How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[mosaicex]

So do drgs think about Trick Attack at all? I'm still getting the rotation down so i don't really pay attention to how my CDs align with how it's used through out a fight. But i know on monk i'd think about it a lot. Do any drgs plan some of their CDs around it/ ever hold anything for it?

NIN should be the one planning TA around the party, not the other way around (syncing it around B4B cooldown is a good start since they are all shared with most DPS). Especially for DRG, since it's an immense DPS loss holding out our oGCDs.

[SunnyHirose]

The main gripe for DRG and TA is Chaos Thrust. Since we're jamming as much as we can into our BfB+IR+Potion window there isn't really much wiggle room even if the NIN does something not to our liking. Typically we get dat Jump nuke so that's nice.

[Sentinillia]

So do drgs think about Trick Attack at all? I'm still getting the rotation down so i don't really pay attention to how my CDs align with how it's used through out a fight. But i know on monk i'd think about it a lot. Do any drgs plan some of their CDs around it/ ever hold anything for it?

The best you can do is communicate with your NIN about Battle Litany and Trick Attack cooldowns. You can usually land them both in the same window without losing an usage of either. Obviously you can also hold Geirskogul for a time if you know Trick Attack is on it's way in the next 10 seconds or so. Sometimes I like to hold OGCds for Trick Attack but this is a very case by case basis since losing even a single use is a DPS loss overall.

One example would be the little phase between the first Limit Cut and ATM (ship phase) on a11s to skip Lapis. The timeframe is small enough for you to not lose an usage and the long downtime right after ensures that everything will be up anyways once you land. This of course is highly dependent on your whole team's DPS output.

[Aquaslash]

I have tried and tried and tried some more, and I have never been able to skip lapis. Closest I've been is 62%. For the drg player, do you basically use your standard opener and then save ogcds at optical sights to have another opener ready after limit cut? Or do you just need to go ham the whole time?

Also, any tips for a good opener on Scathach? I'd like to not take a vuln stack, but I'd also like to not lose a buffed GK or botd in general

[SirMen]

Hi im new and im trying to understand the Rotation + opener but i have 3 questions:

1: "And so, here's an even better opener:

H -> [BL+BFB] -> ID -> [IR+BOTD] -> DI -> [DRAC-POT] -> CT -> [PS+ LEGS] -> 4TH -> [JUMP] -> P -> [SSD] -> TT -> [DFD] -> VP -> [LIFES + GK] -> FT -> 4TH -> Repeat"

what is DRAC and SSD?

2: i like this Rotation: "A step by step rotation for a full "cycle" is:"

HT - ID - DI - [BOTD] - CT - 4TH - [GK] - PH - TT - VP - FT - 4TH

HT - ID - DI - CT - 4TH - [GK] - PH - TT - VP - FT - 4TH

HT - ID - DI - CT - 4TH - [GK] - PH - TT - VP - [BOTD] - FT - 4TH - [GK]

HT - ID - DI - CT - 4TH - PH - TT - VP - FT - 4TH - [GK]

HT - ID - DI - CT - 4TH - PH - TT - VP - FT - 4TH - [GK]

but how often do i use the opener cause at the end u wrote "repeat" and when do i start the cycle?

3) which of the 2 Tier 4 (Fang & Claw, or Wheeling Thrust) do i use?

ty for u work !!!!

[Aquaslash]

1. Drac and SSD are "Draconian Potion of Strength" and "Spineshatter Dive"

2. "Opener" typically refers the start of the fight, where you have all your cooldowns available. Generally after your second 4th tier move, all of your global cooldown attacks can be repeated, starting from heavy thrust. You can generally use your off cooldowns as soon as they're available again, which some adjustments as the situation may call for.

3. It's random. One of them will randomly be available after each Chaos Thrust or Full Thrust. You'll need to pay attention to which one procs so that you can get the proper positional

[SirMen]

ty for the explainations!
so after the opener i do the cycle and everytime the CD are off ich squeeze them in when necessary?

