Is this truly wrong?

[KaivaC]

snip

Okay...there just comes a point where even I just get tired of hearing how much I suck. I am aware of it. Said it multiple times. I inspected my logs and looked at what I did. It definitely is in no way optimized, true. Nor is it anywhere close to being good enough to say I'm an average player. But I did look and I did comparison to some others. But suggesting that I don't know a thing about SMN is incredibly unfair to say. It was suggested that I start out with Garuda-Egi, and then Painflare into double Fester to quickly gain my DWT as my opener. That's what I did. Perhaps it is because you are a much better SMN than I am at the moment, but I do not 'know nothing' about SMN.

[KaldeaSahaline]

I went PLD because I didn't like the feel of DRK. It wasn't until recently in the last week or so when I actually tried that I started learning the important of lining up those buffs. I don't intend to master PLD, though, but from your analysis...yeah...nvm, you have a point. Too many mistakes on PLD on my end.

Looking at it the wrong way.

It's not about how many mistakes, it's about how much room for improvement. Focus on that and it'll be more rewarding.

In many cases it actually really will be quite a significant impact. if you look at this if you took a 99th percentile player and put him in a random pug or group of 10% players. it's not to unreasonable to suggest that for one reason or another that players dps might be 10% lower. as a result of party compostion buffs usage or even things like player positions causing a few missed gcds. yet that 10% would result in that 99th percentile player ending up right down near 60... which is no where close to 99..

I already gave you a personal example of me getting good parses with lower scored teammates. Here's a random MNK I plucked as another example.

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/wJvMA...ne&graph=false

Yes it obviously has an impact, but it isn't as large as you imply. Good players will adjust and still put out great DPS regardless of their teammates.

Ok here I might actually not know something... I'm pretty sure though ACT and thus fflogs doesn't track position or movement and almost certainly cannot log where in an arena an aoe or telegraph is going to hit. nor can fflogs tell you I had to move because the sch was 1 step to my right or something like that ... if I am wrong and it can show this information then please do show me where...

Check the replay feature. It uses position data to recreate the fight in real time. You can see where the MT is (so which direction boss is facing) who is standing near who (so SCH was crowding you) and run it against timelines of abilities to see when telegraphs are out and where they'd be placed (based on people reacting and moving, or can be run against the incoming damage and see who got hit).

I think i'm quite clued with how logs works even if I don't use it regularly... so many things can affect your numbers that it creates an innacurate reading. I could for example play my samurai perfectially in the most optimal way and be the most skilled sam in the game (I'm not) but my sam being I350 instead of i370 for example might is gonna really impact my numbers. and no amount of player skill will ever compensate...

I would take a 99th percentile i350 SAM ANYDAY over the garbage SAMs in PF.

Further Example - my younger brother (a consistent top 5 world fury war in WoW), came back to the game briefly because he wanted to try out SAM. At ~i300 in Susano EX, he was putting out double the second highest DPS of people who were nearly 15 ilvl higher than him. It took average skilled nearly i330 SAMs to finally match his output that he did as a fresh 70.

Everything affects your logs. Don't compare yourself to other people too much and don't compare cross-fights. Don't try to assume that your 50 in normal would lead to a far less ranking in Savage.

Compare yourself to your own numbers for the same fight. If you want to know how you'd do in Savage (and treat each fight separately), get logs for that fight.

When you do look at other player logs
don't get hung up on percentiles. You want to learn from other players, not feel inferior (or superior) to them.

I wish I could upvote this more. Great insight and good tips.

[Squintina]

if you went from 9th percentile for 50th, that's pretty awesome.

You don't need to be like 70+ to be considered "good". Yes the elite players are there, but even being 25+ should still be a decent player.

Especially because percentiles don't necessarily account for differences in ilvl and materia. The elite players have a lot of the best gear now because they've exchanged savage books for upgrades. If you're still doing normals, there will be a big gap just from ilvl alone.

Additionally your team members make a difference too. Your logs are also affected by whether your teammates use things to boost raidwide dps. If you're pugging, you don't know what else you're getting and if other players aren't making effective use of their raidwide boosters, your dps in logs will suffer. If your team members die and you have to adjust in any way (maybe taking on a mech they were supposed to do, or having to spend a gcd/ogcd doing a rez or using a self-heal, anything that you have to deviate from), your logs will be affected.

