Are 10 second burst windows causing a balancing problem?

[DRKoftheAzure]

I ask this because of DRK getting a 10 second burst, which is basically similar to WAR 10 second burst, and MCH 10 second burst is a thing(I don't play it but I do know it's a thing, so that why I don't know the name of any of MCH's abilities) and NIN Trick Attack is only really useful if you don't have a ton oGCDs otherwise R.I.P. DPS... I never saw the kind of appeal that 10 second bursts have so I would like some insight as to why 10 second bursts are considered "fun" and/or "balance" because 10 seconds seems way too short of a burst window...

[Sylvain]

Well, they somewhat are an issue in the sens that some job benefit much more from thos 60s burst window than others (like MCh as you pointed, wheras some other don't (Like BLM... sometime the TA happens during the ice phase, and even if it's during your FireIV spam, it's still your "basic" spell) which then creates a meta promoting buff stacking (which is why non buffing non bursting job, like SAM and BLM are never part of it)

So why they are fun... Well burst window are fun in the sens that you deal significant more damage when they occur and there's a sentiment of satisfaction to properly align all these buffs.
When you play an AST, it feels better to use a spread balance when everyone pops their CD than when people are doing movement mechanic and can't do more than their basic dps. (See HW from OS12 for that;...)
As a buffer (like heal/ast) the sentiment of buffing allies is fun. When you play SCH and place that 15%, on top of the DRG 15% crit, you know everyone is experiencing big damage and it can effectively be fun.

Same as a dps... I'm sorry but when my UwU groups pop their shit on Ifrit and I see 36k 5 times in a row, that's fun.

So the fun, imo, comes from the feeling of working with your group for greater effectiveness.

However, if you absolutely don't care about number, optimisation, and are fine doing subpar dps to the point a healer get close to you.
Then effectively there's no fun in it and I understand you would not see the fun of it.

But do understand that many players, (mostly those raiding savage) enjoy optimising (to various degrees) their performance. Like, a feeling of self accomplishement.
When I DPS as a BLM, I aim for the highest dps and I do take pride in having good numbers. I work toward that.
When I play AST, (I also aim for high dps), but also aim at reducing overhealing and aligning buff for the best efficiency.
When I play a tank, while also try to reach good numbers, I also try to perfectly manage my CD to significantly reduce my damage taken.

Regarding the DRK getting that 10s windows, this is more for balance issue.

DRK, on paper and on a dummy, is currently the highest dps tank (not considering difficulty). The reason is while WAR have insanely strong burst window (and PLD also to some extent), DRK has overall higher potency at the cost of less burst. If you're fighting a boss without downtime in a group without much buff (or never properly aligned). At equal skill, you should always be above a WAR simply because, overall, you do more potency per sec.

However, in reality, bosses have downtime and people do aligne buffs. When a boss jumps and you can't attack him for 30s, not only do you do nothing for 30s, but you have nothing of value to compensate during those 10s. On the otherhand, a WAR would have its Inner release CD ticking. Yes, you have Delirium, but current Delirium isn't a dps buff as strong as WAR's Inner Release. At best you can get 50blood from TBN when the boss would do his big AoE raid burster.

More importantly, when everyone align their buff, like TA, Balance and such, a WAR will do a tremendous amount of potency during those 10s which will be highly amplified
On the other hand, you wouldn't. Because even your "burst" isn't all that bursty. You attack faster (so maybe 1 more gcd) and get more mp / blood but in the end, it's not much compared to x5 critdh felcleaves. (It is in the long run)

So they basically gave a burst CD to DRK to adresse the issue.
Very Important, you might not do any savage, but it is very important to understand that beyond the fun of aligning buff etc, in savage (mainly the last tier), those dps disparity are important and can effectively be the difference between a wipe and a kill.

If the future v4 savage introduce several downtime which, on top of the advantage WAR would have over DRK (with the current Delirium). DRK could end up doing up to 10% less damage than a war of equivalent skill, simply because they would have no proper Burst CD and not enough time on the boss to catch up with the WAR.
And that could be the difference between a kill and a wipe.
For the last boss, dps is a very serious issue. It is usually the #1 factor determining wether or not your group kills the boss or not.
So if because of the way your job and fight are designed, you end up doing 10% than the other tank, yes, that can be the difference between a kill and wipe, and that's just not fun.

