Dragoons: A Rotation Reborn

[PixelTrooper]

Yikes lots to absorb for a newbie,
Drg sounds like a class for those that are experienced. I was going to switch from Gld to this, now not 100% sure. Great write up.

I have no more than 1 month playing (main DRG) and I can say that you learn a lot in the road.

[EasymodeX]

- How is critical damage calculated? Most games it's like double damage, but that doesn't seem to be the case in FFXIV.

Crits are 1.5x in FF14.

- Is determination better to get over skill speed, even when they contribute the same quantity of stats according to the strength equivalency table? It seems like having skill speed has the liability of DoT clipping and such.

Assuming the weights add up to the same, then it's personal preference.

SS has 1 objective detriment and that is you will burn TP marginally faster. On the other hand, it has 1 subjective benefit, and that is that you can get your attacks in slightly more quickly (e.g. boss is casting a tail swipe, and your Heavy Thrust needs to cycle down the GCD so you can use Impulse Drive, WILL YOU MAKE IT? -- 0.05s off the GCD over 8 attacks could let you get the ID off cleanly).

There's also the fringe subjective disadvantage to SS where you have brain lag and then use an OGCD late. Higher SS will cause animation clipping whereas less SS will cause less animation clipping. This is pretty rare, although maybe it's more applicable re: jumps.

Overall SS versus DET/CRT have very minor practical tradeoffs back and forth assuming the stat weights add up to similar amounts.

[Griffeth]

[QUOTE=aray0002;1394075
For you Guru's that are posting this.. you think you can put together a MACRO for us PS3 users.

I'm not talking acronyms either. Some of us who play this game are actually just casual gamers. The algorithm examples listed in this thread make my freaking HEAD hurt. I just want some basic simplicity in the example of a Full Rotation / Macro
[/QUOTE]

/ac "Blood for Blood"
/ac "Phlebotomize"

/ac "Life Surge"
/ac "Full Thrust"

/ac "Power Surge"
/ac "Impulse Drive"

/ac "Jump"
/ac "Disembowel"

/ac "Internal Release"
/ac "Chaos Thrust"

Those should be some basic ones that will trigger your CD's for their important abilities and should free up some action bar space. You can also just hit them once (for the case of the last 3 being your behind the target combo) to trigger the OGCD abilitites between your TT->FT combo.

[Jamison]

The best suggestion I can make here is to invest in a keyboard/mouse compatible with the PS3. That might not be as helpful as suggesting macros(I haven't played around with those myself yet), but it's a much better control scheme than a controller.

Unfortunately this isn't an option. (Unless something changed) there was an announcement that keyboard/mouse as an interface was not being implemented on the PS3 due to memory limitations, and a keyboard could only be used for typing.

I agree, I am on PS3 and even though the cross / hotbars are customized to ones liking. It's cumbersome and sometime just plain painful to watch my thumbs and fingers push the wrong buttons because of a left brain / right brain malfunction.

For you Guru's that are posting this.. you think you can put together a MACRO for us PS3 users.

I'm not talking acronyms either. Some of us who play this game are actually just casual gamers. The algorithm examples listed in this thread make my freaking HEAD hurt. I just want some basic simplicity in the example of a Full Rotation / Macro

This game is killing me man. When i fought the Demon Wall in AK i swear my DPS was freaking LOW and yeah I had Ifrits weapon.
Something was wrong and i guess it was me spamming the same skill over and over. Help a brother out.

I've toyed with a bunch of macros, from simple to complicated, and as time goes on I use them less and less (choosing to have the skills naively on a button instead).

Here are some random thoughts/tips/experiences that I've had:

