Is PLD actually weaker than before?

[Cabalabob]

they basically just expect you to think for yourself and figure out that you can go into FoF with Holy Spirit and your combo on Royal, do your Confiteor combo and have 3 GCDs left to do HS -> RA -> HS under FoF.

But that’s the point. To go into your burst with DM and RA primed you need to drop atonements for it to align with FoF so you need to be 2 GCDs ahead to make sure you’re ready when FoF comes off CD.

If you just start FoF whenever it’s ready without any setup then you won’t have RA primed and you’ll end up wasting GCDs on fast blade and riot blade and won’t have enough GCDs in FoF to use RA and a second DM HS.

[Mikey_R]

But that’s the point. To go into your burst with DM and RA primed you need to drop atonements for it to align with FoF so you need to be 2 GCDs ahead to make sure you’re ready when FoF comes off CD.

If you just start FoF whenever it’s ready without any setup then you won’t have RA primed and you’ll end up wasting GCDs on fast blade and riot blade and won’t have enough GCDs in FoF to use RA and a second DM HS.

Its been mathed out AND proven in parses that it makes no difference.

In the 2 Divine Holy Spirit combo, you drop 2 Atonements every minute, this is 760 potency you are just throwing away, however, with the rotation where you follow a priority system, since you use those 2 Atonements, you will gain potency as you do less Fast Blades/Riot Blades.

I done some very basic maths not that long ago and comparing the potency of the FoF window (including the 2 GCDs before) between the 2DHS and the worst case scenario (DHS, Fast, Riot in FoF), you lose ~160 potency, but you gain it back over the rest of the rotation and, whilst I done maths on that as well, it came to a 20 potency difference, which is effectively ~1% of your burst window average, even lower when you tale the rest of the rotation in a minute into account.

You have to bear in mind, The Balance started with the 2 DHS and 5 hard cast HS rotations, and it was found out AFTER that that if you just do things as they come up, you basically lose nothing.

If you want to criticise, or think that isn't the case, test it out yourself. You don't even technically need a parser, just use SSS and it can give you a rough estimate which should be close enough to the results expected.

[nia_saeli]

But that’s the point. To go into your burst with DM and RA primed you need to drop atonements for it to align with FoF so you need to be 2 GCDs ahead to make sure you’re ready when FoF comes off CD.

If you just start FoF whenever it’s ready without any setup then you won’t have RA primed and you’ll end up wasting GCDs on fast blade and riot blade and won’t have enough GCDs in FoF to use RA and a second DM HS.

In summary: It's not so easy to judge whether you should or shouldn't drop atonements. The gains of setting up are super small at best and you'd need a spreadsheet to figure out whether or not dropping the atonements is actually a gain because the damage between filler abilities is just too close to tell otherwise.

The beautiful thing about the PLD rotation is that the filler GCDs are all so close that not doing the setup may actually be a gain.

- Worst Filler - Fast -> Riot -> Royal Authority: 860 base potency (FoF Potency: 1075)
- Second worst filler - Hardcast HSx3: 960 base potency (FoF Potency: 1200)
- Practical Filller - Holyspirit (DM) -> somethingx2: 930 to 1210 base potency (FoF potency: 1162.5 to 1512.5)
- Best case - Holyspirit (DM) x2 + Royal Authority: 1280 base potency (FoF Potency: 1600)

Based on the above combinations, whether you'd want to be dropping the atonement(s) for alignment is still up for debate. This is primarily because dropping atonements is also a potency loss and with everything being so close, you can't exactly say for certain it is a gain without a spreadsheet taking into account everything later in the encounter.

[Eliroth-Kaminari]

In summary: It's not so easy to judge whether you should or shouldn't drop atonements. The gains of setting up are super small at best and you'd need a spreadsheet to figure out whether or not dropping the atonements is actually a gain because the damage between filler abilities is just too close to tell otherwise.

The beautiful thing about the PLD rotation is that the filler GCDs are all so close that not doing the setup may actually be a gain.

- Worst Filler - Fast -> Riot -> Royal Authority: 860 base potency (FoF Potency: 1075)
- Second worst filler - Hardcast HSx3: 960 base potency (FoF Potency: 1200)
- Practical Filller - Holyspirit (DM) -> somethingx2: 930 to 1210 base potency (FoF potency: 1162.5 to 1512.5)
- Best case - Holyspirit (DM) x2 + Royal Authority: 1280 base potency (FoF Potency: 1600)

Based on the above combinations, whether you'd want to be dropping the atonement(s) for alignment is still up for debate. This is primarily because dropping atonements is also a potency loss and with everything being so close, you can't exactly say for certain it is a gain without a spreadsheet taking into account everything later in the encounter.

I see your point there but i think you really do want Best case into your 2 4 6 min windows because you here are not considering party buff in that potency gain/loss

[nia_saeli]

I see your point there but i think you really do want Best case into your 2 4 6 min windows because you here are not considering party buff in that potency gain/loss

I agree. I'm mostly just parroting the rotation as I understand it.

It isn't that the "yolo just fill it with w/e" is optimal, but that it's hard to determine whether you should be dropping and prepping without knowing exactly what your filler is before hand. Still going to need those spreadsheets to know for certain.

In summary, PLD is still a spreadsheeting nightmare to optimize, we just gain very little from it which is why the rotation exists as listed.