How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[Teiren]

More expensive? What? No, he means an NPC vendor. Just look around in the market at Ishgard.

[SunnyHirose]

Mega-potion of Strength is also an lv 45 alchemist leve turn-in, by the way. Because the shark oil being in short supply wasn't enough of a problem, apparently :P

With NQ mega-potions, it works out to 14250 gil / 117261 XP (before you hit 50 and leve XP gets capped). NQ PPPs will be equally cost-to-XP effective at ≤8397 gil per 3, or ≤16795 per 3 HQ PPPs.

[siverstorm]

That was 30% critrate, though. I won't be seeing that again...

Pls stop hacking the game and/or gib me that crit rate holy crap ;-;

[JackFross]

Pls stop hacking the game and/or gib me that crit rate holy crap ;-;

I wish I could hack the game and get that crit rate again;;; Parses from tonight where my friend the other drg subbed in for our missing MNK. 8 runs, 19-20% crit across all of them. Spoopy as heck!

http://imgur.com/a/F1aNt

[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!

[JackFross]

I'm not as cool as Dervy or anywhere near as good at manipulating these numbers as he is. I try my best, though. And honestly, you're only looking at a 3 minute parse. If you get a shit opener (which happens) and are sub 1500, your final dps at the end of hand phase is gonna be absolute garbage (compared to how you could have done), regardless how effective your dps was in that phase.

As a nice example, there was this run I did for P1+2. If you look at just P1, you'll see that I ended that phase at merely 1437. I do Phase 1 exactly the same every single run - exactly the same amount of hits and exactly the same skills used. The variance is *massive* - ranging from 1437 to 1600. Neither of those runs had a Potion used. That swing of 170 dps is a HUGE difference in the final parse, regardless how P2 is handled.

[RapBreon]

I'm not as cool as Dervy or anywhere near as good at manipulating these numbers as he is. I try my best, though. And honestly, you're only looking at a 3 minute parse. If you get a shit opener (which happens) and are sub 1500, your final dps at the end of hand phase is gonna be absolute garbage (compared to how you could have done), regardless how effective your dps was in that phase.

As a nice example, there was this run I did for P1+2. If you look at just P1, you'll see that I ended that phase at merely 1437. I do Phase 1 exactly the same every single run - exactly the same amount of hits and exactly the same skills used. The variance is *massive* - ranging from 1437 to 1600. Neither of those runs had a Potion used. That swing of 170 dps is a HUGE difference in the final parse, regardless how P2 is handled.

I really think you hit the nail on the head with this. Dragoon's being so bursty means an unlucky opener makes for sad Dragoons due to the 3 minutes. Possibly why I may be overvaluing MNK, which seems to be much more stable and opener independent.

Hopefully Jigglybutt will die soon - we've made it a full way through a p4 rotation. Then I can go to FFlogs and cry about how bad I am.

[JackFross]

The important thing to notice about dragoon compared to Monk is Blood for Blood. On Monk, that's a 10% damage boost. For Dragoon, it's 30%.

What this means is that every time we get a crit under B4B, that crit is an extra 30% stronger than if we got that same crit out of B4B, compared to the Monk's crit swing being just 10% different in and out. If you get super lucky and crit every hit under B4B (read: why we stack Battle Litany and Internal Release for our opener under B4B) it's a HUGE gain compared to getting that same luck just after B4B falls off. Since I'm curious, I'm actually gonna run the numbers to compare the difference between getting a crit on EVERY HIT under your initial B4B to getting a crit on the entire 24s rotation that follows, not including OGCDs or dot ticks.

http://puu.sh/kVx68/e341378da6.png

Of course, it's not perfect, but you can see that in a case where RNG haaaates you, you're gonna pull substantially lower than in a situation RNG loves you. I also chose to assume you flubbed and forgot to Life Surge your first Full Thrust for the sake of widening the gap, since this is intended mostly to show the huge disparity you get from crits in B4B compared to crits out of it. And to draw a comparison between how it shakes out with a 30% B4B compared to the 10% MNK has:

http://puu.sh/kVxbn/d8c1cb0f2d.png

That's the main reason DRG's numbers are less consistent (or, better put, more sporadic) in short bursts than a class like MNK that doesn't have nearly as strong burst out the gate. And looking at this, just imagine how Bards look, with their Hawk's Eye / Raging Strikes / Blood for Blood all active on the pull. Imagine how much they cry when RNG decides not to give them crits there...