Lock and Load: The Reassembled Machinist Guide

[ShaolinMike]

Question for all your MCH vets. I recently got mine to 60 and have been tossing between this and BRD for my ranged DPS/support job. I can execute the opener with my eyes closed (SMN main makes pulling oGCDs in the opener simple), but I found myself doing about 100 more DPS with my BRD on the SSS dummy (both jobs were at i198). My question is about the rotation as a fight goes on. I've been told that the only cooldown to hold is holding Hawk's Eye a bit so it lines up with B4B, so does that mean that you pop EVERYTHING else as it comes off cooldown (specifically your oGCDs like Gauss shot, Head Graze, Ricochet, etc.)?

[Aiurily]

Question for all your MCH vets. I recently got mine to 60 and have been tossing between this and BRD for my ranged DPS/support job. I can execute the opener with my eyes closed (SMN main makes pulling oGCDs in the opener simple), but I found myself doing about 100 more DPS with my BRD on the SSS dummy (both jobs were at i198). My question is about the rotation as a fight goes on. I've been told that the only cooldown to hold is holding Hawk's Eye a bit so it lines up with B4B, so does that mean that you pop EVERYTHING else as it comes off cooldown (specifically your oGCDs like Gauss shot, Head Graze, Ricochet, etc.)?

in a nutshell yes. there are minor nuances, but they won't affect your dps by 100 less

[Aiurily]

went and did some testing for fun again. for ref, here's an older post with similar testing done, but in i210 and with a weapon with faster+lower dmg auto attacks

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...60#post3358060


stats - http://puu.sh/nXcvY/063b770cf2.jpg

gb on split shot - 1420 avg (2138 max 1283 median 1207 min) @ 20% crit rate, 319 samples

gb off split shot - 1095 avg (1647 max 994 median 929 min) @ 20% crit rate, 401 samples

auto-attack - 575 avg (858 max 517 median 484 min) @ 21% crit rate, 2196 samples

rook - 561 avg @ 20% crit rate, 1950 samples

below are estimates. 1.2857 modifier for slug shot, 1.4285 for clean shot, 1.5714 for 1 ammo clean shot

gb on slug shot - 1825
gb off slug shot - 1407

gb on clean shot - 2028
gb off clean shot - 1564

gb on 1a clean shot - 2231
gb off 1a clean shot - 1720

so roughly 30% increase as expected from gb off->gb on.


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actual relevant information

gb on split shot - 1420 avg
gb off split shot+auto - 1670 avg; 17.6% increase
gb off split shot+2 autos - 2245 avg; 58.1% increase

gb on slug shot - 1825 avg
gb off slug shot+auto - 1982 avg; 8.6% increase
gb off slug shot+2 autos - 2557 avg; 40.1% increase

gb on clean shot - 2028
gb off clean shot+auto - 2139 - 5.47% increase
gb off clean shot+2 autos - 2714 - 33.82% increase

gb on 1a clean shot - 2231
gb off 1a clean shot+auto - 2295 - 2.868% increase
gb off 1a clean shot+2 autos - 2870 - 28.64% increase

overall the above contains very rough numbers, with very questionable methodology, with a low sample size, but the general idea is still there.

1 auto:1 gcd is generally a damage increase, and 2 autos1:gcd is a fairly big increase for the duration of that GCD.

tl;dr stance dancing is nice and still a damage increase as our ilvl goes up