How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[JackFross]

Gonna preface this by saying that, while I saw a 17% enrage with another group (due to a hundred billion deaths), my static is still barely past adds because of latency issues and real life nonsense allowing for less-than-ideal raid time.

2) What should I do with cds outside of opener? I noticed I tend to delay cds if I see that my B4B will be up in 20-30 seconds so that I can allight for example B4B+IR+PS. Is it a bad thing to do? Shall I just use everything as it comes off cooldown and don't go for the "stacking with B4B" thing? I understand some mechanics call to the stacking, but I'm mostly asking in general, without regard to any specific encounter.

Never hold any cooldowns. Always pop everything as it comes up, if you're going for optimal dps in any given encounter.

The very rare exceptions to this rule include situations such as A1S - near the end of the first phase before he jumps, you can hold your very last PS+Jump and SSD to use under the following B4B, since they're the last ones you'll get before he jumps and they'll be back when he lands if you use them soon enough into B4B, so you don't take a pps loss. Even if they're not back *immediately*, you'll still manage 2 PS+Jump and 2 SSD on the next phase, which will similarly mean you haven't lost any casts and gained pps by having an extra PS+J and DFD and SSD under B4B.

1) What do you do with transition to the last phase? The consensus in my team is to use all cds+litany+pots as soon as Pepsiman becomes targetable, but I'm reluctant to do so, because I feel like magnets after the cascade disturb the burst too much. So what I do currently is I still cast litany for my team mates on transition, but delay all of my personal cooldowns until after magnets (so I'm using them during and after protean).

In my limited experience with this, I think it's better to pop everything immediately. It'll all come back sooner and - even if you miss the last one or two GCDs of B4B because of it - you'll get net gains out of the potential for more casts of B4B and more casts of Jump. If you're more comfortable holding it, it's also worthwhile to note that you should *at least* be hitting Leg Sweep and Jump (without PS, if you wanna hold that for the burst), since both will be back to use during the burst that you start after ferrofluid.

2) I read previous posts and saw that this question was asked a few times already, but I still would like to again confirm this: during add phase the most seem to agree that going with HT+TTT(4?) is the best way? So never Chaos Thrust rotation and never Phleb? And what to do with BoTD? Keep it during the entire phase for buffed Jump and 4th and use Geir only if add is about to get away?

I've been pulling ~1100 (no pots, flint caviar hq) through the end of add phase using just HT+TTT4 with Jump and PS/Jump flowing on CD. I hold SSD the entire phase and only use it in the last set of 4 if necessary for a stun. I'll pop DFD if it'll hit multiple targets*. I ONLY use Geirskogul in a situation where I can hit more than one target with it; otherwise I just maintain BotD using essentially HT>TTT4>TTT4 repeatedly (It might be better to just maintain a normal BotD+gsk rotation here and just carry it into phase transition, because there's no downtime between Adds phase and Final phase). The lack of Phleb gives you a nice grace period on HT runoff which is useful for traversing the field to chase Gears and Pistons.

Hitting DFD on multiple targets with HT buff v hitting DFD on one target with HT+B4B+IR+BL+Dis:
Base 817 crit - 16% critrate, 156% crit damage.
240*1.15*x
x=2 > 552 | crit adjust: 601.4592
x=3 > 828 | crit adjust: 902.1888

240*1.15*1.3*1.1 = 394.68
16%+10%+15%=41% crit rate with buffs.
394.68*0.59+394.68*1.56*0.41 = 485.2985

So getting DFD on CD earlier is beneficial, so long as it'll hit more than 1 target - ideally 3+ since that makes your 0-crit multi-target higher potency than a crit single-target full buffed.

Any other tip you have for me, be it re my gear or useful tricks for either A3S or A4S - I'd much appreciate those.

I could only give tricks for P1+2 and I'd need to see/know how you handle those to let you know anything that I do differently; would also need to know what your dps looks like at the end of hands to know if I even do anything better, since I average around 1350-1400 without potions, and I've heard of/seen people doing more, though I'm really unsure how much of that was due to RNGesus, gear, and Ninja presence.

[SunnyHirose]

1) Despite the dropped head and bracers I'm still aiming for Dervy's balanced set, and the reason why is because my team mates told me that Dervy calculated that starting from 780 crit deminishing returns start to kick in for this stat. Is this indeed true and if yes, is it so for every job?

Dervy would like to know where they heard this, because he has no recollection of saying it (maybe something similar about Bloodletter pre-Heavensward, but it was a statement about bard only). What he has said is that crit scales exponentially in Heavensward.

Just an observation from myself: secondary stat breakpoints have only rarely proven to be more than a curiosity in this game. The main exception to that being the 9-hit Berserk. Even the 9-hit Blood for Blood wasn't actually that great, and that's a 30% buff for goodness' sake (now we have those levels of skill speed by default so it's moot).

[MrCookTM]

Holding onto IR for B4B is not worth it. If you just use both on CD, your 3rd B4B and 4th IR line up naturally after 240 seconds. If you hold IR everytime, you only get 3 IR's instead of 4, which - even though all 3 would be buffed by B4B - is a dps loss. 2 buffed + 2 unbuffed IR's > 3 buffed IR's.

[Dualgunner]

So this is a FoF rumor, probably unsubstantiated but I have to check, but apparently dragoons are hitting 2k dps in a3s? The most I can do in A1S on Faust is 1467 and that's my best rotation; is there something in A3S that allows this?

