In response to the parsingFollow

Your post is the exact reason I am not easily impressed when people reel off parses to justify their views. Like any statistics in real life, parses are only as good as the people who control them. It is especially aggravating when someone throws around parses to justify discrimination against pet jobs and hybrid jobs.

well, this usually isn't a problem since even one bst in a pt is rare most of the time

3 responses to an unfortunately misguided post:

1) not since 2005 has anyone seriously used parsing alone to justify anything at all in ffxi. the game mechanics are well-understood. people who try to trump theorycrafting with bald "but my WAR outparsed your DRG" have been whipping boys on forums for years. this leads to (2)...

2) an argument for BST damage potential must come from understanding said mechanics. the attitude of "@#%^ you guys and your overserious parsing and theorycrafting" only made BSTs look worse over the years. it is ironic that the very people most emotionally upset about images of different jobs did the most to make them look bad. look at it this way: i'm john gamer. i understand damage in ffxi "mathematically" (ie i've read a few posts and have at least a high schooler's familiarity with arithmetic). i say that i can't see how BST could contribute to X. you say "you just don't understand BST, and i don't care what your equations say!" how am i supposed to react? am *i* supposed to do some math to figure out if your claim is true, or should i let you do it? but you can't do it, and it sounds like you wouldn't if you could. so i ignore you. this has largely been the story of many "lol jobs" in ffxi.

3) addendum: the implication that people who parse in order to better understand damage are too stupid to add the pet and master together is preposterous.

it's long been well-known (and i have demonstrated it mathematically, most likely on this very forum) that BST master damage potential is relatively low in comparison to other jobs. given that pets don't benefit from haste, it's been reasonable to assume that master + pet are not equal to a normal DD, at least in a merit party or most events. maybe you never saw why that was reasonable, but i have a sneaking suspicion that this is because you, to continue the metaphor, don't know how to count apples in the first place. i could teach you, but i am not going to.

edit: on second thought, let me take a break from trolling you (though what i'm saying is true) to point out that your response illustrates that you do not understand my argument. let me spell it out for you:

problem: BST is not respected.

possible reasons:

1) BST is weak (?)
2) no one who understands the math argues for the merits of BST. in fact, the mathier people seem to say BST is weak, and the general populace seems to be following what they say.

let's assume (1) is false. but then how do we approach (2)?

possible approaches:

1) we say "NO, YOU DO THE MATH! THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON YOU! EVEN THOUGH MY EXPERIENCE IS WORSE BECAUSE YOU AND MANY OTHERS HAVE NOT BEEN CONVINCED OF SOMETHING, YOU MUST CONVINCE ME THAT BST IS WEAK!!!"
2) we show that BST is not weak through the accepted methods of talking about ffxi damage. if we don't know the equations for pet damage, we test them, and proceed.

do you understand my argument now? or was the lack of capitalization too confusing for you?

Edited, Jul 23rd 2010 12:14am by milich

obviously it's possible that recent or later updates could make BST + pet the strongest collective DD in the game regardless of haste (of course it's unlikely, considering going from 70% to 80% haste--ie using hasso on top of 2march/spell/haste samba/25% gear haste) is a 50% increase in damage, and BST can only get 70%. but, it's possible. who knows what updates will do (or have done without their effects having been appreciated)?

however, the simple fact is that a) BST actually has never been a "top tier DD", but rather an excellent soloer with great situational use in groups, and b) BST's DD image (like any job's DD image) is hurt more than helped when people respond to math by saying "I DON'T BELIEVE YOU! MAKE MY ARGUMENT FOR ME, DAMNIT!"

edit: another clarity edit, since i suspect "guy who loves capitals" and whose name i've forgotten (rex or something) requires it for comprehension: see my "MAKE MY ARGUMENT FOR ME, DAMNIT!" quote. come with me on this intellectual journey through understanding arguments. you're saying "but your argument is incomplete!" but yes, i ("john gamer" from my above post) don't care. john gamer is a SAM or a MNK. he doesn't care about BST. "that's not fair!" you say. great. you can talk to yourself and your friends about how unfair sh*t is. if you'd rather change the perception, you learn the math and make the argument.

