How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[PheonixCain]

//EDIT: This is what my UI looks like, now. It's been working fine for me, assuming I handle the camera well. I'm stuck under the boss on leg 2, so I need to pull in tighter for that ;-; but I never have issues seeing everything. The big empty space in the bottom right is where my number stuff overlay goes.

thanks a lot, our HUD is very similar btw, guess i am gonna trim down my crossbar a bit

Best way to mitigate that I've found is reduce the size of cross hotbar UI element and shove it down as far as you're comfortable with.

agree, that's what i gonna try tonight

It looks like you aren't popping B4B on cooldown and may not be maximizing your buffs.

Also look at your Buff uptime... your HT was only up 81% of the time, mine was up close to 90%.

yeah that's what actually bothering me a lot recently, i hold back the B4B and LS sometimes before boss jump or when i was on adds, and when i realized i shud have enough time to use them, i was too late, bad judgement i think...

i will try to not hold back buffs next time and see how things go

EDIT: in A1S, my 2nd B4B usually comes before .5 shows up, and i tend to just use all the IR/BOTD/jump/spineshatter on the original, hold the B4B and LS, and elusive jump to the .5, then B4B on the .5
but yeah i will do some rework on my cd management there next time

[JackFross]

EDIT: in A1S, my 2nd B4B usually comes before .5 shows up, and i tend to just use all the IR/BOTD/jump/spineshatter on the original, hold the B4B and LS, and elusive jump to the .5, then B4B on the .5

No no no bad.

You absolutely need to hit the second B4B when it comes up. Stay glued to that boss. You'll use it right after your CT combo (before/after Phleb) if you're doing the rotation right. You want to stay on the main oppressor until your B4B falls off and then Elusive to 0.5. Alternatively (what I sometimes will do) you can pop B4B into HT>CT on main > elusive > CT on 0.5 before B4B drops. Either way sorta works, but I think staying on main oppressor and getting your full 9 uninterrupted gcds is better.

This link is from my best parse with my old static (I'm on main oppressor with my new one, I was on 0.5 with my old), taken from where my second B4B starts. You can see how I get my dots up on the main oppressor at the end of B4B (it dies just after CT) before hopping to 0.5.


As for why this is important, though, you need to look at how many B4B casts you're gonna get.

Each full rotation is ~2 minutes long, including the ~30s downtime of the jump. So, after the first jump, you'll only get 1 b4b per jump, period. The second will come back at the bitter end if you use it right at the start, not enough time to get anything out of it.

However, the opening phase (up until jump 1) is ~3 minutes long. 3 minutes is ~180 seconds. If you use B4B at the start and then on cooldown, you'll use it at (approximately) 0, 80, and 160. If you hold it those extra 10-15s, you'll use it at 0, 95, 175. Suddenly the third one either doesn't exist or is super ineffective. As such, you *need* to keep it on cooldown for the pre-jump phase so you can get 3. You'll get 1 per jump from then on anyway. This ensures 4 in 1 jump, 5 in 2 jump, and 6 in 3 jump, rather than 3, 4, and 5. That's a significant change.

[PheonixCain]

No no no bad.

You absolutely need to hit the second B4B when it comes up. Stay glued to that boss. You'll use it right after your CT combo (before/after Phleb) if you're doing the rotation right. You want to stay on the main oppressor until your B4B falls off and then Elusive to 0.5. Alternatively (what I sometimes will do) you can pop B4B into HT>CT on main > elusive > CT on 0.5 before B4B drops. Either way sorta works, but I think staying on main oppressor and getting your full 9 uninterrupted gcds is better.

make sense to me, but then the 1.0 and .5 would end up having at least 10% of hp gap, but i guess that's easy to handle, i will definitely try that if i ever have a chance to run A1S (cuz nobody needs loots from A1S and A2S, we are skipping to A3S weekly basic for months now), but maybe not only just A1S, this cud open my mind for what's coming next too, thx

btw, i wiped the group several times in A3S last night by using lock on target in some very inappropriate timing lol, but trimming down my crossbar definitely helps me see things a lot more clear during lock on

[whiskeybravo]

That was actually one of my biggest problems with the lock, it was terrible being a lala on top of it lol. There is a way to adjust the camera height, like crtl+shift then up/down on the arrow keys (for pc). But it didn't seem to affect the height while locked on, and I'm not sure if it works on ps3/4 if you're on one of those.

