Dragoons: A Rotation Reborn

How else are we supposed to contain all this hype if not by making speculations and trying to dig out fragments of information?

Gotta keep ourselves distracted somehow. :V

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jollyy5

How else are we supposed to contain all this hype if not by making speculations and trying to dig out fragments of information?

Gotta keep ourselves distracted somehow. :V

---

^

Growing onions and feeding carrots to the 'bo can only keep my mind so occupied! Release some new info already SE >.>

They aren't going to release specifics until they release the expansion. Just like they do for every major update we've ever had.

The next, potential, batch of information will be E3 14th-17th June, whenever they decide to do the next patch notes/live letter reading. I have a hunch it'll be on the 16th/17th, followed by 1 1/2 days maintenance, for it to go live on the 19th. Which also means people will most probably do some naughty things and get information early...

I'll post the new topic around that date also.

You won't be one of those naughty people, will you Dervy?

*wink wink*

*nudge nudge*

http://memecrunch.com/meme/2A6K3/i-d....png?w=400&c=1

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jollyy5

How else are we supposed to contain all this hype if not by making speculations and trying to dig out fragments of information?

Gotta keep ourselves distracted somehow. :V

---

I'm actually trying to sum up 2.0 DPS theorycrafting in one document, but I think I started too late to finish by HW. There's a lot to go over....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SunnyHirose

I'm actually trying to sum up 2.0 DPS theorycrafting in one document, but I think I started too late to finish by HW. There's a lot to go over....

---

Once you've finished it up, mind if I post a link to it as a "2.0 resource" in the new topic?

Of course not. Though, the intent is to be fairly dry about it. It would take a very boring kind of person to write it, it has to be very boring to read!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SunnyHirose

I'm actually trying to sum up 2.0 DPS theorycrafting in one document, but I think I started too late to finish by HW. There's a lot to go over....

---

Would this document contain information in naked (== broken weapon and no spent stat points) damage/healing information? (my own numbers based on 6 jobs at 50 point has naked AA/Healing/Damage values all following one single linear function for these 6 jobs - the 1.0 multiplier being Paladin)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hustensaft

Would this document contain information in naked (== broken weapon and no spent stat points) damage/healing information? (my own numbers based on 6 jobs at 50 point has naked AA/Healing/Damage values all following one single linear function for these 6 jobs - the 1.0 multiplier being Paladin)

---

Link for your data? This could help me add the finishing touches to my updated damage formula on time for Heavenswards launch.

EDIT: 1k posts!

Hey, I have kind of a silly question regarding Heavensward : at the moment not landing chaos thrust on the rear is not a big deal since it's the last hit of the combo, but do you think that comes 3.0 it will prevent us from using the skill that comes after ?

No, it won't prevent that. They're smarter than that.

I'm only asking this because chaos thrust, when not landed from the rear, lacks the effects (both audio and visual) that successful combos usually trigger. So I thought that at this stage the game might see the combo as broken, and then I thought about Heavensward, the 4th stage of IDC and...

Again, silly question, got bored. :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dervy

Link for your data? This could help me add the finishing touches to my updated damage formula on time for Heavenswards launch.

---

Here's the graph for naked damage adjusted to a Base of 202 (== 20 base damage): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...MEU/edit#gid=0

The only outlier is SCH auto-attack, but we're dealing with rounding of low two digit numbers here. Weapon Damage seems to get half the multiplier. Example: WHM at 247 Mind would have a base potency of ~27 ( 27/20 = 1,35 multiplier, adding 8 Magic damage adds ~9,35 healing potency). BLM: SMN healing is at 13,75/20 = 0,687% - 8 magic damage adds 8 * 0.84375 healing.

