How to Dragoon Per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[Bloodborn8]

Hey, I don't really post but thought I'd share some A3S opening theorycrafting I've done since a lot of cool things are being done here.

In A3S, when I started out doing the normal rotation (HT-IDC4-P-TTT4-Repeat) I found that at ~620 Skillspeed (2.4s GCD), at the phase change from "human" form into a hand, my Disembowel would go off without the damage or the debuff almost every time. The combo continued though, and when the Living Liquid became vulnerable again I had CT queued. I found this to be a terrible situation, because now myself and the bard had no piercing debuff for a VERY long time unless I wanted to SERIOUSLY clip my CT. I thought there must be a better way, so I decided to open with Phlebotomize and perform the follow rotation until the phase change:

HT - IDC4 - TTT4- P - Repeat

After the phase change, the normal rotation of HT - IDC4 - P - TTT4 - Repeat is followed, starting with disembowel

Let me list the advantages:
-Lose ID damage instead of Disembowel damage+debuff
-Less loss of phlebotomize DoT dps

Disadvantage:
-This opener is slightly (3%) weaker for the first iteration (up until HT#2)
EDIT: This may have been confusing, as it is not technically weaker because I take 410 potency in the beginning in exchange for giving up a weaker skill before the phase change. This should only lower your normal "burst" parse, not the overall parse

The disembowel being queued up for the phase change is fairly obvious as to why it is a benefit. I don't have to clip CT shorter than normal and piercing debuff is up right away. The advantage to refreshing Phleb late in the rotation is a) Don't clip the 1st Phleb. b) When the phase change happens in this case, Phleb has just been renewed 3 GCDs ago. You lose 3 ticks during the phase change and you only lose 1 tick from it falling off the GCD before Phleb comes up in the NORMAL rotation. If you refresh Phleb according to the NORMAL opener, it times out the last 3 ticks during the phase change, plus you lose 3 more ticks before Phleb comes up again in the rotation. In summary, if you clip the first Phleb, you lose 3 ticks from the first, 3 during the phase change, and 3 from it not being up compared to just 3 during the phase change and 1 from it not being up when you do not clip to get the buffed Phleb up sooner.

Unrelated to the opener but an additional thing I've learned about A3S is that you can completely cancel the knockback from Wash Away with a precisely timed Jump, SSD, or DFD. This is particularly useful because if you use DFD in the opener, you can't use that at all for either Wash Away to get back because it's not off cooldown. With SSD's minute cooldown, you can only use it to get back from one Wash Away. You can use Jump for both Wash Aways because of its 30s cooldown. Jump saves your location upon cast as the "origin" you return to after the animation. If you time Jump for the exact moment after the knockback for Wash Away happens (when you've only been knocked back a few pixels), your "origin" will be right next to the hand, so after the jump you return right to the hand with absolutely no uptime lost. Save elusive jump and SSD to return, though, for when you invariably mess it up because even after 2 weeks of practice I can still only get it perfect 1/4-1/3 of the time because the knockback happens so fast.