FFXIV: Explaining the Meta and Why It Exists

[@HolySenpaiii]

Don't worry about the raid meta, just sacrifice a Lalafell prior to the fight for extra luck and success. Everyone knows that!

[@sunayocarissime5309]

Lol...reason why I have a lala alt named, "Punt Bait." Seems appropriate somehow.🤣🤣

[@D_eii]

When life gives you potatoes, make fries

[@joaninha_dark]

how dare u 😭

[@Oyst8Y6h]

When we first tried to clear 8 last tier we ended up having 5 players in the static Fantasia to lala. It’s like an auto echo with 50%dps boost lmao. Lalas are the true meta

[@sunayocarissime5309]

@@Oyst8Y6h I don't know. We have a tradition in our FC to sacrifice a lala to Rhalgar, The Destroyer before taking on a tough boss.🤣🤣🤣

[@Lacertos]

It's also worth mentioning the fact that the vast majority of the players (especially people getting into high end content) would be spending most of their time progging, not doing speedkills. In this context, jobs like WAR and RDM would be extremely valuable, even though they are not necessarily part of the potential dps meta.

[@NamesLynx]

This is very true, and why you see so many SMN / RDMs despite black mage being "in the meta." An extra res is just so valuable during progression.

[@rexex345]

And creates wierd edgecases like a war prioritising ten over det early on when gear new gear is scarce and they expect to be main tank

[@GENOSANDIEGO]

This is a very informative, well explained, yet surprisingly simplified way of saying "just play the job you want, no job is truly unplayable."

[@Spectacular_Insanity]

"No boss lasts 80 seconds." **coughcough** Rhitahtyn **coughcough**

[@hiu-hiu-hiu-hiu]

The meta in FFXIV is playing the job you enjoy the most!

[@imgonnaputsomedirtinyourey8421]

play me daddy

[@real_ez8412]

fact

[@StardustMirage000]

Any job currently is meta. But bringing something like triple bard will make savage prog absolute hell to clear, considering the amount of dps loss.

[@filipevasconcelos4409]

@@StardustMirage000 i guess the correct way to think about it is all jobs are available, but mostly just 1 of each

[@hxsm8090]

@@StardustMirage000 that depends tho. while u only get 4% party buff instead of 5%, doesnt triple bard gives blackmage 20s x 3 bard crit buff all raid long? that is hell of a buff. a party with all samurai, now that would be hell to kill any boss ahaha.,

[@HatsukaRaigeki]

Speed > Parse, Also following meta while not necessary for any players, is mostly for the competition and efficiency. Common example is how Summoner hasn't been the best in terms of damage on Promise Raid Tier, while RDM easily outshined it due to how downtime made use of 2 minute buffs more efficiently. Tldr if you don't care to do speeds, you don't care competition, play anything you want, anything will clear at a fast pace as long as everyone plays well. The difference between the speed meta, isn't gaps of 2 minutes or 3 minutes more, they are essentially gaps of seconds more. Great video Lynx, I love how open minded you are compared to many players. Would love to raid with you someday, if it ever happened after DC travel.

[@quelzar]

How is speed > parse? If everyone in your team have max parse then you will probably have 1st speed or at least VERY FAST clear lol. It's connected

[@HatsukaRaigeki]

@@quelzar lynx explained in the video. Either way if you didn't watch it. Its because parses can be easily manipulated. You can have 100 at a specific kill time and by making everyone feed you RDPS for example a NIN. Making everyone's parse low for your own parse. While speed requires everyone to be at top tier to do get it done quickly. Speed does not mean you will get max parses, for everyone in the team.

[@lillepil7]

@@quelzar a 100 healer is most likely not during a speed run, since a speed run would take both healers doing optimal heal and damage, while a 100 healer, most likely pushed as much healing as possible, on the other healer. i was an orange healer last tier, and that was literally how both of us healers in my static got our highest parse, we swapped each kill to high healing, and high damage, while when we went for tank or DPS parses specifically, we both shared as much as possible, and adjusted as much as possible, for example on 7, our melee took birds to the face to build LB quicker, just for the tank and other DPS' parse. this start would also be used in speed, but its clearly not used for the melee parse, since LB3 for a melee parse is gonna kill it.

[@quelzar]

@@HatsukaRaigeki Obviously I didn't watch whole video - I know what meta is and why it exists. I'm coming from WoW and if you played that game you know what "I'm coming from Wow' means (if not - in pugs only few meta specs are invited, even in mythic raids with guilds its very uncommon to see underperforming specs like survival unless it's the end of the patch) You go from one extreme to the other. You said 'if you don't care to do speeds, you don't care competition' but for me personally my individual parse in normal run, not made up for me (so everyone is buffing me like you said) is important. If I can get high parse (and higher with every run) that means I'm playing my job right - I'm improving. You can't be top 1 in speed if your team is having 50th percentile parses. If you got 1st speed with 50th percentile parse that means you was carried by your group That's why I said it is connected - top 1 speed runners will never have percentiles like 50th or something, they will always have high. Not max, because of the reasons you said, but very high parses.

[@HatsukaRaigeki]

@@quelzar You just cannot get everyone to be top parse for speed, it is impossible because one dps (usually melee) has to use LB, killing their parse. Speed Kills involves using Limit Break. Parsing does not. E4S you use Ranged LB for faster kill time. For the 50th percentile thingy : I never said you will get 50th percentile in speeds. Obviously everyone WILL have high parses but the thing is. You can get a 99, a 100, a 95, a 90 aim by manipulating parses. Top 1 speed, will NOT necessary get you Top tier parse. www.fflogs.com/reports/NJ6Bd4hDpX1TaCvc#fight=7&view=rankings&playermetrictimeframe=historical Here is an example of how Top players are able to make their team manipulate logs to get 100. Obviously its Rank 3 now. But it had kept rank 1 for almost the whole of the tier in NIN. There is also another one for MNK. Top speed will get everyone in the team 99s and a few can get a 100s. Hence they are NOT related. It is obvious you will not get top speed if you have players who perform at a 50th percentile. But top parse? Well the log proves it. This means, if you were to manipulate logs like these guys did. You can effectively end a run at a right time to get ANY parse. As for speeds. You can see on speed variations there is always someone who is going to be low based on kill time. Common example is E7s, where SAM just cannot get top parse on top speed. Their logs drop to purple. But in general in what you are refering to, speed will definitely get majority of players high parses. But are they really related? No they are not. As someone who focuses only on parsing will focus getting a specific kill time with a specific group. And someone who focuses on speed will aim to get the highest speed possible. Hence why, even on an RDPS class. You can make your whole team work around your buffs and change their rotation, only to get you the best or highest possible parse. And for a non RDPS class you can make your team aim for a specific kill time. Lastly, the part where you mentioned : 'if you don't care to do speeds, you don't care competition' I think you did not read the whole sentence. I did not mean to say if you don't care to do speeds , it means you don't care competition. Both of those words were together. Followed by "play anything you want, anything will clear at a fast pace as long as everyone plays well"

[@BnizzleNet]

Perhaps a lot of the "healers should keep people topped up" mentality comes from other mmo's where raids are designed around the usage of addons and have a lot of non-telegraphed raid wide damage.

[@Shoniforce]

basically where healer needs to focus on healing? shocking.

[@sunayocarissime5309]

That's true and I'm a WoW veteran. I'm still in that mentality of, "overhealing is better than NO healing," and I need to train myself out of that I think. Spent to many years in the, "5 second rule," mindset of WoW healing I think.