I'll also flat out say that Crit, Det and Spellspeed conversion are pretty much exist in the char sheet (and even the zodiac scroll):
Crit ~= 13,85 - 13,9 for 1% == (341-202) * 0,1 (same story as base damage being 0,1 * 202)
1% spellspeed reduction == 27,7 - 27,8. (calclate recast as 2,5 * (1.0 - (SS - 341)/27,7/100) - we do not know how tooltips round)
Det = 20,2 for a 1% dps increase.

How does the Zodiac Scroll play into here? Stat Budget. If we assume that 44 CRT/SS on the scroll should equal 31 DET in terms of damage - then we can say that 31/44 * 13,9 ~9,8. But dealing wit rounding (and materia prices), SE might have had to decide between 31/32...

Problematic is that STR affects base damage and Weapon damage differently, and STR conversion is a big ?.

DET also affects base damage, as it's a coefficient of damage, from my findings at least. If I were on my PC I'd give a much better answer, but I'm currently solving the formula as (WS*A+1)*(STR*B+C)*(DET*D+1) and my formula for the Dragoon thus far is very accurate.

The thing is, that every job scales damage differently given the same baseline of stats. My issue is finding out whether each job scales A/B/D coefficients differently, their base damage value, C, is different, or whether there's am external coefficient that multiplies/scales damage per job.

All the info so far is on my WordPress Blog if you wanna check it out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dervy

DET also affects base damage

---

That is assuming DET does stuff at 202. It does not have to. Crit at 341 doesn't do anything, neither does Spellspeed. Why would Det have to do anything at 202?

Again: Take a naked Paladin at 202 STR/MND/DET. If you add any sort of weapondamage, it will exactly add potency*WD damage or magicdamage*potency healing. Not more and not less. It's extremely unlikely that Weapondamage is first reduced to a low digit value, to then be multiplied again by some multipler created from 202 STR/MND/DET. It's far more likely that at 202 BaseSTR/MND/DET you are looking at a 1.0 multiplier for WD/MD.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hustensaft

That is assuming DET does stuff at 202. It does not have to. Crit at 341 doesn't do anything, neither does Spellspeed. Why would Det have to do anything at 202?

---

The problem is that if you go below 202 DET (Gaol Debuff in Titan), it lowers your damage. This was proven last year, unless going below 202 DET gives a negative value, but that's something I seriously doubt. Determination affects your damage from 1-50. The reason why you don't see the affect of Determination at such low values like Base STR/WD is because the damage increase per Determination scales higher with more Strength.

As for WD not being scaled down before being multiplied, that's something I've considered. But, by removing the WD*A coefficient with the expression I'm currently using, absolutely butchers the damage values I end up with.

I did have an expression before, where WD was on its own, and it was something like (WD*STR)+(STR)*(DET), with their coefficients, but the calculated damage wasn't as accurate as what I'm currently... And the formula was just too long.

Determination Down from Gaols was an erroneous label, which has been rectified. It never actually did that, and the Japanese client has always (correctly) had Damage Down.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hustensaft

Would this document contain information in naked (== broken weapon and no spent stat points) damage/healing information? (my own numbers based on 6 jobs at 50 point has naked AA/Healing/Damage values all following one single linear function for these 6 jobs - the 1.0 multiplier being Paladin)

---

I intend to give some reference values for every job, but it will not be that comprehensive. I just don't have the willpower/time for it (I graduated, time to go job hunting lol).

Unresolved mysteries like the actual damage formula will be left as "known unknowns". I would like to focus more on methods than results.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by QCrimson

Hey, I have kind of a silly question regarding Heavensward : at the moment not landing chaos thrust on the rear is not a big deal since it's the last hit of the combo, but do you think that comes 3.0 it will prevent us from using the skill that comes after ?

---

It is a big deal! That's potency going down the drain if you miss it. Sure, hit it from the flank if you moving to the rear at the time is absolute death, but if it's only dangerous to do it from the rear... Do it anyway :p

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dervy

The problem is that if you go below 202 DET (Gaol Debuff in Titan), it lowers your damage. This was proven last year, unless going below 202 DET gives a negative value, but that's something I seriously doubt.