To illustrate these changes, I'm going to link to my profile:
https://www.fflogs.com/character/id/...s=51&compare=1

See how my Feb 19th run my historical % is 25 (green), whereas if it was ranked today it'd be 15 (gray)? That's because as players have gotten stronger via ilvl, the numbers expected to rank become higher.

See how my April 8th and 10th runs are lower than March 27th? That's because of a change in party members, so I have to adjust more.

Also one fight doesn't illustrate other fight's percentiles. compare the above log (o5s) to my o7s wipes from just yesterday:
https://www.fflogs.com/reports/wB1M7...pe=damage-done
And I suddenly went from being a 50-70 percentile player to a 12th percentile player.

Everything affects your logs. Don't compare yourself to other people too much and don't compare cross-fights. Don't try to assume that your 50 in normal would lead to a far less ranking in Savage.

Compare yourself to your own numbers for the same fight. If you want to know how you'd do in Savage (and treat each fight separately), get logs for that fight.

And most importantly, don't be too harsh on yourself. As long as you are learning the mechs, reading up on rotation every once in a while, and keeping your gear as up to date as you can, then you're doing it right. If you're really worried, you could also go on youtube and look up the fight + your job name + POV.

example: o5s SMN POV

There's usually someone that will have the fight you're doing in the same job you're doing. Slow it down, study it (try to get their name and check their logs too), and if you think they're ok and you play similarly, then you're ok too.

When you do look at other player logs
don't get hung up on percentiles. You want to learn from other players, not feel inferior (or superior) to them.

Here are things that helped me in using fflogs to make myself a better player:
1 - Casts tab: active % and CPM
Active % = how much you're hitting your GCDs. Ideally you want to be 90+%, but heavy-mech fights might be 85%. If you're learning a fight, it might be 70%. If you're under 70 consistently, and other players in your job are not, that's an issue with not hitting buttons enough.

One example of that is when dodging. Casters sometimes forget to keep attacking while dodging. That's when that Instant Ruin really helps out.

CPM - casts per minute (make sure you compare to the SAME job)
That's how many skills you use. 2 players could have the same active % and drasticially different CPM depending on how many oGCDs are used.
Having a lot less CPM usually means a rotation problem when it comes to weaving in ogcds.

2 - Debuffs tab (change to "Enemies")
Find your dots, see what the uptime is. See other player's uptime. Ideally you want to be as close to 100% as possible, but mechs can influence that (for example o5 has a whole section of not being able to target the boss. Can't keep uptime on something that's not nearby, so the uptime is always lower in o5 than other fights)

3 - Casts tab again, click on your name
Compare how much you used your skills. If you see a drastically different number of used skills compared to someone else, that's usually a rotation issue.

4 - Replay
If you find a player whose stats you like, use the Replay feature and see what skills they used in real time!

For you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgjBnChIi4U
(that's o5S SMN, the player in the video is a top player)

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/4yxTt...=7&view=replay
Same player as the above video, for the same fight. Pick "Bronch Osaur" on the bottom right. Then click "Play" on the bottom left.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...y0TrCa0qg/edit
Summoner guide

Opener choice 1: http://ffxivrotations.com/1980 (sicfrit non-pet swap)
Opener choice 2: http://ffxivrotations.com/1dnq (bahamut)
Opener choice 3: http://ffxivrotations.com/197t (pet swap bahamut)
Bahamut non-opener rotation: http://ffxivrotations.com/197n

[KaivaC]

@feliaiko Sorry...I shouldn't have snapped out like that, especially when you probably were just trying to help. If you are still watching this thread, I'm open to listening. My suggested opener has been to start with Garuda and build up Aether stacks as fast as possible, then swiftcasting Ifrit and going into DWT. I was also under the impression that when I'm on the rotation when Bahamut is available, to not use any of my oGCDs until I actually summon Bahamut, then start hitting them in order to get as many Wyrmwaves as I can, while making sure to always get off two Ahk Morns.

@squintina I'll take a look at that when I go back to SMN. I'm kinda in a ...funk where I dunno if I'm a decent player or not.

