How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[Sleigh]

realistically are the situations where you drop uptime for mechanics/aoe dodging and end up risking geir salvaged by high skill speed or not

because even at 2.41 (580-590 or so) optimal 3 geir/min is possible, if just a bit tight. so yes disconnecting for an aoe or a mechanic will make you lose 3 lasers if its at a bad timing; but would this not be the same at 650+ sksp as well? that 0.02s difference spread over a minute i don't feel is enough to make a difference. with 25 skills over a minute, that's 0.50s extra; is that really enough to salvage 3 geir/minute when you have to dodge an aoe or do a mechanic (or get done by a mechanic, cough quarantine/ferrofluid cough). even then it's probably closer to 0.38-0.40s extra time, since typically the last 4-5 GCDs before BoTD refresh, you aren't worrying about the timer anymore anyway

I really can't speak for DRG here, but as BLM every .01 can really add up since there are frequently times when I refresh Enochian at a time where Enochian has technically fallen off as my B4 is landing. It doesn't seem like it should matter but well, it really does in practice.

Again, can't really speak for Geirskogul mechanics though.

[SunnyHirose]

realistically are the situations where you drop uptime for mechanics/aoe dodging and end up risking geir salvaged by high skill speed or not

To clarify, Thendiel's talking about how you lose a Geirskogul within that minute-long window if your GCDs overtake the BotD cooldown. Then there will be times you have 3 Geirskoguls from 5 BotD extensions and times you have 3 Geirskoguls from 6 BotD extensions.

[JackFross]

snip

Here's a quick, dirty, not completely accurate breakdown.
http://puu.sh/kdDsW/4e03e8c747.png

What's important to note is the time remaining in the highlighted portion, where GSK 3 MUST go in order to maintain 3 per minute. If you do it before that other 4th hit, you lose BotD and miss a combo hit, suffering a loss.

"It's only 0.5 seconds!" That's a LOT of bonus time. That allows you to delay your gcds up to 0.5 seconds longer aggregated over 1 minute and still hit 3. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it really does matter. A second is a lot longer than people give it credit for. It's a grace period. Yes, it's possible to be just fine at 2.41 gcd, but at 2.4 and even 2.39 you just have more room for error. That's all. It could be the difference between maintaining botd and losing it, which is where it really matters more than the gsk timings.

[whiskeybravo]

Are there any BiS sets that use the gordian belt?

I was totally going to get eso belt after a2 last, and then the belt dropped >.<

As a secondary question, what Det would be too low? I'm having a hard time coming up with a set to stay around 400 det, but most sets I'm coming up with range from 276-350ish. Even if crit is that much better, I don't want to see 276 Det.. Ever.. Lol

[JackFross]

snip

The belt is a good accuracy piece. Once you have accuracy elsewhere, you should upgrade to 210 Eso. Until then, it's (generally) a good piece.

There's a good set up in the OP with a nice amount of det (484). I personally don't wanna dip too far below 400, either, but it's not really easy to stay over it until you have a significant amount of the bis pieces. Not too much of the good stuff has det on it this patch. A few good pieces to nab if you wanna keep your det up include the eso belt+boots+head. All three give a nice amount; boots have the added benefit of more accuracy than Gordian, too. Gordian accessories are other good places to stack more det. Don't put too much stock in stat weights - crit > det, yes, but crit is at the end of the day RNG as hell. On the contrary, det is consistent.

[SunnyHirose]

Congrats on the 3.0 soldiery helm. At least this one doesn't require a glamor.

[JackFross]

I assumed Sunny was referring to the Dervy set, since it has a base of 777 crit before food lol. It's amazing you can hit 777 another way, too.

[Thendiel]

That's awesome! Grats, Sunny!

[SunnyHirose]

I tried to find some gearsets manually, seeing as to how stat weights keep making it weird. After fixing a frankly embarrassing error in my model (crit buffs were being counted twice for auto-attacks, but only in one of the testbeds...), the best A4S BiS simulation I've gotten so far is the set Aiurily posted--http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/RL7Z (estimated average 1493 DPS). If you don't mind accuracy food, it's a good one.

But I do mind accuracy food, so, now that I'm not spending every evening trying to beat the fight, I'll try my hand at writing software to do a more exhaustive search....

Did you get any weapon upgrade/trident on A4S?

Nope. Since we're still looking at odd edge cases where either spear might be BiS, I was okay with holding off. We gave the gobdip to the monk (eso weapon: major crit, minor ss; alex weapon: major ss, minor det... so anyhoo, pretty clear which one's BiS).

I hold my GCD there to do it, and have been ending hand phase at around 1300 dps at i199, so meh?

Avoid holding GCDs just to get the Geirskogul in under a minute. GCDs contribute more than 10 times the potency of Geirskoguls. Better to just stretch it to 3 / 84 seconds than slow down the pain train.

[Baa]

Having greater leeway for Gsk is a good justification, and I will continue aiming for 2.40s.
My original question, though, was whether 2.40s was really *needed*. The guide emphasises this in bold, underlined text. Yet 2 posts up we see a BiS set with 579 SkS.
When new DRGs come along and read the guide, will they drop ilvls or delay upgrades just to keep 590+ SkS, when they could do better with 2.41s or 2.42s?
I suppose all this doesn't matter outside of savage anyway.