Edited, Jul 23rd 2010 1:07am by milich

what's wrong is your reading comprehension. i only asserted that BST probably wouldn't be "the top DD" ie the most DD in a maximally buffed situation. i even wrote that maybe the update has powered them up beyond everyone else. don't give me this bullsh*t just because i'm not posting smiles and flowers; read my post if you're going to respond to it.

edit: and beyond all that, i want to call all of your attention again to the fact that the OP is saying "maybe people who parsed in the past never thought to add pet damage to master damage!" this is pretty offensive... you (any you) should be offended by me even telling you that it's preposterous, since you KNOW it's preposterous. surely none of you really think that no one ever thought to consider pet and master damage together. please tell me that this thought hasn't crossed any of your minds... because i can assure you, we theorycrafters/parsers have always known to add pets and masters together-_-. we're not @#%^ing morons. we wouldn't be able to turn on the parser in the first place if we were so stupid we couldn't think of that.

did you guys read the original post in this thread?

Edited, Jul 23rd 2010 5:23am by milich

I think parse from things like ABYSSEA parties are at the same time interesting and misleading.
- Interesting because BST can do well there so there are no reason not to invite BST in ABYSSEA parties.
- Misleading because the ABYSSEA dynamics is "gimping" the others DD, mainly the fact you can't spam WS if you are hunting for Azure or Pearlescent aura. Some DD are not that impressive without their big WS.

You can talk about damage potential all you want, but you should talk about what is needed for these other damage dealers to surpass the BST.

or it could be because you would be unable to give any good comparison so instead you don't and talk out of your ass.

ok then, where is your math for dmg potential of bst? and does your math include the new pets, and what kind of DD setup for bst?

as i don't feel like sitting down and going over the math for a video game, i run parses on pretty much every event/pt i'm in. the number from the "math people" who say bst has low dmg doesn't seem to match up with ingame parses in a lot of different situations.

so this means
1. math people did their math wrong
2. math people haven't done formulas for new jug pets/non-typical DD setup

only things i haven't done on bst have been heavy zerg type fights, mostly because i either get stuck on sam or rdm/drk.


so bst might not have the highest potential according the the math that was done however long ago, so instead of inviting somebody that does the dmg ingame, where it actually matters, we should invite other DDs because they have the potential to possibly do more dmg?



not trying to be offensive, i'm just trying to say that the math done for bst doesn't seem to be matching up with real world results


Edited, Jul 23rd 2010 3:20pm by slayerpso

Edited, Jul 23rd 2010 3:27pm by slayerpso

edit: this is a reply to elfboy.

jesus christ. do not respond to me again without rereading each of my posts. i *obviously* have no math to say that BST + new pets fails to be the uber god DD. in fact, i haven't made any assertions about it at all except that it probably wouldn't be the heaviest DD in a max buffed situation because of haste (period; no further implications, no hand waving at a secret math equation i did on the side, just straight "things that don't benefit from haste usually fall behind in high buff situations" truism that may or may not really be the case this time, hence the word PROBABLY).

i HAVE posted math showing that pre-update BST is quite weak at least in terms of master damage, but who cares? that has nothing to do with anything you're posting to me about. do you want to talk about it for some reason? we don't live in pre-update times.

are we starting a new conversation where i do post update math? what are you posting to me for? listen: i am not going to be nice and say "oh well you're right" when you're going off on weird stupid tangents and accusing me of things. i made very simple assertions, and backed them up. if you want to get mad b/c you think i don't appreciate some sh*t i'm not even talking about, go discuss that with someone else.

Edited, Jul 23rd 2010 5:15pm by milich

3. You are misinterpreting what the parse represents.

The parse doesn't show you what the "dmg potential of bst" is. To make that conclusion, you have to assume that the other players in the parse are fully utilizing the damage potential of their job, which is generally not the case.

Being a "math person" doesn't just mean you know how to run the numbers. It also means you have an understanding of what the numbers actually mean. That's where the error is being made.

do you have a link? i'd like to see what kind of gear setup you're using for it

To be quite blunt, yes. Do those people have optimum gear for their jobs? Are they even merited on that weapon or on someother job? Are they actively WS at 100TP or making a sammich/watching TV while playing. Even if they DO have the best gear for their job, do they have gear sets constructed optimally? Do they even eat the right food for their gear+mob they are fighting? (terribly often no)

