T8 Dragoon and needing TP song early?

Alright, having a bit of a discussion.

For the first time, we downed T8 today. We run MNK, DRG, BRD, BLM, WAR, PLD, WHM, SCH. So the BRD has a lot to deal with - the usual missile mechanics, and singing songs, while maintaining high uptime on his DPS.

Well, after the clear, there was the obvious discussion of how we can improve our DPS - and one of the subjects came up to be songs. And one of the way to reduce the need for songs, is reducing how often we're using it because of how fast I'm burning through my TP.

For my DRG, I tend to push sub-500 TP after first dreadnaught. Easy to compensate for - about 50% of Dread's HP, I pop Invigorate. My standard rotation only includes the Phleubotomize for non-Skillchain DoT's.

By the time Invigorate comes back off CD, I'm usually at about 0-150 TP. This means I need a slight buffer of a song to help push me over and get me to keep 100% uptime.

Is there a way for DRG to compensate for this? My current gearset for our clear was:

Weapon: Weathered Liberator
Head: Allagan Visor (i90)
Body: Weathered Austrum (i100)
Hands: Weathered Austrum (i100)
Legs: Allagan (i90)
Feet: Weathered Austrum (i100)
Belt: Hero's Belt of Slaying (i100)

Ring1: Weathered Gloam (i100)
Ring2: Hero's Ring of Slaying (i90)
Bracelet: Allagan Bracelets of Maiming (i90)
Earrings: High Allagan Earrings (i110)
Neck: High Allagan Neck (i110)

What's your GCD?

Typically my team's DRG doesn't require me to pop Paeon specifically for him, our invigorate are about in sync, and my GCD is lower than DRG at 2.35s or so. I basically Paeon for the MNK only because he burns TP at a much faster rate.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

What's your GCD?

Typically my team's DRG doesn't require me to pop Paeon specifically for him, our invigorate are about in sync, and my GCD is lower than DRG at 2.35s or so. I basically Paeon for the MNK only because he burns TP at a much faster rate.

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2.42 seconds is my current GCD with the newly obtained HQ Liberator (got the sands last night.) I often need it before our raid MNK, and I am told I need it at about the same time as our DPS warrior needs the TP as well.

My final stats currently come out to
496 Accuracy
426 Critical
317 Determination
528 Attack Power
422 Skill Speed

Just tested myself against a dummy in Coerthas, I ended at about 385 DPS, with my last blood for blood coming up -right- as I hit 0 TP at around the 5-6 minute mark. I think there's the benefit that I'm not getting Selene's +Skillspeed song, so it buffered me -just enough- not to push me over on TP for my second invigorate.

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

2.42 seconds is my current GCD with the newly obtained HQ Liberator (got the sands last night.) I often need it before our raid MNK, and I am told I need it at about the same time as our DPS warrior needs the TP as well.

My final stats currently come out to
496 Accuracy
426 Critical
317 Determination
528 Attack Power
422 Skill Speed

Just tested myself against a dummy in Coerthas, I ended at about 385 DPS, with my last blood for blood coming up -right- as I hit 0 TP at around the 5-6 minute mark. I think there's the benefit that I'm not getting Selene's +Skillspeed song, so it buffered me -just enough- not to push me over on TP for my second invigorate.

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Hmm you might want to do a dummy attack race with your Bard and MNK to see if you are burning TP faster than usual. Try a 10mins run. For me, I'm just watching my MNK's TP and Paeon for him, so with the Paeons and Invigorate, both our DRG and I doesn't need extra Paeon to be sang specifically for us.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

Hmm you might want to do a dummy attack race with your Bard and MNK to see if you are burning TP faster than usual. Try a 10mins run. For me, I'm just watching my MNK's TP and Paeon for him, so with the Paeons and Invigorate, both our DRG and I doesn't need extra Paeon to be sang specifically for us.

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I know from experience that I'm the -only- one in our raid who ever asks for TP song. I think the benefit of me asking is that (BECAUSE) I run out first, the others -always- will benefit from it because they'll be a little low too. Though I heard our bard say at one point I was scraping 0 and he was still over 600 (Was probably a bad run for me where I derped my cooldown.)

As a Dragoon you should be hitting Invigorate around the time that first Dread pops. Not doing anything wrong.

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Originally Posted by Anorex

As a Dragoon you should be hitting Invigorate around the time that first Dread pops. Not doing anything wrong.

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Seems fair. But - I guess we're just worried about our overall TP consumption. Is it supposed to be the case that I'm asking for TP song before the MNK and WAR? My invigorate is 100 TP stronger than both theirs.

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

Seems fair. But - I guess we're just worried about our overall TP consumption. Is it supposed to be the case that I'm asking for TP song before the MNK and WAR? My invigorate is 100 TP stronger than both theirs.

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You're consuming more tp than them and I think normally the monk would be out of tp first. There's either something wrong with the mnks rotation or you have a lot more skillspeed than him.

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Originally Posted by rickyguo

You're consuming more tp than them and I think normally the monk would be out of tp first. There's either something wrong with the mnks rotation or you have a lot more skillspeed than him.

