Quote Originally Posted by Lyrica_Ashtine View Post
As for your guide, you mentioned you used "math". I think it's safe to assume you've used a program to help you do that. So how exactly would this be different from parsers? Parsers simply simplify it for this sole reason. It does add one benefit. Namely numbers. Numbers are much easier to grasp for the guide's effectiveness, rather than a "theoretical guide". Without the end result (the numbers), how could you prove your guide's better, if not just as effective, as another guide?
I forgot to address this point. The "program" I used is nothing other than pen-and-paper, automated by just running the calculations in excel rather than doing them by hand. I directly take the potency amounts in-game, use the GCD cooldown I have, and, using these numbers, calculated what would be the optimal rotation between a few different variants I came up with. Dragoon is simple in that it has 2 combos and 2 skills out-of-combo that are halfway useful. (Full Thrust/Chaos Thrust and Heavy Thrust/Phlebotomize, respectfully)

I reasoned out that Fracture is a waste of time and TP, because its potency per gcd is less than every other potential skill you could put in that spot (listed above) - INCLUDING Heavy Thrust, when you add up all those 15%'s that it gives on any of the other GCDs.

None of this required parsing - none even required verification by parsing. Numbers don't lie. Using simply the potency amounts, I also was able to calculate when it would be optimal to use buffs such as Life Surge, simply by mathing it out hard enough. I didn't have to parse using it in each place in a long fight to see. I just extrapolated using "perfect" rotations with "ideal" timings and decided which skills it would be useful to use it on. It was a loss to use it for Chaos Thrust (where it used to be a gain) but a gain to use it on either 4th hit OR Full Thrust, so long as you hit the positionals.

All of this has merit regardless of parsing or not, because I considered all other cases. At least 90% of other cases are thrown out before you even start because 90% of the skills on Dragoon are less potency per gcd than using either of those 4 blocks described above. From there it's just a matter of figuring out how to maximize the use of those 4 blocks. There's only so many permutations that exist when you only have 4 pieces to slide around, especially when 2 out of 4 of those are static damage regardless where you put them.


All of this described above comes with numbers.
Heavy Thrust is 170 potency per gcd, not counting buffs.
Phlebotomize is 170+30x? potency per gcd, not counting buffs.
Chaos Thrust combo is (180+220+250+290+35x?)/4 potency per gcd, not counting buffs.
Full Thrust combo is (150+200+360+290)/4 potency per gcd, not counting buffs.

The ?'s depend on your skill speed and the rotation you end up putting together.

In practice, we can calculate the Full Thrust combo's potency, including our base buffs as Dragoon (Heavy Thrust's +15% damage and Disembowel's 10% Pierce debuff resist drop):

150+200+360+290 = 1000 potency
1000 / 4 = 250 potency per gcd
250 x 1.15 = 287.5 potency per gcd (with Heavy Thrust)
287.5 / 0.9 = 319.44 potency per gcd (with HT+Dis)

That's a number I can compare to the others and see which combo is stronger. I didn't use a parser to get that number at all. All I "automated" was the last two calculations.

When you set up a rotation, it will give you a specific potency per gcd. You can compare these numbers to the numbers produced by other rotations to find out which one is strictly best without doing the fieldwork of testing each one a hundred times and averaging the results to give dps numbers spat out from a parser that estimates dot ticks.

How is it different from a parser? It's calculated using nothing but the numbers the game gives me in tool tips without "automating" anything aside from flat calculations (Though a calculator hardly automates anything). A parser scrapes the data from the game and compiles it, automating everything from data gathering to the calculations of damage amounts. These are two very different methods, though they look similar if you paint in broad strokes.