How to Dragoon Per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[Dervy]

You keep mentioning 2.5GCD. I don't really know why you're so fixated about it. You mentioned that a good Dragon will hold Geirskogul due to mechanics in boss fights (which we agree) and that we should hold Geirskogul for a few more cycles so we can keep BotD up... Then you state that there's a mandatory check for Geirskogul usage at 2.5GCD.

Using the rotation at 2.5GCD, according to you, requires a lot more strict usage of Geirskogul, which makes it incapable of being used in certain fights, especially Ravana EX and Bismarck EX, where it's necessary to hold Geirskogul for phases. Moon Naga phase and Liberation are two mechanics which comes into mind in Ravana EX where you HAVE to hold Geirskogul otherwise you'll lose BotD.

Not only this, Ravana EX has a mechanic called "The Seeing X", where he parries all physical attacks in the position where "X" was, for 4s. It just so happens that the first "The Seeing" comes at 10s. At a GCD of 2.4 and attacking Ravana at the same time of your tank allows you to fit in the "4th" positional without getting RNG'd by The Seeing X. At 2.5GCD, you will not have that luxury and will have to move, not hitting your positional and taking a 190 potency hit MULTIPLE times throughout the fight.

You're being severely handicapped at 2.5 GCD from an End-Game perspective, trust me on this and I'm positive other Dragoons who are up to Ravana EX can agree with me on this.

And if you read the post correctly, I even showed you the math that 2.4GCD yields a higher PPS than 2.5GCD and that's hitting all HT's. It amounts to around 0.3 PPS loss each time you miss an HT. That sounds like nothing, but over the duration of a battle that lasts upwards of 10-15 minutes? It all adds up.

[Outfoxed]

snip

My issue is that we are putting the cart before the horse. Until 2.4 can be established as superior, it's stupid to theory craft for it. Keep in mind, this isn't about getting more damage... It's baout getting optimal damage. Meaning that our goal is to choose between one or the other. While no one doubts that gaining 0.3pps is good, is it better to gain +50 damage per hit? If you had 100 stat points and that 100 stat points got you either to 2.4 gcd or flat 100 damage boost what would you take? So while it's good to get that 0.3 pps from clipping HT, is it BETTER to get an extra 100 damage per hit on all your other skills? No one denies that increasing damage is good. What I do question is if you could get MORE damage.

And unless you can prove 2.4 gcd is superior, you have no grounds to base your theorycrafting on gear that will be obsolete in 1 week. You don't build the foundation of your house on faulty grounds. my argument against 2.4 gcd is that you haven't proven 2.4 gcd to be superior. 2.5 works because it's the default value.

second of all, potency per second isn't even a good measurement when comparing secondary stats. Crit and Det do not play a factor at all in potency per second calculations. And skillspeed only tells part of its story in potency per second calculations. potency per second is an irrelevant stat for comparing secondary stats. If you had to pick between 100 str or 100 skillspeed 2.55 which would you pick? The strength right? Yet coincidentally the str gives 0 potency per second increase.

there's a tradeoff. you can't just say hey it has XYZ. it also has ABC which just happen to not be good. 1) increased TP usage 2) less grace period PER GCD 3) further clipping of chaos thrust

but since when did you start caring about grace periods? there's a massive inconsistency in your approach.... 2.0 rotation had 0 grace periods and a suboptimal (12345678) rotation lost 50 potency over a minute long rotation. one error meant we dropped CT for however long that error was. how come all of a sudden in 3.0 we've completely revised our approach for no reason? why are we assuming that grace periods are needed?

and yes geirskogul is incredibly flexible but there are rules. you get 3/min, you can choose when to use it. i dont even know what you're trying to argue there. maybe arguing for the sake of arguing... i dont know.

fyi, your rotation is slightly inaccurate. i wouldn't put geirskogul immediately after the 4th in the opener. geirskogul isn't reliant on being cast the moment it's up. as mentioned, you get 3/min, using it earlier isn't advantageous. it's better to move up other oGCD abilities that actually do rely on being cast the moment they're up (everything else)

[seekified]

snip

For one, being full Law gear lands you at precisely 2.4 GCD. It'll be interesting to see if the esoteric stuff does the same, but I can already see a few nice perks from this.

1. You get 0.5s more per rotation to renew BotD (which has saved me dozens of times already, trust me) and HT (which is nice).
2. You can FAR more easily do 9 GCD BFBs and it allows you to nicely line up everything after Heavy Thrust to your second 4th inside your initial BFB.
3. Grace periods ARE needed because of unexpected movement/dodging. I for one am happy to have a tiny bit of leeway now compared to before, even if holding a Geirskogul is obviously easier.