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he only has +13 Skill Speed over me. He only did about 10 DPS more than me on the victory parse, but sometimes parses a bit over 20 ahead of me.

Edit: Not 'over me', but he -literally- only has gear with +13 skill speed.
Edit2: Meanwhile I have +81 Skill Speed

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

he only has +13 Skill Speed over me. He only did about 10 DPS more than me on the victory parse, but sometimes parses a bit over 20 ahead of me.

Edit: Not 'over me', but he -literally- only has gear with +13 skill speed.
Edit2: Meanwhile I have +81 Skill Speed

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Ya that might explain it, he also might not be using fracture which I think some monks use in t8.

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Originally Posted by rickyguo

Ya that might explain it, he also might not be using fracture which I think some monks use in t8.

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I don't use fracture either. It just seems to mess up the cycle completely.

If you guys are not using fracture then you shouldn't have many TP issues. But the fight is really static and you can have almost 100% uptime so it's nothing weird for the Monk/DRG to need the song atleast once. It should also help the pala so i wouldn't worry about it.

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

Edit: Not 'over me', but he -literally- only has gear with +13 skill speed.
Edit2: Meanwhile I have +81 Skill Speed

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What? Ask your MNK to wake up D:

His skill speed is tad too low for a MNK..

I can't say much because I don't MNK - but initially our MNK had subpar DPS, also slightly above our DRG like 20-30 points. Then we found out that he had way under 400 skill speed, one of my friends were commenting with that skill speed it's difficult to squeeze the required skills with Perfect Balance blah blah. IDK what my friend meant thou cos I knew nuts about MNK. But when I dumped my MNK with the information and he upped his skill speed, his DPS dramatically improved, reaching 395 range with i95 weapon without any tower duties. But of course, his TP depletion rate were way faster.

Tell your MNK to look into his gear again. Once he fix his skill speed, he'll be the one calling out for Paeon and then you shouldn't need to call for Paeon anymore since you will benefit from the MNK's Paeon calls. :)

seems to me, u burn tp too fast is either monk don't use fracture and monk is on runner duty while u get to dps non stop without running for towers/mines/balistic?

btw u didn't need any extra SKS to lay off 5 skills from PB.

I know when our SCH uses selene it lends itself to both the mnk and drg needing paeon earlier then when eos is out.

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Originally Posted by Empressia

seems to me, u burn tp too fast is either monk don't use fracture and monk is on runner duty while u get to dps non stop without running for towers/mines/balistic?

btw u didn't need any extra SKS to lay off 5 skills from PB.

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Our warrior handles landmines. Our monk is the first Tower pusher with our WHM, and I'm the second tower pusher with our SCH, so I tend to be pushing Landmines. For landmine duty, both of our tanks handle landmines, with me and the MNK picking up and landmines if it looks like the WAR won't be able to get it.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

What? Ask your MNK to wake up D:

His skill speed is tad too low for a MNK..

I can't say much because I don't MNK - but initially our MNK had subpar DPS, also slightly above our DRG like 20-30 points. Then we found out that he had way under 400 skill speed, one of my friends were commenting with that skill speed it's difficult to squeeze the required skills with Perfect Balance blah blah. IDK what my friend meant thou cos I knew nuts about MNK. But when I dumped my MNK with the information and he upped his skill speed, his DPS dramatically improved, reaching 395 range with i95 weapon without any tower duties. But of course, his TP depletion rate were way faster.

Tell your MNK to look into his gear again. Once he fix his skill speed, he'll be the one calling out for Paeon and then you shouldn't need to call for Paeon anymore since you will benefit from the MNK's Paeon calls. :)

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Our MNK is always above me in the parses, and I think our gear is 'about even' with us both usually about the same armor-wise. I've no intention of questioning his DPS, because he -is- a good player. :) But I'll let him know that he might be able to up it if he's having trouble maintaining something.

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Originally Posted by Empressia

btw u didn't need any extra SKS to lay off 5 skills from PB.

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Think I'm not quite understanding, I'm sorry ^^;

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Originally Posted by Empressia

btw u didn't need any extra SKS to lay off 5 skills from PB.

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I don't play a MNK, but Perfect Balance (PB) lasts only 10s - which means you will need 2.0s GCD to squeeze in 5 skills under PB. Your basic GCD after skill speed boost should be fast enough to quickly trigger skills that gives GL stacks to accelerate your GCDs faster to squeeze in the required skills

Eidolon: SKS = skillspeed, PB = perfect balance.

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

Our warrior handles landmines. Our monk is the first Tower pusher with our WHM, and I'm the second tower pusher with our SCH, so I tend to be pushing Landmines. For landmine duty, both of our tanks handle landmines, with me and the MNK picking up and landmines if it looks like the WAR won't be able to get it.

Our MNK is always above me in the parses, and I think our gear is 'about even' with us both usually about the same armor-wise. I've no intention of questioning his DPS, because he -is- a good player. :) But I'll let him know that he might be able to up it if he's having trouble maintaining something.

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Why are both the melees doing tower duty thou?

Theoretically it's better to assign 2 ranged DPS to one tower and the 2 healers to another tower. Some teams simultaneously ask the BRD to do homing missile duty, or simply the DRG to handle homing, with the MNK permanently attacking the boss as he has the highest DPS potential.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

Why are both the melees doing tower duty thou?