I have seen tons of people with similar calibur gear as I do on my same jobs, yet perform terribly by comparison. Attentiveness is the biggest way to boost your damage. Also, the people on this forum taking the time to read and research how to perform their job to the fullest are in the EXTREME minority of the playerbase. The vast majority of people playing this game dont know jack about basic damage calulations. I know a guy who is a REALLY badass nin tank. He has all the gear and is probably the top tank in my LS. I was doing salvage with his mnk. He was eating sushi. I said, hey, your probably overkill on acc for most everything in salvage (pimped out mnk...most mobs are lulz). I suggested he try eating meat. He was convinced he would start whiffing like a madman. I said "OK. Compromise, eat some pizza at least. You can keep a huge acc bonus but still get some atk". He says "But pizza has no str like sushi". Coming from a mnk of all jobs more worried about loosing 5str than 50 atk. I tried to explain, but it fell on def ears. This guy is no dummy. Hes not a 7yo. Hes a fully grown man in law school whos played for most of the games history. I can point out ENDLESS examples of people everywhere with terrible misconceptions about damage. I was arguing with a Drk the otehr day that Full Perle+rose strap beat his Aces/askar body/homam+polestrap build. I said "Perle+rose you get ~20 atk, ~15ish str, ~12acc, 2% crit rate (forgot #s exactly but you understand) and you loose.....4%DA. Perle is better." The guy faught with me for 20 min that 4% DA is better than all that sh*t. Hes got great gear and everything, but Ill bet you 1mil gil I could outparse him because he obviously doesnt understand how damage works no matter his gear/jobs/experience. Most would see this badass geared drk, beat him then come here and say "OMG (insert job) beat the @#%^ outta a rediculously geared Drk! OMG (insert job) is teh best!"

No. Its. Not. Parsed DONT PROVE sh*t. What about this isnt sinking in?

You would be astonished at how little people understand the game and therfore cant optimize a DD job no matter how long they have played or what gear they have. This is how I blow away almost everyone on lolThf. This is how I destroy people on Drg. Its not that the +1str on my heca+1 makes me do 20% more WS damage, but yet i blow other drgs outta the water. I was destroying people on thf before i even had a SINGLE % of haste gear back in the day as a fresh 75 with no merits. You know how? Because I understood how to maximize gear. Most people DO NOT KNOW how to combine 16 slots of gear+food for each type of DD action and adjust furtherh based on mobs/buffs they are fighting. This makes a MONSTEROUS difference. This is why there are threads making fun of people with relics that suck. Parses of "I beat a Ridil war/BB Mnk/Relic(job)/Usu sam on (Insert 'lol'DD)!!!" dont mean sh*t.

The long and short of it is that most people are not good at this game if by good you mean able to perform ANYWHERE near their damage potential.

All that said, YOUR PARSES PROVE JACK. Christ get it through your head that just because your the top dog in your pond doesnt mean bst>all. It means you have a nice bst and most people DO suck. Which is the sad truth. Your getting a brash conclusion from limited data and spewing it all over us.
_______________________________________________
Put in other terms that involve parsing so you might believe it:
MOST REGULARS ON THIS BOARD can say they beat "Nearly everyone all the time" on (insert their job of choice). The fact is that most people posting here are far above the avg joe shmo FFXI player. None of ANY of those thousands of parses prove sh*t about what job can do the MOST damage in an ideal situation.

Also, NO ONE HAS SAID BST ISNT GOOD. The only statement about Bsts damage is that "Bst does not do the MOST damage in all of vanadiel DD jobs when buffed optimally" which no one has been able to refute besides "I beat a BBmnk/RidilWar/UsuSam/AresDrg/RelicJob in a parse!" That does not mean "Bst sucks donkey balls". Jesus reading comprehension in the world sucks.

I dont know why you would even want to blame the job as the reason you won parses. Take some damn credit. If you are destroying everyone you come across, its because YOUR a badass at your job. Dont give the job all the credit. You have better gear. You created better macros. You choose to eat the proper food. You spent time investing combat skills/merits/gear aquisition to become a badass. YOU beat those guys. Not your damn job. The only time job class really effects your total damage output is when you reach the pinnical or your job and play it perfectly vs another person perfectly geared/played. THAT is the ONLY time that job vs job fights are viable. ANY OTHER TIME its player against player.

Edited, Jul 23rd 2010 7:40pm by Banalaty

Believe it was this. Remembered running across it browsing the thf forums ages ago.

edit: It would be awesome if someone (bsts) could amass a listing of each new pets damage/delay/attack (testable somehow I'm sure) and accuracy. It would make theory-crafting actually possible.

Edited, Jul 23rd 2010 6:37pm by Wolfhart

LOL

I don't think there is BEST DD around. I think that is one of the triumphs SE has had in FFXI. The balance is pretty darn good. There are 20 jobs! AND, they each have things they can do that others cannot. Differences in Gear and player decisions will greatly change the effectiveness of different dd in different situations. You can try optimal setups for anything really, but there is so much variety.. its really not worth the trouble.

What I mean here is... "What is fastest kill for X bcnm?" or "What party/gear setup is BEST for meriting on birds?" (or shucks, meriting on trolls, or whatever).

