Advice for Dragoons in O5S?

I've never cleared O5S before, but I thought I was doing well in it. I know the mechanics, everything. I've seen enrage at 10%. But basically I was just told that I'm going to need to put out more damage if I ever want to be considered good. Do any dragoons here have any advice for maintaining enough uptime on the train to be considered competent?

well first of all master your rotation and that's most of it done. the easiest way to get a big boost is food, like crimson cider. I wont recommend infusions since if you're struggling with rotation, it's just going to make it harder for you.

uptime is more about how your party handles the mechanics. for instance put lights in the corner, instead of middle. Keep the 2nd box (from the back) up, and take Feint, so you can survive headon, without being knocked all the way to the back of the train.

then it's party synergy and minor optimization. are you using dragon sight before every dragonfire? are you always getting 3 nastrond? how many are b4b nastronds are you getting during the fight?

o5s is tricky to compare just on numbers alone, since add phase can make an enormous difference (especially for dragoon), but it's not really effective damage. 4.6k for example, is really low but if you're not hitting 2 nastrond and dfd during adds it's plenty for clear.

I was told that I would have to be hitting 5k to be considered good. Do you think it would be a good idea to save B4B solely for Nastronds? Speaking of nastronds, I think I do have three on hand whenever I use them. It's just a matter of can I use them? The second time I proc nastrond I can only really use one (maybe two) due to head on.

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Originally Posted by Aldagrate

I was told that I would have to be hitting 5k to be considered good. Do you think it would be a good idea to save B4B solely for Nastronds? Speaking of nastronds, I think I do have three on hand whenever I use them. It's just a matter of can I use them? The second time I proc nastrond I can only really use one (maybe two) due to head on.

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It would help to know which Head On specifically but without knowing I'd say you should just hold it.

As for saving B4B for Nastrond, that's a bit reversed, you should be saving Nastrond for B4B, at least the 1st.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...h.fr8l511eqx5b
Optimization station>Geirskogul and Nastrond
Basically you delay your 1st Life by 30s so you exit your 1st Life with 3 Eyes into your 2nd Life right after. The guide explains it better than I can.

And as I said 4.6 is really low. I didn't say it was good dps, I said you could clear with it. o5s's add phase has a lot of room for padding if you save nastrond and dragonfire for it. This is why just looking at numbers from a log isnt going to help.

(Edit: Made it sound like I'm saying to not Nastrond/DFD during adds. You should *definitely* do that, the adds need to die to progress. I'm just saying that if you havent optimized for that, you can be several hundred DPS behind another DRG from that error alone).

Forgive me, I'm talking about the first head-on. I've also realized I'm not doing as good a job as I could be in keeping my DoT on the boss. The more I do O5S, the more I notice just how much I suck at this game in general. I feel like I'm really not having fun anymore.

It's actually Arm's Length that protects against the knockback mechanics in this fight and not Feint.

Well to be fair i really hate V5s and everything about it lol I think every other fight is easier and less of a head ache so don't feel like you suck on a fight majority of people hate and or can't even do yes weekly clears always fail at the damn train lol and plus V5s is the lowest dps on the logs for my SMN and drg lol

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Originally Posted by Kurando

It's actually Arm's Length that protects against the knockback mechanics in this fight and not Feint.

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U want arm's length for remorse ghost, and feint will lower the damage from head on, meaning u can stay significantly closer, then just backflip back within melee range

Do you, perchance, have a way to record yourself or logs from FFlogs? That way we could see if there's any hiccups with your rotation or GCD timing. If not, some general tips...

- Use Arm's Length to ignore the pushy Ghost's knockback
- You can get a maximum of two GCDs once Head-on starts casting. No need to peel off immediately. Likewise, don't run all the way back but position yourself at roughly mid range, preferably in front of a ghost box. You'll take more damage, however it allows you to keep your combo and hit Nastrond. Pop Sprint in-between a GCD to ensure you get back quickly enough. Feint also helps mitigate Head-on, which can help.
- Hold Dragonfire Dive after the opener. This way it'll be available when the adds spawn, which is a massive DPS increase. Additionally, pop Blood for Blood, use Life Surge on Sonic Thrust and go into Nastrond. A lot of high damage in o5s comes from padding.
- If you get tethered, stand on whichever corner is closest to the Ghost and try to drag it through the middle where, ideally, the light AoE should be placed. This allows little to no uptime loss. Obviously, you may have to adjust based on the group but you should always be looking for ways to minimize disengaging.

And speaking of general tips. Make sure you aren't pausing in between GCD uses. Even slight delays here or there will inevitably add up. You want to be flowing through your rotation seamlessly to the best of your ability.

I've not played dragoon in that fight but I can tell you some things that can help or screw you on your dps. This is whether you get mechanics or not and if you get cornered by ghosts. The other is whether your group cheeses the ghost room portion as well. People also spam AOEs and such during add phase so that can boost your dps a lot without you really actually doing more worthwhile DPS if you know what I mean.

If you get sucked into ghost room during the normal battle you'll loose a lot of dps. If you have to disengage from boss to kite ghost or place circle AOE you lose a lot of dps. These things you don't have much control over.

That being said, with my genji monk weapon and normal 350 sigma left side I hit 4900 in o5s and monk supposed to do 300 more. So given you mostly have 350 gear I think 5k is probably a bit optimistic for someone that is new. I just quit the raid group I was playing with, but our monk always had bad runs in o5s and barely got higher dps than my monk run even though he had way better gear, so sometimes you just don't do well lol.

O6S is really the fight where knowing your rotation and optimizing really gives you more obvious results since there is very little downtime.