How to Dragoon Per Second: A DPS Paradigm

BotD->gcd->geriskogul->the extend->jump?

why would we precast that

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Originally Posted by rickyguo

BotD->gcd->geriskogul->the extend->jump?

why would we precast that

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Yeah, no reason to pre-cast it what so ever as it's a 15s duration initially. Though, if BotD was at 30s, then I could see why you'd want to precast.

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Originally Posted by Mibhas

I'm pretty sure that BoTD will not end if you use other moves - it's SE's way of implementing a combo; when you do Chaos Thrust, you gain the effect of Sharper Fang and Claw. You then have this buff for 10 seconds, and it allows you to use Fang and Claw. If you use a different move instead of Fang and Claw, you lose the buff. Same thing for Wheeling Thrust. Let's give SE some credit guys :p

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"Effect Ends" should only affect Enhanced Wheeling Thrust and Sharper Fang & Claw. That's what I'm wagering on and hoping for it to mean. You'll never know with the shady localisation that goes on sometimes in this game... Take Critical Hit Rating on IR and our actual Critical Hit Rating Stat. Two different things labelled the same.

Well, from reading other tooltips, I'm pretty sure it works the reasonable way: you're playing a game of keep-up just like some of the other jobs are.

Grats/Thanks Dervy on the new compendium of Dragoon Badassness

So...if I'm looking at this correctly (though admittedly, we can't tell since there appears to be a long animation for Botd that might make this tough to pull off)

HT(IR)->Impulse Drive(BfB)->Disembowel(BotD)->CT gain effect Sharper Fang and Claw (PS) -> Fang and Claw (Jump)

At this point, BotD should have 24 seconds (15s - 6s + 15s refresh) left.

(PH)TT->VT(LS)->FT gain Enchanced Wheeling Thrust

At this point BotD should be back to 30s (24s - 8s + 15s refresh)

So looking at this, unless you miss the effect of Sharper/Enhanced due to positional (or boss mechanics), on a stationary mob, we *should* be able to keep BotD up all the time right?

If so, then I guess you can just pop Geirs after the 1min recast of BotD is up if you so desire

EDIT: DIdn't realize Geirs reduces by 10s, I thought I read it wipes BotD. Say we add that after FT, with 20s left, it should be enough to last us through the re-application of HT->IDC to bump it back up to 20s ish?

Another thought regarding LS...

With BotD (30% buff) and PS (50% buff), it gives Jump a potency of 390. It's not that much of an increase to FT's 360, but I wonder if this sways things enough that it isn't always LS+FT

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Originally Posted by SpecialKK

Another thought regarding LS...

With BotD (30% buff) and PS (50% buff), it gives Jump a potency of 390. It's not that much of an increase to FT's 360, but I wonder if this sways things enough that it isn't always LS+FT

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Life Surge has an animation delay of about .7 seconds, and Jump has an animation delay of about 1.4 seconds. Since you'd have to combine them together, that's going to clip into your GCD.

The mantra of DRG it seems....

"Everytime I thought I've seen it all, there's something new..."

Woot for more complexity. Will we ever double our buttons to 18? Probably.

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

Life Surge has an animation delay of about .7 seconds, and Jump has an animation delay of about 1.4 seconds. Since you'd have to combine them together, that's going to clip into your GCD.

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the question will be how much jump action lock will last after they buff it in 3.0, and then if using it much earlier than you normally would in exchange for possible gcd clipping is worth it. if you lifesurge jump after chaos thrust, you'll be using life surge 4 gcds earlier; so you're using life surge about 10s early for +30 extra potency, but possible gcd clipping.

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Originally Posted by SunnyHirose

Well, from reading other tooltips, I'm pretty sure it works the reasonable way: you're playing a game of keep-up just like some of the other jobs are.

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I think it's a game of keep-up, but one in which you're trading off between Blood of the Dragon maintenance and Geirskogul use. It looks like we'll end up using Fang & Claw or Wheeling Thrust every 4-5 GCDs, which means that we gain +15 seconds of BotD every 10-12.5 seconds or so. That surplus BotD can periodically be translated into off-GCD damage through Geirskogul, but the more often you do this, the greater the risk that you will lose Blood of the Dragon.

