How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[Thendiel]

I've noticed that with this patch's dragoon change, it is possible to do a 4th geirskogul in 1 BOTD. Problem is, you delay your BOTD refresh by about 10 seconds, so it is about 4 geirskoguls per 70 seconds. Another thing I've noticed is that you can't do 2 geirskoguls + B4B if you did 4 geirskoguls per 70 seconds. Is it worth doing 4 geirskoguls? You only have about 1 second to do a 4th attack, and that's if you are always attacking the boss. I did this small test with 2.39 GCD, or 634 skillspeed.

Off the cuff, I think that landing extra Geirskoguls is the new meta now. Landing 4 Geirskoguls every 70 seconds (which I've previously described as 3.5 Geirskoguls per minute) gives us an extra 100 potency plus buffs every 60 seconds = 1.67 raw PPS. By contrast, landing an extra BFB-boosted Geirskogul every time we use BFB results in a bonus of 200 x 0.30 potency plus buffs every 80 seconds = 0.75 raw PPS. The extra GK output is significantly superior.

On top of this, I personally have found that using two Geirskoguls per Blood for Blood is extremely contextual, and can only be executed on occasion in a raid setting. Usually my Geirskogul choices have more to do with adds and phase transitions than they do with the dummy-based abstraction of 2-GKs-per-BFB. (The 3.5-GKs-per-minute thing is contextual, too, but I believe that it ought to be fairly feasible at certain points in every current endgame fight, maybe with the exception of A10S.)

In any case, I find that the timing of using 3.5 Geirskoguls per minute is pretty lenient and flexible in practice, especially at a Skill Speed of about 650. I'm enjoying the technique, and I'm subjectively finding that my dummy parses have improved a bit since I started using it. Furthermore, if things go south and I have to step away from my target, it's typically very easy to revert back to the usual approach of landing just 3 Geirskoguls per minute.

That said, shooting for 3.5 GKs per minute means that any unexpected downtime at about the 38-second mark of a Blood of the Dragon cycle (between your 3rd and 4th Geirskoguls) could cause you to lose BotD prematurely. Additionally, this approach completely rules out the use of a Strength Potion before Chaos Thrust in the opener, thus forcing us to employ a slightly weaker opener. Finally, I should mention that I'm a bit biased, since I've been theorizing about this idea since Heavensward launched, and suddenly--viola!--I wake up to find that it is extremely viable, even comfortable, with none of the TP consumption disadvantages I was anticipating.

Anyone have any thoughts? Criticisms? Modeling data?

P.S. - I'll be watching the thread for people's BiS recommendations and thoughts, and will update the main post if there is a consensus. I'm hoping that random Diadem gear doesn't wind up BiS again, but it probably will.