• Make sure you set every one of your crossbars to show either only in, or only out, of combat. I have 1-4 only in combat, and 5-8 only out of combat.
• You may also want to set your weapon to never auto-sheath... you risk hitting an action you didn't want to.
• Additionally, you can further set which crossbars will toggle with a single tap of R1.
• DRG only really needs two crossbars for all the skills you'll use regularly (for me, cbar 1 and 2. cbar 4 contains AoE skills and limit break, which is switched to manually when needed).
• You can duplicate skills on both crossbars, i.e. leg sweep, so that it's always on the same button no matter which crossbar you are on.
• My crossbars are largely the same, the main difference being the two main combos change. Again, it's a single tap of R1 to switch between them. There are some other small differences but nothing important
• As for the macros themselves, you can tie your off-global cool down actions to the GCD action to you want to use it right before. The downside is there's no queuing of actions this way (you cannot pre-input a command) and you have to spam that button non-stop the entire time to make sure both the OGCD and GCD both fire as quickly as possible.
• You can add Power Surge to a macro with Jump and Spineshatter, but remember you wouldn't actually want to use those both in a row. You'd want to use a GCD ability in between. But with the way macros work, you can put several items in one macro and it will skip over anything it cannot execute. So the first time I hit that macro, Power Surge goes off. The next time I hit that macro, Jump goes off because Power Surge is on cooldown.
• You can, but it's a terribly bad idea, put all three actions of a combo in one macro (with a /wait 3 between them) but it would be a significant loss of DPS.
• You can also add a command to change your crossbar after an action... for example after the third action of a combo that macro can then also /chotbar X setting you up for your next combo. I've never actually used this one so I can't speak for how well it works in combat.
• I put all my defensive actions into 1 macro. If things go bad, I fire everything defensively I can by spamming that button. Not the absolute best way of doing it, but to save that crossbar space I find it worthwhile.

[Glyini]

For 3 mob trash pulls is it better to HT>RoT>IDC>DS till heavy falls off or is it better to
HT>RoT>IDC>I> Switch targets>DC>Main targetHT>RoT>I>Switch targets>DC>Doomspike spam.

For 2 mobs it seems like rotation 2 is better dropping an IDC for the thrid target and sticking a PB on each target before DS spam.

I have a tank that can hold the threat and TP is no problem with invigorate and switching to single target before I go dry. Just curious what would do better for shaving a little time off ak farm.

[EasymodeX]

For 3mob trash, it's efficient to just spam HT + ROT repeatedly than to use IDC.

However, if the primary target will be alive for more than 20s, then IDC breaks even. If the secondary targets will be alive for more than 40s, then IDC is worth. If you have a bard also pew pewing to take advantage of the DE debuff, then it is worth.

Phlebotomizing each target is also good in general -- slightly less DPS than HT-ROT, slightly better damage per TP.


Doomspike is higher DPS, but significantly less efficient than HT-ROT. Against 5+ targets it becomes efficient for TP over HT-ROT.

[Maero]

I have no more than 1 month playing (main DRG) and I can say that you learn a lot in the road.

Well i may switch to try anyhow seing as i am slowly leveling up every class. Just my PS3 is out of order for now

[Ariahna]

A lot of useful info here for a job that none wants to bring to coil...

[EasymodeX]

If anyone's interested, I uploaded my spreadsheet: http://www.filedropper.com/ff14

The documentation in it is not complete, so it's mainly intended for folks that can randomly interpret excel formulas.

Also, any references to manual corrections for DOT clipping are obsolete; clipped DOTs are calculated automatically (but the game system invalidating a DOT overwrite due to buffs/no buffs is not handled, so don't clip or if you do, prepare to adjust your rotation manually to compensate).

[Ayvar]

A lot of useful info here for a job that none wants to bring to coil...

I would say that this is mostly accurate. Every discussion I've seen about whether or not melee have a place in coil boils down to whether you want to trade damage for ease of completion. The main benefit to melee dps is damage, and they will perform better than the other classes if played correctly. However, very few of the fights in Coil are enough of a dps race that the added damage from the melee makes the difference. Turn 1 favors utility since extra damage isn't needed (the fight is a snore and can even be kited) and ranged can do everything a melee can on the fight while still providing the added utility to make it easier. Turn 2 ranged have a simpler time avoiding AE (though this isn't much of an issue if you play right), they don't have to pause dps to pass their rot debuff, and since Turn 2 is a survival fight a little extra dps doesn't mean much over the increase in survivability provided by range. People might argue that downing the fight faster is increasing "survivability" since it reduces the chances for mistakes, but there aren't many groups that will agree that the slight reduction in fight duration is worth losing the utility of silences/mana/rot/AE avoidance.

Turn 4 is probably the first instance where every ounce of dps you can squeeze out is worth it. Dragoon AE is quite good so the group doesn't suffer there, and the added single target damage and limit break is good for the Dreadnaughts and the single Rook spawn. The only downside to taking a Dragoon over a caster dps is the added AE damage from the soldiers, but this is only a factor on the 4-soldier spawn and any Dragoon that knows anything about weaving in and out of melee range between GCDs can essentially counteract almost all of that damage.

In short, I agree with you on Turns 1 and 2, but not on Turn 4. Currently, finding a good Free Company is probably your best bet, since I do not see much motivation for PUG groups to want melee (for the moment) as they would primarily aim for the least complicated Turn 1/2 completion.