[Aeromat]

So this is a FoF rumor, probably unsubstantiated but I have to check, but apparently dragoons are hitting 2k dps in a3s? The most I can do in A1S on Faust is 1467 and that's my best rotation; is there something in A3S that allows this?

In the the opening part of the first phase yes, not throughout the fight though.

[JackFross]

People are talking about the opening burst. Full-geared Dragoons can pretty regularly crest 2000. I'm max gear for having not cleared A3 yet and my opening burst is generally 1700-1850 without using a potion. That's with 200 weapon+head+chest+legs, a full like 35 strength below where I will be at 210. At maximum gear level you can see stuff like:

Phase 1
Phase 1+2

On a parse that finished over 1300.

Same guy ranks at having dealt 1681 dps strictly ST on Faust in A1S.

[RapBreon]

People are talking about the opening burst. Full-geared Dragoons can pretty regularly crest 2000. I'm max gear for having not cleared A3 yet and my opening burst is generally 1700-1850 without using a potion. That's with 200 weapon+head+chest+legs, a full like 35 strength below where I will be at 210. At maximum gear level you can see stuff like:

Phase 1
Phase 1+2

On a parse that finished over 1300.

Same guy ranks at having dealt 1681 dps strictly ST on Faust in A1S.

Best I ever got was like 1520ish on Faust and like 1650 at the end of p1; 1400 once p2 ends (average about 1330). I have essentially the same strength as you (1048 I think). I've been obsessing over squeezing out more; but I can't seem to really find a spot (besides forking out for HQ Dracs). I'm not convinced double weaving would make that kind of difference either (but it does annoy me, cuz ping). I'm kind of praying it's gear, cause I want to do 1400 DPS on Pepsiman - without switching to MNK

[JackFross]

Best I ever got was like 1520ish on Faust and like 1650 at the end of p1; 1400 once p2 ends (average about 1330). I have essentially the same strength as you (1048 I think). I've been obsessing over squeezing out more; but I can't seem to really find a spot (besides forking out for HQ Dracs). I'm not convinced double weaving would make that kind of difference either (but it does annoy me, cuz ping). I'm kind of praying it's gear, cause I want to do 1400 DPS on Pepsiman - without switching to MNK

Depends on party comp, mostly. Tonight, I was hitting my stride and finding that sweet sweet 1440 spot, but I've come to a very important realization (that I realized before but proved to myself tonight.) Here's my parses from tonight. The important thing to look at is here:

Phase 1 dps - Phase 1+2

Phase 1 dps - Phase 1+2

Those were the only two runs where I did ~1430 through end of hand phase. Every other pull, my dps in Phase 1 was around 1500 or lower. It may not seem like much until you consider this:

If you do 100 more dps in phase 1 of the fight (which is 56 seconds long), you've just done 5600 extra damage. 5600 damage spread over 3:00 (the duration of p1+2) becomes a net boost of 31 dps. Hitting 1600 isn't automatic at our gear level. It happens with a little bit of luck and maybe can be chalked up to those hq x-pot I used in the second run I linked that I didn't use in the first run I linked. And that was 2 runs out of the 8 times we got past hand phase tonight. Every other run was lower.

These times we're looking at are tiny. Lucky crits do a LOT to the numbers. Consistently hitting 1400 at i206 isn't really easy. I mean, if you want an easier way to see - this is a link to snapshots of my raid dps at the end of hand phase every time we made it tonight. I've been stuck here for weeks. I don't think it's possible to be doing much better than I am, and I'm still doing what I did in those videos I've posted. Of note: the other dragoon in those parses has 210 spear.


tl;dr: Gear plays a big part - 210 weapons are +2 WD over 200. RNG plays a much bigger part. Lucky crits in the opener add a LOT to your dps at the end of hand phase. Party comp matters a lot, too. When I was partied with a bard, I averaged 1350. Tonight, I had one run below that in eight thanks to MCH boosts, most likely, and a single run where I flubbed a bunch.

[RapBreon]

-snip-

I've been on Pepsiman for about 6-7 weeks now (had a 2 week break due static death; Pepsiman claims another). I've probs wiped over 300+ times to him (I've experienced worse to be fair) and most of them are early wipes as this boss punishes lapses in judgment brutally (but also hilariously). I have had this shit on lockdown in the first week as well. Worst part though is my DPS has actually dropped (no MCH) since my gear has reached its peak at 206 due to comp change. I used to push 1400 more often.

I guess the most frustrating part is that when I feel like I fucked up (or had a good parse) it often isn't reflected in the actual numbers because RNG typically has a greater impact on smaller parses. I'm like oh man, I played this attempt flawlessly - 1320; or, I fucked this so badly - 1360, man that annoys me. Especially that I feel like I've hit my peak with no way to improve (which is like 80% of the fun), compounding this matter is I do essentially the same DPS on my MNK with is only ilvl 200. I find MNK way easier to play though.

Also I have a theory, you're actually Dervy in disguise. You both have very similar looking dragons that are Dragoons, you both love large posts (not a jab) and you both love mathematical analyses :P. It's ok though you don't have to answer, your secret is safe with me!

Edit: you average higher than me with the same gear; I must try harder!

[SunnyHirose]

And that's why people have ninjers ;P