Defensive cooldowns for marginal DPS gain anyone?

This is an idea, that is most likely wrong. Before you flame me, please note this is purely theoretical and experimental, and for those who gamble and don't mind doing so with groups of friends, as you need trusted teammates to do such a thing. By the way, good black mages already do something similar to this.

Here goes: as a melee DPS, there are fights where we might take damage from a circular AoE. Sometimes this damage is too large (wicked wheel, circular blade, iron chariot, etc). Technically, wouldn't it be a DPS increase to just eat the damage and keep dpsing? YES I KNOW THIS IS A STRAIN ON HEALERS AND RARELY WORTH IT but...

What if you told your healers not to heal you and popped bloodbath and second wind after, or keen flurry/featherfoot to potentially reduce damage or proc a haymaker (actually a DPS increase if there is nothing to refresh)? In this way, you are using your defensive cooldowns to keep the DPS up, and this is actually awesome for monks maintaining stacks or dragoons landing positionals, or ninjas maybe get a sneak/trick attack (I've seen them use perfect dodge in this way).

I'm just curious to know if anyone does stuff like this and communicates with their healers to let them know not to worry. It's a DPS gain and there really isn't much to lose if you know your limits.

"Good" Black Mages can only utilize Physick and Virus and "Eye for an Eye." Nothing else can be used to counter-act damage from wicked wheel, etc. Due to our limited amount of additional class skills we can choose from.

http://i.imgur.com/fAorAPd.png
http://i.imgur.com/pptMb8K.png

I'm actually really weirded out that Bard can have Provoke.

In general, DPSer's defensive cooldowns are too weak to allow them to just eat things to continue DPSing. Some do have good CDs, BLM and NIN to name.

So it's generally ill-advised to take unnecessary damage when your defensive CDs aren't 100% chance to do X action avoiding Y damage.

we also can use apocastasis and eye for an eye (wich i admit i use mostly on the tank or the one who most needs it)

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Originally Posted by ElieDavion

we also can use apocastasis and eye for an eye (wich i admit i use mostly on the tank or the one who most needs it)

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Apoca isn't worth it unless you know what enemies cast magic damage and can't be used on yourself sadly:

http://i.imgur.com/BuifjuO.png

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Originally Posted by coldreactive

I'm actually really weirded out that Bard can have Provoke.

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Bard can't. Paladin and Warrior are the only two Jobs that can equip it, even if several Classes could.

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Originally Posted by coldreactive

Apoca isn't worth it unless you know what enemies cast magic damage and can't be used on yourself sadly:

http://i.imgur.com/BuifjuO.png

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isnt it obvious wich is a magical attack and wich isnt? besides we have 2 barriers for ourselfes to protect us from physical and magical dmg

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Originally Posted by Dotsusama

Bard can't. Paladin and Warrior are the only two Jobs that can equip it, even if several Classes could.

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Really. We did a Garuda EX Run with one tank and a bard that tanked the other sister and somehow kept aggro.

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Originally Posted by coldreactive

Really. We did a Garuda EX Run with one tank and a bard that tanked the other sister and somehow kept aggro.

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Without Quelling Strikes, and with all their cooldowns, Bards can dish out a LOT of damage all in a short span of time. So, if they were waiting for the sister to pop and had abilities ready to go, they wouldn't have needed cooldowns.

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Originally Posted by coldreactive

Really. We did a Garuda EX Run with one tank and a bard that tanked the other sister and somehow kept aggro.

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It's called burst damage.

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Originally Posted by Taliph

It's called burst damage.

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I still can do more damage than a bard in one hit most of the time, so I'm pretty sure Bard is still just plain "DPS" rather than "Burst" :P

if you do this, I will not heal you. You wanted extra dps, I'll give you extra dps.

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Originally Posted by coldreactive

snip because 1000 limit

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That's not quite how BRD burst damage works. With Barrage tripling their number of auto-attacks, stacked on top of 20%, 10%, somewhere around 15%, and an additional 10% chance for 50%, and also increasing the chance for Bloodletter trait to proc, a fully buffed Bard can deal insane amounts of damage in a very, very small amount of time for the duration of their cooldowns, especially because they have no windup time. For them it's not about the size of the hits (though Bloodletter crits can go pretty high), it's about the sheer number of hits.

As for the original intent of this thread, I regularly eat Landslides with Manawall. No damage and no knockback. Manaward is less reliable due to the fact that it only absorbs some amount of damage, but helps in some cases. For non-BLMs, defensive cooldowns are far less reliable, so it's probably not worth it.

OP is not alone here. I do not do this in coil turns so much but dungeon runs and syrcus tower yes. I pair bloodbath with the crit rate boost to heal over time or secondwind for a post-apocolypse boost. Theres the other defence boost from maruader i use too but its not enough alone to outlast many AoEs. That said, healers rarely have to do more than keep regen on me if i drop below 50%

Monk makes a decent backup tank most of the time when you have skullsunder ready

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Originally Posted by Thistledown

if you do this, I will not heal you. You wanted extra dps, I'll give you extra dps.

