Dragoon Rotation PS3/4

This is by no means a comprehensive guide to the Dragoon rotation. If you are into an in depth explanation to everything Dragoon, I suggest:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...otation-Reborn

I have been leveling up my off classes and have been in dungeons with newer lancers and, like me when I started out, didn't really understand the nuances of Dragoon/Lancing. I have read many rotation guides for all classes and have realized quickly that 1. the rotations are meant for those on PC. and 2. I suck at cycling through Hot Bars on PS3. I have compiled a concise guide to the dragoon rotation and hope it helps.

Rotation:
Hot Bar 1 L2 Directional Pad
1. Heavy Thrust-> Internal Release-> Fracture-> Phlebotomize

Using Heavy Thrust from the side will give you a damage increase and should always be active, internal release (pugilist) increases Critical Hit Rate, Fracture (marauder) and Phlebotomize will add Dot (Damage over Time)

Hot Bar 1 L2 - buttons
2. leg sweep-> impulse drive-> disembowel-> Chaos Thrust

Leg sweep is a cool down with stun effect. I place it inbetween the combo for when I am solo. Stunning the mob allows me to get behind them for impulse drive. With limited options on PS3 controler it is now habit. The “Chaos Thrust combo will also generate Dot and lower piercing resistance. Impulse drive must be from behind to activate the combo and generate the buff/debuff.

Hot bar 1 R2 – buttons
3. blood for blood-> true thrust-> vorpal thrust-> full thrust

Blood for blood is another cooldown that increases strength but lowers defense, don’t use if you have aggro or are taking a lot of damage. The last three are the Full thrust combo.

Hot bar 1 R2 directional pad
4. power surge-> life surge-> jump- dragonfire dive

These are all cool downs and will use them in between my full thrust combo. Life surge should be either before full thrust or jump to maximize the amount of health regained. Be mindful of AoE’s before using jump as it returns you to the spot from where you jumped. Dragonfire dive is what I will use for my AoE on trash mobs or as a way to return to a boss whether I am lost in mobs or tossed.

a. my initial rotation is 1->2-> 3 with 4 tossed in there.
b. My next rotation is 1->3 as disembowel and chaos thrust will still be active.

I will then alternate between a and b hitting cooldowns as they come up.

My Hot Bar 2 is a Hot mess as cycling through hot bars is not user friendly on PS3/4

I keep second wind, foresight, and keen fury on L1 with my traveling hot keys (i.e., return, teleport, sprint, mount/minion roulette. Since I don’t often use them in battle, they are fine in Hot Bar 2

For AoE for Brayflox (hard) I keep Heavy thrust->Ring of Thorns, as well as my Limit break on R2. Since I don't use AoE too often, it is safe in my Hot Bar 2.

I play on PS4 and have absolutely no problem cycling through my full Dragoon rotation when I play it. If you use the extra Cross-Hotbar, where you bring up a selected half of a particular one by holding L2 and then pressing R2, or vice versa, you will have no problem fitting all of your skills onto two bars.

I have all of my actions and some of my more regularly used buffs (Internal Release, Blood for Blood) on my main Cross Hotbar, and then lesser used stuff (Limit Break, Life Surge, Power Surge) on the second Hotbar. I then have a reference Hotbar for all of my buffs down at the bottom right of my screen, so that I can see when things are off-cooldown and ready to be used.

You can also set it so that you only use a particular set of Hotbars when your weapon is drawn, which is good if you're like me, and have lots of others set up with macros, shortcuts and travelling abilities which you are unlikely to use when in combat.

Out of curiosity, how many hotbars do you guys cycle through as DRG? I can only handle two sets, three is a bit too much for me to handle.

I'll post a pic of my two hotbars later tonight or tomorrow. I hope it will help anyone out, or you guys can help me out on making it better.

I use the first hotbar which has everything for my full burst rotation on. I then have a second which has aoe stuff/other buffs like invigorate, EJ and potion (and my t8 tp macro for our bard haha) on which is accessed via holding both l2/r2. Some things like heavy thrust are doubled up so there really shouldn't be issues with space. I also have a horizontal bar above my cross hotbar which has some things from the second bar on so I can see for example when invigorate is ready to use again.

You don't need three hotbars for playing dragoon unless you really like to separate things up.

L1 + triangle = hotbar 1
L1 + circle = hotbar 2

Pressing those buttons lets you cycle through those 2 hotbars, it's very easy once you get some practice.

I use gamepad on PC but only need 1.5 hotbars up to get all my actions in. A few macros but nothing stopping dps.

http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/q...1423_51_06.jpg
http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/q...1423_51_13.jpg

Here are my hotbars. Now that i look at them, they are a bit disorganized.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bbkkristian

Here are my hotbars. Now that i look at them, they are a bit disorganized.

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Was going to comment on that, but now Im starting to wonder if the same can be said about my setup. I guess as long as it makes sense to you, that's all that matters :P

I'm on PS4 and have 2 full hotbars for DRG though they actually don't have skills such as Fracture and Internal release because without trait buffs they are weaker than dragoon's own buffs and they slow down combos more than add to them.

It took a while to get used to it but right now I use 2 full hotbars for battle with BRD, DRG, WAR and it actually is very easy - just need to actually try it out to discover how easy it is to get used to dual hotbars

What do you mean by not having Internal Release? It is cross class skillable for DRG so there's no downside in using them.

DRG is my alt too, my 2nd battle class that I level til 50. I have no problem using just one cross-bar for my full DRG rotation. This is because I put macro on Buffs, and I actually have another reference cross bar only to see which buff has gone back online.

My cross bar is:

L2 Directional:
Heavy Thrust
Impulse Drive
Disembowel
Chaos Thrust

L2 Face Buttons:
Phlebotomize
True Thrust
Vorpal Thrust
Full Thrust

R2 Directional:
one Buff macro (weave this in-between your attacks, it'll run the next buff after you press it once etc)
Life Surge
Leg Sweep
Second Wind

R2 Face Buttons:
Jump
Spineshatter Dive
Dragonfire Dive
Ring of Thorns

This enabled me to cycle through the 24 move main rotation easily. No need to switch or anything.