Heavy Thrust?

[CookieMonsta]

Geirskogul is a 200 potency Doomspike every 10 seconds (technically 20 if you don't want to drop BOTD), and I'd rather pick out the hardest target on a pull and make it go away with my ST rotation before switching to AOE. If I'm paired with a SMN or BLM, though, there might not be any trash left for me to AOE...

Anyway, OP, heavy thrust is 100% required, there's no Weird Muta-Meta where HT can be left out of DRG's rotation. Kick bads, don't encourage or carry them.

Actually, there is. If you are about to lose BoTD and the cast is on cd iirc it's better to drop HT to maintain the BoTD if dropping phelb alone isn't enough

[JackFross]

They should! If nothing else, go up to a cliff, back up to the edge and hang your heels over just a bit and Elusive Jump. The game will bug, there will be no animation. You just get teleported to the bottom with 0 dmg taken. It's kindda fun and handy in some situations, but you gotta do it just right or it doesn't work.

Doesn't require any precision, really. If you Elusive past an edge, it'll just track your progress along the ground and you'll end where you should have (on the ground, generally) with 0 damage taken. Unless they patched this since the last time I messed around with it. It still works from the roof of a house, at least.

You forgot to add that you pay your sub so you are entitled to play however you want.

I would have! But the person I was quoting with that didn't use that defense.

Actually, there is. If you are about to lose BoTD and the cast is on cd iirc it's better to drop HT to maintain the BoTD if dropping phelb alone isn't enough

All things considered, I strongly disagree.

Let's break down the scenario you need in order for this to happen. When you're about to press Heavy Thrust, you would need ~10-11s remaining for this scenario to happen. For that to happen, your previous BotD must have refreshed the timer to ~21-22s (but not quite 22). The one before that refreshed it to 18-19s, and the one before that refreshed it to ~25-26s (and you used a gsk after this one, clearly). You're now 3 FaC/WT into you BotD timer, at least. If you use BotD after Impulse Drive, this is a scenario you might encounter. Now, a not-shit Dragoon would just wait until they use their NEXT FaC/WT (which bumps it to 24-25s, making gsk easy to hit) and then again after the fifth (where you're down low and getting BotD back anyway this next combo).

So, for this to be the case, you would have needed to fat-finger FaC/WT > GSK when you were at 21-22s and now you're screwed because you messed up and have two options. H>IDC>P>TTT>TTT>H>ID[botd]C4 or IDC4>H>P>TTT4>H>ID[botd]C4. Of note, the former has 14 GCDs before BotD and the latter has 13, so we're not delaying your BotD re-application by any meaningful amount. So, yeah, it looks pretty good. After all, we get +1 gsk in the latter combo and only lose HT on a few GCDs.


My argument is:
This is a situation which is implausible if you have any concept of how to play this Job.
Why?

1. In order to encounter this scenario, you need to use BotD before the second hit of your combo, rather than the third.
"But, you do this in the opener!" you cry, flailing your arms.
Yes, you do. However, we're discussing using gsk after the third strike of FaC/WT. After the opener, your first is CT, second is FT, third is CT. So, if you encounter this situation right then, you're skipping Phlebotomize. Not Heavy Thrust.

"But what if I did that again later in the fight for buff reasons!?"
Then you played your buffs wrong. BotD should always be used before the third hit. Geirskogul is flexible and can be used up to 3 GCDs before the re-application. Internal Release tends to be 1-2 GCDs before re-application. Life Surge likes to come up during re-applications on Full Thrusts sometimes - just use gsk earlier in those situations. It's not hard.

2. It requires you to have weak enough knowledge of the Job mechanics that you fire Geirskogul off immediately after hitting FaC or WT.
"But that feels like the best time to use it!"
Again, Geirskogul is a fluid cooldown - it's the only one of those that exist in the game! Take advantage of it. Using it rigorously at this exact precise timing is a crutch you should discard as soon as possible. Pay attention to timers - use it when it makes sense to, which is not always immediately following your FaC.


So...

tl;dr: Get good, basically? It's a scenario so implausible that I laugh at it. I know you'll say "but downtime" and I'll argue that I've successfully finished A7S and never encountered a scenario where I need to eschew Heavy Thrust in favor of maintaining Blood of the Dragon. It is literally not a conundrum I have ever encountered. Ever.