[@DakonBlackblade2]

WoW is basically constantly spewing random raidwide unpredictable damage.

[@SolBuster]

No need to heal if a DPS got poked once. Not worth dropping healer DPS for. I heal when I feel its needed not when 1 person lost 10% health. Over healing is a waste of time and boring as fuck.

[@robsusername1042]

^ what he said. In other games, overhealing may be the practice but that is not the encounter design in this game.

[@thezod2307]

People need to worry about just learning how to play a class well to begin with before worrying about the meta, a player that can play efficiently even if hes playing the worst class will out work someone playing a (META) class because he heard that was the best but doesn't even play it at a level where it matters. This was true is WoW Mythic level raiding and likely applies to this game. you need to learn to play their class well first. Otherwise that 10% potential DPS that the other job can do over yours won't even matter since you will never bring it out and you aren't even doing the content where this is a factor, since we all know you can beat every boss with any comp, the devs wouldn't put a tank or a healer or a DPS that couldn't fulfill its job in this game just for laughs. Often the difference between Meta and none Meta are only a few % in overall damage when everyone is wearing the same level of gear. If you aren't worried about being a top 100 player and aren't one now, you probably won't be, I wouldn't worry about the Meta, unless you are joining a company that gives a dam enough to tell you to play something else, that's on you.

[@IShotLazer]

No. People always say that this only applies to the top level players but the players that need MORE help are the players that don't have the skill, or players that can't hit checks. This is a popular argument that keeps getting picked apart. If anything, the players that can overcome these detriments are players that are better at the game. Saying that skill>comp is just a tired saying that brings nothing to the table. Of course skill matters. But classes do too. Stop telling people useless Information and just tell them what the best thing is, at each stage in play They can decide from there. But statements that boil down to "tiers don't exist" are just wrong.

[@ulibarriL]

@@IShotLazer What that poster is saying is that a meta comp that has the potential to pump out 120k DPS (just a number I'm tossing and not meant to reflect current comps) over another comp that can only do 100k is completely irrelevant if the former can only do 100k. And if it is less than 100k, then the non meta group is the better comp. IOW comp>skill is totally false IF the skill group pumps out more DPS than the meta group. A skill group does not require a composition other than what that the instance calls for (2 tank, 2 healer, 4 DPS). However, a meta comp still requires those players to be skilled. Make sense?

[@IShotLazer]

@@ulibarriL you completely missed my point and managed to straw man it at the same time. I didn't say skill didn't matter. But If two groups of equal skill did the same thing, its a better idea to go with comp and stronger tiered jobs. In fact, there's a small amount of leniency a stronger job let's you get away with. Again, the argument isn't skill doesn't matter. It never was. I'm saying that lying to people by telling them to play whatever isn't doing them justice. It's a lie. In ff14 l, it's very balanced but even this game has clear differences and lying about it doesn't help the community anymore than than telling the truth. Sure it's doable by the worst jobs in the game, but you need more skill to do the same thing and that's my entire point.

[@ulibarriL]

@@IShotLazer I wasn't trying to get your point. I reiterated the OP's point because you missed his. And "strawman" is always a great way to deflect from a point you don't understand. I know you're not saying skill does not matter. You're saying it matters less than comp. And I'm saying that's BS. It's not lying to players to tell them to play the job/role they enjoy, and that any comp can clear any content. This encourages players to go into content as the job the enjoy playing the most, while the meta and forcing comps does anything but that. If what the playerbase pushes onto other players was an effective tactic, more players would participate in content EX and above. This is not the case at all. Players like yourself and the content creator need to realize that most players don't even know what kind of DPS they are pushing, and they also couldn't care less. They only know one of two things: We cleared it, or we didn't clear it. What happens here is that these casual players are told that they are bad players, and they are playing their job wrong. The meta and forced comps aim to get players to conform to an arbitrary set of standards. It's as simple as that. Encounter design is what dictates the comp; not the players. If players want to set standards to join a group, then there are methods to do so, but forget about tossing that blanket over everyone. There are much better uses of your time, and much better content for this youtuber to create.

[@FukushimaFriedChick]

@@IShotLazer So you admit that you need it to win anything at all?

[@Ninakoru]

Great video. As a newer player, I always saw that the common consensus is that every job is viable at their role, and that the game is fairly well balanced, enables you to play what you like. Also the META will always be there unless all classes had the exact same skills and damage. To me the conclusion is: the devs really have done an excellent job at balancing, I really appreciate that.

[@NamesLynx]

The balance this expansion has been super tight and every class has been good. It's honestly crazy that they pulled it off.

[@Memphis241]

It's kinda funny the only Tank with a Sheild doesn't have the most defense.

[@albertobarberacampos451]

If we are bing honest, they are not even using it properly half of the time, you see them goofing around, jumping with slashes and not covering while attacking etc

[@Grim_Bud]

@@albertobarberacampos451 well the job told us the shield is for the others, not like you yourself needed it in the first place.

[@Blaze87540]

I always thought the shield was meant for throwing.

[@Vallkayrie]

When I play paladin I use glam to hide the shield ... who needs a shield. SWORDSMAN AT ITS FINEST

[@user-bu3dw9ho4z]

@@Vallkayrie I saw that in a raid and it looked doooope

[@AlphaRiff]

Thank you for saying this. I've been playing for years and I remember people getting MAD that I was playing MCH or BLM or something instead of the "META" but their "META" classmates were dead most of the fight. You're only as good as your own ability to do the mechanics.

[@John-sx3mp]

Quite so. It has been my experience that (1) DPS drops significantly when dead and (2) If your class has significant mobility issues, the "pen and paper" calculations are not as relevant.

[@rexex345]

It does hit me, FF14 is kind of unique in that it's meta is midtier centric compared to most other games where that leans towards top tier players.

[@lelelekop]

As our healer always say "The most important HP is the last" it doesn't matter if you're at 100% or 5% if you're not dead then the healer did a great job.

[@petree]

But my potency drop on spirits within when I play pld lol

[@untamedsab5497]

The problem with that mentality is that it often leads to people doing it in content that they shouldn't such as MSQ. If a mechanic is about to take 40% of someone's health if they get hit, and you left them at 30% just because they're alive currently, you ARE equally just as responsible for their death. Your job as a healer isn't to just heal the minimum amount of unavoidable damage in an instance, it's to keep people alive, which means you predict and play cautiously when you don't know if mistakes will be present. Taking 1-2 GCD as a healer to keep someone reasonably healthy ((in my case I use around 70%) is not worth losing 6-7+ GCD's of your DPS and leaving them with a lengthy dps debuff. A part of me wishes people would stop even mentioning this fucking line because it only applies to static when you know people. Level'ing up through MSQ, regular on-duty, and party finder, this mind state is toxic and single-handedly causes wipes, not to mention to the fact that it completely ignores the stress that it causes on other people such as the tank and dps who aren't being healed because now they're in fear of dying, which could cause them to lose gcd's of damage if they want to focus on avoiding mechanics or to pop defensive cooldowns like Clemency or tank invul. The most notorious moment being a white mage who has their Bene wasted because they waited to the last minute and let the GNB get to a state of fear of dying. If the game's entire metric is about DPS, the healer didn't do a good job just from not letting people die and maximizing their dps, they did a good job if they contributed in the best way they could to the group's dps as a whole. That means making sure ppl can keep uptime by not having to be scared because the minute you have lag, the minute you don't remember exactly how hard an attack hits, the minute you don't know how squishy someone is at 'x' vul stacks, they're dead.