Seems like an interesting risk-reward scenario. Average dragoons can play it conservatively and rarely use Geirskogul, while top-tier dragoons will pop it as often as possible, even if doing so means letting BotD drop to 1-2 seconds (or letting it fall off entirely if the BotD cooldown itself is available again).

so ht and ph are 24s

so with 24s HT a sample rotation would be

HT>IDCF>P>TTTW>HT (refreshes at 1s~)

the other issue im worried about now is, with a 24s PH it'll be weird to line it up with the CT combo. you'll be applying PH at 26s~ on CT so the dot times will be similar at least

if you continue with always using 4 hit combos, you'll also run into the issue where you drop dis+ct for 2 gcds (@2.47sksp)

edit: so if you drop fang & claw but use wheeling thrust (or the opposite) with enough sksp you wont drop disembowel or CT on 2nd reapplication (you'll run into problems later on still though, it seems) you'll still have awkward phleb timings though; maybe it's better to just put HT+PH back together again like 2.0 days

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Originally Posted by Aiurily

so ht and ph are 24s

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Could I see a link for that if you have one?

http://www.gamerevolution.com/featur...-a-second-time

sorry, forgot source. it's from someone who played the E3 HW

Hmmm with a 24 sec timer on both HT and Phelb things could work out. Made a spreadsheet to try and time some things out. Here's what i have thus far.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

According to that it seems like you'd be able to use Geirskogul just about twice per Blood of the Dragon, or roughly 400 potency extra every minute in single target before buffs. I don't imagine 3 would somehow fit in, looking at the timelines?

Based on how I understand the rotation, I think Krypkins has the correct approach. We want:

HT -> ID-Dis-CT-F&C -> Phleb -> TT-VT-FT-WhT -> (repeat)

...or, alternatively:

HT -> Phleb -> ID-Dis-CT-F&C -> TT-VT-FT-WhT -> (repeat)

These both involve a lot of CT clipping (we're clipping off 5 seconds or more, depending on Skill Speed). However, the only other viable approaches that I've thought of involve 5 seconds or less of CT downtime per use, which sounds pretty sub-optimal by comparison.

gonna be switching to DRG main from MNK come 3.0
those new skills are ridiculous

As i look over the sheet again, im pretty sure i didnt stay consistent in the way i did the timers. I'll have to redo them at some point :(

I'd like to think the rotation itself should be solid more or less tho

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

According to that it seems like you'd be able to use Geirskogul just about twice per Blood of the Dragon, or roughly 400 potency extra every minute in single target before buffs. I don't imagine 3 would somehow fit in, looking at the timelines?

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You get two Geirskogul per BotD without doing any time extensions. Extending BotD with Wheeling Thrust and Fang and Claw will give you three Geirskogul per minute easily. It would take a lot of skillspeed to get four though.

Okay, so, it looks like:

Ger costs 10s of time.
A rotation is roughly 12.5s (4 moves + HT or Phleb).
You gain 2.5s of BotD per rotation, technically a bit more with some SS/Selene
You have exactly 5 rotations at 0 SS between BotD uses (gets funky with SS)
To last from extender to extender, you need 12.5s. To last extender to extender with Geir within it, you need 22.5s, which means there are rotations you are unable to do Geir even if you have enough time to do X amount within 5 rotations. As long as you never dip below 0 BotD duration you're fine. If you dip below 0 BotD duration within the last rotation, and can activate BotD before your next extender, that should be fine too.

Napkin rotation, might not be true just making it up as I go along a rotation in my head:

If say you start before CT4, you have 27.5s left as of CT4. Can use Geir there and survive to next rotation, for a total of -22.5s, or 5s left + 15s = 20s left. Can't Ger yet before next extender or will drop. Can Geir after next CT4/FT4, as you'd have 22.5s left. At that point you will survive to the next BotB and can just blow Geir right before the next BotB regardless. Should be able to loop that, although the next Geir would be delayed by a little.

