While I agree that it’s not cheese, the main reason I did it was that I see value in being able to compare against standard composition across all areas of the site. Partitioning the ranks is actually necessary in order to achieve this. In other words, every feature of the site from comparison searching to statistics to performance % in the reports view, etc. will now compare you against standard comps. There is a lot more value in that in terms of analysis.
What data would you need for this? It seems like the best compromise between people that don’t like the DPS padding and preventing issues with people ignoring adds.
Good job on the updates today btw, really nice changes 
In WoW, I used the following general rules with great success:
(1) Bosses are always 1.0 and function as a baseline.
(2) “Big Adds” are either 1.0 (if equal prio to boss) or 1.2 (if considered high priority).
(3) “Tiny Adds” are either 1.0 / (# of adds in a pack) or 1.2 / (# of adds in a pack) (if high priority).
(4) Fights can have special rules as needed where adds are worth 0 during some specific buffs or phases.
So mainly I just need to know for each fight which adds fall into the (2) and (3) categories and how many there are per little pack for (3).
And then of course I’d need to know (4). An example of (4) would be not DPSing those irrelevant balls on A6S.
A9S is just silly not even a “raid” at all so we shouldn’t ask for drastic complicated & somewhat arbitrary changes for it.
I did some paper math on one of my A12S blm clears and find that reducing 17 seconds of AOE to single target level drops the final dps by less than 4%. This problem seems exaggerated and not worth a big departure from counting actual dps, especially when higher output has real value as X mentioned.
Deal with Balance instead it has much more value!
A lot of talk here seems aimed at dragging down others, but what I most dislike is the feeling that I can’t beat my own best without an equally lucky AST. 
My concern with Balance is say I do something to discount it, either by attributing the damage to the AST or simply not counting it in ranks at all. Will people then just switch to buffing with the other cards that are much harder to estimate?
Most likely. Some people will do anything for the all star points so no matter the system people will work around it for the best ### with that system.
Thank you very much for the changes, much appreciated!
Just some answers to random bits I found in the replyies following the changes:
We could always set what is the standard comp. widely accepted for each fight (don’t know if possible tecnically) but most of the time it’s not really what is “better”. Most of the time it’s just Ilvl being increased that modify “best” composition for a fight, so regarding to FFLogs I think that 2 2 4 it’s the most right comp to set as a baseline since nowadays SE tune fights for this comp.
This could’ve been a problem in early days where some fights weren’t designed from the start for like 2 tanks (see T8/9 for example) but I think it’s no longer the case.
I’m sorry but I don’t really agree on treating AST as an “issue” on FFLogs.
The problem lies in how SE designed the job for 3.4 by boosting their card ability that much without logic, basically “forcing” every static in bringing one in.
But still this can’t be treated as an issue on FFlogs.
Aside from putting the limit on 2 of the same jobs (because sometimes happens that you only can bring 2 ast, 1 diurnal and 1 nocturnal) there’s not much else we can do here. AST is a reality and it’s in the game, if we think it’s unbalanced etc the issue should be reported to the FFXIV Forums for the devs to fix.
Just a note on the user interface… right now I’ve just added a single filter dropdown with Standard and Non-Standard, but I’ll be improving this to allow you to pick “Any Group Composition”. If that’s picked you will see two top 10 lists (one for each comp). This way the non-standard comp ranks will get equal billing (which seems fair to me).
For an example of what this looks like, it’s a bit like Mythic Keystone dungeons in the WCL UI, e.g.,
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/9#boss=11516
I’m going to hold off on making this user interface change until I’ve made sure everything is partitioned properly, but I wanted to post now to re-assure those using non-standard compositions that their ranks will be visible on the main landing page.
I see your point but wouldn’t nearly the same logic go with changing the value dps the on adds has then? Like if you make it so that dps on the adds has less value but still increases dps (just less compared to before) people would still hold back so someone can do the adds alone and then just get 100 dps instead of 500 dps from it. If ppl wanted to pad someone and stopped using balance on him but arrow the person would gain 100 dps from the arrow instead of 500 dps from the balance. It’s a rather touchy topic that’s for sure.
The dps numbers are obviously made up and over the top.
AST is fine for game balance but Balance is completely silly for rankings.
RNG of that potency makes ranks meaningless; they are driven by the AST’s luck rather than skill or strategy.
Thank you for the changes made to the compositions on Flogs! I think that is a good start for the raid community’s speed clear brackets.
As far as Astro and add padding, the problem is not with the job, it’s the people. The community itself has become very toxic. Is it the job of FFlogs to intervene in this or should we as community members strive to limit this as much as we can on our servers? I’m from a very low competition server (Diabolos lol) but we have tried to limit padding between statics as much as we can and it’s worked somewhat.
Single target balance and arrow feeding is unhealthy don’t get me wrong, but it’s the people, not the job. Astro is very optimal to use for raid dps. An aoe balance is equivalent to 60% (4 dps is 40% and a healer and tank together is one dps each). Explaining to astros that aoe balance and arrow is hands down the most optimal use of their cards and to discourage padding is a start. I don’t think there’s anything that FFLogs can really do though for single target buffing. How much dps exactly is arrow increasing someone’s dps? What if they interrupt a gcd etc? If we could filter out all buffs on players for a “real” dps number that would be amazing, but it’s borderline impossible to accurately negate the buffs.