---

Wasn't that a mistranslation? The debuff was simple called Determination down - later it was renamed to "Damage down". Plus that debuff did not affect healing done - which would be impossible if it actually changed Determination.

Edit: Not missing Hirose's post above the quote would've helped.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mibhas

It is a big deal! That's potency going down the drain if you miss it. Sure, hit it from the flank if you moving to the rear at the time is absolute death, but if it's only dangerous to do it from the rear... Do it anyway :p

---

Oh I'm doing it don't worry. But when it misses for whatever reason I don't feel nearly as bad as I felt when I missed my HT or ID back in the days :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SunnyHirose

Determination Down from Gaols was an erroneous label, which has been rectified. It never actually did that, and the Japanese client has always (correctly) had Damage Down.

I intend to give some reference values for every job, but it will not be that comprehensive. I just don't have the willpower/time for it (I graduated, time to go job hunting lol).

Unresolved mysteries like the actual damage formula will be left as "known unknowns". I would like to focus more on methods than results.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hustensaft

Wasn't that a mistranslation? The debuff was simple called Determination down - later it was renamed to "Damage down". Plus that debuff did not affect healing done - which would be impossible if it actually changed Determination.

Edit: Not missing Hirose's post above the quote would've helped.

---

Interesting. Never actually noticed that. Learn something new every day!

I'm personally not bothered about the exact formula either, as long as we have a model which accurately represents how stats scale damage, I'm more than happy (Which I have, but it needs more work). I might collect a lot more data in HW with much higher potencies and damage ranges and try to figure it out in my own time, but for now, I cba.

Makes me wonder how game devopers come up with these contrived and overly complex formulas for mechanics. Are programmers and developers all math gurus. Who comes up with these?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

Makes me wonder how game devopers come up with these contrived and overly complex formulas for mechanics. Are programmers and developers all math gurus. Who comes up with these?

---

I'd like to say: "Practice, practice, practice..."


But they most likely had a close to death experience and saw the light, or somehow travelled to the edge of existence, saw the truth, and came back.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

Makes me wonder how game devopers come up with these contrived and overly complex formulas for mechanics. Are programmers and developers all math gurus. Who comes up with these?

---

Engineering and Computer Science disciplines are usually taught with an extremely heavy focus on math and statistics.

Computer Science at my university was literally in the faculty of mathematics, for every programming or cs theory course there was a required math course as well to take.

ninjaedit: It's not the same for every school but most still have strong focuses on math as well.

I'm pretty sure we're just wrong on the damage formulas. Also, a formula with like 3 variables and a few constants isn't really what you would call complex.

So the reason the scaling may be odd is because they need to lay the foundation for a game that (they hope) will last 10+ years...its not just a "hey lets make 3 stats, primary, crit, and det, and just multiply them together and call it a day". They need to balance ilvls with item budgets and that is the reason stats behave the way they do.

What bothers me instead is the lack of transparency behind the formulas. Would be nice to have tooltips that can be datamined (like WoW has) so we can exactly know how the formulas work.

This is also SquareEnix we're talking about. Just take a look at how complex the mechanics and formulae were in FFXI. Well, two things are for certain. Everything multiplies with each other, somewhere, and there's a base value of damage.

My personal opinion on game design (though influenced a bit by games like Morrowind and Civilization) is that if you present it as a legitimate choice (e.g. stacking skill speed or parry), it needs to be one or you're not being honest with the players.

This can be accomplished by making choices roughly equal (which is boring and lacks consequences for poor decisions), or by showing in enough detail what it is the choices do so the player can decide.

But opaque numbers are a longstanding FF tradition, I guess, and it's not like the system is completely unintuitive. I just feel it's less than ideal that, say, you need to know introductory statistics to kind of know what 1 crit does after days of auto-attacking a dummy.