Its not really something you can compare that well... I especially don't like the common argument about buffs from support jobs in those discussion, because so many believe them...

for example "My DD job is better because w/ haste and double march... "
Haste and double march are not from your DD job.... You are getting buffed. Let the glory for buffs go to the support jobs!! If the Corsair or Bard in the party was doing buffs that give my bst more of an advantage than your Monk, that would not say anything for how BST and MNK compare as dd.
You certainly can find different party, solo, alliance, mission, etc situations where one job is more optimal than another... or some party configurations are better...

DD elitism really doesn't appeal to me.

If you're going to talk about MOST people in MOST situations then you need to mention MOST aspects of MOST parties.

MOST parties may well have BRD or COR buffs and a mage that can haste but MOST parties also have DRG/NINs with sh*tty accuracy, a couple of crappy bandwagon SAMs with poor gear, people that go AFK periodically (all the buffs in the world are meaningless if you're not hitting anything), people who eat rubbish food because they're too poor to farm for pizza and so on.

BST pets never turn up with crappy gear or food, they never go AFK, they always level their subjob and never force DC when they're bored of the party. Their DD output is respectable and totally constant unlike most humans.

Edited, Jul 26th 2010 12:50pm by jtftaru

well, you're wrong, at least in terms of what i was talking about. i clearly defined what i meant: most damage potential with maximum buffs. there are only so many buffs and debuffs in this game. if you run the numbers properly with every job using their best weapon, you can find what job and strategy (WS at 100% TP? never WS? etc) has the highest damage potential.

you don't care about that? hey, good for you. don't post.

"how dare you talk about that on the BST forum! it makes me feel self-conscious and i feel like i have to start an argument!"

that's not my problem, guys. grow up.

LOL
settle down , I'm not laughing at YOU:)



No, thats not dd elitism, if you take out "most of the time" :) However, this whole argument about dd, the roots are in dd elitism. The motivation is in DD elitism and its effects.
'Most of the time' is however you spend your play time? or me? Or the aggregate of all players' playtime? Do Most players spend their time end game? leveling? quests? missions? farming lower level mobs?
All sides of the argument want to put the burden on the other side to disprove their beliefs or assumptions. Why? because its a pretty big burden. The scope of such a mathematical proof, or statistical analysis is just too big, too demanding.
You either need a HUGE varying sample size, a tightly controlled groups of competitive tests, a thorough group of calculations from game mechanics and a sampling of different situations. THEN you need some kind of survey on what game activities are weighted compared to others, unless you just have categories and 'dd rankings' for each.

No one wants to do it for the pride of the argument. Anyone prideful enough to do so may not be believed because their pride is so offensive. The reasons people argue and believe have little to do w/ data.

Players are making the arguments because their pride has been pricked by DD elitism. Some jerk said "you too weak!LOLZ" and someone else then responded in kind.

most of the arguments are pretty moot right now anyway. They just did a huge update and lots of stuff changed. It will keep changing for the next several updates as well.



Peace!

it will never be the case that people getting angry at you for stuff you didn't say gives you a chip on your shoulder. the majority of the people posting in this thread have reading comprehension problems.

Stopped reading the thread here, even though I started it.

While it may be 'preposterous'... its also very common for almost everyone except the 'pet-job' player himself to even consider looking beyond the 'immediate perception' of 'who's on top of the damage meters'. It is also 'preposterous' for the creator of the parser to not take this line of thinking directly into account.

Check out WoW Web Stats, hands down the best parsing tool for guilds looking to improve performance damage/healing wise available. It gives a really good idea of what a parser 'should be', preposterous ideas and all...

Firstly stop trying to make out that people are overly defensive of BST. No one here comes across as some sort of BST zealot. I don't even have BST on my taru character and my galka is only 66 BST I think. In my order of jobs it's about the 6th or 7th job I play.

People are pointing out that some of the stuff you guys are saying is not accurate and they are right.

You dismissed the scenario of sh*tty DD who TP in strength rings and sub NIN pointlessly etc and said you weren't interested in that scenario. (A scenario which accounts for about 50% of the people who play this game).

Yet you try and foist the scenario which makes YOUR point (the scenario of elite high level 2 handed DD who have the best gear and always party with 2 BRDs and mages who keep them permanently hasted) - a scenario which probably applies to about 10% (if that) of the total parties in the game.

Now, why should we reject a scenario that involves half the people playing at any time in this game and only view DD according to a niche scenario that exists in a tiny percentage of cases?

That's not reasonable - your point is valid only in a minority of cases and on paper - that's it.

In the real world, it doesn't really apply most of the time.

Aside from that, as I mentioned before, the figures and calculations you use to prove the superiority of your 2 hander DD gods are almost always wrong (in the real world).

