How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[MiniTyra]

Not in all cases. It depends on the placement and how you're stacking it with other oCDs.

For example, running 670+ SS, you can set it up so you delay the 2nd application of BFB by 1 GCD (So before PH), but ensure that the BFB is used half way through your GCD and ensure you have buffed DoTs on both leg and straff doll. By doing this, and ensuring you've hit all of your jumps 100% of the time, you can set it up so you can land Jump just before the BFB ends, without delaying the PS + Jump before it.

There's other things you should be doing on A4S. If you're on Leg 4 for example and want to pad a lot of DPS, you could delay BFB by a few GCDs so you can get x2 BFB buffed GKs on triple targets. Leg + Staff + Add next to leg.

What you don't want to do, is hold BFB for multiple GCDs like what most people were doing in A3S progression for the Hand of Pain Split, and the Healer Snatcher.

[whiskeybravo]

There's other things you should be doing on A4S. If you're on Leg 4 for example and want to pad a lot of DPS, you could delay BFB by a few GCDs so you can get x2 BFB buffed GKs on triple targets. Leg + Staff + Add next to leg.

Yea, I think one of the war was bragging about double or triple decimate'ing the leg + dolls over there xD. It was my first time in so I was just trying to stay alive and do half decent dps mainly lol. Seemed like each leg started with all buffs up, 3rd leg/final phase with Litany. Details are a bit blurry but I know I mainly just opened with burst, jumped on west add when it spawned, fed and went back to dps, if B4B was up I probably popped it unless the leg was close to dying.

But in general, just trying to get a feel for, it seems like if it's just a opening burst phase a la thex, a3s, a4s legs it's probably better to stick with usual burst opener since the benefits of delaying B4B don't really shine until after a couple mins. (that's what it sounds like?)

[Nyghtmarerobu]

This so much, we basicaly sprint at double the speedwith an animation of jumping. Also, would like to jump out of combat. Like the jump ninjas get, but dragoon version. Jumping up high for no apparent reason should be a thing on the field XD

Any sort of jump or movement skill all do the same thing. They count you as "Sliding" across the ground, rather than actually jumping over obstacles. So you go right through puddles and floor effects with any of them sadly. Aetherial Manipulate, Spineshatter, Dragonfire, Shukichi, Plunge. I don't think Jump is included, I could be wrong, since you end up at your starting position so its almost like you never left it, despite the animation having you fly toward and on top of the enemy.

[Erys]

Any sort of jump or movement skill all do the same thing. They count you as "Sliding" across the ground, rather than actually jumping over obstacles. So you go right through puddles and floor effects with any of them sadly. Aetherial Manipulate, Spineshatter, Dragonfire, Shukichi, Plunge. I don't think Jump is included, I could be wrong, since you end up at your starting position so its almost like you never left it, despite the animation having you fly toward and on top of the enemy.

Jump does the same, you can see your target circle moving from A to B to A. If it only had that effect, double the strat.

[JackFross]

S-sorry for rambling;;; I do that a lot.


My rotation of B4B in A4S is 1 on each Legs 1-3, and I think 2 on leg 4? Then my next one is on the Manipulator after Rev. With my current raid dps, I *could* get a second B4B on Leg 2 and not waste any of it, but some of those hits would be on the Manipulator, and I'd rather hold it to start Leg 3 with CT>Ph leg >CT Jagd doll. I also could get a second at the bitter end of Leg 3, but I'd lose some to Mortal Rev, and I wouldn't be able to open Leg 4 with the same that I open Leg 3 with.

My group only kills the third Straf Doll, and I never even hit it once. I pull off, feed my doll, and then I'm back to full uptime on the leg, with B4B being used on both dolls, I'm pretty sure, I'd have to dig through logs. I have my whole Legs 1-4 rotation down pat now, I just can't for the life of me remember if I use B4B halfway through Jagd Doll 1 or 2 for some reason.

