How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

soo... do we go for the relic lmfao?

I dont want to lose my 97 crit from thordan exp wep ;c

I mean, there's this:
http://puu.sh/lYBBw/94e8f047b0.png

Compared to what I've been using (albeit with Morel Salad since it's way cheaper than Steamed Staff):
http://puu.sh/lYBDd/3916a042ba.png

I couldn't find a way to reduce the acc to 647-650ish without bumping skill speed over 700. That would do weird things to my rotation so N T Y

Like this:
http://puu.sh/lYBIN/46c7ad9fbe.png

Would be technically better, but the losses from the skill speed would for sure make it worse in the long run.

First two links are the same?

I guess it kinda comes down what was mentioned before - if you have the time and the gil to sink into the relic and have A3 helm, go for it. Otherwise i'd suggest sticking with the Thordan weapon until you get A4 done (considering the premise that you have downed the A3 jellybutt). Otherwise i think the Gordian weapon still wins bis.

Is it possible to get a share for your calculator Eve/Jack if you don't mind? I could a helping hand if I plan to do more diadem in the near future :3

I fixed the links, sorry. x_x

And yeah, maybe in the future. I have a few things I'd wanna clean up before I'm comfortable sharing my messy-ass side project with everyone. I have it built in Excel with nice little drop-down menus. Made it with Excel 2007; I know it doesn't play well color-wise with older versions, and I'm not sure how it fares with newer ones.

But just like a few things are off and I haven't bothered fixing them since it doesn't bother *me* but I wouldn't wanna share it with stuff like THIS running rampant.

I can definitely try and clean it up and mega it or something. I'd just also wanna make a minor "how-to-use-this" message in it to make sure you don't break things, since adding gear requires a little finesse.


This is what the full current sheet looks like. Before sharing, I'll probably set up another sheet with it in duplicate to compare two sets side-by-side. (Also might wanna make it not say Cock Meat for Cockatrice Meatballs...)

Cool, lol at the screenshots! I used to use the old/original excel calculator docs from 2.0 times and then promptly tried to update it with the stat changes and adding SS into the mix but my general lack of excel knowledge, not having a proper copy on my home PC or at the time on my work Mac meant that I promptly broke it, failed and gave up on it lol

Oooh, I like the idea of comparing sets :3 I have a bad memory so without having to write it down or double check a thousand times I am hopeless when it comes to comparing different skill sets usually. Good luck if you go ahead with the added functionality.

so i am assuming we Dragoons are all just gonna casually work on the relic and not rushing our asses like others for the Anima garbage :)

Pretty much. I'm doing Vanu dailies and such and about 10 Alex runs daily. I can't be arsed to rush for a det/sks weapon when my group should down A4 within a month (assuming we raid much during the holidays) and the relic is a strict downgrade from either weapon from A4 and the set I found using it only beats out my current Thordan weapon set by ~7 strength. Not nearly enough for me to devote days of farming to getting it.

I'm only on A2 and raid group is taking a month break for the holidays, plus they weren't too into learning Thordan.. so it would actually be an upgrade. I haven't had the heart to dedicate myself to PF learning Thordan. I plan on some daily roulettes/beast tribes/A1N runs, and hopefully will grab the relic in about ~2 weeks of light grinding.

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Originally Posted by Leananshee

Can anyone weigh in with decent possible Diadem alternatives

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Check my lodestone! If it's on dragoon you can check out diadem alternatives. Pre food stats are:
1079 strength
635 acc
870 crit
414 det
605 skill speed

On a side note, how are people using thordan wep and still maintaining accuracy cap and 590 skill speed? I could never switch to Gordian spear because I'd lose too much ss and the alternate pieces with as have like zero accuracy

I shared my gearset before. I can't be bothered grinding Diadem for marginal upgrades, so I only use the eso and gordian stuff.

Eso Hat, Chest, Belt, Legs, Wrist, Ring
Gordian Hands, Feet, Neck, Ear, Ring

Averages me to (Pipira Pira food for A3-4):
1075 strength
637 acc [655 food]
803 crit [840 food]
452 det
604 sks

Weight (food): 2069.90

My other set which works well with Steamed Staff for A4 is the same, just swap head and wrist:
1075 strength
651 acc
814 crit [854 food]
425 det
607 sks [623 food]

Weight (food): 2070.39
(I only don't use this because I don't have the gil to throw at Steamed Staff)

My friend uses the same set as I do (first one) with the Gordian Trident.