I think there should be some way to hold people accountable for abusing astro’s buffs but there’re so many problems. Double astro is a viable strategy this tier and having 90% balance uptime is a very real result of this. For example, Faust is a min or less fight for the competitive community and having one astro for aoe balance is at least 66% uptime, two astros ensures 100% aoe balance uptime on everyone in your party and that’s not abuse in any way. On a9s, if you ran double astro, it’s a 4min or less fight. Having two astros is 33% uptime from just two aoe balances. That’s just what the class offers and not an abuse of it. This change in the astro buffing problem needs to come from the community not from FFLogs.
On add damage: damage on adds in this tier is real damage. You can’t clear the fights without killing these adds. If we implement a weighted damage system, or negate the damage completely, it might create more problems than solve. I think holding back dps so someone can have more “pad time” is definitely a problem but unless you negate the damage completely, there’s always going to be pad time. Even if you negated the damage, it’ll flip flop so people will fight over uptime on the boss on a9s. Cleave damage isn’t even enough to kill the 2nd group of mobs quickly and someone’s going to have to sacrifice dps to attack those adds.
People holding cool downs for the sake of add damage is okay to a point. In some instances, it results in a faster clear. A blm using convert and a max ether to double flare adds versus getting a couple more fire 4s on the boss is more optimal for the clear time and it buffs their damage only as a consequence. Why should these players that use cool downs for the purpose of optimization and not for the purpose of padding suffer from add damage being “nerfed.”
The changes made to the composition are perfectly fine and I believe they are good for the raid community. But changes done to dps and adds I feel should not be taken. The community has become toxic for sure, but any changes I’ve heard mentioned so far to alleviate the issues create as many problems as they solve.
Balance turned into a big problem in 3.4 when they doubled the potency and made it easier for an AST to get that card with different redraw rules. Other cards have a way lower influence on DPS, like arrow still the original potency estimated at less than half of Balance.
Balance is very large potency increase that is purely based on the AST’s luck, not anybody’s skill or stragey, so it’s hard to rationalize why you’d would want it influencing your rank. Since Balance affects all roles the same, there’s no fairness issue, you can subtract with it alone and get the benefit without being concerned about more difficult buffs.
You might accidentally make white mages feel welcome again.
edit:
For anybody who disagree, let’s approach the question the opposite way.
Suppose Kira is able to subtract DPS gained from Balance.
What benefit (to anybody) is there in keeping Balance DPS in rankings?
Balance has always been used for padding since astro was created. However, players have been abusing it much more since 3.4 increased it’s potency to 20%. AOE balance is a fair and just use of the card. Subtracting the damage is gives hurts the players that use it correctly. Sometimes an astro has bad rng and can’t pull an expanded and has to use extended or enhanced but it isn’t padding if it’s used minimally.
If there was someway to discourage the use of padding without actually hurting the players that use it correctly I feel that is the best approach. If enough players complain, SE will do it for us and nerf balance back to 10% where it should be. Why is it up to FFlogs to control and regulate the use of LEGAL Astro buffs?
It doesn’t hurt them though because subtracting balance applies to all roles equally.
Unless you think your rank should be based on your ASTs good luck drawing balances?
Well its not a single player game. Should every buff that can increase DPS be removed then? Disembowel, battle lit, foe, battle voice, hypercharge, trick attack, shadewalker, smokescreen, arrow, spear, storm’s eye, dancing edge, fey wind, dragon kick if there is a second MNK or if a caster did auto attacks? The bole because the healer can spend more GCD’s attacking? Goad/spire/ewer/songs/turrets allowing more GCDs when someone could have ran out of TP/MP? Once you start you can’t stop with just the balance. Even if all of the DPS gained from those can somehow be accurately calculated and removed I’m sure people will still find a way to cheese.
Yes you can start and stop with just Balance.
You get the most benefit from that one change, and harm nobody in the process.
Because it affects everybody equally subtracting it out is fair to everybody.
Just because you can’t normalize for allll the various buffs doesn’t mean you shouldn’t for this one.
It’s silly for your rank to depend on your AST’s luck drawing balances.
Want to beat your personal best? Better hope your AST is lucky again. It’s stupid. 
By the way, maybe it’s not clear but I suggest this not just because of the cheese with single balance rank faking. It’s annoying for Balance RNG to influence performance even between your own runs.
You missed the point. Personal best depends on more then balance. The entire party comp helps personal DPS. Ask any MCH/BRD that doesn’t have a DRG if its fair. They’ll want a DRG giving them disembowel over a raid wide balance. If they get someone to swap for to DRG for a run they can do more DPS despite less balance uptime.
Right, but none of these things are Random like the Balance is.
You can strategize your party composition and repeat it to do better next time.
Nobody’s going to swap out a healer for a DRG so I don’t know what that’s about. Besides that would fall into the special party composition bag anyway.
The balance isn’t that random. You can start every pull with one while having another being held. If you run double AST then there’s even more guaranteed uptime. Yes, it depends on draws the rest of the fight after the first minute or two but that’s how AST works. You shouldn’t punish an entire class because of it while all the other raid buffs in the game aren’t removed from personal DPS. If someone gets exceptionally lucky while battle lit is up and crit’s all their attacks, should we reduce their DPS?
No one said you had to swap out a healer. Some groups run NIN/MNK (or 1 melee) without a DRG. Sucks for any talented BRD/MCH DPS in those groups.
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I agree, pointing the finger at balance and RNG is very short-sighted and does not take into the scope of party composition and other factors (i.e. Crit - which can make or break your DPS with the same rotation, based on your luck, much like balance…)