How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[MiniTyra]

I'll spend some time later in the week and try to replicate your results with 10k+ hits.

[Wegente]

Hey guys, I have a question regarding A7S.

When we skip the second set of cages before the first ball phase, my Blood for Blood comes back about 10~ seconds before the third set's bomb spawns.
Right now I am saving the Blood for Blood until the bomb spawns so that I know if there will be the melee cage or not. If there will be, I save it for the cage dps check, otherwise I use it. But in this case the Blood for Blood is a bit wasted since the boss will fly away when I still have it up with around 10 seconds left.

So the question is: can a Dragoon reliably kill the add in the melee cage without using Blood for Blood (and possibly without Internal Release as well) and just with oGCDs such as Jump and Leg Sweep, or is it too risky if I happen to have bad RNG such as no crits?
I am iLvl 240 with 240 weapon, 946 crit, 497 det, 786 skill speed.

[JackFross]

So the question is: can a Dragoon reliably kill the add in the melee cage without using Blood for Blood (and possibly without Internal Release as well) and just with oGCDs such as Jump and Leg Sweep, or is it too risky if I happen to have bad RNG such as no crits?

I have only ever used B4B in a jail one time and it was on the last jail set in my group's kill last week. I used it because I had no ogcds to use that I normally have and didn't wanna die alone.

I usually kill it using just PS+Jump, Leg Sweep, Mercy Stroke, and Geirskogul. If it's the second jail in the first set (because we don't skip it yet), I have DFD for it, too. You shouldn't need to hold B4B for the Jail, basically. I also assume you must have a MNK in your group and that's the reason you're doing the second set of Jails. Because, otherwise, it should be the NIN's responsibility, anyway, unless your NIN is beating you in DPS.

[Wegente]

I see, thanks. Do you apply the Chaos Thrust combo on the add as well? Or are you just using HT -> double TTT combo on it?
We have a Ninja by the way, we just take turns on who will do the second melee cage since it's a pretty big DPS loss for both of us.

[JackFross]

I see, thanks. Do you apply the Chaos Thrust combo on the add as well? Or are you just using HT -> double TTT combo on it?
We have a Ninja by the way, we just take turns on who will do the second melee cage since it's a pretty big DPS loss for both of us.

Ah, that's fair.

With no positionals since all frontal, the two combos you're looking at are:

HT>IDC4>P>TTT[pop]
100+180+220+(200+200+170+150+200+360)x1.1 = 1908
And:
HT>TTT4>P>TTT[pop]
100+150+200+360+200+170+150+200+360 = 1890

It averages out to be about the same, but the Disembowel also buffs up your PS+Jump, Leg Sweep, and Mercy Stroke (and geirskogul) and CT will tick about 3 times for an additional 105 potency, so I tend to use the CT one, but either is really just fine. One just gives you a bit of an extra edge over the other. I ignored HT and DoTs since that's identical between both.

(You use Phlebotomize because the 4th hit will be 200 potency and Phleb is 170+ticks - 1 tick bumps it over 200)

[Kezy_Kaatapoh]

With no positionals since all frontal, the two combos you're looking at are:

Just wanted to make a note on this, you *can* actually hit positionals on it. What you do is stand in the center of the add, then *right* as you're about to hit the ability that has a positional, you juke over to that side and then stay there (so as not to miss any autoattacks). Every now and then it won't register due to going a tad early, but I have a pretty high success rate with it. I know there's a video from a DRG PoV somewhere out there that shows it, so I'll try and dig for it.

I usually don't bother for the initial Heavy Thrust, since I'm attempting to start attacking immediately, but I admit that it may not be optimal to do that.

It can be a helpful technique for anyone just missing it though

[Garver]

I see, thanks. Do you apply the Chaos Thrust combo on the add as well? Or are you just using HT -> double TTT combo on it?
We have a Ninja by the way, we just take turns on who will do the second melee cage since it's a pretty big DPS loss for both of us.

If you have a Ninja, you should never be doing the Purple jail in set number 2. You might have to do Purple jail in sets number 1 and 3, depending on where the bomb falls. If you trust your MCH, they can do it, but ranged dps usually gets 100% uptime in A7. Your WAR can also do the purple jail in set 1 if it falls in the second pair of jails since his Berserk will line up with that timing.

As per cooldowns, you shouldn't need to particularly pocket anything; you always get to start the jail with Leg Sweep, Power Surge + Jump, Mercy Stroke, Internal Release, and a fresh Blood activation. You also have Spineshatter to get back on the boss. Sometimes you have Dragonfire, but you really don't need it.

[JackFross]

If you have a Ninja, you should never be doing the Purple jail in set number 2.

I poked through a bit of their fflogs, Damey-chan. Their NIN is super good and it's the only Alarum jail they see in the fight, now, if they get tank/healer first, so it's totally fair to swap from pull to pull or week to week so they can both get a good parse.

[Garver]

I poked through a bit of their fflogs, Damey-chan. Their NIN is super good and it's the only Alarum jail they see in the fight, now, if they get tank/healer first, so it's totally fair to swap from pull to pull or week to week so they can both get a good parse.

I assumed that he was asking questions for a clear, not for PRs on FFLogs. In the latter case, DRG taking the jail duty for the NIN to have 100% boss uptime is perfectly reasonable. Everything still lines up the same way.

[MiniTyra]

Xero, could you check your JXero reddit acc pls m8 ty ily