How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[JackFross]

As far as the whole crit thing goes, I agree with Hak, honestly. Whenever my white mage freaks out and talks about a BIG CRIT stone III, I laugh a bit. It makes things more fun, for me, to hear people excited about things like that, and honestly, those big crits are the only side of the numbers you can see in the fight (without having a parse overlay running) that have any sort of real, immediate meaning.

That said, a LOT of less-good players have a huge disconnect between being good and making big numbers happen. It comes down to something I said before (maybe in this thread?) about how ANYONE can do the opener, but very few can maintain the sustained DPS required of those upper echelon DPS. I ran with a Bard once who was saying how he thinks he's pretty good because he sees such and such from Empyreal Arrow on his opener and such and such with Sidewinder as if that means he was great. And then he ended up being one part of a group who couldn't kill Faust on a day my parser stopped working.

So yeah. People who use their high single hits to say they're good piss me off, but I wouldn't go off and qualify anyone who loves to see big numbers as being fundamentally flawed in their thought process. When you've done content enough times, you get to stop paying attention and auto-pilot. When running on auto-pilot, you can take your time to stop and enjoy the string of crits you shit out in your opener.

I dunno. This is likely incoherent since I'm really tired, but that's my general thoughts on the matter. DPS is certainly about all those things you mentioned, but I feel any good DPS needs to have that lust for big numbers that makes them SUPER GIDDY when they see a record-breaking hit that they've never done before.

[ReliaWylder]

I dunno. If I could have my damage numbers halved, triple the frequency of attacks, and no TP problems along the way, I'd take it in a heartbeat even though I would no longer have big numbers. :P The only number I care about is the overall rate my attacks burn the boss at over an extended period of time.

[Hakmatic]

I think it's funny that you phrase it that way, because you're not specifically saying it's the number itself

I agree with you with what you look for in a dps, I just think someone leaving a bad impression on you because they like crits was a poor choice of words. Just because they do that doesn't mean they don't have all the other attriubutes you are looking for.

[Sleigh]

I like seeing crits because it motivates me to go extra try-hard that run, increase my focus, if I get a few crits in my opener, or just a few in general in a row. I know my score's gonna be higher, due to Lady Luck of course but still, so I try to do what I can as a player to do better. That's a BLM perspective though, where you can literally crit for 12k in the opener and multiple crits will make a realistic difference on your end parse.

Speaking from a farm perspective, of course.

[Hakmatic]

Also speaking of fflogs I need to play Dragoon this week , I've fallen too far lol.

[Orlandeu]

got it hoho

[JackFross]

Quick probe for other DRGs regarding certain things~

I ran calculations and found that the rotation without Phlebotomize is a loss of ~3-4 pps (using H-IDC4-TTT4-H-TTT4-IDC4-H-TTT4-TTT4) due to +1 gsk per minute-ish and such, but it significantly slows your TP consumption from 7.5 TP per second to ~6.3 TP per second (including +60/3s natural regen). It extends the 500 TP gain from Invigorate to last ~78s instead of ~66s of sustained dps, which can make all the difference in a fight in which you're gonna use 5 or 6 Invigorates and really need to make your TP last.

This becomes a (rather) moot point if you're packing a pocket Ninja to throw you a Goad here and there (assuming your MT doesn't need it), I guess, or your Bard/Machinist feed you Paeon/Muscle Activator or whatever, but just out of curiosity - does anyone drop Phlebotomize from their rotation during extended DPS moments (like final phase A3S) for TP conservation? Is it worth doing, or should I just call for TP from my Machinist in cases where I need a band-aid to get to my next Invigorate cast?

Ignoring the fact that my Machinist is relatively below-average and I've been more-or-less above average, I'm just wondering if anyone thinks it'd be worthwhile to make that swap if my TP falls below 400 with over 1m on my Invigorate.

I mean - these numbers I looked at imply that 400 TP lasts for 62s without Phlebotomize and 53s with it, and that's when I'd exactly hit 0, not counting the fact that the moment my TP dips below 70, I'll see delays (which would be closer to 51s / 44s).

And I mean that's 3-4 pps loss when the base rotation alone is over 150, not including jumps, geirskogul, etc.


My group has been consistently hitting final phase (finally, thanks to schedules settling down and connection issues clearing up) and we've been making progress again. I've been seeing TP issues (partially because I keep forgetting to basically open the phase with Invig) and have been trying to figure ways to ease up. I remember back in T8 progression, I just ran H-IDC-TTT-H-TTT-TTT in T8 to conserve TP, and was still doing damage that good monks in my FC were just barely beating, so I figured I could maybe do something similar here, and potentially A4, too.

[whiskeybravo]

Good to see you're making progress Jack. I haven't stepped in a3s in a month ; ; I don't know about that far into the fight specifically but there have been times in previous raids where I dropped Phleb due to TP strain towards the end of the fight. None of those were quite as demanding on dps, though.

[ReliaWylder]

@JackFross: I just tried it, it's dropping Disembowel pretty frequently. Did your calculations include that factor?

[JackFross]

In optimal situations, with the SS that I have, Disembowel only has a like 1.5s window where it falls between Disembowel and Chaos Thrust, with every cast of Disembowel having Disembowel applied. Tested it in-game to confirm. Even with Disembowel down for the Disembowel cast itself, it only adds +1 additional pps loss, as per my calculations. There's a similar window of ~1.5s between CT dropping and re-applying which is a little shitty, as well, but the shorter rotation was a massive hit comparatively, so it made more sense to extend it.

And yeah, we're progressing, but I'm still feeling pretty heavily like I'm carrying the other dps in my group. I've been averaging 1370-1410 without potions in p1+2 with drg/mnk/mch/smn dps, and I'm the only dps regularly over 1300, despite us all having equivalent gear. It's getting really frustrating, truth be told.