[@lelelekop]

@@petree Yes. I'm a PLD main and I'm always begging a Bene or Excog from my healer. The pain is real

[@lelelekop]

@@untamedsab5497 If you're scared and not trust your healers during a Savage raid treating them like they don't know what they are doing then you shouldn't be a Tank or a DPS, be a healer instead. I PF all the time and I do not look at my HP gauge at all if I'm not playing PLD due to Spirits Within, my job during the raid is to soak unavoidable damage and my healers job is to know when my HP should be low or high at any given moment during the raid, this also applies to any other content either it's MSQ, Trials, Dungeons, etc.. If you're not competent in what you're doing then you should learn how to do it using lower tier content and build up your confidence going up. Stress in the game is unavoidable but if you know you did your part right, avoid the mechanics, and did your rotations correctly then it is not your problem, they chose the class and they should know how to play it. Adjusting to another person and belittling them doesn't help them in the long run since there is no cause for them to improve they'll be thinking that they are doing things correctly but in reality you're just spoon feeding them with a false sense of achievement.

[@kacey5925]

@@untamedsab5497 I feel like this is a whole wall of texts saying nothing tbh. If you are in a fight, doesn’t even have to be savage… just trust your healers?

[@Aggnog]

What's said in this video is probably correct in the context of how FF14 is played, but the reason for it is nothing other than encounter design. The scripted nature in which encounters are designed allows healers to have time to dps and allows tanks to focus on damage instead of defense, this is by far the main reason.

[@NamesLynx]

Absolutely

[@haliniakpierre5877]

Yes, FF14 is designed to be played this way.

[@BoP]

A skilled Roy can out parse any Gunbreaker...wait a minute.

[@ulibarriL]

Whatever meta you want to refer to, it doesn't apply to 90% of the playerbase. That's what no one ever says. Even though DPS is what drives the game, there are very few fights with a hard enrage. The meta as you know it, is what keeps a large portion of players from even trying harder content. This is why SE has gone to great lengths to eliminate the meta, but there is always an optimal way to do everything. And boiled down, that's what it is: optimization. In which case, the only thing that is truly meta is the next button you press. It should be the best one based off of what is currently going on in the encounter, and where you are in your rotation. For most players, the meta optimizes the fun right out of the encounter, the job they play, and the game entirely. Optimization does not exist to clear encounters. Sub-optimal groups clear hard content all the time. Optimization is about speed so you don't spend any more time within an encounter than is necessary. I don't shun optimization and try to use it myself, and encourage other players to do the same. What does grind my gears is shoving the meta down everyone's throats.

[@chaoseater999]

as far as my understanding goes, that is what exactly he mentioned in the video???

[@Xenitag0]

He was talking about EX (somewhat)/Savage and Ultimate content. All of those have hard enrages. Before that Meta doesn't count because you literally pug everything through duty finder and as such can't choose anything since it's random. Once you start to have to think about group composition is where the meta comes in. TBH tho the meta is good in optimisation of DPS, but there are other factors to take into account (like if there's still progression on mechanics, replacing the BLM by a RDM or a SMN is usually worth it for the raise). All those points are what he talks about in the video.

[@ulibarriL]

@@Xenitag0 "At the highest end of the game, there is no meta. The meta exists for the middle players. The biggest bulk of players." These are his words, and in my response I stated that the meta (as referred to here) doesn't apply to 90% of the playerbase. Prior he goes on and on about all these different types of metas, when no matter how you look at it, at the end of the day it is all about optimization. And optimization is all about speed, i.e. getting things done in the most efficient way possible. "How is this a bad thing??" one or more people might ask. It's a bad thing because more importance is placed on it than what is necessary. It's bad because the meta doesn't encourage players to improve, it makes them feel excluded. The meta is bad because it's not about 'Most Effective Tactics Available'. If this was the true meta then compositions being formed based on the fight would not be a thing at all. You simply employ a fluid meta that is based on the current comp. This crap is not important in even the slightest, and those who think it is seriously needs a reality check. There are bigger fish to fry both in and out of the game. It's ok to to strive to be a good or even a great player. Nothing wrong with that at all. There is also nothing wrong with helping those who seek to improve. However, pushing optimization on players and trying to indoctrinate them to conform to it is a big giant pan full of BS. In EX/Savage/Ultimate, optimization does become important because you have to deal with an enrage. Not once does he mention this in this video. The issue with pushing the meta so strongly on casuals is it gives them impression that if it's like that for a NM trial or dungeon, then how bad is it in the content when it actually counts? Ultimately it becomes a form of gate keeping whether it is intentional or not. SE spends a crap load of time designing the harder fights, and why or how is this worth their time if 90% of the playerbase stays away from it? tl:dr? The meta sucks ass.

[@moonlitxangel5771]

@@ulibarriL I do agree that the meta sucks. I'm fairly certain in the way that the game is designed any party comp can defeat any fight whether that's normal, hard, EX, savage, or ultimate. What it ultimately boils down to is that following the meta when each player can play their role optimally you're allowed more deaths within a fight. It can help for when a party is progging the fight or if they're having difficulties and enough people know how to play the meta jobs well, but the end result is still the same whether you go in as a party made up of meta classes or not. You learn the fight and once you get to enrage you clean it up if you can't beat the dps check. IMO the goal should just be survival and beating the smaller dps checks when you're progging. A monk that knows how to use their skills well to help keep themselves alive will be more valuable than that same person playing a ninja and doesn't know their skills as well and dies cuz they struggle to use said skills to keep themselves alive like they would have as monk.

[@TryHardsHMSV]

I think it's important to note that the top end meta "doesn't exist" if, and only if the job balance is solid enough that there isn't a clear winner within a role (I.e. Scholar and Warrior during 3.x).

[@AsikoTFC]

Babe wake up, new lynx video

[@cassandramaccarthy3337]

something else to consider, at least for players around the skill of myself and my static (pretty good, not world racers or speedrunners or anything but certainly pretty good), your group will PROBABLY do the best DPS with whatever job you're most used to. I main Dark Knight, so if I were to swap to Warrior for whatever reason (Holmgang timing or something) my DPS would prolly suffer quite a bit. same with DPS for potential damage, if I were to change my DPS main from Dragoon to Samurai, I'd prolly do not much better, if not worse on Samurai than on Dragoon

[@moonlitxangel5771]

This is also true. It's better to play a class that you enjoy and know well than to swap for damage reasons. *Especially* if you don't enjoy that class. Then you may start to resent doing the content at all because you have to play a class you're not good at/don't enjoy. I'm not doing endgame content to be the best or to do it the fastest or anything - I'm doing endgame content because it's fun. We laugh, we die, we try again, we figure it out, and we beat the fight. That's better for me than playing a job just cuz it's the "best" for that fight.

[@arumea5418]

As someone that's been playing since 2014, before HW release...there's actually no genuine meta, everythings designed to work right, its all about player skill. the differences between classes is so tiny it doesn't matter.

