This specifies how many higher-priority packets get transmitted for each single lower-priority packet transmitted, implementing a weighted round-robin between priority levels. This is the actual ratio that determines how much a lower-priority traffic class gets starved when higher-priority traffic is present; an admin tunes it based on how strictly they want priority traffic protected versus how much starvation is acceptable for background traffic. For example, a step value of 5 would mean 5 higher-priority packets get sent for every 1 lower-priority packet whenever both are competing for the same outbound channel.