How to Dragoon Per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[Amberyl]

I'm having problems double-weaving non-GCD skills during the rotation. Quite often I'm finding the second isn't triggering, and the GCD skill is repeating instead. I macro, (arthritis, lack of reachable keys otherwise,) and am wondering if this is part of the problem.

e.g.

/macroicon "Impulse Drive"
/ac "Impulse Drive" <t>
/ac "Internal Release" <me>
/ac "Blood of the Dragon" <me>

Is this a latency thing, (Hong Kong, 1 gig line, 120ms,) do you think, or am I just short on luck and need to manually input the skills? I don't have the same issue with Paladin, for some reason. Is that the higher GCD?

[Thendiel]

I'm having problems double-weaving non-GCD skills during the rotation. Quite often I'm finding the second isn't triggering, and the GCD skill is repeating instead. I macro, (arthritis, lack of reachable keys otherwise,) and am wondering if this is part of the problem.

e.g.

/macroicon "Impulse Drive"
/ac "Impulse Drive" <t>
/ac "Internal Release" <me>
/ac "Blood of the Dragon" <me>

Is this a latency thing, (Hong Kong, 1 gig line, 120ms,) do you think, or am I just short on luck and need to manually input the skills? I don't have the same issue with Paladin, for some reason. Is that the higher GCD?

Macros will absolutely cause delays in ability execution, making it impossible to double-weave off-GCDs. Manual input is really necessary, I'm afraid.

I do suspect that 120ms is adequate for double-weaving, but it might be a little borderline.

[Amberyl]

Manual input is really necessary, I'm afraid.

How do you go about that with so many skills in the rotation now? Do you have binds for them all, or are you clicking?

[Thendiel]

How do you go about that with so many skills in the rotation now? Do you have binds for them all, or are you clicking?

Yes, I have binds for all of my skills. Clicking them individually would be tremendously difficult.

Personally, I use a Razer Orbweaver 25-button keypad with a 13-button Redragon Perdition M901 mouse. I find that they are both very helpful. With them, I have just enough room for all of my skills. One intelligent alternate approach I've heard of for PC users is to use a mouse with 3+ buttons, then bind SHIFT, ALT, and CTRL to different mouse keys so that you can quickly access different layers of skill sets on your keyboard.

[Amberyl]

One intelligent alternate approach I've heard of for PC users is to use a mouse with 3+ buttons, then bind SHIFT, ALT, and CTRL to different mouse keys so that you can quickly access different layers of skill sets on your keyboard.

Yeah, I tried that. It left me standing in goop a little too often, reaching for thumb buttons, rather than maintaining a solid grip for movement. It also put a lot more strain across the top of my wrist that I'd like, aggravating the arthritis.

I've figured for a while now that it was time to drop the class, (two main chains, so many weaves, so much mandatory movement,) but I'm guessing this and the inclusion of the 4th tiers cements it for me. I wish they'd use something more akin to the UI system in NCSoft games, where the skills in a chain automatically progress on the same button, if they're an auto proc. Insisting on so many mandatory binds for an already positional DPS is a bit much, when the tanks can play optimally on half the number of keys, and don't need to move anywhere near as much to begin with.

Ah well, thanks for the advice. At least the loladin is in a good place right now.

[CookieMonsta]

How do you go about that with so many skills in the rotation now...

I map ID, DIS, CT, Phleb and Legs to F1, F2, F3, F4, F5.
TT, VT, FT, HT to 1, 2, 3, 4
Offensive CDs, BFB, IR, PS, LS to CTRL+1, 2, 3, 4 (Ctrl + 5 is too far for my small hands)
Defensive CDs, SW, Keen, Foresight, Bloodbath to SHIFT+1, 2, 3, 4. Wheeling + Fang mapped to 5+6. Jump, Spine, Dragonfire to 7, 8, 9, Geirk to 0.
BotD is mapped to Tab, Select target mapped to Tilde (next to 1)
Litany mapped to Shift+5. cuz less often used.
I press pot manually with mouse.

The idea is that I use the side of my palm to press CTRL for rapid cycling of the button layers, shift is not used very much because I'm banking on not needing to weave defensive while doing combos. BotD is separate to prevent accidental press but on tab for rapid access to double weave. The Jumps are all separated by Wheel+Fang to prevent accidental press when going thru the thrust combo.

My finger movement is similar to the piano motion, you shift your whole hand in order and vertical, no finger crossing.

[Amberyl]

My finger movement is similar to the piano motion, you shift your whole hand in order and vertical, no finger crossing.

While I appreciate the detail, I gave up piano because of this problem Your binds use far too much keyboard real estate for my hands to cope with. Thanks all the same.

[RapBreon]

While I appreciate the detail, I gave up piano because of this problem Your binds use far too much keyboard real estate for my hands to cope with. Thanks all the same.

I have relatively small hands. I use 1-6. Q, E , R, T, F, G, Z, X, C, V & B. And shift modifiers of those keys. That covers everything 'just'. I use the thumb buttons for 'target closest target' and 'cycle next target'. That's about the best it'll probably get in terms of limiting the stretching on a stock keyboard and mouse.

[Amberyl]

I have relatively small hands. I use 1-6. Q, E , R, T, F, G, Z, X, C, V & B. And shift modifiers of those keys. That covers everything 'just'.

That's about the same as me, although I can't twist my wrist for c/v/b or 4-6 without causing myself serious pain the following day. I use CTRL and SHIFT for modifiers.

[Amberyl]

One thing occurs to me - this would all be a lot easier if the game had a freelook toggle, and mouse 2 were free to be another modifier, like SHIFT or CTRL.