How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[MiniTyra]

Check for your Auto-Attacks man. Any second you spend looking away from the dummy is 1 potentially an auto-attack you could lose... in 3mins, 180s, that's 180/2.88 = 62.5 AAs. If you spent 4s in total looking away from your target, 180-4 = 176 / 2.88 = 61.111 AA's instead.

Also, no one can actually judge or "fix" your rotation just by looking at a number you're spitting out and ilvl. If you want people to actually check what's up, post a video of you on a dummy.

One more thing, food/pots are not taken into account for the SSS dummy checks. If you're unable to clear it without food/pots, then you're not ready to clear it.

[dark494]

The A5S dummy is definitely doable in pre-3.2 gear. I've beaten it at i209 with the relic spear @660 ss. You gotta be quick and on point with your rotation and facing direction. It's a very close shave though. You need about 1485.333 dps to beat it, and I was usually hitting anywhere between 1484.5 and 1486.1 on my early attempts with no gear upgrades.

[Estelle9lives]

And now, with my current gear (seen here) I'm failing the A7S dummy by <1% with Flint Caviar and X-Pots ;_; One run I was at 1710 according to magic, but it wasn't enough to kill it in time, apparently. If I actually sit down and try and maximize a 3-minute parse, I could probably consistently down it.

I'm glad I'm not the only one failing to kill that, haha. I've been bashing my head against it for a while but always end up at 2-3%, with no food or pots. That 140 extra dps you need compared to the a6s one makes it rough maaan.

[JackFross]

I'm glad I'm not the only one failing to kill that, haha. I've been bashing my head against it for a while but always end up at 2-3%, with no food or pots. That 140 extra dps you need compared to the a6s one makes it rough maaan.

After tweaking a few things (not gear) I managed to get my dps on the dummies up to consistently 1710+, with 1755 (<1% fail on A8S ;_; ) being my best attempt so far. I'm gonna go back at it again later to try and take it down, since I think I can with my current setup.

[Nominous]

I'm going to post a video, or at least try. I'm constantly cycling my hotbars to see if anything's coming up, so it'd be easier just to show that there's nothing I can really find to go any higher.

[JackFross]

I'm going to post a video, or at least try. I'm constantly cycling my hotbars to see if anything's coming up, so it'd be easier just to show that there's nothing I can really find to go any higher.

This was the closest I came to downing the A8S dummy today. Maybe it'll help you a bit re: playing on controller? I dunno. I never cycle hotbars to check buffs, because it'll inevitably lead to hanging gcds which is a massive dps loss. On attempts where I fucked my rotation and delayed a gcd by even 0.2 seconds, my dps plummeted from 1710 to ~1640 on that particular failure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXyPLxvbnhg

I optimize for a 3-minute fight in there a little (I screw it up every single time because I'm an incorrigible idiot) and pulled ~1757 with the gear I linked earlier. I didn't record my i211 Sephirot spear A5S kill, but I can do that tomorrow if you'd like. Also with... I think... Steamed Staff HQ + X-Potion of Strength

[Nominous]

text limit snip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gji_CLajHgo

That was the A5S dummy. Level 214, with a Sephirot weapon. No food, no pot, only 9 seconds left. Tried again with Baked Pipira HQ, got like 10 seconds left.
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...acter/2801595/
^ Lodestone for gear. I wasn't able to participate in Savage, due to a static implosion. And forget about Diadem or crafted.

A couple of things to note-
I'm still fuzzy on the 2GK/BfB thing, as it never really seems to work for me how it's been explained. I held the GK and it still didn't really work out.
I shouldn't have used Life Surge the way I did deep in since it hung up one of my skills, but I thought it'd fit.
I'm on a controller, so cycling hotbars is extremely easy as you see. I'm NEVER missing one of my cooldowns coming up, EVER.

And yet still, I'm at like 1540-1550 or something DPS (if the calculator is to be believed) without a pot. It just confuses me. How can you literally be like 200+ higher than me? I'd give maybe 30-50 to the pot, but after that, where is the remaining 100+? I don't see any flaw glaring enough in my rotation, and even if there were, I'd be just as confused as to how that'd come out to 100 DPS lost.

I mean, I'm comfortable with my DPS, I guess. I rank pretty well on FFlogs for Sephirot EX (for my server anyway), for not being given any special treatment, and using no pots, but... It just irks me that there's clearly something holding me back from doing even higher numbers, and it's not even remotely clear as to what.

I see you hold cooldowns (like internal release, life surge, Dragon Fire, Spineshatter) at certain points, and for a good while. But I was under the impression that, from what this thread's shown me anyways, that it's hardly ever something you want to do (if given full uptime). Holding Life Surge made no real sense, nor did the internal release. Perhaps these are the said "Optimizations" for this specific 3 min parse?

[Shenjiro]

Tried again with Baked Pipira HQ, got like 10 seconds left.

As far as I know potions & food doesn't work with those dummys.

[MiniTyra]

They do work on the dummys. As I said on the last page, the DPS checks needed to pass the SSS dummys do not take into account food/pots. So if you're using any external buffs to clear the SSS dummy, then chances are, you cannot pass it.

[MiniTyra]

I'm going to do a Dragoon write-up for those suffering with 710+ SS.

Saw a thread on reddit last night and just face-palmed all the way through. For those who're genuinely curious, unless you're running 714 SS at a maximum, you should not have any BOTD issues for at least 3 cycles, or 3 minutes. It's only after 3 minutes where you'll offset your BOTD stuff.

Once you hit the 650SS mark, approximately every 20 SS you gain knocks off the maximum BOTD cycles by 1. 654, which happens to also be the next CT clip marker, is the last SS where you'll have "infinite" cycles with no clipping issues.