Beginner NIN question: clip it or skip it?

[Gemina]

I'm new to DPS jobs, and have a question about DoT clipping. NIN is the first job I played that has me execute a combo in order to inflict a DoT. So when shadow fang is about to expire, but doesn't quite line up with the combo, I have to make a decision on to clip it, which I know is bad. I can skip it and use dancing edge, but then my next combo does less DPS, which is also bad. Or, what I have been doing is try to squeeze in an ogcd if available, and if not, I'll allow the auto attack, and then use shadowfang. Even if fairly short, it feels like I'm standing there for an eternity.

I'm only 44 right now, and I know it might be a little early to worry about such things. I try to answer my own questions as much as possible, but this one stumped me. I just want to do things right.

[HyoMinPark]

Speaking as a BRD, we’re always told to clip our DoTs with IJ at 1~3 seconds remaining, rather than allowing them to drop entirely because of the potency loss. I would think that NINs would follow a similar rule—losing ticks of Shadow Fang may not be enough to offset the potency of an additional Aeolian Edge combo. To be safe, I would personally clip it rather than let it drop, but I guess it depends on the duration remaining when you finish your second AE combo whether you opt for SF or for another AE. I’m not a NIN main though, so someone who mains it would probably be better equipped to give a definitive answer.

[Tsubaki75]

As HyoMin said shadow fang is generally refreshed at 3 or less seconds, any more than that and you can kill a sec or 2 by folding in a mudra or ogcd to cut it shorter but you never want it to fall off. Clipping a cpl ticks is better than waiting 3 gcd's to reapply it

[Raldo]

Speaking as a BRD, we’re always told to clip our DoTs with IJ at 1~3 seconds remaining, rather than allowing them to drop entirely because of the potency loss.

BRDs have to clip because if they don't, they have to use two actions to get the DoTs back up, rather than just one. It has little to do with potency loss, and more because if they drop, your songs can't proc. The same reasoning cannot be applied to NIN.

Tsubaki75 has the right answer, however.

Clipping a cpl ticks is better than waiting 3 gcd's to reapply it

[HyoMinPark]

BRDs have to clip because if they don't, they have to use two actions to get the DoTs back up, rather than just one. It has little to do with potency loss, and more because if they drop, your songs can't proc. The same reasoning cannot be applied to NIN.

Tsubaki75 has the right answer, however.

My reasoning was more, if SF dropped in the middle of a 3rd AE combo, you’d have to finish that combo plus start the SF combo once more to reapply—you’d probably lose more than just the two GCDs that BRD loses for letting theirs drop and reapplying, on top of the missed ticks of SF (and Slashing if you are in a group that doesn’t have another job that applies it, like WAR or SAM). But, as I said at the end of my comment, I supposed that would depend on your SF duration at the end of the second AE combo. Tsubaki75’s comment is in line with mine—better to clip it than to lose the ticks.


As an aside: with BRD, it actually is about potency loss—you said it yourself: no DoTs = no procs, which is a massive loss in damage, even if the procs are pure RNG (in Minuet and Mage’s especially). Plus we miss the DoT ticks, and most of our damage comes from our combined DoTs, and we have to sacrifice 100 potency in HS usage to reapply Stormbite and Caustic Bite (both only have an initial potency of 100 versus Heavy Shot’s 150). So, yes, it is about potency loss with BRD.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Always clip. You will generally get two AE or AC combos in between a Shadow Fang duration. As HyoMin said, it'll be a net loss if you let the dot drop entirely compared to clipping it as it's about to fall off.

[Zyneste]

The rule of thumb is to compare it to your "Filler" spell/weaponskill combo.

A simple example are healers (Non AST for simplicity.)

Aero II does 50 damage then 50 damage for every 3 seconds on the boss up to 18 seconds. (Instant cast, 2.5 Recast)

Stone IV does 250 damage. (2.5 cast, 2.5 recast)

Aero II, without using any ability during the weave time (that empty amount of time while your GCD timer of 2.5 seconds refills) does 350 damage over the course of those 18 seconds, which lets us see where clipping Aero II early, without good reason, causes a DPS loss. We want to find where the potency of Stone IV > Potency of Aero II.

Seconds: Aero II VS Stone IV
0: 50 VS 0
2.5: 50 VS 250
3: 100 VS 250
6: 150 VS 250
9: 200 VS 250
12: 250 VS 250 (<~ Equal! Leaning Towards Aero II because of SPS affecting DOT damage)
15: 300 VS 250 (Aero II surpasses Stone IV)
18: 350 VS 250

In your case though its really much easier. If you're clipping your DOT just barely too early anywhere from 1- 5 seconds we can see how much of a loss that really is from just subtracting since Aeolian Edge and Shadowfang share the same combo path.

