So you're telling me..

[Grimoire-M]

Res, HoTs, Radiant Shield, and Addle absolutely beat out ranged utility so I’d only put SMN ahead of DNC personally. It being that weak makes total sense to me. RDM should be ahead of MCH and BRD simply by virtue of its position requirements.

NIN should be second highest melee if Raijus persist in their current state but shouldn’t be ahead of DRG or MNK if they get the flexibility cleanup they desperately need on it. That’s how limiting the double dashes are in practice. It’s gotten easier since Shadowbringers otherwise.

Reaper being middle of the pack is fine. SAM/BLM should always be top 2.

[Maverick_Haas]

The idea that with raid utility should come low dps is very disturbing to me.

I've been maining RPR since EW release, and before that I was a BLM main. I want to voice a few concerns here. RPR feels good, plays good, and fits a role of between utility and greedy DPS, but I would argue more on the side of being greedy and I'll lay out my reasons in a bit.

I do think RPR needs some slight tuning.
It's true that when I compare my DPS to others, I to tend to be in the top if not first, but there are a few factors you have to take into account.
1. I'm an experienced raider and active in the min/max community (the balance)
2. I have 575 melded gear or better
3. Most players don't use their class to the extent they can be used
Even when I'm out DPSing, it's hard to gauge if it's actually just too strong or if there's more to it than that.
I out DPS'd by 2k more than once, but sometimes those were other reapers.
I've been out DPS'd by other reapers
I've been out DPS'd by monks and sams, even RDM.
But these were situational

During an EX, I was pushing out good timings and not missing my burst windows, but was getting out DPS'd by a monk and SAM.
But overall, I will say that I've been top DPS, thus why we may need a bit of tuning... But not these massive nerfs some people are calling for...

Arcane crest is a 10% damage reduction for self for 5 seconds, if broken (exceeds 10% damage) it releases a 100 potency heal over 15 seconds to nearby members.
First, I have to say that the usefulness of this is limited. There's no way you are replacing a normal aoe heal with this for a raid wide. It does work pretty good with shield heals, but all this does is give everyone a safety net. I would like to see these stats that were mentioned however, perhaps I'll change my mind, but I fear there's more to those numbers than people are actually saying given the drastic calls for extreme nerfs.

Arcane circle is a greedy utility. I know, I know. We do give 3% damage buff to everyone... But that's not why we use it, not primarily. Arcane circle will give us stacks of immortal sacrifice based on other members doing attack abilities, which empowers our Plentiful Harvest. PF is used in our burst windows. We only use Arcane circle for our own DPS gains, it just so happens to align well with the 2 minute raid window. I suppose you could remove the 3% damage buff to everyone, honestly we wouldn't feel a huge impact on this, because we don't use this under the intention of helping the raid.

[Maverick_Haas]

Apologies for double post, a lot of info here.

As for complexity, I also do not believe that complexity = dps output. However since it was brought up, RPR is certainly not a brain dead job. I suggest actually looking over the RPR material for openers and burst windows.
Just to outline the main factors of playing RPR and achieving high DPS.
1. We have 3 resource bars/counters
a. Soul Gauge: Used to execute Blood Stalk and Grim Swathe, gives stacks of soul reaver which enables our more powerful attacks: Gibbet, Gallows, Guillotine. These only give us Shroud Gauge aside from PF.
b. Shroud Gauge: Used to enshroud, which enables our biggest attacks
c. Death Gauge: 5 counts of lemure shroud which, when consumed, turns into void shroud. Void Reaping/Cross Reaping/Grim Reaping, which consumes 1 lemure shroud. Lemure slice and lemure scythe which consumes 2 void shroud (these are oGCD). Then communio which consumes all lemure shroud.

When distilled, it certainly isn't the most complex things to track, and I'll admit RPR isn't the most complex job by far, however it certainly requires more brain cells than others.
We have no detailed rotation that we can follow, we just do regular attack combo and SoD until we have enough gauge for some attacks.
It largely comes down to timers and holding resources until best to use them. Let's outline the timers we have.
1. Death's Design: 10% extra damage, 30s each attack, but stacks up to 60.
2. Gluttony: requires 50 soul gauge, but gives 2 stacks of soul reaver, used 2 times per burst window.
3. Arcane circle: 3% damage buff to everyone + immortal sacrifice stacks, used in burst windows.
4. Soul Slice/Soul Scythe charges: Gives 50 soul gauge, make sure not to overcap on soul gauge or charges