[@tamacullen]

but there's synergies, it'd be better to just call it synergies considering that's what he was regarding to with the tanks. Sure, one can bring more DPS than another because it's relatively easier to play to do damage, or easier to understand how to do damage with it, but it doesn't mean that person knows how to play it well. Or how to put out the biggest damage possible. Synergies tho? Synergies do exist and the game has been promoting them from the start (they removed it, sure, but they were). Like how the slashing debuffs that Paladin if i dont recall bad could apply benefited Ninja or Warrior (or Astrologian on auto attacks XD), how the piercing damage that dragoon brought benefited dark knight (i think), bard and machinist. How Scholar's best tank was Warrior, or Paladin's white mage, even the jack of all trades that at first were astro and darknight went hand in hand. I do believe the synergies, albeit lowered still exists. Calling it meta? Nah. The fact that white mage is in red numbers in the images he put and scholar green when most fights prefer to take a white mage and an astro before a scholar, and if a ascholar insists the white mage has to go is a clear sign. Sure, clear parties and reclear parties have other combos, but White mage is so often regarded to the strongest healer AND green dps than yeah. Whatever. I don't know. I don't think meta exists so I agree. Synergies tho? Yeah. And that's what I take from th e video lol

[@Archreux-Leudegrad]

New to the game - I really enjoy this idea that there is no specifically superior way or group comp to play that completely disregards all other options available.

[@TheRedAzuki]

Hallowed ground is the ultimate dps cooldown, it gives you about 6-8 300+ potency attacks in the form of the healers able to do dmg without having to heal you.

[@TubeTAG]

If one of those healers is a WHM with benediction, you can get that same value out of any of the tank invulns. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@tiffanylovelovelove]

@@TubeTAG not necessarily. a whm still needs to spend an instant cast to use bene, and if the buster is at the wrong time, ie non-45 seconds for assize or 30 seconds for DoT, using a lily just to create a weave slot for bene is a DPS loss. 4 glares > 3 lilies + afflatus

[@TubeTAG]

@@tiffanylovelovelove The point is that WHM enable all the other tanks' invulns to be as useful as Hallowed, not that it will always cleanly fit perfectly into your rotation.

[@moonlitxangel5771]

@@TubeTAG You changed what you said. Originally you said "you get the same value" when you don't and is what tiffanyloveslove was responding to. The original commenter pointed out Hallowed was best cuz it gives the healers a spot where they can focus on DPS. Saying that's true for all tanks invulns with a whm present is demonstrably false. With the other three a whm using benediction is likely to a dps loss unless other things line up perfectly so they don't have to use a lily heal to make up for the missing benediction. Yes benediction enables the other invulns to be as useful as Hallowed, but that isn't what was being talked about. It was about how Hallowed is useful because it allows the healers to just straight DPS and not worry about healing the tank for a few seconds.

[@TubeTAG]

@@moonlitxangel5771 This is a month old and included a shrugging emoji. You’re responding to it like a debate while I was basically memeing that WHM abilities are stupid good.

[@tiffanylovelovelove]

awesome video, lynx! was thoroughly entertaining. you should have included in this video teaching people how to scour fflogs themselves to find out the best performing jobs/lineups per fight or whatnot. or even for more serious people, scouring the top parses to compare your rotation to them. hmmm maybe this is an idea for a future video? :) btw the lockout in eden's promise has ended, and there's an echo now. if you upload parses in patch 5.57 are you ranked separately from parses in patch 5.55? i took a hiatus from the game after an 8th reclear of e12s, realized it might be difficult to chase a good parse nowadays...

[@midnight3630]

My take on this: If any fight can be done with any job combination, with people playing their favourite jobs well, then screw meta. Meta seems so pointless (unless you are counting ever millisecond of your day) and boring.

[@Markcus003]

No offence to high-end raiders but that is why I kinda dont respect them because they're not playing games they are job-ing the games I hope that make sense.

[@DeadpoolsChimiChanga]

@@Markcus003 Everyone has fun in a different way. Some people have a favorite job they want to play on everything, some people just want to do everything at maximum efficiency. It's a testament to how well-made XIV is that you can do both.

[@Markcus003]

@@DeadpoolsChimiChanga *Everyone has fun in a different way* yes they do, I've been playing this game for about a week now (free trial of course) and the most fun I have is actually levelling the DoH not the jobs (that's because I grow up in a family of farmers, carpenters, and fisherman) and the reason I said what I said is because some people what to try hard dungeon but raiders who play min-max meta don't forgive players who screws the *"Meta"* (ie the player who just go in and try the dungeon) and the best that i can give is before i play ff14 my only online game is moba (because i find MMO to be hussle to play and if youre gonna ask what im doing here? im already in the highest rank in my game so there is no point in playing rank games for now im just waiting for the season to end and 2 months left for that) and you know how competitive those players are just like a job work hard now and when the salary came out everything is fine.

[@NoU-wc5ny]

@@Markcus003 imagine not respecting someone because they play games in a different way than you do. Talk about a fucking sad nerd lol

[@ineedmoneysp]

I just started playing this game last week and I’m having fun so far. I’m playing as a tank marauder/warrior which is a first for me in any game. Usually if there’s a caster I always pick that but I really want to switch to Dark Knight when I can and figured it would be easier if I started as a tank. In reality I guess im more tank/dps since I play solo mainly right now. I hope to do raids eventually though.

[@ineedmoneysp]

The only thing I don’t like about Dark Knight or maybe don’t understand is the oh shit button or ultimate with the living dead power thing. It seems like the Dark Knight can only use it when playing with others cause he needs to be healed or can be koed. From videos I’ve seen nothing talked about the Dark Knight being able to heal themselves to keep from being koed so I’m guessing they can’t do it unless I’m missing something.

[@berubettonyan]

im going to be honest i feel like the dps meta causes less clears, i really despise that it is the main focus on western servers.

[@Markcus003]

Yeah kinda is because if you really think about it rather than actually trying to clear dungeon you'd be thinking what's the best in trying to clear the dungeon.

[@h0kaki]

I just vote disband the group, when the healer is centered about the dps meta, it's high likely that the person is not willing to adapt. :p

[@xxJing]

In FFXIV the difference between meta and non-meta is usually marginal. In other MMOs there are literally classes that get the job done and classes that don’t. As an example, people often don’t want thieves in GW2 dungeon groups because thieves die a lot, don’t have very good cleave, and have few to no stuns if they are maxed for dps. In short, playing a thief in end game dungeons cranks the difficulty up to “you might as well be doing this with a man down.”

[@AbyssArray]

Explanation is 100% spot on, I've been a DPS main (I've played NIN for so many raid tiers and I'm awful at it lol, managed to clear Gordias savage with it though.. suffered through having no WAR in my party for slashing debuff lol). Funniest thing for me was seeing your FC tag for the first time - I have the same FC tag, just different FCs.. I was like huh, I've never seen this person before in the FC..

[@afailable]

I've always liked the idea that a game is complicated enough, diverse enough in it's challenges, that a final meta is practically impossible to calculate... As a new player to FFIV in looking forward to exploring this

[@stagsurvivor]

Shout out to Krusty Krab night shift! 8:21 You guys rule!!!

[@Dyllon2012]

Lol at the 90s burst window being long. Just started FFXIV again, but I was playing moonkin in WoW which has an astronomical 3min window outside of which you do tank damage.

[@coolb05]

This is probably the most educational FFXIV video I've watched. And let's give it up for the boss fight designers.

