How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[ReliaWylder]

650 sks: 2.50245-((650-354)*0.0003776) or 2.3906804
708 sks: 2.50245-((708-354)*0.0003776) or 2.3687796

GCDs until an extra GCD: 2.3687796*(x+1) = 2.3906804*x

Solve for X: approx 108.

So in the time you get 108 attacks with 650 SKS, you could have gotten 109 attacks with 708 SKS. This occurs at 258.1934832 seconds into the fight, or 4:18. HOWEVER, note that every time a phase change occurs where you cannot attack (every A3S phase change for example), the 4:18 timer effectively resets and you've lost any progress you've made toward the extra GCD. Note that this is also true any time you delay a GCD. This means that if in phase 4 of A3S you have to walk away for Ferrofluid and the GCD isn't being used for a short amount of time, you have again reset your progress toward the extra GCD. This means you need 4:18 of unbroken attacking in phase 4 in order to see the benefit compared to someone running 650 SKS. Phase 4 is only long enough for one stretch of that, so you only gain one GCD in the entirety of phase 4.

Lets assume that the best case is that the extra GCD is a Full Thrust (360 potency) and we have 1079 STR, 76 WD, and 357 DET. That means that before buffs + crt, the FT will deal 1834.51132181 damage (according to the formula ((Potency/100)*(WD/25+1)*(STR/9)*(DET/7290+1)*BUFFS)-1).

Since we get approximately 395 total GCDs + oGCDs here, the effect of 39 DET assuming an average of 220 potency per hit is about 5.7 damage per hit, or 2251.73436306 total damage over the 395 GCDs. As far as DoTs vs Autoattacks, DET scales better on AAs than SKS does, and AAs are responsible for more total damage (about twice as much) as DoTs are. Since 58 SKS is not more than twice as much as 39 DET, even before the better scaling of DET, we can conclude calculating AAs and DoTs would only further shift the balance in favor of DET.

Anyway, all this is to say that as bad as DET is compared to STR and WD, SKS is basically trash in practical situations due to phase transitions.

Edit: This is incorrect - further math has proven that skill speed is actually good and I eat my words.

[whiskeybravo]

Ty for the eloquent breakdown I was trying to find a reason for the boots to be better lol

[SunnyHirose]

SKS is basically trash in practical situations due to phase transitions.

On the contrary! Skill speed's value is mostly in its practicality, not in its stat weight. If it eases getting in a hit within some timed window (a boss phase, greased lightning, berserk, blood of the dragon, the long dark night of the Fire IV casting period) then it has helped you in ways that won't register on a dummy.

[Nayefj]

Hi.

I just started this game and I'm a level 18 lancer. Which level should I reach before leveling up as a marauder in order to become a dragoon?

[ReliaWylder]

On the contrary! Skill speed's value is mostly in its practicality, not in its stat weight. If it eases getting in a hit within some timed window (a boss phase, greased lightning, berserk, blood of the dragon, the long dark night of the Fire IV casting period) then it has helped you in ways that won't register on a dummy.

The problem is that (depending on the skill speed difference) in many cases you cannot get an extra hit until 4 minutes of uninterrupted GCDs. It makes it easier to do the same amount of hits with less strict timings, but you don't actually gain any and therefore gain no dps. And once fights have been practiced to the point that they're basically a dummy parse and you don't make mistakes on them anymore, it doesn't provide any value. And even if you do get an extra hit in, in many cases the DET or CRT would have already more than made up for that hit (as described above). What I'm saying is that the stat weight for skill speed looks good, but its practicality is very bad. At least for DRGs, I don't claim to know anything about other classes.

You can maintain 3 geirskoguls/min with about 480 skill speed. I feel that 580+ skill speed, already having a 100 skill speed buffer, is plenty for slight mistakes already. Any more skill speed is generally a waste.

Especially as phase transitions can make skill speed almost completely worthless. Again, if there is a phase transition before you can gain a full extra GCD, literally the only effect of skill speed is that your DoTs tick slightly harder. As there is no effect on the actual damage output of the weaponskills or off-GCDs. The entire effect on GCD is then wasted since the invuln period allows the lower skill speed person to "catch up" and begin at the same step in the GCD as the higher skill speed person once the invuln drops and DET would then scale about 8x stronger than SKS (since DoTs are only about 1/8th of your damage).

Edit: This is incorrect - further math has proven that skill speed is useful and I eat my words.