For A2, I swap just the neck and use Flint Caviar. Weight: 2073.66 / Acc: 623 / Sks: 634
For A1, I swap neck, wrist, and boots and use Flint Caviar. Weight: 2076.80 / Acc: 596 / Sks: 620

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Originally Posted by ThatOneBat

Hello. ^^ I'm a new lvl60 Drg and I've been wondering: If there's two or more Drgs in a party what is the order for Battle Litany usage?

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Just ask them if you mind going first, or vice versa. I usually ask to go first since I open with it :P

Pro tip. Don't trust everything you read on here about required stat caps. I have both the dip 210 and the Gordian spear. 2.39 GCD versus 2.41... I have no problem performing exactly the same rotation with 2.41 gcd. Furthermore, no transition periods in savage were handled any differently because my gcd went up to 2.41. I can tell you with the certainty of well over 100 trials with baked pira pira on that Gordian spear is roughly a 40 to 50 dps increase over the dip spear, despite having under 590 SS. My ss is currently 576, 481 det 821 crit, 624 accuracy, no food, 1079 str. DIP spear rotation 1460's after 3:30 on dummy, Gordian 1500+ ever time, crit jump or no crit jump opener beyond 3:30 and far fewer tp problems.. problems which you are going to have with higher SS in A4S for sure. I am constantly tp starved in A4S final phase, no matter how I use invigorate. Our warrior is getting the nin goad for sprint royal pent purposes.

It's because of your ~Determination~ that you see far more consistent and consistently higher results. Building for Crit with low Det noticeably decreases the floor value for your damage. It raises the mean, sure, letting you see higher (on average), but parse-to-parse, a det/crit build (rather than a pure-crit build) is gonna obviously see consistently higher results, because the damage floor is drastically raised.

And I think it was stated before (with numbers) by another guy that sks beyond 600 was pretty much worthless and resulted in overall loss of DPS. I'd have to dig for his post outlining this, but it's there.

I've been at 2.4 the longest time and can vouch for this and starting to believe that latency plays more a role along with fight-to-fight basis rotations.

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Originally Posted by Gaiussenpai

I've been at 2.4 the longest time and can vouch for this and starting to believe that latency plays more a role along with fight-to-fight basis rotations.

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Definitely. I can't dip below 590 ss since i play on a 250 ms connection. I can still get 3 geirskoguls a minute with 605 ss but it's very unforgiving. One more month and I'll be back in the states to try out the gordian spear!

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Originally Posted by ViktorMestrovic

I can tell you with the certainty of well over 100 trials with baked pira pira on that Gordian spear is roughly a 40 to 50 dps increase over the dip spear, despite having under 590 SS. My ss is currently 576, 481 det 821 crit, 624 accuracy, no food, 1079 str. DIP spear rotation 1460's after 3:30 on dummy, Gordian 1500+ ever time, crit jump or no crit jump opener beyond 3:30 and far fewer tp problems.. problems which you are going to have with higher SS in A4S for sure. I am constantly tp starved in A4S final phase, no matter how I use invigorate. Our warrior is getting the nin goad for sprint royal pent purposes.

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I think there's something consistently flawed with your testing. >2% DPS increase is preposterous; that's in the realm of a weapon damage upgrade, not a sidegrade.

Stat spread:
Brionac:
102 Crit / 71 Sks

Gordian Trident:
97 Det / 71 Crit

If you change nothing aside from the weapon and do a parse on a dummy without having a defined time that you will cut the parse (as was done in the test), you're literally comparing 102 crit to 97 det and 71 crit, since sks has a negligible impact on your dps (yay dot tick boost?) outside of letting you connect with more hits in a shorter timeframe.

So yeah, you'll see a huge boost in damage when adding 97 det to the parse. That's effectively 13 additional strength, which is more than +1 weapon damage.

Comparatively, upgrading from Brionac to Halberd of the Heavens saw my dps jump 60-70 on standstill dummy parses, due to the drastically improved stat spread that the Heaven spear afforded me (in addition to +1 wd).