Just my own thoughts on the matter, I'm sure Dervy has his.

[Outfoxed]

For one, being full Law gear lands you at precisely 2.4 GCD. It'll be interesting to see if the esoteric stuff does the same, but I can already see a few nice perks from this.

1. You get 0.5s more per rotation to renew BotD (which has saved me dozens of times already, trust me) and HT (which is nice).
2. You can FAR more easily do 9 GCD BFBs and it allows you to nicely line up everything after Heavy Thrust to your second 4th inside your initial BFB.
3. Grace periods ARE needed because of unexpected movement/dodging. I for one am happy to have a tiny bit of leeway now compared to before, even if holding a Geirskogul is obviously easier.

Just my own thoughts on the matter, I'm sure Dervy has his.

Theorycrafting for law is pointless. It's obsolete in 1 week, and you've made use of it for maybe 2 weeks. It's also been viable for 0% of raids.

Grace periods are nice yes. You also lose .1 seconds of grace period per GCD. It's a two way street. So while you get a bit more time to clip HT, you get a bit less time per GCD

The leeway for geirskogul is several seconds long. It's actually very forgiving of minor mistakes.

Landing multiple GCDs under BFB is nice. But so is hitting harder on every single skill. Every stat has it's perks. I mean if you were arguing for crit, you would be talking about how it's so nice how your crits hit harder with IR/BL/LS. The question is, is it relatively stronger than other secondary stats?

And to be quite honest, no one really knows... Which is why we can't assume anything about how much skillspeed is needed

You can't operate under the assumption that X skillspeed is needed. That's basically a fundamental flaw in logic. I'm not saying skillspeed isn't the best stat or that it's the worst stat. I'm saying we can't assume anything about skillspeed. And telling people that 2.4 is ideal when all you have to argue for it is a couple seconds of grace period, and 0.3pps on HT is not exactly reasonable.

Until there is a comparison of secondary stats aka stat weighs, you can't assume skill speed is important. You can't just say.... Hey I'm clipping HT this must mean skillspeed is better. Just like I can't say hey my crits hit much harder than before... This means crit is the best secondary stat.

All secondary stats have their benefits. I could list the benefits of crit or det but that doesn't speak anything of how it stacks up against skillspeed.

If all your assumptions are that 2.4 is ideal, then it is up to you to prove it.... And not using a misleading figure like potency per second which conveniently doesn't take into account crit or det.

So unless stat weighs come out, the assumption that 2.4 is ideal should not be thrown around.

[Jonnycbad]

Is it possible to bypass the 58 quest and do 60? If you don't learn Wheeling Thrust, then Chaos Thrust and Full Thrust will both proc Fang and Claw 100% of the time...to what benefit then is there in even having Wheeling Thrust when it's the same potency/effect, but different position. Unless, of course, you can't unlock Geir unless you get WT :/

[ChaoticDarkGriever]

Is it possible to bypass the 58 quest and do 60? If you don't learn Wheeling Thrust, then Chaos Thrust and Full Thrust will both proc Fang and Claw 100% of the time...to what benefit then is there in even having Wheeling Thrust when it's the same potency/effect, but different position. Unless, of course, you can't unlock Geir unless you get WT :/

You cannot bypass the level 58 quest. You must do that quest in order to do the final job quest and get the final skill.

[HeavensSword]

Is it possible to bypass the 58 quest and do 60? If you don't learn Wheeling Thrust, then Chaos Thrust and Full Thrust will both proc Fang and Claw 100% of the time...to what benefit then is there in even having Wheeling Thrust when it's the same potency/effect, but different position. Unless, of course, you can't unlock Geir unless you get WT :/

If that were possible it would be an oversight on SE's part and would be promptly patched. They wouldn't design our rotation to work a certain way only to have it circumvented. Get wheeling and start getting practice with both it and FaC sooner rather than later.

[Dami]

Yep, the whole Wheeling Thrust/Fang & Claw having 50% procs is definitely a design oversight imo. They should have made it proc both and allow you to decide which to use. Boss A does AOE attacks from behind regularly? Use Fang & Claw. Boss B doesn't move around much but you have low ACC or just want to use your combo4 right after Chaos Thrust? Use Wheeling Thrust! Why make us go out of our way to use our combo4 in our rotations and let RNG control the rotations we use?

[Jonnycbad]

Giving them 100 potency on missed positional is dumb. :/

[ColdestHeaven]

A FC mate was testing changes within the critical hit rate stat with SCH. He seemed to notice that there were no significant changes in crit rate from 460 to 650+ (around 1%), and barely noticed any critical hit damage increase/decrease. The samples weren't enormous, granted, but it kind of worried me. Is there any progress on fleshing out the math behind the new stat and skills related to it?