How to Dragoon Per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[Tanktric]

Hey,

First of all thanks Dervy and everyone else for this great info in a consolidated spot!
Just got back into FFXIV after a very long break. Was raiding high-level WoW for a while.
FFXIV has so many more binds, and i'm having a tough time finding bindings that work for me.

I'm aware that macros equate to a loss of dps, because of non-queuing for GCDs. Does this pertain to oGCDs as well?

Until I'm fully comfortable with DRG, and to cut down on a couple binds, I wanted to take some shortcuts with macros for oGCDs.
1. Internal Release > BotD (Ideal for pull. Should be in sync most of the fight.)
2. Battle Litany > BfB (180s vs 80s. Ideal for pull. Could possibly delay every 3rd BfB 20 seconds to line up with BL, if the fight allows for uptime, and wouldn't cause 1 less BrB over the full length.)

What are your thoughts?

Another strange question. IF I was going to ignore a damage oGCD while learning, what would be the lowest priority oGCD? Legsweep/Mecry Stroke?

[Dervy]

Hey,

Glad some high-level raiders from other MMO's are coming to the Final Fantasy crew!


Due to how Macro's work in this game, general rule of thumb, don't use them. I don't remember the exact numbers off the top of my head, but you can't get macros to be timed in milliseconds. I've lost the maths (I hope someone else can revive them from the dead), but essentially, you'll end up clipping your GCD making you lose DPS.

Also, even though you're right in saying we won't lose one BFB application over the duration of the fight, the Dragoons abilities are extremely varied in Potency. Depending on when you use Blood for Blood in your rotation, the potency increase will vary.



The area's in red are the points in the rotation were we receive the highest PPS. The columns on the side indicate the PPS difference when delaying BFB by a GCD. There's a massive variation in numbers and there isn't a single point where holding BFB will give you a PPS increase, so general rule of thumb is to pop it instantly. This is the only skill that should never be delayed.

If you wanted to make it easier on yourself, you could precast Battle Litany on the pull. That's one less oCD you need to weave in your opener, then give Leg-Sweep the lowest priority out of your GCDs. Legsweep has the lowest Potency of all of your oCDs, so it would be least effective in your opening burst.

Having said that, the order of PPS for our oCDs go:

Jump - 14.71 PPS
Geirskogul - 13.5789 PPS
Legsweep - 8.826 PPS
Spineshatter Dive - 5.002 PPS
Dragonfire Dive - 2.829 PPS.

So do keep that in mind.

[Tanktric]

Due to how Macro's work in this game, general rule of thumb, don't use them. I don't remember the exact numbers off the top of my head, but you can't get macros to be timed in milliseconds. I've lost the maths (I hope someone else can revive them from the dead), but essentially, you'll end up clipping your GCD making you lose DPS.
So do keep that in mind.

Thanks for the reply!

I was planning on not having the macro timed.
I know this can't be done:
/ac Internal Release
/wait 0.5
/ac Blood of the Dragon

I was thinking more of this:
/ac Internal Release
/ac Blood of the Dragon

And Spamming it in between 2 GCDs

The macro works, but im uncertain if it pushes the second GCD.
I might run a 3-4 minute drill with a couple double-oGCD macros.

[Outfoxed]

so here goes.

with skillspeed being so invaluable.... is it even worth hitting 2.4 gcd?
does crits multiplicative (critdmg and crit%) self-scaling ever make it *the* stat to get?

also on IDEAL blood for blood and geirskogul usage.

I will organize it by BotDs.

BotD1: Should land 1 geirskogul under Blood for blood
BotD2: Should land 2 geirskoguls under blood for blood
BotD3: Should land 2 geirskoguls under blood for blood.
BotD4: Blood for blood will be down the entire 60 seconds.

BotD and BFB synchronize at this point (240seconds in) so repeat from BotD1.

You WILL have to delay your geirskogul until it falls under blood for blood.

[Thendiel]

so here goes.

with skillspeed being so invaluable.... is it even worth hitting 2.4 gcd?
does crits multiplicative (critdmg and crit%) self-scaling ever make it *the* stat to get?

I'm not sure I understand your point here. From a pure stat weight perspective (at our current gear levels), Skill Speed and Critical Hit Rate are very nearly identical to each other. Hitting a 2.4 second GCD then provides advantages (HT clipping and streamlined BotD use) that go above and beyond the stat weights themselves. So, we definitely want to shoot for that time-frame, unless dropping Skill Speed provides us with some HUGE advantage in terms of the crit/det supplied by our gear.

Is your point that Critical Hit Rate will have progressively higher gains the more of it we stack? If so, it's hard to imagine this making a huge difference unless we somehow push crit into the 900-1000 range or higher.

also on IDEAL blood for blood and geirskogul usage.

I will organize it by BotDs.

BotD1: Should land 1 geirskogul under Blood for blood
BotD2: Should land 2 geirskoguls under blood for blood
BotD3: Should land 2 geirskoguls under blood for blood.
BotD4: Blood for blood will be down the entire 60 seconds.

BotD and BFB synchronize at this point (240seconds in) so repeat from BotD1.

You WILL have to delay your geirskogul until it falls under blood for blood.

This is really interesting. I'll have to practice this, as it would presumably be essential to sustained single-target DPS. Any rules of thumb for how to put it into action? Or perhaps a video? If not, that's fine--I'll play around with GK timing on my own and see if I can get things to sync up properly the way you describe.