This again distills to lining up timers such that you maximize your burst windows. Doing so isn't very difficult, but it certainly isn't the most easy thing to do and requires practice.
This is because it's entirely too easy to cause drift which can make a gluttony late.
Ultimately, our burst window starts with:
1. Death's Design <= 6s
2. Arcane circle <= 9s
3. Gluttony <= 15/20s

To add more to this, you have to know when to use or save gauge. You will get enshroud capability between burst window is available. Depending on timers, you could go ahead and use enshroud, but otherwise you have to save it or you blow your burst window. Gluttony may come off CD in between dead zones where you don't have enough soul gauge and you don't have soul slice/soul scythe, so you must save your soul gauge for gluttony.

[Maverick_Haas]

With all this in mind, I doubt you can call this brain dead. When I mained BLM, the most complicated part of the rotation was knowing when to move and saving instant casts for that. For BLM you do have some things to pay attention to, enochan, thunder, polyglot stacks, but ultimately your rotation doesn't rely on setting up your burst window, at least from my lvl 80 knowledge. Your main concern is to use procs and xeno for moving, knowing when to move, and spamming f4. Things do get more complicated with BLM once you start doing no b3/b4 rotations with transpose for optimal AF uptime, but iirc the dps gain from those were not worth doing as regular rotations and were even referred to as meme rotations.

So with all this in mind, yes RPR does have a bit of tuning to do, but it shouldn't be regarded as a utility job and nerfed to the ground. Arcane crest could be argued more helpful than anything SAM or BLM have due to the heal. Arcane circle, though it does have a little raid utility, is largely used in a greedy fashion, you could take away the damage buff and it wouldn't bother us. But with this said, because a DPS has actually raid utility does not mean that they shouldn't be able to pull high DPS, I find the idea of this reductionist.

I want to also remind people that RPR is a new melee dps, and a LOT of people changed to RPR. We are seeing an oversaturation of RPRs, especially in higher dps, precisely because skilled players are playing RPR. This doesn't mean RPR is completely fine, or that samurai is being underperformed by less skilled players, but it speaks for itself if some jobs outshine RPR in certain fights. If you actually look at the MAX percentile, DRG outperforms SAM, so do we now nerf DRG? MNK outperforms RPR, so.... nerf everything if it out DPS SAM? I think there's more here than people are actually seeing.

[Kolsykol]

Snip.

Most of what you said was essentially just listing off and describing abilities and what they do.
Like Reaper is complex and not braindead cuz 3 gauges?
And stuff like not overcapping Soul Gauge isn't exactly supporting your argument here, you literally have to not be paying attention to what you're doing at all to overcap it.
I wish I had it that easy on MNK with Chakras especially with the new Brotherhood which turned it into a nightmare.
I'd even say that Kenki management is more difficult and it's not even difficult.
The most difficult thing on Reaper is essentially keeping your fingers in check and not using other weapon skills than Gibbet and Gallows after Gluttony and Blood Stalk.

If you want to make the argument about burst windows then the same could be said about Xeno on BLM and Ley Line placement and when to use it alone adds a lot of depth and requires you to have more knowledge of the fight even moreso when getting into min-maxing.
Reaper is easier than other Jobs in this regard too even if some Jobs like SAM have been simplified in this manner too.

And no most people don't use their Jobs to their max potential, but that's not how balancing works.
Jobs are not balanced around the average skill level that's why there's such a huge difference historically between the average BLM and a great BLM.
BLM shouldn't get buffed because the average BLM is kinda not that great with positioning etc, the devs give you a Job and then it's up to you to perform or not perform.
It's the same with your experience and gear etc, people are obviously judging the Jobs based on the same gear etc it's just disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

Like I dunno but you just listed off a bunch of abilities and then conveniently ignored how other Jobs have less forgiving mechanics and how BLM for example actually works in practice in a real fight.
If you played BLM then you'll know that you're being a bit disingenuous about it here.