But the difference per hit between Brionac and Gordian Trident is ~1.3% (not formula guesses; tested in-game damage). The skill speed and crit pretty much make up that difference, on average.

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Originally Posted by SunnyHirose

But the difference per hit between Brionac and Gordian Trident is ~1.3% (not formula guesses; tested in-game damage). The skill speed and crit pretty much make up that difference, on average.

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Makes sense since 100 det ~ 1% damage boost, need master Dervy to weight in

Going single target, Gordian Trident should beat Brionac by <1 DPS and relic by ~1 DPS (on average). Pretty tiny difference, other than TP usage.

Wait do you mean literally 1400 v 1401 or 1400 v 1414? 1 or 1%? O:

Literally 1 DPS. Last time I tried it for real, it's somewhere in the 1450-1460 ballpark give or take (no party buff or potion).

I usually stick with the A4 set on raid night, as there's not a whole lot to gain from dropping small amounts of accuracy (I don't get any special treatment with adds or positions, though; if you do, you can drop it some, I'm sure).

(well, I used to; now I have a Mistbreak piece that lets me stack even more crit but is otherwise a very similar set)

goons, so is the relic bis or not? really need to know incase the grind for the relic will be a timewaste to me atm. I currently have the i205 thordan wep.

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Originally Posted by Ninjah2r

snip

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Compared to Brionac and Gordian Trident, it's worse than both. You're gonna lose at least 71 CRIT, which can't be good. It's probably gonna be bis somewhere down the line, though, but not right now.

Also I have a question for the A4S goons out there. Do you usually do Jagd Dolls or do you stay on the boss? And if you're assigned a Jagd Doll, what's the fastest way you go about taking it down? I find them to have quite a chunk of HP and I feel like I'm losing more time than I should on the parts you need to push major DPS on the boss. On the 3rd leg for example, I do my full opener on the leg, stopping at Full Thrust (I think I could push the 4th too but I'm usually scared of a doll aggroing a healer and touching the Straf lol), then I tag it with Spinehatter and do HT > CT >4th > FT >4th (if applicable).

I'm doing relic super slow, gonna have it shortly after 3.2 or so, since the thordan weapon feels better than it. 102 sks is all sorts of do not want.

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Originally Posted by Estelle9lives

Also I have a question for the A4S goons out there. Do you usually do Jagd Dolls or do you stay on the boss?

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I'm on dolls. For leg 3, I open with
HT>[BL+B4B]>ID>[IR]>Dis>[gsk+BotD]>CT>[PS]>4th>[Jump]>ID> [add spawns]
>[SSD doll]>Dis>CT>[gsk (doll+leg 4)]>4th>[b4b falls off]>HT>TT>VT>[life surge]>FT>

And I'll use the 4th hit on the doll if it's still over 10% or on the Straf Doll/4th Leg as I run back to feed. I've been keeping up over 1300 (I was pushing 1400 on the run I got 0 quarantines) through the end of leg 3 doing this, so I think it's working pretty well. I usually pot when I return to the leg after I kill my doll. I do that 4th into ID>Dis>[pot]>CT>4th on the leg, and just keep up the HT>TTT4>P>IDC4 for the rest of the phase. My pot is less effective than if I use it *before* the doll (or using buffs *after* the doll), but the one time I tried using it before, botd was too tight for my liking, so I just stick to potting after.

On Leg 4, I don't have timings down 100% yet, but one of them I Elusive out to and the other gets a DFD, both done with the same basic rotation(dis>ct>4th>TTT4>feed, sometimes needing an additional HT/ID/[mercy stroke]). Second one iirc b4b and ir come up while I'm hitting it, so I pop them both while fighting the add. Haven't had any issues with them so far doing things this way; have been consistently still pulling around 1280-1320 through end of leg 4 doing things this way.

My group hasn't seen adds in final phase yet, but I'm apparently doing those, too. I have no idea how cds will line up for them, yet, though.

Little practical question :

If Power Surge and Jump are up, and Blood for blood at like 4 secondes of being up too, is it worth it to delay Jump after Blood for Blood to have a fully buffed Jump ? Or should I use Jump before Blood for Blood ?

Because usually I do Power Surge --> GCD --> Blood for Blood --> GCD --> Jump (to have Power Surge on CD asap).