So, adding a burst window is great for DRK, what is NOT great is that it is a boring carbon copy of Inner Release / Requiescat.
They could have done something else than "Spam 5 times BloodSpiller"

[DRKoftheAzure]

So it is more about how they designed fights around a burst window/encounter balance, rather than the actual job balance itself, and I do know that DRK loses out on MP refresh during those down times if they have Darkside active(which they they made worse in the media tour stuff), so would those MP refresh ticks during downtime by turning off Darkside help alleviate the lack of burst, or would it still be a wipe?

[Sylvain]

So it is more about how they designed fights around a burst window/encounter balance, rather than the actual job balance itself, and I do know that DRK loses out on MP refresh during those down times if they have Darkside active(which they they made worse in the media tour stuff), so would those MP refresh ticks during downtime by turning off Darkside help alleviate the lack of burst, or would it still be a wipe?

Well yes, it's about how they designed fight. Each encounter has a dps requirement, the more you advance the higher it is, however, each additional point of dps is harder to get than the last one. It is easy to understand why. Even if you were to do tons of rotation mistake, not used DA, overcap your blood, clip a lot, forget to use some CD such as Salted Earth etc, as long as you somehow smash your key in a not so random fashion, you would do 2000 dps.
Going from 2000 to 3000 wouldn't be so hard, basically just play decently,
Going from 3000 to 4000 would require you to good
and finally to go from 4000 to 5000 you would need to have an indepth understand of the fight, exploit party buffs, be very mindful of your ressource and play quite optimally in the end.

So for the first savage boss 2.5-3k might be enough, but for the last you'd need to aim for a 4k(for instance).
(And gear is here to help you reach those numbers)
The important point I want to stress is, no matter how good you do the strat, how your team opperate the boss, if your team, as a whole, doesn't do the require dps, it's a wipe. End of the story, and for the last tier, the dps requirement tend to be quite high on patch day.


Regarding dps job balance
Well, in order to achieve some sort of balance, job are actually balanced around the buff they provide (but never they receive)

For instance, because NIN brings TA, which on average was around 800-1200 dps depending on your group their personal dps would be lower to compensate.
(the better the group the higher the value of the TA is, like, poorly timed TA can make the benefice drop to as low as 300dps)

In the same manner, a DRG personal dps is lower than a SAM because it brings Lythany and the infamous 5% piercing.

Finally, BLM and SAM have very high personal dps, but they bring no buff
**So jobs are balanced around what they bring and not what they receive**

(So in general, poorly organised group not aligning any buff will have better dps with high personal dps job such as BLM and SAM, and the more organised your group is, the more you can exploit those buff and burst window and the more you lean toward the infamous "meta")

Regarding Darkside, (altough u won't have to bother in 4 days), yes, during lengthy transition, you could drop Darkside to get mp back from either natural regen, refresh from bard or even a mana shift ! a full mp bar is 4 DA.

The odd that 4 DA would change the outcome aren't very high (as it is "only 620 potency) but it's not impossible.
I've seen a UwU wipe with Ultima having 5k hp left.

My point was more around the DRK not having a good burst CD to exploit burst windows. It doesn't mean DRK dps was bad, just that they where the most penalised for not being able to attack (lack of DoT, burst, etc)
Which is why the changed Delirium (imo) to its new form.

**Do note that this change is only meaningful for the highest level of play.** When on patch day group race for the world first. Yes, even an difference as insignificant as 200-300dps can be the difference between a kill and a wipe.
Just taking a 8min fight (the average length), 300dps difference would be 144k damage. That's a bit less than half a lb3.

If you want to stay away from savage (especially the last tier I would say), aiming to do your rotation properly without looking too much into optimisation is enough
Ex Trial do not require more than basic rotation and uptime. And regarding savage, even if you want to give it a shot, as long as you don't want to clear the whole thing in 2-3 weeks, gear will carry you(and your group). Just as long as you'll do decent basic dps. (like, proper combo, using ogcd whenever up and having okay uptime and not too much clipping)


If you want some guidance for stepping into harder content in ShB, feel free to mp me.