How to Dragoon Per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[seekified]

Had a go at ravana ex last night, hit a problem with the first seeing whatever, if it's left or right my group are asking me to hold back cause my tank can't hit front and I'm ripping aggro..doesn't feel good not being able to ham the burst out..

A bit odd. By the time Ravana does that move, the tank should've built up sufficient aggro to make it through that, I'd imagine. Are you significantly out-gearing your tank? Worst case, he can always spam Flash during that section because Seeing only blocks physical skills as far as I'm aware.

[Outfoxed]

snip

My issue is that we are putting the cart before the horse. Until 2.4 can be established as superior, it's stupid to theory craft for it. Keep in mind, this isn't about getting more damage... It's baout getting optimal damage. Meaning that our goal is to choose between one or the other. While no one doubts that gaining 0.3pps is good, is it better to gain +50 damage per hit? If you had 100 stat points and that 100 stat points got you either to 2.4 gcd or flat 100 damage boost what would you take? So while it's good to get that 0.3 pps from clipping HT, is it BETTER to get an extra 100 damage per hit on all your other skills? No one denies that increasing damage is good. What I do question is if you could get MORE damage.

And unless you can prove 2.4 gcd is superior, you have no grounds to base your theorycrafting on gear that will be obsolete in 1 week. You don't build the foundation of your house on faulty grounds. my argument against 2.4 gcd is that you haven't proven 2.4 gcd to be superior. 2.5 works because it's the default value.

second of all, potency per second isn't even a good measurement when comparing secondary stats. Crit and Det do not play a factor at all in potency per second calculations. And skillspeed only tells part of its story in potency per second calculations. potency per second is an irrelevant stat for comparing secondary stats. If you had to pick between 100 str or 100 skillspeed 2.55 which would you pick? The strength right? Yet coincidentally the str gives 0 potency per second increase.

there's a tradeoff. you can't just say hey it has XYZ. it also has ABC which just happen to not be good. 1) increased TP usage 2) less grace period PER GCD 3) further clipping of chaos thrust

but since when did you start caring about grace periods? there's a massive inconsistency in your approach.... 2.0 rotation had 0 grace periods and a suboptimal (12345678) rotation lost 50 potency over a minute long rotation. one error meant we dropped CT for however long that error was. how come all of a sudden in 3.0 we've completely revised our approach for no reason? why are we assuming that grace periods are needed?

and yes geirskogul is incredibly flexible but there are rules. you get 3/min, you can choose when to use it. i dont even know what you're trying to argue there. maybe arguing for the sake of arguing... i dont know.

fyi, your rotation is slightly inaccurate. i wouldn't put geirskogul immediately after the 4th in the opener. geirskogul isn't reliant on being cast the moment it's up. as mentioned, you get 3/min, using it earlier isn't advantageous. it's better to move up other oGCD abilities that actually do rely on being cast the moment they're up (everything else)

[seekified]

snip

For one, being full Law gear lands you at precisely 2.4 GCD. It'll be interesting to see if the esoteric stuff does the same, but I can already see a few nice perks from this.

1. You get 0.5s more per rotation to renew BotD (which has saved me dozens of times already, trust me) and HT (which is nice).
2. You can FAR more easily do 9 GCD BFBs and it allows you to nicely line up everything after Heavy Thrust to your second 4th inside your initial BFB.
3. Grace periods ARE needed because of unexpected movement/dodging. I for one am happy to have a tiny bit of leeway now compared to before, even if holding a Geirskogul is obviously easier.

Just my own thoughts on the matter, I'm sure Dervy has his.

[Outfoxed]

For one, being full Law gear lands you at precisely 2.4 GCD. It'll be interesting to see if the esoteric stuff does the same, but I can already see a few nice perks from this.

1. You get 0.5s more per rotation to renew BotD (which has saved me dozens of times already, trust me) and HT (which is nice).
2. You can FAR more easily do 9 GCD BFBs and it allows you to nicely line up everything after Heavy Thrust to your second 4th inside your initial BFB.
3. Grace periods ARE needed because of unexpected movement/dodging. I for one am happy to have a tiny bit of leeway now compared to before, even if holding a Geirskogul is obviously easier.

Just my own thoughts on the matter, I'm sure Dervy has his.

Theorycrafting for law is pointless. It's obsolete in 1 week, and you've made use of it for maybe 2 weeks. It's also been viable for 0% of raids.

Grace periods are nice yes. You also lose .1 seconds of grace period per GCD. It's a two way street. So while you get a bit more time to clip HT, you get a bit less time per GCD

The leeway for geirskogul is several seconds long. It's actually very forgiving of minor mistakes.

