How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[Aquaslash]

Hei there, i'm an old FF14 player who mains dragoon. I've been out of the game for 10+ months now so i'm a lil bit outdated with BiS and opener/rotation. A friend of mine told me to check this post to find the new mid-core and hard-core rotation + BiS for dragoon, but honestly i scrolled down tons of pages but i couldn't find the exact page (maybe i'm blind or just tired, hopefully it's not in the main post, in that case i'm a lil tard ). Can anyone please link me to it or give me some hints for that? :P Thanks in advice.

Both your beginner, and advanced rotations, as well as the math and reasoning behind them will be in the 4th post.

Make us proud, young Padawan

[Myon88]

I have a question about the 2.4s GCD value recommended. I know this has something to do with HT's 24s duration and being able to complete our 10-step rotation sequence and perform the next HT before it drops off.

However I noticed that even with a 2.5s GCD, you can get the next HT in before the previous HT buff falls off. The reason is the next HT is applied at the start of the 10th GCD and not the end, so you actually need less time than it appears (unless of course you want to weave/double weave behind that HT, which while can potentially happen I don't see being a frequent enough use case to justify it). There also aren't any issues performing 3 GKs per minute at a 2.5s gcd.

I was just wondering if I'm missing something and there are other upsides to having a GCD that short. Having more leeway to deal with mechanics in actual fights is one thing, but how much of that is quantifiable? It seems like a really touchy feely argument to me.

[GunksFoy]

I am barely getting Heavy Thrust in at 2.38s GCD, So you must be skipping something if you're getting it with that slow of a GCD.

Are you using:
HT -> ID -> DIS -> CT -> 4th -> Phleb -> TT -> VT -> FT -> 4th -> HT? If not, that's what you're missing. It seems to me you may be skipping Phlebotomize which is a major part of Drg dps and rotation at 60.

EDIT: HT should actually fall on your 11th GCD, not your 10th. There are 10 GCDs BETWEEN Heavy Thrusts. Therefore you must be skipping something.

[Myon88]

It's the 11th GCD yes, but as you said that means there are 10 GCD intervals between the first HT application and the 2nd.

When you factor in that the subsequent HT lands at very roughly ~0.5s into into 11th GCD (the 10th GCD interval), it's really more like 9.2 GCD intervals than 10. 9.2 x 2.5s is 23 seconds which would seem to imply that mathematically it is possible - albeit very tight as I mentioned.

But yes that's what I'm doing, HT - 1234 - Phleb - 1234 - HT, and even with a 2.5s GCD the HT buff is still present when that subsequent HT is applied. I would jump into some recording software to compile a very short gif showing it, but really it's trivial to test against a dummy and see for yourself. I don't have the best connection in the world either so I don't think it's a matter of having perfect latency or something.

[GunksFoy]

Perhaps your latency is lower than mine or something. I'm at work now, but when I get home this evening I will definitely have to test this.

However, I will add that while this may be possible on a dummy, it's highly unlikely on a boss. From experience, I rarely have more than 1-2 seconds of HT left when I reapply and I am actually above the SS cap as DRG is not my main. That said, perhaps I'm doing something wrong.

The general consensus is that 2.4s, or more specifically 2.39s GCD is the optimal GCD for maximum dps and I agree, so I would aim for that regardless if it's *possible* to do with a slower GCD. I'm not sure how you would actually get any less SS without stacking way too much accuracy with the way gear is currently anyhow, but it's an interesting theory. I will definitely be trying it out when I get off work.

[Myon88]

Yes, I'm open to the argument that in actual fights against bosses, margins that small would be a liability. If you have to step away from the boss for a couple of seconds for a mechanic before reengaging - now your next HT (and possibly more) isn't covered by the previous HT.

My only issue with that line of reasoning is you can't quantify it easily, it's a really touchy feely argument similar to casters saying "More sks gives more chance that I'll be able to slidecast out of a mechanic". It's a potential DPS increase, but can it be proven with math that it outweighs biasing your stats toward sks instead of, say, det? That's not so simple.