Shadow Fang is 200 potency optimally plus 40 potency every 3 seconds for 21 seconds. Totaling at 480 potency. (Note* Dots arent affected by weapon type resistance debuffs so if there was ever a draw, the non DOT would win)

Aeolian Edge is 380 potency opimally.

So to clip 3 seconds on your Shadow fang you lose 40 potency, Causing that Shadow Fang to have been worth 440 potency, which is still a net gain on Aeolian Edge.
Also, to Clip at 6 seconds on your Shadow Fang you lose 80 potency, Causing that Shadow Fang to have been worth 400 potency, which is again still a net gain on Aeolian Edge, but its still pretty close after factoring resistances not affecting DoTs. (420 VS 418)

When figuring out if you should clip the GCD for an OGCD, you again compare the OGCD to your filler Spell/weapon skill combo.

Lets go back to Stone IV vs Aero II.

Every Second you spend not attacking is a second that you have lost in your DPS. Stone IV is the spell that you spam when no other options are more rewarding (DoTs are already up and cant be clipped.) So Stone IV is your standard. You should be doing 250 potency per 2.5 seconds at a minimum (for optimal DPS. Sounds weird I know, to say optimally and minimum together.)

By weaving you can keep up with your 250 potency minimum PPS without sacrificing your OGCD abilities too much, helping to make your actual role of healing less punishing while maintaining Mana. Every second you waste not Stone IV'ing is 100 potency lost (IF NOT MORE FROM RAID BUFFS.) So to cast Lucid Dreaming outside of a weave and into the hard GCD you effectively have lost 100 potency. Therefore, by casting it within your OGCD youve removed a 100 potency penalty from your DPS, effectively boosting your DPS by 100 potency* (When comparing yourself to the bad version of you who hard clipped the GCD.) This is because you lost 1 second from casting your next Stone IV. At 6 seconds, Aero II with a stone IV is worth, 150 + 250 (+100 towards next Stone IV) vs 2 Stone IVs Plus lucid at 500. So with WHM specifically its equally DPS efficient to clip your aero II at 6 seconds in (leaning towards it because of the SPS bonus towards DOTS) than it is to hardclip an ability. There are times and cases where hard clipping into your GCD IS A DPS GAIN compared to weaving. You just have to recognize which situations those are. (Weaving is usually good but is not ALWAYS the best answer.)

The same can be applied to whether to break your GCD on even ninja. Aeolian Edge is your standard filler.

Spinning: 150
Gust: 200
Aoelian Edge: 340

So the average Potency per second is 690 over 7.5 seconds or 92 PPS. Any Ability that does 92 potency or more is a net gain over clipping the GCD, as opposed to not using it AT ALL. It would still be better to weave it, so that you dont suffer the opportunity cost of not keeping your GCD flowing, but ninja doesnt always have the choice. You can also factor the opportunity cost of the ability into it, by taking the potency of the ability divided by its cool down. Mug for example is 140 divided by 90 or about 1.5 PPS lost by delaying it. Jugulate is 80 divided by 30 or about 2.7 PPS lost by delaying it. Use that to build a priority list for what skills need to go off back into cool down the fastest, (These PPS penalties only occur if you can no longer squeeze in the same amount of the same ability over the course of one fight. Example being delaying jugulate 28 seconds over the course of the fight but still getting the same number of Jugulates off as the last fight that you used Jugulate as soon as it cooled down.)


MIN Maxing is allot to think about. Most of the time at high end play though DPS can just come down to luck. Crit and DH are huge factors and are outside of the control of the player after melding and gearing is done. ;-;

I wasted too much time on this. ;-;

[SwarleyMcSwarls]

Being a dps is all about maintaining up time. So the BIG rule of that is to not sit on your GCD's to wait for something to reapply. So never hold a GCD to line up your dot timer, and don't just burn several oGCD's to heavily clip your GCD either. This will result in losing GCD casts during a fight which quickly adds up to lost damage.

And to simplify dots, you ideally will want to reapply shadow fang within two seconds of it falling off (either before or after) to ensure you are getting maximum up time on the dot tick.

[SwarleyMcSwarls]

I can ellaborate more, but those two things are very good rules to follow. And if you are really interested in looking at good information for dps and for ninja specifically there are discord servers and written guides with great information as well. Not saying asking on the forums is a terrible idea, but those will be much more reliable resources for you than the forums.

[whiskeybravo]

I think as most have said, generally you want to re-apply in the last couple of seconds before the dot entirely falls off.

Also in general, as Zyneste mostly laid out, there will probably be occasions where you will make exceptions in a given fight. For instance if a boss is about to jump and become untargetable you don't want to re-apply the dot right before he jumps when you could sub in an AE for extra damage. Conversely there might be situations where's it better to overwrite early to catch raid buffs for extra damage. I'm not a nin, side or main, so I can't speak specifically for these situations, but these are general "rules of thumb" for any job I think.