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I don't know if what I said makes you mad but...I specifically said DO NOT heal me. The point is I'll regenerate my HP over time and reduce damage taken with foresight/keen flurry/featherfoot and restore it back with second wind/bloodbath and/or maybe a potion

Personally I have macroed my defensive skills with my DPS, especially for advising of my intention to take some attacks while keep dpsing, or just for preparing before a mega-attack so healer wouldn't need to care much about it...

Too sad I have been kicked few times already because "being noisy"(As if I'd be spamming those things all the time, geez...)

But it's not a bad idea actually... For example in Tamtara Hard second boss, with my BLM I liked to activate manaward and the other defensive skill whose name I always forget... One is a stone skin for magic damage and the other nullify two physical attacks. When I activate those and run to the balls, healer already knows I'll be the one taking them and I'm prepared for it....

But well, it always depends (With my dragoon I advised "I won't take the damn balls")+

Ninja in my opnion, yes, I think damage is cool and all that and people calls them OP, but you don't have so many defensive traits and skills like other DPS...It is the melee with less survival skills in that case, you can use second wind, the parry and evasion ones and perfect dodge, but no foresight (20% + resistance, to all...) or bloodbath... (In case of monks, even temporally change to fists of earth). Monk in my opinion are very Overpowered in survival stuff...They can use a lot of defensive traits, they can use the always awesome-savior skill Mantra and even after mantra you can cast a powered up second wind + criticals to obtain a mega-critical heal. You can use mega-evasion, parry, foresight, bloodbath..

i would certainly hope you wouldn't NEED to risk death to get a marginal DPS gain.

I used to do this kind of stuff more to build LB than anything. I would eat tethers in T6 or circle blade in T7 as a MNK then pop bloodbath / second wind.

The DPS gain... meh... its probably not worth the specific DPS gain, but I used to say in T7 to my healers, "Don't heal me, going to eat circle for LB and regain my own hp."

It happens, its certainly doable, but I don't know if it would be a good idea to operate under this auspice as a rule of thumb.

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Originally Posted by Ehayte

I used to do this kind of stuff more to build LB than anything. I would eat tethers in T6 or circle blade in T7 as a MNK then pop bloodbath / second wind.

The DPS gain... meh... its probably not worth the specific DPS gain, but I used to say in T7 to my healers, "Don't heal me, going to eat circle for LB and regain my own hp."

It happens, its certainly doable, but I don't know if it would be a good idea to operate under this auspice as a rule of thumb.

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It depend on the fight, your comfort level with it, and your teammates.

I stay in place for Garuda HM's first jump/shriek, with Second Wind afteward. That's the only place I intentionally eat damage with any regularity.

And I don't really do it for the extra GCD of damage. I just do it because I can. It's a common enough practice at this point (with light farm tactics making their way into regular parties) that I don't bother with warnings.

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Originally Posted by Adrian74

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Perfect dodge is still on the same level as BLM defensive cooldowns because it practically lets you bypass a physical hit or even mechanic, landslides and divebombs for example.

In regards to the thread, its really what the environment you're in that should matter. I typically do not eat garuda's shrieks, but I'm a bard so I don't lose out on damage anyway. The DRGs that usually do eat the shrieks usually end up dying to the next wicked wheel because the healer didn't top them off in time. Which comes to the fun part...was the DRG at fault for dying by willingly taking unneeded damage, or was it the healer's fault for not catching it?

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Originally Posted by Adrian74

Monk in my opinion are very Overpowered in survival stuff...They can use a lot of defensive traits, they can use the always awesome-savior skill Mantra and even after mantra you can cast a powered up second wind + criticals to obtain a mega-critical heal. You can use mega-evasion, parry, foresight, bloodbath..

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If those defensive cooldowns are equipped in cross-class slots instead of offensive abilities, it is a net DPS loss. Plain and simple.

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Originally Posted by Dotsusama

If those defensive cooldowns are equipped in cross-class slots instead of offensive abilities, it is a net DPS loss. Plain and simple.

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As a monk I have mercy stroke, fracture, invigorate, blood for blood. The last one can either be foresight, keen flurry, impulse drive, or bloodbath. While impulse drive might be a MINOR DPS increase if you don't have anything that needs refreshing but fracture does this better (at more TP). So basically bloodbath makes the best defensive cooldown since the others are pretty lame and it lets you eat an attack and heal yourself over time with a second wind.

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Originally Posted by coldreactive

"Good" Black Mages can only utilize Physick and Virus and "Eye for an Eye." Nothing else can be used to counter-act damage from wicked wheel, etc. Due to our limited amount of additional class skills we can choose from.

