How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[SunnyHirose]

In clearing Gordias Savage, the only fight I really needed to use Draconian potions was A3 (as in, with my team, with our gear, with our raid composition, running into 1% enrages with X-potions). If you're not doing Nisi, the DPS check for A4 is not strictly a matter of raw DPS and X-potions will probably do the trick; did for me, in fact our first clear caught 100% of our video-capable people by surprise and not all of us were putting on our game faces. A1 and A2 were probably possible potionless from week 1. And also probably not worth wasting time seeing if they could be done potionless week 1....

NQ Mega-Potions can be purchased from a vendor in Ishgard for 950 gil. This is cheap enough for me to spam it in any casual content if I so wish. It was also good for the first umpteen pulls of savage progression. Biggest downside might be the 5m cooldown... it doesn't align with very much (Battle Voice, anyone?), and it doesn't feel like it's worth waiting for.

Leveling crafts was a satisfying experience for myself and has made me plenty of gil, but it's basically a different game and a timesinky investment. It's not gonna be everyone's thing, but I encourage people to try it out. If you have the proper cross-class skills (sorry, there's really no getting around that and even specialist skills don't quite compensate enough) and are appropriately geared, it should be really easy to produce X-potions at around level 55 or so, and you don't even need master alchemist books unlocked or anything.

Any kind of poisoning potion is completely useless against any mob level 51 and up (that is not an opinion! I mean useless in the sense that the game will actually not let you use it). They were also not cost effective whatsoever at level 50 (at least in PvE, PvP's beyond my expertise). I only used them for crucial raid progression, and I'm sure they were also great if you're into speedruns. Now they are probably best used for the lv. 45 levequest.