//EDIT: Second B4B comes up during doll 2 on leg 4. My first one I hold for Disembowel because once or twice, it's fallen off before my Jagd Doll CT when I pop it a gcd sooner or something? I honestly can't remember my reasoning for why I delay it a GCD there and trade the 180 ID for a 100 HT, especially because that makes my *next* B4B come up after I hit Phleb on the second doll rather than right before it. x:


That said, it's important to note the delay between the start of Leg 1 and Leg 2 and useful to note that the opener of IR>BL | BotD>B4B | Pot or BL | IR>B4B | BotD IS technically more potency than doing it the other way. If you *really* wanna pad dps on leg 1, you can even just skip Phlebotomize entirely and get 4 double gsks in the first 60s of the fight. I don't personally bother with it, since it DOES decrease my single-target dps on the leg I wanna hit. If positioning allows it (it doesn't in my group), the same can be done for legs 2 and 3, as well, I think. I just don't think it's conducive to clearing, so I wouldn't recommend dicking around like that until your group has it on farm. It might also be valuable to do that rotation on Leg 3 or 4 if you didn't get any Quarantines and you can't count on Goad/Paeon/Muscle, to improve TP efficiency.

But, in general, delaying B4B or not absolutely depends on whether delaying 1 gcd will pick up extra ogcd attacks like Jump, SSD, or DFD that you wouldn't get otherwise.

I do think it's interesting to consider shifting dps skills around by a gcd or two when you know you'll get exactly the same amount of them regardless when you use it (within that window), since the *only* reason it's optimal to use everything on-cooldown is to maximize how many times we can use a given skill in the duration of a fight.


Oh and to quantify all of this with numbers... Using an X-Potion of Strength HQ on leg 3 after adds, with 0 Quarantines, I end Leg 3 at ~1400 dps and Leg 4 ends at ~1340-1350 dps with me handling the Jagd Dolls that spawn next to the leg we're on. I use Thordan spear, Eso head/chest/belt/legs/wrist/ring, Gordian hands/feet/neck/ears/ring with Flint Caviar. Party comp DRG/NIN/BRD/BLM/WAR/DRK/WHM/SCH

[MiniTyra]

That said, it's important to note the delay between the start of Leg 1 and Leg 2 and useful to note that the opener of IR>BL | BotD>B4B | Pot or BL | IR>B4B | BotD IS technically more potency than doing it the other way.

But less raid DPS as there's a chance you might not get your Bard to hit the Battle Litany.It's more Raid DPS delaying the BL by 1 GCD, to allow your bard to have 17+10+10+15 = 52% CRT, which translate into a 6 Potency gain in the opening leg for your Bard, than you being selfish for less than a 2 potency gain. Bards and Dragoons, according to Arisue Neetsha, pull the same damage values at the same baseline of stats, just the bard has a lower rotational potency. So if you're pushing raid DPS, absolutely, delaying the BL by a GCD is a lot better.

S-sorry for rambling;;; I do that a lot.


Oh and to quantify all of this with numbers... Using an X-Potion of Strength HQ on leg 3 after adds, with 0 Quarantines, I end Leg 3 at ~1400 dps and Leg 4 ends at ~1340-1350 dps with me handling the Jagd Dolls that spawn next to the leg we're on. I use Thordan spear, Eso head/chest/belt/legs/wrist/ring, Gordian hands/feet/neck/ears/ring with Flint Caviar. Party comp DRG/NIN/BRD/BLM/WAR/DRK/WHM/SCH

If your Groups DPS is high and you're using a potion in the opening leg, your potion will be up on the 3rd leg in the final 10% of HP, not after the Staff Doll blow. There's no point using it on leg 3 if this is the case. It's a lot better to hold it for Leg 4 so you can do a BFB + IR + POT opener. You'll still get your potion ready again for Manipulator, if I remember correctly, some time after the first set of Dolls.

I personally no longer do the Jagd Dolls and my Group, well... We're in an awkward situation where our tank is getting screwed by Mortal Revolution in the first Quarantine. So, I hold my Potion until the 2nd Leg. This allows me to push my 2nd potion at leg 4 where you have the final Staff Doll, so I can do Potion IR + BFB + x2 GK on Staff + Leg + Tank Jagd. It pads the DPS insanely high. The 3rd potion is used in the final 15% of Manipulator.