[Sentinillia]

I have tried and tried and tried some more, and I have never been able to skip lapis. Closest I've been is 62%. For the drg player, do you basically use your standard opener and then save ogcds at optical sights to have another opener ready after limit cut? Or do you just need to go ham the whole time?

It's very much a team effort.

What you have to realize as well is that timings and RNG plays a big part in it. To increase your success chances you want to have the boss as much below 70% after the first phase as possible. To achieve this the boss has to be pushed below 72% while he's busy doing an ability, in this case Optical Sight. This is the RNG part as getting the Shiva pattern is a lot better for your DPS than the other pattern.
After Limit Cut you have to push the boss to as close to 60% as possible before he takes off. The options here are to either:

A) Have high enough DPS to push it straight off the bat
B) Have low enogh DPS to not skip the Left/Right Sword to get a few more precious GCDs

After CC lands everyone still has a chance to hit 1 GCD + 1 OGCd before the boss becomes invulnerable. Limit Break 1 can and should be used here if you wouldn't skip otherwise, don't worry about the LB hitting invulnerability as it will go through as long as you start the cast immediately after the boss becomes targetable. If you manage to push the boss to 60.9% he'll become vulnerable again right after he finishes casting Limit Cut and commence Eternal Darkness.

For the dragoon this doesn't change much other than the fact that you really want to have BotD up as soon as the pre-airship phase starts, as well as having it up again right after you land. You also might want to hold your OGCDs during the pre-ship phase.
You can get in two Leg Sweeps, one Jump, two Geirskoguls, and a Spineshatter and DFD depending on your DPS on the first phase. It is optimal to land as many of these as possible inside Trick Attack/Hypercharge. What I've done to solve the BotD conundrum is doing the 4 GK/70s rotation for the first phase, delaying the last GK until the boss starts casting Limit Cut and blowing my BotD there (althought you might be able to get more GKs in if your DPS is significantly lower).
During the numbered Limit Cut I do HT -> ID -> Botd -> Dis -> CT -> (boss becomes vulnerable here) B4b -> 4th -> Phleb.
This BotD timing allows full GK usage in the first phase, gets you into the pre-ship phase with BotD, Disembowel and CT already applied which allows you to spam TTT combo and weave OGCDs for the whole phase AND have BotD up again before Eternal Darkness.

[Aquaslash]

Word going around the block is that the Proto Ultima ring might be a new BiS, overwriting the shire one. Can we get some mathematicians on the scene?

[dark494]

Edit: Go with this http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/Z38R. Swap out for proto ultima ring and necklace, switch to alex feet, and restat relic some more.

Old stuff below:

I'll take a stab at it. tl;dr, I believe the proto ultima ring is ever so slightly better than the shire ring, if I'm going off the relic BiS set (http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/Z4GK) (http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/YT92) Also ariyala isn't updated yet.

Shire Ring: 22.419

Ultima Ring: 23.931

2 things I want to point out:

• I'm using a weight 0.290 for Crit, according to Dervy's estimate on its new weight due to the higher average crit baseline with the relic set (which isn't reflected on the front page of this thread).
• Changing to the ultima ring in place of the shire ring is an increase of 17 ss. So there are a few adjustments that went into calculating the weight of the ultima ring: Removing the extra 3 ss from the relic and putting it back into det (crit ends up maxed at 275 with just acc restats), and subtracting the extra 14 ss from the weight that is wasted since it's over the 625 ss tier.

So the ultima ring looks like this:

59 ss - 10.03
54 crit - 15.66
=25.69
-2.38 (extra 14 ss)
+.621 (restat 3 ss to 3 det in the relic)
=23.931

So yeah, slightly better. I believe. http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/Z4GP

What I don't know is if the rest of the ultima accessories open up other avenues of gear sets, or if there's a way to bring that SS back down. I'm too tired to look more into that right now.