[FeliAiko]

@feliaiko Sorry...I shouldn't have snapped out like that, especially when you probably were just trying to help. If you are still watching this thread, I'm open to listening. My suggested opener has been to start with Garuda and build up Aether stacks as fast as possible, then swiftcasting Ifrit and going into DWT. I was also under the impression that when I'm on the rotation when Bahamut is available, to not use any of my oGCDs until I actually summon Bahamut, then start hitting them in order to get as many Wyrmwaves as I can, while making sure to always get off two Ahk Morns.

You're meant to SC Ifrit after your first GCD (excluding pre-pull Ruin III) and then build towards the first DWT. As for Bahamut, you want to wait until you have 3 AF stacks ready and Tri-D is 13s away from coming off CD. While waiting you just do stuff like manually refresh DoTs, weave oGCDs (except Rouse; you hold that until after Bahamut phase), and Ruin III spam.

Like I mentioned earlier, there's a start-up guide for SMN that I highly recommend you check out. I know someone else put up Tsundere's Guide, but I'd personally stay away from it until you gain a better handle of the fundamentals first. I've linked it again below:

SMN Starter Guide

[Starflake]

Personally dislike these melodramatic threads. This circus has lasted long enough, don't you think? This feels like a soap opera where the initial deemed great player has fallen from grace once found out and is now on his way to redemption. There is plenty information out there already for Summoner, probably the most detailed. Look at good SMN PoVs in slow motion, make notes yourself. Must be honest with you though. If after some effort you can't break the 9th percentile, it's probably just you not able to process information fast enough to make it work.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to do better and worrying about the impact you have on your static members that are better than you. I was in a similar situation and I was able to improve myself. I've mained Monk, BLM, SCH, Ninja and Dragoon, and I did a good job on all of them. But personally if I were a 9th percentile player that is having a hard time overcoming that barrier, I would quit my static as most of them are 80 plus percentile players.

[MoroMurasaki]

Personally dislike these melodramatic threads. This circus has lasted long enough, don't you think? This feels like a soap opera where the initial deemed great player has fallen from grace once found out and is now on his way to redemption. There is plenty information out there already for Summoner, probably the most detailed. Look at good SMN PoVs in slow motion, make notes yourself. Must be honest with you though. If after some effort you can't break the 9th percentile, it's probably just you not able to process information fast enough to make it work.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to do better and worrying about the impact you have on your static members that are better than you. I was in a similar situation and I was able to improve myself. I've mained Monk, BLM, SCH, Ninja and Dragoon, and I did a good job on all of them. But personally if I were a 9th percentile player that is having a hard time overcoming that barrier, I would quit my static as most of them are 80 plus percentile players.

Personally I dislike these self-brag replies. The spotlight doesn't always have to be on you, you know? This feels like your whole first paragraph is there so that the part about how great you are has a tenuous tie to being contextually appropriate. There are plenty of places to brag about how well you do, you could even make your own thread about it. Start a Youtube channel maybe. I hope you're better at SMN than you are at grammar. Honestly though if you have to put others down to feel good about yourself maybe you have bigger problems than optimizing your dps?

There is nothing wrong with being good at the game and wanting to help others improve or worrying about how others perform when it might have a direct impact on your own gameplay. I've been in similar situations and managed to offer helpful advice and encouragement without sounding like I'm only talking for the sake of spreading the news of how good I am. I do a good job on a bunch of classes, not that that's relavent to the conversation at all. But if I were unable to read a thread about someone feeling insecure without responding in a rude, condescending and demeaning way I would probably stop responding on the forums at all since most people I know are decent human beings with empathy and a conscience.

----

Honestly I usually hate these sorts of replies that copy sentence-by-sentence but I think this might be the most appropriate way to highlight the rampant disrespect in this post. For real though dude, grats on those purples. If I knew all it took to be a god of like 5 classes was callous disregard for the feelings of others I would have been clearing Ultimate months ago.

[SaitoHikari]

Honestly I usually hate these sorts of replies that copy sentence-by-sentence but I think this might be the most appropriate way to highlight the rampant disrespect in this post. For real though dude, grats on those purples. If I knew all it took to be a god of like 5 classes was callous disregard for the feelings of others I would have been clearing Ultimate months ago.

Yup. Sometimes it's best to just keep quiet and stay at the sidelines. Otherwise you get other raiders coming in to look over the logs to see if someone is actually justified in being a dunce.