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Originally Posted by HoolieWho

You get two Geirskogul per BotD without doing any time extensions.

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You only get 1 without extensions, it's a 10s CD on Geir, and a 15s base on BotD. You'd have 5s after your use before you run out, less than the 10s you need.

Here's a theoretical model for Geirskogul use that I threw together, assuming a GCD of exactly 2.5 seconds.

HT -> ID-Dis-[BotD]CT -F&C -> [Geirskogul] Phleb -> TT-VT-FT-WhT (17.5 seconds remaining) -> HT -> ID-Dis-CT-F&C (20 seconds remaining) -> Phleb -> TT-VT-FT-WhT (22.5 seconds remaining) -> HT -> ID-Dis-CT-F&C [Geirskogul] (15 seconds remaining)-> Phleb -> TT-VT (one minute has transpired; new BotD is available) FT [Geirskogul] (BotD expires) WhT -> (entire pattern repeats)

While this squeezes in 3 Geirskoguls in just a little over a minute, it also involves BotD downtime at the very end of the move set (between Wheeling Thrust and the next Dis-CT opening for BotD). But it seems like there might be some awkwardness in reapplications of BotD in general, since the buff (I suppose) would have to wear off before you reach Disembowel or Vorpal Thrust in your rotation. I'm not sure how we'll work around that.

Off the cuff, I hypothesize that a GCD of 2.3 seconds or less might enable us to better optimize Blood of the Dragon, since we could reach the final Wheeling Thrust and extend the cooldown timer before 60 seconds have transpired.

Sweet work on the Thread hun :D Gief 60 naow!! So hyped for tomorrow #inlove

For GCD clipping and such, remember that it's been said that they're reworking the animation locks on jumps again to make them more fluid.

If I've calculated Geriskogul and BotD ticking correctly with my updated model, the rotation should go like this. You guys are gonna be shocked at the DPS numbers this is gonna spout out. This might seem confusing, but bare with me.


My model calculates BotD with increases/decreases depending FC/WT/GK. Now, the timer also takes into consideration the "Animation lock", as the timers aren't updated until after you've activated the skill, not prior. Let's use a GCD of 2.40, as that's on the tooltips of the images shown and one can only assume that will roughly be the levels of Skillspeed we'll be working with.

The first BotD will be activated at 4.80s, with a 60s duration, the next time BotD will be available will be at 64.80s, naturally. 64.80/2.4 = 27GCDs between this period. 27th ability with a GCD of 2.4 is a Vorpal Thrust. So the second you use Vorpal Thrust, you should (tightly), be able to weave in your next BotD.

Because of this fresh reset of BotD, you'll have 26.7s left on your timer, when you activate your next Wheeling Thrust, after the Full Thrust combo, allowing you to execute another Geirskogul. Because of this, you have a unique relationship where you'll first use Geirskogul after FC, then each BotD refresh will rotate GK after the alternate combo, kinda like what we do with Life Surge and CT/FT.

Because of this, the rotation will go like this:

HT - ID - DI - (BotD) - CT - FC - (GK) - PH - TT - VP - FT - WT

Then the next application of BotD, at 64.80s would look like this:

HT - TT - VP - (BotD) - FT - WT - PH - IDCF.

Then again at 129.6s, it'll go back to the beginning. You will also end up with 1-2 GCD downtime of BotD when you approach the refresh window.

As for the rotation numbers.... Using my stats of:
WD: 58
STR: 646*1.03 = 665
DET: 422
CRT: 572
SS: 46

2.55:
PPS: 179.5596718322
DPS: 632

3.0:
PPS:206.9941142740
DPS: 689 (With a 1/3 hit to AA's DET scaling)

That's with Battle Litany, Jump Buffs, Geirskogul abuse, BotD uptime, not missing any WT/FC positionals and playing it perfectly in a vacuum, not accounting for Critical Hit Damage, Life surge, or Skillspeed DoT adjustments. Just, broken. I hope I've messed up somewhere, because that's too much DPS...