I also use uh... 674 SS in A4S.

[JackFross]

But less raid DPS as there's a chance you might not get your Bard to hit the Battle Litany.

If your bard misses Battle Litany used between HT and ID, he's in the wrong spot. It's not my fault your Bard doesn't position properly to get the buff; mine does. It's also not YOUR fault the Bard misses the buff. There's openers they can use to be in proper position for me to use Battle Litany in an optimal position for myself without worrying about the BARD being out of range. I told everyone when and where I'm using it every pull. We even had a discussion about it when the BLM was curious about why he was missing it sometimes. He adjusted position on the pull and never misses it anymore. So, with that sort of communication, if they miss it, it's not my fault, especially because we start on the Right Hindleg and I run straight at the side of the leg and stop there to use HT>BL>ID>IR>B4B> before shifting to where I need to be to avoid the first Hydro (and get a 2x gsk).

Of note: the opener and rotation my bard uses while getting Battle Litany with me using it at the end of the gcd after HT has him sitting at 1400+ at the end of Leg 1 without quarantine or potion and using the thordan bow.

If your Groups DPS is high and you're using a potion in the opening leg, your potion will be up on the 3rd leg in the final 10% of HP, not after the Staff Doll blow.

We don't pot the first leg, since we already kill it super fast. We pot leg 3 because why not, more or less. Potting leg 2 would require waiting until after the first quarantine, which makes it dicey, though theoretically I could also hold B4B and IR for then and they'd still both be back for Leg 3 anyway. If I were to be smart and use my potion at the start of Leg 3 in my opener there (which I honestly just usually forget to do), It would probably end up being back in time for me to get 2 more in the rest of the fight. You get 3 pots in the fight, since it's at worst a 13 minute fight. Using them as they come up is only ~9 minutes of cooldown time you need to worry about, and you will *never* see a 4th potion (since #4 comes at 13:30 which is 30s after enrage killed you). Delaying your first by ~3:15 will still let you see three potions in the fight if your dps is average or above average like my group's is, so it really makes no difference. 3:15 > 7:45 > 12:15 - 45s to spare.

I couldn't find you on fflogs, so I can't corroborate how insanely that boosts your dps over the numbers I'm currently pulling, and I'm an insane stickler for statistics, primarily because I'm a nerd with a bachelors in Math. :B

I'm currently ~40 dps behind the best Dragoon with my party comp through leg 3, with him not doing adds and having a 210 weapon, more than likely. I fall off further on leg 4 because my dps there is anything but optimized, and he again doesn't do adds whereas I do. He also uses pots in a more optimized manner since I still do it dumb by having it not overlap with any other buffs on Leg 3. I mostly wish there was some way to organize the A4S dragoon parses by "people who do adds" and "people who don't" to be honest, so I can see if my dropoff is actually normal or I'm fucking something up royally (which I don't deny is wholly possible).

//EDIT: I did find another Dragoon who does adds - highest ranking one my party comp (just listed as 0 MCH/0 AST/1 NIN/1 DRG), and they're at ~1386 after leg 4, so I have some work to do.


I apologize if any of this comes across confrontational; none of it is intended as such.

[whiskeybravo]

I'm an insane stickler for statistics, primarily because I'm a nerd with a bachelors in Math. :B

That makes.. So much sense xD

And.. I'm gonna take a guess that this is it..

Also, you guys talking about GK hitting 2 legs at the same time? Do they not heal up after one goes down like normal mode? Or is it just padding dps that doesn't matter? lol

[MiniTyra]

And.. I'm gonna take a guess that this is it..

TEHEHE

You want to get Top 50 on FFlogs? You pad, even if it's useless padding. It's why I don't care about FFlogs. It's just e-peen for show. Anyone could pad all my GKs on all the legs and really push DPS a lot higher on A4S, but I see no reason for it.

[Ninjah2r]

You guys have a list of changes you'd like to see for drg? if so what are they?