How to Dragoon Per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[Thendiel]

I hypothesize that a 2.3 second GCD (or less) will be necessary to optimize our new 3.0 rotation. One advantage to reaching this threshold is that it enables us to comfortably maintain 100% Heavy Thrust and Phlebotomize uptime under a rotation of HT -> ID-Dis-CT-F&C -> Phleb -> TT-VT-FT-WhT -> (repeat). A second advantage is that, because we can reach a third Wheeling Thrust at the one-minute mark--right as a new BotD cooldown becomes available--we should be able to time things rather neatly, and obtain 3 Geirskoguls per minute.

Here is a model tracing BotD and Geirskogul use across approximately 2 minutes, with a GCD of exactly 2.3 seconds (and assuming that these abilities all work the way we think they will):

HT -> ID-Dis-[activate BotD]-CT-F&C-[Geirskogul] -> Phleb -> TT-VT-FT-WhT -[18.9 seconds of BotD remaining]-> HT -> ID-Dis-CT-F&C -[22.4 seconds of BotD remaining]-[Geirskogul]-> Phleb -> TT-VT-FT-WhT -[15.9 seconds of BotD remaining]-> HT -> ID-Dis-CT-F&C -[19.4 seconds of BotD remaining]-[Geirskogul]-> Phleb -> TT-VT-FT-[BotD wears off]-[ONE MINUTE: BotD is off cooldown again]-[activate new BotD]-WhT -[Geirskogul]-> HT -> ID-Dis-CT-F&C -[23.5 seconds of BotD remaining]-[Geirskogul]-> Phleb -> TT-VT-FT-WhT -[17 seconds of BotD remaining]-> HT -> ID-Dis-CT-F&C -[20.5 seconds of BotD remaining]-> Phleb -> TT-VT-FT-WhT -[24 seconds of BotD remaining]-[Geirskogul]-> HT -> ID-Dis-CT-F&C -[17.5 seconds of BotD remaining]-[TWO MINUTES: BotD is off cooldown again]-> Phleb -> TT-[Geirskogul]-[BotD wears off]-VT-[activate new BotD]-FT-WhT -[Geirskogul]-> (cycle essentially repeats with swapped combos)

General observations:
-The timing is very precise at the one minute mark, with BotD falling off exactly as it needs to be reactivated. It may be that this approach does not work at all, or perhaps only works if one is a bit lucky. On the other hand, it's possible that popping a new BotD while the old one is active simply forces the BotD timer to 15 seconds, which would eliminate the diceyness of the timing. Alternatively, one could perhaps manually click off BotD after landing FT?
-The general rule of thumb for aggressive Geirskogul use seems to be: pop Geirskogul immediately after a 4th-hit combo finisher, if you have about (5 GCDs + 10 seconds) or more remaining. In this example, that places the threshold at ((5 GCDs x 2.3 seconds) + 10 seconds) = 21.5 seconds. This value may have to be adjusted higher or lower, however, depending on how the animations for BotD, F&C, and WhT work. Also, knowing when to violate this rule, like I have in the above model just before the one-minute mark, will be crucial.
-Of course, it’s worth noting that this is an ideal, Striking Dummy-conditions model for cooldown optimization. There are, and I assume there will continue to be, many fights in the game that have periods of combat downtime. As Hyrist suggested, BotD and Geirskogul are likely to be very context-dependent in practice.

EDIT: With a little animation abuse at the one-minute mark of this model, it may be that the optimum 2.3-second-GCD approach is:

HT -> ID-Dis-[activate BotD]-CT-F&C-[Geirskogul] -> Phleb -> TT-VT-FT-WhT -[18.9 seconds of BotD remaining]-> HT -> ID-Dis-CT-F&C -[22.4 seconds of BotD remaining]-[Geirskogul]-> Phleb -> TT-VT-FT-WhT -[15.9 seconds of BotD remaining]-> HT -> ID-Dis-CT-F&C -[19.4 seconds of BotD remaining]-[Geirskogul]-> Phleb -> TT-VT-FT-[ONE MINUTE: BotD is off cooldown again]-WhT -[Geirskogul]-[5 seconds of BotD remaining]-> HT -> ID-Dis-[BotD wears off]-[activate new BotD]-> (repeat exact pattern that began with original BotD activation)

Here, we reach Wheeling Thrust before BotD falls off, and thus end up with 4 Geirskoguls across 30 GCDs, or (4 Geir / 69 seconds) x (60 seconds / 1 minute) = 3.48 Geirskoguls per minute.