Again, this is all just theory and we'll have to see the actual numbers when we get in-game. But if this is all correct... Dragoon is one scary Job.

EDIT: SquareEnix have done a fantastic job literally squeezing every last drop out of this rotation. It's so fragile when at high-skillspeeds. I think the highest we'll ever go is 2.40... Anymore might/could break us, to the point we might consider using BotD before Disembowel instead... Idk. I'll have to go over and check all my timers are correct.

One of my biggest questions is: "Where do I stick all those new skills so that I'll have no trouble including them in a rotation fluidly?"

I'm pretty sure that by now DRGs are at least close to being as difficult to play as Monks, even if just because of the sheer volume of buttons we need to press, while they only get some quality of life improvements while their rotation stays pretty much the same.

Also: What do you mean by "Too much DPS"? The change doesn't look -that- big, and it was bout time DRGs ascend from being "sorta-okay-melee-DPS"

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Originally Posted by Jollyy5

One of my biggest questions is: "Where do I stick all those new skills so that I'll have no trouble including them in a rotation fluidly?"

I'm pretty sure that by now DRGs are at least close to being as difficult to play as Monks, even if just because of the sheer volume of buttons we need to press, while they only get some quality of life improvements while their rotation stays pretty much the same.

Also: What do you mean by "Too much DPS"? The change doesn't look -that- big, and it was bout time DRGs ascend from being "sorta-okay-melee-DPS"

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I agree on the buttons. My xhotbar is filled already...

I reckon. I need to find a way to stick these skills on my g600 to hit them fluidly.

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Originally Posted by Dervy

Again, this is all just theory and we'll have to see the actual numbers when we get in-game. But if this is all correct... Dragoon is one scary Job.

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Well, that's actually surprisingly comfortable - the way our current rotation works it still takes three full rotations to get DFD back to where it was at the beginning and four rotations to get BFB back to being available after the second GCD where it is the first time around. This will be similar and looks quite fun to do.

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Originally Posted by Jollyy5

Also: What do you mean by "Too much DPS"? The change doesn't look -that- big, and it was bout time DRGs ascend from being "sorta-okay-melee-DPS"

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Increasing PPS by that amount while changing nothing else is quite impressive, really. Scaled with gear, this'll become quite insane. I have to say I think DRGs are much more than "sorta-okay" at the moment either though, if played correctly, but then I am biased. :p

As for the crossbar issue, personally I already jump between three different bars to execute everything I have in a rotation, plus potions and Limit Break. That RB + A/B/X/Y motion has become very practiced these past two years. :p Yoshi did say he's got a plan though.

You don't know what you're talking about, we barely know anything about what the rotations are gonna be for all dps, and you already calling out DRG will be OP? xD Cmon, let's wait a few month for that, let's focus on finding out a good rotation for dragoon instead.

EDIT: and you don't even know which kind of mechanics we gonna deal with on new content...

Guys, why are you all still mere lancers? Time to become a Dragoon :D

On topic, we still have to see how much off a boost other jobs get. The casters look to get a significant dps increase with all their new stuff, Bard (and MCH) will dps harder too with its caster stance.
Now when it comes to MNK and NIN its hard to tell. MNK doesnt seem to get its ceiling raised much outside of a 220 pot 30s off GCD but then again he seems to benefit a lot from the system changes. NIN doesnt seem to get too much of an increase either but then again NIN is pretty badass right now, so that might be some sort of re-balancing.

I should be able to fit in the new skills with a few changes, as I too am using G600, with CTRL I can bind 24 buttons for my thumb alone, with Alt, 36, so that shouldn't be too big of a problem...

But if Dragoons didn't have the longest rotation already, boy, will they now.

I don't think it's long.

It's literally H - IDCF - P - TTTW over and over again by the looks of things.

Has anyone been working on an opener?

