Weighted DPS for Alexander : Creator (Savage)

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1

Hi,

based on Kihra’s inputs on the topic about the standard vs non-standard composition, I’ve started writing down the Weighted DPS for this tier, so that if the community agrees this can be implemented.

These are the guidelines provided by Kihra :

I’ve started with A9S, see below :

A9S

Faust → 1 (Only Him)

Refurbisher 0

First set of adds : 6 x Panzer Doll Scrap
Category → 3
Sub-Category → High-Priority
Weighted DPS → 1.2/6
Explaination : High-Priority because if not killed, assorbed by Boss

Second set of adds : 3 x Vangob Scrap, 2 x Panzer Doll Scrap, 1 x Gobtank Scrap
Category → 3
Sub-Category → High-Priority
Weighted DPS → 1.2/6
Explaination : Same as above

Third add : 1 x Full-metal Faust
Category → 2
Sub-Category → Same-Priority
Weighted DPS → 1
Explaination : Same Priority because Boss is mostly Invulnerable until Faust is destroyed

Fourth set of adds : 3 x Vangob Scrap, 1 x Alarum (1 x Gobtank Scrap, 1 Refurbished Magitek Vangob G-III)
Category → 3
Sub-Category → High-Priority
Weighted DPS → 1.2/4
Explaination : High-Priority same as first 2 sets, also for Alarum that must be killed in order to avoid Double Scrapline Mechanic
Note: There are 2 adds that should stay dead as per intended boss mechanic (the one in brackets), this as for the nowadays widely accepted strategy.

Fifth set of adds : 1 x Panzer Doll Scrap, 2 x Gobtank Scrap, 1 x Vangob Scrap, 1 x Alarum
Category → 3
Sub-Category → High-Priority
Weighted DPS → 1.2/5
Explaination : High-Priority same as first 2 sets, also for Alarum that must be killed in order to avoid Double Scrapline Mechanic

Sixth set of adds : never got there, so idk what spawns :confused:

→ Repeat from fifth set →

I think this is a good starting point for discussion and tuning, if needed I can try and do this also for the other 3 fights, ofc anybody feel free to contribute!

2

Oh I’ll move my post over here too, I just shoved it in the other thread.

Here’s a list of adds, and what the rule should be in my opinion - probably good to get some other opinions though.

Refurbisher 0
1: 6x Panzer Doll Scrap, (3, 1.2/6) - low HP, get AOEd down very fast, can be used for padding top DPS rankings
2: 3x Vangob Scrap, 2x Panzer Doll Scrap, 1x Gobtank Scrap (3, 1.2/6) - low hp, get AOEd down very fast, can be used for padding top DPS rankings
3: Full-metal Faust, (2, 1.0) - Boss has a defence buff while Faust is up which makes it take about 90%(?) less damage while Faust is up
4: 3x Vangob Scrap (3, 1.2/3) - low HP, get AOEd down very fast, can be used for padding top DPS rankings
5: Alarum (2, 1.0)
6: 1x Vangob Scrap, 1x Panzer Doll Scrap, 2x Gobtank Scrap (3, 1.2/4) - low HP, get AOEd down very fast, can be used for padding top DPS rankings
7: Alarum (2, 1.0)

There’s more add waves after this but I don’t know them since the boss has always been dead. Could probably check some longer parses to find out. But it’s generally the same idea, spawn adds, group them in the right spot, AOE them down, they’re always either a Panzer Doll Scrap, Vangob Scrap or Gobtank Scrap.

Lamebrix Strikebocks
1: 1x Lameprix Strikedocks (2, 1.0)
2: Gobpress R-VI (2, 1.0) - DPS Check, boss can not be attacked during this add
3: 1x Lameprix Strikedocks (2, 1.0) - boss gains a stoneskin just after this guy spawns which is broken by an ice beam mechanic
4: 1x Hedge Gobknight, 2x Goblin of Fortune (3, 1.2/3) - most groups just LB these but I guess they could be used to pad, especially with the vulnerability they get given from the balls

Bosses rotation loops after this and will spawn 3 and 4 during his rotation until dead or enrage

Cruiser Chaser
1: E.D.D (2, 1.2) - Needs to die before Self Destruct
2: Armoured Pauldron (3, 1.0 or 0.5) - E.D.D spawns this at like 50% HP? Has so low HP it dies to auto, can just be left at 1.0 I guess, or change it to 0.5 incase people are using an AOE To kill it?
3: 4x Lapis Lazuli (2, 1.0) - boss is immune while these are alive, these are immobile and spread out so they can’t be AOEd down
4: Plasma Shield (2,1.0) - boss is immune while it’s up,

Alexander Prime
1: 8x Arrihidaeus’s Lanner (3, 1.0/8), First Wave of Adds Phase, Boss cannot be attacked during it
2: 4x The General’s Wing (2, 1.0), Second Wave of Adds Phase, these are immobile and spread out so they can’t be AOEd down
3: The General’s Might, The General’s Time (2, 1.0), Third Wave of Adds Phase, these can’t be tanked together since they gain a haste if so, and you need to burn one down anyway to keep tanks alive

4: The General’s Wing x2, The General’s Might, The General’s Time (2, 1.2) - Slightly different compared to the counterparts in the adds phase. Can’t be AOEd due to being on seperate platforms, could make an argument for these being high priority to make up for the “cutscene” that players that go and handle these get.

3

I would love if add weights were added as per my posts in the other topic.

While I would respect if adds were weighted how you list them in this, I think they should be weighted a little higher for small adds just to encourage aoe a little bit compared to not encouraging it. People would pad, but since weighting is not implemented at all currently a partial implementation would be much better than a big one.

