The Ninja Superthread

[Hivernica]

Do we know if it's best to drop DE for AC? Whenever it happens for me, I never drop DE for too long, like AC -> SE -> GS -> DE. I know the priority is DE SF MUT, but what about AC? Before or just after DE?

[Arkenne]

Priority between AC or DE?

AC, all the way.
DE gives a bonus of 10% per each strike you give.
Lets say you for some reason end up in the situation where both DE and Huton are about to drop, your next GCD can be either DE or AC but your next combos must be SF and MU because they will fall off afterwards.

Opting for DE means you lose about 3 seconds recasting Huton, delaying your GCD by one second and cleanly losing 240 potency minimum just because you lost the chance of a Shuriken, worse if Raiton, nevermind Suiton for TA.
Whereas in contrast going for AC means DE will fall, but that would mean a loss of 35points from SF, 6 from MU and 61 points from DE, for a grand total of 102... in 12 seconds...

Of course there are also oGCDs that could happen and what not from other people but I still will say AC :v

[LordTiberiusRex]

Do we know if it's best to drop DE for AC? Whenever it happens for me, I never drop DE for too long, like AC -> SE -> GS -> DE. I know the priority is DE SF MUT, but what about AC? Before or just after DE?

Armor Crush is before DE; it's Huton's equivalent. That gives us the following order below:

C > D > F > M > A

This is your priority chain. If the first one is up, move to the next, so-on, and so-forth. C = Huton/Armor Crush.

Additionally, you can use AC in the place of AE and still maintain the base rotation established in the OP, like so:

D - F - M - A||C - D - F - A||C - D - M - F - A||C - D - F - A||C - M - D - F - A||C --> Repeat

If there is >= 40 seconds on Huton after using Aeolian Edge or Armor Crush, then use Aeolian Edge.
If there is < 40 seconds on Huton after using Aeolian Edge or Armor Crush, then use Armor Crush.

Why 40 seconds? It's the allowable time Huton will last if you do AC/Huton -> AE before you can recast AC, factoring in 1-2 mudra actions, a bit of GCD bleed, and moving around a bit during your rotation.

[Korashy]

snip

pretty much this, though there are situations where putting up a dot is better than for example DE (you are about to have a bunch of moving to do or kill adds and can get 1-2 more GCD in).

Which brings me to a question, does this game have smart dots? Basically if I put a dot on the target and then refresh it, does it clip the dot ticks, or does it just smoothly extend duration only?

[LordTiberiusRex]

Which brings me to a question, does this game have smart dots? Basically if I put a dot on the target and then refresh it, does it clip the dot ticks, or does it just smoothly extend duration only?

Heh. Lucky me, I found one of my older posts in the thread to help answer that.

It clips the amount of ticks that your previous application could have. For example, if you clip Shadow Fang at 3 seconds, you would receive five ticks instead of the usual six ticks, according to this formula: [(DoT Effect Duration)/3]. The clipped Shadow Fang had a lifetime of 15 seconds, therefore five ticks are expected. Remember, ticks are based on a server's timer, not your own DoT's timer

If you clip the first Shadow Fang at 3 seconds with another Shadow Fang refreshing the timer back to 18 seconds, you'd have 11 expected ticks; the five from the clipped and the six from the full, compared to two full Shadow Fangs with 12 expected ticks.

[Korashy]

snip
If you clip the first Shadow Fang at 3 seconds with another Shadow Fang refreshing the timer back to 18 seconds, you'd have 11 expected ticks; the five from the clipped and the six from the full, compared to two full Shadow Fangs with 12 expected ticks.

The question is:

If SF is at 7 seconds (1 second away from ticking) and I refresh shadow fang, back to 18. Is it now still 1 second away from ticking (duration simply extended) or is 3 seconds away from ticking (duration refreshed + tick timer refreshed (dot clipping)).

[LordTiberiusRex]

The question is:

If SF is at 7 seconds (1 second away from ticking) and I refresh shadow fang, back to 18. Is it now still 1 second away from ticking (duration simply extended) or is 3 seconds away from ticking (duration refreshed + tick timer refreshed (dot clipping)).

The former. You'd still be one second away from ticking, so it is only a duration extension.

[Korashy]

The former. You'd still be one second away from ticking, so it is only a duration extension.

So essentially you just lose some potential potency by refreshing "early".

Excellent. Thank you, I've been trying to get someone to answer this for me a while.

[Hivernica]

Snip

Thanks, that's incredibly informative. Exactly what I was looking for.