I'm thinking something along these lines:

HT (IR) ID (BfB+LIT) DS (BotD) CT (X-Pot) WT (GK) PH (PS) TT (LS+Jump) VP (DFD) FT (SSD) FC

or (depending on animations)

HT (IR) ID (BfB+LIT) DS (BotD) CT (X-Pot) WT (GK+PS) PH (Jump) TT (DFD) VP (LS) FT (SSD) FC

It's really hard to tell when things can be pushed back. This is mainly due to not knowing how good some of the new animations are for pairing off gcd skills together. I don't like not having the pot up for CT but putting earlier seems kinda bad.

Also, isn't wheeling thrust the finisher for the chaos thrust combo? (the op says otherwise)

You'd want the X-Pot before CT as that is still our highest damaging ability. You shouldn't worry too much about X-Pot hitting Wheeling Thrust as it's only a 290 Potency Skill compared to FTs 360 and CTs 600.

And I've read so many different sources with different combo finishers. Doesn't matter what their names are anyway, they both give the same effect and deal the same potency.

I'm struggling to see the point of Geirskogul for AoE. Doom Spike is 170 potency, can use every 2.5 seconds, vs Geirskogul which is 200 potency but use every 10 seconds. You could use Geirskogul continuously during adds or trash but it will require cycling your combos. But i wonder if the 200 potency is even worth while when you can just do back to back doom spikes. You can get in 4 doom spikes in the time it takes to do 2 geirskoguls...and 200 potency on drg isn't much to write home about, it's slightly stronger than Doom spike and doom spikes now, do about 500 on average, which is like 1/15th of a trash mob's HP in an expert dungeon.

One thing Geirskogul has over Doomspike it's TP consumption. Doomspike pretty much nails our TP bar during speedruns, whereas Geirskogul would give us a little respite. I guess.

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Originally Posted by ChaozK

Guys, why are you all still mere lancers? Time to become a Dragoon :D

On topic, we still have to see how much off a boost other jobs get. The casters look to get a significant dps increase with all their new stuff, Bard (and MCH) will dps harder too with its caster stance.
Now when it comes to MNK and NIN its hard to tell. MNK doesnt seem to get its ceiling raised much outside of a 220 pot 30s off GCD but then again he seems to benefit a lot from the system changes. NIN doesnt seem to get too much of an increase either but then again NIN is pretty badass right now, so that might be some sort of re-balancing.

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Isn't mnk getting a hadouken that consumes their chakras and is 400 potency or something? Also isn't one of NIN's new abilities an oGCD that doubles the potency of their next weapon skill?

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Originally Posted by ColdestHeaven

One thing Geirskogul has over Doomspike it's TP consumption. Doomspike pretty much nails our TP bar during speedruns, whereas Geirskogul would give us a little respite. I guess.

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Unless you consider the 70-60-60 TP you need to spend between geirskogul to keep blood of the dragon up...

What is neat about GK though is it has a wider radius and longer range 15x15 compared to DS, so it's a fatter and longer rectangle, which should make it easier to hit things.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

I'm struggling to see the point of Geirskogul for AoE. Doom Spike is 170 potency, can use every 2.5 seconds, vs Geirskogul which is 200 potency but use every 10 seconds. You could use Geirskogul continuously during adds or trash but it will require cycling your combos. But i wonder if the 200 potency is even worth while when you can just do back to back doom spikes. You can get in 4 doom spikes in the time it takes to do 2 geirskoguls...and 200 potency on drg isn't much to write home about, it's slightly stronger than Doom spike and doom spikes now, do about 500 on average, which is like 1/15th of a trash mob's HP in an expert dungeon.

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The point of GK is not for AoE damage, but it is an oGCD that we will use to increase our single target DPS. It just happens to do damage in an AoE, like the Monk's Howling Fist. It's not a move our kit is based around, but a move that supplements our existing kit. You'll still Doomspike adds like normal, but if GK is off cooldown and you can use it without a DPS loss (mechanics, BoTD uptimes etc.), then you just use it. It's that simple.

Geirskogul is off-GCD, so I presume we'll just use our existing AoE rotation, plus one or two Geirskoguls. I think it's safe to assume that Blood of the Dragon wouldn't be worth maintaining in an AoE burn. I don't really see how that's an issue at all--it's literally just adding to our existing group damage output.