How to Dragoon Per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[Dervy]

Well as I said, we'll have to wait and see what will happen. I sincerely doubt they will completely lower the Skillspeed thresholds, as it appears they've done it on purpose. And who knows? Skillspeed might actually scale DoT damage very well, making that 2.4 threshold very favourable.

It is actually possible to get 3 GKs in and not miss any BotD application and to sustain HT + PH uptime 100% with 2.5GCD, if my model is correct... but it's A LOT harder to play as you get 0.1s leeway not to be hit by latency, mechanics, or GCD clipping, compared to 1.1s, plus GK management is A LOT more complicated and harsher than necessary.

Having said that, the rotation seems to be a lot more smoother with a GCD of 2.4 and it's very likely the development team have created the rotation with this number in mind, that's what I'm trying to say.

[Outfoxed]

It is actually possible to get 3 GKs in and not miss any BotD application and to sustain HT + PH uptime 100% with 2.5GCD, if my model is correct... but it's A LOT harder to play as you get 0.1s leeway

my numbers don't agree with you.

0	h	bl	b4b            botd timer		
2.5	i	pot					
5	d	botd	ir		---
6.5                                     15 ---BOTD CAST---
7.5	c	ps	leg		14		
10	4th	gk			16.5		
12.5	p	jump			14		
15	t	dfd			11.5		
17.5	t	ls			9		
20	t	ssd			6.5		
22.5	4th				19		
25	h				16.5		
27.5	i				14		
30	d				11.5		
32.5	c				9		
35	4th				21.5		
37.5	p				19		
40	t				16.5		
42.5	t				14		
45	t				11.5		
47.5	4th	gk			14		
50	h				11.5		
52.5	i				9		
55	d				6.5		
57.5	c				4		
60	4th	gk	botd falls off after GK				
62.5	p						
65	t					botd up @ 66.5

according to my numbers you have closer to a 4 second leeway for GK reapplication.

http://pastebin.com/2gmaa66B <-huge writeup

[Dervy]

snip

0.1s leeway for HT reapplication, not GK. Should of made it clearer. http://puu.sh/iE2XM/fafa65901c.png Column "C" is the duration remaining on HT when you successfully deal damage to your opponent. As you can see, C2 has 0.1s left on HT when you go and actually damage your opponent. Animation buff delay is awesome sometimes.

Your 2.5GCD GK usage is exactly the same as mine, there's absolutely 0 difference. I never said it was impossible to do so, it just requires a lot more management and "know-how", rather than a simple minded approach which works with 2.4GCD (which is listed on the OP). Well, I did kinda say it was impossible a few pages back... But I made a faulty assumption about 2.5GCD + GK, and I retract that statement. Should of double checked my model before hand.

Now. A fully looped cycle, including GK management lasts 122.5s. This is the point where your entire rotation starts from the beginning again and you're using BotD just before Chaos Thrust.

You can also use the same BotD layout for your 2.5GCD example, with 2.4GCD. So, to get a full loop with both of these, here's the duration and potencies.

2.5 GCD
Potency: 21175
Duration: 122.5s
PPS: 21175/122.5 = 172.8571

2.405 GCD (607ss/i180 geared)
Potency: 21102 (includes %chance to clip a DoT tick)
Duration:117.82
PPS: 21102/117.82 = 179.10371

Even with the DoT clips, the PPS is much higher at max i180 SS than it would be at 2.5GCD. If you get one unbuffed HT, it amounts to 28.05 Potency loss (170*0.15*1.1). That will definitely hurt your overall PPS if you continuously miss out on those and in a full 122.5s cycle, there's 5 HTs being used.

The next argument is something which Aiurily has tested at 2.4GCD. You can actually Pop BotD before Disembowel and use your Drac-Pot before Chaos Thrust. This results in you having a 104+ STR buffed 4th Tier after your Full Thrust, versus a Disembowel. This is significantly more damage. Unfortunately, my model doesn't allow me to calculate the additional Damage I'd gain from using a Drac-Pot during certain parts of the rotation, as my model is based on PPS...

My hard wired version comes out to it being a difference of around 30 DPS, give or take rounded numbers. It's hard to say what the exact number is as I believe SE have also changed some of the coefficients for Strength and Weapon Damage behind the scenes... This is the difference at 2.405 GCD, not a comparison between 2.5GCD, by the way.

As for how I calculated DoT clips before people get confused, I calculated a probability of you clipping a tick, whilst you have your DoT on your enemy. The closer you reapply your DoT to a value of 3, the greater the chance you have of clipping your DoT tick. The actual math I use is (DoT_Duration - Animation)/3. This will give me a percentage, which I multiply by one DoT tick, then subtract it from the overall DoT potency. It's an average, not an exact value, but it's good to calculate the average PPS.

So yes, the math does check out that at 2.405 GCD, you're doing significantly more PPS. As for the numerical DPS value (which we're all focused on...) we still need to figure out how Skillspeed affects DoT ticks, as well as Critical Hit Rating and how Determination scales Auto-Attacks. And you are correct, we don't know what Alexander Hardmode gear will look like.

But this is a guide for 3.0, not 3.01. Once Alexander Hits and we evaluate the gear differences, plus when we have more knowledge on Skillspeed, Crit and Determination, then we can make a lot more accurate and calculated assumptions for what the rotation will be like and of course, the guide will be updated for then.

But as I said previously, even if it is possible to get the rotation going with 2.5GCD, the numbers add up to the developers designing the rotation around 2.4 GCD. If Alexander gear is i180 and has more Determination, I could probably see us going down to 2.45 GCD, as gear is just absolutely loaded with Skillspeed at the moment.

[Outfoxed]

0.1s leeway for HT reapplication. Shouldve made it clearer. As you can see, C2 has 0.1s left on HT when you go and actually damage your opponent. Animation buff delay is awesome sometimes.

So while the +15% on HT is nice, it's not really something that dragoons should be optimizing for or even taking into account when specing the class. It's not some sort of magical threshhold that a dragoon must reach or significantly suffer in his dps.

The 15% of HT on HT is worth an unbuffed (no BL/BFB/IR) 25.5 potency. Or about 1 potency per second. Roughly 1% of our damage. Superior stat weighs will counteract it.

That's not a threshold or a number we should be optimizing for and it's not a big deal if we don't get it perfectly. I mean, we had a similar situation with CT and Pb last patch where any error in judgment/play resulted in a dropoff and SS builds were pretty rare in general.

I guess my argument is that HT clipping is just not big enough of a deal to be a priority.