[@Akasha1012]

You sir have earned my subscription and like. You explained the whole meta topic so well for a newbie like me

[@temjiu9915]

Great breakdown. FFXIV has a very different approach to raids then many other MMO's, I find that refreshing. The "meta" perception is just that. Player bias. I honestly doubt that most players will see the impact of playing a meta class over a class you play well. Also sounds like your personal experience shows that teamwork and skill trumps meta every time. So I disagree that the meta is for the bulk of the players. If I get 10% more damage out of a class that I enjoy and can play well, what good does it do me to jump over to a job that I hate, and I feel clunky playing, even if it's potential is greater then the job I enjoy? What guarantee do I have that I'm producing the results the team needs just because I'm playing the meta? And what good does it do a raid leader to reject someone because the don't play the meta, never knowing if that person could put out better DPS then their teammates, even if the teammates are playing the meta? The sheer fact that the top players don't play the meta should show that it's not about meta, it's about teamwork and skill. So are the meta really better at damage, or just easier to play? is that a guarantee to a raid leader that they'll get the DPS they need if they invite a meta job over something else? Or perhaps it's more worth it to see a player in play, and see how they stack up against the rest of the team? My only issue with meta is so many people that don't have a clue use it as a beatstick. And in my experience many of those people can't even get the best results out of their own classes. So I'd hesitate to tell a new player that they need to play the meta. I may counsel them that the meta classes are easier to get some DPS thresholds with, but I'd caution them against trusting in the meta over their own abilities or preferred playstyle. If a monk is in the world firsts, why would I keep a player from playing a monk when they love it, just because it's not meta?

[@moonlitxangel5771]

I agree. Especially since BLM is in the overall dps meta he mentioned. While BLM can put out tons of dmg that's only if it's played right and *only* if it can sit still the majority of the time. The more a BLM moves the more and more dps potential it's missing out on. So if you've got someone who doesn't know a fight very well going in as BLM for "big numbers" you're likely still losing overall DPS cuz maybe they're moving too much. Or they're not sitting in their leylines for the entire duration. That means that other players who are playing well then have to make up for what the BLM is missing out on. And that just nullifies swapping at some point cuz every person in a raid group has a responsibility to do their own dmg. There's only so far or so much that one can be carried.

[@destroyerinazuma96]

Thanks for the tips, I'm considering giving the game a shot and this type of vids is helpful.

[@BWA85]

Give it a shot. You will enjoy it.

[@YourEverydaySheep]

It's depressing that people will see "Meta" in the title and instantly dislike without even watching the full video.

[@Aggnog]

They want to validate their bad play by believing it is normal.

[@suckemfuckem7777]

who does that

[@vPzWalkerx]

Click on video about meta then complain because he mentions meta.

[@tiberia0001]

Well first of that was super easy to understand and not complicated as started at the beginning.. so good job on your part I guess? Second yes!

[@darkwulf2k]

META really does not matter at the end of the day. You can beat every encounter with any combo, as long as you got two tanks, two heals, and 4 dps. The game is designed to allow this. I generally hate meta talks because it means someone can love a dps class, and be excluded because it is not "META".

[@imagineimagining912]

Some people care about parsing and speedkills. You might not care about it and that’s fine, but there’s a reason a META exists.

[@darkwulf2k]

@@imagineimagining912 Sure there is a reason, doesnt mean it is a good thing. With that said to each there own. I happen to play a meta class because it is fun, but there are times where I have not, and being rejected from parties because I am not a META class is a shitty feeling I do not wish on anyone. It's like being the kid picked last for dodgeball.

[@jessea9744]

Welcome back homie

[@ardentdfender4116]

Was working in an Engineering PCE document at the work office. Saw a Notification from Lynx and plugged in my headphones 🎧 to phone to tune in. It’s about time.

[@NamesLynx]

Legend

[@optimusd3854]

Coming from WoW and seeing the excellent balancing of the Jobs DPS i had hoped to get away from exclusory metas and loved the idea everyone could just play what they enjoyed and still be viable for all content.

[@Rc3651]

I haven't seen anyone excluded for their job choice in years now that their balancing is better. And I successfully raided on SCH in 2.0 and AST in 3.0 when they were dog shit so it's easy enough to find another group imo

[@BrokenArrowX]

Really happy you're back doing FF14 content man.

[@NamesLynx]

Thank you

[@solaryon8711]

May need to add some clarification to the "why the DPS meta exists section". First and foremost, DPS checks are generally quite tight in FFXIV compared to other games so every last drop of additional DPS helps the group reach the timers. Healers and Tanks also don't do insignificant damage compared to DPS. Their DPS is a relatively small but impactful portion of the group DPS. Damage in FFXIV is extremely predictable and scripted, and people who fail mechanics usually outright just die rather than taking damage in harder content. This means all the healing you will usually do can be planned to pin-point accuracy for maximum efficiency and minimum time spent healing, as mentioned. Very relatively little MP is needed for the healing, and much of a healer's MP can be spent on DPS to help reach the enrage timers. As for tanks.. boss auto-attack damage is usually very very low in FFXIV compared to other MMO's. Tanks don't need to meld defensive stats to their gear because the only threats to tanks are normal group mechanics and tankbusters. It is sufficient to mitigate tankbusters with DR cooldowns and base defensive stats on gear. Tanks must therefore try to deal as much damage as possible to help beat the tight enrage timers. People from other MMO's might think it's crazy that RDM can just instant-cast combat rez at will as many times as they like, but the fact that this class is not obnoxiously overpowered demonstrates how important DPS checks are in FFXIV. RDM and SMN lose considerable damage for spending time on rezzing, and the people that die rez with mainstat reductions. Both these things hurt the group's chances of reaching enrage timers considerably, and even a few deaths can make it impossible to make timers for an undergeared group. Every tiny little extra contribution on DPS is very important.

[@TheAvengineer]

Always amusing to see just how few other Monks there are in high-end content but man I can't really blame 'em. Still, glad to see it has at least some representation in higher tiers - ultimately, I think the most important thing about the meta is understanding that it is at the end of the day just one common method to the desired result, and is not the only composition that will actually lead to success. Irksome to see people who don't understand that the part that's ultimately more important than what classes can do is player skill, and sometimes, that skill is with an 'off-meta' class. Either way, great video!

[@shinkamui]

nice video! i like that in this game people dont enforce a meta too much outside of bleeding edge play and rightfully so. Player skill trumps above all and at the point you start doing stuff that needs more thought, coordination and strategy, like speedkilling, chances are the group can use the meta’s data wisely instead of letting the meta control them

[@Lordoftheapes79]

This might be the best META explanation out there.

[@maahesghulainn9480]

To my newer raid friends, I would always use the following example of how the Meta can increase chances of success. Which was pretty much, if you are running the highest potential damage and can all play it at the same skill level as your other jobs, you likely can afford more deaths than normal simply due to bigger numbers. This was relevant because they would hit enrage if a certain amount of deaths would happen but I knew that if I could copy paste their skill onto meta jobs, it would take even more deaths to hit enrage

[@andrewschleiss6269]

What is you DPS meter? I really like it, super clean

[@YDG666]

As Thanos said: "- Perfectly ballanced as all things should be"

[@lynxace1602]

I was drawn to the Dancer and Astrologian jobs since I started FF, guess I lucked out they’re in the potential damage meta

[@BWA85]

I have played for a good few months now and can safely say that the META is simply... Pick a Job, learn the Job,. Master the Job. I have seen Machinists push out insane numbers, Black Mages Xenoglossy for 6 figure hits, Dancers drop fat stacks on bosses, Dragoon Bursts go through the roof. I've even seen god tier tanks out-DPS average Dmg based players. Let's not forget the Glare Mages (WHM) rip mobs apart like they were tracing paper. The real META is become the most competent player you can at whichever job you do.

[@rodrigoordonez2295]

WTF meta is an acronym for that!? I've spent years thinking it was just a prefix... Wow

[@AndreyNsk89]

Meta is actually a prefix like in words metaphysics or metagaming.

