Big pulls with Dark Knight.

[Shougun]

Hi.

Welcome to the Thunder Dome.

It's a matter of where you want to try and fit it. I do not subscribe to the end-result train of thought, because then it either is or isn't, and both are true. It's Schrodinger's Armor. It both is and isn't affected by Diminishing Returns until we open the box.

But the "End result" is determined by a multitude of factors. Even the vague example he provided is a very specific encounter, and it will change by tweaking values and adding or removing factors. It "works' in his example because the numbers fall that way. But it wouldn't work if the numbers fall a different way. The fact that Aurora covers the difference between them is a testament to how minor the difference it actually made is (lol Aurora). Subscribing to end result is muddying everything because why should we only factor in what makes it fit in to the box?

The presence of a white mage changes everything. Your DPS changes everything. Your party members change everything. Taking a half step to synchronize auto attack timers change everything. The encounter length. Dodges. Random parries. If we're going to cut out so many things just to keep it basic, then lets just keep it basic, yo.

And there is nothing more basic than just looking at what the system itself does, and the system itself is multiplicative mitigation, and multiplicative mitigation is designed to do two things.

1) Remove the potential to become invincible.
2) Keep every source of mitigation as strong together as it would be alone.

I think that's why ReiMakoto said you agree but are just arguing over word choice lol. Schrodinger's armor lol :P. I was simply trying to say because there exists a situation of diminishing returns, mathematically, they're not wrong in attempting to apply the word usage. Though I understand you're suggesting is it 'really' diminishing returns when in one example you'll die and the other you live because you can't achieve the required eHP by one spell alone? Is living a diminishing return? What if you used every ounce of that eHP so none of it was wasted? But that's where he's describing the math of DR% and you're describing playing the game and subjectively it's not diminishing return if you either get nothing (dead) or get everything (live)- but of course is not the only situation players will find themselves in.

Also not really for you but I had made it and figured it might help someone (why spreading can be better than stacking, even though stacking produces much higher eHP):

We have two spells that block 50% damage for the next 5 attacks (using attacks rather than time for simplicity).

Now we have a monster that'll attack 10 times, each attack dealing 100 damage.

100 , 100 , 100 , 100 , 100, 100 , 100 , 100 , 100 , 100

We'll run two options, a. spread out the defensive cooldowns (50% twice, or half of 100 = 50), and b. run them together (50% twice at the same time = half of 100 is 50 and half of 50 is 25, so 75 damage out of 100 reduced or in other words 75% reduction):

a) (50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50) = 50*10 = 500 total damage

b) (25 25 25 25 25 100 100 100 100 100) = 25*5 + 100*5 = 625 total damage

You took more damage when you stacked them. You took less when you spread it out.

Because games are complicated it wont always be this case, like as you're talking about tank busters. Using both cooldowns may mean the difference of life and death.

[Kabooa]

I understand what Rei was saying.

To me, it's not a word choice issue. To me, it's calling an apple an orange. The two are not equivalent.

And it'll be extremely easy to change my mind.

You just have to show me that something like 20% Rampart, at any layer in a set of defensive ability combinations, doesn't give the expected return during its duration.

[TheRealQuah]

Thing is, numbers don't lie. It's irrelevant whether you live or die. Using a 20% and a 30% cooldown together mitigates 44% of incoming damage and not 50%. Therefore using 2 cooldowns together diminishes the amount of damage that they mitigate, over using them separately.

Now you can rightly say, that for a single big hit TB you can't just use them separately to get the full use out of them because by just using 1 at a time you will die. That is obvious. However it does not change the fact that using both of those cooldowns together, still only mitigates 44% of the TB damage. Diminished. It's indisputable.

Your EHP numbers show this as well. This EHP bollocks has got me scratching my head too. Why bother with it? It's exactly the same way of stating the maths as Rei did, but with loads of extra steps, and isn't how it really works in practice either. Yeah it's a very nice theory, but it just smacks of trying to sound smarter than everyone else by working it out in a needlessly more complicated way.

But either way of working it out, shows that stacking cooldowns has a diminished return, under the widely accepted meaning of the phrase "diminishing returns". The figures are there. That 44% is there. You can't change maths.

[Kabooa]

Thing is, numbers don't lie. It's irrelevant whether you live or die. Using a 20% and a 30% cooldown together mitigates 44% of incoming damage and not 50%. Therefore using 2 cooldowns together diminishes the amount of damage that they mitigate, over using them separately.

Additive mitigation is Exponential Return.

Multiplicative is Neutral Return.

[Stepjam]

I think it works fine in dungeons but it is probably the worst at trash pulls. Dark veil is basically useless with trash and living dead is a crapshoot, especially without a whm. But TBN is so good that combined with the generic skills (don't forget reprisal and arm's length!), Drk handles big pulls fine as long as the healer is on top of things. I do wish we could get blood price back

[Tranquilmelody7]

I think War is the best at mob pulls personally.

-Nascent flash is crazy
-Two off GCD heals (With one of them having a Convalescence baked in)
-They have by far the best Party wide CD for mobs(IMO the best period)
-Can coordinate with your healer to gain to utilize 5-6 seconds of invulnerability with no cost
-added bonus of Vengeance's secondary effect actually being able to deal significant damage

DRK is still great during wall to wall but it sucks to not have an invulnerability to fall back on and Abyssal drain is meh compared to how it used to be.

Also Aurora is a great CD WTF?

[ReiMakoto]

I think it works fine in dungeons but it is probably the worst at trash pulls. Dark veil is basically useless with trash and living dead is a crapshoot, especially without a whm. But TBN is so good that combined with the generic skills (don't forget reprisal and arm's length!), Drk handles big pulls fine as long as the healer is on top of things. I do wish we could get blood price back

In stormblood blood price was just an inferior blood weapon, being in tank stance and using blood price was worse for your survivability than being in DPS stance, as blood weapon+tbn created a feedback loop of near infinite mana for use with abyssal drain and more tbn. In HW it could be used alongside blood weapon which was nice and i wouldnt mind that version back, but then consistency becomes a problem on bosses.

[Seraphor]

I think War is the best at mob pulls personally.

Although (personally) this is completely undermined by the fact that WAR has a cone AoE attack.
Perhaps this makes it 'play differently' enough to other tanks, but I always lose mobs when I play WAR because of it. XD

Also Aurora is a great CD WTF?

"great" might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it's a 1,200 potency heal, same potency as Clemency, but on CD instead of GCD.
Useless in raids of course but good for trash pulls.

[ReiMakoto]

Useless in raids of course but good for trash pulls.

Not useless in raids, I regularly use it to good effect in shiva as off tank when Im getting auto'd in phase 2 aurora essentially negates the damage of one of the auto's, and because she only does a few autos at a time before mechanics you can consistently "negate" one of these autos every time she starts doing. Also as the off tank you can use it on the main tank when they are taking hits to pretty nice effect given that its free

[AC9Breaker]

I feel the exact opposite. Easiest to do big pulls with my Dark. I also like healing Dark Knights more so then any other tank class.