far the best utility in HW.

Not, it didn"t. Having only Divine Veil to reduce the massive amount of magic damage on the raid, and losing its shield entirely for magical tank busters are very deep flaws.

[whiskeybravo]

Here however, he conveniently says that DRK should have more DPS than PLD ONLY. He mysteriously neglects to mention WAR. So, essentially he is saying DRK and PLD should be balanced with eachother, but WAR should bring more DPS than both, while also having more utility than DRK. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? I'm getting severe deja vu here. Oh, right, this is what we had in Heavensward. Isn't that interesting.

Selective quotes are selective.

So Paladin has a lot more utility than Warrior, yet they still do just as much damage as a Warrior. Paladin’s DPS potential is actually a little bit less than Warrior, but if you fuck up even one time on Warrior, then a Paladin will out DPS you, at least in my experience, because Paladins do a lot of damage.

Of the three tanks, I think Paladin should do the least damage, because they have the best utility. Paladin is really fun, and I don’t think it needs a nerf. It’s in a perfect spot right now. I just think that Dark Knight and Warrior should do more damage than Paladin. I know that Warrior can do more, but that’s only if you have a perfect run. A Paladin should not rival a Warrior in damage, not when they have all that utility, as well.

I think that Warrior and Dark Knight both need some potency buffs, especially Dark Knight.

He doesn't outright say it, but if we are going to imply anything it should be that since he thinks drk only needs potency buffs and that's it, that he'd be OK with it doing more dps than war because it has less utility.

Essentially the interview can be boiled down to "PLD has good DPS now and brings good utility, buff Fell Cleave ... oh and DRK sucks ... WAR needs moar deeps!".

Again, not really. He's suggesting that there be less emphasis on Fell Cleave damage:

A way to adjust Warrior damage without buffing Fell Cleave would be to actually lower the potency of Fell Cleave and buff the three core combos, instead. That would distribute the damage output more evenly across the entire rotation, and Warrior DPS would no longer be so dependant on Fell Cleave crit RNG, because that one move would no longer be responsible for such a huge portion of your total damage.

The only real inconsistency is that prior to this statement he also says he thinks fell cleave should do more damage, which is kind of opposite of his more detailed suggestion here. While it could be interpreted as lop-sided logic, I'd lean more toward fell cleave buff comment being more of a reactionary/headline grabbing type statement which he's known for, while the more detailed suggestion is something that actually required a fair amount of thought or discussion.

- High burst lets you push phases and skip mechanics, which not only makes fights easier from a mechanical standpoint, but has a tendency to cascade into increased party damage, as your healers no longer have to heal the mechanic you skipped, DPS don't need to accrue downtime to dodge the mechanic, etc.

I'd also like to just add, phase pushes aren't always a good thing. T7 and T7 savage say "Hi"

[TouchandFeel]

Again, not really. He's suggesting that there be less emphasis on Fell Cleave damage:

The only real inconsistency is that prior to this statement he also says he thinks fell cleave should do more damage, which is kind of opposite of his more detailed suggestion here. While it could be interpreted as lop-sided logic, I'd lean more toward fell cleave buff comment more of a reactionary/headline grabbing type statement which he's known for, while the more detailed suggestion is something that actually required a fair amount of thought or discussion.

This is what he said, copy/pasted straight from the article. It is a direct argument for a buff to Fell Cleave damage with the logic that because other classes got big hard hitting abilities, Fell Cleave is no longer "Fell Cleavey" enough and other abilities are stealing it's thunder.

I think that Fell Cleave should do more damage. Five hundred potency is not a lot anymore. It’s just not. People call me a fucking retard, and say “why would you buff Fell Cleave, it’s so powerful” and it’s kind of not. Not when fucking AST has a five hundred potency ability. Every job in the game has a five hundred potency ability, it seems. It was crazy in Heavensward, but not anymore. Paladins have a ranged ability that hits almost as hard as a Fell Cleave now. That means that they can move away to do mechanics and still get their Fell Cleaves in. I wish I could do a fucking Inner Release window from halfway across the room!

Yes, he then argues that WAR is too burst dependent and says that an alternative to Fell Cleave buffs is to boost combo ability potencies.

He provided contradicting arguments that only agree on one thing, "WAR needs moar deeps!", which lines up with my satirical summation of the interview.

Really I feel his position is actually based less on objective concerns over balance and more about wanting to not feel diminished in WAR feeling like, as Xeno himself likes to put it, the "big dick" job.

[Aana]

This is what he said, copy/pasted straight from the article. It is a direct argument for a buff to Fell Cleave damage with the logic that because other classes got big hard hitting abilities, Fell Cleave is no longer "Fell Cleavey" enough and other abilities are stealing it's thunder.



Yes, he then argues that WAR is too burst dependent and says that an alternative to Fell Cleave buffs is to boost combo ability potencies.

He provided contradicting arguments that only agree on one thing, "WAR needs moar deeps!", which lines up with my satirical summation of the interview.

Really I feel his position is actually based less on objective concerns over balance and more about wanting to not feel challenged in WAR feeling like, as Xeno himself likes to put it, the "big dick" job.

What I got out of the interview was a few things regarding the "fell cleavyness" of war.

Its 2 separate ideas.

Idea1: FC used to have more individual 'impact' because 500 pot was unheard of in HW. To maintain that 'fell cleavyness' impact it would need to be increased because there has been potency creep across the board and FC did not participate in that. (Newer skills have high pot, like ast, old skills have power creeped significantly across all classes, etc)
Idea 2: War is very reliant on its burst window every 2 min and should be rebalanced to be less 'all in'. This is where he talks about increasing rotation potency and lowering FC.

A quick glance seems to say he wants to buff FC, buff the rotation, separate IR, buff buff buff moar damage.

But these are not mutually exclusive ideas. I think the core of his thing is that instead of giving FC power creep to keep up, we got IR and infuriate recast buffs. This lets us do MORE FCs, but each FC is less impactful and moved our damage to small windows. He wants to reverse that trend make FC more powerful to bring back the OOMPH it used to have and TRADE that extra power by lessening the burst windows. He even suggests just that. Make IR buff the next 3 FCs and put it on 1 min timer. Instead of 6 weak FCs every 2 min, do 3 stronger ones more regularly. This brings back the FC 'impact' while also changing the jobs focus on itty bitty bust windows. In addition to weakening the burst windows bump up the basic rotation to power creep it like most other jobs.

I don't see this as a BUFF WAR MOAR DAMAGE RAWR! Idea. I see it more as a reimagining of how war could PLAY.

I don't particularly agree with his view in all respects. Its essentially a rework of how war plays and that's not really a balance fix. Just a dream of playing his fantasy of war. You even see it in his discussion of why he played war. He always plays big 2handed weapon jobs. He wants that fantasy of cracking a mountain in half with 1 blow. Not being a ninja striking with 100 weak attacks. Instead of lots of 'little' FCs, he wants big, fewer, manly ones. Just his idea of fun.