Landing multiple GCDs under BFB is nice. But so is hitting harder on every single skill. Every stat has it's perks. I mean if you were arguing for crit, you would be talking about how it's so nice how your crits hit harder with IR/BL/LS. The question is, is it relatively stronger than other secondary stats?

And to be quite honest, no one really knows... Which is why we can't assume anything about how much skillspeed is needed

You can't operate under the assumption that X skillspeed is needed. That's basically a fundamental flaw in logic. I'm not saying skillspeed isn't the best stat or that it's the worst stat. I'm saying we can't assume anything about skillspeed. And telling people that 2.4 is ideal when all you have to argue for it is a couple seconds of grace period, and 0.3pps on HT is not exactly reasonable.

Until there is a comparison of secondary stats aka stat weighs, you can't assume skill speed is important. You can't just say.... Hey I'm clipping HT this must mean skillspeed is better. Just like I can't say hey my crits hit much harder than before... This means crit is the best secondary stat.

All secondary stats have their benefits. I could list the benefits of crit or det but that doesn't speak anything of how it stacks up against skillspeed.

If all your assumptions are that 2.4 is ideal, then it is up to you to prove it.... And not using a misleading figure like potency per second which conveniently doesn't take into account crit or det.

So unless stat weighs come out, the assumption that 2.4 is ideal should not be thrown around.

[Tilgung]

Theorycrafting for law is pointless. It's obsolete in 1 week.

Wrong. Esoteric will likely have heavy weekly caps and Alexander Hard was stated to have CT/ST/WoD style drop systems. Meaning all progression will be done with primarily Law gear.

[enil]

...

I think there's a bunch of stuff you are misunderstanding.

PPS. PPS is being used to discuss difference between rotations - not stats. There's no discussion of stats because that's not what's being discussed when we talk about PPS.

Law. Don't theorycraft on the gear that is available? There are things to be discussed that aren't gear/stat dependant (like rotations?). There is no issue with people trying to maximise their dps with the gear they have even if it may not be relevant in two weeks. If you don't like discussing it, fine, don't need to tell other people not to.

HT uptime/grace. I don't even understand what you are trying to say here. Are you trying to say we lose damage in some way when we clip HT?

Stat weights. I think you are misunderstanding something here, stat weights are basically saying, if I add 1Det at this point in time how much damage relative do the other stats do I gain? If any stat weights were released right now they would be for LAW gear and already have assumed 2.4~ GCD because that's what the assumed level of gear would be.

I feel like your real point is is the damage gain from the 2.4 GCD worth the SkS? What is the exact PPS gain from 2.5GCD to 2.4GCD? Is it worth the potential possible STR/DET/CRIT loss in the future if we need to either meld or use lower ilvl gear to reach that level of SkS? (Though by your own point, it's pointless to discuss since the gear isn't out).

[Dervy]

The rotation in the OP isn't for players who know how to use GK to follow. It's for newer players who need to understand the relationship between BotD, GK and their combos. Having it set-up the way I did, it makes it easier for players to practice on the training dummy and learn the timing of their cooldowns, as well as observe the numbers more carefully.

It's easy for you to say "oh as long as you get 3 per/min in, who cares". A newer player would just blow 3 in and mistime everything and wonder why they only got one, then come here and QQ. It's nothing more than training wheels for newbies. I mean, it does even say "Basic Opener for Beginner Dragoons" in the title, for goodness sake, lmao.

The reason why I haven't put an in depth explanation is because of gear for Alexander Normal and consequently, Savage, where stats will continuously be inflated. At higher GCDs, your BotD usage changes from being used in between VT -> FT on the first BotD cast. Instead, you're ending up delaying the cast by an additional 5 GCDs to make it fit correctly, thus, there's a slight cooldown management shift. But what's the point in writing about that when we don't know how stat values will increase when the gear comes out?

Our rotation is reliant on Skillspeed and that is why I've not posted any more "complex" rotations. My own personal rotation isn't even in the OP because I know the timings off by heart - I assume many other Dragoons here have changed GK usage from being used after their first 4th to being double-weaved with Life Surge or something else.

[Aiurily]

aaa, close to 900 on ravana ex (865 with lb3)

maybe i should start using draco pots and stop being cheap

[Dervy]

Jesus. Do you have a pic of that? What was the run kill and group composition? 1 Tank x5 DPS x2 Heals?

[Aiurily]

mnk/drg/blm/mch/pld/war/whm/sch