At least we have dummies to practice on. In ffxi you had to attack a target and know it's vit/agi and crap and then parse for hours and pray you weren't killing mobs of varying levels (until a certain something came out which allowed players to check mob level instantly)

The annoying part will be trying to keep up Blood of the dragon to keep doing Geirskoguls during aoe phases, and if Geiskogul's damage will even be comparable to our DS spam. In other words, if it takes 2-3 full thrust or CT combos to rack up enough duration to use Geirskogul without losing our stance, then Geirskogul will need to he extremely powerful to make up the loss of 4-8 Doom Spikes. I suppose a work around would be to build up the stande duration before the AoE phase, burn geirskogul when adds pop, then resume your normal aoe rotation, and hope blood of the dragon cool down is up before the last mob is dead so you can start building it back up. Losing the stance may suck between running between mobs if the initial duration is low—which they said it would be(and that geirskogul would subtract more than the max initial duration".

If you looked at the Dragoon Skills video, you still had Blood of the Dragoon around you even after using Geirskogul. I'd say... You get 5s for Blood of the Dragon, -10 for Geirskogul, +15 per CT2/FT2, or something like that.

I think thats a pretty neat concept for burst dmg. You could spend the majority of the fight accumulating extra time for your Blood of the Dragon buff and then when an add arrives, use it for multiple Geirskoguls. DRGs burst dmg has always been reliant on saving jumps to really shine but no one would do it since it would be a sustained dps loss. Now you can just use this instead. Liking it.

Yup. Saving up stacks and just "blowing it all" could be one way it could work. But, I'm positive there will be some negative impact somewhere, holding it for extended periods of time.

I wonder if both finishers will just be plain damage or if they'll have some kind of added bonus like one of them having DoT, or a -Stat Down, or if they both will be 400ish potency attacks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dervy

Yup. Saving up stacks and just "blowing it all" could be one way it could work. But, I'm positive there will be some negative impact somewhere, holding it for extended periods of time.

---

I'm still worried about Blood of the Dragon screwing up our rotation with not one, but two 4 skill combos...

If full thrust/chaos is any indication of 4th combo power, you're pretty much still going to be much higher ahead if you lose out on a few seconds of disembowel/dots.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pandabearcat

If full thrust/chaos is any indication of 4th combo power, you're pretty much still going to be much higher ahead if you lose out on a few seconds of disembowel/dots.

---

The main problem would be HT and PH falling off, disembowel would be fine actually. Dont care too much about PH but HT would be a problem.
Instead we could also adapt a rotation that would clip HT and PH, which might be preferable.

For example: HT>ID>DIS>CT>DT>PH>HT>TT>VT>FT>DC>PH>HT aso might work. You quite extensively clip PH at 4-5 sec and HT at 6-7 sec but the rest alligns quite well and it might be preferable over letting HT and PH fall off for 2 GCDs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ChaozK

The main problem would be HT and PH falling off, disembowel would be fine actually. Dont care too much about PH but HT would be a problem.
Instead we could also adapt a rotation that would clip HT and PH, which might be preferable.

For example: HT>ID>DIS>CT>DT>PH>HT>TT>VT>FT>DC>PH>HT aso might work. You quite extensively clip PH at 4-5 sec and HT at 6-7 sec but the rest alligns quite well and it might be preferable over letting HT and PH fall off for 2 GCDs.

---

I fear that we'll be expending a lot more TP than before if we are to clip Ph so often :/ just ten more days...

HT falling off is the same as disembowel falling off, its not a big deal.

Your main combo damage average numbers are like 250 something, so maybe 275 w/ HT, but a 4th combo w/o HT is going to be at least 400 or so, bringing your average dps way up.

Furthermore even one tick of missing phleb doesn't matter, it'll definitely cover it.

It may eat away at the damage bonus of course, but theres no way (even if it was the same potency as full thrust) that you'd actually lose dps from a 4th combo.