Classes and Rotations to be "Easier" in 4.0. Predictions, Concerns, and Discussion.

[Shurrikhan]

Previous reply is well past over-stuffed, but wanted to address this part here as well. Because, I really like this part, and I want to see more AoE / ST crossover.

4) How often do you get long lived AoE phases? How often do you have to burn down adds as fast as possible? At what number of targets is the AoE flat out superior damage/tp wise?
Asking it simpler: How much of a gain over conventional AoE is "multi-dotting", both damage wise and in TP.

For a dragoon you have: Phlebo vs. Doomspike vs. Heavy Thrust/Ring of Thorns. One combination of these only exists for the sake of keeping heavy thrust up...
You also have additional AoE possibilities with Dragonfire Dive and Geirskogul.

If we're talking about reassessment of abilities - and in this case AoE capabilities - you have to decide the necessity of DoTs on the remaining toolkit.
If you remove Phlebo and, Ring of Thorns and some other abilities, how likely can the remaining toolkit be changed to create similar/better AoE options?

For example: Geirgskogul doesn't train Blood if it hits x targets, and has no cooldown. Doomspike reduces CD of Dragonfire Dive by x sec per target hit.
There are quite a few possilibites to enhance AoE gameplay via passives or altering existing buttons. You don't need 50 buttons for every situation.

That's... pretty damn cool. Yeah.

At present a 2.33 Dragoon can spend 4 GCDs in rotation across multiple enemies to mass-CT and fire 5 or 6 Gierskoguls per minute, total of ~9340 to ~9940 potency per minute total, iirc. That would be about 387 potency per GCD, more than a Ring of Thorns x3, less than a RoTx4, less than a DSx3. So it's already a dps loss, but you'd have near infinite TP (the rotation doesn't support you most costly spender, Phlebotomize) instead under a half minute's worth. (And it needs 30 seconds per CT to get that full duration, even though they die so conveniently timed... Ouch.)

(1000 - 69 TP/s + 20 TP/s) --> about 20 seconds' worth of TP at 2.33 GCD DS spam. So, if you really needed that TP for later, it wouldn't be a bad idea. But until then... Very, very niche.

But that's just... bleh. And this is probably the ONLY job in which single target can even make a cross-over, because of Gierskogul's AoE being generated by ST attacks (F&C/WT). Everywhere else, there's virtually nothing. Monk mixes the two, via DoT-cleave and Rockbreaker, but you can't really call that a crossover apart from the Demo vs. RB decision (full Demo deals more than a RBx3, but less than a RBx4, and is as efficient as an RBx6). DRK's is just the obvious multi-Scourge and then whatever MP allows (SE is worth more healing and damage than an DA-ADx3 and costs less, so the decision's obvious for self-heals, unless you're at the edge on AoE enmity, which probably just harkens back to AD vs. Unleash, where both give the same enmity but AD deals more damage and costs more mana...). In short, it's kinda shitty.

And honestly I don't know what would be the best path to try to fix it. I personally want to see anything that looks like a cleave be a cleave (looking at you Spinning Slash), but I've no idea if that will work either.

[Valenth]

Previous reply is well past over-stuffed, but wanted to address this part here as well. Because, I really like this part, and I want to see more AoE / ST crossover.



That's... pretty damn cool. Yeah.

At present a 2.33 Dragoon can spend 4 GCDs in rotation across multiple enemies to mass-CT and fire 5 or 6 Gierskoguls per minute, total of ~9340 to ~9940 potency per minute total, iirc...

Hmm, either I'm oblivious and need to re-learn, or 5-6 Geirskoguls is impossible. I think at max I get 4 out. Maybe a discussion for another thread though, but can you teach me how to do so many geirskoguls in 1 minute? o_O

Edit: Ah wait, now that I think about it, if I don't Heavy thrust it may be possible to indeed get to 5. Depending on the amount of mobs present, the loss of 15% dmg may off-set the extra Geirskogul. Heh, I will try this out on AoE situations - thanks for the train of thought!

[Shurrikhan]

Hmm, either I'm oblivious and need to re-learn, or 5-6 Geirskoguls is impossible. I think at max I get 4 out. Maybe a discussion for another thread though, but can you teach me how to do so many geirskoguls in 1 minute? o_O

Edit: Ah wait, now that I think about it, if I don't Heavy thrust it may be possible to indeed get to 5. Depending on the amount of mobs present, the loss of 15% dmg may off-set the extra Geirskogul. Heh, I will try this out on AoE situations - thanks for the train of thought!

I tossed out way too much DRG SS gear for space to pull it off right now — just short — but yes, it will cost some HT uptime. Just be sure to blow the extras while it's up.

Makes me wish the CD scaled with SS (and if Empyreal is any implication, it should). Triple BFB Gierskogul. /salivating