Theoretically it's better to assign 2 ranged DPS to one tower and the 2 healers to another tower. Some teams simultaneously ask the BRD to do homing missile duty, or simply the DRG to handle homing, with the MNK permanently attacking the boss as he has the highest DPS potential.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m34GZ4bVKQ

I won't claim I understand the rational for why we do what we do. As you can see in that video, MNK+WHM push the first tower. DRG+SCH push the second. WAR is serving as a final Melee DPS. BLM is left stationary to cast boom-boom-pows. Bard is allowed to focus on moving missiles and maintain uptime. All of us push really good DPS on the fight (We cleared with a minute to spare I think.)

Edit-in:
Oh, right, the Warrior stays close to handle Brain Jacks. I guess we didn't want to have him switching off that duty. Our Black Mage is the primary one who handles binding missiles (He's #1, so if two people are bound and there's a big circle, he stays in.) with me as DRG being the second one (If BLM + Someone else gets bound, and there's a large one, I stay in the large one) and the MNK being the third one (If BLM + DRG are bound and there's a large one, he stays in.)

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

snip

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Hmm well you guys still cleared it comfortably anyways, no point to change it now. Just sounds weird to me to have both melees running around :p

Our team composition for T8 is PLD, MNK, DRG, BRD, SMN, BLM, WHM, SCH. SMN+BRD Team A handing Dreadnaught towers, WHM+SCH Team B handing Mine towers. DRG handles homing missile and brainjack.

Landmines are split into tank's side or DPS side. Tank's side tank takes them all. DPS side it is split among DRG/BRD/SMN.

Ballistic missiles are on a priority system where WHM is #1, SCH #2 and BRD#3 - WHM will always be the first person to handle the large circle, if it's binded, our SCH goes in, if both healers binded, then BRD goes in.

BLM are just on standby mode - in case we need him to handle certain mechanics due to one of the designated guys has Allagan Field.

As you can see we prioritize MNK to keep pushing for DPS, same goes to our BLM by making him on standby mode to reduce any downtime for his casts. BRD/SMN are the flexible DPS classes so they handle the movement mechanics. DRG was semi-scarified because it has lesser DPS potential than the MNK but at the same time, having the backflips and jumps to quickly getting back to action. DRG is wearing armor compared to other DPS classes which wear cloth, so the higher physical def + higher HP helps in handling missiles and brainjacks - in case shit happens, DRG survives better. The sacrifice wasn't a big one thou, about 20DPS drop from a pure dummy parse. Overall I think we cleared it under 10mins - on the 7th tower we pushed 2 mines and 1 AoE which we downed it comfortably after clearing mines.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

Then we found out that he had way under 400 skill speed, one of my friends were commenting with that skill speed it's difficult to squeeze the required skills with Perfect Balance blah blah.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

I don't play a MNK, but Perfect Balance (PB) lasts only 10s - which means you will need 2.0s GCD

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400 skillspeed for 5 skills is a myth. I've had as low as +0 skillspeed from my gears and still able to hit 5 skills within that time frame. The reason for that is, in order to hit 5 skills within 10 seconds, the GCD should be a bit below 2.3 seconds. 5 skills mean 4 GCD between skill activation with a bit of a delay between Perfect Balance activation and the first Coeurl form skills, usually Demolish. That's why it's important that the first 3 skills under Perfect Balance is Coeurl forms to bring GCD that low to fit the last skill in right as Perfect Balance end. I usually hit the 5th skill with 1 second left on Perfect Balance.

Yeah, skill speed is the devil, you don't require any of it for PB and 5 skills. Just about the only thing it does note worthy for you is make you go through TP faster.

As a mnk on T8.

50% first dread I pop invig
just prior to the second dread brd pops a battlevoiced army
invig's take me through the rest of the fight.

Hmm I see. Thanks for the info! :)

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

I don't play a MNK, but Perfect Balance (PB) lasts only 10s - which means you will need 2.0s GCD to squeeze in 5 skills under PB. Your basic GCD after skill speed boost should be fast enough to quickly trigger skills that gives GL stacks to accelerate your GCDs faster to squeeze in the required skills

Eidolon: SKS = skillspeed, PB = perfect balance.

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You do not need a 2.0 GCD to fit in five skills. I use all my BFB, IR, HF, SP, and a STR pot, along with 5 skills in the use of one PB. My GCD is 2.06.

Honestly as a mnk myself and running with the same setup yours mnk/drg/brd/blm... your mnk should be very worried if you're needing tp song before him. There is seriously something wrong with that. Either he is taking too long on a tower duty or something else. Think about it, mnk has 27% sklspd buff and invigorate is -100 compared to a drg. I don't have any skill speed in my gears so I can tell you for sure, there is no way a drg will need peon before a monk. If you guys want to increase overall raid dmg do not let your monk be on tower duty. You guys would want him on that dummy boss at all times. Drg's have it good for tower duty because you guys can elusive jump from boss to tower and jump back in and the process only takes around 2-3 secs and back to dps'ng again.