[@retropulpmonkey]

More of a 'backronym'. It has become an acronym for that, but the term metagame is its origin and has been around far longer. The 'metagame' - basically refers to the 'rules' of the game that emerge from the conditions of the game as a whole. If you metagame, you are playing the game that emerges from the game (the root meaning of meta is that there is a self-referential notion to whatever word you are appending it to). You are trying to solve the game to play it most effectively. E.g. There may be no rule in the game that prohibits playing class X, but the metagame has proven that that class fills the same role as another, but is worse, so it's effectively a losing move to play it; the shorthand for this became: class X is not meta.

[@ApfeLsan]

Hey, dont know if you have fun of doing, but would like to see you taking on the Bozja/Zadnor 1v1 Fights!

[@LordMidichlorian]

Nice video! Thank you, that was a good one to watch.

[@mx3013]

If meta is "most effective tactics available" for speed run I guess you are right there exists one. But the good thing about FFXIV is no job is out of the meta in terms of being able to clear the hardest fight (savage and ultimate) - even compete for world first, at least in shadowbringer (I recall ast used to be pretty bad when it first came out...)

[@johnathanera5863]

Bullshit. Take SAM for example, yes you're right that it SHOULDNT be ostracised. But it is, its significantly harder to find a static as a SAM, than any other class, except maybe BLK. Why? Because the meta has determined them to be bad. The meta in ff14 is absolutely real, it just usually only affects one class at a time so most people dont see it.

[@vPzWalkerx]

Any job can clear any content, how is that relevant? Most effective tactics available doesnt mean its the only tactic available. 100 Comps can clear a piece of content and not all 100 of them will clear at the exact same time, some will clear it fast or most EFFECTIVE than others and therefore that is the most effective tactic available. Every job can do every content sure but thats not the same, not every single tank healer and dps is in meta at the same time, there will always be 1 comp to clears content more EFFECTIVE than the others.

[@mindmonster8665]

This was a crazy video, I didn't think there was a science to this game but it also showed me that even with the "science" there is still the human factor. A very good video =]

[@mikaylag4233]

for some who is a veteran healer who knows the raid like its the back of their hand, yes u can maintain a raid alive by healing just above 1%. But for someone who is not a veteran, keeping the aid at least 75% hp is needed. I rather not wait for teh group to go down to 50% before i heal them. Otherwise, one sneeze of the boss and somoene or everyone can die. And casting some big heals require 2.5 seconds.

[@haliniakpierre5877]

That's the difference between progression and speed cleaning. The meta is different for each case. For progression, there are classes which forgive mistakes more easily because precisly, you don't know how the mechanics in the fight works. However, once you know the fight perflecty after doing it for weeks, you don't want to do it for hours, you want it to be fast and clean. That's when speed cleaning meta comes, even for casual players.

[@Metadaxe]

I've heard people say FFXIV is well-balanced, but this video kind of hammers it home.

[@ZuvuyaPoE2]

If every single jog is playable, how could it not be balanced? o.O

[@NamesLynx]

@@ZuvuyaPoE2 I think what they were saying is that this video hammers home the idea that all jobs are balanced.

[@ZuvuyaPoE2]

@@NamesLynx Oh, sorry. I misunderstood the expression because "but" for me express contradction, so i thought the second sentence was the opposite of the first in terms of meaning and idea

[@Harkonis]

It's nice that you have an acronym for meta, but that isn't where the word comes from ;)

[@jeramii03]

Is there a damage meter that still works? the two I tried are just parsers outside of game and have no in game ui.

[@MichealConnacht]

I've actually been kicked from roulettes for DPSing as WHM even though the raid was full health

[@XiaosaGaming]

That's pretty dumb, as you shouldn't be kicked for doing DPS.

[@moonlitxangel5771]

Honestly I'd blacklist and then report people who do that. And I don't say to report people lightly.

[@jeremyn4397]

I only care about the Glam Meta

[@MrEdge6677]

True chad.

[@quack3891]

FFXIV: there are many different descriptions for meta ESO at one point: "Necromancer."

[@TheShachimaru]

Dude excellent video once more! Keep it up! 👍💯

[@apex3606]

If damage dealt by players gradually decreased when HP is below a certain level (say 5-10% below 80% ramping up with lower HP) how do you think this will affect healing in 14? In your opinion will hardcore healers enjoy topping up rather than keeping alive? I think it could encourage frequent tank swaps to optimise mitigation with less reliance on invulns for everything. If done right, it could improve both tank and healer gameplay and leaves room for high end optimisation, whilst not punishing casuals too heavily.

[@Antiyoukai]

Lol you want to make the job of tanks and healers harder? We already have a shortage of them.

[@apex3606]

@@Antiyoukai Well, lets think about that for a moment. Currently, healers have zero incentive to use gcd heals to top up HP to full. If healing could inherently incerase your overall rdps then casual players can identify with the role fantasy more, and maybe high-end players could find it more engaging. From the tank side, nothing would change, you dont have to tank swap; it is purely for optimization to save a healer gcd or two. Its objectively bizarre in a game emphasising job fantasy for healers to avoid healing in order to be considered good. All this is doing is changing the acceptable HP values of players from greater than zero to almost full (which most healers in pugs will do anyway). Maybe barrier healers will finally have a reason to pre-emptively use shields as well. Finally, which is more toxic in a pug situation: healers min healing because of 'muh parse' that leads to an avoidable dps death, or healers being asked to use their full toolkit to increase party damage? Sorry for the essay I'm done.

[@moonlitxangel5771]

@@apex3606 I mean healers are already using their full toolkit to handle damage when it comes to end game content (and you can do it in normal content too to make it a little easier). People don't play healers/tanks because of how much responsibility is put on them. Putting *more* responsibility on them would lessen the players who want to play them even more. Not sure what you mean by "job fantasy" either. The game emphasizes everyone contributing to the party. Healers have to both heal and DPS. Tanks have to mitigate and DPS. DPS have to DPS and use their individual skills to help with the healing and mitigating when they can if they have it available. As someone who heals now if they changed it to where I'd essentially have to cure/medica-bot at parts to keep party health up I wouldn't heal anymore and I know many healers feel the same way. Sure there are some who feel differently, but I don't think there's enough that feel that way as opposed to the ones that want to feel like they're really contributing to the overall dmg during a fight. There's already a debuff from dying that is gotten from a death which essentially performs the same function you're suggesting just from death instead of a certain percentage. That also puts SO MUCH responsibility on healers for a DPS or tank making a mistake - something they've started to shy away from (I know I've seen it said that in later savage fights instead of getting a vuln for messing up the person gets something that lowers their personal DPS). TL;DR: They want to make healers and tanks more accessible not less which is what this type of thing would do (make it less accessible). It would also put the responsibility back on healers for other people's mistakes which is something they've started to shy away from.

[@Shoniforce]

its a bit sad the lack of raid wide dmg this fights seems to have and the lack of on gcd mitigation rotations. so healers only heal on mechanics, and tanks only mitigate with cds on tank busters or stuff like that. then everyone focus on dps.

[@lelelekop]

e12s P2, e11s p4?