I looked over their logs myself, and as it turns out, they're actually quite the example of what others in this thread say when you shouldn't care about percentiles this late into the raid tier unless you're fully best in slotted yourself and actually have a static, because otherwise there's no real way to compete with those that are BiS + doing 'parse runs' to pad their numbers. And I say this as someone who actually has two 100 historical percentile parses in the past, and scored 98 on Doom Train week 2, as a Bard in pug parties.

This guy happens to be in a static that somehow has a Dragoon but no consistent BRD/MCH. The usual raid team will have the Dragoon use their tether for the BRD/MCH for their opener, and then cycle to other party members depending on burst alignment/overall DPS.

However, the logs reveal that probably due to said lack of consistent DRG/MCH, the DRG in his static is exclusively catering to him with the tether in every single run I bothered to check - one advantage the vast majority of Ninjas won't have in normal clear runs. Even in the few recorded runs with other party members scoring higher overall numbers, the DRG is still exclusively throwing the tether on him.

(And now everyone's going to look over my logs, which aren't the best, but I'm just doing whatever I can with whoever I go with.)

Still though, the guy still has a point, general jerkwad reply notwithstanding. Kaiva, I get the impression that you attached some kind of persona to your forum presence, and it's bled onto what you think your performance should be, which spiraled into what's happening in this thread now. Self-reflection is good, but don't expect to get good overnight, especially with a job with as many buttons to press as Summoner does. A lot of the top tier Bards and Summoners have been playing and raiding as those jobs since Heavensward, if not even earlier than that. Right now, you are probably fighting muscle memory/trying to adhere to a comfort zone. It may take months, but you will know when you've made progress when things start melting around you and everything feels as if you've done it all out of pure instinct.

You can't improve if you give up, though.

[Starflake]

Snip

Then you misread my intentions which is of course understandable as I can see where you are coming from. I am not trying to put anyone down, I am here to provide some perspective. If you are truly struggling to beat 9th percentile after actually trying, then to me, it seems like the issue is with the player himself and one should just accept that they're not that great. Has nothing to do with me being a decent player. I don't consider myself to be hot shit, I just have a mindset for self improvement. I've been helpful plenty of times in the game itself. Having done 2000 mentor roulettes I took the job seriously and I like to think I did something for this community. Sorry you read this as me attempting to brag. The sole thing I wanted to get across is that you can only improve as much as you can and you can only go as far. Nice shot at claiming linguistic superiority while claiming one should regard the feelings of others. English is not my first language.

As for the Dragon Sight tether, the only reason I get it currently is because according to Xiv logs app, DS, in fact scales the highest when put on me, even in opener as I burst for 13k in my opener at times. The BRD we currently have is a static member that replaces our old BRD (undergeared atm and not experienced on the class), who also did not output my amount of damage and did not use DS as to the extend that I did (although marginally). There are also logs where I did not receive DS and got great logs. I also have no AST for my best logs and we are a weekly clear raiding group, so we don't optimize. It's cool that you wish to look at logs, I've nothing to hide. I see myself as a capable player, which is all I want to be.

But please, don't confuse my own experience as someone who used to be a bad player as an excuse to brag on how I am now. I am a good Ninja, but not a great one. I don't think I'll ever be a great one and that's fine. I think I'm at my personal limit and that is what I was trying to convey. If you're doing so horribly after trying, you will most likely never be what you have in mind (Kaiva).

That's it for me in here, though. If you feel like you can't improve any further, or that the goals you have set for yourself are too high, then there is no shame about lowering them.

[Paladinleeds]

Then you misread my intentions which is of course understandable as I can see where you are coming from. I am not trying to put anyone down, I am here to provide some perspective.

I think the problem was your opener, which I have quoted below.

Personally dislike these melodramatic threads. This circus has lasted long enough, don't you think? This feels like a soap opera where the initial deemed great player has fallen from grace once found out and is now on his way to redemption.

I think had you not included this in your original post, it wouldn't have been a problem. The rest of it was good information, but I think by starting with that you made your post appear extremely sharp and hostile. I'm the same with pretty much any DPS. I can pass by in dungeons, but raiding with it (and by that I mean anything other than the 24-mans or hard mode trials), and I know I'd crumble. Wouldn't be good enough to pass.