For example your 6x panzers are listed at essentially x0.2 damage. When you aoe you would still do a bit more than normal target AND you’re hitting the boss so this is alright, but maybe x0.25 would be better. Similarly as much as I hate A12S add padding x0.2 would be a little more fair than x0.125.

As far as high priority adds, it’s good to maybe have a very small bonus weight, but nothing would be fine too. You already get a DPS bonus for switching targets due to the strength of dots in FFXIV on most classes.

Otherwise everything in here looks good to me. I think it would be really cool if the Wing/Might time gate adds had bonus priority since it would “balance” out the parse a little for the time gate players, but that’s a little dishonest in a way. A really small x1.1 weight could help with the load time between zone transitions.

4

I feel as though weighting them that little in a9s results in a dps loss for many jobs if their aoe moves can’t cleave the boss. Blm’s fire 2 for example is only a dps gain over fire 4 if there are 3 or more targets. If the weighting was .2, you’d need 15 targets for fire 2 to make sense to use. 5 targets would equal one non weighted target. You’d need a weighting of .5 to have fire 2 make sense if it didn’t hit the boss (6 targets each worth .5 is a total of 3 unweighted adds).

If fire 2 did cleave the boss (this is difficult on the 2nd set of adds), you’d need each add to be weighted as .33 in the first set to make sense to aoe. I think that’s an appropriate weighting for most jobs’ aoe potential (such as machinist, Blm, bard, even smn would take a big hit if their moves can’t cleave the boss).

The only move Blm could even use with a weighting of .2 would be flare and it’d only be a slight dps increase over just staying on the boss (might even be a dps loss because the player must wait on mp, cast blizzard 4, and then a hard cast fire 3 afterwards). The only jobs that would be able to aoe these adds without losing dps are those that can cleave the boss also.

In groups with low aoe potential, such as in raid or party finder, people are going to have to sacrifice dps to aoe these adds

Dps should at least be able to break even if they choose to aoe these adds, so that they can compete with jobs that choose to stay on the boss.

5

The best reason to bring a SMN/BLM/MNK is because they have better AOE then the other jobs. NIN/DRG/MCH are without question the 3 best jobs for DPS in the game right now. Having weighted DPS based off add’s would make SMN/BLM/MNK look even worse then they already do because they are designed to have AOE. The other jobs can AOE anyway, they just aren’t as good at AOE. This isn’t like A5S when most groups could kill before the yorn pig’s and only the trophy parsers bothered with the yorn pig’s. All the adds this tier have to die or you’ll wipe. Very few people trophy parse off the adds anyway. I don’t think any of the add’s this tier should be weighted any differently then the boss.

6

Note that Weighted DPS is a completely different metric and doesn’t replace the normal DPS ranking.

7

This is untrue. The best solo target dps in the game goes in order Mnk, Blm, Drg, Nin from highest to lowest. Mch can keep up because they have ease in movement. If a mnk does everything correctly and maintains tp, no job in the game can keep up with their solo target dps (Blm can if they get enough procs). Not many groups use mnk though because of the lack of raid utility outside of mantra and dragon kick - which is covered by Drk’s delirium - as well as ninja’s amazing raid dps utility.

8

The weightings I posted are just based on the rules Kihra suggested based on how he does the WarCraft ones. Might be an idea to make it so adds only have their DPS weight lowered after a certain number of targets, say if it’s set to 3 targets, and your Fire 2 hits 4, the first 3 will contribute the full damage, but the 4th hit will contribute the weighted damage (30% in 1.2/4 case)

9

Monk does less raid DPS then all the other DPS jobs except BLM/SMN (depends on fight between casters/MNK). Personal DPS is a useless stat. For example, DRG will do more single target DPS then a MNK will if there is a MCH/BRD present. AOE is a way MNK can make that gap up.

10

I understand what you mean, but your phrasing is confusing. Dragoon and ninja are better than mnk because they boost other jobs and contribute the most to the total raid dps. Ninja, drg, mch themselves are not the “highest hitters” in the game but they work the best together.

Personal dps does matter. If a mnk can contribute more dps to the raid aggregate than a ninja can with trick attack’s debuff, than the mnk is the better choice. Mnk lacks raid utility but they almost make up with it with their sheer dps amount. If a group is also running pld, dragon kick mitigation results in less healing needed and consequently more healer dps. The same can be said for Blm and Smn which each bring multiple tools for mitigation (eye for eye, apoc, virus) to increase static execution.

If they added weightings to adds on a9s, mnk and Blm would actually be highest on rankings. The people interested in high parses would stay on the boss. They have the most single target damage and therefore would sit at the top of all jobs. Smn would take a beating still.

11

Actually this metric will encourage SMN more than ever since other jobs wouldn’t want to touch adds as much to keep up their single target damage maintained on the boss so holding CDs for the adds is not worth it anymore. Since SMN can bane and use only Aetherflow stacks instead of GCD to AOE they maintain moderate DPS single target on the boss while being able to AOE at the same time with minimum effort.

12

I personally think we are starting to view this in a way it’s not intended to.

We shouldn’t look at this like “If you do this people will ignore adds and stays on the boss”.

The point is : fine, stay on the boss, if then adds don’t die in time and boss eats them you’ll get punished by the game.

The key here is not allowing padding on the adds, not encouraging one strategy or another.
Also we are already providing a benefit in dpsing adds because the total weight would be 1.2 so 0.2 more than the boss, and this because those adds are an high priority for the fight

13

The correct way to think about this is CD and GCD optimization, it shouldn’t be encouraging a time limit on the adds.