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I think perhaps an oversight here. I believe when the OP is talking about BLM doing this, he is referring to your two barriers, one that blocks magical damage and the other that blocks physical. I think a "Good" black mage would have considered that before even mentioning cross class abilities... :P

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Originally Posted by Stumpedify

I think perhaps an oversight here. I believe when the OP is talking about BLM doing this, he is referring to your two barriers, one that blocks magical damage and the other that blocks physical. I think a "Good" black mage would have considered that before even mentioning cross class abilities... :P

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Stumpedify you are exactly right :P I was referring to manawall and manaward

Why would a monk need fracture for example? I have invigorate keen flurry foresight bloodbath and mercy stroke...Depending of dungeon or trial I change keen flurry for blood for blood, or mercy stroke. (Useless in trials)

People already do this in different capacities. Mnk leaving thermo stack to keep up GL. A war using eye instead of path while tanking. A blm using wall to dps snakes through dive bombs. A nin using PD to dps through a circle aoe.

More extreme cases are a result of severely out gearing content. A nexus light group in Garuda hm dpsing instead of hiding behind rocks. Ignoring the red tether add in Garuda to kill garuda and eating all the add damage and determination buff. Not feeding slime to remove snake stacks in t1. Etc.

This stuff happens all the time, but is really only possible if your team is very skilled on hard content, or over gears the content to some degree. No way was I ignoring path on t9 as war. Now with echo I can etc.

on some content like dungeons and in ST i usually just eat stuff on DRG with Foresight, Secondwind, Blood Bath, and lifesurge. End game its just not possible on some classes.

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Originally Posted by Adrian74

Why would a monk need fracture for example? I have invigorate keen flurry foresight bloodbath and mercy stroke...Depending of dungeon or trial I change keen flurry for blood for blood, or mercy stroke. (Useless in trials)

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Why don't you always have blood for blood? As a monk you need it if you want to achieve your max DPS. There is literally no argument against not having it. And fracture is entirely optional. But if used correctly, it can be a tiny DPS boost, at the cost of TP loss, unless you're just THAT good. Fracture also helps with bosses who jump.

In some situations it's better for me to just anchor myself in an AOE as DRG, pop defensive cooldowns, and aoe my little heart out, using bloodbath and second wind to help keep my hp up. Yes I've noticed an increase in damage output from this. Obviously doesn't work for magic damage, though.

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Originally Posted by Altijacek

Why don't you always have blood for blood? As a monk you need it if you want to achieve your max DPS. There is literally no argument against not having it. And fracture is entirely optional. But if used correctly, it can be a tiny DPS boost, at the cost of TP loss, unless you're just THAT good. Fracture also helps with bosses who jump.

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Another marginal benefit to Fracture is that it is a move that can be used at any point in your rotation that doesn't change your stance. This has applications in that, for example, it can allow you to fit 2 Demolish inside a B4B without the need to clip ToD (which due to its significant duration is a common situation when trying for this particular outcome). Fracture itself is always an underwhelming hit but when used sparingly and correctly can increase overall DPS.

Also, Mercy Stroke is never useless. Mercy Stroke is free damage. You want free damage. You should never use keen flurry because it is just bad.

When I read the title I thought for sure this would be about Bulwark and Shield Swipe.

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Originally Posted by coldreactive

Apoca isn't worth it unless you know what enemies cast magic damage and can't be used on yourself sadly:

http://i.imgur.com/BuifjuO.png

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Your i95 DRG in t9 would like a word with you about that megaflare that is about to slap him in the face.

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Originally Posted by Bixby

I stay in place for Garuda HM's first jump/shriek, with Second Wind afteward.

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Same, also after I pop b4b+bloodbath, a rockbreaker+ howling fist when the plumes pop + mantra pretty much gets you back to full HP.

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Originally Posted by Ephier

Your i95 DRG in t9 would like a word with you about that megaflare that is about to slap him in the face.

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This, of course, is assuming he doesn't elusive vault himself into fetters during a meteor placement.

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Originally Posted by subteraneanbird

Another marginal benefit to Fracture is that it is a move that can be used at any point in your rotation that doesn't change your stance. This has applications in that, for example, it can allow you to fit 2 Demolish inside a B4B without the need to clip ToD (which due to its significant duration is a common situation when trying for this particular outcome). Fracture itself is always an underwhelming hit but when used sparingly and correctly can increase overall DPS.

Also, Mercy Stroke is never useless. Mercy Stroke is free damage. You want free damage. You should never use keen flurry because it is just bad.

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Yeah keen flurry is just silly. I hope the person who I quoted earlier sees this and I hope they use this to help increase their DPS :) not trying to be an asshole, but I just really hope that person takes this as an opportunity to improve.