Dragoons and Bards that never, ever, AOE....

[Versiroth]

If there are 4+ mobs, I will HT - RoT - DS until I'm low - Invigorate - and then go into my ST rotation.

For Bard, I will Fire Arrow - WV - Procs if they pop - Invigorate when low - and then spread my dots around. If It's a speed run, I may play AP if the healer doesn't need MB.

[Soulburn32]

Why would you ever need 3 bars as warrior?
If you put every skill you can use on there it would only fill up 2 bars

[Aylis]

I follow One and only one simple formula for my AOE abilities as a bard in conjunction with common trash monsters...

1 Monster: AOE's are useless.
2 Monsters: Pretty Much the same.
3 Monsters: Getting there and I'll use in my rotations.
4 Monsters +: Can the tank keep emnity? If not I can't do damage when I'm dead. Sooo case by case judgement.

[NaliaBrown]

I have a DRG. I did a ton of myth grinding yesterday on Brayflox HM. I've learned that my AoE does not suck. After an initial Heavy Thrust into Ring of Thorns, I'll just spam Doom Spike until I run out of TP. Then I use Invigorate (if necessary) and another HT -RoT combo, and then do single targets until the mobs are dead. By the time I need Invigorate on the next pull, it should be ready to use again, or close to it. I'll also throw in Dragonfire Dive when I can, but it's got such a huge cooldown that I forget about it sometimes.

Before yesterday, I always thought that Doom Spike wasn't worth it because of the TP cost. But guys, they give DRGs Invigorate for a reason.

[LexSunfire]

any drg spamming rot or ds over and over and over again on anything less then 3 or 4 mobs is playing inefficiently and missing out on dps. my ft fully buffed with b4b ir and lifesurge does over 1050 dmg on that one attack alone. tell me spamming the weak rot is better than that.

[NaliaBrown]

any drg spamming rot or ds over and over and over again on anything less then 3 or 4 mobs is playing inefficiently and missing out on dps. my ft fully buffed with b4b ir and lifesurge does over 1050 dmg on that one attack alone. tell me spamming the weak rot is better than that.

I think most of us are specifically talking about large pulls of many mobs, like in Brayflox speed runs. At least I am.

[Raenryong]

HT>RoT>DS spam's better damage on two mobs, but it's not efficient TP wise (and the damage increase does not in any way warrant the extra TP cost in my opinion). For three mobs, it's worthwhile but not to the point of TP starvation.

Standard ST rotation; HT>ID>Dis>Chaos>Phleb>True>Vorpal>Full vs HT>RoT>DS>DS>DS>DS>DS>DS on two mobs. I'm going to neglect Heavy Thrust damage increase and oGCDs because they're ~constant to both. I will include Life Surge on DS for the latter and Full on the former, and assume 0% natural critrate for simplicity.

170>180>220>220+4*30>187+3*25>165>220>545 vs 170>300>400>320>320>320>320>320
2102 in 8 GCDs vs 2470 in 8 GCDs

Thus in 8 GCDs, aoe rotation on two mobs is ~17.5% stronger, but ruinously less TP efficient.

tl;dr: you're right that it's inefficient, but wrong in that you're missing out on dps (unless tp starvation occurs). In terms of raw output, DRG aoe is strong enough that it's profitable even on two mobs if TP is not limiting.

Having to edit this due to post limit - Heavy Thrust damage increase is constant to both sides - repeat the math with a 15% modifier to both sides (after the initial HT) and you'll find the damage increase is identical.

oGCDs are also ~constant because in either case the rotations will be benefiting from BfB and IR more or less throughout and both use Leg Sweep/PS Jump and Dragonfire. The only slight boost experienced by the singletarget side is the fact that your Jump and Dragonfire Dive will benefit from Disembowel (on your primary target only in the latter case). Not by enough to change the conclusion.

[LexSunfire]

HT>RoT>DS spam's better damage on two mobs, but it's not efficient TP wise (and the damage increase does not in any way warrant the extra TP cost in my opinion). For three mobs, it's worthwhile but not to the point of TP starvation.

Standard ST rotation; HT>ID>Dis>Chaos>Phleb>True>Vorpal>Full vs HT>RoT>DS>DS>DS>DS>DS>DS on two mobs. I'm going to neglect Heavy Thrust damage increase and oGCDs because they're ~constant to both. I will include Life Surge on DS for the latter and Full on the former, and assume 0% natural critrate for simplicity.

170>180>220>220+4*30>187+3*25>165>220>545 vs 170>300>400>320>320>320>320>320
2102 in 8 GCDs vs 2470 in 8 GCDs

Thus in 8 GCDs, aoe rotation on two mobs is ~17.5% stronger, but ruinously less TP efficient.

tl;dr: you're right that it's inefficient, but wrong in that you're missing out on dps (unless tp starvation occurs). In terms of raw output, DRG aoe is strong enough that it's profitable even on two mobs if TP is not limiting.

you can't just ignore dmg increase and oGCDs and then conclude that spamming aoe's is better. it might be better if you don't have the dmg increase and it might better if you ignore the oGCds. and it might be better if you have full TP with inv ready to go. but none of that proves it is better.

[EasymodeX]

Dragoons should be using an AOE rotation on 3+ mobs.

Ignorant DRGs are ignorant.

[whiskeybravo]

any drg spamming rot or ds over and over and over again on anything less then 3 or 4 mobs is playing inefficiently and missing out on dps. my ft fully buffed with b4b ir and lifesurge does over 1050 dmg on that one attack alone. tell me spamming the weak rot is better than that.

You are looking at ST damage instead of AoE damage. Fully buffed FT is a lot of GCDs, if you were to fill the same amount of attacks in a given timeframe:

Hypothetical Example:

3 mobs (1620 HP each)
* Using potency, assuming 1 potency is 1 damage

Standard ST rotation:
HT IDC Ph TTT
1620 potency total

Standard RoT Spam:
HT RoT*7 (same # of GCD as above)
920 potency total

So, on paper at least, it would take 3 full ST rotations to drop 3 mobs, or just 2 RoT spam rotations to drop 3 mobs together.

Dragoons are first and foremost ST damage, no dispute there, but as for AoE I would only put them behind BLM and SMN.

(off topic, I feel SMN AoE is equally underrated)