How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[JackFross]

You seem to be confident that it is, and that's valuable information for me; how so exactly? I would be intrigued to know how I should value Skill Speed and in what context.

A few reasons. 600 SS is tight in a lot of places where 620+ becomes smooth. The first phase of A3 Savage is ~55-56 seconds long. Assuming maximum uptime, that is 23-24 GCDs before he goes invulnerable. In my experience, with 628-ish SS (plus food) and Selene buff on the pull, I manage to hit 23, with 24 being Chaos Thrust - if I hit that, it will not activate (but will proc a 4th hit). Without Selene, as I've run it before, I get 22 gcds (though I also had lower SS at the time).

I'm not saying this SS is the breakpoint for that particular phase, but squeezing in an entire extra GCD during phases in the content that matters (Alexander Savage) is more meaningful than potentially having each of your hits do 1-2% more, at best. Assuming the DET tradeoff gives me +2% on all of those 22 GCDs, I gain +44% of a GCD (sort of, but not really) from what I would have with the lower skill speed, until you factor in that I actually hit 100% of my next GCD, which is nearly twice as potent an increase. Faster hits is also more beneficial on Phase 3; a bit more DET isn't gonna make or break an add being killed before it hits the wall, but an extra GCD COULD make that difference.

SS is tricky to measure because of all of these situational cases (which are very prevalent in Alexander Savage) that make it add a hefty sum over what you'd get with an equivalent bump to Determination or Crit Hit Rate.


The point I was trying to get to is that math can only get you so far when looking at these numbers. All that you're seeing is flat dps on a dummy. That number - honestly - means almost nothing in actual raid content. I gained nearly 30 points of Strength (according to the weights in this thread) between my A3S set from Monday and the one I used last night. My DPS was approximately the same in P1 and 2, with things just being a bit more consistent at 1400 now instead of sometimes flubbing to 1350 for the first phase (when I make no mistakes) and almost always around 1250-1300 at end of hands (with copious mistakes because I suck at that phase still). That was a gain of 30 strength. I gained ~30-40 consistent DPS due to the gain. You're looking at values around ~2-3 and saying that these will produce swings of 60, which is patently untrue in practice.

I like numbers as much as the next guy - I majored in math in uni. But at a certain point you need to stop putting so much stock in Mathematics™ and start realizing that Science™ is what matters.*

(Mathematics = crunching numbers to find marginal best gear)
(Science = get out in the field and actually test things)

That being said, this consideration was purposed solely to investigate flat hitting power in the comparison between Crit and Determination, which finds that every point of Crit is worth at least two points of DET for the purposes of DRG BiS. When comparing FFXIVGuild's configuration against the other two, I thus found that the flat hitting power of the former is significantly superior despite its Skill Speed advantage against both, which I thought was important. If we use 1500 as the baseline, the ~4.4% differential can lead to a 66 DPS increase.

Still not sure what set you're referring to, by the way. If it's literally the same as the set with 900 crit / 650 ss that's in the OP except swapped wrists, I'll fight you to the death that 700 accuracy is a worthwhile sacrifice to make for the terribly tiny gains you're considering if 30 crit actually DOES beat out 29 det and 44 ss (which I still believe it doesn't come close). There's multiple ways to boost damage output from that set in similarly marginal ways. Once you're 210, as long as you're within like 5 of the ~best in slot~ nobody is gonna notice, as long as you play your class well.

Ah, I read the comment as his progression build, didn't really specify if that all the gear he had or what he was trying for. I mean I'd wear the boots if they dropped but I'd rather the Eso boots especially if my det is sitting at 297 or whatever it was. 100 det for 100 skill speed seems like a reasonable trade to me :P

Plus, I forget RNGesus likes some of us more than others. Almost 2 months of clears and all I've got is ring and belt >.<

Yeah, the important bit was he's using it to clear A3, so no twines yet. Plus, having 210 gordian boots and using your first Twine on the eso boots is super silly when your 200 chest and pants are begging and pleading to give you +8 strength a piece ignoring secondaries. c:

http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/RNZB

This is my current setup. I can get a Gobdip from pages next week and upgrade my weapon to get more crit/ss or hope for a spear to drop which would give me Det in exchange for some crit, and skillspeed that I can afford to lose. Either way, I can use both weapons. But I'm leaning towards the Brionac as Determination doesn't quite appeal to me like it used to.

I mean, personally, I would go for the Brionac, too, and try and nab an eso wrist and eso hat. ;p But that's just because those are the only pieces you are away from the bis gear I'm aiming for, so I'm really really biased and you probably shouldn't listen to me:
http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/RNPR