[@Alecemito]

“Keeping people alive as a healer is the bare minimum requirement”… Imagine playing a healer job and actually barely healing… I always hated that about this game as a main healer/support player in basically every video game genre out there and it’s sucks because I do love this game. It’s sucks that I barely heal through the fight, that casual content practically doesn’t need a healer after your gear makes you invincible. I love when people actually make mistakes because I can finally do healing and prove I can dodge and keep people alive. They really messed up healer with this last expansion. If they wanted to give them more dps so more people who only care about it (which is the majority of the players) would play them, they should of done an actual rotation or incorporate damage into the healing skills instead of a DoT and ONE damage skill. Look at WHM, so many skills wasted since you only need the Afflatus, occasionally a Tetragrammaton, Medica II, Asylum and Assize is practically a DPS skill, the first 50 levels are irrelevant. That’s not a good design at all. The other 2 healer use a bit more of their toolkit at least, but this wasn’t a fun expansion to play as a healer. I know most people will disagree since they can DPS more, but that shouldn’t be what a healer does 90% of the time… Just change the Healer role to Support and make better DPS rotations for them if the bare minimum requirement is healing.

[@NamesLynx]

I agree that healing in this game sucks if you enjoy actually healing. I am the same way and it's why healer is my least favorite role. I much prefer ACTUALLY healing my teammates, but that's just not how the game is designed unfortunately.

[@Alecemito]

@@NamesLynx yeah it took me a while to digest, but it is what it is. Although I feel next expansion might make actually healing more fun with what they’ve talked about shields and heals in comps. I have my backup plan with the new edgelord DPS Reaper so it’s all good now. Thanks for replying!

[@SarynnTV]

This is a good video, but I have to disagree with one of your final statements that at the high end there is no meta. I've been speed running and high-end parsing in this game for most of the expansion, and there absolutely is a meta for the high end. That meta will change from raid tier to raid tier, but the fact is there is a ceiling to some comps over others. This is easily evident once you examine the top 10-15 speed kills for each fight. If you examine 5.4 and 5.5 logs, there is a very common thread with group composition. Yes, you can see groups that have outliers in total composition or a low represented single class, but for the most part the upper end is the meta you outlined (with caveats, depending on fights it will be GNB+GNB, GNB+PLD, or GNB+DRK). It is impossible to deduce meaning, but I'll assume you meant that at the highest end group composition doesn't matter and player skills matters more. I would definitely agree with that, but again in terms of the meta for DPS, doing the highest theoretically output with all things being equal, there is a meta.

[@NamesLynx]

What I meant by the high end not having a meta is not that there aren't common group compositions, but that depending on what you are doing (progression, speedkilling, parsing) the composition will change because there are classes better suited to those playstyles, and better suited to certain bosses. So there is no definitive "this is the meta raid group" at the high end because of the fact that it can change.

[@TofuCate]

Very interesting how you say the meta is mostly for most players. In other competitive games, the meta is highly centered around the top players. And most players would be better off playing their best job instead of the best classes and compositions.

[@simonbuysse8559]

maybe he means it affects them the most top players can probably clear whatever boss they want with whatever set up. Your statement is 100% true newer players try to play meta but they don't know why its meta and are even less effective.

[@Junebug89]

The acronym thing bugs me probably more than it should. That is not what meta means! Given your wording, I am not sure that you necessarily think that is the actual meaning of meta, but I've certainly met people who do believe that. Meta is short for "metagame". It means the game that is not part of the game itself. In this instance, what that refers to is the general ways of playing (strategies, gearing, compositions etc) that are used and propagated by the playerbase. Although players will often try to make things more effective, the acronym doesn't really work that well because there are plenty of different things that players also consider important. Is it getting the fastest clear? Is it minimizing the likelihood of wipes? Is it finding a way to do it that works with low gear or people who don't put out high dps for other reasons? Is it using classes that perform better in unfamiliar encounters even if their dps in perfected encounters is worse? In guild wars 2 for example, the "meta" for clearing fractals was for a long while to bring a lot of necromancers and one healer - even though it was *considerably* slower than other methods, it was widely adopted because of the ease of the approach. That's a meta that you wouldn't think is possible if you just go by the definition provided by this acronym.

[@mosley3485]

People who think meta is an acronym are a special kind of stupid.

[@GhostOfTazio]

i dont know what healing is like for savage and ultimate but if healer dps means so much and there isnt that much to heal, why dont you drop a healer and bring a dps?

[@NamesLynx]

Mostly because in order to achieve maximum healer dps you want to coordinate your off global cooldown healing spells between 2 healers, to maximize non-gcd healing so that your gcds can go towards dps. Only bringing 1 healer would force them into healing more, and by proxy, gcd heal more, leading to lower healer dps.

[@enragedsun1826]

Bringing a WHM is basically bringing an extra DPS 😎

[@scpquads]

Some other things that Lynx didnt mention when he replied, is that a lot of fights have mechanics based around certain roles getting certain mechanics, to make them predictable and not potentially getting a practically impossible pattern. Also, because speed kills back in the day, like early Heavensward, did do 1 healer runs at times, people decided to make "official" rules on fflogs where there is standard and non-standard comps, which is related to having the regular 2 tank 2 healer 4 dps party composition. You can usually get a faster time with 5 dps 1 healer 2 tanks, but it would go in a different category on fflogs that isnt shown without looking more into it.

[@rangersmith4652]

A detailed and meticulously prepared (and arguably very arrogant) description of how to blatantly violate ToS in FFXIV. I do believe we should have an effectiveness parser in game: one that nobody else can see unless we intentionally share it. But until we do, parsing provides an advantage that can't be achieved within the rules, the very definition of cheating. Yes, I'm prepared for the flack I'm likely to take for saying this, but nobody can demonstrate that I'm wrong, so bring it on.

[@magnusaber1]

Why do you care if people use a tool that let them improve more efficently, when it doesn't affect you in any way? If it's about the further add-ons like cactbot, then I understand, but a simple dps meter isn't making any fights easier.

[@rangersmith4652]

@@magnusaber1 It's Sunday, so here comes the sermon. If parsing to improve skills doesn't make fights easier, then why parse? It does make fights easier. A fight is easy or hard based on a number of factors, but we need examine only two: your ability to kill the monster, and the monsters' ability to kill you. Your ability to kill the monster can be lifted in a number of ways that are within the rules: Better gear. Materia. Food and potions. Optimized skill sets and rotations. Teamwork. Experience. Practicing the fight. All of these make you more capable of making the kill. But the monster's ability to kill you is locked into the design of the fight. He gets no stronger while you continue to gain strength. Result: all the things you do as you progress make the fight easier FOR YOU. It's meant to be that way. But parsing goes beyond the advantage increase the developers intended you to ever have, and they wrote the rules to stop you from doing it. But whether parsing makes fights easier or not is beside the point. Parsing is useful in helping a player develop skills and in helping players who jointly agree to use it for developing teamwork. It clearly makes you better and thus makes the content easier to complete. No argument there. But therein lies the key: agreeing to its use. Parsing provides the means to electronically measure the performance of players who DID NOT consent to such measurement. To the contrary: We all agreed when we installed the game client to NOT use it. But it gets more nefarious. Parsing also serves to facilitate discrimination. Imagine your static is short one member, and you decide to recruit the final member to do a raid or whatever. Since I meet the stated requirements, I answer your party finder, and one of your members says, "Oh no, not Ranger Smith. I was in a PUG with him a few days ago and he only rated like 80%. Let's get somebody else." I don't know I was parsed a few days ago. I don't know that information gained via parsing is being used against me now. All I know is I meet the stated requirements, so I answer your PF, and I get rejected. How can you make the argument that people being excluded from content because of their covertly and illegally collected performance ratings doesn't affect them? Clearly, that's the exact sort of effect you claim doesn't exist, but it does exist. Players don't have to be aware that parsing facilitated their rejection to be hurt -- in game play terms and possibly emotionally -- by being rejected. Your argument to the contrary leaks like a sieve.

[@jorrellds6520]

I like this guys mindset.