[ZiraZ]

snip

All of this anecdotal evidence has been refuted by logs, it's not a question of maybe, reaper is broken and is a greedy dps with the utility of a tank, the matter of being experienced has no relevance to the discussion as shown by the fact that reaper has the tiniest range in percentiles out of all melee and possibly all jobs.

so you can throw all those explanations but the fact is the job basically plays itself and the numbers back it up, and this is just the 1st pandaemonium boss which is a target dummy

[ssunny2008]

snip

As Kolyskol said already. And even claims like "you´ve to know when to save your gauge" is just a bit damage optimization. Overall RPR is not hard to play, everything is highlighted when it´s up, you don´t even have to care about the swap between Gibbet & Gallows. All you´ve to take care for is 1 30s damage-buff, that´s it. Any other melee, even MNK, has to take care about more stuff, can easily missclicked or is locked in animations.
MNK is definately easy-mode now, but RPR is really braindead to play. Holding the big stuff on CD, playing 123 all day long and 45 / 46 when your gauge is full. You just have to check out the opener-pictures on balance and you know that this class is the easiest melee so far.

SMN vs RDM is a bit interesting because while yes SMN is perhaps way too easy to play.
Their utility is also not as strong as RDM, even ressing RDM blows SMN out of the water a SMN ressing now is even more of a hurt to their dps.

Imo I think SMN and RDM should basically be the same even tho SMN is easier to play, but I think that the utility of RDM evens it out a bit.

Based on this Reaper should be dealing just a slight higher dmg than SMN in my opinion based on its "difficulty to play" and its "added attributes to the team with its mobility".

You could even go more into detail:

- 8,1k DRG?!
- 8k SAM, BLM, (NIN?!)
- 7,9k NIN
- 7,8k MNK
- 7,7k RPR, RDM
- ((7,6k BRD, MCH???))
- 7,5k SMN, BRD, MCH, DNC

Don´t know about BRD and MCH imo. Maybe some RDPS main can say more about it. But in kind of complexity DNC and SMN should be definately the lowest. DNC relies too much on a better half and brings a good utility with it and is super easy to play overall. RDM might be superior in kind of "how fast can you rezz ppl", but SMN can rezz too, has a groupheal and it´s way easier to play. So i don´t know...

DRG might be something to look at seriously. The core rotation isn´t hard, but it has the most positionals yet, tons of oGCD´s, animation-locks and your whole rotation can be fck´d up pretty fast. Maybe it should be the number one? SAM has way more oppurtunities and freedom to play around different stuff, same with NIN and its rangetools.

(Keep in mind, groupbuffs are already taken into account. And of course some stuff might be a bit opinion-based, but i would always rate complexity / higher chance of missplays > utility.)

I wish I had it that easy on MNK with Chakras especially with the new Brotherhood which turned it into a nightmare.

Don´t know, you still have the feeling of clipping? I don´t have any issues and it´s pretty much the same as before in the burst-phase procc-wise, since you use less BS spam in PB. While it was like 2-4 luck-based forbidden chakras before, it´s like having constantly 3 now.

[Maverick_Haas]

Like I dunno but you just listed off a bunch of abilities and then conveniently ignored how other Jobs have less forgiving mechanics and how BLM for example actually works in practice in a real fight.
If you played BLM then you'll know that you're being a bit disingenuous about it here.

Correct. I listed things to ensure everything was understood. Overcapping and such are not being used here as a form of complexity, but rather what I'm trying to elaborate here is managing multiple resources such that you are always executing gluttony off CD and keeping your timers in line with burst window. A single mistakes can lead to drifting gluttony which will mean that you can miss it in your raid buff window.

I'm by no means saying that BLM is less complex than RPR. I know very well that BLM requires fight knowledge to know when and where to place LL and burst. When to ensure you have xeno/proc for movement. Using sharp on CD and ensuring it's consumed with T3 while also not overcapping T3. It certainly is more complex, but my point is that in comparison RPR has more timer management to ensure a maximized burst windows. RPR certainly does have an easier skill floor, but maxing DPS and ensuring your hitting your windows along with fight mechs can make it harder than some.

[Maverick_Haas]

I would prefer to look at top percentile as it represents the best submitted parses.



Sure, RPR is a bit tighter and I'm not denying there is some tuning needed. But what you are advocating for is to nerf it to down to NIN levels.... because it's not the hardest and/or because it has some limited utility.

[ssunny2008]

I would prefer to look at top percentile as it represents the best submitted parses.



Sure, RPR is a bit tighter and I'm not denying there is some tuning needed. But what you are advocating for is to nerf it to down to NIN levels.... because it's not the hardest and/or because it has some limited utility.

Stop nitpicking srsly... At the other 3 bosses the top RPR outperform everything hard. Check out this for ALL bosses of the actual normal raids: https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statisti...=100&class=DPS
Or this one for trials: https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statisti...=100&class=DPS

MNK might be on the 2nd place, but it´s half the records of RPR...