Rotation Term Help

So, I\\'ve been reading a lot of guides on DPS, but what is an opener, a single target rotation, and an aoe rotation. I haven't found a single guide that mentione what it even is, or how, and what order you use these. People forget that a lot of players don't know these fancy terms. For example; mention the term damage mitigation, and add a bunch of other mumbo jumbo, and Im lost. Its like doing math. :/

I understand your problem, sometimes i'm lost too with all those fancy terms :D

Essentially, a rotation is a sequence of skills you use repeatedly when fighting an enemy. Most of the time you don't spam one skill on mobs, but a couple of them in a certain order depending on the situation. This splits up into single target rotation for single targets and AOE rotation for multiple targets (usuall 3+). An opener would be the first skill or first set of skills you use when engaging an enemy. Openers are for example used to stack up buffs quickly for higher damage right from the start. A simple example would be a blackmage using fire III at the start of the battle to get all three astral fire stacks right in the beginning instead of building them up one by one with fire.

If a rotation is a sequence of abilities, then an opener is a special rotation that, on top of the usual abilities, will apply a bunch of cooldowns in order to give you a solid boost to your damage output for a brief period. Since it burns a bunch of cooldowns, it can't be done for every iteration of the rotation.

So a segment of the BLM single target rotation might go

Fire III > Fire IV > Fire IV > Fire > Fire IV > Fire IV > Blizzard III > Thunder II > Blizzard IV

and this sequence is a functional unit that is repeated throughout the fight with few modifications. However, once every three minutes, a BLM's cooldowns line up in such a way that he can instead use the following extended version, which would be called an opener or opening rotation if used at the beginning of a combat:

Ley Lines > Thunder II > Sharpcast > Fire III > Enochian > Fire > Raging Strikes > Potion of Int > Fire IV > Fire IV > Fire IV > Fire IV > Fire III > Fire IV > Fire IV > Blizzard III > Thunder II > Blizzard IV

and if you compare the original sequence to the extended sequence, you can see it's an extension of the original rotation to capitalize on the buffs that can only be used once every few minutes.



Openers tend to include a lot of damage increasing buffs, such as Trick Attack and Battle Litany, and lots of off-GCD abilities, like Ricochet and Sidewinder; and so when multiple DDs' openers line up right, such as at the beginning of the fight or after certain phase changes, everyone's damage can skyrocket. This is one of the reasons for using openers as openers; such a rotation on its own can be an increase of 5% or 10% in the middle of a fight, but when everyone's going ham at once, their collective damage can go up by much more than that for that period.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

People forget that a lot of players don't know these fancy terms.

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Its like doing math. :/

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It's not necessarily that people forget, it's just that these are terms that have been going on for so long that most gamers know them. That combined with the fact that you can use the power of Google to figure out terms like "AoE" means that most guide makers won't bother. If they're going through the effort of making a guide, you should put in the effort to learn the most basic MMO vocabulary IMO.

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It's not like doing math. It is math. Figuring out rotations literally is math, so discussing them is essentially a maths discussion.

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Originally Posted by Eecka

It's not necessarily that people forget, it's just that these are terms that have been going on for so long that most gamers know them. That combined with the fact that you can use the power of Google to figure out terms like "AoE" means that most guide makers won't bother. If they're going through the effort of making a guide, you should put in the effort to learn the most basic MMO vocabulary IMO.

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If people go through the effort to make a guide they should also be including a sub section that makes a key for stuff for AoE meaning Area of Effect. To not do so is making an incomplete guide that rides on assumption that everyone knows what you are talking about. Hence the confusion. Especially if a player chose XIV as their first MMO. They are in the minority yet they still exist.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

If people go through the effort to make a guide they should also be including a sub section that makes a key for stuff for AoE meaning Area of Effect. To not do so is making an incomplete guide that rides on assumption that everyone knows what you are talking about. Hence the confusion. Especially if a player chose XIV as their first MMO. They are in the minority yet they still exist.

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Well it's hard to consider every "minority" in a guide. You have to start somewhere and you have to make some assumptions on what terms people might know. Else you will start explaining things like MP, HP and stuff. That might not be the goal of the guide you're about to write.
Plus, the people writing those guides usually are experienced players. So it's their daily vocabulary and they may just not notice, that others are not as familiar with those terms.

i think it's ok to assume some level of knowledge on the terms in a guide. And i also don't think, that DamianFatale was too lazy to learn the basic vocabulary ;) He did ask the question here, so he put in the necessary effort.

Sooo no one has bothered reading the book on the counter in the hall of the novice in aleport???

Uhm nope :D There was a book?

https://i.imgflip.com/12bbvm.jpg

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Originally Posted by Fiscr

Uhm nope :D There was a book?

https://i.imgflip.com/12bbvm.jpg

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Lol xD yes it covers mmo lingo and other things ^_^

Haha, ok i really didn't notice, that there is a book. I'll have to take a look on that later, thx for the hint :)

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Originally Posted by Frost_Tear

Lol xD yes it covers mmo lingo and other things ^_^

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If they went through the trouble of writing that book and putting it in the game, then wouldn't have been better to have the Adventurer's Guild give to you when you start the game?

Surely that would be of more use to players new to MMOs

I don't know ... since the hall of the novice is a place specifically designed for new players, i actually think it's a pretty good place for the book. So you have all information at one place.

In fairness, FFXIV is my first MMO and I picked up those specific terms pretty quickly, since they're (generally) pretty straightforward. It's not like you're calling a cat a "fluffy thing"

You're calling "a series of skills used in sequence" a "rotation"
You call the "first sequence of abilities you use at the start of an encounter" an "opener" or "opening rotation"
You call the "sequence of skills you use to attack a single target" a "single target rotation"
The one I can see being confusing is the AoE Rotation one, since I picked up AoE = Area of Effect a long time ago from FF message boards.

I feel asking someone who is writing a guide to spell out these things for a new player is a little silly when the context provides a better explanation than any definition you can give. When a guide says:
"The basic Dragoon Rotation is:
HT>ID>DE>CT>4th>PH>TT>VP>FT>4th>repeat"

It is heavily implied by this what "rotation" means. Reiterating it later via "A Rotation is a string of skills you use in sequence to attack an enemy" is redundant, imo.

I learned what a "Rotation" is by looking up the old Dragoon: A Rotation Reborn thread way back when.