Best way to mitigate that I've found is reduce the size of cross hotbar UI element and shove it down as far as you're comfortable with. Another thing I did was disable the action help text that pops up when you hold L2 or R2 (the one that tells you the ability name). It's somewhere in the settings but I forget exactly where, it's just a check box you uncheck.

There's no true way to fix it that I've found, just a few things to help it not be so bad.

[JackFross]

does anyone know if there's a way to adjust the lock on camera angle?

There isn't, to my knowledge.

I have this video of a run of A3S I did (just p1+2). I play on controller and use lock-on. Maybe it could help you figure out ways to "fix" your hud or somesuch to make it easier. The biggest trick is to zoom ALL the way out. That was also with my old static, where I was at 2 o'clock for Protean...

That aside: using LB is a minor loss, but a loss nonetheless. It usually eats a Geirskogul, which is bad, as well as replacing 1 full combo (which is a LOT of damage). MCH and NIN are approximately even for DPS gains, with NIN beating out MCH by a bit.

What I would do is use the Compare feature of fflogs and figure out what you're doing differently from some other Dragoon you want to emulate. If you find that you're already doing things about the same as them, you can chalk the difference up to gear/party comp/lucky crits/etc.

I mean, I'm still 1550 Faust because I can't for the life of me get a lucky run. Every good Faust run has an insane amount of crits. None of them break 1600-1650 without having stupid high critrate and/or astrologian support.



And at the above from Whiskey - there IS a way to do the camera height thing on PS4. It's in Character Configuration, at the bottom of Control Settings - 3rd Person Camera Settings. I have mine down to 0, but I don't think it changes anything when locked on.


//EDIT: This is what my UI looks like, now. It's been working fine for me, assuming I handle the camera well. I'm stuck under the boss on leg 2, so I need to pull in tighter for that ;-; but I never have issues seeing everything. The big empty space in the bottom right is where my number stuff overlay goes.

[Orlandeu]

//EDIT: This is what my UI looks like, now. It's been working fine for me, assuming I handle the camera well. I'm stuck under the boss on leg 2, so I need to pull in tighter for that ;-; but I never have issues seeing everything. The big empty space in the bottom right is where my number stuff overlay goes.

Those cooldown macros tho, a wise person once told me to arrange my keybind/hotbars so I can keep track of my CDs better.
http://puu.sh/nc0eF/e5e7db7695.jpg

[JackFross]

Those cooldown macros tho, a wise person once told me to arrange my keybind/hotbars so I can keep track of my CDs better.
http://puu.sh/nc0eF/e5e7db7695.jpg

I only have 1 macro on those bars. The rest are actual instances of the skills that I don't actually click ever.
The macro is:

/micon "Leg Sweep"
/p Battle Litany <recast.battle litany>
/p Blood for Blood <recast.blood for blood>
/p Leg Sweep 0:13
/p Blood of the Dragon <recast.blood of the dragon>

Each of the names are auto-translate. I usually just use those buffs to hover over and see my timers to decide if I wanna click Yes or not on a ready check.

[Orlandeu]

I only have 1 macro on those bars. The rest are actual instances of the skills that I don't actually click ever.
The macro is:

/micon "Leg Sweep"
/p Battle Litany <recast.battle litany>
/p Blood for Blood <recast.blood for blood>
/p Leg Sweep 0:13
/p Blood of the Dragon <recast.blood of the dragon>

Each of the names are auto-translate. I usually just use those buffs to hover over and see my timers to decide if I wanna click Yes or not on a ready check.

yeah thats actually what i meant, just an instance of the CD to keep track of its timer heh, but anyway, i just thought it was cool

[whiskeybravo]

Why did monk get a single target and aoe dps boost... FC mate remarked last night, "monk is selfish dps".

I'd say so.. /confused

So, a Dragoon chat app, along with gear calculation tools and push notifications would be sick.

And a rotation mini-game to train newbie dragoons >.>

Would be sweet, I don't think it's something I could handle tho. Certainly not alone lol

[Ninjah2r]

so no changes to drg, while mnk has HF potency increased and dot time for demolish too. I mean my sub is a mnk, but drg at heart. se y u do dis ;c