FF 5.X Alternative Raid Buff Alignment and Openers

[ZyrinMisharuji]

Snip

First of all, at no point in my post did I say the MNK opener was bad. I said your WAR opener is bad, especially when they have a MNK/NIN in their comp.

Now, to address your misunderstandings about the buff alignment - With the current WAR optimal opener (with comfy levels of SkS which they recommend which puts WAR at 2.38 recast, not 2.42, they hit their 1st IC at ~9.52 seconds into a pull. This puts it under the effects of TA. It's 2nd IC comes out at ~11.9 and they begin their IR window at ~14.28 and finish that window at ~24.28. With TA going out ~8 seconds this means it ends at ~23 seconds. Brotherhood out at 13 seconds means it ends at ~27 seconds. So, taking this into account WAR with the optimal Balance opener hits both ICs under TA along with all except its final FC under IR under Trick (might be able to be fit depending on how late into the GCD Trick is, latency, etc but I digress) and fits Heavy Swing under BH.

Now to show some math.
{Note: I am not looking at any potency before the buff window because this is a thread about buff alignment and if it's worth to hold}

Balance - 920(2) x 1.1(SE) x 1.05(TA) = 2125.2 + (590x5 + 450 + 100)1.1 x 1.05 x 1.05(BH) = 6369.83 + 200(HS) x 1.1 x 1.05(BH) = 6600.83

Yours - 920(2) x 1.1 x 1.05 x 1.05 = 2231.46 + (590x5 + 450 + 100)1.1 x 1.05 x 1.05 = 6476.09
{I went with a perfect scenario for both where both get all 5 cleaves under buffs just to kinda show the best they could be within these conditions. Also for yours since you showed TA and BH as 15ish seconds, that's the timing I went with. Even if BH comes out closer to 13 it becomes even more of a DPS loss for you as you would guarantee a loss of FC under BH and FC at 590 potency is way more worth inside the window than SP at 380 potency.)

Your suggested opener loses people 124 - 191 potency under just BH and TA. This is because in your opener, assuming TA and BH go out at 15 seconds as you say, you don't have any GCDs buffed after IR ends. This means that the Balance way gives you 1 extra GCD under BH than your method which pushes it 100 potency ahead even though your method is ahead by ~106 within the buff window by the time IR hits. Both methods get the same potency within the IR window, so your method is still ~106 ahead. The end of the window occurs and you have nothing else buffed by BH, but Balance method has HS buffed by BH which gains it ~231 potency. This puts it ~125 potency ahead of your method.

Again, I do not care about the GCDs before or after the buff windows end as they are not affected by the buff windows. I sincerely hope this proves to you that your method is flawed and results in DPS loses for everyone involved. On top of that, it pushes the buff windows further back which gets perpetuated whenever downtime occurs and you're forced to hold buffs until afterwards which pushes them further back and risks losing uses. Once again: Delaying windows is an end-of-fight optimization, not a beginning-of-fight optimization. Also to the point of everyone needing to be BiS - Your method does require everyone to be in augmented tome and raid gear. If people try to prog using these suggestions they will 100% lose uses of buffs throughout the fight and for their reclears until they are BiS and even when they're BiS they risk losing uses because some people may just have a really top tier day where they don't mess up their rotation a single time or they get super lucky and direct crit everything in their opener and jump 5k DPS higher than their norm, etc, etc. The earlier you use buffs, the less likely you are to lose uses in a fight and also it affords you wiggle room to optimize buff alignment towards the end of a fight when you want to kill the boss under buff windows to pad DPS numbers a bit.