[@afailable]

Do you think a DPS based meta is the reason the balance in FFIV is so good? Having a laser focus for Devs to rotate around seems advantageous. I'm curious from a design perspective.

[@NamesLynx]

I think the fact that roles are very homogenized and carry mostly the same tools as other classes in the same role is what leads to the game being very balanced

[@afailable]

@@NamesLynx thanks for the reply! Do you think this homogenised structure holds the game back in any way? Could you imagine a better scenario with more diverse gameplay that satisfies your end game mentality even better than FFIV? Thanks again for your time, and thanks for the amazing content!

[@NamesLynx]

@@afailable I personally don't mind homogenization. The dps rotations are drastically different between all classes (except healers lol) so playing different classes feels different enough. It's nice to know that when I swap from warrior to dark knight or gunbreaker I will have almost the exact same mitigation tools and that means they are all viable all the time.

[@afailable]

@@NamesLynx thanks so much for your input. It's very much appreciated

[@Zoeila]

As a healer my team has had to change tanks before as i am good at Ast but not whm so on some fights it was hard to deal with war and drk invulns without bene.

[@Zendelxex]

As another AST, use Synastry + bene 2 + ED. The ED will capture the 1HP for max ED heal while Syn + bene 2 will give a 140% heal

[@moonlitxangel5771]

@@Zendelxex I wouldn't bene 2 first since that'd put you above 1 HP and you get a less potency heal from ED. At 1 HP ED gets its full potency (the 1,100 heal) then bene II's 700. Nevermind that ED would be boosted cuz of synastry cuz I am not great at math so can't figure out the potency difference atm lol

[@moonlitxangel5771]

Another thing to keep in mind on top of what the other person who responded said, you don't need to get a drk to full to satisfy the conditions to end walking dead. You just need to heal for an amount equal to their hp total (it sounds the same but it's different. Essentially let's say they have 100,000 HP - they can end on 50,000 HP cuz dmg being taken so long as you've healed 100,000 worth of HP). And war is fine so long as the next incoming attacks won't hit too hard. But as an AST doing a synastry + essential dignity + benefic II should suffice to get you out of the danger zone.

[@Zendelxex]

You instantly cast ED the moment benefic 2 cast goes off. There is a slight delay b4 benefic 2 is applied and ED will snapshot the 1HP for full potency heals. Also, ED is NOT boosted by synastry.

[@epicserpents7586]

Incredible breakdown of meta for introducing the concept to newer raiders. Keep up the great work!

[@kronorous]

Not entirely relevant to this video but is there any chance you could make a video on how to get into savage and ultimate content and what to do or how to gear for it?

[@NamesLynx]

Yea it's on my list of video ideas. Expect it in the coming weeks.

[@Kaidrenn]

was just thinking its about time

[@relaxingmusicinc6449]

Im just getting good at healing and dps on my whm. Great video.

[@epicurusstan3223]

meh, just play what you like. people think to hard about this stuff. Any class can clear all the content.

[@Ridingthewaves305]

I play summoner and laugh when people say they will out dps me because they parse higher on target dummies, but when we get in raid I do my entire rotation while moving while they halt their dps to avoid mechanics and I soar way above them lol. Like he said there are many factors to dps

[@rejome01]

How do you push the button so fast

[@twin-gk8of]

YOOOO he's back! (haven't watched the video yet, wanted to say hi)

[@thesparrow1116]

Endwalker meta be like "Since every job now bursts at 120, just be the job that does 'more damage' "

[@miyuden4118]

It's amazing if you think about how balanced FFXIV PVE is compared to other MMO'S

[@markup6394]

I knew there was a good reason to level up all this jobs :) Now I just have to use them where is counts... Btw, why the change to viera?

[@NamesLynx]

I was hyped for viera when shadowbringers was announced and while I had swapped around a few times throughout shb, I was a viera for most of it. I just so happened to start making youtube videos while I was a mooncat and now I see it as part of my "brand," which is why I use that character for thumbnails, but am actually a viera.

[@markup6394]

@@NamesLynx Well, it "was" a cute mooncat :)

[@gelonvia8525]

Thank you for explaining, I'm new

[@126644]

If the boss dies in 80 s regardless why does it matter how much damage you caused to get there

[@xNovaSounds]

3:18 "play dps for ez mode, play tank/healer bc your dps roles need help meeting checks in this game"

[@deathsythe238]

what setup do you have where DRK's 1-2-3 can be on 1-7-9?

[@NamesLynx]

Mmo mouse and over expansions they have removed old combo skills leaving only those left

[@klausjackklaus]

That's why I played disc priest in wow- so my healing was by doing dmg. I wonder if sage will be like disc priest

[@piratesbootay]

Best classes to bring to the raid fight is any. Any is viable.

[@vPzWalkerx]

You can also beat many fights with multiple pieces of gear, there is still a BIS. Being viable isn't the same.

[@Doron488]

Every time I hear someone say that "meta" is "Most Effective Tactic Available", I die inside. No, it is not the most effective tactic available. It is everything about the game that exists outside of the game, including discussions about the game between players, decisions that people make about how they play the game, websites and communities like the Balance discord that theorycraft about the game. A good example of this is how underplayed the MNK class currently is, and how overplayed the SAM class is. Practically speaking, both classes perform at a very similar level to each other in endgame content, and the playerbase overall would be better off with a more even distribution of MNK and SAM players. However, we currently exist in a SAM meta because people are choosing to play SAM more often, regardless of whether or not it is actually the Most Effective Tactic.

[@pyro_twirp3534]

Ok im new to mmos what exactly is a parce?

[@TheBunzinator]

Meta is a monumental scourge on gaming. It engenders the toxicity of elitism. This is precisely where "you don't pay my sub!" is needed. And I fully support SE's ban on parsing utilities.

[@SilverforceX]

You should really address the WAR rDPS issue, that is, people ignore it's contribution to the raid DPS due to it's insane self-healing. The difference in personal DPS between the tanks right now are very small. And if WAR's self-healing saves 2 healers from casting a few heals each during the course of the fight, and said 2 healers cast their offensive spells instead, it would already bring WAR rDPS higher than DRK & PLD, and most likely on par with GNB. If you run logs, you can see WAR's insane healing for a non-healer after each fight. Edit: Funny that you mention the healers doing DPS when the tank doesn't need healing early in the vid, but you never factor this in when it comes to WAR's self-healing and how it not can, but will boost both healer DPS as a direct consequence. ie, WAR can easily heal for 100K, on demand with NF and high burst dmg skills. This is 2x what TBN on DRK offers, and WAR can do it for tank busters or just anytime HP is low enough to be healed.

[@larxycouteau4578]

Hey I know that guy, I love trolling my groups by playing WAR 8:21

[@froggyprinz]

Hey I know that guy

[@FknFrenchT0ast]

I heard he has like 3,000 yellow dyes

[@ryuu0013]

:)

[@stagsurvivor]

I also heard this

[@Kaizir0]

thanks for the nascent flashes homie

[@paralexz7791]

So should i play machinist or red mage ??

[@BilliamTorpedo]

Red mage has more damage and can rez teammates super easily so if you want the "better" of the two, red mage for sure. Machinist doesn't have cast times so you never have to stop attacking, it's much more relaxed play imo. Honestly I say just level both and play what you want when you want, because only at endgame fights does it remotely matter

[@autumneagle]

Honestly thoughts this was going to be a Transmog Meta discussion

[@arthurdowney2846]

Healers! Keep everyone above 50% unless you know the fight and can predict what damage is coming!