[Outfoxed]

This is really interesting. I'll have to practice this, as it would presumably be essential to sustained single-target DPS. Any rules of thumb for how to put it into action? Or perhaps a video? If not, that's fine--I'll play around with GK timing on my own and see if I can get things to sync up properly the way you describe.

It's mostly in the numbers.

BotD is cast 5 seconds after BFB in our rotation.
BotD casts->5/65/125/185/245
BFB casts->0/80/160/240

you'll notice how after 240 seconds in the rotation however the two skills have realigned once again (with BotD being cast 5 seconds after BFB) which is where the loop starts again. meaning that every 240 seconds or 4 botds the loop restarts

The first botd(5 seconds)/bfb(0 seconds in) you will get 1 geirskogul off. no trick to it

The second botd(65seconds in)/bfb(80seconds in) you will have to delay your first geirskogul for roughly 15 seconds until blood for blood comes up.

The third botd/bfb (125seconds/160seconds in) should have you delaying your second GK. Though if this doesn't work you'll have to calculate which one

The fourth botd (I'm revising this over what I said earlier about not getting a GK off) will have BFB come off cooldown in the final 5 seconds of the botd. Meaning you can get 1 gk in the final five seconds of botd4 and another gk in the first 15 seconds of botd5

So the trick would be to delay the 1st gk of the second and the 2nd gk of the third and the 3rd gk of the 4th. And then the loop starts again just like in our initial rotation.

Off the top of my head (revising what i said earlier)..... I actually suspect that you may be able to double up in every single blood for blood cast except the very first because you actually have a BotD up to shove a Geirskogul in the 5 seconds between Blood for blood and BotD unlike in the initial rotation.

So my revised stance is that if you aren't getting 2 geirskoguls per BFB you're probably dealing suboptimal damage.

Basically the idea would be that you figure out where blood for blood is and see how you can get your geirskoguls in.

i'll edit this tomorrow if i remember and you havent went and figured it out already

[Outfoxed]

This is really interesting. I'll have to practice this, as it would presumably be essential to sustained single-target DPS. Any rules of thumb for how to put it into action? Or perhaps a video? If not, that's fine--I'll play around with GK timing on my own and see if I can get things to sync up properly the way you describe.

the red indicates blood for blood
http://i.imgur.com/z5GFbBp.jpg

hastily made diagram. you'll notice that every blood for blood (red) either occurs late enough into botd that it's possible to delay a geirskogul to get 2 into the window.

once it hits 240seconds in the loop resets with both botd/bfb being cast 5 seconds after the other just like the opener of our rotation.

of note though is that during the very end of the loop (last 5 seconds of BotD4) you can see how BFB comes off cooldown right before a new BotD is cast and you can shove a GK in there. and then the remaining 15 seconds of BFB flow over to the beginning of loop2 allowing us to throw another GK in.

basically, the only time you should get one GK in per blood for blood is the initial blood for blood.

the GK you should delay is equal to botd-1 with loop resetting at 4.

delay GK1 of botd2, GK2 of botd3, and GK3 of botd4.
and then start all over.

for (botd = 1; botd<=4; botd++){

if(botd !=1)
cout<< "delay GK " << botd-1 << " of " << botd << endl;

}

also on the topic of stat weighs, they're so insignificant now, I have a feeling we'll just take whatever we can get on our gear at this point.

[Aiurily]

[url]
also on the topic of stat weighs, they're so insignificant now, I have a feeling we'll just take whatever we can get at this point

other than skillspeed thresholds, yeah basically

[Outfoxed]

other than skillspeed thresholds, yeah basically

i'm not even sure how important skillspeed threshholds are. hitting the 2.4 threshhold is approx 1% increase in damage from HT/Phlebotomize at least from my own numbers. or roughly 10dps on a parse of over 1000. is it really worth investing 600 odd points into skill speed? who knows... i mean between increased tp consumption and slightly better secondary stats, it may not even be really a threshhold. but from the stat weighs it seems that crit/det are worth 30-40% more than skillspeed. so the question is... is the 30% increase in value from secondary stats worth the ~1% increase in damage.

oh yeah, and with future updates, i suspect the value of crit will become more and more powerful due the exponential nature of the crit stat. (critdmg*critchance).

basically... even the skillspeed threshhold isn't a guarantee.

so..... unless i'm late.... does anyone have any mathematical proof that grabbing enough SS (instead of a 40% stronger crit) is worth the 1potency per second off of HT? if it takes 600 skillspeed to hit 2.4 or 2.39 gcd then the question is.... what's better.... a 1potency per second increase in damage or a 40% increase in secondary stat from pure crit.

seeing as how stat weighs were only releasd within the last couple of days, we finally have the capability to prove or disprove the 2.4gcd assumption

[Viridiana]

does crits multiplicative (critdmg and crit%) self-scaling ever make it *the* stat to get?

I was actually looking at Crit potency scaling earlier today, and worked out numbers for unbuffed and IR buffed. N is the output potency, y is the input potency, x is the crit from gear (so crit-354):

N=y*(.000000054083224164x^2+.000200400589023914x+1.0222056254851818) if completely unbuffed.
N=y*(.000000054083224164x^2+.000140056389350814x+1.0670520504151738) if buffed with Internal Release (non MNK).
N=y*(.000000054083224164x^2+.000128384489339814x+1.0894757204151818) if buffed with Battle Litany.

I'll work out the numbers for, IR+BL, MNK-IR, and MNK-IR+BL in a bit. . .and then remember that Straight Shot is a thing. >_<