Re: gearing, it's true we have a lot of sks on gear, especially sks that's bundled with gear with crit on it. Hypothetically, if it were favourable to lose sks, my hunch is we would do what the machinists do and opt for acc/det over crit/sks. I'm aware crit has a really good reputation among the community, but the reality is no stat is infallible. Would you take 9 crit, or 999 det? It's just a matter of the margins involved.

Anyway, I hope people will try it and let me know what I'm missing. I highly doubt such a lynchpin of HW DRG theorycrafting would be subject to a simple oversight like that.

[GunksFoy]

Anyway, I hope people will try it and let me know what I'm missing. I highly doubt such a lynchpin of HW DRG theorycrafting would be subject to a simple oversight like that.

I think this is the biggest evidence against your theory, however it is theorycrafting and not factcrafting after all.

While I agree it is not necessarily quantifiable, this logic doesn't necessarily apply to casters. Spell speed will always be a dps increase for casters because more casts in a given time frame is always a dps increase, and also allows for the potential of getting in that extra cast before having to move. Sure, crit could potentially increase dps more, but ss consistently makes you faster and therefore more potent, as well as the DoT scaling with SMN now. But that's all for another thread. Additionally, I don't think this necessarily applies to drg because we aren't stacking it, simply hitting a given threshold and then all but avoiding it.

You have a point about the idea of stacking acc/det instead, however the problem is that crit is so much more valuable than det. I don't believe there is enough Det in the game currently to compensate the crit and ss you would lose, as ss is still a dps increase and has a stat weight in the end.

[Myon88]

The stat weights for dragoons currently put a point of det at ~75% the value of a point of crit. There are issues with static stat weights but that too is another whole thread and I won't go into it here - let's assume they're reasonably accurate.

Crit wins as expected, but it's not as big a gulf as I would've thought. There is a very strong 'crit or die' mentality amongst the community, but the stat weights say it right there, 4 det is equal to 3 crit. If you offered me 5 det, or 3 crit, I would have to choose the 5 det based on the findings.

It seems within the realm of possibility that *if* - and this is a big if - some sks is extraneous, we could gain enough det (as well as det on the relic from all the accuracy we don't need there any more) to outweigh the loss of crit that was bundled with sks (on our legs, feet, neck, and wrists especially, since there we are choosing between crit/sks and acc/det).

As for casters, I won't deny sks is mathematically an excellent stat for them. That is a fact. It's just that the additional merits of potentially having less cancelled casts due to mechanics is a perk often touted that is above and beyond the base utility of the stat. For them skillspeed is a great stat even in a standstill scenario, but to say that it's an even better stat when you have to move? How much better exactly is something that needs to be quantified. Can you be certain that you had to cancel your cast because it was 3.3s instead of 3.28s? Maybe if you were bolder you might have gotten away with it anyway? My point is, it's anecdotal, it's not scientific either.

[GunksFoy]

That is a reasonable assumption. As I am a main Blm, I didn't investigate how much Det Drgs could gain by stacking Det/Acc instead of Crit/SS/Det. So the problem with stacking Det/Acc over Crit/SS is that the Det has to outweigh both Crit and SS as a whole, since accuracy has no value beyond the minimum. Basing this off static stat weights of course. I would like to see someone with a bit more experience with theorycrafting than myself weigh in as well.

As to casters, there are indeed merits beyond the "I can move easier" argument, however that is also a potential boon, even if it's situational. I agree you can't apply a value to it, but it is undeniably a benefit to stacking SpS and is worth mentioning. But I agree there is no measure to how much better.

[Kapiz]

I was just wondering if I'm missing something and there are other upsides to having a GCD that short. Having more leeway to deal with mechanics in actual fights is one thing, but how much of that is quantifiable? It seems like a really touchy feely argument to me.

It helps me get 9 GCDs under Blood for blood, especially when the last GCD is a DoT.