For example you just said:

an 80% haste DD has a 50% boost over a 70% no hasso DD across the board

What you are saying here (I presume) is that a DD who has Double March and the spell Haste and who subs SAM and uses Hasso beats a BST who has no Hasso and whose pet cannot get buffs.

On PAPER this looks like a sensible and obvious thing to say.

But what happens in the real world?

Let's break that down.

Firstly, you are presuming that a BRD or COR or mage hastes and buffs from the first second of the party to the very last giving the DD his buffs for 100% of the party's duration.

This is nonsense.

In the real world, there are often large gaps in the party when you're not getting your buffs.

Often the RDM is bored and watching TV and only remembers to haste you if you nag. Often the BRDs concentrate so hard on chain pulling they neglect their buff duty and you often find yourself with less than 4 songs. Or maybe the mage keeps sitting too close to the party and half the time you get ballad. Often periodically one or both of the BRDs go AFK because they know no one kicks a BRD. Etc etc.

On paper you say things like an '80% DD' assuming he's that 100% of the time but actually it's likely to only be getting each of those buffs maybe 50% to 75% of the time, certainly not 100%.

Then you demand that we assume all DD have access to Hasso which BST won't get.

That's simply not realistic.

My taru main is a DRG/SAM. I make my own parties usually. If I search for other DRG I get something like 8 DRG seeking - I'm lucky if ONE of those is subbing SAM - the other 7 will all be subbing NIN. I'm not exaggerating when I say it must be something like 90% of endgame DRG seem to sub NIN and if one of the good DD in my party gets a DRG rep it's always a DRG/NIN. DRG/NIN don't get Hasso.

The vast majority of WAR sub NIN. WAR/NIN don't get Hasso. THe vast majority of DRK sub NIN. DRK/NIN don't get Hasso. MNK don't sub SAM so don't get Hasso. Etc etc.

And the one job that always gets Hasso (SAM), 7 out of 10 times has crappy, awful gear as he's a bandwagon SAM that doesn't really have a clue.

Never mind the fact that even if you have a good DD/SAM he may be full timing Seigan not Hasso.

So when you say things like:

an 80% haste DD has a 50% boost over a 70% no hasso DD across the board

it simply does not apply to the vast majority of people in parties going on in this game at any time.

There are other little things too like because a BST shares his hate with his pet he's likely to die less. Often in a party if you have a good 2 handed DD he will die from time to time and lose his pizza then resort to curry buns or crab sushi. Just little extra things like that.

I don't want to make this discussion too abstract by talking about Chaos Theory but the general point is that the real world is unpredictable and bears very little resemblance to calculations on a bit of paper for a specific perfect niche setup, especially when you're trying to push your own point of view and are not able to look at the whole picture.

even on my most bored days i wouldn't read a wall of text on this topic. i can't believe you people. there is nothing to argue about; the OP is nonsense (people add pet damage together), updates might have raised BST's damage potential, potential is different than reality. what could you possibly be writing so much about, beyond just being self-indulgent?

Getting back on topic, I suggest that if any core BST here has suggestions for the parser that they PM Kinematics with them. I don't pretend to know the guy well but he seems reasonable enough. Maybe he will incorporate the suggestions into the next parser version.

My own opinions on this is wtf?

At 80% haste, any 2h melee will on paper be miles ahead on DD that doesnt have hasso.

At 0 buffs, a decent bst with pet will on paper be ahead of that same 2h job. (I will not use mathamatical trickery here)

If we had a nice graph, we could plot DPS vs haste , at some point the lines would cross.

As for this 80% haste, well bst can sub sam and wield a scythe. gogo spiral hell.

My personal gameplay experience over the years has seen me on all jobs without brd + cor in pty 95% of time.

In this post colibri world of cobbled together abbysea alliances, bst is a very respectable DD now, maximising DD is not really an issue, if i can hit 10merits in a few hours what do i care?? I might take an hour longer to get the 10 merits than some other alliance, but the end result is the same. Any half decent alliance can get same results as an on paper super alliance.

Post 75 xp is now so easy to get for any job, whats the best DD for pty etc is no longer relevant. I could take a super sam/drg or a war in AF gear to replace someone in alliance, and pretty much it wont make any difference. In a week you can easily cap merits and xp, leaving you to go do other stuff.

All the hypothetical maths is garbage now in my opnion, if in 1 week i can do all the xp i ever want for that job, then all the hypothetical maths is pointless, i will no longer be doing that. Fighting more NM's etc, each with different special ways to do them, doing FoV or w/e you like.

As for whats better, I now go do tings on jobs i find more fun. Which at the moment happens to mean going round on bst more.