BTW I'm currently doing 1475 DPS with food, party buff and HQ potion, is that good ?

I'm not sure exactly where the break point would be, but if you are waiting just 1 or 2 GCDs it should be OK to hold it. Any longer than that and it's probably better to go ahead and jump, unless you got a nice big crit it's unlikely to drastically change your ending damage. The breaking point would at least be about 10 sec, probably less, but at 10 sec you are close to being able to get the jump in under B4B anyways (one before B4B, one at the end of B4B).

Somewhere in the thread it was mentioned that the maximum amount of gcds you should wait for a given buff before just doing it is some function of the amount it buffs and the base potency, though I can't for the life of me remember what it was.

But it's all theorycrafting. The only thing that matters at the end of the day is this question:
"Will using [Buff] [X time] late result in you having 1 fewer casts of [Buff] in this fight?"

If the answer is yes, it's a pps loss to hold it that long. If the answer is no, it's a pps gain.

That's how I see it, anyway.

Well, the guideline is for maximal potency given an indefinite duration. Of course it could be different if you know the cutoff.

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Originally Posted by JackFross

I'm on dolls. For leg 3, I open with
HT>[BL+B4B]>ID>[IR]>Dis>[gsk+BotD]>CT>[PS]>4th>[Jump]>ID> [add spawns]
>[SSD doll]>Dis>CT>[gsk (doll+leg 4)]>4th>[b4b falls off]>HT>TT>VT>[life surge]>FT>

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That's an interesting way to do it. Instead of unloading all your burst on the leg you split it with the doll, meaning it will go down way faster. I'll try to do it that way and see if it works better.

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Originally Posted by JackFross

Somewhere in the thread it was mentioned that the maximum amount of gcds you should wait for a given buff before just doing it is some function of the amount it buffs and the base potency, though I can't for the life of me remember what it was.

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Yea I recall a quote from Sunny about that, maybe this one: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3260578

There it is. I looked for it but couldn't find it. Yeah, so B4B is a 30% buff and Jump's CD is 30s, so you could hold it up to 9s for B4B and see a dps increase over using it on cooldown. I suppose you could even look at PS-Jump being 60s and say "well, that would be 18s to wait" but this all feels intuitively wrong to me, so I dunno. Especially because, all things equal, your 4th PS+Jump will always be under your 3rd B4B, but if you hold each one for B4B... The difference would be like:

200x1.15x1.1x1.5x1.3x[1.3]x3 = 1924.065 potency from PS Jump

versus

200x1.15x1.1x1.5x1.3x( [1.3]x2 + 2 ) = 2269.41 potency from PS Jump

over the usage of 3 Blood for Bloods.

I tried to do some math, came up with 18 seconds as well which isn't practical. I think 9 seconds would be the practical limit since at 10 sec you'd theoretically be able to get another jump in (or thereabouts, anyways)

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Originally Posted by Estelle9lives

On the 3rd leg for example, I do my full opener on the leg, stopping at Full Thrust (I think I could push the 4th too but I'm usually scared of a doll aggroing a healer and touching the Straf lol), then I tag it with Spinehatter and do HT > CT >4th > FT >4th (if applicable).

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I have to do Jagd Dolls as well. For start of third leg I usually have a HT and ID prepped off of Manipulator. I can usually finish CT combo then life surge a FT, (dolls have just popped as Im using FT) Spine shatter to doll, use 4th, HT, Gierk, CT combo 4th, FT combo 4th, feed. You will start to find the optimal rotation to get the dolls down. I usually do one CT combo and one FT combo with 2 OGCDs (Legsweep & SS) and 1 ID to prep when I get back to leg.

Here is the math on the dolls. They do ~24k dmg at 100% health and 12k dmg at 50% health, 4.8k dmg at 20% health, 2.4k dmg at 10% health... you can see the math there right? Try to keep health under 15%

the math is that they do damage equal to their HP number remaining

Hey Guys Arkane here,

Check out this video of A3 Savage (Solo Tank kill), It has a Dragoon off tanking the hands at the split. :D
Here's to hoping one day SE will let Dragoons also be a tank class if we want lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8Z3iEIad_I

Nice job guys :D

Inb4 "DRG too OP, high DPS and durability, pls Nerf"

Skull sunder xD I guess that's one way to do it, good job!