Interview with xenosys-vex

[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.

[Mycow8me]

Sometimes I look at arguments and I legit feel like warrior and paladin argue over what food to eat while drk is just begging for tablescraps. I legit get that feel around here. Sometimes even think the devs ignore the NA forums for these reasons but I have no idea what the JP tank forum is like currently.

[Launched]

Exactly this. That's why I said I'd argue that SiO is a better mitigation tool than anything PLD has.
It's easy to just list the numbers of tools a job has, but did you mention that Divine Viel needs a heal to work and doesn't effect the caster?
And that Passage of Arms completely stops you from attacking?
Or how Intervention costs some of you gauge?

In comparison, SiO is simply use a CD and use the skill for instant benefits. It's easier to use, almost always stronger than what a PLD has and most importantly the WAR benefits from the mitigation as well.

WAR doesn't have as many party mitigation tools as PLD, because the one it has is extremely strong.

PLD's utility skills are much better than Shake it Off. Divine Veil is more powerful than Shake it Off unless it consumes 2 cooldowns. It's not hard to activate because it has a huge 30s duration and gets applied by any aoe heal that happens in that time, like shields going up. The shield doesn't need to affect PLD at all because they already have 10k+ HP more than a melee DPS with VIT melds, it's just completely unnecessary. In my opinion Shake it Off shouldn't shield the WAR to stop it being used as a personal cooldown.

15% mitigation is also a lot on Passage of Arms. Sure, it costs a couple of GCDs, but straight up mitigation instead of a shield is good in another way. PLD having both PoA and DV means you can have some kind of raid mitigation every 60s compared to 90s from Shake it Off.

PLD's gauge is purely defensive so it doesn't matter that Intervention uses it.

PLD also has Clemency which is better than WAR's personal sustain (at the cost of some DPS) and can also target other people, and Cover which is great for mechanics like Earthshakers in O4S. Making it work on all damage and giving it 20% mitigation made it really strong.

[MauvaisOeil]

PLD's utility skills are much better than Shake it Off. Divine Veil is more powerful than Shake it Off unless it consumes 2 cooldowns.

Just to correct, SiO is stronger with only one cooldown eaten.

[Launched]

Just to correct, SiO is stronger with only one cooldown eaten.

Divine Veil is 5.6-5.8k on an i340 PLD. SiO depends on the DPS/healer's HP, not the WAR's. A melee DPS with VIT melds has around 44-45k HP, and 12% of that is 5.4k. It's even lower on the ranged DPS and healers. You need the 16% shield to beat DV.

[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.

[MauvaisOeil]

Divine Veil is 5.6-5.8k on an i340 PLD. SiO depends on the DPS/healer's HP, not the WAR's. A melee DPS with VIT melds has around 44-45k HP, and 12% of that is 5.4k. It's even lower on the ranged DPS and healers. You need the 16% shield to beat DV.

My bad, I thought to remember DV was also based on the target's HP.

[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.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Divine Veil is 5.6-5.8k on an i340 PLD. SiO depends on the DPS/healer's HP, not the WAR's. A melee DPS with VIT melds has around 44-45k HP, and 12% of that is 5.4k. It's even lower on the ranged DPS and healers. You need the 16% shield to beat DV.

A 16% shield is incredibly easy to achieve, though it's never actually needed. One CD with SiO is more than enough mitigation.

Also I'm not saying that SiO is, literally, stronger than what PLD has. It's simply easier and more accessible to use. How many times has a PLD popped Divine Viel but the healer didn't pop it until after the AOE goes out?
Or used Passage of Arms but either too late that the effect didn't hit the party quick enough or used it in a odd position that half the party wasn't even in it.

WAR's is simple and effective. PLD has more options, but it's easier to achieve what you're trying to do on WAR.

[DaulBan]

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 don't think he's comparing WAR to DRK here because when it comes to balance the biggest issue is tanks relative to PLD, not tanks relative to WAR. He's comparing DRK to the best tank (PLD). I'm sure that if Xeno was actually putting together a video talking about balance he'd mention DRK vs WAR, he just didn't think of it here.

- High burst is inherently easy to optimize. If a fight has 15 seconds of unavoidable downtime per minute, a tank with high burst is only going to suffer a small penalty to damage as long as they put their burst window outside of those 15 seconds - a tank that deals consistently high damage is going to lose a much higher percentage of their damage to the downtime, and there's nothing they can do about it, because every single second is equally important to them.

Just as a side note because all your points are valid here, if a jump lands just before when WAR can get its burst window out it gets punished pretty hard. It is worth noting that because WAR ppGCD outside of Zerk or IRZerk is so bad that if, for example, a boss jumps before zerk comes back up again (ie Exfaust) WAR loses a lot of damage because it can't necessarily get back that damage later. Burst damage is excellent when your windows land before jumps, but is absolutely terrible when the jump happens before you can use it. WAR and MCH both are on tight schedules, and while they can hold their burst (usually bad) they can't speed it up at all. The one minute zerk and two minute irzerk trains come when they come, no sooner.