How to Dragoon Per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[Thendiel]

Hey, Dervy. I was doing some work for updating my guide, and stumbled across some interesting conclusions concerning the Rotation of Shame. Basically, my initial purpose was to prove that your Rotation of Shame was ideal, but after I crunched the numbers, I wasn't completely certain.

More specifically, I discovered that your approach was superior by only a very tiny, tiny amount. Here are my numbers, under the assumption that we have a 2.4-second GCD:

Rotation of Shame:

HT ⇢ ID ⇢ Dis ⇢ CT ⇢ Ph ⇢ TT ⇢ VT ⇢ FT ⇢ TT ⇢ VT ⇢ FT ⇢ (repeat)

Initial-hit damage: (170 x 1.10) + ((180 + 220 + 250 + 170 + 150 + 200 + 360 + 150 + 200 + 360) x 1.15 x 1.10) = 3020.6 potency across 11 GCDs

(Note: the HT buff will vanish before HT reapplies every 11 GCDs)

DoT damage: 100% CT uptime, but Ph falls off for 2.4 seconds every 11 GCDs

(26.4 seconds x (1 tick / 3 seconds)) x (35 x 1.15) potency per CT tick = 354.2 potency

(24 seconds x (1 tick / 3 seconds)) x (30 x 1.15) potency per Ph tick = 276 potency

Therefore, 3020.6 + 354.2 + 276 = 3650.8 potency across 11 GCDs, or (3650.8 potency / 11 GCDs)= 331.89 potency per hit

Alternative Rotation of Shame (identical to our pre-HW GCD rotation):

HT ⇢ ID ⇢ Dis ⇢ CT ⇢ Ph ⇢ TT ⇢ VT ⇢ FT ⇢ HT ⇢ TT ⇢ VT ⇢ FT ⇢ Ph ⇢ ID ⇢ Dis ⇢ CT ⇢ HT ⇢ TT ⇢ VT ⇢ FT ⇢ Ph ⇢ TT ⇢ VT ⇢ FT ⇢ (repeat)

Initial-hit damage: (170 + 180 + 220 + 250 + 170 + 150 + 200 + 360 + 170 + 150 + 200 + 360 + 170 + 180 + 220 + 250 + 170 + 150 + 200 + 360 + 170 + 150 + 200 + 360) x 1.15 x 1.10 = 6527.4 potency across 24 GCDs

DoT damage: 100% CT uptime and 100% Ph uptime

(57.6 seconds x (1 tick / 3 seconds)) x (35 x 1.15) potency per CT tick = 772.8 potency

(57.6 seconds x (1 tick / 3 seconds)) x (30 x 1.15) potency per Ph tick = 662.4 potency

Therefore, 6527.4 + 772.8 + 662.4 = 8215.6 potency across 24 GCDs, or (7962.6 potency / 24 GCDs) = 331.78 potency per hit

That's a difference of 331.89 - 331.78 = 0.11 potency per hit, or 0.0458 potency per second. Again, you are technically right that your approach is ideal if we can't maintain BotD, but then I got to thinking: isn't the Alternative Rotation of Shame here better for re-injecting ourselves back into the regular Blood of the Dragon-based rotation? With your approach, we might potentially end up with something like...

HT ⇢ ID ⇢ Dis ⇢ CT ⇢ Ph ⇢ TT ⇢ VT ⇢ FT ⇢ TT ⇢ VT -(BotD)⇢ FT -(HT falls off)⇢ 4th ⇢ HT ⇢ TT ⇢ VT -(Ph falls off)⇢ FT ⇢ 4th ⇢ Ph ⇢ etc.

...which gives us about 5 seconds of Heavy Thrust downtime and about 7 seconds of Phlebotomize downtime. With the Alternative Rotation of Shame, we'd get...

HT ⇢ ID ⇢ Dis ⇢ CT ⇢ Ph ⇢ TT ⇢ VT ⇢ FT ⇢ HT ⇢ TT ⇢ VT -(BotD)⇢ FT ⇢ 4th ⇢ Ph ⇢ ID ⇢ Dis ⇢ CT ⇢ 4th ⇢ HT ⇢ etc.

...during which time HT, Ph, Dis, and CT would all have 100% uptime.

So, it seems to me that we'd want to favor the Alternative RoS, since it gives us smoother BotD re-injection in exchange for an extremely small abstract DPS loss while BotD is down. Granted, the scenario I've outlined for BotD re-injection with your original RoS represents an absolute worse-case scenario, but there are other possible scenarios that involve just a 5-second pocket of HT downtime or just a 5-second pocket of Ph downtime.

Anyway, let me know what you think. It's possible that I'm overlooking something, or running the numbers incorrectly somehow.