Dance or not to Dance?

[WaterShield]

Popping Flourish pre-pull is impossible while you are prepping Standard Finish, as you cannot use Flourish during your dances. The current working opener that was posted today is as follows:

Pre-pull:
-15s Standard Step
-2s potion/infusion
On pull Standard Finish (Flourish OR Devilment) > Technical Step (Step > Step > Step > Step) > Technical Finish (Devilment OR Flourish) > Bloodshower > Fountainfall (Fan Dance III > Fan Dance I if available) > Reverse Cascade OR Saber Dance if available (Fan Dance III/Fan Dance I if available) > Standard Step (Step > Step) > Standard Finish before the buff window ends.

Standard Step is done so early pre-pull for a single-target opener so that you get a second one to land within your Devilment/Technical Finish burst window. If you tried to pop Flourish pre-pull, you would lose a buffed 1,000 potency SF because you’d have to wait and prep ST at -5s or earlier. This would also mess with potion usage and involve more clipping.

That's why I pop it... first... then start standard step. They last foreeevvveerrrr.


Sorry, not trying to be rude, I just don't know how else to get this across.

Edit: You know what, I've been misunderstanding what you were saying. Was working with the assumption that the standard step would miss the Technical Step damage boost Window.

After thinking about it more JohnSeal's opener would be best, assuming they move the standard step pre cast to 22-20 seconds before pull. That way you can start with technical and then still get an instant standard off right after.

I'd also then still use flourish pre pull... just right before I started Technical step instead.

The main reason I'm doing what I am currently... is that no tank does a countdown for pulls in a dungeon. It seems to work best given those constraints, but I could be wrong.

[Rongway]

Think about it: you lose 1,000 400 potency every time you don't use it.

You're locked out of weaponskills for 5.0 seconds while performing Standard Step. Therefore, you need to account for the potency of the weaponskills you would have been using instead.

Cascade: 200
Fountain: 250
Reverse Cascade: 425
Fountainfall: 475

Reverse Cascade and Fountainfall have a 50% chance to proc Fan Dance 1 (150p), which then has a 50% chance to proc Fan Dance 3 (200p). So the expected potency of each of these weaponskills is 150*0.5+200*0.25 higher than listed.

Since Cascade and Fountain have themselves a 50% chance to proc each of their flourishes, there are four possible outcomes:

Cascade(200), Fountain(250): 450/2 → 225 per GCD
Cascade(200), Reverse Cascade(425), Fountain(250): 875/3 → 291.7 per GCD
Cascade(200), Fountain(250), Fountainfall(475): 925/3 → 308.3 per GCD
Cascade(200), Reverse Cascade(425), Fountain(250), Fountainfall(475): 1350/4 → 337.5 per GCD

The average of these four outcomes is 290.625 per GCD. At a GCD of 2.41s, this is 120.6 per second.

Standard Step takes 5.0s to execute, so it locks you out of 603 potency worth of weaponskills you would have been using. Therefore, it's really only worth 397 potency per use.

(This is still a big deal; just not 1000p big.)


(Edit: I prolly should have just added all those individual potencies and divided by 12, to account for each possibility having a different length. In that case, average potency per GCD would be 300, Standard Step would lock you out of 622, and it would only be worth 378 per use.)

[JohnSeal]

Well the truth is in the between apparently xD I wrote down exactly what WaterShield said as opener and it’s sensibly weaker without even considering party buffs but only yours. As you said mean that your Flourish procs only get 5% buff from Standard. And you dance during party buffs that’s a dmg lost sadly.
XIV openers for all classes follow a principle: You wait for the 4/5/6 gcd into the fight to wait for all possible party buff to come up and THEN burst.
What HyoMin said makes a lot of sense and dmg wise if you dance Technical Steps during the first 10 sec of the fight then you can burst Flourish procs into party buffs. Technical steps vs 4 gcds ( without FDs ogcd) is a dmg gain. In any case in the first 25/30 sec into the fight you can use max 1 Standard Finish anyway.
So atm I can say HyoMin is right.

But... if you have both personal buffs from Standard and Techinical finish you are supppose to gain much more Espirit, my theory ( bacause I still haven’t see in a 8 man raid) is that you get an EXTRA Saber Dance in the first 30 sec of the fight. Do you? If YES mean you get 600 extra pot that would mean “my opener” should win but of like really little something like 200-300 no more than that anyway.

I can’t wait to see and try out (:

[YanderePrincess]

Also, I'm not saying to use the procs first either. They'd be used after standard finisher. Only popping pre pull because the procs last forever so they won't fall off and to have flourish up again sooner in the fight. I see it as a good tool for stockpiling feathers in between burst windows.

Flourish procs don't last forever. They last 20 seconds.

[HyoMinPark]

Well the truth is in the between apparently xD I wrote down exactly what WaterShield said as opener and it’s sensibly weaker without even considering party buffs but only yours. As you said mean that your Flourish procs only get 5% buff from Standard. And you dance during party buffs that’s a dmg lost sadly.
XIV openers for all classes follow a principle: You wait for the 4/5/6 gcd into the fight to wait for all possible party buff to come up and THEN burst.
What HyoMin said makes a lot of sense and dmg wise if you dance Technical Steps during the first 10 sec of the fight then you can burst Flourish procs into party buffs. Technical steps vs 4 gcds ( without FDs ogcd) is a dmg gain. In any case in the first 25/30 sec into the fight you can use max 1 Standard Finish anyway.
So atm I can say HyoMin is right.

But... if you have both personal buffs from Standard and Techinical finish you are supppose to gain much more Espirit, my theory ( bacause I still haven’t see in a 8 man raid) is that you get an EXTRA Saber Dance in the first 30 sec of the fight. Do you? If YES mean you get 600 extra pot that would mean “my opener” should win but of like really little something like 200-300 no more than that anyway.

I can’t wait to see and try out (:

The individual who provided the opener I posted is far smarter than I am, and they have been doing a lot of the pre-release theorycrafting (and now post-release theorycrafting), so all credit goes to them. This was not something I came up with on my own. Just to be clear lol.

[WaterShield]

Also just want to say, I'm not a math wizard / theory crafter. Just kinda throwing out what comes to mind based on the overall class design. Sorry again for the misunderstanding. 15 seconds should definitely work given 20 seconds on Technical finishes buff, It just means that the standard step in that window will be close to the end of it ^.^'

[WaterShield]

Flourish procs don't last forever. They last 20 seconds.

I worked out the opener HyoMin posted... I am dumb. Please ignore me. (Thought she mean pop it at 15 like John was saying... not start it at 15 to use as first hit.)

[JohnSeal]

Well at least we made all a step ahead I am not a math genius and sadly can’t have any software to help calculating precisely on ps4.
As also HyoMin said in another post Esprit generation is a mystery still unknown. So I can’t wait to discover how much esprit you generate with your dances’s buffs. We will discover if putting up both buffs prepull allows you to use 2 SaberDance in the first 30 sec of the fight or not. In case not the first “balance “ theory is correct