[ReliaWylder]

Hi.

I just started this game and I'm a level 18 lancer. Which level should I reach before leveling up as a marauder in order to become a dragoon?

At 30 you can level Marauder to 15 in order to become a Dragoon. I would then finish leveling Dragoon to 50, then go back and get some cross class skills (unless you want to do that earlier, of course).

[SunnyHirose]

The problem is that (depending on the skill speed difference) in many cases you cannot get an extra hit until 4 minutes of uninterrupted GCDs. -snip-

I believe I have understood perfectly what you have said. And I think you are mistaken on two primary counts.

Practicality is recognizing that there will be imperfect conditions and mistakes, not perfect conditions. So, the consideration is not "such and such DPS from an extra hit in this dummy puncher raid", it's "will I get this one super important hit in X GCDs after RNG 'befriends' me all the way to the other side of the arena".

That brings us to the other point naturally: It's not just the enrage timer you're racing; you're racing all the timers all the time! You don't need a full extra GCD to jam the last hit into a narrow window. Losing (for example) BotD at the last second due to things going slightly off is... well, maybe not catastrophic but it's not great.

So, the more your job relies on a tightly timed game of keep-up, and the more the fight tries to screw you over, the more practical skill speed is, however poor the stat is in perfect conditions (and yeah, it's pretty bad). DRG has it relatively good in that regard--certainly much better than ARR monk or BLM right now--and besides that our rotational potency is self-correcting, but we do get a soft benefit out of being able to save our primary mechanic. That's worth far more DPS than however much of a secondary you do or don't stack.

Selene gon deliver to ya.

[whiskeybravo]

I think you both make good points, the only thing I'd contend is if you already have 650+ skill speed, is the 58 skill speed from boots doing more for you than 39 det would be? It's not skill speed vs det in general, just in some circumstances such as this where we are stuck with 2 rather lackluster options. Of course the rest of the gearset should go into consideration as well.. but either way.

From my own experience, having just shot up to 697 skill speed after some new gear last night, it's not doing anything beneficial compared to 647ish skill speed I had before. On the negative side of things, it's making it harder to double-weave in the opener. And while Selene doesn't help, it's a valid consideration (for me at least) if more skill speed is going to hurt my opening dps, and thus overall dps, I am better served with Det than I am with picking up any more skill speed. Others may be experiencing the same things.

[Hakmatic]

I don't think Sunny was making his statement off of how much sks someone has, just in general. I agree with him 100%, if I had to add 50 sks and lose 40 det just to ensure I never have a chance of losing a primary buff or that extra hit during that primary buff, you better believe I'm taking that sks.

[JackFross]

That brings us to the other point naturally: It's not just the enrage timer you're racing; you're racing all the timers all the time! You don't need a full extra GCD to jam the last hit into a narrow window. Losing (for example) BotD at the last second due to things going slightly off is... well, maybe not catastrophic but it's not great.

I think this is the major point Relia was overlooking. Yeah, you need 108 continuous gcds to get 109 instead in the exact same time, but the bonus of 58 sks gains you 0.021s (about) every single time you hit your gcd over what the person with 58 less gets. This could be the difference between +1 gcd here and there throughout the course of the fight. You don't need to finish that 109th gcd for it to be noticed that you got an extra hit. That's just the time that you'll see DRG A hit gcd 108 0.021s before DRG B hits gcd 109, and both those gcds reset at exactly the same time. It's FAR less than that before you will effectively gain an extra hit. If your sks is too low, for instance, you'll get one fewer GCD in phase 1 of A3S and have to end with Impulse Drive rather than Disembowel, since the latter won't drop its debuff on the mob. That phase is 56 seconds long. Not 4:18. Similarly, lower sks means you'll have to hold your second Jump for after the sluice puddles; that extra 58 sks gives you about 0.1s of bonus buffer on the reset timer for Jump, which is significant when looking at such a tight timing.

That said, I definitely see the merit in both sides; det is more consistent, sks is more situational.


But I'm gonna defend to the death that if you have a gobtwine and your [head, chest, or pants] and [boots] are i200 AND you own the Gordian Sabatons of Maiming, you're throwing your twine away if you upgrade the boots. You're also taking a substantial hit to your damage if you wear the 200 boots over the 210 Gordian ones, because 35 det in no way is gonna make up 5 strength in addition to the potential bonus utility of 58 sks. Which is all I was trying to imply in my initial post on this topic.