Dragoon at lvl 38 and forward

[wesmont]

Good morning all,
I am fairly new to the game, i am on my first subscription month and i have a lvl 36 DRG at the moment. I love the way DRG is played, yesterday i finished Titan, it was a blast and i am moving forward.
Now , my rotation at this point is: HT-B4B-Ph-IR-TT-Jump-VT-LS-FT, repeat and apply the oGCDs when available. The problem is that at lvl38 i'll get DIs, so i have to include to the rotation ID-Dis. So now i am a bit confused about what the optimal rotation should be at this point.
Thanks in advance

[AlexanderTheHair]

Your overall priority should be keeping Heavy Thrust up, Disembowl up and your dot(s) up. For right now HT-IR-ID-B4B-Dis-Sweep-Ph-Jump-TT-VT-LS-FT would do just fine, the last Full Thrust doesn't need to be under the effect of IR since life surge will make it crit regardless, if your GCD is making IR fall off at like True Thrust you can just switch around where b4b and ir are if you'd like.
At 40 you get a second jump called Spineshatter, works a bit differently then Jump because it places you at the mob you used it on not at your old location. At 45 you'll Power Surge which makes the next Jump or Spineshatter deal 50% extra damage, you'll want to use it with Jump since it has a better potency and thanks to the recast timers on them you'll be able to use it on every other Jump.

There are some great guides by other players;
Here is the link to a rather old lvl50 Dragoon rotation guide: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...otation-Reborn
Here is a very long newer lvl50 rotation guide (still outdated), they have some openers at page 15 or section 2: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing
While not yet relevant for you here is the current guide for lvl60 Dragoons: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...A-DPS-Paradigm

[wesmont]

Thank you for the very detailed response. I know all about those 2 guides on the forums, they are both excellent sources for a DRG. Your rotation seems perfect, although i have two questions. First, is it better to hit B4B first and then IR, considering that B4B has a 80s recast time so it'll be available again later than IR? and my second question, why do you have Sweep before Ph, when there is no positional requirement for Ph? Right now i usually use Sweep just before HT to hit the positional requirement if it's necessary.
Thanks in advance

[wesmont]

good morning all,

Can someone of the more experienced DRGs please answer the above questions? I know that at lvl 40 when HT's duration extends to 20s, things will start to become more clear but what about these few lvls up to 40?
Thanks

[AlexanderTheHair]

Sorry for not replying earlier, didn't actually play much ffxiv yesterday/today so i didn't think to check the forums.

I had leg sweep in there assuming it's on like dungeon bosses etc where you don't have to worry about trying to stun the mob to get the positional off, for solo play go ahead and use it for the positional.
As for B4B before IR it's purely because in the 50 rotation IR falls off like right after Vorpal so that you aren't wasting IR by forcing the Full Thrust to crit off of Life Surge.

Also the HT duration increase is mostly so that once you get the full ID> Dis> CT you can do both combos and Ph in one HT. Unless i'm miss remembering you'll either have to clip HT early sometimes or just do an extra 1-2 moves without HT up when you get the duration increase but still don't have CT. Dis also gets a duration increase at I think 48 so that it lasts as long as CT so you don't need to clip CTs dot/awkwardly end the combo after Dis

[wesmont]

ok, i got it, thank you very much again for your detailed reply. You're right, i was thinking about Sweep from the solo perspective and not in relation to dungeon bosses.
I am also thinking about the HT duration increase at lvl40, i guess the rotation will go to something like: HT-ID-DIS-PH-TT-VT-FT and repeat or it should be different because i still don't have CT?

[AlexanderTheHair]

So DRG doesn't do the same thing every HT use just due to the durations of moves, at 48 when Dis gets extended to 30s you wont need to use it right after HT every time.
With the 20s dis you will need to use it every HT use, I quickly messed around with 2.5 gcd on my drg and it seems that you can do HT-ID-Dis-PH-TT-VT-FT-TT-VT-FT repeat, you'll get HT in right as it falls off but Dis will be dropped at about HT as well so ID/Dis wont be done under the effect of it and you'll be able to do Ph right as it drops as well which should be just fine for leveling. If you want to just play more how it will end up playing later you can just do HT-ID-Dis-Ph-TT-VT-FT-HT-ID-Dis etc with the only difference being the exact spot you use Ph to make sure you aren't clipping it by more then like 3-4 seconds ideally.
At 50 you'll be able to get 2 combos and Ph in during HT with some clipping with 2.5gcd. For 50 i'd be more like HT-ID-Dis-CT-Ph-TT-VT-FT- HT-TT-VT-FT-Ph-ID-Dis-CT- HT-TT-VT-FT-Ph-TT-VT-FT- HT-ID-Dis-CT-Ph-TT-VT-FT kinda deal
Here is a flow diagram made by the person who did the first guide i linked: http://i.imgur.com/hJFTfLf.png
It's not a true just repeat what you do kind of class rotation but more of doing what needs to be reapplied/FT if nothing needs to be reapplied in the next ~9 seconds.

[wesmont]

thank you mate, you've been very helpful!